12 SCOTS TRIALS
TOUCHING ONE MAJOR WEIR, A WARLOCK
In rangles round before the ingle's lowe
Frae gudame's mouth auld warld tales they
hear
O' warlocks loupin' round the wirrikow,
O' ghaists that win in glen and kirk-yard
drear,
Whilk touzles a' their tap, and gars them
shak wi' fear.
--The Farmer's Ingle, ROBERTFERGUSS0N.
THACKERAY once complained
that since the author of Tom
Jones was buried no writer of fiction has been permitted to
depict a man. What, then, must be the plight of him who
would show forth a veritable monster ? So I have chosen this
old-fashioned title as indicating that it is not here intended
to do more than touch the major, and that gingerly, as the
phrase goes, and with a nice discretion. But despite these reser-
vations there is much in his strange story worth retelling to such
as are interested in the curiosities of psychology, while for the
lover of old Edinburgh Major Weir shares with his successor,
Captain Porteous, and with Deacon Brodie, the distinction of
having preserved, amid so much that has been improved out of
existence, if not a local habitation, at least a name.
The major, though in his day a stalwart of
the Covenant,
and, as Stevenson describes him, "the outcome and fine flower
of dark and vehement religion," for obvious reasons finds no
place in Presbyterian martyrology. The sources of information
regarding his extraordinary career are the official report of
his trial in the Justiciary Record; an unpublished MS. of 1670
in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, by the Rev. James Fraser,
minister of Wardlaw, who knew the major in the flesh; the
rare old tract, Ravaillac Redivivus, by Dr. George Hickes, Dean
of Worcester, published anonymously at London in 1678; and
[41]
that curious collection of wonderful relations, Satan's Invisible
World Discovered, by Mr. George Sinclair, "late Professor
of Philosphy in the Colledge of Glasgow," and afterwards
minister of Eastwood in Renfrewshire, first printed at Edin-
burgh in 1685. The professor, in his account of Weir, borrows
largely and without acknowledgment from Mr. Fraser's "Provi-
dential Passages," as above. Other contemporary references are
contained in Lamont's Diary and in Law's Memorials.
"If I were ever to become a writer of romances,"
said
Sir Walter Scott in 1798, sixteen years before Waverley, "I
think I would choose Major Weir, if not for my hero, at least
for an agent, and a leading one, in my production." Unfortun-
ately he never did so, but in these later days the major,
suitably draped, has made his appeal to the general reader
in an excellent novel bearing his name by another hand.
Thomas Weir, Scotland's most notable wizard,
was born at
Kirkton, near Carluke, in Clydesdale, in 1599. His father,
Thomas Weir of Kirkton, receives unfavourable mention in
the Memoirs of the Somerville family as a person capable on
occasion of domestic treachery, while his mother, according
to the confession of his sister Jean, was a sorceress of repute,
who bore upon her brow a witch-mark enabling her to tell "the
secretest thing that any of the family could do, though done at
a great distance." For the matron's peace of mind it is to be
hoped that this gift was rarely exercised. Of the boyhood and
youth of Thomas we have no record, but from the indictment
upon which he was afterwards tried we gather that his earlier
years were spent with his family in their "House of Wicket-
shaw." Mention of him occurs in connection with the granting of
a conveyance by his father, with his consent, of part of the lands
of Waggetshaw in 1632. He is said to have acted as a lieutenant
in the Puritan army under Leslie's command sent by the Scots
Estates in 1641 to assist in suppressing the Irish Catholics.
He was also an officer in the Covenanting forces during
Montrose's campaign of 1644-45, as appears from an entry in the'
[42]
register of the estates quoted by Sinclair, when on 3rd March
1647 the major applied for arrears of pay due to him in respect
of "his service as Major in the Earl of Lanark's regiment
by the space of twell months, and his service in Ireland as ane
Captain-Lieutenant in Colonel Robert Home his regiment by
the space of nineteen months." He further craved "that
the Parliament, wald ordain John Acheson, Keeper of the
Magazine, to redeliver to the supplicant the band [bond] given
by him to the said John upon the receipt of ane thousand
weight of poulder, two thousand weight of match, and a
thousand pound weight of ball, sent with the supplicant
to Dumfries for furnishing that part of the country" How
the petition sped is not recorded.
The year 1649, which saw King Charles the
Martyr lay
upon the block at Whitehall "that comely head," found Major
Weir retired from active service, settled in Edinburgh, and
occupying the honourable post of Captain of the City Guard.
It has been constantly stated that to this appointment he owed
the designation of major, but there is no doubt, as we have
seen, he already held that rank. This venerable body of armed
police had its origin in the fears besetting the citizens after the
fatal defeat of Flodden, but the belief in its extreme antiquity
is evidenced by an old Edinburgh legend that some of the
Guard were present in Jerusalem at the Crucifixion, and, during
the commotion which ensued,. carried off from the Temple an
original portrait of King Solomon, which long was piously
preserved in proof of the tradition! But once in its lengthy
and chequered career does the City Guard emerge from mere
local annals into the strong light of history under the celebrated
captaincy of John Porteous. The events attending the murder
of that unhappy officer, and the utter inability displayed by the
guardians of the King's peace to discharge their duty upon that
occasion, nearly brought about their abolition. Towards the
end of the eighteenth century the strength and prestige of the
ancient corps had much declined, and lovers of Fergusson's racy
[43]
muse will recall his frequent thrusts at "that black banditti,
the City Guard." By the year 1817 the last survivors of an
outworn system had ceased to struggle against the innovating
spirit which permeated the Scottish capital, and, along with
many things much worthier of preservation, were swept into
the dust-bin of the past.
During his early days in Edinburgh the major
lodged
for some years with a widow, one Mrs. Grissald Whitford, who
dwelt in the Cowgate in a house which, if still standing, can-
not now be identified. There, according to Dr. Hickes, "that
dishonour of Mankind" had for fellow-boarder the conventicle-
preacher, Mr. James Mitchell, assassin and martyr, who was
hanged in 1678 for the attempted murder of Archbishop Sharp,
as his indictment says, "in the High Street of Edinburgh and
in the face of the sun." If we may believe a contemporary
rhyming "satyr" on his memory, the character of Widow
Whitford's abode rendered it a somewhat singular retreat for
a godly young man. Be that as it may, the political and
religious views of his companion seem to have stimulated the
major's martial spirit, which since the fall of Montrose had
no worse opposition to contend with than that of the Edinburgh
rabble, for in 1650 he became an eminent promoter of the
"Western Remonstrance," though his professional duties pre-
vented his joining its active supporters in arms. "To these
principles he stuck as close as to the Devil himself ; insomuch
that when the Government of the Church was restored, he
avowedly renounced the Communion of it, and endeavoured
to widen the Schism to the utmost of his power. He could not
so much as endure to look upon an Orthodox Minister, but
when he met any of them in the Streets, he would pull his Hat
over his eyes in a Pharisaical kind of indignation and contempt."
As might be expected in so uncompromising
an adherent of
the Covenant, when "dressed in a little brief authority," the
major enjoyed to the full the advantage which his office afforded
of maltreating such unfortunate Royalists as came within his
[44]
clutches. He was "very active in discovering and apprehending
the Cavaliers and bringing them to be arraing'd and try'd for
their lives. He used to insult and triumph over them in their
miseries, and persecute them with all manner of Sarcasms
and Reproaches when they were led out like Victims to public
execution, as many yet alive can testifie to the World. This
cruel manner after which he used to outrage the poor Royalists
pass'd among the people for extraordinary zeal, and made them
consider him a singular Worthy whom God had raised up to
support the Cause." But the proudest moment of the major's
life was when fate delivered into his official hand his old enemy
Agag, the gallant James Graham, who, after his capture in
the north, was brought to Edinburgh to die. The warding of
prisoners awaiting trial and attendance at their execution
were part of the Town Guard's duties. How ably these were
discharged by Major Weir in this instance the following con-
temporary account will show:--"The barbarous Villain treated
the Heroick Marquess of Montrose with all imaginable insolence
and inhumanity when he lay in Prison; keeping him in a Room
in which was no other light than that of a Candle, and his
lighted Tobacco, which he continually smoked with him, tho'
the Marquess had an aversion to the smell of it above anything
in the World." That Major Weir was a heavy smoker supplies
an unexpected touch of nature which his Satanic personality
could ill afford so to pervert. "Nay," continues our author,
"he would even disturb him in his Devotions, making his
very calamities an Argument that God as well as man had
forsaken him; and calling him Dog, Athiest, Traytor, Apostate,
Excommunicate Wretch, and many more such intolerable names."
This did the major exult after his fashion over the fate of
the great marquess, whom later he escorted to the scaffold; and
twenty more years of his own flagitious life were yet to run
before the fire was kindled for himself upon the Gallow Lee.
Prominent in any plan of older Edinburgh is
the crooked
line of the West Bow, which ran abruptly down from.the head
[45]
of' the High Street, whence it formed the main thoroughfare
to the Grassmarket in the valley on the south. Of this curious
zigzag descent, which is said to have been one of the most
ancient and characteristic streets in the old town, naught but
the name has escaped the "improving" mania of our fore-
fathers. The Bow was long the peculiar domain of the white
or tinsmiths, and so godly was the repute of its indwellers at
the time of which we write, that they had earned for them-
selves the title of the Bowhead Saints. The denizens of this
favoured quarter must have hailed with holy joy the arrival
among them of Major Weir, when, on an unascertained date,
he withdrew his patronage from the dubious widow of the
Cowgate and pitched his tent within "the sanctified bends
of the Bow."
The records of the Town Guard preserved in
the City
Chambers unfortunately do not extend so far back as to in-
clude the period of the major's service, which seems to have
lasted for at least two years. After his resignation or dismissal,
having ceased to interfere in the wordly affairs of his fellow-
citizens, he had the more leisure to devote himself to their
spiritual concerns. Then, as now, people were to a large extent
appraised at their own valuation, and as the major was an
imposing personality in more senses than one, and laid claim
to phenomenal sanctity, his pre-eminence among the Bowhead
Saints was speedily assured. "He became," says Mr. Fraser,
"so notoriously regarded among the Presbyterian strict sect,
that if four met together, be sure Major Weir was one." His
deportment, we are told, was marked by a formal gravity "and
demureness in his looks," a prodigious memory enabled him to
quote Scripture with fluency and ease, while his gift of extem-
pore prayer was deemed miraculous, both before and, as we
shall see, after his exposure. He had acquired, says Dr. Hickes,
"a particular gracefulness in whining and sighing above any of
the sacred clan, and had learn'd to deliver himself upon all
serious occasions in a far more ravishing accent than any of their
[46]
Ministers could attain unto." Soon no "house-conventicle" of
the elect could with propriety be held unless the wonderful
major presided, and indeed so great became his popularity
that it was said, "Happy was the Man with whom he would
converse, and blessed was the Family in which he would vouch-
safe to pray." But the business instincts of this inspired
professor were too shrewd to let custom stale his infinite
variety. He would pray only in the families of such as were
"Saints of the highest Form," with the gratifying result that
"the Brethern and Sisters of those Precincts would strive who
should have him to exercise in their Houses," and "To meet
Major Weir" would insure the acceptance of any invitation.
Gradually the fame of his signal gifts outgrew the narrow limits
of the Bow, and people would come forty or fifty miles to have
the happiness to hear him pray. "Conceived prayer" was the
major's speciality. He never undertook to preach, "for fear of
invading the Ministerial Province," which certainly would have
kindled the wrath of the Kirk. The fact that the supplicant
"could not officiat in any holy duty without his Rod in his hand,
leaning upon it," was remarked at the time, but the full extent
of the major's dependence upon his famous staff was not appre-
ciated till later. He was thought more angel than man, says
the contemporary minister, Mr. Fraser, whose criticisms are
perhaps not without some slight leaven of professional jealousy,
and by some of the holy sisters was happily named Angelical
Thomas. The same authority gives us the only impression we
have of Major Weir's personal appearance, a sketch which took
captive the imagination of Stevenson: "His garb was still a
cloak, and somewhat dark, and he never went without his staff.
He was a tall black man, and ordinarily looked down to the
ground; a grim countenance, and a big nose."
We have two pictures of the tenement hallowed
by the
occupancy of this choice spirit, which of old rose upon the east
or left-hand side of the street at the first turn in descending
the West Bow, and was long known as Major Weir's Land--the
[47]
quaint etching by Skene of Rubislaw, representing the sup-
posititious turret of the major's dwelling as viewed from the
Bow, and the bald little woodcut in Chambers's Reekiana,
showing the actual house, seen from the inner court. The
entrance to the front building from the street was by a stone
turnpike stair--once so common a feature of Edinburgh archi-
tecture--the door of which bore the inscription, " Soli deo
honor et gloria," with the date 1604; but a low vaulted transe
or passage immediately adjoining led through the tall land
to a narrow court behind, in which, sinister and solitary, stood
the wizard's dread abode. It is said that he had cast a spell
upon the neighbouring turnpike stair, despite its pious motto,
to the effect that whoso attempted the ascent felt as if, instead
of mounting, he were descending the steps. "No other story
of witchcraft and necromancy," says Sir Daniel Wilson, "ever
left so deep-rooted an impression on the popular mind as that
of Major Weir; nor was any spot ever more celebrated in the
annals of sorcery than the little court at the head of the Bow,
where the wizard and his sister dwelt."
As to this unfortunate woman, criminal and
lunatic, we must
now say a word. Her Christian name has been a matter of
dispute. Sinclair and Law refer to her as Jean, which Dr.
Hickes renders Jane for his English readers; Fraser, the con-
temporary authority before quoted, calls her Grizel ; but she
was indicted and tried in the name of Jean Weir, which settles
the point. It is generally said that the major never married,
but from the record of his trial we find that he was formerly
married to a widow named Mein, who had a daughter, Margaret,
by her first husband. The major's behaviour to his stepdaughter
was the subject of one of the charges in his indictment. Prob-
ably he had been long a widower, and for many years his sister
lived with him and kept his house. In view of their subsequent
trial it is necessary to add that their relations were those of
Hilarion and Palmyre Bouteroue, in Zola's La Terre. Jean was
an indefatigable spinster. Day by day during her evil life the
[48]
hum of her necromantic spinning vibrated through the dark
chambers, and for years after her shameful death the midnight
wayfarer down the Bow would be arrested at the Bends by the
rhythm of that ghostly wheel.
Few men are so individual as to present on
inspection a
single personality; in the most blameless of Jekylls there too
often lurks some strain of the indigenous Hyde--"which makes
this speckled Face of Honesty in the World." Like the cele-
brated Deacon Brodie, Major Weir's life was lived variously in
diverse sorts of company; but whereas the deacon was merely
a capable cabinetmaker by day, and by night but an indifferent
burglar, the major's complex character enabled him to play
simultaneously three distinct parts, each of which he sustained
for many years with equally marked success. With Weir the
saint we have already dealt, of Weir the sinner it is not pro-
posed to treat, but Weir the warlock has still to be considered.
Of the manner in which the major in his second role abused
the confidence of the holy sisters as their spiritual director, of
his more recondite gallantries and astral amours, and of his
other manifold and great impieties we cannot here speak, but
one incident may be referred to as explaining the immunity
from punishment which he so long enjoyed. It appears upon
his own confession that a certain damsel, in consequence of
what she observed of his conduct in a field "at New Mills
in the West Country," whither the major had ridden from
Edinburgh "to a solemn meeting," complained of him to Mr.
John Nave, the minister of New Mills, at whose instance he
was brought back to the place by some soldiers, " but was there
dismissed for want of further probation [proof]; and the woman
that delated him for the fact near New Mills was, by order of
the magistrates of Lanark, whipped through the town by the
hand of the common hangman, as a slanderer of such an eminent
Holy Man" ! Her fate was little calculated to encourage tale-
bearing to the saint's detriment. Twenty years later, however,
the lady had her revenge, when she gave evidence for the
[49]
prosecution at the major's trial, and she was probably an
interested spectator of the subsequent ceremony at the Gallow
Lee, of which he was the central figure.
The ability displayed by Major Weir in his
several capacities
was explained as the result of a compact with the Prince of
Darkness, who, in consideration of the price customary in such
bargains, had engaged to warrant the other party to the trans-
action against all mortal dangers "except one burn." How the
devil, according to his wont, paltered with the major in a double
sense will presently appear. In support of this theory Sinclair
records that upon one occasion during Weir's captaincy of the
Town Guard, while going his nightly rounds to inspect the
ports--the old city gates of mediaeval Edinburgh--he found
the waiters (gatekeepers) at the Nether Bow absent from their
post and the port unguarded. The major unearthed the delin-
quents from an adjacent cellar, where they were " taking a cup
of Aile," and sharply reprimanded them for their neglect of
duty. They pleaded as excuse that they had but abandoned
their charge for the moment in order to have a drink "with
their old Friend and Acquaintance, Mr. Burn." "At which
word," continues the narrator, "he started back, and casting an
eye upon them, repeated the word `Burn' four or five times."
The major, white and trembling, retired precipitately home,
and kept the house for some weeks afterwards. It was also
observed that when going in company to Liberton "he shunned
to step over that Water-brook which is ordinarily called Liberton
Burn, but went about to shun it." Evidently the major believed
that by taking thought he could still get the best of the bargain,
but his spoon was not long enough for those who, as warned by
the proverb, would sup with the Enemy unscathed.
The end came with startling and dramatic suddenness.
On
a certain day of obligation among the Bowhead Saints, in the
early spring of the year 1670, the gloomy audience chamber of
their high priest was thronged by a great gathering of the
faithful. The company included a brother of Professor Sinclair,
[50]
the discoverer of Satan's invisible world, one "Maister John
Sinclaire," a conventicle-minister of Ormiston, who probably
attended in the hope of gleaning some professional hint from
the methods of the popular prophet. Major Weir was then
in the seventieth year of his treble life, a failing man, long
"harassed below a mountain of duplicity," and still pursuing
in despite of time the course of his incredible vices. The pre-
liminaries over, amid an inspiring hush Angelical Thomas
rose to address his complacent disciples for the last time.
Whether the "Magical Staff," upon whose diabolic aid his
eloquence depended, suddenly failed him; whether his con-
science, seared by unnumbered crimes, suffered some tardy
pang; or whether, as is most likely, his reason reeled beneath
the intolerable burden of such prolonged hypocrisy, we cannot
tell; but, instead of the usual "Enthusiastical phrases, Extasies,
and Raptures" wherewith he was wont to transport his silly
flock, the unhappy man poured forth a full confession "of his
particular sins which he was guilty of, which bred amazement
to all persons, they coming from a man of so high a repute of
Religion and Piety."
Picture the scene in that crowded upper room,
the theatre
of so many former triumphs--the smug self-righteousness of
those burgher faces smitten as by a thunderbolt into horror
and dismay, the once angelic voice offending silence with the
items of that monstrous category, while spurred by some
unknown power the terrible old man stripped off relentlessly,
rag by rag, the cloak of his spurious sanctity. How the ears
of the holy sisters must have tingled! Idols have been cast
down ere now by the devotees of rival gods, or have fallen by
mere neglect of their own worshippers, but here was one volun-
tarily overthrown, and shattered into nameless fragments by
his single act.
"Before God," cried the miserable wretch,
"I have not told
you the hundred part of that I can say more, and am guilty
of !" But the congregation had heard enough. Measures were
[51]
at once concerted "with all possible care and industry" to bury
the knowledge of this "confounding scandal" within the bosom
of the elect. It was given out that the saint had been seized
with illness--and little doubt he was a broken man. For
several months the affair was screened successfully from the
profane. The "godly plants of the Bowhead" had now the
whip-hand of their oracle, and the reputation of the Bow might
yet be saved. But the major's infernal creditor was not to be
balked of his due so easily. One of the ministers--was it he
of Ormiston?--actuated, as regrettably appears, by professional
spite, denounced the unveiled prophet to Sir Andrew Ramsay
of Abbotshall, then Lord Provost of Edinburgh, who in the
following year became a Senator of the College of Justice. His
lordship, "judging humane nature uncapable of such horrid
crimes as the Minister told him the Major had confessed," con-
sidered the case as one calling rather for medical than criminal
treatment. He therefore sent certain physicians of his
acquaintance to visit the patient "and Physick him for his
distempered Brain." The doctors, however, having seen him,
reported to the provost that the major was in good health,
"that he was free from Hypocondriack Distempers," and that
his "Intellectuals" or mental faculties were perfectly sound.
They found him suffering from "only an exulcerated Conscience,"
which, in their opinion, could not be relieved till he was brought
to justice, "as with cryings and roarings he desir'd to be." The
provost was still unwilling to believe the worst. He requested
"some Conventicle-Ministers " to inquire into the major's con-
dition and to report. These spiritual physicians, "finding it
was impossible to disguise the matter which now was Town-talk,"
concurred in the views already stated by their medical brethren :
"The terrors of God which were upon his Soul urged him to
confess and accuse himself." Official ignorance of the scandal
could no longer be maintained, so the provost sent the Town
Guard to apprehend their old officer and his sister Jean, who was
implicated in his confession, and to carry them both to the
[52]
Tolbooth, the Bastille of Auld Reekie. The arrests were effected
"in the night time," in presence of two of the magistrates.
When the prisoners were seized, Jean urged the bailies to
secure the major's staff, as, if he once had it in his hand, "he
would certainly drive them all out of doors, notwithstanding all
the resistance they could make." So the wizard's wand was
duly impounded, as also were certain sums of money found in
the house, wrapped "in several clouts" (rags).
"This Magical Staff," says Dr. Hickes, "was
all of one piece,
upon which were Engraved certain Symbols in the shape of
Centaures, with a crooked head of Thorn-wood. She said he
received it of the Devil and did many wonderful things with
it; particularly that he used to lean upon it in his Hypocritical
Prayers; and after they were committed she still desired it
might be kept from him, because if he were Master of it
again he would certainly grow obdurate, and retract the Con-
fessions he had so publickly made. Apollonius Thyaneus had
such a Magical Staff as this, which I am apt to believe was
a Sacramental Symbol which the Devil gave to the Major,
and the Court were not without some apprehensions of it for
it was ordered by the judges to be burnt with his Body; and
it was afterwards observed that his body did not fall into the
Flames till that staff had first done so." The major, when in
prison, acknowledged his indebtedness to this familiar, and con-
fessed that he never "bow'd the knee at his own or other men's
prayers," but stood always leaning upon his staff, a practice
which had been long noted by his disciples.
When they had seen their prisoners safely
under lock and
key, the two bailies adjourned to a tavern in the West Bow,
taking with them the major's money, which was there put into
a bag and the clouts thrown into the fire. These, "after an
unusual manner, made a circling and dancing" as they burned.
Another cloth containing "a certain root," also found in the
warlock's den, was similarly disposed of, "which circled and
sparkled like Gunpowder, and passing from the Funnel of the
[53]
Chimney, it gave a crack like a little Cannon, to the amazement
of all that were present." The money was taken home by one
of the bailies and laid by in a closet, but the family could get
no rest "for a terrible noise within the Study like the falling
of a house," so the accursed coins were sent to the other bailie's,
where they caused a like disturbance. Probably he broke the
spell by spending them, for we hear no more of the matter.
While the major lay in the Tolbooth awaiting
his trial, all
sorts of clerical artillery was brought to bear upon him, from
the great guns of the establishment, like my Lord Bishop of
Galloway and the Dean of Edinburgh, to irregular sharpshooters
of his own persuasion. But the major since his downfall was
indifferent even to sectarian shades. "Sirs," said he to his
reverend visitors, "you are now all alike to me." He was
willing enough to horrify them with personal reminiscences,
but firmly withstood their exhortations to repentance, remark-
ing that he was already damned, and that the united prayers
of all the saints in heaven and earth would be vain if offered
in his. behalf. "One minister (now asleep) asking him if he
should pray for him, was answered, `Not at all.' The other
replied in a kind of holy anger, `Sir, I will pray for you in
spite of your teeth and the Devil your master too.' " Finally
the prisoner thus adjured the well-meaning divines: "Tor-
ment me not before the time"; and they threw up the case as
hopeless. Law says in his Memorials that the major's obduracy
was due to characteristic craftiness; "that now since he was
to goe to the Devil he would not anger him."
Jean Weir, though equally impervious to ghostly
counsel,
was more communicative than her inscrutable brother as to
their Satanic dealings. She had inherited, she said, her witch-
craft from her mother, together with an unholy mark upon
her brow, which she exhibited to the ministers then present.
"She put back her head-dress, and seeming to frown, there was
seen an exact Horse-shoe shaped for nails in her wrinckles"--
"terrible enough, I assure you, to the stoutest beholder," says
[54]
THE DEVIL'S
COACH IN THE WEST
BOW
an eye-witness. She added that her brother having on one
occasion "desyred her to claw his back," she found upon his
shoulder "that which they call the Devil's Mark." Sir Walter
Scott, by the way, borrowed Jean Weir's horse-shoe frown for
Redgauntlet, and bestowed the major's name upon Sir Robert's
"great, ill-favoured jackanape." Jean admitted that she and
her brother had made a compact with the devil, "and that on
the 7th of September, 1648, they were both transported from
Edinburgh to Musselburgh and back again in a Coach and six
Horses, which seemed all of fire, and that the Devil then told
the Major of the defeat of our army at Preston in England,
which he confidently reported, several days before the news
had arrived here "--a prophecy the fulfilment of which much
enhanced the major's reputation with the godly. Other accounts
refer the major's special intelligence to the battle of Wor-
cester, with which, however, Jean's date does not agree. "She
knew much of the inchanted Staff; for by it he was enabled to
pray, to commit filthinesse not to be named, yea'even to recon-
cile Neighbours, Husband and Wife, when at variance." This
latter property must have proved a valuable antidote to .the
major's personal influence in the marital affairs of his flock,
which tended rather in the opposite direction. She further
confessed "that when she keeped a school at Dalkeith and
teached childering "--how Mr. Squeers would have appreciated
such "a educator of youth " !--a tall woman came to her house
when the children were there, with the request that she should
"spick for her to the Queen of Fairie, and strik and battle in her
behalf with the said Queen." This royal lady "is that very
Mab" who, under the style and title of Quene of Elphane,
figures for the first time in our criminal records at the trial of
Alison Pearson for witchcraft on 15th May 1588. Next day a
little woman came, who gave the schoolmistress "a piece of a
tree or root "--perhaps the identical root whose explosion had
so amazed the bailies--telling her that as long as she kept it
"she would be able to doe what she should desyre." After
[55]
certain necromantic ceremonies, not the least important of
which was the delivery to her visitant of "all the silver she
hade," the woman departed, and Jean, sitting down to her
spinning-wheel, "did find more yearn upon her pirne [spindle],
and good yearn, nor [than] she thought could be spun in so
short a time." Yet, despite this miraculous gift, the devil
cheated her after all, as. he did the major, "for her Weaver
could not make cloath thereof, the yearn breaking or falling
from the Loom."
On Saturday, 9th April 1670, the wicked old
couple were
placed at the bar of the Justice Court before "that learned
Civilian, Mr. William Murray, and Mr. John Preston, Justice-
Deputes." The prosecution was conducted by the Lord Advo-
cate, Sir John Nisbet of Dirleton, the author of the historic
Doubts, but no counsel seems to have been bold enough to
undertake the defence of the prisoners. They were tried
together upon separate indictments, that of the major laying
more stress upon his dealings with creatures of flesh and blood
than with the occult powers of darkness; his sister Jean, in
addition to another crime, was charged with specific acts of
sorcery. Both libels having been read and duly found relevant,
"The King's Advocate caused interrogate the Major judicially
anent his guilt, who answered, he thinks himself guilty of the
foresaid Crimes and cannot deny them; and the King's Advo-
cate takes Instruments that he refuses to answer posatively."
In view of this, as there was nothing against the pannels except
their extrajudicial confessions, the Lord Advocate proceeded to
lead evidence for the Crown. Four witnesses deponed that
they were present when Major Weir made his memorable state-
ment and heard him confess the crimes libelled, while many
others gave damning testimony to his actual misdeeds. The
Reverend Mr. Sinclair, who had been throughout very busy in
the case, swore that the major sent for him from the Tolbooth
"of purpose to confess his sins to him," and had also solicited his
prayers, which, in view of other evidence as to the major's then
[56]
frame of mind seems, to say the least, unlikely. A new item of
iniquity was alleged to have been elicited from the penitent by
this conventicle-confessor, namely, "that he had converse with
the Devill in the night time." Arnot, commenting in his
Criminal Trials on this incident, justly remarks, "I leave it
to
casuists in religion to determine as to the efficacy of auricular
confession in the salvation of the soul; but I cannot help
thinking that for a priest to reveal this confession in a
criminal court to the destruction of the body, deserves to
be placed nigh at the top of the scale of human depravity."
In the end the major, seeing that the game was up, judicially
acknowledged the truth of the charges. His sister followed
suit, and, confessed to the Court "all the Sorcerys as in the
lybell." So the jury found them both guilty, and sentence
of death was pronounced as follows: Major Weir to be taken
on Monday the 11th inst. to the Gallow Lee between Leith and
Edinburgh, and there, "betwixt two and four hours in the after-
noon," to be strangled at a stake till he was dead and his body
to be burnt to ashes; Jean Weir to be hanged at the."Grass
Mercate of Edinbr." on Tuesday following. "Which were
accordingly execute," as we learn from a contemporary note on
the record, "and the said Major not being able to travell for
age, was dragg'd on a sled, the horse being led by the hangman,
and died in despair, declaring that he had no hopes of mercy;
and the woman died folishly." "Thus," observes the Reverend
Robert Law, "did the holy justice of God eminently shyne
furth in detecting such wreatched hypocrites."
The Gallow Lee, the scene of the major's expiation,
was a
spot situated upon the declivity of Greenside in Leith Walk,
opposite the end of York Place, and lying towards the Calton
Hill. The parish church of Greenside now occupies the site.
It is recorded that when the rope was about his neck to prepare
him for the fire, for the last time the major was implored to
pray. "Let me alone," he replied: "I will not. I have lived
as a Beast and I must die as a Beast." Such was Major Weir's
[57]
epitaph. " In the flames along with him," says Sinclair, " ° was
consumed his conjuring staff, carved with heads like those of
Satyrs, without which he could not pray nor work many of his
other diabolical feats. Whatever incantation was in it, the
persons present own that it gave rare turnings and was long
a-burning, as also himself." "I have been told," adds Dr.
Hickes, "by very credible persons that the Body of this unclean
Beast gave manifest tokens of its impurity . . . as soon as it
began to be heated by the Flames"--from which the horrid
inference has been drawn that the criminal was burned
alive.
The major at least paid the last penalty with
composure;
not so his sister, who, as has been said, "died folishly." After
his execution was over, one of the ministers waited upon her in
the Tolbooth to cheer her with an account of the ceremony.
She seemed more concerned, however, as to the fate of the
staff, which, when she heard, "notwithstanding of her age "--
she was some ten years her brother's junior--"she nimbly and
in a furious rage fell on her knees, uttering words horrible
to be remembered." Some inquisitive bystanders pressed for
certain particulars of her crime, but the minister prudently
stopped her disclosures, observing that the speculation of such
iniquity was in itself a sin. She intimated to him that in the
morning she proposed to die "with all the shame she could,"
which at the time the good man mistook for a sign of contrition.
Next day in the Grassmarket, however, it appeared that her
words bore a meaning less commendable. Lamont, the con-
temporary diarist records, "On the scaffold she cast away hir
mantell, hir gown tayle, and was purposed to cast of all her
cloaths before all the multitude; bot Bailie Oliphant, to whom
the business was intrusted, stoped the same and commanded
the executioner to doe his office. While he was abowt to throw
hir ovir the leather [ladder], she smote the executioner on the
cheike ; and hir hands not being tyed when she was throwen
ovir, she labored to recover hirself, and put in her head betwixt
[58]
two of the steps of the leather, and keiped that powster for
atyme, till she was put from itt." These shocking details are
here transcribed in order to remove from the reader's mind any
shadow of doubt as to the madness of this unhappy creature.
Major Weir, however, was possessed by a more evil spirit. For
him, in view of the physicians' verdict, the plea of insanity in
the general sense cannot be urged, except in so far as in the
light of modern science all such criminals may be regarded
as insane.
The abode of the wizard in the West Bow, which
survived
its owner by more than two hundred years, stood for upwards
of a century after his death dark and tenantless in the midst of
the superstitious city. Its reputation as a place of dread was
early established. "The facts struck the public fancy," says
Stevenson, "and brought forth a remarkable family of myths."
One of the first and quaintest of these is the story of a certain
"gentlewoman" who, attended by her maid with a lantern,
was returning at midnight from the Castle Hill, "where her
husband's niece was laying-in of a child." About the Bowhead
she perceived "three Women in windows, shouting, laughing
and claping their hands"--an unseemly but not necessarily
supranormal sight. The gentlewoman, however, "went for-
ward " and fared worse, for just at Major Weir's door "there
arose as from the street a Woman above the length of two
ordinary femells." The courageous dame, "not as yet exces-
sively feared," ordered her maid to approach the phantom, "if
by the Lanthorn they could see what she was"; but as they
advanced "this long-legged Spectre was still before them,
moving her Body with a vehement Cachinnation, a great un-
measurable Laughter." In this order they descended the slope
"till the Giantiss came to a narrow lane in the Bow, commonly
called the Stinking-closs, into which she turning, and the
Gentlewoman looking after her, perceived the closs full of
flaming torches and as it had been a great multitude of People,
stentoriously laughing and gapping with Tahies of laughter."
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This was too much for the lady's nerves, and followed by her
maid she fled home, where she related to the family, "but more
passionately to her husband," her terrible experience. Perhaps
she had relied upon having his manly escort, the rather that it
was upon his relative's affair she had been abroad so late.
The winds that swept over Greenside from the
"Craigs of
Caltoun," and scattered the ashes of the warlock and his wand
upon the Gallow Lee, could not cleanse Auld Reekie of their
unholy memories. As time went on, these assumed ever more
marvellous proportions in the public mind. The "Magical
Staff," it was said, used formerly to run upon its master's
disreputable and secret errands, and was wont of old to
answer the long-closed door, behind which it still lurked, a
diabolical porter, to perform its ancient functions; and when
in the mirk night the wicked major would sally forth on
nameless business, it flamed before him up the Bow like some
infernal link-boy. The major himself, in spite of stake and
faggot, became, in Chambers's phrase, "the bugbear of the
Bow." Jovial roisterers from Lawnmarket howffs, negotiating
in the small hours that critical descent, beheld the wizard,
mounted on a headless charger, burst from the Stinking Close
and gallop furiously away "in a whirlwind of flame." Decent
burgesses, returning with their wives from solemn or sociable
meeting, saw the windows of the deserted house ablaze with
lights as for some eldritch festival, while, to the accompaniment
of unearthly music, fearful shapes flitted wildly athwart the
broken panes; and trembled to think, as they hastened by to
their respectable beds, what manner of company the major and
his sister kept that night. But perhaps the most popular of
these manifestations, as it was the legend longest associated
with the locality, was that which, in the chill unchancy hour
before the dawn, startled the sleepers of the Bow, when down
that ill-paved alley, with clatter of hooves and groaning axles,
thundered the six coal-black horses and fiery coach of the
"Muckle Deil himsel," and drew up with a resounding crash
[60]
before the warlock's door. Then would some bolder spirit rise,
and, peering awfully into the shadows of the street, behold
through the flaming glasses the dead damned face of Major
Weir. This agreeable fancy for many years survived in nursery
lore, and was often told to Stevenson's father in his childhood
by judicious guardians, as his son relates.
"About fifty years ago," says Chambers, writing
in 1869,
"when the shades of superstition began universally to give way
in Scotland, Major Weir's house came to be regarded with less
terror by the neighbours, and an attempt was made by the pro-
prietor to find a person who should be bold enough to inhabit
it." Such an adventurous tenant was found in one William
Patullo, an old soldier of reprobate and drunken habits, who,
professing to hold materialistic views, but probably tempted by
the lowness of the rent, agreed to beard the warlock in his den.
The news excited much interest in the neighbourhood, and
the issue of the hazardous experiment was eagerly awaited.
Accordingly, on the appointed day Patullo and his wife,
with their exiguous chattels, "flitted " into the haunted house.
That night, the old soldier's scepticism notwithstanding, the
couple lay long awake. When the last embers of their scanty
fire were cold, and silence and darkness held possession of the
Bow, "they suddenly saw a form like that of a calf, which came
forward to the bed, and setting its fore-feet upon the stock
[bed-foot] looked steadfastly at the unfortunate pair." After
contemplating them thus for some time, the vision gradually
vanished. This emanation from the major's past was too much
even for the godless old campaigner; next day "that eligible
family residence" was again to let, and remained so for another
half-century.
In later years it was occupied at divers times,
not in-
appropriately, as a brazier's shop and as a magazine for lint,
but no human family ever sought to make a home beneath that
accursed roof. At length there came a time when Satan was
hoist with his own petard. In the spring of 1878 the Improve-
[61]
ment Commissioners, whom he had long so happily inspired,
rebelled against him, and with cynical ingratitude razed his
infernal fortress to the ground.
Since that date the peace of Edinburgh has
not been broken
by the visible presence of the evil twain, but Mr. Lang informs
me (1912) that three years ago Major Weir and his sister were
seen again in Lanarkshire, in the haunts of their uncanny
childhood.
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