ks
which should prevent his going to school any more, and would instead lead
all people to pity and lament him, holding him to be bewitched. But it was
shrewdly suspected that the old man Thomas, with his gray hair and cradle
of glass, was but a pleasant phantasy of the imagination; and that the
real secret had lain with the Catholic priests, who, finding the boy apt
and handy, thought they could make good capital out of him for their
Church, and put him forth as a witness for its divine power and holy
office, seeing that it could dispossess the demoniac and drive away evil
spirits. Fortunately they reckoned without their host--the host of
"reformed" bigotry and hatred: for we need not congratulate ourselves on
any clearsightedness or common sense in the matter. Had the Boy of Bilston
been a sound Protestant, he would have been held as indubitably Possessed
by the Devil, and some poor wretch would have been found as a convenient
sacrifice to the stupidity of that devil.

MR. FAIRFAX'S FOLLY.

The next year saw Mr. Fairfax of Knaresborough--Edward Fairfax, the
scholar, the gentleman, the classic, our best translator of Tasso,
graceful, learned, elegant Edward Fairfax--pursuing with incredible zeal
six of his neighbours for supposed witchcraft on his children. The
children had fits and were afflicted with imps, so Edward Fairfax thought
his paternal duty consisted in getting the lives of six supposed witches,
the hanging of whom would infallibly cure his children, and drive away the
evil spirits possessing them. But fortunately for the accused the judge
had more sense than Mr. Fairfax; and, though the women were sent back
again for another assize, suffered them to escape with only the terror of
death twice repeated. It is strange to find ourselves face to face with
such stupid bigotry as this in a man so estimable and so refined as
Fairfax.

THE COUNTESS.[126]

Lady Jennings and her young daughter Elizabeth, of thirteen, lived at
Thistlewood in the year 1622. One day an old woman, coming no one knew
whence, perhaps from the bowels of the earth, appeared suddenly before the
girl, demanding a pin. The child was frightened, and had fits soon
after--fits of the usual hysteric character, but quite sufficiently severe
to alarm Lady Jennings. A doctor was sent for; but also, as well as the
doctor, came a clever shrewd woman called Margaret Russill, or "Countess,"
a bit of a doctress in her way, perhaps a bit of a white w