e years down in Kent, and would
serve her now, an she would. The woman took the cat at its word, and by it
killed many a cow and hog of those who angered her: at last she sent it to
this man, and the cat killed him. She was hanged, and the yellow dun imp
was never more seen.

Mr. Giffard knew a church which had been robbed of its communion service:
a wise man told the churchwardens what to do and the thief would surely
ride in all haste to confess. As it proved. Another case was that of a
child taken piteously ill. Under the cunning man's advice the father burnt
its clothes, and while they were burning, the witch came running in,
grievously pained. The child was well within two days. A butcher had a
son, John, terribly afflicted with sores. Salves and plasters would not
heal him; but when a cunning man showed him in a glass the form of the
witch who had laid this harmful thing upon him, and they had cut off some
of the boy's hair and burnt it, the old woman came to the house in all
speed, crying, "John, John, scratch me!" So John scratched her till the
blood came, and his sores all healed of themselves, without salve or
plaster helping. A woman had blear eyes that were watery; a knave lodging
at the house wrote a charm which she was always to wear about her neck,
and never lose or look at. She wore her charm, and her eyes got quite
well; but one day, prompted by Eve's sin, she opened the packet, and found
a piece of paper on which was written, in the German tongue, "The devil
plucke out thine eyes and fill their holes with dirt." Terrified at the
unholy nature of her cure, the woman flung the charm away, and her eyes
immediately became bleared and watery as before.[110] A woman suspected of
witchcraft was taken in hand by a gentleman, who undertook to induce her
to confess. She was very stiff about the matter, and denied all dealings
with the devil in any way. Suddenly, at some distance from them, appeared
a weasel or a lobster, looking straight at them. "Look!" said the
gentleman, "yonder same is thy spirit!" "Oh, master," said she, "that is a
vermine. There be many of them everywhere." But as they went towards it,
the weasel or lobster vanished clean out of sight. "Surely," said the
gentleman, "it is thy spirit." But still she denied, "and with that her
mouth was drawn all awrie." When a little further pressed she allowed all,
and the gentleman, being no justice, sent her home, exhorting her to go to
a magistrate and e