Part 16

A. I will not tell that to any living if they should saw me asunder.

Q. How came the cloaths back?

A. I must cause some brother of trade who dwells near hand them to tell them who have them that they must be brought back and they should not be wronged.

Q. Why did you not tell of the people who took away these cloaths, seeing thieves ought to be discovered for the good of the country?

A. It doth not belong to me to put out any man, otherwise I should be in eternity this day eight days.

Q. Did any person bring the things back, or how came they back?

A. I brought them not back, but the people who took them away brought them back.

Q. But how could the silver tumbler be brought back and put in a fast-locked room?

A. The person who took it flung it in at the window upon one of the shelves.

(Notandum--Now it was told him that all the windows were fast-snecked, as the servants who went in to take up the tumbler declared.)

Q. Did you not say when the tumbler was got, 'I must have the hair that was in and about it, for it is the hair of a horse which belonged to a man who is shortly to be hanged for stealing?'

A. Yes.

Q. Did you not say to Sir Walter Laurie, 'lock me ever so close in a room and I will cause all the cloaths that were taken away hang down upon the spouts of the tower upon the morrow morning?'

A. Yes.

Q. Did you not say before me, the Minister, 'lock the cloaths again in as fast a room as you can, and I'll cause them, for a little money, go all back in the place where they were?'

A. Yes.

Q. Why did you not bring back the silver spoon that was lost?

A. It was in Edinburgh, and the name was scraped out, and I could not bring it back until I went to Edinburgh.

Q. Why did you not bring back the mattock and other things?

A. It had been on fire.

Q. Why did you not bring back all the aprons, for there is one of them awanting yet?

A. I could not bring it back because it was burnt, and when a thing is hid beneath the ground or the like I can't get wott of that.

Q. Did you not mutter some words when you used these charms?

A. Yes.

Q. What are they?

A. 'Cloaths, cloaths, cloaths, and other things lost.'

Q. Whether did you use such charms afore Hallow-een as throwing nuts in the fire, sowing seeds up and down the house, and herbs to every corner, going backwards from the fire to the door, round the close backwards, up the stairs backward, and to your bed backward?

A. Yes.