th you."
In the morning, when he spoke of the incident and remarked that he
supposed a servant must have rapped at the wrong door, he learned to his
profound astonishment that "no one of the house lay that way or had
business thereabout." This being so, it could not possibly have been
anything but a ghost.

Thus runs the argument of the superstitious clergyman. And all the
while, we may feel tolerably sure, little Miss Mompesson was chuckling
inwardly at the panic into which she had thrown the reverend gentleman.

* * * * *

If it be objected that no girl of ten could successfully execute such a
sustained imposture, one need only point to the many instances in which
children of equally tender years or little older have since ventured on
similar mystifications, with even more startling results. Incredible as
it may seem to those who have not looked into the subject, it is a fact
that there are boys and girls--especially girls--who take a morbid
delight in playing pranks that will astound and perplex their elders.
The mere suggestion that Satan or a discarnate spirit is at the bottom
of the mischief will then act as a powerful stimulus to the elaboration
of even more sensational performances, and the result, if detection does
not soon occur, will be a full-fledged "poltergeist," as the
crockery-breaking, furniture-throwing ghost is technically called.

The singular affair of Hetty Wesley, which we shall take up next, is a
case in point. So, too, is the history of the Fox sisters, who were
extremely juvenile when they discovered the possibilities latent in the
properly manipulated rap and knock. And the spirits who so maliciously
disturbed the peace of good old Dr. Phelps in Stratford, Connecticut, a
half century and more ago, unquestionably owed their being to the nimble
wit and abnormal fancy of his two step-children, aged sixteen and
eleven.

It is to be remembered, further, that contemporary conditions were
exceptionally favorable to the success of the Tedworth hoax. In all
likelihood the children had nothing to do with the first alarm, the
alarm that occurred during Mompesson's absence in London; and possibly
the second was only a rude practical joke by some village lads who had
heard of the first and wished to put the Squire's courage to a test. But
once the little Mompessons learned, or suspected, that their father
associated the noises with the vagrant drummer, a wide vista of
e