Page images
PDF
EPUB

departed. The last time he saw it in the kitchen, like a white rabbit, which seems likely to be some witch; and I do so really believe it to be one, that I would venture to fire a pistol at it, if I saw it long enough. It has been heard by me and others since December. I have filled up all my room, and have only time to tell you, I am,

Your loving Sister,
EMILY WESLEY.

Addenda to and from my Father's Diary.

Friday, December 21. Knocking I heard first, I think, this night: to which disturbances, I hope, God will in his good time put an end.

Sunday, December 23. Not much disturbed with the noises that are now grown customary to me.

Wednesday, December 26. Sat up to hear noises. Strange! spoke to it, knocked off.

Friday, 28. The noises very boisterous and disturbing this night.

Saturday, 29. Not frighted, with the continued disturbance of my family.

Tuesday, January 1, 1717. My family have had no disturbance since I went.

Of the general Circumstances which follow, most, if not all the Family, were frequent Witnesses.

1. Presently after any noise was heard, the wind commonly rose, and whistled very loud round the house, and increased with it.

2. The signal was given, which my father likens to the turning round of a windmill when the wind changes; Mr. Hoole (Rector of Haxey) to the planing of deal boards; my sister to the swift winding up of a jack. It commonly began at the corner of the top of the nursery.

3. Before it came into any room, the latches were frequently lifted up, the windows clattered, and whatever iron or brass was about the chamber, rung and jarred exceedingly.

4. When it was in any room, let them make what noise they would, as they sometimes did on purpose, its dead hollow note would be clearly heard above them all.

5. It constantly knocked while the prayers for the King

and Prince were repeating, and was plainly heard by all in the room, except my father, and sometimes by him, as were also the thundering knocks of the Amen.

6. The sound very often seemed in the air in the middle of a room, nor could any of the family ever make such themselves by any contrivance.

7. Though it seemed to rattle down the pewter, to clap the doors, draw the curtains, kick the man's shoes up and down, &c. yet it never moved any thing except the latches, otherwise than by making it tremble; unless once when it threw open the nursery door.

8. The mastiff, though he barked violently at it the first day he came, yet whenever it came after that, nay, sometimes before the family perceived it, he ran whining, or quite silent, to shelter himself behind some of the company.

9. It never came by day, till my mother ordered the horn to be blown.

10. After that time, scarce any one could go from one room to another, but the latch of the room they went to was lifted up before they touched it.

11. It never came once into my father's study, till he talked to it sharply, called it deaf and dumb devil, and bid it cease to disturb the innocent children, and come to him in his study if it had anything to say to him.

12. From the time of my mother's desiring it not to disturb her from five to six, it was never heard in her chamber from five till she came down stairs, nor at any time, when she was employed in devotion.

other

13. Whether our clock went right or wrong, it always came, as near as could be guessed, when by the night it wanted a quarter of ten.

The Rev. Mr. Hoole's Account.

Sept. 10.

As soon as I came to Epworth, Mr. Wesley telling me, he sent for me to conjure, I knew not what he meant, till some of your sisters told me what had happened, and that I was sent for to sit up. I expected every hour, it being then about noon, to hear something extraordinary, but to no purpose. At supper, too, and at prayers, all was silent, contrary to custom; but soon after, one of the maids, who went up to prepare a bed, brought the alarm that Jeffrey was come above stairs. We all went up, and as we were standing

round the fire in the east chamber, something began knocking just on the other side of the wall, on the chimney-piece, as with a key. Presently the knocking was under our feet. Mr. Wesley and I went down, he with a great deal of hope, and I with fear. As soon as we were in the kitchen, the sound was above us, in the room we had left. We returned up the narrow stairs, and heard at the broad stairs head, some one slaring with their feet (all the family being now in bed beside us) and then trailing, as it were, and rustling with a silk night-gown. Quickly it was in the nursery, at the bed's head, knocking as it had done at first, three by three. Mr. Wesley spoke to it, and said he believed it was the devil, and soon after it knocked at the window, and changed its sound into one like the planing of boards. From thence it went on the outward south side of the house, sounding fainter and fainter, till it was heard no more.

I was no other time than this during the noises at Epworth, and do not now remember any more circumstances than these.-See Southey's Life of Wesley, Vol. i.

THE DRUMMER OF TEDWORTH.

Every one has heard of the comedy of " The Drummer, or the Haunted House," celebrated enough in its day; but the popularity of which ceased when the affair was no longer a topic of public conversation. The circumstances which gave rise to this performance are detailed as follows, by Glanvil, by whose statement it appears that the matter turned out to be no farce for Mr. Mompesson, the proprietor of the house. As there is an air of incredibility about the narrative, we give it in Glanvil's precise words.

Mr. John Mompesson, of Tedworth, in the county of Wilts, being about the middle of March, in the year 1661, at a neighbouring town, called Ludgarshal, and hearing a drum beat there, he inquired of the bailiff of the town, at whose house he then was, what it meant. The bailiff told him, that they had for some days been troubled with an idle drummer, who demanded money of the constable by virtue of a pretended pass, which he thought was counterfeit. Upon this, Mr. Mompesson sent for the fellow, and asked him by what authority he went up and down the country in that manner with his drum. The drummer answered,

he had good authority, and produced his pass, with a warrant under the hands of Sir William Cawley and Colonel Ayliff, of Gretenham. Mr. Mompesson knowing these gentlemen's hands, discovered that the pass and warrant were counterfeit, and thereupon commanded the vagrant to put off his drum, and charged the constable to carry him before the next Justice of the Peace, to be farther examined and punished. The fellow then confessed the cheat, and begged earnestly to have his drum. Mr. Mompesson told him, that if he understood from Colonel Ayliff, whose drummer he said he was, that he had been an honest man, he should have it again, but in the mean time he would secure it; so he left the drum with the bailiff, and the drummer in the constable's hands, who it seems was prevailed on by the fellow's intreaties to let him go.

About the middle of April following, when Mr. Mompesson was preparing for a journey to London, the bailiffTM sent the drum to his house: on his return from his journey, his wife told him that they had been much frightened in the night by thieves, and that the house had like to have been broken into. And he had not been at home above three nights, when the same noise was heard that had disturbed his family in his absence. It was a very great knocking at his doors and the outside of his house: hereupon he got up, and went about the house with a brace of pistols in his hands; he opened the door where the great knocking was, and then he heard the noise at another door; he opened that also, and went out round the house, but could discover nothing, only he still heard a strange noise and hollow sound. When he was got back to bed, the noise was a thumping and drumming on the top of his house, which continued for some time, and then by degrees subsided.

After this the noise of thumping and drumming was very frequent, usually five nights together, and then it would intermit three. It was on the outside of the house, which was most principally board. It constantly came as they were going to sleep, whether early or late. After a month's disturbance without, it came into the room where the drum lay, four or five nights in seven, within half an hour after they were in bed, continuing almost two. The sign of it just before it came was, they still heard a hurling in the

[ocr errors]

air over the house, and, at its going off, the beating of a drum, like that at the breaking up of a guard. It continued in this room for the space of two months, which time Mr. Mompesson himself lay there to observe it. In the fore part of the night it used to be very troublesome, but after two hours all was quiet.

Mrs. Mompesson being brought to bed, there was but little noise the night she was in travail, nor any for three weeks after, till she had recovered her strength. But after this cessation, it returned in a ruder manner than before, and followed and vexed the youngest children, beating their bedsteads with such violence, that all present expected they would fall in pieces. In laying hands on them, one could feel no blows, but might perceive them to shake exceedingly for an hour together it would beat the Tat-too, and several other points of war, as well as any drummer. After this, they would hear a scratching under the children's beds, as if by something that had iron talons. It would lift the children up in their beds, follow them from one room to another, and for a while haunted none particularly but them.

There was a cock-loft in the house which had not been observed to be troubled, whither they removed the children, putting them to bed while it was fair day, where they were no sooner laid, but their troubler was with them as before.

On the fifth of November, 1661, it kept a mighty noise, and a servant observing two boards in the children's room seeming to move, he bid it give him one of them; upon which the board came (nothing moving it that he saw) within a yard of him: the man added, "Nay, let me have it in my hand;" upon which it was shoved quite home to him again, and so up and down, to and fro, at least twenty times together, till Mr. Mompesson forbade his servant such familiarities. This was in the day-time, and seen by a whole room-full of people. That morning it left a sulphurous smell behind it, which was very offensive. At night the minister, one Mr. Cragg, and divers of the neighbours, came to the house on a visit. The minister went to prayers with them, kneeling at the children's bed-side, where it was then very troublesome and loud. During prayer-time it withdrew into the cock-loft, but returned as soon as prayers

« PreviousContinue »