On a committee of five ministers coming two days after to the house, the disturbing agency increased much in violence. According to the parish minister, Telfair, who was present on this occasion, ‘It came often with such force, that it made all the house shake; it brake a hole through the timber and thatch of |1695.| the roof, and poured in great stones, one whereof, more than a quarter weight, fell upon Mr James Monteath his back, yet he was not hurt.’ When a guard was set upon the hole in the roof, outside, it broke another hole through the gable from the barn, and threw stones in through that channel. ‘It griped and handled the legs of some, as with a man’s hand; it hoised up the feet of others, while standing on the ground; thus it did to William Lennox of Millhouse, myself, and others.’
After this, the disturbances went on with little variation of effect for a week or more. A pedler felt a hand thrust into his pocket. Furniture was dragged about. Seeing a meal-sieve flying about the house, Mackie took hold of it, when the skin was immediately torn out. Several people were wounded with the stones. Groaning, whistling, and cries of Whisht—Bo, bo—and Kuck, kuck! were frequently heard. Men, while praying, were over and over again lifted up from the ground. While Mackie was thrashing in the barn, some straw was set fire to, and staves were thrust at him through the wall. When any person was hit by a stone, a voice was heard saying: ‘Take that till you get more;’ and another was sure to come immediately.
On the 24th of April, there was a fast and humiliation in the parish on account of the demonstrations at Ring-croft; and on that day the violences were more than ever extreme, insomuch that the family feared they should be killed by the stones. ‘On the 26th, it threw stones in the evening, and knocked on a chest several times, as one to have access, and began to speak, and call those who were sitting in the house witches and rooks, and said it would take them to hell. The people then in the house said among themselves: “If it had any to speak to it, now it would speak.” In the meantime, Andrew Mackie was sleeping. They wakened him, and then he, hearing it say: “Thou shalt be troubled till Tuesday,” asked, “Who gave thee a commission?” It answered: “God gave me a commission, and I am sent to warn the land to repent, for a judgment is to come, if the land do not quickly repent;” and commanded him to reveal it upon his peril. And if the land did not repent, it said it would go to its father, and get a commission to return with a hundred worse than itself, and it would trouble every particular family in the land. Andrew Mackie said: “If I should tell this, I would not be believed.” Then it said: “Fetch [your] betters; fetch the |1695.| minister of the parish, and two honest men on Tuesday’s night, and I shall declare before them what I have to say.” Then it said: “Praise me, and I will whistle to you; worship me, and I will trouble you no more.” Then Andrew Mackie said: “The Lord, who delivered the three children out of the fiery furnace, deliver me and mine this night from the temptations of Satan!” It replied: “You might as well have said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.”’ On a humble person present here putting in a word, the voice told him he was ill-bred to interfere in other people’s discourse. ‘It likewise said: “Remove your goods, for I will burn the house.”’
The house was actually set on fire seven times next day, and the care of the inmates preventing damage of this kind from extending, the end of the house was pulled down in the evening, so that the family was forced to spend the night in the barn. On the second next day, the house being again set fire to several times, Mackie carefully extinguished all fires about the place, and poured water upon his hearth; yet after this, when there was no fire within a quarter of a mile, the conflagrations, as was alleged, were renewed several times.
The period announced in the bloody letter of the 8th instant was now approaching, and in a conversation with Mackie, the supposed spirit good-naturedly informed him that, ‘except some casting of stones on Tuesday to fulfil the promise,’ he should have no more trouble. Tuesday, being the 30th of April, was the twenty-third day from the finding of the letter. That night, Charles M‘Lellan of Collin and several neighbours were in the barn. As he was at prayer, he ‘observed a black thing in the corner of the barn, and it did increase, as if it would fill the whole house. He could not discern it to have any form, but as if it had been a black cloud; it was affrighting to them all. Then it threw bear-chaff and mud in their faces, and afterwards did grip severals who were in the house by the middle of the body, by the arms, and other parts of their bodies, so strait, that some said for five days thereafter they thought they felt those grips.’ Such, excepting the firing of a sheep-cot next day, was the last that was seen, heard, or felt of the Rerrick Spirit.
So great was the impression made by these incidents, that early in the ensuing year Mr Telfair published an account of them in a small pamphlet, which went through a second edition in Scotland, and was reprinted, with alterations of language, |1695.| in London.[[138]] At the end appeared the attestations of those who ‘saw, heard, and felt’ the various things stated—namely, ‘Mr Andrew Ewart, minister at Kells; Mr James Monteath, minister at Borgue; Mr John Murdo, minister at Crossmichael; Mr Samuel Stirling, minister at Parton; Mr William Falconer, minister at Kelton; Charles M‘Lellan of Collin, William Lennox of Millhouse, Andrew and John Tait in Torr, John Cairns in Hardhills, William Macminn, John Corsby, Thomas Macminn, Andrew Paline, &c.’ It may be remarked, that for each particular statement in the Relation, the names of the special witnesses are given; and their collected names are appended, as to a solemn document in which soul and conscience were concerned.
Mar. 19.
The degree of respect felt by the authorities of this age for the rights of the individual, is shewn very strikingly in a custom which was now and for a considerable time after largely practised, of compromising with degraded and imputedly criminal persons for banishment to the American plantations. For example, at this date, thirty-two women of evil fame, residing in Edinburgh, were brought before the magistrates as a moral nuisance. We do not know what could have been done to them beyond whipping and hard labour; yet they were fain to agree that, instead of any other punishment, they should be banished to America, and arrangements for that purpose were immediately made.
In the ensuing June, a poor woman of the same sort, named Janet Cook, residing in Leith, was denounced for offences in which a father and son were associated—a turpitude which excited a religious horror, and caused her to be regarded as a criminal of the highest class. The Lord Advocate reported of Janet to the Privy Council, that she had been put under the consideration of the Lords of Justiciary, as a person against whom ‘probation could not be found,’ but that the Lords were nevertheless ‘of opinion she might be banished the kingdom,’ and she herself had ‘consented to her banishment.’ The Lords of the Privy Council seem to have had no more difficulty about the case than those of |1695.| the Court of Justiciary had had; they ordered that Janet should depart furth of the kingdom and not return, ‘under the highest pains and penalties.’
In January 1696, a woman named Elizabeth Waterstone, imprisoned on a charge identical in all respects with the above, was, in like manner, without trial, banished, with her own consent, to the plantations.