The Amber Witch

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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 apron. 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 apron and sobbed and could not
get out a single word; whereupon my child drew away the apron 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 shore, 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.

_The Seventeenth Chapter_

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 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_

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,
wherein sat his worship, 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 worshipful 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 worship 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 God's name; and he wished with
all his heart that all whereof my daughter was filed might prove to be
foul lies. Nevertheless I had still to wait two hours before their
worships 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. God is thus able to
preserve our lives even by means of a poor flower, if so he wills it!

At length their worships 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, 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 ungodly 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 God 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 God his sake,
speak, what is this that I hear of your lordship?" Whereupon the Sheriff,
without changing colour, answered that although, indeed, he was not called
upon to say anything to their worships, 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 lordship 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 lordship 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 worship 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 lordship keeps the constable in
order? and truly, in this whole matter, there is something which passes 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 worships 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 worshipful court; that his lordship
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 God, and openly to confess everything, so as to
soften her punishment; whereby she might perchance, in pity for her youth,
escape with life, etc.

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 apronful 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_. God 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.

_Q_. Then it would be as strange a question, why Katie Berow her little
pig had died?

_R_. Assuredly; she wondered what they would lay to her charge.

_Q_. Then she had not bewitched them?

_R_. No; God forbid it.

_Q_. Why, then, if she were innocent, had she promised old Katie another
little pig, when her sow should litter?

_R_. She did that out of kind-heartedness. (And hereupon she began to weep
bitterly, and said she plainly saw that she had to thank old Lizzie Kolken
for all this, inasmuch as she had often threatened her when she would not
fulfil all her greedy desires, for she wanted everything that came in her
way; moreover, that Lizzie had gone all about the village when the cattle
were bewitched, persuading the people that if only a pure maid pulled a
few hairs out of the beasts' tails they would get better. That she pitied
them, and knowing herself to be a maid, went to help them; and indeed, at
first it cured them, but latterly not.)

_Q_. What cattle had she cured?

_R_. Zabel his red cow; _item_, Witthan her pig, and old Lizzie's own cow.

_Q_. Why could she afterwards cure them no more?

_R_. She did not know, but thought--albeit she had no wish to fyle any
one--that old Lizzie Kolken, who for many a long year had been in common
repute as a witch, had done it all, and bewitched the cows in her name and
then charmed them back again, as she pleased, only to bring her to
misfortune.

_Q_. Why, then, had old Lizzie bewitched her own cow, _item_, suffered her
own pig to die, if it was she that had made all the disturbance in the
village, and could really charm?

_R_. She did not know; but belike there was some one (and here she looked
at the Sheriff) who paid her double for it all.

_Q_. It was in vain that she sought to shift the guilt from off herself;
had she not bewitched old Paasch his crop, nay, even her own father's, and
caused it to be trodden down by the devil, _item_, conjured all the
caterpillars into her father's orchard?

_R_. The question was almost as monstrous as the deed would have been.
There sat her father, and his worship might ask him whether she ever had
shown herself an undutiful child to him. (Hereupon I would have risen to
speak, but _Dom. Consul_ suffered me not to open my mouth, but went on
with his examination; whereupon I remained silent and downcast.)

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