Even Solomon Daisy himself,
by dint of the elevating influences of fire, lights, brandy, and good
company, so far recovered as to handle his knife and fork in a highly
creditable manner, and to display a capacity both of eating and
drinking, such as banished all fear of his having sustained any lasting
injury from his fright.
Supper done, they crowded round the fire again, and, as is common on
such occasions, propounded all manner of leading questions calculated
to surround the story with new horrors and surprises. But Solomon Daisy,
notwithstanding these temptations, adhered so steadily to his original
account, and repeated it so often, with such slight variations, and with
such solemn asseverations of its truth and reality, that his hearers
were (with good reason) more astonished than at first. As he took John
Willet's view of the matter in regard to the propriety of not bruiting
the tale abroad, unless the spirit should appear to him again, in which
case it would be necessary to take immediate counsel with the clergyman,
it was solemnly resolved that it should be hushed up and kept quiet.
And as most men like to have a secret to tell which may exalt their own
importance, they arrived at this conclusion with perfect unanimity.
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