This sudden and terrible charge, uttered with frantic cries and vehement gesticulations, roused the listening multitude to horror. Even the prisoner herself seemed to be shocked at the woman's evident madness, and, raising her hands to heaven, she fervently ejaculated—"Oh, Lord! help me, help me!"
Upon this all the afflicted children were tormented; and when all this various tumult had subsided, Hathorne again addressed the prisoner:
"Do you not see what a solemn condition these are in, that when your hands are loosed they are afflicted?"
Then Mary Walcott and Elizabeth Hubbard accused her, but she answered:
"The Lord knows I have not hurt them; I am an innocent person."
Then Hathorne continued:
"It is very awful to see all these agonies; and you, an old professor, thus charged with contracting with the devil by the effects of it; and yet to see you stand with dry eyes, when there are so many wet."
It was considered one proof of a witch
