becility it can hardly be imagined
that she had any idea of the object of this separation, and it must
have been instinct that impelled her to do it. Sermon says the wife of
Thomas James was delivered of a lusty child while in a wood by herself.
She put the child in an apron with some oak leaves, marched stoutly to
her husband's uncle's house a half mile distant, and after two hours'
rest went on her journey one mile farther to her own house; despite all
her exertions she returned the next day to thank her uncle for the two
hours' accommodation. There is related the history of a case of a woman
who was delivered of a child on a mountain during a hurricane, who took
off her gown and wrapped the child up in it, together with the
afterbirth, and walked two miles to her cottage, the funis being
unruptured.

Harvey relates a case, which he learned from the President of Munster,
Ireland, of a woman with child who followed her husband, a soldier in
the army, in daily march. They were forced to a halt by reason of a
river, and the woman, feeling the pains of labor approaching, retired
to a thicket, and there alone brought forth twins. She carried them to
the river, washed them herself, did them up in a cloth, tied them to
her back, and that very day marched, barefooted, 12 miles with the
soldiers, and was none the worse for her experience. The next day the
Deputy of Ireland and the President of Munster, affected by the story,
to repeat the words of Harvey, "did both vouchsafe to be godfathers of
the infants."

Willoughby relates the account of a woman who, having a cramp while in
bed with her sister, went to an outhouse, as if to stool, and was there
delivered of a child. She quickly returned to bed, her going and her
return not being noticed by her sleeping sister. She buried the child,
"and afterward confessed her wickedness, and was executed in the
Stafford Gaol, March 31, 1670." A similar instance is related by the
same author of a servant in Darby in 1647. Nobody suspected her, and
when delivered she was lying in the same room with her mistress. She
arose without awakening anyone, and took the recently delivered child
to a remote place, and hid it at the bottom of a feather tub, covering
it with feathers; she returned without any suspicion on the part of her
mistress. It so happened that it was the habit of the Darby soldiers to
peep in at night where they saw a light, to ascertain if everything was
all right, and they t