January, 1664, in an examination taken before Robert Hunt, vouched for
the truth of the fits, and the swellings, and the black thorns in the
midst of the swellings; but he did not add to this testimony the further
assertion that it was Elizabeth Styles who had bewitched the child, though
she herself "cried out" on her, and said that she tormented her in her
fits. Elizabeth Styles was further accused of causing Richard Hill's horse
to sit down and paw with his fore feet when attempted to be crossed, and
of having bewitched Agnes Vining by means of a rosy-cheeked apple, which
was no sooner eaten than it caused a grievous pricking in Agnes' thigh,
who forthwith languished and died, "her hip rotted, and one of her eyes
swelled out." These are signs of a worse bewitchment than poor old Mother
Styles's rosy-cheeked apple--signs of the deadly sorcery of scrofula
induced by the poverty, dirt, bad food and worse lodging of the times; for
the effects of which many a poor wretch lost her life who yet had done no
more harm than the nursling at the breast. Robert Hunt the Justice, and
one of our fine old English gentlemen, did not take this materialistic
view of the matter. When told of Agnes Vining's illness and manner of
disease, and seeing Elizabeth Styles looking appalled and concerned, he
said to her: "You have been an old sinner, you deserve little mercy." To
which the poor soul answered, humbly, "I have asked God for it." She then
said that the devil had seduced her, and so began her confession on the
26th of January--three days after the first accusation by the Hills. She
said that about ten years ago the devil appeared to her as a handsome man
changing afterwards to the shape of a black dog; "that he promised her
money, and that she should live gallantly, and have the Pleasures of the
World for twelve years," if only she would sign a certain bond with her
blood, give him her soul, obey his laws, and let him suck her blood. To
all of which she consented after four solicitations, whereupon he pricked
her finger--the mark thereof to be seen at this time--and she, with her
own blood signed the paper with an O, when the devil gave her sixpence and
vanished with the bond. Since then he appeared to her constantly, under
the forms of a man, a cat, a dog, or a "fly like a millar" (a large white
moth), as which last he usually sucked her poll about four in the morning;
and hurt her terribly in doing so. She also said that when she wante