the left side, his handes lame and turned out of their course, his Bodie able to indure no travell: and thus remaineth at this present time.[1]
Alison was asked if she could cure the poor creature, and, though repentant, insisted that this was beyond her power. As in the case of Christian Webbar's infected stairs, the spells acted dynamically, when once they were set in motion, and passed quite beyond the witch's control. "The gods themselves cannot recall their gifts."
William Cozen's deposition closes with a bit of graphic horror which defies commentary in its simple impressiveness: "Further this examinate saith that Joan Cozen, wife of this examinate, being in her deathbed, requested this examinate that if Alice Trevisard, wife of the foresaid Michael Trevisard, did come to her grave, he should beat her away."
The evidence of Susan Tooker (or Turke) is very definite. It involves all three Trevisards, Michael and Alice and Peter their son. About four years ago, she declared, Alice Trevisard threatened her in plain terms: "I will not leave thee worth a gray groat!" Walter Tooker, Susan's husband, was just starting on a voyage. He lost both ship and goods, though the weather was fair. Further, it appears that young Peter Trevisard had been refused drink by Susan, whereupon he said "that it had been better to have delivered him drink". Next day Susan sickened, and she suffered for seven weeks. Finally, averred Susan, Mr. Martin, in the year of his mayoralty, set up a fold, or pound, at Hardness, to keep timber in. Michael Trevisard said: "Martin, hast thou made a fold? Wind and weather shall tear up all!" And so it happened, nor could Mr. Martin keep his fold in place. "Since that time it hath been set up in the millpool, where no stormy weather can annoy it. Yet sithence it hath been plucked up very strangely, for it riseth up altogether, being timber of an exceeding great weight and bigness."
The trivial nature of some of the charges brought against alleged witches and wizards often excites the contemptuous mirth of the modern. But there is no sense or reason in such an attitude of mind. The importance of a piece of evidence should not be measured by the actual importance of the occurrence testified to, but by its significance with regard to the point at issue, that is, with regard to the question whether the defendant was or was not a practiser of "arts inhibited and out of warrant". Nobody scoffs at a prosecuting attorney now-a-days for spending his energies over scraps of paper or thumb-prints or scratched hands when a murder trial is in progress. It is just as absurd to jeer at our ancestors for
- ↑ Potts, Wonderfull Discoverie of Witchcraft, sig. S.
