Witch Stories Part 4

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 a.s.suring 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, p.r.i.c.king 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 cla.s.sical 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 G.o.d's a.s.sistance, even though that would do it. G.o.d 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 a.s.sistance, "A permission thou hast, indeed; but G.o.d 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! G.o.d shall judge you for your lying; and I and my father will come and fetch you to h.e.l.l 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 G.o.d." 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 h.e.l.l, 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-b.a.l.l.s; 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d?

Alexander Bailie said, "Well, I see you acknowledge a G.o.d, and that prayer prevails with him, and therefore we must pray to G.o.d, 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 fas.h.i.+on 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 pa.s.s.

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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d." 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 hoa.r.s.e.

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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 s.p.a.ce 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 appet.i.te 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 fas.h.i.+on 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 s.h.i.+ne 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 c.o.c.k, 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 "n.o.ble 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 cla.s.sed 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 G.o.dly 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 superst.i.tious 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. Superst.i.tion 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 d.i.c.k were the most notorious p.r.i.c.kers; 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 d.i.c.k's hands, accused of sorcery by "a distracted woman," whose words were not worth the wind that wafted them. But d.i.c.k shaved him, and p.r.i.c.ked 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 pet.i.tion, and a few testimonials: but John d.i.c.k was not reproved, nor was his zeal thought extreme or pa.s.sionate.

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 G.o.d 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 c.o.c.k[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 d.i.c.kson, 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 c.o.c.k 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 c.o.c.k 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 gnas.h.i.+ng 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 c.o.c.k, 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 c.o.c.k 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," pet.i.tioned 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 p.r.i.c.king; 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 p.r.i.c.k no more without warrant. He sent up a whining pet.i.tion, 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!