"Here is a true and faithful account," reiterated the pedlar, with all his power of lungs, "of the awful apparition of a young woman to her sweetheart, three weeks after her death,--warning him, in the most solemn manner, to forsake his evil ways, and not to deceive others, as he had deceived her,--and foretelling to him that he would die that day fortnight,--and then vanishing in a flash of fire, leaving a smell of brimstone behind her! And how the young man took to his bed immediately after, and died at the time his sweetheart had foretold,--making a godly confession of his sins on his death-bed. All which happened," concluded the pedlar, with a look of solemn assurance that went at once to the hearts of his unsuspecting audience,--"but one month ago, in the county of Cornwall;--and here are the names of ten creditable parishioners of the place, who heard the young man's confession, and have set their names as witnesses of the truth of the circumstance, that it might be a warning to young men to repent, and not to deceive their sweet-hearts,--and all this you have for the small charge of one penny!" "The Lord ha' marcy on us, Moggy," cried a young and blooming butter-woman to her elderly neighbour, as they leant over the handles of their baskets, aghast with wonder:--"what an awful thing it must ha' been to see that young woman come from the deead!" "It must, indeed, Dolly," replied the older gossip, shaking her head: "it's enough to mak one tremmle to think on't! Some folks say that there's no sich thing as a ghooast,--but I'm sewer I wouldn't be so wicked as to say so." "And she vanished in a flash o' fire and brimstone, did she, maister?" said Dolly to the pedlar, as she tendered her penny. "That she did, pretty maid!" quickly answered the vender, with a look of roguish seriousness: "take the book home, and let your sweetheart read it to you, if you can't read it yourself; and you'll find that what I have said is all true." "I hope it is, maister, for they're solemn things to joke about!" remarked a staid-looking matron, who was taking out her spectacles to read the veracious story. "True as the Gospel!" exclaimed the ready pedlar: "I was born and brought up in the parish, and know every one of the creditable yeomen who have signed the young man's confession." "Yo may ha' been born there," interjected a Sheffield huckster, with a satirical grin; "but it's many a moile off!" The pedlar strode rapidly away to a distant part of the market. "Why, you dooant doot what th' man says, do you, Roger?" asked a fair Axholmian butter-maiden of the huckster. "Daht!" replied the Sheffielder, in his own dialect; "I al'ays daht loies, mun! But come, lass! tak t'other hawp'ny a pahnd, and bring t' basket along wi' thee!" "Marcy on us!" exclaimed the butter-woman in spectacles, as the rude huckster left the market; "you Sheffield fellow'll hev to see a ghooast before he believes there is one! What an alarming accoont this is, to be sewer!"