“Cure diseases! God bless you, Master! why I’m a poor helpless old body, that can’t cure myself, and should starve but for pity,” said Margery. “However, may be, once or so in a quarter there comes some wilful body like Jock, with a tied-up face, and makes a witch of me, whether or no, and will have the charm. Then I take his loaf and his money, and I say,-- “‘My loaf in my lap, My penny in my purse; Thou art never the better; I’m never the worse.’” This confession was followed by laughter, in which most joined; and, except the clerk of the parish and the balked witch-finder, all dispersed in such good humour, that the poor old crone was released from her hurdle and her troublesome attendants, and, with a basket of broken meat and a bottle of ale, was suffered to hobble back to her hovel in the sand pit, without let or hinderance. It is true that Margery was most justly liable to the charge of imposture in the matter of Jock; and certain that, but for the easy and kind temper of the knight, and the good humour which her own quaint and jocular confession suddenly struck out of the wayward crowd, she might have been committed by Sir Oliver, or half drowned by the brutal and superstitious rustics on her road back to her miserable hovel. But as she lived at a lone spot on the far side of the Avon, and was not often seen in the parish of Milverton, and as the good knight (though by no means free from the prevalent belief in witchcraft, and still doubting whether under the form of a mouse she was not attended by an imp, as the witch-finder had averred,) was a timid magistrate, hated trouble, and sincerely feared doing what was either wrong in law or severe in punishment, he rejoiced to be well quit of the troublesome appeal. Nevertheless, he was not a little secretly disturbed, when, late in the evening, old Philip--in a fear which had not even yielded to the comforting warmth of a cup of spiced ale--related to him his comical dream, with manifold exaggerations, and expressed his stout belief that he had been possessed during his sleep by the evil influence of old Margery.