reat witch meeting at Malking Tower;
and so poor Alice Nutter, of Rough Lee, the well-born, well-bred
gentlewoman, was hanged with the rest of that ragged crew; and her
relations stood in her place, quite satisfied with their dexterity.

Then there was Katherine Hewitt, _alias_ Mouldheels, accused by James
Device, who seemed to think that if he had to be hanged for nothing he
would be hanged in brave company, and, by sharing with as many as could be
found, lessen the obloquy he could not escape; and John Bulcocke, who
turned the spit, and Jane his mother, for the same crimes and on the same
testimony; for the added crime, too, of helping in the bewitching of
Master Leslie, about which nefarious deed other hands were also busy; and
Margaret Pearson, delated by Chattox as entertaining a man spirit
cloven-footed, with whom she went by a loophole into Dodson's stable, and
sat all night, on his mare until it died. She was also accused by Jennet
Booth, who went into her house and begged some milk for her child;
Margaret good-naturedly gave her some, and boiled it in a pan, but all her
reward was, that Jennet accused her of witchcraft, for there was, said
she, a toad, or something very like a toad, at the bottom of the pan when
the milk was boiled, which Margaret took up with a pair of tongs and
carried out of the house. Of course the toad was an imp, and Jennet Booth
was quite right to repay an act of neighbourly generosity by accusation
and slander. Margaret got off with standing in the pillory in open market,
at four market towns on four market days, bearing a paper on her head
setting forth her offence written in great letters, about which there
could be no mistake; after which she was to confess, and afterwards be
taken to prison, where she was to lie for a year, and then be only
released when good and responsible sureties would come forward to answer
for her good behaviour.

And there was Isabel Roby, who bewitched Peter Chaddock for jilting her,
and in the spirit pinched and buffeted Jane Williams, so that she fell
sick with the impression of a thumb and four fingers on her thigh; and
Jennet Preston, she who had the white foal spirit, and who was afterwards
hung at York for the murder of Master Thomas Lister--for Master Thomas in
his last illness had been for ever crying out that Jennet Preston was
lying on him, and when she was brought to see the body it gushed out fresh
blood on her, which settled all doubts, if haply