At length the time approached when his terrible master would claim him body and soul, but Scraggs worked out a scheme for evading his bond, and for a time successfully kept Satan at bay and disposed of the three witches by imprisoning them in a hollow tree close by, on which he cast a spell which prevented them from communicating with their master the evil one, or enabling him to find them.  This spell was so successful that Scraggs soon felt himself secure, but one day, venturing beyond the charmed circle, he was immediately seized by the Devil, who attempted to carry him off by way of the chimney, but failed, as the shaft was not sufficiently wide for the passage of the man’s body.  In the struggle the chimney was twisted in the upper part, and remained so till its total destruction, while Satan, rinding he could not carry off his body, tore him asunder, and carried off his soul, dashing the mutilated remains of the miser upon the hearth beneath.  The death of Scraggs dissolved the spell which bound the witches, and their release split the tree in which they were confined from the ground to the topmost branch.

The great uproar of this Satanic struggle aroused the neighbourhood, and the miser’s body, when it was discovered, was buried beneath the wall of the church—­neither inside nor outside the sacred edifice.  Ever afterwards the house was haunted by the apparition of old Scraggs searching for his lost soul with groans and hideous cries, until at last the old mansion was pulled down and its very stones were removed.

The old shattered and knarled elm alone remained to keep alive the legend of this evil compact.  The story, improbable as it may appear, no doubt contained, as most of these stories do, the element of fact.  Possibly the old man was a miser who possessed wealth enough to become the source of envy by some interested relations.  Perhaps he was brutally murdered, perhaps, too, the night of the deed may have been wild with thunder and lightning raging in the sky.  Probably the weird story, with all its improbable trappings, was circulated by some one who knew the truth, but who was interested in concealing it.  Who knows?

[Illlustration:  HINKSEY, AN OXFORDSHIRE VILLAGE IN WHICH THE ROAD WAS CONSTRUCTED BY RUSKIN AND A BAND OF OXFORD STUDENTS.]

We were now passing through scenes and pastures, quiet fields and farms, of which many of Oxford’s famous students and scholars had written and sung.  Matthew Arnold had painted these fields and villages, hills and gliding, reedy streams in some of his poems, and they were the objective of many of his Rambles: 

  Hills where Arnold wander’d and all sweet
  June meadows, from the troubling world withdrawn.

Here too in one of these small hamlets through which we passed Ruskin with a gang of his pupils in flannels started roadmaking, and for days and weeks were to be seen at their arduous task of digging and excavation, toiling and moiling with pick, spade, and barrow, while Ruskin stood by, applauding and encouraging them in their task of making and beautifying the roads of these villages which he loved so well.