At all events, she lived in the town below, but how she lived nobody could tell either.

Everything about her was a riddle; no wondher, considherin' she hardly was ever known to spake to any one, from the lark to the lamb.

At length she began to be subjected by many sensible people to be something not right; which you know, sir, was only natural.
Peter O'Figgins, that was cracked--but then it was only wid dhrink and larnin'-- said it; and Katty McTrollop, Lord Bilberry's henwife, was of the same opinion, and from them and others the thing grew and spread until it became right well known that she was nothin' else than a witch, and that the big wart on her neck was nothin' more nor less than the mark the devil had set upon her, to suckle his babies by.

From this out, them that had Christian hearts and loved their religion trated the thief as she desarved to be trated.

She was hissed and hooted, thank God, wherever she showed her face; but still nobody had courage to lay a hand upon her by rason of her blasphaimin' and cursin', which, they say, used to make the hair stand like wattles upon the heads of them that heard her." "Had she not a black cat ?" asked Woodward; "surely, she ought to have had a familiar." "No," replied Barney; "the cat she had was a white cat, and the mainin' of its color will appear to you by and by; at any rate, out came the truth.