t Mr. Frazer, they turned their attention to Montgomerie,
"mason, in Burnside of Scrabster," who was also under the ban for having
accepted the tenancy of which Margaret Olson had been dispossessed.
Suddenly his house became so infested with cats that it was no longer safe
for his family to remain there. He himself was away, but his wife sent to
him five times, threatening that if he did not return home to protect
them, she would flit to Thurso; and his servant left them suddenly, and in
mid term, because five of these cats came one night to the fireside where
she was alone, and began speaking among themselves with human and
intelligible voices. So William Montgomerie, mason at Scrabster, returned
home to do battle with the enemy. The cats came in their old way and in
their old numbers; and William prepared his best. On Friday night, the
28th of November, one of the cats got into a chest with a hole in it, and
when she put her head out of the hole, William made a lunge at her with
his sword, which "cutt hir," but for all that he could not hold her. He
then opened the chest, and his servant, William Geddes, stuck his dirk
into her hind quarters and pinned her to the chest. After which,
Montgomerie beat her with his sword and cast her out for dead; but the
next morning she was gone; so there was no doubt as to her true character.
Four or five nights after this, his servant, being in bed, "cryed out that
Some of these catts had come in on him." Montgomerie ran to his aid, wrapt
his plaid about the cat and thrust his dirk through her body, then smashed
her head with the back of an axe, and cast her out like the first. The
next morning she too was gone, and there was proof positive for another
case. So as none of these cats belonged to the neighbourhood, and there
were eight of them assembled together in one night, "this looking like
witchcraft, it being threatened that none should thrive in my said house,"
William Montgomerie made petition to the Sherrif-Deput of Caithness, to
visit "some person of bad fame," who was reported to have fallen sick
immediately on this encounter, and search out if she had any wounds on her
body or not. "This representation seeming all the time to be very
incredulous and fabulous, the sheriff had no manner of regard yrto." But
when, on the 12th of February, Margaret Nin-Gilbert was seen by one of her
neighbours "to drop at her own door one of her leggs from the midle, and
she, being under bad fame