At the bar there stands a poor, miserable and decrepit old woman. As she looks at the grave and dignified judge she shakes with terror. The causes of her fear are solemn and significant, for she is about to be tried for her life, on the charge of being a witch. In those days of which I am writing, there existed a terrible superstition in the popular mind concerning witchcraft, believed as it was to be the crime of all others the most destructive to man and the most impious in the sight of God. The comely, dignified and shrewd-eyed judge excites the keenest interest in the crowded court, for he is one of the "men of mark" of his age, the profound lawyer, the incorruptible dispenser of justice, and the champion of truth and freedom.
Witnesses are called. They give their evidence in a plain unpretentious manner, and it is certain that they possess a firm faith in what they allege against the miserable prisoner. The principal accusation against her is that she holds in her possession a potent and mysterious charm. It enables her to spread disease, or to cure it, and it is further stated that she has lately been detected using it. "Has anybody seen it?" inquires the judge. "Yes, please you, my lord, and it is now here ready to be produced." His lordship directs that it shall be handed to him, and his order is obeyed. Behold! nothing but a dirty ball wrapped round with rag and pack-thread. Removing these, he discovers a scrap of stained and time-worn parchment inscribed with characters in his own handwriting. Chief Justice Holt, after the lapse of forty years, recognises the Greek letters which he had scrawled in the inn kitchen situate on the Oxford road.
Deep silence reigns in the crowded court-house, and every eye is turned on the judge. Lifting his head from his hands, in which it had been buried for a few moments, he says to the jury,--
"Gentlemen, I must now relate an incident of my life which ill-suits my position. To conceal that incident would be to increase the awful folly which I must atone. Did I conceal that folly of which I was guilty, I should endanger innocence and countenance superstition. This so-called charm which these poor ignorant people suppose to have the power of life and death is a senseless piece of parchment, on which with my own hand I wrote and gave the poor woman. This poor woman for no other reason stands before me accused of witchcraft." Chief Justice Holt then narrated the whole story of his adventure in his early years at the woman's hostelry on the Oxford road, and the recital produced such an effect upon the minds of the jury that his old hostess was not only acquitted, but was one of the last persons tried for the crime of witchcraft in this country.
