To accelerate
the catastrophe in the present case, Lady Ashton had recourse to an
expedient very consistent with the temper and credulity of those times,
but which the reader will probably pronounce truly detestable and
diabolical.
CHAPTER XXXI.
In which a witch did dwell, in loathly weeds,
And wilful want, all careless of her deeds;
So choosing solitary to abide,
Far from all neighbours, that her devilish deeds
And hellish arts from people she might hide,
And hurt far off, unknown, whome'er she envied.
Faerie Queene.
THE health of Lucy Ashton soon required the assistance of a person more
skilful in the office of a sick-nurse than the female domestics of the
family. Ailsie Gourlay, sometimes called the Wise Woman of Bowden, was
the person whom, for her own strong reasons, Lady Ashton selected as an
attendant upon her daughter.
This woman had acquired a considerable reputation among the ignorant by
the pretended cures which she performed, especially in "oncomes," as
the Scotch call them, or mysterious diseases, which baffle the regular
physician.
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