e shoulder with a prin, and that no
blood followed thereafter, nor did she shrink as with pain or feeling. And
as there was no gainsaying the evidence of the witch-mark, Satan and Mr.
John Aird claimed their own. Was Catherine's brand like a "blew spot, or a
little tate, or reid spots, like flea-biting?" or with "the flesh sunk in
and hallow?" according to the description of such places, published by Mr.
John Bell, minister of the gospel in Gladsmuir. We are seldom told of what
precise character the marks were, only that they were found, pricked, and
tested, and the witch hung or burnt on their testimony.

SANDIE AND THE DEVIL.[31]

Soon after Catherine Oswald's execution, one of her crew or covin, who had
been with her on the great storm in "the borrowing days (in anno 1625), on
the Brae of the Saltpans," a noted warlock, by name Alexander Hunter, or
Hamilton, _alias_ Hatteraick, which last name he had gotten from the
devil, was brought to execution on the Castle Hill. It was in 1629 that he
was taken. It was proved that on Kingston hills he had met with the devil
as a black man, or, as Sinclair says, as a mediciner; and often
afterwards he would meet him riding on a black horse, or he would appear
as a corbie, cat, or dog. When Alexander wanted him he would beat the
ground with a fir stick lustily, crying, "Rise up, foul thief!" for the
master got but hard names at times from his servants. This fir stick, and
four shillings sterling, the devil gave to him when the compact was first
made between them; and he confessed, moreover, that when raised in this
manner he could only be got rid of by sacrificing to him a cat or dog, or
such like, "quick." Also he set on fire Provost Cockburn's mill of corn,
by taking three stalks from his stacks, and burning them on Garleton
Hills; and he owned to a deadly hatred against Lady Ormiston, because she
once refused him "ane almous," and called him "ane custroune carle." So,
to punish her, he and some witches raised the devil in Salton Wood, where
he appeared like a man in gray clothes, and gave him the bottom of a blue
clew, telling him to lay it at the lady's door: "which he and the women
having done, 'the lady and her daughter were soon thereafter bereft of
their naturall lyfe.'" But Sinclair's account is the most graphic. I will
give it in his own words:--

"Anent Hattaraick, an old Warlock.

"This man's name was Sandie Hunter, who called himself Sandie Hamilton,
and it seems