shipfull personages" "he put a paire of new
shooes on her feete, setting her close to the fire till the shooes being
extreame hot might constrayne her through increase of the paine to
confesse." "This," says the writer, "was his ridiculous practice." The
woman "being throghly heated desired a release" and offered to confess,
but, as soon as her feet were cooled, refused. No doubt the justices of
the peace would have repudiated the statement that the illegal process
of torture was used. The methods of the cunning man were really nothing
else.

The woman was harried day and night by neighbors to bring her to
confess.[10] At length she gave way and, in a series of reluctant
confessions, told a crude story of her wrong-doings that bore some
slight resemblance to the boy's tale, and involved the use of a spirit
in the form of a dog.

Now it was that John Darrel came upon the ground eager to make a name
for himself. Darling had been ill for three months and was not
improving. Even yet some of the boy's relatives and friends doubted if
he were possessed. Not so Darrel. He at once undertook to pray and fast
for the boy. According to his own account his efforts were singularly
blessed. At all events the boy gradually improved and Darrel claimed the
credit. As for Alse Gooderidge, she was tried at the assizes, convicted
by the jury, and sentenced by Lord Chief-Justice Anderson to
imprisonment. She died soon after.[11] This affair undoubtedly widened
Darrel's reputation.

Not long after, a notable case of possession in Lancashire afforded him
a new opportunity to attract notice. The case of Nicholas Starchie's
children provoked so much comment at the time that it is perhaps worth
while to go back and bring the narrative up to the point where Darrel
entered.[12] Two of Starchie's children had one day been taken ill most
mysteriously, the girl "with a dumpish and heavie countenance, and with
a certaine fearefull starting and pulling together of her body." The boy
was "compelled to shout" on the way to school. Both grew steadily
worse[13] and the father consulted Edmund Hartley, a noted conjurer of
his time. Hartley quieted the children by the use of charms. When he
realized that his services would be indispensable to the father he made
a pretence of leaving and so forced a promise from Starchie to pay him
40 shillings a year. This ruse was so successful that he raised his
demands. He asked for a house and lot, but was refused. Th