hamlet has its peculiar and gifted personage, whom it is dangerous to
offend; that the wise man and wise woman (the white witches of our
ancestors) still continue their investigations of truth, undisturbed
by the rural police or the progress of the schoolmaster; that each
locality has its haunted house; that apparitions still walk their
ghostly rounds--and little would his reputation for piety avail that
clergyman in the eyes of his parishioners who should refuse to lay
those "extravagant and erring spirits," when requested, by those due
liturgic ceremonies which the orthodoxy of tradition requires.

[Footnote 31: It was my good fortune to visit this wizard-haunted spot
within the last few weeks, in company with the able and zealous
Archdeacon[A] within whose ecclesiastical cure it is comprized, and to
whose singularly accurate knowledge of this district, and courteous
communication of much valuable information regarding it, I hold myself
greatly indebted. Following, with unequal steps, such a guide,
accompanied, likewise, by an excellent Canon of the Church[B] with all
the "armamentaria coeli" at command against the powers of darkness,
and a lay auxiliary[C], whose friendly converse would make the
roughest journey appear smooth, I need scarcely say, I passed through

"The forest wyde,
Whose hideous horror and sad trembling sownd
Full griesly seem'd,"

unscathed by the old lords of the soil, and needed not Mengus's Fuga,
Fustis et Flagellum Dæmonum, as a triple coat of mail.]

[Footnote A: The Venerable the Archdeacon of Manchester, the Rev. John
Rushton, who is also the Incumbent of New Church, in Pendle.]