Witch Stories Part 13

At the end of the tract is a very curious bit of evidence, given by an honest man of Manningtree, one Goff, a glover, concerning old Anne West, then on her trial. He said that one moonlight morning, about four o'clock, as he was pa.s.sing Anne West's house, the door being open, he looked in and saw three or four little things like black rabbits which came skipping towards him. He struck at them, but missed; when, by better luck, he caught one in his hand and tried to wring its head off; but "as he wrung and stretched the neck of it, it came out betweene his hands like a lock of wooll," so he went to drown it at a spring not far off. But still as he went he could not hinder himself from falling down, so that at last he was obliged to creep on his hands and knees, till he came to the water, when he held the imp for a long s.p.a.ce underneath, till he conceived it was drowned, but, "letting goe his hand, it sprang out of the water up into the aire, and so vanished away." Coming back to Anne West's, he found her standing at her door in terrible undress, and to his complaint of why did she send her imps to molest him? she answered "that they were not sent out to trouble him, but as Scouts upon another designe."

But one of the most painful murders of the Hopkins Session was that of old Mr. Lewis,[132] the "Reading Parson" of Franlingham; a fine old man of good character, but generally regarded as a Malignant, because he preferred to read Queen Elizabeth's Homilies instead of composing nasal discourses of his own, of the kind so dear to the Puritan party: wherefore the authorities and Matthew Hopkins--who was a devout Puritan--had their eyes upon him, and were not disposed to be lenient. He was swum in Hopkins's manner, cross-bound; set on a table cross-legged; kept several nights without sleep, and twenty-four hours without food; run backwards and forwards in the room, two men holding him, until he was out of breath; "p.r.i.c.ked" and searched for marks; after all which barbarity it is not surprising to find that the poor old Reading Parson of eighty-five "confessed." Yes, he had made a compact with the devil and sealed it with his blood; and he had two imps that sucked him, one of which, the yellow dun imp, was always urging him to do some mischief, but the other was more amiable. Accordingly, to please the yellow dun he had one day sent it to sink an Ipswich s.h.i.+p, which he spied out in the offing: a commission which the imp executed with zeal and precision before the eyes of a whole beach full of spectators. This Ipswich s.h.i.+p was one of many that rode safely enough in the calm sea, but the imp troubled the waters immediately about her, and down she went like a stone, as all present could testify.

Asked if he had not grieved to make so many--they were fourteen--widows in a few moments he said "No, he was glad to have pleased his imp." This confession and various witch "bigges" found on him were held proofs conclusive; and Mr. Lewis was condemned to be hanged; his eighty years, and his gown, protecting him nowise. As soon as he was a little refreshed he denied all the ravings he had been induced to utter, read the burial service for himself with cheerfulness and courage, and met his death calmly and composedly; perhaps not sorry to resign into G.o.d's keeping a life which Matthew Hopkins and the Puritans were rendering intolerable.

A Penitent Woman[133] of the same time confessed that when her mother lay sick a thing like a mole ran into bed to her. She, the Penitent Woman, started, but her mother told her not to fear, but to take the mole and keep it, saying, "Keep this in a pot by the fire, and thou shalt never want." The daughter did as she was bid, and made the mole comfortable in its pot. And after she had done this, a seemingly poor boy came in and asked leave to warm himself by the fire. When he went away she found some money under the stool whereon he had sat. This happened many times, and so her mother's promise and her imp brought the poor penitent romancer Barmecidal good luck. It could not have been much, for Hopkins, or at least his friend and comrade John Sterne, says in the examination of Joan Ruccalver, of Powstead, Suffolk, that "six s.h.i.+llings was the largest amount he had ever known given by an imp to its dame."

That all this seemed right and rational in the eyes of sane men is one of the most marvellous things connected with the delusion: that well-educated Englishmen should send such a wretch as Matthew Hopkins with legal authorisation to p.r.i.c.k witches, a.s.sociating with him Mr. Calamy "to see that there was no fraud:" that they should arraign miserable old women by scores, and hang them by dozens: and that Baxter should gravely argue for the validity of ghosts and spectres on the plea that "various Creatures must have a various Situation, Reception, and Operation: the Fishes must not dwell in our cities nor be acquainted with our affairs"--strikes me chiefly with amazement at the marvellous imbecility of superst.i.tion. It is well for the leaders of sects to bid us cast down our reason before blind faith; for, a.s.suredly, our reason, which is the greatest gift of G.o.d, pleads loudly against the follies of belief and the vital absurdities into which religionists fall when unchecked by common sense. It was only the "Atheists" and "Sadducees," as they were called, who at last managed to put a stop to this hideous delusion: all the pious believers upheld the holy need of searching for witches, and of not suffering them to live wherever they might be found. All sects and denominations of Christians joined in this, and found a meeting-place of brotherly love and concord beneath the witches' gallows. And though one's soul revolts most at the so-called "Reformed Party," because of the greater unctuousness of their piety, and their mighty professions, yet they were all equally guilty, one with the other; all equally steeped to the lips in insanest superst.i.tion.

The temper of the times has so far changed now that men and women are no longer hung because they have mesmeric powers, or because hysterical and epileptic patients utter wild ravings: but the thing remains the same; there is the same amount of superst.i.tion still afloat, if somewhat altered in its direction; and modern Spiritualism, which has come to supersede Witchcraft, is, when it is true at all and not mere legerdemain, as little understood and as falsely catalogued as was ever the art of magic and sorcery.

THE HUNTINGDON IMPS.

In another very scarce tract by "J. D." (John Davenport) "present at the trial," we come to a strange and mournful group of judicial murders that took place in Huntingdon, 1646. First, there was Elizabeth Weed, of Great Catworth, who confessed that twenty-one years ago, as she was saying her prayers, three spirits came suddenly to her, one of which was like a man or youth, and the other two like puppies, of which one was white and the other black. The young man asked her if she would renounce G.o.d and Christ: to which she a.s.sented, her faith being weak; and then the devil promised that she should do all the mischief she would, if she would covenant to give him her soul at the end of twenty-one years. She a.s.sented to this too; and sealed the bargain with her blood. He drew the blood from under her left arm, and "a great lump of flesh did rise there, and has increased ever since;" and the devil scribbled with her blood, and the covenant was signed and sealed. The name of her white imp, like a puppy, was "Lilly,"

of the black "Priscille;" and the office of the white was to hurt man, woman, and child, but of the black to hurt cattle. The man spirit's function was that of her husband, in which relation she lived with him to her great satisfaction. Lilly killed Mr. Henry Bedell's child, and Priscille sundry cattle; but she had not had much good of the bargain, for the twenty-one years were to be out next Low Sunday, when her soul would be required of her and the devil would take her away; and she desired to be rid of the burden of her life before then. The judges acquiesced in her desire: which a little good food and careful watching would have proved to them was but the phantasy of disease; and the hangman had her body, though no devil took her soul, and her sufferings and her sins vexed the universe no more.

John Winnick's confession is one of the most graphic and extraordinary of any in the tract. I give it word for word as I found it.

"The examination of John Winnick, of Molseworth in the said County, Labourer, taken upon the 11th day of Aprill, 1646, before Robert Bernard, Esquire, one of His Majesties Justices of the Peace for this County. Hee saith, that about 29 yeares since, the 29th yeare ending about Midsommer last past, he being a Batch.e.l.lour, lived at Thropston with one Buteman, who then kept the Inne at the George, and withall kept Husbandry: this Examinate being a servant to him in his Husbandry, did then loose a purse with 7_s._ in it, for which he suspected one in the Family. He saith that on a Friday being in the barne, making hay-bottles for his horses about noon, swearing, cursing, raging, and wis.h.i.+ng to himselfe that some wise body (or Wizzard) would helpe him to his purse and money again: there appeared unto him a Spirit, blacke and s.h.a.ggy, and having pawes like a Beare, but in bulk not fully so big as a Coney. The Spirit asked him what he ailed to be so sorrowfull, this Examinate answered that he had lost a purse and money, and knew not how to come by it again. The Spirit replied, if you will forsake G.o.d and Christ and fall down and wors.h.i.+p me for your G.o.d, I will help you to your purse and money again. This Examinate said he would, and thereupon fell down upon his knees and held up his hands. Then the Spirit said, to-morrow about this time of the day, you shall find your purse upon the floor where you are now making bottles, I will send it to you, and will also come my selfe. Whereupon this Examinate told the Spirit he would meete him there, and receive it, and wors.h.i.+p him. Whereupon at the time prefixed, this Examinate went unto the place, and found his purse upon the floore, and tooke it up, and looking afterwards into it, he found there all the money that was formerly lost: but before he had looked into it, the same Spirit appears unto him and said, there is your purse and your money in it: and then this Examinate fell downe upon his knees and said, My Lord and G.o.d I thanke you. The said Spirit at that time brought with him two other Spirits for shape, bignesse, and colour, the one like a white Cat, the other like a grey Coney; and while this Examinate was upon his knees, the Beare Spirit spake to him, saying, you must wors.h.i.+p these two Spirits as you wors.h.i.+p me, and take them for your G.o.ds also: then this Examinate directed his bodie towards them, and called them his Lords and G.o.ds. Then the Beare Spirit told him that when he dyed he must have his soule, whereunto this Examinate yielded. Hee told him then also that they must suck of his body, to which this Examinate also yielded; but they did not sucke at that time. The Beare Spirit promised him that he should never want victuals. The Cat Spirit that it would hurt Cattel when he would desire it. And the Coney-like Spirit that it would hurt men when he desired. The Bear Spirit told him that it must have some of his blood wherewith to seale the Covenant, whereunto this Examinate yielded, and then the beare Spirit leapt upon his shoulder, and p.r.i.c.kt him on the head, and from thence tooke blood; and after thus doing, the said three spirits vanisht away. The next day about noone, the said Spirits came to him while hee was in the field, and told him they were come to suck of his body, to which he yielded, and they suckt his body at the places where the marks are found, and from that time to this, they have come constantly to him once every 24 hours, sometimes by day, and most commonly by night. And being demanded what mischiefe he caused any of the said spirits to do, he answered never any, onely hee sent his beare Spirit to provoke the maid-servant of Mr. Say of Molmesworth, to steale victualls for him out of her Master's house, which she did, and this Examinate received the same.

The marke of John Winnicke Rob. Bernard.

He was hanged, 1646.

Eight years before this--namely, in 1638--Frances Moore had a black puppy imp of Margaret Simson of Great Catworth, which she called Pretty, and whose office was to harm cattle. Then Goodwife Weed gave her a thing like a white cat, called Tissy, saying, if she would deny G.o.d and affirm the same by her blood, to whomsoever she sent this cat, and cursed, would die.

So she cursed William Foster, who, sixteen years ago would have hanged two of her children because they offered to take a piece of bread; and he died: but she could not remember what the cat imp did to him. Poor old creature! such nave little bits of truth and scientific direction come out in the midst of all the wildness and raving of the "examined!"--such little quiet bits of unconscious common sense, to redeem the whole account from the mere maunderings of lunacy! Frances Moore did not remember what her imp did to William Foster, yet she went on to say that she got tired of having them about her, and killed them both a year since; but they haunted her still, and when she was apprehended crept up her clothes and tortured her so that she could not speak.

Elizabeth Chandler, widow, had something that came to her in a "puffing and roaring manner," and that now hurt her sorely. She denied that she ever spoiled Goodwife Darnell's furmety, but Goodwife Darnell, by causing her to be ducked, she did heartily desire to be revenged on. She had been troubled with these roaring things for a quarter of a year, and had two imps besides, one called "Beelzebub," and the other "Trullibub." This she denied when asked, while sane and awake, saying that "Beelzebub was a logg of wood and Trullibub a stick." But the neighbours testified against her, so her denial went for naught.

Ellen Shepheard had four iron-grey rat imps that sucked her; and Anne Desborough had two--mouses--Tib and Jone, one brown and the other white.

She had been told to forsake G.o.d and Christ, and that she would then have her will on men and cattle; as she did, and got her mouse imps in consequence.

Jane Wallis saw a man in black clothes, about six weeks since, as she was making her bed. She bid him civilly good morning, and asked him his name.

He told her it was "Blackeman," and, in turn, asked her if she was poor.

Yes, she said "she was." Then he would send her two imps said he, Grissel and Greedigut, that should do anything for her she would. At this moment, Jane, looking up, saw he had ugly feet, and was fearful; still more fearful when he became at one moment bigger and at another less, and then suddenly vanished. Grissel and Greedigut came in the shape of "dogges, with great brisles of hogges hair upon their backs." They said they came from Blackeman to do whatever she might command: and sometimes all three of them--the two dogs and the man--brought her two or three s.h.i.+llings at a time; and once they robbed a man and pulled him from his horse.

On September 25, 1645,[134] Joan Walliford confessed before the major and other jurates, "that the divell, about seven yeares agoe did appeare to her in the shape of a little dog, and bid her to forsake G.o.d and leane to him; who replied, that she was loath to forsake him." Still, she wished to be revenged on Thomas Letherland and Mary Woodrufe, now his wife; and as "Bunne," the devil, promised she should not lack, and did actually send her money, she knew not whence--sometimes a s.h.i.+lling and sometimes eightpence, "never more"--devil-wors.h.i.+p did not seem such a bad trade after all. She further said that her retainer, Bunne, once carried Thomas Gardler out of a window; and that twenty years ago she promised her soul to the devil, and that he wrote the covenant between them in her blood, promising to be her servant for that s.p.a.ce of time, which time was now almost expired; that Jane Hot, Elizabeth Harris, and Joan Argoll, were her fellows; that Elizabeth Harris curst the boat of one John Woodcott, "and so it came to pa.s.se;" that Goodwife Argoll, curst Mr. Major and John Mannington, and so it came to pa.s.s in these cases too; and that Bunne had come to her twice since in prison, and sucked her "in the forme of a muce." So poor Joan Walliford was hanged, and at the place of execution exhorted all good people to take warning by her, and not to suffer themselves to be deceived by the divell, neither for love of money, malice, or anything else, as she had done, but to sticke fast to G.o.d; for if she had not first forsaken G.o.d, G.o.d would not have forsaken her.

Joan Cariden, widow, said that about three quarters of a year since, "as she was in the bed about twelve or one of the clocke in the night, there lay a 'rugged soft thing' upon her bosome which was very soft, and she thrust it off with her hand; and she saith that when she had thrust it away she thought G.o.d forsooke her, and she could never pray so well since as she could before; and further saith that shee verily thinks it was alive." On a second examination she said that the divell came to her in the shape of a "black rugged Dog in the night time, and crept into the bed to her, and spake to her in a mumbling tongue." Two days after she made further revelations of how "within these two daies," she had gone to Goodwife Pantery's house, where were other good wives, and where the divell sat at the upper end of the table.

Jane Hot said that a thing like a "hedg-hog" had usually visited her for these twenty years. It sucked her in her sleep, and pained her, so that she awoke: and lay on her breast, when she would strike it off. It was as soft as a cat. On coming into the gaol she was very urgent on the others to confess, but stood out st.u.r.dily for her own innocence; saying, "that she would lay twenty s.h.i.+llings that if she was swum she would sink." She was swum and she floated; whereat a gentleman asked her "how it was possible that she could be so impudent as not to confesse herselfe?" to whom she answered, "That the Divell went with her all the way, and told her that she should sinke; but when she was in the Water he sat upon a Crosse beame, and laughed at her." "_These three were executed on Munday last_," says the tract in emphatic italics.

It now came to the turn of Elizabeth Harris. She said that nineteen years ago the devil came to her in the form of a muse (mouse) and told her she should be revenged. And she was revenged on all who offended her; on Goodman Chilman, who said she had stolen a pigge, and who therefore she wished might die--and her Impe destroyed him; on Goodman Woodcot, in whose High (hoy?) her son had been drowned, when "she wished that G.o.d might be her revenger, which was her watchword to the Divell"--and the hoy was cast away, as she conceived, in consequence of her wish. And did not Joan Williford's imp tell her that "though the Boate went chearfully oute it should not come so chearfully home?" She said further that sundry good wives, named, had "ill tongues;" and that she had made a covenant with the devil, written in the blood which she had scratched with her nails from out her breast.

Alexander Sussums of Melford, Suss.e.x, said he had things which drew his marks, and that he could not help being a witch, for all his kindred were naught--his mother and aunt hanged, his grandmother burnt, and ten others questioned and hanged. At Faversham about this time, three witches were hanged, one of whom had an imp-dog, Bun; and on the 9th of September[135]

Jane Lakeland was burnt at Ipswich for having bewitched to death her husband, and Mrs. Jennings' maid, who once refused her a needle and dunned her for a s.h.i.+lling. Jane Lakeland had contracted with the devil twenty years ago. He came to her when between sleeping and waking, speaking to her in a hollow voice, and offering her her will if she would covenant with him. To which she, a.s.senting, he then stroke his claw into her hand and with her blood wrote out the covenant. She had bewitched men and women and cows and corn, and sunk s.h.i.+ps, and played all the devilries of her art, but remained ever unsuspected, holding the character of a pious woman, and going regularly to church and sacrament. She had three imps--two little dogs and a mole--and Hopkins burnt her as the best way of settling the question of her sanity or disease.

It would have been well for all these poor people if their respective judges--Sir Matthew Hale included--had had only as much liberality and common sense as Mr. Gaule, the minister of Stoughton in Huntingdons.h.i.+re; for though Gaule was no wise minded to give up his belief either in the devil or in witches, he utterly repudiated Matthew Hopkins and his tribe and his ways, and condemned his whole manner of proceeding, from first to last. He preached against him, and when he heard a rumour of his visiting Stoughton he strongly opposed him, whereupon Matthew wrote this insolent letter, which Mr. Gaule printed as a kind of preface to his book of "Select Cases," put out soon after.

"My Service to your Wors.h.i.+p presented. I have this Day received a letter, &c., to come to a Town called Great Stoughton, to search for evil disposed Persons, called Witches (though I heare your Minister is farre against us through Ignorance:) I intend to come the sooner to heare his singular Judgement in the Behalfe of such Parties; I have known a Minister in Suffolk preach as much against this Discovery in a Pulpit, and forced to recant it, (by the Committee) in the same place. I much marvaile such evil Members should have any (much more any of the Clergy) who should dayly preach Terrour to convince such Offenders, stand up to take their Parts, against such as are Complainants for the King and Sufferers themselves, with their Families and Estates. I intend to give your Towne a visite suddenly. I am to come to Kimbolton this Week, and it shall be tenne to one, but I will come to your Town first, but I would certainly know afore, whether your Town affords many Sticklers for such Cattell, or willing to give and afford as good Welcome and Entertainment, as other where I have beene, else I shall wave your s.h.i.+re, (not as yet beginning in any Part of it myself) and betake me to such Places, where I doe, and may persist without Controle, but with Thanks and Recompense. So I humbly take my leave and rest, Your Servant to be Commanded,

"MATTHEW HOPKINS."

I have not been able to find what was the result of this letter, but I do not suppose that Hopkins, who was a great coward like all tyrants, cared to brave even the small danger of one minister's opposition, not knowing how many "sticklers for such cattle" might be at his back. In his Apology, or "Certaine Queries Answered, which have been and are likely to be objected against Matthew Hopkins, in his way of finding out Witches," he says that "he never went to any towne or place, but they rode, writ, or sent often for him, and were (for ought he knew) glad of him;" and if this was true, Mr. Gaule most likely was rid of him at Great Stoughton, and one rood of English land left undefiled. Besides, his hands were full elsewhere; for when we think that at Bury St. Edmunds eighteen persons were hanged on one day alone, and a hundred and twenty more left lying in prison, all through his instrumentality, we must imagine that he had enough to do in places where he was caressed and desired, not to forbear troubling those where he was abhorred and might run some danger.

MR. CLARK'S EXAMPLES.

A few other men, too, were about as sane as Mr. Gaule on this maddest of all mad subjects. Mr. Clark, a minister--and the ministers were generally the worst--had a marvellous allowance of common sense, remembering the times. A certain paris.h.i.+oner of his cried out that she was grievously beset by a neighbour who came in the spirit, that is, as an apparition, to teaze and torment her. Mr. Clark, the minister, knew the accused woman, and believed in her innocency; but it happened one day, by one of those curious coincidences which, by-the-bye, are so often exaggerated into far more significance than they deserve, that the suspected woman while milking her cow was struck by it on the forehead, and naturally fell a-bleeding. At that moment, or said to be at that moment, her "spectre"

appeared to the afflicted person, and she, pointing out the place where it stood, desired some of those who were with her to strike at it. They did so, and she said they fetched blood. Hereupon a posse of them went to the supposed witch, and found her with her forehead bleeding, just as the afflicted had said. There was no question now of doubt, and they rushed off to Mr. Clark to tell them what they had seen, and demand that she be put to the proof. Mr. Clark went to the woman and asked what had made her forehead bleed? She told him, a blow from her cow's horn; "whereby he was satisfy'd that it was a Design of Satan to render an innocent person suspected." Another instance of the same kind of thing happened at Cambridge. A man believed that a certain widow sent her imps, as cats, to bewitch and torment him. One night as he lay in bed one of these imps came within reach, and he struck it on the back: when it vanished away, as was to be expected. The next day the man sent to inquire of his old enemy, and found that she had a sore back; at which he rejoiced exceedingly, having now in his hands the clew which would guide him to revenge and her to justice and the scaffold. But Mr. Day, her surgeon, stopped his triumph before it was ripe, and cut the clew before it had spun out; telling him that the sore back was nothing but a boil, which had gathered, headed, and healed, like any other boil, and that it could have had no connexion whatever with the blow which he had so valiantly given the cat-imp when in bed. So this bit of cruelty was put a stop to, and the poor old creature, with a boil on her back, slept her last sleep unhastened by the hangman.

Another wretched being who had been kept without sleep or food for twenty-four hours, p.r.i.c.ked, tried, and tortured into a state of temporary imbecility, at last confessed to her imp Nan; but a gentleman in the neighbourhood, very indignant at the folly and barbarity of the whole thing, rescued the poor victim, and made her eat some meat and go to sleep. When she woke up she said she knew nothing of what she had confessed, but that she had a pullet which she sometimes called Nan, and which of a surety was no imp, but an honest little hen that had to lay good eggs some day, and be eaten at table when her work was done.

THE NEWCASTLE p.r.i.c.kERS.

Hopkins was not the only one of his trade in England, for Ralph Gardner, in his "England's Grievance Discovered" (1655), speaks of two p.r.i.c.kers, Thomas Shovel and Cuthbert Nicholson, who, in 1649 and 1650, were sent by the Newcastle magistrates into Scotland, there to confer with a very able man in that line, and bring him back to Newcastle. They were to have twenty s.h.i.+llings, but the Scotchman three pounds, per head of all they could convict, and a free pa.s.sage there and back. When these wretches got to any town--for they tried all the chief market towns of the district--the crier used to go round with his bell, desiring "all people that would bring in any complaint against any woman for a witch, they should be sent for and tryed by the person appointed." As many as thirty women were brought at once into the Newcastle town-hall, stript, p.r.i.c.ked, and twenty-seven set aside as guilty. This said witch-finder told Lieut.-Colonel Hobson that "he knew women, whether they were witches or no, by their looks; and when the said person was searching of a personable and good-like woman, the said Colonel replyed and said, Surely this woman is none, and need not be tried; but the Scotchman said she was, for all the Town said she was, and therefore he would try her: and presently, in sight of all the people, laid her body naked to the Waste, with her cloaths over her head, by which Fright and Shame all her bloud contracted into one part of her body, and then he ran a Pin into her Thigh, and then suddenly let her Coats fall, and then demanded whether she had nothing of his in her body, but did not bleed, but she, being amazed, replied little, and then he put his hand up her coats and pulled out the pin and set her aside as a guilty person and child of the Devil, and fell to try others, whom he made guilty. Lieut.-Colonel Hobson, perceiving the alteration of the foresaid woman by her blood settling in her right parts, caused that woman to be brought again, and her cloaths pulled up to her Thigh, and required the Scot to run the pin in the same place, and then it gushed out of blood, and the said Scot cleared her, and said she was not a child of the Devil."

If this Scotch witch-finder had not been stopped he would have found half the women in the north country witches; at last Henry Ogle got hold of him, and "required Bond of him to answer the Sessions;" but he got away to Scotland, and so escaped for the time. Fifteen women lay in prison, charged by him, and were executed--all protesting their innocence; and "one of them, by name Margaret Brown, beseeched G.o.d that some remarkable sign might be seen at the time of their execution, to evidence their innocency; and as soon as ever she was turned off the Ladder her blood gushed out upon the people to the admiration of the beholders." Which touching little history we must relegate to the realms of fable and delusion, like others just as sad and supernatural. This precious wretch (was it John Kincaid?) was hung in Scotland, when the magistrates and people had got tired of him and his cruelty, and at "the gallows he confessed that he had been the death of two hundred and twenty men and women in England and Scotland, simply for the sake of the twenty s.h.i.+llings a head blood-money." Truly it was time for brave Ralph Gardner to write his bold and scorching "England's Grievance Discovered," when such monstrous crimes as these might be done without even the colour of a monstrous law.

In "Sykes's Local Records" mention is made of a curious little entry in the parish books of Gateshead, near Newcastle: "Paid as M{ris} Watson's when the Justices call to examine witches, 3{s} 4{d}; for a graue for a witch, 6{d}; for trying the witches, 1. 5." This was in 1649, in which year Jean Martin, "the myller's wyfe of Chattim," was executed for a witch, and the authorities of Berwick sent for the witch-finder to come and try witches there, promising that no violence should be done him by the townspeople. In the parish register of Hart, under the date of July 28, 1582, the office of Master Chancellor against Allison Lawe, of Hart, was brought into requisition. Allison was "a notourious sorcerer and enchanter," but was pulled up in the midst of her evil career, and sentenced to a milder punishment than she would have had a century later.

Notorious witch and enchanter as she was, all she had to suffer was open penance once in the market-place at Durham, with a paper on her head setting forth her offences, once in Hart church, and once in Norton church; but what was the award to Janet Bainbridge and Jannet Allinson, of Stockton, "for asking counsell of witches, and resorting to Allison Lawe for the cure of the sicke," we are not told. The madness which possessed all men's minds in the next century had not then begun to rage: the storm that was to burst over the world was then giving forth only its warning mutterings, and it was reserved for a later age, with all its progress in art and science and freedom of thought and religious knowledge, to lay the coping-stone to the most monstrous temple of iniquity which fear has ever raised to ignorance. It is a humiliating thought; humiliating, too, the milder phases of this same fury which have so often possessed society; but it must be remembered that, though each wave of the tide recedes, each succeeding wave dashes farther over the reach, and the long lines of sea-wrack mark the point of progress as well as the point of declension.

THE WITCH IN THE BRAKE.[136]

At Droitwich, in Worcesters.h.i.+re, a boy, looking for his mother's cow, saw a bush in a brake move as if something was there. Thinking it to be his mother's cow he went to the place, but found no cow, only an old woman who cried "Ooh!" and so frightened the lad that he could not speak intelligibly. But no one knew what he meant by his strange mouthings and mutterings, until one day, seeing the old woman eating porridge before Sir Edward Barret's door, he rushed up to her, and flung her porridge in her face, and otherwise behaved violently and ill. The neighbours, thinking there was something in it, apprehended her as a witch, and took her to the Checker Prison. At night, the mother of the boy, hearing a great noise overhead, ran up stairs and found her son with the leg of a form in his hand, fighting furiously with something in the window; but what it was she could not see. He then put on his clothes and ran to the prison, midway recovering his speech. When he got there he found that the gaoler had kept the witch without food or sleep till she would say the Lord's Prayer and "G.o.d bless the boy:" which pious exercise she had completed at the very moment when his speech was restored. When the boy complained to the gaoler of his negligence in letting her out to hurt and annoy him, the gaoler answered that he had kept her very safe. "Nay," says the boy, "for she came and sat in my chamber window, and grinned at me; whereupon I took up a form and banged her:" the gaoler looked and they found the marks. She was a Lancas.h.i.+re woman, who, when Duke Hamilton was defeated, and there was a scarcity in those parts, "wandred abroad to get victuals." She was hanged, poor half-starved vagrant!

THE TEWKESBURY WITCH THAT SUCKED THE SOW.

About the same time a Tewkesbury man had a sow and a litter of pigs: the sow with abundance of milk, but the pigs lean and miserable. He concluded that something which had no right to it came and robbed his piglings of their milk; so he watched; and sure enough a "black four-footed Creature like a Pole-Cat" came and beat away the pigs and sucked the sow; but the farmer got a pitchfork and ran it into the thigh of the pole-cat, which struggled so mightily that, though it was nailed to the ground, it got away and made off. When he asked some neighbours, standing near, what they had seen, they said they had only seen a wench go by, with blood falling from her as she went. They caught the wench and searched her, and, sure enough, found her wounded as the man said he had wounded the thing sucking his sow. She was apprehended, tried, and hanged, because she made herself into a creature like a black pole-cat, and went and sucked the farmers'

sows. "These two Relations, I received from a Person of Quality, of good Ability and of unquestionable Credit, who was present at both the Tryals, and wrote them in his Presence, and afterwards read them to him; and he a.s.sured me they were very true in all the Particulars, as they were given in Evidence," says the author of the "Collection of Modern Relations"

complacently.

THE DEVIL'S DELUSION.[137]

That same year, in the month of July, a man and woman, John Palmer and Elizabeth Knott, were hanged at St. Albans for curing folks of disease without the leave and license of the authorities, and by the aid of the devil. John made some curious revelations. He said, first of all, that Marsh of Dunstable was the head of the whole college of witches, and that he could do more than all the rest. Then he went on to say that he, John Palmer, had held a blood covenant with the devil for sixty years, and that he bore his brand; also that he had two imps, "George," a dog, and "Jezabell," a woman, who did what he would. He had seduced to himself and his arts Elizabeth Knott, his kinswoman; and both together they made a clay picture of goodwife Pearls of Norton, which they put under some embers, and as the picture consumed away, so did goodwife Pearls--miserably and fatally. This was out of revenge for hanging a lock on his door because he did not pay his rent. Then he sent "George" to kill Cleaver's horses; and Elizabeth killed John Laman's cow by sending her imp, which was a cat. The cat had promised that she should have all she wanted, save money; but poor Elizabeth Knott did not add that puss had promised to give them a halter and the gallows at the end of their revenge: which would have been the only truth in the whole relation. She killed Laman's cow, she said, because she had been teazed for money due to him, or rather to his wife. When she was swum, her cat imp came up to her and sucked upon her breast; so she said, poor raving creature: but when she was taken out of the water she never saw it more. Palmer also confessed that once he lay as a toad in the way of a young man he hated, to get himself hurt. The young man kicked the toad, and Palmer had a sore s.h.i.+n; but he bewitched the youth, so that he languished for years in woe and torment. Then is given the list of all the people bedevilled and bewitched by these two persons, and the account is signed, "Yours, Misodaimon." Misodaimon would have done better if he could have called himself Philalethes.

THE WITCH OF WAPPING.

In April, 1652, Joan Peterson, the witch of Wapping, was hanged at Tyburn in just retribution of her sins. Joan had long had an ugly name in that mean house of hers on the small island near Shadwell; for she was known to heal the sick in a manner more suggestive than satisfactory, and she had a black beast that used to suck her: which every one knew was the art and function of an imp. That this was true of her who could doubt, for a man said he had seen it, and it took even less direct testimony than this to prove a woman a witch. Let the sceptical read the "Country Justice" to see what subtle threads were strong enough for a witch-halter! One evening a neighbour woman was watching by the cradle of a child who was strangely distempered. In jumped a black cat, coming no one knew whence, and stopped her cradling. This woman, and another watching with her, flung the fire-fork at the cat, when it vanished as quickly as it had come. In an hour's time it came again from the other side: one of the women raised her foot and kicked it; and immediately her foot and leg swelled, and were very sore and painful. Then, terrified, they called the master of the house, told him that they could not watch in a place so beset with evil spirits, and left him and the child to get on as they could. On their way home they lighted on a baker, who told them that he had just met a big black cat which had affrighted him so that his hair stood all on end; and when the women told their tale, he said "on his conscience he thought it was Mother Peterson, for he had met her going towards the island a little while before." When on his oath, under examination, this valiant baker declared that he had never been afraid of any cat before in his life; and to a further question answered, "No, he had never seen such a cat before, and he hoped in G.o.d he should never see the like again." But what connection old Joan Peterson was a.s.sumed to have with this mysterious black cat remains a mystery to this day: it was none to the judge and jury, who condemned her to be hanged with safe and tranquil minds.

THE GEOLOGICAL BEWITCHMENT.[138]

In April, 1652, Mary Ellins, aged nine years, daughter of Edward Ellins, of Evesham in the county of Worcester, was playing in the fields with some neighbours' children. They were gathering cowslips in a pretty innocent way, in which it would have been well if they had been contented to remain; but on pa.s.sing by a ditch they saw crouching therein one Catherine Huxley, an old woman of no very good repute, generally supposed to be a witch of the worst kind, and quick at casting an evil eye when offended.