Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1877 edition. Excerpt: ... t)cjton pallet. With this town is connected the history of Nancy Camel, who lived in some period of history either never ascertained or so remote that time has effaced all traces from mortal memory. Tradition, however, relates, for the benefit of posterity, that when the manufacture of stockings formed a portion of the daily work of its inhabitants, and when old and young worked their fingers to the bone to obtain money, there lived an old lady of the above name in the neighbouring woods, and was of course accounted a witch, or wise woman. Regarded as an object of ridicule, if not of dread, stiunned by her own sex, and without kit or kin; in her seclusion and retirement she laboured at her stockings unceasingly--Sundays not excepted--and here she mourned over the bitterness of her wretched life. In the midst of her solitude, she, too, is visited by the evil one. What transactions passed between them, history relates not--the result of the interview never transpired; perhaps she broke, like many of her companions in sorcery, the compact duly signed and sealed to deliver over her soul to her lord and master for favours conferred. However, one evening after a most sultry day, the dark clouds gathered, and terminated the day with gloom; thunder silled the sky, accompanied, too, by the flash of vivid lightning. As night drew on, so the fury of the elements increased. In the midst of the storm was heard a loud and piercing shriek, that faintly echoed till the morning broke; there, too, was heard, the cracking of a whip and the creaking of wheels. Morn came at last, calm and glorious after the storm; some persons, half suspecting the cause of the shrieks they had heard, and half out of curiosity to see how Nancy had fared, visited the...