and down the Country in that manner with his Drum. The Drummer answered, he had good Authority, and produc'd his Pass, with a Warrant under the Hands of Sir William Cawley, and Colonel Ayliff of Gretenham. Mr. Mompesson knowing these Gentlemens Hands, discovered that the Pass and Warrant were counterfeit, and thereupon commanding the Vagrant to put off his Drum, and charged the Constable to carry him before the next Justice of the Peace, to be farther Examined and Punisht. The Fellow then confessed the Cheat, and begg'd earnestly to have his Drum. Mr. Mompesson told him, that if he understood from Colonel Ayliff, whose Drummer he said he was, that he had been an honest Man, he should have it again, but in the mean time he would secure it, so he left the Drum with the Bailiff, and the Drummer in the Constable's Hands, who it seems was prevailed on by the Fellows intreaties to let him go.
About the midst of April following, when Mr. Mompesson was preparing for a Journey to London, the Bailiff sent the Drum to his House; when he was returned from that Journey, his Wife told him, that they had been much affrighted in the Night by Thieves, and that the House had like to have been broken up. And he had not been Home above three Nights, when the same Noise was heard that had disturbed his Family in his absence. It was a very great knocking at his Doors, and the outsides of his House: Hereupon he got up, and went about the House with a Brace of Pistols in his Hands; he opened the Door where the great Knocking was, and then he heard the Noise at another Door, he opened that also, and went out round the House, but could discover nothing, only he still heard a strange Noise and hollow Sound. When he was got back to Bed, the Noise was a Thumping and Drumming on the top of his House, which continued a good space, and then by degrees went off into the Air.
After this, the Noise of Thumping and Drumming was very frequent, usually five Nights together, and then it would intermit three. It was on the outsides of the House, which is most of it of Board. It constantly came as they were going to sleep, whether early or late. After a Months Disturbance without, it came into the Room where the Drum lay; four or five Nights in seven, within half an Hour after they were in Bed, continuing almost two. The sign of it just before it came, was, they still heard an hurling in the Air over the House, and at its going off, the beating of a Drum like that at the breaking up of a Guard. It continued in this Room for the space of
