intellect is always sharpened by the demand for its exercise, and Henri was one well able to comprehend à demi-mot. The substituted wine was the first step taken by Antoinette on his behalf, and he entertained no doubt that the story she told about the wife of François was a part of her scheme for obtaining assistance. So he resolved to abide by his fate, reasonably thinking that the more readily he seemed to fall into the snare set for him by Monsieur Duroc, the easier would be his opportunity for defence. But however disposed to follow Antoinette's counsel, some precaution was necessary, in case of the worst. To possess himself of a weapon of defence and conceal it about his person was his first thought. He looked round the salon for that purpose, but nothing was available there; he then gently opened the door to ascertain if possible where Monsieur Duroc had gone. He listened for a few moments, and presently heard his voice in the court-yard at the back of the house: he was speaking to his daughter, who evidently had just mounted the grey horse on her alleged charitable mission. There was no time to be lost: in the kitchen opposite, the first glance he gave showed him what he wanted. A large dinner-knife lay on a table, and as Henri quickly seized it and darted back into the salon, he congratulated himself on the fact that he was in Belgium rather than in France, or the weapon would not have been of much use to him. He thrust the knife into a breast-pocket under his blouse and resumed his seat at the table, eating his walnuts and sipping his wine with as much apparent unconcern as if he were finishing his dessert at the Cafe Anglais on the Boulevard des Italiens. He felt that he was now on more equal terms with Monsieur Duroc. He had been sitting silently for nearly an hour, when he fancied he heard a slight noise beneath a window of the salon, like a footfall on some loose stones. Without moving his head Henri cast his eye in the direction of the spot from whence the sound proceeded, and his sight being remarkably acute, he instantly detected the outline of a face peering cautiously through one of the lower panes. The aubergiste had placed himself there to watch the effect of his wine: it was time, therefore, for Henri to manifest some of the expected symptoms. Throw ing himself back in his chair, he yawned once or twice, and remained for a few minutes in an attitude of repose. He then sat up and helped himself to another glass of wine, drank part of it, and presently resting his elbow on the table, leant his head in his hand and, after a pause, yawned again-this time with more demonstration than before. "Diable!" he exclaimed, loud enough for the listener to hear him, "I feel uncommonly sleepy this evening. I wonder what's the reason? Ah-h-h-ah-ah!" and he yawned a third time. He then finished the remainder of the wine that was in his glass, talking to himself all the time, but less audibly than at first, and at broken intervals. Another pause, and he closed his eyes for a few moments, roused himself as if endeavoring to shake off a drowsiness that was gradually creeping over him, subsided again into a leaning position, slipped his head from its support, recovered himself, murmured something very indistinctly, stretched out his hand to reach the bottle, missed his object and suffered his hand to remain, dropped his head still lower, started, sat staring for a short time at vacancy, and finally closing his eyes, yielded, in all appearance, to the resistless influence of sleep, with his head resting on his arm, and his face half averted. He might have remained about five minutes in this position, when the door of the salon was carefully opened, and obliquely glancing through his nearly closed lids, Henri saw the aubergiste peeping into the room. Slowly the whole of his figure appeared, but he did not immediately advance. Perceiving, however, that Henri did not stir, he moved a pace or two forwards, and came by degrees close up to the table, where he once more paused and watched. He then lifted the bottle and held it up between him and the light. He set it down again and smiled. "More than half gone," he said; "he has a stronger head than I thought for." To place his hand upon the sleeper was the aubergiste's next proceeding. He moved him gently, but there was no awakening sign: he stirred him with a stronger grasp;-there was no resistance. Satisfied then that the drug had fully operated, he removed from Henri's mind anything doubtful that by chance might have lingered there respecting Monsieur Duroc's intentions. "I am glad Antoinette is gone," he said, "for I need not now carry him up to bed. It will save me two journeys, and be quicker over. But I must not make a mess in this place; it could not then be concealed from her, like those that have gone before." He raised Henri up in his chair to try his weight. "Heavier than I supposed; but that's owing to his length of limb. I wish the miller were here to help me. However, the other half of the job will be his. He will still carry away his sack full, and I shall be saved a toilsome walk into the forest. He set the door wide open and left the salon, but only went as far as the passage, returning directly with a brouette (a long sort of barrow), which he brought close up to Henri's chair. To transfer him from thence to the brouette was no easy task, the counterfeit of sleep being so well preserved; but it was at last accomplished, and Monsieur Duroc wheeled his guest away. He conveyed his burden the whole length of the passage, and then turned into a small room on one side, where he set down the brouette. "I must fetch a light," he muttered, "and get my knife." 66 He is not likely to wabo I mud futb him with my hands. I shall want loob, though." He put down the bundle in Ho window-seat, bared his widela, and almoge ing over Henri, untud ina much humbo' chief and drew it from unde am M*** gulation was the death he intended Al ready his long bony finger w within an inch of his victim's throat, when Hond suddenly row, "Matheupen to he claimed, and struck herealy with th knife at the aubergietern Vaka Bagh staggered and zetor and, brand morty de tarily, and with my matres, pa his arm and oyidagi ma .1 on it. Ah, thin me, et em, "tu jouais done as geval nom de Dieu! Aga mito x hu Henri to wrest th seized him by the w prevented him from win with his disengaged bat his own blouse and Suspecting his obj; with his antagonist, a were locked. In thin a for a moment, glaring other, and then with they closed. The strife w and death. Both were perf was young and active-r were of iron, and he had the w moreover, of being firmer on With arms interlaced, and body body, they writhed like serpent other's folds, now here, now ti.. every part of the room. Suddy came in contact with the brouette; w unfortunately behind Henri; the auberg saw this, and pressed him hard: the y man fell backwards over it, with his p above him. Duroc shook himself off, t getting on his feet fell back a pace or tw and once more searched beneath i blouse. He drew forth a pistol. "% bien, donc," he cried, "faut que je u finesse avec ceci!" But while he spoka a heavy clattering was heard in the pas sage, and at the next moment Antoinette rushed into the room, followed by two gendarmes and the wood-cutter François, Duroc instinctively turned, and, perhaps, as instinctively fired. Antoinette screamed and fell: a bullet had pierced her breast: with her atonement came her death. The gendarmes rushed on the aubergiste and made him their prisoner. Hitherto entirely passive, it was time now for Henri to prepare for the impending struggle. Although there was no shutter to the single window of the room, it was much too dark for Henri to distinguish anything in it, but he knew by the aubergiste's retreating footsteps that he was again alone. Ignorant of the locality, and fearing that he might stumble and fall if he tried to leave the place, the only advantage he was able to take of Duroc's absence was to draw himself up into an easier position and throw his legs over the side of the brouette, resting his feet on the ground, so as to be ready to rise when he desired; at the same time he drew the knife from his breast and reversed it in his grasp, concealing the blade in his sleeve. He waited longer than he expected, listening breathlessly all the while. At length a glimmer of light appeared, and he heard the aubergiste returning along the passage. Henri set his teeth, clutched his weapon convulsively, and moved one foot still further back, Duroc re-entered the room. "Curse the knife!" he growled, "where can it have gone? I left it on the table. No matter. * ** * At the Court of Assize held at St. Hu bert two months later, Duroc was found | Duroc, was condemned as the aubergiste's guilty of the murder of his daughter, but accomplice in the supposed murders of under extenuating circumstances, for it numerous travellers, for in a cavern near was argued by his counsel that he had the mill, concealed in sacks marked with slain her in the attempt to shoot one of his name, were found seven headless skethe officers, and not out of revenge. The letons; as many skulls were discovered in miller, too, who had been apprehended on a cellar of the auberge, to which Jean account of some words which fell from Duroc alone had access. From Dickens' Household Words. WITCHES AND WITCHCRAFT. a A DECREPIT old woman, tempted by man in black, has signed with her blood on parchment a contract to become his, body and soul; has received from him a piece of money, the black king's shilling to the new recruit; has put one hand to the sole of her foot and the other hand to the crown of her head; and has duly received a familiar in the shape of a cat or kitten, a mole, a millerfly, or any other little animal, which is the corporate form of a demon, subject to the will of the said woman, lodged by her, and provided with a daily meal of her own blood, drawn from taps established for its use on different parts of her body. If any old woman has had an adventure of this kind and keeps such a familiar, she is undoubtedly, in spite of all the lights of all the centuries, a witch. But, whether any decrepit old woman ever did make such a contract and rejoice in the fulfilment of its terms, is certainly a question not worth asking, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-five. However, let that pass. Grant her the demon, and then let us inquire, what manner of witch she may be. All will depend upon the use made of her ill-gotten power. If by it she choose to help people to recover stolen goods, heal sickness, and make herself useful to her neighbors, she is a white witch. If she be malicious, a cunning thief, an afflicter of children and of cattle, she is a black witch; if she be partly white and partly black in her be havior she is a grey witch; and her familliar spirit is accordingly pronounced to be black, white, or grey. Why are almost all witches women, and in sooth, old women? The popular idea of a witch coincides at this day with the picture of her, sketched by Master Horsett a quarter a thousand years ago: "An old weather-beaten crone, having her chin and knees meeting for age, walking like a bear leaning on a staff, untoothed, having her lips trembling with palsy, going mumbling in the streets; one that hath forgotten her paternoster and yet a shrewd tongue to call a drab a drab, and who hath learned an old wife's rhyme ending, pax, max, tax, for a spell." His sagacious Majesty King James the First explained this by a theory, "For," he said, "as the sex is frailer than man, so it is easier to be entrapped in the gross snares of the Divell as was over well proved to be true by the serpent's deceiving of Eve in the beginning," and of course when the weaker sex is at its period of greatest weakness, when it has fallen into bodily decay and dotage, then is the time for evil powers to make sure of catching it in traps. So of a decrepit old women, if she was poor and lived a lonely life, without the aid and comfort of a loving husband or a sturdy son, the presumption was fair that she must have been caught in the trap, and being a witch ought in the name of all things holy to be burnt alive. Moreover, there would be a disposition on the part of men to be very tolerant of women who were wellfavored or young, and at least an equal disposition on their part to be tolerant of woman who were old and ugly. Let the tenderness of Colonel Hobson testify. was present at the ceremony of ducking a witch, a particular account of which may not perhaps be disagreeable to you. "An old woman of about 60 years of age had long lain under an imputation of witchcraft, who being anxious for her own sake and her children to clear herself, consented to be ducked; and the parish officer promised her a quince if she should sink. The place appointed was by the river Ous, by a mill. There were, I believe, 500 spectators. About 11 o'clock in the forenoon the woman came, and was tied up in a wet sheet, all but her face and hands; her toes were tied close together, as were also her thumbs, and her hands tied to the small of her legs. They fastened a rope about her middle, and then pulled off her cap to search for pins (for their notion is, if they have but one pin in them, they won't sink). "When all the preliminaries were settled, she was thrown in. But, unhappily for the poor creawhile under water. Upon this there was a conture, she floated, though her head was all the fused cry: A witch! a witch! Drown her! Hang her! She was in the water about a minute and a half, and was then taken out half-drowned. When she had recovered breath, she was tried twice more but with the same success; for she floated each time, which was a plain demonstration of guilt to the ignorant multitude! For, notwithstanding the poor creature was laid down upon the grass speechless and almost dead, they were so far from showing any pity or compassion, that they strove who should be the most forward in loading her with reproaches-such is the dire effect of popular prejudices! For my part, I stood against the torrent; and when I had cut the In the year sixteen 'forty-nine the people of Newcastle-upon-Tyne were much troubled with witches, and two of the town-sergeants were despatched to Scotland in order to enter into agreement with a Scottish witch-finder. On the arrival at Newcastle of this public functionary, the magistrates of the town sent the bellman through the streets, inviting any person to bring up suspected witches for examination. Thirty women were accordingly produced at the town-hall, and most of them, after trial by the thrusting of pins into the flesh, were pronounced guilty. The witch-finder informed Colonel Hobson that he knew whether or not women were witches by their looks, but when the said person was searching a personable and well-favored woman the Colonel replied and said, “Surely this woman is none, and need not be tried." But the Scot said, "Yea, she was, for the town said she was, and therefore he would try her." Presently afterwards he ran a pin into her, and set her aside as a child of Satan. Colonel Hobson proved on the spot that the man was deceived grossly, whereupon the witch-strings which tied her; had carried her back to finder cleared the woman, and said she was not a child of Satan. Nineteen women were ordered to be burnt at Newcastle upon the conviction of this man, who then went into Northumberland where he tried witches at three pounds a-head. It is poor consolation to be told that this ruffian himself died on the gallows, when it has to be added that he confessed himself to have caused the death of two hundred and twenty women in England and Scotland, and, taking them all around, to have earned about a pound upon each job. Of the trial of witches by water every one has heard. A scene like the following used in fact to be one of the incidents of ordinary life in English villages, and was not altogether rare when this letter was written, a hundred and eighteen years since, to the London Magazine: Oakley, three miles from Bedford. "SIR,-The people here are so prejudiced in the belief of witches that you would think yourself in Lapland, was you to hear their ridiculous stories. There is not a village in the neighborhood but has two or three. About a week ago I the mill, and endeavored to convince the people of the uncertainty of the experiment, and offered to lay five to one that any woman of her age, so tied up, in a loose sheet, would float; but all to no purpose, for I was very near being mob'd. Some time after the woman came out, and one of the to try a witch-which was to weigh her against company happened to mention another experiment the Church Bible; for a witch, it seems, could not outweigh it. I immediately seconded the motion (as thinking it might be of service to the poor woman), and made use of an argument which (though weak as K. James for their not sinking) had some weight with the people; for I told them that if she was a witch, she certainly dealt with word of God, it must weigh more than all the the devil, and as the Bible was undoubtedly the works of the devil. This seemed reasonable to several, and those that did not think so, could not answer it. At last the question was carried, and she was weighed against the Bible, which weighed about 12 pounds. She outweighed it. This convinced some and staggered others; but the parson, who believed through thick and thin, went away fully assured that she was a witch, and endeavored to *King James's argument why witches would not sink was this: they had renounced their baptism by water, and therefore the water would not receive them. inculcate that belief in all others. I am, &c., beat her on the face, breast, and stomach &c." with the wooden bar of her door. When left to herself she crawled for protection A hundred years ago, three men were to the constable and was refused it; but tried at Hertford for the murder of Ruth in the house of a merciful woman, who Osburn, who was suspected as a witch. was a widow, she found refuge, and the The overseers of the parish wishing to widow, Alice Russell, bound her neighsave the woman (who was seventy years bor's wounds, and put her into her own of age), from threatened danger, removed bed. By this Christian deed, she incurred her and her husband to the workhouse. the wrath of the people brutalized by suA body of about five thousand people, perstition, and was subjected by them to however, assembled at Tring, and behaved indignities, and kept in a state of inceswith so much violence that the authori- sant terror, whereof twelve days afterties were at length obliged to give up the wards she died. But on the day after the victim. The poor woman was so much ill-first outrage, Anne Izzard was again dragtreated by the ignorant mob in their ex-ged out for ill-usage, after which she took periments to prove whether she was a refuge under the roof of the clergyman, witch, that she died shortly after. who was blamed sorely for the shelter he afforded. It is not fifty years since Mr. Nicholson, the incumbent of Great Paxton, in Hunt- The belief in witches, even at this day, ingtonshire, preached against the belief in survives in many corners of the land, witchcraft to his ignorant parishioners, among an untaught people; while superand told them some of his experience. A stition of the grossest kind, though not poor woman, the mother of eight child- the most atrocious, is to be met with everyren, persecuted as a witch, had gone to him where. In the London drawing-room of weeping, protesting innocence, and asking the wealthy conoisseur in rappings; in leave to prove it by being weighed the remote hovel of the poor man, who to against the pulpit Bible. Mr. Nicholson avoid misfortune, is induced to swallow then expostulated with his people in the necromantic mixtures, and among whose church, but to no purpose, for soon after-household treasures are to be found conwards their violence increased. At St. Noet's market a woman coming home in the wagon, was about to put her parcel of grocery on the top of some corn-sacks, and was advised by Anne Izzard, a neighbor, not to do so; she did it, nevertheless, and on the way home, by some accident, the wagon was upset. This set the whole village in an uproar, and on the following Sunday night, its inhabitants went in a mass to the unhappy woman's cottage, dragged her naked from her bed, dashed her head against the stones of the causeway, mangled her arms with pins, and stantly such documents as this: "The gar (jar) of mixture is to be mixt with half a pint of gen (gin), and then a table-spoon to be took mornings at Eleven O'clock, four and eigt, and four of the pills to be took every morning fasting, and the paper of powder to be divided in ten parts, and one part to be took every night Going to bed in a little honey. The paper of arbs (herbs) is to be burnt a small bit at a time, on a few cooles with a little hay and rosemery, and whiles it is burning, read the two first verses of the 68 Salm, and say the Lord's prayer after." |
