through the strange mixture of wisdom and credulity composing the
volume. One tale after another, of witch, and demon, and magician,
firmly believed and honestly recorded by his worthy relative, drew
him on, until he sat forgetful of everything but the world of
marvels before him--to none of which, however, did he accord a
wider credence than sprung from the interest of the moment. He was
roused by a noise of quarrel in the farmyard, towards which his
window looked, and, laying aside reading, hastened out to learn the
cause.






CHAPTER III.

THE WITCH.





It was a bright Autumn morning. A dry wind had been blowing all
night through the shocks, and already some of the farmers had begun
to carry to their barns the sheaves which had stood hopelessly
dripping the day before. Ere Richard reached the yard, he saw, over
the top of the wall, the first load of wheat-sheaves from the
harvest-field, standing at the door of the barn, and high-uplifted
thereon the figure of Faithful Stopchase, one of the men, a