ible secret sin, else he would not thus be
vexed. Sermons were preached with him as the text. Factions were formed,
angrily affirming and denying the supernatural character of the
disturbances. News of the affair traveled even to the ears of the King,
who dispatched an investigating commission to Mompesson House, where,
greatly to the delight of the unbelieving, nothing untoward occurred
during the commissioners' visit. But thereafter, as if to make up for
lost time, the most sensational and vexatious phenomena of the haunting
were produced.

Thus matters continued for many months, until it dawned on Mompesson and
his friends that possibly the case was not one of ghosts but one of
witchcraft. This suspicion rose from the singular circumstance that
voices in the children's room began, "for a hundred times together," to
cry "A witch! A witch!" Resolved to put matters to a test, one of the
boldest of a company of spectators suddenly demanded, "Satan, if the
drummer set thee to work, give three knocks and no more!" To which three
knocks were distinctly heard, and afterward, by way of confirmation,
five knocks as requested by another onlooker.

Now began an eager hunt for the once despised drummer, who was presently
found in jail at Gloucester accused of theft. And with this discovery
word was brought to Mompesson that the drummer had openly boasted of
having bewitched him. This was enough for the outraged Squire. There was
in existence an act of King James I. holding it a felony to "feed,
employ, or reward any evil spirit," and under its provisions he speedily
had his alleged persecutor indicted as a wizard.

Amid great excitement the aged veteran was brought from Gloucester to
Salisbury to stand trial. But his spirit remained unbroken. Instead of
confessing, humbly begging mercy, and promising amends, he undertook to
bargain with Mompesson, promising that if the latter secured his liberty
and gave him employment as a farm hand, he would rid him of the
haunting. Perhaps because he feared treachery, perhaps because, as he
said, he felt sure the drummer "could do him no good in any honest way,"
Mompesson rejected this ingenuous proposal.

So the drummer was left to his fate, which, for those days, was most
unexpected. A packed and attentive court room listened to the tale of
the mishaps and misadventures that had made Mompesson House a national
center of interest; it was proved that the accused had been intimate
with an o