on any other charwoman; and Susan said,
that Dame Emmet would, she thought, by my goodness, soon get strength
to work again. I told her, was it ever so long I would stay for her. I
mixed the powder, as was said before, on the Sunday, and on the
Tuesday wrote to Mr. Cranstoun, that it would not mix in tea, and that
I would not try it any more, lest my father should find it out. This
has been brought against me by many: but let any one consider, if the
discovery of such a procedure as this, would not have excited anger,
and consequently have been followed by resentment in my father. This
might have occasioned a total separation of me from Mr. Cranstoun, a
thing I at that time dreaded more than even death itself. In answer to
this letter, I had one from him to assure me the powder was innocent,
and to beg I would give it in gruel, or something thicker than tea.
Many more letters to the same effect I received, before I would give
it again; but most fatally, on the 5th August, I gave it to my poor
father, innocent of the effects it afterwards produced, God knows; not
so stupid as to believe it would have that desired, to make him kind
to us; but in obedience to Mr. Cranstoun, who ever seemed
superstitions to the last degree, and had, as I thought, and have
declared before, all the just notions of the necessity of my father's
life for him, me, and ours. On the Monday the 5th, as has been said, I
mixed the powder in his gruel, and at night it was in a half-pint mug,
set ready for him to carry to bed with him. It had no taste. The next
morning, as he had done at dinner the day before, he complained of a
pain in his stomach, and the heart-burn; which he ever did before he
had the gravel. I went for Mr. Norton at eleven o'clock in the
forenoon, who said, that a little physick would be right for my father
to take on Wednesday. At night he ordered some water gruel for his
supper, which his footman went for. When it came, my father said,
"Taste it, Molly, has it not an odd taste?" I tasted it, but found no
taste different from what is to be found in all good water gruel.
After this he went up to bed, and my father found himself sick, and
reached; after which he said he was better, and I went up to bed.
Susan gave him his physick in the morning, and I went into his
bed-chamber about eight o'clock; then I found him charming well. Susan
says that on my father's wanting gruel on the Wednesday, I said, as
they were busy at ironing, they