And she was imprisoned for a week in the
steeple of the parish church, and sparingly supplied with food, and not
permitted to sleep, until she herself became as much persuaded of her
being a witch as her accusers; and in this lucid and happy state of
mind was brought forth to make a clean breast, that is, to make open
confession of her sorceries, before all the Whig gentry and ministers
in the vicinity, who were no conjurers themselves. My father went to see
fair play between the witch and the clergy; for the witch had been
born on his estate. 'And while the witch was confessing that the Enemy
appeared, and made his addresses to her as a handsome black man,--which,
if you could have seen poor old blear-eyed Janet, reflected little
honour on Apollyon's taste,--and while the auditors listened with
astonished ears, and the clerk recorded with a trembling hand, she, all
of a sudden, changed the low mumbling tone with which she spoke into a
shrill yell, and exclaimed, "Look to yourselves! look to yourselves! I
see the Evil One sitting in the midst of ye." The surprise was general,
and terror and flight its immediate consequences. Happy were those who
were next the door; and many were the disasters that befell hats, bands,
cuffs, and wigs, before they could get out of the church, where they
left the obstinate prelatist to settle matters with the witch and her
admirer, at his own peril or pleasure.
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