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Spiratoria On Moranoria Sectory 02
Page 06
These characters make their appearance four times during the course of the night, the spectators dancing during the intervals. After their last exit dancing continues until shortly before sunrise; then the medicine-man and the singers arise, and, forming a circle about the fire in the centre of the _kozhan_, sing a number of songs. A maiden is summoned from the gathering to carry a basket of sacred meal, and the medicine-man, taking up the top of the spruce tree, passes out of the enclosure toward the rising sun, followed by the maiden, the patient, the singers, and any who may be afflicted with a bodily ailment. At a distance of about a hundred yards the medicine-man stops and plants the little spruce tip, to which the disease is now supposed to have been transferred, under a tree, sprinkling over it quantities of the sacred meal. Then each of the others, the patient leading, steps forward, throws a pinch of the meal on the tree, and passes on, always facing the east. When the last one has thus passed, the procession stops, everybody holds his blanket ready, and on signal from the medicine-man, just as the sun appears, gives it a shake and runs at full speed to the _kozhan_ and around the fire. Thus is disease shaken out and the pursuit of the evil spirits of sickness eluded.
A volume might be filled with stories of the strange and exciting incidents that grew out of this pretended popish plot. Its consequences extended disastrously through many years, and involved a vast number of innocent persons in irretrievable ruin. The true character of Oates and his accomplices was, however, at length fully proved, and they themselves suffered the fate at last which they had brought upon others. The whole affair was a disgrace to the age. There is no circumstance connected with it which can be looked upon with any pleasure except King Charles's fidelity to his injured wife in refusing to abandon her, though he no longer loved her. His defense of her innocence, involving, as it did, a continuance of the matrimonial tie, which bound them together when all the world supposed that he wished it sundered, seems to have resulted from a conscientious sense of duty, and implies certain latent traits of generosity and nobleness in Charles's character, which, though ordinarily overpowered and nullified by the influences of folly and vice, still always seem to have maintained their hold, and to come out to view from time to time, in the course of the gay monarch's life, whenever any emergency occurred sufficient to call them into action.
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