Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348

Conclusion

At the upper end of the large Gothic room, forming the interior of the town-hall of Hammelburg, which was formally prepared as a court of trial, sat upon a raised part of the flooring in his chair of state, the Ober-Amtmann; before him were placed, at a velvet-behung table, his schreibers or secretaries; beside him sat, upon a low cushioned stool, his daughter, the fair Fraulein Bertha, surrounded by her tirewomen, who remained standing behind her.

The presence of the young Fraulein was of rare occurrence upon occasions of judicial ceremony in the old town-hall. But a solemn appeal to her testimony had been made by the witchfinder; and her father, whose sense of justice considered that a matter of accusation of so heavy and serious a nature as that of witchcraft, should be investigated in all its bearings, had commanded her presence. Her heart, full of the purest milk of human kindness, revolted, however, from witnessing the progress of such terrible proceedings—the justice of which her simple mind, tutored according to the dark prejudices of the age, never once doubted, but which curdled her blood with horror. And she sat pale and sad, with downcast eyes, scarcely daring to raise them upon the crowd that filled the hall, much less upon the most conspicuous object in the scene before her—the unhappy being against whom all curses, all evil feelings, all insane desires of blood and death, were then directed. Perhaps there was another reason also, which, almost unconsciously, caused her to keep her eyes fixed upon the earth; perhaps she feared that they might meet two other mild blue eyes, the expression of which was that of a deep—far too deep—an interest; for it caused her heart to beat, and her spirit to be troubled; and her bosom to heave and sigh, she knew not wherefore: unless, indeed, she were, in truth, bewitched.

In the centre of the hall was placed the accused woman. She was seated upon a rude three-legged stool, which was firmly fixed upon a raised flooring, elevated about three feet from the ground—her face turned towards her judge. A slight chain passed round the middle of her body, and fastened her down to her seat. She was still attired in the dark hood and cloak which had been her customary dress, and sat, with head bent downwards, and her hands clasped languidly upon her knees, as if resigned, in the bitterness of her despair, to meet the cruel fate that awaited her.

Below, was a compact and turbulent crowd of the lower orders of the town, which was with difficulty kept, by the pikemen, within the limits assigned to it; and which, from time to time, let forth low howls against the supposed sorceress, that increased, like the crescendo of distant thunder, and then died away again.

On either side, towards the upper end, were ranged upon benches some of the more reputable bourgeois and their spouses, all decked out in their finest braveries, as if they were present at a theatrical show, or a church mystery: and, in truth, the representation about to be given, was but little more in their own eyes, than a sort of show got up for their especial gratification.

Guarded by two pikemen, stood the cripple—his teeth set firmly, although his lips quivered with excitement—his light eyes glaring fiercely around with an air of savage exultation, and gleaming, as it were, with a pale phosphoric fire, from out of the dark ground of his swarthy face and lank black hair. He moved restlessly and uneasily upon his withered limbs, clenching by fits and starts his rosary from his bosom, and murmuring a hasty, and—to judge by the wildness of his eyes, that showed how his mind was fixed upon far other thoughts—a vain prayer. He rolled also his head and the upper part of his body continually backwards and forwards, like a wild beast fretting in his cage.

Among the more prominent of the   crowd, whom the favour of the guards had allowed to push beyond the assigned limits, or whom reasons, connected with the trial, required to come forwards, stood “Gentle Gottlob.” His brow was overclouded with sadness, for he felt in how fearful a pass this horrible denunciation had placed the woman whom he had so long regarded with attachment. His mild blue eye was more melancholy than of wont; and yet, in spite of the trouble of his mind, he was unable to withdraw his looks from that bright loadstone of his affections, whose sadness seemed to sympathize with his own. At least, his heart would fain persuade him that there was mysterious sympathy in their mutual dejection.

The principal personages concerned in the awful question at issue, occupied, thus, their respective positions in the old town-hall; when, after a long and troubled pause, during which silence was with difficulty obtained among the more tumultuous portion of the crowd at the lower end of the hall, one of the schreibers rose, and read, from an interminable strip of parchment which he held in his hand, the act of accusation against the female known under the popular designation of “Mother Magdalena,” as attainted of the foul crime of witchcraft, of the casting of spells and malefices to the annoyance and destruction of her fellow-creatures, of consorting with spirits of darkness, and of lascivious intercourse with the arch-fiend himself. For so ran, at that time, the tenor of the accusation directed against the unhappy women suspected of this imaginary crime.

The act of accusation was long, and richly interlarded with all those interminable complications of legal phraseology, which seem ever, at all times, and in all nations, to have been the necessary concomitants of all legal proceedings. The reading of the act, however, being at last terminated, the town-beggar, commonly known by the familiar name of Black Claus the witchfinder, Schwartzer-Claus, or Claus Schwartz, as he was usually designated among the people, was summoned to stand forward as the denouncer of the aforesaid Magdalena, and to substantiate his charge.

Thus called upon, the cripple gave a start forward, like a lion let loose upon the gladiator’s arena, through the barred gates of which he has already sniffed the odour of blood; and then, raising one of his long arms towards the stool of penitence, on which the criminal had been placed, he again repeated, with an eagerness amounting to frenzy, his accusation against her.

As the witchfinder’s hoarse voice was heard, a visible shudder passed through Magdalena’s frame; but she raised not her head, moved not a limb, spoke not; and it was only when called upon by the chief schreiber to declare what she had to say against this accusation, that she lowly murmured—“God’s will be done!” but still with bowed head and downcast eyes.

In support of his denunciation, the cripple proceeded to state how he had watched the mysterious female called “Mother Magdalena,” and had observed that she never would enter any consecrated building; how she would daily advance up the steps of the church, and then pause before the threshold, as if she feared to pass it, and then throw herself down upon the stones before the gate, where she would lie in strange convulsions, and at last return without having penetrated into the building—an evident proof that the devil she served had forbidden her to put her foot into any sacred dwelling, but had taught her, nevertheless, to approach near enough to treat the awful mysteries of the Christian religion, performed within, with mockery and contempt. To this accusation, which was confirmed by the acclamation of several persons present in the court, Magdalena, when called upon to speak, proffered no denial; she contented herself with the meek reply, that God alone knew the motives of the heart—that it was for him alone to judge. The words were still uttered in the same low despairing tone, and without the slightest movement of her head from its sunken posture.

The partially monastic dress, which was her habitual attire, was next brought forward against her as a proof of her desire to treat with contempt the dress of the religious orders: and to this absurd accusation, when asked   why she had adopted a costume resembling that of the holy sisterhood of penitents, the old woman still refused any reply.

The events of the previous afternoon, when she had been openly seen to throw her staff at the Amtmann’s unoffending daughter, and wound her on the neck, and then break into pieces the image of the Holy Cross, were then recapitulated, as facts known upon the positive evidence of a hundred witnesses.

These matters disposed of, the cripple proceeded to detail his own peculiar grievances, and attributed, as he had done in the cases of the seven unhappy women who had already fallen victims of his frantic delusion, the severe pains that had racked his poor distorted limbs to the malefic charms of the sorceress. He related how, on the last night on which he had met Mother Magdalena, he had found her sitting by the well in the market-place, casting a spell upon the spring, and turning the waters to poison and blood—as a proof of which, he swore to have himself tasted in the water of the bucket the taste of blood; how, in revenge for his warning to her to desist from her foul practices, she had pointed up her finger to the sky, and immediately brought down upon his head all the combined waters of heaven; how she had vanished from his sight in this storm, he knew not how; and how immediately intense pains began to torture his joints, until he became half frantic with agony, and had been compelled, by hideous visions, to quit the shelter he had sought, in order to be exposed to all the peltings of the storm. He had since suffered, he declared, the tortures of the damned in all his limbs, with occasional fits of shuddering, sometimes of hot fever, sometimes of the most freezing cold, which were evidently torments worked upon him by the powers of darkness. And as he spoke, the unhappy wretch was again seized by one of his fearful fits of ague, during the convulsions of which the clamours of the crowd grew terrible against the sorceress.

“What sayest thou to this accusation, woman?” said the chief schreiber. “Thou see’st how even now he suffers.”

“I have never willed evil to any man—not even to him,” was Magdalena’s only reply.

When recovered from his fit, the cripple again raised his head—it was to cast a glance at the object of his denunciation, in which hatred and triumph were blended together, in one of those occasional flashes of wildness which showed that there was a vein of insanity running through all the frenzied zeal of the witchfinder. He had now arrived at a period of his narration, when the most damning proof of all was to overwhelm the accused woman.

It was not without an unaffected expression of horror, that he went on to relate how he had wandered around the building by the Watergate, in a lower cell of which he had discovered that she dwelt, seeking in vain to find an entrance or a peep-hole, that might enable him to penetrate into the interior; how he had, at last, dragged his crippled limbs up into a tree upon the river’s bank, overlooking an upper chamber of the building; how he had, at first, seen Mother Magdalena in conversation with the young illuminator; how, upon his departure, she had flung herself down upon her knees, and after spitting upon one of the books of holy writ upon the table, had made wild gestures of conjuration, upon which the demon himself, attired in a dark robe, had suddenly appeared by supernatural means, for he had not entered by the door; how the foul hag had fallen down and worshipped the arch-fiend; and how, after a conference of short duration, during which the woman at his feet appeared to supplicate with earnestness, probably a prolongation of her wretched term of power to work ill, and afterwards kissed his hand in token of adoration and submission, the demon had vanished as suddenly as he had appeared.

A low murmur of horror ran through the assembly, as Black Claus related this fearful story. All eyes were turned upon the handmaiden of Satan. For a moment she had raised her head, horror-struck at this interpretation of the interview she had in Gottlob’s chamber with the stranger—for a moment she seemed to have a desire to speak. But then, clasping her   hands before her face, she murmured—“O God! it cannot be! But this is terrible!”

Gottlob, who, during the whole accusation, had listened with much impatience, could now no longer restrain his generous feelings. He started forward with the words—“No, no, it is impossible! Speak, Magdalena—say how false is this man’s tale.”

“God knows that it is false!” said Magdalena.

“I knew it could not be. There could be no one with thee in my chamber, and he lies.”

“No,” replied Magdalena sadly, “thus far is true:—There was a stranger by me in your chamber.”

“But who then?—speak, Magdalena,” urged Gottlob. “Clear yourself of the foul stigma of his tale.”

“I may not say!” replied the unhappy woman. “But God will prove my innocence in His own right time.”

“Why hesitate,” again cried the eager young man, “when with a word you could disprove him?”

“I have already said it cannot be,” said the accused woman, sinking her head upon her breast.

Gottlob himself drew back with a shudder; for a moment he knew not what to think; the strange answers of Magdalena perplexed and troubled him. He began himself to doubt of the woman, who, in return for his benevolence, had showed him the attachment of a mother. He pulled his cloak over his face with both his hands, and stood for a time overwhelmed.

“It needs no further questions upon this point, I presume,” said the chief schreiber, turning to the Ober-Amtmann. “The wretched woman has already admitted a part of the truth;” and, with a sign to the denouncer, he bade him proceed.

The witchfinder paused for a moment, and gave one long look of tenderness and pity—as far, indeed, as his harsh, rudely-stamped features could express such feelings—at the pale face of Bertha. Then, fixing his eye keenly upon the Ober-Amtmann, as if to fascinate his attention, he burst into a fresh accusation against the sorceress, as having, in the first place, cast her spells upon the noble Fraulein Bertha, for the purpose of sowing the seeds of death within her frame; and as having, in the second place, employed the young man called “Gentle Gottlob” to be an involuntary agent in her work of ill.

Upon hearing the first part of this charge, Magdalena had raised her head to give, unconsciously as it were, a deprecating look at the fair girl—as if to assure her, with that one long concentrated look of deep feeling, that, far from desiring her evil, she contended only with the overpourings of kindness and love for her; and then, as though she had already expressed more than her conscience could approve, she bowed again her head, murmuring only—“O God! support me. Thou knowest how false is the raving of that wretched man.” The second part of the charge excited other and very varied feelings among those present. Magdalena again started, but with evident surprise, and made a hasty gesture of denial. Gottlob sprang forward, horrified at being thus involved, even as an involuntary agent, in the hideous denunciation, and indignant at the supposition that he could work ill to the Amtmann’s lovely daughter; and he protested, with all the vehemence which gentle natures, when roused into excitement, will display, against so unfounded and calumnious an accusation; whilst Bertha, joining together her small hands, as if in supplication, turned her face, with anxious expression, to her father, crying—“No, no—it cannot be!”

Astounded at so unexpected a revelation, the Ober-Amtmann seemed at first not to know what to think. He gazed alternately upon Gottlob and Bertha, as if to read upon their faces the secret of a connexion between them; and then, satisfied of the impossibility that the noble Ober-Amtmann’s daughter could have the slightest affinity with the unknown youth before him, he drew a long breath, and passed his hand over his brow, as if to drive away ideas so absurd.

“Peace, youth—peace!” he cried to Gottlob; “we will hear thee anon. It is not thou who art accused. And thou, my child be calm. Cripple! what mean thy words? What proof bringest thou of their truth?”