d herself to me for my charity. Her dress and figure put me
in mind of the following description in Otway:--

In a close lane as I pursu'd my journey,
I spy'd a wrinkled Hag, with age grown double,
Picking dry sticks, and mumbling to herself.
Her eyes with scalding rheum were gall'd and red;
Cold palsy shook her head; her hands seem'd wither'd;
And on her crooked shoulders had she wrapp'd
The tatter'd remnants of an old strip'd hanging,
Which serv'd to keep her carcase from the cold:
So there was nothing of a piece about her.
Her lower weeds were all o'er coarsely patch'd
With diff'rent-colour'd rags, black, red, white, yellow,
And seem'd to speak variety of wretchedness.

As I was musing on this description, and comparing it with the object
before me, the Knight told me, that this very old woman had the
reputation of a witch all over the country, that her lips were observed
to be always in motion, and that there was not a switch about her house
which her neighbours did not believe had carried her several hundreds of
miles. If she chanced to stumble, they always found sticks or straws that
lay in the figure of a cross before her. If she made any mistake at
church, and cried Amen in a wrong place, they never failed to conclude
that she was saying her prayers backwards. There was not a maid in the
parish that would take a pin of her, though she should offer a bag of
money with it. She goes by the name of Moll White, and has made the
country ring with several imaginary exploits which are palmed upon her.
If the dairy-maid does not make the butter come so soon as she would have
it, Moll White is at the bottom of the churn. If a horse sweats in the
stable, Moll White has been upon his back. If a hare makes an unexpected
escape from the hounds, the huntsman curses Moll White. "Nay," (says Sir
Roger) "I have known the master of the pack, upon such an occasion, send
one of his servants to see if Moll White had been out that morning."

[Illustration: Moll White]

This account raised my curiosity so far, that I begged my friend Sir
Roger to go with me into her hovel, which stood in a solitary corner
under the side of the wood. Upon our first entering Sir Roger winked to
me, and pointed at something that stood behind the door, which, upon
looking that way, I found to be an old broomstaff. At the same time he
whispered me in the ear to take notice of a tabby cat that sat in the