Chapter IV: Part 4

Marion Peebles[41] came to an untimely end, not unreasonably, according to the witch-haters. She was "a wicked, devilish, fearful, and abominable curser," and the world could not be too soon rid of her; for had she not changed herself into the likeness of an unchristian beast, a mere shapeless monster, a huge and ugly "pellack-quhaill" (porpoise), and in this form wrecked the boat of Edward Halcro, to whom she and her husband had "ane deadlie and veneficial malice?" Halcro and four other men were in the boat, and public suspicion pointed at once to Marion, and affirmed this wreck to be caused by her wicked deed. So when two of the dead bodies were brought to land, she and her husband had to undergo the _bahr-recht_--the ordeal by touch of the dead--to prove themselves innocent or guilty. When they came where they lay the "said umquhile Edward bled at the collar-bane or craig-bane;" the other in the hand and fingers, "gushing out bluid thairat, to the great admiration of the beholders, and judgment of the Almytie." Many and heavy were Marion's misdeeds. She cursed Janet Robinson, and "accordingly showers of pains and fits fell upon the victim." She looked upon a cow, and it "crappit togidder till no lyfe was leukit for her." She took away the profit of Edward Halcro's brewing, and destroyed the milk of Andrew Erasmusson's kye for thirteen days. Indeed, her character was so well known that when Swene, her husband, was working in a peat moss where a sickly fellow was one of the gang, his fellows would ask him seriously "if he could not make his wife go to her pobe (foster-father) the devil, and bid him loose a knot, so that the man might get back his health?" Once she cast a sickness on a woman, then took it from her and flung it on a calf, which went mad and died; and she crippled a man, then cured him under compulsion, by putting her fingers first to his leg and then to the ground, which she did twice, muttering to herself; but the report of this getting about, she was angry and banned the man once more, yet once more was forced to cure him;--this time by means of a bannock prepared with her own hands, whereby she cast his malady on a cow. Poor cowey died of her strange sickness, and poor Marion died of a worse disease--the rope and the faggot: and then the neighbourhood slept in peace.

SINCLAIR'S STORIES.[42]

On a certain day in a certain month, A.D. 1644, a woman went to the house of another woman in Borrowstonness. She went early, and instantly fell to mauling and pulling her, crying, "Thou traitour thief, thou thought to destroy my son this morning, but it was not in thy power!" And then she pulled her mutch from off her head, and mauled and maltreated her anew. Now the meaning of the row was, that this woman had a son out at sea, whom she, so cruelly assaulted, had sought to destroy by means of a sudden storm raised by magic means this very day. The storm was actually raised, and many of the crew suffered; but the son of the woman at Borrowstonness was washed overboard by one wave, and washed on board again by another wave, which so filled all the mariners with amaze that they came ashore. The dispute between the two women becoming noised abroad, and the thing being as the one had said, it was found that they were both in equal fault--that the one had done, and the other known, too much; wherefore they were burnt as witches, and the world had the satisfaction of hearing them confess before they died.

Another woman, "about thirty and two, or three and thirty years of age, a most beautiful and comely person as was in the country about," wife to one Goodaile, a cooper, in Carrin, was fyled for a witch and put in prison. She was the devil's favourite and dear delight; and at their meetings she was the person whom "he did most court and embrace, calling her constantly my dear mistress, setting her always at his right hand, to the great discontent of his old haggs, whom, as they now conceived, he slighted;" but her time came at last, and the law caught hold of her in place of the devil, and gave her a yet more stringent embrace. James Fleming, a sea-captain, and a man of great personal courage and physical strength, was set to watch her, for the magistrates feared lest the devil should attempt her rescue, since he loved her so well; and to him she said, that if she got no deliverance by one o'clock in the morning, she would lay her breast open to him and confess freely. James Fleming, a little alarmed at this, and not liking to encounter the devil single-handed, took down fourteen of his ship's company with him, "not forgetting the reading of Scripture and earnest prayer to God." Sure enough the foul fiend came: for on a sudden at midnight a tremendous hurricane arose, which unroofed the house where they all were, and threatened to bring the whole place about their ears, and a voice was heard calling to her by a strange name to come away: "at which time she made three several loups upward, increasing gradually till her feet were as high as his breast." But though James Fleming's hair was standing widershins on his head, and though his heart failed him for dread and fear, and he "beteached" himself to God "with great amazement," yet his muscles continued as serviceable as ever, and at last got the better even of the Prince of Darkness. He held this beautiful and comely person in his powerful arms, and kept her there, through all her struggles to get free; and at last succeeded in throwing her down upon the ground, where for some time she grovelled and foamed like one in the falling sickness, and then sank into a deep sleep. When she awaked she complained bitterly of the devil, saying how that he had promised to release her and carry her over to Ireland, touching at Paisley by the way, where she had a sister living; but now she saw through all his treachery and perfidiousness, and understood how she had been made his dupe. She was burnt in all penitence and good conduct, as was also another woman about the same time, who, putting up her arm to swear that she was not a witch, had it suddenly withered and stiffened so that she could not bring it back again; nor was she able to do so, until a minister who was there, had intreated God in her behalf; for the ministers were always men of mighty power on such occasions, and either made or marred at their pleasure. If they chose to accept a case as possession, they prayed and exorcised; but if it seemed good to them to call it witchcraft, then the poor wretch's life was doomed, and no man might hope to save. It was very seldom they cared so much for humanity as to choose the more merciful of the two absurdities. Sometimes, though, the devil was as good as his word, and made at least an attempt, if a clumsy one, to release his servants: as when he took Helen Eliot from the steeple of Culross where she was confined, and carried her in his arms through the air. He might have landed her in safety somewhere--who knows?--had she not cried out, "O God! whither are you taking me?" At which words he let her fall "at the distance from the steeple of about the breadth of the street of Edinburgh, whereby she broke her legs and otherwise seriously injured herself." Many thousand people flocked to see the dimple which her heels had made, and over which no grass would grow again. So at last they built a stone dyke round it, and kept the impression safe.

In 1649 Lady Pittathrow was delated of witchcraft. She was put in prison waiting for her trial; but one morning she was found dead, having strangled herself, or been strangled by the devil--the world might determine which according to its pleasure. Shortly after, Bessie Grahame was apprehended for a few drunken words said against John Rankin's wife, who had since died. During a confinement of thirteen weeks she was visited by the minister, who found her obdurate in confession, and was much inclined to find her innocent of crime. But Alexander Bogue, a pricker, came to examine her, and discovered the mark, into which he thrust a pin, which neither pained nor drew blood. Still she was held to be innocent, until one day Mr. James Fergusson, the minister, heard her talking to the devil as soon as she was alone. He knew it was the devil, for his voice was hollow and ghoustie, and the servant, Alexander Sympson, was like to have fallen back for fear. Still Bessie would never confess anything beyond general unworthiness and the usual tale of vague misdeeds, owning, indeed, to a special horror of him, the minister, and how she was not "let to love him," as indeed was no special miracle; and then she fell to railing at him bitterly, which was less a miracle than all else. So she was burnt, dying obdurate and unconfessed; and thus another murder reeked up to heaven, crying aloud for vengeance, because John Rankin's wife died suddenly, and an intemperate old woman swore in her cups and had a habit of speaking to herself.

Agnes Gourlay was accused of charming milk. She told Anna Simpson to throw a small quantity of the milk into the "grupe" or sewer of the byre, saying, "God betak us to! May be they are under the earth that have as much need of it as they that are above the earth!" After which bread and salt were to be put into the cows' ears, and milk would come. Agnes got off by penance and confession: which was more than Janet Couts did, or Archibald Watt, _alias_ "Sole the Paitlet;" though eleven other poor creatures delated escaped their doom, partly because the burgh of Lanark disliked having so many mouths to feed in prison pending their trial.

At Lauder, in 1649, Hob Grieve was accused of witchcraft. Twenty years agone his wife, who had been burnt for a witch, told Hob that he might get rich if he would follow her counsel and go along with her. So he went with her to a haugh on Gallow-water, to meet, as she said, a gentleman there; but he saw only a large mastiff dog, "which amazed him." At last came the devil as a black man, telling him that if he would take suit and service with him he should be made rich. He was to be officer at the meetings, and hold the door at the sabbaths. Hob consented, and for eighteen years held that office; but it does not seem that the foul fiend kept his part of the condition, for Hob had enough to do to find salt for his porridge. He was always poor, and remained poor to the end, with all the kicks and none of the halfpence; and for his eighteen years of servitude got only suspicion and ill-will, without fat or fry to comfort him. When taken, he "delated" many, who, for the most part, confessed. After he had filled the prison, so that it could hold no more, he accused another still, a woman of Lauder. The magistrate kept the secret, wishing to wait until some of the accused were "emptied out," having nowhere to put her; but the devil, always at mischief, went to her in the night time, and told her what Hob Grieve had said. Next day she arose and came to the prison, railing at Hob, calling him warlock and slave to the devil, and what not. She was told to go home, but she sat down on the Tolbooth stairs, and said she would never stir until she and that slave of Satan had been confronted. The bailie himself came to her, and told her to go home; but that was too mild a proceeding. "No," she cried, "I must be set face to face with that rascal who has delated me, an honest woman, for a witch." She was set face to face with him, and she fell down on her bare knees, and cursed him. Says she, "Thou common thief, how dare thou for thy soul say that ever before this time thou saw me or I saw thee, or ever was in thy company, either alone or with others?" Hob listened to her railings patiently, till commanded by the bailie to speak, when says he, "How came she then to know that I had called her a witch? Surely none but the devil, thy old master and mine, has told thee so much." "The devil and thou perish together, for he is not my master though he be thine. I defy the devil and all his works!" said the woman. Then Hob reminded her of the many times and places where they had met while in the same service; whereat she cried, "Now I perceive that the devil is a lyar and a murderer from the beginning, for this night he came to me, and told me to come and abuse thee; and never come away till I was confronted with thee, and he assured me that thou would deny all and say, thou false tongue, thou lyest!" She then confessed all with which she was charged, and was executed. Hob was a very penitent sinner: being now a mere lunatic, he was easy to manage, and exceeding confidential in his confessions. He said that once in Musselburgh water the devil had tried to drown him when he had a heavy creil on his back; and even since he had been in prison he had come to cast him into the fire. But though there was a very crowd "fylit" by this poor maniac, he was innocent of the death of a certain woman who was hanged a short time after. The magistrates, glutted to satiety with victims, wanted to save her; but she would accept no chance offered to her. She had been fyled as a witch, she said, and as a witch she would die. And had not the devil once, when she was a young lassie, kissed her, and given her a new name? Reason enough why she should die, if even nothing worse lay behind. At last the day of her execution came, and she was taken out to be burnt with the rest. On her way to the scaffold she made this lamentable speech:--"Now all you that see me this day, know that I am now to die a witch by my own confession; and I free all men, especially the ministers and magistrates, of the guilt of my blood. I take it wholly on myself. My blood be upon my own head; and as I must make answer to the God of heaven presently, I declare I am as free of witchcraft as any child; but being delated by a malicious woman, and put in prison under the name of a witch, disowned by my husband and friends, and seeing no ground of hope of my coming out of prison or ever coming in credit again, through a temptation of the devil, I made up that confession on purpose to destroy my own life, being weary of it, and choosing rather to die than to live." How many poor wretches had been like this unhappy creature--disowned by husband and friends, seeing no ground of hope of ever coming in credit again, and therefore in despair choosing rather to die than to live! In this special case even the magistrates, usually so passionately determined that all the accused should be found guilty and suffer death, even they seem to have sought her release, and to have refused the evidence of her confession as long as they could; but the times were not sufficiently enlightened for them to refuse it altogether; and so she gained the fiery goal whither her anguish and despair impelled her.

MANIE HALIBURTON.[43]

In 1649, John Kinnaird, the witch-finder, made deposition that he had "pricked" Patrik Watson, of West Fenton, and Manie Haliburton, his spouse, and that he had found the devil's mark on Patrik's back a little under the point of his left shoulder, and on Manie's neck a little above her left shoulder; of which marks they were not sensible (had no feeling in them), neither came there any blood when pricked. So Manie, seeing that the scent was hot and the game up, made confession, and saved further trouble. She said that eighteen years ago, the devil had come to her in likeness of a man, calling himself a physician, saying that he had good salves, and specially oylispek (oil of spike or spikenard), wherewith he would cure her daughter, then sick. So she bought some of his salves, and gave him two English shillings for her bargain, forbye bread and milk and a pint of ale. In eight days' time he came again, and stayed all night; and the next morning, Patrik being "forth" and Manie yet in bed, she became more intimately acquainted with the devil than an honest woman should. We do not read that Manie was tortured, and, considering that it was not an unusual thing to keep suspected witches twenty-eight days and nights on bread and water, they being stripped stark naked, with only a haircloth over them, and laid on a cold stone, or to put them into hair-shirts steeped in vinegar, so that the skin might be pulled from off them, we feel that poor Manie got off pretty well with only cremation as the result of her mad confessions.

But one of the most extraordinary things of all was that wonderful bit of knavery and credulity called

THE DEVIL OF GLENLUCE,[44]

when Master Tom Campbell set the whole country in a flame, and brought no end of notice and sympathy upon his house and family. In 1654 one Gilbert Campbell was a weaver in Glenluce, a small village not far from Newton Stewart. Tom, his eldest son, and the most important personage in the drama, was a student at Glasgow College; and there was a certain old blaspheming beggar, called Andrew Agnew--afterwards hanged at Dumfries for his atheism, having said, in the hearing of credible witnesses, that "there was no God but salt, meal, and water"--who every now and then came to Glenluce to ask alms. One day old Andrew visited the Campbells as usual, but got nothing; at which he cursed and swore roundly, and forthwith sent a devil to haunt the house, for it was soon after this refusal that the stirs began, and the connection was too apparent to be denied. For what could they be but the malice of the devil sent by old Andrew in revenge? Young Tom Campbell was the worst beset of all, the demon perpetually whistling and rioting about him, and playing him all sorts of diabolical and malevolent tricks. Once, too, Jennet, the young daughter, going to the well, heard a whistling behind her like that produced by "the small slender glass whistles of children," and a voice like the damsel's, saying, "I'll cast thee, Jennet, into the well! I'll cast thee, Jennet, into the well!" About the middle of November, when the days were dark and the nights long, things got very bad. The foul fiend threw stones in at the doors and windows, and down the chimney head; cut the warp and threads of Campbell's loom; slit the family coats and bonnets and hose and shoon into ribbons; pulled off the bed-clothes from the sleeping children, and left them cold and naked, besides administering sounding slaps on those parts of their little round rosy persons usually held sacred to the sacrifices of the rod; opened chests and trunks, and strewed the contents over the floor; knocked everything about, and ill-treated bairn and brother; and, in fact, persecuted the whole family in the most merciless manner. The weaver sent his children away, thinking their lives but barely safe, and _in their absence there were no assaults whatever_--a thing to be specially noted. But on the minister's representing to him that he had done a grievous sin in thus withdrawing them from God's punishments, they were brought back again in contrition. Only Tom was left behind, and nothing ensued until Tom appeared; but unlucky Tom brought back the devil with him, and then there was no more peace to be had.

On the Sunday following Master Tom's return, the house was set on fire--the devil's doing: but the neighbours put the flames out again before much damage had ensued. Monday was spent in prayer; but on Tuesday the place was again set on fire, to be again saved by the neighbours' help. The weaver, in much trouble, went to the minister, and besought him to take back that unlucky Tom, whom the devil so cruelly followed and molested; which request he, after a time, "condescended to," though assuring the weaver that he would find himself deceived if he thought that the devil would quit with the boy. And so it proved; for Tom, having now indoctrinated some of his juniors with the same amount of mechanics and legerdemain as he himself possessed, managed that they should be still sore troubled--the demon cutting their clothes, throwing peats down the chimney, pulling off turf and "feal" from the roof and walls, stealing their coats, pricking their poor bodies with pins, and raising such a clamour that there was no peace or rest to be had.

The case was becoming serious. Glenluce objected to be made the head-quarters of the devil; and the ministers convened a solemn meeting for fast and humiliation; the upshot of which was that weaver Campbell was led to take back his unlucky Tom, with the devil or without him. For this was the point at issue in the beginning; the motive of which is not hard to be discovered. Whereupon Tom returned; but as he crossed the threshold he heard a voice "forbidding him to enter that house, or any other place where his father's calling was exercised." Was Tom, the Glasgow student, afraid of being made a weaver, consent or none demanded? In spite of the warning voice he valiantly entered, and his persecutions began at once. Of course they did. They were tremendous, unheard of, barbarous; in fact, so bad that he was forced to return once more for a time to the minister's house; but his imitator or disciple left behind carried on business in his absence. On Monday, the 12th day of February, the demon began to speak to the family, who, nothing afraid, answered quite cheerily: so they and the devil had long confidential chats together, to the great improvement of mind and morals. The ministers, hearing of this, convened again, and met at weaver Campbell's, to see what they could do. As soon as they entered, Satan began: "Quum literatum is good Latin," quoth he. These were the first words of the Latin rudiments, as taught in the grammar-school. Tom's classical knowledge was coming into play.

After a while he cried out, "A dog! a dog!" The minister, thinking he was alluded to, answered, "He thought it no evil to be reviled of him;" to which Satan replied civilly, "It was not you, sir, I spoke to: I meant the dog there;" for there was a dog standing behind backs. They then went to prayer, during which time Tom--or the devil--remained reverently silent; his education being not yet carried out to the point of scoffing. Immediately after prayer was ended, a counterfeit voice cried out, "Would you know the witches of Glenluce? I will tell of them," naming four or five persons of indifferent repute, but one of whom was dead. The weaver told the devil this, thinking to have caught him tripping; but the foul fiend answered promptly, "It is true she is dead long ago, but her spirit is living with us in the world."

The minister replied, saying, "Though it was not convenient to speak to such an excommunicated and intercommuned person, 'the Lord rebuke thee, Satan, and put thee to silence. We are not to receive information from thee, whatsoever fame any person goes under. Thou art seeking but to seduce this family, for Satan's kingdom is not divided against itself.'" After which little sparring there was prayer again; so Tom did not take much by this move.

All the while the young Glasgow student was very hardly holden, so that there was more prayer on his special behalf. The devil then said, on their rising, "Give me a spade and a shovel, and depart from the house for seven days, and I will make a grave and lie down in it, and shall trouble you no more."

The good man Campbell answered, "Not so much as a straw shall be given thee, through God's assistance, even though that would do it. God shall remove thee in due time." Satan cried out, impudently, "I shall not remove for you. I have my commission from Christ to tarry and vex this family." Says the minister, coming to the weaver's assistance, "A permission thou hast, indeed; but God will stop it in due time." Says the demon, respectfully, "I have, sir, a commission which perhaps will last longer than yours." And the minister died in the December of that year, says Sinclair. Furthermore, the demon said he had given Tom his commission to keep. Interrogated, that young gentleman replied in an off-hand way, that "he had had something put into his pocket, but it did not tarry." They then began to search about for the foul fiend, and one gentleman said, "We think this voice speaks out of the children." The foul fiend, very angry at this--or Master Tom frightened--cries out, "You lie! God shall judge you for your lying; and I and my father will come and fetch you to hell with warlock thieves." So the devil discharged (forbade) the gentleman to speak anything, saying, "Let him that hath a commission speak (meaning the minister), for he is the servant of God." The minister then had a little religious controversy with the devil, who answered at last, simply, "I knew not these scriptures till my father taught me them." Nothing of all this disturbing the easy faith of the audience, they, through the minister, whom alone he would obey, conjured him to tell them who he was; whereupon he said that he was an evil spirit come from the bottomless pit of hell, to vex this house, and that Satan was his father. And then there appeared a naked hand, and an arm from the elbow downward, beating on the floor till the house did shake again, and a loud and fearful crying, "Come up, father! come up, father! I will send my father among ye! See! there he is behind your backs!"

Says the minister, "I saw, indeed, a hand and an arm, when the stroke was given and heard."

Says the devil, "Saw ye that? It was not my hand, it was my father's; my hand is more black in the loof."

"Oh!" said Gilbert Campbell, in an ecstacy, "that I might see thee as well as I hear thee!"

"Would ye see me?" says the foul thief. "Put out the candle, and I shall come but[45] the house among you like fire-balls; I shall let ye see me indeed."

Alexander Bailie of Dunraget said to the minister, "Let us go ben,[46] and see if there is any hand to be seen." But the demon exclaimed, "No! let him (the minister) come ben alone: he is a good honest man: his single word may be believed." He then abused Mr. Robert Hay, a very honest gentleman, very ill with his tongue, calling him witch and warlock: and a little while after, cried out, "A witch! a witch! there's a witch sitting upon the ruist! take her away." He meant that there was a hen sitting on one of the rafters. They then went to prayer again, and, when ended, the devil cried out, "If the good man's son's prayers at the College of Glasgow did not prevail with God, my father and I had wrought a mischief here ere now." Ah, Master Tom, did you then know so much of prayer and the inclining of the counsels of God?

Alexander Bailie said, "Well, I see you acknowledge a God, and that prayer prevails with him, and therefore we must pray to God, and commit the event to him." To whom the devil replied, having an evident spite against Alexander Bailie, "Yea, sir, you speak of prayer, with your broad-lipped hat" (for the gentleman had lately gotten a hat in the fashion with broad lips); "I'll bring a pair of shears from my father's which shall clip the lips of it a little." And Alexander Bailie presently heard a pair of shears go clipping round his hat, "which he lifted, to see if the foul thief had meddled with it."

Then the fiend fell to prophesying. "Tom was to be a merchant, Bob a smith, John a minister, and Hugh a lawyer," all of which came to pass. Turning to Jennet, the good man's daughter, he cried, "Jennet Campbell, Jennet Campbell, wilt thou cast me thy belt?"

Quoth she, "What a widdy would thou do with my belt?"

"I would fain," says he, "fasten my loose bones together."

A younger daughter was sitting "busking her puppies" (dressing her puppets, dolls), as young girls are used to do. He threatens to "ding out her harns," that is, to brain her; but says she quietly, "No, if God be to the fore," and so falls to her work again. The good wife having brought out some bread, was breaking it, so that every one of the company should have a piece. Cries he, "Grissel Wyllie! Grissel Wyllie! give me a piece of that haver bread. I have gotten nothing this day but a bit from Marritt," that is, as they speak in the country, Margaret. The minister said to them all, "Beware of that! for it is sacrificing to the devil!" Marritt was then called, and inquired if she had given the foul fiend any of her haver bread. "No," says she; "but when I was eating my due piece this morning, something came and clicked it out of my hands."

The evening had now come, and the company prepared to depart; the minister, and the minister's wife, Alexander Bailie of Dunraget, with his broad-lipped hat, and the rest. But the devil cried out in a kind of agony--

"Let not the minister go! I shall burn the house if he goes." Weaver Campbell, desperately frightened, besought the minister to stay; and he, not willing to see them come to mischief, at last consented. As he turned back into the house, the devil gave a great gaff of laughing, saying, "Now, sir! you have done my bidding!" which was unhandsome of Tom--very.

"Not thine, but in obedience to God, have I returned to bear this man company whom thou dost afflict," says the minister, nowise discomposed, and not disdaining to argue matters clearly with the devil.

Then the minister "discharged" all from speaking to the demon, saying, "that when it spoke to them they must only kneel and pray to God." This did not suit the demon at all. He roared mightily, and cried, "What! will ye not speak to me? I shall strike the bairns, and do all manner of mischief!" No answer was returned; and again the children were slapped and beaten on their rosy parts--where children are accustomed to be whipped. After a while this ended too, and then the fiend called out to the good-wife, "Grissel, put out the candle!"

"Shall I do it?" says she to the minister's wife.

"No," says that discreet person, "for then you shall obey the devil."

Upon which the devil shouted, with a louder voice, "Put out the candle!" No one obeyed, and the candle continued burning. "Put out the candle, I say!" cries he, more terribly than before. Grissel, not caring to continue the uproar, put it out. "And now," says he, "I will trouble you no more this night." For by this time I should suppose that Master Tom was sleepy, and tired, and hoarse.

Once again the ministers and gentlemen met for prayer and exorcism; when it is to be presumed that Tom was not with them, for everything was quiet; but soon after the stirs began again, and Tom and the rest were sore molested. Gilbert Campbell made an appeal to the Synod of Presbyters, a committee of whom appointed a special day of humiliation in February, 1656, for the freeing of the weaver's house from this affliction. In consequence whereof, from April to August, the devil was perfectly quiet, and the family lived together in peace. But after this the mischief broke out again afresh. Perhaps Tom had come home from college, or his father had renewed his talk of settling him firmly to his own trade: whatever the cause, the effect was certain, the devil had come back to Glenluce.

One day, as the good-wife was standing by the fire, making the porridge for the children, the demon came and snatched the "tree-plate," on which was the oatmeal, out of her hand, and spilt all the meal. "Let me have the tree-plate again," says Grissel Wyllie, very humbly; and it came flying back to her. "It is like if she had sought the meal too she might have got it, such is his civility when he is intreated," says Sinclair. But this would have been rather beyond even Master Tom's power of legerdemain. Things after this went very ill. The children were daily thrashed with heavy staves, and every one in the family underwent much personal damage; until, as a climax, on the eighteenth of September, the demon said he would burn the house down, and did, in fact, set it on fire. But it was put out again, before much damage was done.

After a time--probably by Tom's going away, or becoming afraid of being found out--the devil was quieted and laid for ever; and Master Tom employed his intellect and energies in other ways than terrifying his father's family to death, and making stirs which went by the name of demoniac.

This account is taken almost verbatim from an article of mine in "All the Year Round;" and if a larger space has been given to this than to many other stories, it is because there was more colouring, and more distinctness in the drawing, than in anything else that I have read. Though scarcely belonging to a book on witches, there is yet a hook and eye, if a very slender one, in the fact that the old beggar, Andrew Agnew, was hanged; and we may be sure that it was not only his atheism, but also his naughty tricks with Satan, and his connection with the devil of Glenluce, that helped to fit the hangman's rope round his neck. There are many other stories of haunted houses, notably, Mr. Monpesson's at Tedworth caused by the Demon Drummer, and the Woodstock Devil who harried the Parliamentary Commissioners to within an inch of their lives, and others to the full as interesting; but there is no hook and eye with them--nothing by which they can be hung on to the sad string of witches, or witchcraft murders. Baxter has two or three such stories; and the curious in such matters will find a large amount of interesting matter in the various works referred to at the foot of the pages; matter which could not be introduced here, because of its not belonging strictly to the subject in hand. I do not think that any candid or unprejudiced person will fail in seeing the dark shadow of fraud and deceit flung over every such account remaining. The importance of which, to me, is the evident and distinct likeness between these stories and the marvels going on now in modern society.

JONET WATSON AND THE DEVIL IN GREEN.

Steadily went on these appalling judicial crimes. In February, 1658, two women and a man were in the Tolbooth at Edinburgh, imprisoned on the charge of witchcraft. One of the women died in prison, the other, Jonet Anderson,[47] confessed that before her marriage, which had been only three months ago, she had given herself up body and soul to the devil, and that when she was married she had seen him standing by the pulpit. She was kept only so long as was necessary to prove her not pregnant, and then was executed, fully repentant. In August four women, "ane of them a maiden," were burnt on the Castle Hill in ghastly company; and soon after five more from Dunbar; and then again nine from Tranent, all confessing. These seemed to have stayed the appetite of the magistrates for a time, as we come across no more until 1661, when a painful collection of lies, slanders, and confessions again harrow up every feeling, and outrage every reasoning faculty.

Jonet Watson was one of the first to make her confession. She said that in April last, bypast or thereby, she being at the burial of Lady Dalhousie, a rix dollar was given to Jean Bughane, to be divided among a certain number of poor folk, whereof she was one. But Jean ran away with the money, so poor Jonet got none of it: whereat being very grieved and angry, when she came to her own house she wished to be revenged on Jean, and at the wish appeared the devil in the likeness of a pretty boy in green clothes, and asked: "what ailed her, and what revenge would she have?" He then gave her his mark and left her under the form of a black dog, and for three days after she had a gnat constantly with her, and one morning when she was changing her linen it sat down upon her shoulder, where she had one of her marks. Also about the time of last Baal-fyre night (the beginning of May) she was at a meeting in Newton-dein, where was the devil dressed in green clothes, with a black hat on his head. And here she denied Christ, and took upon herself to be his servant, he laying his hand on her head, and receiving from her "all that was under his hand," when he gave her the name of "weill-dancing Jonet," and she and a few more danced like Tam o' Shanter's hags, and probably tired the devil out.

Beatrice Leslie[48] was a witch too, and Agnes, wife of William Young, gave her some wholesome advice and honest reproof on the matter, whereby Beatrice was offended, and gave her a terrible look; and that very night William Young awakened out of his sleep all in terror and dismay, crying out that Beatrice, with a number of cats, was devouring him. Beatrice had a cat which two coal-heaving damsels killed by letting some coals fall on it, afterwards adding to their offence by throwing away her coal-basket. So Beatrice cursed them, and told them "they should see an ill sight before eight days were past:" as it fell out, for according to her threatening they were both killed in the coal-pit, though no one else was hurt; and when she was brought to see and touch the corpses, the one bled at the nose and the other at the ear, thus proving her guilt beyond the possibility of denial. Also she helped Alexander Wilson's wife in child-bed, by cantrips and unholy sleights; sticking a bare knife betwixt the bed and the straw, sprinkling salt about the bed, and saying, "Lord, let never ane worse wight waken thee, nor hes laid thee downe," with other villanies, unwholesome to honest folk; so Beatrice Leslie saw the sun for the last time between the cord and the flames.

THE LANTHORNE AND THE BAHR-RECHT.[49]

Christian Wilson, _alias_ the Lanthorne, which name she had gotten from the devil at the time of her baptism, was too famous in her generation. She lived near her brother Alexander, and there was notorious ill blood between them, perhaps because of her notorious evil proceedings. One evening Alexander was found dead in his own house, naked, with his face torn and cut, but without a spot of blood anywhere. Yet a "greate lumpe of fleisch" had been cut out of his cheek more cleanly than any ordinary razor could have cut either flesh or cheese. Christian bore herself strangely. She expressed no sorrow, perhaps because she felt none, and absolutely refused to see or touch the corpse according to the fashion of the honest and the orthodox of the time. This refusal did her much harm in men's minds, for was it not very evident that she was afraid of the bier-law, or bahr-recht, which, in 1661, when all this took place, was such a useful agent of the police, and helped so powerfully to the discovery of murder? The bailies and ministers heard the rumours affecting her, and commanded her to be brought into the house to touch the corpse, as the rest had done. "She came trembling all the way to the house, but she refused to come nigh the corpse, or to touch it, saying that 'she never touched a dead corpse in her life.'" The neighbours did not allow of her plea, and dragged her to the murdered man, that she might touch it softly. She went forward to do so. "But before shoe did it, the Sone being shyning in at the howse, shoe exprest herselfe thus, humbly desyring that, 'as the Lord made the Sone to shine and give light into that howse, that also he would give light to discovering of that murder!' And with these words shoe tuitching the wound of the dead man verie softlie, it being whyte and cleane, without any spot of blood or the lyke, yet immediately, while her fingers was upon it, the blood rushed owt of it, to the greate admiratioune of all the behoulders, who tooke it for discoverie of the murder according to her own prayers." Another charge, no less grave than that of murder, was, that William Richardson, having felled one of her hens with a stone, she frowned on him threateningly, and said he should never throw another stone. And he never did; for immediately he fell into ane "franicie" and madness, took to his bed, and died in a few days, all the time of his sickness crying out against Cristiane Wilson, who, he said, was tormenting him in the likeness of a grey cat. After his death his nephew teased the witch by calling her "The Lanthorne," which every one knew to be her devil-name; but Cristiane threatened him, and said that "if he did not hold his peace she would make him die by the same death as his uncle," which was proof sufficient of the truth of the grey cat and her guilty sorcery. This was the same Cristiane Wilson who, when she was being carried off to Nidrie, there to be confronted with another witch, was suddenly lifted off the pillion by a furious blast of wind, which she got the devil to raise in the hope of her rescue. But though she was blown into the stream, she swam lightly as a witch should and as only a witch could, and her jailers fished her out again, to secure her better for the future. As the sky was cloudless when the blast arose, and as no storm followed after, there was no possibility of doubting the Satanic origin of that mighty puff of wind. Besides, did not Jennot Cock, another confessing witch, say to John Stevin, when he told her that Cristiane was to be carried to Nidrie to-morrow, "Will not yow think it a sport, if the deivill raise a whirrell of wind, and tak her away from among yow by the gette (way) to-morrow?" This and that together made the thing certain; and the fall of the poor wretch was included in the dittay as one of the counts against her, proving her witchcraft.

Witch-finding now increased rapidly in Scotland. No fewer than fourteen special commissions were issued for the sole purpose of trying witches for the sederunt of November the 7th, 1661; and on the 23rd of January, 1662, fourteen more were made out. It was the popular amusement of the day, and no one or two men then living could have turned the tide in favour of these poor persecuted creatures. Even Sir George Mackenzie, that "noble wit of Scotland," failed to make any reasonable impression on the besotted public, though his pleadings and writings got him into immense disfavour with the religious part of the community, and caused him to be ranked as an atheist and Sadducee, and classed with the Pilates and Judases of history. Though it had been the Bull of Pope Innocent VIII. in 1484, which had first stirred up the zeal of the godly against witchcraft, and written that terrible text, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," in still more terrible characters of blood and suffering, yet Calvinistic Scotland soon outstripped even the superstitious Papacy in her frantic piety, and poured out a sea of innocent blood which will stain her pages with an ineffaceable stain, for ever and for ever. Yet she was nearly a hundred years behind Rome in her zeal, for it was not till June, 1563, that she made the subject matter for legislation at all, and then the Estates[50] enacted "that 'nae person take upon hand to use any manner of witchcrafts, sorcery, or necromancy, nor give themselves furth to have ony sic craft or knowledge thereof therethrough abusing the people;' also, that 'nae person seek ony help, response, or consultation, at ony sic users or abusers of witchcrafts ... under pain of death.' This is the statute under which all the subsequent witch trials took place." But bad as it was under the Presbyterians and the Elders, it is true that under the Restoration the witch persecutions in Scotland were even more excessive than during the reign of the Covenanters, and that the return of Charles II. brought satisfaction and pleasure to the younger women only of his dominions, but nothing save torture to the old, the poor, and the despised. Ray says that about a hundred and twenty witches suffered in the year 1661, the year after the Restoration had brought joy and gladness to all loyal hearts; so that it mattered little whether Puritan or Cavalier, Presbyterian or Episcopalian, had the upper hand. Superstition was the greatest lord of all, and a slavish adherence to a few words fettered men down hopelessly to ignorance and wickedness.

At this time (1661) John Kincaid and John Dick were the most notorious prickers; and they let no one escape whom they had the chance of hurting. One John Hay, an old man of sixty, and of untarnished reputation, fell into Dick's hands, accused of sorcery by "a distracted woman," whose words were not worth the wind that wafted them. But Dick shaved him, and pricked him, and tortured him in all allowable ways, then sent him off to Edinburgh, two hundred miles away, to be locked up in the Tolbooth, pending further proceedings. The case against him was too slight for even those times to entertain, and he was liberated on his own petition, and a few testimonials: but John Dick was not reproved, nor was his zeal thought extreme or passionate.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Margaret Bryson[51] quarrelled with her husband about the selling of a cow; she went to the house-door, "and there did imprecate that God or the devil might take her from her husband;" which naturally ended in the devil's appearing and forcing her into the covenant with him that had its final expression at the stake.

Margaret Hutchison was a witch, too. She laid on Henry Balfour the pains of a child-bed woman, and caused such a universal swelling of his body that he died thereof; and she threatened John Boost for calling her a witch, and threw a piece of raw flesh against his house, which the very dogs and cats would not eat; and she sent a plague of cats to John Bell's house, and tormented him and his wife by appearing at their hearth-side at night, combing her hair: so Margaret Hutchison was no better than she should be, and the world was well rid of her.

Isabel Ramsey for her part was convicted of taking sixpence from the devil, and entering into a long chat with him upon sundry local matters; and, indeed, she herself confessed that he gave her a dollar, which turned into a sklaitt stane: for nothing that the devil did for these witches ever turned to good, so that one is more surprised at their stupidity than offended by their guilt.

Jennet Cock[52] had an ill name, past all forbearance or overlooking. She was never easy unless she was after some evil, and the world must positively be quit of her. She bewitched William Scott's bonny bay horse, worth pounds and pounds of money, and made him mad; and she told a brute who beat her that he should live to be hanged, which not very unlikely prediction was fulfilled; and she kept company with the devil on terms that no honest woman should endure; and she and Jean Dickson, another witch, cured a neighbour's child by cutting off a dog's head, with which they played some devilish cantrip that healed the bairn; and she it was who made that speech concerning Christiane Wilson and the gaff of wind; so Jennet Cock was adjudged dangerous to be at large, and was put into prison, there to await her trial. And she was tried, but, strange to say, acquitted of the charges brought against her; she was not let loose though, but kept still in durance till a fresh case could be completed against her. Jennet Cock was rather notorious for her evil eye and power of overlooking, and in her dittay is thus charged:--"There being an outcast betwixt yow and Jeane Forrest, because schoe had called yow a witch, yow came to the said Jeane, her landlord's house, where she was with some nyghboures, desyreing to make aggriement betwixt yow. Ye malitiouslie and bitterlie girneing and gnashing your teeth, and beating your hands upon your knies, said, 'O them that called me a witch! O them that called me a witch!' And at that tyme, the said Jeane Forrest, her chylde being in good health, on the morne the chylde, by your sorceries and witchcraft dyed; and the mother, at the chylde's departour, called out with a loud voyce upone her nighbours, saying, 'Alace! that ever I had adoe with that witch Janet Cock, for shoe has been at my bed syd all this night standing, and I could not get red of her: and behold the fruit of it--my chylde is dead!'" This deposition was made September 10, 1661, and surely Jennet Cock never escaped the consequences of such a cantrip as this!

Marion Grinlaw[53] and Jean Howison, "the survivors of ten women and a man who had been imprisoned at Musselburgh," petitioned the Council for their release. "Some of the rest died of cold and hunger. They themselves had lain in durance _forty weeks_, and were now in a state of extreme misery, _although nothing could be brought against them_. Margaret Carvie and Barbara Horniman, of Falkland, had in like manner been imprisoned at the instance of the magistrates and parish minister, had lain six weeks in jail, subjected to a great deal of torture by one who takes upon him the trial of witches by pricking; and so great was their sufferings that life was become a burden to them, notwithstanding that they declared their innocence, and nothing to the contrary had been shown. The Council ordered all these women to be liberated:" which was a marvellous outstep of humanity, and one for which its previous acts could hardly have prepared us. The next year it seems to have had a small side-blow of rationality. It had become sensible of the vile inhumanity of John Kincaid, and threw the wretch into prison, then issued a proclamation repudiating the seizure of suspected persons, which had been made illegally, unauthorizedly, and out of only envy and covetousness. Nevertheless, it took care to issue twelve fresh commissions for trying witches, immediately after; being chiefly anxious to keep all the business in its own hands, and shut the door against any outside free lances. John Kincaid lay for nine weeks in jail, then was liberated only on condition that he would prick no more without warrant. He sent up a whining petition, setting forth that he was an old man, and if confined longer might be brought to mortal sickness; so to avert this terrible catastrophe, the old sinner had his liberty given to him again: he ought to have had instead the doom of the murderer for blood-money!

CLOWTS AND THE SERPENT.[54]