The air was sweet and soft, and there was a clear, but not a hot sun, and the chirping of squirrels, and the noise of birds, and the sound of the waves breaking on the beach a little distance off, and the leaves, at every breath of the wind in the tree- tops, whirling and fluttering down about me, like so many yellow and scarlet-colored birds, made the ride wonderfully pleasant and entertaining.
Mr.Weare, on the way, told me that there was a great talk of the bewitching of Goodman Morse's house at Newbury, and that the case of Caleb Powell was still before the Court, he being vehemently suspected of the mischief.

I told him I thought the said Caleb was a vain, talking man, but nowise of a wizard.

The thing most against him, Mr.
Weare said, was this: that he did deny at the first that the house was troubled by evil spirits, and even went so far as to doubt that such things could be at all.

"Yet many wiser men than Caleb Powell do deny the same," I said.

"True," answered he; "but, as good Mr.Richardson, of Newbury, well saith, there have never lacked Sadducees, who believe not in angel or spirit." I told the story of the disturbance at Strawberry Bank the night before, and how so silly a thing as a rolling pumpkin did greatly terrify a whole household; and said I did not doubt this Newbury trouble was something very like it.