Considering the style of public feeling which dictated and sanctioned such strictness, one is surprised at the character of the offences, as well as their frequency. How was it that, while such a view was taken of the Sunday, there were so many instances of breaking it by ‘gaming at the bob and penny game,’ by gathering fuel, cutting cabbage, drying nets, and rioting in public-houses? Why, while drunkenness was so hardly looked on, were there so many instances of it at all times of the week? Seeing, too, that the elders had so much power, how should it have been that one challenged by an elder with cabbage-gathering on a Sunday, answered insolently, ‘What have ye to do with it?’ and, ‘Who will nail my lug to the Tron for it?’ When society bore so generally a Christian tone, how happened it that William Dewar, farmer in Horsley, should have been so pagan-like as to take a lamb from his flock, and put its head on the top of his chimney, as a charm against the liver-crook in his flock? We must suppose that there was always in those days a great party in the opposition against the religious and moral authorities of the land, its force being what at once called forth and seemed to justify the severity we now remark upon with so much surprise. In short, the barbarous tendencies of the country were still very great. Cases of imputed witchcraft occupied a large share of attention at the session of Coldingham. The parish had been rather remarkable for its witches. Soon after Mr Dysart’s induction as minister, Sir Alexander Home of Renton, an heritor of the parish, but notedly a weak man, wrote to Lord Polwarth, informing him of the late great increase of this offence in the district. His father, as sheriff, had at one time ‘caused burn seven or eight of them;’ but none had been apprehended since, and it was owing to ‘the slackness of judges’ that there were now so many of bad fame for that crime in the parish. ‘I know,’ says Sir Alexander, [Sidenote: 1694.] ‘your lordship is inclined to do justice,’ being of the now predominant professions in religion; so ‘it is only proper for your lordship to take notice of it.’ He adds: ‘If some were apprehended, more would come to light;’ and he ends by offering to send a list. In September 1698, Mr Dysart got into great vigour about this class of cases. ‘Margaret Polwart, in Coldingham, having a sick child, was using charms and sorcery for its recovery; and Jean Hart, a suspected witch, was employed in the affair; and also Alison Nisbet, who had been lately scratched, or had blood drawn above the breath, by some one who had suspected her of witchcraft. One of the witnesses declared, that she saw Jean Hart holding a candle in her left hand, and moving her right hand about, and heard her mutter and whisper much, but did not understand a word that she said. Another declared, that “she (the witness) did not advise Margaret Polwart to send for Jean Hart; but she heard her say,