could not discover; but he saw a great body, with two red and glaring
eyes, which, for some time, were fixed steadily on him, and at length
disappeared." Innumerable were the antics it played. Once it purred
like a cat; beat the children's legs black and blue; put a long spike
into Mr. Mompesson's bed, and a knife into his mother's; filled the
porrengers with ashes; hid a Bible under the grate; and turned the
money black in people's pockets. "One night," said Mr. Mompesson, in a
letter to Mr. Glanvil, "there were seven or eight of these devils in
the shape of men, who, as soon as a gun was fired, would shuffle away
into an arbour;" a circumstance which might have convinced Mr.
Mompesson of the mortal nature of his persecutors, if he had not been
of the number of those worse than blind, who shut their eyes and refuse
to see.

In the mean time the drummer, the supposed cause of all the mischief,
passed his time in Gloucester gaol, whither he had been committed as a
rogue and a vagabond. Being visited one day by some person from the
neighbourhood of Tedworth, he asked what was the news in Wiltshire, and
whether people did not talk a great deal about a drumming in a
gentleman's house there? The visiter replied, that he heard of nothing
else; upon which the drummer observed, "I have done it; I have thus
plagued him; and he shall never be quiet until he hath made me
satisfaction for taking away my drum." No doubt the fellow, who seems
to have been a gipsy, spoke the truth, and that the gang of which he
was a member knew more about the noises at Mr. Mompesson's house than
anybody else. Upon these words, however, he was brought to trial at
Salisbury, for witchcraft; and, being found guilty, was sentenced to
transportation; a sentence which, for its leniency, excited no little
wonder in that age, when such an accusation, whether proved or not,
generally insured the stake or the gibbet. Glanvil says, that the
noises ceased immediately the drummer was sent beyond the seas; but
that, some how or other, he managed to return from transportation; "by
raising storms and affrighting the seamen, it was said;" when the
disturbances were forthwith renewed, and continued at intervals for
several years. Certainly, if the confederates of this roving gipsy were
so pertinacious in tormenting poor weak Mr. Mompesson, their
pertinacity is a most extraordinary instance of what revenge is capable
of. It was believed by many, at the time, that Mr.