"[39]
The human body is not more liable to contagion than is that faculty of
the mind which is called imagination. That many of the accused believed
in their crime, we have sufficient evidence in their own voluntary
confessions, as well as in the traditions handed down to us on this
subject. Both knavery and delusion were at work, as the following
incidents will abundantly manifest. They have been selected from a wide
range of materials on this important topic, as illustrating the varied
operations of the same delusion on different orders and grades of
mind,--the temptations warily suited to each disposition, all tending to
the same crime, and ultimately to the same punishment.
Our lusty miller had no children: it was a secret source of grief and
anxiety to his dame, and many an hour of repining and discontent was the
consequence. Yet Giles Dickisson's song was none the heavier; and if his
wheel went merrily round, his spirits whirled with it, and danced and
frolicked in the sunshine of good humour, like the spray and sparkle
from his own mill-race. But a change was gathering on his wife's
countenance: her grief grew sullen; her aspect stern and
forbidding:--some hidden purpose was maturing: she seldom spoke to her
husband.
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