 wanted not those who, steeled by want and bitterness of
spirit, were willing to adopt the hateful and dangerous character for the sake
of the influence which its terrors enabled them to exercise in the vicinity, and
the wretched emolument which they could extract by the practice of their
supposed art.
    Ailsie Gourlay was not indeed fool enough to acknowledge a compact with the
Evil One, which would have been a swift and ready road to the stake and
tar-barrel. Her fairy, she said, like Caliban's, was a harmless fairy.
Nevertheless, she »spaed fortunes,« read dreams, composed philters, discovered
stolen goods, and made and dissolved matches as successfully as if, according to
the belief of the whole neighbourhood, she had been aided in those arts by
Beelzebub himself. The worst of the pretenders to these sciences was, that they
were generally persons who, feeling themselves odious to humanity, were careless
of what they did to deserve the public hatred. Real crimes were often committed
under pretence of magical imposture; and it somewhat relieves the disgust with
which we read, in the criminal records, the conviction of these wretches, to be
aware that many of them merited, as poisoners, suborners, and diabolical agents
in secret domestic crimes, the severe fate to which they were condemned for the
imaginary guilt of witchcraft.
    Such was Ailsie Gourlay, whom, in order to attain the absolute subjugation
of Lucy Ashton's mind, her mother thought it fitting to place near her person. A
woman of less consequence than Lady Ashton had not dared to take such a step;
but her high rank and strength of character set her above the censure of the
world, and she was allowed to have selected for her daughter's attendant the
best and most experienced sick-nurse »and mediciner« in the neighbourhood, where
an inferior person would have fallen under the reproach of calling in the
assistance of a partner and ally of the great Enemy of Mankind.
    The beldam caught her cue readily and by innuendo, without giving Lady
Ashton the pain of distinct explanation. She was in many respects qualified for
the part she played, which indeed could not be efficiently assumed without some
knowledge of the human heart and passions. Dame Gourlay perceived that Lucy
shuddered at her external appearance, which we have already described when we
found her in the death-chamber of blind Alice; and while internally she hated
the poor girl for the involuntary horror with which she saw she was regarded,
she commenced her operations by endeavouring to efface or overcome those
prejudices which, in her heart, she resented as mortal offences
