given evidence against him knew it,' but named none. So evidence had
been given (perhaps to the effect that Richard had been flush of
money), but by whom, and to what effect, we do not know.

The Perrys were probably not of the best repute. The mother, Joan, was
supposed to be a witch. This charge was seldom brought against popular
well-living people. How intense was the fear of witches, at that date,
we know from the stories and accounts of trials in Glanvil's
_Sadducismus Triumphatus_. The neighbours probably held that Joan
Perry would, as a witch, be 'nane the waur o' a hanging.' She was put
to death first, under the belief that any hypnotic or other unholy
influence of hers, which prevented her sons from confessing, would be
destroyed by her death. We are not aware that post-hypnotic suggestion
is removed by the death of the suggester; the experiment has not been
tried. The experiment failed in Joan's case. Poor Richard, who was
hanged next, could not induce the 'dogged and surly' John to clear his
character by a dying declaration. Such declarations were then held
irrefragable evidence, at least in Scotland, except when (as in the
case of George Sprot, hanged for the Gowrie conspiracy) it did not
suit the Presbyterians to believe the dying man. When John was being
turned off, he said that 'he knew nothing of his master's death, nor
what was become of him, but they might hereafter (possibly) hear.' Did
John know something? It would not surprise me if he had an inkling of
the real state of the case.


II

They _did_ hear; but what they heard, and what I have now to tell, was
perfectly incredible. When 'some' years (two apparently) had passed,