s Sarks,' which was
soon gotten. What pranks he plaid with it cannot be known. But within a
short while the gentleman recovered his health. When Hatteraik came to
receive his wadges, he told the Lady, 'Your Brother William shal quickly
goe off the Countrey but shall never return.' She, knowing the Fellow's
prophecies to hold true, caused her Brother to make a Disposition to her
of all his patrimony, to the defrauding of his younger brother George.
After that this Warlock had abused the Countrey for a long time, he was at
last apprehended at Dunbar, and brought into Edinburgh, and burnt upon the
Castle Hill." But not until he had delated several others of hitherto good
repute, so that for the next few months the witch-finder's hands were
full.

THE MIDWIFE'S DOUBLE SIN.

Notably was arrested about this time, Alie Nisbet, midwife; and three
others. Alie was accused of witchcraft; and of a softer, but as heinous a
crime as witchcraft. This she confessed to; but the breaking of the
seventh commandment in Christian Scotland, in the year 1632, was a far
more dangerous thing than we can imagine possible in our laxer day; and
Alie was on the horns of a dilemma, either of which could land her in
ruin, death, and perdition. She was accused, among other things, of
having taken her labour pains from off a certain woman, using "charmes and
horrible words, amongs which thir ware some, _the bones to the fire and
the soull to the devill_;" but this Alie denied, strenuously, though she
admitted that she might have bathed the woman's legs in warm water, which
she had bewitched for good, by putting her fingers into it and running
thrice round the bed, widershins; but the spoken charm as given she would
have none of. The labour pains, however, left the woman, and were foully
and unnaturally cast upon another who had no concern therewith, so that
she died in four-and-twenty hours from that time, and Alie was the
murderess by all the laws of sorcery. She was accused, also, of having
poured some enchanted water on a threshold over which a servant girl,
against whom she had a spite, must pass, and the servant girl died
therefrom. Alie was wirriet and burnt and troubled the world no more.

KATHERINE GRIEVE AND JOHN SINCLAIR.[32]

Katherine Grieve, too (1633), was brought to judgment and sentenced to be
"taken to the mercat crose and brunt in the cheick, in example of others,"
with the future prospect, that if she haunted suspected places