Page:American Historical Review, Vol. 23.djvu/25

Rh within one hour after, the said Alice, and this examinate also, fell grievously sick, and part of the hands, fingers, and toes of the said Alice rotted and consumed away, as yet appears by her.

The singularity of this piece of sorcery consists in the fact that the maleficent magic took effect on the witch herself when she heedlessly came under its influence. Alice fell into the pit which she had dug for another. Christian suffered too, on the principle of sympathy, but the virulence of the infection was felt chiefly by its contriver.

Joan Davye testified that her husband George had a quarrel with Michael Trevisard. Within a se'nnight thereafter Joan was sitting by the fire with a young child in her arms when the child leapt into the fire and was "very much scalded". When Trevisard heard of it, he said that he could help the child in twenty-four hours, if he wished, but that he would never do good to George Davye or any of his family. Davye seems to have been at sea at the time. At all events, the very week after, on "the same voyage" (so runs the testimony) "the said George Davye was hurt very grievously in shooting off a piece for pleasure". Joan also declared that one Henry Oldreeve had some differences with Trevisard, and that soon after Oldreeve lost twenty fat wethers in one week and "he himself languished and died".

William Cozen was another person who had fallen out with Trevisard. In this case the vengeance, though deferred, was none the less certain. Within a quarter of a year, William's daughterin-law was sadly afflicted. Without a blow or any visible cause "her neck shrunk down between her two shoulders, and her chin touched her breast, and so remaineth still in a very strange manner". This accusation, like some others that we have already looked at, finds its parallel in the Lancashire case of 1612. Alison Device was the granddaughter of old Elizabeth Demdike, who had been a devotee of sorcery for fifty years and is described as "a general agent for the devil in those parts". Alison bore witness against both her mother and her grandmother; but she herself was implicated, confessed, and was hanged. Her offense was the laming of Abraham Law, a peddler. Abraham excited the compassion of the court by his miserable plight. Before his encounter with Alison Device, he

was a verie able sufficient stout man of Bodie, and a goodly man of Stature. But by this Devilish art of Witch-craft his head is drawne awrie, his Eyes and face deformed, his speech not well to bee understood; his Thighes and Legges starcke lame; his Armes lame especially