This was taken as proof that the neighbour was a witch, and that the weals on her body were the stigmata of the blows which Isidore had given his horses, and he was convinced that this woman had tried to separate him from his sister through sheer jealousy.
The well-known ghost of Tedworth, Wiltshire, called the "Drummer of Tedworth," sometimes took the form of an animal, or at least was heard making animal sounds. The following description is taken from Joseph Glanvill's "Sadducismus Triumphatus."
On one occasion the village blacksmith stayed in the house sleeping with the footman, hoping he might hear the supernatural noises and be cured of his incredulity when "there came a noise in the room as if one had been shoeing a horse, and somewhat came, as it were, with a pair of pincers," snipping away at the sceptical smith. Next day the ghost came panting like a dog out of breath, and a woman who was present, taking up a stick to strike at it, the weapon "was caught suddenly out of her hand and thrown away: and company coming up, the room was presently filled with a bloody noisome smell," and was very hot, though there was no fire, and the winter was severe. "It continued scratching for an hour and a half and then went into the next room, when it knocked a little and seemed to rattle a chain."
Sometimes the phantom purred like a cat and it was described by a servant as "a great body with two red and glaring eyes."
The Rev. Joseph Glanvill himself went to the haunted house in January, 1662, and was convinced that the noises were made by a demon or spirit. He heard a strange scratching, as he went upstairs, which appeared to come from behind the bolster of the children's bed. It was loud scratching, and when he thrust his hand behind the bolster at the point from which the noise seemed to come it ceased but began in another place. When he removed his hand, however, it began again in the same place as before. "I had been told that it would imitate noises," says Glanvill, "and made trial by scratching several times upon the sheet, as five, and seven and ten, which it followed, and still stopped at my number. I searched under and behind the bed, turned up the clothes to the bed cords, grasped the bolster, sounded the wall behind, and made all the search I possibly could." But all his endeavours were fruitless; he could discover nothing. There was neither cat nor dog in the room. After scratching for more than half an hour, the phantom went into the midst of the bed, under the children, "and then seemed to pant very loudly, like a dog out of breath. I put my hand upon the place and felt the bed bearing up against it, as if something within had thrust it up." The motion it caused by this panting was so strong that it shook the walls and made the windows rattle; yet this strange animal ghost was never explained.
At Epworth parsonage, Lincolnshire, when the Rev. Samuel Wesley, father of John Wesley, was rector, there is a well-known story of the haunting of the parsonage. Robert Brown the servant heard, among other phenomena, "as it were the gobbling of a turkey-cock close to the bedside."
The dog, a large mastiff, showed enormous fear of the strange incidents and apparitions. "When the disturbances continued he used to bark and leap and snap on one side and the other, and that frequently before any person in the room heard any noise at all. But after two or three days he used to tremble and creep away before the noise began. And by that the family knew it was at hand."
Ewshott House, in Crondall, Hampshire, was haunted by a ghost that made a noise exactly as though a flock of sheep from the paddock had rushed by the windows on the gravel drive. In the morning, however, there were no signs of sheep having passed that way.
Willington Mill was haunted by several spectres in the shape of animals. The mill stood on a tidal stream which ran into the Tyne near to Wallsend. The account of strange happenings there was published by the "Newcastle Weekly Leader" many years ago. One of the servants once saw a lady in a lavender-coloured dress pass the kitchen door, go upstairs, and vanish into one of the bedrooms, but little notice was taken of this apparition; indeed it was almost forgotten when something else happened which drew attention to it. A certain Thomas Davidson was courting this servant and was waiting for her to come out of the mill and join him in a moonlight ramble, when, looking towards the building, he distinctly saw a whitish cat run out and presently it came close to his feet.
Thinking the strange puss was very forward, he gave her a kick, but encountered no solid matter and puss continued her walk, disappearing from his sight a moment later. Returning to the window, and looking in the same direction, Davidson again saw the animal. This time it came hopping like a rabbit, coming quite as close to his feet as before. He determined to have a good rap at it, and took deliberate aim: but, as before, his foot went through it and he felt nothing. Again he followed it, and it disappeared at the same spot as its predecessor. The third time he went to the window and in a few moments it made another appearance, not like a cat or rabbit now but as large as a sheep and brightly luminous. On it came and Davidson stood rooted to the spot as though paralysed, but the animal moved on and vanished as before.