The Book of Dreams and Ghosts

The last mention of the affair, at this time, is in a letter from Emily, of 1st April, to a Mr. Berry. "Tell my brother the sprite was with us last night, and heard by many of our family." There are no other contemporary letters preserved, but we may note Mrs. Wesley's opinion (25th January) that it was "beyond the power of any human being to make such strange and various noises". The next evidence is ten years after date, the statements taken down by Jack Wesley in 1726 (1720?). Mrs. Wesley adds to her former account that she "earnestly desired it might not disturb her" (at her devotions) "between five and six in the evening," and it did not rout in her room at that time. Emily added that a screen was knocked at on each side as she went round to the other. Sukey mentioned the noise as, on one occasion, coming gradually from the garret stairs, outside the nursery door, up to Hetty's bed, "who trembled strongly in her sleep. It then removed to the room overhead, where it knocked my father's knock on the ground, as if it would beat the house down." Nancy said that the noise used to follow her, or precede her, and once a bed, on which she sat playing cards, was lifted up under her several times to a considerable height. Robin, the servant, gave evidence that he was greatly plagued with all manner of noises and movements of objects. John Wesley, in his account published many years after date in his Arminian Magazine, attributed the affair of 1716 to his father's broken vow of deserting his mother till she recognised the Prince of Orange as king! He adds that the mastiff "used to tremble and creep away before the noise began".