for witchcraft, the legg, black and putrified,
was brought before the Sheriff-depute" (not the sheriff himself, the Earl
of Caithness, who might have had a little more common sense)--then the
said Sheriff-depute ordered Nin-Gilbert to be seized and examined.
Margaret made short work of it. Being interrogated the 8th of February,
1719, she confessed that she was under compact with the devil, whom she
had met in the likeness of a black man as she was travelling some long
time byegone in ane evening; confessed also that he sometimes appeared to
her as a great black horse, and other times as if riding on a black horse,
and sometimes as a black cloud, and sometimes as a black hen. Confessed
also that she was at William Montgomerie's house that evening, when he
attacked her as a cat, and that he broke her leg with the dirk or axe,
which since had fallen off from the rest of her body: also, that Margaret
Olson was there with her, who, being stronger than she did cast her on the
dirk when her leg was broken. She then delated four other women, one of
whom, Helen Andrew, had been so crushed and maimed by Montgomerie, "that
she dyed that same night of her wounds or few days yrafter:" and another,
M'Huistan, "cast herself a few days afterwards from the rocks of
Borrowstoun into the sea, since which time she was never seen; while a
third, Jannet Pyper, she identified as having a red petticoat on her.
Asked how they managed not to be discovered said, the devil raised a fog
or mist to conceal them." When her confession was ended, her accomplices
were apprehended; but she herself died in prison in a fortnight's time.
Margaret Olson was then examined. She was "tryed in the shoulders" (for
witches' marks), "where there were several small spots, some read, some
blewish; after a needle was driven in with great force almost to the eye
she felt it not. Mr. Innes, Mr. Oswald, minister, and several honest
women, and Bailzie Forbes, were witnesses to this. And further, that
while the needle was in her shoulder, as aforesaid, she said, 'Am not I
ane honest woman now?'" So this instance of human wickedness and folly
ended by the usual method of the cord and the stake.

THE YOUNG HONOURABLE'S DECEITS.

January, 1720, saw distress and confusion at Calder in Mid Lothian. Lord
Torphichen's third son, the Honourable Patrick Sandilands, was bewitched,
and the whole country was in excitement. If the devil could touch a Lord's
son, who was safe? There