sit, there is also one door only; and there is a kind of landing-room at the top of the stairs opposite to this door."
In the further room the servant-maids were sent to sleep. These were now violently beaten, during the night, producing bruises and swellings. Those who sat in the outer room could hear the blows being administered. Mr. Colton went into the inner room and stood by the bed where the maids were, and heard the blows rained on them. When he cried for a light, it was brought in, but no person could be seen by him who could have administered these blows.
The next phenomenon was this, not witnessed by Mr. Colton. He says: "Mr. Chave, of Mere, no relation at all to Mr. Chave who rents the house, can swear to the following fact. Sitting up to hear and see these phenomena, he was alarmed by one or two loud shrieks; on rushing into the room his course at the threshold of the door was arrested by the following phenomenon. Every curtain of that bed was agitated and the knots thrown and whirled about with such rapidity, all at the same time, that it would have been by no means pleasant to have been in their vortex, or within the sphere of their action." The moon at the time was full, and was shining into the room.
"This scene, accompanied with such a violent noise of the rings as could not have been exceeded by four persons stationed one at each curtain for the purpose, continued for about two minutes, when it concluded with a noise resembling the tearing of a sheet from top to bottom. Candles were then instantly produced, and many rents, one very large one across the grain of strong new cotton curtains, were discovered." Mr. Colton, however, on other occasions professes to have seen the curtains violently agitated and a heavy Greek
