ght she meant her husband: but it
turned out to be the witch Cristiane Grahame that she wanted--whom they
immediately sent for. Cristiane came at once, and took Margaret tenderly
in her arms, saying "no one should hurt her dear burd, no one;" then
carried her down stairs into the kitchen, and so home to her own house.
The little daughter of the house ran after them; on the threshold, she was
seized with a sudden pain, and falling down cried and screamed most
sorely. Her mother went to lift her up crossly, but she called out,
"Mother, mother, ding me nocht, for there is ane preyne (pin) raschet
throw my fute." She "grat" all the night, and was very ill; her parents
watching by her through the long hours: but when Margaret wanted the
mother to let her be cured by Cristiane's aid, she said sternly, no, "scho
wad commit her bairne to God, and nocht mell with the devill or ony of his
instrumentis." However, Margaret Wallace healed the little one unbidden;
by leaping over some bits of green cloth scattered in the midst of the
floor, and then taking her out of bed and laying her in Cristiane
Grahame's lap--which double sorcery cured her instantly. Cristiane Grahame
had been burnt for a witch some time before this trial; and now Margaret
Wallace, in this year of our Lord 1622, was doomed to the same fate: bound
to a stake, strangled, burnt, her ashes cast to the wind, and all her
worldly gear forfeit to king's majesty, because she was a tender-hearted,
loving woman, with a strong will and large mesmeric power, and did her
best for the sick folk about her.

THOM REID AGAIN.[23]

Isobell Haldane confessed before the Session of Perth, May 15, 1623, that
she had cured Andro Duncan's bairn by washing it and its sark in water
brought from the Turret Port, then casting the water into a burn; but in
the going "scho skaillit (spilt) swm quhilk scho rewis ane evill rew,
becaus that if onye had gone ower it they had gottyn the ill." She
confessed, too, that about ten years since, she, lying in her bed, was
taken forth, whether by God or the devil she knows not, and carried to a
hill: the hill-side opened, and she went in and stayed there from Thursday
to Sunday at eleven o'clock, when an old man with a gray beard brought her
forth. The old man with the gray beard, who seems to have been poor Bessie
Dunlop's old acquaintance, told her many things after this visit. He told
her that John Roch, who came to the wright's shop for a cradle, ne