ng at her door knitting, with a black cap
upon her head, when this silly young lady passed, and taking her eyes from
her work she looked stedfastly at her. Mistress Joan immediately fancied
that she felt sudden pains in all her limbs, and from that day forth never
ceased to tell her sisters, and every body about her, that Mother Samuel
had bewitched her. The other children took up the cry, and actually
frightened themselves into fits whenever they passed within sight of this
terrible old woman.

Mr. and Mrs. Throgmorton, not a whit wiser than their children, believed
all the absurd tales they had been told; and Lady Cromwell, a gossip of
Mrs. Throgmorton, made herself very active in the business, and determined
to bring the witch to the ordeal. The sapient Sir Samuel joined in the
scheme; and the children, thus encouraged, gave loose reins to their
imaginations, which seem to have been of the liveliest. They soon invented
a whole host of evil spirits, and names for them besides, which they said
were sent by Mother Samuel to torment them continually. Seven spirits
especially, they said, were raised from hell by this wicked woman to throw
them into fits; and as the children were actually subject to fits, their
mother and her commeres gave the more credit to the story. The names of
these spirits were, "First Smack," "Second Smack," "Third Smack," "Blue,"
"Catch," "Hardname," and "Pluck."

Throgmorton, the father, was so pestered by these idle fancies, and yet so
well inclined to believe them, that he marched valiantly forth to the hut
where Mother Samuel resided with her husband and daughter, and dragged her
forcibly into his own grounds. Lady Cromwell, Mrs. Throgmorton, and the
girls were in waiting, armed with long pins to prick the witch, and see if
they could draw blood from her. Lady Cromwell, who seems to have been the
most violent of the party, tore the old woman's cap off her head, and
plucking out a handful of her grey hair, gave it to Mrs. Throgmorton to
burn, as a charm which would preserve them all from her future
machinations. It was no wonder that the poor creature, subjected to this
rough usage, should give vent to an involuntary curse upon her tormentors.
She did so, and her curse was never forgotten. Her hair, however, was
supposed to be a grand specific, and she was allowed to depart, half dead
with terror and ill-usage. For more than a year the families of Cromwell
and Throgmorton continued to persecute