the steps before the worshipful court. But one of these women was the
Sheriff his housekeeper (the other was the impudent constable his wife),
and my daughter said that she would not suffer herself to be touched save
by honest women, and assuredly not by the housekeeper, and begged _Dom.
Consul_ to send for her maid, who was sitting in her prison reading the
Bible, if he knew of no other decent woman at hand. Hereupon the
housekeeper began to pour forth a wondrous deal of railing and ill words,
but _Dom. Consul_ rebuked her, and answered my daughter that he would let
her have her wish in this matter too, and bade the impudent constable his
wife call the maid hither from out of the prison. After he had said this,
he took me by the arm, and prayed me so long to go up with him, for that
no harm would happen to my daughter as yet, that I did as he would have
me.

Before long she herself came up, led between the two women, barefooted,
and in the black torture-shift, but so pale that I myself should scarce
have known her. The hateful constable, who followed close behind, seized
her by the hand, and led her before the worshipful court.

Hereupon the admonitions began all over again, and _Dom. Consul_ bade her
look upon the brown spots that were upon the black shift, for that they
were the blood of old wife Bichlke, and to consider that within a few
minutes it would in like manner be stained with her own blood. Hereupon
she answered, "I have considered that right well, but I hope that my
faithful Saviour, who hath laid this torment upon me, being innocent, will
likewise help me to bear it, as he helped the holy martyrs of old; for if
these, through God's help, overcame by faith the torments inflicted on
them by blind heathens, I also can overcome the torture inflicted on me by
blind heathens, who, indeed, call themselves Christians, but who are more
cruel than those of yore; for the old heathens only caused the holy