Witch Stories

Chapter 15

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He tried to burn it, but could not; then to beat it with a switch, but the toad ran about the room to escape him; presently it gave a cry and vanished, and he was never after troubled with it. A third witness swore that one day, when milking, Julian c.o.x pa.s.sed by the yard where he was, and "stooping down scored upon the ground for some small time, during which time his Cattle ran Mad, and some of them ran their Heads against the Trees, and most of them died speedily." Concluding by which signs that they were bewitched, he cut off their ears to burn them, and, while they were on the fire, Julian c.o.x came in a great heat and rage, crying out that they abused her without cause; but, going slily up to the fire, she took off the ears, and then was quiet. By the laws of witchcraft it was she who was burning, not the beasts" ears. A fourth, as veracious as the former, swore to having seen her "fly into her own Chamber-window in her full proportion;" all of which testimony gave weight and substance to the maid"s charge.

The maid was servant at a certain house, where Julian came one day to ask for alms; but the maid gave her a cross answer, and said she should have none; so Julian told the maid she should repent her incivility before night. And she did; for she was taken with convulsions, and cried out to the people of the house to save her from Julian, for she saw her following her. In the night she became worse, saying that she saw Julian c.o.x and the black man by her bedside, and that they tempted her to drink, but "she defy"d the Devil"s Drenches." The next night, expecting the same kind of conflict, she took up a knife and laid it at the head of her bed. In the middle of the night came the spiritual Julian and the black man, as before, so the maid took the knife, and stabbed at Julian, whom she said she had wounded in the leg. The people, riding out to see, found Julian in her own house with a fresh wound on her leg, and blood was also on the maid"s bed. The next day Julian appeared to the maid and forced her to eat pins. Her apparition was on the house wall; and "all the Day the Maid was observ"d to convey her Hand to the House wall, and from the Wall to her Mouth, and she seem"d by the motion of her Mouth as if she did eat something." So towards night, still crying out on Julian, she was undressed, and all over her body were seen great swellings and bunches in which were huge pins--as many as thirty or more--which she said Julian c.o.x, when in the house wall, had forced her to eat. Was not all this enough to hang a dozen Julian c.o.xes? Judge Archer thought so; especially when was added to this testimony Julian"s own enforced confession, of how she had been often tempted by the devil to become a witch, but would never consent; yet how one evening, walking about a mile from her house, she met three persons riding on broom-staves, borne up about a yard and a half from the ground, two of whom she knew--a witch and a wizard, hanged for witchcraft several years ago--but the third, a black man, she did not then know. He however tempted her to give up her soul, which she did by p.r.i.c.king her finger and signing her name with her blood. So that, by her own showing, as well as by the unimpeachable testimony of reputable witnesses, she was a witch and one coming under the provisions of the Awful Verse. And further, as she could not repeat the Lord"s Prayer, but stumbled over the clause "And lead us not into Temptation," which she made into "And lead us into temptation," or "And lead us not into no temptation," but could in no manner repeat correctly, the judge and jury had but one conclusion to come to, which was that she be hanged four days after her trial. But some of the less blind and besotted spoke harsh words of Judge Archer for his zeal and precipitancy, and openly declared poor Julian"s innocence when advocacy could do her strangled corpse no good.

THE YOUGHAL WITCH.

About this time, too, or rather two years before old Julian c.o.x had been seen flying in at her window in full proportion, one Florence Newton, of Youghal, was overhauled for her misdeeds towards Mary Longdon. Mary was John Pyne"s servant, and deposed that one day Florence came to where she lived and asked her for a bit of beef out of the powdering tub, to which Mary would not consent (these witnessing servants were always so moral and honest!), saying she had no right to give away her master"s beef. The witch, being angry, muttered, "Thou had"st as good have given it me," and went away grumbling. A few days after, meeting with Mary going to the water with a pail of cloth on her head, she came full against her, and violently kissed her, and said, "Mary, I pray thee let thee and I be friends, for I bear thee no ill will, and I pray thee do thou bear me none." Mary does not give her reply, but says that she went home, and in a few days after "saw a Woman with a Vail over her Face stand by her bedside, and one standing by her like a little old Man in silk Cloaths, and that this Man, whom she took to be a Spirit, drew the Vail from off the Woman"s Face, and then she knew it to be Goody Newton; and that the Spirit spake to the Deponent, and would have had her promise him to follow his Advice, and she should have all things after her own Heart; to which she says she answered "That she would have nothing to say to him, for her Trust was in the Lord."" After this Mary Longdon was taken very ill, vomiting pins and needles and horse-nails and stubbs and wool and straw, while small stones followed her about the room, and from place to place, striking her sharply on her head and shoulders and arms, then vanishing away. She was also strangely put upon by beds, and other such a.s.sailants.

Sometimes she was forcibly carried from one bed to another; sometimes taken to the top of the house, or laid on a board betwixt two sollar beams, or put into a chest, or laid under a parcel of wool, or betwixt two feather beds, or (in the day time) between the bed and the mat in her master"s room. All of these pranks done by Florence Newton"s Astral Spirit, by which Mary maid was bewitched. Florence Newton also bewitched to his death David Jones, who had const.i.tuted himself one of her watchers while she was in "bolts" in prison. David took great pains to teach her the Lord"s Prayer, but Florence, being a witch, could not repeat it correctly; at last she called out to him, "David! David! come hither; I can say the Lord"s Prayer now." Not that she could, for when she came to the clause "Forgive us our Trespa.s.ses," she skipped over it, or boggled at it, or got round it in some way or other that was not holy; then seizing David"s hand between the bars of the grate she kissed it thankfully; and thus and there possessed him, so that he died fourteen days after of that strange languishing disease known to all the world as a bewitchment.

THE WITCHES OF STYLES"S KNOT.[147]

Elizabeth Hill, aged thirteen, had strange fits. She was much convulsed and contorted; she writhed, foamed, and could with difficulty be held or mastered; she had moreover swellings and holes in her flesh, which were made she said by thorns, and whence the bystanders averred they saw the child hook out thorns. Even the clergyman of the parish, William Parsons rector of Stoke Trister, added his testimony to the rest: and on the 26th of January, 1664, in an examination taken before Robert Hunt, vouched for the truth of the fits, and the swellings, and the black thorns in the midst of the swellings; but he did not add to this testimony the further a.s.sertion that it was Elizabeth Styles who had bewitched the child, though she herself "cried out" on her, and said that she tormented her in her fits. Elizabeth Styles was further accused of causing Richard Hill"s horse to sit down and paw with his fore feet when attempted to be crossed, and of having bewitched Agnes Vining by means of a rosy-cheeked apple, which was no sooner eaten than it caused a grievous p.r.i.c.king in Agnes" thigh, who forthwith languished and died, "her hip rotted, and one of her eyes swelled out." These are signs of a worse bewitchment than poor old Mother Styles"s rosy-cheeked apple--signs of the deadly sorcery of scrofula induced by the poverty, dirt, bad food and worse lodging of the times; for the effects of which many a poor wretch lost her life who yet had done no more harm than the nursling at the breast. Robert Hunt the Justice, and one of our fine old English gentlemen, did not take this materialistic view of the matter. When told of Agnes Vining"s illness and manner of disease, and seeing Elizabeth Styles looking appalled and concerned, he said to her: "You have been an old sinner, you deserve little mercy." To which the poor soul answered, humbly, "I have asked G.o.d for it." She then said that the devil had seduced her, and so began her confession on the 26th of January--three days after the first accusation by the Hills. She said that about ten years ago the devil appeared to her as a handsome man changing afterwards to the shape of a black dog; "that he promised her money, and that she should live gallantly, and have the Pleasures of the World for twelve years," if only she would sign a certain bond with her blood, give him her soul, obey his laws, and let him suck her blood. To all of which she consented after four solicitations, whereupon he p.r.i.c.ked her finger--the mark thereof to be seen at this time--and she, with her own blood signed the paper with an O, when the devil gave her sixpence and vanished with the bond. Since then he appeared to her constantly, under the forms of a man, a cat, a dog, or a "fly like a millar" (a large white moth), as which last he usually sucked her poll about four in the morning; and hurt her terribly in doing so. She also said that when she wanted him to do anything for her, she called him by the name of "Robin," adding, "O Satan give me my purpose!" which he never failed to do. It was he who stuck the thorns into Elizabeth Hill; but then she implicated three other women, Alice Duke, Ann Bishop, and Mary Penny, saying that they too had stuck thorns into an enchanted picture meant for Elizabeth Hill, one night when they had all met the devil on the common, he, as a man in black clothes with a little band, first anointing its forehead with oil, saying, "I baptize thee with this oyl." After which they had a supper of wine, cakes, and roast meat, all brought by the man in black, and they ate and drank and danced and were merry. This they did always, whenever they would destroy any one obnoxious; and so had a merry time of it upon the whole.

When they wanted to go to their meetings "they would anoint their wrists and foreheads with an oyl the spirit brings them, which smells raw," after which they were carried off, saying: "Thout, tout, a tout, tout, throughout and about:" on their return changing the stave to "Rentum Tormentum," which was the shibboleth to bring them back. But before they left they used to make obeisance to the man in black, who usually played to their dancing, saying, "A Boy! merry meet, merry part;" on which he vanished, and the conclave was broken up. She then told the "several grave and orthodox divines" who a.s.sisted Robert Hunt to take her examination, that Alice Duke"s familiar was a cat, and Ann Bishop"s a rat. Her own was a millar; concerning which Nicholas Lambert made some strange revelations.

He said that as he and two others, hired to watch Elizabeth Styles in prison, were sitting near her as she crouched by the fire--he, Nicholas Lambert, reading in "The Practise of Piety"--about three in the morning they saw a "glistering bright fly," about an inch in length, come from her head and pitch on the chimney: then instantly vanish. In less than a quarter of an hour after, in came two other flies and seemed to strike at his hand, but which dodged him cleverly when he struck at them with his book. At this, Styles"s countenance became very black and ghastly, and the fire also changed its colour; so the watchers, conceiving that her familiar was about her, and seeing also her hair shake very strangely, went to examine her poll, when out flew a great millar, which pitched on a table board and then vanished away. Her poll was red like raw beef, but presently regained its natural colour. Upon which Elizabeth confessed that it was her familiar, and that she had felt it tickle her poll. She was condemned, after having inculpated thirteen other persons, but "prevented execution by dying in gaol, a little before the expiring of the term her confederate daemon had set for her enjoyment of Diabolical Pleasures."

Alice Duke, "another witch of Styles"s Knot," a widow living in Wincaunton, county of Somerset, was then apprehended and examined. She seems to have given no trouble, but to have come frankly to the point, and to have admitted whatever they liked to demand. She said that, eleven or twelve years ago, Ann Bishop persuaded her to go one night to the churchyard, and "being come thither to go backward round the church, which they did three times." In their first round they met a man in black clothes who accompanied them: in their second a thing like a great black toad, which leaped up against Duke"s ap.r.o.n: in the third, "somewhat in the shape of a rat" which vanished away. After which they both went home, but before they went the man in black said something softly to Ann Bishop, yet what it was Alice did not hear. Soon after this she signed herself away in the same manner and for the same purposes as Elizabeth Styles had done; and the devil gave her sixpence as he had given Styles, and vanished away with the fatal paper. She confirmed all that Styles had said concerning the meetings on the common, the enchanted pictures and the greenish oil, the devil, the wine, and cakes, and music; she gave information, though, of many more such pictures which were to doom the unfortunate likenesses to death; and she said farther that Ann Bishop was the devil"s favourite, and that she sat next him, and wore "a green Ap.r.o.n, a French Waistcoat, and a red Petticoat." She gave the same phrase that Elizabeth Styles had given, as the magic pa.s.sword which took them to and from the devil"s meetings; and she confessed that her familiar came to her each night, about seven o"clock, "in the shape of a little Cat of a dunnish colour, which is as smooth as a Want, and when she is suck"d she is in a kind of Trance." She had hurt several people; specially Thomas Hanway"s daughter by giving her a pewter dish for a "good handsel" in the time of her lying in. This pewter dish was of such a malicious and venefical nature that when Thomas Hanway"s daughter used it to heat some deer suet and rose water for her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, she was put to extreme pain; which pain she had not when she heated the same deer suet and the same rose water in a common spoon. So, suspecting harm in the dish, she put it into the fire, "which then presently vanished, and nothing of it was afterwards to be found."

Alice Duke also said that she called the devil "Robin," and demanded of him aid and help in her undertakings. Like Styles and many others, she said that when the devil vanished he left an ill smell behind him; which is explained as, "Those ascit.i.tious Particles he held together in his visible vehicle, being loosened at his vanishing, and so offending the Nostrils by their floating and diffusing themselves in the open air."

ROBIN AND HIS SERVANTS[148]

Somersetshire was sorely afflicted at this time. On the 2nd of March still in the year of grace, 1664, Christian Green, aged about thirty-three, and wife of Robert Green of Brewham, was taken before Robert Hunt, Esq., to be examined and induced to confess. She did confess, without torture as it would appear; at all events without more than the ordinary torture of "p.r.i.c.king" and sleeplessness always applied to witches. She said that about a year and a half ago, she being in great poverty, was induced by one Catherine Green (her husband"s sister?) to give her body and soul to the devil on condition that he would give her clothes, victuals, and money, as she might desire. She was to keep his secrets, and suffer him to suck her once in the twenty-four hours; to which at last she consented, the devil giving her fourpence-halfpenny as earnest money wherewith to buy bread in Brewham. Since this time he came to her ever at five o"clock in the morning, much in the likeness of a hedgehog bending, and sucked her left breast: a painful process, though she was generally in a kind of trance at the time. Christian Green gave no new particulars relative to the devil and his works. He was always as a man in black clothes; and he charmed pictures to the undoing of those for whom they were designed; and when he vanished he left an ill smell behind him; and he spake them very low when they arrived; and they did three horses to death by saying simply, "A Murrain on them Horses to death;" and they bewitched unlikely sinners by mere word or look: all of which processes we have read of twenty times before. Nor was there much more to be got out of "the villainous Feats of that rampant hag Margaret Agar," of Brewham, tried also in 1664, whom poor hysterical Christian Green had delated, for she did nothing beyond curse her enemies and those who offended her, whereupon they died "as if stabbed with daggers," or were "consumed and pined away;"

some with one disease, some with another; but all dying without reprieve because of her curse. She also, in company with many others, was proved to have met "a little man in black clothes," whom they called "Robin," and to whom they all made obeisance, the little man putting his hand to his head, saying, "How do ye?" speaking low, but big. And they made "pictures" of wax into which the little black man stuck thorns, one in the crown, another in the breast, and a third in the side, which then Margaret would fling down saying, "This is Cornish"s figure with a murrain to it," and Elizabeth Cornish would languish and die; or "This is Bess Hill"s;" or any other person"s whom it was desired to "forespeak" and destroy; who of course were forespoken and destroyed from that hour. Margaret Agar was a "rampant hag" indeed in one sense, being evidently an ill-conditioned old woman, quick at a curse, and pa.s.sionately eager to avenge herself, but her magical arts appear to have been of the lowest possible order, and pale and lifeless compared with the more highly-coloured doings of others.

Anything, however, was sufficient for the worshipful Master Robert Hunt and his fellow justices, and curses did as well as the rest; so poor old Margaret Agar was taken to the tree whereon grew the fatal fruit of death, to meditate there on Christian charity and the wise compa.s.sionateness of men, before learning by what steps the weary soul pa.s.ses from earth to immortality. She was probably no great loss to the community, but her death placed her among the martyrs to superst.i.tion, and left her for ever as an object of historic pity.

SIR MATTHEW HALE"S JUDGMENT.[149]

At Bury St. Edmonds, in the county of Suffolk, a remarkable "Tryal of witches" was held on the tenth day of March, 1664, before Sir Matthew Hale, Lord Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer. Rose Cullender and Amy Duny, both widows and both of Leystoff, were indicted for bewitching Elizabeth and Ann Durent, Jane Bocking, Susan Chandler, William Durent, and Elizabeth and Deborah Pacy. William Durent, being an infant, was sworn by grace of his mother Dorothy, and she deposed that some little time ago, having occasion to go from home, she desired Amy, who was her neighbour, to look after her child, but expressly forbade her to suckle it in her absence. When asked by the court why she gave this caution to an old woman far past the age of performing such an office, Dorothy answered that Amy had long had the character of a witch who might suckle the devil himself or any of his imps; and that moreover old women were apt to give the breast to a crying child, to please it during its mother"s absence; a habit that made the children ill. But it seems that Amy disobeyed her, for when she came home the old woman told her that she had given the breast to her infant, which made Dorothy very cross, and a high quarrel ensued. And that very night her child was taken with "strange fits of swounding," and was held in such a terrible manner that she expected to lose it every moment. Not knowing what to do or where to get it relief, she went to a certain Doctor Jacob, well known through the country for skill in helping children that were bewitched, and this Dr. Jacob advised her to hang up the child"s blanket in the chimney corner all the day, and to put the child into it at night, and not be afraid at anything she might see, but to throw it at once into the fire. Dorothy did as she was bid, and when she took the blanket from the chimney-corner, down fell a great toad, "which ran up and down the hearth, and she having a young youth only with her in the House, desired him to catch the Toad and throw it into the Fire; which the youth did accordingly, and held it there with the Tongs; and as soon as it was in the Fire it made a great and horrible noise, and after a s.p.a.ce there was a flashing in the Fire like Gunpowder, making a noise like the discharge of a Pistol, and thereupon the Toad was no more seen nor heard." But Amy Duny sat by her fireside all smirched and scorched, and in revenge bewitched the little daughter Elizabeth to death, and further afflicted Dorothy herself with a lameness in both her legs, so that she was forced to go upon crutches. About which the strangest thing was, that though she had gone on them for three years now, no sooner was Amy Duny condemned than she cast them away and went home without them, "to the great admiration of all persons." This was the first count completed.

The second was made by Samuel Pacy, "a Merchant of Leystoff aforesaid (a Man who carried himself with so much soberness during the Tryal, from whom proceeded no words either of Pa.s.sion or Malice, though his Children were so greatly Afflicted)," on behalf of his daughters, Elizabeth and Deborah; the one aged about eleven, the other nine. Elizabeth had fits.

She remained as one wholly senseless or in a deep sleep, the only sign of life being that, as she lay on cushions in the court, her stomach was raised to a great height on the drawing of her breath. After she had remained there for some time she came somewhat to herself, and then "laid her Head on the Bar of the Court with a Cushion under it, and her hand and her Ap.r.o.n upon that;" when Amy Duny was brought privately to touch her.

She had no sooner done so than the child, although not seeing her, suddenly leaped up and caught her by the hand and face, and scratched her till the blood came: after which she was easier. Samuel deposed that his younger daughter, Deborah, was suddenly taken with a lameness in her legs, which continued from the 10th to the 17th of October; when the day, being fair and sunshiny, she desired to be carried to the east part of the house, and then set upon a bank which looks towards the sea. While sitting there, came Amy Duny to buy some herrings; but being denied she went away grumbling, and on the instant "the Child was taken with the most violent Fits, feeling most extream Pain in her Stomach, like the p.r.i.c.king of Pins, and shreeking out in a most dreadful manner, like unto a Whelp, and not like unto a sensible Creature." The doctor, not understanding this disorder, and Amy Duny being under ill fame for a witch, Samuel Pacy caused her to be set in the stocks, as the most powerful remedy he knew of for his child"s disorder. Being in the stocks, a neighbour told her that she was suspected of being the cause of Mr. Pacy"s trouble: whereupon Amy answered, "Mr. Pacy keeps a great stir about his Child; let him stay until he has done as much by his Children as I have by mine." And being further examined what she had done to her children, she answered, "That she had been fain to open her Child"s Mouth with a Tap to give it victuals." When, therefore, Elizabeth, the elder girl, fell ill within two days after this, and could by no means be made to open her mouth without a good-sized tap being put into it, the thing was certain, and might no longer be gainsayed. And when they both vomited crooked pins, and as many as forty broad-headed nails, and were deprived of sight and hearing, and cried out perpetually against Amy Duny and Rose Cullender, and could not be got to say the names "Jesus," "Lord," or "Christ," but when they came to "Satan"

or "Devil," would clap their fingers on the book (the New Testament), crying out, "This bites, but makes me speak right well," what sane person could doubt the truth? Other strange things beside happened to them. They used to see creatures of the appearance of mice run up and down the house, and one of them "suddainly snapt one with the Tongs, and threw it into the Fire, and it screeched out like a Rat." At another time a thing like a bee flew into Deborah"s face, and would have got into her mouth, had she not gone shrieking into the house; when, with much apparent pain and effort, she brought up a twopenny nail with a broad head, which she said the bee had forced into her mouth. Again, another time, Elizabeth cried out that she saw a mouse under the table, which she caught up in her ap.r.o.n and flung into the fire. Deponent, her aunt, confessed that she saw nothing in the child"s hand, nevertheless the fire flashed as if gunpowder had been flung in; also "at another time, the said Child being speechless, but otherwise of perfect understanding, ran round about the House, holding her Ap.r.o.n, crying "Hush, hush," as if there had been Poultry in the House; but this Deponent could perceive nothing; but at last she saw the Child stoop as if she had catch"t at something, and put it into her Ap.r.o.n, and afterwards made as if she had thrown it into the Fire; but this Deponent could not discover any thing; but the Child afterwards being restored to her speech, she, this Deponent, demanded of her what she saw at the time she used such a posture? who answered, That she saw a Duck."

Others deposed to the same kind of things: as Edmund Durent, father to the girl Ann, whom Rose Cullender had bewitched--also because denied the right of buying herrings; and Diana Bocking, mother to Jane likewise afflicted with crooked pins and tenpenny nails; and Mary Chandler, mother of Susan, who was stricken blind and dumb, and had the plague of pins upon her too, and who cried out "in a miserable manner, "Burn her, burn her,"" which were all the words she could speak, and which meant that poor old Rose was to be burnt that Susan Chandler might be dispossessed. And there was Dr.

Brown, of Norwich, a person of great knowledge, who gave it as his deliberate opinion that the girls were bewitched, every one of them, and that "the Devil in such cases did work upon the Bodies of Men and Women upon a Natural Foundation, (that is) to stir up and excite such Humours superabounding in their Bodies to a great Excess, whereby he did in an Extraordinary Manner Afflict them with such Distempers as their Bodies were most subject to, as particularly appeared in these Children; for he considered that these swooning Fits were Natural, and nothing else but that they call the Mother, but only heightened to a great excess by the subtilty of the Devil co-operating with the Malice of these which we term Witches, at whose instance he doth these Villanies." Such an argument as this was then held quite as pertinent and irresistible as would now be the evidence of the microscope and the test of chemical experiment. It is refreshing, in the midst of all this wild nonsense, to find that some gentlemen--Lord Cornwallis, Sir Edmund Bacon, and Mr. Serjeant Keeling, who had been directed by the Lord Chief Justice to make an experiment with these girls--openly protested against the whole thing, affirming it to be an imposture from first to last; and that when the children covered up their heads in their ap.r.o.ns, and shrieked and writhed when Rose Cullender or Amy Duny touched them, they did it in full possession of their senses, and perfectly understanding what they were about. For when they tried them with other women whom they made believe were the two, cried out on, and took care that their eyes were held, so that they should not see, the children shrieked and howled, and went off into their fits all the same; which double experiment satisfied the gentlemen of the fraudulent character of it all. But this little nucleus of rationality was not strong enough to disperse the thick darkness gathered round the minds of all present--gathered round the mind of even Sir Thomas Brown and the "good"

Sir Matthew Hale; and when one witness had deposed that his cart had stuck fast between some posts, and that the haymakers could not unload the hay until the next morning, because Rose Cullender had threatened him; and another that his pigs and cattle died in a most extraordinary manner, and he himself swarmed with vermin which he could not get rid of, because he also had been threatened by her; and a third that she had lost her geese because Amy Duny had said she should; and that a chimney had fallen down because Amy Duny had said it would--when all these things had been sworn to and proved, then the minds of the judge and jury admitted of no further doubt. Amy Duny and Rose Cullender were brought in guilty, and hanged at Cambridge on Monday, March 17, confessing nothing.

"The next morning the children came with their Parents to the Lodgings of the Lord Chief Justice, and were in as good Health as ever they were in their lives, being restored within half an hour after the witches were convicted." A fact then sufficiently conclusive, but which now is the strongest proof that could be offered of the wicked deception of the whole matter.

THE WAITING-MAID AND THE PIN.[150]

In 1665 Elizabeth Brooker, servant to Mrs. Hieron, of Honiton, in Devonshire, waiting at table one Lord"s day, suddenly felt a p.r.i.c.king as of a pin in her thigh, and, on looking, found indeed a pin there, but inside her skin, drawing no blood nor breaking the skin, and thrust in so far that she could scarce feel the head of it with her finger. By Tuesday it had worked so far inwards that she could no longer feel it at all; and the day after she went to Mr. Anthony Smith, a surgeon of great repute, who was obliged to have recourse to incisions and cataplasms, and all the appliances of the surgery, in order to extract this obstinate and malevolent pin. For it was a bewitched pin; and either Agnes Richardson, who had been angry with Elizabeth "about miscarriage in an errand that she sent her on," or an unknown woman who had lately been near her, was suspected of the crime of sticking it into her. Mrs. Hieron was a widow, and kept a draper"s shop in Honiton, and Elizabeth Brooker, her servant, sold small wares in a stall before her mistress"s door. On market day, which was Sat.u.r.day, came a certain woman and asked Elizabeth for a pin.

She took one from her sleeve readily enough; but the woman was dissatisfied, and demanded one of a bigger sort hung up in a paper to sell. The maid said they were not hers to give; they were her mistress"s: if she would ask her mistress for one, and get her leave to have it, she, Elizabeth, would then give her one willingly. This woman went away in a great fume, saying "she should hear farther from her, and that she would wish e"er long she had given the pin as desired." The next day a pin was thrust into her thigh as she was waiting at table, and no Christian person could doubt whence it came or why it was sent. Mr. Anthony Smith, the "Chirurgeon of great Reputation," who could not extract a pin without a fortnight"s illness supervening, wrote a detailed account of the whole matter; but whether the unknown woman was traced and found, or whether Agnes Richardson got any mishandling for the suspicion cast on her, or whether, again, the trick pa.s.sed off without result, and no one was the worse because a maid-servant chose to run a pin into her thigh, I can find no record to inform me. As not much harm was done, perhaps the devil was let off easy this time, and the hags, his mistresses, suffered to extend their trade a little longer.

JANE STRETTON AND THE CUNNING WOMAN.[151]

Jane Stretton and her parents lived at Ware in the year 1669, Jane being then a young maid of about twenty, generally out at service. It chanced that Thomas, her father, lost a Bible, and must needs go to a cunning man to ask where it was, and who had it--a thing which, as a good Christian, he should have been ashamed of: to which the cunning man replied darkly, "he could tell him if he would." Whereupon Stretton, not in the least grateful for such a doubtful reply, broke out with, "Then thou must be either a witch or a devil, seeing thou canst neither read nor write." This was all that pa.s.sed, and it seems but scant substance for a deadly quarrel; but a few days afterwards this cunning man"s wife went slily to Stretton"s, and asked daughter Jane for a pot of drink. This was to establish direct communication. "Innocency dreads no danger: the child will play with the Bee for his gaudy Coat, and mistrusts not his sting,"

says this flowery tract; but soon after Jane had thus committed herself to transfers and communication with the witch, the "devil, who is a sly thief, and though he keeps his servants poor, yet indues them, with a plentifull stock of malice, revenge, and dissimulation," suffered this bad woman, or this cunning man, to afflict Jane, but not so grievously as they were suffered to do hereafter. In about a week"s time the cunning man"s wife went and desired a pin of her, which Jane, granting, became suddenly beset with fits, most terrible to behold. "But her misery ends not here: the squib is not run out to the end of the rope. When the Devil has an inch given to him he will take an ell;" so poor Jane was not only troubled with fits, but must needs have her mouth stopped so that she ate nothing for weeks and months, and was forced to live like a chameleon, on air.

Besides this, she was made to perpetually vomit flax and hair and thread-ends and crooked pins; while blue, white, and red flames came in the intervals out of her mouth, and her body was continually slashed and cut with a knife, and imps in the shape of frogs, and toads, and mice, and the like, for ever haunted her; and the wise man"s wife was the cause of all. Then the neighbours took some of the foam which Jane had always hanging round her mouth, and burnt it for a counter charm, and to hurt the besetting witch; and chancing to light on the woman, they told her they would take her to the maid to be scratched. To which she made answer, "That if they had not come she could not have stayed any longer from her:"

so great was the potency of the burnt foam. For nine months did this girl befool her world, and then--the cunning man and his wife being probably put to death--she managed to get well of all her ailments, and to find meat and milk more sustaining diet than crooked pins, hair, or wool; though, indeed, the meat and milk had never been wanting in the dark hours undiscovered, for Jane had taken care to live as usual when the night had blinded prying eyes, and there was no one to count off the tale of slices cut and devoured.

Fortunately for the sanity of society, every one did not believe these monstrous stories. Webster"s book, published about this time, was one of those brave few which openly discredited the truth of the witch stories afloat in the world, and made as great a sensation, or even greater, than the grand old work of Reginald Scot. Like him, Webster doubted the truth of the witch of Endor"s enchantments, which the upholders of the faith rested on as the very keystone of their position. The witch herself he calls "a cozening quean," "a crafty subtile quean," "an idolatrous, wicked, and couzening witch:" for they understood the value of forcible language in those days: Saul is "a drowned puppet"--to Glanvil"s intense wrath at this rude mishandling of a "n.o.ble prince;" Samuel but "a confederate knave," or "but a lying phantasie;" in the conjurations the witch, "casting herself into a feigned Trance, lay grovelling upon the Earth with her face downwards, and so changing her voice did mutter, and murmur, and peep, and chirp, like a bird coming forth of the sh.e.l.l;" with other knockdown a.s.sertions of common sense not afraid, by which the curate of Kildwick demolished the whole argument of supernaturalism, and left the poor witch of Endor and Saul himself not an inch of ground to stand on. So with all the other stories that came into his hands; so with the special points of faith, peculiar to the creed of witchcraft, such as communion and covenant with the devil, transportation through the air on sticks, straws, or bedstaves; transformation into the shapes of cat, dog, wolf, raven, &c.; intercourse with imps and familiars; witches" sabbaths; charms; conjurations; weeping the prescribed three tears with the left eye only, or not weeping at all; swimming on the surface of the water, because of the Christian character of that element, which refused to admit a devil-devoted soul within its bosom; apparitions, or spectres of witches troubling the afflicted--souls quitting their bodies, but taking with them the spiritual substance even of woven garments; with the whole course of lies and delusions belonging to the subject, from the devil"s baptism to the imps" bigges. All this seemed but so much delusion to plain John Webster, with his unidealising common sense and kindly heart; yet a delusion so fraught with sin and danger as to make it a Christian man"s first duty to combat and destroy it. Wherefore was he most barbarously and evilly entreated by Glanvil in his "Saducismus Triumphatus"--the answer to the "Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft"--and a mighty pretty quarrel, full of the choicest amenities, was the result. But as Glanvil had error and credulity, and Webster reason and right judgment on his side, it mattered little who was a.s.sumed to have the best of it for the moment. Time and education gradually settled the question, and buried it for a time out of sight; yet it has sprung up anew of late, and now needs settling again.

THE BIDEFORD TROUBLES.[152]

In the July of 1682, Temperance Lloyd, of Bideford, or "Bytheford," was accused of bewitching Mrs. Grace Thomas. Temperance, being a little crazy, had cried one day on meeting Mrs. Grace, who had been for long months but a poor, "dunt," f.e.c.kless body; and when asked why she wept had made answer, "For joy to see her who had been so ill, walk abroad again without disaster." But that very same night Mrs. Grace was taken with fresh pains, "sticking and p.r.i.c.king Pains, as if Pins and Awls had been thrust into her Body, from the Crown of her Head to the Soles of her Feet, and she lay as if she had been upon a rack;" and none but Temperance Lloyd the cause thereof, despite all her hypocritical tears. And did not Elizabeth Eastcheap see her knee, which looked as if it had been p.r.i.c.ked in nine places with a thorn? And when Temperance was asked if she had any clay or wax wherewith to torment Mrs. Grace, did she not confess to a bit of leather which she had p.r.i.c.ked nine times, and which was as full of venom and sorcery as any wax or clay in the world? Besides, it came out afterwards, that she had gone to Thomas Eastcheap"s shop in the form of a gray or "braget cat," and thence taken out a "puppit or picture, commonly called a child"s baby," which she stuck full of pins, whereby to p.r.i.c.k Grace to death. When asked in what part of the house the said puppet or picture was hidden, she refused to tell, saying the devil would tear her in pieces if she confessed. Anne Wakely, too, the neighbour who went to nurse poor Grace, had her word to say; for one morning--it was on a bonny day in June--she saw "something in the shape of a magpye come at the chamber window;" and when Temperance was questioned as to what she knew of this fluttering thing, she made answer that it was the Black Man in the shape of a bird which she had sent to trouble poor rheumatic pain-racked Grace. For Temperance was not stiff. She was easily brought to confess how she had given herself over to the service of a black man, who made her do all manner of hurt to her neighbours--made her pinch Grace Thomas, and bewitch William Herbert to his death twelve years ago, and destroy Anne Fellows three years since--for both of which crimes she had been arraigned and questioned at the time, but had managed to get clear. Now, however, she confessed that she had been guilty of them. The dread and evil fame and poverty under which she had lived so long had done their appointed work on her poor old brain; and she was ready to confess to anything which it was desired she should allow. Yes, she had bewitched the eyes of Jane Dalbin, but so secretly that no one had suspected her: and she had destroyed one woman by kissing her, holding her so tight that she squeezed her to death--the blood gushing out of her mouth and nose: and she hunted with the devil, he going before her in the shape of a hound; "doubtless he hunted for souls," says a very odd tract which gives this additional trait of diabolical management and the economy of time. Being asked of what stature was her black man, she said "he was above the Length of her Arm; and that his Eyes were very big; and that he hopped, or leaped in the way before her;" but when asked if she had made any contract with him she said "No; neither had she gone through the keyhole when she went to harm Grace Thomas, but through the door, the devil leading her, and both invisible; and that she had been made to pinch and torment Grace; and that the devil beat her about the head grievously because she would not kill her." She had never bewitched any ships or boats, nor done a child to death; for the child who stole her apple died of the small-pox, and she was guiltless of its decease; nor had she ever ridden over an arm of the sea on a cow--"No, master, never; it was she," meaning another delated witch, Susanna Edwards, who did this. The worst thing she had ever done was to Grace Thomas, and then the devil made her do it, beating her about the head and back in shape and form, "black like a bullock." Temperance Lloyd was executed; and died penitent and crazy.

Mary Trembles was another delated witch. She bewitched Agnes Whitefield with all manner of pains; and Grace Barnes deposed to p.r.i.c.ks and pains like awls and pins thrust into her, which evil Mary Trembles and Susanna Edwards had done together; for they were comrades and cronies, and would go hand-in-hand about the world, invisible to all save themselves and their master the devil. It was Susanna Edwards who had seduced Mary and got her to accept the service of the devil, who came to her as a lion; at which she was much frightened, though not hurt; and made her bewitch Grace Barnes, because said Grace would give her no meat. She was also executed, very penitent and quite resigned.

Susanna Edwards was active and powerful in forespeaking. She sent pains to Dorcas Coleman--tormenting pains, and very grievous--so that Dr. George Bear could do her no good, but openly proclaimed her beyond his power for that she was bewitched; and she held Anthony Jones pretty hardly, as Joane his wife deposed. For when Susan was apprehended, Anthony "observing her to gripe and twinkle her Hands upon her own Body, said to her, "Thou Devil, thou art now tormenting some Person or other."" Upon which the said Susanna was displeased with him, and said, "Well enough I will fit thee."

And fit him she did, for on his making one of the rabble that dragged her before the magistrates, Susanna turned round and looked at him, "so that he cried out, "I am now bewitched with this Devil, wife," meaning Susanna Edwards, and presently leaped and capered like a madman, and fell a-shaking, quivering, and foaming, and for the s.p.a.ce of half an Hour like a dying or dead Man." Susan knew the devil as a gentleman dressed in black clothes, and also as a little boy; but could not be induced to confess to any of the more striking monstrosities beyond what might have well belonged to an ordinary case of hallucination. She was executed as the other two; but we are not told if Grace Thomas, or Dorcas Coleman, or Grace Barnes, or Anthony Jones recovered their health now that the witches were dead, or if hysteria and rheumatism and neuralgia and scrofula were found more troublesome enemies to conquer than three crazy old women. It would be curious as well as interesting to know the condition of the honestly deceived and actually diseased after the death of the possessing witch. In those instances where crutches were thrown away, and fits suddenly brought to a close, the instant the law had laid its gripe on the neck of the unfortunate accused, we have no choice but to refer the whole proceedings to imposture quickened by enmity or the desire of notoriety; but there were cases where a strange and sudden disease did really appear as bewitchment to the afflicted, and of these one would be glad to know the after mental condition when the obsessing witch was killed, yet the obsessing sickness unconquered. Did experience ever open their eyes or shake their faith? or did they die in their belief that the stake and the gallows were the finest remedies known for disordered functions or organic mischief? No one of the time was sufficiently accurate, or sufficiently unprejudiced, to be able to give us reliable information, and thus we have lost a most valuable indication of the absolute power exercised by the mind over the body.

SIR JOHN HOLT"S JUDGMENTS.[153]

Mr. May Hill, minister of Beckington, in Somersetshire (near Frome), had a servant, one Mary Hill, whom Satan and the malice of his servants had grievously bewitched. Mr. Baxter had brought to him a bag of iron, nails, and bra.s.s which the girl had vomited, and he kept some of them to show his friends. "Nails about three or four inches long, doubled, crooked at the end, and pieces of old Bra.s.s doubled, about an Inch broad and two Inches long, with crooked edges," all of which Mary had brought up, together with about two hundred crooked pins. Elizabeth Carrier was first committed on the charge of having bewitched her; but a fortnight after, Mary, whom this sacrifice had temporarily appeased, went back to her old ways, and began to vomit nails and pieces of nails, bra.s.s, and handles of spoons, and so continued to do for six months and more; all the while crying out against Margery Coombes and Ann More, who, she said, appeared to her and tormented her. These two poor creatures were immediately apprehended and committed to the county gaol; but Margery died as soon as she was imprisoned: and when my Lord Chief Justice Holt came to try old Ann, he said there was not sufficient evidence against her, so directed the jury to acquit her. But the maid was worse than ever after this acquittal, and took to vomiting pieces of gla.s.s, and several pieces of bread and b.u.t.ter besmeared with a poisonous matter, adjudged to be white mercury, and a great board nail, and, in short, Mr. May Hill and the neighbours did not know what she might not throw up at last, her mouth was so capacious, and the s.p.a.ce against her gums so flexible. But as it was observed that she never vomited these things save in the morning, and that in the afternoon she was quiet; and when, upon inquiry, it was found that she always slept with her mouth wide open, and slept so soundly, that she could not be awakened by pulling, or jogging, or calling; then Mr. Hill commanded that some one should sit up with her, and keep her mouth rigidly and pertinaciously shut. And when they did this she vomited nothing, for the witches had not been able to convey their trash into her mouth. This experiment was satisfactorily tried for thirteen nights; but as soon as she was left to sleep by herself, and with her mouth open, the wicked witches were sure to come to her and force all kinds of trash into it. But at last she wearied of her work; and, Sir John Holt not holding out much inducement to ill-tempered young women to declare themselves possessed because they had a disagreeable neighbour or two, she owned herself quite cured, and no more was heard of her fits or her nails.

Poor old Widow Chambers,[154] of Upaston, in Suffolk, "a diligent, industrious, poor woman," was accused of witchcraft, upon what grounds does not appear. "After she had been walk"d betwixt two," and, we may naturally suppose, pressed and plied with questions, she became confused and overwrought, and began to confess a great many things of herself. She said that she had killed both her husband and Lady Blois, though the last had died a fair and evident death, "without any Hurt from that poor Woman:" and then some, to make trial of her wits, asked her if she had not killed such and such persons then living? to which old Widow Chambers maundered out yes, she had killed them sure enough. She was committed to Beccles Gaol, even after this; but died before her trial, happily for her.

This was in 1693. The following year was a busy one for the witch-finders, but fortunate for such of the witches as came before Lord Chief Justice Holt, a man of clear, well-balanced mind, evidently not given to superst.i.tious beliefs, or to much veneration for the Black Art. Mother Munnings, of Hartis, in Suffolk, was one of those brought before him at Bury St. Edmunds. She came with a bad character enough, accused of bewitching men to their death, spoiling brewings and churnings, and hurting cattle and corn--of being, in fact, a terrible pest to the whole neighbourhood. She killed Thomas Pannel her landlord, who had offended her by a rather summary method of ejectment, namely, taking her door off the hinges, since he could not get her out of his house any other way. Mother Munnings was angry: who would not have been? "Go thy way," she cried to him pa.s.sionately; "thy Nose shall lie upward in the Churchyard before Sat.u.r.day next." This was enough. Thomas Pannel sickened on Monday and died on Tuesday, and was buried within the week according to her word. That this was true was attested by a certain witness, a doctor, who said also that Mother Munnings "was a dangerous woman: she could touch the Line of Life." Mother Munnings had an imp, a thing like a polecat; and a man swore that one night, coming from the alehouse--a rather important circ.u.mstance--he saw her lift out of her basket two imps, a black one and a white; and it was well known that Sarah Wager was taken both dumb and lame after a quarrel with her, and was in that condition even at the time of trial. But in the face of all these tremendous accusations the Lord Chief Justice Holt directed the jury to bring her in Not Guilty, and poor old Mother Munnings lived in peace and quietness for about two years longer, doing no harm to anybody, and when dying declaring her innocence.

Dr. Hutchinson gives a very rational, but somewhat quaint, explanation of two of the charges against her. On the death of her landlord, he says, that he, Thomas Pannel, "was a consumptive spent Man, and the Words not exactly as they swore them, and the whole Thing 17 years before;" and as to the imps--"the White Imp is believed to have been a Lock of Wool taken out of her Basket to spin; and its Shadow, it is supposed, was the Black one." Not an impossibility with an ignorant country clown, reeling home half drunk from the alehouse, and disposed to make a miracle out of the plainest matter before him seen through a witch"s window.

At the Ipswich a.s.sizes of that same year the Lord Chief Justice had to hold the sword of judgment unsheathed between Margaret Elnore and her accusers. Margaret belonged to a family of witches, her grandmother and her aunt having been both hanged for that rational offence; and now, when Mrs. Rudge had been for three years in a languishing condition--ever since her husband had refused to take Elnore for his tenant--what so likely as that she was bewitched, and that the enraged witch and relative of witches had done it? Besides, women who had quarrelled with Margaret had found themselves suddenly covered with vermin, not at all due to their own uncleanly habits, but to the diabolical power of old Elnore, who would send lice or locusts, disease or death, just as it suited her. For she had eight or nine imps, and she was plainly branded with the witch marks. Lord Chief Justice Holt pooh-poohed the imps and the vermin, and directed again a verdict of Not Guilty. So Margaret Elnore was suffered to live out the natural term of her life, and Mrs. Rudge recovered her health for a certain time; but--some years after Margaret was peaceably laid in her grave--"fell again into the same Kind of Pains (supposed from the Salt Humour), and died of the same Distemper."

The next year Mary Guy was tried at Launceston for bewitching Philadelphia Row, who swore to her apparition perpetually troubling her, and who had the uncomfortable habit of vomiting pins, straws, and feathers. But the Lord Chief Justice turned a deaf ear to Philadelphia Row also, and Mary Guy was acquitted. So was Elizabeth Horner, who, in 1696, was brought before him at Exeter, charged with having bewitched three children belonging to William Bovet, whereof one was dead: "another had her Legs twisted, and yet from her Hands and Knees she would spring Five Foot high." The children brought up crooked pins, and were grievously bitten, and pinched, and p.r.i.c.ked, and bruised--the marks of all this ill usage appearing plainly on the flesh; and they swore that Bess Horner"s head would go off her shoulders and walk quietly into their stomachs: and the mother deposed "that one of them walked up a smooth plastered Wall, till her Feet were nine Foot high, her Head standing off from it." This she did five or six times, laughing and saying that Bess Horner held her up. Old Bess had a kind of wart or excrescence on her shoulder, which William Bovet"s children said was her witch-mark, and where her imp--a toad--sucked; but the Lord Chief Justice shook his head, and Bess Horner was let to live on in her own way, taking off her head at will, and sending it into children"s bodies, and nourishing a devil in shape of a toad on her shoulder--the law and judgment not interposing. The Lord Chief Justice had very many cases of witchcraft brought before him--about eleven places in all being supposed to be so infected--but he brought in every one "not guilty."

One of the most celebrated cases tried by him was that of Richard Hathaway, who came before him at the Guildford a.s.size of 1701 with a pitiful tale of possession and bewitchment, all owing to Sarah Morduck, of Southwark, in which parish he too was living as apprentice to Thomas Wellyn, blacksmith. Richard had fits and convulsions, in all probability real enough, for he was sent to the hospital, where he lay for seven weeks in a pitiable condition, sometimes bent double, and at all times strangely and fearfully contorted. This began in September, 1690,[155] he said, when the first appearances of being bewitched manifested themselves. For then he vomited crooked pins in great numbers, and lumps of tin, and loose nails, and nut-sh.e.l.ls, and stones; and he foamed at the mouth; and bowed himself into an arch; and lay as if dead; and barked like a dog; and burnt as if with fire; and in the midst of all signed that Sarah Morduck had bewitched him, and that he should never be well till he had "scratched"

her. So she was brought to him to be scratched; after which he ate and drank and had his sight and was perfectly well for six weeks together.

Then he fell ill again, and must needs scratch her for this attack; and this time with more unction, for Sarah "was a.s.saulted in her own House, and grievously abused; her Hair and Face torn; she was kicked, thrown to the Ground, stamped on, and threatened to be put into a Horse Pond, to be tried by Swimming, and very hardly escaped with her Life." To avoid being absolutely murdered, she left Southwark and went into London; but still was not safe, for she was constantly being followed in the streets, and was often in danger of being pulled to pieces by a mob which credited all that Richard Hathaway said and did. In 1701 she was taken before one Sir Thomas Lane, who ordered her to be stript and searched, and let Hathaway loose again on her to scratch her. After which he was well as before; and then Sarah Morduck was committed, and prayers were offered up in the churches for Hathaway, and collections made for him in the congregations, and six or seven pounds at a time got for him, besides various other sums, to bear his charges at the a.s.sizes, and indemnify him for the evil the witch had inflicted. At the a.s.sizes (Guildford, July, 1701) Sarah Morduck was brought out of prison to be tried for her life by the Lord Chief Justice: with the usual result in his trials of witches: she was released, but Hathaway took her place, and was committed to the Marshalsea as a cheat and impostor, lying, for the first part of the time, well and hearty, but afterwards falling into his fits again as if bewitched. He was then experimented with; given another woman to scratch, under the idea that it was Sarah; whom he scratched quite contentedly, and as well after he had done so. When he found out his mistake he was blind and dumb again.

But now, it being specially desired to know the truth, when he brought up his crooked pins, his hands were kept carefully out of his pockets, which then were searched, and found plentifully supplied; and all the strange noises which had been heard to issue out of his bed were discovered to have been made by his own feet scratching the bedposts; and his miraculous fasting was proved a cheat, for Mrs. Kensy"s maid, who had got into his confidence by a stratagem, brought him meat and drink privately, and Mr.

Kensy and his friends peeping through a private hole saw him eat it quite composedly. So one by one his pretences were destroyed, and he was openly convicted of cozening and imposture. The Lord Chief Justice thought this a more cognizable crime than witchcraft, and condemned Richard Hathaway to be imprisoned for a year, and to stand in the pillory thrice during the period. Thus he was made a warning to all hysterical youths and maidens who took to possession as a good trade, and who liked the prayers of the faithful, and the money of the credulous, and the luxury of ill-treating any one specially spited, and the attentions of the gentry, and the pity of the commonalty, and all manner of petting and cossiting better than coa.r.s.e hard fare and the scanty pleasures wrung from h.o.r.n.y-handed labour.

This Lord Chief Justice, Sir John Holt, may be taken as one of the greatest, if of the less noisy and notorious, benefactors of England known; setting himself so firmly as he did against this cruel and debasing superst.i.tion, and so manfully upholding the claims of humanity and common sense against all the "possibilities" of idealism, and the wild errings of credulity. From his time the witch madness sensibly declined, and folks woke gradually to the possession of their ordinary faculties.

THE SURREY DEMONIAC.[156]

"What, Satan! is this the Dancing that Richard gave himself to thee for?

Can"st thou Dance no better? Ransack the old Records of all past Times and Places in thy Memory: Can"st thou not there find out some better way of Trampling? Pump thine Invention dry: Cannot that universal Seed-plot of subtile Wiles and Stratagems spring up one new Method of Cutting Capers?

Is this the top of Skill and Pride, to shuffle Feet, and brandish Knees thus, and to trip like a Doe, and skip like a Squirrel? And wherein differs thy Leapings from the Hoppings of a Frog, or Bouncings of a Goat, or Friskings of a Dog, or Gesticulations of a Monkey? And cannot a Palsy shake such a loose Leg as that? Dost thou not twirl like a Calf that hath the Turn, and twitch up thy Houghs just like a Spring-hault t.i.t?" This was one of the conversations, or rather exhortations, which the dissenting ministers had with the devil inhabiting Richard Dugdale--he who was called by some the Surrey demoniac,[157] by others the impostor, as faith or reason was the stronger. Richard drew largely upon the faith of his generation, largely even for the credulous generation flourishing in the year of our Lord 1695: for Richard the "possessed" vomited gold, silver, and bra.s.s rings, hair b.u.t.tons, blue stones like flints, and once a big stone b.l.o.o.d.y at the edges; and he was transformed sometimes to the manner of a horse, when he would gallop round the barn on all fours, quite as quickly as any cob ever foaled, and whinny like a cob, and eat provender like a cob; and sometimes he was like a dog, "harring" and snarling and growling and barking so like a mastiff, that once a dog, a real mastiff and no counterfeit, set upon him, and would have given him rather an undesirable taste of canine fraternity had he not been prevented. Then he would be heavy or light in the same fit--now so heavy that six men could not lift him, now so light that he did not weigh six pounds: "sometimes light as a Feather-Boulster, but before he came out heavier than a Load of Corn," says a husbandman; "as light as a Chip, and as heavy as a horse,"

says a carpenter: and he had fits of leaping, as fast as a man could count; and he would dance on his toes and his knees, with marvellous agility--dance more quickly than ordinary men, not possessed, could do on their honest feet; then he would lie as if dead; or he would gape and s.n.a.t.c.h with his mouth, catching at flies; and he had noises in his mouth and breast, as if a family of young whelps were lapping, snarling, or sucking in his inside; and he rolled up his tongue into a lump and turned his eyes inward; and talked gibberish, which some one said was Latin; and played with rushes as if they had been dice and bowls. "And when he had thrown the "Jack," he said, "I must now throw my Gill;" then running a good way, as if he had been running after a bowl, swearing, "Run, Run, Flee, Flee, Hold a Bia.s.s;" and sometimes he catched up rushes, as if they had been bowls, swearing, "Sirrah, stand out of the Way, or I"ll knock out your Brains," adding, "I never was a Bowler, But don"t Gentlemen do thus?"" which is scarcely evidence to us that he was possessed, or in any abnormal condition whatsoever. Neither was his habit of swearing and cursing, "so that he would have affrighted ordinary men," any very distinct sign of supernaturalism; nor yet his insolence in saying to Mr.

Carrington, who had adjured the devil in him mightily, "Thou shalt be Porter of h.e.l.l-Gates, Thou"st have Brewis and Toad Broath." Any bold-faced lad of eighteen might have said the same under cover of what he chose to call a fit. And as for the strange swelling, as big as a turkey"s egg, which ran like a mouse about his body, whatever in that account was naturally impossible was either trick on his part, or self-deception on the part of those who gave their testimony. Besides, they were all inclined to believe. Why, John Fletcher, who slept one night with Richard, and felt something come up towards his knees, creeping higher and higher till it got to his heart--something about the bigness of a little cat or dog, which when he thought to catch "slipped through his hands like a Snig"--even that most unterrifying occurrence was transformed into a demoniacal visitant, and the thing that slipped through John Fletcher"s hands like a snig was no other than Richard Dugdale"s devil come to pay him a midnight visit. Then Richard laid stones like hens" eggs, and in the manner of hens; and he flung them to incredible distances when newly laid, and they felt warm as milk; and he showed a slight amount of power in the matter of clairvoyance; but, oh faithless, feeble devil! when Drs. Chew and Crabtree got hold of him, and bled him well, and gave him physic, the devil, who hates blue pill and black draught worse than holy water, flew away, and what all the prayers and fastings and exhortations of the ministry could not do, the lancet and a good dose of calomel and aloes effected without trouble. And then Richard Dugdale confessed that he had never been possessed, but only ill, in consequence of a fight he had had with a man at a rush-bearing at Whalley, while he, Master Richard, was in drink. The next day he was heavy and troubled in his mind, and drank a quant.i.ty of cold water while in the hay field making hay; but

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