"Ha!"
said Lucifer, "cast her to that lost useless wench, who loved of yore
Einion ab Gwalehmai, {108} of Anglesey." "Stay," said the fair one,
"this is but the first offence. It is not yet above a year, since the
day when I breathed my last, and was damned to your accursed government."
"She speaks true, O king of Torments! It is not yet a year by three
weeks," said the devil who had brought her there. "Therefore," said she,
"how would you have me so well versed as the damned, who have been here
for three hundred, or out abroad depredating for five hundred years. If
you desire from me better service, let me go into the world another time
or two unchastised; and if I do not bring you twenty harlot-mongers, for
every year that I am out, inflict upon me whatever punishment you
please." But the verdict went against her, and she was condemned to
punishment for a hundred long years, that she might remember better the
second time.

At this moment, behold another devil pushing a fellow forward. "Here you
have," said he, "a pretty dog of a messenger. As he was prowling about
his old neighbourhood, above stairs, the other night, he saw a thief
going to steal a stallion, and could not so much as help him to catch the
horse without showing himself, frightening the thief so by his horrible
appearance, that he took warning and became an honest man from that
time." "With the permission of the court," said the fellow, "if the
thief had got the gift from _above_ to see me, could I help it? But at
worst this is a single peccadillo," said he; "it is not above a hundred
years since the day which terminated my mortal career, yet how many of my
friends and neighbours have I not tempted hither after me, during that
time? May I be in the deepest pit, if I have not as much inclination for
the trade as the best of you; but now and then the craftiest will err."
"Here," said Lucifer, "cast him to the school of the fairies, who are yet
under the rod for their mischievous conduct of old, in strangling some
people and threatening others; startling by such behaviour their
neighbours from their heedlessness, upon whom the terror which they
caused, had probably more effect than twenty sermons would have had."

Next appeared four catchpoles, an informer, and fifteen damned, hauling
two _devils_ forward. "See," said the informer, "lest you should lay the
blame of all that is mismanaged on the seed of Adam, we bring you two of
your old angel