superstitions ? Plenty of them. Here is an instance that happened to come under my notice within the last ten years :
We had had some trouble with the boys of the little town of which I was the rector, in Lincolnshire, about stone-throwing in the churchyard.
One day my churchwardens called my attention to a newly-made grave on which lay a mug and jug, evidently quite freshly broken, and said : "The boys have been at it again, and what's more, have stolen the flowers that widow D. had put upon her husband's grave."
I saw at once that no stone had caused the fractures. So, putting off my officials with some excuse, I went to see the widow, and said to her : "Well, Mrs D., how came you to forget to give your old man his mug and his jug ? "
"Ah, sir!" she replied, "I knew you would understand all about it. I was that moidered with crying that I clean forgot to put 'em in t' coffin. I puts the groat in his mouth to pay his footing, but blame me if I doesn't leave out t' owd mug and jug. So I goes and does t' next best. I deads 'em both over his grave, and says I to mysen : ' My old man, he set a vast of store, he did, by yon mug and jug, and when their ghoastes gets over on yon side h'll holler out : " Yon's mine, hand 'em over to me," and I'd like to see them as would stop him a having of them an' all.'"
I have not time to write more to-day ; but if you care for some curious superstitions about the elder tree, I can send you some that are worth preserving. All these ideas are rapidly dying out. But what is taking their place ? I fear blank materialism to a great extent, and I am not sure that the change is for the better. Being a native, I had better opportunities than most clergy of learning these things. The people knew I was one of themselves, and they would talk openly before and to me, where to a man from another county they would either keep silence or, if pressed, feign utter ignorance.
The Rectory, Weyhill, Andover, Hants.
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