Miscellanies Upon Various Subjects eBook

John Aubrey
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 161 pages of information about Miscellanies Upon Various Subjects.

Miscellanies Upon Various Subjects eBook

John Aubrey
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 161 pages of information about Miscellanies Upon Various Subjects.
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

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Miscellanies Upon Various Subjects from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.