m dimly in the distance, rolling himself
before them over the great waves, in shape and size not unlike a huge
haystack. They met with a foreign ship richly laden with wines and
other good things, which they boarded, and sunk after they had drunk
all the wine, and made themselves quite merry.

Some of these disclosures were too much even for the abundant faith of
King James, and he more than once exclaimed, that the witches were like
their master, "extreme lyars." But they confessed many other things of
a less preposterous nature, and of which they were, no doubt, really
guilty. Agnes Sampson said she was to have taken the King's life by
anointing his linen with a strong poison. Gellie Duncan used to
threaten her neighbours by saying she would send the devil after them;
and many persons of weaker minds than usual were frightened into fits
by her, and rendered subject to them for the remainder of their lives.
Dr. Finn also made no scruple in aiding and abetting murder, and would
rid any person of an enemy by means of poison, who could pay him his
fee for it. Euphemia Macalzean also was far from being pure. There is
no doubt that she meditated the King's death, and used such means to
compass it as the superstition of the age directed. She was a devoted
partizan of Bothwell, who was accused by many of the witches as having
consulted them on the period of the King's death. They were all found
guilty, and sentenced to be hanged and burned. Barbara Napier, though
found guilty upon other counts, was acquitted upon the charge of having
been present at the great witch-meeting in Berwick kirk. The King was
highly displeased, and threatened to have the jury indicted for a
wilful error upon an assize. They accordingly reconsidered their
verdict, and threw themselves upon the King's mercy for the fault they
had committed. James was satisfied, and Barbara Napier was hanged
along with Gellie Duncan, Agnes Sampson, Dr. Fian, and five-and-twenty
others. Euphemia Macalzean met a harder fate. Her connexion with the
bold and obnoxious Bothwell, and her share in poisoning one or two
individuals who had stood in her way, were thought deserving of the
severest punishment the law could inflict. Instead of the ordinary
sentence, directing the criminal to be first strangled and then burned,
the wretched woman was doomed "to be bound to a stake, and burned in
ashes, quick to the death." This cruel sentence was executed on the
25th of June 1591.