And here I have just bethought me of the name of the dairy-mother.
It was Benigna Ficht; she was widow of old Ficht, the peasant.
At this several voices cried out, "No, no;" but she screamed out—
"Yea, yea! it was true; and her mother before her had been an evil witch, and had let witches sit in her cellar, so that she must be a witch herself." [Footnote: This idea runs through all the witch trials. Woe to the woman whose mother had been accused of witchcraft, she seldom got off with her life.]
This pleased the bloodthirsty attorney-general, and he asked if the bailiff were present. And when my Brose stepped forward with a profound bow, Ludecke went on—
"Was this the case about the dairy-mother? Was she, in truth, an evil witch?"
Whereupon his malicious wife nudged him again with her elbows in the side, till he answered—"Ay, the people say so."
Ludecke continued—"Were there more witches in the place beside the dairy-mother?"
The fellow was silent and seemed disturbed, until being menaced by the commissioner with all temporal and eternal punishment if he spoke not the truth, my Brose stepped up upon the wheel, and whispered in his ear, while he cast a frightened glance at the convent gate—
"Ay, there is another, one of the convent sisters called Sidonia
Bork, she is the very devil itself."
But Ludecke seemed as though he could not believe him—