he beat them small as the dust before the wind; he did cast them out as
the dirt in the streets.' Look down, and see what the Almighty God hath
done." While she hereupon raised her eyes towards heaven with a sigh, we
heard _Dom. Consul_ calling out behind us as loudly as he could: and
seeing that none could understand his words for the fearful storm and the
tumult of the waters, he jumped down from the coach, and would have
crossed the bridge on foot, but straightway he fell upon his nose, so that
it bled, and he crept back again on his hands and feet, and held a long
talk with _Dom. Camerarius_, who, howbeit, did not stir out of the coach.
Meanwhile the driver and the constable had unyoked the maimed horse, bound
it, and dragged it off the bridge, and now they came back to the cart and
bade us get down therefrom and cross the bridge on foot, the which we did
after the constable had unbound my child with many curses and ill words,
threatening that, in return for her malice, he would keep her roasting
till late in the evening. (I could not blame him much therefore; for truly
this was a strange thing!) But albeit my child herself got safe across, we
two--I mean reverend Martinus and myself--like all the others, fell two or
three times to the ground. At length we all, by God his grace, got safe
and sound to the miller's house, where the constable delivered my child
into the miller his hands, to guard her on forfeit of his life, while he
ran down to the mill-pond to save the Sheriff his grey charger. The driver
was bidden the while to get the cart and the other horses off the
bewitched bridge. We had, however, stood but a short time with the miller,
under the great oak before his door, when _Dom. Consul_, with the
worshipful court, and all the folks, came over the little bridge, which is
but a couple of musket-shots off from the first one, and he could scarce
prevent the crowd from falling upon my child and tearing her in pieces,
seeing that they all, as well as _Dom. Consul_ himself, imagined that none
other but she had brewed the storm and bewitched the bridge (especially as
she herself had not fallen thereon), and had likewise caused the Sheriff