Great consternation prevailed in the country. The parish minister, like a good pious pastor, prayed with and for the child. Clergymen from adjoining parishes visited Bargarran, and witnessed Catherine Shaw's sufferings. The presbytery appointed days of humiliation on account of what left no doubt in the minds of divines that the girl was bewitched. Fasting and prayer seemed to have an alleviating tendency, yet they did not prevent the evil continuing in a mitigated form. Recourse was therefore had to the law. Mr. Shaw, the girl's father, applied to the sheriff-depute; and that officer, in what he considered a proper discharge of his duty, imprisoned Catherine Campbell.
This judicial proceeding had the effect of securing relief for the afflicted girl for a time, but her enemies were not all confined nor rendered harmless, for she declared she heard now and again tormentors, whom she repeatedly named, whispering among themselves that they were, by desire of the devil, to carry her away. And it was supposed she would have been conveyed away from her friends, had not the minister prayed for her at the time the witches were about to carry their diabolical intentions into operation.
The lamentable case of the afflicted family being represented to his Majesty's Privy Council, a commission was, worthily and piously it is said, appointed to inquire into the case. By warrant of this commission, certain suspected persons were apprehended. Alexander Anderson, represented as an ignorant irreligious fellow; Elizabeth Anderson, his daughter; and Jean Fulton, grandmother of the said Elizabeth Anderson, were secured. Elizabeth Anderson, on being severely interrogated, declared she had frequently seen the devil, in the likeness of a little black man, in the company of her grandmother. She also confessed that she herself had been at several meetings with the devil and witches; and she declared her father and a Highlandman in the neighbourhood, along with others, were active agents in tormenting Christina Shaw.
A quorum of the commissioners met at Bargarran; and the persons accused by Elizabeth Anderson to have been at the meetings with the devil, and to have been active instruments of Christina Shaw's trouble—viz. Alexander Anderson, Agnes Naismith, Margaret Fulton, James Lindsay, John Lindsay, and Catherine Campbell—were (except John Lindsay, not then in custody) confronted with the afflicted damsel before Lord Blantyre and other commissioners, together with ministers of the gospel and non-clerical gentlemen of note, and charged by her as her tormentors; and they (the persons in custody) having severally touched her, she was at each of their touches seized with grievous fits.
About this time Thomas Lindsay, a boy twelve years of age, was apprehended on presumption of complicity in witchcraft, he having said, before credible witnesses, that the devil was his father, and that if he pleased he could fly like a crow. Sometimes, he said, he could cause a plough to stand, and the horses break the yoke, on his pronouncing a few strange words and turning himself withershinns. Though at first he denied his guilt, yet he afterwards confessed he had a compact with the devil, and that he had been at several meetings with Satan and witches. His brother James, he said, was also present. James Lindsay was therefore apprehended, and identified by Christina Shaw as one of her tormentors. He too confessed to be guilty of Satanic acts.
Next day Margaret Lang, and her daughter Martha Semple, being accused by Christina Shaw of having been also active in tormenting her, came of their own accord to Bargarran House, and before they approached the girl she said she was now bound up, and could not accuse Margaret Lang to her face. Subsequently she named Lang and her daughter as two of her tormentors.
The commissioners had several conferences, and in their presence many suspected witches were shown to the girl at Bargarran. At these conferences strange things transpired, all tending to prove a most diabolical plot to punish the girl for her insult to Catherine Campbell. This was not all: the inquiry brought to light various other acts of witchcraft, mischief, and even murder, perpetrated by the devil and those in league with him. In due course the suspected persons were arraigned before the judges and jury; and able arguments, according to the light of those times, were entered into. An outline of the specious pleading of the advocate who conducted the prosecution is given, as an example of the manner in which convictions against suspected witches were obtained two hundred years ago.
"Good men of inquest," he said, "you having sitten above twenty hours in overhearing the probation, we shall not detain you with summing up in particular, but shall only suggest some things, whereof it is fit you take special notice. 1st, The nature of your own power, and the management thereof. 2dly, The object of this power which lies before you, wherein you are to consider, in the first place, whether or not there has been witchcraft in the malefices libelled? and, in the next case, whether or not these panels are the witches?
"As to your power, it is certain that you are both judges and witnesses, by the opinion of our lawyers and custom; therefore you are called out of the neighbourhood, as presumed best to know the quality of the panels, and the notoriety of their guilt or innocence....
"We are not to press you with the ordinary severity of threatening an assize of error, in case you should absolve; but wholly leave you to the conduct of God and your own conscience....