As he took but little sleep, they could often see him, through the window of the ground floor, squatted on his low stool, his lank arms, in their shirt-sleeves, braced upon his knees, and lying open on his leather apron a large,
old-time book, in which he would read industriously until long after midnight, by the light of his little lamp. It was only an old Bohemian Bible, which he could now understand with difficulty, for he had crossed the German border when only a lad. Those who spied upon him, however, regarded the copper-bound volume as a book of magic, and believed nothing less than that this singular stranger with the foreign name had taken the post of janitor in the haunted house that he might conduct there, undisturbed, his magical intercourse with evil spirits.
Wenzel Kospoth, when told of this report, laughed in his gray beard, and muttered something in Bohemian, which might have meant either yes or no. In his inmost soul he had a contempt for the stupid Germans, and fancied that this very Bible reading made him greatly their superior; so that, far from dispelling their superstitions, he seized upon an accidental opportunity to strengthen them.
An old acquaintance of his whom he had met in his Sunday walks to a neighboring village had come to want through no fault of her own. She was a little woman of about forty, who, though brought up in town, had, when quite young, married a peasant's son--a drunkard, as it proved. He had squandered all her small savings, and dying suddenly, had left her with a six-year-old child. As she was clever at sewing, the young widow earned many a pretty groschen as village tailoress.
But, unfortunately, her good heart led her to apply her skill not only to the needs of the outer, but to those of the inner man as well, and to dispose of her little store of recipes for all possible ailments in return for a trifling compensation. In this way she soon gained considerable patronage and, at the same time, with several of the more narrow-minded villagers, the reputation of being mistress of the black art. And when her little daughter had blossomed into a trim young maiden, with sparkling black eyes and waving yellow braids, who turned the heads of the village lads as she walked with her mother to church, on Sundays and feast days, the two came to be looked upon as a pair of unmistakable witches by the spiteful old women of the village, and by the younger ones whose sweethearts had become a trifle less devoted.
The two innocent souls endured all this patiently until one day an influential peasant in whose stalls several cows had suddenly died, at the instigation of his wicked wife, burst into Frau Cordula's house, and hurling a volley of reproaches upon her as the author of his misfortune, delivered her such a heavy blow with his fist that from that day she was a cripple and could only move about with difficulty upon tottering feet.
The base miscreant departed triumphant; but his deed was the beginning of a series of tribulations--the fruit of woman's hate and envy--until the poor woman realized that she must seek safety behind the walls of a town if she would not endanger her own life and that of her child among these superstitious people.
