for L10,000?” I will make no remark upon such a horrid expression—­it needs none.  After this she continued to mix the poison with her father’s tea as often as she had an opportunity.  Soon afterwards Susan Gunnell, another witness we shall call, happened to drink some which her master had left; she was taken ill upon it, and continued so for three weeks.  This second accident alarmed the prisoner.  She was afraid of being discovered.  She found it would not mix well with tea.  Accordingly, she wrote to Mr. Cranstoun for further instructions.  In answer to it, he bids her “put it into some liquid of a more thickish substance.”

The father being ill, frequently took water gruel.  This was a proper vehicle for the powder.  Therefore from this time you will find her always busy about her father’s gruel.  But lest Susan Gunnell, who had been ill, should eat any of it, she cautioned her particularly against it, saying, “Susan, as you have been so ill, you had better not eat any of your master’s water gruel; I have been told water gruel has done me harm, and perhaps it may have the same effect upon you.”  And lest this caution should not be sufficient, she spoke to Betty Binfield, the other maidservant, and asked her whether Susan ever ate any of her father’s gruel, adding, “She had better not, for if she does it may do for her, you may tell her.”  Evidently, then, she knew what were the effects of the powder she put into her father’s gruel; for if it would “do for” the servant, it would “do for” her father.

But the time approached beyond which she had foretold her father would not live.  It was the middle of July, and the father still living.  At this Mr. Cranstoun grows impatient.  Upon the 18th of July he writes to her, and, expressing himself in an allegorical manner, which, however, you will easily understand, he says, “I am sorry there are such occasions to clean your pebbles; you must make use of the powder to them by putting it in anything of substance, wherein it will not swim a-top of the water, of which I wrote to you of in one of my last.  I am afraid it will be too weak to take off their rust, or at least it will take too long a time."[2] Here he is encouraging her to double the dose; says, he is afraid it will be too weak, and will take up too much time.  And, as a further incitement to her to make haste, describes the beauties of Scotland, and tells her that his mother, Lady Cranstoun, had employed workmen to fit up an apartment for her at Lennel House.

Soon after the receipt of this letter she followed the advice.  And you will accordingly find the dose doubled.  Her father grew worse, and, as she herself told the servants, complained of a fireball in his stomach, saying, “He never will be well till he has got rid of it.”  And yet you will find she herself, fearful lest he should get rid of it, was continually adding fuel to the fire, till it had consumed her father’s entrails.