"You are right," replied Johannes. "This people needs the teaching of centuries." "Well, my good fellow," he said, again addressing the peasant, "what happened then?" "Why, that very night, after the doctor was gone, the Hartwich came to the woman and offered her money,--I suppose to induce her to hold her tongue,--but the poor thing showed her the door, and told her what she thought of her." "That was her thanks!" murmured Johannes. "Since then she goes to see no one, and we are quit of her." "Was this unfortunate instance the only one?" asked Johannes, "or has she done any further mischief?" "Oh, yes, quantities! Once she persuaded a man to go to the city and have his leg taken off,--he had injured it ten years before. The man died in the city, and left a wife and children. If that witch had not sent him there, he would have been living still. He had managed to live with the injury ten years, and he might have borne it ten more. The poor widow heaped her with curses!" Johannes exchanged glances with Hilsborn. "Do you, too, believe that she is a witch?" he asked the peasant. "Well, if I don't exactly believe that, I know well enough that no blessing can attend her, for she does not love God." "How do you know that?" "Oh, there are a great many signs of it. She does not like to hear him mentioned,--she never goes to church, and doesn't pray at home." "You cannot be sure of that," said Johannes. "Oho! yes, I can, for Harcher's Kunigunda is a maid at the castle, and she tells us all about it. For one thing, there used to be a bell-tower up there, and the bell was always rung for prayers, morning and evening, in old times. It was right and good to hear the bell ringing with the one in the village church, and we were used to it, and liked it. Even when the last of the family up there died, the village congregation gave the castellan two bags of potatoes every year that he might allow the ringing to continue. But when the Hartwich came, what did she do? Why, she tore down the bell-tower and made it into an observatory, as she calls it, where she sits for nights long and counts the stars." "Well, if she looks up into heaven so much, she must surely think of God and his works there," rejoined Johannes smiling, "and those who love to pray do not need to be reminded of it by the ringing of bells." "No, no! that is not so," the peasant obstinately maintained. "She does not wish to be reminded of prayer, or she would have loved the clear sound of the bell, as we did, and would have left it hanging where it had rung out comfort and religion for a hundred years. She might have built her star-chamber upon the old tower all the same, if she had wanted to,--but she did not want to,--and so we hated her from the first." Johannes and Hilsborn looked grave.