They saluted them in various ways by different
movements of their bodies, all which the giants returned with perfect
politeness, and then vanished. A traveller now joined Mr. Hawe and the
innkeeper, and they kept steadily looking for their aerial friends, when
they suddenly appeared again three in number, who all performed exactly
the same movements as their correspondent spectators. Having continued
thus for some time, appearing and disappearing alternately, sometimes
faintly, and sometimes more distinct, they at length faded away not
again to return. They proved, however, that the preternatural spectre,
which had so long filled the country with awe and terror, was no unreal
being, still less an existence whose appearance suspended the ordinary
laws of God and Nature; that, on the contrary, it was the simple
production of a common cause, exhibited in an unusual manner, but as
regular an effect, and as easy to be accounted for, as the reflection of
a face in a looking glass.
This constitution of the atmosphere, and its capability of dilating
objects, and altering their position by reflection and refraction, will
easily account for many phenomena which have been considered miraculous
and preternatural in early ages, by the ignorant; and in our own, by the
weak and superstitious.
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