in persuade him that there was mysterious sympathy in
their mutual dejection.

The principal personages concerned in the awful question at issue,
occupied, thus, their respective positions in the old town-hall; when,
after a long and troubled pause, during which silence was with
difficulty obtained among the more tumultuous portion of the crowd at
the lower end of the hall, one of the _schreibers_ rose, and read, from
an interminable strip of parchment which he held in his hand, the act of
accusation against the female known under the popular designation of
"Mother Magdalena," as attainted of the foul crime of witchcraft, of the
casting of spells and malefices to the annoyance and destruction of her
fellow-creatures, of consorting with spirits of darkness, and of
lascivious intercourse with the arch-fiend himself. For so ran, at that
time, the tenor of the accusation directed against the unhappy women
suspected of this imaginary crime.

The act of accusation was long, and richly interlarded with all those
interminable complications of legal phraseology, which seem ever, at all
times, and in all nations, to have been the necessary concomitants of
all legal proceedings. The reading of the act, however, being at last
terminated, the town-beggar, commonly known by the familiar name of
Black Claus the witchfinder, Schwartzer-Claus, or Claus Schwartz, as he
was usually designated among the people, was summoned to stand forward
as the denouncer of the aforesaid Magdalena, and to substantiate his
charge.

Thus called upon, the cripple gave a start forward, like a lion let
loose upon the gladiator's arena, through the barred gates of which he
has already sniffed the odour of blood; and then, raising one of his
long arms towards the stool of penitence, on which the criminal had been
placed, he again repeated, with an eagerness amounting to frenzy, his
accusation against her.

As the witchfinder's hoarse voice was heard, a visible shudder passed
through Magdalena's frame; but she raised not her head, moved not a
limb, spoke not; and it was only when called upon by the chief
_schreiber_ to declare what she had to say against this accusation, that
she lowly murmured--"God's will be done!" but still with bowed head and
downcast eyes.

In support of his denunciation, the cripple proceeded to state how he
had watched the mysterious female called "Mother Magdalena," and had
observed that she never would enter any consecrated build