Glasgow to intimate the same
to the ministers and magistrates, that the offenders might be
proceeded against with rigour. As a proof that "the work goes bonnily
on" (as Mr. David Dickson, professor of divinity, said on seeing Sir
Walter Rollock, Sir Philip Nisbet, and Ogilvie of Inverquharty led to
execution in 1645), we mention that, so frequent were the prosecutions
against witches and warlocks in Glasgow, that the magistrates, in
1698, considered it expedient to bargain with the jailor for the keep
of witches and warlocks imprisoned in the tolbooth by order of the
Lords Commissioners of Justiciary.

Paisley would appear to have been a western centre for witches. In
fact, if tradition and written history can be relied on, Renfrew, with
Paisley for its capital, suffered more from witchcraft than almost any
other county in Scotland. Mr. D. Semple informs us that, so recently
as 1697, six poor creatures were convicted of this crime before the
regality of Paisley, and were "worrit" and burned to death on the
Gallows Green. So audacious were those in league with Satan, that they
assailed men in high position as well as those in low degree. John
P---- and others were indicted in 1692 for slandering, calumniating,
reproaching, and taking away the good name of John Adams, late bailie
of Paisley, and others; and for drinking the devil's health. Being
found guilty, they were ordered "to go to the stair-foot of Bailie
Adams, and confess they scandalised; and if not, to be taken to the
mercatt cross of Paisley, with a paper on their breast, bearing these
words in great letters: 'We stand here for scandalising,' etc. They
all obeyed but Janet Fife, on whom the sentence was executed." Mr.
Hector, sheriff-clerk of Renfrewshire, from whose work on the peculiar
trials of his county we are quoting, remarks, "If this wholesome
treatment was more carried out, we would have fewer long tongues."

CHAPTER LXIV.

Paying Blackmail to Witches--Breach of Contract with a
Witch--Demon of Tedworth--Mysterious Drum--A
Persecuted Family prayed for--Unaccountable Sounds and
Sights--Satan's Audible Responses--Drummer found
guilty of Sorcery--Raising Storms--A Wizard in
Cromwell's Army--Florence Newton--Aldermen's Children
bewitched to Death--Man kissed to Death in Youghal
Prison--Witch unable to say the Lord's Prayer--Julian
Cox, an old Taunton Witch--Woman in shape of a
Hare--Bewi