The people about her seemed disgusted as well as she, and I found there was no persuading them that I did not laugh at them, and that I should be rather mobbed by them than be able to undeceive them.  So I left them, and this appearance passed for as real as the blazing star itself.

Another encounter I had in the open day also; and this was in going through a narrow passage from Petty France[52] into Bishopsgate churchyard, by a row of almshouses.  There are two churchyards to Bishopsgate Church or Parish.  One we go over to pass from the place called Petty France into Bishopsgate Street, coming out just by the church door; the other is on the side of the narrow passage where the almshouses are on the left, and a dwarf wall with a palisade on it on the right hand, and the city wall on the other side more to the right.

In this narrow passage stands a man looking through the palisades into the burying place, and as many people as the narrowness of the place would admit to stop without hindering the passage of others; and he was talking mighty eagerly to them, and pointing, now to one place, then to another, and affirming that he saw a ghost walking upon such a gravestone there.  He described the shape, the posture, and the movement of it so exactly, that it was the greatest amazement to him in the world that everybody did not see it as well as he.  On a sudden he would cry, “There it is!  Now it comes this way!” then, “’Tis turned back!” till at length he persuaded the people into so firm a belief of it, that one fancied he saw it; and thus he came every day, making a strange hubbub, considering it was so narrow a passage, till Bishopsgate clock struck eleven; and then the ghost would seem to start, and, as if he were called away, disappeared on a sudden.

I looked earnestly every way, and at the very moment that this man directed, but could not see the least appearance of anything.  But so positive was this poor man that he gave them vapors[53] in abundance, and sent them away trembling and frightened, till at length few people that knew of it cared to go through that passage, and hardly anybody by night on any account whatever.

This ghost, as the poor man affirmed, made signs to the houses and to the ground and to the people, plainly intimating (or else they so understanding it) that abundance of people should come to be buried in that churchyard, as indeed happened.  But then he saw such aspects I must acknowledge I never believed, nor could I see anything of it myself, though I looked most earnestly to see it if possible.

Some endeavors were used to suppress the printing of such books as terrified the people, and to frighten the dispersers of them, some of whom were taken up, but nothing done in it, as I am informed; the government being unwilling to exasperate the people, who were, as I may say, all out of their wits already.

Neither can I acquit those ministers that in their sermons rather sunk than lifted up the hearts of their hearers.  Many of them, I doubt not, did it for the strengthening the resolution of the people, and especially for quickening them to repentance; but it certainly answered not their end, at least not in proportion to the injury it did another way.