get her house freed of her guest; “a’ must needs go when the devil drives.”
“Do manus,” said the Magister, “I submit—taking the world to witness, that I have possessed this honourable gentleman with the fall injustice which he has done and shall do to his own soul, if he becomes thus a trinketer with Satan. Neither will I go forth with our guest myself, but rather send my pupil.—Ricarde! Adsis, nebulo.”
“Under your favour, not so,” answered the old woman; “you may peril your own soul, if you list, but my son shall budge on no such errand; and I wonder at you, Domine Doctor, to propose such a piece of service for little Dickie.”
“Nay, my good Gammer Sludge,” answered the preceptor, “Ricardus shall go but to the top of the hill, and indicate with his digit to the stranger the dwelling of Wayland Smith. Believe not that any evil can come to him, he having read this morning, fasting, a chapter of the Septuagint, and, moreover, having had his lesson in the Greek Testament.”
“Ay,” said his mother, “and I have sewn a sprig of witch’s elm in the neck of un’s doublet, ever since that foul thief has begun his practices on man and beast in these parts.”
“And as he goes oft (as I hugely suspect) towards this conjurer for his own pastime, he may for once go thither, or near it, to pleasure us, and to assist this stranger.—Ergo, heus, Ricarde! adsis, quœso, mi didascule.”
The pupil, thus affectionately invoked, at length came stumbling into the room; a queer, shambling,
