"I would fain," says he, "fasten my loose bones together."
A younger daughter was sitting "busking her puppies" (dressing her
puppets, dolls), as young girls are used to do. He threatens to "ding out
her harns," that is, to brain her; but says she quietly, "No, if God be to
the fore," and so falls to her work again. The good wife having brought
out some bread, was breaking it, so that every one of the company should
have a piece. Cries he, "Grissel Wyllie! Grissel Wyllie! give me a piece
of that haver bread. I have gotten nothing this day but a bit from
Marritt," that is, as they speak in the country, Margaret. The minister
said to them all, "Beware of that! for it is sacrificing to the devil!"
Marritt was then called, and inquired if she had given the foul fiend any
of her haver bread. "No," says she; "but when I was eating my due piece
this morning, something came and clicked it out of my hands."
The evening had now come, and the company prepared to depart; the
minister, and the minister's wife, Alexander Bailie of Dunraget, with his
broad-lipped hat, and the rest. But the devil cried out in a kind of
agony--
"Let not the minister go! I shall burn the house if he goes." Weaver
Campbell, desperately frightened, besought the minister to stay; and he,
not willing to see them come to mischief, at last consented. As he turned
back into the house, the devil gave a great gaff of laughing, saying,
"Now, sir! you have done my bidding!" which was unhandsome of Tom--very.
"Not thine, but in obedience to God, have I returned to bear this man
company whom thou dost afflict," says the minister, nowise discomposed,
and not disdaining to argue matters clearly with the devil.
Then the minister "discharged" all from speaking to the demon, saying,
"that when it spoke to them they must only kneel and pray to God." This
did not suit the demon at all. He roared mightily, and cried, "What! will
ye not speak to me? I shall strike the bairns, and do all manner of
mischief!" No answer was returned; and again the children were slapped and
beaten on their rosy parts--where children are accustomed to be whipped.
After a while this ended too, and then the fiend called out to the
good-wife, "Grissel, put out the candle!"
"Shall I do it?" says she to the minister's wife.
"No," says that discreet person, "for then you shall obey the devil."
Upon which the devil shouted, with a louder voice, "Put out the candle!"
No one obeyed, and the candle continued burning. "Put out the candle, I
say!" cries he, more terribly than before. Grissel, not caring to continue
the uproar, put it out. "And now," says he, "I will trouble you no more
this night." For by this time I should suppose that Master Tom was sleepy,
and tired, and hoarse.
Once again the ministers and gentlemen met for prayer and exorcism; when
it is to be presumed that Tom was not with them, for everything was quiet;
but soon after the stirs began again, and Tom and the rest were sore
molested. Gilbert Campbell made an appeal to the Synod of Presbyters, a
committee of whom appointed a special day of humiliation in February,
1656, for the freeing of the weaver's house from this affliction. In
consequence whereof, from April to August, the devil was perfectly quiet,
and the family lived together in peace. But after this the mischief broke
out again afresh. Perhaps Tom had come home from college, or his father
had renewed his talk of settling him firmly to his own trade: whatever the
cause, the effect was certain, the devil had come back to Glenluce.
One day, as the good-wife was standing by the fire, making the porridge
for the children, the demon came and snatched the "tree-plate," on which
was the oatmeal, out of her hand, and spilt all the meal. "Let me have the
tree-plate again," says Grissel Wyllie, very humbly; and it came flying
back to her. "It is like if she had sought the meal too she might have got
it, such is his civility when he is intreated," says Sinclair. But this
would have been rather beyond even Master Tom's power of legerdemain.
Things after this went very ill. The children were daily thrashed with
heavy staves, and every one in the family underwent much personal damage;
until, as a climax, on the eighteenth of September, the demon said he
would burn the house down, and did, in fact, set it on fire. But it was
put out again, before much damage was done.
After a time--probably by Tom's going away, or becoming afraid of being
found out--the devil was quieted and laid for ever; and Master Tom
employed his intellect and energies in other ways than terrifying his
father's family to death, and making stirs which went by the name of
demoniac.
This account is taken almost verbatim from an article of mine in "All the
Year Round;" and if a larger space has been given to this than to many
other stories, it is because there was more colouring, and more
distinctness in the drawing, than in anything else that I have read.
Though scarcely belonging to a book on witches, there is yet a hook and
eye, if a very slender one, in the fact that the old beggar, Andrew Agnew,
was hanged; and we may be sure that it was not only his atheism, but also
his naughty tricks with Satan, and his connection with the devil of
Glenluce, that helped to fit the hangman's rope round his neck. There are
many other stories of haunted houses, notably, Mr. Monpesson's at Tedworth
caused by the Demon Drummer, and the Woodstock Devil who harried the
Parliamentary Commissioners to within an inch of their lives, and others
to the full as interesting; but there is no hook and eye with
them--nothing by which they can be hung on to the sad string of witches,
or witchcraft murders. Baxter has two or three such stories; and the
curious in such matters will find a large amount of interesting matter in
the various works referred to at the foot of the pages; matter which could
not be introduced here, because of its not belonging strictly to the
subject in hand. I do not think that any candid or unprejudiced person
will fail in seeing the dark shadow of fraud and deceit flung over every
such account remaining. The importance of which, to me, is the evident and
distinct likeness between these stories and the marvels going on now in
modern society.