ness,
where the delusion remained in all its pristine vigour for years after it
had ceased elsewhere, was startled from its propriety by the cry of
witchcraft. A silly fellow, named William Montgomery, a carpenter, had a
mortal antipathy to cats; and somehow or other these animals generally
chose his back-yard as the scene of their catterwaulings. He puzzled his
brains for a long time to know why he, above all his neighbours, should be
so pestered. At last he came to the sage conclusion that his tormentors
were no cats, but witches. In this opinion he was supported by his
maid-servant, who swore a round oath that she had often heard the
aforesaid cats talking together in human voices. The next time the unlucky
tabbies assembled in his back-yard, the valiant carpenter was on the
alert. Arming himself with an axe, a dirk, and a broadsword, he rushed out
among them. One of them he wounded in the back, a second in the hip, and
the leg of a third he maimed with his axe; but he could not capture any of
them. A few days afterwards, two old women of the parish died; and it was
said, that when their bodies were laid out, there appeared upon the back
of one the mark 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