Then Mercury, who had always been much pleased with his wit, drew aside one of the three Fates, and said: "Cruel beldame, why do you let the poor wretch be tormented?

The plot of The Lucky Chance; or, An Alderman's Bargain is original save for the details of Lady Fulbank's design upon Gayman, when he is conveyed to her house by masqued devils and conducted to her chamber by Pert dressed as a withered beldame.

Most were barefoot, and all but twothree were ancient beldames who should have been at home in the chimney corner.

"Ye beldame," he said, with many oaths, "I'll pare your talons for ye."

Behind the brazier sat three persons, Fateh Muhammad, a Musalman youth with curiously large and dreamy eyes, and two old Musalman beldames, either of whom might have sat as a model for the witch of Endor.

Anon the tear More gentle starts, to hear the Beldame tell Of pretty babes, that lov'd each other dear, Murder'd by cruel Uncle's mandate fell: Ev'n such the shiv'ring joys thy tones impart, Ev'n so thou, SIDDONS!

The business is not entirely left, as in some churches, to worn-out old men and sacredly-snuffy old womento a miserable half-dozen of fogies, nearly as ignorant of the vital virtues of the sacrament as the Virginian old beldame who took it to cure the rheumatism.

The Colonel rings a bell and an aged beldame approaches, making a deep curtsy and offering me a beaker of milk, a crusty loaf, a few venison pasties, and a cold goose stuffed with humming birds.

Is the Modern Philosophy (as it has been called) at one moment a youthful bride, and the next a withered beldame, like the false Duessa in Spenser?

Also beldames of incalculable antiquity,a regular allowance of one to each boarding-house,who flit noiselessly and unceasingly about the passages and up and down the stairways, admonishing you of their presence by a ghostly sniffle, which always frightens you, and prevents you from running into them and knocking them down.

FAUST Will none but this old beldame do?

Could I but reach thy wither'd frame, Thou wretched beldame, void of shame!

Rather in garret pent, secure from harm, My Muse with murders shall the town alarm; 200 Or plunge in politics with patriot zeal, And snarl like Guthrie for the public weal, Than crawl an insect in a beldame's power, And dread the crush of caprice every hour! FRIEND. 'Tis well; enjoy that petulance of style, And, like the envious adder, lick the file:

"And you, you beldame," said the Bastard in French to the Iroquois woman, "you will have a lesson this night which will teach you to side against your own people.

Here a number of tales of the Spanish Main are supposed to be told by a trio of withered beldames whose youthful prime was spent as pirate queens.

Put herself into the power of this greedy and unscrupulous old beldame?

Anon the tear More gentle starts, to hear the Beldame tell Of pretty babes, that lov'd each other dear, Murder'd by cruel Uncle's mandate fell: Ev'n such the shiv'ring joys thy tones impart, Ev'n so thou, SIDDONS!

but the likeness o' the ald beldame, bedizened out in her satins and velvets, on her dead body, simperin', wi' her eyes as wide as saucers, and her face like the fiend himself.

But when I was grown to be a woman, my aunt spent a day and night wi' me at Littleham, and she telt me there was no doubt it was the poor little boy that was missing sa lang sen, that was shut up to die thar in the dark by that wicked beldame, whar his skirls, or his prayers, or his thumpin' cud na be heard, and his hat was left by the water's edge, whoever did it, to mak' belief he was drowned.

"'Tis true, as I now remember, I once came on a couple of beldames, my wife's nurse and another, who has since been ducked for witchcraft, and found them about to flog the babe with nettles, and lay him in the thorn hedge because he was a sickly child, whom, forsooth, they took to be a changeling; but I forbade the profane folly to be ever again mentioned in my household, nor did I ever hear thereof again.

Art thou here, thou ancient beldame?