grass, and bounded over the
wall in fruitless chase. But on went the more giddy of the mob, rather
in sport than in cruelty, with a chorus of drunken apprentices and
riotous boys, to the spot where the humpbacked tinker had dragged
his passive burden. The foul green pond near Master Sancroft's hostel
reflected the glare of torches; six of the tymbesteres, leaping and
wheeling, with doggerel song and discordant music, gave the signal for
the ordeal of the witch,--

"Lake or river, dyke or ditch,
Water never drowns the witch.
Witch or wizard would ye know?
Sink or swim, is ay or no.
Lift her, swing her, once and twice,
Lift her, swing her o'er the brim,--
Lille--lera--twice and thrice
Ha! ha! mother, sink or swim!"

And while the last line was chanted, amidst the full jollity of laughter
and clamour and clattering timbrels, there was a splash in the sullen
water; the green slough on the surface parted with an oozing gurgle, and
then came a dead silence.

"A murrain on the hag! she does not even struggle!" said, at last, the
hump-backed tinker.

"No,--no! she cares not for water. Try fire! Out with her! out!" cried
Red Grisell.

"Aroint her! she is sullen!" said the tinker, as his lean fingers
clutched up the dead body, and let it fall upon the margin. "Dead!" said
the baker, shuddering; "we have done wrong,--I told ye so! She dealt
with me many a year. Poor Madge! Right's right. She was no witch!"

"But that was the only way to try it," said the humpbacked tinker; "and
if she was not a witch, why did she look like one? I cannot abide ugly
folks!"

The bystanders shook their heads. But whatever their remorse, it was
diverted by a double sound: first, a loud hurrah from some of the mob
who had loitered for pillage, and who now emerged from Adam's house,
following two men, who, preceded by the terrible Graul, dancing before
them, and tossing aloft her timbrel, bore in triumph the captured
Eureka; and, secondly, the blast of a clarion at the distance, while
up the street marched--horse and foot, with pike and banner--a goodly
troop. The Lord Hastings in person led a royal force, by a night march,
against a fresh outbreak of the rebels, not ten miles from the city,
under Sir Geoffrey Gates, who had been lately arrested by the Lord
Howard at Southampton, escaped, collected a disorderly body of such
restless men as are always disposed to take part in civil commotion, and
no