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 sank 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 God therefor
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 cassock 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, "God comfort ye! Alas, that you should ever see your child to 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, "God the Father, dwell with us," as we drove past her; the which
vexed my poor child so sore that she swounded, 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 God 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 scraped 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 shied, 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 wouldst 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 lordship could answer before God 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 nought 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 we had come halfway 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 passed 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.
_The Eighteenth Chapter_