While Lillias Adie was being burned in the west of Fife, Beatrix Laing, at
Pittenweem in the east, was put to sore trouble. Patrick Morton, a youth
of sixteen "free from any known vice," sent up a petition to the Privy
Council (June 13, 1704), stating, that being employed by his father to
make some nails for a ship lying off Pittenweem, Beatrix Laing, spouse to
William Brown, tailor, and late treasurer of the burgh, came and demanded
some nails. He "modestly" refused her, saying that he was engaged in
another job, and could not therefore work for her; whereupon she went
away, "threatening to be revenged, which did somewhat frighten him,
because he knew she was under a bad fame and reputed for a witch." The
next day, on passing Beatrix's door, "he observed a timber vessel with
some water and fire coal in it at the door, which made him apprehend that
it was a charm laid for him, and the effect of her threatening; and
immediately he was seized with such a weakness in his limbs that he could
hardly stand or walk." For many weeks this strange kind of lingering
disease and discomfort went on, he "still growing worse, having no
appetite, and his body strangely emaciated," all because of Beatrix having
"slockened" fire coals in a vessel as a malevolent charm for him; till
about May the disease ripened, and the symptoms of hysteria and epilepsy
presented themselves. He swelled prodigiously; his breathing was like the
blowing of a pair of bellows; his body was rigid and inflexible; his
tongue was drawn into his mouth; and he cried out vehemently against
Beatrix Laing and others--for these accusations never came alone;
professing to know his tormentors by their touch if brought to him,
although his eyes were blinded, and the bystanders held their peace. In
short, he played the same antics here in the east as Bargarran's daughter
had played in the west. Beatrix and the rest were flung into prison, and
every effort was made to induce them to confess. Beatrix was pricked, and
kept without sleep for five days and nights; but she held out manfully.
She would not consent to accept the modest youth's interpretation of his
illness, and denied strongly all hand in it, and all trafficking with
witch charms or unholy arts. At last she was conquered. Sleeplessness and
torture did their appointed work, and she made a rambling statement of
baptismal renunciation, and the like, delating Janet Cornfort and others,
which confession she recanted as soon as she had got a little strength;
and specially that part where she had spoken of her fine packs of wool
which she had sold so well at the market, coming home afterwards on a big
black horse, which she gave into her husband's hands. Her husband, she had
said, was embarrassed with this big black horse, and asked what he should
do with it? to which she had answered, "Cast his bridle on his neck and
you will be quit of him." So the horse flew off overhead with a great
noise, and Beatrix Laing's startled husband for the first time understood
its real character.
In revenge at her obduracy the magistrates "put her in the stocks, and
then carried her to the Thieves' Hole, and from that transported her to a
dark dungeon, where she was allowed no manner of light, or human converse;
and in this condition she lay for five months." All this while the
magistrates of the burgh were pressing on the Privy Council the absolute
need of trying her; but the Earl of Balcarres and Lord Anstruther, two
members of the council connected with the district, interposed their
influence, and got the poor creature set at liberty;--"brought her off as
a dreamer," says the anonymous pamphlet angrily. But she was forced to
turn her face from Pittenweem, and "wandered about in strange places, in
the extremity of hunger and cold, though she had a competency at home, but
dared not come near her own house," for fear of the fury and rage of the
people: dying at last "undesired" in her bed at St. Andrews.
Beatrix was wandering about in strange places, safe if sorrowful, but
Alexander Macgregor clinched her muttered charge against Janet Cornfoot by
accusing her of perpetually haunting him--she and two other witches, and
his Cloutieship along with them. They tormented him chiefly in the night
time, while he was sleeping in his bed. Janet, under torture confessed;
but retracted immediately after, saying that the minister himself had
beaten her with his staff to make her speak out: and there being
considerable doubt of her guilt in the minds of the gentry of the
district, even of the chastising minister himself, she was allowed to
escape, by connivance. But another minister of the neighbourhood, with
more zeal than humanity and more grace than knowledge, stopped her in her
flight, and sent her back to Pittenweem. There the mob got hold of her.
They had been fearfully excited by Beatrix Laing's acquittal and Janet's
escape, and they were not disposed to let this unexpected glut to their
vengeance go. They seized poor Janet Cornfoot, tied her up hard in a rope,
beat her unmercifully, then dragged her by the heels through the streets
and along the shore. "The appearance of a bailie for a brief space
dispersed the crowd, but only to show how easily the authorities might
have protected their victim if they had chosen." Resuming their horrible
work, the rabble tied Janet to a rope stretching between a vessel in the
harbour and the shore, swinging her to and fro, and amusing themselves by
pelting her with stones. Tiring at length of this sport, they let her down
with a sharp fall upon the beach, beat her again unmercifully, and finally
covering her with a door, pressed her to death (Jan. 30, 1705). Janet's
daughter was in the town, and knew what was taking place down by that
blood-stained shore, but she dared not interfere; and during all the time
this hideous murder was going on--lasting for nearly three hours--neither
magistrate nor minister came forward to protect or interpose. Are verily
and in truth "the powers that be ordained of God," or has not the devil
sometimes something to do with the laying on of hands?--so much of the
devil, at least, as is represented by ignorance, inhumanity, superstition,
and cowardice, always conspicuous qualities of the more zealous of every
denomination.
About this time,[74] Thomas Brown, another of the accused, died of "hunger
and hardship" in prison; and at the close of the year, two Inverness men,
George and Lachlan Rattray, were executed, being found "guilty of the
horrid crimes of mischievous charms, by witchcraft and malefice, sorcery
or necromancy." And many witches were also burnt on the top of Spott Loan.