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Hector Munro was now convinced that everything possible had been done, and that his half-brother must perforce be his sacrifice. In his gratitude he made M‘Ingareach keeper of his sheep, and go uplifted her that the common people durst not oppose her for their lives. It was the public talk that he favoured her “gif she had been his own wife;” and once he kept her out of the way “at his own charges,” when she was cited to appear before the court to answer to the crime of witehcraft. But in spite of the tremendous evidence against him, Hector got clear off, as his stepmother had done before him, and we hear no more of the Fowlis follies and the Fowlis crimes. Nothing but their rank and the fear of the low people saved them. Slighter crimes than theirs, and on more slender evidence, had been sufficient cause for condemnation ere now; and Lady Katherine’s poisonings, and Hector Munro’a incantations, would have met with the fate the one at least deserved, save for the power and aid of clanship.

BESSIE ROY.

The month after this trial, Bessie Roy, nurreych (nurse) to the Leslies of Balquhain, was “dilatit” for sorcery generally, and specially for being “a common awataker of women’s milk.” She took away poor Bessie Steel’s, when she came to ask alms, and only restored it again when she was afraid of getting into trouble for the fault. She was also accused of having, “by the space of tual yeiris syne or thairby,” past to the field with other women to pluck lint, but instead of following her lawful occupation, she had made “ane compas (circle) in the eird, and ane hoill in the middis thairof;”