while the floor
was strewn with empty sacks and sieves.

The person who held the light proved to be the miller's daughter,
Dorothy, a blooming lass of eighteen, and at the other end of the
chamber, seated on a bench before a turf fire, with an infant on her
knees, was the miller's wife. The latter instantly arose on beholding
the abbot, and, placing the child on a corn bin, advanced towards him,
and dropped on her knees, while her daughter imitated her example. The
abbot extended his hands over them, and pronounced a solemn benediction.

"Bring your child also to me, that I may bless it," he said, when he
concluded.

"It's nah my child, lort abbut," replied the miller's wife, taking up
the infant and bringing it to him; "it wur brought to me this varry neet
by Ebil. Ey wish it wur far enough, ey'm sure, for it's a deformed
little urchon. One o' its een is lower set than t' other; an t' reet
looks up, while t' laft looks down."

And as she spoke she pointed to the infant's face, which was disfigured
as she had stated, by a strange and unnatural disposition of the eyes,
one of which was set much lower in the head than the other. Awakened
from sleep, the child uttered a feeble cry, and stretched out its tiny
arms to Dorothy.

"You ought to pity it for its deformity, poor little creature, rather
than reproach it, mother," observed the young damsel.

"Marry kem eawt!" cried her mother, sharply, "yo'n getten fine feelings
wi' your larning fro t' good feythers, Dolly. Os ey said efore, ey wish
t' brat wur far enough."

"You forget it has no mother," suggested Dorothy, kindly.

"An naw great matter, if it hasn't," returned the miller's wife. "Bess
Demdike's neaw great loss."

"Is this Bess Demdike's child?" cried Paslew, recoiling.

"Yeigh," exclaimed the miller's wife. And mistaking the cause of
Paslew's emotion, she added, triumphantly, to her daughter, "Ey towd te,
wench, ot t' lort abbut would be of my way o' thinking. T' chilt has got
the witch's mark plain upon her. Look, lort abbut, look!"

But Paslew heeded her not, but murmured to himself:--

"Ever in my path, go where I will. It is vain to struggle with my fate.
I will go back and surrender myself to the Earl of Derby."

"Nah,--nah!--yo shanna do that," replied Hal o' Nabs, who, with the
miller, was close beside him. "Sit down o' that stoo' be t' fire, and
take a cup o' wine t' cheer yo, and then we'n set out to Pendle Forest,
where ey'st find yo a sa