Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1866-03-14
The Good old Times i'm England. l..i ..IL.

A pretty young girl, dwelling with her
! widowed mother near the village of WV-n
combe, loved and was beloved by young
farmer, whose croft adjoined her mothers
little field. The young and happy pair :
looked forward to wedlock at no distant
date, when, one. evil day-a day too OF sud-l.
den storm and rain-there came TO the .
mothers door wealthy suitor, who placed q
his money-bags and his station in Rivalry
against the youth and manly beauty of the
favored swain. Twas Justice Parr, an
| aged but upTighteous BOaz, who had seen
this Door Ruth cleaning in his whcat-feld,,
and resolved to win her for his wife. ri3nr
The mother, tempted by the golden pros
pece sent the old man to her daughter, who
with simple earnestness told him the story
OF her love for the young farmer, and be-
sought him to think of her no more. This
would have melted many heart; it hard
ened his; and pondering in his wicked 81
brain, he Matched a scheme OF revenge.--o' ~
Half hints of witehcraft in the town turn
ed adrift so cunningly upon the breeze of D
gossip that none knew whence they came, !,
began to make the timid pale. not Z,
child fell i'll with pining disease; and ~
the maiden was known to have sat long 4
hours by the bed of the flushed and tossing
sufferer, soothing its fever and cooling its
dry lips with grateful acid. This alone T
SlOubu lOl IDOSB nCHllu- e.
ish ailments were then igno antIy ascribed,
to witchcraft. Suspicion became certainty,
when witch-finder-not the Infamous
Hopkins, who tlOurished a year or two la
ter, but wretch OF similar kind, brought
to the village and with a good round sum \
by the relentless justice y discovered in
the damsel indubitable marks OF witch
craft. .u... -.ri .atsrqdii qyr ri,jfg bur
He said there was something .superhu- =,
ma In hnV. Il.
OF eighty he would have drawn the same
conclusion from herugliness.) She had
mole on the left cheek. Her mother kept 20
cat, which was known to wander abroad at b.,
night. Upon these and equally miserable
preteXts the poOrgirl was Seized and HarYo %
ried- shrieking, to the Witch Lake, that sheil,
might there undergo-the usual ordeal. With,
her thumbs and her great toes tied ,togeth-
er, she was taken in boat to the center OF
a pool, and flung pitilessly in. 'rl 13unn ,yl1'
"A splash-a shrek or twog quenehedini g
6ubbling spasms, a atroubling of the surface,
for some seconds, as if a deadly strife was
going on below-and then all was still.
Her innocence was proved, but at what n
price! Next day the white, garments andrt
Whittier face of the dead girl fioated up amid
the .water-lilies, in whose trailing stalks
her wet black hair was all entwined. The
cords were loose--snapped in the struggle; d
but alas! too late ,-- .i..;f-4 .r,ta.rTS'' yi3.
The equity of tragic sequence, would
seem to demand the instant death of Parr
ather furious lovers hands; bnt-ah.! for
the weakness of humanity enthraIled by
superstition-that very lover, convinced OF, ,
her guilt by the .unanswerable reasoning
of the witch-fnder, stood among the crowd
that saw her committed to the lake, and
thanked Heaven for having delivered him B
FROM wedlock with sorceress. iog to "a,