Note 201 — REIGN OF CHARLES II.: 1660-1673.

Contemporary with Kincaid flourished, in the north country, a pricker named John Dick. One named John Hay, a messenger in Tain, who had reached sixty without any discredit attaching to his name, was denounced by a distracted woman as a wizard, and immediately seems to have fallen into the hands of Dick, who, without any authority, pricked him all over his body, having first shaved his head to ascertain that there were no insensible parts in that region. He was then transferred to Edinburgh, a journey of nearly two hundred miles, and locked up in the Tolbooth. On a petition from Hay, and the exhibition of certificates of character, he was ordered by the Lords of Council to be liberated.