Mother Spuraway sat on a bench, somewhat cut off from the rest of the room by the heavy chairs of the Law and the Church. She sat crouched together, for the most part silent, her white hair straggling from beneath her cap, her lip fallen, her meagre, bloodless hands with high-raised veins plucking at the stuff of her old worn kirtle. The day was warm. The squire, heated and thirsty, sent across for a tankard of ale. When it was brought, he drank, set the vessel down, and wiped his mouth. “And now,” he said, “‘tis to find if, in getting two, we get all the vipers in the nest—” He did not think so himself; nor did Master Clement, nor did the throng of Hawthorn in the sexton’s room and without, pressing about door and window. The whispers had been continuous. It was much to have put an arresting hand upon one witch, and beyond doubt she was a witch and a _vera causa_! But for more years than a few Hawthorn had looked somewhat askance at Mother Spuraway. She had been among them for a long time, and these blackest happenings had not happened. Not in all these years the plague—never before at Hawthorn such a thing as the bold wounding of the squire’s brother—never before so many accidents of one kind and another! For new activities new beings.... The leech, of course, proved beyond all seeming to be so fell and wicked a man! But not the leech alone.... The feeling, whatever it was, was increasing. There seemed something pent and thunderous, lying in wait for its chance.... There were those now in the crowd who had not been here earlier, who, having heard what was toward, had made their way in after the first. Some came from without the village. The tinker was plain to the front. Midway of the room might be seen Will the smith’s son and his mother, and beside them Katherine Scott, the forester’s wife. At the back, in company with the Lukins, stood Alison Inch. The squire looked down at a piece of paper which he held in his hand. “Now what is this about a grey and white cat, and the burned cot in Hawthorn Wood?” There rose a murmur, like wind over sedge. It grew in volume, and out of it came clear a woman’s voice. “It’s her familiar. He gave it to her. The boys saw him give it to her at the burned cot.” The squire lifted himself a little—looked over the crowd. “Who spoke there? Come forward here, you who spoke!” A confusion; then Cecily Lukin was pushed to the front. She came protesting, her face flushed. “Oh, Your Honour, I didn’t know I was speaking so loud! I never meant to say anything—” “Nay, you _must_ say,” answered the squire. “He or she who keeps witness back will find trouble for their own part!” “I said naught,” said Cecily, “but that she had a grey and white cat which lay on the hearth or in the sun, and that once I did see it anger itself and grow larger than natural, and its eyes glowed like lanthorns and it went backward, rubbing itself against her skirt—” “Mother Spuraway’s skirt?”