Let us hear him, said another judge.
I proved to you the other day that an accuser had perjured herself in this court, before your faces, ye mighty and grave men. What was my reward? You gave judgment of death on the accused—You let the accuser go free—I see that accuser now. What will be said of your justice at home, if you permit her to escape? Will the judges of England forget you? or the majesty of England forgive you?—
The horse at the door began to grow impatient—snorting and striking with his feet.
—Ye know that the knife was a forgery; and the sheet which has made so much talk here, why even that was a——
He stopped short, and looking at a female who sat near him, appeared to lose himself entirely, and forget what he was going to say.
Well Sir——
Excuse me ... I ... I ... excuse me ... although I have no doubt of the fact, although as I hope to see the face of my Redeemer, I do believe the story of the sheet and the story of the spindle, to be of a piece with the story of the knife; a trick and a forgery, yet—yet—
Here he made a sign to the female, as if to encourage her.
—Yet I dare not say now, I dare not say here, on what my belief is founded. But hear me ... they talk of teeth and of whole sets of teeth being discoverable by the prints which appear in their flesh. How does it happen I pray you that all these marks turn out to be on parts of the body which might be bitten by the afflicted themselves? And how does it happen, I pray you, that instead of corresponding teeth, or sets of teeth being found in the accused, ye have repeatedly found her as now, without a tooth in her head? Nay ... how does it happen that Abigail Paris and Bridget Pope, who are indeed sufferers by a strange malady, babes that are innocent as the dove, I am sure ... God forbid that I should lay the mischief at their door—
Seven and seven pence—muttered the man, who kept an account of the oaths.