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both their worships' came back into the chamber together, and Dom. Consul, after he and the Sheriff had seated themselves, began to reproach my poor child violently, saying that she had sought to make a disturbance in the worshipful court; that his lordship had shown him the very dog which had scratched his nose, and that, moreover, the fact had been sworn to by the old housekeeper.

(Truly she was not likely to betray him, for the old harlot had lived with him for years, and she had a good big boy by him, as will be seen hereafter.)

Item, he said that so many indicia of her guilt had come to light, that it was impossible to believe anything she might say; she was therefore to give glory to God, and openly to confess everything, so as to soften her punishment; whereby she might perchance, in pity for her youth, escape with life, &c.

Hereupon he put his spectacles on his nose, and began to crossquestion her, during near four hours, from a paper which he held in his hand. These were the main articles, as far as we both can remember:

Quæstio. Whether she could bewitch?-Responsio. No; she knew nothing of witchcraft.

Q. Whether she could charm?-R. Of that she knew as little. Q. Whether she had ever been on the Blocksberg?-R. That was too far off for her; she knew few hills save the Streckelberg, where she had been very often.

Q. What had she done there? - R. She had looked out over the sea, or gathered flowers; item, at time carried home an apronfull of dry brushwood.

Q. Whether she had ever called upon the devil there?-R. That had never come into her mind.

Q. Whether, then, the devil had appeared to her there, uncalled?-R. God defend her from such a thing.

Q. So she could not bewitch ?-R. No.

Q. What, then, befel Kit Zuter his spotted cow, that it suddenly died in her presence?-R. She did not know; and that was a strange question.

Q. Then it would be as strange a question, why Katie Berow her little pig had died?-R. Assuredly; she wondered what they would lay to her charge.

Q. Then she had not bewitched them ?-R. No; God forbid it. Q. Why, then, if she were innocent, had she promised old Katie another little pig, when her sow should litter?—R. She did that out of kind-heartedness. (And hereupon she began to weep bitterly, and said she plainly saw that she had to thank old Lizzie Kolken for all this, inasmuch as she had often threatened her when she would not fulfil all her greedy desires, for she wanted everything that came in her way; moreover, that Lizzie had gone all about the village when the cattle were bewitched, persuading the people that if only a pure maid pulled a few hairs out of the beasts' tails they would get better. That she pitied them, and knowing herself to be a maid, went to help them; and indeed, at first it cured them, but latterly not.)

Q. What cattle had she cured?-R. Zabel his red cow; item, Witthan her pig, and old Lizzie's own cow.

Q. Why could she afterwards cure them no more?—R. She did not know, but thought-albeit she had no wish to fyle any one-that old Lizzie Kolken, who for many a long year had been in common repute as a witch, had done it all, and bewitched the cows in her name and then charmed them back again, as she pleased, only to bring her to misfortune.

Q. Why, then, had old Lizzie bewitched her own cow, item, suffered her own pig to die, if it was she that had made all the disturbance in the village, and could really charm?-R. She did not know; but belike there was some one (and here she looked at the Sheriff) who paid her double for it all.

Q. It was in vain that she sought to shift the guilt from off herself; had she not bewitched old Paasch his crop, nay, even her own father's, and caused it to be trodden down by the devil, item, conjured all the caterpillars into her father's orchard?— R. The question was almost as monstrous as the deed would have been. There sat her father, and his worship might ask him whether she ever had shown herself an undutiful child to him. (Hereupon I would have risen to speak, but Dom. Consul suffered me not to open my mouth, but went on with his examination; whereupon I remained silent and downcast.)

Q. Whether she did likewise deny that it was through her malice that the woman Witthan had given birth to a devil's imp, which straightway started up and flew out at the window, so that

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when the midwife sought for it it had disappeared?-R. Truly she did; and indeed she had all the days of her life done good to the people instead of harm, for during the terrible famine she had often taken the bread out of her own mouth to share it among the others, especially the little children. To this the whole parish must needs bear witness, if they were asked; whereas witches and warlocks always did evil and no good to men, as our Lord Jesus taught (Matt. xii.), when the Pharisees blasphemed him, saying that he cast out devils by Beelzebub the prince of the devils; hence his worship might see whether she could in truth be a witch.

Q. He would soon teach her to talk of blasphemies; he saw that her tongue was well hung; but she must answer the questions he asked her, and say nothing more. The question was not what good she had done to the poor, but wherewithal she had done it; she must now show how she and her father had of a sudden grown so rich that she could go pranking about in silken raiment, whereas she used to be so very poor?

Hereupon she looked towards me, and said, "Father, shall I tell?" Whereupon I answered, "Yes, my child, now thou must openly tell all, even though we thereby become beggars." She accordingly told how, when our need was sorest, she had found the amber, and how much we had gotten for it from the Dutch merchants.

Q. What were the names of these merchants?-R. Dieterich von Pehnen and Jakob Kiekebusch; but, as we have heard from a schipper, they since died of the plague at Stettin.

Q. Why had we said nothing of such a godsend?-R. Out of fear of our enemy the Sheriff, who, as it seemed, had condemned us to die of hunger, inasmuch as he forbade the parishioners, under pain of heavy displeasure, to supply us with anything, saying, that he would soon send them a better parson.

Hereupon Dom. Consul again looked the Sheriff sharply in the face, who answered that it was true he had said this, seeing that the parson had preached at him in the most scandalous manner from the pulpit; but that he knew very well, at the time, that they were far enough from dying of hunger.

Q. How came so much amber on the Streckelberg? She had best confess at once that the devil had brought it to her.-R.

She knew nothing about that. But there was a great vein of amber there, as she could show to them all that very day; and she had broken out the amber, and covered the hole well over with fir-twigs, so that none should find it.

Q. When had she gone up the Streckelberg; by day or by night?-R. Hereupon she blushed, and for a moment held her peace; but presently made answer, "Sometimes by day, and sometimes by night."

Q. Why did she hesitate? She had better make a full confession of all, so that her punishment might be less heavy. Had she not there given over old Seden to Satan, who had carried him off through the air, and left only a part of his hair and brains sticking to the top of an oak?-R. She did not know whether that was his hair and brains at all, nor how it came there. She went to the tree one morning because she heard a wood→ pecker cry so dolefully. Item, old Paasch, who also had heard the cries, came up with his axe in his hand.

Q. Whether the woodpecker was not the devil himself, who had carried off old Seden?-R. She did not know: but he must have been dead some time, seeing that the blood and brains which the lad fetched down out of the tree were quite dried up.

Q. How and when, then, had he come by his death?-R. That Almighty God only knew. But Zuter his little girl had said that one day, while she gathered nettles for the cows under Seden his hedge, she heard the goodman threaten his squint-eyed wife that he would tell the parson that he now knew of a certainty that she had a familiar spirit; whereupon the goodman had presently disappeared. But that this was a child's tale, and she would fyle no one on the strength of it.

Hereupon Dom. Consul again looked the Sheriff steadily in the face, and said, “Old Lizzie Kolken must be brought before us this very day:" whereto the Sheriff made no answer; and he went on to ask,

Q. Whether, then, she still maintained that she knew nothing of the devil?-R. She maintained it now, and would maintain it until her life's end.

Q. And nevertheless, as had been seen by witnesses, she had been re-baptized by him in the sea in broad daylight.—Here again she blushed, and for a moment was silent.

look at the witch!" Whereupon one of the men struck at my poor child with the sack which he held in his hand, so that she turned quite white, and the flour flew all about the coach like a cloud. When I rebuked him, the wicked rogue laughed and said, that if no other smoke than that ever came under her nose, so much the better for her. Item, it was worse in Pudgla than even at the mill. The people stood so thick on the hill, before the castle, that we could scarce force our way through, and the Sheriff caused the death-bell in the castle-tower to toll as an avisum. Whereupon more and more people came running out of the ale-houses and cottages. Some cried out, "Is that the witch ?" Others, again, "Look at the parson's witch! the parson's witch!" and much more, which for very shame I may not write. They scraped up the mud out of the gutter which ran from the castle-kitchen and threw it upon us; item, a great stone. the which struck one of the horses so that it shyed, and belike would have upset the coach had not a man sprung forward and held it in. All this happened before the castle-gates, where the Sheriff stood smiling and looking on, with a heron's feather stuck in his grey hat. But so soon as the horse was quiet again he came to the coach and mocked at my child, saying, "See, young maid, thou wouldest not come to me, and here thou art nevertheless!" Whereupon she answered, "Yea, I come; and may you one day come before your judge as I come before you ;" whereunto I said, Amen, and asked him how his lordship could answer before God and man for what he had done to a wretched man like myself and to my child? But he answered, saying, Why had I come with her? And when I told him of the rude people here, item. of the churlish miller's man, he said that it was not his fault, and threatened the people all around with his fist, for they were making a great noise. Thereupon he commanded my child to get down and to follow him, and went before her into the castle : motioned the constable, who would have gone with them, to stay at the foot of the steps, and began to mount the winding staircase to the upper rooms alone with my child.

But she whispered me privately, "Do not leave me, father ;* and I presently followed softly after them. Hearing by their voices in which chamber they were, I laid my ear against the door to listen. And the villain offered to her that if she would love him

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