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A GHOST STORY
95

way of these dealings directed me, whereupon it approached, but slowly. When I came near it, it mov'd not. I spake again and it answered in a voice neither very audible nor intelligable. I was not in ye Least terrifyed, and therefore persisted untill it spake again, and gave me satisfaction.
"But ye work could not be finished at this time; wherefore ye same evening, an hour after sun-set, it met me again near ye same place, and after a few words of each side it quietly vanished, and neither doth appear since, nor ever will more to any man's disturbance.
"N.B. The discourse in ye morning Lasted abt a quarter of an hour.
"These things are true. I know them to be so with as much certainty as eyes and ears can give me; and until I can be perswaded that my senses do deceve me abt their proper objects (and by that perswasion deprive myself of ye strongest inducement to beleive ye Christian Religion) I must and will assert that these things in this paper are true."

I omit the reflections made on this by the writer, who signs: "September 4th, 1665, John Ruddle."

Every person and every place can be and has been identified by Mr. Robins, to whose article I refer the reader, should he care to go over the ground.[1]

Note.—Books on Launceston:—
Robins (A. F. ), Launceston, Past and Present. Launceston, 1884.
Peter (R.), The Histories of Launceston and Dunheved. Plymouth, 1885.

  1. The Cornish Magazine, 1899.