Marjorie Bowen

“ And the monkey sat on the table eating from Ottilia’s plate and snatching the best morsels while she talked.
And Ottilia brought the conversation round to the cheese, and Trina said she would send for it, and, ringing the bell, summons the porter and bids him run down to her house and ask the maid for one of her best cheeses.
Then the fellow answered: no, he would not run on any of her errands, she was not his mistress.
What, did he dare speak to a lady with that rudeness?
Lady! She might well call herself a lady, for no one else ever would. Why, she was no better born than he. ”

“ Ottilia: With the venison and salmon his lordship had been so good as to send she had made a little feast for some poor women of her acquaintance, and they, after thanking Heaven for its mercies, were just sitting to table when down came the roof and spoilt everything. This, like the death of the poor porter, was plainly witchcraft, and she accused the strange Trina Von Ebers, and called on the Sheriff to obtain justice for her and damages from that accursed witch. ”

“ Everyone stares and shrieks and crosses himself, and off go my cheeses, one after the other—jump, jump, jump!—and after them the hag screaming and cursing.
But she might do as she liked; it was no use, the cheeses hurry along and she cannot keep up with them.
In and out of the long streets they go, out of the gate and past Ottilia’s farm.
And there she is at the window laughing and clapping her hands, with the monkey on her shoulder.
Ottilia: She was well paid now for bewitching the poor porter! She might run till she burst, she would never get her cheeses again! Ha! ha! ”

“ She came of a great family, and had in her time been dowered with lands and castles, but some mysterious disgrace had fallen on her youth, and she had nothing left but a small farm where she brewed beer and made sausages and kept a few herons, whose feathers she sold in the moulting season, and by these, with the revenue from the beer and the sausages, she made her living, though she used all means to disguise this fact, and pretended that she had wealth from her lands and forests which no longer existed, as all knew well enough; but, as I have said, she was a witch, and who dared offend her? ”

“ So he puts one hoof in the market-place and glances down with his red eyes, then he takes up the two witches as a man might take up two hens and tucks them one under each arm, and off he goes over the houses—stride, stride, stride—and disappears with another clap of thunder. ”

“ And that was the end of the cheeses.
Now Ottilia and Pipkin had a feast, and because the Sheriff had not sent the honey as he had promised, they put a spell on him and turned all the beer in his cellar sour, and all the fish and meat in his pantry bad, so that the smell turned the Sheriff’s stomach.
So he in a fright sent another knave with a venison and a salmon and a great pot of honey; and what a feast my hag made! All the afternoon she was frying collops and sausages and making soup and boiling salmon. ”

“ Then presently he thinks of a solution, and declares them both pious women and innocent of all witchcraft, and suggests that perchance there is some evil person in the town who has played these ugly tricks, or else that they were no tricks at all, but mere accidents.
Accidents! screams Ottilia, when he himself had heard the devil speak from the mouth of her porter!
Accidents! cries Trina, when the cheeses had risen up like Christians and run down the street—hop; hop; hop ”