two days a young child of
his, of a year old, fell sick, which was quickly pulled away by death,
none knowing the cause or nature of the disease."
Isabel Murray went on to say, that furthermore the ghost confessed to
her, that she, Isabel Heriot, when in life, had met the devil a second
time at Elfiston Mill, near to Ormiston: and she told what foulness the
devil did to her. Also, one night as she was coming home from Haddington
Market with some horse-corn, she met the devil at Knock-hills, and he bade
her destroy Thomas Anderson, who was riding with her. When she refused he
threw all the horse-corn off the horse. "This Thomas Anderson was a
Christian man," and when Murray told her tale "well remembered that Isabel
had got up the next morning timeously," and brought home her oats which
had lain in the road all the night. She said too that she had cheated her
master whenever she went to the market to buy oats, charging him more than
they cost--not an unusual practice with servants at market anywhere; and
she told Isabel Murray that the stone cast at her was not for herself but
for her goodman, who had once flung her, the ghost, into the jawhole, and
abused her. At this point Murray said she began to be frightened, and ran
home in all haste. So Isabel Heriot's character was settled for ever, and
her neighbours only thought the judgment came too late.
THE SUCCUBUS.[64]
William Barton, a loose-lived man of notoriously strong passions, was
apprehended for witchcraft. His confession included the not very frequent
Scottish element of a Succubus--a demon under the form of a beautiful
woman who beguiled him, and to whom he made himself over for love and
gold. She baptized him under the name of John Baptist, gave him her mark,
and fifteen pounds Scots in good gold as Tocher-money; and then they
parted. When he had gone but a little way she called him back and gave him
a mark to spend at the Ferry, desiring him to keep the fifteen pounds safe
and unbroken. At this point in his confession the poor wretch was weary,
and asked leave to go to sleep; which, for a wonderful stretch of
humanity, the judges granted. Suddenly he awakened with a loud laugh. The
magistrates asked why he laughed?--and he said that during his sleep the
devil had come to him, very angry at his confession, and bidding him deny
all when he awoke, "for he should be his Warrand." After this he became
"obdured," and would never confess anything again; the devi
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