Mrs. Joan, or Jane, “that you are able to beat them; you are little, and they very big.”  “He cared not for that,” he replied; “he would beat the best two of them, and his cousins Smacks would beat the other two.”  This most pitiful mirth, for such it certainly is, was mixed with tragedy enough.  Miss Throgmorton and her sisters railed against Darne Samuel; and when Mr. Throgmorton brought her to his house by force, the little fiends longed to draw blood of her, scratch her, and torture her, as the witch-creed of that period recommended; yet the poor woman incurred deeper suspicion when she expressed a wish to leave a house where she was so coarsely treated and lay under such odious suspicions.

It was in vain that this unhappy creature endeavoured to avert their resentment by submitting to all the ill-usage they chose to put upon her; in vain that she underwent unresistingly the worst usage at the hand of Lady Cromwell, her landlady, who, abusing her with the worst epithets, tore her cap from her head, clipped out some of her hair, and gave it to Mrs. Throgmorton to burn it for a counter-charm.  Nay, Mother Samuel’s complaisance in the latter case only led to a new charge.  It happened that the Lady Cromwell, on her return home, dreamed of her day’s work, and especially of the old dame and her cat; and, as her ladyship died in a year and quarter from that very day, it was sagaciously concluded that she must have fallen a victim to the witcheries of the terrible Dame Samuel.  Mr. Throgmorton also compelled the old woman and her daughter to use expressions which put their lives in the power of these malignant children, who had carried on the farce so long that they could not well escape from their own web of deceit but by the death of these helpless creatures.  For example, the prisoner, Dame Samuel, was induced to say to the supposed spirit, “As I am a witch, and a causer of Lady Cromwell’s death, I charge thee to come out of the maiden.”  The girl lay still; and this was accounted a proof that the poor woman, who, only subdued and crushed by terror and tyranny, did as she was bidden, was a witch.  One is ashamed of an English judge and jury when it must be repeated that the evidence of these enthusiastic and giddy-pated girls was deemed sufficient to the condemnation of three innocent persons.  Goody Samuel, indeed, was at length worried into a confession of her guilt by the various vexations which were practised on her.  But her husband and daughter continued to maintain their innocence.  The last showed a high spirit and proud value for her character.  She was advised by some, who pitied her youth, to gain at least a respite by pleading pregnancy; to which she answered disdainfully, “No, I will not be both held witch and strumpet!” The mother, to show her sanity of mind and the real value of her confession, caught at the advice recommended to her daughter.  As her years put such a plea out of the question, there was a laugh among the unfeeling