i8o THE WITCH IN KENT 



they strike it without drawing blood they will 

 have to suffer for it ; but that should they draw 

 blood, ever so little, "she won't trouble them no 

 more." 



Barely forty years since there lived in the parish an 

 elderly woman, who had built herself a little furze hut 

 in a lonely field which lies in among the woods. She 

 was a witch. One day, when the men were rabbiting, 

 the dogs started a hare. They followed this hare all 

 day, and finally ran it into Mother Smith's hut and 

 killed it there. The story goes on to say that from 

 that day the witch was never seen again Probably 

 no very searching inquiry would have been made, for 

 she was " a bad un," and had given a lot of trouble 

 in her time. This field has long been called " The 

 Terrible Downs," and the reputation of its mysterious 

 inhabitant owed, no doubt, not a little to the name 

 and the isolation of her abode. Less mysterious, if 

 more tragic, is the end of another witch at a still more 

 recent date, who was found in bed with her throat 

 cut. No one was ever brought to justice for the 

 crime, though local suspicion pointed to one of whom 

 it was well known that she used to *' terrify " him a 

 great deal, and that he bad lost many animals " along 

 o' her." . 



