, her faith being weak; and then the devil promised
that she should do all the mischief she would, if she would covenant to
give him her soul at the end of twenty-one years. She assented to this
too; and sealed the bargain with her blood. He drew the blood from under
her left arm, and "a great lump of flesh did rise there, and has increased
ever since;" and the devil scribbled with her blood, and the covenant was
signed and sealed. The name of her white imp, like a puppy, was "Lilly,"
of the black "Priscille;" and the office of the white was to hurt man,
woman, and child, but of the black to hurt cattle. The man spirit's
function was that of her husband, in which relation she lived with him to
her great satisfaction. Lilly killed Mr. Henry Bedell's child, and
Priscille sundry cattle; but she had not had much good of the bargain, for
the twenty-one years were to be out next Low Sunday, when her soul would
be required of her and the devil would take her away; and she desired to
be rid of the burden of her life before then. The judges acquiesced in her
desire: which a little good food and careful watching would have proved to
them was but the phantasy of disease; and the hangman had her body, though
no devil took her soul, and her sufferings and her sins vexed the universe
no more.

John Winnick's confession is one of the most graphic and extraordinary of
any in the tract. I give it word for word as I found it.

"The examination of John Winnick, of Molseworth in the said County,
Labourer, taken upon the 11th day of Aprill, 1646, before Robert Bernard,
Esquire, one of His Majesties Justices of the Peace for this County. Hee
saith, that about 29 yeares since, the 29th yeare ending about Midsommer
last past, he being a Batchellour, lived at Thropston with one Buteman,
who then kept the Inne at the George, and withall kept Husbandry: this
Examinate being a servant to him in his Husbandry, did then loose a purse
with 7_s._ in it, for which he suspected one in the Family. He saith that
on a Friday being in the barne, making hay-bottles for his horses about
noon, swearing, cursing, raging, and wishing to himselfe that some wise
body (or Wizzard) would helpe him to his purse and money again: there
appeared unto him a Spirit, blacke and shaggy, and having pawes like a
Beare, but in bulk not fully so big as a Coney. The Spirit asked him what
he ailed to be so sorrowfull, this Examinate answered that he had lost a
purse and money, an