Come ye up,
friends, and welcome!"

THE HORROR ON THE STAIR.

_Particulars concerning the end of Mistress Catherine Johnstone, late of
Givens, in Ayrshire; from a private relation made by the young woman
Kirstie Maclachlan to the Reverend James Souttar, A.M., Minister of the
Parish of Wyliebank, and by him put into writing._

I had been placed in my parish of Wyliebank about a twelvemonth before
making acquaintance with Mr. Johnstone, the minister at Givens, twelve
miles away. This would be in the year 1721, and from that until the date
of his death (which happened in the autumn of 1725) I saw him in all not
above a dozen times. To me he appeared a douce, quiet man, commonplace in
the pulpit and not over-learned, strict in his own behaviour, methodical
in his duties, averse from gossip of all kinds, having himself a great
capacity for silence, whereby he seemed perhaps wiser than he was, but not
(I think) more charitable. He had greatly advanced his fortunes by
marriage.

This marriage made him remarkable, who else had passed as quite ordinary;
but not for the money it brought him. Of his wife I knew no more than my
neighbours. She was a daughter of Sir John Telfair, of Balgarnock, a
gentleman of note in Renfrewshire; and the story ran concerning her that,
at the age of sixteen, having a spite against one of the maidservants, she
had pretended to be bewitched and persecuted by the devil, and upheld the
imposture so cleverly, with rigors, convulsions, foaming at the mouth and
spitting forth of straws, chips and cinders, pins and bent nails, that the
Presbytery ordained a public fast against witchcraft, and by warrant of
Privy Council a Commission visited Balgarnock to take evidence of her
condition. In the presence of these Commissioners, of whom the Lord
Blantyre was president, the young lady flatly accused one Janet Burns, her
mother's still-room maid, of tormenting her with aid of the black art, and
for witness showed her back and shoulders covered with wales, some blue
and others freshly bleeding; and further, in the midst of their
interrogatories cast herself into a trance, muttering and offering faint
combat to divers unseen spirits, and all in so lifelike a manner that,
notwithstanding they could discover no evident proof of guilt, these wise
gentry were overawed and did commit the woman Janet Burns to take her
trial for witchcraft at Paisley. There, poor soul, as she was escorted to
the prison,