Will Your Grace try and remember what a terrible
whirlwind we had on the 4th _hujus_, which tore slates off roofs, blew
down chimneys, and tore up the oldest trees in the park. The Morning of
that very day, the young maiden drew water at sunrise out of the well,
though she had previously passed the spring, where she could have
provided herself more easily. This drawing was nothing but a pretext,
to throw three sage-leaves into the well, which together with the
repetition of a terrible incantation always calls forth a storm. On her
return from this criminal walk she had a blood-red rose in a glass; the
Castellan's maid, 'carotty Frances' she is called in the Schloss, asked
her where she had picked the flower as no roses grew in the Court-yard,
and what answer did the young damsel return? 'From the stone-wreath
over your door'!"

"Servants' tales," said the Kurfuerst disdainfully. "Of what use would a
storm have been to her which broke in her fathers' windows as well as
mine."

"She sought an opportunity of alluring the architect Laurenzano. When
the storm burst she enticed him from the rocking scaffolding into her
room, and got engaged to him at the very hour, when other Christian
maidens were kneeling in terror at the sulphurous lightning and hellish
stormwind."

The Kurfuerst became pensive. "That was told me by Erastus himself," he
thought. "The two circumstances look badly. Who are the three
witnesses, before whom she rendered herself invisible?" he then asked
of the Magistrate.

"The sons of the landlord of the Rose and Maier the Miller's apprentice
from the valley of the Siebenmuehlen."

"Bad characters, are they not?"

"Well that is as one thinks. The miller's apprentice is a hard-headed
and daring fellow who fears neither witch nor devil. He has even
overheard the black mass, performed near the white stone."

"What, do witches' conventicles take place in my dominions?" asked the
Kurfuerst horrified.

"Not two hours from Your Grace's own town." The eyes of the stout Count
became larger and larger. "Your Highness knows the desolate table land
above the spring of the valley of the Siebenmuehlen; a barren mountain
ridge, covered with thistles, blackberry bushes and strewn over with
rocks. 'The white stone' is the name of this desolate spot. Near to
this begins the wood which intersects the higher road. It was on
Midsummer's day, the miller's man was tracking a stag, when his eye
caught sight of a small fir