the general taste, stood the best chance of obtaining a monopoly. It is a curious fact, that the son-in-law of one of these two individuals, and whose wife was herself executed as a witch, paid to the other a yearly rent,[34] on an express covenant that she should exempt him from her charms and witchcrafts. Where the possession of a commission from the powers of darkness was thus eagerly and ostentatiously paraded, every death, the cause of which was not perfectly obvious, whether it ended in a sudden termination or a slow and gradual decline, would be placed to the general account of one of the two (to use Master Potts's description,) "agents for the devil in those parts," as the party responsible for these unclaimed dividends of mortality. Did a cow go mad, or was a horse unaccountably afflicted with the staggers, the same solution was always at hand to clear negligence and save the trouble of inquiry; and so far from modestly disclaiming these atrocities, the only struggle on the parts of Mothers Demdike and Chattox would be which should first appropriate them. And in all this it must not be forgotten that their own credulity was at least as great as the credulity of their neighbours, and that each had the power in question was so much an admitted point, that she had long ceased, in all probability, to entertain any doubts on the subject. With this general conviction on one hand, and a sincere persuasion on the other, it would be surprising if, in the course of a few years, the scandalous chronicle of Pendle had not accumulated a _corpus delicti_ against them, which only required that "_one of his Majesties Justices in these parts, a very religious honest gentleman, painful in the service of his country_," should work the materials into shape, and make "the gruel thick and slab." [Footnote 32: The Archdeacon of Manchester suggests that this is merely a corruption of Chadwick or Chadwicks, and not, as explained in the Note, p. 19, from her chattering as she went along.] [Footnote 33: These bickerings were no doubt exasperated by the robbery committed upon old Demdike and Alizon Device, which is detailed in the examinations, some of the _opima spolia_ abstracted on which occasion she detected on the person of old Chattox's daughter.] [Footnote 34: Of an aghendole of meal. Since writing the Note, p. 23, I am indebted to Miss Clegg, of Hallfoot, near Clitheroe, for information as to the exact quantity contained in an aghendole, which is eight pounds. This measure, she informs me, is still in use in Little Harwood, in the district of Pendle. The Archdeacon of Manchester considers that an aghendole, or more properly, as generally pronounced, a nackendole, is a kneading-dole, the quantity of meal, &c. usually taken for kneading at one time. There can be no doubt that this is the correct derivation.]