On his return journey to Lawshall, Stearne revisited Rattlesden, where suspicion had settled on a boy of about eight or nine (name unknown), who had previously been questioned at Rougham near Bury. He had reportedly accepted the service of an imp, not understanding the consequences. Although a jury at Bury had discharged him, his mother was arrested and hanged for witchcraft a few weeks later. The boy had since turned up in Rattlesden, where distrust of him lingered into 1646.
He later confessed that, following his mother’s death, he had felt increasingly malicious and had renewed his pact with the Devil. Now, he claimed, the Devil came to him in the shape of a brown mare, which would carry him wherever he wished. There is no record of the boy’s eventual fate, but he remained imprisoned into the summer of 1646. One tale tells that his cellmate disappeared overnight. When confronted, the boy said the mare had carried the man – still in his shackles – over the prison wall and twelve miles to his wife. A search party followed the boy’s instructions and found the escaped prisoner exactly as described.
