"Have you ever had any personal experience?" asked Charles.
"Indeed I have."
"What was it?"
"Goody Nurse does such things; but she has ever been too shrewd to be caught as was the witch in Virginia."
"Goody Nurse! For shame on you, Mr. Louder, to accuse that good, righteous woman with offences as heinous as having familiar spirits."
With a solemnity so earnest that sincerity could scarcely be doubted, John Louder remarked:
"Glad should I be, if I had never known the name of this woman, or never had this occasion to mention so much as her name. Goody Nurse is the most base of all God's creatures, for she takes unto herself a seeming holiness."
"What hath she done?"
"Listen and I will tell you. She hath grievously afflicted my children. At night her shape appears to them accompanied by a black man. She hath power to change her own form into an animal, a bird or insect at will. Once my little girl was attacked by a large black cat, which she recognized as Goody Nurse.
"Not only does she afflict my children; but my cattle, my gun and myself have been bewitched by her."