The Witch Judge was to most a fearful delight. No silent, listening, seldom-speaking judge was he! He had a voice like rolling thunder and an animus against just those wrongs judgement upon which had swelled his reputation. He overbore; he thundered in where Jove would have left matters to lesser divinities; he questioned, answered, tried, and judged. He loved to hear his own voice and took and made occasions. Nor would he hasten to the end, but preferred to draw matters out in long reverberations. He was prepared to give a week, if need be, to this trial which was concluded ere he took his seat. In all, in the Hawthorn matter, there were eight folk to be tried. Destroy one, destroy all, principal and accessories, the whole hung together! But he was prepared with devices and flourishes, and for each soul on trial specific attention and cat-and-mouse play, for the Witch Judge loved to show his variousness.... The practice of the age was everywhere elastic enough, but in no trials so licensed as in such as this. What need for scruples when you dealt with Satan?... No counsel was allowed the prisoners. If ever there was floating in the air a notion that the judge should be counsel for prisoners, guarding them from injustice and oppression, it had made no lodgement in this judge’s ear. The writ _de hæretico comburendo_! The Witch Judge thundered forth the text of it, then preached his sermon. This wretched man, this wicked leech, this miscreant, blasphemer, and infidel had made confession of his crime of apostasy—the most enormous under heaven—confessing it without tears, shame, or penitence! Confessing! nay, avowing, upholding—The Witch Judge glowed fuliginous; his voice of horror seemed to come from the caverns of the earth. “He denieth the actuality of the Holy Trinity—he saith that the world was not made in six days and is not composed and constructed as set forth in the Holy Scriptures—he refuseth to believe in the remission of sins by the shedding of blood—No language nor tongues,” cried the Witch Judge, “can set forth the enormity of his error, sin, and crime! Let him burn, as God saith he will burn, through eternity and back again!” The phrase caught the fancy of the throng. It came back in a deep and satisfied murmur. _Through eternity and back again._ On crackled and roared the Witch Judge’s thunder. Convict by manifold testimony and impeccable witnesses, and wholly and terminably convict by his own confession without violence, it remained—the authority of Holy Religion and the Ecclesiastical Court being present in the person of my Lord Bishop—it remained but to give judgement and pass sentence upon the apostate! In regard to his apostasy. But this wicked leech rested also under a charge of sorcery—sorcery of the blackest—sorcery which he obdurately denied! Let him, then, before judgement given, be tried for his sorcery—he with these wretched others, for Satan hunteth not with one beagle, but with many!