Strong minds often are unable to escape the thraldom of tradition and custom, with the help of liberal education and social intercourse. How then are the solitary farmers on the skirts of moorland wastes, to free themselves from hereditary superstition? The strength of such traditions is often secret and unacknowledged. It nevertheless influences the life; it lurks out of sight, ready to assert its power in any great crisis of our being. It is a homage to the unseen and the unknown, in fearful contradiction with the teaching of Christianity, for it creates, like the religion of the Jezzidies, a ritual of propitiation to malignant powers, instead of the prayer of faith to the All-merciful. The solitude of the life in the moorland farm-houses does not, however, foster the influence of superstitious madness, perhaps, so much as the wild, stormy climate, which holds its blustering reign through six months of every year, in this region of morass and fog, dark clough, and craggy chasm. Night shuts in early. The sun has gone down through a portentous gulf of clouds which have seemed to swallow up the day in a pit of darkness. The great sycamores stagger in the blast which rushes from the distant sea. The wind moans through the night like a troubled spirit, shakes the house as though it demanded admittance from the storm, and rushes down the huge chimney (built two centuries ago for the log fires, and large, hot heap of wood ashes), driving down a cloud of smoke and soot, as though by some wicked cantrip the witches careering in the storm would scatter the embers and fire the building. The lone watcher by some sick bed, shudders as the casements are battered by the tempest; or the bough of some tree, or a branch of ivy, strikes the panes like the hand of some unseen thing fumbling at the casement latch; or, awake from pain or care, restless with fever or fatigue, or troubled with superstitious horror, the lone shepherd waits for the day, as for a reprieve to conscious guilt, and even trembles while he mutters some charm to exorcise the evil that rides exulting on the storm. A year of ill-luck comes. The ewes are barren; the cows drop their untimely calves, though crooked sickles and lucky stones have been hung in the shippons. The milk is "bynged," or will not churn, though a hot poker has been used to spoil the witchery. The horses escape from the stable at night, though there is a horse-shoe over the door, and the hinds say they were carefully "heawsed an' fettled, and t'dooers o weel latched, bur t'feeorin (fairies) han 'ticed 'em eawt o' t' leawphooles, an' flown wi' em' o'er t'stone dykes, wi' o t'yates tynt (gates shut), an' clapp'd 'em reet i' t' meadow, or t' corn, just wheer tey shudna be." As the year advances, with such misadventures, apprehension grows. Is there some evil eye on the house? Will the hay be spoiled in the field? Will the oats ripen, or must they be cut green and given to the cattle? Or, if