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"Yo mun knoa ey wur crossing the hill fro' Cown to Rough Lee, wi' my pack upon my shouthers, when who should ey meet boh Mother Demdike, an hoo axt me to gi' her some scithers an pins, boh, os ill luck wad ha' it, ey refused.
With a word, I could shower stones upon thy head, and crush thee to dust. With a word, I could make the earth swallow thee up. With a word, I could whisk thee hence to the top of Pendle Hill. Ha! ha! Dost fear me now?" "No," replied Richard, undauntedly. "And the word thou menacest me with shall never be uttered." "Why not?" asked Mother Demdike, derisively.
Thou must recite twenty paternosters daily, fasting, for one month; and afterwards perform a pilgrimage to the shrine of our Lady of Gilsland. Bess Demdike is an approved and notorious witch, and hath been seen by credible witnesses attending a devil's sabbath on this very hill Heaven shield us!
"It is needless to take further trouble, my lord," replied Demdike "I am come to offer myself as executioner." "Thou!" exclaimed the earl. "Ay," replied the other. "When I heard that the men from Lancaster were fled, I instantly knew that some scheme to frustrate the ends of justice was on foot, and I at once resolved to undertake the office myself rather than delay or risk should occur.
"It may be because I reside near them that I have so little apprehension, or rather no apprehension at all," replied Mistress Nutter; "but to me Mother Demdike and Mother Chattox appear two harmless old women." "They're a couple of dangerous and damnable old hags, and deserve the stake," cried Nicholas, emphatically.
"But, as I said just now, I like not this Mother Demdike, nor her rival in iniquity, old Mother Chattox. The devil only knows which of the two is worst. But if the former hag did not bewitch your husband to death, as I shrewdly suspect, it is certain that the latter mumbling old miscreant killed my elder brother, Richard, by her sorceries."
"As to Elizabeth Device, she is bad enough for any thing, and capable of almost any mischief: but she is nothing to Jennet, who, I am persuaded, would become a second Mother Demdike if her career were not cut short. You have seen the child, and know what an ill-favoured, deformed little creature she is, with round high shoulders, eyes set strangely in her face, and such a malicious expression oh!
"Then I suppose you pay tribute to Mother Chattox, hostess?" cried Potts, "butter, eggs, and milk from the farm, ale and wine from the cellar, with a flitch of bacon now and then, ey?" "Nay, by th' maskins! ey gi' her nowt," cried Bess. "Then you bribe Mother Demdike, and that comes to the same thing," said Potts.
All I require is, that you clear me completely from the dark aspersions cast upon my character, and you abandon your projects against my adopted daughter, Alizon, as well as against those two poor old women, Mothers Demdike and Chattox."
"Oh! no impossible! you deceive me," cried the wretched girl. "I tell thee she consented," rejoined Mother Demdike, coldly; "and on this she made instant arrangements to return home, and in spite as thou know'st of Sir Ralph and Lady Assheton's efforts to detain her, set forth with thee."
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