Page:The history of Witchcraft and demonology.djvu/251

 met a strange woman, whom he offended in some way, and suddenly he "did use such strang and idle kinde of gestures in laughing, dancing, and such like lighte behaviour, that he was suspected to be madd.” The famous exorcist was sent for on the 5th of November, 1597, and forthwith recognized the signs of possession. The lad was suffering for the sins of Nottingham. Accordingly sermons were delivered and prayers were read in true ranting fashion, and when Darrel named one after the other fourteen signs of possession the patient, who had been most carefully coached, illustrated each in turn.

It is possible that Darrel had to some extent mesmeric control over Somers, whose performance was of a very remarkable nature at least, for “he tore; he foamed; he wallowed; his face was drawn awry; his eyes would stare and his tongue hang out”; together with a thousand other such apish antics which greatly impressed the bystanders. Finally the boy lay as if dead for a quarter of an hour, and then rose up declaring he was well and whole.

However, obsession followed possession. The demon still assailed him, and it was not long before Master Somers accused thirteen women of having contrived his maladies by their sorcery. Darrel, the witch-finder, had by this time attained a position of no small importance in the town, being chosen preacher at S. Mary’s, and he was prepared to back his pupil to the uttermost. Yet even his influence for some reason did not serve, and all but two of the women concerned were released from prison, Next certain unbelieving citizens had the bad taste to interfere, and to carry off the chief actor to the house of correction, where he pretty soon confessed his impostures, in which, as he acknowledged, he had been carefully instructed by Darrel. The matter now became a public scandal, and upon the report of the Archdeacon of Derby the Archbishop of York appointed a commission to inquire into the facts. Brought before these ministers, not one of whom could possibly have had any means of forming a correct judgement, Somers retracted his words, asserted that he had been induced to slander Darrel, and thereat fell into such fits, foamings, and contortions that the ignoramuses were convinced of the reality of his demoniac possession.