. The man left her without marriage and then
she "willed Sathan ... to touch his body, whych he forthewith dyd,
whereof he died." Once again she importuned Satan for a husband. This
time she gained one "not so rich as the other." She bore a daughter to
him, but the marriage was an unhappy one. "They lived not so quietly as
she desyred, beinge stirred to much unquietnes and moved to swearing and
cursinge." Thereupon she employed the spirit to kill her child and to
lame her husband. After keeping the cat fifteen years she turned it over
to Mother Waterhouse, "a pore woman."[1]

Mother Waterhouse was now examined. She had received the cat and kept it
"a great while in woll in a pot." She had then turned it into a toad.
She had used it to kill geese, hogs, and cattle of her neighbors. At
length she had employed it to kill a neighbor whom she disliked, and
finally her own husband. The woman's eighteen-year-old daughter, Joan,
was now called to the stand and confirmed the fact that her mother kept
a toad. She herself had one day been refused a piece of bread and cheese
by a neighbor's child and had invoked the toad's help. The toad promised
to assist her if she would surrender her soul. She did so. Then the toad
haunted the neighbor's girl in the form of a dog with horns. The mother
was again called to the stand and repeated the curious story told by her
daughter.

Now the neighbor's child, Agnes Brown, was brought in to testify. Her
story tallied in some of its details with that of the two Waterhouse
women; she had been haunted by the horned dog, and she added certain
descriptions of its conduct that revealed good play of childish
imagination.[2]

The attorney put some questions, but rather to lead on the witnesses
than to entangle them. He succeeded, however, in creating a violent
altercation between the Waterhouses on the one hand, and Agnes Brown on
the other, over trifling matters of detail.[3] At length he offered to
release Mother Waterhouse if she would make the spirit appear in the
court.[4] The offer was waived. The attorney then asked, "When dyd thye
Cat suck of thy bloud?" "Never," said she. He commanded the jailer to
lift up the "kercher" on the woman's head. He did so and the spots on
her face and nose where she had pricked herself for the evil spirit were
exposed.

The jury retired. Two days later Agnes Waterhouse suffered the penalty
of the law, not however until she had added to her confessions.[5]

The