which they put into the coffin in his house.  But, several years after, some persons who were digging at this quiet spot on the canal bank discovered the real body of Bob—­the throat being cut—­and the corpse as fresh as the day on which the act was committed.  Bob’s relations, on hearing of this discovery, gave the finders a handsome gift to rebury the body and keep the matter secret.  Within the last ten years I have heard the same affirmation made respecting persons who have drowned themselves.

Persons whose yea is unvaryingly yea, and whose nay is unvaryingly nay, generally resort to no form of oath or imprecation to gain credence to their statements, for their truthfulness is seldom called in question—­at least, where they are well known.  But with those who are lax in their statements—­who tell the truth or tell lies just as for the moment the one or the other appears to suit them best—­the case is different.  When they speak something strange or important, they find their veracity questioned, and require to place themselves in circumstances where it may be thought they are under compulsion, for their own welfare, to speak the truth.  Commonly, they ask Providence to injure them in some way if in the present instance they have said the thing which is not true.  Well, it was believed in the days of which I write, and within my own day, that Providence did interfere in this way, and many stories were current in confirmation of this belief.  One such will suffice as an illustration.  A married woman, enciente for the first time, having had words with her husband about something she denied having either said or done, wished that, if her statement were untrue, she might never give birth to the child.  She was taken at her word, for she lived many years in delicate health, but the child was never born.  The villagers who remembered her said that at times she swelled as if she was about to be confined, and at other times was as jimp as a young girl.

Akin to belief in the potency of such wishes as were uttered as tests of truthfulness was doubtless the generally accredited, though of course seldom witnessed, form of compact with the devil.  When a person agreed to serve the devil, his Satanic Majesty caused the mortals who sought his service and favour to place one hand under their thigh and the other over their head, and wish that the devil would take all that lay between their hands if they were unfaithful to their vow.  The form of oath by expression of a wish was common to both Jews and Gentiles.

There was another kind of wish which was believed to obtain fulfilment during life, that was the expressed wish of the innocent against those who had wronged them.  The belief in the fulfilment of such wishes was grounded on the theological supposition that God in his justice would in time punish the wrong-doer.  I remember a rather pertinent example of this:  a proof they would have said in former days—­a