s may have journeyed to Stowmarket. We do not know
how many servants of the evil one he discovered here; but, as he was
paid twenty-three pounds[59] for his services, and had received but six
pounds in Aldeburgh, the presumption is that his work here was very
fruitful in results.

We now lose track of the witchfinder's movements for a while. Probably
he was doubling on his track and attending court sessions. In December
we know that he made his second visit to Yarmouth. From there he may
have gone to King's Lynn, where two witches were hanged this year, and
from there perhaps returned early in January to Aldeburgh and other
places in Suffolk. It is not to be supposed for a moment that his
activities were confined to the towns named. At least fifteen other
places in Suffolk are mentioned by Stearne in his stories of the
witches' confessions.[60] While Hopkins's subordinates probably
represented him in some of the villages, we cannot doubt that the
witchfinder himself visited many towns.

From East Anglia Hopkins went westward into Cambridgeshire. His arrival
there must have been during either January or February. His reputation,
indeed, had gone ahead of him, and the witches were reported to have
taken steps in advance to prevent detection.[61] But their efforts were
vain. The witchfinder found not less than four or five of the detested
creatures,[62] probably more. We know, however, of only one execution,
that of a woman who fell under suspicion because she kept a tame
frog.[63]

From Cambridgeshire, Hopkins's course took him, perhaps in March of
1645/6, into Northamptonshire. There he found at least two villages
infested, and he turned up some remarkable evidence. So far in his
crusade, the keeping of imps had been the test infallible upon which the
witchfinder insisted. But at Northampton spectral evidence seems to have
played a considerable part.[64] Hopkins never expresses his opinion on
this variety of evidence, but his co-worker declares that it should be
used with great caution, because "apparitions may proceed from the
phantasie of such as the party use to fear or at least suspect."

But it was a case in Northamptonshire of a different type that seems to
have made the most lasting impression on Stearne. Cherrie of Thrapston,
"a very aged man," had in a quarrel uttered the wish that his neighbor's
tongue might rot out. The neighbor thereupon suffered from something
which we should probably call cancer of the