moment, he hailed him to come in, and
related what had been threatened against
Rose.

"These common prickers are common
knaves, I hope you have—," the parson
glanced significantly at the cudgel, as much
as to add, "used it well!" The smith nodded
affirmatively.

The pricker was trying to sneak off, but
Richard stopped him, and said no—not until
he had been before Sir Richard Bedinfield
and had a judicial whipping as a cheat,
and then a ducking by the village folk; who
would be glad to give him one when they
saw how very readily they might, any, or all
of them, be proved witches and wizards by
the painless trial of the pricking instrument.
A good number of the rustics had gathered
at a respectful distance from the cottage,
waiting for the issue of what was going on
there, the news of which the two women had
taken pains to spread; and, when they saw
the official dragged out by the smith, Parson
Phillips following, and Rose looking out
from the doorway, a few of them felt glad
that the pretty white Rose of their village
had escaped the dangerous trial; but when
the smith came amongst them, and exhibited
the trick of the witchfinder's needle, nothing
would satisfy them except the summary
administration of justice there and then; so
the bruised wretch was hauled off to the
mill-pond, ducked until he was half-dead,
and then driven out of the village with
hoots and execrations.

Mistress Gilbert was foiled of her revenge
for the present; but, she said with a deadly
tenacity: "Though he was not a true
witchfinder, that does not make Rose Nicholl less
a witch."

And the village began to look coldly on
the smith's wife, and to avoid passing near
her door, lest she should blight them and
theirs with her evil eye.

IV.

THE very name of witch was fatal in
those good old times. No one could long bear
it with impunity; and this poor Rose well
knew. To see herself hated and feared
poisoned her life with a dread that the
general feeling might extend itself to her
husband, her father, and her child.
Sometimes she wished she were dead, as the only
way of escape from the indignities and
cruelties which she had heard of as inflicted
upon other women, probably as innocent of
witchcraft as herself.

Six months after the visit of the pricker,
Mistress Lucy Bedinfield died; and, the old
report that she had been bewitched was
revived, with the addition that it was Rose
Nicholl, and Rose Nicholl only, who had
laid upon her the spells that had destroyed
her.

Every calamity that happened in the
village was now laid to the charge of the
smith's wife. If an old person died from age,
Rose had bewitched him or her; if a baby
perished from weakness, Rose had bewitched
it; if a crop failed, Rose had bewitched the
seed; if the corn, when heavy in the ear,
was laid by violent rain, Rose had raised the
storm; if a horse cast a shoe, Rose had
bewitched the nails, or the hammer, or the
anvil. Rose might look as innocent and
pretty as she would, but popular superstition
declared her to be a witch, and popular
persecution used her as one.

Mistress Gilbert scarcely found her schemes
march so quickly as she desired; but, an
unexpected aid came to her from another
quarter. A poor old woman at Wistlebank
was tried for witchcraft, and, under her
tortures, she gave a list of names of persons
whom she said she had herself seen at the
Sabbath, or general meeting of witches and
warlocks. She did not, at first, mention Rose
Nicholl; but, the name being suggested to
her, she also avowed that she had seen her,
and no later ago than the previous Friday
night. All the accused were immediately
arrested, and carried before Sir Roger
Bedinfield, and two other magistrates as sapient
as himself. In vain did Richard Nicholl
swear, that at the time his wife was stated to
be present at the horrible mysteries of the
witches' Sabbath, she was sleeping comfortably
at his side; he was told that the devil
deluded him by putting a semblance of her
in her place, that he might not discover her
nocturnal absences. The poor smith was
nearly maddened; but, what answer could a
man make to magistrates, who were so
deeply in the fiend's confidence as to know
every stratagem he employed; Richard was
persuaded of his wife's innocence, but he
could not prevail on others to believe in it;
and, though Parson Phillips protested against
the confessions of an old woman crazed by
pain being received as evidence against Rose
and her so-called accomplices, no attention
was paid to his remonstrance, and they were
all confined until the day when they were to
be tried.

These must have been strange times
that folks now call "good old times;" when,
a man, who loved his wife more fondly than
anything else in the world, could ejaculate
fervently, "Thank God!" when he was told
that she was dead. Two days after poor
Rose was thrown into prison, Parson Phillips
brought these tidings to the smith, and said
that he had leave to bring her body home,
and give her Christian burial. Terrified at the
accusation brought against her, deprived of
her child and her husband, the young creature
was seized with fever, and died in her prison
—by God's mercy both the parson and
Richard thought, for she thereby escaped the
doom of her companions in misfortune,
against whose names stands in the criminal
records of the time, the fatal words—
"convict and brynt."