her in gaol, muttering words that she could
not understand: as how indeed should she,
poor raving maniac that she was!

In sixteen hundred and thirty-four, a boy
called Edmund Robinson deposed that while
gathering bullees (wild plums) in Pendle
Forest, he saw two greyhounds, with no one
following them. Liking the notion of a course,
he started a hare; but the dogs refused to
run: when, as he was about to strike them,
Dame Dickenson, a neighbour's wife, started
up instead of one hare, and a little boy
instead of the other. The dame offered the
lad a bribe if he would conceal the matter,
but our virtuous Edmund refused, saying,
"nay thou art a witch, Mother Dickenson;"
whereon taking a halter out of her pocket, she
shook it over the hare-boy's head, who instantly
changed into a horse; and the witch mounting
her human charger, took Robinson before
her, and set off. They went to a large house
or barn called Hourstoun, where there were
several persons milking ropes; which as
they milked, gave them meat ready cooked,
bread, butter, milk, cheese, and all the
adjuncts of a royal feast. The lad said
they looked so ugly while thus milking out
their dinner, that he was frightened. By
many more lies, as impossible but as
damnatory as this, the boy procured himself and
his father a good livelihood, and caused some
scores of innocent people to be carried off to
prison. The magistrates and clergy adopted
him; he was taken about the country to
identify any hapless wretch he might choose
to swear he had seen at these witch meetings;
and he and his father lived at free charges,
with money in their pockets besides, all the
time the imposture lasted. Only Mr. Webster,
Glanvil's great opponent, had the sense
and courage to examine him, with the view
of eliciting the truth, rather than of confirming
his report; but the boy was rudely taken
out of his hands. At last he confessed the
truth—That he had been put up to the whole
thing by his father and others; that he had
never seen or heard a word of all he had
deposed; and that when he swore he was at
Hourstoun, he was stealing plums in a
neighbour's orchard. This was the second great
Lancashire witch trial; the first was in
sixteen hundred and thirteen; the principal
witch of this, Shadwell's Mother Demdike,
died during the trial, and several of the
meaner sort escaped.

And now the reign of Matthew Hopkins,
witch-finder, begins. This infamous wretch
was in Manningtree in sixteen hundred and
forty-four, when the great witch persecution
arose, and was mainly instrumental in
exciting that persecution. He practised his
trade as a legal profession, charging so much
for every town he visited, besides his journeying
expenses and the cost of his two assistants.
He and John Kincaid in Scotland
were the great "prickers;" that is, with a
pin about three inches long, they pricked a
suspected witch all over her body, until they
found the mark—or said they found it—
which mark was conclusive and irrefragable
evidence of the Satanic compact. The following
was his mode of treatment; quoting
Mr Gaul, the clergyman of Houghton; who,
like Webster, was what Glanvil calls a
"Sadducee," an "Atheist," and believed very
sparsely in witchcraft.

"Having taken the suspected witch, she is
placed in the middle of the room, upon a
stool or table, cross-legged, or in some other
uneasy posture, to which if she submits not
she is bound with cords; there she is watched
and kept without meat or sleep for
four-and-twenty hours, for they say they
shall, within that time, see her imp come
and suck. A little hole is likewise made in
the door for the imps to come in at; and,
lest they should come in some less discernible
shape, they that watch are taught to be
ever and anon sweeping the room, and if
they see any spiders or flies to kill them, and
if they cannot kill them then they may be
sure they are imps."

Such as was the familiar of Elizabeth
Styles, which was seen by her watchers to
settle on her poll in the form of a "large
fly like a millar," or white moth. Speaking
of familiars, Hopkins found several belonging
to Elizabeth Clarke, whose deposition he
took down, March the twenty-fifth, sixteen
hundred and forty-five. She had Holt, like
a white kitling; Jarmara, a fat spaniel
without legs; Vinegar Tom, "a long-legged
grey-hound, with a head like an oxe, with a
long taile and broad eyes, who, when this
Discoverer (Hopkins) spoke to, and bade him
goe to the place provided for him and his
angels, immediately transformed himself into
the shape of a childe of foure yeares old without
a heade, gave half a dozen turnes about;
the house and vanished at the door."
Sack-and-Sugar was like a rabbit, and Newes like
a polecat: all of which imps, Matthew
Hopkins, of Manningtree, gent., deposes on
oath to having seen and spoken to. There
were others of which he gives only the
names: as Elemauzer, Pyewacket,
Peck-in-the-Crown, Grizel Greedigut, &c. Elizabeth
Clarke was executed, as a matter of course,
following on the disclosures of the witchfinder
respecting her imps. Ann Leech was
executed the next month, chiefly because of
the sudden death of Mr. Edwards' two cows
and a child: also because of her possessing a
grey imp. Anne Gate had four imps: James,
Prickeare, Robyn, like mouses; and Sparrow,
like a sparrow. For the which crime, besides
their having killed divers children, she was
executed at Chelmsford in that same year of
sixteen hundred and forty-five. Rebecca
Jones had three, like moles, having four feet
apiece, but without tails and black; she
shared the usual fate. Susan Cock had two,
one like a mouse, called Susan, the other
yellow and like a cat, called Bessie. Joyce