Devil; Witchcraft -- Great Britain; Witchcraft -- United States
‘Mr. _Hoffman_ refusing to undertake the quarrel, the Commissioners held
it not safe to lodge where they had been thus entertained, any longer, but
caused all things to be removed into the Chambers over the Gatehouse,
where they staid but one night, and what rest they enjoyed there, we have
but an uncertain relation of, for they went away early the next morning;
but if it may be held fit to set down what hath been delivered by the
report of others, they were also the same night much affrighted with
dreadful apparitions; but, observing that these passages spread much in
discourse, to be also in particulars taken notice of, and that the nature
of it made not for their cause, they agreed to the concealing of the
things for the future; yet this is well known and certain, that the
Gate-keeper’s wife was in so strange an agony in her bed, and in her
bed-chamber such noise (whilst her husband was above with the
Commissioners) that two maids in the next room to her durst not venture to
assist her, but, affrighted, ran out to call company, and their Master,
and found the woman (at their coming in) gasping for breath: and the next
day said that she saw and suffered that, which, for all the world, she
would not be hired to again.
From _Woodstock_ the Commissioners removed unto _Euelme_, and some of them
returned to _Woodstock_, the Sunday sennight after (the Book of
_Valuations_ wanting something that was, for haste, left imperfect), but
lodged not in any of those rooms where they had lain before, and yet were
not unvisited (as they confess themselves) by the Devil, whom they called
their nightly guest. Captain _Crooke_ came not untill _Tuesday_ night, and
how he sped that night, the gate-keeper’s wife can tell, if she dareth;
but, what she hath whispered to her gossips, shall not be made a part of
this our Narrative, nor any more particulars which have fallen from the
Commissioners themselves, and their servants to other persons; they are
all, or most of them alive, and may add to it when they please, and,
surely, have not a better way to be revenged of him who troubled them,
than according to the Proverb, tell truth and shame the Devil.
There remains this observation to be added, that on a Wednesday morning,
all these Officers went away; And that, since then, diverse persons of
severall qualities, have lodged often and sometimes long in the same rooms
both in the presence, withdrawing room and bed Chamber belonging unto his
Sacred Majesty, yet none have had the least disturbance, or heard the
smallest noise, for which the cause was not as ordinary, as apparent;
except the Commissioners and their company, who came in order to the
alienating and pulling down the house, which is well nigh performed.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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