it:" and she cured many people by the old man's fairy
teaching. She healed Lady Johnstone's daughter, married to the young Laird
of Stanelie, by giving her a drink brewed under Thom's auspices, namely,
strong ale boiled with cloves, ginger, aniseed, liquorice, and white
sugar, which warmed the "cauld blude that gaed about hir hart, that causit
hir to dwam and vigous away," or, as we would say, to swoon. And she cured
John Jake's bairn, and Wilson's of the town, and her gudeman's sister's
cow; but old Lady Kilbowye's leg was beyond them both. It had been crooked
all her life, and now Thom said it would never mend, because "the march of
the bane was consumit, and the blude dosinit" (the marrow was consumed,
and the blood benumbed). It was hopeless, and it would be worse for her
if she asked for fairy help again. Bessie got fame too as a "monthly" of
Lyne. A green silk lace, received from Thom's own hand, tacked to their
"wylie coitts" and knit about their left arms, helped much in the delivery
of women. She lost the lace, insinuating that Thom took it away again, but
kept her fatal character for more medical skill than belonged to an
ordinary canny old wife. In the recovery of stolen goods, too, she was
effective, and what she could not find she could at least indicate. Thus,
she told the seekers that Hugh Scott's cloak could not be returned,
because it had been made into a kirtle, and that James Baird and Henry
Jameson would not recover their plough irons, because James Douglas, the
sheriff's officer, had accepted a bribe of three pounds not to find them.
Lady Blair having "dang and wrackit" her servants on account of certain
linen which had been stolen from her, learnt from Bessie, prompted by
Thom, that the thief was no other than Margaret Symple, her own friend and
relation, and that she had dang and wrackit innocent persons to no avail.
Bessie never allowed that Thom's intercourse with her was other than
honest and well conducted. Once only he took hold of her apron to drag her
away to Elfame with him; but this was more in the way of persuasion than
love making, and she indignantly denied the home questions put to her by
the judges with but scant delicacy or feeling for an honest woman's shame.
Interrogated, she said that she often saw Thom going about like other men.
He would be in the streets of Edinburgh, on market days and other,
handling goods like any living body, but she never spoke to him unless he
spoke first t