virulent nature that nor cow nor sheep would touch
the grass whereon it fell; and soon the herbage withered away in fearful
memorial of that deed of guilt. She was more successful in her attempts on
the young Lady Balnagown. Her "dittay" sets forth that the poor girl,
tasting of her sister-in-law's infernal potions, contracted an incurable
disease, the pain and anguish she suffered revolting even the wretch who
administered the poison, Catherine Niven, who "scunnerit (revolted) with
it sae meikle, that she said it was the sairest and maist cruel sight that
ever she saw." But she did not die. Youth and life were strong in her, and
conquered even malice and poison--conquered even the fiendish
determination of the lady, "that she would do, by all kind of means,
wherever it might be had, of God in heaven, or the devil in hell, for the
destruction and down-putting of Marjory Campbell." Nothing daunted, the
lady sent far and wide, and now openly, for various poisons; consulting
with "Egyptians" and notorious witches as to what would best "suit the
complexion" of her victims, and whether the ratsbane, which was a
favourite medicine with her, should be administered in eggs, broth, or
cabbage. She paid many sums, too, for clay images, and elf arrows
wherewith to shoot at them, and her wickedness at last grew too patent for
even her exalted rank to overshadow. She was arrested and arraigned, but
the private prosecutor was Hector Munro, who was soon to change his place
of advocate for that of "pannel;" and the jury was composed of the Fowlis
dependents. So she was acquitted; though many of her creatures had
previously been convicted and burnt on the same charges as those now made
against her; notably Cristiane Roiss, who, confessing to the clay image
and the elf arrows, was quietly burnt for the same.

Hector Munro's trial was of a somewhat different character. His stepmother
does not seem to have had much confidence in mere sorcery: she put her
faith in facts rather than in incantations, and preferred drugs to charms:
but Hector was more superstitious and more cowardly too. In 1588, he had
communed with three notorious witches for the recovery of his elder
brother, Robert; and the witches had "pollit the hair of Robert Munro, and
plet the naillis of his fingeris and taes;" but Robert had died in spite
of these charms, and now Hector was the chief man of his family. Parings
of nails, clippings of hair, water wherein enchanted stones