The substance of the directions was repeated from the old book, where they had, at first, stimulated the tailor’s courage, to make him more than a mortal hero. William laughed at the affectionate terms in which he was to invite the enemy; and began, in as low and gentle a tone, to say, “Come, James, come,” as he had ever employed when he had tapped at the window of his uncle’s study, where his beautiful cousin was, whispering, “come, Mary, come,” in order that she should trip out and enjoy a moonlight scene, seated along with him in the arbour. Still the devil was not pleased most graciously to appear, and William laughed and shouted in full merriment. He, indeed, believed in the devil’s journeyings to and fro, over the earth, and in his exertions and plans to obtain victims by false and almost involuntary contracts; but then he was not frightened, for as he firmly believed that human skill, stratagem, and valour might baffle him. Where was the necessity, he reasoned, of mistaking his black majesty for a gentleman in black; of using blood instead of ink; of receiving slate stones instead of golden coins? He also held as a part of his superstitious creed, the existence of certain old ladies, on whose chins the Lancashire rains have fallen with such a fructifying influence, as to beard them “like the pard;” with hands dark and sickly, from the deadly drugs which they mix over the light of the cauldron, in their cave, and with decrepid and corrupted forms, as if they were spirits of another world, and had come to the charnel house, and there clothed themselves in a body which had begun to be the prey of worms; and with souls, whose every idea was familiar with the dark fates in store for earth, and rejoiced in those which were to blast the happy, and destroy the beautiful. But then, he as firmly held that their spells might be made to fall impotent upon man. He laughed at them, and was prepared to scratch them, in their only vulnerable part,--_above the breath_. In travelling, he cared not though he should have the company of a ghost, provided it only spoke, and recounted some horrible deed, as the avenger of which it walked the earth,--for he hated silence. At home, he would have shook the devil very frankly and cordially by the hand, had he ever paid him a visit, and he would have smoked a pipe, or drunk a cup of tea (had tea then been known) with any witch, in her own abode. Thus William Mauncel was exceedingly merry in prospect of beholding the devil, whom he imagined that he could so easily thwart. In a loud voice, he again exclaimed, “come, James, come,” and instantly a little man, with the tools of a mason-builder, stood opposite to Gideon.