obsequious, and may not be hurtful. But one little mode, as it were, they have of hurting. For when, among the ambiguous shades of night, the English, occasionally ride alone, the Portune, sometimes, unseen, couples himself to the rider;[1] and, when he has accompanied him, going on, a very long time, at length, the bridle being seized, he leads him up to the hand in the mud, in which while, infixed, he wallows, the Portune, departing, sets up a laugh; and so, in this kind of way, derides human simplicity."[2]
This spirit seems to have some resemblance to the Picktree brag,[3] a mischievous barguest that used to haunt that part of the country, in the shape of different animals, particularly of a little galloway; in which shape a farmer, still or lately living thereabout, reported that it had come to him one night as he was going home; that he got upon it, and rode very quietly till it came to a great pond, to which it ran and threw him in, and went laughing away.
