nimbly as a greyhound," along the highway and up a
hill. And there she met two of John Chapman's men, who wanted her to go
home with them; and one took her hand; but she was forced away from them,
speechless, and not of her own volition, and so was driven on, on, towards
Cromer, where the great sea would have either stopped or received her. But
when she came to Hockney Lane, she met there a "little Old Woman muffled
up in a Riding-Hood," who asked her whither she was going. "To Cromer,"
says Anne, "for sticks to make me a fire." "There be no sticks at Cromer,"
says the little old woman in the riding hood: "here be sticks enow; go to
that oak tree and pluck them there." Which Anne did, laying them on the
ground as they were gathered. Then the old woman bade her pull off her
gown and apron, and wrap the sticks in them; asking her if she had ne'er a
pin about her; but finding that she had not, she gave her a large crooked
pin, with which she bade her pin her bundle, then vanished away. So Anne
Thorne ran home half naked, with her bundle of leaves and sticks in her
hand, and sat down in the kitchen, crying out "I am ruined and undone!"

When Mrs. Gardiner had opened the bundle, and seen all the twigs and
leaves, she said they would burn the witch, and not wait long about it; so
they flung the twigs and leaves into the fire; and while they were burning
in came Jane Wenham, asking for Anne's mother, for she had, she said, a
message to her, how that she was to go and wash next day at Ardley Bury,
Sir Herbert Chauncey's place: which on inquiry turned out to be a
falsehood: consequently Jane Wenham was set down doubly as a witch, the
charm of burning her in the sticks having proved so effectual. John
Chapman and his men then told their tale. Mr. Gardiner was not slow in
fanning the flame into a fire, and poor old Jane was examined, searched
for marks but none found, and committed to gaol, there to wait her trial
at the next assizes. She earnestly entreated not to go to prison;
protested her innocence, and appealed to Mrs. Gardiner to help her,
woman-like, and not to swear against her; offering to submit to be
swum--anything they would--so that she might be kept free of jail. But Sir
Herbert Chauncey was just manly and rational enough not to allow of this
test, though the Vicar of Ardeley tried her with the Lord's Prayer, which
she could not repeat: and terrified and tortured her into a kind of
confession, wherein she implicated t