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naught should harm her, saying he had power to save her from the people; but that if she would not, she should go before the court next day, and she might guess herself how it would fare with her, seeing that he had many witnesses to prove that she had played the wanton with Satan, and had suffered him to kiss her. Hereupon she was silent, and only sobbed, which the archrogue took as a good sign, and went on: "If you have had Satan himself for a sweetheart, you surely may love me." And he went to her and would have taken her in his arms, as I perceived; for she gave a loud scream, and flew to the door; but he held her fast, and begged and threatened as the devil prompted him. I was about to go in when I heard her strike him in the face, saying, "Get thee behind me, Satan," so that he let her go. Whereupon she ran out at the door so suddenly that she threw me on the ground, and fell upon me with a loud cry. Hereat the Sheriff, who had followed her, started, but presently cried out, "Wait, thou prying parson, I will teach thee to listen!" and ran out and beckoned to the constable who stood on the steps below. He bade him first shut me up in one dungeon, seeing that I was an eavesdropper, and then return and thrust my child into another. But he thought better of it when we had come half way down the winding-stair, and said he would excuse me this time, and that the constable might let me go, and only lock up my child very fast, and bring the key to him, seeing she was a stubborn person, as he had seen at the very first hearing which he had given her.

Hereupon my poor child was torn from me, and I fell in a swound upon the steps. I know not how I got down them; but when I came to myself, I was in the constable his room, and his wife was throwing water in my face. There I passed the night sitting in a chair, and sorrowed more than I prayed, seeing that my faith was greatly shaken, and the Lord came not to strengthen it.

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CHAPTER XVIII.

Of the first trial, and what came thereof.

NEXT morning, as I walked up and down in the court, seeing that I had many times asked the constable in vain to lead me to my child (he would not even tell me where she lay), and for very disquietude I had at last begun to wander about there; about six o'clock there came a coach from Uzdom,* wherein sat his worship, Master Samuel Pieper, consul dirigens, item, the camerarius Gebhard Wenzel, and a scriba, whose name, indeed, I heard, but have forgotten it again; and my daughter forgot it too, albeit in other things she has an excellent memory, and, indeed, told me most of what follows, for my old head well nigh burst, so that I myself could remember but little. I straightway went up to the coach, and begged that the worshipful court would suffer me to be present at the trial, seeing that my daughter was yet in her nonage, but which the Sheriff, who meanwhile had stepped up to the coach from the terrace, whence he had seen all, had denied me. But his worship Master Samuel Pieper, who was a little round man, with a fat paunch, and a beard mingled with grey hanging down to his middle, reached me his hand, and condoled with me like a Christian in my trouble: I might come into court in God's name; and he wished with all his heart that all whereof my daughter was fyled might prove to be foul lies. Nevertheless I had still to wait full two hours before their worships came down the winding stair again. At last towards nine o'clock I heard the constable moving about the chairs and benches in the judgment-chamber; and as I conceived that the time was now come, I went in and sat myself down on a bench. No one, however, was yet there, save the constable and his young daughter, who was wiping the table, and held a rosebud between her lips. I was fain to beg her to give it me, so that I might have it to smell to; and I believe that I should have been carried dead out of the room that day if I had not had it. God is thus

* Or Usedom, a small town which gives its name to the whole island.

able to preserve our lives even by means of a poor flower, if so he wills it!

At length their Worships came in and sat round the table, whereupon Dom. Consul motioned the constable to fetch in my child. Meanwhile he asked the Sheriff whether he had put Rea in chains, and when he said No, he gave him such a reprimand that it went through my very marrow. But the Sheriff excused himself, saying that he had not done so from regard to her quality, but had locked her up in so fast a dungeon, that she could not possibly escape therefrom. Whereupon Dom. Consul answered that much is possible to the devil, and that they would have to answer for it should Rea escape. This angered the Sheriff, and he replied that if the devil could convey her through walls seven feet thick, and through three doors, he could very easily break her chains too. Whereupon Dom. Consul said that hereafter he would look at the prison himself; and I think that the Sheriff had been so kind only because he yet hoped (as, indeed, will hereafter be shown) to talk over my daughter to let him have his will of her.

And now the door opened, and my poor child came in with the constable, but walking backwards, and without her shoes, the which she was forced to leave without. The fellow had seized her by her long hair, and thus dragged her up to the table, when first she was to turn round and look upon her judges. He had a vast deal to say in the matter, and was in every way a bold and impudent rogue, as will soon be shown. After Dom. Consul had heaved a deep sigh, and gazed at her from head to foot, he first asked her her name, and how old she was; item, if she knew why she was summoned before them? On the last point she answered that the Sheriff had already told her father the reason; that she wished not to wrong any one, but thought that the Sheriff himself had brought upon her the repute of a witch, in order to gain her to his wicked will. Hereupon she told all his ways with her, from the very first, and how he would by all means have had her for his housekeeper; and that when she would not (although he had many times come himself to her father his house), one day, as he went out of the door, he had muttered in his beard," I will have her, despite of all!" which

*This ridiculous proceeding always took place at the first examination of a witch, as it was imagined that she would otherwise bewitch the judges with her looks. On this occasion indeed such an event was not unlikely.

their servant Claus Neels had heard, as he stood in the stable; and he had also sought to gain his ends by means of an ungodly woman, one Lizzie Kolken, who had formerly been in his service; that this woman, belike, had contrived the spells which they laid to her charge she herself knew nothing of witchcraft; item, she related what the Sheriff had done to her the evening before, when she had just come, and when he for the first time spoke out plainly, thinking that she was then altogether in his power: nay, more, that he had come to her that very night again, in her dungeon, and had made her the same offers, saying that he would set her free if she would let him have his will of her; and that when she denied him, he had struggled with her, whereupon she had screamed aloud, and had scratched him across the nose, as might yet be seen, whereupon he had left her; wherefore she would not acknowledge the Sheriff as her judge, and trusted in God to save her from the hand of her enemies, as of old he had saved the chaste Susannah.—

When she now held her peace amid loud sobs, Dom. Consul started up after he had looked, as we all did, at the Sheriff's nose and had in truth espied the scar upon it, and cried out in amaze 66 Speak, for God his sake, speak, what is this that I hear of your lordship?" Whereupon the Sheriff, without changing colour, an swered, that although, indeed, he was not called upon to say any thing to their worships, seeing that he was the head of the court, and that Rea, as appeared from numberless indicia, was a wicked witch and therefore could not bear witness against him or any one else he, nevertheless, would speak, so as to give no cause of scandal t the court; that all the charges brought against him by this person were foul lies; it was, indeed, true, that he would have hired he for a housekeeper, whereof he stood greatly in need, seeing that hi old Dorothy was already growing infirm; it was also true that h had yesterday questioned her in private, hoping to get her to con fess by fair means, whereby her sentence would be softened, inas much as he had pity on her great youth; but that he had no said one naughty word to her, nor had he been to her in the night and that it was his little lap-dog, called Below, which had scratche him, while he played with it that very morning; that his old Doro thy could bear witness to this, and that the cunning witch had onl made use of this wile to divide the court against itself, thereb and with the devil's help, to gain her own advantage, inasmuc

as she was a most cunning creature, as the court would soon find out.

Hereupon I plucked up a heart, and declared that all my daughter had said was true, and that the evening before I myself had heard, through the door, how his lordship had made offers to her, and would have done wantonness with her; item, that he had already sought to kiss her once at Coserow; item, the troubles which his lordship had formerly brought upon me in the matter of the first-fruits.

Howbeit the Sheriff presently talked me down, saying, that if I had slandered him, an innocent man, in church, from the pulpit, as the whole congregation could bear witness, I should doubtless find it easy to do as much here, before the court; not to mention that a father could, in no case, be a witness for his own child.

But Dom. Consul seemed quite confounded, and was silent, and leaned his head on the table, as in deep thought. Meanwhile the impudent constable began to finger his beard from under his arm; and Dom. Consul thinking it was a fly, struck at him with his hand, without even looking up; but when he felt the constable his hand, he jumped up and asked him what he wanted? whereupon the fellow answered, "O, only a louse was creeping there, and I would have caught it."

At such impudence his worship was so exceeding wroth that he struck the constable on the mouth, and ordered him, on pain of heavy punishment, to leave the room.

Hereupon he turned to the Sheriff, and cried, angrily, “Why, in the name of all the ten devils, is it thus your lordship keeps the constable in order? and truly, in this whole matter, there is something which passes my understanding." But the Sheriff

answered, "Not so; should you not understand it all when you think upon the eels ?"

Hereat Dom. Consul of a sudden turned ghastly pale, and began to tremble, as it appeared to me, and called the Sheriff aside into another chamber. I have never been able to learn what that about the eels could mean.

Meanwhile Dominus Camerarius Gebhard Wenzel sat biting his pen and looking furiously-now at me, and now at my child, but said not a word; neither did he answer Scriba, who often whispered somewhat into his ear, save by a growl. At length

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