as of a recent wound, and a similar scar upon the hip of the
other. The carpenter and his maid were convinced that they were the
very cats, and the whole county repeated the same story. Every one was
upon the look-out for proofs corroborative: a very remarkable one was
soon discovered. Nanny Gilbert, a wretched old creature of upwards of
seventy years of age, was found in bed with her leg broken; as she was
ugly enough for a witch, it was asserted that she, also, was one of the
cats that had fared so ill at the hands of the carpenter. The latter,
when informed of the popular suspicion, asserted that he distinctly
remembered to have struck one of the cats a blow with the back of his
broadsword, which ought to have broken her leg. Nanny was immediately
dragged from her bed, and thrown into prison. Before she was put to the
torture, she explained, in a very natural and intelligible manner, how
she had broken her limb; but this account did not give satisfaction:
the professional persuasions of the torturer made her tell a different
tale, and she confessed that she was indeed a witch, and had been
wounded by Montgomery on the night stated--that the two old women
recently deceased were witches also, besides about a score of others
whom she named. The poor creature suffered so much by the removal from
her own home, and the tortures inflicted upon her, that she died the
next day in prison. Happily for the persons she had named in her
confession, Dundas of Arniston, at that time the King's
Advocate-general, wrote to the Sheriff-depute, one Captain Ross of
Littledean, cautioning him not to proceed to trial, the "thing being of
too great difficulty, and beyond the jurisdiction of an inferior
court." Dundas himself examined the precognition with great care, and
was so convinced of the utter folly of the whole case that he quashed
all further proceedings.

We find this same Sheriff-depute of Caithness very active four years
afterwards in another trial for witchcraft. In spite of the warning he
had received, that all such cases were to be tried in future by the
superior courts, he condemned to death an old woman at Dornoch, upon
the charge of bewitching the cows and pigs of her neighbours. This poor
creature was insane, and actually laughed and clapped her hands at
sight of "the bonnie fire" that was to consume her. She had a daughter,
who was lame both of her hands and feet, and one of the charges brought
against her was, that she h