EELICS OF POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS. 



61 



Sl\ MARK'S EVE IN YORKSHIRE. 



Among the antiquities of Craven, is a castle said to have been 

 built by Robert de Romeville, in the days of the Norman Con- 

 queror, and very picuturesquely situated on an ascent, from whence 

 it overlooks the little town it once protected. The inhabitants of 

 this town have not yet forgotton their formor sexton, Old Ozias, 

 a man whose anatomy might have been so correctly traced through 

 its scanty covering, that he seemed created to instruct the physi- 

 cians whose work he finished. A lean, blind dog, a coarse coat 

 of dark stone grey, as if intended to resemble the ancient building 

 to which he belonged, and a strong staff, were this man's usual 

 accompaniments ; but he thought the first unnecessary when 

 he celebrated the vigil of St. Mark's eve. At the eleventh 

 hour of that mysterious vigil, Ozias ascended the long winding 

 walk of a church-yard, paved with monumental stones, and took 

 his seat alone in the porch, having qualified himself by a long 

 fast, or abstinence from solids, at least, to claim the revelations al- 

 lotted to St. Mark's eve, during which, all who are destined to die 

 before the next anniversary, are seen entering the church in a sha- 

 dowy and silent procession. Those to whom only a dangerous 

 sickness is fated, are supposed to advance no farther than the gate. 

 Such processions could not fail to be very interesting to the parish 

 sexton, who never neglected this vigil, and was known to have 

 predicated the deaths of several hypochondriac gentlemen and 

 aged ladies with surprising exactness, though some suspected his 

 prophecies hastened, and probably caused, their own confirmation. 

 Theodore Ozias sat in the church porch with more hope than fear ; 

 but neither the fumes of his last cup, nor his anxious fancy, cre- 

 ated any spectres ; and he looked down the long street which as- 

 cends to the church without seeing a single door open to send 

 forth a visitor, The clock had begun to strike twelve, and the sex- 

 ton was rising with a sigh of despair, when three male figures in 

 dark cloaks, and one in female attire, appeared at the gate of the 

 castle, which flanked the church, and slowly descended towards 

 the walk of the dead. Notwithstanding Ozias's famiharity with 

 St. Mark's spectres, and the benefit they promised him, he could 

 not see this distinct and solemn procession without trembling; 

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