1830.] The Devil's Mill 173 



rest of his person as he may, it seems he never parts with or conceals 

 that. The company, with one accord, fled from the room. 



In the neighbourhood of L town lived a clergyman, renowned for 



his piety ; and little as the inmates of that mansion thought of him in 

 their blasphemous revelry, and much as they were accustomed to scorn 

 his ghostly counsels on ordinary occasions, yet now, in the hour of 

 supernatural peril, he was called for by all, as the only champion who 

 had a chance of success against their dangerous enemy. He came at 

 once, and, without the slightest hesitation, committed himself alone 

 with the evil one. Of the particulars of their interview little is known ; 

 as the legend draws near its close it waxes dim and faint, like an inco- 

 herent dream. The demon, avowing his errand, boldly declared that 

 he came for him who had summoned him, and that he would not depart 

 without him, unless compelled by a superior power. Strong as were 

 the exorcisms of the virtuous priest, yet the fiend, armed with the guilt 

 of his summoner, as with a delegated commission of vengeance, stood 

 upon his right. At length a species of compromise was effected : the 

 demon consented to forego his claim for the present, out of compliment 

 to the merit and skill of his antagonist, rather than upon compulsion, 

 and through fear of his exorcisms, but only on condition that a task 

 should be assigned to him which he could not perform. Now every 

 child (in Ireland at least) knows, that if you try skill with the devil, 

 endeavour to puzzle him, and fail in the attempt, you pay for the failure 

 and become his victim, by virtue of a kind of satanic forfeiture of recog- 

 nizance. The aged priest pondered for an instant, and listened to the 

 raging torrent as it swept along in its strength, and he knew by the 

 sounding roar that the stream, which in summer glides pleasantly 

 through greenwood and pasture, just deep enough to shelter the nimble 

 trout in its transparent eddies, was now careering from mountain and 

 swamp, armed with the fury of a hundred midnight torrents, and sweep- 

 ing cabin and peasant, cattle and stock, from its downward path, like 

 any other pitiless conqueror. The old man's eye lighted up with the 

 hope of baffling the subtle fiend, and he chuckled at the thought of giv- 

 ing him enough of cold water for once in his life, as he bade him filter 

 the swollen river with dam and wear, and build a substantial mill in the 

 midst of the torrent. 



Lamp grew dim, and tempest was hushed, and lightning crept back 

 into the bosom of the cloud, and the old priest hid his face between his 

 hands ! as with fantastic and unholy gestures, and forbidden words of 

 power, the evil spirit summoned his brethren around him ; and the roof 

 rang once more with peals of fiendish laughter, as they listened to the 

 simple task of the priest, and vanished to perform it. Like the tall 

 piles that arise at the bidding of sleep in a troubled dream, or the fan- 

 tastic architecture one constructs in the western clouds of the evening 

 sky, the affrighted exerciser could see by a lurid light, as of a mighty 

 furnace, the mill arising through the cleft waters, as with jest, and song, 

 and damned merriment, the busy demons plied their task ; then came a 

 glare of brightest light, the throng broke, and fell back, the work was 

 finished, and wheel and hopper clanked, and banged through the hushed 

 night. The priest's heart died within him at every stroke " Heaven be 

 good to me !" said he ; " what will become of me ?" for he thought on the 

 well-known consequences of failing in an attempt to puzzle the devil. 

 " What next ?" said the stranger, impatiently " what next ?" and his 



