could hardly imagine that he would believe the account I gave him of
the fearful double of Lucy which I had seen on the lonely moor-side.
But my uncle had lived many years, and learnt many things; and, in
the deep secrets of family history that had been confided to him, he
had heard of cases of innocent people bewitched and taken possession
of by evil spirits yet more fearful than Lucy's. For, as he said, to
judge from all I told him, that resemblance had no power over her--
she was too pure and good to be tainted by its evil, haunting
presence. It had, in all probability, so my uncle conceived, tried
to suggest wicked thoughts and to tempt to wicked actions but she, in
her saintly maidenhood, had passed on undefiled by evil thought or
deed. It could not touch her soul: but true, it set her apart from
all sweet love or common human intercourse. My uncle threw himself
with an energy more like six-and-twenty than sixty into the
consideration of the whole case. He undertook the proving Lucy's
descent, and volunteered to go and find out Mr. Gisborne, and obtain,
firstly, the legal proofs of her descent from the Fitzgeralds of
Kildoon, and, secondly, to try and hear all that he could respecting
the working of the curse, and whether any and what means had been
taken to exorcise that terrible appearance. For he told me of
instances where, by prayers and long fasting, the evil possessor had
been driven forth with howling and many cries from the body which it
had come to inhabit; he spoke of those strange New England cases
which had happened not so long before; of Mr. Defoe, who had written
a book, wherein he had named many modes of subduing apparitions, and
sending them back whence they came; and, lastly, he spoke low of
dreadful ways of compelling witches to undo their witchcraft. But I
could not endure to hear of those tortures and burnings. I said that
Bridget was rather a wild and savage woman than a malignant witch;
and, above all, that Lucy was of her kith and kin; and that, in