Stop! stop!--I said,--let me come to you.
The little man hobbled back, and lifted himself by the left arm, with an
ease approaching to grace which surprised me, into his high chair. I
walked to his side, and he stretched out the forefinger of his right
hand, with the ring upon it. The ring had been put on long ago, and
could not pass the misshapen joint. It was one of those funeral rings
which used to be given to relatives and friends after the decease of
persons of any note or importance. Beneath a round fit of glass was a
death's head. Engraved on one side of this, "L. B. AEt. 22,"--on the
other, "Ob. 1692"
My grandmother's grandmother,--said the little man.--Hanged for a witch.
It does n't seem a great while ago. I knew my grandmother, and loved
her. Her mother was daughter to the witch that Chief Justice Sewall
hanged and Cotton Mather delivered over to the Devil.--That was Salem,
though, and not Boston. No, not Boston. Robert Calef, the Boston
merchant, it was that blew them all to--
Never mind where he blew them to,--I said; for the little man was getting
red in the face, and I did n't know what might come next.
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