Whether
the persons accused of this offence really did imagine that they were
possessed of unusual power of any kind; or whether they had the will at
least, if not the power, of doing mischief to their neighbours; or
whether all the confessions, of which there are so many, were extorted
by the mere cruelty of the witch-finders—these are questions which are
not, I fancy, yet solved. And the present narrative gives me pause. I
cannot altogether sweep it away as mere invention. The reader must
judge for himself. Castringham contributed a victim to the _auto-da-fé_. Mrs Mothersole
was her name, and she differed from the ordinary run of village witches
only in being rather better off and in a more influential position. Efforts were made to save her by several reputable farmers of the
parish. They did their best to testify to her character, and showed
considerable anxiety as to the verdict of the jury. But what seems to have been fatal to the woman was the evidence of the
then proprietor of Castringham Hall—Sir Matthew Fell. He deposed to
having watched her on three different occasions from his window, at the
full of the moon, gathering sprigs “from the ash-tree near my house”. She had climbed into the branches, clad only in her shift, and was
cutting off small twigs with a peculiarly curved knife, and as she did
so she seemed to be talking to herself. On each occasion Sir Matthew
had done his best to capture the woman, but she had always taken alarm
at some accidental noise he had made, and all he could see when he got
down to the garden was a hare running across the path in the direction
of the village. On the third night he had been at the pains to follow at his best
speed, and had gone straight to Mrs Mothersole’s house; but he had had
to wait a quarter of an hour battering at her door, and then she had
come out very cross, and apparently very sleepy, as if just out of bed;
and he had no good explanation to offer of his visit. Mainly on this evidence, though there was much more of a less striking
and unusual kind from other parishioners, Mrs Mothersole was found
guilty and condemned to die. She was hanged a week after the trial,
with five or six more unhappy creatures, at Bury St Edmunds. Sir Matthew Fell, then Deputy-Sheriff, was present at the execution. It
was a damp, drizzly March morning when the cart made its way up the
rough grass hill outside Northgate, where the gallows stood. The other
victims were apathetic or broken down with misery; but Mrs Mothersole
was, as in life so in death, of a very different temper. Her “poysonous
Rage”, as a reporter of the time puts it, “did so work upon the
Bystanders—yea, even upon the Hangman—that it was constantly affirmed
of all that saw her that she presented the living Aspect of a mad
Divell. Yet she offer’d no Resistance to the Officers of the Law; onely
she looked upon those that laid Hands upon her with so direfull and
venomous an Aspect that—as one of them afterwards assured me—the meer
Thought of it preyed inwardly upon his Mind for six Months after.”

However, all that she is reported to have said was the seemingly
meaningless words: “There will be guests at the Hall.” Which she
repeated more than once in an undertone. Sir Matthew Fell was not unimpressed by the bearing of the woman. He
had some talk upon the matter with the Vicar of his parish, with whom
he travelled home after the assize business was over. His evidence at
the trial had not been very willingly given; he was not specially
infected with the witch-finding mania, but he declared, then and
afterwards, that he could not give any other account of the matter than
that he had given, and that he could not possibly have been mistaken as
to what he saw. The whole transaction had been repugnant to him, for he
was a man who liked to be on pleasant terms with those about him; but
he saw a duty to be done in this business, and he had done it. That
seems to have been the gist of his sentiments, and the Vicar applauded
it, as any reasonable man must have done. A few weeks after, when the moon of May was at the full, Vicar and
Squire met again in the park, and walked to the Hall together. Lady
Fell was with her mother, who was dangerously ill, and Sir Matthew was
alone at home; so the Vicar, Mr Crome, was easily persuaded to take a
late supper at the Hall. Sir Matthew was not very good company this evening. The talk ran
chiefly on family and parish matters, and, as luck would have it, Sir
Matthew made a memorandum in writing of certain wishes or intentions of
his regarding his estates, which afterwards proved exceedingly useful. When Mr Crome thought of starting for home, about half past nine
o’clock, Sir Matthew and he took a preliminary turn on the gravelled
walk at the back of the house. The only incident that struck Mr Crome
was this: they were in sight of the ash-tree which I described as
growing near the windows of the building, when Sir Matthew stopped and
said:

“What is that that runs up and down the stem of the ash? It is never a
squirrel? They will all be in their nests by now.”

The Vicar looked and saw the moving creature, but he could make nothing
of its colour in the moonlight. The sharp outline, however, seen for an
instant, was imprinted on his brain, and he could have sworn, he said,
though it sounded foolish, that, squirrel or not, it had more than four
legs. Still, not much was to be made of the momentary vision, and the two men
parted. They may have met since then, but it was not for a score of
years. Next day Sir Matthew Fell was not downstairs at six in the morning, as
was his custom, nor at seven, nor yet at eight. Hereupon the servants
went and knocked at his chamber door. I need not prolong the
description of their anxious listenings and renewed batterings on the
panels. The door was opened at last from the outside, and they found
their master dead and black. So much you have guessed. That there were
any marks of violence did not at the moment appear; but the window was
open. One of the men went to fetch the parson, and then by his directions
rode on to give notice to the coroner. Mr Crome himself went as quick
as he might to the Hall, and was shown to the room where the dead man
lay. He has left some notes among his papers which show how genuine a
respect and sorrow was felt for Sir Matthew, and there is also this
passage, which I transcribe for the sake of the light it throws upon
the course of events, and also upon the common beliefs of the time:

“There was not any the least Trace of an Entrance having been forc’d to
the Chamber: but the Casement stood open, as my poor Friend would
always have it in this Season. He had his Evening Drink of small Ale in
a silver vessel of about a pint measure, and tonight had not drunk it
out.