Another apparition, of a most peculiar kind, made its appearance occasionally in the Jarvis Brook Road. I do not recollect hearing of a similar spectral appearance. It assumed the form of a bag of soot, and would run after the wayfarer who had the misfortune to traverse this road on the particular night when the ghostly soot-bag held its revel. A boastful blacksmith, having primed himself with beer, determined to encounter the soot-bag, and boldly ascended the hill, while his companions waited at the base to witness the result. Very soon he was seen running at full speed down the hill, pursued by the bag of soot. So terrified was he that he did not stop till he reached his house and had bolted himself within it.
This ghost must have been the spirit of a chimney-sweep who had some grudge against the good people of Jarvis Brook. Very few persons would like to come into contact with a bag of soot, either material or spiritual, and there can be no discredit in trying to escape from it. Perhaps the chimneys at Jarvis Brook were never swept, but whenever the soot accumulated were set fire to, which is a Sussex mode of cleaning chimneys. This may have been a grievance to a local sweep, who avenged himself in the manner above related, having carried his grievance into the other world.
His perturbed spirit is now at rest; at least we must suppose so, as he no longer appears in the Jarvis Brook Road.