"'Tis false," said he, in a choking voice.
"'Tis true," screamed the woman; "was not there a birthmark upon thy child's shoulder? Ah, thou rememberest it, I see. Look at the dead man on the gallows, and thou wilt find the birthmark there."
With a wild cry the steward stripped the clothing from the dangling corpse, and there upon the lifeless shoulder, he found the mark which branded the criminal as his child. He had hanged his own son.
Before his men could lend a hand to stay him he had fallen senseless to the ground.
The men turned and sprang towards the woman, who was now convulsed with horrible laughter.
"Seize her," cried one,--and they all made to obey.
But quickly raising a phial to her lips, she drank the contents, and in an instant fell back a corpse.
The old witch shook her crutch at the armed men.
"The murder of an innocent man is avenged," she cried. "Is it not written that the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children? And lo--the murderer's son perishes upon the gibbet where the father's crime was done."
Then, laughing shrilly, she hobbled away over the hills, and, full of fear, the men-at-arms let her go unmolested.
Or THE WONDERFUL CURE OF THE MOTTRAM PARSON.
There was a certain John Hyde appointed Vicar of Mottram in the year 1575, who continued to hold the sacred office for over 50 years. He succeeded his father, Sir Nicholas Hyde (the Vicar of Mottram from 1547 to 1575) who was buried in the Chancel of Mottram Church on the 24th day of April, 1575. John Hyde married at Mottram on February 26th, 1575-6, Alice Reddich, of Mottram, by whom he had several children: and after her death on March 21st, 1593-4, he married for a second wife, Ann Hyde, on May 22nd, 1597. In the year 1599 the Parish Registers were transcribed from the old paper books into the parchment volumes now in use, and every page of the transcripts bears the signature of John Hyde. He was also rural dean of Macclesfield.
During a great portion of his life, Parson John Hyde had curates to assist in the discharge of his ministerial duties; this assistance was the more necessary on account of the wide extent of the ancient parish of Mottram, and also because there was a chapel at Woodhead dependent for its ministry upon the mother church at Mottram. The most prominent of these curates was his eldest son, Hamnet Hyde, who, as appears from the Mottram registers, was baptized at Mottram Church on May 14th, 1580, and afterwards settled in the town, marrying there on the 12th day of January, 1601, Joane Greaves, of Mottram, by whom he had three sons, John, Nicholas, and Thomas.