e chances are
that he would have more broken bones than thanks for his interference. Let
any man walk into Cross Street, Hatton Garden, and from thence into
Bleeding-heart Yard, and learn the tales still told and believed of one
house in that neighbourhood, and he will ask himself in astonishment if
such things can be in the nineteenth century. The witchcraft of Lady
Hatton, the wife of the famous Sir Christopher, so renowned for his
elegant dancing in the days of Elizabeth, is as devoutly believed as the
Gospels. The room is to be seen where the devil seized her after the
expiration of the contract he had made with her, and bore her away bodily
to the pit of Tophet: the pump against which he dashed her is still
pointed out, and the spot where her heart was found, after he had torn it
out of her bosom with his iron claws, has received the name of
Bleeding-heart Yard, in confirmation of the story. Whether the horse-shoe
still remains upon the door of the haunted house, to keep away other
witches, is uncertain. A former inmate relates that, "about twenty years
ago, more than one old woman begged for admittance repeatedly, to satisfy
themselves that it was in its proper place. One poor creature, apparently
insane, and clothed in rags, came to the door with a tremendous
double-knock, as loud as that of a fashionable footman, and walked
straight along the passage to the horse-shoe. Great was the wonderment of
the inmates, especially when the woman spat upon the horse-shoe, and
expressed her sorrow that she could do no harm while it remained there.
After spitting upon, and kicking it again and again, she coolly turned
round and left the house, without saying a word to any body. This poor
creature perhaps intended a joke, but the probability is that she imagined
herself a witch. In Saffron Hill, where she resided, her ignorant
neighbours gave her that character, and looked upon her with no little
fear and aversion."

More than one example of the popular belief in witchcraft occurred in the
neighbourhood of Hastings so lately as the year 1830. An aged woman, who
resided in the Rope-walk of that town, was so repulsive in her appearance,
that she was invariably accused of being a witch by all the ignorant
people who knew her. She was bent completely double; and though very old,
her eye was unusually bright and malignant. She wore a red cloak, and
supported herself on a crutch: she was, to all outward appearance, the
very _beau id