until she was revenged on the wife of Sandswel. Straightway Sandswel's poultry died, bis chimney fell down and a firkin of fish tumbled into the water. Sir Thomas Browne, author of "Religio Medici," "Urn Burial," etc., was called as a medical expert, and his opinion was that these children were bewitched, and that the devil in witchcraft did work upon the bodies of men and women upon a natural founda tion, and that he did extraordinarily afflict them with such distempers as their bodies were most subject to; in other words, that the swooning was natural, heightened to great excess by the subtlety of the devil co operating with the witches. The judge told the jury that they were to inquire first, whether these children were bewitched, and, secondly, "-nether the prisoners at the bar we-e guilty of it. He had no doubt there were such creatures as witches, for the Scriptures have affirmed it, and the wisdom of all nations had provided laws against such persons. He prayed the God of heaven to direct their hearts in the weighty matter they had in hand, for to con demn the innocent and let the guilty go free were both an abomination to the Lord. The jury in half an hour brought in a verdict of guilty. The children were restored to health in thirty minutes after the conviction. The witches were executed and confessed nothing. James VI, of Scotland, thought he had performed a wonderfully heroic deed when he crossed the seas to wed Anne of Den mark. He considered that the devil and all his powers were overwhelmed with fear be cause of the union of a Protestant princess with the high and mighty Protestant King of Scotland and heir to England's throne. His fleet had been tempest-tossed, so natu rally he felt that the prince of the powers of the air had been personally active in the matter. Suspicion fell upon one Agnes Sampson, a grave, respectable matron, who affected to cure diseases by words and charms. She was accused of being a party
to a conspiracy to destroy the fleet by tempest, and to kill the King by annointing his linen with poisonous materials, and by constructing figures of clay. Many others— some thirty in all—were accused, from re spectable dames to the lowly old ploughman who acted as doorkeeper to the secret con clave and had been cuffed by the devil for saying "God save the King." After one hour's torture by the twisting of a cord round her head, poor Agnes Sampson con fessed to consulting someone as to the probable length of the King's life and the means of shortening it; that she and others of her weird sisters had tried to raise a tempest by charming a cat with certain spells and throwing it into the sea; and that once they had embarked in sieves and gone out to sea, the foul fiend himself rolling before them over the waves. That with him they had boarded a foreign vessel, and after carous ing thereon to their heart's content, had sunk the ship and all her crew. Cunninghame, one of the accused, had the nails torn from his fingers, pins driven in where the nails had been, his knees crushed in the boots, and his finger bones splintered in the pilniewinks, then the devil withdrew his help, and he con fessed that he had been at a watch-meeting at Berwick, that after marching round the church withershins, he blew into the lock, the bolts gave way, and the unhallowed crew entered, and the devil harangued them from the pulpit, which was appropriately hung with black candles. An unpleasantness arose because the devil had not brought the picture of the King, which he had repeatedly promised to do, and some of the women were particularly abusive to him in conse quence. In his excitement Satan forgot him self and called some of those present by their own names. To cover his breach of etiquette he proposed a dance, and well nigh two hundred persons were soon swinging in an antique round, chanting and singing. The orchestral accompaniment must have been weak, for there was only one performer, and she played a jewsharp. After the dance they
