east. The pictures of the intended victims
were then set up at the north end of the apartment, and Christian Ross
Malcolmson, an assistant hag, shot two shafts at the image of Lady
Balnagowan, and three against the picture of Robert Munro, by which
shots they were broken, and Lady Fowlis commanded new figures to be
modelled. Many similar acts of witchcraft and of preparing poisons were
alleged against Lady Fowlis.

Her son-in-law, Hector Munro, one of his stepmother's prosecutors, was,
for reasons of his own, active in a similar conspiracy against the life
of his own brother. The rites that he practised were of an uncouth,
barbarous, and unusual nature. Hector, being taken ill, consulted on his
case some of the witches or soothsayers, to whom this family appears to
have been partial. The answer was unanimous that he must die unless the
principal man of his blood should suffer death in his stead. It was
agreed that the vicarious substitute for Hector must mean George Munro,
brother to him by the half-blood (the son of the Katharine Lady Fowlis
before commemorated). Hector sent at least seven messengers for this
young man, refusing to receive any of his other friends till he saw the
substitute whom he destined to take his place in the grave. When George
at length arrived, Hector, by advice of a notorious witch, called Marion
MacIngarach, and of his own foster-mother, Christian Neil Dalyell,
received him with peculiar coldness and restraint. He did not speak for
the space of an hour, till his brother broke silence and asked, "How he
did?" Hector replied, "That he was the better George had come to visit
him," and relapsed into silence, which seemed singular when compared
with the anxiety he had displayed to see his brother; but it was, it
seems, a necessary part of the spell. After midnight the sorceress
Marion MacIngarach, the chief priestess or Nicneven of the company, went
forth with her accomplices, carrying spades with them. They then
proceeded to dig a grave not far from the seaside, upon a piece of land
which formed the boundary betwixt two proprietors. The grave was made as
nearly as possible to the size of their patient Hector Munro, the earth
dug out of the grave being laid aside for the time. After ascertaining
that the operation of the charm on George Munro, the destined victim,
should be suspended for a time, to avoid suspicion, the conspirators
proceeded to work their spell in a singular, impressive, and, I bel