" are not so very far
removed from our own forefathers that we should quite ignore the likeness
between them and the recent past at home.

THE BOY OF BILSTON.[125]

The war between Papists and Protestants still went on, and the favourite
weapon with each was the old one of Possession, and its result--exorcism.
The patient in the present case was William Perry, a youth of twelve,
generally called the Boy of Bilston, whom Joan Cock bewitched for the
better showing forth the glory of God and the Church, and to the hurt of
her own soul and body. One day William Perry met old Joan as he returned
from school, and forbore to give her good time of the day, as a well-bred
youth should: whereat the old woman was angry, and called him "a foul
thing," saying "that it had been better for him if he had saluted her." At
which words the boy felt something prick him to his heart, and when he
came home fell into fits of the most demoniac kind. The parents seeing his
extremity went cap and knee to some Catholics in the neighbourhood, and
they, after long solicitation, proceeded to the exorcising. They poured
holy water and holy oil in goodly quantity upon him, and left supplies of
both to be used in their absence. The devil was sore afflicted by the
holy water and the holy oil, and made the boy cast up pins, and wool, and
knotted thread, and rosemary leaves, and walnut leaves, and feathers, and
"thrums." For there were three devils inside him, he said, and they had
uncommon power. On Corpus Christi day he brought up eleven pins, and a
knitting needle folded in divers folds; all after extreme fits and
heavings; and then the spirit told him not to listen to the exorcising
priest--which was a great compliment from the devil--and that the witch
had said she would make an end of him. When told to pray for the witch,
the boy and the devils were furious; but afterwards calmed down on the
exorciser getting extra power; and then the boy prayed his prayer and grew
better. Then he demanded that everything about him should be blessed, and
that all his family should be Catholics; but when any Puritans came in, he
said the devil assaulted him in the shape of a black bird. So it was a
vastly pretty little case of witness and conversion, and the Catholics
made the most of it. Joan must now be arrested; for the fits continued,
and the young gentleman was not to be pacified with anything short of the
witch's blood. When brought into his presence the boy