“I’ll do so; but God forgive you for disturbin’ me in my devotions, as you did.  It’s not often I’d give them up for any one; but sure out of regard for the proprietor o’ the town I’d do that, and more for you.”

“Here,” replied Woodward, putting some silver into his hand, “let that console you; and tell your niece when you see her that I am a good paymaster; and, if I should stand in need of your skill, you shall find me so, too.  Good-night, and may your prayers be powerful, as I know they come from a Christian heart, honest Solomon.”

CHAPTER XI.  A Conjurer’s Levee.

We cannot form at this distance of time any adequate notion of the influence which a conjurer of those days exercised over the minds and feelings of the ignorant.  It was necessary that he should be, or be supposed at least to be, well versed in judicial astrology, the use of medicine, and consequently able to cast a nativity, or cure any earthly complaint.  There is scarcely any grade or species of superstition that is not associated with or founded upon fear.  The conjurer, consequently, was both feared and respected; and his character appeared in different phases to the people—­each phase adapted to the corresponding character of those with whom he had to deal.  The educated of those days, with but few exceptions, believed in astrology, and the possibility of developing the future fate and fortunes of an individual, whenever the hour of his birth and the name of the star or planet under which he was born could be ascertained.  The more ignorant class, however, generally associated the character of the conjurer with that of the necromancer or magician, and consequently attributed his predictions to demoniacal influence.  Neither were they much mistaken, for they only judged of these impostors as they found them.  In nineteen cases out of twenty, the character of the low astrologer, the necromancer, and the quack was associated, and the influence of the stars and the aid of the devil were both considered as giving assurance of supernatural knowledge to the same individual.  This unaccountable anxiety to see, as it were, the volume of futurity unrolled, so far as it discloses individual fate, has characterized mankind ever since the world began; and hence, even in the present day, the same anxiety among the ignorant to run after spae-women, fortunetellers, and gypsies, in order to have their fortunes told through the means of their adroit predictions.

On the following morning the whole town of Rathfillan was in a state of excitement by the rumor that a conjurer had arrived, for the purpose not only of telling all their future fates and fortunes, but of discovering all those who had been guilty of theft, and the places where the stolen property was to be found.  This may seem a bold stroke; but when we consider the materials upon which the sagacious conjurer had to work, we need not feel surprised at his frequent success.