ring beggar.]

[Footnote 74: Sinclair's "Satan's Invisible World Discovered," p. 98.]

Now, if Hatteraick was really put to death on such evidence, it is worth
while to consider what was its real amount. A hot-tempered swaggering
young gentleman horsewhips a beggar of ill fame for loitering about the
gate of his sister's house. The beggar grumbles, as any man would. The
young man, riding in the night, and probably in liquor, through a dark
shady place, is frightened by, he would not, and probably could not,
tell what, and has a fever fit. His sister employs the wizard to take
off the spell according to his profession; and here is _damnum minatum,
et malum secutum_, and all legal cause for burning a man to ashes! The
vagrant Hatteraick probably knew something of the wild young man which
might soon oblige him to leave the country; and the selfish Lady
Samuelston, learning the probability of his departure, committed a fraud
which ought to have rendered her evidence inadmissible.

Besides these particular disadvantages, to which the parties accused of
this crime in Scotland were necessarily exposed, both in relation to the
judicature by which they were tried and the evidence upon which they
were convicted, their situation was rendered intolerable by the
detestation in which they were held by all ranks. The gentry hated them
because the diseases and death of their relations and children were
often imputed to them; the grossly superstitious vulgar abhorred them
with still more perfect dread and loathing. And amongst those natural
feelings, others of a less pardonable description found means to shelter
themselves. In one case, we are informed by Mackenzie, a poor girl was
to die for witchcraft, of whom the real crime was that she had attracted
too great a share, in the lady's opinion, of the attention of the laird.

Having thus given some reasons why the prosecutions for witchcraft in
Scotland were so numerous and fatal, we return to the general history of
the trials recorded from the reign of James V. to the union of the
kingdoms. Through the reign of Queen Mary these trials for sorcery
became numerous, and the crime was subjected to heavier punishment by
the 73rd Act of her 9th Parliament. But when James VI. approached to
years of discretion, the extreme anxiety which he displayed to penetrate
more deeply into mysteries which others had regarded as a very millstone
of obscurity, drew still larger attention to the subject.