Q. How and when, then, had he come by his death?
R. That Almighty God only knew. But Zuter his little girl had said, that one day, while she gathered nettles for the cows under Seden his hedge, she heard the goodman threaten his squint-eyed wife that he would tell the parson that he now knew of a certainty that she had a familiar spirit; whereupon the goodman had presently disappeared. But that this was a child's tale, and she would fyle no one on the strength of it.
Hereupon Dom. Consul again looked the Sheriff steadily in the face, and said, "Old Lizzie Kolken must be brought before us this very day": whereto the Sheriff made no answer; and he went on to ask,
Q. Whether, then, she still maintained that she knew nothing of the devil?
R. She maintained it now, and would maintain it until her life's end.
Q. And nevertheless, as had been seen by witnesses, she had been re-baptized by him in the sea in broad daylight.--Here again she blushed, and for a moment was silent.
Q. Why did she blush again? She should for God his sake think on her salvation, and confess the truth.
R. She had bathed herself in the sea, seeing that the day was very hot; that was the whole truth.
Q. What chaste maiden would ever bathe in the sea? Thou liest; or wilt thou even yet deny that thou didst bewitch old Paasch his little girl with a white roll?
R. Alas! alas! she loved the child as though it were her own little sister; not only had she taught her as well as all the other children without reward, but during the heavy famine she had often taken the bit from her own mouth to put it into the little child's. How, then, could she have wished to do her such grievous harm?