e opened the door he sprang out
and went around the house, but no one was in sight, nor could he find
trace of any intruder.

They were frequently afterwards disturbed by strange and unaccountable
noises. One night Mrs. Weekman heard what she deemed to be the footsteps
of someone walking in the cellar. Another night Mr. Weekman and his wife
were disturbed by hearing a scream from their child, a girl about eight
years of age,--this happened at midnight,--they went to her and she told
them that something like a hand passed over her face and head; it seemed
cold, and so badly had she been frightened that it was some time before
she could be induced to tell her parents the cause of her alarm, nor
would she consent to sleep in the same room for several nights
afterwards.

All this might have happened, and been only the idle fabric of a child's
dream, the Weekman family might have imagined what they gave out as
fact, and we should be inclined to believe that such was the case, if we
had not the most conclusive evidence that such manifestations were quite
common, not only in this house, but in various others where similarly
strange things have happened.

CHAPTER III.

"Know well my soul, God's hand controls
Whate'er thou fearest."

From the time the Fox family entered the house at Hydesville, about
December, 1847, they were incessantly disturbed by similar noises to
those heard by Lucretia Pulver and the Weekmans. During the next month
however (January, 1848) the noises began to assume the character of
slight knockings heard at night in the bedroom; sometimes appearing to
sound from the cellar beneath. At first Mrs. Fox sought to persuade
herself this might be the hammering of a shoemaker in a house hard by,
sitting up late at work. But further observation showed that the sounds
originated in the house. For not only did the knockings become more
distinct, and not only were they heard first in one part of the house,
then in another, but the family remarked that these raps, even when not
very loud, often caused a motion, tremulous rather than a sudden jar, of
the bedsteads and chairs--sometimes of the floor; a motion which was
quite perceptible to the touch when a hand was laid on the chairs, which
was sometimes sensibly felt at night in the slightly oscillating motion
of the bed, and which was occasionally perceived as a sort of vibration
even when standing on the floor. After a time also, t