Grampian Club > Scotland, social and domestic

266 Scotland, Social and Domestic.
vocation on his own account, by seizing those he per-
sonally suspected, and subjecting them to his tortures ;
but this display of zeal was checked, the Justiciary
Court subjecting him to imprisonment. After experi-
encing nine weeks' detention in the Edinburgh Tol-
booth, he was liberated by the Privy Council, under the
promise that he would prick no more without judicial
warrant.
In discharging his revolting office, Kincaid proceeded
after the most barbarous fashion. Having stripped his
victims, and bound them with cords, he thrust his
needles everywhere into their bodies. Screams, entrea-
ties, protestations of innocence he heard unmoved. When
his victim fell into a swoon, he relented only till sensa-
tion was reproduced on the application of restoratives.
When, exhausted by an agony too great for utterance,
his victim remained silent, Kincaid proclaimed that he
had found the mark! Every witch-pricker exercised his
craft with similar brutality. One of the brotherhood,
who was hanged, declared on the gibbet that he had
illegally caused the death of one hundred and twenty
females, whom he had been appointed to test for witch-
craft.
The swimming test was somewhat less common.
There were witch-pools in different localities. Into
these suspected persons were thrown, having previously
been wrapped up in a sheet, with the thumbs and
great toes fastened together. If the body floated, the
water used in baptism was held to reject the accused,
who was consequently declared to be guilty. Those
who sank were pronounced innocent, but were allowed
to perish in the water. A portion of the bay at
St. Andrews still bears the name of the Witch Pool.