hat
fair words had failed in. When the black dog came he said, "What wouldst
thou have me to do with yonder man?" To whom she answered, "What canst
thou do at him?" and the dog answered again, "I can lame him." "Lame him,"
says Alison Device; and before the pedlar went forty yards he fell lame.
When questioned, he, on his side, said, that as he was going through
Colnefield he met a big black dog with very fearful fiery eyes, great
teeth, and a terrible countenance, which looked at him steadily then
passed away; and immediately after he was bewitched into lameness and
deformity. And this took place after having met Alison Device and refused
to sell her any pins. Then Alison fell to weeping and praying, beseeching
God and that worshipful company to pardon her sins. She said further that
her grandmother had bewitched John Nutter's cow to death, and Richard
Baldwin's woman-child on account of the quarrel before reported, saying
that she would pray for Baldwin himself, "both still and loud," and that
she was always after some matter of devilry and enchantment, if not for
the bad of others then for the good of herself. For once, Alison got a
piggin full of blue milk by begging, and when she came to look into it,
she found a quarter of a pound of butter there, which was not there
before, and which she verily believed old Mother Demdike had procured by
her enchantments. Then Alison turned against the rival Hecate, Anne
Whittle, _alias_ Chattox, between whom and her family raged a deadly feud
with Mother Demdike and her family; accusing her of having bewitched her
father, John Device, to death, because he had neglected to pay her the
yearly tax of an aghen dole (eight pounds) of meal, which he had
covenanted to give her on consideration that she would not harm him. For
they had been robbed, these poor people, of a quarter of a peck of cut
oatmeal and linens worth some twenty shillings, and they had found a coif
and band belonging to them on Anne Whittle's daughter; so John Device was
afraid that old Chattox would do them some grievous injury by her
sorceries if they cried out about it, therefore made that covenant for the
aghen dole of meal, the non-payment of which for one year set Chattox free
from her side of the bargain and cost John's life. She said, too, that
Chattox had bewitched sundry persons and cattle, killing John Nutter's cow
because he, John Nutter, had kicked over her canfull of milk, misliking
her devilish way of p