as also was Meg Dow, in April of the same year, for the
"crewell murdreissing of twa young infant bairns," by magic.

And now we come to a very singular group of trials, opened out by that
clumsy, superstitious pedant, whose name stands accursed for vice and
cruel cowardice and the utmost selfishness of fear--James VI. of Scotland.
If anything were wanting to complete one's abhorrence of Carr's patron and
Raleigh's murderer--one's contempt of the upholder of the divine right of
kings in his own self-adoration as God's vicegerent upon earth--it would
be his part in the witch delusion of the sixteenth century. Whatever of
blood-stained folly belonged specially to the Scottish trials of this
time--and hereafter--owed its original impulse to him; and every groan of
the tortured wretches driven to their fearful doom, and every tear of the
survivors left blighted and desolate to drag out their weary days in
mingled grief and terror, lie on his memory with shame and condemnation
ineffaceable for all time.

THE DEVIL'S SECRETARY.[5]

On the 26th of December, 1590, John Fian, _alias_ Cuningham (spelt Johanne
Feane, _alias_ Cwninghame), master of the school at Saltpans, Lothian, and
contemptuously recorded as "Secretar and Register to the Devil," was
arraigned for witchcraft and high treason. There were twenty counts
against him, the least of which would have been enough to have lighted up
a witch-fire on that fatal Castle Hill, for the bravest and best in the
land. First, he was accused of entering into a covenant with Satan, who
appeared to him in white, as he lay in bed, musing and thinking ("mwsand
and pansand," says the dittay in its quaint language) how he should be
revenged on Thomas Trumbill, for not having whitewashed his room,
according to agreement. After promising his Satanic majesty allegiance and
homage, he received his mark, which later was found under his tongue, with
two pins therein thrust up to their heads. Again, he was found
guilty--"fylit" is the old legal term--of "feigning himself to be sick in
the said Thomas Trumbill's chamber, where he was stricken in great
ecstacies and trances, lying by the space of two or three hours dead, his
spirit taken, and suffered himself to be carried and transported to many
mountains, as he thought through all the world, according to his
depositions." Note, that these depositions were made in the midst of
fearful torture, and recanted the instant after. Also, he was found