CharlM Diekenc]

LANisA riXEL.

12T

brown hair that Goody their leader had set
floating.

"Nick's Pond!" was the cry. The young
foreign witch must be tried by water — inno-
cent If she drowned, and guilty if she swam.
In a ^'ild and terrible procession of the whole
population of the village, with the children
screaming and dancing joyou»ly about in the
excitement of a witch-ducking, Lanna was
dragged to the moor, where Mistress Noddi-
son tlew from her cottage as a tigress from her
lair, and tore the flesh and garments of the
wit( h, and showed her the dead child. Mounted
constables were hurrying in the direction of
the riot, but they only came in time to drag the
wretched girl out of the pond into which she
was thrust, and they came not to protect but
to arrest her. There was fresh evidence,
some of the men hinted to the villagers, and
a most aggravated case against her. She was
therefore carried to the round-house, and
spent the next thirty hours, half suffocated,
and locked up with very filthy people.

Then she was brought out on one of the
last and finest days of the merry month of
May, and taken into the presence of the
justices, with Squire Caufe at their head, who
had long been of opinion that she had be-
witched his son by wicked arts, and now was
sure of it. The case was then gone into.

It was shown that on a certain evening
Hodge Noddison maltreated the companion
of the accused, a foreigner named Hans
Dank, who it was now ascertained had
secretly made his escape out of the neigh-
bourhood, and had gone no one could tind
out whither. It was presumed that she re-
ceived instant information from some imp
of the deed that Noddison had done, for she
was out in the direction of Noddison's house
before any human tidings could have i-eached
her. It was proved that Noddison was cast
into a deadly lethargy, during which the witch
was seen flitting about upon the moor before
his door, and that immediately after she had
vanished Noddison was taken by the con-
stables. It was proved that in further punish-
ment of Noddison, the accused Lanna Ti^el
did by her arts throw his only child into
violent convulsions, during which she again
appeared at the door and gazed in upon the
child with her large blue eyes, immediately
after the infliction of which p;aze it died. It
was shown, also^ that the rain ceased when
she appeared, and that Goody Fubs lost a
young porker, and suffered more than usually
from her rheumatism on the day that she
assisted at the ducking of the wicked woman.

These revelations were not necessary to
induce CaptMn Arthur to appear against the
siren wno had practised on him with her arts.
He proved that when he had been drawn by
her aevices — especially, he thought, by her
large eyes — to declare love towards her, she,
bolievin"- that she had him in her toils, confessed
to hira in plain words that she had a famihar
m tne shape of a dragon or a hollybush with

which she often talked, and that it was ac-
quainted with her secrets. The dragon on
the lawn was, therefore, part of her enchant-
ment, and it was natural to consider that the
strange figures of cocks and fishes to be seen
on the Dutch farm, though they looked like
box, and yew, and holly trees must be really
and truly demons. The captain further
proved, that being in some trouble, and
sobbing, the witch called for help upon a
certain Mother Somebody, he did not catch
the name, because she, the said witch, sobbed
while she was speaking.

In answer to a question from the bench
he said that it was not "Mother of God."
"She further," he said, "ventured so far
as to tell me that I was to marry upon the
condition of suffering eternal torment."
(Here a thrill ran through the whole assem-
bly). " She told me that she herself was
doomed, but that it was a light matter, and
that we might laugh at it together."

During this revelation Lanna fainted. She
showed no trace of her former beauty, for no
change of dress or means of cleanliness had
been provided for her since she was taken
from the filthy pond, and she appeared to
have caught some kind of fever in the round-
house. AVhen she recovered she was com-
pelled to stand up that her face might be seen
during the rest of the examination. Her
house had been searched. A white object
was brought through a lane made in the
shuddering crowd, and suddenly presented
before Lanna. She was seized with violent
hysterics. It was the waxen image of a
corpse robed in its graveclothes: an exact
eflSgy of the dead body of her father.

"She took me to a room," said Captain
Arthur, " in which lay this image. I thought
it had been taken from the grave, and felt at
once that she was one of the worst kind
of witches. I sec now that it is made of wax."

While Lanna remained still insensible a
learned priest stood forward, and gave evidence
that the use of these waxen images by witches
was well known. They were the figures of
men to whom they wished evil. The witches
moulded them and caused them to waste
slowly, and as the wax wasted, so wasted the
victim's flesh. They also pricked and stabbed
them, and when they did so the true flesh
felt ever}'- hurt that was inflicted. This was
undoubtedly the image of some person whom
the witch Tixel had killed by her enchant-
ments.

The learned justices then waited until Lanna
was so flir recovered that she could be made to
speak; pains being taken to expedite her re-
collection of herself by means not altogether
free from cruelty. She said, however, very
little. There was no escape for her, she said,
and she desired none. She had lived too long.
But she wished Captain Arthur to reflect upon
the words she had used, and hear now, if he
would, the story she designed to tell him.

She was ordered to address the court, and