“Dear Martha,” said Agnes, “what did you do to Fritz and to Wolf and to Gerda? By your songs could you really turn them into stone or give them to the gnomes and to the brownies?”
Martha perked her head and answered:—
“Ah, little lady, whether I could or I could not, those three thought I could, and by the lizard’s spawn” (at which uncanny oath Agnes herself grew creepy), “it is what men and moles think, not what things are, that makes all the rift betwixt popes and peasants.”
“Dear Martha,” said Agnes, sorely troubled, “say that you really do not have friendship with the Devil.”
“Friendship little, but acquaintance;” yet here the smile which spread on Witch Martha’s face grew tremulous, she stood stock still, took the little maid in her arms, and kissed her. “Oh! may you never know! Oh! may you never lose! Oh! may you always see the brightness of Our Lady’s heaven, and forget that the dear God beside His mercy has His wrath!”
“What are you saying?” The child looked perplexed.
“Foolishness!” spoke Martha; but her little body shook with one long sigh. “Ah, little one, I have frighted you. But I will never fright you more. So be comforted, for, by Our Blessed Lord, I have never set eye on gnome nor efreet nor devil. Only I use the wit that heaven sends, and by its aid I saved you. And now hearken to strange news.”
Then she told Agnes how the Wartburg was beset by her father; of the sore plight of Jerome; and how they must make all haste to reach the besiegers ere the last attack, “lest the holy Jerome become a saint in heaven in sorry deed.”
Agnes did not weep when she heard of Jerome’s danger.
“He must not die yet,” was all she said; “for I heard him praying and saying that I was a temptress sent from Satan. He must never go up to visit the dear God and tell Him that.” And for a while Witch Martha found her feet too slow for those of the child.