have been little better than his son--making a bad
pair between them for the teacher and "pattern child" of Brenchley. There
had long been ill blood between Mr. John Ferrall, vicar, and Margaret
Simons; and one day it came somewhat to a head; for, when the boy was
passing Margaret's house on his way home, her little dog jumped out at him
and barked. "Which thing the boy taking in evil part," says Reginald
Scot, in his quaint, blunt, incisive way, "drew his knife, and pursued him
therewith even to her door; whom she rebuked with some such words as the
boy disclaimed, and yet neverthelesse would not be perswaded to depart in
a long time." The consequence of the fray was, that the boy in five or six
days' time fell dangerously ill. Then the vicar, "who thought himself so
privileged as he little mistrusted that God would visit his children with
sicknesse," declared that his son was bewitched by Margaret Simons, who
also had done the like evil to himself; for whenever he wished to read the
service with special emphasis and care his voice always failed him, so
that his congregation could scarce hear him at all. Margaret made answer
that his voice was always hoarse and low, and particularly when he
strained himself to speak loudest then it ever failed him: but there was
no witchcraft in the case, for all that Mr. Ferrall had procured the
health of his son at the hands of another witch, who had taken off the
charm and effected a perfect cure. Margaret had a very narrow escape for
her life. The whole of the jury, save one man, were against her, but she
had in her favour the fact that the vicar was very unpopular, and, justly
or unjustly, lay under some odious charges; so, what with the sane
juryman's exertions in her favour, and Mr. Ferrall's small hold on the
interest and affections of his parishioners, she was brought in Not
Guilty, and the hangman's cord fell slack from his greedy grasp.

It must have been somewhere about this time that the execution mentioned
by Dr. More in his 'Antidote to Atheism' took place, when a mother and
daughter were hanged at Cambridge for witchcraft and service to the
Devil. When the mother was called on to renounce and forsake her old
master, she refused to do so, saying that he had been faithful to her for
fourscore years, and she would not be faithless now to him. And in that
obstinacy she died, with a courage and constancy worthy a better cause.
The daughter was of a contrary mind. She avowed h