he Witch was then. In the
fourteenth century she saw open before her a horrible career of
torments lighted up for three or four hundred years by the stake.
After 1300 her medical knowledge is condemned as baleful, her remedies
are proscribed as if they were poisons. The harmless drawing of lots,
by which lepers then thought to better their luck, brought on a
massacre of those poor wretches. Pope John XXII. ordered the burning
of a bishop suspected of Witchcraft. Under a system of such blind
repression there was just the same risk in daring little as in daring
much. Danger itself made people bolder; and the Witch was able to dare
anything.

* * * * *

Human brotherhood, defiance of the Christian heaven, a distorted
worship of nature herself as God--such was the purport of the Black
Mass.

They decked an altar to the arch-rebel of serfs, _to Him who had been
so wronged_, the old outlaw, unfairly hunted out of heaven, "the
Spirit by whom earth was made, the Master who ordained the budding of
the plants." Such were the names of honour given him by his
worshippers, the _Luciferians_, and also, according to a very likely
opinion, by the Knights of the Temple.

The greatest miracle of those unhappy times is, the greater abundance
found at the nightly communion of the brotherhood, than was to be
found elsewhere by day. By incurring some little danger the Witch
levied her contributions from those who were best off, and gathered
their offerings into a common fund. Charity in a Satanic garb grew
very powerful, as being a crime, a conspiracy, a form of rebellion.
People would rob themselves of their food by day for the sake of the
common meal at night.

* * * * *

Figure to yourself, on a broad moor, and often near an old Celtic
cromlech, at the edge of a wood, this twofold scene: on one side a
well-lit moor and a great feast of the people; on the other, towards
yon wood, the choir of that church whose dome is heaven. What I call
the choir is a hill commanding somewhat the surrounding country.
Between these are the yellow flames of torch-fires, and some red
brasiers emitting a fantastic smoke. At the back of all is the Witch,
dressing up her Satan, a great wooden devil, black and shaggy. By his
horns, and the goatskin near him, he might be Bacchus; but his manly
attributes make him a Pan or a Priapus. It is a darksome figure, seen
differently by different eyes;