"
But beside these household Dubbies, there are others of a more gloomy
and unsocial nature, that keep about lonely barns at a distance from
any dwelling-house, or about ruins and old bridges. These are full of
mischievous and often malignant tricks, and are fond of playing pranks
upon benighted travellers. There is a story, among the old people, of
one that haunted a ruined mill, just by a bridge that crosses a small
stream; how that, late one night, as a traveller was passing on
horseback, the Dubbie jumped up behind him, and grasped him so close
round the body that he had no power to help himself, but expected to
be squeezed to death: luckily his heels were loose, with which he
plied the sides of his steed, and was carried, with the wonderful
instinct of a traveller's horse, straight to the village inn. Had the
inn been at any greater distance, there is no doubt but he would have
been strangled to death; as it was, the good people were a long time
in bringing him to his senses, and it was remarked that the first sign
he showed of returning consciousness was to call for a bottom of
brandy.
These mischievous Dubbies bear much resemblance in their natures and
habits to those sprites which Heywood, in his Heirarchie, calls pugs
or hobgoblins:
"------Their dwellings be
In corners of old houses least frequented
Or beneath stacks of wood, and these convented,
Make fearfull noise in butteries and in dairies;
Robin Goodfellow some, some call them fairies.
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