“The headsman had grown old in those seven years: his silver hair hung scantily over his temples; his high bald brow was crossed with furrows; his long beard resembled thick snow-flakes; but still he was strong and vigorous. From his short and muscular neck his broad shoulders spread in powerful development; his long arms were nervous, his fists of iron; his eyes glittered as in the days of his prime; and the dusky red of his countenance bore witness that the old man had not yet abandoned the pleasures of the bottle, in spite of the gout, whose presence was indicated by his wide shapeless boots of soft buckskin. On beholding him, a cold shudder came over me; and yet it needed an effort not to fall into his arms and greet him with the name of father, and offer my aid in his horrible office. Behind him stood his assistant, a stout young fellow, in whose features and reddish hair I recognised Grethel’s son.” Here a touch of witchcraft comes in; Blutrude, after terrible tortures, confessing her dealings with the demon, and implicating Grethel and her son, the former of whom had long been in the habit of accompanying her once in the year to a witches’ sabbath upon the Blocksberg, whilst an evil spirit assumed her form in her husband’s couch. Upon receiving this startling information, old Benz falls down, struck with apoplexy, and presently expires, in spite of the remedies applied by Berthold, who in his emotion betrays himself as the headsman’s son. He is immediately seized, and put in irons. His life is in danger, for he has incurred the penalty of the gallows by daring to mix with his fellow-men, and to forget the stigma and isolation prescribed by his birth. But the executioner being dead, his youngest son accused of witchcraft, and the prison full of criminals, several of whom are soon to be put to the torture, the authorities let Berthold, go free, on condition of his assuming his father’s office. To this he consents, as the only means of escaping the halter, and at once takes possession of the house whose threshold he had expected never again to cross.