On April 6, 1658, the judicial machinery of the Ayr Court turned its attention toward Agnes Mortoune, a married woman residing in the parish of Riccarton. Her name was formally entered into the court’s records alongside a wider group of individuals summoned to stand trial for alleged witchcraft. This legal process had been set in motion days earlier, on March 31, 1658, when the court issued two separate *porteous rolls*—official instruments that served to cite the accused to answer for their alleged crimes before the circuit justices.
Despite the procedural rigor of the Ayr Court, the records indicate that Agnes never stood before her accusers. When the time arrived for the judicial proceedings to commence on that April day, Agnes was nowhere to be found. By absconding from the jurisdiction of the court, she became a fugitive, effectively removing herself from the established legal mechanisms of the 1658 trial cycle. Her absence remains a fixed detail in the historical archive, marking the abrupt conclusion of her documented involvement in the legal proceedings of the period.