Page:A brief history of witchcraft - with especial reference to the witches of Northamptonshire (IA b3056721x).pdf/11

 and were more violently tormented than before." We can well believe that their sufferings were extreme, for they evidently disordered their senses. On returning home in a coach "there appeared to their view a man and a woman ryding both upon a blacke horse, &c. Auery hauing spyed them afarre off, and noting many strange gestures from them, sodainely spake to them that were by, and (as it were prophetically) cryed out in these words, That either they or their horses should presently miscarry. And imediately the horses fell downe dead." This is a striking illustration of the phantasms conjured up by the distempered imaginations of persons who believed themselves possessed. Black and white horses, as everybody knows, have always figured largely in connection with infernal matters. Witness the well-known "Devil's Ride" of Southey:—

The rest of the history of Agnes Browne and her daughter is short. They were arraigned at the Assizes on the charge of producing the mischief we have mentioned, and further bewitching a child to death. Of the particulars of this last case against them we are not informed. They of course pleaded not guilty, and, in fact, "stood stiffely vpon their innocence;" but this, according to the doctrine of the day, only showed that the devil had hardened their hearts. After condemnation we are told, "they were neuer heard to pray," nor is it likely they would, poor, ignorant creatures as they were, after receiving this proof of the wilful blindness and cruelty of man, and apparently having no one, even in gaol, to lead their minds to a knowledge of better things. "In this their daungerous and desperate resolution, then, they dyed." The pamphlet containing these details closes with a curious paragraph, given to explain the wood-cut on the title-page, and which we also place at the commencement of this article. It is as follows: "It was credibly reported that some fortnight before their apprehension, this Agnes Browne, one Katherine Gardiner, and one Ione Lucas, all birds of a winge, and all abyding in the towne of Gilsborough, did ride one night to a place (not aboue a mile off) called Rauenstrop, all vpon a sowes backe, to see one Mother Rhoades, an old witch that dwelt there, but before they came to her house the old witch died, and in her last cast cried out that there were three of her old friends comming to see her, but they came too late, howbeit shee would meete with them in another place within a month after." A pig's back was a method of transport unknown to the witchcraft of the middle ages. The idea was of a much more practical turn than the old-fashioned flight on the backs of cats. Of the latter the accompanying is a caricature, taken from the stalls in Winchester Cathedral. The designer must certainly have had an idea that these beldames led a jovial life.



Arthur Bill, of Raunds, who was the only man sentenced at these bloody assizes, was convicted upon similar evidence. The villagers entertained a suspicion that he had bewitched one Martha Aspine, alias Jeames, to death; and, to obtain a decisive verdict on