laughing, "Look at the witch, look at the witch!" Whereupon one of the men
struck at my poor child with the sack which he held in his hand, so that
she turned quite white, and the flour flew all about the coach like a
cloud. When I rebuked him, the wicked rogue laughed and said, that if no
other smoke than that ever came under her nose, so much the better for
her. _Item_, it was worse in Pudgla than even at the mill. The people
stood so thick on the hill, before the castle, that we could scarce force
our way through, and the Sheriff caused the death-bell in the castle-tower
to toll as an _avisum_. Whereupon more and more people came running out of
the ale-houses and cottages. Some cried out, "Is that the witch?" Others,
again, "Look at the parson's witch! the parson's witch!" and much more,
which for very shame I may not write. They scraped up the mud out of the
gutter which ran from the castle-kitchen and threw it upon us; _item_, a
great stone, the which struck one of the horses so that it shied, and
belike would have upset the coach had not a man sprung forward and held it
in. All this happened before the castle-gates, where the Sheriff stood
smiling and looking on, with a heron's feather stuck in his grey hat. But
so soon as the horse was quiet again, he came to the coach and mocked at
my child, saying, "See, young maid, thou wouldst not come to me, and here
thou art nevertheless!" Whereupon she answered, "Yea, I come; and may you
one day come before your judge as I come before you"; whereunto I said,
Amen, and asked him how his lordship could answer before God and man for
what he had done to a wretched man like myself and to my child? But he
answered, saying, Why had I come with her? And when I told him of the rude
people here, _item_, of the churlish miller's man, he said that it was not
his fault, and threatened the people all around with his fist, for they
were making a great noise. Thereupon he commanded my child to get down and
to follow him, and went before her into the castle; motioned the
constable, who would have gone with them, to stay at the foot of the
steps, and began to mount the winding staircase to the upper rooms alone