FIFTY YEARS OF A SHOWMAN'S LIFE 



do not attach the slightest credence to what they 

 say, being myself a living example to the contrary. 

 Q.E.D. 



As a child, I was a firm believer in signs and 

 omens, chiefly because the domestics to whose 

 charge I was consigned had perfect confidence 

 themselves in such things. When the bedroom 

 candle gutterings took a particular shape, I was 

 told, in an awesome whisper, that it represented 

 a winding-sheet, and that its appearance por- 

 tended the early demise of one of us. I was 

 bidden to be on the look-out for the tick of the 

 death-watch, as I might take that as a certain 

 intimation that my time on this earth was short. 

 If I heard a dog howl at night, it meant that 

 there was a corpse pretty handy, for he had 

 nosed it. The imparters of these legendary 

 portents were country-bred girls, who implicitly 

 believed in these weird warnings, and regarded 

 such knowledge as too valuable to be kept to 

 themselves. According to their experience, witches 

 were as much a part and parcel of the country- 

 side as cattle, sheep and pigs. With bated 

 breath, they told me how these evil-doers got into 

 the farm dairy at night and soured the cream, 

 and how neither bolts nor bars could keep them 

 out of the stable when they desired a nocturnal 

 mount. When, in the morning, Giles went to 

 take out Smiler and Dobbin and their companions 

 for the waggon and the plough, they found them 

 covered with dust and sweat, and " all of a 

 trimble." Then, of course, everybody knew the 

 witches had been there during the night, and had 

 scoured the country on the poor beasts' backs. 



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