Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/288

 Hathorne (who seems to have combined in his own single person the several duties of judge and prosecuting officer, in a manner that is incomprehensible to our modern ideas of legal etiquette) thus addressed her:

"Elsie Campbell, look at me. You are now in the hands of authority; answer, then, with truth."

"I kinna answer ye wi' ony ither. The truth is my mither tongue—I aye speak it."

"Tell me, then, why do you torment these children?"

"I dinna torment them. I niver hurted a bairn in my life—I'd scorn to do it."

"But they say that you do."

"I kinna help wha' they say. I am jist an honest, God-fearin' woman; I dinna ken aught o' yer witchcraft."

"But what, then, makes them say it of you?"

"Hoo suld I ken? I kinna fash mysel' to tell hoo ilka fule's tongue may wag."

"But do you not know that if you are guilty you can not hide it?"

"Haith! an' I ken that weel enow; an' sae do the Lord abune us."