fighting with Pluck about her, for they were both in love with her, and
had fought with great cowl staves last night in old dame's back yard, and
Smack had broken Pluck's head, for which Mrs. Joan was not at all
thankful, but, when he looked for a little loving word of gratitude,
answered, scornfully, that she wished Pluck had broke his neck also, and
so bid him go and be hanged for she would have nought to do with him.
Presently in came Mr. Pluck, hanging down his broken head and looking very
sheepish, but jealous and angry with Smack who seemed to have the best
chance of them all with the young lady. Another day it was Catch who came
in limping, with a broken leg got from the redoubtable Smack; but when
Mrs. Joan tried to break his other leg with a stick she had in her
hand--for she was a very scornful young lady to them--she could not; for
ever as she struck at him he leaped over the stick, "just like a
Jack-an-apes," as she said. Mr. Blew's turn came next. He appeared before
her at supper with his arm in a sling: Smack had broken it. So Smack broke
Pluck's head, Catch's leg, and Blew's arm, and then came himself to tell
her that he would beat them all again, with the help of his cousin another
Smack, and one Hardname, whose "Name standeth upon eight Letters, and
every Letter standeth for a Word, but what his Name is otherwise we know
not." Then Smack and she conversed about the propriety of "scratching"
Agnes Samuel; and it was agreed between them that she should not scratch
her then, because her face would be healed by the Assizes, but just before
that time when all the world might see the marks.

And now began a scene of painful brutality. Whenever the children fell
into their fits, they would only consent to be got out of them by Agnes'
repeating a form of conjuration, in which she acknowledged herself to be a
witch and guilty of their disease, commanding the devil, whom she had sent
into them, to leave them. Then they came round, and were well until
strangers called, when they invariably went off into their fits--which we
can quite well understand--or until they got tired of the monotony of
health. The most terrible threats were held out against Nan Samuel; and
each child talked to its particular spirit with passion and fury of
scratching her. It came at last: the little diabolical tempers which rose
higher and higher with each fresh indulgence, getting weary of only fits
and muttered communications with spirits