On December 26th, a little before ten at night, it began knocking in the kitchen, then seemed to be at the bed’s foot, then under the bed, and at last at the head of it. Mr Wesley went down stairs and knocked with his stick against the kitchen’s joists, and it answered him as often as he knocked. He went up stairs, and he found it still thumping, sometimes under the bed, and sometimes at the bed’s head. All the children were awake and trembling with fear. He asked it what it was, and why it disturbed innocent children and did not come to him in his study, if it had anything to say to him; but the only response was a knock on the outside of the house, with which the disturbance of the night was ended.
The next night the noises were as boisterous as ever; and, the night after, when the Rev. Mr Hoole, of Haxsey, was with them, the knocking again began upstairs, and then in the rooms below. The two clergymen went into the kitchen, and then the sound was in the room above. They went up the narrow stairs, and then heard as it were the rustling of a silk night gown. Quickly it was in the nursery, at the bed’s head, knocking three by three. Mr Wesley, observing that the children, though asleep, were sweating and trembling, became angry, and, pulling out a pistol, was about to fire at the place whence the sounds proceeded; but Mr Hoole caught him by the arm and said, “Sir, if this is something preternatural you cannot hurt it by firing your pistol, but you may give it power to hurt you.” He then put aside his pistol, and went close to the place where the sounds were issuing and said, “Thou deaf and dumb devil, why dost thou frighten children that cannot answer thee? Come to me in my study that am a man.” Instantly it knocked his knock, (the particular knock he always used at his own gate and door,) as if it would shiver the board in pieces, and away it went.[[218]]
Up to this time, there had been no disturbance in Mr Wesley’s study; but the next evening, as he opened the door, it was thrust back with such violence as well nigh threw him down, and presently there was a knocking, first on one side, then on the other. His daughter Ann was in the room adjoining and he went to her, and, as the noise still continued, he adjured it to speak, but in vain. He then said, “Spirits love darkness; put out the candle and perhaps it will speak.” Anne did so, and he repeated his adjuration, but still there was only knocking, and no articulate sound. He then said to his daughter, “Nancy, two Christians are an over-match for a devil; go down stairs, and it may be, when I am left alone, it will have courage enough to speak.” When she was gone the thought occurred to him that something might have happened to his son Samuel, and he said, “If thou art the spirit of my son Samuel, I pray knock three knocks, and no more.” Immediately all was silence, and the rest of the night passed away in quietude.[[219]]
From this time until January 24, 1717, a period of twenty-seven days, the house was quiet; but on this day, in the morning, while at family prayers, the family heard the usual knocks at the prayer for King George; and at night the knocks were more distinct, both in the prayer for the king and for the prince, and were accompanied with a thundering thump at the Amen. Between nine and ten o’clock, while Robert Brown was sitting by himself at the back kitchen fire, something came out of the copper hole like a rabbit, and turned five times swiftly round. Robert ran after it with the tongs, but, to Robert’s terrible dismay, it vanished.
On the day after, January 25, Mr Wesley shortened the family prayers in the morning, omitting the confession, the absolution, and the prayers for the king and prince, and observed that whenever he did this there was no knocking; but whenever he used the name of King George it seemed a signal for the knocking to commence. This made Wesley so angry that he resolved to say three prayers for the royal family, instead of two.
Emilia often heard something like the quick winding up of a jack at the corner of her room. When Mrs Wesley stamped on the floor it answered her; and when little Kezzia, only six years old, did the same, three loud and hollow knocks were the immediate response. On one occasion, when the man-servant went into the dining-room, something like a badger, without a head, was sitting by the fire, and ran past him through the hall. He followed with a candle and searched, but nothing could be found. On another occasion, to Mr Wesley’s no small amazement, his trencher began dancing on the table where the family were dining. Several nights the latch of his bed-room door was lifted; and one night, when the latch of the back kitchen-door was often lifted, Emilia went and held it fast, but it was still lifted up and the door pushed violently against her, though nothing was to be seen outside. Thrice Mr Wesley was pushed by an invisible power, once against the corner of his desk, a second time against the door of the matted chamber, and a third time against the frame of his study door. He often spoke to it to tell him what it was, but never heard any articulate voice, and only once or twice two or three feeble squeaks. As a rule, as soon as the noises began the wind rose, and whistled loudly round the house. It commonly commenced the disturbance at the corner of the nursery ceiling, and, 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. Very often the sound seemed to be in the air in the middle of a room. Though it often seemed to rattle down the pewter, to clap the doors, draw the curtains, and kick Robert Brown’s shoes about, yet nothing was moved except the latches; unless once, when the nursery-door was thrown open. It is also a remarkable circumstance that the noise never came by day till Mrs Wesley ordered the blowing of the horn; ever after that it almost invariably happened that whenever any member of the family went from one room into another, the latch of the room they went to was lifted up before they touched it. It also never came into Mr Wesley’s study until he talked to it so sharply, and called it a deaf and dumb devil. Mrs Wesley desired it not to disturb her from five to six o’clock in the morning; and, from that time, no noise was heard in her chamber from five till she came down stairs, nor at any other time when she was employed in devotion.
The man-servant, Robert Brown, who slept in the garret, was often so frightened, that he ran down stairs, almost naked, not daring to stay alone to put on his clothes; and the maid-servant, Nanny Marshall, seemed more affrighted than anybody else. Once, when Mary Wesley was by herself in the dining-room, the door seemed to open, and some one entered in a night-gown trailing upon the ground, went leisurely around her, and vanished. A few nights after, Mr Wesley ordered her to light him to his study, and just as he unlocked the door, the latch was lifted for him. When Anne Wesley came into her chamber in the day-time, it commonly walked after her from room to room, and followed her from one side of the bed to the other. When five or six of them were sitting in the nursery together, a cradle seemed to be violently rocked in the room above, though no cradle existed there. One night, when Anne was sitting on the press bed, playing at cards with some of her sisters, the bed was lifted up. She at once leaped down, exclaiming, “Surely old Jeffrey would not run away with her.” At her sisters’ persuasion, she again sat down, when the bed was again lifted up, a considerable height, several times successively. The servant-maid, after churning, on one occasion, took her butter into the dairy, and had no sooner done so than she heard a knocking on the shelf, first above and then below. She took a candle and made diligent search, but finding nothing, threw down butter, tray, and all, and ran away for her very life. Robin Brown, one night, resolved to be a match for “old Jeffrey,” and took the large household dog to bed with him; but, despite the dog, the latch began to jar as usual, the turkey-cock to gobble, and the boots and shoes to clatter; until the dog, as much frightened as Robin was, crept into bed to him, and commenced such a howling and barking, that the whole family were alarmed. On another occasion, Robin was grinding corn in the garrets, and happening to stop a little, the handle of the mill began to turn with the utmost swiftness. Robin said, “Nothing vexed him, but that the mill was empty. If corn had been in it, old Jeffrey might have grinded his heart out for him; he would never have disturbed him.”
At length, the family became so accustomed to the noises, that they scarce regarded them. At nights, when the tapping at their beds began, the young ladies would say, “Jeffrey is coming: it is time to sleep;” and, in the day-time, when the noise was heard, little Kezzy, six years old, would run up stairs, and pursue it from room to room, saying, she wished for no better fun. Several gentlemen and clergymen advised Mr Wesley to quit the house; but his invariable answer was, “No; let the devil flee from me; I will never flee from him.”[[220]]
About the middle of February 1717, there seems to have been a cessation of those unearthly noises; hence Mr Wesley wrote to his son Samuel as follows:—
Feb. 11, 1716–7.