Page:A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More.djvu/157

Rh downright sick and grievously afflicted in Mind, loudly complaining, that his Sins were such that they were utterly unpardonable, and that the least part of them were bigger then all the Sins of the world besides; but would have no Divine come to him, nor did particularly confess them to any. Several rumours indeed there were that once he sold one of his Sons, but when and to whom it was uncertain, and that he had made a Contract with the Devil, and the like. But it was observed and known for certain, that he had grown beyond all expectation rich, and that four daies before this mischance he being witness to a Child, said, that that was the last he should be ever witness to.

3. The night he died his eldest Son watched with him. He gave up the Ghost about the third hour of the night, at what time a black Cat opening the casement with her nails (for it was shut) ran to his bed, and did so violently scratch his face and the bolster, as if she endeavoured by force to remove him out of the place where he lay. But the Cat afterwards suddenly was gone, and she was no sooner gone, but he breathed his last. A fair tale was made to the Pastor of the Parish, and the Magistracy of the Town allowing it, he was buried on the right side of the Altar, his Friends paying well for it. No sooner Cuntius was dead but a great Tempest arose, which raged most at his very Funeral, there being such impetuous Storms of Wind with Snow, that it made mens bodies quake and their teeth chatter in their heads. But so soon as he was interred, of a sudden all was calm.

4. He had not been dead a day or two, but several rumours were spread in the town of a Spiritus incubus or Ephialtes, in the shape of Cuntius, that would have forced a Woman. This hapned before he was buried. After his Burial the same Spectre awakened one that was sleeping in his dining-room, I can scarce withhold my self from beating thee to death. The voice was the voice of Cuntius. The watchmen of the Town also affirmed that they heard every night great stirs in Cuntius his House, the fallings and throwings of things about, and that they did see the gates stand wide open betimes in the mornings, though they were never so diligently shut o're night; that his Horses were very unquiet in the Stable, as if they kicked and bit one another; besides unusual barkings and howlings of Dogs all over the Town. But these were but preludious suspicions to further evidence, which I will run over as briefly as I may.

5. A Maid-servant of one of the Citizens of Pentsch (while these Tragedies and stirs were so frequent in the Town) heard, together with some others lying in their beds, the noise and tramplings of one riding about the House, who at last ran against the walls with that violence that the whole House shaked again as if it would fall, and the windows were all fill'd with flashings of light. The Master of the house being informed of it, went out of doors in the morning to see what the matter was; and he beheld in the Snow the impressions of strange feet, such as were like neither Horses, nor Cows, nor Hogs nor any Creature that he knew.

Another time, about eleven of the clock in the night, Cuntius appears to one of his Friends that was a witness to a Childe of his, speaks unto Rh