Sidonia, the Sorceress Volume Ii Part 31

Such news vexed me sore, and after putting on my ca.s.sock I went to old Paasch his house, to exorcise the foul fiend, and to remove such disgrace from my child. I found the old man standing on the floor by the c.o.c.kloft steps, weeping; and after I had spoken "The peace of G.o.d," I asked him first of all, whether he really believed that his little Mary had been bewitched by means of the roll which my child had given her? He said "Yes!" And when I answered, That in that case I also must have been bewitched, _item_, Pagel his little girl, seeing that we both had eaten of the rolls, he was silent, and asked me with a sigh, whether I would not go into the room, and see for myself how matters stood.

I then entered with "The peace of G.o.d," and found six people standing round little Mary her bed; her eyes were shut, and she was as stiff as a board; wherefore Kit Wels (who was a young and st.u.r.dy fellow) seized the little child by one leg, and held her out like a hedge-stake, so that I might see how the devil plagued her. I now said a prayer, and Satan, perceiving that a servant of Christ was come, began to tear the child so fearfully that it was pitiful to behold; for she flung about her hands and feet, so that four strong men were scarce able to hold her; _item_, she was afflicted with extraordinary risings and fallings of her belly, as if a living creature were therein, so that at last the old witch Lizzie Kolken sat herself upon her belly, whereupon the child seemed to be somewhat better, and I told her to repeat the Apostles' Creed, so as to see whether it really were the devil who possessed her. [Footnote: It was imagined in those fearful times that when the sick person could repeat the three articles of belief, and especially some pa.s.sages from the Bible bearing particular reference to the work of redemption, he was not possessed, since "no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost" (I Cor, xii. 3).] She straightway grew worse than before, and began to gnash her teeth, to roll her eyes, and to strike so hard with her hands and feet that she flung her father, who held one of her legs, right into the middle of the room, and then struck her foot so hard against the bedstead that the blood flowed, and Lizzie Kolken was thrown about on her belly, as though she had been in a swing. And as I ceased not, but exorcised Satan that he should leave her, she began to howl and to bark like a dog, _item_, to laugh, and spoke at last, with a gruff ba.s.s voice like an old man's, "I will not depart." But he should soon have been forced to depart out of her, had not both father and mother besought me, by G.o.d's holy Sacrament, to leave their poor child in peace, seeing that nothing did her any good, but rather made her worse. I was therefore forced to desist, and only admonished the parents to seek for help like the Canaanitish woman, in true repentance and incessant prayer, and with her to sigh in constant faith, "Have mercy upon me, O Lord, thou son of David, my daughter is grievously vexed of a devil" (Matt. xv.); that the heart of our Lord would then melt, so that He would have mercy on their child, and command Satan to depart from her.

_Item_, I promised to pray for the little child on the following Sunday with the whole congregation, and told them to bring her, if it were any ways possible, to the church, seeing that the ardent prayer of the whole congregation has power to rise beyond the clouds. This they promised to do, and I then went home sorely troubled, where I soon learned that she was somewhat better; thus it still is sure that Satan hates nothing so much, after the Lord Jesus, as the servants of the Gospel. But wait, and I shall even yet "bruise thy head with my heel" (Gen. iii.); naught shall avail thee.

Howbeit, before the blessed Sunday came I perceived that many of my people went out of my way, both in the village and elsewhere in the parish, where I went to visit sundry sick folks. When I went to Uekeritze to see young t.i.ttelwitz, there even befell me as follows. Claus Pieper the peasant stood in his yard chopping wood, and on seeing me he flung the axe out of his hand so hastily that it stuck in the ground, and he ran towards the pig-stye, making the sign of the cross. I motioned him to stop, and asked why he thus ran from me his confessor? Whether, peradventure, he also believed that my daughter had bewitched her little G.o.dchild?

_Ille_. Yes, he believed it, because the whole parish did.

_Ego_. Why, then, had she been so kind to her formerly, and kept her like a sister, through the worst of the famine?

_Ille_. This was not the only mischief she had done.

_Ego_. What, then, had she done besides? _Ille_. That was all one to me. _Ego_. He should tell me, or I would complain to the magistrate. _Ille_. That I might do, if I pleased. Whereupon he went his way insolently. Any one may guess that I was not slow to inquire everywhere, what people thought my daughter had done; but no one would tell me anything, and I might have grieved to death at such evil reports. Moreover, not one child came during this whole week to school to my daughter; and when I sent out the maid to ask the reason, she brought back word that the children were ill, or that the parents wanted them for their work. I thought and thought, but all to no purpose, until the blessed Sunday came round, when I meant to have held a great Sacrament, seeing that many people had made known their intention to come to the Lord's Table. It seemed strange to me that I saw no one standing, as was their wont, about the church door; I thought, however, that they might have gone into the houses. But when I went into the church with my daughter, there were not more than six people a.s.sembled, among whom was old Lizzie Kolken; and the accursed witch no sooner saw my daughter follow me, than she made the sign of the cross and ran out of the door under the steeple; whereupon the five others, among them mine own churchwarden Claus Bulken (I had not appointed any one in the room of old Seden), followed her. I was so horror-struck that my blood curdled, and I began to tremble, so that I fell with my shoulder against the confessional. My child, to whom I had as yet told nothing, in order to spare her, then asked me, "Father, what is the matter with all the people? are they, too, bewitched?" Whereupon I came to myself again, and went into the churchyard to look after them.

But all were gone save my churchwarden Claus Bulken, who stood under the lime-tree whistling to himself. I stepped up to him, and asked what had come to the people? whereupon he answered, he could not tell; and when I asked him again, why, then, he himself had left the church, he said, What was he to do there alone, seeing that no collection could be made? I then implored him to tell me the truth, and what horrid suspicion had arisen against me in the parish? But he answered, I should very soon find it out for myself; and he jumped over the wall and went into old Lizzie her house, which stands close by the churchyard.

My child had made ready some veal broth for dinner, for which I mostly use to leave everything else; but I could not swallow one spoonful, but sat resting my head on my hand, and doubted whether I should tell her or no. Meanwhile the old maid came in, ready for a journey, and with a bundle in her hand, and begged me with tears to give her leave to go. My poor child turned pale as a corpse, and asked in amaze what had come to her? but she merely answered, "Nothing!" and wiped her eyes with her ap.r.o.n. When I recovered my speech, which had well-nigh left me at seeing that this faithful old creature was also about to forsake me, I began to question her why she wished to go; she who had dwelt with me so long, and who would not forsake us even in the great famine, but had faithfully borne up against it, and indeed had humbled me by her faith, and had exhorted me to stand out gallantly to the last, for which I should be grateful to her as long as I lived. Hereupon she merely wept and sobbed yet more, and at length brought out that she still had an old mother of eighty, living in Liepe, and that she wished to go and nurse her till her end. Hereupon my daughter jumped up, and answered with tears, "Alas, old Ilse, why wilt thou leave us, for thy mother is with thy brother! Do but tell me why thou wilt forsake me, and what harm have I done thee, that I may make it good to thee again." But she hid her face in her ap.r.o.n, and sobbed, and could not get out a single word; whereupon my child drew away the ap.r.o.n from her face, and would have stroked her cheeks, to make her speak. But when Ilse saw this she struck my poor child's hand, and cried "Ugh!" spat out before her, and straightway went out at the door. Such a thing she had never done even when my child was a little girl, and we were both so shocked that we could neither of us say a word.

Before long my poor child gave a loud cry, and cast herself upon the bench, weeping and wailing, "What has happened, what has happened?" I therefore thought I ought to tell her what I had heard, namely, that she was looked upon as a witch. Whereat she began to smile instead of weeping any more, and ran out of the door to overtake the maid, who had already left the house, as we had seen. She returned after an hour crying out that all the people in the village had run away from her, when she would have asked them whither the maid was gone. _Item_, the little children, for whom she had kept school, had screamed, and had hidden themselves from her: also no one would answer her a single word, but all spat out before her, as the maid had done. On her way home she had seen a boat on the water, and had run as fast as she could to the sh.o.r.e, and called with might and main after old Ilse, who was in the boat. But she had taken no notice of her, not even once to look round after her, but had motioned her to be gone. And now she went on to weep and to sob the whole day and the whole night, so that I was more miserable than even in the time of the great famine. But the worst was yet to come, as will be shown in the following chapter.

CHAPTER XVII.

_How my poor child was taken up for a witch, and carried to Pudgla._

The next day, Monday, the 12th July, at about eight in the morning, while we sat in our grief, wondering who could have prepared such great sorrow for us, and speedily agreed that it could be none other than the accursed witch Lizzie Kolken, a coach with four horses drove quickly up to the door, wherein sat six fellows, who straightway all jumped out. Two went and stood at the front, two at the back door, and two more, one of whom was the constable Jacob Knake, came into the room, and handed me a warrant from the sheriff for the arrest of my daughter, as in common repute of being a wicked witch, and for her examination before the criminal court. Any one may guess how my heart sunk within me when I read this. I dropped to the earth like a felled tree, and when I came to myself my child had thrown herself upon me with loud cries, and her hot tears ran down over my face. When she saw that I came to myself, she began to praise G.o.d therefore with a loud voice, and essayed to comfort me, saying that she was innocent, and should appear with a clean conscience before her judges.

_Item_, she repeated to me the beautiful text from Matthew, chap. v.: "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for My sake."

And she begged me to rise and to throw my ca.s.sock over my doublet, and go with her, for that without me she would not suffer herself to be carried before the sheriff. Meanwhile, however, all the village--men, women, and children--had thronged together before my door; but they remained quiet, and only peeped in at the windows as though they would have looked right through the house. When we had both made us ready, and the constable, who at first would not take me with them, had thought better of it, by reason of a good fee which my daughter gave him, we walked to the coach; but I was so helpless that I could not get up into it.

Old Paasch, when he saw this, came and helped me up into the coach, saying, "G.o.d comfort ye! Alas, that you should ever see your child come to this!" and he kissed my hand to take leave.

A few others came up to the coach, and would have done likewise; but I besought them not to make my heart still heavier, and to take Christian charge of my house and my affairs until I should return. Also to pray diligently for me and my daughter, so that the evil one, who had long gone about our village like a roaring lion, and who now threatened to devour me, might not prevail against us, but might be forced to depart from me and from my child as from our guileless Saviour in the wilderness. But to this none answered a word; and I heard right well, as we drove away, that many spat out after us, and one said (my child thought it was Berow her voice), "We would far sooner lay fire under thy coats than pray for thee." We were still sighing over such words as these, when we came near to the churchyard, and there sat the accursed witch Lizzie Kolken at the door of her house with her hymn-book in her lap, screeching out at the top of her voice, "G.o.d the Father, dwell with us," as we drove past her: the which vexed my poor child so sore that she swooned, and fell like one dead upon me. I begged the driver to stop, and called to old Lizzie to bring us a pitcher of water; but she did as though she had not heard me, and went on to sing so that it rang again. Whereupon the constable jumped down, and at my request ran back to my house to fetch a pitcher of water; and he presently came back with it, and the people after him, who began to say aloud that my child's bad conscience had stricken her, and that she had now betrayed herself. Wherefore I thanked G.o.d when she came to life again, and we could leave the village. But at Uekeritze it was just the same, for all the people had flocked together, and were standing on the green before Labahn his house when we went by.

Nevertheless, they were quiet enough as we drove past, albeit some few cried, "How can it be, how can it be?" I heard nothing else.

But in the forest near the watermill the miller and all his men ran out and shouted, laughing, "Look at the witch, 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 sc.r.a.ped 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 s.h.i.+ed, 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 lords.h.i.+p could answer before G.o.d 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 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 arch rogue 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 he 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 pa.s.sed 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.

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, [Footnote: Or Usedom, a small town which gives its name to the whole island.] wherein sat his wors.h.i.+p, 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 wors.h.i.+pful 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 G.o.d'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 wors.h.i.+ps 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. G.o.d is thus able to preserve our lives even by means of a poor flower, if so He wills it!

At length their wors.h.i.+ps 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, [Footnote: 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.] 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 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 unG.o.dly 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 G.o.d 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, "Speak, for G.o.d His sake, speak, what is this that I hear of your lords.h.i.+p?" Whereupon the sheriff, without changing colour, answered, that although, indeed, he was not called upon to say anything to their wors.h.i.+ps, 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 to the court; that all the charges brought against him by this person were foul lies; it was, indeed, true, that he would have hired her for a housekeeper, whereof he stood greatly in need, seeing that his old Dorothy was already growing infirm; it was also true that he had yesterday questioned her in private, hoping to get her to confess by fair means, whereby her sentence would be softened, inasmuch as he had pity on her great youth; but that he had not 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 scratched him, while he played with it that very morning; that his old Dorothy could bear witness to this, and that the cunning witch had only made use of this wile to divide the court against itself, thereby, and with the devil's help, to gain her own advantage, inasmuch 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 lords.h.i.+p 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 lords.h.i.+p 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, "Oh, only a louse was creeping there, and I would have caught it."

At such impudence his wors.h.i.+p 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 lords.h.i.+p keeps the constable in order? and truly, in this whole matter there is something which pa.s.ses 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 both their wors.h.i.+ps 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 wors.h.i.+pful court; that his lords.h.i.+p 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 G.o.d, 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 cross-question 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:

_Quaestio_. 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 times carried home an ap.r.o.nful 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. G.o.d defend her from such a thing.

_Q_. So she could not bewitch?--_R_. No.

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