ck, when a maid servant, coming down from them, told us that it was
come.... Mr. Mompesson and I and a gentleman that came with me went up.
I heard a strange scratching as I went up the stairs, and when we came
into the room I perceived _it was just behind the bolster of the
children's bed and seemed to be against the tick. It was as loud a
scratching as one with long nails could make upon a bolster_. There were
two modest little girls in the bed, between seven and eight years old,
as I guessed. I saw their hands out of the clothes, and they could not
contribute to the noise that was behind their heads. _They had been used
to it and still[C] had somebody or other in the chamber with them, and
therefore seemed not to be much affrighted._

"I, standing at the bed's head, thrust my hand behind the bolster,
directing it to the place whence the noise seemed to come. _Whereupon
the noise ceased there, and was heard in another part of the bed; but
when I had taken out my hand it returned and was heard in the same place
as before._[D] I had been told it would imitate noises, 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 that possibly
I could, to find if there were any trick, contrivance, or common cause
of it. The like did my friend, but we could discover nothing.

"So that I was then verily persuaded, and am so still, that the noise
was made by some demon or spirit."

Doubtless his countenance betrayed the receptiveness of his mind, and it
is not surprising that the naughty little girls proceeded to work
industriously upon his imagination. He speaks of having heard under the
bed a panting sound, which, he is certain, caused "a motion so strong
that it shook the room and windows very sensibly"; and it also appears
that he was induced to believe that he saw something moving in a "linen
bag" hanging in the room, which bag, on being emptied, was found to
contain nothing animate. Therefore--spirits again! After bidding the
children good night and retiring to the room set apart for him, he was
wakened from a sound sleep by a tremendous knocking on his door, and to
his terrified inquiry, "In the name of God, who is it, and what would
you have?" received the not wholly reassuring reply, "Nothing wi