“At evening when the work of the day is over,” to quote from “Margaret Catchpole,” “all the men collect in a circle, and Hallo, that is cry, “Largess.” Three times they say in a low tone, “Hallo Large! Hallo Large! Hallo Large!” and all, hand in hand, bow their heads almost to the ground; but after the third monotonous yet sonorous junction, they lift up their heads, and, with one burst of their voices, cry out “Gess.” I cannot help wondering whether this semi-barbarous custom which prevailed in Suffolk survive in those marvellous yells in which the exuberant spirits of youth in the highly civilized universities of America now find a vent. Allusion has been made to the superstition of the East Anglian peasantry, and a most interesting example is given in Thomas Colson, better known in Ipswich as Robinson Crusoe, the fisherman on the Orwell. He had built a boat for himself of the strangest materials and was constantly at work on the river. His skill was wonderful, and he is described as a perfect fisherman, quiet, steady, active, and thoughtful. In character he was singularly benevolent, never refusing to help anyone in distress. To quote Mr. Cobbold: “The writer of these pages knew Colson well. He has often as a boy been in a boat with him, and always found him kind and gentle.” The old man’s mania was probably only an exaggeration of the belief of his time or at any rate of his youth. He was a firm believer in wizards and witchcraft. He fancied himself surrounded by evil spirits. He knew their names, their propensities, how they afflicted men, and his great study was to prevent their malign influence. His trust in charms was absolute, and his whole body was hung with amulets, rings, bones of horses, verses, etc., each of which he declared to be efficacious against a certain spirit. If he lost one of his many charms, he believed himself specially liable to attack by the demon, against whom it was a prophylactic. That he had learned much from folklore is evident from the fact that though often questioned about the different demons who tormented him, he never deviated from his ordinary account of them; and no one ever found him tripping as to their names or attributes. Though subject to hallucinations, he must have learned his demonology somewhere; and there seems to me little doubt that among the less educated folk in East Anglia there was, down to the end of the eighteenth century, a belief and a knowledge of the different powers of evil little different from that of the Middle Ages or the days when witchcraft was dreaded by all the inhabitants of England of every class.[16]