with a thorn? And when Temperance was asked if she had any clay or
wax wherewith to torment Mrs. Grace, did she not confess to a bit of
leather which she had pricked nine times, and which was as full of venom
and sorcery as any wax or clay in the world? Besides, it came out
afterwards, that she had gone to Thomas Eastcheap's shop in the form of a
gray or "braget cat," and thence taken out a "puppit or picture, commonly
called a child's baby," which she stuck full of pins, whereby to prick
Grace to death. When asked in what part of the house the said puppet or
picture was hidden, she refused to tell, saying the devil would tear her
in pieces if she confessed. Anne Wakely, too, the neighbour who went to
nurse poor Grace, had her word to say; for one morning--it was on a bonny
day in June--she saw "something in the shape of a magpye come at the
chamber window;" and when Temperance was questioned as to what she knew of
this fluttering thing, she made answer that it was the Black Man in the
shape of a bird which she had sent to trouble poor rheumatic pain-racked
Grace. For Temperance was not stiff. She was easily brought to confess how
she had given herself over to the service of a black man, who made her do
all manner of hurt to her neighbours--made her pinch Grace Thomas, and
bewitch William Herbert to his death twelve years ago, and destroy Anne
Fellows three years since--for both of which crimes she had been arraigned
and questioned at the time, but had managed to get clear. Now, however,
she confessed that she had been guilty of them. The dread and evil fame
and poverty under which she had lived so long had done their appointed
work on her poor old brain; and she was ready to confess to anything
which it was desired she should allow. Yes, she had bewitched the eyes of
Jane Dalbin, but so secretly that no one had suspected her: and she had
destroyed one woman by kissing her, holding her so tight that she squeezed
her to death--the blood gushing out of her mouth and nose: and she hunted
with the devil, he going before her in the shape of a hound; "doubtless he
hunted for souls," says a very odd tract which gives this additional trait
of diabolical management and the economy of time. Being asked of what
stature was her black man, she said "he was above the Length of her Arm;
and that his Eyes were very big; and that he hopped, or leaped in the way
before her;" but when asked if she had made any contract with him she said
"No