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She is also the offspring of a man reputed to have bartered his soul to the Enemy of Mankind, while her mother was a witch. Both parents perished lamentably, about the time of Paslew's execution at Whalley." "It is a pity their miserable infant did not perish with them," observed Holden. "How much crime and misery would have been spared!" "It was otherwise ordained," replied Sudall.
"Much more favourably than I expected, squire," replied the chirurgeon. "He will be better left alone for awhile, and, as I shall not quit the village till evening, I shall be able to look well after him." "You think the attack occasioned by witchcraft of course, sir?" said Potts. "The poor fellow affirms it to be so, but I can give no opinion," replied Sudall, evasively.
"You do not attribute the attack to witchcraft, I suppose, Master Sudall?" said Richard. "I do not like to deliver an opinion, sir," replied the chirurgeon. "It is impossible to decide, when all the appearances are precisely like those of an ordinary attack of paralysis.
Medical assistance was fortunately at hand; for it chanced that Master Sudall, the chirurgeon of Colne, was in the house at the time, having been brought to Goldshaw by the great sickness that prevailed at Sabden and elsewhere in the neighbourhood.
Sudall was immediately in attendance upon the sufferer, and bled him copiously, after which the poor man seemed much easier; and Richard Assheton, taking the chirurgeon aside, asked his opinion of the case, and was told by Sudall that he did not think the pedlar's life in danger, but he doubted whether he would ever recover the use of his limbs.
"But their course is wellnigh run," said Potts, "and the time is come for the extirpation of the old serpents." "Ah! who is that at the window?" cried Sudall; "but that you are sitting near me, I should declare you were looking in at us." "It must be Master Potts's brother, the reeve of the forest," observed Nicholas, with a laugh.
"Christopher Demdike still lives, I believe," replied the chirurgeon, "though what has become of him I know not, for he has quitted these parts. He is as ill-reputed as his mother, and has the same strange and fearful look about the eyes." "I shall recognise him if I see him," observed Potts. "You are scarcely likely to meet him," returned Sudall, "for, as I have said, he has left the forest.
Strong water is a specific I always recommend under such circumstances, Master Sudall, and indeed adopt myself, and I am sure you will approve of it. Harkee, Bess, when you have ministered to poor Baldwyn's wants, I must crave your attention to my own, and beg you to fill me a tankard with your oldest ale, and toast me an oatcake to eat with it.
"The peculiarity in her case," observed Sudall, "and the circumstance distinguishing her dark and dread career from that of all other witches is, that it has been shaped out by destiny. When an infant, a malediction was pronounced upon her head by the unfortunate Abbot Paslew.
"She remained at Rough Lee for some years," returned Sudall, "and though accounted of an ill disposition, there was nothing to be alleged against her at the time; though afterwards, it was said, that some mishaps that befell the neighbours were owing to her agency, and that she was always attended by a familiar in the form of a rat or a mole.
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