ed person's cottage window at twilight, one evening, and that he
verily believed the said cat to be the devil; on which precious
testimony the poor wretch was accordingly hanged. On another occasion,
about the same time, the passions of the great and little vulgar were so
much excited by the aquittal of an aged village dame, whom the judge had
taken some pains to rescue, that Sir John Long, a man of rank and
fortune, came to the judge in the greatest perplexity, requesting that
the hag might not be permitted to return to her miserable cottage on his
estates, since all his tenants had in that case threatened to leave him.
In compassion to a gentleman who apprehended ruin from a cause so
whimsical, the dangerous old woman was appointed to be kept by the town
where she was acquitted, at the rate of half-a-crown a week, paid by the
parish to which she belonged. But behold! in the period betwixt the two
assizes Sir John Long and his farmers had mustered courage enough to
petition that this witch should be sent back to them in all her terrors,
because they could support her among them at a shilling a week cheaper
than they were obliged to pay to the town for her maintenance. In a
subsequent trial before Lord Chief Justice North himself, that judge
detected one of those practices which, it is to be feared, were too
common at the time, when witnesses found their advantage in feigning
themselves bewitched. A woman, supposed to be the victim of the male
sorcerer at the bar, vomited pins in quantities, and those straight,
differing from the crooked pins usually produced at such times, and less
easily concealed in the mouth. The judge, however, discovered, by
cross-examining a candid witness, that in counterfeiting her fits of
convulsion the woman sunk her head on her breast, so as to take up with
her lips the pins which she had placed ready in her stomacher. The man
was acquitted, of course. A frightful old hag, who was present,
distinguished herself so much by her benedictions on the judge, that he
asked the cause of the peculiar interest which she took in the
acquittal. "Twenty years ago," said the poor woman, "they would have
hanged me for a witch, but could not; and now, but for your lordship,
they would have murdered my innocent son."[62]

[Footnote 62: Roger North's "Life of Lord-Keeper Guilford."]

Such scenes happened frequently on the assizes, while country gentlemen,
like the excellent Sir Roger de Coverley, retained a p