“At length the night fell upon the scene; and, at eight o’clock, Cleary, who seems to have ordered all the other actors about as if they were hypnotized, sent Johanna Burke and her little daughter Katie for ‘Thomas Smith and David Hogan.’ Smith says, ‘We all went to Cleary’s, and found Michael Cleary, Mary Kennedy, Johanna Meara, Pat Leahy, and Pat Boland in the bedroom.’ The husband had a bottle in his hand, and said to the poor bewildered wife, ‘Will you take this now, as Tom Smith and David Hogan are here? In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!’ Tom Smith, a man who said ‘he had known her always since she was born,’ then inquired what was in the bottle, and Cleary told him it was holy water. Poor Bridget Cleary said ‘Yes,’ and she took it. She had to say, before taking it, ‘In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,’ which she did. Smith and Hogan then left the bedside and ‘went and sat at the fire.’ Cleary told them that his wife, ‘as she had company, was going to get up.’ She actually left her bed, put on ‘a frock and shawl,’ and came to the kitchen fire. The talk turned upon _bishogues_, or witchcraft and charms. Smith remained there till twelve o’clock, and then left the house, leaving Michael Cleary (husband), Patrick Boland (father), Mary Kennedy (aunt), Patrick, James, and William Kennedy (cousins), Johanna Burke, and her little daughter Katie (also cousins), behind him in the house. Thomas Smith never saw Bridget Cleary after that. According to Johanna Burke, they continued ‘talking about fairies,’ and poor Bridget Cleary, sitting there by the fire in her frock and shawl, wan and terrified, had said to her husband, ‘Your mother used to go with the fairies; that is why you think I am going with them.’ “‘Did my mother tell you that?’ exclaimed Cleary. “‘She did. That she gave two nights with them,’ replied she.… “Johanna Burke then says that she made tea and ‘offered Bridget Cleary a cup.’ But Cleary jumped up, and getting ‘three bits of bread and jam,’ said she would ‘have to eat them before she could take a sup.’ He asked her as he gave her each bit, ‘Are you Bridget Cleary, wife of Michael Cleary, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost?’ The poor, desolate young woman answered twice and swallowed two pieces. We all know how difficult it is, when wasted by suffering and excited by fear, to swallow a bit of dry bread without a drop of liquid to soften it. It, in fact, was the task set to those in the olden days who had to undergo the ‘ordeal by bread.’ How many of them, we are told, failed to accomplish it! Poor Bridget Cleary failed now at the third bit presented to her by the demon who confronted her. She could not answer the third time. “He ‘forced her to eat the third bit.’ He threatened her, ‘If you won’t take it, down you go!’ He flung her to the ground, put his knee on her chest, and one hand on her throat, forcing the bit of bread and jam down her throat.