Witch Stories Part 3

Soon after Catherine Oswald's execution, one of her crew or covin, who had been with her on the great storm in "the borrowing days (in anno 1625), on the Brae of the Saltpans," a noted warlock, by name Alexander Hunter, or Hamilton, _alias_ Hatteraick, which last name he had gotten from the devil, was brought to execution on the Castle Hill. It was in 1629 that he was taken. It was proved that on Kingston hills he had met with the devil as a black man, or, as Sinclair says, as a mediciner; and often afterwards he would meet him riding on a black horse, or he would appear as a corbie, cat, or dog. When Alexander wanted him he would beat the ground with a fir stick l.u.s.tily, crying, "Rise up, foul thief!" for the master got but hard names at times from his servants. This fir stick, and four s.h.i.+llings sterling, the devil gave to him when the compact was first made between them; and he confessed, moreover, that when raised in this manner he could only be got rid of by sacrificing to him a cat or dog, or such like, "quick." Also he set on fire Provost c.o.c.kburn's mill of corn, by taking three stalks from his stacks, and burning them on Garleton Hills; and he owned to a deadly hatred against Lady Ormiston, because she once refused him "ane almous," and called him "ane custroune carle." So, to punish her, he and some witches raised the devil in Salton Wood, where he appeared like a man in gray clothes, and gave him the bottom of a blue clew, telling him to lay it at the lady's door: "which he and the women having done, 'the lady and her daughter were soon thereafter bereft of their naturall lyfe.'" But Sinclair's account is the most graphic. I will give it in his own words:--

"Anent Hattaraick, an old Warlock.

"This man's name was Sandie Hunter, who called himself Sandie Hamilton, and it seems so called Hattaraik by the devil, and so by others as a Nickname. He was first a Neatherd in East Lothian, to a gentleman there.

He was much given to charming and cureing of men and Beasts, by words and spels. His charms sometimes succeeded and sometimes not. On a day, herding his kine upon a Hill side in the summer time, the Devil came to him in form of a Mediciner, and said, 'Sandie, you have too long followed my trade, and never acknowledged me for your master. You must now take on with me, and I will make you more perfect in your calling.' Whereupon the man gave up himself to the devil, and received his Mark with this new name. After this he grew very famous throw the countrey for his charming and cureing of diseases in men and beasts, and turned a vagrant fellow like a Jockie, gaining Meat, Flesh, and Money by his Charms, such was the ignorance of many at that time.

"Whatever House he came to, none durst refuse Hattaraik an alms, rather for his ill than his good. One day he came to the yait of Samuelstown, when some Friends after dinner were going to Horse. A young Gentleman, Brother to the Lady, seeing him, switcht him about the ears, saying, 'You Warlok Cairle, what have you to do here?' whereupon the Fellow goes away grumbling, and was overheard to say, 'You shall dear buy this, ere it be long.' This was _d.a.m.num Minatum_. The young Gentleman conveyed his Friends a far way off, and came home that way again, where he slept. After supper, taking his horse and crossing Tine-water to go home, he rides throw a shadowy piece of a Haugh, commonly called the Allers, and the evening being somewhat dark he met with some Persons there that begat a dreadful consternation in him, which for the most part he would never reveal. This was _malum secutum_. When he came home, the Servants observed terror and fear in his countenance. The next day he became distracted, and was bound for several days. His sister, the Lady Samuelstoun, hearing of it, was heard to say, 'Surely that knave Hattaraik is the cause of his Trouble.

Call for him in all haste.' When he had come to her, 'Sandie,' says she, 'what is this you have done to my brother William?' 'I told him,' says he, 'I should make him repent his striking of me at the Yait lately.' She gave the Rogue fair words, and promising him his Pock full of Meal with Beef and Cheese, persuaded the Fellow to cure him again. He undertook the business; 'but I must first,' says he, 'have one of his Sarks,' which was soon gotten. What pranks he plaid with it cannot be known. But within a short while the gentleman recovered his health. When Hatteraik came to receive his wadges, he told the Lady, 'Your Brother William shal quickly goe off the Countrey but shall never return.' She, knowing the Fellow's prophecies to hold true, caused her Brother to make a Disposition to her of all his patrimony, to the defrauding of his younger brother George.

After that this Warlock had abused the Countrey for a long time, he was at last apprehended at Dunbar, and brought into Edinburgh, and burnt upon the Castle Hill." But not until he had delated several others of hitherto good repute, so that for the next few months the witch-finder's hands were full.

THE MIDWIFE'S DOUBLE SIN.

Notably was arrested about this time, Alie Nisbet, midwife; and three others. Alie was accused of witchcraft; and of a softer, but as heinous a crime as witchcraft. This she confessed to; but the breaking of the seventh commandment in Christian Scotland, in the year 1632, was a far more dangerous thing than we can imagine possible in our laxer day; and Alie was on the horns of a dilemma, either of which could land her in ruin, death, and perdition. She was accused, among other things, of having taken her labour pains from off a certain woman, using "charmes and horrible words, amongs which thir ware some, _the bones to the fire and the soull to the devill_;" but this Alie denied, strenuously, though she admitted that she might have bathed the woman's legs in warm water, which she had bewitched for good, by putting her fingers into it and running thrice round the bed, widers.h.i.+ns; but the spoken charm as given she would have none of. The labour pains, however, left the woman, and were foully and unnaturally cast upon another who had no concern therewith, so that she died in four-and-twenty hours from that time, and Alie was the murderess by all the laws of sorcery. She was accused, also, of having poured some enchanted water on a threshold over which a servant girl, against whom she had a spite, must pa.s.s, and the servant girl died therefrom. Alie was wirriet and burnt and troubled the world no more.

KATHERINE GRIEVE AND JOHN SINCLAIR.[32]

Katherine Grieve, too (1633), was brought to judgment and sentenced to be "taken to the mercat crose and brunt in the cheick, in example of others,"

with the future prospect, that if she haunted suspected places, or used charms "scho sould be brunt in asches to the dead without dome or law, and that willinglie, of hir owne consent." For Katherine's curses had wronged both man and beast, which evil thing she had brought to pa.s.s by the power of the devil her master. However, she was forced to undo her evil, and by laying on of hands cure the sore she had made: so she got off with this smaller punishment of branding, and a rebuke. And there was John Sinclair tried that same year; a cruel villain to others, if loving to his own. For under silence and cloud of night he took his distempered sister, sitting backward on the horse, and carried her from where she lay to the Kirk of Hoy. Then a voice came to him, saying "Seven is too many, but four might do;" and in the morning a boat with five men in it struck on the rocks, and four perished, but one was saved; by which fiendish and unholy sacrifice John Sinclair's sister was cured. He was proved to be their murderer, for when the dead men were found, and he was "forcit to lay his handis vpoun thame, they guis.h.i.+t out with bluid and watter at the mouth and noise." John Sinclair's thread of life needed no more waxing to make it run smoothly and easily. The hangman knew where the knot lay; and cut it to the perfect satisfaction of all the country.

BESSIE BATHGATE'S NIPS.[33]

A year after this Bessie Bathgate, spouse to Alexander Rae, fell into trouble and the hands of the police. George Sprot, wobster, had some cloth of Bessie's, which he kept too long for her thinking. She went and took it violently away, and nipped his child in the thigh till it skirled, "and of which nip it never convalesced, but dwamed thereof and died by hir sorcerie." Also, said Sprot's wife, giving her child an egg that came out of Bessie's house there struck out a lump as big as a goose egg upon the child, which continued on her till her death, which was occasioned by nothing else than this "enchanted egg." Furthermore she threatened Sprot that "he should never get his Sunday's meat to the fore by his work;" and he forthwith fell into extreme poverty, by which her words came true. To William Donaldson she said--he outrunning her as she chased him to beat him for calling her a witch--"Weill, sir, the devill be in your feit," and he fell lame and impotent straightways, and so continued ever since. Other things of the same kind did she, bewitching Margaret Horne's cow that it died, "and that night it died there was women seen dancing on the rigging of the byre;" also she was seen by "two young men at 12 howers at even (when all persons are in their beds) standing barelegged and in hir sark valicot, at the back of hir yard, conferring with the devill, who was in gray cloaths;" which, with other offences of the same nature, were, we should have thought, heavy enough to have lost a world. But Elizabeth Bathgate, spouse to Alexander Rae, was acquitted; though how the verdict came about no one can possibly understand.

It was not that any fit of mercy or humanity had come over the people.

More than twenty poor wretches suffered about this time, Sir George Home of Manderston, being one of the chief of the prosecutors: for Sir George and his wife did not live very lovingly together, and she was given to witches and warlocks--or they said she was--to see if she could not get rid of him by enchantments and sorceries: so Sir George had a pleasant mixture of spite and self-defence in his onslaught, and the whole country-side was in a stir. About this time too, John Balfour, of Corhouse, took on himself the office of witch-finder and p.r.i.c.ker by thrusting "preens" into the marks; but he was not accepted quite blindly, and measures were taken for examining his pretensions to this special branch of knowledge. In general the p.r.i.c.ker was the master of the situation, and brought all the rest to his feet.

BESSIE SKEBISTER.[34]

All the honest men of the isle knew Bessie Skebister. She was the shrewdest witch in the whole country, and it was a usual thing with them when they thought their boats in danger to send to her to know the truth; and, "Giff Bessie say it is weill, it is weill" was a common proverb in the Orkney Islands. She did other things besides foreknowing the fall of storms, for she took James Sandieson when in a strange distemper and tormented him greatly. "In his sleip, and oftymes waking," says the dittay, "he was tormented with yow, Bessie, and vther two with yow, quhom he knew not, cairying him to the sea, and to the fyre, to Norroway, Yetland, and to the south--that ye had ridden all this wayes, with ane brydle in his mouth." Moreover, Bessie was a "dreamer of dreams," as well as a rider of sick men's souls; so she was strangled and burnt.

THE TRIAL OF SPIRITS.[35]

The trial of Katherine Craigie (1640), had a certain dash of poetry and romance in it, not often found in these woeful stories. Friend Robbie--now friend, now foe--lay a-dying, and Katherine must needs go see him with the rest. The wild waves were beating round that rugged Orkney Isle, when Katherine went over the heather to Robbie's house. "What now, Robbie! ye are going to die!" she said. "I grant that I prayed ill for yow, and now I see that prayer hath taken effect. Jonet," quoth she, turning to the wife, "if I durst trust in yow, I sould knaw quhat lyeth on your guidman and holdis him downe. I sould tell whether it was ane hill spirit, ane kirk spirit, or ane water spirit that so troubles him." Jonet was too anxious not to promise secrecy or help, or anything else that Katherine wished; so the next morning, before daylight, Katherine brought three stones to Robbie's house, and put them into the fire, where they remained until after sunset. While the night was pa.s.sing, they were taken from the fire, and put under the threshold of the door, then, in the early morning, thrown, one after the other, into a pail of water, where Jonet heard one of them "chirle and chirme." Upon which Katherine said that it was a kirk spirit that troubled the guidman Robbie, and he must be washed with the water in which the stones had "chirled and chirmed." This ceremony was repeated thrice, and at the third time Katherine herself washed Robbie, on whom this unusual cleansing had most powerful and beneficial effects. When one thinks of the normal state of filth in which these honest people lived, it is not surprising if any form of ablution proved of a most supernatural benefit. But Katherine Craigie got into the trouble from which there was no escape; and friend Robbie went back to his dirt, persuaded of the Satanic agency of a bath.

Quite as full of poetic feeling was James Knarstoun's manner of charming with stones, when he took one stone for the ebb, another for the hill, and the third for the kirkyard, listening carefully as to what stone should make the "bullering" noise that would betray the tormenting spirit, and enable the magician to send him home again: a process through which Katherine Carey went (1617) when she found that her patient was troubled with the spirit of the sea, which would not let him bide in peace and quiet. Such touches as these redeem the subject from the sad monotony of sorrow and death which else pervades it from end to end, and lift it from the domain of the devil into the brighter and lovelier world of the Spirits of Nature.

SIXTEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY-THREE.

In 1643 there was a fierce onslaught against the poor persecuted servants of the devil. Thirty women suffered at once in Fife alone; and the more zealous of the ministers hounded on the people to terrible cruelties.

There was one John Brugh,[36] "a notorious warlock in the parachin of Fossoquhy, by the s.p.a.ce of 36 yearis," who was wirreit at a stake and burnt; and Janet Barker and Margaret Lauder, "indwellers and servands in Edinburgh," who came to confession boldly, and showed that they had read the story of Europa to some purpose, though to a great deal of confusion.

They accused Janet Cranstoun of seducing them, by promising them that if they gave themselves over to her and the devil, they should be "as trimlie clad as the best servands in Edinburgh." Coupled with the fact that they had witch-marks, their confession was accepted as undeniable, and their fate inevitably sealed.

And there was Marion c.u.mlaquoy,[37] in Birsay, who bewitched David c.u.mlaquoy's corn seed, and made it run out too soon. She had been very anxious to know when David would sow, and when she was told, she went and stood "just to his face" all the time he was casting, and that year his seed failed him, so that he could only sow a third of his land; though he had as much grain as heretofore, and it had never run out too soon all the years he had farmed that land. And she went to Robert Carstairs' house by sunrise one day, bringing milk to his good mother, though not used to show such attention; and as she left she turned herself three several times "withers.h.i.+ns" about the fire, and that year Robert Carstairs' "bear (barley) was blew and rottin," and his oats gave no proper meal, but made all who ate thereof heart-sick, albeit both bear and oats were good and fresh when he put them in the yard. And if all this was not proof against Marion c.u.mlaquoy, what would the Orkney courts hold as proof? As the past, so the present; and Marion c.u.mlaquoy must learn in prison and at the stake the evils that honest folk found in her power of "enchanting" corn and crops. There were many others in this same year, to catalogue whom would become at least wearisome and monotonous: they must be pa.s.sed by unmentioned, and left to the silence and oblivion which is the privilege of the unfortunate dead.

But among the victims was one Agnes Finnie,[38] a bitter-tongued, evil-tempered old hag, who had a curse and a threat for every one who offended her; who killed young Fairlie with a terrible disorder, because he called her "Winnie Annie;" and laid so frightful a disease on Beatrix Nisbet, for some other trifling offence, that she lost the use of her tongue; who made a "grit jist" (great joist) fall down on the leg of Euphame Kincaid's daughter, because Euphame called her a witch on being called by her a drunkard; and appeared to John c.o.c.kburn in the night--the doors and windows being fast closed--terrifying him by her hideous old apparition in his sleep, because he had disagreed with her daughter; and who did all other wicked and uncanny things, like a raving, unprincipled, old hag as she was. She even forespoke Alexander Johnstone's bairne, so that it was eleven years old before it could walk, and all because she was not made G.o.dmother, or "had not gotten its name;" and she made Margaret Williamson sick and blind, by saying most outrageously, "The devill blaw the blinde!" And she was a bad mother and evil exemplar to her daughter, bringing her up to be as vile as herself, at least in the way of quarrelling and fighting with her neighbours, and then backing her with an unfair amount of her own supernatural powers. Thus, one day, Margaret Robinson, the daughter in question, was using high words with Mawse Gourlay, spouse of Andrew Wilson, and Mawse, in a rage, called her "ane witche's get," which was about the worst thing that could be said in those days between a couple of scolds. "Gif I be ane witche's get," cried Margaret, in extremest fury, "the devill ryve the saull out of ye befoir I come again!" After which cruel and devilish imprecation, helped on by Winnie Annie's horrible art used at Margaret's instigation, Andrew Wilson became "frenatik" and stark mad: his eyes starting out of his head in the most terrible and frightful manner as he went about, ever p.r.o.nouncing these words as his ordinary and continual speech--the perpetual raving of his madness--"The devill ryve the saull out o' me!" For all which crimes--though she was ably defended--though, when her house was searched, "there was neither picture, toad, nor any such thing found therein, which ever any witch in the world was used to practize,"--yet the evidence was held to be too strong, and Winnie Annie Finnie was ordained to be "brunt to the deid," and her ashes cast out to the winds of heaven.

Janet Brown[39] was another of those who got into hot quarters. She confessed that she had charmed James Hutton and Janet Scott with these words:--

"Our Lord forth did raide, His foal's foot slade; Our Lord down lighted, His foal's foot righted; Saying flesh to flesh, blood to blood, and stane to stane, In our Lord his name."

She said this was a charm that had been learnt her by a nameless man from Strathmiglo; but Margaret Fisher,[40] in Weardie, spoke it somewhat differently. She had for her spell:--

"Our Lord to hunting red, His sool-soot sled, Down he lighted, His sool-soot righted; Blod to blod, s.h.i.+new to s.h.i.+new, To the other sent in G.o.d's name, In the name of the Father, Sone, and Holy Ghost."

Either version was equally efficacious as a cure to the sick and a curse to the whole; and equally deadly as a crime in those who used it. And there was Margaret Young, "ane honest young woman of good reputation, without any scandal or blot," who lay miserably in prison for ten weeks, without trial or release; but she got off at last on her husband's becoming her surety. And Jonet Thomeson, who bewitched Andrew Burwick's corn, so that when carried to the mill it leapt up into his wife's face like mites, and as it were "nipped" her face until it swelled; and when it was made into "meat," neither he nor his wife could abide the smell of it; and when they did manage to eat it, it tasted like pins ("went owre lyke prinsis"), and could not be quenched for thirst: and the dogs would not eat of it, and the neighbours would not buy it; so poor Andrew Burwick's gear was destroyed, and his means most sorely diminished. For all which deadly sorcery and malice Jonet Thomeson, _alias_ Greibok, was made to smart severely.

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, "gus.h.i.+ng 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 "c.r.a.ppit 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 f.a.ggot: 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 a.s.saulted, 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 ash.o.r.e.

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 s.h.i.+p's company with him, "not forgetting the reading of Scripture and earnest prayer to G.o.d." 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 widers.h.i.+ns on his head, and though his heart failed him for dread and fear, and he "beteached" himself to G.o.d "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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d!

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 gra.s.s would grow again. So at last they built a stone d.y.k.e 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 p.r.i.c.ker, 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 quant.i.ty of the milk into the "grupe" or sewer of the byre, saying, "G.o.d 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, wis.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.sured 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 la.s.sie, 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sionately 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 "p.r.i.c.ked" 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 p.r.i.c.ked. 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 s.h.i.+llings 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-s.h.i.+rts 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 G.o.d 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 gla.s.s 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 a.s.saults 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 G.o.d'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.