It was towards the close of an autumnal evening, in the commencement of the sixteenth century, that a crowd of human beings was dispersing from the old market-place of Hammelburg, an ancient and, at that time, considerable town of Franconia, after witnessing the performance of a hideous and living tragedy. The Ober-Amtmann, or governor of the town, who had presided over the awful occasion, had left, attended by his schreibers, or secretaries, the small balustraded terrace which advanced out before the elevated entrance of the old Gothic town-hall. The town-guard were receding in various directions, warning the crowd to seek their homes, and sometimes aiding with a gentle admonition of their pike-heads those who lingered, as, slowly retreating, they moved down the different narrow streets that led from the central market-place, like streams flowing off in different channels after an inundation. Window after window was closing in the quaintly-carved and strangely-decorated gables of the houses; and many a small casement had been pulled to, over sundry withered old faces, that, peering from the dark and narrow aperture, and illumined by the glaring light that had filled the market-place, had resembled some darkly-traced picture placed against the opening. In the middle of the square still smoked, in a heavy volume of cloud, the last gleaming ashes of a lately blazing pile, still filling the air with a noisome stench. The night was closing darkly in, and one human being alone seemed yet to linger in the market-place.

It would have been difficult, indeed, to discover that the dark object just discernible upon the edge of the blackened mass of smoking cinders really was a human being, so shapeless was the form, so strangely was it crouched down before the spot where the pile had been consumed. From time to time only an upward-flung movement of two thin arms, as if in the violent emotion of earnest prayer or deprecation, showed that this object was a living thing; until, when the moon rose from behind the old town-hall, disengaging itself, ever and anon, from among the heavy clouds of a gathering storm, its light fell full upon this indistinct apparition, and revealed the form of a man, curiously bent together in a half-squatting, half-kneeling position. His head was bare. His long tangled black locks hung around a swarthy face, young still in years, but worn and withered, and prematurely aged by sickness, sorrow, or violence of passion—perhaps by the constant operation of all three. At this moment it was ghastly pale, and bore the marks of the faintness and exhaustion attendant upon a reaction after intense excitement. The dress of this creature was not the usual costume of the lower classes, and consisted almost entirely of a ragged and soiled garment of coarse brown linen, made somewhat in the shape of a modern blouse, and bound round his waist by a coarse leathern band. Around his neck hung a square bag, or satchel, which at once designated his calling to be that of a common beggar, privileged by the religious authorities of the place. The stoop of his broad shoulders, between which the head was deeply sunk, told a tale of long sickness, which had broken a frame originally bold and strong, and given a peculiarly ill-favoured appearance to a form naturally well built; and when he arose from his squatting posture, the bent and withered appearance of his crooked legs, which no longer possessed sufficient strength to support the bulkier frame above, gave painful evidence that the wretched man had suffered cruelly from those common scourges of his class at that period—rheumatism and ague. Clasped between his hands was a rosary of wood; and, as he rose, he pressed it to his lips, and then deposited it in the upper part of his garment.

“No, no!” exclaimed the cripple aloud, when he had staggered to his feet. “No, it is not vengeance—it is not, God knows; although the malevolence of those hideous and accursed hags, those lemans of Satan”—and he spat upon the ground—“have made me the wretched outcast of humanity I am. The blood of the foul one has been shed for His glory only, and that of the blessed Virgin, to the destruction of the arch-enemy of mankind and his delusions!”

“Thou knowest it is so,” he added, again clutching forth the rosary from his bosom, which, after gazing upon a rude personification of the Virgin, stamped upon a tiny plate of copper at the end of the string of beads, and devoutly making the sign of the cross, he returned to its usual depository.

“I have cried against the handmaid of Beelzebub—uttering cry for cry as she shrieked out her wretched soul. I have prayed earnestly and long, and I am athirst,” continued the cripple, as he dragged his distorted limbs with difficulty over the rough stones towards a large covered well, which occupied the lower part of the market-place.

As the beggar approached the parapet of the well, to drink from one of the buckets which reposed upon its edge, he became first aware of the presence of another human being. Half-concealed behind one of the twisted columns that supported the Gothic pavilion above, sat upon the parapet a female figure, dressed in a black garb of such a form and nature, that, without being the exact costume of any known religious order, it bore a monastic character. Her face, as she sat with her head bent down over her clasped hands, in an attitude of mournful humiliation, was fully concealed by a black hood. But when, upon the approach of the beggar, she started up hastily, as if impelled by feelings of horror and disgust, the moon shone full upon her, and revealed the features of a woman of an advanced period of life, who formerly might have possessed much beauty, although now so washed out by tears, and furrowed by sorrow, that the whole character of her face was changed. Her years, too, were probably very much fewer than her appearance denoted, for the signs of age upon her face bore less the marks of time than of mental suffering. The symptoms of aversion which her manner displayed upon the beggar’s approach, although instinctive and involuntary, and almost immediately restrained, had not escaped his eye. His features expressed the bitter resentment of his heart at this insult, and worked with ill-repressed feelings of anger and spite.

“Ha! Mother Magdalena—it is thou! Why flinchest thou at my approach? Hast thou cause to fear me, then?” exclaimed the cripple with a sneer, as he drew nearer.

The female thus addressed shuddered at the sound of his voice; and, hastily pulling her dark hood more closely over her face, endeavoured to pass on without reply; but the beggar caught her by the arm.

“Not so fast, beldam!” he cried. “I would have a word with thee. Dost thou not know me?”

“Not know thee!” exclaimed the dark female. “Who in this wretched town does not know Schwartzer Claus, the witchfinder? What wouldst thou with me? Let me go!”

“Why dost thou tremble, then, and turn away thy head?” continued the cripple. “Why does Black Claus, the witchfinder—since such thou callest me—make thee shudder thus in every limb? The innocent have no cause to fear.”

“Thou askest me why I shudder?” said Magdalena in an excited tone, forgetting in her agitation her purpose of self-control. “Thou hast forced me to speak, and I will tell thee. Is not thy hand yet reeking with the bloody ashes of thy last victim? Has not a seventh unhappy woman suffered this very day a cruel death at the stake upon thy hideous denunciation; and thou askest me why I shudder?”

“Beware, woman—beware!” cried the witchfinder, lifting up his long right arm with a gesture of menace. “Those who defend the evil-doer, and malign the just and heaven-directed accuser, are not far from being arraigned as accomplices themselves!”

“What! thou seekest already another innocent sacrifice, wretched man!” continued the female, tearing away her arm, which the beggar still held clenched in his left hand. “Thou art not sated with the innocent blood thy false witness has this day shed?”

“It is a lie!—it is a damning lie!” screamed the cripple, foaming with passion. “I have borne no false witness! Besides, did not she avow her deeds of darkness? did she not confess her complicity with the spirits of hell, and her harlotries with the arch-deceiver of mankind?”

“Ay! when, tortured in mind and body, her poor weak old head gave way, and she unconsciously affirmed all that her torturers had for hours past been pressing upon her wavering understanding. Ye had driven her mad, poor wretch!”

“’Tis false again!—’tis false!” repeated the witchfinder. “The truth spoke out of her at last, when her treacherous paramour, the demon, had deserted her. God’s glory and that of the holy church, for which I work, had triumphed over the powers of darkness.”

“Thou serve the holy church! Hear not the blasphemy, O Lord!” cried the excited woman, raising up her hands to heaven. “Thou, miserable wretch! who, for the favour of the Amtmann or the priest, for the pittance bestowed on thee in reward of thy discovery of the supposed foul practices of witchery and magic, art ever ready to sell the innocent blood of the aged, helpless, and infirm!”

“For the lucre of gain!” screamed the cripple, but in a tone as much of despair at this accusation as of wrath. “For the lucre of gain! No—no; as God is my judge, it is not! My motives are pure; God and the Holy Virgin know they are! It is not even a spirit of revenge that instigates me. No—no! it cannot be; it is not! If the words of my mouth have condemned and killed, it is because my voice was uplifted in the cause of religion, and to the confusion of the prince of evil!” But as he spoke, the beggar covered his face with his hands, with a shudder, as though there passed in his soul a struggle with himself—a doubt of his own real motives.

Magdalena was about to quit in haste her dangerous companion, when a sentiment of pity at the sight of the cripple’s evident emotion seemed to mingle strangely with her disgust and aversion to the witchfinder. It was even with an uncontrollable feeling of interest that she stopped for a moment to look upon the wretched man.

After a pause, the beggar removed his hands from his face, and uttering in a low tone the words, “I thirst,” staggered to the edge of the well, and seized the bucket within his hands. He bent over it but for a moment to drink, and could scarcely have swallowed many mouthfuls, before, flinging back the bucket into the well, he started up, and spat the water from his mouth.

“Horror!” he said, with a look of mingled terror and insanity—“it tastes of blood!”

“It is thy own conscience, poor man, that troubles the taste of the fresh element,” said Magdalena solemnly; “the water is pure and sweet!”

“Thou hast done this, old hag!” cried the witchfinder wildly; unheeding her remark. “Thou hast corrupted the waters at the source. Why did I find thee sitting here, cowering over the surface of the well, if it were not to cast malefick spells upon the water, and turn it into poison—in order to give ills, and ails, and blains, and aches, and pains, and sickness, and death to thy fellow-creatures? Ha! ha! I have long thought it. Thou also art one of the accursed ones!”

“Thou ravest, miserable wretch!” replied the female; “thou knowest not what thou utterest. God forgive thee, cripple, thy wicked thought, and change thy perverted mind!”

She was again about to turn away, and leave her angry questioner, when, fearing the result of the evil feeling now fully excited in the witchfinder’s mind, she again paused to excuse herself in the eyes of the dangerous man, and added—

“Thou canst not mean what thou sayest, Claus; I sat by the well but to cool my heated brow in the night-air, and taste the breath of heaven; for my mind was saddened, and my head whirled, with the horrors that this day has witnessed.”

But her words were but oil upon the flame, and only served to augment the wild infatuation of the witchfinder.

“Ah! thy mind was saddened! Thou hadst pity for that vile hag of hell! Was she thy comrade? Perchance thou hadst fear for thyself? Thou thought’st thy own time might come? Thy own time will come, old Magdalena. My eye is upon thee and thy dark practices; it has been upon thee since thou camest, unknown and unacknowledged, to this place, none could tell when, and whence, and how. Ay, my eye is upon thee, and—beware!”

Willingly would the woman now have shrunk away before the maddened witchfinder’s objurgation; but the wild accusation thus thundered against her froze her with terror, and riveted her to the spot.

“I have marked thee well,” continued the frantic man, “and I have seen thee pause upon the threshold of the holy house of God, and kneel in mockery upon the steps before it: but thou hast never dared to enter it. Thou knewest well that the devil thou servest would have torn thee in pieces hadst thou done it. Ha! do I catch thee there?” he continued, as at these words the woman buried her face between her hands.

“Thou canst not deny it!” shouted the witchfinder with an air of triumph.

“God best judges the motives of the heart,” murmured Magdalena.

“I will tell thee more, vile hag, and thou shalt hear it face to face,” pursued the cripple, seizing the poor woman’s arms with his long bony fingers, and dragging her hands from before her face, in spite of her efforts at resistance. “Thou watchest at street corners and in doorways, on the bridge or on the causeway, to see fair Fraulein Bertha, the Ober-Amtmann’s daughter, ride past upon her ambling jennet, or mount the church-steps, her missal in her hand. Thou watchest her to cast thy spells upon her. Thou hatest her for her youth and beauty and spotless purity, like all thy wretched tribe, whom the sight of innocence and brightness sickens to the heart’s core. Thou wouldst fascinate her with thy eye of evil and thy deadly incantations.”

The moon, the light of which still struggled faintly through the fast-accumulating clouds, shone for a moment upon the face of old Magdalena, as the cripple pronounced these words. Her features were more deadly pale than usual, and convulsed with an excess of agitation at this mention of Bertha’s name, which she evidently struggled to control in vain.

“Ah! I have thee there again!” screamed Claus in triumph a second time. “Already have I seen her cheek grow pale, her head bow down like a blighted flower, her walk become weary with faintness. Hast thou already been at thy filthy machinations? But Black Claus, the witchfinder, is there to wrestle with the powers of evil. And hear me! That fair sweet girl is the only comfort of my wretched life. My soul grows calm and soothed when I look upon that lovely face. A ray of sunshine gleams upon the darkness of my path when her smile beams upon me. My heart leaps within me for joy when her small white hand drops an offering into my beggar’s bowl. She is my only life, my only joy, and my guardian angel. And couldst thou harm her, woman, no torment should be too horrible for thee, body and soul. The chains of the stake still lie upon the market-place—the ashes of yon pile still reek with heat; and the pile shall rise again, the chains shall bind once more. Wretched hag! I bid thee again beware!”

As with one hand the raving witchfinder pointed to the spot where one unhappy woman had already perished that day, a victim to the superstition of the times, Magdalena, who, during his praise of the fair girl, had again looked at him with awakened interest, disengaged herself from the other. “God’s will be done!” she said with humility. “I am prepared for all. But thou, unhappy man!” she continued, “beware in turn, lest, before thou hast time to repent thee of the hardness and cruelty of thy heart, His judgement fall on thee, and his justice punish thee.”

She spoke with hand upraised to heaven; and then, pulling her hood over her face, hurried from the market-place.

The witchfinder gazed after her, fixed to the spot, and for a moment awe-struck by her words. As he still stood struggling with his various passions, the storm, which had been gathering ever since sunset, began to burst over his head. The rain came down in torrents.

“Ah! was it that?” screamed the beggar, with a fit of wild laughter. “The miserable old beldam! she stretched out her finger to the sky, and it was to bring down these waterspouts upon my head. Curses on the foul malicious fiend!” And he spat upon the ground, as if to exorcise the evil spirit.

“But I must find shelter,” he murmured. “Already pains rack my limbs; my bones ache; a shudder runs through my frame! The old hag has worked her spell upon me. Apage, Sathanas! Anathema!”

Speaking thus, the wretched man shuffled along as fast as the crippled state of his limbs, and the acute pains of rheumatism, which the damp night-air had again brought upon him, would allow him to proceed. He staggered to the shelter of a doorway, which was placed under the advancing terrace of the town-hall, and between two staircases which descended on either side on to the market-place. The protruding vault of the Gothic archway afforded him some refuge from the storm, which now burst down with increased violence. But the excited witchfinder’s brain seemed to wander, as he caught an indistinct vision of the gaping jaws of the dragons and other grotesque monsters, which protruded as waterspouts from the roofs of the surrounding houses, and now disgorged torrents of rain.

“Spit, spit, ye devils all!” he shouted aloud. “Ye cannot reach me here. Ha! ha! rage, storm, spew forth your venom, do the bidding of your mistress—I defy you!” And as the wind swept round the corners of the building, and spattered some of the water of the gushing cataracts in his face, he cried, “Avaunt!” as if speaking to a living thing, and, clinging to the bars of an aperture in the upper part of the door, turned away his face.

As he thus came to look upon the strongly-barred opening in the door, the current of his ideas changed. Within was the small and wretched prison of the town, which just occupied the space of the terrace above—a miserable hole.

“There she lay this morning,” he murmured, looking into the interior, which was now in utter darkness, and quite empty—“there she lay, old Martha Dietz, and called in vain upon the demon who deserted her. There have lain all the foul hags who tortured my poor aching limbs. There shall she lie also, the scoffer and reviler, the worker of evil. The witchfinder will be revenged. Revenge! no, no! He will do the work of the holy church. Who shall say the contrary? Not thou, old Martha—nor thou—nor thou. If ye say so, ye lie in death, as ye have lied in life. Ay! glare upon me with your lack-lustre eyes. Ye are powerless now, though ye are there, and make mouths at me. One—two—three—God stand by me! There they are—all seven!”

With a wild scream of horror, the cripple covered his eyes with his hands, and rushed forth into the tempest.

Situated in the picturesque and fertile valley of the Saale, the town of Hammelburg stands upon a gentle declivity, commanding one of the numerous windings of the river, and sloping downwards to its banks. A part of the old walls of the town is thus bathed by the waters of the stream, which, calm and peaceful in the summer months, become tumultuous, and even dangerous, during rainy weather, or after the melting of the snows. From the ancient gateway of the town on the river side, a triple bridge of great length and many arches, which, in the dry season, seems to occupy a most unnecessary space across the narrower waters, but which, at other times, scarce suffices to span the extent of the invading inundation, affords a communication with the high-road.

At the commencement of the sixteenth century, this bridge was only constructed of wood, and although put together with rude strength, ill-sufficed to resist the force of the torrents, and had been repeatedly swept before them.

Not far from the town gateway that commanded this bridge, stood a huge mansion, constructed as a palace for the Prince Bishops of Fulda, the sovereign rulers of the district; although, at the period in question, it had been ceded to the Ober-Amtmann, a near relation of the reigning bishop, as his official dwelling. On the side of this ancient palace furthest removed from the town gate, ran, along the river’s banks, its spacious gardens, abutting at their extremity upon the premises of an extensive Benedictine monastery, from which they were only separated by a narrow lane, that led from the town to the river. At the very angle of this lane, where it opened by a small water-gate upon a narrow towing-path, skirting alike the town-walls and the banks of the stream, there stood a low building attached to the monastery, the upper story of which thus overlooked the old gardens of the palace on the one hand, and, on the other, the river banks.

At one of the windows of this humble dwelling, that which overlooked the palace gardens, stood a young man, intently gazing through its small octagon panes. Two or three times he turned away with a heavy sigh, as if wearied with long and vain watching, and as often returned again to his previous occupation. At length the opening of the door of the room startled him from his position; and as if ashamed of being caught in the act of looking out, he hurried to a table in the middle of the room, and flung himself into an old chair.

The various objects with which the table was covered, as well as those which filled and littered the room in all directions, clearly designated the young man’s employment to be that of a sculptor and colourer of images for the ornament of churches, as well as an illuminator of missals and manuscripts—an occupation at that time still pursued, although gradually falling into disuse since the invention of printing. Scattered about upon the table were several old parchment manuscripts, which had served as models for the artist’s use, or had been confided to his hands to clean. Old illuminated missals, some of the gorgeous illustrations of which were open, as if lately retouched by the hand of the young painter, lay here and there. At the further end of the table stood a small figure of a Virgin and Child, delicately and exquisitely carved, and painted with the richest colours. The group was bright with its fresh finish, and evidently had not long been completed by the hand of the artist. Upon an elevated bench or dresser were littered the tools of the sculptor and wood-carver, with a few unfinished trials of small saintly figures; and around the room were fragments of wooden images of saints, some discoloured, some broken, a few in tolerable preservation, which were either destined to be restored and repainted, or had served as studies for the artist. Upon the walls hung a few pictures of female saints, bedecked with garlands of flowers, which showed them to be objects of devotion and respect in the eyes of the possessor. Among all this confusion, space was scarcely left, in the small chamber of the artist, for the pallet-bed and cumbrous press that formed his only furniture.

Immediately before the chair into which the young man so hastily flung himself, lay a rich missal, upon the adornment of which he had been employed, before other thoughts and feelings had sent him to the window; and when he again resumed his work, it was upon the face of a fair saint, which formed the headpiece of a chapter, peering out from among the various graceful arabesques that twined in the brightest colours along the margin of the leaf.

In truth, the face of the young artist was almost as fair as that of the bright being he was engaged in painting. His light brown hair was parted in the middle, over a high white forehead, and fell in faintly waving curls almost to his neck, forming a frame to the soft oval face, to which his violet-blue melancholy-looking eyes, his calm, finely-chiselled features, and the serious repose of his imaginative mouth, imparted an air of gentleness and thoughtfulness combined. His dark, sober-coloured, simple dress, although somewhat too severe to suit his youthful figure, accorded well with the character of his physiognomy. His falling collar displayed a full white throat, which might have served as a model for a statue of Antinous, had it not borne more the stamp of genius in its proportions than of physical voluptuousness. The hands, which now hastily resumed their neglected occupation, had all the fairness and well-moulded contour of a woman’s, without that delicacy of size which would have stamped them as effeminate. Had he been aware of his own beauty, he might have copied his own graceful form for a personification of the lily-bearing angel in a group of the Annunciation.

The person who had startled him from the window, by opening the door of his room, was an aged-looking woman, in a plain dress of coarse black serge. She bore in her hands a coarse brown porringer filled with steaming viands, a lump of dark homely bread, and a white cloth.

“Ah! my good Magdalena, art thou there?” said the young artist, raising his head with an almost unconscious affectation of surprise, as though unexpectedly disturbed at his work.

“You forget all hours, and all human wants, in your zeal for your beautiful art, Master Gottlob,” said the woman. “I bring you your noon-day repast, which you would never have called for, had I allowed it to stand by even until sundown. But I have ventured to transgress your orders. You must be faint with long fasting;” and the old woman made a movement as if to place the food upon the table before the artist.

“Thanks, good Magdalena! thanks!” said the young man, looking at her with that sweet smile, and tender expression of his mild blue eyes, which had procured him, among all who knew him, the constant designation of “Gentle Gottlob;” but at the same time repelling the porringer. “Not here. Place the food elsewhere. I will eat anon. I am not hungry now; and I must not leave my work. I have promised it to his noble reverence the prior, for the eve of the fÊte of St Ursula, and to-morrow is the very day. There is still much to do. It seems as if I could never give sufficient finish to this face, or impart to it, with my dull colours and rebellious pencil, that look of heavenly brightness that ought to dwell upon it. And yet, alas! I would it never could be finished! It will break my heart to part with it—although I love not my own work, nor deem it excellent. But still I cherish it—all imperfect as it is—I know not why; and when to-morrow comes, and I must give it up into his reverence’s hands, it seems that my life and spirit would depart from me with its loss, and that all around me would be dark and joyless.”

After placing the porringer and bread upon a spare corner of the sculptor’s working bench, Magdalena moved gently behind the young man’s chair, and having asked respectfully his pardon, looked over his shoulder. At the sight of the fair face upon which the young artist was bestowing so much care, her looks betrayed feelings of surprise, mingled with much emotion. Once or twice she passed her hand over her eyes, as if doubting the reality of what she saw. It was some time before she could sufficiently master her agitation to speak; and when at last she spoke, after a long-drawn sigh, it was with a tone which still betrayed, in spite of her efforts, the interest inspired in her by the painter’s work of art.

“It is indeed a fine performance, and right bravely limned,” she said; “and in truth the countenance you have given to yonder saint, with the pale glory, is one of exquisite beauty. I wonder not that you should be grieved to look upon so sweet a face no more; although, methinks, I know a face as fair, to which it bears a marvellous resemblance.”

“What meanest thou, Magdalena?” said the young artist, bending his head still lower over his work. “Whom dost thou know who could bear a likeness to this creation of my own imagination?”

“Of your own memory, Master Gottlob! you should have said,” pursued Magdalena. “Surely—or my eyes deceive themselves most strangely—although in that sweet face they were not easily deceived; surely the face is that of”——

The old woman again paused, as if to suppress her emotion.

“Of whom?” enquired Gottlob in a low tone, also in much agitation.

“Of the fair Fraulein Bertha, the noble Ober-Amtmann’s daughter.”

“You think so, Magdalena?” replied the young man. “Perhaps it maybe a slight shade of a resemblance, caught unconsciously”——

“It is she herself,” exclaimed Magdalena. “It is the same angelic smile—the same beam of innocent brightness athwart her brow! It is she!”

“Perhaps thou art right,” stammered Gottlob, still in much confusion, but evidently well pleased with the species of praise thus bestowed upon his performance. “There is, in truth, more resemblance to the Fraulein Bertha than I had thought.”

Magdalena seemed for a minute lost in her reflection, as if a new and painful idea had struck her; and after giving a long and anxious look at the window, from which the young artist had drawn back upon her entrance, she pressed her hand heavily to her heart, as if to support her in a sudden resolution, and, advancing to the artist’s side, said in an earnest tone, “Young man! thou lovest her!”

“Magdalena! thou knowest not what thou sayest,” cried Gottlob, more harshly than as the wont of his gentle nature.

“Oh! pardon me if I have offended. Condemn me not!” said the excited woman. “But I do entreat you, tell me! Tell me your secret as you would confide it to a mother—to your own mother, Gottlob. It is the purest interest for you—for her—that guides me! I swear it to you! Oh! tell me—is it not so? You love that fair and gentle girl!”

The young man looked at his strange interrogator with some astonishment at her evident agitation. The tears were swelling in her eyes. But without pausing to question the reasons of her emotion—so absorbed is love in its own self—he rose, and took the old woman’s hand.

“Yes! I will speak; my heart has long been overcharged with its own secret, even to bursting,” he said; “and it throbs to unburden itself into some sympathizing heart! And why not thine, good Magdalena? Ever since fate has brought us so strangely together, thou hast been like a mother to me!”

“Do not I owe you all?” interrupted the old woman; “my life—my daily bread—a shelter for my old limbs in the cell below?”

“Alas! I have but little to give, poor Magdalena!” said the young man kindly.

“And that little thou hast shared with me as a son,” continued Magdalena bending her head over his hand as if to kiss it.

“Yes, thou shalt know all,” pursued Gottlob; “for it would seem as though the destiny that threw thee in my way were linked with hers. Her image it was that led me to the spot where first I saw thee. It was the last day of the Carnival, at the beginning of this year, and there was a fÊte at the palace of the Ober-Amtmann. I had long gazed with adoration upon that angelic face, and treasured it in my heart. I already worshipped yon saintly portraits, because in one—God forgive me the profane thought!—I had found a faint forth-showing of the beam of her bright eye; in another, the gentle, dimpled smile of her sweet mouth; in a third, her pure and saint-like brow. It was not for such as I, a poor artist, to be invited to the noble Amtmann’s fÊte; but I thought that, through the windows in the illuminated halls, I might perchance trace her passing shadow. I fancied that, by some unforeseen accident, she might come forth upon the terrace, overhanging the river’s banks—a foolish fancy, for the night was wintry and cold. I hoped to see her, no matter how; and I wandered out of the town—for its gates were open for that holiday—to look upon the lighted windows of the palace from the opposite side of the stream. The snow was on the ground. My mantle scarcely preserved me from the bitter cold. But I felt it not. It was only when a groan sounded near me, that I thought on the sufferings of others in such a night. I looked around me; and there, not far from me, on the snow, before the very windows of the palace, where within was music and dancing, and feasting and mirth, lay thy form, poor Magdalena! Feeble, helpless, stiff with cold, thou appearedst to me in the last agonies of death.”

“Yes; I had laid me down to die, in sorrow and despair. It is too true,” sobbed the old woman, in a voice choked with tears. “But your hand raised me up—your arms warmed me into life—your voice encouraged me, and gave me force. You brought me to your home, fostered me, and nursed me—me, an unknown outcast, whose very history you did not even seek to know—whose silence and secrecy you respected. Your kindness saved me from despair, and gave me hope; and I lived on, in order to pay, were it possible, my debt of gratitude to my preserver.”

“Good Magdalena,” said the young man soothingly, taking her withered hands between his own, “I did but the duty of a Christian man.”

“And you love her, then?” resumed Magdalena, recalling her young preserver to his promised confidence.

“Love her!” exclaimed Gottlob with an impassioned fervour, which gave his gentle face a look of inspiration. “Love her! She is my vision by day—my dream by night. When I read, it is her voice that seems to speak to me from the Minnesinger’s poesy. When I paint, it is her form that grows under my pencil. When I pray, it is her seraphic smile that seems to beam upon me down from heaven. I wander forth: it is to meet her in her walks. I kneel in the church: it is to breathe the same air as she!” At these words, Magdalena covered her face, and uttered a suppressed groan. “I rise from my labour, which of old was a labour of love to me, and now is oft an irksome task: it is to watch for her coming forth into the garden. I have neither rest by day nor by night. Where there was repose in my heart, there is now eternal fever.”

“And she?” said Magdalena with a low tone of anxiety, as if fearful of the answer she might receive. “Does she know—does she return your love?”

“How should she deign to remark a worm like me?” was the young artist’s answer. “How should I dare to breathe my affection in her ear, were it even possible for me to approach her? And yet she looks upon me kindly,” continued the young lover, encouraging himself in vague hopes, at the same time that he condemned their presumption. “When I doff my cap to the noble Amtmann’s daughter, as she ambles forth by her proud father’s side, she will answer with so sweet a smile, and greet me with a wave of her riding-switch—with what a grace!—and then grow red thereby, and then grow pale. When I offer her the holy water as she passes from the church, she will cast down her trembling eyelids, and yet will see withal who offers it; and when I stand at yon window, as she rambles in the garden, she will pluck flower after flower, as though she knew not why; then fling them all aside, then pick them up with care; then disappear as if she had gone back, and yet come forth again.”

Magdalena’s brow grew thoughtful and anxious as Gottlob proceeded in his enumeration of these symptoms. Her bosom heaved painfully, her hands were clenched together.

“Poor child! should it be so!” she murmured, casting her eyes upon the ground; and then, raising them again to Gottlob’s face, into which she looked with scrutinizing eagerness, she said aloud—“And yet you do not think she loves you?”

“She love me!” cried the young man. “Such a dream of bliss were madness! Can I forget the immeasurable gulf that separates the noble daughter of the high-placed Amtmann from the poor and humble artist—the dependent of a cloister? No, Magdalena. I must die as I have lived, the poor unloved and uncared-for orphan—die without a sigh of pity, without a tear of sorrow from her eye.”

“Have you, then, no friends, poor youth?” said Magdalena.

“None. Yes! I am ungrateful. I have one—a kind protector; but he is far removed, and I have seen him seldom.”

“The Prince Bishop of Fulda!” repeated the old woman, with some degree of agitation. “Perhaps—yet it is a wild and foolish thought—perhaps all hope is not shut out to you.”

“What sayest thou, then, old Magdalena?” said the youth. “Hope were but torture were it vain; and so it must be”——

“Yes. I was wrong. Heed not my words! But know you not that your patron, the bishop, is close at hand? Already I have heard that he arrived this morning at his castle of Saaleck, at half a league’s distance from the town; and he will probably shortly enter Hammelburg, as is his wont.”

“These are glad tidings!” said Gottlob, his eyes beaming with joy. “I will at once to Saaleck, and, if the prince admit me to his presence, throw myself at his feet, assure him of all my gratitude for the past, and offer him my poor service for the future.”

With these words the young man hurried to his cumbrous chest, and pulling out a short cloak, flung it around him. A small cap of black velvet, of the cut of the time, which showed off to advantage the beauty of his youthful face, was hastily thrown upon his head. He was about to quit the chamber, when Magdalena caught him by the arm.

“Thy repast, Master Gottlob.”

“Have I time to think of that?” said the eager youth, swallowing, however, in haste a few mouthfuls of the broth, to satisfy the old woman’s look of supplication.

“And when you mount or descend the mountain-path that leads to the castle on its brow,” said the old woman, during Gottlob’s hasty meal, “if you can still have a thought for poor old Magdalena, she begs you enter the chapel on the mountain-side, which is esteemed so holy that it is permitted to be a sanctuary of refuge to the criminal, and say a short prayer for her soul’s weal.”

“Can those so good and kind as thou, Magdalena, need the prayers of such as I?” said the young man.

“The fervent supplications of the young and pure at heart are always acceptable,” replied Magdalena evasively, but in a sad and earnest tone.

“So be it—and fare-thee-well,” said Gottlob, finishing his last mouthful, and hurrying to depart.

“And heed you, gentle youth,” again cried Magdalena, “as you cross the bridge to leave the town. The river is much swollen with the late rains, so much as to threaten destruction to the tottering fabric.”

“I fear no such danger,” was the young man’s reply; “and besides, have I not thy charm?” he continued, laughing, holding up a black ring inscribed with strange characters, that hung about his neck.

“Oh, say not so!” said the old woman earnestly, as a recollection of the Witchfinder’s dreadful threats the night before came across her mind. “Call it not a charm! The holy church permits not of such dealings. It was but a remembrance that I gave you, to think sometimes on the poor wretch whose life you had preserved. It was of little value; but I had nought else to give. I prayed only that it might bring happiness to you, boy, for it had brought nothing but misery and wretchedness to me.”

Long before old Magdalena could complete her sentence, the eager youth had left the room. The old woman looked after him for a time with a look of gratitude, and then, hurrying to the artist’s table, threw herself down upon her knees beside the open missal, and gazed with intense eagerness upon the picture of the fair saint upon which he had been painting. She approached her lips as if to kiss it; then again drew back, as if she feared to mar the colouring by her caress: then gazed again, until her eyes filled with tears: and at last, with the cry, “Yes! it is she—her very self!” burst into a fit of convulsive sobbing, and buried her face between her hands.

As she still lay crouched upon her knees, a partly-concealed door, which led towards the monastery, and was almost in disuse, slowly opened, and a figure, enveloped in a monk’s robe and cowl, entered the room.

Magdalena was not at first aware of the entrance of the stranger; and it was only when, after looking about the room, as if to assure himself that no one was there, he approached the table, that she heard the footstep, and lifted up her head in surprise. The intruder evidently as little expected to find the room already tenanted; for he also started upon seeing the kneeling woman. But the astonishment of both parties was greatly increased when their eyes met each other. Far from attempting to rise from her knees, Magdalena remained in an attitude of supplication before the stranger, who was an aged man of mild aspect, and folding her arms across her heart, bent down her head like a penitent, in order to avoid his scrutinizing look.

“Magdalena! thou here!” said the seeming monk, in a tone of voice which, naturally that of benevolence, he evidently strove to render harsh and severe. “How comes this? Thou hast left, without my knowledge, the seclusion of the convent in which I placed thee? In defiance of thy solemn promise, and thy accepted vow of penitence, thou hast approached this town—thou hast sought, perhaps, forgetful of thy oath”——

“No, no,” interrupted the agitated woman, “that cruel oath has sealed my lips for ever. God knows, and you, reverend father—you know, that I had accepted the bitterest trial woman can bear on earth, in expiation of my past sin. Long did I observe my vow of penitence without a murmur to heaven or to you. But I thought to die. A fever had seized me, and a burning thought came over me that I no longer could withstand. O God, forgive me—but my head was turned—I knew not what I did! I longed to see once more on earth that object that was my only earthly joy. That uncontrollable desire overcame the stubborn resolution of a vow, which long years of tears and mortification had striven to fortify in vain. I fled. I hoped once more to glad my eyes—but once——but once, my father, and then to lay me down and die, trusting in God’s pardon and your reverence’s.” And Magdalena bowed her head to the ground, as a criminal awaiting her sentence.

“Thou hast erred, woman—bitterly and grievously,” replied the stranger harshly, adding, however, with a feeling of indulgence that his kindly nature evidently could ill suppress, “but the struggle of the spirit with the weakness of the body, in sickness and in fever, is heavy to bear. And yet,” he continued, again assuming a severity of manner, “thou livest, and I still find thee here. Thou hast remained to feast thy eyes upon thy earthly treasure, in forgetfulness of thy vow of mortification for thy soul’s weal.”

“Pardon!” cried Magdalena, raising her hands in supplication.

“But thou must leave this place forthwith,” continued the monk. “Return to the convent, and employ thyself in such acts of penitence as my orders shall prescribe.”

“Pardon!” again cried the unhappy woman, “for my vow is heavier than I can bear. It is a task beyond the force of human nature!”

“Foolish woman!” exclaimed the stranger. “Wouldst thou compromise the happiness and peace of mind of the being thou lovest best, by the danger of a discovery to which thy presence here might lead? Thy expiation is severe. Such as we, alas!” and the monk heaved a sigh, “who cannot feel the vibration of some of the tenderest chords of humanity, know not how to sound in its profundity; but I can judge that it must be grievous to bear. Still it must be so. Go, then, in peace—but go. What I command no longer in the name of thy salvation, I ask of thy heart, for the repose of thy heart’s treasure.”

“Father,” said the penitent, sobbing at his feet—“I obey! But I have still a secret to impart to you, upon which depends, perhaps, the happiness of that beloved one. Oh! deign to hear me.”

“In three days hence, let me receive thy shrift at the convent of Saint Bridget,” continued the ecclesiastic. “There also I will hear thy secret. But tell me,” he added, looking round the room with some surprise—“how comest thou here in gentle master Gottlob’s studio?”

“It was he who saved my life,” answered Magdalena, striving to repress her sobbing, “when in the midst of the snows, and the keen blast of winter, death had laid hands upon me. Ever since, he has cherished and nourished the unknown outcast in his abode.”

“Generous youth!” said the stranger. “I came to witness, alone and unbiassed, his progress in his noble art; and I find that the heart soars as nobly as the head. So should ever be true genius! Yes, yes!” he murmured to himself, looking around, “he advances towards perfection with rapid strides. This arabesque is exquisite. And this head, how beautiful! And yon statue of our Holy Mother—what heavenly grace in its fashioning!”

And with more of such commendatory observations, interspersed now and then with a few gentle criticisms, which showed the connoisseur as well as the gratified admirer, he took up and examined the various designs dispersed upon the table. When his curiosity seemed fully satisfied, he again turned to Magdalena.

“I must away,” he said; “for I have still many arduous and painful duties to perform, and my time is limited. I rely upon thy strict secrecy, Magdalena. I would not it should be known that I was here. And remember, in three days at Saint Bridget’s convent!”

With these words he stretched forth his hand. She again knelt, and kissed it devoutly; and pulling his black robe and cowl more closely about his face and person, the monk disappeared by the concealed door.

Magdalena still knelt, overcome by her various emotions, when a sound from the window looking into the river startled her, and caused her to turn round. An involuntary scream burst from her lips; for from among the branches of a tree that grew upon the river’s banks, and overhung the window, peered, through the dingy panes, the pale face of the witchfinder.

It was about the hour of vespers; and an unusually dense crowd of the town’s people of Hammelburg, of all ages, ranks, and sexes, swarmed in the small open space before the fine old Gothic church of the town, and stood in many a checkered group—here, of fat thriving bourgeois and their portly wives, dragging in their hands chubby and rebellious little urchins, who looked all but spherical in their monstrous puffed hose or short wadded multifold petticoats, the miniature reproductions of the paternal and maternal monstrosities of attire—there, of more noisy and clamorous artizans, in humbler and less preposterous dress—on the one side, of chattering serving-damsels, almost crushed under their high pyramidical black caps, worn in imitation of an ancient fashion of their betters—on the other, of grave counsellors and schreibers in their black costumes, interlarding their pompous phrases with most canine Latin—here again, of the plumed and checkered soldiers of the civic guard—there, of ragged-robed beggars, whose whine had become a second nature—all in a constant ferment of movement and noise, until the square might be fancied to look like the living and crawling mass of an old worm-eaten cheese.

The congregation of the multitude had been induced by a report prevalent throughout the town, that the Prince Bishop, whose arrival from Fulda at his castle of Saaleck, close at hand, had been announced, was about to make his entrance in grand state, and that a holy and solemn service to celebrate this event was to be performed at the high church.

Already, however, other rumours were afloat among the crowd; and it began to be confidently stated, that a sudden change of plans had forced the Prince Bishop to renounce his intention.

Listening with anxiety, on the outskirts of a group, to the discussion upon the probabilities or improbabilities of the service taking place in the absence of the Prince, stood Magdalena. She was attired in her usual dark semi-monastic dress; but to this was now added the scrip, wallet, and tall crossheaded staff of the wandering pilgrim. As the prevailing opinion appeared to be that the Ober-Amtmann would attend, at all events, at the celebration of the church rites intended to be performed, Magdalena turned away with a calmer air, murmuring to herself the words—

“I shall see her once more—once, and for the last time: and God surely will forgive the sin, if such it be. One look of last farewell! and then again a long expiation of penitence and prayer.”

So saying, she traversed the small square to the broad stairs of the church, where she sat herself down upon the highest step, among a group of beggar women and ragged children, and, sinking her head to the ground, seemed to dispose herself to wait with patience.

Shortly afterwards, a young man also began to mount the steps leading to the great entrance of the church, as if with the intention of placing himself near the arch, in so favourable a position as to be close by all those who should pass into the interior. He bounded upwards with anxious haste and beating heart—although there was yet a long interval before the commencement of the service—and with a movement so hurried and agitated, that he brushed rudely against one person of a group in his way. He turned, with a gentleness of feeling unusual at the time towards the lower classes, to crave of the female he had pushed a pardon for his awkwardness. At the sound of his voice the old woman raised her head.

“Magdalena!” cried the young man with surprise, as he recognised upon her the evident symbols of travel and wayfaring peculiar to that age, “What means this pilgrim’s garb?”

“Alas! kind, gentle Master Gottlob,” replied Magdalena in a tone of the bitterest sadness, as she rose from her seat, “my hour is arrived, and I must leave you. Ask me not why. I must go as I have come, in silence and mystery. But oh! I beseech you, deem me not ungrateful. I had not quitted you without a last farewell—a last assurance that all your gentle charities are engraven here, upon my heart for ever.”

“Magdalena!” again exclaimed Gottlob, still astonished at this unexpected announcement, “thou leavest me thus abruptly?”

“Again, I pray you, gentle Master,” said the old woman sobbing, “think me not unkind or cold. The will of another is far stronger than my own. The will of God is above all. We shall meet no more on earth, young man; at least I fear so: my destiny leads me from the world. But my prayers shall be offered up, morning and evening, at my noontide meal as at my lying down; at all times, and in all places, whenever it shall please Heaven to hear them, for my generous benefactor.”

“But you must not quit me thus,” said the young man—“thus unassisted, in penury and want. I have but little, it is true, but that little shall be thine. What matter the gauds I thought to purchase? the dainty plume to deck my cap?” Still, in spite of himself, an unconscious sigh broke, as he spoke, from the breast of “Gentle Gottlob,” at the anticipated renunciation of the braveries that were to give him a price in the eye of the fair object of his adoration. “Can my poor savings be better bestowed than upon thee?”

“I need not thy generous sacrifice, kind youth,” replied Magdalena. “The pilgrim lacketh nothing in a Christian land; and soon I shall be beyond all want.”

“Oh! speak not thus sadly,” said Gottlob, taking her hand.

“I meant it not so sadly as you deem. I am resigned still to live on, until it please God to release me from this world of sin and sorrow, more easily resigned and with a calmer spirit, since, through the mist of solitary darkness around me, I see a way of hope that shines not upon me, but upon the bright forms most dear to me.”

“What meanest thou, Magdalena?” cried the young man.

“Strive not to comprehend me,” said the old woman in a more subdued tone—“I would not foster vain delusions;” and, as if to remove the impression of what she had said from Gottlob’s mind, she hastily added, “You have not seen the Prince at Saaleck?”

“Alas, no!” replied the young artist. “My noble patron had already left the castle with a small retinue, and I was too late to meet him. It was said that he was gone upon a visit to all the various monasteries in this part of the country, in order to hold secret counsel with the different dignitaries of the church in his domain, respecting the late heresies that have appeared, and already spread so widely throughout the land.”

Magdalena was about to answer, when a new and general movement among the crowd, showed that the expectation of the multitude was aroused. The tapers upon the altars in the church had been lighted in splendid profusion. The vapour of incense already scented the air, as it floated down the aisles. The organ pealed through the church; and the priests, in their sacerdotal robes, were seen advancing along the middle aisle towards the entrance, to meet the expected dignitary. But Gottlob and Magdalena gazed not upon this priestly show; their heads were turned in another direction, and looked from the church across the square. Their hearts beat with one feeling. Both murmured to themselves with one accord, “She comes!”

Already the pikes of the guard preceding the noble Ober-Amtmann appeared emerging from the street leading to the episcopal palace, and the soldiers, entering the square, cleared the way rudely through the crowd, when Magdalena again pressed tightly her companion’s arm.

“Swear to me, young man,” she whispered in a low and solemn tone, “as you value your salvation—swear to me ever to respect the purity and peace of mind of that innocent and happy girl, upon whose fair face I shall now gaze for the last time!”

Gottlob looked at the excited woman with much surprise.

“Swear to me that you will not trouble her unconscious heart with words of love, until, perhaps, a better time may come!” she continued, with hesitation.

“Magdalena, I understand thee not,” replied the young man. “But before me she is as a holy saint of heaven, at whose shrine we may bow down and pray, but whom we cannot pollute with earthly touch.”

“God grant you happiness, young man!” said Magdalena, dropping her flowing tears upon the hand she held in her own.

Gottlob’s attention was too much absorbed in the sight of the one object of his eager gaze, to heed more seriously, at that moment, the strange and solemn adjuration of the old woman. His heart beat with intense violence, his cheek flushed, his mild blue eyes dilated with animation, as he followed along the square the form of Bertha, who was advancing in the procession by her father’s side. And now she was about to mount the church steps, she would be obliged to pass close by him, perhaps near enough for her dress to touch his own; for the crowd was dense behind, and pressed forward upon those who stood, like him, in the foremost row. The agitation of his companion equaled, perhaps exceeded, his own.

The clergy now stood under the church gate—the preceding guards had stationed themselves on either side of the arch—the Ober-Amtmann, leading his daughter by the hand, had reached the broad surface of the highest step, where stood the aged female and the young artist, when the agitated Magdalena, unable to control her feelings as the governor and his fair child passed so near, bent lowly down, and seized the hem of Bertha’s garment to kiss it unperceived. At that moment, a rude gripe seized her arm and dragged her up, and a harsh voice shrieked in her ear—“Touch her not, hag of hell, to cast thy infernal spells upon her!” A scream of terror burst from Magdalena as she recognised Black Claus, the witchfinder.

“Noble Ober-Amtmann, hear me!” cried the cripple, pushing forward with force, and arresting with a wild gesture the progress of the dignitary. “I here denounce, before your noble honour, this wretched woman as a most foul and most notorious witch.”

In the rude attack thus made upon the unhappy woman—on her terror and surprise—the cross-topped pilgrim’s staff slipped from her grasp, and slightly wounding the fair neck of Bertha, it fell upon the pavement, and was splintered into several pieces.

“See, see!” screamed the witchfinder, “how she strives to harm the innocent and good, and destroys and tramples under foot—curses on her!—the holy symbols of the church.”

With a feeling of horror and alarm, for which the credence in witchcraft and its agents that pervaded all ranks and classes at that age gave full warrant, Bertha clung with a scream to her father’s breast, and sought protection in his arms. At this sight the unhappy Magdalena uttered a bitter cry of despair, and raising her clasped hands aloft, exclaimed—“O God! Thou punishest me too bitterly.”

“Hear ye,” cried the witchfinder, “how she owneth her crime even in her blasphemy!”

With one arm the Ober-Amtmann pressed the terrified Bertha to his bosom, and, with the other, signed to some of the guards to surround the old woman. At this moment the sight of the blood which had trickled in a few insignificant drops upon her veil, caught the eye of the alarmed girl, and turning very pale, she held forth a crucifix, which hung about her neck, towards the spot where stood Magdalena, as if to exorcise the powers of witchcraft directed against her, and sobbed—“Oh! take her from my sight—save me—she would destroy me!”

“It is she condemns me!” cried Magdalena; and, with another heart-rending exclamation of despair, she fell forward to the earth as if in violent convulsions.

“See, see!” shouted Claus in triumph, “how the sight of the holy cross causes the devil within her to tear and rend her.”

The bystanders shrank in horror from the prostrate form of the unhappy woman. The guards, who had approached, kept at a sufficient distance to avoid all contact with the reputed witch, although near enough to prevent her escape.

Petrified with astonishment and dismay at the strange scene that had passed thus rapidly before him, and shocked at the sight of Bertha’s wound and terror, Gottlob had stood at first incapable of movement. But when he saw Magdalena thus stricken to the earth, he forgot all the terrors of witchcraft—he forgot the horrible denunciation—he forgot even Bertha’s fainting form; the instinctive impulse of his kindly nature was to rush forward and to raise the poor old woman. Before he could reach her, however, twenty hands had pulled him back with force—twenty voices screamed in his ear, “Touch her not—beware!” In vain he struggled, and strove to extricate himself—in vain he protested the poor woman’s innocence—he was held back by force.

In the meanwhile, although those nearest to the accused woman drew back with terror, the remoter crowd rushed forward towards the church steps in violent excitement, preferring loud cries of “A witch!—a witch! To the stake with her—to the stake!” The deeper voices of the men mingling with the shriller cries of the women and children.

In the midst of this scene of tumult, the Ober-Amtmann conveyed his daughter in his arms—for she had now completely fainted—to the church, and confided her to the care of her women. Upon returning, he sternly gave orders that the accused female should be placed in the prison of the town, with a guard before the door, until the denouncer should be heard against her.

“Come hither man, black cripple!” he continued, with some disgust, to Claus: “We know that the dreadful crime of witchcraft has, like heresy, made much and notable progress in the land of late; and although our reverend brother views the former abomination with more lenient eye than ourselves, we think that fagot and stake are but too slight a punishment for such black and damning sin. But still, of late, thy denunciations against this crime have much multiplied; and sometimes, it has seemed to our justice, upon but small and vague proof—although popular voice demanded the condemnation of the wretched women. Have a care, then, how thou wrongfully preferrest such a charge—have a care how thou jugglest with our sense of right and wrong; for though there seemeth, in truth, to be some appearance of the demon and his works in the horror which that woman has expressed for the symbols of our holy religion, and in the manner in which she has drawn blood from our young and innocent daughter, yet were we to find thy accusation to be inspired by motive or the spirit of falsehood, as we live that pile which threatens the sorceress and hag shall be thy own seat—the fire thy death-garment.”

“Noble Amtmann,” cried the witchfinder, undaunted by this address, “I fear not the proof. Again I denounce that woman as dealing in witchcraft, and consorting with the powers of darkness.”

As the guard drew nearer, to force the unhappy woman with their pike-heads to rise from the ground, where she still lay crouched together, the wretched Magdalena raised her head, and her eyes fell upon the dark face of the witchfinder, as it glared upon her in triumph. The hideous yells of the crowd prevented her hearing the only faint voice of pity raised in her behalf—that of gentle Gottlob. Her brain whirled with terror—she thought that her last hour was come; and, with a heavy shudder throughout her whole frame, she fell senseless to the ground.