eetings near his house. During one of their assemblies he
overheard a witch bid her imps to go to another witch. The other witch,
whose name was thus revealed to him--Elizabeth Clarke, a poor one-legged
creature--was promptly taken into custody on Hopkins's charge.[6] Other
accusations poured in. John Rivet had consulted a cunning woman about
the illness of his wife, and had learned that two neighbors were
responsible. One of these, he was told, dwelt a little above his own
home; "whereupon he beleeved his said wife was bewitched by ...
Elizabeth Clarke, ... for that the said Elizabeth's mother and some
other of her kinsfolke did suffer death for witchcraft." The justices
of the peace[7] accordingly had her "searched by women who had for many
yeares known the Devill's marks," and, when these were found on her,
they bade her custodians "keep her from sleep two or three nights,
expecting in that time to see her familiars."[8]

Torture is unknown to English law; but, in our day of the "third
degree," nobody needs to be told that what is put out at the door may
steal in at the window. It may be that, in the seventeenth century, the
pious English justices had no suspicion that enforced sleeplessness is a
form of physical torture more nerve-racking and irresistible than the
thumb-screw. Three days and nights of "watching" brought Elizabeth
Clarke to "confess many things"; and when, on the fourth night, her
townsmen Hopkins and Stearne dropped in to fill out from her own lips
the warrants against those she had named as accomplices, she told them
that, if they would stay and do her no hurt, she would call one of her
imps.

Hopkins told her that he would not allow it, but he stayed. Within a
quarter of an hour the imps appeared, six of them, one after another.
The first was a "white thing in the likeness of a Cat, but not
altogether so big," the second a white dog with some sandy spots and
very short legs, the third, Vinegar Tom, was a greyhound with long legs.
We need not go further into the story. The court records give the
testimony of Hopkins and Stearne. Both have related the affair in their
pamphlets.[9] Six others, four of whom were women, made oath to the
appearances of the imps. In this respect the trial is unique among all
in English history. Eight people testified that they had seen the
imps.[10] Two of them referred elsewhere to what they had seen, and
their accounts agreed substantially.[11] It may be doubted if th