to death and their crops to ruin, and, as a climax to
all, taking off their stockings to raise a storm. It may well be so, but I
have not met with it in any reliable shape, so meanwhile we must accept
Jane Wenham as the last officially condemned.

THE WITCH OF WALKERNE.[159]

Jane Wenham was the witch of Walkerne, a little village in the north of
Hertford. She had long lived under ill fame, and her neighbours were
resolved to get rid of her at the earliest opportunity. That opportunity
presented itself in the person of John Chapman's man, one Matthew Gilson,
whom Jane sent into a daft state by asking him for a pennyworth of straw,
which he refused to give her. The old woman went away, muttering and
complaining, whereupon Matthew, impelled by he knew not what impulse, ran
out of the barn for a distance of three miles, asking as he went for
pennyworths of straw. Not getting any, he went on to some dirt heaps, and
gathered up straw from them, which he put in his shirt and brought home. A
witness testified that he had seen Gilson come back with his shirt stuffed
full of straw, that he moved along quickly, and walked straight through
the water, instead of passing over the bridge like any other decent man.
For this odd behaviour of his servant, John Chapman, who had all along
suspected Jane of more cunning than was good for him or her--called her a
witch the next time he saw her; and Jane took him before the magistrate,
Sir Herbert Chauncey, to answer to the charge of defamation. But the
magistrate recommended them to go to Mr. Gardiner the minister, and a
great believer in witchcraft, and get their matter settled without more
trouble or vexation. Mr. Gardiner was too zealous to be just. He scolded
poor old Jane roundly, and advised her to live more peaceably with her
neighbours--which was just what she wanted to do--and gave as his award
that Chapman do pay the fine of one shilling. While this bit of one-sided
justice was going on, Anne Thorne, Mr. Gardiner's servant, was sitting by
the fire with a dislocated knee. Jane, not able to compass her wicked will
on Chapman, and angry that Mr. Gardiner had spoken so harshly to her,
turned her malice on the girl, and bewitched her, so that as soon as they
all left the kitchen Anne felt a strange "Roaming in her Head, and she
thought she must of Necessity run somewhere." In spite then of her
dislocated knee, she started off and ran up the close, and away over a
five-barred gate "as