fly in the
green room, or nursery, where (apparently) Hetty, Patty and Keziah
lay. Emily heard the noises later than some of her sisters, perhaps a
week after the original groans. She was locking up the house about
ten o'clock when a sound came like the smashing and splintering of a
huge piece of coal on the kitchen floor. She and Sukey went through
the rooms on the ground floor, but found the dog asleep, the cat at
the other end of the house, and everything in order. From her bedroom
Emily heard a noise of breaking the empty bottles under the stairs,
but was going to bed, when Hetty, who had been sitting on the lowest
step of the garret stairs beside the nursery door, waiting for her
father, was chased into the nursery by a sound as of a man passing her
in a loose trailing gown. Sukey and Nancy were alarmed by loud knocks
on the outside of the dining-room door and overhead. All this time
Mr. Wesley heard nothing, and was not even told that anything unusual
was heard. Mrs. Wesley at first held her peace lest he should think
it "according to the vulgar opinion, a warning against his own death,
which, indeed, we all apprehended". Mr. Wesley only smiled when he
was informed; but, by taking care to see all the girls safe in bed,
sufficiently showed his opinion that the young ladies and their lovers
were the ghost. Mrs. Wesley then fell back on the theory of rats, and
employed a man to blow a horn as a remedy against these vermin. But
this measure only aroused the emulation of the sprite, whom Emily
began to call "Jeffrey".

Not till 21st December did Mr. Wesley hear anything, then came
thumpings on his bedroom wall. Unable to discover the cause, he
procured a stout mastiff, which soon became demoralised by his
experiences. On the morning of the 24th, about seven o'clock, Emily
led Mrs. Wesley into the nursery, where she heard knocks on and under
the bedstead; these sounds replied when she knocked. Something "like
a badger, with no head," says Emily; Mrs. Wesley only says, "like a
badger," ran from under the bed. On the night of the 25th there was
an appalling vacarme. Mr. and Mrs. Wesley went on a tour of
inspection, but only found the mastiff whining in terror. "We still
heard it rattle and thunder in every room above or behind us, locked
as well as open, except my study, where as yet it never came." On the
night of the 26th Mr. Wesley seems to have heard of a phenomenon
already familiar to Emily--"someth