ht against this man save the fact that he got the love of all
manner of women, poor and old though he was; and the testimony of a
frightened woman who gave a rambling account of shapes, and lights, and
women, all gathered down in Stinking-close, near to where the major lived;
all of which were, of course, phantoms, spectres, or devils, conjured up
by his magical and devilish arts. This, and the frantic saying of his poor
old sister, when she heard of his death, that if they had burnt his staff
they had destroyed his power, formed about the sum of the witchcraft
evidence against him. He was arrested on his own confession. Unable to
bear the weight of his secret vices, he gave himself up to the
authorities, who at first were disposed to think him mad, but who
afterwards, reporting him sane and collected enough, set him on his trial.
After he had once spoken he would say no more, would make no defence and
no further confession: he would not pray, he would not appeal to God. Like
a beast he had lived, like a beast he would die, and "since he was going
to the devil," he said, "he did not wish to anger him." He would have no
paltering with an outraged God by the way; so the fire and the faggot came
as the culmination of a life which in its mildest phase was infamous, but
which belonged to no lawful tribunal of man to punish.

If he died sullenly and in mute and dumb despair, his sister's anguish
found wild and desperate expression. She told her judges all about her
horrible life with him, and how he had been long given up to sorcery and
magic, as well as to things not now to be mentioned; and how his power lay
in that staff of his which had been burnt along with him. That thornwood
staff, with its crooked head and carved figures like satyrs running
through, seems to have heavily burdened the poor creature's mind, for she
told her judges that when she wished to plague her brother she would hide
it, and give it back to him only when he threatened to reveal her nameless
infamy if she did not restore it. On the morning of her execution she said
that she would expiate the most shameful life that had ever been lived by
dying the most shameful death; but no one knew exactly what she meant.
When she came to the place of execution--she was mercifully hung--she
began to talk wildly of the Broken Covenant, and exhort the people back to
their old faith, and then she attempted to throw off all her clothes that
she might die "naked and asham