Page:Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.djvu/358

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DEVONSHIRE CHARACTERS

asserting that she saw Cary crush the rat's-bane into fine powder between two tiles, and she added that when she asked the nurse what she was about Cary replied that she was making a medicine to "fit" the old woman.

Having placed the powder in a cloam dish, she added small beer, and allowed it to steep overnight. She then gave some of the poison to Anne to put in the "Old Woman's Dish" of porridge, adding, "You shall see what sport we shall have with her to-morrow."

But the amount then administered was small: it was designed to cause only preliminary discomfort. After that, Cary said, "We shall live so merry as the days are long." She cautioned the girl to hold her tongue, and told her that if she did so nothing could come out; and she threatened that if Evans betrayed what had been done, she would lay all the blame upon her. In due time Mrs. Weeks asked for her porridge, and the girl put the arsenic into the bowl according to the instructions she had received from the nurse. Later on Cary drank from a jug; and after pouring in the poisoned liquor, administered it to Mr. Weeks, but he did not relish the taste of it and passed it on to the others to try. They all averred that it had a "keamy" taste, but, small though the quantity was that they drank, all who tasted it had convulsions. In some concern at seeing her master and mistress in such anguish, the girl affirmed that she had exclaimed, "Alas! nurse, what have you done that our master and mistress are so very ill?"

Cary replied, according to Anne's statement, that "she had done God good service in it to rid her out of the way, and that she had done no sin in it."

This confession was read over to Cary, who denied every particular.