while Mother Baker suffered the penalties awarded in
Scot's time to cozenage and deceit with intent to defraud or do ill.

DOLL BILBY AND HER COMPEER.[145]

Burton Agnes, in the county of York, was troubled; for Faith Corbet, the
young daughter of Henry Corbet, was taken violently ill, and Alice Huson
and Doll Bilby had bewitched her. Good Mrs. Corbet--beyond her age in
generous unbelief--refused to entertain her daughter's suspicions; indeed
she had chidden her some years ago for calling old Alice a witch, for she
had a liking to the poor widow, and kept her about the house, looking
after her young turkeys, &c., and was kind and liberal to her, and sought
to make her wasting life pass as easily as might be. But Miss Faith hated
the old woman, and cried out against her as a witch; and when she lost her
gloves, swore that Alice had taken them to play cantrips with, and that
she should never be well again. Then she began to fall into fits, when she
would be so terribly tormented that it took two or three to hold her; and
she would screech and cry out vehemently, and bite and scratch anything
she could lay hold of, all the while exclaiming, "Ah, Alice, old witch,
have I gotten thee!" And sometimes she would lie down, all drawn together
in a round, and be speechless and half swooning for days together; and
then she would be wildly merry, and as full of antics as a monkey.
Physicians were consulted, but none came near to her disorder; and though
her father carried her about hither and thither, for change of air,
nothing would cure her, she said, so long as Alice Huson and Doll Bilby
remained at liberty. Still the father and mother held out, until, one day,
before a whole concourse of people come to look at her in her fits, she
cried out, "Oh Faithless and incredulous People! shall I never be believed
till it be past Time? For I am as near Death as possibly may be, and when
they have got my Life you will repent when it is past Time." On hearing
this the father went to the minister of Burton Agnes, Mr. Wellfet, and he,
Sir Fr. Boynton--a justice of the peace--and Mr. Corbet himself at last
dragged the old woman Huson into Faith's chamber. At which Miss Faith gave
a great screech, but presently called for toast and beer; then for
cordials; and having taken a somewhat large quantity of both, she got up,
dressed herself, and came down stairs. This, too, after she had been so
weak that she could not turn herself in bed: which pr