Page:A Book of the West (vol. 2).djvu/121

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A GHOST STORY
89


formerly belonged to the Cloberry family, whose cognisance was bats; it is quite intact. Bradstone takes its name from a broad stone, in fact, a cromlech that has been thrown down, but the cap remains, and is used as a stile.

Kelly Church has some fine old glass. Sydenham is an untouched seventeenth-century mansion; so is Wortham, in Lifton parish. A magnificent relic is Penheale, with its granite entrance and panelled rooms. It is in Egloskerry parish, and formerly belonged to the Earl of Huntingdon. It passed by sale from one hand to another, and is now the property of Mr. Simcoe.

In Egloskerry Church is a remarkably good helmet. The church contains an alabaster figure of an Italian flower-girl. Treguddick, once a seat of a family of that name, has been so mutilated in alteration that it presents little of interest. The same may be said of Basil.

Botathen, once the seat of the Bligh family, has not in it anything of interest, but is associated with one of the best ghost stories on record, written by the Rev. John Ruddle, vicar of Launceston, who laid a ghost in a field that appeared to and tormented a boy of the name of Bligh.

Ruddle was parson of Launceston between 1663 and 1698. Defoe got hold of Ruddle's MS. account of the transaction, and published it in 1720. It has been often surmised that Defoe had touched up the original, or had invented the whole story; but Mr. A. Robins has carefully entered into an examination of the circumstances, and has proved