Leaning on his stick he pattered up the aisle, and stumblingly ascended the steps of the platform. “Ye do me great honour, worships,” he cackled, “to call on my poor wit.” “Give him a stool, for he is feeble,” said the chief justice; “a stool for the old man, good Beadle.” So a stool was brought and old Bartholomew seated upon it. He looked over the audience and at the row of judges. Then he spied Deliverance. “Ay, there her be, worships, there be the witch.” He pointed his trembling finger at her. “Ay, witch, the old man kens ye.” “When did you last see the prisoner?” asked the chief justice. “There her be, worships,” repeated the witness, “there be the witch, wi’ a white neck for stretching. Best be an old throat wi’ free breath, than a lassie’s neck wi’ a rope around it.” Deliverance shuddered. “Methinks no hag o’ the Evil One,” said she to herself, “be more given o’er to malice than this old fule, Lord forgive me for the calling o’ him by that name.” Now the judge in the black silk cap was moved to pity by the prisoner’s shudder, and spoke out sharply. “Let the witness keep to his story and answer the questions put to him in due order, or else he shall be put in the stocks.” “Up with your pate, goody,” admonished the Beadle, “and speak out that their worships may hear, or into the stocks ye go to sweat in the sun while the boys tickle the soles o’ your feet.” The witness wriggled uneasily as having had experience. “A week ago, or it be twa or three or four past, your worships, the day afore this time, ’twixt noon an’ set o’ sun, there had been thunder an’ crook’d lightning, an’ hags rode by i’ the wind on branches. All the milk clabbered, if that will holpen ye to ’membrance o’ the day, worships.” “Ay, reverend judges,” called out a woman’s voice from the audience, “sour milk the old silly brought me, four weeks come next Thursday. Good pence took he for his clabbered milk, and I was like to cuff——” “The ducking-stool awaits scolding wives,” interrupted the chief justice, with a menacing look, and the woman subsided. “That day at set o’ sun I was going into toone wi’ my buckets o’ milk when I spied a bramble rose. ‘Blushets,’ says I to them, ‘ye must be picked;’ for I thought to carry them to the toone an’ let them gae for summat gude to eat. So I set doone my pails to pull a handful o’ the pretty blushets. O’ raising my old een, my heart was like to jump out my throat, for there adoon the forest path, ’twixt the green, I saw the naughty maid i’ amiable converse wi’ Satan.” “Dear Lord,” interrupted the little maid, sharply, “he was a very pleasant gentleman.” “Silence!” cried the Beadle, tapping her head with his staff, on the end of which was a pewter-ball.