ingly.

"I think, Sir," continued the soldier, "it would be as well to leave
her property untouched, one never knows how she may revenge herself. It
once came to pass, that the Magistrate at Mosbach, after he had
confiscated the witch's rubbish, went quietly to bed thinking that his
beloved wife was already there; she however turned out to be the witch,
pulled his leg out of the socket and otherwise injured him, then she
vanished up the chimney, and what he had taken from her, had the next
morning disappeared, in spite of having been carefully deposited under
lock and key. I vote that we leave it all, as it is."

The Magistrate turned pale. "We can perhaps affix a seal," he murmured.
At this instant a long dark figure appeared at the doorway. "Good
Heavens," ejaculated the sergeant.

"Holy Martin," stuttered out the Magistrate, utterly regardless of the
protestant doctrines.

"Is not the Counsellor Erastus here?" inquired Magister Laurenzano in
his musical voice.

"Oh, is it you, Magister," said the Magistrate quite relieved. "You
will find the Counsellor in the village, but could you not tell us,
where to find the old witch, who lives in this hole?"

"What is she guilty of now?" asked Paul.

The Amtmann answered pathetically. "Strong evidence is adduced, that it
was she, who caused the pestilence." Seeing the Magister turn pale,
Herr Hartmann raised his arm in a tragic manner. The sight of the
learned and renowned pulpit orator inspired him. "Not without reason,"
began he his declamation, "is this wicked old woman named Sibylla. She
has gathered near the Linsenteich the herbs, whose juices, as Plinius
tells us, infuse corruption through all the channels of the body. By
the white stone, where thorn and thistle thickly growing prevent an
access, by the marshy alder stream, by all solitary moors, among the
reedy thickets of the Kimmelsbach, in short everywhere, where the tread
of man is seldom heard, has she been seen crouching, ensnaring toads
and conversing with will-o-the wisps. Among the ruins of the
Heiligenberg, where vipers wreath, and in yonder silent woods, where
the mountain-cock was her solitary companion, has she been seen, as she
divided the invisible regions of the air with hazel-twigs, brought down
hail, and murmured invocations whilst crouching in the dust. She has
poisoned the source of this brook, so that it brought the plague into
the town, and transformed in the similitude of a dog has dropped