July.
1618.
A mysterious affair occupied the attention of the state-officers. While the servants of one Kennedy, a notary, residing in Galloway, were ‘filling muck in beir-seed time,’ they had found a withered human hand amongst some dung. No person having lately been murdered or missed in the country, it was impossible to tell whence this severed member had come or to whom it had belonged. Kennedy, who had lately come to the house, professed to know nothing of the matter. It seemed to him that the hand had been there many years. This affair might have passed over with little notice, if it had not been followed up by a series of marvellous occurrences. As his wife was sitting with some gossips at supper in her husband’s absence, some blood was observed upon the candlestick, and afterwards some more matter resembling gore was found on the threshold of the cellar door. It was also stated that, as Kennedy was walking one day with the minister, near the parish church, some drops of blood were seen upon the grass. All these things being reported to the authorities in Edinburgh, they gave orders for Kennedy’s apprehension, and he was accordingly brought thither, and kept six weeks in the Tolbooth. When examined, he could assign no cause for the above facts, but ‘complained that his cattle and horses had died in great number, and that his wife had long been vexed with extraordinary sickness; all which he ascribed to witchcraft used against them.’ It being impossible to bring anything home against the man, he was dismissed.—M. S. P.
Aug. 11.
That eccentric genius, John Taylor, the Thames waterman, commonly called the Water-poet, set out from his native London on the 14th of July, on a journey to Scotland—‘because,’ says he, ‘I would be an eye-witness of divers things which I had heard of that country.’ He called it a Pennyless Pilgrimage, because he intended to attempt making his way without any funds of his own, and entirely by the use of what he might get from friends by the way. Having traversed the intermediate distance on horseback in about a month, he entered Scotland by the western border, walking, while a guide rode with his baggage on a gelding. Somewhat to his surprise, he observed no remarkable change on the face of nature.
‘There I saw sky above, and earth below,
And as in England, there the sun did shew;
The hills with sheep replete, with corn the dale,