Margaret Polwart was publicly rebuked for using
charms and incantations to recover her sick child whom "that thief
Christian Happer had wronged." But as a neighbour told her very wisely,
"They that chant cannot charm, or they that lay on cannot take off the
disease, or they that do wrong to any one, cannot recover them," so what
was the good of all her notorious cantrips with Jean Hart and Alison
Nisbet--the last of such evil fame that she had lately been scratched for
a witch--that is, had blood drawn above her breath? Margaret Polwart might
be thankful that she got off with only a rebuke for using charms in place
of drugs, and consorting with witches to undo witches' work. In 1696,
Janet Widdrow and Isobel Cochrane were brought to trial, but not burnt for
the present; but two poor creatures, M'Rorie and M'Quicken, did not
escape: nor some others, of no special dramatic interest.

And now we come to that marvellous piece of disease and imposture
combined, the notorious case of "Bargarran's Daughter."

THE RENFREWSHIRE WITCHES.[70]

Christian Shaw, Bargarran's daughter, was a little girl of about eleven
years of age, "of a lively character and well inclined." On the 17th of
August, 1696, she saw the woman servant, Katherine Campbell, steal a drink
of milk from the can, whereupon she threatened to tell her mother; but
Campbell, "being a young woman of a proud and revengeful temper, and much
addicted to cursing and swearing upon any light occasion," turned against
her vehemently, wishing "that the Devil might harle her soul through
hell," and cursing her with violent imprecations. Five days after this,
Agnes Naismith, an old woman of bad fame, came into the courtyard, and
asked Christian how old she was, and how she did, inquiring also after the
health of other members of the family. Christian gave her a pert answer,
and there the matter ended; but the next night the young girl was taken
with fits, and the first act of the long and mournful tragedy began. In
her fits she cried out against Katherine Campbell and Agnes Naismith,
saying they were cutting her side and otherwise tormenting her; then she
struggled as with an unseen enemy, and her body was, now bowed stiff and
rigid, resting in an arch on her head and her heels alone, and now shaken
with such a strange motion of rising and falling, as it had been a pair of
bellows; her tongue was drawn into her throat, and even the great Dr.
Brisbane of Glasgow himself was pu