and seeming to ride out of the window, carrying only
one pane of glass away, and a little piece of iron.
After this Fry’s head was thrust into a narrow
space, where a man’s fist could not enter, between
a bed and a wall; and forced to be taken thence by
the strength of men, all bruised and bloody; upon this
it was thought fit to bleed him; and after that was
done, the binder was removed from his arm, and conveyed
about his middle and presently was drawn so very straight,
it had almost killed him, and was cut asunder, making
an ugly uncouth noise. Several other times with
handkerchiefs, cravats and other things he was near
strangled, they were drawn so close upon his throat.
He lay one night in his periwig (in his master’s
chamber, for the more safety) which was torn all to
pieces. His best periwig he inclosed in a little
box on the inside with a joined-stool, and other weight
upon it; the box was snapped asunder, and the wig
torn all to flitters. His master saw his buckles
fall all to pieces on his feet. But first I should
have told you the fate of his shoe strings, one of
which a gentlewoman greater than all exception, assured
me, that she saw it come out of his shoe, without
any visible hand, and fling itself to the farther end
of the room; the other was coming out too, but that
a maid prevented and helped it out, which crisped
and curled about her hand like a living eel. The
cloaths worn by Anne Langdon and Fry, (if their own)
were torn to pieces on their backs. The same
gentlewoman, being the daughter of the minister of
the parish, Mr. Roger Specott, showed me one of Fry’s
gloves, which was torn in his pocket while she was
by. I did view it near and narrowly, and do seriously
confess that it was torn so very accurately in all
the seams and in other places, and laid abroad so artificially,
and it is so dexterously tattered, (and all done in
the pocket in a minute’s time) as nothing human
could have done it; no cutler could have made an engine
to do it so. Other fantastical freeks have been
very frequent, as the marching of a great barrel full
of salt out of one room into another; an andiron laying
itself over a pan of milk that was scalding on the
fire, and two flitches of bacon descending from the
chimney where they hung, and laid themselves over that
andiron. The appearing of the Spectrum (when in
her own shape) in the same cloaths, to seeming, which
Mrs. Furze her daughter-in-law has on. The intangling
of Fry’s face and legs, about his neck, and about
the frame of the chairs, so as they have been with
great difficulty disengaged.
But the most remarkable of all happened in that day that I passed by the door in my return hither, which was Easter-eve, when Fry returning from work (that little he can do) he was caught by the woman spectre by the skirts of his doublet, and carried into the air; he was quickly missed by his master and the workmen, and a great enquiry was made for Francis Fry, but no hearing of him; but about half-an-hour after Fry