smooth plastered Wall, till
her Feet were nine Foot high, her Head standing off from it." This she did
five or six times, laughing and saying that Bess Horner held her up. Old
Bess had a kind of wart or excrescence on her shoulder, which William
Bovet's children said was her witch-mark, and where her imp--a
toad--sucked; but the Lord Chief Justice shook his head, and Bess Horner
was let to live on in her own way, taking off her head at will, and
sending it into children's bodies, and nourishing a devil in shape of a
toad on her shoulder--the law and judgment not interposing. The Lord Chief
Justice had very many cases of witchcraft brought before him--about eleven
places in all being supposed to be so infected--but he brought in every
one "not guilty."

One of the most celebrated cases tried by him was that of Richard
Hathaway, who came before him at the Guildford Assize of 1701 with a
pitiful tale of possession and bewitchment, all owing to Sarah Morduck, of
Southwark, in which parish he too was living as apprentice to Thomas
Wellyn, blacksmith. Richard had fits and convulsions, in all probability
real enough, for he was sent to the hospital, where he lay for seven weeks
in a pitiable condition, sometimes bent double, and at all times strangely
and fearfully contorted. This began in September, 1690,[155] he said, when
the first appearances of being bewitched manifested themselves. For then
he vomited crooked pins in great numbers, and lumps of tin, and loose
nails, and nut-shells, and stones; and he foamed at the mouth; and bowed
himself into an arch; and lay as if dead; and barked like a dog; and burnt
as if with fire; and in the midst of all signed that Sarah Morduck had
bewitched him, and that he should never be well till he had "scratched"
her. So she was brought to him to be scratched; after which he ate and
drank and had his sight and was perfectly well for six weeks together.
Then he fell ill again, and must needs scratch her for this attack; and
this time with more unction, for Sarah "was assaulted in her own House,
and grievously abused; her Hair and Face torn; she was kicked, thrown to
the Ground, stamped on, and threatened to be put into a Horse Pond, to be
tried by Swimming, and very hardly escaped with her Life." To avoid being
absolutely murdered, she left Southwark and went into London; but still
was not safe, for she was constantly being followed in the streets, and
was often in danger of being pulled to