The tale of the Demon of Spraiton, dating from the seventeenth century, is another story to the purpose. A servant was one day surprised by the apparition of his master’s father, saying that several legacies which by his testament he had bequeathed were still unpaid, and promising if his behests were carried out to cease from troubling. “The spectrum left the young man, who according to the direction of the spirit took care to see the small legacies satisfied, and carried the twenty shillings that were appointed to be paid the gentlewoman near Totnes, but she utterly refused to receive it, being sent her (as she said) from the devil. The same night the young man lodging at her house, the aforesaid spectrum appeared to him again; whereupon the young man challenged his promise not to trouble him any more, saying he had performed all according to his appointment, but that the gentlewoman, his sister, would not receive the money. To which the spectrum replied that this was true indeed; but withal directed the young man to ride to Totnes and buy for her a ring of that value, which the spirit said she would accept of, which being provided accordingly she received. Since the performance of which the ghost or apparition of the old gentleman hath seemed to be at rest, having never given the young man any further trouble.” This English ghost appeared in 1682. In 1683 an Italian apparition troubled the living. The Marchesa Astalli was a young married woman of pure religious life. After her sudden death, however, as though she was not at rest, she several times revealed herself to a secular priest who was devoted to souls in Purgatory. At the last appearance it seemed as though an internal voice bade him speak, and ask the spirit her desire. “But she was silent,” says the priest, “for the space of half an Ave Maria, and then said: ‘Go to the Marchese Camillo, and tell him to have two hundred masses said for me.’ ... I replied in great perplexity, and almost with my heart in my mouth: ‘They will not believe me, they will take me for a mad-man.’ Then the spirit, opening its white mantle, exclaimed: ‘My son, pity me.’ And, as she said this, streaks of fire came towards me from her breast, as though two bundles of tow had been lighted. Then she closed her mantle with her hands; folding one side over the other as it was at first, she moved a few steps, looking me in the face; and I, lying almost in mortal agony, all bathed in a cold sweat, which passed through the mattress to the boards, plucked up spirit and said to her: ‘Why do you not go to the Marquis.’ Then the spirit, with a trembling voice and with many tears, which issued from her reddened eyes, as though she had wept long and bitterly, replied: ‘God does not will it.’ I again summoned up courage and said: ‘They will not believe me.’ Then the spirit replied: ‘Look where I touch,’ and departed.... After she had gone I remained languid and speechless