There was something in that mis–shapen creature’s voice that chilled Nanny’s very soul while it spoke these words, especially its pronunciation of some of them; it sounded like something she had heard before, perhaps in a dream, but it was horrible, and not to be brooked. The rest now laid violent hold of Mass John, and she heard him mumbling in a supplicating voice, but knew not what he said. As they stooped forward, the lamp shone on the floor, and she saw the appearance of a coffin standing behind them. Nanny was astonished, but not yet overcome; for, cruel were the scenes that she had beheld, and many the trials she had undergone!—but at that instant the deformed and grizly being turned round, as if looking for something that it wanted—the lamp shone full on its face, the lineaments of which when Nanny beheld, her eyes at once were darkened, and she saw no more that night. How she spent the remainder of it, or by what means she got to her bed in the kitchen, she never knew; but next morning when the goodwife and her sons arose, poor old Nanny was lying in the kitchen bed delirious, and talking of dreadful and incomprehensible things. All that could be gathered from her frenzy was, that some terrible catastrophe had happened in the Old Room, and that Clerk, the curate, was implicated in it. The goodwife, judging that her favourite had been at war with the spirits, and that Heaven had been of course triumphant, hasted to the Old Room to bless and pay the honour due to such a divine character; she called his name as she entered, but no one made answer; she hasted to the bed, but behold there was no one there! The goodwife’s sole spiritual guide had vanished away. The curate Clerk was never more seen nor heard of in these bounds; but it may not be improper here to relate a circumstance that happened some time thereafter, as it comes no more within the range of this story.