By dint of questioning, Margaret extracted from her the horrible fact that Betty Barnes, having been induced by a gipsy fortune-teller to lend the latter her husband's Sunday clothes, on promise of having them faithfully returned on the Saturday night before Goodman Barnes should have missed them, became alarmed by their non-appearance, and her consequent dread of her husband's anger, and as, according to one of the savage country superstitions, the cries of a cat, in the agonies of being boiled or roasted alive; compelled (as it were) the powers of darkness to fulfil the wishes of the executioner, resort had been had to the charm. 
Margaret extracted from her the horrible fact that Betty Barnes, having been induced by a gypsy fortune-teller to lend the latter her husband's Sunday clothes, with which the gypsy had then disappeared, had followed one of the savage country superstitions: the cries of a cat, in the agonies of being boiled or roasted alive, would compel the powers of darkness to fulfil the executioner's wishes. 