rie, there to be confronted with another witch,
was suddenly lifted off the pillion by a furious blast of wind, which she
got the devil to raise in the hope of her rescue. But though she was blown
into the stream, she swam lightly as a witch should and as only a witch
could, and her jailers fished her out again, to secure her better for the
future. As the sky was cloudless when the blast arose, and as no storm
followed after, there was no possibility of doubting the Satanic origin of
that mighty puff of wind. Besides, did not Jennot Cock, another confessing
witch, say to John Stevin, when he told her that Cristiane was to be
carried to Nidrie to-morrow, "Will not yow think it a sport, if the
deivill raise a whirrell of wind, and tak her away from among yow by the
gette (way) to-morrow?" This and that together made the thing certain; and
the fall of the poor wretch was included in the dittay as one of the
counts against her, proving her witchcraft.

Witch-finding now increased rapidly in Scotland. No fewer than fourteen
special commissions were issued for the sole purpose of trying witches for
the sederunt of November the 7th, 1661; and on the 23rd of January, 1662,
fourteen more were made out. It was the popular amusement of the day, and
no one or two men then living could have turned the tide in favour of
these poor persecuted creatures. Even Sir George Mackenzie, that "noble
wit of Scotland," failed to make any reasonable impression on the besotted
public, though his pleadings and writings got him into immense disfavour
with the religious part of the community, and caused him to be ranked as
an atheist and Sadducee, and classed with the Pilates and Judases of
history. Though it had been the Bull of Pope Innocent VIII. in 1484,
which had first stirred up the zeal of the godly against witchcraft, and
written that terrible text, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," in
still more terrible characters of blood and suffering, yet Calvinistic
Scotland soon outstripped even the superstitious Papacy in her frantic
piety, and poured out a sea of innocent blood which will stain her pages
with an ineffaceable stain, for ever and for ever. Yet she was nearly a
hundred years behind Rome in her zeal, for it was not till June, 1563,
that she made the subject matter for legislation at all, and then the
Estates[50] enacted "that 'nae person take upon hand to use any manner of
witchcrafts, sorcery, or necromancy, nor give themselves fu