es. Lillias had no mind that they
should lose their trouble. She confessed herself a witch without further
ado; said how that she had met the devil by the side of a "stook" in the
harvest field, where she had renounced her baptism and accepted him on the
instant as her lord and lover; how he had embraced her, when she found his
skin cold, and saw his feet cloven like a "stirk's." Since then she had
joined in dances with him and others whom she named; for Lillias, like all
the rest, seemed to think there was safety in a multitude, and delated
several of the parish, to bear her company in her uncomfortable position;
and she told how, at the back of Patrick Sands' house in Vellyfield, they
were lighted by a mysterious light, just sufficient to let them see each
other's faces, and to show the devil with a cap covering his ears and
neck. The minister and elders had now rich game in view, and they held
meeting after meeting to examine those whom Lillias accused, and feed
their ears with all the wild and monstrous tales they chose to pour into
them. But what became of them eventually no one now knows: only of a
surety Lillias Adie was burned "within the sea mark," and Jean Neilson
might now bear her uncatalogued ailments in peace. The minister of
Torryburn at that time was one Allen Logan--the Reverend Allen
Logan--notorious for his skill in detecting witches, and his zeal in
hunting them down. When administering the communion he would flash his eye
through the congregation and say harshly, as by knowledge, "You
witch-wife, get up from the table of the Lord," casting a ball for the
conscience-stricken to kick at; when, ten to one, some poor old trembling
wretch would totter up, and so go mumbling through the doors, "thus
exposing herself to the hazard of a regular accusation afterwards." He was
always "dinging" against witchcraft; and one day a woman called Helen Kay
took up her stool and went out of the church. She said she thought he was
"daft" "to be always dinging against witches thae' gait;" but the elders
thought differently, and Helen Kay was convicted of profanity, and
ordained to sit before the congregation and be openly rebuked.

THE HORRIBLE MURDER OF JANET CORNFOOT.[73]

While Lillias Adie was being burned in the west of Fife, Beatrix Laing, at
Pittenweem in the east, was put to sore trouble. Patrick Morton, a youth
of sixteen "free from any known vice," sent up a petition to the Privy
Council (June 13, 1704), st