hree other women, who were
immediately put under arrest, though they came to no harm in the end. When
she was brought to trial, sixteen witnesses, including three clergymen,
were standing there ready to testify against her, how that she had
bewitched this one's cattle, and that one's sheep; and taken all the power
from this one's body, and all the good from that one's gear; and
slaughtered this child, and that man, by her evil eye and her curses; and
in fact how that she had done all the mischief that had happened in the
neighbourhood for years past. And there was Matthew Gilson, who had been
sent mad, and forced to wander about the country with his shirt stuffed
full of straw like a scarecrow; and Anne Thorne, who had had fits ever
since her marvellous journey with the dislocated knee; and another Anne,
very nearly as hardly holden as the first; and others beside, whom her
malice had rendered sick and lame, and unfit for decent life: moreover,
two veracious witnesses deposed positively to her taking the form of a cat
when she would, and to hearing her converse with the devil when under the
form of a cat, he also as a cat; together with Anne Thorne's distinct
accusation that she was beset with cats--tormented exceedingly--and that
all the cats had the face and the voice of Jane Wenham.

The lawyers, who believed little in the devil and less in witchcraft,
refused to draw up the indictment on any other charge save that of
"conversing familiarly with the devil in the form of a cat." But in spite
of Mr. Bragge's earnest appeals against such profanation, and the ridicule
which it threw over the whole matter, the jury found the poor old creature
guilty, and the judge passed sentence of death against her. The evidence
was too strong. Even one of the Mr. Chaunceys deposed that a cat came
knocking at his door, and that he killed it--when it vanished away, for it
was no other than one of Jane Wenham's imps; and all Mr. Gardiner's house
went mad, some in one way and some in another: and credible witnesses
deposed that they had seen pins come jumping through the air into Anne
Thorne's mouth, and when George Chapman clapped his hand before her mouth
to prevent them skipping in, he felt one stick against his hand, as sharp
as might be; and every night Anne's pincushion was left full, and every
morning found empty, and who but Jane could have conveyed them all from
the pincushion into her mouth, where they were to be found all crooked