are going to hear about. They were very poor, of
course, but luckily the children were all clever and
strong, and their mother took care that they did not
waste their time, and that they should give their whole
mind to whatever they were doing at the moment,
Samuel was the eldest of all ; he was in London, a master
in Westminster School, and secretary to the Bishop of
Rochester. And next came Sukey, her mother's name-
sake. Molly, Hetty, Emilia and Nancy followed, and
then the younger ones John, afterwards famous as
the founder of the sect of ' Wesley ans,' who took their
title from him, Patty, Charles \vho omposed many
beautiful anthems, and little Keziah.
Nowadays, when children as a rule will not take the
trouble to learn to read till they are seven or eight r
and even then stumble and stammer over the words,
it is interesting to know how Mrs. Wesley managed.
' None of them w r ere taught to read till they were five
years old, and the day before, everyone's work was
appointed them, a'nd a charge given that none should
come into the room from nine till twelve, or from
two till five, which w r ere our school hours. One day
was allowed the child wherein to learn its letters, and
each of them did in that time know all its letters, great
and small, except Molly and Nancy, who were a day
and a half before they knew them perfectly, for which
I thought them very dull ; but the reason why I thought
them so was because the rest learned them so readily,
and Samuel, who was the first child I ever taught,
learned the alphabet in a few hours.
OLD JEFFERY 131
* As soon as they knew the letters, they were first
put to spell and read one line, then a verse, never
leaving till perfect in their lesson, were it shorter or
longer.'
So what the little Wesleys knew they knew clearly
and well, and did not mix up one thing with another.
Somehow the parents contrived to save enough money
to send their sons to good schools Samuel and Charles
to Westminster, and John to the Charterhouse, then and
long after in the heart of the City of London. They all
worked hard and were specially fond of Greek and Latin r
and when they left school for Oxford, both Samuel and
John studied Hebrew, while Charles gave much of his
time to music.
It was after Old Jeffery's time, and during Charles's
school life at Westminster, that an event occurred
which, trifling though it seemed, might have altered
the course of European history. A letter was received
at Epworth Rectory, from an Irish gentleman, one
Mr. Wellesley, pointing out that though he was not
aware of any relationship between himself and the
Rector of Epworth, yet that their names were in reality
the same, and should one of the Rector's sons be called
Charles, he was ready to make him his heir and leave
him all his money. In the meantime he would pay all
his school bills.
This offer w r as gratefully received by the boy's
father, who could very ill afford the necessary fees
and the money for travelling between London and
Lincolnshire. For several years the matter was left
/
thus, when suddenly Mr. Wellesley visited Charles at
Westminster, told him what he proposed to do for him,
and asked if he would go back to Ireland with him at
once. The boy hesitated, saying that he would like to
think it over, and also to consult his father, but when
he did so, Mr. Wesley answered that he must decide
for himself.
K2
132 OLD JEFFERY
Now Charles had set his heart on going to Christ
Church, Oxford, where he had just been elected to a
studentship. The life of a country squire in Ireland
with its hunting and fishing, so fascinating to most
boys, had no charms for him, so he wrote gratefully
to decline. Mr.Wellesley was surprised and rather dis-
appointed, but soon began to look for an heir in Charles's
place. He found one in a poor young man from a neigh-
bouring county, who, to please him, changed his own
name of Colley for that of Wellesley. The wealth of this
young heir, as well as his pleasant manners and talents,
brought him into notice. He was later made Earl of Mor-
nington and became the grandfather of young Arthur
Wellesley, better known as the Duke of Wellington.
Had Charles Wesley accepted the position, the other
young man would very likely have remained unknown,
and his grandson, the great Duke, would never have
had the chances of which he made the best.
However, it was almost a miracle that these two
most famous of the Wesley family, John and Charles,
had ever lived to go to school at all. When John was
six and Charles only two months old a fire broke out
one night in the old rectory, deliberately kindled by
some of Mr. Wesley's parishioners, who were furious
with him for preaching against their evil ways. Twice
before they had laid branches of burning wood about
the house, but each 'time rain had put them out. On
the third occasion one of the children was wakened by
part of the blazing thatch falling on her feet, and at
the same moment her father was aroused by a cry of
* Fire ! ' in the street. He awoke his wife, who was
ill in another room, and bade Sukey and Molly not lose
an instant in taking her to a place of safety. Then he
rushed on to the nursery, and thrust Charles, the baby,
into the nurse's arms, and called to the others to follow
her. The little girls jumped up, and made their way
through the stifling smoke into the hall, which was
Ilitfle John Ve/ley saved jVom the fire
OLD JEFFERY
locked, but John was a sound sleeper and heard nothing,
while in the darkness no one noticed that he was missi; .
' The key, the key of the front door ! ' cried Mr.
Wesley, but it was upstairs in his own room, and the
staircase was already in flames.
Now the door key must be got, or they would all be
burnt where they stood ; so, winding his handkerchief
over his mouth, Mr. Wesley dashed up the stairs, return-
ing with the key in his hand, and the staircase blazing
behind him. But even when the front door was un-
locked, safety seemed as far off as ever, for a violent
wind from the outside blew the flames inward, and
they all shrank back from them. Frantic with terror,
some of the children scrambled up to the high windows,
and squeezed themselves through, while others con-
trived to climb over a heap of smouldering furniture,
and reach a garden door at the back.
Mrs. Wesley was too ill to do either, and had almost
made up her mind to die where she was, but, gathering
all her courage, she sprung through the blazing door- way
and found herself in the street, only slightly scorched.
It was at this moment that John's voice was heard.
He had been awakened by the light of the flames, and,
terrified at finding himself alone in the burning room,
rushed wildly to the door, but as the way was barred by
fire, he managed to climb up to a chest under the
window and shouted for Help.
The hearts of his father and mother stood still ;
they had quite forgotten him, or, rather, they had taken
for granted he was with his sisters. His father turned
to the staircase, but that fell in with the touch of his
foot. Then he ran outside again, to find that one man
had hoisted himself on the shoulders of another, and
was thus able to reach the window from which John
was crying for help. Hardly was John rescued and
placed in his arms wli^n the whole roof fell in, but all
the members of the family were safe.
136 OLD JEFFERY
THE NOISES IN THE HOUSE
In course of time a new rectory was built, and the
%/
lives of the Wesleys flowed on quietly enough. Samuel
had become a clergyman and was married, John was at
Charterhouse, Charles at school somewhere, for though
in the year 1716, when the family were disturbed day
and night by strange noises, he was only six or seven,
children were sent early from home in those days, and
he is never once mentioned in the accounts given by
the rest.
The first allusion in the family letters to the dis-
turbances which for nearly two months upset and
perplexed the household is to be found in a letter of
Mrs. Wesley's to Samuel, dated January 12, 1717.
She writes to say how thankful she was to hear that he
was alive as they had all ' been in the greatest panic
imaginable almost a month,' thinking that either he
or one of his brothers must be dead. It seems odd that
being so frightened they did not hasten to inquire ; but
nobody thought of doing this, and they waited in fear
and trembling till Samuel's ' packet ' arrived.
The reason why they were so certain that someone
must have met with a misfortune was this. On Decem-
ber 1, six weeks before Mrs. Wesley's letter, the maid,
who had but lately entered the family, on passing the
dining-room door was startled by hearing groans close
to her, as of a person suffering agonies of pain. She
looked about but could find nothing, and then, sud-
denly taking alarm, she ran to tell her tale to her
mistress. Mrs. Wesley assured her she was dreaming,
and the girls all laughed at her ; but it was of no use.
She had heard the groans, she said, and it was vain to
pretend that, she hadn't, and what was more, if they
would only have patience, they might hear them too.
For a few days all went on as usual, and then one
day Emilia, who was about seventeen, told her mother
OLD JEFFERY 137
that for several nights they had all been disturbed hv
loud knocks and groans like those Nanny Marshall had
spoken of. Mrs. Wesley paid no more heed to her
daughter's tale than she had done to that of the maid,
and made answer that ' the rats which John Maw had
frightened from his house by blowing a horn had come
into theirs.' She ordered that without loss of time a
horn should be got, and blown loudly, much to the
wrath of the second girl Molly, who declared that if the
noise really was made by a spirit it would be furious
at being treated as rats, and would probably make
itself ten times more troublesome. And so it proved,
for whereas hitherto the noise had only come by night,
after the blowing of the horn the knocks were heard
at all hours, and the latches of the doors lifted before
people's fingers touched them.
It was about seven in the morning, soon after this,
that Emilia came to fetch her mother to the nursery,
determined that Mrs. Wesley should know r they were
not making a fuss about nothing. When she opened
the door the mother heard the noises for the first time,
and, though no more frightened than her daughters
had been after the first, was naturally very much sur-
prised. To begin with, the knocks seemed to come from
the foot of the bed, then from the head.
' If you really are a spirit, speak to me,' cried Mrs,
Wesley, tapping the floor with her foot several times,
with little pauses in between. In an instant the knocks
were repeated under her feet, exactly as she had made them.
' Answer me, too,' said little Kezzy, the youngest of
the family, jumping out of bed and stamping ; and
without a pause the raps w r ere continued exactly as she
gave them. Kezzy thought that the spirit which
Emilia called ' Jeffery ' was nearly as good a playfellow
as the absent Charles, and used to run from room to
room, knocking as she went, and Jeffery never failed
to reply to her.
138 OLD JEFFERY
' Bo you notice,' whispered at last one of the girls
to another, ' that when morning and evening my father
prays for the king and prince of Wales, Jeffery knocks
louder than ever, and, what is stranger still, that our
father never seems to hear it ? '
' That is strange indeed,' answered the other. ' Does
mother know, think you ? Let us ask her.' And they
hastened to the schoolroom where the younger children
were just finishing their morning lessons. Mrs. Wesley
turned pale as she listened to them, for she called to
mind the belief in the village that the person whose
ears were deaf to such sounds was certain to fall ill or
die, yet, on the other hand, the fact that Mr. Wesley
did not hear them, might so frighten him when he
learned how other people did, that it might bring about
the very misfortune she dreaded. Therefore she pre-
tended that she thought nothing of it, and bade Molly
and Nancy be careful not to disturb their father with
such tales.
This is perhaps the strangest part of the story.
Why did Mr. Wesley not hear the noises overhead
when all the others did ? And why did the neighbours
opposite, who opened their windows and listened when
the noises were louder, never succeed in hearing them ?
The girls said Old Jeffery was a Jacobite, and on the
side of king James ' over the water,' the ' Old Pretender,'
for the noises interrupted the prayers for king George,
who was his reigning rival.
Jeffery had spent about a fortnight amusing himself
by annoying the family, who at length ceased to be
frightened at his tricks, when Emilia, left her mother's
room one night, and went into Sukey's. The moment
she closed the door, the windows began to rattle and
the bells to ring, and then a tremendous noise was heard
in the kitchen below, as if some one had dropped a huge
piece of coal on the floor, and it had broken in pieces.
Snatching up Sukey's candle, Emilia went downstairs,
OLD JEFFERY 139
but all was quiet and tidy as usual. She was passing
the great screen on her way to the door, when she heard
a loud knock close to her head. She ran round to the
inside of the screen, but as she did so the knocks came
from the place she had just left. Again she followed
it, and chased the noise several times, but finding it
always went somewhere else, gave it up, when she
observed that the latch of the back kitchen door,
leading to the ' worst stairs ' was moving up and down.
The girl then looked out, but could see nobody, and on
trying to shut the door found that it resisted, as if some
parson were holding it back. At last, with a violent
effort she gave it a bang and locked it, but even after
this the latch continued to move up and down. How-
ever, Emilia was tired of Jeffery's freaks and went
away to bed, hearing as she did so a noise as if a great
stone had been thrown among the bottles under the
* best stairs.'
When Emilia reached her room she found Hetty,
who never went to bed before her father, sitting on the
garret stairs. After telling her all that had happened,
the younger sister passed on, but scarcely was her door
shut w r hen Hetty heard a heavy step, almost like a
man's, coming down behind her, with the sound of
rustling, as if some one were trailing a heavy silk dress.
She was more nervous than any of her sisters, and
trembled in her sleep if the knocks came near her ;
so at this new and quite unaccustomed sound, she
' flew rather than ran ' to the protection of the braver
Emilia.
Except the big dog, which always shuddered and
took shelter with one of the family as soon as the
sounds began, the only people greatly alarmed by
Jeffery were the servants. At length, when the maid
grew almost incapable of doing her work, Mr. Wesley
was told even at the risk of his dying of fright through
having heard nothing. ' At first,' says Emilia, ' he
140 OLD JEFFERY
smiled and gave no answer, but was more careful than
usual from that time to see us in bed, imagining it to
be some of us young women that sat up late and made
a noise.' This so provoked Emilia that she hoped the
sounds might go on till Mr. Wesley was quite con-
vinced it was not they who knocked ; and she was soon
gratified, as the following night nine knocks were
heard by his bed. After that both he and his wife,
hunting for the cause of the trouble, heard also the
crash as of the breaking of bottles, and, stranger still, as
if a bag of money was being emptied at their feet. In
vain Mrs. Wesley begged the spirit to speak, and say
if it were Sammy, bidding it knock if that was so,
but as it \vas silent for the rest of the night the parents
' hoped that it was not against his death,' that is, was
not a death warning.
Mr. Wesley now began to keep a short diary, from
December 21 to December 29 ; he heard the noises
first on December 21, and on December 29 they ' were
very boisterous and disturbing.'
' Jeffery ' was evidently no respecter of persons, and
neither servants nor children were safe from his tricks ;
but it was Hetty who was ' more particularly troubled
by him.' He ' commonly was nearer her than the rest,
which she took notice of, and was much frightened,
because she thought it had a particular spight at her.'
Still Hetty, like her sisters, saw nothing ; only Mrs.
Wesley declared that she once beheld an animal like
a headless badger run out from under Hetty's bed,
and of course the man and maid were not behind her
with stories. On the whole, however, Jeffery was
obliging, and when Mrs. Wesley ' earnestly desired
that she might not be disturbed between five and six
in the morning,' never made any noise at that hour,
and as long as the prayers for the king and prince of
Wales (George I. and his son) were left out, as hap-
pened on Sunday, when they were given in Church,
OLD JEFFERY
141
he made no objection to any of the petitions offered
up by Mr. Wesley.
' For a month,' writes Emilia in her account to
Jack, nine or ten years later, ' it continued in full
majesty, night and day.' All this time great chains
were heard falling, the man in the ' trailing nightgown '
walked up and down stairs at all hours, Nancy was
pursued from room to room, the bed on which she sat
WESL.EY'5 TRENCHER.. DANCE.D TJPQM THE. TABLE
was lifted up, and when she swept there was a sound
as of sweeping behind her, at which she grumbled,
thinking Jeffery might have saved her the trouble ;
the family pewter was thrown about the kitchen, and
one Sunday, to Mr. Wesley's 'no small amazement,
his trencher danced upon the table a pretty while,
without anybody stirring the table.' Unluckily, adds
Sukey, ' an adventurous wretch took it up and spoiled
142 OLD JEFFERY
the sport, for it remained still for ever after.' Quite
clearly, Jeffery was a ' spright ' who knew his own
mind.
He disapproved of cards, and one night when Sukey
and some of her sisters began to play, he hastened from
the nursery, where he had been busy with his usual
pranks, in order to knock loudly under their feet.
They understood the signal and left off, and immediately
Jeffery returned to the nursery, and remained there
till morning. On the other hand, he seems to have loved
dancing, and would lock himself in a ' matted chamber *
next the nursery, where he could be heard by the
family dancing to his heart's content.
At length Mr. Wesley summoned another clergy-
man, Mr. Hoole, to come and help them, or if he could
do nothing, at least to bear witness that his family
had not invented these wonders. But Mr. Hoole, after
sitting up with Mr. and Mrs. Wesley till one or two
in the morning, and following Jeffery's knocks ' with
fear ' all over the house, w r as quite convinced of the
truth of the story, and not sorry when the morning
came, and he could return to his own peaceful house.
Mr. Hoole was luckier than Mr. Wesley, for old
Jeffery took great liberties with him. ' I have been thrice
pushed,' he writes, ' by an invisible power, once against
the corner of my desk in the study, a second time against
the door of the matted chamber, a third time against
the right side of the frame of my study door, as I was
going in.'
Whether Mr. Hoole's presence had frightened
Jeffery as much as Jeffery had frightened Mr. Hoole
we do not know, but certain it is that on the night of
December 28, 1716, he ' loudly knocked in the nursery
and departed.' Not for ever, as the family greatly
hoped, but he ' remained pretty quiet ' till January 24,
when he began to knock again. Then, however, the
knocking only took place at night, as had happened at
OLD JEFFERY 143
first, and ' grew less and less troublesome,' for now
Jeffery only knocked outside instead of in, and ' seemed
farther and farther off,' till, on April 1, its last dis-
turbance is noted by Emilia.
By this time the whole village could talk of nothing
but the strange sounds in the Rectory, which were made
the most of by both the servants. The Wesleys them-
selves would gladly have dropped the subject. ' Send
me some news,' writes Sukey to Sam on March 27,
' for we are secluded from the sight or hearing of any-
thing except Jeffery,' while her mother adds, * for my
part, I am quite tired with hearing or speaking of it.*
And that was the end of Jeffery.
THE ADVENTURES OF A PRISONER
IT was during the war between England and Napoleon
that one August morning in 1809 a young Frenchman
was sailing in a ship belonging to his father between
Marseilles and Nice. Unluckily for him, the English
were keeping a strict look-out on all the ports, and
soon gave chase to the little vessel, which speedily
surrendered, and the men were immediately put on
board the cruiser. The young master, however, seeing
what w r as before him, filled his pockets with money
and anything else he thought of value, which, strange
to say, he was allowed to keep.
The next day he and his fellow-prisoners were
transferred to another ship, which spread its sails for
England, and as the wind was fair they arrived quickly
on the coast of Norfolk, where they found other ships
and other captives to the number of several hundreds.
These were at once taken to the different prisons
marked out for them, of which Norman's Cross, not far
from Peterborough, was the largest. It was built on
a hill, a rare object in that flat fen country, and was
dry and healthy. The great North Road between
London and Edinburgh ran past the gates, and as the
prisoner speaks of all the carriages and coaches he
saw going by, the windows of the cells must have been
larger and better placed than usual. Indeed, from the
young man's description, the whole place seems to
have been well managed, and he expressly says that
THE ADVENTURES OF A PRISONER 145
they \vere not treated with more severity than was
needed to guard so many captives. Their food \\
good and plentiful, and consisted of fish or meat with
bread and vegetables ; and, wonderful to relate, the
greatest care was taken by the prison officials that
everything should be of the best, and that no short
measure was given. Besides the food supplied by the
English Government, who paid the French cooks
chosen out from among the prisoners, the country
people brought their goods to market every day, and
sold them to those who had money to buy, in a large
courtyard. There were also a school and a hospital, so
that in many ways the prisoners were really more
comfortable than their fellow-countrymen who were
fighting in Spain or in Bavaria. Even their amusement
had been thought of, which was not very common in
those days, and there were several billiard-tables, the
work of the prisoners themselves ; but these gave rise
to all sorts of disputes and quarrels, sometimes to
duels, which more than once ended in the death of
either one or other. Of course their swords had been
taken from them, but they contrived to sharpen the
blades of their knives and fix them into sticks to which
they had added handles. With these weapons they
fought to the death.
What struck the young Frenchman most about
the gaol was the entire absence of the numerous high,
strong walls and deep moats and iron spikes which
made the strength of all the great prisons the young
man had ever seen or read of. Instead of these
were bands of sentries, constantly being changed,
so always awake. In one way this made escape
more difficult, in another more easy ; for escape was
never absent from the young man's mind, night or
day.
But how to do it ? During the year and a half that
A.S. L
146 THE ADVENTURES OF A PRISONER
passed by before he made the attempt many had tried
before him, and few had been successful.
Like a wise man he began by counting up all the
obstacles that he would have to triumph over, and to
think how he could surmount each one. First there
were the high wooden palings ; well, he was used to
climbing, and thought he could manage those. But
outside them were the sentinels, only a few yards
distant one from the other, with their muskets cocked
and ready to fire. For the moment he would suppose
that these w T ere passed, and in that case a rope with a-
hook could get him to the top of the wall, but below it
there were more sentries with more muskets.
And in addition to all these there was still another
difficulty, and that was how to make any preparations
without being discovered by his fellow-prisoners, who
were busy w r orking at toys and other things which
they were allowed to sell, in the same room. One of