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diff --git a/12621-h/12621-h.htm b/12621-h/12621-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9e0cafc --- /dev/null +++ b/12621-h/12621-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8043 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Book of Dreams and Ghosts</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; /* all headings aligned centered */ + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">The Book of Dreams and Ghosts, by Andrew Lang</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Book of Dreams and Ghosts, by Andrew Lang + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Book of Dreams and Ghosts + +Author: Andrew Lang + +Release Date: June 14, 2004 [eBook #12621] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF DREAMS AND GHOSTS*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<h1>THE BOOK OF DREAMS AND GHOSTS</h1> +<h2>PREFACE TO THE NEW IMPRESSION</h2> +<p>Since the first edition of this book appeared (1897) a considerable +number of new and startling ghost stories, British, Foreign and Colonial, +not yet published, have reached me. Second Sight abounds. +Crystal Gazing has also advanced in popularity. For a singular +series of such visions, in which distant persons and places, unknown +to the gazer, were correctly described by her, I may refer to my book, +<i>The Making of Religion</i> (1898). A memorial stone has been +erected on the scene of the story called “The Foul Fords” +(p. 269), so that tale is likely to endure in tradition.</p> +<p><i>July</i>, 1899.</p> +<h2>PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION</h2> +<p>The chief purpose of this book is, if fortune helps, to entertain +people interested in the kind of narratives here collected. For +the sake of orderly arrangement, the stories are classed in different +grades, as they advance from the normal and familiar to the undeniably +startling. At the same time an account of the current theories +of Apparitions is offered, in language as free from technicalities as +possible. According to modern opinion every “ghost” +is a “hallucination,” a false perception, the perception +of something which is not present.</p> +<p>It has not been thought necessary to discuss the psychological and +physiological processes involved in perception, real or false. +Every “hallucination” is a perception, “as good and +true a sensation as if there were a real object there. The object +happens <i>not</i> to be there, that is all.” <a name="citation0a"></a><a href="#footnote0a">{0a}</a> +We are not here concerned with the visions of insanity, delirium, drugs, +drink, remorse, or anxiety, but with “sporadic cases of hallucination, +visiting people only once in a lifetime, which seems to be by far the +most frequent type”. “These,” says Mr. James, +“are on any theory hard to understand in detail. They are +often extraordinarily complete; and the fact that many of them are reported +as <i>veridical</i>, that is, as coinciding with real events, such as +accidents, deaths, etc., of the persons seen, is an additional complication +of the phenomenon.” <a name="citation0b"></a><a href="#footnote0b">{0b}</a> +A ghost, if seen, is undeniably so far a “hallucination” +that it gives the impression of the presence of a real person, in flesh, +blood, and usually clothes. No such person in flesh, blood, and +clothes, is actually there. So far, at least, every ghost is a +hallucination, “<i>that</i>” in the language of Captain +Cuttle, “you may lay to,” without offending science, religion, +or common-sense. And that, in brief, is the modern doctrine of +ghosts.</p> +<p>The old doctrine of “ghosts” regarded them as actual +“spirits” of the living or the dead, freed from the flesh +or from the grave. This view, whatever else may be said for it, +represents the simple philosophy of the savage, which may be correct +or erroneous. About the time of the Reformation, writers, especially +Protestant writers, preferred to look on apparitions as the work of +deceitful devils, who masqueraded in the aspect of the dead or living, +or made up phantasms out of “compressed air”. The +common-sense of the eighteenth century dismissed all apparitions as +“dreams” or hoaxes, or illusions caused by real objects +misinterpreted, such as rats, cats, white posts, maniacs at large, sleep-walkers, +thieves, and so forth. Modern science, when it admits the possibility +of occasional hallucinations in the sane and healthy, also admits, of +course, the existence of apparitions. These, for our purposes, +are hallucinatory appearances occurring in the experience of people +healthy and sane. The difficulty begins when we ask whether these +appearances ever have any provoking mental cause outside the minds of +the people who experience them—any cause arising in the minds +of others, alive or dead. This is a question which orthodox psychology +does not approach, standing aside from any evidence which may be produced.</p> +<p>This book does not pretend to be a convincing, but merely an illustrative +collection of evidence. It may, or may not, suggest to some readers +the desirableness of further inquiry; the author certainly does not +hope to do more, if as much.</p> +<p>It may be urged that many of the stories here narrated come from +remote times, and, as the testimony for these cannot be rigidly studied, +that the old unauthenticated stories clash with the analogous tales +current on better authority in our own day. But these ancient +legends are given, not as evidence, but for three reasons: first, because +of their merit as mere stories; next, because several of them are now +perhaps for the first time offered with a critical discussion of their +historical sources; lastly, because the old legends seem to show how +the fancy of periods less critical than ours dealt with such facts as +are now reported in a dull undramatic manner. Thus (1) the Icelandic +ghost stories have peculiar literary merit as simple dramatic narratives. +(2) Every one has heard of the Wesley ghost, Sir George Villiers’s +spectre, Lord Lyttelton’s ghost, the Beresford ghost, Mr. Williams’s +dream of Mr. Perceval’s murder, and so forth. But the original +sources have not, as a rule, been examined in the ordinary spirit of +calm historical criticism, by aid of a comparison of the earliest versions +in print or manuscript. (3) Even ghost stories, as a rule, have +some basis of fact, whether fact of hallucination, or illusion, or imposture. +They are, at lowest, “human documents”. Now, granting +such facts (of imposture, hallucination, or what you will), as our dull, +modern narratives contain, we can regard these facts, or things like +these, as the <i>nuclei</i> which our less critical ancestors elaborated +into their extraordinary romances. In this way the belief in demoniacal +possession (distinguished, as such, from madness and epilepsy) has its +nucleus, some contend, in the phenomena of alternating personalities +in certain patients. Their characters, ideas, habits, and even +voices change, and the most obvious solution of the problem, in the +past, was to suppose that a new alien personality—a “devil”—had +entered into the sufferer.</p> +<p>Again, the phenomena occurring in “haunted houses” (whether +caused, or not, by imposture or hallucination, or both) were easily +magnified into such legends as that of Grettir and Glam, and into the +monstrosities of the witch trials. Once more the simple hallucination +of a dead person’s appearance in his house demanded an explanation. +This was easily given by evolving a legend that he was a spirit, escaped +from purgatory or the grave, to fulfil a definite purpose. The +rarity of such purposeful ghosts in an age like ours, so rich in ghost +stories, must have a cause. That cause is, probably, a dwindling +of the myth-making faculty.</p> +<p>Any one who takes these matters seriously, as facts in human nature, +must have discovered the difficulty of getting evidence at first hand. +This arises from several causes. First, the cock-sure common-sense +of the years from 1660 to 1850, or so, regarded every one who had experience +of a hallucination as a dupe, a lunatic, or a liar. In this healthy +state of opinion, eminent people like Lord Brougham kept their experience +to themselves, or, at most, nervously protested that they “were +sure it was only a dream”. Next, to tell the story was, +often, to enter on a narrative of intimate, perhaps painful, domestic +circumstances. Thirdly, many persons now refuse information as +a matter of “principle,” or of “religious principle,” +though it is difficult to see where either principle or religion is +concerned, if the witness is telling what he believes to be true. +Next, some devotees of science aver that these studies may bring back +faith by a side wind, and, with faith, the fires of Smithfield and the +torturing of witches. These opponents are what Professor Huxley +called “dreadful consequences argufiers,” when similar reasons +were urged against the doctrine of evolution. Their position is +strongest when they maintain that these topics have a tendency to befog +the intellect. A desire to prove the existence of “new forces” +may beget indifference to logic and to the laws of evidence. This +is true, and we have several dreadful examples among men otherwise scientific. +But all studies have their temptations. Many a historian, to prove +the guilt or innocence of Queen Mary, has put evidence, and logic, and +common honesty far from him. Yet this is no reason for abandoning +the study of history.</p> +<p>There is another class of difficulties. As anthropology becomes +popular, every inquirer knows what customs he <i>ought</i> to find among +savages, so, of course, he finds them. In the same way, people +may now know what customs it is orthodox to find among ghosts, and may +pretend to find them, or may simulate them by imposture. The white +sheet and clanking chains are forsaken for a more realistic rendering +of the ghostly part. The desire of social notoriety may beget +wanton fabrications. In short, all studies have their perils, +and these are among the dangers which beset the path of the inquirer +into things ghostly. He must adopt the stoical maxim: “Be +sober and do not believe”—in a hurry.</p> +<p>If there be truth in even one case of “telepathy,” it +will follow that the human soul is a thing endowed with attributes not +yet recognised by science. It cannot be denied that this is a +serious consideration, and that very startling consequences might be +deduced from it; such beliefs, indeed, as were generally entertained +in the ages of Christian darkness which preceded the present era of +enlightenment. But our business in studies of any kind is, of +course, with truth, as we are often told, not with the consequences, +however ruinous to our most settled convictions, or however pernicious +to society.</p> +<p>The very opposite objection comes from the side of religion. +These things we learn, are spiritual mysteries into which men must not +inquire. This is only a relic of the ancient opinion that he was +an impious character who first launched a boat, God having made man +a terrestrial animal. Assuredly God put us into a world of phenomena, +and gave us inquiring minds. We have as much right to explore +the phenomena of these minds as to explore the ocean. Again, if +it be said that our inquiries may lead to an undignified theory of the +future life (so far they have not led to any theory at all), that, also, +is the position of the Dreadful Consequences Argufier. Lastly, +“the stories may frighten children”. For children +the book is not written, any more than if it were a treatise on comparative +anatomy.</p> +<p>The author has frequently been asked, both publicly and privately: +“Do you believe in ghosts?” One can only answer: “How +do you define a ghost?” I do believe, with all students +of human nature, in hallucinations of one, or of several, or even of +all the senses. But as to whether such hallucinations, among the +sane, are ever caused by psychical influences from the minds of others, +alive or dead, not communicated through the ordinary channels of sense, +my mind is in a balance of doubt. It is a question of evidence.</p> +<p>In this collection many stories are given without the real names +of the witnesses. In most of the cases the real names, and their +owners, are well known to myself. In not publishing the names +I only take the common privilege of writers on medicine and psychology. +In other instances the names are known to the managers of the Society +for Psychical Research, who have kindly permitted me to borrow from +their collections.</p> +<p>While this book passed through the press, a long correspondence called +“On the Trail of a Ghost” appeared in <i>The Times</i>. +It illustrated the copious fallacies which haunt the human intellect. +Thus it was maintained by some persons, and denied by others, that sounds +of unknown origin were occasionally heard in a certain house. +These, it was suggested, might (if really heard) be caused by slight +seismic disturbances. Now many people argue, “Blunderstone +House is not haunted, for I passed a night there, and nothing unusual +occurred”. Apply this to a house where noises are actually +caused by young earthquakes. Would anybody say: “There are +no seismic disturbances near Blunderstone House, for I passed a night +there, and none occurred”? Why should a noisy ghost (if +there is such a thing) or a hallucinatory sound (if there is such a +thing), be expected to be more punctual and pertinacious than a seismic +disturbance? Again, the gentleman who opened the correspondence +with a long statement on the negative side, cried out, like others, +for scientific publicity, for names of people and places. But +neither he nor his allies gave their own names. He did not precisely +establish his claim to confidence by publishing his version of private +conversations. Yet he expected science and the public to believe +his anonymous account of a conversation, with an unnamed person, at +which he did not and could not pretend to have been present. He +had a theory of sounds heard by himself which could have been proved, +or disproved, in five minutes, by a simple experiment. But that +experiment he does not say that he made.</p> +<p>This kind of evidence is thought good enough on the negative side. +It certainly would not be accepted by any sane person for the affirmative +side. If what is called psychical research has no other results, +at least it enables us to perceive the fallacies which can impose on +the credulity of common-sense.</p> +<p>In preparing this collection of tales, I owe much to Mr. W. A. Craigie, +who translated the stories from the Gaelic and the Icelandic; to Miss +Elspeth Campbell, who gives a version of the curious Argyll tradition +of Ticonderoga (rhymed by Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson, who put a Cameron +where a Campbell should be); to Miss Violet Simpson, who found the Windham +MS. about the Duke of Buckingham’s story, and made other researches; +and to Miss Goodrich Freer, who pointed out the family version of “The +Tyrone Ghost”.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> +<p><i>Arbuthnot on Political Lying. Begin with</i> “<i>Great +Swingeing Falsehoods</i>”. <i>The Opposite Method to be +used in telling Ghost Stones. Begin with the more Familiar and +Credible. Sleep. Dreams. Ghosts are identical with +Waking Dreams. Possibility of being Asleep when we think we are +Awake. Dreams shared by several People. Story of the Dog +Fanti. The Swithinbank Dream. Common Features of Ghosts +and Dreams. Mark Twain’s Story. Theory of Common-sense. +Not Logical. Fulfilled Dreams. The Pig in the Palace. +The Mignonette. Dreams of Reawakened Memory. The Lost Cheque. +The Ducks’ Eggs. The Lost Key. Drama in Dreams. +The Lost Securities. The Portuguese Gold-piece. St. Augustine’s +Story. The Two Curmas. Knowledge acquired in Dreams. +The Assyrian Priest. The Déjà Vu</i>. “<i>I +have been here before</i>.” <i>Sir Walter’s Experience. +Explanations. The Knot in the Shutter. Transition to Stranger +Dreams.</i></p> +<p>Arbuthnot, in his humorous work on <i>Political Lying</i>, commends +the Whigs for occasionally trying the people with “great swingeing +falsehoods”. When these are once got down by the populace, +anything may follow without difficulty. Excellently as this practice +has worked in politics (compare the warming-pan lie of 1688), in the +telling of ghost stories a different plan has its merits. Beginning +with the common-place and familiar, and therefore credible, with the +thin end of the wedge, in fact, a wise narrator will advance to the +rather unusual, the extremely rare, the undeniably startling, and so +arrive at statements which, without this discreet and gradual initiation, +a hasty reader might, justly or unjustly, dismiss as “great swingeing +falsehoods”.</p> +<p>The nature of things and of men has fortunately made this method +at once easy, obvious, and scientific. Even in the rather fantastic +realm of ghosts, the stories fall into regular groups, advancing in +difficulty, like exercises in music or in a foreign language. +We therefore start from the easiest Exercises in Belief, or even from +those which present no difficulty at all. The defect of the method +is that easy stories are dull reading. But the student can “skip”. +We begin with common every-night dreams.</p> +<p>Sleeping is as natural as waking; dreams are nearly as frequent as +every-day sensations, thoughts, and emotions. But dreams, being +familiar, are credible; it is admitted that people do dream; we reach +the less credible as we advance to the less familiar. For, if +we think for a moment, the alleged events of ghostdom—apparitions +of all sorts—are precisely identical with the every-night phenomena +of dreaming, except for the avowed element of sleep in dreams.</p> +<p>In dreams, time and space are annihilated, and two severed lovers +may be made happy. In dreams, amidst a grotesque confusion of +things remembered and things forgot, we <i>see</i> the events of the +past (I have been at Culloden fight and at the siege of Troy); we are +present in places remote; we behold the absent; we converse with the +dead, and we may even (let us say by chance coincidence) forecast the +future. All these things, except the last, are familiar to everybody +who dreams. It is also certain that similar, but yet more vivid, +false experiences may be produced, at the word of the hypnotiser, in +persons under the hypnotic sleep. A hypnotised man will take water +for wine, and get drunk on it.</p> +<p>Now, the ghostly is nothing but the experience, when men are awake, +or <i>apparently</i> awake, of the every-night phenomena of dreaming. +The vision of the absent seen by a waking, or apparently waking, man +is called “a wraith”; the waking, or apparently waking, +vision of the dead is called “a ghost”. Yet, as St. +Augustine says, the absent man, or the dead man, may know no more of +the vision, and may have no more to do with causing it, than have the +absent or the dead whom we are perfectly accustomed to see in our dreams. +Moreover, the comparatively rare cases in which two or more waking people +are alleged to have seen the same “ghost,” simultaneously +or in succession, have <i>their</i> parallel in sleep, where two or +more persons simultaneously dream the same dream. Of this curious +fact let us give one example: the names only are altered.</p> +<h3>THE DOG FANTI</h3> +<p>Mrs. Ogilvie of Drumquaigh had a poodle named Fanti. Her family, +or at least those who lived with her, were her son, the laird, and three +daughters. Of these the two younger, at a certain recent date, +were paying a short visit to a neighbouring country house. Mrs. +Ogilvie was accustomed to breakfast in her bedroom, not being in the +best of health. One morning Miss Ogilvie came down to breakfast +and said to her brother, “I had an odd dream; I dreamed Fanti +went mad”.</p> +<p>“Well, that <i>is</i> odd,” said her brother. “So +did I. We had better not tell mother; it might make her nervous.”</p> +<p>Miss Ogilvie went up after breakfast to see the elder lady, who said, +“Do turn out Fanti; I dreamed last night that he went mad and +bit”.</p> +<p>In the afternoon the two younger sisters came home.</p> +<p>“How did you enjoy yourselves?” one of the others asked.</p> +<p>“We didn’t sleep well. I was dreaming that Fanti +went mad when Mary wakened me, and said she had dreamed Fanti went mad, +and turned into a cat, and we threw him into the fire.”</p> +<p>Thus, as several people may see the same ghost at once, several people +may dream the same dream at once. As a matter of fact, Fanti lived, +sane and harmless, “all the length of all his years”. <a name="citation4"></a><a href="#footnote4">{4}</a></p> +<p>Now, this anecdote is credible, certainly is credible by people who +know the dreaming family. It is nothing more than a curiosity +of coincidences; and, as Fanti remained a sober, peaceful hound, in +face of five dreamers, the absence of fulfilment increases the readiness +of belief. But compare the case of the Swithinbanks. Mr. +Swithinbank, on 20th May, 1883, signed for publication a statement to +this effect:—</p> +<p>During the Peninsular war his father and his two brothers were quartered +at Dover. Their family were at Bradford. The brothers slept +in various quarters of Dover camp. One morning they met after +parade. “O William, I have had a queer dream,” said +Mr. Swithinbank’s father. “So have I,” replied +the brother, when, to the astonishment of both, the other brother, John, +said, “I have had a queer dream as well. I dreamt that mother +was dead.” “So did I,” said each of the +other brothers. And the mother had died on the night of this dreaming. +Mrs. Hudson, daughter of one of the brothers, heard the story from all +three. <a name="citation5a"></a><a href="#footnote5a">{5a}</a></p> +<p>The distribution of the fulfilled is less than that of the unfulfilled +dream by three to five. It has the extra coincidence of the death. +But as it is very common to dream of deaths, some such dreams must occasionally +hit the target.</p> +<p>Other examples might be given of shared dreams: <a name="citation5b"></a><a href="#footnote5b">{5b}</a> +they are only mentioned here to prove that all the <i>waking</i> experiences +of things ghostly, such as visions of the absent and of the dead, and +of the non-existent, are familiar, and may even be common simultaneously +to several persons, in <i>sleep</i>. That men may sleep without +being aware of it, even while walking abroad; that we may drift, while +we think ourselves awake, into a semi-somnolent state for a period of +time perhaps almost imperceptible is certain enough. Now, the +peculiarity of sleep is to expand or contract time, as we may choose +to put the case. Alfred Maury, the well-known writer on Greek +religion, dreamed a long, vivid dream of the Reign of Terror, of his +own trial before a Revolutionary Tribunal, and of his execution, in +the moment of time during which he was awakened by the accidental fall +of a rod in the canopy of his bed, which touched him on the neck. +Thus even a prolonged interview with a ghost may <i>conceivably</i> +be, in real time, a less than momentary dream occupying an imperceptible +tenth of a second of somnolence, the sleeper not realising that he has +been asleep.</p> +<p>Mark Twain, who is seriously interested in these subjects, has published +an experience illustrative of such possibilities. He tells his +tale at considerable length, but it amounts to this:—</p> +<h3>MARK TWAIN’S STORY</h3> +<p>Mark was smoking his cigar outside the door of his house when he +saw a man, a stranger, approaching him. Suddenly he ceased to +be visible! Mark, who had long desired to see a ghost, rushed +into his house to record the phenomenon. There, seated on a chair +in the hall, was the very man, who had come on some business. +As Mark’s negro footman acts, when the bell is rung, on the principle, +“Perhaps they won’t persevere,” his master is wholly +unable to account for the disappearance of the visitor, whom he never +saw passing him or waiting at his door—except on the theory of +an unconscious nap. Now, a disappearance is quite as mystical +as an appearance, and much less common.</p> +<p>This theory, that apparitions come in an infinitesimal moment of +sleep, while a man is conscious of his surroundings and believes himself +to be awake was the current explanation of ghosts in the eighteenth +century. Any educated man who “saw a ghost” or “had +a hallucination” called it a “dream,” as Lord Brougham +and Lord Lyttelton did. But, if the death of the person seen coincided +with his appearance to them, they illogically argued that, out of the +innumerable multitude of dreams, some <i>must</i> coincide, accidentally, +with facts. They strove to forget that though dreams in sleep +are universal and countless, “dreams” in waking hours are +extremely rare—unique, for instance, in Lord Brougham’s +own experience. Therefore, the odds against chance coincidence +are very great.</p> +<p>Dreams only form subjects of good dream-stories when the vision coincides +with and adequately represents an <i>unknown</i> event in the past, +the present, or the future. We dream, however vividly, of the +murder of Rizzio. Nobody is surprised at that, the incident being +familiar to most people, in history and art. But, if we dreamed +of being present at an unchronicled scene in Queen Mary’s life, +and if, <i>after</i> the dream was recorded, a document proving its +accuracy should be for the first time recovered, then there is matter +for a good dream-story. <a name="citation8"></a><a href="#footnote8">{8}</a> +Again, we dream of an event not to be naturally guessed or known by +us, and our dream (which should be recorded before tidings of the fact +arrive) tallies with the news of the event when it comes. Or, +finally, we dream of an event (recording the dream), and that event +occurs in the future. In all these cases the actual occurrence +of the unknown event is the only addition to the dream’s usual +power of crumpling up time and space.</p> +<p>As a rule such dreams are only mentioned <i>after</i> the event, +and so are not worth noticing. Very often the dream is forgotten +by the dreamer till he hears of or sees the event. He is then +either reminded of his dream by association of ideas or <i>he has never +dreamed at all</i>, and his belief that he has dreamed is only a form +of false memory, of the common sensation of “having been here +before,” which he attributes to an awakened memory of a real dream. +Still more often the dream is unconsciously cooked by the narrator into +harmony with facts.</p> +<p>As a rule fulfilled dreams deal with the most trivial affairs, and +such as, being usual, may readily occur by chance coincidence. +Indeed it is impossible to set limits to such coincidence, for it would +indeed be extraordinary if extraordinary coincidences never occurred.</p> +<p>To take examples:—</p> +<h3>THE PIG IN THE DINING-ROOM</h3> +<p>Mrs. Atlay, wife of a late Bishop of Hereford, dreamed one night +that there was a pig in the dining-room of the palace. She came +downstairs, and in the hall told her governess and children of the dream, +before family prayers. When these were over, nobody who was told +the story having left the hall in the interval, she went into the dining-room +and there was the pig. It was proved to have escaped from the +sty after Mrs. Atlay got up. Here the dream is of the common grotesque +type; millions of such things are dreamed. The event, the pig +in the palace, is unusual, and the coincidence of pig and dream is still +more so. But unusual events must occur, and each has millions +of dreams as targets to aim at, so to speak. It would be surprising +if no such target were ever hit.</p> +<p>Here is another case—curious because the dream was forgotten +till the corresponding event occurred, but there was a slight discrepancy +between event and dream.</p> +<h3>THE MIGNONETTE</h3> +<p>Mrs. Herbert returned with her husband from London to their country +home on the Border. They arrived rather late in the day, prepared +to visit the garden, and decided to put off the visit till the morrow. +At night Mrs. Herbert dreamed that they went into the garden, down a +long walk to a mignonette bed near the vinery. The mignonette +was black with innumerable bees, and Wilburd, the gardener, came up +and advised Mr. and Mrs. Herbert not to go nearer. Next morning +the pair went to the garden. The air round the mignonette was +dark with <i>wasps</i>. Mrs. Herbert now first remembered and +told her dream, adding, “but in the dream they were <i>bees</i>”. +Wilburd now came up and advised them not to go nearer, as a wasps’ +nest had been injured and the wasps were on the warpath.</p> +<p>Here accidental coincidence is probable enough. <a name="citation10"></a><a href="#footnote10">{10}</a> +There is another class of dreams very useful, and apparently not so +very uncommon, that are veracious and communicate correct information, +which the dreamer did not know that he knew and was very anxious to +know. These are rare enough to be rather difficult to believe. +Thus:—</p> +<h3>THE LOST CHEQUE</h3> +<p>Mr. A., a barrister, sat up one night to write letters, and about +half-past twelve went out to put them in the post. On undressing +he missed a cheque for a large sum, which he had received during the +day. He hunted everywhere in vain, went to bed, slept, and dreamed +that he saw the cheque curled round an area railing not far from his +own door. He woke, got up, dressed, walked down the street and +found his cheque in the place he had dreamed of. In his opinion +he had noticed it fall from his pocket as he walked to the letter-box, +without consciously remarking it, and his deeper memory awoke in slumber. +<a name="citation11a"></a><a href="#footnote11a">{11a}</a></p> +<h3>THE DUCKS’ EGGS</h3> +<p>A little girl of the author’s family kept ducks and was anxious +to sell the eggs to her mother. But the eggs could not be found +by eager search. On going to bed she said, “Perhaps I shall +dream of them”. Next morning she exclaimed, “I <i>did</i> +dream of them, they are in a place between grey rock, broom, and mallow; +that must be ‘The Poney’s Field’!” And +there the eggs were found. <a name="citation11b"></a><a href="#footnote11b">{11b}</a></p> +<h3>THE LOST KEY</h3> +<p>Lady X., after walking in a wood near her house in Ireland, found +that she had lost an important key. She dreamed that it was lying +at the root of a certain tree, where she found it next day, and her +theory is the same as that of Mr. A., the owner of the lost cheque. +<a name="citation11c"></a><a href="#footnote11c">{11c}</a></p> +<p>As a rule dreams throw everything into a dramatic form. Some +one knocks at our door, and the dream bases a little drama on the noise; +it constructs an explanatory myth, a myth to account for the noise, +which is acted out in the theatre of the brain.</p> +<p>To take an instance, a disappointing one:—</p> +<h3>THE LOST SECURITIES</h3> +<p>A lady dreamed that she was sitting at a window, watching the end +of an autumn sunset. There came a knock at the front door and +a gentleman and lady were ushered in. The gentleman wore an old-fashioned +snuff-coloured suit, of the beginning of the century; he was, in fact, +an aged uncle, who, during the Napoleonic wars, had been one of the +English <i>détenus</i> in France. The lady was very beautiful +and wore something like a black Spanish mantilla. The pair carried +with them a curiously wrought steel box. Before conversation was +begun, the maid (still in the dream) brought in the lady’s chocolate +and the figures vanished. When the maid withdrew, the figures +reappeared standing by the table. The box was now open, and the +old gentleman drew forth some yellow papers, written on in faded ink. +These, he said, were lists of securities, which had been in his possession, +when he went abroad in 18--, and in France became engaged to his beautiful +companion.</p> +<p>“The securities,” he said, “are now in the strong +box of Messrs. ---;” another rap at the door, and the actual maid +entered with real hot water. It was time to get up. The +whole dream had its origin in the first rap, heard by the dreamer and +dramatised into the arrival of visitors. Probably it did not last +for more than two or three seconds of real time. The maid’s +second knock just prevented the revelation of the name of “Messrs. +---,” who, like the lady in the mantilla, were probably non-existent +people. <a name="citation13"></a><a href="#footnote13">{13}</a></p> +<p>Thus dream dramatises on the impulse of some faint, hardly perceived +real sensation. And thus either mere empty fancies (as in the +case of the lost securities) or actual knowledge which we may have once +possessed but have totally forgotten, or conclusions which have passed +through our brains as unheeded guesses, may in a dream be, as it were, +“revealed” through the lips of a character in the brain’s +theatre—that character may, in fact, be alive, or dead, or merely +fantastical. A very good case is given with this explanation (lost +knowledge revived in a dramatic dream about a dead man) by Sir Walter +Scott in a note to <i>The Antiquary</i>. Familiar as the story +is it may be offered here, for a reason which will presently be obvious.</p> +<h3>THE ARREARS OF TEIND</h3> +<p>“Mr. Rutherford, of Bowland, a gentleman of landed property +in the Vale of Gala, was prosecuted for a very considerable sum, the +accumulated arrears of teind (or tithe) for which he was said to be +indebted to a noble family, the titulars (lay impropriators of the tithes). +Mr. Rutherford was strongly impressed with the belief that his father +had, by a form of process peculiar to the law of Scotland, purchased +these teinds from the titular, and, therefore, that the present prosecution +was groundless. But, after an industrious search among his father’s +papers, an investigation among the public records and a careful inquiry +among all persons who had transacted law business for his father, no +evidence could be recovered to support his defence. The period +was now near at hand, when he conceived the loss of his law-suit to +be inevitable; and he had formed the determination to ride to Edinburgh +next day and make the best bargain he could in the way of compromise. +He went to bed with this resolution, and, with all the circumstances +of the case floating upon his mind, had a dream to the following purpose. +His father, who had been many years dead, appeared to him, he thought, +and asked him why he was disturbed in his mind. In dreams men +are not surprised at such apparitions. Mr. Rutherford thought +that he informed his father of the cause of his distress, adding that +the payment of a considerable sum of money was the more unpleasant to +him because he had a strong consciousness that it was not due, though +he was unable to recover any evidence in support of his belief. +‘You are right, my son,’ replied the paternal shade. +‘I did acquire right to these teinds for payment of which you +are now prosecuted. The papers relating to the transaction are +in the hands of Mr. ---, a writer (or attorney), who is now retired +from professional business and resides at Inveresk, near Edinburgh. +He was a person whom I employed on that occasion for a particular reason, +but who never on any other occasion transacted business on my account. +It is very possible,’ pursued the vision, ‘that Mr. --- +may have forgotten a matter which is now of a very old date; but you +may call it to his recollection by this token, that when I came to pay +his account there was difficulty in getting change for a Portugal piece +of gold and we were forced to drink out the balance at a tavern.’</p> +<p>“Mr. Rutherford awoke in the morning with all the words of +the vision imprinted on his mind, and thought it worth while to walk +across the country to Inveresk instead of going straight to Edinburgh. +When he came there he waited on the gentleman mentioned in the dream—a +very old man. Without saying anything of the vision he inquired +whether he ever remembered having conducted such a matter for his deceased +father. The old gentleman could not at first bring the circumstance +to his recollection, but on mention of the Portugal piece of gold the +whole returned upon his memory. He made an immediate search for +the papers and recovered them, so that Mr. Rutherford carried to Edinburgh +the documents necessary to gain the cause which he was on the verge +of losing.”</p> +<p>The story is reproduced because it is clearly one of the tales which +come round in cycles, either because events repeat themselves or because +people will unconsciously localise old legends in new places and assign +old occurrences or fables to new persons. Thus every one has heard +how Lord Westbury called a certain man in the Herald’s office +“a foolish old fellow who did not even know his own foolish old +business”. Lord Westbury may very well have said this, but +long before his time the remark was attributed to the famous Lord Chesterfield. +Lord Westbury may have quoted it from Chesterfield or hit on it by accident, +or the old story may have been assigned to him. In the same way +Mr. Rutherford may have had his dream or the following tale of St. Augustine’s +(also cited by Scott) may have been attributed to him, with the picturesque +addition about the piece of Portuguese gold. Except for the piece +of Portuguese gold St. Augustine practically tells the anecdote in his +<i>De Cura pro Mortuis Habenda</i>, adding the acute reflection which +follows. <a name="citation16"></a><a href="#footnote16">{16}</a></p> +<p>“Of a surety, when we were at Milan, we heard tell of a certain +person of whom was demanded payment of a debt, with production of his +deceased father’s acknowledgment, which debt, unknown to the son, +the father had paid, whereupon the man began to be very sorrowful, and +to marvel that his father while dying did not tell him what he owed +when he also made his will. Then in this exceeding anxiousness +of his, his said father appeared to him in a dream, and made known to +him where was the counter acknowledgment by which that acknowledgment +was cancelled. Which when the young man had found and showed, +he not only rebutted the wrongful claim of a false debt, but also got +back his father’s note of hand, which the father had not got back +when the money was paid.</p> +<p>“Here then the soul of a man is supposed to have had care for +his son, and to have come to him in his sleep, that, teaching him what +he did not know, he might relieve him of a great trouble. But +about the very same time as we heard this, it chanced at Carthage that +the rhetorician Eulogius, who had been my disciple in that art, being +(as he himself, after our return to Africa, told us the story) in course +of lecturing to his disciples on Cicero’s rhetorical books, as +he looked over the portion of reading which he was to deliver on the +following day, fell upon a certain passage, and not being able to understand +it, was scarce able to sleep for the trouble of his mind: in which night, +as he dreamed, I expounded to him that which he did not understand; +nay, not I, but my likeness, while I was unconscious of the thing and +far away beyond sea, it might be doing, or it might be dreaming, some +other thing, and not in the least caring for his cares. In what +way these things come about I know not; but in what way soever they +come, why do we not believe it comes in the same way for a person in +a dream to see a dead man, as it comes that he sees a living man? both, +no doubt, neither knowing nor caring who dreams of their images, or +where or when.</p> +<p>“Like dreams, moreover, are some visions of persons awake, +who have had their senses troubled, such as phrenetic persons, or those +who are mad in any way, for they, too, talk to themselves just as though +they were speaking to people verily present, and as well with absent +men as with present, whose images they perceive whether persons living +or dead. But just as they who live are unconscious that they are +seen of them and talk with them (for indeed they are not really themselves +present, or themselves make speeches, but through troubled senses these +persons are wrought upon by such like imaginary visions), just so they +also who have departed this life, to persons thus affected appear as +present while they be absent, and are themselves utterly unconscious +whether any man sees them in regard of their image.” <a name="citation18"></a><a href="#footnote18">{18}</a></p> +<p>St. Augustine adds a similar story of a trance.</p> +<h3>THE TWO CURMAS</h3> +<p>A rustic named Curma, of Tullium, near Hippo, Augustine’s town, +fell into a catalepsy. On reviving he said: “Run to the +house of Curma the smith and see what is going on”. Curma +the smith was found to have died just when the other Curma awoke. +“I knew it,” said the invalid, “for I heard it said +in that place whence I have returned that not I, Curma of the Curia, +but Curma the smith, was wanted.” But Curma of the Curia +saw living as well as dead people, among others Augustine, who, in his +vision, baptised him at Hippo. Curma then, in the vision, went +to Paradise, where he was told to go and be baptised. He said +it had been done already, and was answered, “Go and be truly baptised, +for <i>that</i> thou didst but see in vision”. So Augustine +christened him, and later, hearing of the trance, asked him about it, +when he repeated the tale already familiar to his neighbours. +Augustine thinks it a mere dream, and apparently regards the death of +Curma the smith as a casual coincidence. <i>Un esprit fort, le +Saint Augustin</i>!</p> +<p>“If the dead could come in dreams,” he says, “my +pious mother would no night fail to visit me. Far be the thought +that she should, by a happier life, have been made so cruel that, when +aught vexes my heart, she should not even console in a dream the son +whom she loved with an only love.”</p> +<p>Not only things once probably known, yet forgotten, but knowledge +never <i>consciously</i> thought out, may be revealed in a dramatic +dream, apparently through the lips of the dead or the never existent. +The books of psychology are rich in examples of problems worked out, +or music or poetry composed in sleep. The following is a more +recent and very striking example:—</p> +<h3>THE ASSYRIAN PRIEST</h3> +<p>Herr H. V. Hilprecht is Professor of Assyriology in the University +of Pennsylvania. That university had despatched an expedition +to explore the ruins of Babylon, and sketches of the objects discovered +had been sent home. Among these were drawings of two small fragments +of agate, inscribed with characters. One Saturday night in March, +1893, Professor Hilprecht had wearied himself with puzzling over these +two fragments, which were supposed to be broken pieces of finger-rings. +He was inclined, from the nature of the characters, to date them about +1700-1140 B.C.; and as the first character of the third line of the +first fragment seemed to read KU, he guessed that it might stand for +Kurigalzu, a king of that name.</p> +<p>About midnight the professor went, weary and perplexed, to bed.</p> +<p>“Then I dreamed the following remarkable dream. A tall +thin priest of the old pre-Christian Nippur, about forty years of age, +and clad in a simple <i>abba</i>, led me to the treasure-chamber of +the temple, on its south-east side. He went with me into a small +low-ceiled room without windows, in which there was a large wooden chest, +while scraps of agate and <i>lapis lazuli</i> lay scattered on the floor. +Here he addressed me as follows:—</p> +<p>“‘The two fragments, which you have published separately +upon pages 22 and 26, <i>belong together</i>’” (this amazing +Assyrian priest spoke American!). <a name="citation20"></a><a href="#footnote20">{20}</a> +“‘They are not finger-rings, and their history is as follows:—</p> +<p>“‘King Kurigalzu (about 1300 B.C.) once sent to the temple +of Bel, among other articles of agate and <i>lapis lazuli</i>, an inscribed +votive cylinder of agate. Then the priests suddenly received the +command to make for the statue of the god Nibib a pair of ear-rings +of agate. We were in great dismay, since there was no agate as +raw material at hand. In order to execute the command there was +nothing for us to do but cut the votive cylinder in three parts, thus +making three rings, each of which contained a portion of the original +inscription. The first two rings served as ear-rings for the statue +of the god; the two fragments which have given you so much trouble are +parts of them. If you will put the two together, you will have +confirmation of my words. But the third ring you have not found +yet, and you never will find it.’”</p> +<p>The professor awoke, bounded out of bed, as Mrs. Hilprecht testifies, +and was heard crying from his study, “It is so, it is so!” +Mrs. Hilprecht followed her lord, “and satisfied myself in the +midnight hour as to the outcome of his most interesting dream”.</p> +<p>The professor, however, says that he awoke, told his wife the dream, +and verified it next day. Both statements are correct. There +were two sets of drawings, one in the study (used that night) one used +next day in the University Library.</p> +<p>The inscription ran thus, the missing fragment being restored, “by +analogy from many similar inscriptions”:—</p> +<blockquote><p>TO THE GOD NIBIB, CHILD<br /> +OF THE GOD BEL,<br /> +HIS LORD<br /> +KURIGALZU,<br /> +PONTIFEX OF THE GOD BEL<br /> +HAS PRESENTED IT.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But, in the drawings, the fragments were of different colours, so +that a student working on the drawings would not guess them to be parts +of one cylinder. Professor Hilprecht, however, examined the two +actual fragments in the Imperial Museum at Constantinople. They +lay in two distinct cases, but, when put together, fitted. When +cut asunder of old, in Babylon, the white vein of the stone showed on +one fragment, the grey surface on the other.</p> +<p>Professor Romaine Newbold, who publishes this dream, explains that +the professor had unconsciously reasoned out his facts, the difference +of colour in the two pieces of agate disappearing in the dream. +The professor had heard from Dr. Peters of the expedition, that a room +had been discovered with fragments of a wooden box and chips of agate +and <i>lapis lazuli</i>. The sleeping mind “combined its +information,” reasoned rightly from it, and threw its own conclusions +into a dramatic form, receiving the information from the lips of a priest +of Nippur.</p> +<p>Probably we do a good deal of reasoning in sleep. Professor +Hilprecht, in 1882-83, was working at a translation of an inscription +wherein came <i>Nabû</i>—<i>Kudûrru</i>—<i>usur</i>, +rendered by Professor Delitzsch “Nebo protect my mortar-board”. +Professor Hilprecht accepted this, but woke one morning with his mind +full of the thought that the words should be rendered “Nebo protect +my boundary,” which “sounds a deal likelier,” and +is now accepted. I myself, when working at the MSS. of the exiled +Stuarts, was puzzled by the scorched appearance of the paper on which +Prince Charlie’s and the king’s letters were often written +and by the peculiarities of the ink. I woke one morning with a +sudden flash of common-sense. Sympathetic ink had been used, and +the papers had been toasted or treated with acids. This I had +probably reasoned out in sleep, and, had I dreamed, my mind might have +dramatised the idea. Old Mr. Edgar, the king’s secretary, +might have appeared and given me the explanation. Maury publishes +tales in which a forgotten fact was revealed to him in a dream from +the lips of a dream-character (<i>Le Sommeil et les Rêves</i>, +pp. 142-143. The curious may also consult, on all these things, +<i>The Philosophy of Mysticism</i>, by Karl du Prel, translated by Mr. +Massey. The Assyrian Priest is in <i>Proceedings</i>, <i>S.P.R</i>., +vol. xii., p. 14).</p> +<p>On the same plane as the dreams which we have been examining is the +waking sensation of the <i>déjà vu.</i></p> +<blockquote><p>“I have been here before,<br /> +But when or how I cannot tell.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Most of us know this feeling, all the circumstances in which we find +ourselves have already occurred, we have a prophecy of what will happen +next “on the tip of our tongues” (like a half-remembered +name), and then the impression vanishes. Scott complains of suffering +through a whole dinner-party from this sensation, but he had written +“copy” for fifty printed pages on that day, and his brain +was breaking down. Of course psychology has explanations. +The scene <i>may</i> have really occurred before, or may be the result +of a malady of perception, or one hemisphere of the brain not working +in absolute simultaneousness with the other may produce a double impression, +the first being followed by the second, so that we really have had two +successive impressions, of which one seems much more remote in time +than it really was. Or we may have dreamed something like the +scene and forgotten the dream, or we may actually, in some not understood +manner, have had a “prevision” of what is now actual, as +when Shelley almost fainted on coming to a place near Oxford which he +had beheld in a dream.</p> +<p>Of course, if this “prevision” could be verified in detail, +we should come very near to dreams of the future fulfilled. Such +a thing—verification of a detail—led to the conversion of +William Hone, the free-thinker and Radical of the early century, who +consequently became a Christian and a pessimistic, clear-sighted Tory. +This tale of the <i>déjà vu</i>, therefore, leads up to +the marvellous narratives of dreams simultaneous with, or prophetic +of, events not capable of being guessed or inferred, or of events lost +in the historical past, but, later, recovered from documents.</p> +<p>Of Hone’s affair there are two versions. Both may be +given, as they are short. If they illustrate the <i>déjà +vu</i>, they also illustrate the fond discrepancies of all such narratives. +<a name="citation24"></a><a href="#footnote24">{24}</a></p> +<h3>THE KNOT IN THE SHUTTER</h3> +<p>“It is said that a dream produced a powerful effect on Hone’s +mind. He dreamt that he was introduced into a room where he was +an entire stranger, and saw himself seated at a table, and on going +towards the window his attention was somehow or other attracted to the +window-shutter, and particularly to a knot in the wood, which was of +singular appearance; and on waking the whole scene, and especially the +knot in the shutter, left a most vivid impression on his mind. +Some time afterwards, on going, I think, into the country, he was at +some house shown into a chamber where he had never been before, and +which instantly struck him as being the identical chamber of his dream. +He turned directly to the window, where the same knot in the shutter +caught his eye. This incident, to his investigating spirit, induced +a train of reflection which overthrew his cherished theories of materialism, +and resulted in conviction that there were spiritual agencies as susceptible +of proof as any facts of physical science; and this appears to have +been one of the links in that mysterious chain of events by which, according +to the inscrutable purposes of the Divine will, man is sometimes compelled +to bow to an unseen and divine power, and ultimately to believe and +live.”</p> +<p>“Another of the Christian friends from whom, in his later years, +William Hone received so much kindness, has also furnished recollections +of him.</p> +<p>“ . . . Two or three anecdotes which he related are all I can +contribute towards a piece of mental history which, if preserved, would +have been highly interesting. The first in point of time as to +his taste of mind, was a circumstance which shook his confidence in +<i>materialism</i>, though it did not lead to his conversion. +It was one of those mental phenomena which he saw to be <i>inexplicable</i> +by the doctrines he then held.</p> +<p>“It was as follows: He was called in the course of business +into a part of London quite new to him, and as he walked along the street +he noticed to himself that he had never been there; but on being shown +into a room in a house where he had to wait some time, he immediately +fancied that it was all familiar, that he had seen it before, ‘and +if so,’ said he to himself, ‘there is a very peculiar knot +in this shutter’. He opened the shutter and found the knot. +‘Now then,’ thought he, ‘here is something I cannot +explain on my principles!’”</p> +<p>Indeed the occurrence is not very explicable on any principles, as +a detail not visible without search was sought and verified, and that +by a habitual mocker at anything out of the common way. For example, +Hone published a comic explanation, correct or not, of the famous Stockwell +mystery.</p> +<p>Supposing Hone’s story to be true, it naturally conducts us +to yet more unfamiliar, and therefore less credible dreams, in which +the unknown past, present, or future is correctly revealed.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> +<p><i>Veracious Dreams. Past</i>, <i>Present and Future unknown +Events</i> “<i>revealed”. Theory of</i> “<i>Mental +Telegraphy</i>” <i>or</i> “<i>Telepathy</i>” <i>fails +to meet Dreams of the unknowable Future. Dreams of unrecorded +Past</i>, <i>how alone they can be corroborated. Queen Mary’s +Jewels. Story from Brierre de Boismont. Mr. Williams’s +Dream before Mr. Perceval’s Murder. Discrepancies of Evidence. +Curious Story of Bude Kirk. Mr. Williams’s Version. +Dream of a Rattlesnake. Discrepancies. Dream of the Red +Lamp</i>. “<i>Illusions Hypnagogiques</i>.” +<i>The Scar in the Moustache. Dream of the Future. The Coral +Sprigs. Anglo-Saxon Indifference. A Celtic Dream. +The Satin Slippers. Waking Dreams. The Dead Shopman. +Dreams in Swoons.</i></p> +<p>Perhaps nothing, not even a ghost, is so staggering to the powers +of belief as a well-authenticated dream which strikes the bull’s +eye of facts not known to the dreamer nor capable of being guessed by +him. If the events beheld in the dream are far away in space, +or are remote in time past, the puzzle is difficult enough. But +if the events are still in the future, perhaps no kind of explanation +except a mere “fluke” can even be suggested. Say that +I dream of an event occurring at a distance, and that I record or act +on my dream before it is corroborated. Suppose, too, that the +event is not one which could be guessed, like the death of an invalid +or the result of a race or of an election. This would be odd enough, +but the facts of which I dreamed must have been present in the minds +of living people. Now, if there is such a thing as “mental +telegraphy” or “telepathy,” <a name="citation28"></a><a href="#footnote28">{28}</a> +my mind, in dream, may have “tapped” the minds of the people +who knew the facts. We may not believe in “mental telegraphy,” +but we can <i>imagine</i> it as one of the unknown possibilities of +nature. Again, if I dream of an unchronicled event in the past, +and if a letter of some historical person is later discovered which +confirms the accuracy of my dream, we can at least <i>conceive</i> (though +we need not believe) that the intelligence was telegraphed to my dreaming +mind from the mind of a <i>dead</i> actor in, or witness of the historical +scene, for the facts are unknown to living man. But even these +wild guesses cannot cover a dream which correctly reveals events of +the future; events necessarily not known to any finite mind of the living +or of the dead, and too full of detail for an explanation by aid of +chance coincidence.</p> +<p>In face of these difficulties mankind has gone on believing in dreams +of all three classes: dreams revealing the unknown present, the unknown +past, and the unknown future. The judicious reasonably set them +all aside as the results of fortuitous coincidence, or revived recollection, +or of the illusions of a false memory, or of imposture, conscious or +unconscious. However, the stories continue to be told, and our +business is with the stories.</p> +<p>Taking, first, dreams of the unknown past, we find a large modern +collection of these attributed to a lady named “Miss A---”. +They were waking dreams representing obscure incidents of the past, +and were later corroborated by records in books, newspapers and manuscripts. +But as these books and papers existed, and were known to exist, before +the occurrence of the visions, it is obvious that the matter of the +visions <i>may</i> have been derived from the books and so forth, or +at least, a sceptic will vastly prefer this explanation. What +we need is a dream or vision of the unknown past, corroborated by a +document <i>not known to exist</i> at the time when the vision took +place and was recorded. Probably there is no such instance, but +the following tale, picturesque in itself, has a kind of shadow of the +only satisfactory sort of corroboration.</p> +<p>The author responsible for this yarn is Dr. Gregory, F.R.S., Professor +of Chemistry in the University of Edinburgh. After studying for +many years the real or alleged phenomena of what has been called mesmerism, +or electro-biology, or hypnotism, Dr. Gregory published in 1851 his +<i>Letters to a Candid Inquirer on Animal Magnetism.</i></p> +<p>Though a F.R.S. and a Professor of Chemistry, the Doctor had no more +idea of what constitutes evidence than a baby. He actually mixed +up the Tyrone with the Lyttelton ghost story! His legend of Queen +Mary’s jewels is derived from (1) the note-book, <i>or</i> (2) +a letter containing, or professing to contain, extracts from the note-book, +of a Major Buckley, an Anglo-Indian officer. This gentleman used +to “magnetise” or hypnotise people, some of whom became +clairvoyant, as if possessed of eyes acting as “double-patent-million +magnifiers,” permeated by X rays.</p> +<p>“What follows is transcribed,” says the Doctor, “from +Major Buckley’s note-book.” We abridge the narrative. +Major Buckley hypnotised a young officer, who, on November 15, 1845, +fell into “a deeper state” of trance. Thence he awoke +into a “clairvoyant” condition and said:—</p> +<h3>QUEEN MARY’S JEWELS</h3> +<p>“I have had a strange dream about your ring” (a “medallion” +of Anthony and Cleopatra); “it is very valuable.”</p> +<p>Major Buckley said it was worth £60, and put the ring into +his friend’s hand.</p> +<p>“It belonged to royalty.”</p> +<p>“In what country?”</p> +<p>“I see Mary, Queen of Scots. It was given to her by a +man, a foreigner, with other things from Italy. It came from Naples. +It is not in the old setting. She wore it only once. The +person who gave it to her was a musician.”</p> +<p>The seer then “saw” the donor’s signature, “Rizzio”. +But Rizzio spelled his name Riccio! The seer now copied on paper +a writing which in his trance he saw on vellum. The design here +engraved (p. 32) is only from a rough copy of the seer’s original +drawing, which was made by Major Buckley.</p> +<p style="text-align:center"> +<a href="images/rizzo.gif"> +<img src="images/rizzo.gif" alt="Picture of vellum as described in text." /> +</a> +</p> +<p>“Here” (pointing to the middle) “I see a diamond +cross.” The smallest stone was above the size of one +of four carats. “It” (the cross) “was worn out +of sight by Mary. The vellum has been shown in the House of Lords.” +<a name="citation31"></a><a href="#footnote31">{31}</a></p> +<p>“ . . . The ring was taken off Mary’s finger by a man +in anger and jealousy: he threw it into the water. When he took +it off, she was being carried in a kind of bed with curtains” +(a litter).</p> +<p>Just before Rizzio’s murder Mary was <i>enceinte</i>, and might +well be carried in a litter, though she usually rode.</p> +<p>The seer then had a view of Sizzle’s murder, which he had probably +read about.</p> +<p>Three weeks later, in another trance, the seer finished his design +of the vellum. The words</p> +<blockquote><p>A<br /> +M<br /> +DE LA PART</p> +</blockquote> +<p>probably stand for <i>à Marie</i>, <i>de la part de—</i></p> +<p>The thistle heads and leaves in gold at the corners were a usual +decoration of the period; compare the ceiling of the room in Edinburgh +Castle where James VI. was born, four months after Rizzio’s murder. +They also occur in documents. Dr. Gregory conjectures that so +valuable a present as a diamond cross may have been made not by Rizzio, +but through Rizzio by the Pope.</p> +<p>It did not seem good to the doctor to consult Mary’s lists +of jewels, nor, if he had done so, would he have been any the wiser. +In 1566, just before the birth of James VI., Mary had an inventory drawn +up, and added the names of the persons to whom she bequeathed her treasures +in case she died in child-bed. But this inventory, hidden among +a mass of law-papers in the Record Office, was not discovered till 1854, +nine years after the vision of 1845, and three after its publication +by Dr. Gregory in 1851. Not till 1863 was the inventory of 1566, +discovered in 1854, published for the Bannatyne Club by Dr. Joseph Robertson.</p> +<p>Turning to the inventory we read of a valuable present made by David +Rizzio to Mary, a tortoise of rubies, which she kept till her death, +for it appears in a list made after her execution at Fotheringay. +The murdered David Rizzio left a brother Joseph. Him the queen +made her secretary, and in her will of 1566 mentions him thus:—</p> +<p>“<i>A Josef</i>, <i>pour porter à celui qui je luy ay +dit</i>, une emeraude emaille de blanc.</p> +<p>“<i>A Josef</i>, <i>pour porter à celui qui je luy ai +dit</i>, <i>dont il ranvoir quittance.</i></p> +<p>“Une bague garnye de vingt cinq diamens tant grands que petis.”</p> +<p>Now the diamond cross seen by the young officer in 1845 was set with +diamonds great and small, and was, in his opinion, a gift from or through +Rizzio. “The queen wore it out of sight.” Here +in the inventory we have a <i>bague</i> (which may be a cross) of diamonds +small and great, connected with a secret only known to Rizzio’s +brother and to the queen. It is “to be carried to one whose +name the queen has spoken in her new secretary’s ear” (Joseph’s), +“but dare not trust herself to write”. “It would +be idle now to seek to pry into the mystery which was thus anxiously +guarded,” says Dr. Robertson, editor of the queen’s inventories. +The doctor knew nothing of the vision which, perhaps, so nearly pried +into the mystery. There is nothing like proof here, but there +is just a presumption that the diamonds connected with Rizzio, and secretly +worn by the queen, seen in the vision of 1845, are possibly the diamonds +which, had Mary died in 1566, were to be carried by Joseph Rizzio to +a person whose name might not safely be written. <a name="citation35a"></a><a href="#footnote35a">{35a}</a></p> +<p>We now take a dream which apparently reveals a real fact occurring +at a distance. It is translated from Brierre de Boismont’s +book, <i>Des Hallucinations</i> <a name="citation35b"></a><a href="#footnote35b">{35b}</a> +(Paris, 1845). “There are,” says the learned author, +“authentic dreams which have revealed an event occurring at the +moment, or later.” These he explains by accidental coincidence, +and then gives the following anecdote, as within his own intimate knowledge:—</p> +<h3>THE DEATHBED</h3> +<p>Miss C., a lady of excellent sense, religious but not bigoted, lived +before her marriage in the house of her uncle D., a celebrated physician, +and member of the Institute. Her mother at this time was seriously +ill in the country. One night the girl dreamed that she saw her +mother, pale and dying, and especially grieved at the absence of two +of her children: one a <i>curé</i> in Spain, the other—herself—in +Paris. Next she heard her own Christian name called, “Charlotte!” +and, in her dream, saw the people about her mother bring in her own +little niece and god-child Charlotte from the next room. The patient +intimated by a sign that she did not want <i>this</i> Charlotte, but +her daughter in Paris. She displayed the deepest regret; her countenance +changed, she fell back, and died.</p> +<p>Next day the melancholy of Mademoiselle C. attracted the attention +of her uncle. She told him her dream; he pressed her to his heart, +and admitted that her mother was dead.</p> +<p>Some months later Mademoiselle C., when her uncle was absent, arranged +his papers, which he did not like any one to touch. Among these +was a letter containing the story of her mother’s death, with +all the details of her own dream, which D. had kept concealed lest they +should impress her too painfully.</p> +<p>Boismont is staggered by this circumstance, and inclined to account +for it by “still unknown relations in the moral and physical world”. +“Mental telegraphy,” of course, would explain all, and even +chance coincidence is perfectly conceivable.</p> +<p>The most commonly known of dreams prior to, or simultaneous with +an historical occurrence represented in the vision, is Mr. Williams’s +dream of the murder of Mr. Perceval in the lobby of the House of Commons, +May 11, 1812. Mr. Williams, of Scorrier House, near Redruth, in +Cornwall, lived till 1841. He was interested in mines, and a man +of substance. Unluckily the versions of his dream are full of +discrepancies. It was first published, apparently, in <i>The Times</i> +during the “silly season” of 1828 (August 28). According +to <i>The Times</i>, whose account is very minute, Mr. Williams dreamed +of the murder thrice before 2 a.m. on the night of May 11. He +told Mrs. Williams, and was so disturbed that he rose and dressed at +two in the morning. He went to Falmouth next day (May 12), and +told the tale to every one he knew. On the evening of the 13th +he told it to Mr. and Mrs. Tucker (his married daughter) of Tremanton +Castle. Mr. Williams only knew that the <i>chancellor</i> was +shot; Mr. Tucker said it must be the Chancellor of the Exchequer. +From the description he recognised Mr. Perceval, with whom he was at +enmity. Mr. Williams had never been inside the House of Commons. +As they talked, Mr. William’s son galloped up from Truro with +news of the murder, got from a traveller by coach. Six weeks later, +Mr. Williams went to town, and in the House of Commons walked up to +and recognised the scene of the various incidents in the murder.</p> +<p>So far <i>The Times</i>, in 1828. But two forms of a version +of 1832 exist, one in a note to Mr. Walpole’s <i>Life of Perceval</i> +(1874), “an attested statement, drawn up and signed by Mr. Williams +in the presence of the Rev. Thomas Fisher and Mr. Charles Prideaux Brune”. +Mr. Brune gave it to Mr. Walpole. With only verbal differences +this variant corresponds to another signed by Mr. Williams and given +by him to his grandson, who gave it to Mr. Perceval’s great-niece, +by whom it was lent to the Society for Psychical Research.</p> +<p>These accounts differ <i>toto cœlo</i> from that in <i>The +Times</i> of 1828. The dream is <i>not</i> of May 11, but “about” +May 2 or 3. Mr. Williams is <i>not</i> a stranger to the House +of Commons; it is “a place well known to me”. He is +<i>not</i> ignorant of the name of the victim, but “understood +that it was Mr. Perceval”. He thinks of going to town to +give warning. We hear nothing of Mr. Tucker. Mr. Williams +does <i>not</i> verify his dream in the House, but from a drawing. +A Mr. C. R. Fox, son of one to whom the dream was told <i>before</i> +the event, was then a boy of fourteen, and sixty-one years later was +sure that he himself heard of Mr. Williams’s dream <i>before</i> +the news of the murder arrived. After sixty years, however, the +memory cannot be relied upon.</p> +<p>One very curious circumstance in connection with the assassination +of Mr. Perceval has never been noticed. A rumour or report of +the deed reached Bude Kirk, a village near Annan, on the night of Sunday, +May 10, a day before the crime was committed! This was stated +in the <i>Dumfries and Galloway Courier</i>, and copied in <i>The Times</i> +of May 25. On May 28, the <i>Perth Courier</i> quotes the Dumfries +paper, and adds that “the Rev. Mr. Yorstoun, minister of Hoddam +(<i>ob</i>. 1833), has visited Bude Kirk and has obtained the most satisfactory +proof of the rumour having existed” on May 10, but the rumour +cannot be traced to its source. Mr. Yorstoun authorises the mention +of his name. <i>The</i> <i>Times</i> of June 2 says that “the +report is without foundation”. If Williams talked everywhere +of his dream, on May 3, some garbled shape of it may conceivably have +floated to Bude Kirk by May 10, and originated the rumour. Whoever +started it would keep quiet when the real news arrived for fear of being +implicated in a conspiracy as accessory before the fact. No trace +of Mr. Williams’s dream occurs in the contemporary London papers.</p> +<p>The best version of the dream to follow is probably that signed by +Mr. Williams himself in 1832. <a name="citation39a"></a><a href="#footnote39a">{39a}</a></p> +<p>It may, of course, be argued by people who accept Mr. Williams’s +dream as a revelation of the future that it reached his mind from the +<i>purpose</i> conceived in Bellingham’s mind, by way of “mental +telegraphy”. <a name="citation39b"></a><a href="#footnote39b">{39b}</a></p> +<h3>DREAM OF MR. PERCEVAL’S MURDER</h3> +<p>“SUNDHILL, <i>December</i>, 1832.</p> +<p>“[Some account of a dream which occurred to John Williams, +Esq., of Scorrier House, in the county of Cornwall, in the year 1812. +Taken from his own mouth, and narrated by him at various times to several +of his friends.]</p> +<p>“Being desired to write out the particulars of a remarkable +dream which I had in the year 1812, before I do so I think it may be +proper for me to say that at that time my attention was fully occupied +with affairs of my own—the superintendence of some very extensive +mines in Cornwall being entrusted to me. Thus I had no leisure +to pay any attention to political matters, and hardly knew at that time +who formed the administration of the country. It was, therefore, +scarcely possible that my own interest in the subject should have had +any share in suggesting the circumstances which presented themselves +to my imagination. It was, in truth, a subject which never occurred +to my waking thoughts.</p> +<p>“My dream was as follows:—</p> +<p>“About the second or third day of May, 1812, I dreamed that +I was in the lobby of the House of Commons (a place well known to me). +A small man, dressed in a blue coat and a white waistcoat, entered, +and immediately I saw a person whom I had observed on my first entrance, +dressed in a snuff-coloured coat with metal buttons, take a pistol from +under his coat and present it at the little man above-mentioned. +The pistol was discharged, and the ball entered under the left breast +of the person at whom it was directed. I saw the blood issue from +the place where the ball had struck him, his countenance instantly altered, +and he fell to the ground. Upon inquiry who the sufferer might +be, I was informed that he was the chancellor. I understood him +to be Mr. Perceval, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer. I further +saw the murderer laid hold of by several of the gentlemen in the room. +Upon waking I told the particulars above related to my wife; she treated +the matter lightly, and desired me to go to sleep, saying it was only +a dream. I soon fell asleep again, and again the dream presented +itself with precisely the same circumstances. After waking a second +time and stating the matter again to my wife, she only repeated her +request that I would compose myself and dismiss the subject from my +mind. Upon my falling asleep the third time, the same dream without +any alteration was repeated, and I awoke, as on the former occasions, +in great agitation. So much alarmed and impressed was I with the +circumstances above related, that I felt much doubt whether it was not +my duty to take a journey to London and communicate upon the subject +with the party principally concerned. Upon this point I consulted +with some friends whom I met on business at the Godolphin mine on the +following day. After having stated to them the particulars of +the dream itself and what were my own feelings in relation to it, they +dissuaded me from my purpose, saying I might expose myself to contempt +and vexation, or be taken up as a fanatic. Upon this I said no +more, but anxiously watched the newspapers every evening as the post +arrived.</p> +<p>“On the evening of the 13th of May (as far as I recollect) +no account of Mr. Perceval’s death was in the newspapers, but +my second son, returning from Truro, came in a hurried manner into the +room where I was sitting and exclaimed: ‘O father, your dream +has come true! Mr. Perceval has been shot in the lobby of the +House of Commons; there is an account come from London to Truro written +after the newspapers were printed.’</p> +<p>“The fact was Mr. Percival was assassinated on the evening +of the 11th.</p> +<p>“Some business soon after called me to London, and in one of +the print-shops I saw a drawing for sale, representing the place and +the circumstances which attended Mr. Perceval’s death. I +purchased it, and upon a careful examination I found it to coincide +in all respects with the scene which had passed through my imagination +in the dream. The colours of the dresses, the buttons of the assassin’s +coat, the white waistcoat of Mr. Perceval, the spot of blood upon it, +the countenances and attitudes of the parties present were exactly what +I had dreamed.</p> +<p>“The singularity of the case, when mentioned among my friends +and acquaintances, naturally made it the subject of conversation in +London, and in consequence my friend, the late Mr. Rennie, was requested +by some of the commissioners of the navy that they might be permitted +to hear the circumstances from myself. Two of them accordingly +met me at Mr. Rennie’s house, and to them I detailed at the time +the particulars, then fresh in my memory, which form the subject of +the above statement.</p> +<p>“I forbear to make any comment on the above narrative, further +than to declare solemnly that it is a faithful account of facts as they +actually occurred.</p> +<p>(Signed) “JOHN WILLIAMS.” <a name="citation42"></a><a href="#footnote42">{42}</a></p> +<p>When we come to dreams of the future, great historical examples are +scarce indeed, that is, dreams respectably authenticated. We have +to put up with curious trivialities. One has an odd feature.</p> +<h3>THE RATTLESNAKE</h3> +<p>Dr. Kinsolving, of the Church of the Epiphany in Philadelphia, dreamed +that he “came across a rattlesnake,” which “when killed +had <i>two</i> black-looking rattles and a peculiar projection of bone +from the tail, while the skin was unusually light in colour”. +Next day, while walking with his brother, Dr. Kinsolving nearly trod +on a rattlesnake, “the same snake in every particular with the +one I had had in my mind’s eye”. This would be very +well, but Dr. Kinsolving’s brother, who helped to kill the unlucky +serpent, says “<i>he had a single rattle</i>”. The +letters of these gentlemen were written without communication to each +other. If Mr. Kinsolving is right, the real snake with <i>one</i> +rattle was <i>not</i> the dream snake with <i>two</i> rattles. +The brothers were in a snaky country, West Virginia. <a name="citation43"></a><a href="#footnote43">{43}</a></p> +<p>The following is trivial, but good. It is written by Mr. Alfred +Cooper, and attested by the dreamer, the Duchess of Hamilton.</p> +<h3>THE RED LAMP</h3> +<p>Mr. Cooper says: “A fortnight before the death of the late +Earl of L--- in 1882, I called upon the Duke of Hamilton, in Hill Street, +to see him professionally. After I had finished seeing him, we +went into the drawing-room, where the duchess was, and the duke said, +‘Oh, Cooper, how is the earl?’</p> +<p>“The duchess said, ‘What earl?’ and on my answering +‘Lord L---,’ she replied: ‘That is very odd. +I have had a most extraordinary vision. I went to bed, but after +being in bed a short time, I was not exactly asleep, but thought I saw +a scene as if from a play before me. The actors in it were Lord +L--- as if in a fit, with a man standing over him with a red beard. +He was by the side of a bath, over which a red lamp was distinctly shown.</p> +<p>“I then said: ‘I am attending Lord L--- at present; there +is very little the matter with him; he is not going to die; he will +be all right very soon’.</p> +<p>“Well he got better for a week and was nearly well, but at +the end of six or seven days after this I was called to see him suddenly. +He had inflammation of both lungs.</p> +<p>“I called in Sir William Jenner, but in six days he was a dead +man. There were two male nurses attending on him; one had been +taken ill. But when I saw the other, the dream of the duchess +was exactly represented. He was standing near a bath over the +earl, and strange to say, his beard was red. There was the bath +with the red lamp over it. It is rather rare to find a bath with +a red lamp over it, and this brought the story to my mind. . . .”</p> +<p>This account, written in 1888, has been revised by the late Duke +of Manchester, father of the Duchess of Hamilton, who heard the vision +from his daughter on the morning after she had seen it.</p> +<p>The duchess only knew the earl by sight, and had not heard that he +was ill. She knew she was not asleep, for she opened her eyes +to get rid of the vision, and, shutting them, saw the same thing again. +<a name="citation45a"></a><a href="#footnote45a">{45a}</a></p> +<p>In fact, the “vision” was an <i>illusion hypnagogique</i>. +Probably most readers know the procession of visions which sometimes +crowd on the closed eyes just before sleep. <a name="citation45b"></a><a href="#footnote45b">{45b}</a> +They commonly represent with vivid clearness unknown faces or places, +occasionally known faces. The writer has seen his own in this +way and has occasionally “opened his eyes to get rid of” +the appearances. In his opinion the pictures are unconsciously +constructed by the half-sleeping mind out of blurs of light or dark +seen with closed eyes. Mr. Cooper’s story would be more +complete if he had said whether or not the earl, when visited by him, +was in a chair as in the vision. But beds are not commonly found +in bathrooms.</p> +<h3>THE SCAR IN THE MOUSTACHE</h3> +<p>This story was told to the writer by his old head-master, the Rev. +Dr. Hodson, brother of Hodson, of Hodson’s Horse, a person whom +I never heard make any other allusion to such topics. Dr. Hodson +was staying with friends in Switzerland during the holidays. One +morning, as he lay awake, he seemed to see into a room as if the wall +of his bedroom had been cut out. In the room were a lady well +known to him and a man whom he did not know. The man’s back +was turned to the looker-on. The scene vanished, and grew again. +Now the man faced Dr. Hodson; the face was unfamiliar, and had a deep +white scar seaming the moustache. Dr. Hodson mentioned the circumstance +to his friends, and thought little of it. He returned home, and, +one day, in Perth station, met the lady at the book-stall. He +went up to accost her, and was surprised by the uneasiness of her manner. +A gentleman now joined them, with a deep white scar through his moustache. +Dr. Hodson now recalled, what had slipped his memory, that the lady +during his absence from Scotland had eloped with an officer, the man +of the vision and the railway station. He did not say, or perhaps +know, whether the elopement was prior to the kind of dream in Switzerland.</p> +<p>Here is a dream representing a future event, with details which could +not be guessed beforehand.</p> +<h3>THE CORAL SPRIGS</h3> +<p>Mrs. Weiss, of St. Louis, was in New York in January, 1881, attending +a daughter, Mrs. C., who was about to have a child. She writes:—</p> +<p>“On Friday night (Jan. 21) I dreamed that my daughter’s +time came; that owing to some cause not clearly defined, we failed to +get word to Mr. C., who was to bring the doctor; that we sent for the +nurse, who came; that as the hours passed and neither Mr. C. nor the +doctor came we both got frightened; that at last I heard Mr. C. on the +stairs, and cried to him: ‘Oh, Chan, for heaven’s sake get +a doctor! Ada may be confined at any moment’; that he rushed +away, and I returned to the bedside of my daughter, who was in agony +of mind and body; that suddenly I seemed to know what to do, . . . and +that shortly after Mr. C. came, bringing a tall young doctor, having +brown eyes, dark hair, ruddy <i>brun</i> complexion, grey trousers and +grey vest, and wearing a bright blue cravat, picked out with coral sprigs; +the cravat attracted my attention particularly. The young doctor +pronounced Mrs. C. properly attended to, and left.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Weiss at breakfast told the dream to Mr. C. and her daughter; +none of them attached any importance to it. However, as a snowstorm +broke the telegraph wires on Saturday, the day after the dream, Mrs. +Weiss was uneasy. On Tuesday the state of Mrs. C. demanded a doctor. +Mrs. Weiss sent a telegram for Mr. C.; he came at last, went out to +bring a doctor, and was long absent. Then Mrs. Weiss suddenly +felt a calm certainty that <i>she</i> (though inexperienced in such +cares) could do what was needed. “I heard myself say in +a peremptory fashion: ‘Ada, don’t be afraid, I know just +what to do; all will go well’.” All did go well; meanwhile +Mr. C. ran to seven doctors’ houses, and at last returned with +a young man whom Mrs. Weiss vaguely recognised. Mrs. C. whispered, +“Look at the doctor’s cravat”. It was blue and +coral sprigged, and then first did Mrs. Weiss remember her dream of +Friday night.</p> +<p>Mrs. Weiss’s story is corroborated by Mr. Blanchard, who heard +the story “a few days after the event”. Mrs. C. has +read Mrs. Weiss’s statement, “and in so far as I can remember +it is quite correct”. Mr. C. remembers nothing about it; +“he declares that he has no recollection of it, <i>or of any matters +outside his business</i>, and knowing him as I do,” says Mrs. +Weiss, “I do not doubt the assertion”.</p> +<p>Mr. C. must be an interesting companion. The nurse remembers +that after the birth of the baby Mrs. C. called Mr. C.’s attention +to “the doctor’s necktie,” and heard her say, “Why, +I know him by mamma’s description as the doctor she saw in her +dreams”. <a name="citation48"></a><a href="#footnote48">{48}</a></p> +<p>The only thing even more extraordinary than the dream is Mr. C.’s +inability to remember anything whatever “outside of his business”. +Another witness appears to decline to be called, “as it would +be embarrassing to him in his business”. This it is to be +Anglo-Saxon!</p> +<p>We now turn to a Celtic dream, in which knowledge supposed to be +only known to a dead man was conveyed to his living daughter.</p> +<h3>THE SATIN SLIPPERS</h3> +<p>On 1st February, 1891, Michael Conley, a farmer living near Ionia, +in Chichasow county, Iowa, went to Dubuque, in Iowa, to be medically +treated. He left at home his son Pat and his daughter Elizabeth, +a girl of twenty-eight, a Catholic, in good health. On February +3 Michael was found dead in an outhouse near his inn. In his pocket +were nine dollars, seventy-five cents, but his clothes, including his +shirt, were thought so dirty and worthless that they were thrown away. +The body was then dressed in a white shirt, black clothes and satin +slippers of a new pattern. Pat Conley was telegraphed for, and +arrived at Dubuque on February 4, accompanied by Mr. George Brown, “an +intelligent and reliable farmer”. Pat took the corpse home +in a coffin, and on his arrival Elizabeth fell into a swoon, which lasted +for several hours. Her own account of what followed on her recovery +may be given in her own words:—</p> +<p>“When they told me that father was dead I felt very sick and +bad; I did not know anything. Then father came to me. He +had on a white shirt” (his own was grey), “and black clothes +and slippers. When I came to, I told Pat I had seen father. +I asked Pat if he had brought back father’s old clothes. +He said ‘No,’ and asked me why I wanted them. I told +him father said he had sewed a roll of bills inside of his grey shirt, +in a pocket made of a piece of my old red dress. I went to sleep, +and father came to me again. When I awoke I told Pat he must go +and get the clothes”—her father’s old clothes.</p> +<p>Pat now telephoned to Mr. Hoffman, Coroner of Dubuque, who found +the old clothes in the back yard of the local morgue. They were +wrapped up in a bundle. Receiving this news, Pat went to Dubuque +on February 9, where Mr. Hoffman opened the bundle in Pat’s presence. +Inside the old grey shirt was found a pocket of red stuff, sewn with +a man’s long, uneven stitches, and in the pocket notes for thirty-five +dollars.</p> +<p>The girl did not see the body in the coffin, but asked about the +<i>old</i> clothes, because the figure of her father in her dream wore +clothes which she did not recognise as his. To dream in a faint +is nothing unusual. <a name="citation50"></a><a href="#footnote50">{50}</a></p> +<h3>THE DEAD SHOPMAN</h3> +<p>Swooning, or slight mental mistiness, is not very unusual in ghost +seers. The brother of a friend of my own, a man of letters and +wide erudition, was, as a boy, employed in a shop in a town, say Wexington. +The overseer was a dark, rather hectic-looking man, who died. +Some months afterwards the boy was sent on an errand. He did his +business, but, like a boy, returned by a longer and more interesting +route. He stopped as a bookseller’s shop to stare at the +books and pictures, and while doing so felt a kind of mental vagueness. +It was just before his dinner hour, and he may have been hungry. +On resuming his way, he looked up and found the dead overseer beside +him. He had no sense of surprise, and walked for some distance, +conversing on ordinary topics with the appearance. He happened +to notice such a minute detail as that the spectre’s boots were +laced in an unusual way. At a crossing, something in the street +attracted his attention; he looked away from his companion, and, on +turning to resume their talk, saw no more of him. He then walked +to the shop, where he mentioned the occurrence to a friend. He +has never during a number of years had any such experience again, or +suffered the preceding sensation of vagueness.</p> +<p>This, of course, is not a ghost story, but leads up to the old tale +of the wraith of Valogne. In this case, two boys had made a covenant, +the first who died was to appear to the other. He <i>did</i> appear +before news of his death arrived, but after a swoon of his friend’s, +whose health (like that of Elizabeth Conley) suffered in consequence.</p> +<h3>NOTE</h3> +<p>“PERCEVAL MURDER.” <i>Times</i>, 25<i>th May</i>, +1812.</p> +<p>“A Dumfries paper states that on the night of Sunday, the 10th +instant, <i>twenty-four hours before the fatal deed was perpetrated</i>, +a report was brought to Bude Kirk, two miles from Annan, that <i>Mr. +Perceval was shot on his way to the House of Commons</i>, <i>at the +door or in the lobby of that House</i>. This the whole inhabitants +of the village are ready to attest, as the report quickly spread and +became the topic of conversation. A clergyman investigated the +rumour, with the view of tracing it to its source, but without success.”</p> +<p><i>The Times</i> of 2nd June says, “Report without foundation”.</p> +<p><i>Perth Courier</i>, 28th May, quoting from the <i>Dumfries and +Galloway Courier</i>, repeats above almost verbatim. “ . +. . The clergyman to whom we have alluded, and who allows me to +make use of his name, is Mr. Yorstoun, minister of Hoddam. This +gentleman went to the spot and carefully investigated the rumour, but +has not hitherto been successful, although he has obtained the most +satisfactory proof of its having existed at the time we have mentioned. +We forbear to make any comments on this wonderful circumstance, but +should anything further transpire that may tend to throw light upon +it, we shall not fail to give the public earliest information.”</p> +<p>The <i>Dumfries and Galloway Courier</i> I cannot find! It +is not in the British Museum.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> +<p><i>Transition from Dreams to Waking Hallucinations. Popular +Scepticism about the Existence of Hallucinations in the Sane. +Evidence of Mr. Francis Galton</i>, <i>F.R.S. Scientific Disbelief +in ordinary Mental Imagery. Scientific Men who do not see in</i> +“<i>the Mind’s Eye”. Ordinary People who do. +Frequency of Waking Hallucinations among Mr. Gallon’s friends. +Kept Private till asked for by Science. Causes of such Hallucinations +unknown. Story of the Diplomatist. Voluntary or Induced +Hallucinations. Crystal Gazing. Its Universality. +Experience of George Sand. Nature of such Visions. Examples. +Novelists. Crystal Visions only</i> “<i>Ghostly</i>” +<i>when Veracious. Modern Examples. Under the Lamp. +The Cow with the Bell Historical Example. Prophetic Crystal Vision. +St. Simon The Regent d’Orléans. The Deathbed of Louis +XIV. References for other Cases of Crystal Visions.</i></p> +<p>From dreams, in sleep or swoon, of a character difficult to believe +in we pass by way of “hallucinations” to ghosts. Everybody +is ready to admit that dreams do really occur, because almost everybody +has dreamed. But everybody is not so ready to admit that sane +and sensible men and women can have hallucinations, just because everybody +has not been hallucinated.</p> +<p>On this point Mr. Francis Galton, in his <i>Inquiries into Human +Faculty</i> (1833), is very instructive. Mr. Galton drew up a +short catechism, asking people how clearly or how dimly they saw things +“in their mind’s eye”.</p> +<p>“Think of your breakfast-table,” he said; “is your +mental picture of it as clearly illuminated and as complete as your +actual view of the scene?” Mr. Galton began by questioning +friends in the scientific world, F.R.S.’s and other <i>savants</i>. +“The earliest results of my inquiry amazed me. . . . The +great majority of the men of science to whom I first applied, protested +that <i>mental imagery was unknown to them</i>, and they looked on me +as fanciful and fantastic in supposing that the words ‘mental +imagery’ really expressed what I believed everybody supposed them +to mean.” One gentleman wrote: “It is only by a figure +of speech that I can describe my recollection of a scene as a ‘mental +image’ which I can ‘see’ with ‘my mind’s +eye’. I do not see it,” so he seems to have supposed +that nobody else did.</p> +<p>When he made inquiries in general society, Mr. Galton found plenty +of people who “saw” mental imagery with every degree of +brilliance or dimness, from “quite comparable to the real object” +to “I recollect the table, but do not see it”—my own +position.</p> +<p>Mr. Galton was next “greatly struck by the frequency of the +replies in which my correspondents” (sane and healthy) “described +themselves as subject to ‘visions’”. These varied +in degree, “some were so vivid as actually to deceive the judgment”. +Finally, “a notable proportion of sane persons have had not only +visions, but actual hallucinations of sight at one or more periods of +their life. I have a considerable packet of instances contributed +by my personal friends.” Thus one “distinguished authoress” +saw “the principal character of one of her novels glide through +the door straight up to her. It was about the size of a large +doll.” Another heard unreal music, and opened the door to +hear it better. Another was plagued by voices, which said “Pray,” +and so forth.</p> +<p>Thus, on scientific evidence, sane and healthy people may, and “in +a notable proportion <i>do</i>, experience hallucinations”. +That is to say, they see persons, or hear them, or believe they are +touched by them, or all their senses are equally affected at once, when +no such persons are really present. This kind of thing is always +going on, but “when popular opinion is of a matter-of-fact kind, +the seers of visions keep quiet; they do not like to be thought fanciful +or mad, and they hide their experiences, which only come to light through +inquiries such as those that I have been making”.</p> +<p>We may now proceed to the waking hallucinations of sane and healthy +people, which Mr. Galton declares to be so far from uncommon. +Into the <i>causes</i> of these hallucinations which may actually deceive +the judgment, Mr. Galton does not enter.</p> +<h3>STORY OF THE DIPLOMATIST <a name="citation56a"></a><a href="#footnote56a">{56a}</a></h3> +<p>For example, there is a living diplomatist who knows men and cities, +and has, moreover, a fine sense of humour. “My Lord,” +said a famous Russian statesman to him, “you have all the qualities +of a diplomatist, but you cannot control your smile.” This +gentleman, walking alone in a certain cloister at Cambridge, met a casual +acquaintance, a well-known London clergyman, and was just about shaking +hands with him, when the clergyman vanished. Nothing in particular +happened to either of them; the clergyman was not in the seer’s +mind at the moment.</p> +<p>This is a good example of a solitary hallucination in the experience +of a very cool-headed observer. The <i>causes</i> of such experiences +are still a mystery to science. Even people who believe in “mental +telegraphy,” say when a distant person, at death or in any other +crisis, impresses himself as present on the senses of a friend, cannot +account for an experience like that of the diplomatist, an experience +not very uncommon, and little noticed except when it happens to coincide +with some remarkable event. <a name="citation56b"></a><a href="#footnote56b">{56b}</a> +Nor are such hallucinations of an origin easily detected, like those +of delirium, insanity, intoxication, grief, anxiety, or remorse. +We can only suppose that a past impression of the aspect of a friend +is recalled by some association of ideas so vividly that (though we +are not <i>consciously</i> thinking of him) we conceive the friend to +be actually present in the body when he is absent.</p> +<p>These hallucinations are casual and unsought. But between these +and the dreams of sleep there is a kind of waking hallucinations which +some people can purposely evoke. Such are the visions of <i>crystal +gazing.</i></p> +<p>Among the superstitions of almost all ages and countries is the belief +that “spirits” will show themselves, usually after magical +ceremonies, to certain persons, commonly children, who stare into a +crystal ball, a cup, a mirror, a blob of ink (in Egypt and India), a +drop of blood (among the Maoris of New Zealand), a bowl of water (Red +Indian), a pond (Roman and African), water in a glass bowl (in Fez), +or almost any polished surface. The magical ceremonies, which +have probably nothing to do with the matter, have succeeded in making +this old and nearly universal belief seem a mere fantastic superstition. +But occasionally a person not superstitious has recorded this experience. +Thus George Sand in her <i>Histoire de ma Vie</i> mentions that, as +a little girl, she used to see wonderful moving landscapes in the polished +back of a screen. These were so vivid that she thought they must +be visible to others.</p> +<p>Recent experiments have proved that an unexpected number of people +have this faculty. Gazing into a ball of crystal or glass, a crystal +or other smooth ring stone, such as a sapphire or ruby, or even into +a common ink-pot, they will see visions very brilliant. These +are often mere reminiscences of faces or places, occasionally of faces +or places sunk deep below the ordinary memory. Still more frequently +they represent fantastic landscapes and romantic scenes, as in an historical +novel, with people in odd costumes coming, going and acting. Thus +I have been present when a lady saw in a glass ball a man in white Oriental +costume kneeling beside a leaping fountain of fire. Presently +a hand appeared pointing downwards through the flame. The <i>first</i> +vision seen pretty often represents an invalid in bed. Printed +words are occasionally read in the glass, as also happens in the visions +beheld with shut eyes before sleeping.</p> +<p>All these kinds of things, in fact, are common in our visions between +sleeping and waking (<i>illusions hypnagogiques</i>). The singularity +is that they are seen by people wide awake in glass balls and so forth. +Usually the seer is a person whose ordinary “mental imagery” +is particularly vivid. But every “visualiser” is not +a crystal seer. A novelist of my acquaintance can “visualise” +so well that, having forgotten an address and lost the letter on which +it was written, he called up a mental picture of the letter, and so +discovered the address. But this very popular writer can see no +visions in a crystal ball. Another very popular novelist can see +them; little dramas are acted out in the ball for his edification. <a name="citation58"></a><a href="#footnote58">{58}</a></p> +<p>These things are as unfamiliar to men of science as Mr. Galton found +ordinary mental imagery, pictures in memory, to be. Psychology +may or may not include them in her province; they may or may not come +to be studied as ordinary dreams are studied. But, like dreams, +these crystal visions enter the domain of the ghostly only when they +are <i>veracious</i>, and contribute information previously unknown +as to past, present or future. There are plenty of stories to +this effect. To begin with an easy, or comparatively easy, exercise +in belief.</p> +<h3>UNDER THE LAMP</h3> +<p>I had given a glass ball to a young lady, who believed that she could +play the “willing game” successfully without touching the +person “willed,” and when the person did not even know that +“willing” was going on. This lady, Miss Baillie, had +scarcely any success with the ball. She lent it to Miss Leslie, +who saw a large, square, old-fashioned red sofa covered with muslin, +which she found in the next country house she visited. Miss Baillie’s +brother, a young athlete (at short odds for the amateur golf championship), +laughed at these experiments, took the ball into the study, and came +back looking “gey gash”. He admitted that he had seen +a vision, somebody he knew “under a lamp”. He would +discover during the week whether he saw right or not. This was +at 5.30 on a Sunday afternoon. On Tuesday, Mr. Baillie was at +a dance in a town some forty miles from his home, and met a Miss Preston. +“On Sunday,” he said, “about half-past five you were +sitting under a standard lamp in a dress I never saw you wear, a blue +blouse with lace over the shoulders, pouring out tea for a man in blue +serge, whose back was towards me, so that I only saw the tip of his +moustache.”</p> +<p>“Why, the blinds must have been up,” said Miss Preston.</p> +<p>“I was at Dulby,” said Mr. Baillie, as he undeniably +was. <a name="citation60a"></a><a href="#footnote60a">{60a}</a></p> +<p>This is not a difficult exercise in belief. Miss Preston was +not unlikely to be at tea at tea-time.</p> +<p>Nor is the following very hard.</p> +<h3>THE COW WITH THE BELL</h3> +<p>I had given a glass ball to the wife of a friend, whose visions proved +so startling and on one occasion so unholy that she ceased to make experiments. +One day my friend’s secretary, a young student and golfer, took +up the ball.</p> +<p>“I see a field I know very well,” he said, “but +there is a cow in it that I never saw; brown, with white markings, and, +this is odd in Scotland, she has a bell hanging from her neck. +I’ll go and look at the field.”</p> +<p>He went and found the cow as described, bell and all. <a name="citation60b"></a><a href="#footnote60b">{60b}</a></p> +<p>In the spring of 1897 I gave a glass ball to a young lady, previously +a stranger to me, who was entirely unacquainted with crystal gazing, +even by report. She had, however, not infrequent experience of +spontaneous visions, which were fulfilled, including a vision of the +Derby (Persimmon’s year), which enriched her friends. In +using the ball she, time after time, succeeded in seeing and correctly +describing persons and places familiar to people for whom she “scried,” +but totally strange to herself. In one case she added a detail +quite unknown to the person who consulted her, but which was verified +on inquiry. These experiments will probably be published elsewhere. +Four people, out of the very small number who tried on these occasions, +saw fancy pictures in the ball: two were young ladies, one a man, and +one a schoolboy. I must confess that, for the first time, I was +impressed by the belief that the lady’s veracious visions, however +they are to be explained, could not possibly be accounted for by chance +coincidence. They were too many (I was aware of five in a few +days), too minute, and too remote from the range of ingenious guessing. +But “thought transference,” tapping the mental wires of +another person, would have accounted for every case, with, perhaps, +the exception of that in which an unknown detail was added. This +confession will, undoubtedly, seem weakly credulous, but not to make +it would be unfair and unsportsmanlike. My statement, of course, +especially without the details, is not evidence for other people.</p> +<p>The following case is a much harder exercise in belief. It +is narrated by the Duc de Saint Simon. <a name="citation62"></a><a href="#footnote62">{62}</a> +The events were described to Saint Simon on the day after their occurrence +by the Duc d’Orléans, then starting for Italy, in May, +1706. Saint Simon was very intimate with the duke, and they corresponded +by private cypher without secretaries. Owing to the death of the +king’s son and grandson (not seen in the vision), Orléans +became Regent when Louis XIV. died in 1714. Saint Simon is a reluctant +witness, and therefore all the better.</p> +<h3>THE DEATHBED OF LOUIS XIV.</h3> +<p>“Here is a strange story that the Duc d’Orléans +told me one day in a <i>tête-à-tête</i> at Marly, +he having just run down from Paris before he started for Italy; and +it may be observed that all the events predicted came to pass, though +none of them could have been foreseen at the time. His interest +in every kind of art and science was very great, and in spite of his +keen intellect, he was all his life subject to a weakness which had +been introduced (with other things) from Italy by Catherine de Medici, +and had reigned supreme over the courts of her children. He had +exercised every known method of inducing the devil to appear to him +in person, though, as he has himself told me, without the smallest success. +He had spent much time in investigating matters that touched on the +supernatural, and dealt with the future.</p> +<p>“Now La Sery (his mistress) had in her house a little girl +of eight or nine years of age, who had never resided elsewhere since +her birth. She was to all appearance a very ordinary child, and +from the way in which she had been brought up, was more than commonly +ignorant and simple. One day, during the visit of M. d’Orléans, +La Sery produced for his edification one of the charlatans with whom +the duke had long been familiar, who pretended that by means of a glass +of water he could see the answer to any question that might be put. +For this purpose it was necessary to have as a go-between some one both +young and innocent, to gaze into the water, and this little girl was +at once sent for. They amused themselves by asking what was happening +in certain distant places; and after the man had murmured some words +over the water, the child looked in and always managed to see the vision +required of her.</p> +<p>“M. le duc d’Orléans had so often been duped in +matters of this kind that he determined to put the water-gazer to a +severe test. He whispered to one of his attendants to go round +to Madame de Nancre’s, who lived close by, and ascertain who was +there, what they were all doing, the position of the room and the way +it was furnished, and then, without exchanging a word with any one, +to return and let him know the result. This was done speedily +and without the slightest suspicion on the part of any person, the child +remaining in the room all the time. When M. le duc d’Orléans +had learned all he wanted to know, he bade the child look in the water +and tell him who was at Madame de Nancre’s and what they were +all doing. She repeated word for word the story that had been +told by the duke’s messenger; described minutely the faces, dresses +and positions of the assembled company, those that were playing cards +at the various tables, those that were sitting, those that were standing, +even the very furniture! But to leave nothing in doubt, the Duke +of Orléans despatched Nancre back to the house to verify a second +time the child’s account, and like the valet, he found she had +been right in every particular.</p> +<p>“As a rule he said very little to me about these subjects, +as he knew I did not approve of them, and on this occasion I did not +fail to scold him, and to point out the folly of being amused by such +things, especially at a time when his attention should be occupied with +more serious matters. ‘Oh, but I have only told you half,’ +he replied; ‘that was just the beginning,’ and then he went +on to say that, encouraged by the exactitude of the little girl’s +description of Madame de Nancre’s room, he resolved to put to +her a more important question, namely, as to the scene that would occur +at the death of the king. The child had never seen any one who +was about the court, and had never even heard of Versailles, but she +described exactly and at great length the king’s bedroom at Versailles +and all the furniture which was in fact there at the date of his death. +She gave every detail as to the bed, and cried out on recognising, in +the arms of Madame de Ventadour, a little child decorated with an order +whom she had seen at the house of Mademoiselle la Sery; and again at +the sight of M. le duc d’Orléans. From her account, +Madame de Maintenon, Fagon with his odd face, Madame la duchesse d’Orléans, +Madame la duchesse, Madame la princesse de Conti, besides other princes +and nobles, and even the valets and servants were all present at the +king’s deathbed. Then she paused, and M. le duc d’Orléans, +surprised that she had never mentioned Monseigneur, Monsieur le duc +de Bourgogne, Madame la duchesse de Bourgogne, nor M. le duc de Berri, +inquired if she did not see such and such people answering to their +description. She persisted that she did not, and went over the +others for the second time. This astonished M. le duc d’Orléans +deeply, as well as myself, and we were at a loss to explain it, but +the event proved that the child was perfectly right. This <i>séance</i> +took place in 1706. These four members of the royal family were +then full of health and strength; and they all died before the king. +It was the same thing with M. le prince, M. le duc, and M. le prince +de Conti, whom she likewise did not see, though she beheld the children +of the two last named; M. du Maine, his own (Orléans), and M. +le comte de Toulouse. But of course this fact was unknown till +eight years after.”</p> +<p>Science may conceivably come to study crystal visions, but veracious +crystal visions will be treated like veracious dreams. That is +to say, they will be explained as the results of a chance coincidence +between the unknown fact and the vision, or of imposture, conscious +or unconscious, or of confusion of memory, or the fact of the crystal +vision will be simply denied. Thus a vast number of well-authenticated +cases of veracious visions will be required before science could admit +that it might be well to investigate hitherto unacknowledged faculties +of the human mind. The evidence can never be other than the word +of the seer, with whatever value may attach to the testimony of those +for whom he “sees,” and describes, persons and places unknown +to himself. The evidence of individuals as to their own subjective +experiences is accepted by psychologists in other departments of the +study. <a name="citation66"></a><a href="#footnote66">{66}</a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<p><i>Veracious Waking Hallucinations not recognised by Science; or +explained by Coincidence</i>, <i>Imposture</i>, <i>False Memory. +A Veracious Hallucination popularly called a Wraith or Ghost. +Example of Unveracious Hallucination. The Family Coach. +Ghosts’ Clothes and other Properties and Practices; how explained. +Case of Veracious Hallucination. Riding Home from Mess. +Another Case. The Bright Scar. The Vision and the Portrait. +Such Stories not usually believed. Cases of Touch: The Restraining +Hand. Of Hearing: The Benedictine’s Voices; The Voice in +the Bath-room. Other</i> “<i>Warnings”. The +Maoris. The Man at the Lift. Appearances Coincident with +Death. Others not Coincident with Anything.</i></p> +<p>In “crystal-gazing” anybody can make experiments for +himself and among such friends as he thinks he can trust. They +are hallucinations consciously sought for, and as far as possible, provoked +or induced by taking certain simple measures. Unsought, spontaneous +waking hallucinations, according to the result of Mr. Galton’s +researches, though not nearly so common as dreams, are as much facts +of <i>sane</i> mental experience. Now every ghost or wraith is +a hallucination. You see your wife in the dining-room when she +really is in the drawing-room; you see your late great-great-grandfather +anywhere. Neither person is really present. The first appearance +in popular language is a “wraith”; the second is a “ghost” +in ordinary speech. Both are hallucinations.</p> +<p>So far Mr. Galton would go, but mark what follows! Everybody +allows the existence of dreams, but comparatively few believe in dream +stories of <i>veracious</i> dreams. So every scientific man believes +in hallucinations, <a name="citation68"></a><a href="#footnote68">{68}</a> +but few believe in <i>veracious</i> hallucinations. A veracious +hallucination is, for our purpose, one which communicates (as veracious +dreams do) information not otherwise known, or, at least, not known +to the knower to be known. The communication of the knowledge +may be done by audible words, with or without an actual apparition, +or with an apparition, by words or gestures. Again, if a hallucination +of Jones’s presence tallies with a great crisis in Jones’s +life, or with his death, the hallucination is so far veracious in that, +at least, it does not seem meaningless. Or if Jones’s appearance +has some unwonted feature not known to the seer, but afterwards proved +to be correct in fact, that is veracious. Next, if several persons +successively in the same place, or simultaneously, have a similar hallucination +not to be accounted for physically, that is, if not a veracious, a curious +hallucination. Once more, if a hallucinatory figure is afterwards +recognised in a living person previously unknown, or a portrait previously +unseen, that (if the recognition be genuine) is a veracious hallucination. +The vulgar call it a wraith of the living, or a ghost of the dead.</p> +<p>Here follow two cases. The first, <i>The Family Coach</i>, +<a name="citation69a"></a><a href="#footnote69a">{69a}</a> gave no verified +intelligence, and would be styled a “subjective hallucination”. +The second contributed knowledge of facts not previously known to the +witness, and so the vulgar would call it a ghost. Both appearances +were very rich and full of complicated detail. Indeed, any ghost +that wears clothes is a puzzle. Nobody but savages thinks that +clothes have ghosts, but Tom Sawyer conjectures that ghosts’ clothes +“are made of ghost stuff”.</p> +<p>As a rule, not very much is seen of a ghost; he is “something +of a shadowy being”. Yet we very seldom hear of a ghost +stark naked; that of Sergeant Davies, murdered in 1749, is one of three +or four examples in civilised life. <a name="citation69b"></a><a href="#footnote69b">{69b}</a> +Hence arises the old question, “How are we to account for the +clothes of ghosts?” One obvious reply is that there is no ghost +at all, only a hallucination. We do not see people naked, as a +rule, in our dreams; and hallucinations, being waking dreams, conform +to the same rule. If a ghost opens a door or lifts a curtain in +our sight, that, too, is only part of the illusion. The door did +not open; the curtain was not lifted. Nay, if the wrist or hand +of the seer is burned or withered, as in a crowd of stories, the ghost’s +hand did not produce the effect. It was produced in the same way +as when a hypnotised patient is told that “his hand is burned,” +his fancy then begets real blisters, or so we are informed, truly or +not. The stigmata of St. Francis and others are explained in the +same way. <a name="citation70"></a><a href="#footnote70">{70}</a> +How ghosts pull bedclothes off and make objects fly about is another +question: in any case the ghosts are not <i>seen</i> in the act.</p> +<p>Thus the clothes of ghosts, their properties, and their actions affecting +physical objects, are not more difficult to explain than a naked ghost +would be, they are all the “stuff that dreams are made of”. +But occasionally things are carried to a great pitch, as when a ghost +drives off in a ghostly dogcart, with a ghostly horse, whip and harness. +Of this complicated kind we give two examples; the first reckons as +a “subjective,” the second as a veracious hallucination.</p> +<h3>THE OLD FAMILY COACH</h3> +<p>A distinguished and accomplished country gentleman and politician, +of scientific tastes, was riding in the New Forest, some twelve miles +from the place where he was residing. In a grassy glade he discovered +that he did not very clearly know his way to a country town which he +intended to visit. At this moment, on the other side of some bushes +a carriage drove along, and then came into clear view where there was +a gap in the bushes. Mr. Hyndford saw it perfectly distinctly; +it was a slightly antiquated family carriage, the sides were in that +imitation of wicker work on green panel which was once so common. +The coachman was a respectable family servant, he drove two horses: +two old ladies were in the carriage, one of them wore a hat, the other +a bonnet. They passed, and then Mr. Hyndford, going through the +gap in the bushes, rode after them to ask his way. There was no +carriage in sight, the avenue ended in a <i>cul-de-sac</i> of tangled +brake, and there were no traces of wheels on the grass. Mr. Hyndford +rode back to his original point of view, and looked for any object which +could suggest the illusion of one old-fashioned carriage, one coachman, +two horses and two elderly ladies, one in a hat and one in a bonnet. +He looked in vain—and that is all!</p> +<p>Nobody in his senses would call this appearance a ghostly one. +The name, however, would be applied to the following tale of</p> +<h3>RIDING HOME FROM MESS</h3> +<p>In 1854, General Barter, C.B., was a subaltern in the 75th Regiment, +and was doing duty at the hill station of Murree in the Punjaub. +He lived in a house built recently by a Lieutenant B., who died, as +researches at the War Office prove, at Peshawur on 2nd January, 1854. +The house was on a spur of the hill, three or four hundred yards under +the only road, with which it communicated by a “bridle path,” +never used by horsemen. That path ended in a precipice; a footpath +led into the bridle path from Mr. Barter’s house.</p> +<p>One evening Mr. Barter had a visit from a Mr. and Mrs. Deane, who +stayed till near eleven o’clock. There was a full moon, +and Mr. Barter walked to the bridle path with his friends, who climbed +it to join the road. He loitered with two dogs, smoking a cigar, +and just as he turned to go home, he heard a horse’s hoofs coming +down the bridle path. At a bend of the path a tall hat came into +view, then round the corner, the wearer of the hat, who rode a pony +and was attended by two native grooms. “At this time the +two dogs came, and crouching at my side, gave low frightened whimpers. +The moon was at the full, a tropical moon, so bright that you could +see to read a newspaper by its light, and I saw the party above me advance +as plainly as if it were noon-day; they were above me some eight or +ten feet on the bridle road. . . . On the party came, . . . and +now I had better describe them. The rider was in full dinner dress, +with white waistcoat and a tall chimney-pot hat, and he sat on a powerful +hill pony (dark-brown, with black mane and tail) in a listless sort +of way, the reins hanging loosely from both hands.” Grooms +led the pony and supported the rider. Mr. Barter, knowing that +there was no place they could go to but his own house, cried “<i>Quon +hai</i>?” (who is it?), adding in English, “Hullo, what +the devil do you want here?” The group halted, the rider +gathered up the reins with both hands, and turning, showed Mr. Barter +the known features of the late Lieutenant B.</p> +<p>He was very pale, the face was a dead man’s face, he was stouter +than when Mr. Barter knew him and he wore <i>a dark Newgate fringe.</i></p> +<p>Mr. Barter dashed up the bank, the earth thrown up in making the +bridle path crumbled under him, he fell, scrambled on, reached the bridle +path where the group had stopped, and found nobody. Mr. Barter +ran up the path for a hundred yards, as nobody could go <i>down</i> +it except over a precipice, and neither heard nor saw anything. +His dogs did not accompany him.</p> +<p>Next day Mr. Barter gently led his friend Deane to talk of Lieutenant +B., who said that the lieutenant “grew very bloated before his +death, and while on the sick list he allowed the fringe to grow in spite +of all we could say to him, and I believe he was buried with it”. +Mr. Barter then asked where he got the pony, describing it minutely.</p> +<p>“He bought him at Peshawur, and killed him one day, riding +in his reckless fashion down the hill to Trete.”</p> +<p>Mr. Barter and his wife often heard the horse’s hoofs later, +though he doubts if any one but B. had ever ridden the bridle path. +His Hindoo bearer he found one day armed with a <i>lattie</i>, being +determined to waylay the sound, which “passed him like a typhoon”. +<a name="citation74"></a><a href="#footnote74">{74}</a> Here the +appearance gave correct information unknown previously to General Barter, +namely, that Lieutenant B. grew stout and wore a beard before his death, +also that he had owned a brown pony, with black mane and tail. +Even granting that the ghosts of the pony and lieutenant were present +(both being dead), we are not informed that the grooms were dead also. +The hallucination, on the theory of “mental telegraphy,” +was telegraphed to General Barter’s mind from some one who had +seen Lieutenant B. ride home from mess not very sober, or from the mind +of the defunct lieutenant, or, perhaps, from that of the deceased pony. +The message also reached and alarmed General Barter’s dogs.</p> +<p>Something of the same kind may or may not explain Mr. Hyndford’s +view of the family coach, which gave no traceable information.</p> +<p>The following story, in which an appearance of the dead conveyed +information not known to the seer, and so deserving to be called veracious, +is a little ghastly.</p> +<h3>THE BRIGHT SCAR</h3> +<p>In 1867, Miss G., aged eighteen, died suddenly of cholera in St. +Louis. In 1876 a brother, F. G., who was much attached to her, +had done a good day’s business in St. Joseph. He was sending +in his orders to his employers (he is a commercial traveller) and was +smoking a cigar, when he became conscious that some one was sitting +on his left, with one arm on the table. It was his dead sister. +He sprang up to embrace her (for even on meeting a stranger whom we +take for a dead friend, we never realise the impossibility in the half +moment of surprise) but she was gone. Mr. G. stood there, the +ink wet on his pen, the cigar lighted in his hand, the name of his sister +on his lips. He had noted her expression, features, dress, the +kindness of her eyes, the glow of the complexion, and what he had never +seen before, <i>a bright red scratch on the right side of her face.</i></p> +<p>Mr. G. took the next train home to St. Louis, and told the story +to his parents. His father was inclined to ridicule him, but his +mother nearly fainted. When she could control herself, she said +that, unknown to any one, she had accidentally scratched the face of +the dead, apparently with the pin of her brooch, while arranging something +about the corpse. She had obliterated the scratch with powder, +and had kept the fact to herself. “She told me she <i>knew</i> +at least that I had seen my sister.” A few weeks later Mrs. +G. died. <a name="citation75"></a><a href="#footnote75">{75}</a></p> +<p>Here the information existed in one living mind, the mother’s, +and if there is any “mental telegraphy,” may thence have +been conveyed to Mr. F. G.</p> +<p>Another kind of cases which may be called veracious, occurs when +the ghost seer, after seeing the ghost, recognises it in a portrait +not previously beheld. Of course, allowance must be made for fancy, +and for conscious or unconscious hoaxing. You see a spook in Castle +Dangerous. You then recognise the portrait in the hall, or elsewhere. +The temptation to recognise the spook rather more clearly than you really +do, is considerable, just as one is tempted to recognise the features +of the Stuarts in the royal family, of the parents in a baby, or in +any similar case.</p> +<p>Nothing is more common in literary ghost stories than for somebody +to see a spectre and afterwards recognise him or her in a portrait not +before seen. There is an early example in Sir Walter Scott’s +<i>Tapestried Chamber</i>, which was told to him by Miss Anna Seward. +Another such tale is by Théophile Gautier. In an essay +on Illusions by Mr. James Sully, a case is given. A lady (who +corroborated the story to the present author) was vexed all night by +a spectre in armour. Next morning she saw, what she had not previously +observed, a portrait of the spectre in the room. Mr. Sully explains +that she had seen the portrait <i>unconsciously</i>, and dreamed of +it. He adds the curious circumstance that other people have had +the same experience in the same room, which his explanation does not +cover. The following story is published by the Society for Psychical +Research, attested by the seer and her husband, whose real names are +known, but not published. <a name="citation76"></a><a href="#footnote76">{76}</a></p> +<h3>THE VISION AND THE PORTRAIT</h3> +<p>Mrs. M. writes (December 15, 1891) that before her vision she had +heard nothing about hauntings in the house occupied by herself and her +husband, and nothing about the family sorrows of her predecessors there.</p> +<p>“One night, on retiring to my bedroom about 11 o’clock, +I thought I heard a peculiar moaning sound, and some one sobbing as +if in great distress of mind. I listened very attentively, and +still it continued; so I raised the gas in my bedroom, and then went +to the window on the landing, drew the blind aside, and there on the +grass was a very beautiful young girl in a kneeling posture, before +a soldier in a general’s uniform, sobbing and clasping her hands +together, entreating for pardon, but alas! he only waved her away from +him. So much did I feel for the girl that I ran down the staircase +to the door opening upon the lawn, and begged her to come in and tell +me her sorrow. The figures then disappeared gradually, as in a +dissolving view. Not in the least nervous did I feel then; went +again to my bedroom, took a sheet of writing-paper, and wrote down what +I had seen.” <a name="citation77"></a><a href="#footnote77">{77}</a></p> +<p>Mrs. M., whose husband was absent, began to feel nervous, and went +to another lady’s room.</p> +<p>She later heard of an old disgrace to the youngest daughter of the +proud family, her predecessors in the house. The poor girl tried +in vain to win forgiveness, especially from a near relative, a soldier, +Sir X. Y.</p> +<p>“So vivid was my remembrance of the features of the soldier, +that some months after the occurrence [of the vision] when I called +with my husband at a house where there was a portrait of him, I stepped +before it and said, ‘Why, look! there is the General!’ +And sure enough it <i>was</i>.”</p> +<p>Mrs. M. had not heard that the portrait was in the room where she +saw it. Mr. M. writes that he took her to the house where he knew +it to be without telling her of its existence. Mrs. M. turned +pale when she saw it. Mr. M. knew the sad old story, but had kept +it to himself. The family in which the disgrace occurred, in 1847 +or 1848, were his relations. <a name="citation78"></a><a href="#footnote78">{78}</a></p> +<p>This vision was a veracious hallucination; it gave intelligence not +otherwise known to Mrs. M., and capable of confirmation, therefore the +appearances would be called “ghosts”. The majority +of people do not believe in the truth of any such stories of veracious +hallucinations, just as they do not believe in veracious dreams. +Mr. Galton, out of all his packets of reports of hallucinations, does +not even allude to a veracious example, whether he has records of such +a thing or not. Such reports, however, are ghost stories, “which +we now proceed,” or continue, “to narrate”. +The reader will do well to remember that while everything ghostly, and +not to be explained by known physical facts, is in the view of science +a hallucination, every hallucination is not a ghost for the purposes +of story-telling. The hallucination must, for story-telling purposes, +be <i>veracious</i>.</p> +<p>Following our usual method, we naturally begin with the anecdotes +least trying to the judicial faculties, and most capable of an ordinary +explanation. Perhaps of all the senses, the sense of touch, though +in some ways the surest, is in others the most easily deceived. +Some people who cannot call up a clear mental image of things seen, +say a saltcellar, can readily call up a mental revival of the feeling +of touching salt. Again, a slight accidental throb, or leap of +a sinew or vein, may feel so like a touch that we turn round to see +who touched us. These familiar facts go far to make the following +tale more or less conceivable.</p> +<h3>THE RESTRAINING HAND</h3> +<p>“About twenty years ago,” writes Mrs. Elliot, “I +received some letters by post, one of which contained £15 in bank +notes. After reading the letters I went into the kitchen with +them in my hands. I was alone at the time. . . . Having +done with the letters, I made an effort to throw them into the fire, +when I distinctly felt my hand arrested in the act. It was as +though another hand were gently laid upon my own, pressing it back. +Much surprised, I looked at my hand and then saw it contained, not the +letters I had intended to destroy, but the bank notes, and that the +letters were in the other hand. I was so surprised that I called +out, ‘Who’s here?’” <a name="citation80a"></a><a href="#footnote80a">{80a}</a></p> +<p>Nobody will call this “the touch of a vanished hand”. +Part of Mrs. Elliot’s mind knew what she was about, and started +an unreal but veracious feeling to warn her. We shall come to +plenty of Hands not so readily disposed of.</p> +<p>Next to touch, the sense most apt to be deceived is hearing. +Every one who has listened anxiously for an approaching carriage, has +often heard it come before it came. In the summer of 1896 the +writer, with a lady and another companion, were standing on the veranda +at the back of a house in Dumfriesshire, waiting for a cab to take one +of them to the station. They heard a cab arrive and draw up, went +round to the front of the house, saw the servant open the door and bring +out the luggage, but wheeled vehicle there was none in sound or sight. +Yet all four persons had heard it, probably by dint of expectation.</p> +<p>To hear articulate voices where there are none is extremely common +in madness, <a name="citation80b"></a><a href="#footnote80b">{80b}</a> +but not very rare, as Mr. Galton shows, among the sane. When the +voices are veracious, give unknown information, they are in the same +case as truthful dreams. I offer a few from the experience, reported +to me by himself, of a man of learning whom I shall call a Benedictine +monk, though that is not his real position in life.</p> +<h3>THE BENEDICTINE’S VOICES</h3> +<p>My friend, as a lad, was in a strait between the choice of two professions. +He prayed for enlightenment, and soon afterwards heard an <i>internal</i> +voice, advising a certain course. “Did you act on it?” +I asked.</p> +<p>“No; I didn’t. I considered that in my circumstances +it did not demand attention.”</p> +<p>Later, when a man grown, he was in his study merely idling over some +books on the table, when he heard a loud voice from a corner of the +room assert that a public event of great importance would occur at a +given date. It did occur. About the same time, being abroad, +he was in great anxiety as to a matter involving only himself. +Of this he never spoke to any one. On his return to England his +mother said, “You were very wretched about so and so”.</p> +<p>“How on earth did you know?”</p> +<p>“I heard ---’s voice telling me.”</p> +<p>Now --- had died years before, in childhood.</p> +<p>In these cases the Benedictine’s own conjecture and his mother’s +affection probably divined facts, which did not present themselves as +thoughts in the ordinary way, but took the form of unreal voices.</p> +<p>There are many examples, as of the girl in her bath who heard a voice +say “Open the door” four times, did so, then fainted, and +only escaped drowning by ringing the bell just before she swooned.</p> +<p>Of course she might not have swooned if she had not been alarmed +by hearing the voices. These tales are dull enough, and many voices, +like Dr. Johnson’s mother’s, when he heard her call his +name, she being hundreds of miles away, lead to nothing and are not +veracious. When they are veracious, as in the case of dreams, +it may be by sheer accident.</p> +<p>In a similar class are “warnings” conveyed by the eye, +not by the ear. The Maoris of New Zealand believe that if one +sees a body lying across a path or oneself on the opposite side of a +river, it is wiser to try another path and a different ford.</p> +<h3>THE MAN AT THE LIFT</h3> +<p>In the same way, in August, 1890, a lady in a Boston hotel in the +dusk rang for the lift, walked along the corridor and looked out of +a window, started to run to the door of the lift, saw a man in front +of it, stopped, and when the lighted lift came up, found that the door +was wide open and that, had she run on as she intended, she would have +fallen down the well. Here part of her mind may have known that +the door was open, and started a ghost (for there was no real man there) +to stop her. Pity that these things do not occur more frequently. +They do—in New Zealand. <a name="citation82"></a><a href="#footnote82">{82}</a></p> +<p>These are a few examples of useful veracious waking dreams. +The sort of which we hear most are “wraiths”. A, when +awake, meets B, who is dead or dying or quite well at a distance. +The number of these stories is legion. To these we advance, under +their Highland title, <i>spirits of the living.</i></p> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> +<p><i>“Spirits of the Living</i>.” <i>Mistakes of +Identity. Followed by Arrival of Real Person</i>. “<i>Arrivals</i>.” +<i>Mark Twain’s Phantom Lady. Phantom Dogcart. Influence +of Expectant Attention. Goethe. Shelley. The Wraith +of the Czarina. Queen Elizabeth’s Wraith. Second Sight. +Case at Ballachulish. Experiments in sending Wraiths. An</i> +“<i>Astral Body”. Evidence discussed. Miss Russell’s +Case</i>. “<i>Spirits of the Dying</i>.” <i>Maori +Examples. Theory of Chance Coincidence. In Tavistock Place. +The Wynyard Wraith. Lord Brougham’s Wraith Story. +Lord Brougham’s Logic. The Dying Mother. Comparison +with the Astral Body. The Vision of the Bride. Animals as +affected by the supposed Presence of Apparitions. Examples. +Transition to Appearances of the Dead.</i></p> +<p>“Spirits of the living” is the Highland term for the +appearances of people who are alive and well—but elsewhere. +The common Highland belief is that they show themselves to second-sighted +persons, very frequently before the arrival of a stranger or a visitor, +expected or unexpected. Probably many readers have had the experience +of meeting an acquaintance in the street. He passes us, and within +a hundred yards we again meet and talk with our friend. When he +is of very marked appearance, or has any strong peculiarity, the experience +is rather perplexing. Perhaps a few bits of hallucination are +sprinkled over a real object. This ordinary event leads on to +what are called “Arrivals,” that is when a person is seen, +heard and perhaps spoken to in a place to which he is travelling, but +whither he has not yet arrived. Mark Twain gives an instance in +his own experience. At a large crowded reception he saw approaching +him in the throng a lady whom he had known and liked many years before. +When she was near him, he lost sight of her, but met her at supper, +dressed as he had seen her in the “levee”. At that +moment she was travelling by railway to the town in which he was. <a name="citation85a"></a><a href="#footnote85a">{85a}</a></p> +<p>A large number of these cases have been printed. <a name="citation85b"></a><a href="#footnote85b">{85b}</a> +In one case a gentleman and lady from their window saw his brother and +sister-in-law drive past, with a horse which they knew had not been +out for some weeks. The seers were presently joined by the visitors’ +daughter, who had met the party on the road, she having just left them +at their house. Ten minutes later the real pair arrived, horse +and all. <a name="citation85c"></a><a href="#footnote85c">{85c}</a></p> +<p>This last affair is one of several tales of “Phantom Coaches,” +not only heard but seen, the coach being a coach of the living. +In 1893 the author was staying at a Highland castle, when one of the +ladies observed to her nephew, “So you and Susan <i>did</i> drive +in the dogcart; I saw you pass my window”. “No, we +didn’t; but we spoke of doing it.” The lady then mentioned +minute details of the dress and attitudes of her relations as they passed +her window, where the drive turned from the hall door through the park; +but, in fact, no such journey had been made. Dr. Hack Tuke published +the story of the “Arrival” of Dr. Boase at his house a quarter +of an hour before he came, the people who saw him supposing him to be +in Paris. <a name="citation86"></a><a href="#footnote86">{86}</a></p> +<p>When a person is seen in “Arrival” cases before he arrives, +the affair is not so odd if he is expected. Undoubtedly, expectation +does sometimes conjure up phantasms, and the author once saw (as he +supposed) a serious accident occur which in fact did not take place, +though it seemed unavoidable.</p> +<p>Curiously enough, this creation of phantasms by expectant attention +seems to be rare where “ghosts” are expected. The +author has slept in several haunted houses, but has never seen what +he was led to expect. In many instances, as in “The Lady +in Black” (<i>infra</i>), a ghost who is a frequent visitor is +never seen when people watch for her. Among the many persons who +have had delusions as to the presence of the dead, very few have been +hoping, praying for and expecting them.</p> +<blockquote><p>“I look for ghosts, but none will force<br /> + Their way to me: ’Tis falsely said<br /> +That there was ever intercourse<br /> + Between the living and the dead,<br /> +For surely then I should have sight<br /> +Of him I wait for day and night<br /> +With love and longings infinite.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The Affliction of Margaret has been the affliction of most of us. +There are curious historical examples of these appearances of the living. +Goethe declares that he once met himself at a certain place in a certain +dress, and several years later found himself there in that costume. +Shelley was seen by his friends at Lerici to pass along a balcony whence +there was no exit. However, he could not be found there. +The story of the wraith of Catherine the Great is variously narrated. +We give it as told by an eye-witness, the Comte de Ribaupierre, about +1862 to Lady Napier and Ettrick. The Count, in 1862, was a very +old man, and more than thirty years have passed since he gave the tale +to Lady Napier, whose memory retains it in the following form:—</p> +<h3>THE WRAITH OF THE CZARINA</h3> +<p>“In the exercise of his duties as one of the pages-in-waiting, +Ribaupierre followed one day his august mistress into the throne-room +of the palace. When the Empress, accompanied by the high officers +of her court and the ladies of her household, came in sight of the chair +of state which she was about to occupy, she suddenly stopped, and to +the horror and astonished awe of her courtiers, she pointed to a visionary +being seated on the imperial throne. The occupant of the chair +was an exact counterpart of herself. All saw it and trembled, +but none dared to move towards the mysterious presentment of their sovereign.</p> +<p>“After a moment of dead silence the great Catherine raised +her voice and ordered her guard to advance and fire on the apparition. +The order was obeyed, a mirror beside the throne was shattered, the +vision had disappeared, and the Empress, with no sign of emotion, took +the chair from which her semblance had passed away.” It +is a striking barbaric scene!</p> +<p>“Spirits of the living” of this kind are common enough. +In the Highlands “second sight” generally means a view of +an event or accident some time before its occurrence. Thus an +old man was sitting with a little boy on a felled tree beside a steep +track in a quarry at Ballachulish. Suddenly he jerked the boy +to one side, and threw himself down on the further side of the tree. +While the boy stared, the old man slowly rose, saying, “The spirits +of the living are strong to-day!” He had seen a mass of +rock dashing along, killing some quarrymen and tearing down the path. +The accident occurred next day. It is needless to dwell on second +sight, which is not peculiar to Celts, though the Highlanders talk more +about it than other people.</p> +<p>These appearances of the living but absent, whether caused by some +mental action of the person who appears or not, are, at least, <i>unconscious</i> +on his part. <a name="citation88"></a><a href="#footnote88">{88}</a> +But a few cases occur in which a living person is said, by a voluntary +exertion of mind, to have made himself visible to a friend at a distance. +One case is vouched for by Baron von Schrenck-Notzig, a German psychologist, +who himself made the experiment with success. Others are narrated +by Dr. Gibotteau. A curious tale is told by several persons as +follows:—</p> +<h3>AN “ASTRAL BODY”</h3> +<p>Mr. Sparks and Mr. Cleave, young men of twenty and nineteen, were +accustomed to “mesmerise” each other in their dormitory +at Portsmouth, where they were students of naval engineering. +Mr. Sparks simply stared into Mr. Cleave’s eyes as he lay on his +bed till he “went off”. The experiments seemed so +curious that witnesses were called, Mr. Darley and Mr. Thurgood. +On Friday, 15th January, 1886, Mr. Cleave determined to try to see, +when asleep, a young lady at Wandsworth to whom he was in the habit +of writing every Sunday. He also intended, if possible, to make +<i>her</i> see <i>him</i>. On awaking, he said that he had seen +her in the dining-room of her house, that she had seemed to grow restless, +had looked at him, and then had covered her face with her hands. +On Monday he tried again, and he thought he had frightened her, as after +looking at him for a few minutes she fell back in her chair in a kind +of faint. Her little brother was in the room with her at the time. +On Tuesday next the young lady wrote, telling Mr. Cleave that she had +been startled by seeing him on Friday evening (this is an error), and +again on Monday evening, “much clearer,” when she nearly +fainted.</p> +<p>All this Mr. Sparks wrote to Mr. Gurney in the same week. He +was inviting instructions on hypnotic experiments, and “launched +a letter into space,” having read something vague about Mr. Gurney’s +studies in the newspapers. The letter, after some adventures, +arrived, and on 15th March Mr. Cleave wrote his account, Mr. Darley +and Mr. Thurgood corroborating as to their presence during the trance +and as to Mr. Cleave’s statement when he awoke. Mr. Cleave +added that he made experiments “for five nights running” +before seeing the lady. The young lady’s letter of 19th +January, 1886, is also produced (postmark, Portsmouth, 20th January). +But the lady mentions her <i>first</i> vision of Mr. Cleave as on last +<i>Tuesday</i> (not Friday), and her second, while she was alone with +her little brother, at supper on Monday. “I was so frightened +that I nearly fainted.”</p> +<p>These are all young people. It may be said that all five were +concerned in a complicated hoax on Mr. Gurney. Nor would such +a hoax argue any unusual moral obliquity. Surtees of Mainsforth, +in other respects an honourable man, took in Sir Walter Scott with forged +ballads, and never undeceived his friend. Southey played off a +hoax with his book <i>The Doctor</i>. Hogg, Lockhart, and Wilson, +with Allan Cunningham and many others, were constantly engaged in such +mystifications, and a “ghost-hunter” might seem a fair butt.</p> +<p>But the very discrepancy in Miss ---’s letter is a proof of +fairness. Her first vision of Mr. Cleave was on “Tuesday +last”. Mr. Cleave’s first impression of success was +on the Friday following.</p> +<p>But he had been making the experiment for five nights previous, including +the Tuesday of Miss ---’s letter. Had the affair been a +hoax, Miss --- would either have been requested by him to re-write her +letter, putting Friday for Tuesday, or what is simpler, Mr. Sparks would +have adopted her version and written “Tuesday” in place +of “Friday” in his first letter to Mr. Gurney. The +young lady, naturally, requested Mr. Cleave not to try his experiment +on her again.</p> +<p>A similar case is that of Mrs. Russell, who tried successfully, when +awake and in Scotland, to appear to one of her family in Germany. +The sister corroborates and says, “Pray don’t come appearing +to me again”. <a name="citation91a"></a><a href="#footnote91a">{91a}</a></p> +<p>These spirits of the living lead to the subject of spirits of the +dying. No kind of tale is so common as that of dying people appearing +at a distance. Hundreds have been conscientiously published. <a name="citation91b"></a><a href="#footnote91b">{91b}</a> +The belief is prevalent among the Maoris of New Zealand, where the apparition +is regarded as a proof of death. <a name="citation91c"></a><a href="#footnote91c">{91c}</a> +Now there is nothing in savage philosophy to account for this opinion +of the Maoris. A man’s “spirit” leaves his body +in dreams, savages think, and as dreaming is infinitely more common +than death, the Maoris should argue that the appearance is that of a +man’s spirit wandering in his sleep. However, they, like +many Europeans, associate a man’s apparition with his death. +Not being derived from their philosophy, this habit may be deduced from +their experience.</p> +<p>As there are, undeniably, many examples of hallucinatory appearances +of persons in perfect health and ordinary circumstances, the question +has been asked whether there are <i>more</i> cases of an apparition +coinciding with death than, according to the doctrine of chances, there +ought to be. Out of about 18,000 answers to questions on this +subject, has been deduced the conclusion that the deaths do coincide +with the apparitions to an extent beyond mere accident. Even if +we had an empty hallucination for every case coinciding with death, +we could not set the coincidences down to mere chance. As well +might we say that if “at the end of an hour’s rifle practice +at long-distance range, the record shows that for every shot that has +hit the bull’s eye, another has missed the target, therefore the +shots that hit the target did so by accident.” <a name="citation92"></a><a href="#footnote92">{92}</a> +But as empty hallucinations are more likely to be forgotten than those +which coincide with a death; as exaggeration creeps in, as the collectors +of evidence are naturally inclined to select and question people whom +they know to have a good story to tell, the evidence connecting apparitions, +voices, and so on with deaths is not likely to be received with favour.</p> +<p>One thing must be remembered as affecting the theory that the coincidence +between the wraith and the death is purely an accident. Everybody +dreams and out of the innumerable dreams of mankind, a few must hit +the mark by a fluke. But <i>hallucinations</i> are not nearly +so common as dreams. Perhaps, roughly speaking, one person in +ten has had what he believes to be a waking hallucination. Therefore, +so to speak, compared with dreams, but a small number of shots of this +kind are fired. Therefore, bull’s eyes (the coincidence +between an appearance and a death) are infinitely less likely to be +due to chance in the case of waking hallucinations than in the case +of dreams, which all mankind are firing off every night of their lives. +Stories of these coincidences between appearances and deaths are as +common as they are dull. Most people come across them in the circle +of their friends. They are all very much alike, and make tedious +reading. We give a few which have some picturesque features.</p> +<h3>IN TAVISTOCK PLACE <a name="citation93"></a><a href="#footnote93">{93}</a></h3> +<p>“In the latter part of the autumn of 1878, between half-past +three and four in the morning, I was leisurely walking home from the +house of a sick friend. A middle-aged woman, apparently a nurse, +was slowly following, going in the same direction. We crossed +Tavistock Square together, and emerged simultaneously into Tavistock +Place. The streets and squares were deserted, the morning bright +and calm, my health excellent, nor did I suffer from anxiety or fatigue. +A man suddenly appeared, striding up Tavistock Place, coming towards +me, and going in a direction opposite to mine. When first seen +he was standing exactly in front of my own door (5 Tavistock Place). +Young and ghastly pale, he was dressed in evening clothes, evidently +made by a foreign tailor. Tall and slim, he walked with long measured +strides noiselessly. A tall white hat, covered thickly with black +crape, and an eyeglass, completed the costume of this strange form. +The moonbeams falling on the corpse-like features revealed a face well +known to me, that of a friend and relative. The sole and only +person in the street beyond myself and this being was the woman already +alluded to. She stopped abruptly, as if spell-bound, then rushing +towards the man, she gazed intently and with horror unmistakable on +his face, which was now upturned to the heavens and smiling ghastly. +She indulged in her strange contemplation but during very few seconds, +then with extraordinary and unexpected speed for her weight and age +she ran away with a terrific shriek and yell. This woman never +have I seen or heard of since, and but for her presence I could have +explained the incident: called it, say, subjection of the mental powers +to the domination of physical reflex action, and the man’s presence +could have been termed a false impression on the retina.</p> +<p>“A week after this event, news of this very friend’s +death reached me. It occurred on the morning in question. +From the family I learned that according to the rites of the Greek Church +and the custom of the country he resided in, he was buried in his evening +clothes made abroad by a foreign tailor, and strange to say, he wore +goloshes over his boots, according also to the custom of the country +he died in. . . . When in England, he lived in Tavistock Place, +and occupied my rooms during my absence.” <a name="citation95a"></a><a href="#footnote95a">{95a}</a></p> +<h3>THE WYNYARD WRAITH <a name="citation95b"></a><a href="#footnote95b">{95b}</a></h3> +<p>“In the month of November (1785 or 1786), Sir John Sherbrooke +and Colonel Wynyard were sitting before dinner in their barrack room +at Sydney Cove, in America. It was duskish, and a candle was placed +on a table at a little distance. A figure dressed in plain clothes +and a good round hat, passed gently between the above people and the +fire. While passing, Sir J. Sherbrooke exclaimed, ‘God bless +my soul, who’s that?’</p> +<p>“Almost at the same moment Colonel W. said, ‘That’s +my brother John Wynyard, and I am sure he is dead’. Colonel +W. was much agitated, and cried and sobbed a great deal. Sir John +said, ‘The fellow has a devilish good hat; I wish I had it’. +(Hats were not to be got there and theirs were worn out.) They +immediately got up (Sir John was on crutches, having broken his leg), +took a candle and went into the bedroom, into which the figure had entered. +They searched the bed and every corner of the room to no effect; the +windows were fastened up with mortar. . . .</p> +<p>“They received no communication from England for about five +months, when a letter from Mr. Rush, the surgeon (Coldstream Guards), +announced the death of John Wynyard at the moment, as near as could +be ascertained, when the figure appeared. In addition to this +extraordinary circumstance, Sir John told me that two years and a half +afterwards he was walking with Lilly Wynyard (a brother of Colonel W.) +in London, and seeing somebody on the other side of the way, he recognised, +he thought, the person who had appeared to him and Colonel Wynyard in +America. Lilly Wynyard said that the person pointed out was a +Mr. Eyre (Hay?), that he and John Wynyard were frequently mistaken for +each other, and that money had actually been paid to this Mr. Eyre in +mistake.”</p> +<p>A famous tale of an appearance is Lord Brougham’s. His +Lordship was not reckoned precisely a veracious man; on the other hand, +this was not the kind of fable he was likely to tell. He was brought +up under the <i>régime</i> of common-sense. “On all +such subjects my father was very sceptical,” he says. To +disbelieve Lord Brougham we must suppose either that he wilfully made +a false entry in his diary in 1799, or that in preparing his <i>Autobiography</i> +in 1862, he deliberately added a falsehood—and then explained +his own marvel away!</p> +<h3>LORD BROUGHAM’S STORY</h3> +<p>“<i>December</i> 19, 1799.</p> +<p>“ . . . At one in the morning, arriving at a decent inn (in +Sweden), we decided to stop for the night, and found a couple of comfortable +rooms. Tired with the cold of yesterday, I was glad to take advantage +of a hot bath before I turned in. And here a most remarkable thing +happened to me—so remarkable that I must tell the story from the +beginning.</p> +<p>“After I left the High School, I went with G---, my most intimate +friend, to attend the classes in the University. . . . We actually +committed the folly of drawing up an agreement, written with our blood, +to the effect that whichever of us died the first should appear to the +other, and thus solve any doubts we had entertained of ‘the life +after death’. G--- went to India, years passed, and,” +says Lord Brougham, “I had nearly forgotten his existence. +I had taken, as I have said, a warm bath, and while lying in it and +enjoying the comfort of the heat, I turned my head round, looking towards +the chair on which I had deposited my clothes, as I was about to get +out of the bath. On the chair sat G---, looking calmly at me. +How I got out of the bath I know not, but on recovering my senses I +found myself sprawling on the floor. The apparition, or whatever +it was that had taken the likeness of G---, had disappeared. . . . +So strongly was I affected by it that I have here written down the whole +history, with the date, 19th December, and all the particulars as they +are now fresh before me. No doubt I had fallen asleep” (he +has just said that he was awake and on the point of leaving the bath), +“and that the appearance presented so distinctly to my eyes was +a dream I cannot for a moment doubt. . . .”</p> +<p>On 16th October, 1862, Lord Brougham copied this extract for his +<i>Autobiography</i>, and says that on his arrival in Edinburgh he received +a letter from India, announcing that G--- had died on 19th December. +He remarks “singular coincidence!” and adds that, considering +the vast number of dreams, the number of coincidences is perhaps fewer +than a fair calculation of chances would warrant us to expect.</p> +<p>This is a concession to common-sense, and argues an ignorance of +the fact that sane and (apparently) waking men may have hallucinations. +On the theory that we <i>may</i> have inappreciable moments of sleep +when we think ourselves awake, it is not an ordinary but an extraordinary +coincidence that Brougham should have had that peculiar moment of the +“dream” of G--- on the day or night of G---’s death, +while the circumstance that he had made a compact with G--- multiplies +the odds against accident in a ratio which mathematicians may calculate. +Brougham was used to dreams, like other people; he was not shocked by +them. This “dream” “produced such a shock that +I had no inclination to talk about it”. Even on Brougham’s +showing, then, this dream was a thing unique in his experience, and +not one of the swarm of visions of sleep. Thus his including it +among these, while his whole language shows that he himself did not +really reckon it among these, is an example of the fallacies of common-sense. +He completes his fallacy by saying, “It is not much more wonderful +than that a person whom we had no reason to expect should appear to +us at the very moment we had been thinking or speaking of him”. +But Lord Brougham had <i>not</i> been speaking or thinking of G---; +“there had been nothing to call him to my recollection,” +he says. To give his logic any value, he should constantly when +(as far as he knew) awake, have had dreams that “shocked” +him. Then <i>one</i> coincidence would have had no assignable +cause save ordinary accident.</p> +<p>If Lord Brougham fabled in 1799 or in 1862, he did so to make a “sensation”. +And then he tried to undo it by arguing that his experience was a thoroughly +commonplace affair.</p> +<p>We now give a very old story, “The Dying Mother”. +If the reader will compare it with Mr. Cleave’s case, “An +Astral Body,” in this chapter, he will be struck by the resemblance. +Mr. Cleave and Mrs. Goffe were both in a trance. Both wished to +see persons at a distance. Both saw, and each was seen, Mrs. Goffe +by her children’s nurse; Mr. Cleave by the person whom he wished +to see, but <i>not</i> by a small boy also present.</p> +<h3>THE DYING MOTHER <a name="citation101"></a><a href="#footnote101">{101}</a></h3> +<p>“Mary, the wife of John Goffe of Rochester, being afflicted +with a long illness, removed to her father’s house at West Mulling, +about nine miles from her own. There she died on 4th June, this +present year, 1691.</p> +<p>“The day before her departure (death) she grew very impatiently +desirous to see her two children, whom she had left at home to the care +of a nurse. She prayed her husband to ‘hire a horse, for +she must go home and die with the children’. She was too +ill to be moved, but ‘a minister who lives in the town was with +her at ten o’clock that night, to whom she expressed good hopes +in the mercies of God and a willingness to die’. ‘But’ +said she, ‘it is my misery that I cannot see my children.’</p> +<p>“Between one and two o’clock in the morning, she fell +into a trance. One, widow Turner, who watched with her that night, +says that her eyes were open and fixed and her jaw fallen. Mrs. +Turner put her hand upon her mouth and nostrils, but could perceive +no breath. She thought her to be in a fit; and doubted whether +she were dead or alive.</p> +<p>“The next morning the dying woman told her mother that she +had been at home with her children. . . . ‘I was with them last +night when I was asleep.’</p> +<p>“The nurse at Rochester, widow Alexander by name, affirms, +and says she will take her oath on’t before a Magistrate and receive +the sacrament upon it, that a little before two o’clock that morning +she saw the likeness of the said Mary Goffe come out of the next chamber +(where the elder child lay in a bed by itself) the door being left open, +and stood by her bedside for about a quarter of an hour; the younger +child was there lying by her. Her eyes moved and her mouth went, +but she said nothing. The nurse, moreover, says that she was perfectly +awake; it was then daylight, being one of the longest days in the year. +She sat up in bed and looked steadfastly on the apparition. In +that time she heard the bridge clock strike two, and a while after said, +‘In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, what art thou?’ +Thereupon the apparition removed and went away; she slipped on her clothes +and followed, but what became on’t she cannot tell.</p> +<p>“Mrs. Alexander then walked out of doors till six, when she +persuaded some neighbours to let her in. She told her adventure; +they failed to persuade her that she had dreamed it. On the same +day the neighbour’s wife, Mrs. Sweet, went to West Mulling, saw +Mrs. Goffe before her death, and heard from Mrs. Goffe’s mother +the story of the daughter’s dream of her children, Mrs. Sweet +not having mentioned the nurse’s story of the apparition.” +That poor Mrs. Goffe walked to Rochester and returned undetected, a +distance of eighteen miles is difficult to believe.</p> +<p>Goethe has an <i>obiter dictum</i> on the possibility of intercommunion +without the aid of the ordinary senses, between the souls of lovers. +Something of the kind is indicated in anecdotes of dreams dreamed in +common by husband and wife, but, in such cases, it may be urged that +the same circumstance, or the same noise or other disturbing cause, +may beget the same dream in both. A better instance is</p> +<h3>THE VISION OF THE BRIDE</h3> +<p>Colonel Meadows Taylor writes, in <i>The Story of my Life</i> (vol. +ii., p. 32): “The determination (to live unmarried) was the result +of a very curious and strange incident that befel me during one of my +marches to Hyderabad. I have never forgotten it, and it returns +to this day to my memory with a strangely vivid effect that I can neither +repel nor explain. I purposely withhold the date of the year. +In my very early life I had been deeply and devotedly attached to one +in England, and only relinquished the hope of one day winning her when +the terrible order came out that no furlough to Europe would be granted.</p> +<p>“One evening I was at the village of Dewas Kudea, after a very +long afternoon and evening march from Muktul, and I lay down very weary; +but the barking of village dogs, the baying of jackals and over-fatigue +and heat prevented sleep, and I was wide awake and restless. Suddenly, +for my tent door was wide open, I saw the face and figure so familiar +to me, but looking older, and with a sad and troubled expression; the +dress was white and seemed covered with a profusion of lace and glistened +in the bright moonlight. The arms were stretched out, and a low +plaintive cry of ‘Do not let me go! Do not let me go!’ +reached me. I sprang forward, but the figure receded, growing +fainter and fainter till I could see it no more, but the low plaintive +tones still sounded. I had run barefooted across the open space +where my tents were pitched, very much to the astonishment of the sentry +on guard, but I returned to my tent without speaking to him. I +wrote to my father. I wished to know whether there were any hope +for me. He wrote back to me these words: ‘Too late, my dear +son—on the very day of the vision you describe to me, A. was married’.” +</p> +<p>The colonel did not keep his determination not to marry, for his +<i>Life</i> is edited by his daughter, who often heard her father mention +the incident, “precisely in the same manner, and exactly as it +is in the book”. <a name="citation103"></a><a href="#footnote103">{103}</a></p> +<p>If thinking of friends and lovers, lost or dead, could bring their +forms and voices before the eye and ear of flesh, there would be a world +of hallucinations around us. “But it wants heaven-sent moments +for this skill,” and few bridal nights send a vision and a voice +to the bed of a wakeful lover far away.</p> +<p>Stories of this kind, appearances of the living or dying really at +a distance, might be multiplied to any extent. They are all capable +of explanation, if we admit the theory of telepathy, of a message sent +by an unknown process from one living man’s mind to another. +Where more than one person shares the vision, we may suppose that the +influence comes directly from A to B, C and D, or comes from A to B, +and is by him unconsciously “wired” on to B and C, or is +“suggested” to them by B’s conduct or words.</p> +<p>In that case animals may be equally affected, thus, if B seems alarmed, +that may frighten his dog, or the alarm of a dog, caused by some noise +or smell, heard or smelt by him, may frighten B, C and D, and make one +or all of them see a ghost.</p> +<p>Popular opinion is strongly in favour of beasts seeing ghosts. +The people of St. Kilda, according to Martin, held that cows shared +the visions of second-sighted milk-maids. Horses are said to shy +on the scene of murders. Scott’s horse ran away (home) when +Sir Walter saw the bogle near Ashiestiel. In a case given later +the dog shut up in a room full of unexplained noises, yelled and whined. +The same dog (an intimate friend of my own) bristled up his hair and +growled before his master saw the Grey Lady. The Rev. J. G. Wood +gives a case of a cat which nearly went mad when his mistress saw an +apparition. Jeremy Taylor tells of a dog which got quite used +to a ghost that often appeared to his master, and used to follow it. +In “The Lady in Black,” a dog would jump up and fawn on +the ghost and then run away in a fright. Mr. Wesley’s mastiff +was much alarmed by the family ghost. Not to multiply cases, dogs +and other animals are easily affected by whatever it is that makes people +think a ghost is present, or by the conduct of the human beings on these +occasions.</p> +<p>Absurd as the subject appears, there are stories of the ghosts of +animals. These may be discussed later; meanwhile we pass from +appearances of the living or dying to stories of appearances of the +dead.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<p><i>Transition to Appearances of the Dead. Obvious Scientific +Difficulties. Purposeless Character of Modern Ghosts. Theory +of Dead Men’s Dreams. Illustrated by Sleep-walking House-maid. +Purposeful Character of the Old Ghost Stories. Probable Causes +of the Difference between Old and New Ghost Stories. Only the +most Dramatic were recorded. Or the Tales were embellished or +invented. Practical Reasons for inventing them. The Daemon +of Spraiton. Sources of Story of Sir George Villier’s Ghost. +Clarendon. Lilly</i>, <i>Douch. Wyndham. Wyndham’s +Letter. Sir Henry Wotton. Izaak Walton. Anthony Wood. +A Wotton Dream proved Legendary. The Ghost that appeared to Lord +Lyttleton. His Lordship’s Own Ghost.</i></p> +<h3>APPEARANCES OF THE DEAD</h3> +<p>We now pass beyond the utmost limits to which a “scientific” +theory of things ghostly can be pushed. Science admits, if asked, +that it does not know everything. It is not <i>inconceivable</i> +that living minds may communicate by some other channel than that of +the recognised senses. Science now admits the fact of hypnotic +influence, though, sixty years ago, Braid was not allowed to read a +paper on it before the British Association. Even now the topic +is not welcome. But perhaps only one eminent man of science declares +that hypnotism is <i>all</i> imposture and malobservation. Thus +it is not wholly beyond the scope of fancy to imagine that some day +official science may glance at the evidence for “telepathy”.</p> +<p>But the stories we have been telling deal with living men supposed +to be influencing living men. When the dead are alleged to exercise +a similar power, we have to suppose that some consciousness survives +the grave, and manifests itself by causing hallucinations among the +living. Instances of this have already been given in “The +Ghost and the Portrait,” “The Bright Scar” and “Riding +Home after Mess”. These were adduced as examples of <i>veracity</i> +in hallucinations. Each appearance gave information to the seer +which he did not previously possess. In the first case, the lady +who saw the soldier and the suppliant did not know of their previous +existence and melancholy adventure. In the second, the brother +did not know that his dead sister’s face had been scratched. +In the third, the observer did not know that Lieutenant B. had grown +a beard and acquired a bay pony with black mane and tail. But +though the appearances were <i>veracious</i>, they were <i>purposeless</i>, +and again, as in each case the information existed in living minds, +it <i>may</i> have been wired on from them.</p> +<p>Thus the doctrine of telepathy puts a ghost of the dead in a great +quandary. If he communicates no verifiable information, he may +be explained as a mere empty illusion. If he does yield fresh +information, and if that is known to any living mind, he and his intelligence +may have been wired on from that mind. His only chance is to communicate +facts which are proved to be true, facts which nobody living knew before. +Now it is next to impossible to demonstrate that the facts communicated +were absolutely unknown to everybody.</p> +<p>Far, however, from conveying unknown intelligence, most ghosts convey +none at all, and appear to have no purpose whatever.</p> +<p>It will be observed that there was no traceable reason why the girl +with a scar should appear to Mr. G., or the soldier and suppliant to +Mrs. M., or Lieutenant B. to General Barker. The appearances came +in a vague, casual, aimless way, just as the living and healthy clergyman +appeared to the diplomatist. On St. Augustine’s theory the +dead persons who appeared may have known no more about the matter than +did the living clergyman. It is not even necessary to suppose +that the dead man was dreaming about the living person to whom, or about +the place in which, he appeared. But on the analogy of the tales +in which a dream or thought of the living seems to produce a hallucination +of their presence in the minds of other and distant living people, so +a dream of the dead may (it is urged) have a similar effect if “in +that sleep of death such dreams may come”. The idea occurred +to Shakespeare! In any case the ghosts of our stories hitherto +have been so aimless and purposeless as to resemble what we might imagine +a dead man’s dream to be.</p> +<p>This view of the case (that a “ghost” may be a reflection +of a dead man’s dream) will become less difficult to understand +if we ask ourselves what natural thing most resembles the common idea +of a ghost. You are reading alone at night, let us say, the door +opens and a human figure glides into the room. To you it pays +no manner of attention; it does not answer if you speak; it may trifle +with some object in the chamber and then steal quietly out again.</p> +<blockquote><p>It is the House-maid walking in her Sleep.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This perfectly accountable appearance, in its aimlessness, its unconsciousness, +its irresponsiveness, is undeniably just like the common notion of a +ghost. Now, if ordinary ghosts are not of flesh and blood, like +the sleep-walking house-maid, yet are as irresponsive, as unconscious, +and as vaguely wandering as she, then (if the dead are somewhat) a ghost +<i>may</i> be a hallucination produced in the living by the <i>unconscious</i> +action of the mind of the dreaming dead. The conception is at +least conceivable. If adopted, merely for argument’s sake, +it would first explain the purposeless behaviour of ghosts, and secondly, +relieve people who see ghosts of the impression that they see “spirits”. +In the Scotch phrase the ghost obviously “is not all there,” +any more than the sleep walker is intellectually “all there”. +This incomplete, incoherent presence is just what might be expected +if a dreaming disembodied mind could affect an embodied mind with a +hallucination.</p> +<p>But the good old-fashioned ghost stories are usually of another type. +The robust and earnest ghosts of our ancestors “had their own +purpose sun-clear before them,” as Mr. Carlyle would have said. +They knew what they wanted, asked for it, and saw that they got it.</p> +<p>As a rule their bodies were unburied, and so they demanded sepulture; +or they had committed a wrong, and wished to make restitution; or they +had left debts which they were anxious to pay; or they had advice, or +warnings, or threats to communicate; or they had been murdered, and +were determined to bring their assassins to the gibbet.</p> +<p>Why, we may ask, were the old ghost stories so different from the +new? Well, first they were not all different. Again, probably +only the more dramatic tales were as a rule recorded. Thirdly, +many of the stories may have been either embellished—a fancied +purpose being attributed to a purposeless ghost—or they may even +have been invented to protect witnesses who gave information against +murderers. Who could disobey a ghost?</p> +<p>In any case the old ghost stories are much more dramatic than the +new. To them we turn, beginning with the appearances of Mr. and +Mrs. Furze at Spraiton, in Devonshire, in 1682. Our author is +Mr. Richard Bovet, in his <i>Pandæmonium</i>, <i>or the Devil’s +Cloister opened</i> (1683). The motive of the late Mr. Furze was +to have some small debts paid; his wife’s spectre was influenced +by a jealousy of Mr. Furze’s spectre’s relations with another +lady.</p> +<h3>THE DAEMON OF SPRAITON IN DEVON <a name="citation111"></a><a href="#footnote111">{111}</a> +ANNO 1682</h3> +<p>“About the month of November in the year 1682, in the parish +of Spraiton, in the county of Devon, one Francis Fey (servant to Mr. +Philip Furze) being in a field near the dwelling-house of his said master, +there appeared unto him the <i>resemblance</i> of an <i>aged gentleman</i> +like his master’s father, with a pole or staff in his hand, resembling +that he was wont to carry when living to kill the moles withal. +The <i>spectrum</i> approached near the young man, whom you may imagin +not a little surprized at the <i>appearance</i> of one that he knew +to be dead, but the <i>spectrum bid him not be afraid of him</i>, <i>but +tell his master</i> (who was his son) that several <i>legacies which +by his testament he had bequeathed were unpaid</i>, <i>naming ten shillings +to one and ten shillings to another</i>, <i>both which persons he named</i> +to the young man, who replyed that the party he last named was dead, +and so it could not be paid to him. The ghost answered <i>he knew +that</i>, <i>but it must be paid to the next relation</i>, whom he also +named. The spectrum likewise ordered him to carry twenty shillings +to a gentlewoman, sister to the deceased, living near Totness in the +said county, and promised, if these things were performed, to trouble +him no further; but at the same time the <i>spectrum</i>, speaking of +his <i>second wife</i> (who was also dead) <i>called her wicked woman</i>, +though the gentleman who writ the letter knew her and esteemed her a +very good woman. And (having thus related him his mind) the spectrum +left the young man, who according to the <i>direction</i> of the <i>spirit</i> +took care to see the small legacies satisfied, and carried the twenty +shillings that was appointed to be paid the gentlewoman near Totness, +but she utterly refused to receive it, being sent her (as she said) +from the devil. The same night the young man lodging at her house, +the aforesaid spectrum appeared to him again; whereupon the young man +challenged his <i>promise not to trouble him any more</i>, saying he +had performed all according to his appointment, but that the gentlewoman, +his sister, would not receive the money.</p> +<p>“<i>To which the spectrum replied that was true indeed</i>; +but withal <i>directed</i> the young man to ride to <i>Totness</i> and +buy for her <i>a ring of that value</i>, <i>which the spirit said she +would accept of</i>, which being provided accordingly, she received. +Since the performance of which the ghost or apparition of the old gentleman +hath seemed to be at rest, having never given the young man any further +trouble.</p> +<p>“But the next day after having delivered the ring, the young +man was riding home to his master’s house, accompanyed by a servant +of the gentlewoman’s near <i>Totness</i>, and near about the time +of their entrance (or a little before they came) into the parish of +<i>Spraiton</i> aforesaid, there appeared to be upon the horse behind +the young man, the resemblance of the <i>second wife</i> of the old +gentleman spoken of before.</p> +<p>“This daemon often threw the young man off his horse, and cast +him with such violence to the ground as was great astonishment, not +only to the gentlewoman’s servant (with him), but to divers others +who were spectators of the frightful action, the ground resounding with +great noise by reason of the incredible force with which he was cast +upon it. At his coming into his master’s yard, the horse +which he rid, though very poor and out of case, leaped at one spring +twenty-five foot, to the amazement of all that saw it. Soon after +the she-spectre shewed herself to divers in the house, <i>viz</i>., +the aforesaid young man, <i>Mistress Thomasin Gidly</i>, <i>Ann Langdon</i>, +born in that parish, and a little child, which, by reason of the troublesomeness +of the spirit, they were fain to remove from that house. She appeared +sometimes in her own shape, sometimes in forms very horrid; now and +then like a monstrous dog belching out fire; at another time it flew +out at the window, in the shape of a horse, carrying with it only one +pane of glass and a small piece of iron.</p> +<p>“One time the young man’s head was thrust into a very +strait place betwixt a bed’s head and a wall, and forced by the +strength of divers men to be removed thence, and that not without being +much hurt and bruised, so that much blood appeared about it: upon this +it was advised he should be bleeded, to prevent any ill accident that +might come of the bruise; after bleeding, the ligature or binder of +his arm was removed from thence and conveyed about his middle, where +it was strained with such violence that the girding had almost stopp’d +his breath and kill’d him, and being cut asunder it made <i>a +strange and dismal noise</i>, so that the standers by were affrighted +at it. At divers other times he hath been in danger to be strangled +with cravats and handkerchiefs that he hath worn about his neck, which +have been drawn so close that with the sudden violence he hath near +been choaked, and hardly escaped death.</p> +<p>“The spectre hath shewed great offence at the perriwigs which +the young man used to wear, for they are often torn from his head after +a very strange manner; one that he esteemed above the rest he put in +a small box, and that box he placed in another, which he set against +the wall of his chamber, placing a joint-stool with other weight a top +of it, but in short time the boxes were broken in sunder and the perriwig +rended into many small parts and tatters. Another time, lying +in his master’s chamber with his perriwig on his head, to secure +it from danger, within a little time it was torn from him and reduced +into very small fragments. At another time one of his shoe-strings +was observed (without the assistance of any hand) to come of its own +accord out of its shoe and fling itself to the other side of the room; +the other was crawling after it, but a maid espying that, with her hand +drew it out, and it strangely <i>clasp’d</i> and <i>curl’d</i> +about her hand like a living <i>eel</i> or <i>serpent</i>; this is testified +by a lady of considerable quality, too great for exception, who was +an eye-witness. The same lady shewed Mr. C. one of the young man’s +gloves, which was torn in his pocket while she was by, which is so dexterously +tatter’d and so artificially torn that it is conceived a cutler +could not have contrived an instrument to have laid it abroad so accurately, +and all this was done in the pocket in the compass of one minute. +It is further observable that if the aforesaid young man, or another +person who is a servant maid in the house, do wear their own clothes, +they are certainly torn in pieces on their backs, but if the clothes +belong to any other, they are not injured after that manner.</p> +<p>“Many other strange and fantastical freaks have been done by +the said daemon or spirit in the view of divers persons; a barrel of +salt of considerable quantity hath been observed to march from room +to room without any human assistance.</p> +<p>“An hand-iron hath seemed to lay itself cross over-thwart a +pan of milk that hath been scalding over the fire, and two flitches +of bacon have of their own accord descended from the chimney where they +were hung, and placed themselves upon the hand-iron.</p> +<p>“When the spectre appears in resemblance of her own person, +she seems to be habited in the same cloaths and dress which the gentlewoman +of the house (her daughter-in-law) hath on at the same time. Divers +times the feet and legs of the young man aforesaid have been so entangled +about his neck that he hath been loosed with great difficulty; sometimes +they have been so twisted about the frames of chairs and stools that +they have hardly been set at liberty. But one of the most considerable +instances of the malice of the spirit against the young man happened +on Easter Eve, when Mrs. C. the relator, was passing by the door of +the house, and it was thus:—</p> +<p>“When the young man was returning from his labour, he was taken +up by the <i>skirt</i> of his <i>doublet</i> by this <i>female daemon</i>, +and carried a height into the air. He was soon missed by his Master +and some other servants that had been at labour with him, and after +diligent enquiry no news could be heard of him, until at length (near +half an hour after) he was heard singing and whistling in a bog or quagmire, +where they found him in a kind of trance or <i>extatick fit</i>, to +which he hath sometimes been accustomed (but whether before the affliction +he met with from this spirit I am not certain). He was affected +much after such sort, as at the time of those <i>fits</i>, so that the +people did not give that <i>attention</i> and <i>regard</i> to what +he said as at other times; but when he returned again to himself (which +was about an hour after) he solemnly protested to them that the daemon +had carried him so high that his master’s house seemed to him +to be but <i>as a hay-cock</i>, and <i>that during all that time he +was in perfect sense</i>, <i>and prayed to Almighty God not to suffer +the devil to destroy him</i>; and that he was suddenly set down in that +quagmire.</p> +<p>The workmen found one shoe on one side of his master’s house, +and the other on the other side, and in the morning espied his perriwig +hanging on the top of a tree; by which it appears he had been carried +a considerable height, and that what he told them was not a fiction.</p> +<p>“After this it was observed that that part of the young man’s +body which had been on the mud in the quagmire was somewhat benummbed +and seemingly deader than the other, whereupon the following <i>Saturday</i>, +which was the day before <i>Low Sunday</i>, he was carried to <i>Crediton</i>, +<i>alias Kirton</i>, to be bleeded, which being done accordingly, and +the company having left him for some little space, at their return they +found him in one of his fits, with his <i>forehead</i> much <i>bruised</i>, +and <i>swoln</i> to a <i>great bigness</i>, none being able to guess +how it happened, until his recovery from that <i>fit</i>, when upon +enquiry he gave them this account of it: <i>that a bird had with great +swiftness and force flown in at the window with a stone in its beak</i>, +<i>which it had dashed against his forehead</i>, <i>which had occasioned +the swelling which they saw.</i></p> +<p>“The people much wondering at the strangeness of the accident, +diligently sought the stone, and under the place where he sat they found +not such a stone as they expected but a weight of brass or copper, which +it seems the daemon had made use of on that occasion to give the poor +young man that hurt in his forehead.</p> +<p>“The persons present were at the trouble to break it to pieces, +every one taking a part and preserving it in memory of so strange an +accident. After this the spirit continued to molest the young +man in a very severe and rugged manner, often handling him with great +extremity, and whether it hath yet left its violences to him, or whether +the young man be yet alive, I can have no certain account.”</p> +<p>I leave the reader to consider of the extraordinary strangeness of +the relation.</p> +<p>The reader, considering the exceeding strangeness of the relation, +will observe that we have now reached “great swingeing falsehoods,” +even if that opinion had not hitherto occurred to his mind. But +if he thinks that such stories are no longer told, and even sworn to +on Bible oath, he greatly deceives himself. In the chapter on +“Haunted Houses” he will find statements just as hard narrated +of the years 1870 and 1882. In these, however, the ghosts had +no purpose but mischief. <a name="citation118"></a><a href="#footnote118">{118}</a></p> +<p>We take another “ghost with a purpose”.</p> +<h3>SIR GEORGE VILLIERS’ GHOST.</h3> +<p>The variations in the narratives of Sir George Villiers’ appearance +to an old servant of his, or old <i>protégé</i>, and the +warning communicated by this man to Villiers’ son, the famous +Duke of Buckingham, are curious and instructive. The tale is first +told in print by William Lilly, the astrologer, in the second part of +a large tract called <i>Monarchy or No Monarchy in England</i> (London, +1651), twenty-three years after Buckingham’s murder. But +while prior in publication, Lilly’s story was probably written +after, though independent of Lord Clarendon’s, in the first book +of his <i>History of the Rebellion</i>, begun on 18th March, 1646, that +is within eighteen years of the events. Clarendon, of course, +was in a position to know what was talked of at the time. Next, +we have a letter of Mr. Douch to Glanvil, undated, but written after +the Restoration, and, finally, an original manuscript of 1652.</p> +<p>Douch makes the warning arrive “some few days” before +the murder of Buckingham, and says that the ghost of Sir George, “in +his morning gown,” bade one Parker tell Buckingham to abandon +the expedition to La Rochelle or expect to be murdered. On the +third time of appearing the vision pulled a long knife from under his +gown, as a sign of the death awaiting Buckingham. He also communicated +a “private token” to Parker, the “percipient,” +Sir George’s old servant. On each occasion of the appearance, +Parker was reading at midnight. Parker, <i>after</i> the murder, +told one Ceeley, who told it to a clergyman, who told Douch, who told +Glanvil.</p> +<p>In Lilly’s version the ghost had a habit of walking in Parker’s +room, and finally bade him tell Buckingham to abstain from certain company, +“or else he will come to destruction, and that suddenly”. +Parker, thinking he had dreamed, did nothing; the ghost reappeared, +and communicated a secret “which he (Buckingham) knows that none +in the world ever knew but myself and he”. The duke, on +hearing the story from Parker, backed by the secret, was amazed, but +did not alter his conduct. On the third time the spectre produced +the knife, but at <i>this</i> information the duke only laughed. +Six weeks later he was stabbed. Douch makes the whole affair pass +immediately before the assassination. “And Mr. Parker died +soon after,” as the ghost had foretold to him.</p> +<p>Finally, Clarendon makes the appearances set in six months before +Felton slew the duke. The percipient, unnamed, was in bed. +The narrative now develops new features; the token given on the ghost’s +third coming obviously concerns Buckingham’s mother, the Countess, +the “one person more” who knew the secret communicated. +The ghost produces no knife from under his gown; no warning of Buckingham’s +death by violence is mentioned. A note in the MS. avers that Clarendon +himself had papers bearing on the subject, and that he got his information +from Sir Ralph Freeman (who introduced the unnamed percipient to the +duke), and from some of Buckingham’s servants, “who were +informed of much of it before the murder of the duke”. Clarendon +adds that, in general, “no man looked on relations of that sort +with less reverence and consideration” than he did. This +anecdote he selects out of “many stories scattered abroad at the +time” as “upon a better foundation of credit”. +The percipient was an officer in the king’s wardrobe at Windsor, +“of a good reputation for honesty and discretion,” and aged +about fifty. He was bred at a school in Sir George’s parish, +and as a boy was kindly treated by Sir George, “whom afterwards +he never saw”. On first beholding the spectre in his room, +the seer recognised Sir George’s costume, then antiquated. +At last the seer went to Sir Ralph Freeman, who introduced him to the +duke on a hunting morning at Lambeth Bridge. They talked earnestly +apart, observed by Sir Ralph, Clarendon’s informant. The +duke seemed abstracted all day; left the field early, sought his mother, +and after a heated conference of which the sounds reached the ante-room, +went forth in visible trouble and anger, a thing never before seen in +him after talk with his mother. She was found “overwhelmed +with tears and in the highest agony imaginable”. “It +is a notorious truth” that, when told of his murder, “she +seemed not in the least degree surprised.”</p> +<p>The following curious manuscript account of the affair is, after +the prefatory matter, the copy of a letter dated 1652. There is +nothing said of a ghostly knife, the name of the seer is not Parker, +and in its whole effect the story tallies with Clarendon’s version, +though the narrator knows nothing of the scene with the Countess of +Buckingham.</p> +<h3>CAVALIER VERSION <a name="citation121"></a><a href="#footnote121">{121}</a></h3> +<p>“1627. Since William Lilly the Rebells Jugler and Mountebank +in his malicious and blaspheamous discourse concerning our late Martyred +Soveraigne of ever blessed memory (amongst other lyes and falsehoods) +imprinted a relation concerning an Aparition which foretold several +Events which should happen to the Duke of Buckingham, wherein he falsifies +boeth the person to whom it appeared and ye circumstances; I thought +it not amis to enter here (that it may be preserved) the true account +of that Aparition as I have receaved it from the hande and under the +hande of Mr. Edmund Wyndham, of Kellefford in the County of Somersett. +I shall sett it downe (<i>ipsissimis verbis</i>) as he delivered it +to me at my request written with his own hande.</p> +<h3>WYNDHAM’S LETTER</h3> +<p>“Sr. According to your desire and my promise I have written +down what I remember (divers things being slipt out of my memory) of +the relation made me by Mr. Nicholas Towse concerning the Aparition +wch visited him. About ye yeare 1627, <a name="citation122"></a><a href="#footnote122">{122}</a> +I and my wife upon an occasion being in London lay att my Brother Pyne’s +house without Bishopsgate, wch. was ye next house unto Mr. Nicholas +Towse’s, who was my Kinsman and familiar acquaintance, in consideration +of whose Society and friendship he tooke a house in that place, ye said +Towse being a very fine Musician and very good company, and for ought +I ever saw or heard, a Vurtuous, religious and wel disposed Gentleman. +About that time ye said Mr. Towse tould me that one night, being in +Bed and perfectly waking, and a Candle burning by him (as he usually +had) there came into his Chamber and stood by his bed side an Olde Gentleman +in such an habitt as was in fashion in Q: Elizebeth’s tyme, at +whose first appearance Mr. Towse was very much troubled, but after a +little tyme, recollecting himselfe, he demanded of him in ye Name of +God what he was, whether he were a Man. And ye Aparition replyed +No. Then he asked him if he were a Divell. And ye answer +was No. Then Mr. Towse said ‘in ye Name of God, what art +thou then?’ And as I remember Mr. Towse told me that ye +Apparition answered him that he was ye Ghost of Sir George Villiers, +Father to ye then Duke of Buckingham, whom he might very well remember, +synce he went to schoole at such a place in Leicestershire (naming ye +place which I have forgotten). And Mr. Towse tould me that ye +Apparition had perfectly ye resemblance of ye said Sr George Villiers +in all respects and in ye same habitt that he had often seene him weare +in his lifetime.</p> +<p>“The said Apparition then tould Mr. Towse that he could not +but remember ye much kindness that he, ye said Sr George Villiers, had +expressed to him whilst he was a Schollar in Leicestershire, as aforesaid, +and that as out of that consideration he believed that he loved him +and that therefore he made choyce of him, ye sayde Mr. Towse, to deliver +a message to his sonne, ye Duke of Buckingham; thereby to prevent such +mischiefe as would otherwise befall ye said Duke whereby he would be +inevitably ruined. And then (as I remember) Mr. Towse tould me +that ye Apparition instructed him what message he should deliver unto +ye Duke. Vnto wch. Mr. Towse replyed that he should be very unwilling +to goe to ye Duke of Buckingham upon such an errand, whereby he should +gaine nothing but reproach and contempt, and to be esteemed a Madman, +and therefore desired to be exscused from ye employment, but ye Apparition +pressd him wth. much earnestness to undertake it, telling him that ye +Circumstances and secret Discoveries which he should be able to make +to ye Duke of such passages in ye course of his life which were known +to none but himselfe, would make it appeare that ye message was not +ye fancy of a Distempered Brayne, but a reality, and so ye Apparition +tooke his leave of him for that night and telling him that he would +give him leave to consider till the next night, and then he would come +to receave his answer wheather he would undertake to deliver his message +or no.</p> +<p>“Mr. Towse past that day wth. much trouble and perplexity, +debating and reasoning wth. himselfe wether he should deliver his message +or not to ye Duke but, in ye conclusion, he resolved to doe it, and +ye next night when ye Apparition came he gave his answer accordingly, +and then receaved his full instruction. After which Mr. Towse +went and founde out Sr. Thomas Bludder and Sr. Ralph Freeman, by whom +he was brought to ye Duke of Buckingham, and had sevarall private and +lone audiences of him, I my selfe, by ye favoure of a freinde (Sr. Edward +Savage) was once admitted to see him in private conference with ye Duke, +where (although I heard not there discourses) I observed much earnestnessse +in their actions and gestures. After wch. conference Mr. Towse +tould me that ye Duke would not follow ye advice that was given him, +which was (as I remember) that he intimated ye casting of, and ye rejecting +of some Men who had great interest in him, which was, and as I take +it he named, Bp. Laud and that ye Duke was to doe some popular Acts +in ye ensuing Parliament, of which Parliament ye Duke would have had +Mr. Towse to have been a Burgesse, but he refused it, alleadging that +unlesse ye Duke followed his directions, he must doe him hurt if he +were of ye Parliament. Mr. Towse then toalde that ye Duke of Buckingham +confessed that he had toalde him those things wch. no Creature knew +but himself, and that none but God or ye Divell could reveale to him. +Ye Duke offered Mr. Towse to have ye King knight him, and to have given +him preferment (as he tould me), but that he refused it, saying that +vnless he would follow his advice he would receave nothing from him.</p> +<p>“Mr. Towse, when he made me this relation, he tolde me that +ye Duke would inevitably be destroyed before such a time (wch. he then +named) and accordingly ye Duke’s death happened before that time. +He likewise tolde that he had written downe all ye severall discourses +that he had had wth. ye Apparition, and that at last his coming was +so familiar that he was as litle troubled with it as if it had beene +a friende or acquayntance that had come to visitt him. Mr. Towse +told me further that ye Archbishop of Canterbury, then Bishop of London, +Dr. Laud, should by his Councells be ye authoure of very great troubles +to ye Kingdome, by which it should be reduced to ye extremity of disorder +and confusion, and that it should seeme to be past all hope of recovery +without a miracle, but when all people were in dispayre of seeing happy +days agayne, ye Kingdome should suddenly be reduced and resettled agayne +in a most happy condition.</p> +<p>“At this tyme my father Pyne was in trouble and comitted to +ye Gatehouse by ye Lords of ye Councell about a Quarrel betweene him +and ye Lord Powlett, upon which one night I saide to my Cosin Towse, +by way of jest, ‘I pray aske your Appairition what shall become +of my father Pyne’s business,’ which he promised to doe, +and ye next day he tolde me that my father Pyne’s enemyes were +ashamed of their malicious prosecution, and that he would be at liberty +within a week or some few days, which happened according.</p> +<p>“Mr. Towse, his wife, since his death tolde me that her husband +and she living at Windsor Castle, where he had an office that Sumer +that ye Duke of Buckingham was killed, tolde her that very day that +the Duke was sett upon by ye mutinous Mariners att Portesmouth, saying +then that ye next attempt agaynst him would be his Death, which accordingly +happened. And att ye instant ye Duke was killed (as she vnderstood +by ye relation afterwards) Mr. Towse was sitting in his chayre, out +of which he suddenly started vp and sayd, ‘Wyfe, ye Duke of Buckingham +is slayne!’</p> +<p>“Mr. Towse lived not long after that himselfe, but tolde his +wife ye tyme of his Death before itt happened. I never saw him +after I had seen some effects of his discourse, which before I valued +not, and therefore was not curious to enquire after more than he voluntaryly +tolde me, which I then entertayned not wth. these serious thoughts which +I have synce reflected on in his discourse. This is as much as +I can remember on this business which, according to youre desire, is +written by</p> +<p>“Sr. Yor., &c.,</p> +<p>“EDMUND WINDHAM.</p> +<p>“BOULOGNE, 5<i>th August</i>, 1652.”</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>This version has, over all others, the merit of being written by +an acquaintance of the seer, who was with him while the appearances +were going on. The narrator was also present at an interview between +the seer and Buckingham. His mention of Sir Ralph Freeman tallies +with Clarendon’s, who had the story from Freeman. The ghost +predicts the Restoration, and this is recorded before that happy event. +Of course Mr. Towse may have been interested in Buckingham’s career +and may have invented the ghost (after discovering the secret token) +<a name="citation127"></a><a href="#footnote127">{127}</a> as an excuse +for warning him.</p> +<p>The reader can now take his choice among versions of Sir George Villiers’ +ghost. He must remember that, in 1642, Sir Henry Wotton “spent +some inquiry whether the duke had any ominous presagement before his +end,” but found no evidence. Sir Henry told Izaak Walton +a story of a dream of an ancestor of his own, whereby some robbers of +the University chest at Oxford were brought to justice. Anthony +Wood consulted the records of the year mentioned, and found no trace +of any such robbery. We now approach a yet more famous ghost than +Sir George’s. This is Lord Lyttelton’s. The +ghost had a purpose, to warn that bad man of his death, but nobody knows +whose ghost she was!</p> +<h3>LORD LYTTELTON’S GHOST</h3> +<p>“Sir,” said Dr. Johnson, “it is the most extraordinary +thing that has happened in my day.” The doctor’s day +included the rising of 1745 and of the Wesleyans, the seizure of Canada, +the Seven Years’ War, the American Rebellion, the Cock Lane ghost, +and other singular occurrences, but “the most extraordinary thing” +was—Lord Lyttelton’s ghost! Famous as is that spectre, +nobody knows what it was, nor even whether there was any spectre at +all.</p> +<p>Thomas, Lord Lyttelton, was born in 1744. In 1768 he entered +the House of Commons. In 1769 he was unseated for bribery. +He then vanishes from public view, probably he was playing the prodigal +at home and abroad, till February, 1772, when he returned to his father’s +house, and married. He then went abroad (with a barmaid) till +1773, when his father died. In January, 1774, he took his seat +in the House of Lords. In November, 1779, Lyttelton went into +Opposition. On Thursday, 25th November, he denounced Government +in a magnificent speech. As to a sinecure which he held, he said, +“Perhaps I shall not keep it long!”</p> +<p><i>Something had Happened</i>!</p> +<p>On the night before his speech, that of Wednesday, 24th November, +Lyttelton had seen the ghost, and had been told that he would die in +three days. He mentioned this to Rowan Hamilton on the Friday. +<a name="citation129a"></a><a href="#footnote129a">{129a}</a> +On the same day, or on Friday, he mentioned it to Captain Ascough, who +told a lady, who told Mrs. Thrale. <a name="citation129b"></a><a href="#footnote129b">{129b}</a> +On the Friday he went to Epsom with friends, and mentioned the ghost +to them, among others to Mr. Fortescue. <a name="citation129c"></a><a href="#footnote129c">{129c}</a> +About midnight on 28th November, Lord Lyttelton died suddenly in bed, +his valet having left him for a moment to fetch a spoon for stirring +his medicine. The cause of death was not stated; there was no +inquest.</p> +<p>This, literally, is all that is <i>known</i> about Lord Lyttelton’s +ghost. It is variously described as: (1) “a young woman +and a robin” (Horace Walpole); (2) “a spirit” (Captain +Ascough); (3) a bird in a dream, “which changed into a woman in +white” (Lord Westcote’s narrative of 13th February, 1780, +collected from Lord Lyttelton’s guests and servants); (4) “a +bird turning into a woman” (Mrs. Delany, 9th December, 1779); +(5) a dream of a bird, followed by a woman, Mrs. Amphlett, in white +(Pitt Place archives after 1789); (6) “a fluttering noise, as +of a bird, followed by the apparition of a woman who had committed suicide +after being seduced by Lyttelton” (Lady Lyttelton, 1828); (7) +a bird “which vanished when a female spirit in white raiment presented +herself” (<i>Scots Magazine</i>, November-December, 1779).</p> +<p>Out of seven versions, a bird, or a fluttering noise as of a bird +(a common feature in ghost stories), <a name="citation130a"></a><a href="#footnote130a">{130a}</a> +with a woman following or accompanying, occurs in six. The phenomena +are almost equally ascribed to dreaming and to waking hallucination, +but the common-sense of the eighteenth century called all ghosts “dreams”. +In the Westcote narrative (1780) Lyttelton explains the dream by his +having lately been in a room with a lady, Mrs. Dawson, when a robin +flew in. Yet, in the same narrative, Lyttelton says on Saturday +morning “that he was very well, and believed he should bilk the +<i>ghost</i>”. He was certainly in bed at the time of the +experience, and probably could not be sure whether he was awake or asleep. +<a name="citation130b"></a><a href="#footnote130b">{130b}</a></p> +<p>Considering the remoteness of time, the story is very well recorded. +It is chronicled by Mrs. Thrale before the news of Lyttelton’s +death reached her, and by Lady Mary Coke two days later, by Walpole +on the day after the peer’s decease, of which he had heard. +Lord Lyttelton’s health had for some time been bad; he had made +his will a few weeks before, and his nights were horror-haunted. +A little boy, his nephew, to whom he was kind, used to find the wicked +lord sitting by his bed at night, because he dared not be alone. +So Lockhart writes to his daughter, Mrs. Hope Scott. <a name="citation131"></a><a href="#footnote131">{131}</a> +He had strange dreams of being in hell with the cruel murderess, Mrs. +Brownrigg, who “whipped three female ’prentices to death +and hid them in the coal-hole”. Such a man might have strange +fancies, and a belief in approaching death might bring its own fulfilment. +The hypothesis of a premeditated suicide, with the story of the ghost +as a last practical joke, has no corroboration. It occurred to +Horace Walpole at once, but he laid no stress on it.</p> +<p>Such is a plain, dry, statistical account of the most extraordinary +event that happened in Dr. Johnson’s day.</p> +<p>However, the story does not end here. On the fatal night, 27th +November, 1779, Mr. Andrews, M.P., a friend of Lyttelton’s was +awakened by finding Lord Lyttelton drawing his curtains. Suspecting +a practical joke, he hunted for his lordship both in his house and in +the garden. Of course he never found him. The event was +promptly recorded in the next number of the <i>Scots Magazine</i>, December, +1779. <a name="citation132"></a><a href="#footnote132">{132}</a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII<br /> +More Ghosts With A Purpose</h2> +<p><i>The Slaying of Sergeant Davies in 1749. The Trial. +Scott’s Theory. Curious recent Corroboration of Sir Walter’s +Hypothesis. Other Trials involving Ghostly Evidence. Their +Want of Authenticity. “Fisher’s Ghost” criticised. +The Aylesbury Murder. The Dog o’ Mause. The Ghosts +of Dogs. Peter’s Ghost.</i></p> +<p>Much later in time than the ghost of Sir George Villiers is the ghost +of Sergeant Davies, of Guise’s regiment. His purpose was, +first, to get his body buried; next, to bring his murderers to justice. +In this latter desire he totally failed.</p> +<h3>THE SLAYING OF SERGEANT DAVIES</h3> +<p>We now examine a ghost with a purpose; he wanted to have his bones +buried. The Highlands, in spite of Culloden, were not entirely +pacified in the year 1749. Broken men, robbers, fellows with wrongs +unspeakable to revenge, were out in the heather. The hills that +seemed so lonely were not bare of human life. A man was seldom +so solitary but that eyes might be on him from cave, corry, wood, or +den. The Disarming Act had been obeyed in the usual style: old +useless weapons were given up to the military. But the spirit +of the clans was not wholly broken. Even the old wife of Donald +Ban, when he was “sair hadden down by a Bodach” (ghost) +asked the spirit to answer one question, “Will the Prince come +again?” The song expressed the feelings of the people:—</p> +<blockquote><p>The wind has left me bare indeed,<br /> +And blawn my bonnet off my heid,<br /> +But something’s hid in Hieland brae,<br /> +The wind’s no blawn my sword away!</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Traffickers came and went from Prince Charles to Cluny, from Charles +in the Convent of St. Joseph to Cluny lurking on Ben Alder. Kilt +and tartan were worn at the risk of life or liberty, in short, the embers +of the rising were not yet extinct.</p> +<p>At this time, in the summer of 1749, Sergeant Arthur Davies, of Guise’s +regiment, marched with eight privates from Aberdeen to Dubrach in Braemar, +while a corporal’s guard occupied the Spital of Glenshee, some +eight miles away. “A more waste tract of mountain and bog, +rocks and ravines, without habitations of any kind till you reach Glenclunie, +is scarce to be met with in Scotland,” says Sir Walter.</p> +<p>The sergeant’s business was the general surveillance of the +country side. He was a kindly prosperous man, liked in the country, +fond of children, newly married, and his wife bore witness “that +he and she lived together in as great amity and love as any couple could +do, and that he never was in use to stay away a night from her”.</p> +<p>The sergeant had saved fifteen guineas and a half; he carried the +gold in a green silk purse, and was not averse to displaying it. +He wore a silver watch, and two gold rings, one with a peculiar knob +on the bezel. He had silver buckles to his brogues, silver knee-buckles, +two dozen silver buttons on a striped lute-string waistcoat, and he +carried a gun, a present from an officer in his regiment. His +dress, on the fatal 28th of September, was “a blue surtout coat, +with a striped silk vest, and <i>teiken</i> breeches and brown stockings”. +His hair, of “a dark mouse colour,” was worn in a silk ribbon, +his hat was silver laced, and bore his initials cut in the felt. +Thus attired, “a pretty man,” Sergeant Davies said good-bye +to his wife, who never saw him again, and left his lodgings at Michael +Farquharson’s early on 28th September. He took four men +with him, and went to meet the patrol from Glenshee. On the way +he met John Growar in Glenclunie, who spoke with him “about a +tartan coat, which the sergeant had observed him to drop, and after +strictly enjoining him not to use it again, dismissed him, instead of +making him prisoner”.</p> +<p>This encounter was after Davies left his men, before meeting the +patrol, it being his intention to cross the hill and try for a shot +at a stag.</p> +<p>The sergeant never rejoined his men or met the patrol! He vanished +as if the fairies had taken him. His captain searched the hill +with a band of men four days after the disappearance, but to no avail. +Various rumours ran about the country, among others a clatter that Davies +had been killed by Duncan Clerk and Alexander Bain Macdonald. +But the body was undiscovered.</p> +<p>In June, one Alexander Macpherson came to Donald Farquharson, son +of the man with whom Davies had been used to lodge. Macpherson +(who was living in a sheiling or summer hut of shepherds on the hills) +said that he “was greatly troubled by the ghost of Sergeant Davies, +who insisted that he should bury his bones, and that, he having declined +to bury them, the ghost insisted that he should apply to Donald Farquharson”. +Farquharson “could not believe this,” till Macpherson invited +him to come and see the bones. Then Farquharson went with the +other, “as he thought it might possibly be true, and if it was, +he did not know but the apparition might trouble himself”.</p> +<p>The bones were found in a peat moss, about half a mile from the road +taken by the patrols. There, too, lay the poor sergeant’s +mouse-coloured hair, with rags of his blue cloth and his brogues, without +the silver buckles, and there did Farquharson and Macpherson bury them +all.</p> +<p>Alexander Macpherson, in his evidence at the trial, declared that, +late in May, 1750, “when he was in bed, a vision appeared to him +as of a man clothed in blue, who said, ‘<i>I am Sergeant Davies</i>!’”. +At first Macpherson thought the figure was “a real living man,” +a brother of Donald Farquharson’s. He therefore rose and +followed his visitor to the door, where the ghost indicated the position +of his bones, and said that Donald Farquharson would help to inter them. +Macpherson next day found the bones, and spoke to Growar, the man of +the tartan coat (as Growar admitted at the trial). Growar said +if Macpherson did not hold his tongue, he himself would inform Shaw +of Daldownie. Macpherson therefore went straight to Daldownie, +who advised him to bury the bones privily, not to give the country a +bad name for a rebel district. While Macpherson was in doubt, +and had not yet spoken to Farquharson, the ghost revisited him at night +and repeated his command. He also denounced his murderers, Clerk +and Macdonald, which he had declined to do on his first appearance. +He spoke in Gaelic, which, it seems, was a language not known by the +sergeant.</p> +<p>Isobel MacHardie, in whose service Macpherson was, deponed that one +night in summer, June, 1750, while she lay at one end of the sheiling +(a hill hut for shepherds or neatherds) and Macpherson lay at the other, +“she saw something naked come in at the door, which frighted her +so much that she drew the clothes over her head. That when it +appeared it came in in a bowing posture, and that next morning she asked +Macpherson what it was that had troubled them in the night before. +To which he answered that she might be easy, for it would not trouble +them any more.”</p> +<p>All this was in 1750, but Clerk and Macdonald were not arrested till +September, 1753. They were then detained in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh +on various charges, as of wearing the kilt, till June, 1754, when they +were tried, Grant of Prestongrange prosecuting, aided by Haldane, Home +and Dundas, while Lockhart and Mackintosh defended. It was proved +that Clerk’s wife wore Davies’s ring, that Clerk, after +the murder, had suddenly become relatively rich and taken a farm, and +that the two men, armed, were on the hill near the scene of the murder +on 28th September, 1749. Moreover, Angus Cameron swore that he +saw the murder committed. His account of his position was curious. +He and another Cameron, since dead, were skulking near sunset in a little +hollow on the hill of Galcharn. There he had skulked all day, +“waiting for Donald Cameron, <i>who was afterwards hanged</i>, +together with some of the said Donald’s companions from Lochaber”. +No doubt they were all honest men who had been “out,” and +they may well have been on Cluny’s business of conveying gold +from the Loch Arkaig hoard to Major Kennedy for the prince.</p> +<p>On seeing Clerk and Macdonald strike and shoot the man in the silver-laced +hat, Cameron and his companion ran away, nor did Cameron mention the +matter till nine months later, and then only to Donald (not he who was +hanged). Donald advised him to hold his tongue. This Donald +corroborated at the trial. The case against Clerk and Macdonald +looked very black, especially as some witnesses fled and declined to +appear. Scott, who knew Macintosh, the counsel for the prisoners, +says that their advocates and agent “were convinced of their guilt”. +Yet a jury of Edinburgh tradesmen, moved by Macintosh’s banter +of the apparition, acquitted the accused solely, as Scott believes, +because of the ghost and its newly-learned Gaelic. It is indeed +extraordinary that Prestongrange, the patron of David Balfour, allowed +his witnesses to say what the ghost said, which certainly “is +not evidence”. Sir Walter supposes that Macpherson and Mrs. +MacHardie invented the apparition as an excuse for giving evidence. +“The ghost’s commands, according to Highland belief, were +not to be disobeyed.” Macpherson must have known the facts +“by ordinary means”. We have seen that Clerk and Macdonald +were at once suspected; there was “a clatter” against them. +But Angus Cameron had not yet told his tale of what he saw. Then +who <i>did</i> tell? Here comes in a curious piece of evidence +of the year 1896. A friend writes (29th December, 1896):—</p> +<blockquote><p>“DEAR LANG,</p> +<p>“I enclose a tradition connected with the murder of Sergeant +Davies, which my brother picked up lately before he had read the story +in your Cock Lane. He had heard of the event before, both in Athole +and Braemar, and it was this that made him ask the old lady (see next +letter) about it.</p> +<p>“He thinks that Glenconie of your version (p. 256) must be +Glenclunie, into which Allt Chriostaidh falls. He also suggests +that the person who was chased by the murderers may have got up the +ghost, in order to shift the odium of tale-bearing to other shoulders. +The fact of being mixed up in the affair lends some support to the story +here related.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Here follows my friend’s brother’s narrative, the name +of the witness being suppressed.</p> +<h3>CONCERNING THE MURDER OF SERGEANT DAVIES</h3> +<p>There is at present living in the neighbourhood of --- an old lady, +about seventy years of age. Her maiden name is ---, <a name="citation140"></a><a href="#footnote140">{140}</a> +and she is a native of Braemar, but left that district when about twenty +years old, and has never been back to it even for a visit. On +being asked whether she had ever heard the story of Sergeant Davies, +she at first persisted in denying all knowledge of it. The ordinary +version was then related to her, and she listened quietly until it was +finished, when she broke out with:—</p> +<p>“That isn’t the way of it at all, for the men <i>were</i> +seen, and it was a forbear of my own that saw them. He had gone +out to try to get a stag, and had his gun and a deer-hound with him. +He saw the men on the hill doing something, and thinking they had got +a deer, he went towards them. When he got near them, the hound +began to run on in front of him, and at that minute <i>he saw what it +was they had</i>. He called to the dog, and turned to run away, +but saw at once that he had made a mistake, for he had called their +attention to himself, and a shot was fired after him, which wounded +the dog. He then ran home as fast as he could, never looking behind +him, and did not know how far the men followed him. Some time +afterwards the dog came home, and he went to see whether it was much +hurt, whereupon it flew at him, and had to be killed. They thought +that it was trying to revenge itself on him for having left it behind.”</p> +<p>At this point the old lady became conscious that she was telling +the story, and no more could be got out of her. The name of the +lady who keeps a secret of 145 years’ standing, is the name of +a witness in the trial. The whole affair is thoroughly characteristic +of the Highlanders and of Scottish jurisprudence after Culloden, while +the verdict of “Not Guilty” (when “Not Proven” +would have been stretching a point) is evidence to the “common-sense” +of the eighteenth century. <a name="citation141"></a><a href="#footnote141">{141}</a></p> +<p>There are other cases, in Webster, Aubrey and Glanvil of ghosts who +tried more successfully to bring their murderers to justice. But +the reports of the trials do not exist, or cannot be found, and Webster +lost a letter which he once possessed, which would have been proof that +ghostly evidence was given and was received at a trial in Durham (1631 +or 1632). Reports of old men present were collected for Glanvil, +but are entirely too vague.</p> +<p>The case of <i>Fisher’s Ghost</i>, which led to evidence being +given as to a murder in New South Wales, cannot be wholly omitted. +Fisher was a convict settler, a man of some wealth. He disappeared +from his station, and his manager (also a convict) declared that he +had returned to England. Later, a man returning from market saw +Fisher sitting on a rail; at his approach Fisher vanished. Black +trackers were laid on, found human blood on the rail, and finally discovered +Fisher’s body. The manager was tried, was condemned, acknowledged +his guilt and was hanged.</p> +<p>The story is told in <i>Household Words</i>, where Sir Frederick +Forbes is said to have acted as judge. No date is given. +In <i>Botany Bay</i>, <a name="citation142"></a><a href="#footnote142">{142}</a> +the legend is narrated by Mr. John Lang, who was in Sydney in 1842. +He gives no date of the occurrence, and clearly embellishes the tale. +In 1835, however, the story is told by Mr. Montgomery Martin in volume +iv. of his <i>History of the British Colonies</i>. He gives the +story as a proof of the acuteness of black trackers. Beyond saying +that he himself was in the colony when the events and the trial occurred, +he gives no date. I have conscientiously investigated the facts, +by aid of the Sydney newspapers, and the notes of the judge, Sir Frederick +Forbes. Fisher disappeared at the end of June, 1826, from Campbeltown. +Suspicion fell on his manager, Worral. A reward was offered late +in September. Late in October the constable’s attention +was drawn to blood-stains on a rail. Starting thence, the black +trackers found Fisher’s body. Worral was condemned and hanged, +after confession, in February, 1827. Not a word is said about +<i>why</i> the constable went to, and examined, the rail. But +Mr. Rusden, author of a <i>History of Australia</i>, knew the medical +attendant D. Farley (who saw Fisher’s ghost, and pointed out the +bloody rail), and often discussed it with Farley. Mr. Souttar, +in a work on Colonial traditions, proves the point that Farley told +his ghost story <i>before</i> the body of Fisher was found. But, +for fear of prejudicing the jury, the ghost was kept out of the trial, +exactly as in the following case.</p> +<h3>THE GARDENER’S GHOST</h3> +<p>Perhaps the latest ghost in a court of justice (except in cases about +the letting of haunted houses) “appeared” at the Aylesbury +Petty Session on 22nd August, 1829. On 25th October, 1828, William +Edden, a market gardener, was found dead, with his ribs broken, in the +road between Aylesbury and Thame. One Sewell, in August, 1829, +accused a man named Tyler, and both were examined at the Aylesbury Petty +Sessions. Mrs. Edden gave evidence that she sent five or six times +for Tyler “to come and see the corpse. . . . I had some +particular reasons for sending for him which I never did divulge. . +. . I will tell you my reasons, gentlemen, if you ask me, in the +face of Tyler, even if my life should be in danger for it.” +The reasons were that on the night of her husband’s murder, “something +rushed over me, and I thought my husband came by me. I looked +up, and I thought I heard the voice of my husband come from near my +mahogany table. . . . I thought I saw my husband’s apparition, +and the man that had done it, and that man was Tyler. . . . I +ran out and said, ‘O dear God! my husband is murdered, and his +ribs are broken’.”</p> +<p><i>Lord Nugent</i>—“What made you think your husband’s +ribs were broken?”</p> +<p>“He held up his hands like this, and I saw a hammer, or something +like a hammer, and it came into my mind that his ribs were broken.” +Sewell stated that the murder was accomplished by means of a hammer.</p> +<p>The prisoners were discharged on 13th September. On 5th March, +1830, they were tried at the Buckingham Lent Assizes, were found guilty +and were hanged, protesting their innocence, on 8th March, 1830.</p> +<p>“In the report of Mrs. Edden’s evidence (at the Assizes) +no mention is made of the vision.” <a name="citation144"></a><a href="#footnote144">{144}</a></p> +<p>Here end our ghosts in courts of justice; the following ghost gave +evidence of a murder, or rather, confessed to one, but was beyond the +reach of human laws.</p> +<p>This tale of 1730 is still current in Highland tradition. It +has, however, been improved and made infinitely more picturesque by +several generations of narrators. As we try to be faithful to +the best sources, the contemporary manuscript version is here reprinted +from <i>The Scottish Standard-Bearer</i>, an organ of the Scotch Episcopalians +(October and November, 1894).</p> +<h3>THE DOG O’ MAUSE</h3> +<p>Account of an apparition that appeared to William Soutar, <a name="citation145a"></a><a href="#footnote145a">{145a}</a> +in the Mause, 1730.</p> +<p>[This is a copy from that in the handwriting of Bishop Rattray, preserved +at Craighall, and which was found at Meikleour a few years ago, to the +proprietor of which, Mr. Mercer, it was probably sent by the Bishop.—W. +W. H., 3rd August, 1846.]</p> +<p>“I have sent you an account of an apparition as remarkable, +perhaps, as anything you ever heard of, and which, considered in all +its circumstances, leaves, I think, no ground of doubt to any man of +common-sense. The person to whom it appeared is one William Soutar, +a tenant of Balgowan’s, who lives in Middle Mause, within about +half a mile from this place on the other side of the river, and in view +from our windows of Craighall House. He is about thirty-seven +years of age, as he says, and has a wife and bairns.</p> +<p>“The following is an account from his own mouth; and because +there are some circumstances fit to be taken in as you go along, I have +given them with reference at the end, <a name="citation145b"></a><a href="#footnote145b">{145b}</a> +that I may not interrupt the sense of the account, or add anything to +it. Therefore, it begins:—</p> +<p>“‘In the month of December in the year 1728, about sky-setting, +I and my servant, with several others living in the town (farm-steading) +heard a scratching (screeching, crying), and I followed the noise, with +my servant, a little way from the town (farm-steading throughout). +We both thought we saw what had the appearance to be a fox, and hounded +the dogs at it, but they would not pursue it. <a name="citation146a"></a><a href="#footnote146a">{146a}</a></p> +<p>“‘About a month after, as I was coming from Blair <a name="citation146b"></a><a href="#footnote146b">{146b}</a> +alone, about the same time of the night, a big dog appeared to me, of +a dark greyish colour, between the Hilltown and Knockhead <a name="citation146c"></a><a href="#footnote146c">{146c}</a> +of Mause, on a lea rig a little below the road, and in passing by it +touched me sonsily (firmly) on the thigh at my haunch-bane (hip-bone), +upon which I pulled my staff from under my arm and let a stroke at it; +and I had a notion at the time that I hit it, and my haunch was painful +all that night. However, I had no great thought of its being anything +particular or extraordinary, but that it might be a mad dog wandering. +About a year after that, to the best of my memory, in December month, +about the same time of the night and in the same place, when I was alone, +it appeared to me again as before, and passed by me at some distance; +and then I began to think it might be something more than ordinary.</p> +<p>“‘In the month of December, 1730, as I was coming from +Perth, from the Claith (cloth) Market a little before sky-setting, it +appeared to me again, being alone, at the same place, and passed by +me just as before. I had some suspicion of it then likewise, but +I began to think that a neighbour of mine in the Hilltown having an +ox lately dead, it might be a dog that had been at the carrion, by which +I endeavoured to put the suspicion out of my head.</p> +<p>“‘On the second Monday of December, 1730, as I was coming +from Woodhead, a town (farm) in the ground of Drumlochy, it appeared +to me again in the same place just about sky-setting; and after it had +passed me as it was going out of my sight, it spoke with a low voice +so that I distinctly heard it, these words, “Within eight or ten +days do or die,” and it thereupon disappeared. No more passed +at that time. On the morrow I went to my brother, who dwells in +the Nether Aird of Drumlochy, and told him of the last and of all the +former appearances, which was the first time I ever spoke of it to anybody. +He and I went to see a sister of ours at Glenballow, who was dying, +but she was dead before we came. As we were returning home, I +desired my brother, whose name is James Soutar, to go forward with me +till we should be passed the place where it used to appear to me; and +just as we had come to it, about ten o’clock at night, it appeared +to me again just as formerly; and as it was passing over some ice I +pointed to it with my finger and asked my brother if he saw it, but +he said he did not, nor did his servant, who was with us. It spoke +nothing at that time, but just disappeared as it passed the ice.</p> +<p>“‘On the Saturday after, as I was at my own sheep-cots +putting in my sheep, it appeared to me again just after daylight, betwixt +day and skylight, and upon saying these words, “Come to the spot +of ground within half an hour,” it just disappeared; whereupon +I came home to my own house, and took up a staff and also a sword off +the head of the bed, and went straight to the place where it used formerly +to appear to me; and after I had been there some minutes and had drawn +a circle about me with my staff, it appeared to me. And I spoke +to it saying, “In the name of God and Jesus Christ, what are you +that troubles me?” and it answered me, “I am David Soutar, +George Soutar’s brother. <a name="citation148a"></a><a href="#footnote148a">{148a}</a> +I killed a man more than five-and-thirty years ago, when you was new +born, at a bush be-east the road, as you go into the Isle.” <a name="citation148b"></a><a href="#footnote148b">{148b}</a> +And as I was going away, I stood again and said, “David Soutar +was a man, and you appear like a dog,” whereupon it spoke to me +again, saying, “I killed him with a dog, and therefore I am made +to speak out of the mouth of a dog, and tell you you must go and bury +these bones”. Upon this I went straight to my brother to +his house, and told him what had happened to me. My brother having +told the minister of Blair, he and I came to the minister on Monday +thereafter, as he was examining in a neighbour’s house in the +same town where I live. And the minister, with my brother and +me and two or three more, went to the place where the apparition said +the bones were buried, when Rychalzie met us accidentally; and the minister +told Rychalzie the story in the presence of all that were there assembled, +and desired the liberty from him to break up the ground to search for +the bones. Rychalzie made some scruples to allow us to break up +the ground, but said he would go along with us to Glasclune <a name="citation149a"></a><a href="#footnote149a">{149a}</a>; +and if he advised, he would allow search to be made. Accordingly +he went straight along with my brother and me and James Chalmers, a +neighbour who lives in the Hilltown of Mause, to Glasclune, and told +Glasclune the story as above narrated; and he advised Rychalzie to allow +the search to be made, whereupon he gave his consent to it.</p> +<p>“‘The day after, being Friday, we convened about thirty +or forty men and went to the Isle, and broke up the ground in many places, +searching for the bones, but we found nothing.</p> +<p>“‘On Wednesday the 23rd December, about twelve o’clock, +when I was in my bed, I heard a voice but saw nothing; the voice said, +“Come away”. <a name="citation149b"></a><a href="#footnote149b">{149b}</a> +Upon this I rose out of my bed, cast on my coat and went to the door, +but did not see it. And I said, “In the name of God, what +do you demand of me now?” It answered, “Go, take up +these bones”. I said, “How shall I get these bones?” +It answered again, “At the side of a withered bush, <a name="citation150"></a><a href="#footnote150">{150}</a> +and there are but seven or eight of them remaining”. I asked, +“Was there any more guilty of that action but you?” +It answered, “No”. I asked again, “What is the +reason you trouble me?” It answered, “Because you +are the youngest”. Then said I to it, “Depart from +me, and give me a sign that I may know the particular spot, and give +me time”. [Here there is written on the margin in a different +hand, “You will find the bones at the side of a withered bush. +There are but eight of them, and for a sign you will find the print +of a cross impressed on the ground.”] On the morrow, being +Thursday, I went alone to the Isle to see if I could find any sign, +and immediately I saw both the bush, which was a small bush, the greatest +stick in it being about the thickness of a staff, and it was withered +about half-way down; and also the sign, which was about a foot from +the bush. The sign was an exact cross, thus X; each of the two +lines was about a foot and a half in length and near three inches broad, +and more than an inch deeper than the rest of the ground, as if it had +been pressed down, for the ground was not cut. On the morrow, +being Friday, I went and told my brother of the voice that had spoken +to me, and that I had gone and seen the bush which it directed me to +and the above-mentioned sign at it. The next day, being Saturday, +my brother and I went, together with seven or eight men with us, to +the Isle. About sun-rising we all saw the bush and the sign at +it; and upon breaking up the ground just at the bush, we found the bones, +<i>viz</i>., the chaft-teeth (jaw-teeth-molars) in it, one of the thigh +bones, one of the shoulder blades, and a small bone which we supposed +to be a collar bone, which was more consumed than any of the rest, and +two other small bones, which we thought to be bones of the sword-arm. +By the time we had digged up those bones, there convened about forty +men who also saw them. The minister and Rychalzie came to the +place and saw them.</p> +<p>“‘We immediately sent to the other side of the water, +to Claywhat, <a name="citation151"></a><a href="#footnote151">{151}</a> +to a wright that was cutting timber there, whom Claywhat brought over +with him, who immediately made a coffin for the bones, and my wife brought +linen to wrap them in, and I wrapped the bones in the linen myself and +put them in the coffin before all these people, and sent for the mort-cloth +and buried them in the churchyard of Blair that evening. There +were near an hundred persons at the burial, and it was a little after +sunset when they were buried.’”</p> +<p>“This above account I have written down as dictated to me by +William Soutar in the presence of Robert Graham, brother to the Laird +of Balgowan, and of my two sons, James and John Rattray, at Craighall, +30th December, 1730.</p> +<p>“We at Craighall heard nothing of this history till after the +search was over, but it was told us on the morrow by some of the servants +who had been with the rest at the search; and on Saturday Glasclune’s +son came over to Craighall and told us that William Soutar had given +a very distinct account of it to his father.</p> +<p>“On St. Andrew’s Day, the 1st of December, this David +Soutar (the ghost) listed himself a soldier, being very soon after the +time the apparition said the murder was committed, and William Soutar +declares he had no remembrance of him till that apparition named him +as brother to George Soutar; then, he said, he began to recollect that +when he was about ten years of age he had seen him once at his father’s +in a soldier’s habit, after which he went abroad and was never +more heard of; neither did William ever before hear of his having listed +as a soldier, neither did William ever before hear of his having killed +a man, nor, indeed, was there ever anything heard of it in the country, +and it is not yet known who the person was that was killed, and whose +bones are now found.</p> +<p>“My son John and I went within a few days after to visit Glasclune, +and had the account from him as William had told him over. From +thence we went to Middle Mause to hear it from himself; but he being +from home, his father, who also lives in that town, gave us the same +account of it which Glasclune had done, and the poor man could not refrain +from shedding tears as he told it, as Glasclune told us his son was +under very great concern when he spoke of it to him. We all thought +this a very odd story, and were under suspense about it because the +bones had not been found upon the search.</p> +<p>“(Another account that also seems to have been written by the +bishop mentions that the murderer on committing the deed went home, +and on looking in at the window he saw William Soutar lying in a cradle—hence +it was the ghaist always came to him, and not to any of the other relations.)”</p> +<p>Mr. Hay Newton, of Newton Hall, a man of great antiquarian tastes +in the last generation, wrote the following notes on the matter:—</p> +<p>“Widow M’Laren, aged seventy-nine, a native of Braemar, +but who has resided on the Craighall estate for sixty years, says that +the tradition is that the man was murdered for his money; that he was +a Highland drover on his return journey from the south; that he arrived +late at night at the Mains of Mause and wished to get to Rychalzie; +that he stayed at the Mains of Mause all night, but left it early next +morning, when David Soutar with his dog accompanied him to show him +the road; but that with the assistance of the dog he murdered the drover +and took his money at the place mentioned; that there was a tailor at +work in his father’s house that morning when he returned after +committing the murder (according to the custom at that date by which +tailors went out to make up customers’ own cloth at their own +houses), and that his mother being surprised at his strange appearance, +asked him what he had been about, to which inquiry he made no reply; +that he did not remain long in the country afterwards, but went to England +and never returned. The last time he was seen he went down by +the Brae of Cockridge. A man of the name of Irons, a fisherman +in Blairgowrie, says that his father, who died a very old man some years +ago, was present at the getting of the bones. Mr. Small, Finzyhan, +when bringing his daughter home from school in Edinburgh, saw a coffin +at the door of a public house near Rychalzie where he generally stopped, +but he did not go in as usual, thinking that there was a death in the +family. The innkeeper came out and asked him why he was passing +the door, and told him the coffin contained the bones of the murdered +man which had been collected, upon which he went into the house.</p> +<p>“The Soutars disliked much to be questioned on the subject +of the Dog of Mause. Thomas Soutar, who was tenant in Easter Mause, +formerly named Knowhead of Mause, and died last year upwards of eighty +years of age, said that the Soutars came originally from Annandale, +and that their name was Johnston; that there were three brothers who +fled from that part of the country on account of their having killed +a man; that they came by Soutar’s Hill, and having asked the name +of the hill, were told ‘Soutar,’ upon which they said, ‘Soutar +be it then,’ and took that name. One of the brothers went +south and the others came north.” <a name="citation155a"></a><a href="#footnote155a">{155a}</a></p> +<p>The appearance of human ghosts in the form of beasts is common enough; +in Shropshire they usually “come” as bulls. (See Miss +Burne’s <i>Shropshire Folklore</i>.) They do not usually +speak, like the Dog o’ Mause. M. d’Assier, a French +Darwinian, explains that ghosts revert “atavistically” to +lower forms of animal life! <a name="citation155b"></a><a href="#footnote155b">{155b}</a></p> +<p>We now, in accordance with a promise already made, give an example +of the ghosts of beasts! Here an explanation by the theory that +the consciousness of the beast survives death and affects with a hallucination +the minds of living men and animals, will hardly pass current. +But if such cases were as common and told on evidence as respectable +as that which vouches for appearances of the dead, believers in these +would either have to shift their ground, or to grant that</p> +<blockquote><p>Admitted to that equal sky,<br /> +Our faithful dog may bear us company.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>We omit such things as the dripping death wraith of a drowned cat +who appeared to a lady, or the illused monkey who died in a Chinese +house, after which he haunted it by rapping, secreting objects, and, +in short, in the usual way. <a name="citation155c"></a><a href="#footnote155c">{155c}</a> +We adduce</p> +<h3>PETER’S GHOST</h3> +<p>A naval officer visited a friend in the country. Several men +were sitting round the smoking-room fire when he arrived, and a fox-terrier +was with them. Presently the heavy, shambling footsteps of an +old dog, and the metallic shaking sound of his collar, were heard coming +up stairs.</p> +<p>“Here’s old Peter!” said his visitor.</p> +<p>“<i>Peter’s dead</i>!” whispered his owner.</p> +<p>The sounds passed through the closed door, heard by all; they pattered +into the room; the fox-terrier bristled up, growled, and pursued a viewless +object across the carpet; from the hearth-rug sounded a shake, a jingle +of a collar and the settling weight of a body collapsing into repose. +<a name="citation156"></a><a href="#footnote156">{156}</a></p> +<p>This pleasing anecdote rests on what is called <i>nautical evidence</i>, +which, for reasons inexplicable to me, was (in these matters) distrusted +by Sir Walter Scott.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> +<p><i>More Ghosts with a Purpose. Ticonderoga. The Beresford +Ghost. Sources of Evidence. The Family Version. A +New Old-Fashioned Ghost. Half-past One o’clock. Put +out the Light</i>!</p> +<p>The ghost in the following famous tale had a purpose. He was +a Highland ghost, a Campbell, and desired vengeance on a Macniven, who +murdered him. The ghost, practically, “cried <i>Cruachan</i>,” +and tried to rouse the clan. Failing in this, owing to Inverawe’s +loyalty to his oath, the ghost uttered a prophecy.</p> +<p>The tale is given in the words of Miss Elspeth Campbell, who collected +it at Inverawe from a Highland narrator. She adds a curious supplementary +tradition in the Argyle family.</p> +<h3>TICONDEROGA</h3> +<p>It was one evening in the summer of the year 1755 that Campbell of +Inverawe <a name="citation157"></a><a href="#footnote157">{157}</a> +was on Cruachan hill side. He was startled by seeing a man coming +towards him at full speed; a man ragged, bleeding, and evidently suffering +agonies of terror. “The avengers of blood are on my track, +Oh, save me!” the poor wretch managed to gasp out. Inverawe, +filled with pity for the miserable man, swore “By the word of +an Inverawe which never failed friend or foe yet” to save him.</p> +<p>Inverawe then led the stranger to the secret cave on Cruachan hill +side.</p> +<p>None knew of this cave but the laird of Inverawe himself, as the +secret was most carefully kept and had been handed down from father +to son for many generations. The entrance was small, and no one +passing would for an instant suspect it to be other than a tod’s +hole, <a name="citation158a"></a><a href="#footnote158a">{158a}</a> +but within were fair-sized rooms, one containing a well of the purest +spring water. It is said that Wallace and Bruce had made use of +this cave in earlier days.</p> +<p>Here Inverawe left his guest. The man was so overcome by terror +that he clung on to Inverawe’s plaid, <a name="citation158b"></a><a href="#footnote158b">{158b}</a> +imploring him not to leave him alone. Inverawe was filled with +disgust at this cowardly conduct, and already almost repented having +plighted his word to save such a worthless creature.</p> +<p>On Inverawe’s return home he found a man in a state of great +excitement waiting to see him. This man informed him of the murder +of his (Inverawe’s) foster-brother by one Macniven. “We +have,” said he, “tracked the murderer to within a short +distance of this place, and I am here to warn you in case he should +seek your protection.” Inverawe turned pale and remained +silent, not knowing what answer to give. The man, knowing the +love that subsisted between the foster-brothers, thought this silence +arose from grief alone, and left the house to pursue the search for +Macniven further.</p> +<p>The compassion Inverawe felt for the trembling man he had left in +the cave turned to hate when he thought of his beloved foster-brother +murdered; but as he had plighted his word to save him, save him he must +and would. As soon, therefore, as night fell he went to the cave +with food, and promised to return with more the next day.</p> +<p>Thoroughly worn out, as soon as he reached home he retired to rest, +but sleep he could not. So taking up a book he began to read. +A shadow fell across the page. He looked up and saw his foster-brother +standing by the bedside. But, oh, how changed! His fair +hair clotted with blood; his face pale and drawn, and his garments all +gory. He uttered the following words: “Inverawe, shield +not the murderer; blood must flow for blood,” and then faded away +out of sight.</p> +<p>In spite of the spirit’s commands, Inverawe remained true to +his promise, and returned next day to Macniven with fresh provisions. +That night his foster-brother again appeared to him uttering the same +warning: “Inverawe, Inverawe, shield not the murderer; blood must +flow for blood”. At daybreak Inverawe hurried off to the +cave, and said to Macniven: “I can shield you no longer; you must +escape as best you can”. Inverawe now hoped to receive no +further visit from the vengeful spirit. In this he was disappointed, +for at the usual hour the ghost appeared, and in anger said, “I +have warned you once, I have warned you twice; it is too late now. +We shall meet again at TICONDEROGA.”</p> +<p>Inverawe rose before dawn and went straight to the cave. Macniven +was gone!</p> +<p>Inverawe saw no more of the ghost, but the adventure left him a gloomy, +melancholy man. Many a time he would wander on Cruachan hill side, +brooding over his vision, and people passing him would see the far-away +look in his eyes, and would say one to the other: “The puir laird, +he is aye thinking on him that is gone”. Only his dearest +friends knew the cause of his melancholy.</p> +<p>In 1756 the war between the English and French in America broke out. +The 42nd regiment embarked, and landed at New York in June of that year. +Campbell of Inverawe was a major in the regiment. The lieut.-colonel +was Francis Grant. From New York the 42nd proceeded to Albany, +where the regiment remained inactive till the spring of 1757. +One evening when the 42nd were still quartered at this place, Inverawe +asked the colonel “if he had ever heard of a place called Ticonderoga”. +<a name="citation160"></a><a href="#footnote160">{160}</a> Colonel +Grant replied he had never heard the name before. Inverawe then +told his story. Most of the officers were present at the time; +some were impressed, others were inclined to look upon the whole thing +as a joke, but seeing how very much disturbed Inverawe was about it +all, even the most unbelieving refrained from bantering him.</p> +<p>In 1758 an expedition was to be directed against Ticonderoga, on +Lake George, a fort erected by the French. The Highlanders were +to form part of this expedition. The force was under Major-General +Abercromby.</p> +<p>Ticonderoga was called by the French St. Louis [really “Fort +Carillon”], and Inverawe knew it by no other name. One of +the officers told Colonel Grant that the Indian name of the place was +Ticonderoga. Grant, remembering Campbell’s story, said: +“For God’s sake don’t let Campbell know this, or harm +will come of it”.</p> +<p>The troops embarked on Lake George and landed without opposition +near the extremity of the lake early in July. They marched from +there, through woods, upon Ticonderoga, having had one successful skirmish +with the enemy, driving them back with considerable loss. Lord +Howe was killed in this engagement.</p> +<p>On the 10th of July the assault was directed to be commenced by the +picquets. <a name="citation162"></a><a href="#footnote162">{162}</a> +The Grenadiers were to follow, supported by the battalions and reserves. +The Highlanders and 55th regiment formed the reserve.</p> +<p>In vain the troops attempted to force their way through the abbatis, +they themselves being exposed to a heavy artillery and musket fire from +an enemy well under cover. The Highlanders could no longer be +restrained, and rushed forward from the reserve, cutting and carving +their way through trees and other obstacles with their claymores. +The deadly fire still continued from the fort. As no ladders had +been provided for scaling the breastwork, the soldiers climbed on to +one another’s shoulders, and made holes for their feet in the +face of the work with their swords and bayonets, but as soon as a man +reached the top he was thrown down. Captain John Campbell and +a few men succeeded at last in forcing their way over the breastworks, +but were immediately cut down.</p> +<p>After a long and desperate struggle, lasting in fact nearly four +hours, General Abercromby gave orders for a retreat. The troops +could hardly be prevailed upon to retire, and it was not till the order +had been given for the third time that the Highlanders withdrew from +the hopeless encounter. The loss sustained by the regiment was +as follows: eight officers, nine sergeants and 297 men killed; seventeen +officers, ten sergeants and 306 men wounded.</p> +<p>Inverawe, after having fought with the greatest courage, received +at length his death wound. Colonel Grant hastened to the dying +man’s side, who looked reproachfully at him, and said: “You +deceived me; this is Ticonderoga, for I have seen him”. +Inverawe never spoke again. Inverawe’s son, an officer in +the same regiment, also lost his life at Ticonderoga.</p> +<p>On the very day that these events were happening in far-away America, +two ladies, Miss Campbell of Ederein and her sister, were walking from +Kilmalieu to Inveraray, and had reached the then new bridge over the +Aray. One of them happened to look up at the sky. She gave +a call to her sister to look also. They both of them saw in the +sky what looked like a siege going on. They saw the different +regiments with their colours, and recognised many of their friends among +the Highlanders. They saw Inverawe and his son fall, and other +men whom they knew. When they reached Inveraray they told all +their friends of the vision they had just seen. They also took +down the names of those they had seen fall, and the time and date of +the occurrence. The well-known Danish physician, Sir William Hart, +was, together with an Englishman and a servant, walking round the Castle +of Inveraray. These men saw the same phenomena, and confirmed +the statements made by the two ladies. Weeks after the gazette +corroborated their statements in its account of the attempt made on +Ticonderoga. Every detail was correct in the vision, down to the +actual number of the killed and wounded.</p> +<p>But there was sorrow throughout Argyll long before the gazette appeared.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>We now give the best attainable version of a yet more famous legend, +“The Tyrone Ghost”.</p> +<p>The literary history of “The Tyrone Ghost” is curious. +In 1802 Scott used the tale as the foundation of his ballad, <i>The +Eve of St. John</i>, and referred to the tradition of a noble Irish +family in a note. In 1858 the subject was discussed in <i>Notes +and Queries</i>. A reference was given to Lyon’s privately +printed <i>Grand Juries of Westmeath from</i> 1751. The version +from that rare work, a version dated “Dublin, August, 1802,” +was published in <i>Notes and Queries</i> of 24th July, 1858. +In December, 1896, a member of the Beresford family published in <i>The +Nines</i> (a journal of the Wiltshire regiment), the account which follows, +derived from a MS. at Curraghmore, written by Lady Betty Cobbe, granddaughter +of the ghost-seer, Lady Beresford. The writer in <i>The Nines</i> +remembers Lady Betty. The account of 1802 is clearly derived from +the Curraghmore MS., but omits dates; calls Sir Tristram Beresford “Sir +Marcus “; leaves out the visit to Gill Hall, where the ghost appeared, +and substitutes blanks for the names of persons concerned. Otherwise +the differences in the two versions are mainly verbal.</p> +<h3>THE BERESFORD GHOST</h3> +<p>“There is at Curraghmore, the seat of Lord Waterford, in Ireland, +a manuscript account of the tale, such as it was originally received +and implicitly believed in by the children and grandchildren of the +lady to whom Lord Tyrone is supposed to have made the supernatural appearance +after death. The account was written by Lady Betty Cobbe, the +youngest daughter of Marcus, Earl of Tyrone, and granddaughter of Nicola +S., Lady Beresford. She lived to a good old age, in full use of +all her faculties, both of body and mind. I can myself remember +her, for when a boy I passed through Bath on a journey with my mother, +and we went to her house there, and had luncheon. She appeared +to my juvenile imagination a very appropriate person to revise and transmit +such a tale, and fully adapted to do ample justice to her subject-matter. +It never has been doubted in the family that she received the full particulars +in early life, and that she heard the circumstances, such as they were +believed to have occurred, from the nearest relatives of the two persons, +the supposed actors in this mysterious interview, <i>viz</i>., from +her own father, Lord Tyrone, who died in 1763, and from her aunt, Lady +Riverston, who died in 1763 also.</p> +<p>“These two were both with their mother, Lady Beresford, on +the day of her decease, and they, without assistance or witness, took +off from their parent’s wrist the black bandage which she had +always worn on all occasions and times, even at Court, as some very +old persons who lived well into the eighteenth century testified, having +received their information from eyewitnesses of the fact. There +was an oil painting of this lady in Tyrone House, Dublin, representing +her with a black ribbon bound round her wrist. This portrait disappeared +in an unaccountable manner. It used to hang in one of the drawing-rooms +in that mansion, with other family pictures. When Henry, Marquis +of Waterford, sold the old town residence of the family and its grounds +to the Government as the site of the Education Board, he directed Mr. +Watkins, a dealer in pictures, and a man of considerable knowledge in +works of art and vertu, to collect the pictures, etc., etc., which were +best adapted for removal to Curraghmore. Mr. Watkins especially +picked out this portrait, not only as a good work of art, but as one +which, from its associations, deserved particular care and notice. +When, however, the lot arrived at Curraghmore and was unpacked, no such +picture was found; and though Mr. Watkins took great pains and exerted +himself to the utmost to trace what had become of it, to this day (nearly +forty years), not a hint of its existence has been received or heard +of.</p> +<p>“John le Poer, Lord Decies, was the eldest son of Richard, +Earl of Tyrone, and of Lady Dorothy Annesley, daughter of Arthur, Earl +of Anglesey. He was born 1665, succeeded his father 1690, and +died 14th October, 1693. He became Lord Tyrone at his father’s +death, and is the ‘ghost’ of the story.</p> +<p>“Nicola Sophie Hamilton was the second and youngest daughter +and co-heiress of Hugh, Lord Glenawley, who was also Baron Lunge in +Sweden. Being a zealous Royalist, he had, together with his father, +migrated to that country in 1643, and returned from it at the Restoration. +He was of a good old family, and held considerable landed property in +the county Tyrone, near Ballygawley. He died there in 1679. +His eldest daughter and co-heiress, Arabella Susanna, married, in 1683, +Sir John Macgill, of Gill Hall, in the county Down.</p> +<p>“Nicola S. (the second daughter) was born in 1666, and married +Sir Tristram Beresford in 1687. Between that and 1693 two daughters +were born, but no son to inherit the ample landed estates of his father, +who most anxiously wished and hoped for an heir. It was under +these circumstances, and at this period, that the manuscripts state +that Lord Tyrone made his appearance after death; and all the versions +of the story, without variation, attribute the same cause and reason, +<i>viz</i>., a solemn promise mutually interchanged in early life between +John le Poer, then Lord Decies, afterwards Lord Tyrone, and Nicola S. +Hamilton, that whichever of the two died the first, should, if permitted, +appear to the survivor for the object of declaring the approval or rejection +by the Deity of the revealed religion as generally acknowledged: of +which the departed one must be fully cognisant, but of which they both +had in their youth entertained unfortunate doubts.</p> +<p>“In the month of October, 1693, Sir Tristram and Lady Beresford +went on a visit to her sister, Lady Macgill, at Gill Hall, now the seat +of Lord Clanwilliam, whose grandmother was eventually the heiress of +Sir J. Macgill’s property. One morning Sir Tristram rose +early, leaving Lady Beresford asleep, and went out for a walk before +breakfast. When his wife joined the table very late, her appearance +and the embarrassment of her manner attracted general attention, especially +that of her husband. He made anxious inquiries as to her health, +and asked her apart what had occurred to her wrist, which was tied up +with black ribbon tightly bound round it. She earnestly entreated +him not to inquire more then, or thereafter, as to the cause of her +wearing or continuing afterwards to wear that ribbon; ‘for,’ +she added, ‘you will never see me without it’. He +replied, ‘Since you urge it so vehemently, I promise you not to +inquire more about it’.</p> +<p>“After completing her hurried breakfast she made anxious inquiries +as to whether the post had yet arrived. It had not yet come in; +and Sir Tristram asked: ‘Why are you so particularly eager about +letters to-day?’ ‘Because I expect to hear of Lord +Tyrone’s death, which took place on Tuesday.’ ‘Well,’ +remarked Sir Tristram, ‘I never should have put you down for a +superstitious person; but I suppose that some idle dream has disturbed +you.’ Shortly after, the servant brought in the letters; +one was sealed with black wax. ‘It is as I expected,’ +she cries; ‘he is dead.’ The letter was from Lord +Tyrone’s steward to inform them that his master had died in Dublin, +on Tuesday, 14th October, at 4 p.m. Sir Tristram endeavoured to +console her, and begged her to restrain her grief, when she assured +him that she felt relieved and easier now that she knew the actual fact. +She added, ‘I can now give you a most satisfactory piece of intelligence, +<i>viz</i>., that I am with child, and that it will be a boy’. +A son was born in the following July. Sir Tristram survived its +birth little more than six years. After his death Lady Beresford +continued to reside with her young family at his place in the county +of Derry, and seldom went from home. She hardly mingled with any +neighbours or friends, excepting with Mr. and Mrs. Jackson, of Coleraine. +He was the principal personage in that town, and was, by his mother, +a near relative of Sir Tristram. His wife was the daughter of +Robert Gorges, LL.D. (a gentleman of good old English family, and possessed +of a considerable estate in the county Meath), by Jane Loftus, daughter +of Sir Adam Loftus, of Rathfarnham, and sister of Lord Lisburn. +They had an only son, Richard Gorges, who was in the army, and became +a general officer very early in life. With the Jacksons Lady Beresford +maintained a constant communication and lived on the most intimate terms, +while she seemed determined to eschew all other society and to remain +in her chosen retirement.</p> +<p>“At the conclusion of three years thus passed, one luckless +day “Young Gorges” most vehemently professed his passion +for her, and solicited her hand, urging his suit in a most passionate +appeal, which was evidently not displeasing to the fair widow, and which, +unfortunately for her, was successful. They were married in 1704. +One son and two daughters were born to them, when his abandoned and +dissolute conduct forced her to seek and to obtain a separation. +After this had continued for four years, General Gorges pretended extreme +penitence for his past misdeeds, and with the most solemn promises of +amendment induced his wife to live with him again, and she became the +mother of a second son. The day month after her confinement happened +to be her birthday, and having recovered and feeling herself equal to +some exertion, she sent for her son, Sir Marcus Beresford, then twenty +years old, and her married daughter, Lady Riverston. She also +invited Dr. King, the Archbishop of Dublin (who was an intimate friend), +and an old clergyman who had christened her, and who had always kept +up a most kindly intercourse with her during her whole life, to make +up a small party to celebrate the day.</p> +<p>“In the early part of it Lady Beresford was engaged in a kindly +conversation with her old friend the clergyman, and in the course of +it said: ‘You know that I am forty-eight this day’. +‘No, indeed,’ he replied; ‘you are only forty-seven, +for your mother had a dispute with me once on the very subject of your +age, and I in consequence sent and consulted the registry, and can most +confidently assert that you are only forty-seven this day.’ +‘You have signed my death-warrant, then,’ she cried; ‘leave +me, I pray, for I have not much longer to live, but have many things +of grave importance to settle before I die. Send my son and my +daughter to me immediately.’ The clergyman did as he was +bidden. He directed Sir Marcus and his sister to go instantly +to their mother; and he sent to the archbishop and a few other friends +to put them off from joining the birthday party.</p> +<p>“When her two children repaired to Lady Beresford, she thus +addressed them: ‘I have something of deep importance to communicate +to you, my dear children, before I die. You are no strangers to +the intimacy and the affection which subsisted in early life between +Lord Tyrone and myself. We were educated together when young, +under the same roof, in the pernicious principles of Deism. Our +real friends afterwards took every opportunity to convince us of our +error, but their arguments were insufficient to overpower and uproot +our infidelity, though they had the effect of shaking our confidence +in it, and thus leaving us wavering between the two opinions. +In this perplexing state of doubt we made a solemn promise one to the +other, that whichever died first should, if permitted, appear to the +other for the purpose of declaring what religion was the one acceptable +to the Almighty. One night, years after this interchange of promises, +I was sleeping with your father at Gill Hall, when I suddenly awoke +and discovered Lord Tyrone sitting visibly by the side of the bed. +I screamed out, and vainly endeavoured to rouse Sir Tristram. +“Tell me,” I said, “Lord Tyrone, why and wherefore +are you here at this time of the night?” “Have you +then forgotten our promise to each other, pledged in early life? +I died on Tuesday, at four o’clock. I have been permitted +thus to appear in order to assure you that the revealed religion is +the true and only one by which we can be saved. I am also suffered +to inform you that you are with child, and will produce a son, who will +marry my heiress; that Sir Tristram will not live long, when you will +marry again, and you will die from the effects of childbirth in your +forty-seventh year.” I begged from him some convincing sign +or proof so that when the morning came I might rely upon it, and feel +satisfied that his appearance had been real, and that it was not the +phantom of my imagination. He caused the hangings of the bed to +be drawn in an unusual way and impossible manner through an iron hook. +I still was not satisfied, when he wrote his signature in my pocket-book. +I wanted, however, more substantial proof of his visit, when he laid +his hand, which was cold as marble, on my wrist; the sinews shrunk up, +the nerves withered at the touch. “Now,” he said, +“let no mortal eye, while you live, ever see that wrist,” +and vanished. While I was conversing with him my thoughts were +calm, but as soon as he disappeared I felt chilled with horror and dismay, +a cold sweat came over me, and I again endeavoured but vainly to awaken +Sir Tristram; a flood of tears came to my relief, and I fell asleep.</p> +<p>“‘In the morning your father got up without disturbing +me; he had not noticed anything extraordinary about me or the bed-hangings. +When I did arise I found a long broom in the gallery outside the bedroom +door, and with great difficulty I unhooded the curtain, fearing that +the position of it might excite surprise and cause inquiry. I +bound up my wrist with black ribbon before I went down to breakfast, +where the agitation of my mind was too visible not to attract attention. +Sir Tristram made many anxious inquiries as to my health, especially +as to my sprained wrist, as he conceived mine to be. I begged +him to drop all questions as to the bandage, even if I continued to +adopt it for any length of time. He kindly promised me not to +speak of it any more, and he kept his promise faithfully. You, +my son, came into the world as predicted, and your father died six years +after. I then determined to abandon society and its pleasures +and not mingle again with the world, hoping to avoid the dreadful predictions +as to my second marriage; but, alas! in the one family with which I +held constant and friendly intercourse I met the man, whom I did not +regard with perfect indifference. Though I struggled to conquer +by every means the passion, I at length yielded to his solicitations, +and in a fatal moment for my own peace I became his wife. In a +few years his conduct fully justified my demand for a separation, and +I fondly hoped to escape the fatal prophecy. Under the delusion +that I had passed my forty-seventh birthday, I was prevailed upon to +believe in his amendment, and to pardon him. I have, however, +heard from undoubted authority that I am only forty-seven this day, +and I know that I am about to die. I die, however, without the +dread of death, fortified as I am by the sacred precepts of Christianity +and upheld by its promises. When I am gone, I wish that you, my +children, should unbind this black ribbon and alone behold my wrist +before I am consigned to the grave.’</p> +<p>“She then requested to be left that she might lie down and +compose herself, and her children quitted the apartment, having desired +her attendant to watch her, and if any change came on to summon them +to her bedside. In an hour the bell rang, and they hastened to +the call, but all was over. The two children having ordered every +one to retire, knelt down by the side of the bed, when Lady Riverston +unbound the black ribbon and found the wrist exactly as Lady Beresford +had described it—every nerve withered, every sinew shrunk.</p> +<p>“Her friend, the Archbishop, had had her buried in the Cathedral +of St. Patrick, in Dublin, in the Earl of Cork’s tomb, where she +now lies.”</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>The writer now professes his disbelief in any spiritual presence, +and explains his theory that Lady Beresford’s anxiety about Lord +Tyrone deluded her by a vivid dream, during which she hurt her wrist.</p> +<p>Of all ghost stories the Tyrone, or Beresford Ghost, has most variants. +Following Monsieur Hauréau, in the <i>Journal des Savants</i>, +I have tracked the tale, the death compact, and the wound inflicted +by the ghost on the hand, or wrist, or brow, of the seer, through Henry +More, and Melanchthon, and a mediæval sermon by Eudes de Shirton, +to William of Malmesbury, a range of 700 years. Mrs. Grant of +Laggan has a rather recent case, and I have heard of another in the +last ten years! Calmet has a case in 1625, the spectre leaves</p> +<blockquote><p>The sable score of fingers four</p> +</blockquote> +<p>on a board of wood.</p> +<p>Now for a modern instance of a gang of ghosts with a purpose!</p> +<p>When I narrated the story which follows to an eminent moral philosopher, +he remarked, at a given point, “Oh, the ghost <i>spoke</i>, did +she?” and displayed scepticism. The evidence, however, left +him, as it leaves me, at a standstill, not convinced, but agreeably +perplexed. The ghosts here are truly old-fashioned.</p> +<p>My story is, and must probably remain, entirely devoid of proof, +as far as any kind of ghostly influence is concerned. We find +ghosts appearing, and imposing a certain course of action on a living +witness, for definite purposes of their own. The course of action +prescribed was undeniably pursued, and apparently the purpose of the +ghosts was fulfilled, but what that purpose was their agent declines +to state, and conjecture is hopelessly baffled.</p> +<p>The documents in the affair have been published by the Society for +Psychical Research (<i>Proceedings</i>, vol. xi., p. 547), and are here +used for reference. But I think the matter will be more intelligible +if I narrate it exactly as it came under my own observation. The +names of persons and places are all fictitious, and are the same as +those used in the documents published by the S.P.R.</p> +<h3>HALF-PAST ONE O’CLOCK</h3> +<p>In October, 1893, I was staying at a town which we shall call Rapingham. +One night I and some kinsfolk dined with another old friend of all of +us, a Dr. Ferrier. In the course of dinner he asked <i>à +propos de bottes</i>:—</p> +<p>“Have you heard of the ghost in Blake Street?” a sunny, +pleasant street of respectable but uninteresting antiquity in Rapingham.</p> +<p>We had none of us heard of the ghost, and begged the doctor to enlighten +our ignorance. His story ran thus—I have it in his own writing +as far as its essence goes:—</p> +<p>“The house,” he said, “belongs to my friends, the +Applebys, who let it, as they live elsewhere. A quiet couple took +it and lived in it for five years, when the husband died, and the widow +went away. They made no complaint while tenants. The house +stood empty for some time, and all I know personally about the matter +is that I, my wife, and the children were in the dining-room one Sunday +when we heard unusual noises in the drawing-room overhead. We +went through the rooms but could find no cause or explanation of the +disturbance, and thought no more about it.</p> +<p>“About six or seven years ago I let the house to a Mr. Buckley, +who is still the tenant. He was unmarried, and his family consisted +of his mother and sisters. They preceded him to put the place +in order, and before his arrival came to me in some irritation complaining +that I had let them <i>a haunted house</i>! They insisted that +there were strange noises, as if heavy weights were being dragged about, +or heavy footsteps pacing in the rooms and on the stairs. I said +that I knew nothing about the matter. The stairs are of stone, +water is only carried up to the first floor, there is an unused system +of hot air pipes. <a name="citation177a"></a><a href="#footnote177a">{177a}</a> +Something went wrong with the water-main in the area once, but the noises +lasted after it was mended.</p> +<p>“I think Mr. Buckley when he arrived never heard anything unusual. +But one evening as he walked upstairs carrying an ink-bottle, he found +his hand full of some liquid. Thinking that he had spilt the ink, +he went to a window where he found his hand full of water, to account +for which there was no stain on the ceiling, or anything else that he +could discover. On another occasion one of the young ladies was +kneeling by a trunk in an attic, alone, when water was switched over +her face, as if from a wet brush. <a name="citation177b"></a><a href="#footnote177b">{177b}</a> +There was a small pool of water on the floor, and the wall beyond her +was sprinkled.</p> +<p>“Time went on, and the disturbances were very rare: in fact +ceased for two years till the present week, when Mrs. Claughton, a widow +accompanied by two of her children, came to stay with the Buckleys. +<a name="citation177c"></a><a href="#footnote177c">{177c}</a> +She had heard of the disturbances and the theory of hauntings—I +don’t know if these things interested her or not.</p> +<p>“Early on Monday, 9th October, Mrs. Claughton came to consult +me. Her story was this: About a quarter past one on Sunday night, +or Monday morning, she was in bed with one of her children, the other +sleeping in the room. She was awakened by footsteps on the stair, +and supposed that a servant was coming to call her to Miss Buckley, +who was ill. The steps stopped at the door, then the noise was +repeated. Mrs. Claughton lit her bedroom candle, opened the door +and listened. There was no one there. The clock on the landing +pointed to twenty minutes past one. Mrs. Claughton went back to +bed, read a book, fell asleep, and woke to find the candle still lit, +but low in the socket. She heard a sigh, and saw a lady, unknown +to her, her head swathed in a soft white shawl, her expression gentle +and refined, her features much emaciated.</p> +<p>“The Appearance said, ‘Follow me,’ and Mrs. Claughton, +taking the bedroom candle, rose and followed out on to the landing, +and so into the adjacent drawing-room. She cannot remember opening +the door, which the housemaid had locked outside, and she owns that +this passage is dreamlike in her memory. Seeing that her candle +was flickering out, she substituted for it a pink one taken from a chiffonier. +The figure walked nearly to the window, turned three-quarters round, +said ‘To-morrow!’ and was no more seen. Mrs. Claughton +went back to her room, where her eldest child asked:—</p> +<p>“‘Who is the lady in white?’</p> +<p>“‘Only me, mother, go to sleep,’ she thinks she +answered. After lying awake for two hours, with gas burning, she +fell asleep. The pink candle from the drawing-room chiffonier +was in her candlestick in the morning.</p> +<p>“After hearing the lady’s narrative I told her to try +change of air, which she declined as cowardly. So, as she would +stay on at Mr. Buckley’s, I suggested that an electric alarm communicating +with Miss Buckley’s room should be rigged up, and this was done.”</p> +<p>Here the doctor paused, and as the events had happened within the +week, we felt that we were at last on the track of a recent ghost.</p> +<p>“Next morning, about one, the Buckleys were aroused by a tremendous +peal of the alarm; Mrs. Claughton they found in a faint. Next +morning <a name="citation179"></a><a href="#footnote179">{179}</a> she +consulted me as to the whereabouts of a certain place, let me call it +‘Meresby’. I suggested the use of a postal directory; +we found Meresby, a place extremely unknown to fame, in an agricultural +district about five hours from London in the opposite direction from +Rapingham. To this place Mrs. Claughton said she must go, in the +interest and by the order of certain ghosts, whom she saw on Monday +night, and whose injunctions she had taken down in a note-book. +She has left Rapingham for London, and there,” said the doctor, +“my story ends for the present.”</p> +<p>We expected it to end for good and all, but in the course of the +week came a communication to the doctor in writing from Mrs. Claughton’s +governess. This lady, on Mrs. Claughton’s arrival at her +London house (Friday, 13th October), passed a night perturbed by sounds +of weeping, “loud moans,” and “a very odd noise overhead, +like some electric battery gone wrong,” in fact, much like the +“warning” of a jack running down, which Old Jeffrey used +to give at the Wesley’s house in Epworth. There were also +heavy footsteps and thuds, as of moving weighty bodies. So far +the governess.</p> +<p>This curious communication I read at Rapingham on Saturday, 14th +October, or Sunday, 15th October. On Monday I went to town. +In the course of the week I received a letter from my kinsman in Rapingham, +saying that Mrs. Claughton had written to Dr. Ferrier, telling him that +she had gone to Meresby on Saturday; had accomplished the bidding of +the ghosts, and had lodged with one Joseph Wright, the parish clerk. +Her duty had been to examine the Meresby parish registers, and to compare +certain entries with information given by the ghosts and written by +her in her note-book. If the entries in the parish register tallied +with her notes, she was to pass the time between one o’clock and +half-past one, alone, in Meresby Church, and receive a communication +from the spectres. All this she said that she had done, and in +evidence of her journey enclosed her half ticket to Meresby, which a +dream had warned her would not be taken on her arrival. She also +sent a white rose from a grave to Dr. Ferrier, a gentleman in no sympathy +with the Jacobite cause, which, indeed, has no connection whatever with +the matter in hand.</p> +<p>On hearing of this letter from Mrs. Claughton, I confess that, not +knowing the lady, I remained purely sceptical. The railway company, +however, vouched for the ticket. The rector of Meresby, being +appealed to, knew nothing of the matter. He therefore sent for +his curate and parish clerk.</p> +<p>“Did a lady pass part of Sunday night in the church?”</p> +<p>The clerk and the curate admitted that this unusual event <i>had</i> +occurred. A lady had arrived from London on Saturday evening; +had lodged with Wright, the parish clerk; had asked for the parish registers; +had compared them with her note-book after morning service on Sunday, +and had begged leave to pass part of the night in the church. +The curate in vain tried to dissuade her, and finally, washing his hands +of it, had left her to Wright the clerk. To him she described +a Mr. George Howard, deceased (one of the ghosts). He recognised +the description, and he accompanied her to the church on a dark night, +starting at one o’clock. She stayed alone, without a light, +in the locked-up church from 1.20 to 1.45, when he let her out.</p> +<p>There now remained no doubt that Mrs. Claughton had really gone to +Meresby, a long and disagreeable journey, and had been locked up in +the church alone at a witching hour.</p> +<p>Beyond this point we have only the statements of Mrs. Claughton, +made to Lord Bute, Mr. Myers and others, and published by the Society +for Psychical Research. She says that after arranging the alarm +bell on Monday night (October 9-10) she fell asleep reading in her dressing-gown, +lying outside her bed. She wakened, and found the lady of the +white shawl bending over her. Mrs. Claughton said: “Am I +dreaming, or is it true?” The figure gave, as testimony +to character, a piece of information. Next Mrs. Claughton saw +a male ghost, “tall, dark, healthy, sixty years old,” who +named himself as George Howard, buried in Meresby churchyard, Meresby +being a place of which Mrs. Claughton, like most people, now heard for +the first time. He gave the dates of his marriage and death, which +are correct, and have been seen by Mr. Myers in Mrs. Claughton’s +note-book. He bade her verify these dates at Meresby, and wait +at 1.15 in the morning at the grave of Richard Harte (a person, like +all of them, unknown to Mrs. Claughton) at the south-west corner of +the south aisle in Meresby Church. This Mr. Harte died on 15th +May, 1745, and missed many events of interest by doing so. Mr. +Howard also named and described Joseph Wright, of Meresby, as a man +who would help her, and he gave minute local information. Next +came a phantom of a man whose name Mrs. Claughton is not free to give; +<a name="citation182"></a><a href="#footnote182">{182}</a> he seemed +to be in great trouble, at first covering his face with his hands, but +later removing them. These three spectres were to meet Mrs. Claughton +in Meresby Church and give her information of importance on a matter +concerning, apparently, the third and only unhappy appearance. +After these promises and injunctions the phantoms left, and Mrs. Claughton +went to the door to look at the clock. Feeling faint, she rang +the alarum, when her friends came and found her in a swoon on the floor. +The hour was 1.20.</p> +<p>What Mrs. Claughton’s children were doing all this time, and +whether they were in the room or not, does not appear.</p> +<p>On Thursday Mrs. Claughton went to town, and her governess was perturbed, +as we have seen.</p> +<p>On Friday night Mrs. Claughton <i>dreamed</i> a number of things +connected with her journey; a page of the notes made from this dream +was shown to Mr. Myers. Thus her half ticket was not to be taken, +she was to find a Mr. Francis, concerned in the private affairs of the +ghosts, which needed rectifying, and so forth. These premonitions, +with others, were all fulfilled. Mrs. Claughton, in the church +at night, continued her conversation with the ghosts whose acquaintance +she had made at Rapingham. She obtained, it seems, all the information +needful to settling the mysterious matters which disturbed the male +ghost who hid his face, and on Monday morning she visited the daughter +of Mr. Howard in her country house in a park, “recognised the +strong likeness to her father, and carried out all things desired by +the dead to the full, as had been requested. . . . The wishes +expressed to her were perfectly rational, reasonable and of natural +importance.”</p> +<p>The clerk, Wright, attests the accuracy of Mrs. Claughton’s +description of Mr. Howard, whom he knew, and the correspondence of her +dates with those in the parish register and on the graves, which he +found for her at her request. Mr. Myers, “from a very partial +knowledge” of what the Meresby ghosts’ business was, thinks +the reasons for not revealing this matter “entirely sufficient”. +The ghosts’ messages to survivors “effected the intended +results,” says Mrs. Claughton.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>Of this story the only conceivable natural explanation is that Mrs. +Claughton, to serve her private ends, paid secret preliminary visits +to Meresby, “got up” there a number of minute facts, chose +a haunted house at the other end of England as a first scene in her +little drama, and made the rest of the troublesome journeys, not to +mention the uncomfortable visit to a dark church at midnight, and did +all this from a hysterical love of notoriety. This desirable boon +she would probably never have obtained, even as far as it is consistent +with a pseudonym, if I had not chanced to dine with Dr. Ferrier while +the adventure was only beginning. As there seemed to be a chance +of taking a ghost “on the half volley,” I at once communicated +the first part of the tale to the Psychical Society (using pseudonyms, +as here, throughout), and two years later Mrs. Claughton consented to +tell the Society as much as she thinks it fair to reveal.</p> +<p>This, it will be confessed, is a round-about way of obtaining fame, +and an ordinary person in Mrs. Claughton’s position would have +gone to the Psychical Society at once, as Mark Twain meant to do when +he saw the ghost which turned out to be a very ordinary person.</p> +<p>There I leave these ghosts, my mind being in a just balance of agnosticism. +If ghosts at all, they were ghosts with a purpose. The species +is now very rare.</p> +<p>The purpose of the ghost in the following instance was trivial, but +was successfully accomplished. In place of asking people to do +what it wanted, the ghost did the thing itself. Now the modern +theory of ghosts, namely, that they are delusions of the senses of the +seers, caused somehow by the mental action of dead or distant people, +does not seem to apply in this case. The ghost produced an effect +on a material object.</p> +<h3>“PUT OUT THE LIGHT!”</h3> +<p>The Rev. D. W. G. Gwynne, M.D., was a physician in holy orders. +In 1853 he lived at P--- House, near Taunton, where both he and his +wife “were made uncomfortable by auditory experiences to which +they could find no clue,” or, in common English, they heard mysterious +noises. “During the night,” writes Dr. Gwynne, “I +became aware of a draped figure passing across the foot of the bed towards +the fireplace. I had the impression that the arm was raised, pointing +with the hand towards the mantel-piece on which a night-light was burning. +Mrs. Gwynne at the same moment seized my arm, <i>and the light was extinguished</i>! +Notwithstanding, I distinctly saw the figure returning towards the door, +and being under the impression that one of the servants had found her +way into our room, I leaped out of bed to intercept the intruder, but +found and saw nothing. I rushed to the door and endeavoured to +follow the supposed intruder, and it was not until I found the door +locked, as usual, that I was painfully impressed. I need hardly +say that Mrs. Gwynne was in a very nervous state. She asked me +what I had seen, and I told her. She had seen the same figure,” +“but,” writes Mrs. Gwynne, “I distinctly <i>saw the +hand of the figure placed over the night-light</i>, <i>which was at +once extinguished</i>”. “Mrs. Gwynne also heard the +rustle of the ‘tall man-like figure’s’ garments. +In addition to the night-light there was moonlight in the room.”</p> +<p>“Other people had suffered many things in the same house, unknown +to Dr. and Mrs. Gwynne, who gave up the place soon afterwards.”</p> +<p>In plenty of stories we hear of ghosts who draw curtains or open +doors, and these apparent material effects are usually called part of +the seer’s delusion. But the night-light certainly went +out under the figure’s hand, and was relit by Dr. Gwynne. +Either the ghost was an actual entity, not a mere hallucination of two +people, or the extinction of the light was a curious coincidence. <a name="citation186"></a><a href="#footnote186">{186}</a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> +<p><i>Haunted Houses. Antiquity of Haunted Houses. Savage +Cases. Ancient Egyptian Cases. Persistence in Modern Times. +Impostures. Imaginary Noises. Nature of Noises. The +Creaking Stair. Ghostly Effects produced by the Living but Absent. +The Grocer’s Cough. Difficulty of Belief. My Gillie’s +Father’s Story. “Silverton Abbey.” The +Dream that Opened the Door. Abbotsford Noises. Legitimate +Haunting by the Dead. The Girl in Pink. The Dog in the Haunted +Room. The Lady in Black. Dogs Alarmed. The Dead Seldom +Recognised. Glamis. A Border Castle. Another Class +of Hauntings. A Russian Case. The Dancing Devil. The +Little Hands.</i></p> +<p>Haunted houses have been familiar to man ever since he has owned +a roof to cover his head. The Australian blacks possessed only +shelters or “leans-to,” so in Australia the spirits do their +rapping on the tree trunks; a native illustrated this by whacking a +table with a book. The perched-up houses of the Dyaks are haunted +by noisy routing agencies. We find them in monasteries, palaces, +and crofters’ cottages all through the Middle Ages. On an +ancient Egyptian papyrus we find the husband of the Lady Onkhari protesting +against her habit of haunting his house, and exclaiming: “What +wrong have I done,” exactly in the spirit of the “Hymn of +Donald Ban,” who was “sair hadden down by a bodach” +(noisy bogle) after Culloden. <a name="citation188a"></a><a href="#footnote188a">{188a}</a></p> +<p>The husband of Onkhari does not say <i>how</i> she disturbed him, +but the manners of Egyptian haunters, just what they remain at present, +may be gathered from a magical papyrus, written in Greek. Spirits +“wail and groan, or laugh dreadfully”; they cause bad dreams, +terror and madness; finally, they “practice stealthy theft,” +and rap and knock. The “theft” (by making objects +disappear mysteriously) is often illustrated in the following tales, +as are the groaning and knocking. <a name="citation188b"></a><a href="#footnote188b">{188b}</a> +St. Augustine speaks of hauntings as familiar occurrences, and we have +a chain of similar cases from ancient Egypt to 1896. Several houses +in that year were so disturbed that the inhabitants were obliged to +leave them. The newspapers were full of correspondence on the +subject.</p> +<p>The usual annoyances are apparitions (rare), flying about of objects +(not very common), noises of every kind (extremely frequent), groans, +screams, footsteps and fire-raising. Imposture has either been +proved or made very probable in ten out of eleven cases of volatile +objects between 1883 and 1895. <a name="citation188c"></a><a href="#footnote188c">{188c}</a> +Moreover, it is certain that the noises of haunted houses are not equally +audible by all persons present, even when the sounds are at their loudest. +Thus Lord St. Vincent, the great admiral, heard nothing during his stay +at the house of his sister, Mrs. Ricketts, while that lady endured terrible +things. After his departure she was obliged to recall him. +He arrived, and slept peacefully. Next day his sister told him +about the disturbances, after which he heard them as much as his neighbours, +and was as unsuccessful in discovering their cause. <a name="citation189"></a><a href="#footnote189">{189}</a></p> +<p>Of course this looks as if these noises were unreal, children of +the imagination. Noises being the staple of haunted houses, a +few words may be devoted to them. They are usually the <i>frou-frou</i> +or rustling sweep of a gown, footsteps, raps, thumps, groans, a sound +as if all the heavy furniture was being knocked about, crashing of crockery +and jingling of money. Of course, as to footsteps, people <i>may</i> +be walking about, and most of the other noises are either easily imitated, +or easily produced by rats, water pipes, cracks in furniture (which +the Aztecs thought ominous of death), and other natural causes. +The explanation is rather more difficult when the steps pace a gallery, +passing and repassing among curious inquirers, or in this instance.</p> +<h3>THE CREAKING STAIR</h3> +<p>A lady very well known to myself, and in literary society, lived +as a girl with an antiquarian father in an old house dear to an antiquary. +It was haunted, among other things, by footsteps. The old oak +staircase had two creaking steps, numbers seventeen and eighteen from +the top. The girl would sit on the stair, stretching out her arms, +and count the steps as they passed her, one, two, three, and so on to +seventeen and eighteen, <i>which always creaked</i>. <a name="citation190"></a><a href="#footnote190">{190}</a> +In this case rats and similar causes were excluded, though we may allow +for “expectant attention”. But this does not generally +work. When people sit up on purpose to look out for the ghost, +he rarely comes; in the case of the “Lady in Black,” which +we give later, when purposely waited for, she was never seen at all.</p> +<p>Discounting imposture, which is sometimes found, and sometimes merely +fabled (as in the Tedworth story), there remains one curious circumstance. +Specially ghostly noises are attributed to the living but absent.</p> +<h3>THE GROCER’S COUGH</h3> +<p>A man of letters was born in a small Scotch town, where his father +was the intimate friend of a tradesman whom we shall call the grocer. +Almost every day the grocer would come to have a chat with Mr. Mackay, +and the visitor, alone of the natives, had the habit of knocking at +the door before entering. One day Mr. Mackay said to his daughter, +“There’s Mr. Macwilliam’s knock. Open the door.” +But there was no Mr. Macwilliam! He was just leaving his house +at the other end of the street. From that day Mr. Mackay always +heard the grocer’s knock “a little previous,” accompanied +by the grocer’s cough, which was peculiar. Then all the +family heard it, including the son who later became learned. He, +when he had left his village for Glasgow, reasoned himself out of the +opinion that the grocer’s knock did herald and precede the grocer. +But when he went home for a visit he found that he heard it just as +of old. Possibly some local Sentimental Tommy watched for the +grocer, played the trick and ran away. This explanation presents +no difficulty, but the boy was never detected. <a name="citation191"></a><a href="#footnote191">{191}</a></p> +<p>Such anecdotes somehow do not commend themselves to the belief even +of people who can believe a good deal.</p> +<p>But “the spirits of the living,” as the Highlanders say, +have surely as good a chance to knock, or appear at a distance, as the +spirits of the dead. To be sure, the living do not know (unless +they are making a scientific experiment) what trouble they are giving +on these occasions, but one can only infer, like St. Augustine, that +probably the dead don’t know it either.</p> +<p>Thus,</p> +<h3>MY GILLIE’S FATHER’S STORY</h3> +<p>Fishing in Sutherland, I had a charming companion in the gillie. +He was well educated, a great reader, the best of salmon fishers, and +I never heard a man curse William, Duke of Cumberland, with more enthusiasm. +His father, still alive, was second-sighted, and so, to a moderate extent +and without theory, was my friend. Among other anecdotes (confirmed +in writing by the old gentleman) was this:—</p> +<p>The father had a friend who died in the house which they both occupied. +The clothes of the deceased hung on pegs in the bedroom. One night +the father awoke, and saw a stranger examining and handling the clothes +of the defunct. Then came a letter from the dead man’s brother, +inquiring about the effects. He followed later, and was the stranger +seen by my gillie’s father.</p> +<p>Thus the living but absent may haunt a house both noisily and by +actual appearance. The learned even think, for very exquisite +reasons, that “Silverton Abbey” <a name="citation192"></a><a href="#footnote192">{192}</a> +is haunted noisily by a “spirit of the living”. Here +is a case:—</p> +<h3>THE DREAM THAT KNOCKED AT THE DOOR</h3> +<p>The following is an old but good story. The Rev. Joseph Wilkins +died, an aged man, in 1800. He left this narrative, often printed; +the date of the adventure is 1754, when Mr. Wilkins, aged twenty-three, +was a schoolmaster in Devonshire. The dream was an ordinary dream, +and did not announce death, or anything but a journey. Mr. Wilkins +dreamed, in Devonshire, that he was going to London. He thought +he would go by Gloucestershire and see his people. So he started, +arrived at his father’s house, found the front door locked, went +in by the back door, went to his parents’ room, saw his father +asleep in bed and his mother awake. He said: “Mother, I +am going a long journey, and have come to bid you good-bye”. +She answered in a fright, “Oh dear son, thou art dead!” +Mr. Wilkins wakened, and thought nothing of it. As early as a +letter could come, one arrived from his father, addressing him as if +he were dead, and desiring him, if by accident alive, or any one into +whose hands the letter might fall, to write at once. The father +then gave his reasons for alarm. Mrs. Wilkins, being awake one +night, heard some one try the front door, enter by the back, then saw +her son come into her room and say he was going on a long journey, with +the rest of the dialogue. She then woke her husband, who said +she had been dreaming, but who was alarmed enough to write the letter. +No harm came of it to anybody.</p> +<p>The story would be better if Mr. Wilkins, junior, like Laud, had +kept a nocturnal of his dreams, and published his father’s letter, +with post-marks.</p> +<p>The story of the lady who often dreamed of a house, and when by chance +she found and rented it was recognised as the ghost who had recently +haunted it, is good, but is an invention!</p> +<p>A somewhat similar instance is that of the uproar of moving heavy +objects, heard by Scott in Abbotsford on the night preceding and the +night of the death of his furnisher, Mr. Bullock, in London. The +story is given in Lockhart’s <i>Life of Scott</i>, and is too +familiar for repetition.</p> +<p>On the whole, accepting one kind of story on the same level as the +other kind, the living and absent may unconsciously produce the phenomena +of haunted houses just as well as the dead, to whose alleged performances +we now advance. Actual appearances, as we have said, are not common, +and just as all persons do not hear the sounds, so many do not see the +appearance, even when it is visible to others in the same room. +As an example, take a very mild and lady-like case of haunting.</p> +<h3>THE GIRL IN PINK</h3> +<p>The following anecdote was told to myself, a few months after the +curious event, by the three witnesses in the case. They were connections +of my own, the father was a clergyman of the Anglican Church; he, his +wife and their daughter, a girl of twenty, were the “percipients”. +All are cheerful, sagacious people, and all, though they absolutely +agreed as to the facts in their experience, professed an utter disbelief +in “ghosts,” which the occurrence has not affected in any +way. They usually reside in a foreign city, where there is a good +deal of English society. One day they left the town to lunch with +a young fellow-countryman who lived in a villa in the neighbourhood. +There he was attempting to farm a small estate, with what measure of +success the story does not say. His house was kept by his sister, +who was present, of course, at the little luncheon party. During +the meal some question was asked, or some remark was made, to which +the clerical guest replied in English by a reference to “the maid-servant +in pink”.</p> +<p>“There is no maid in pink,” said the host, and he asked +both his other guests to corroborate him.</p> +<p>Both ladies, mother and daughter, were obliged to say that unless +their eyes deceived them, they certainly <i>had</i> seen a girl in pink +attending on them, or, at least, moving about in the room. To +this their entertainers earnestly replied that no such person was in +their establishment, that they had no woman servant but the elderly +cook and housekeeper, then present, who was neither a girl nor in pink. +After luncheon the guests were taken all over the house, to convince +them of the absence of the young woman whom they had seen, and assuredly +there was no trace of her.</p> +<p>On returning to the town where they reside, they casually mentioned +the circumstance as a curious illusion. The person to whom they +spoke said, with some interest, “Don’t you know that a girl +is said to have been murdered in that house before your friends took +it, and that she is reported to be occasionally seen, dressed in pink?”</p> +<p>They had heard of no such matter, but the story seemed to be pretty +generally known, though naturally disliked by the occupant of the house. +As for the percipients, they each and all remain firm in the belief +that, till convinced of the impossibility of her presence, they were +certain they had seen a girl in pink, and rather a pretty girl, whose +appearance suggested nothing out of the common. An obvious hypothesis +is discounted, of course, by the presence of the sister of the young +gentleman who farmed the estate and occupied the house.</p> +<p>Here is another case, mild but pertinacious.</p> +<h3>THE DOG IN THE HAUNTED ROOM</h3> +<p>The author’s friend, Mr. Rokeby, lives, and has lived for some +twenty years, in an old house at Hammersmith. It is surrounded +by a large garden, the drawing-room and dining-room are on the right +and left of the entrance from the garden, on the ground floor. +My friends had never been troubled by any phenomena before, and never +expected to be. However, they found the house “noisy,” +the windows were apt to be violently shaken at night and steps used +to be heard where no steps should be. Deep long sighs were audible +at all times of day. As Mrs. Rokeby approached a door, the handle +would turn and the door fly open. <a name="citation196"></a><a href="#footnote196">{196}</a> +Sounds of stitching a hard material, and of dragging a heavy weight +occurred in Mrs. Rokeby’s room, and her hair used to be pulled +in a manner for which she could not account. “These sorts +of things went on for about five years, when in October, 1875, about +three o’clock in the afternoon, I was sitting” (says Mrs. +Rokeby) “with three of my children in the dining-room, reading +to them. I rang the bell for the parlour-maid, when the door opened, +and on looking up I saw the figure of a woman come in and walk up to +the side of the table, stand there a second or two, and then turn to +go out again, but before reaching the door she seemed to dissolve away. +She was a grey, short-looking woman, apparently dressed in grey muslin. +I hardly saw the face, which seemed scarcely to be defined at all. +None of the children saw her,” and Mrs. Rokeby only mentioned +the affair at the time to her husband.</p> +<p>Two servants, in the next two months, saw the same figure, alike +in dress at least, in other rooms both by daylight and candle light. +They had not heard of Mrs. Rokeby’s experience, were accustomed +to the noises, and were in good health. One of them was frightened, +and left her place.</p> +<p>A brilliant light in a dark room, an icy wind and a feeling of being +“watched” were other discomforts in Mrs. Rokeby’s +lot. After 1876, only occasional rappings were heard, till Mr. +Rokeby being absent one night in 1883, the noises broke out, “banging, +thumping, the whole place shaking”. The library was the +centre of these exercises, and the dog, a fine collie, was shut up in +the library. Mrs. Rokeby left her room for her daughter’s, +while the dog whined in terror, and the noises increased in violence. +Next day the dog, when let out, rushed forth with enthusiasm, but crouched +with his tail between his legs when invited to re-enter.</p> +<p>This was in 1883. Several years after, Mr. Rokeby was smoking, +alone, in the dining-room early in the evening, when the dog began to +bristle up his hair, and bark. Mr. Rokeby looked up and saw the +woman in grey, with about half her figure passed through the slightly +open door. He ran to the door, but she was gone, and the servants +were engaged in their usual business. <a name="citation198a"></a><a href="#footnote198a">{198a}</a></p> +<p>Our next ghost offered many opportunities to observers.</p> +<h3>THE LADY IN BLACK</h3> +<p>A ghost in a haunted house is seldom observed with anything like +scientific precision. The spectre in the following narrative could +not be photographed, attempts being usually made in a light which required +prolonged exposure. Efforts to touch it were failures, nor did +it speak. On the other hand, it did lend itself, perhaps unconsciously, +to one scientific experiment. The story is unromantic; the names +are fictitious. <a name="citation198b"></a><a href="#footnote198b">{198b}</a></p> +<p>Bognor House, an eligible family residence near a large town, was +built in 1860, and occupied, till his death in 1876, by Mr. S. +He was twice married, and was not of temperate ways. His second +wife adopted his habits, left him shortly before his death, and died +at Clifton in 1878. The pair used to quarrel about some jewels +which Mr. S. concealed in the flooring of a room where the ghost was +never seen.</p> +<p>A Mr L. now took the house, but died six months later. Bognor +House stood empty for four years, during which there was vague talk +of hauntings. In April, 1882, the house was taken by Captain Morton. +This was in April; in June Miss Rose Morton, a lady of nineteen studying +medicine (and wearing spectacles), saw the first appearance. Miss +Morton did not mention her experiences to her family, her mother being +an invalid, and her brothers and sisters very young, but she transmitted +accounts to a friend, a lady, in a kind of diary letters. These +are extant, and are quoted.</p> +<p>Phenomena of this kind usually begin with noises, and go on to apparitions. +Miss Morton one night, while preparing to go to bed, heard a noise outside, +thought it was her mother, opened the door, saw a tall lady in black +holding a handkerchief to her face, and followed the figure till her +candle burned out. A widow’s white cuff was visible on each +wrist, the whole of the face was never seen. In 1882-84, Miss +Morton saw the figure about six times; it was thrice seen, once through +the window from outside, by other persons, who took it for a living +being. Two boys playing in the garden ran in to ask who was the +weeping lady in black.</p> +<p>On 29th January, 1884, Miss Morton spoke to her inmate, as the lady +in black stood beside a sofa. “She only gave a slight gasp +and moved towards the door. Just by the door I spoke to her again, +but she seemed as if she were quite unable to speak.” <a name="citation199"></a><a href="#footnote199">{199}</a> +In May and June Miss Morton fastened strings at different heights from +the stair railings to the wall, where she attached them with glue, but +she twice saw the lady pass through the cords, leaving them untouched. +When Miss Morton cornered the figure and tried to touch her, or pounce +on her, she dodged, or disappeared. But by a curious contradiction +her steps were often heard by several of the family, and when she heard +the steps, Miss Morton used to go out and follow the figure. There +is really no more to tell. Miss Morton’s father never saw +the lady, even when she sat on a sofa for half an hour, Miss Morton +watching her. Other people saw her in the garden crying, and sent +messages to ask what was the matter, and who was the lady in distress. +Many members of the family, boys, girls, married ladies, servants and +others often saw the lady in black. In 1885 loud noises, bumps +and turning of door handles were common, and though the servants were +told that the lady was quite harmless, they did not always stay. +The whole establishment of servants was gradually changed, but the lady +still walked. She appeared more seldom in 1887-1889, and by 1892 +even the light footsteps ceased. Two dogs, a retriever and a Skye +terrier, showed much alarm. “Twice,” says Miss Morton, +“I saw the terrier suddenly run up to the mat at the foot of the +stairs in the hall, wagging its tail, and moving its back in the way +dogs do when they expect to be caressed. It jumped up, fawning +as it would do if a person had been standing there, but suddenly slunk +away with its tail between its legs, and retreated, trembling, under +a sofa.” Miss Morton’s own emotion, at first, was +“a feeling of awe at something unknown, mixed with a strong desire +to know more about it”. <a name="citation200"></a><a href="#footnote200">{200}</a></p> +<p>This is a pretty tame case of haunting, as was conjectured, by an +unhappy <i>revenant</i>, the returned spirit of the second Mrs. S. +Here it may be remarked that apparitions in haunted houses are very +seldom recognised as those of dead persons, and, when recognised, the +recognition is usually dubious. Thus, in February, 1897, Lieutenant +Carr Glyn, of the Grenadiers, while reading in the outer room of the +Queen’s Library in Windsor, saw a lady in black in a kind of mantilla +of black lace pass from the inner room into a corner where she was lost +to view. He supposed that she had gone out by a door there, and +asked an attendant later who she was. There was no door round +the corner, and, in the opinion of some, the lady was Queen Elizabeth! +She has a traditional habit, it seems, of haunting the Library. +But surely, of all people, in dress and aspect Queen Elizabeth is most +easily recognised. The seer did not recognise her, and she was +probably a mere casual hallucination. In old houses such traditions +are common, but vague. In this connection Glamis is usually mentioned. +Every one has heard of the Secret Chamber, with its mystery, and the +story was known to Scott, who introduces it in <i>The Betrothed</i>. +But we know when the Secret Chamber was built (under the Restoration), +who built it, what he paid the masons, and where it is: under the Charter +Room. <a name="citation201"></a><a href="#footnote201">{201}</a> +These cold facts rather take the “weird” effect off the +Glamis legend.</p> +<p>The usual process is, given an old house, first a noise, then a hallucination, +actual or pretended, then a myth to account for the hallucination. +There is a castle on the border which has at least seven or eight distinct +ghosts. One is the famous Radiant Boy. He has been evicted +by turning his tapestried chamber into the smoking-room. For many +years not one ghost has been seen except the lady with the candle, viewed +by myself, but, being ignorant of the story, I thought she was one of +the maids. Perhaps she was, but she went into an empty set of +rooms, and did not come out again. Footsteps are apt to approach +the doors of these rooms in mirk midnight, the door handle turns, and +that is all.</p> +<p>So much for supposed hauntings by spirits of the dead.</p> +<p>At the opposite pole are hauntings by agencies whom nobody supposes +to be ghosts of inmates of the house. The following is an extreme +example, as the haunter proceeded to arson. This is not so very +unusual, and, if managed by an impostor, shows insane malevolence. <a name="citation202"></a><a href="#footnote202">{202}</a></p> +<h3>THE DANCING DEVIL</h3> +<p>On 16th November, 1870, Mr. Shchapoff, a Russian squire, the narrator, +came home from a visit to a country town, Iletski, and found his family +in some disarray. There lived with him his mother and his wife’s +mother, ladies of about sixty-nine, his wife, aged twenty, and his baby +daughter. The ladies had been a good deal disturbed. On +the night of the 14th, the baby was fractious, and the cook, Maria, +danced and played the harmonica to divert her. The baby fell asleep, +the wife and Mr. Shchapoff’s miller’s lady were engaged +in conversation, when a shadow crossed the blind on the outside. +They were about to go out and see who was passing, when they heard a +double shuffle being executed with energy in the loft overhead. +They thought Maria, the cook, was making a night of it, but found her +asleep in the kitchen. The dancing went on but nobody could be +found in the loft. Then raps began on the window panes, and so +the miller and gardener patrolled outside. Nobody!</p> +<p>Raps and dancing lasted through most of the night and began again +at ten in the morning. The ladies were incommoded and complained +of broken sleep. Mr. Shchapoff, hearing all this, examined the +miller, who admitted the facts, but attributed them to a pigeon’s +nest, which he had found under the cornice. Satisfied with this +rather elementary hypothesis, Mr. Shchapoff sat down to read Livingstone’s +<i>African Travels</i>. Presently the double shuffle sounded in +the loft. Mrs. Shchapoff was asleep in her bedroom, but was awakened +by loud raps. The window was tapped at, deafening thumps were +dealt at the outer wall, and the whole house thrilled. Mr. Shchapoff +rushed out with dogs and a gun, there were no footsteps in the snow, +the air was still, the full moon rode in a serene sky. Mr. Shchapoff +came back, and the double shuffle was sounding merrily in the empty +loft. Next day was no better, but the noises abated and ceased +gradually.</p> +<p>Alas, Mr. Shchapoff could not leave well alone. On 20th December, +to amuse a friend, he asked Maria to dance and play. Raps, in +tune, began on the window panes. Next night they returned, while +boots, slippers, and other objects, flew about with a hissing noise. +A piece of stuff would fly up and fall with a heavy hard thud, while +hard bodies fell soundless as a feather. The performances slowly +died away.</p> +<p>On Old Year’s Night Maria danced to please them; raps began, +people watching on either side of a wall heard the raps on the other +side. On 8th January, Mrs. Shchapoff fainted when a large, luminous +ball floated, increasing in size, from under her bed. The raps +now followed her about by day, as in the case of John Wesley’s +sisters. On these occasions she felt weak and somnolent. +Finally Mr. Shchapoff carried his family to his town house for much-needed +change of air.</p> +<p>Science, in the form of Dr. Shustoff, now hinted that electricity +or magnetic force was at the bottom of the annoyances, a great comfort +to the household, who conceived that the devil was concerned. +The doctor accompanied his friends to their country house for a night, +Maria was invited to oblige with a dance, and only a few taps on windows +followed. The family returned to town till 21st January. +No sooner was Mrs. Shchapoff in bed than knives and forks came out of +a closed cupboard and flew about, occasionally sticking in the walls.</p> +<p>On 24th January the doctor abandoned the hypothesis of electricity, +because the noises kept time to profane but not to sacred music. +A Tartar hymn by a Tartar servant, an Islamite, had no accompaniment, +but the <i>Freischütz</i> was warmly encored.</p> +<p>This went beyond the most intelligent spontaneous exercises of electricity. +Questions were asked of the agencies, and to the interrogation, “Are +you a devil?” a most deafening knock replied. “We +all jumped backwards.”</p> +<p>Now comes a curious point. In the Wesley and Tedworth cases, +the masters of the houses, like the curé of Cideville (1851), +were at odds with local “cunning men”.</p> +<p>Mr. Shchapoff’s fiend now averred that he was “set on” +by the servant of a neighbouring miller, with whom Mr. Shchapoff had +a dispute about a mill pond. This man had previously said, “It +will be worse; they will drag you by the hair”. And, indeed, +Mrs. Shchapoff was found in tears, because her hair had been pulled. +<a name="citation205"></a><a href="#footnote205">{205}</a></p> +<p>Science again intervened. A section of the Imperial Geographical +Society sent Dr. Shustoff, Mr. Akutin (a Government civil engineer), +and a literary gentleman, as a committee of inquiry appointed by the +governor of the province. They made a number of experiments with +Leyden jars, magnets, and so forth, with only negative results. +Things flew about, both <i>from</i>, and <i>towards</i> Mrs. Shchapoff. +Nothing volatile was ever seen to <i>begin</i> its motion, though, in +March, 1883, objects were seen, by a policeman and six other witnesses, +to fly up from a bin and out of a closed cupboard, in a house at Worksop. +<a name="citation206"></a><a href="#footnote206">{206}</a> Mr. +Akutin, in Mrs. Shchapoff’s bedroom, found the noises answer questions +in French and German, on contemporary politics, of which the lady of +the house knew nothing. Lassalle was said to be alive, Mr. Shchapoff +remarked, “What nonsense!” but Mr. Akutin corrected him. +The bogey was better informed. The success of the French in the +great war was predicted.</p> +<p>The family now moved to their town house, and the inquest continued, +though the raps were only heard near the lady. A Dr. Dubinsky +vowed that she made them herself, with her tongue; then, with her pulse. +The doctor assailed, and finally shook the faith of Mr. Akutin, who +was to furnish a report. “He bribed a servant boy to say +that his mistress made the sounds herself, and then pretended that he +had caught her trying to deceive us by throwing things.” +Finally Mr. Akutin reported that the whole affair was a hysterical imposition +by Mrs. Shchapoff. Dr. Dubinsky attended her, her health and spirits +improved, and the disturbances ceased. But poor Mr. Shchapoff +received an official warning not to do it again, from the governor of +his province. That way lies Siberia.</p> +<p>“Imagine, then,” exclaims Mr. Shchapoff, “our horror, +when, on our return to the country in March, the unknown force at once +set to work again. And now even my wife’s presence was not +essential. Thus, one day, I saw with my own eyes a heavy sofa +jump off all four legs (three or four times in fact), and this when +my aged mother was lying on it.” The same thing occurred +to Nancy Wesley’s bed, on which she was sitting while playing +cards in 1717. The picture of a lady of seventy, sitting tight +to a bucking sofa, appeals to the brave.</p> +<p>Then the fire-raising began. A blue spark flew out of a wash-stand, +into Mrs. Shchapoff’s bedroom. Luckily she was absent, and +her mother, rushing forward with a water-jug, extinguished a flaming +cotton dress. Bright red globular meteors now danced in the veranda. +Mr. Portnoff next takes up the tale as follows, Mr. Shchapoff having +been absent from home on the occasion described.</p> +<p>“I was sitting playing the guitar. The miller got up +to leave, and was followed by Mrs. Shchapoff. Hardly had she shut +the door, when I heard, as though from far off, a deep drawn wail. +The voice seemed familiar to me. Overcome with an unaccountable +horror I rushed to the door, and there in the passage I saw a literal +pillar of fire, in the middle of which, draped in flame, stood Mrs. +Shchapoff. . . . I rushed to put it out with my hands, but I found it +burned them badly, as if they were sticking to burning pitch. +A sort of cracking noise came from beneath the floor, which also shook +and vibrated violently.” Mr. Portnoff and the miller “carried +off the unconscious victim”.</p> +<p>Mr. Shchapoff also saw a small pink hand, like a child’s, spring +from the floor, and play with Mrs. Shchapoff’s coverlet, in bed. +These things were too much; the Shchapoffs fled to a cottage, and took +a new country house. They had no more disturbances. Mrs. +Shchapoff died in child-bed, in 1878, “a healthy, religious, quiet, +affectionate woman”.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER X<br /> +Modern Hauntings</h2> +<p><i>The Shchapoff Story of a Peculiar Type. “Demoniacal +Possession.” Story of Wellington Mill briefly analysed. +Authorities for the Story. Letters. A Journal. The +Wesley Ghost. Given Critically and Why. Note on similar +Stories</i>, <i>such as the Drummer of Tedworth. Sir Waller Scott’s +Scepticism about Nautical Evidence. Lord St. Vincent. Scott +asks Where are his Letters on a Ghostly Disturbance. The Letters +are now Published. Lord St. Vincent’s Ghost Story. +Reflections.</i></p> +<p>Cases like that of Mrs. Shchapoff really belong to a peculiar species +of haunted houses. Our ancestors, like the modern Chinese, attributed +them to diabolical possession, not to an ordinary ghost of a dead person. +Examples are very numerous, and have all the same “symptoms,” +as Coleridge would have said, he attributing them to a contagious nervous +malady of observation in the spectators. Among the most notorious +is the story of Willington Mill, told by Howitt, and borrowed by Mrs. +Crowe, in <i>The Night Side of Nature</i>. Mr. Procter, the occupant, +a Quaker, vouched to Mrs. Crowe for the authenticity of Howitt’s +version. (22nd July, 1847.) Other letters from seers are published, +and the Society of Psychical Research lately printed Mr. Procter’s +contemporary journal. A man, a woman, and a monkey were the chief +apparitions. There were noises, lights, beds were heaved about: +nothing was omitted. A <i>clairvoyante</i> was turned on, but +could only say that the spectral figures, which she described, “had +no brains”. After the Quakers left the house there seems +to have been no more trouble. The affair lasted for fifteen years.</p> +<p>Familiar as it is, we now offer the old story of the hauntings at +Epworth, mainly because a full view of the inhabitants, the extraordinary +family of Wesley, seems necessary to an understanding of the affair. +The famous and excessively superstitious John Wesley was not present +on the occasion.</p> +<h3>THE WESLEY GHOST</h3> +<p>No ghost story is more celebrated than that of <i>Old Jeffrey</i>, +the spirit so named by Emily Wesley, which disturbed the Rectory at +Epworth, chiefly in the December of 1716 and the spring of 1717. +Yet the vagueness of the human mind has led many people, especially +journalists, to suppose that the haunted house was that, not of Samuel +Wesley, but of his son John Wesley, the founder of the Wesleyan Methodists. +For the better intelligence of the tale, we must know who the inmates +of the Epworth Rectory were, and the nature of their characters and +pursuits. The rector was the Rev. Samuel Wesley, born in 1662, +the son of a clergyman banished from his living on “Black Bartholomew +Day,” 1666. Though educated among Dissenters, Samuel Wesley +converted himself to the truth as it is in the Church of England, became +a “poor scholar” of Exeter College in Oxford, supported +himself mainly by hack-work in literature (he was one of the editors +of a penny paper called <i>The Athenian Mercury</i>, a sort of <i>Answers</i>), +married Miss Susanna Annesley, a lady of good family, in 1690-91, and +in 1693 was presented to the Rectory of Epworth in Lincolnshire by Mary, +wife of William of Orange, to whom he had dedicated a poem on the life +of Christ. The living was poor, Mr. Wesley’s family multiplied +with amazing velocity, he was in debt, and unpopular. His cattle +were maimed in 1705, and in 1703 his house was burned down. The +Rectory House, of which a picture is given in Clarke’s <i>Memoirs +of the Wesleys</i>, 1825, was built anew at his own expense. Mr. +Wesley was in politics a strong Royalist, but having seen James II. +shake “his lean arm” at the Fellows of Magdalen College, +and threaten them “with the weight of a king’s right hand,” +he conceived a prejudice against that monarch, and took the side of +the Prince of Orange. His wife, a very pious woman and a strict +disciplinarian, was a Jacobite, would not say “amen” to +the prayers for “the king,” and was therefore deserted by +her husband for a year or more in 1701-1702. They came together +again, however, on the accession of Queen Anne.</p> +<p>Unpopular for his politics, hated by the Dissenters, and at odds +with the “cunning men,” or local wizards against whom he +had frequently preached, Mr. Wesley was certainly apt to have tricks +played on him by his neighbours. His house, though surrounded +by a wall, a hedge, and its own grounds, was within a few yards of the +nearest dwelling in the village street.</p> +<p>In 1716, when the disturbances began, Mr. Wesley’s family consisted +of his wife; his eldest son, Sam, aged about twenty-three, and then +absent at his duties as an usher at Westminster; John, aged twelve, +a boy at Westminster School; Charles, a boy of eight, away from home, +and the girls, who were all at the parsonage. They were Emily, +about twenty-two, Mary, Nancy and Sukey, probably about twenty-one, +twenty and nineteen, and Hetty, who may have been anything between nineteen +and twelve, but who comes after John in Dr. Clarke’s list, and +is apparently reckoned among “the children”. <a name="citation212"></a><a href="#footnote212">{212}</a> +Then there was Patty, who may have been only nine, and little Keziah.</p> +<p>All except Patty were very lively young people, and Hetty, afterwards +a copious poet, “was gay and sprightly, full of mirth, good-humour, +and keen wit. She indulged this disposition so much that it was +said to have given great uneasiness to her parents.” The +servants, Robin Brown, Betty Massy and Nancy Marshall, were recent comers, +but were acquitted by Mrs. Wesley of any share in the mischief. +The family, though, like other people of their date, they were inclined +to believe in witches and “warnings,” were not especially +superstitious, and regarded the disturbances, first with some apprehension, +then as a joke, and finally as a bore.</p> +<p>The authorities for what occurred are, first, a statement and journal +by Mr. Wesley, then a series of letters of 1717 to Sam at Westminster +by his mother, Emily and Sukey, next a set of written statements made +by these and other witnesses to John Wesley in 1726, and last and worst, +a narrative composed many years after by John Wesley for <i>The Arminian +Magazine.</i></p> +<p>The earliest document, by a few days, is the statement of Mr. Wesley, +written, with a brief journal, between 21st December, 1716, and 1st +January, 1717. Comparing this with Mrs. Wesley’s letter +to Sam of 12th January, 1716 and Sukey’s letter of 24th January, +we learn that the family for some weeks after 1st December had been +“in the greatest panic imaginable,” supposing that Sam, +Jack, or Charlie (who must also have been absent from home) was dead, +“or by some misfortune killed”. The reason for these +apprehensions was that on the night of 1st December the maid “heard +at the dining-room door several dreadful groans, like a person in extremes”. +They laughed at her, but for the whole of December “the groans, +squeaks, tinglings and knockings were frightful enough”. +The rest of the family (Mr. Wesley always excepted) “heard a strange +knocking in divers places,” chiefly in the green room, or nursery, +where (apparently) Hetty, Patty and Keziah lay. Emily heard the +noises later than some of her sisters, perhaps a week after the original +groans. She was locking up the house about ten o’clock when +a sound came like the smashing and splintering of a huge piece of coal +on the kitchen floor. She and Sukey went through the rooms on +the ground floor, but found the dog asleep, the cat at the other end +of the house, and everything in order. From her bedroom Emily +heard a noise of breaking the empty bottles under the stairs, but was +going to bed, when Hetty, who had been sitting on the lowest step of +the garret stairs beside the nursery door, waiting for her father, was +chased into the nursery by a sound as of a man passing her in a loose +trailing gown. Sukey and Nancy were alarmed by loud knocks on +the outside of the dining-room door and overhead. All this time +Mr. Wesley heard nothing, and was not even told that anything unusual +was heard. Mrs. Wesley at first held her peace lest he should +think it “according to the vulgar opinion, a warning against his +own death, which, indeed, we all apprehended”. Mr. Wesley +only smiled when he was informed; but, by taking care to see all the +girls safe in bed, sufficiently showed his opinion that the young ladies +and their lovers were the ghost. Mrs. Wesley then fell back on +the theory of rats, and employed a man to blow a horn as a remedy against +these vermin. But this measure only aroused the emulation of the +sprite, whom Emily began to call “Jeffrey”.</p> +<p>Not till 21st December did Mr. Wesley hear anything, then came thumpings +on his bedroom wall. Unable to discover the cause, he procured +a stout mastiff, which soon became demoralised by his experiences. +On the morning of the 24th, about seven o’clock, Emily led Mrs. +Wesley into the nursery, where she heard knocks on and under the bedstead; +these sounds replied when she knocked. Something “like a +badger, with no head,” says Emily; Mrs. Wesley only says, “like +a badger,” ran from under the bed. On the night of the 25th +there was an appalling <i>vacarme</i>. Mr. and Mrs. Wesley went +on a tour of inspection, but only found the mastiff whining in terror. +“We still heard it rattle and thunder in every room above or behind +us, locked as well as open, except my study, where as yet it never came.” +On the night of the 26th Mr. Wesley seems to have heard of a phenomenon +already familiar to Emily—“something like the quick winding +up of a jack, at the corner of the room by my bed head”. +This was always followed by knocks, “hollow and loud, such as +none of us could ever imitate”. Mr. Wesley went into the +nursery, Hetty, Kezzy and Patty were asleep. The knocks were loud, +beneath and in the room, so Mr. Wesley went below to the kitchen, struck +with his stick against the rafters, and was answered “as often +and as loud as I knocked”. The peculiar knock which was +his own, 1-23456-7, was not successfully echoed at that time. +Mr. Wesley then returned to the nursery, which was as <i>tapageuse</i> +as ever. The children, three, were trembling in their sleep. +Mr. Wesley invited the agency to an interview in his study, was answered +by one knock outside, “all the rest were within,” and then +came silence. Investigations outside produced no result, but the +latch of the door would rise and fall, and the door itself was pushed +violently back against investigators.</p> +<p>“I have been with Hetty,” says Emily, “when it +has knocked under her, and when she has removed has followed her,” +and it knocked under little Kezzy, when “she stamped with her +foot, pretending to scare Patty.”</p> +<p>Mr. Wesley had requested an interview in his study, especially as +the Jacobite goblin routed loudly “over our heads constantly, +when we came to the prayers for King George and the prince”. +In his study the agency pushed Mr. Wesley about, bumping him against +the corner of his desk, and against his door. He would ask for +a conversation, but heard only “two or three feeble squeaks, a +little louder than the chirping of a bird, but not like the noise of +rats, which I have often heard”.</p> +<p>Mr. Wesley had meant to leave home for a visit on Friday, 28th December, +but the noises of the 27th were so loud that he stayed at home, inviting +the Rev. Mr. Hoole, of Haxey, to view the performances. “The +noises were very boisterous and disturbing this night.” +Mr. Hoole says (in 1726, confirmed by Mrs. Wesley, 12th January, 1717) +that there were sounds of feet, trailing gowns, raps, and a noise as +of planing boards: the disturbance finally went outside the house and +died away. Mr. Wesley seems to have paid his visit on the 30th, +and notes, “1st January, 1717. My family have had no disturbance +since I went away.”</p> +<p>To judge by Mr. Wesley’s letter to Sam, of 12th January, there +was no trouble between the 29th of December and that date. On +the 19th of January, and the 30th of the same month, Sam wrote, full +of curiosity, to his father and mother. Mrs. Wesley replied (25th +or 27th January), saying that no explanation could be discovered, but +“it commonly was nearer Hetty than the rest”. On 24th +January, Sukey said “it is now pretty quiet, but still knocks +at prayers for the king.” On 11th February, Mr. Wesley, +much bored by Sam’s inquiries, says, “we are all now quiet. +. . . It would make a glorious penny book for Jack Dunton,” +his brother-in-law, a publisher of popular literature, such as the <i>Athenian +Mercury</i>. Emily (no date) explains the phenomena as the revenge +for her father’s recent sermons “against consulting those +that are called cunning men, which our people are given to, and <i>it +had a particular spite at my father</i>”.</p> +<p>The disturbances by no means ended in the beginning of January, nor +at other dates when a brief cessation made the Wesleys hope that Jeffrey +had returned to his own place. Thus on 27th March, Sukey writes +to Sam, remarking that as Hetty and Emily are also writing “so +particularly,” she need not say much. “One thing I +believe you do not know, that is, last Sunday, to my father’s +no small amazement, his trencher danced upon the table a pretty while, +without anybody’s stirring the table. . . . Send me some +news for we are excluded from the sight or hearing of any versal thing, +except Jeffery.”</p> +<p>The last mention of the affair, at this time, is in a letter from +Emily, of 1st April, to a Mr. Berry.</p> +<p>“Tell my brother the sprite was with us last night, and heard +by many of our family.” There are no other contemporary +letters preserved, but we may note Mrs. Wesley’s opinion (25th +January) that it was “beyond the power of any human being to make +such strange and various noises”.</p> +<p>The next evidence is ten years after date, the statements taken down +by Jack Wesley in 1726 (1720?). Mrs. Wesley adds to her former +account that she “earnestly desired it might not disturb her” +(at her devotions) “between five and six in the evening,” +and it did not rout in her room at that time. Emily added that +a screen was knocked at on each side as she went round to the other. +Sukey mentioned the noise as, on one occasion, coming gradually from +the garret stairs, outside the nursery door, up to Hetty’s bed, +“who trembled strongly in her sleep. It then removed to +the room overhead, where it knocked my father’s knock on the ground, +as if it would beat the house down.” Nancy said that the +noise used to follow her, or precede her, and once a bed, on which she +sat playing cards, was lifted up under her several times to a considerable +height. Robin, the servant, gave evidence that he was greatly +plagued with all manner of noises and movements of objects.</p> +<p>John Wesley, in his account published many years after date in his +<i>Arminian Magazine</i>, attributed the affair of 1716 to his father’s +broken vow of deserting his mother till she recognised the Prince of +Orange as king! He adds that the mastiff “used to tremble +and creep away before the noise began”.</p> +<p>Some other peculiarities may be noted. All persons did not +always hear the noises. It was three weeks before Mr. Wesley heard +anything. “John and Kitty Maw, who lived over against us, +listened several nights in the time of the disturbance, but could never +hear anything.” Again, “The first time my mother ever +heard any unusual noise at Epworth was long before the disturbance of +old Jeffrey . . . the door and windows jarred very loud, and presently +several distinct strokes, three by three, were struck. From that +night it never failed to give notice in much the same manner, against +any signal misfortune or illness of any belonging to the family,” +writes Jack.</p> +<p>Once more, on 10th February, 1750, Emily (now Mrs. Harper) wrote +to her brother John, “that wonderful thing called by us Jeffery, +how certainly it calls on me against any extraordinary new affliction”.</p> +<p>This is practically all the story of Old Jeffrey. The explanations +have been, trickery by servants (Priestley), contagious hallucinations +(Coleridge), devilry (Southey), and trickery by Hetty Wesley (Dr. Salmon, +of Trinity College, Dublin). Dr. Salmon points out that there +is no evidence from Hetty; that she was a lively, humorous girl, and +he conceives that she began to frighten the maids, and only reluctantly +exhibited before her father against whom, however, Jeffrey developed +“a particular spite”. He adds that certain circumstances +were peculiar to Hetty, which, in fact, is not the case. The present +editor has examined Dr. Salmon’s arguments in <i>The Contemporary +Review</i>, and shown reason, in the evidence, for acquitting Hetty +Wesley, who was never suspected by her family.</p> +<p>Trickery from without, by “the cunning men,” is an explanation +which, at least, provides a motive, but how the thing could be managed +from without remains a mystery. Sam Wesley, the friend of Pope, +and Atterbury, and Lord Oxford, not unjustly said: “Wit, I fancy, +might find many interpretations, but wisdom none”. <a name="citation220"></a><a href="#footnote220">{220}</a></p> +<p>As the Wesley tale is a very typical instance of a very large class, +our study of it may exempt us from printing the well-known parallel +case of “The Drummer of Tedworth”. Briefly, the house +of Mr. Mompesson, near Ludgarshal, in Wilts, was disturbed in the usual +way, for at least two years, from April, 1661, to April, 1663, or later. +The noises, and copious phenomena of moving objects apparently untouched, +were attributed to the unholy powers of a wandering drummer, deprived +by Mr. Mompesson of his drum. A grand jury presented the drummer +for trial, on a charge of witchcraft, but the petty jury would not convict, +there being a want of evidence to prove threats, <i>malum minatum</i>, +by the drummer. In 1662 the Rev. Joseph Glanvil, F.R.S., visited +the house, and, in the bedroom of Mr. Mompesson’s little girls, +the chief sufferers, heard and saw much the same phenomena as the elder +Wesley describes in his own nursery. The “little modest +girls” were aged about seven and eight. Charles II. sent +some gentlemen to the house for one night, when nothing occurred, the +disturbances being intermittent. Glanvil published his narrative +at the time, and Mr. Pepys found it “not very convincing”. +Glanvil, in consequence of his book, was so vexed by correspondents +“that I have been haunted almost as bad as Mr. Mompesson’s +house”. A report that imposture had been discovered, and +confessed by Mr. Mompesson, was set afloat, by John Webster, in a well-known +work, and may still be found in modern books. Glanvil denied it +till he was “quite tired,” and Mompesson gave a formal denial +in a letter dated Tedworth, 8th November, 1672. He also, with +many others, swore to the facts on oath, in court, at the drummer’s +trial. <a name="citation221"></a><a href="#footnote221">{221}</a></p> +<p>In the Tedworth case, as at Epworth, and in the curious Cideville +case of 1851, a quarrel with “cunning men” preceded the +disturbances. In Lord St. Vincent’s case, which follows, +nothing of the kind is reported. As an almost universal rule children, +especially girls of about twelve, are centres of the trouble; in the +St. Vincent story, the children alone were exempt from annoyance.</p> +<h3>LORD ST. VINCENT’S GHOST STORY</h3> +<p>Sir Walter Scott, writing about the disturbances in the house occupied +by Mrs. Ricketts, sister of the great admiral, Lord St. Vincent, asks: +“Who has seen Lord St. Vincent’s letters?” He +adds that the gallant admiral, after all, was a sailor, and implies +that “what the sailor said” (if he said anything) “is +not evidence”.</p> +<p>The fact of unaccountable disturbances which finally drove Mrs. Ricketts +out of Hinton Ampner, is absolutely indisputable, though the cause of +the annoyances may remain as mysterious as ever. The contemporary +correspondence (including that of Lord St. Vincent, then Captain Jervis) +exists, and has been edited by Mrs. Henley Jervis, grand-daughter of +Mrs. Ricketts. <a name="citation222"></a><a href="#footnote222">{222}</a></p> +<p>There is only the very vaguest evidence for hauntings at Lady Hillsborough’s +old house of Hinton Ampner, near Alresford, before Mr. Ricketts took +it in January, 1765. He and his wife were then disturbed by footsteps, +and sounds of doors opening and shutting. They put new locks on +the doors lest the villagers had procured keys, but this proved of no +avail. The servants talked of seeing appearances of a gentleman +in drab and of a lady in silk, which Mrs. Ricketts disregarded. +Her husband went to Jamaica in the autumn of 1769, and in 1771 she was +so disturbed that her brother, Captain Jervis, a witness of the phenomena, +insisted on her leaving the house in August. He and Mrs. Ricketts +then wrote to Mr. Ricketts about the affair. In July, 1772, Mrs. +Ricketts wrote a long and solemn description of her sufferings, to be +given to her children.</p> +<p>We shall slightly abridge her statement, in which she mentions that +when she left Hinton she had not one of the servants who came thither +in her family, which “evinces the impossibility of a confederacy”. +Her new, like her former servants, were satisfactory; Camis, her new +coachman, was of a yeoman house of 400 years’ standing. +It will be observed that Mrs. Ricketts was a good deal annoyed even +<i>before</i> 2nd April, 1771, the day when she dates the beginning +of the worst disturbances. She believed that the agency was human—a +robber or a practical joker—and but slowly and reluctantly became +convinced that the “exploded” notion of an abnormal force +might be correct. We learn that while Captain Jervis was not informed +of the sounds he never heard them, and whereas Mrs. Ricketts heard violent +noises after he went to bed on the night of his vigil, he heard nothing. +“Several instances occurred where very loud noises were heard +by one or two persons, when those equally near and in the same direction +were not sensible of the least impression.” <a name="citation223"></a><a href="#footnote223">{223}</a></p> +<p>With this preface, Mrs. Ricketts may be allowed to tell her own tale.</p> +<p>“Sometime after Mr. Ricketts left me (autumn, 1769) I—then +lying in the bedroom over the kitchen—heard frequently the noise +of some one walking in the room within, and the rustling as of silk +clothes against the door that opened into my room, sometimes so loud, +and of such continuance as to break my rest. Instant search being +often made, we never could discover any appearance of human or brute +being. Repeatedly disturbed in the same manner, I made it my constant +practice to search the room and closets within, and to secure the only +door on the inside. . . . Yet this precaution did not preclude +the disturbance, which continued with little interruption.”</p> +<p>Nobody, in short, could enter this room, except by passing through +that of Mrs. Ricketts, the door of which “was always made fast +by a drawn bolt”. Yet somebody kept rustling and walking +in the inner room, which somebody could never be found when sought for.</p> +<p>In summer, 1770, Mrs. Ricketts heard someone walk to the foot of +her bed in her own room, “the footsteps as distinct as ever I +heard, myself perfectly awake and collected”. Nobody could +be discovered in the chamber. Mrs. Ricketts boldly clung to her +room, and was only now and then disturbed by “sounds of harmony,” +and heavy thumps, down stairs. After this, and early in 1771, +she was “frequently sensible of a hollow murmuring that seemed +to possess the whole house: it was independent of wind, being equally +heard on the calmest nights, and it was a sound I had never been accustomed +to hear”.</p> +<p>On 27th February, 1771, a maid was alarmed by “groans and fluttering +round her bed”: she was “the sister of an eminent grocer +in Alresford”. On 2nd April, Mrs. Ricketts heard people +walking in the lobby, hunted for burglars, traced the sounds to a room +whence their was no outlet, and found nobody. This kind of thing +went on till Mrs. Ricketts despaired of any natural explanation. +After mid-summer, 1771, the trouble increased, in broad daylight, and +a shrill female voice, answered by two male voices was added to the +afflictions. Captain Jervis came on a visit, but was told of nothing, +and never heard anything. After he went to Portsmouth, “the +most deep, loud tremendous noise seemed to rush and fall with infinite +velocity and force on the lobby floor adjoining my room,” accompanied +by a shrill and dreadful shriek, seeming to proceed from under the spot +where the rushing noise fell, and repeated three or four times.</p> +<p>Mrs. Ricketts’ “resolution remained firm,” but +her health was impaired; she tried changing her room, without results. +The disturbances pursued her. Her brother now returned. +She told him nothing, and he heard nothing, but next day she unbosomed +herself. Captain Jervis therefore sat up with Captain Luttrell +and his own man. He was rewarded by noises which he in vain tried +to pursue. “I should do great injustice to my sister” +(he writes to Mr. Ricketts on 9th August, 1771), “if I did not +acknowledge to have heard what I could not, after the most diligent +search and serious reflection, any way account for.” Captain +Jervis during a whole week slept by day, and watched, armed, by night. +Even by day he was disturbed by a sound as of immense weights falling +from the ceiling to the floor of his room. He finally obliged +his sister to leave the house.</p> +<p>What occurred after Mrs. Ricketts abandoned Hinton is not very distinct. +Apparently Captain Jervis’s second stay of a week, when he did +hear the noises, was from 1st August to 8th August. From a statement +by Mrs. Ricketts it appears that, when her brother joined his ship, +the <i>Alarm</i> (9th August), she retired to Dame Camis’s house, +that of her coachman’s mother. Thence she went, and made +another attempt to live at Hinton, but was “soon after assailed +by a noise I never before heard, very near me, and the terror I felt +not to be described”. She therefore went to the Newbolts, +and thence to the old Palace at Winton; later, on Mr. Ricketts’ +return, to the Parsonage, and then to Longwood (to the <i>old</i> house +there) near Alresford.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, on 18th September, Lady Hillsborough’s agent lay +with armed men at Hinton, and, making no discovery, offered £50 +(increased by Mr. Ricketts to £100) for the apprehension of the +persons who caused the noises. The reward was never claimed. +On 8th March, 1772, Camis wrote: “I am very sorry that we cannot +find out the reason of the noise”; at other dates he mentions +sporadic noises heard by his mother and another woman, including “the +murmur”. A year after Mrs. Ricketts left a family named +Lawrence took the house, and, according to old Lucy Camis, in 1818, +Mr. Lawrence very properly threatened to dismiss any servant who spoke +of the disturbances. The result of this sensible course was that +the Lawrences left suddenly, at the end of the year—and the house +was pulled down. Some old political papers of the Great Rebellion, +and a monkey’s skull, not exhibited to any anatomist, are said +to have been discovered under the floor of the lobby, or of one of the +rooms. Mrs. Ricketts adds sadly, “The unbelief of Chancellor +Hoadley went nearest my heart,” as he had previously a high opinion +of her veracity. The Bishop of St. Asaph was incredulous, “on +the ground that such means were unworthy of the Deity to employ”.</p> +<p>Probably a modern bishop would say that there were no noises at all, +that every one who heard the sounds was under the influence of “suggestion,” +caused first in Mrs. Ricketts’ own mind by vague tales of a gentleman +in drab seen by the servants.</p> +<p>The contagion, to be sure, also reached two distinguished captains +in the navy, but not till one of them was told about disturbances which +had not previously disturbed him. If this explanation be true, +it casts an unusual light on the human imagination. Physical science +has lately invented a new theory. Disturbances of this kind are +perhaps “seismic,”—caused by earthquakes! (See +Professor Milne, in <i>The Times</i>, 21st June, 1897.)</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> +<p><i>A Question for Physicians. Professor William James’s +Opinion. Hysterical Disease? Little Hands. Domestic +Arson. The Wem Case. “The Saucepan began it.” +The Nurse-maid. Boots Fly Off. Investigation. Emma’s +Partial Confession. Corroborative Evidence. Question of +Disease Repeated. Chinese Cases. Haunted Mrs. Chang. +Mr. Niu’s Female Slave. The Great Amherst Mystery. +Run as a Show. Failure. Later Miracles. The Fire-raiser +Arrested. Parallels. A Highland Case. A Hero of the +Forty-Five. Donald na Bocan. Donald’s Hymn. +Icelandic Cases. The Devil of Hjalta-stad. The Ghost at +Garpsdal.</i></p> +<h3>MORE HAUNTED HOUSES</h3> +<p>A physician, as we have seen, got the better of the demon in Mrs. +Shchapoff’s case, at least while the lady was under his care. +Really these disturbances appear to demand the attention of medical +men. If the whole phenomena are caused by imposture, the actors, +or actresses, display a wonderful similarity of symptoms and an alarming +taste for fire-raising. Professor William James, the well-known +psychologist, mentions ten cases whose resemblances “suggest a +natural type,” and we ask, is it a type of hysterical disease? +<a name="citation229"></a><a href="#footnote229">{229}</a> He +chooses, among others, an instance in Dr. Nevius’s book on <i>Demon +Possession in China</i>, and there is another in Peru. He also +mentions <i>The Great Amherst Mystery</i>, which we give, and the Rerrick +case in Scotland (1696), related by Telfer, who prints, on his margins, +the names of the attesting witnesses of each event, lairds, clergymen, +and farmers. At Rerrick, as in Russia, the <i>little hand</i> +was seen by Telfer himself, and the fire-raising was endless. +At Amherst too, as in a pair of recent Russian cases and others, there +was plenty of fire-raising. By a lucky chance an English case +occurred at Wem, in Shropshire, in November, 1883. It began at +a farm called the Woods, some ten miles from Shrewsbury. First +a saucepan full of eggs “jumped” off the fire in the kitchen, +and the tea-things, leaping from the table, were broken. Cinders +“were thrown out of the fire,” and set some clothes in a +blaze. A globe leaped off a lamp. A farmer, Mr. Lea, saw +all the windows of the upper story “as it were on fire,” +but it was no such matter. The nurse-maid ran out in a fright, +to a neighbour’s, and her dress spontaneously combusted as she +ran. The people attributed these and similar events, to something +in the coal, or in the air, or to electricity. When the nurse-girl, +Emma Davies, sat on the lap of the school mistress, Miss Maddox, her +boots kept flying off, like the boot laces in <i>The Daemon of Spraiton.</i></p> +<p>All this was printed in the London papers, and, on 15th November, +<i>The Daily Telegraph</i> and <i>Daily News</i> published Emma’s +confession that she wrought by sleight of hand and foot. On 17th +November, Mr. Hughes went from Cambridge to investigate. For some +reason investigation never begins till the fun is over. On the +9th the girl, now in a very nervous state (no wonder!) had been put +under the care of a Dr. Mackey. This gentleman and Miss Turner +said that things had occurred since Emma came, for which they could +not account. On 13th November, however, Miss Turner, looking out +of a window, spotted Emma throwing a brick, and pretending that the +flight of the brick was automatic. Next day Emma confessed to +her tricks, but steadfastly denied that she had cheated at Woods Farm, +and Weston Lullingfield, where she had also been. Her evidence +to this effect was so far confirmed by Mrs. Hampson of Woods Farm, and +her servant, Priscilla Evans, when examined by Mr. Hughes. Both +were “quite certain” that they saw crockery rise by itself +into air off the kitchen table, when Emma was at a neighbouring farm, +Mr. Lea’s. Priscilla also saw crockery come out of a cupboard, +in detachments, and fly between her and Emma, usually in a slanting +direction, while Emma stood by with her arms folded. Yet Priscilla +was not on good terms with Emma. Unless, then, Mrs. Hampson and +Priscilla fabled, it is difficult to see how Emma could move objects +when she was “standing at some considerable distance, standing, +in fact, in quite another farm”.</p> +<p>Similar evidence was given and signed by Miss Maddox, the schoolmistress, +and Mr. and Mrs. Lea. On the other hand Mrs. Hampson and Priscilla +believed that Emma managed the fire-raising herself. The flames +were “very high and white, and the articles were very little singed”. +This occurred also at Rerrick, in 1696, but Mr. Hughes attributes it +to Emma’s use of paraffin, which does not apply to the Rerrick +case. Paraffin smells a good deal—nothing is said about +a smell of paraffin.</p> +<p>Only one thing is certain: Emma was at last caught in a cheat. +This discredits her, but a man who cheats at cards <i>may</i> hold a +good hand by accident. In the same way, if such wonders can happen +(as so much world-wide evidence declares), they <i>may</i> have happened +at Woods Farm, and Emma, “in a very nervous state,” <i>may</i> +have feigned then, or rather did feign them later.</p> +<p>The question for the medical faculty is: Does a decided taste for +wilful fire-raising often accompany exhibitions of dancing furniture +and crockery, gratuitously given by patients of hysterical temperament? +This is quite a normal inquiry. Is there a nervous malady of which +the symptoms are domestic arson, and amateur <i>leger-de-main</i>? +The complaint, if it exists, is of very old standing and wide prevalence, +including Russia, Scotland, New England, France, Iceland, Germany, China +and Peru.</p> +<p>As a proof of the identity of symptoms in this malady, we give a +Chinese case. The Chinese, as to diabolical possession, are precisely +of the same opinion as the inspired authors of the Gospels. People +are “possessed,” and, like the woman having a spirit of +divination in the Acts of the Apostles, make a good thing out of it. +Thus Mrs. Ku was approached by a native Christian. She became +rigid and her demon, speaking through her, acknowledged the Catholic +verity, and said that if Mrs. Ku were converted he would have to leave. +On recovering her everyday consciousness, Mrs. Ku asked what Tsehwa, +her demon, had said. The Christian told her, and perhaps she would +have deserted her erroneous courses, but her fellow-villagers implored +her to pay homage to the demon. They were in the habit of resorting +to it for medical advice (as people do to Mrs. Piper’s demon in +the United States), so Mrs. Ku decided to remain in the business. <a name="citation232"></a><a href="#footnote232">{232}</a> +The parallel to the case in the Acts is interesting.</p> +<h3>HAUNTED MRS. CHANG</h3> +<p>Mr. Chang, of that ilk (Chang Chang Tien-ts), was a man of fifty-seven, +and a graduate in letters. The ladies of his family having accommodated +a demon with a shrine in his house, Mr. Chang said he “would have +none of that nonsense”. The spirit then entered into Mrs. +Chang, and the usual fire-raising began all over the place. The +furniture and crockery danced in the familiar way, and objects took +to disappearing mysteriously, even when secured under lock and key. +Mr. Chang was as unlucky as Mr. Chin. At <i>his</i> house “doors +would open of their own accord, footfalls were heard, as of persons +walking in the house, although no one could be seen. Plates, bowls +and the teapot would suddenly rise from the table into the air.” +<a name="citation233a"></a><a href="#footnote233a">{233a}</a></p> +<p>Mrs. Chang now tried the off chance of there being something in Christianity, +stayed with a native Christian (the narrator), and felt much better. +She could enjoy her meals, and was quite a new woman. As her friend +could not go home with her, Mrs. Fung, a native Christian, resided for +a while at Mr. Chang’s; “comparative quiet was restored,” +and Mrs. Fung retired to her family.</p> +<p>The symptoms returned; the native Christian was sent for, and found +Mr. Chang’s establishment full of buckets of water for extinguishing +the sudden fires. Mrs. Chang’s daughter-in-law was now possessed, +and “drank wine in large quantities, though ordinarily she would +not touch it”. She was staring and tossing her arms wildly; +a service was held, and she soon became her usual self.</p> +<p>In the afternoon, when the devils went out of the ladies, the fowls +flew into a state of wild excitement, while the swine rushed furiously +about and tried to climb a wall.</p> +<p>The family have become Christians, the fires have ceased; Mr. Chang +is an earnest inquirer, but opposed, for obvious reasons, to any public +profession of our religion. <a name="citation233b"></a><a href="#footnote233b">{233b}</a></p> +<p>In Mr. Niu’s case “strange noises and rappings were frequently +heard about the house. The buildings were also set on fire in +different places in some mysterious way.” The Christians +tried to convert Mr. Niu, but as the devil now possessed his female +slave, whose success in fortune-telling was extremely lucrative, Mr. +Niu said that he preferred to leave well alone, and remained wedded +to his idols. <a name="citation234"></a><a href="#footnote234">{234}</a></p> +<p>We next offer a recent colonial case, in which the symptoms, as Mr. +Pecksniff said, were “chronic”.</p> +<h3>THE GREAT AMHERST MYSTERY</h3> +<p>On 13th February, 1888, Mr. Walter Hubbell, an actor by profession, +“being duly sworn” before a Notary Public in New York, testified +to the following story:—</p> +<p>In 1879 he was acting with a strolling company, and came to Amherst, +in Nova Scotia. Here he heard of a haunted house, known to the +local newspapers as “The Great Amherst Mystery”. Having +previously succeeded in exposing the frauds of spiritualism Mr. Hubbell +determined to investigate the affair of Amherst. The haunted house +was inhabited by Daniel Teed, the respected foreman in a large shoe +factory. Under his roof were Mrs. Teed, “as good a woman +as ever lived”; little Willie, a baby boy; and Mrs. Teed’s +two sisters, Jennie, a very pretty girl, and Esther, remarkable for +large grey eyes, pretty little hands and feet, and candour of expression. +A brother of Teed’s and a brother of Mrs. Cox made up the family. +They were well off, and lived comfortably in a detached cottage of two +storys. It began when Jennie and Esther were in bed one night. +Esther jumped up, saying that there was a mouse in the bed. Next +night, a green band-box began to make a rustling noise, and then rose +a foot in the air, several times. On the following night Esther +felt unwell, and “was a swelling wisibly before the werry eyes” +of her alarmed family. Reports like thunder peeled through her +chamber, under a serene sky. Next day Esther could only eat “a +small piece of bread and butter, and a large green pickle”. +She recovered slightly, in spite of the pickle, but, four nights later, +all her and her sister’s bed-clothes flew off, and settled down +in a remote corner. At Jennie’s screams, the family rushed +in, and found Esther “fearfully swollen”. Mrs. Teed +replaced the bed-clothes, which flew off again, the pillow striking +John Teed in the face. Mr. Teed then left the room, observing, +in a somewhat unscientific spirit, that “he had had enough of +it”. The others, with a kindness which did them credit, +sat on the edges of the bed, and repressed the desire of the sheets +and blankets to fly away. The bed, however, sent forth peels like +thunder, when Esther suddenly fell into a peaceful sleep.</p> +<p>Next evening Dr. Carritte arrived, and the bolster flew at his head, +<i>and then went back again under Esther’s</i>. While paralysed +by this phenomenon, unprecedented in his practice, the doctor heard +a metal point scribbling on the wall. Examining the place whence +the sound proceeded, he discovered this inscription:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Esther Cox! You are mine<br /> +to kill.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Mr. Hubbell has verified the inscription, and often, later, recognised +the hand, in writings which “came out of the air and fell at our +feet”. Bits of plaster now gyrated in the room, accompanied +by peels of local thunder. The doctor admitted that his diagnosis +was at fault. Next day he visited his patient when potatoes flew +at him. He exhibited a powerful sedative, but pounding noises +began on the roofs and were audible at a distance of 200 yards, as the +doctor himself told Mr. Hubbell.</p> +<p>The clergy now investigated the circumstances, which they attributed +to electricity. “Even the most exclusive class” frequented +Mr. Teed’s house, till December, when Esther had an attack of +diphtheria. On recovering she went on to visit friends in Sackville, +New Brunswick, where nothing unusual occurred. On her return the +phenomena broke forth afresh, and Esther heard a voice proclaim that +the house would be set on fire. Lighted matches then fell from +the ceiling, but the family extinguished them. The ghost then +set a dress on fire, apparently as by spontaneous combustion, and this +kind of thing continued. The heads of the local fire-brigade suspected +Esther of these attempts at arson, and Dr. Nathan Tupper suggested that +she should be flogged. So Mr. Teed removed Esther to the house +of a Mr. White.</p> +<p>In about a month “all,” as Mrs. Nickleby’s lover +said, “was gas and gaiters”. The furniture either +flew about, or broke into flames. Worse, certain pieces of iron +placed as an experiment on Esther’s lap “became too hot +to be handled with comfort,” and then flew away.</p> +<p>Mr. Hubbell himself now came on the scene, and, not detecting imposture, +thought that “there was money in it”. He determined +to “run” Esther as a powerful attraction, he lecturing, +and Esther sitting on the platform.</p> +<p>It did not pay. The audience hurled things at Mr. Hubbell, +and these were the only volatile objects. Mr. Hubbell therefore +brought Esther back to her family at Amherst, where, in Esther’s +absence, his umbrella and a large carving knife flew at him with every +appearance of malevolence. A great arm-chair next charged at him +like a bull, and to say that Mr. Hubbell was awed “would indeed +seem an inadequate expression of my feelings”. The ghosts +then thrice undressed little Willie in public, in derision of his tears +and outcries. Fire-raising followed, and that would be a hard +heart which could read the tale unmoved. Here it is, in the simple +eloquence of Mr. Hubbell:—</p> +<p>“This was my first experience with Bob, the demon, as a fire-fiend; +and I say, candidly, that until I had had that experience I never fully +realised what an awful calamity it was to have an invisible monster, +somewhere within the atmosphere, going from place to place about the +house, gathering up old newspapers into a bundle and hiding it in the +basket of soiled linen or in a closet, then go and steal matches out +of the match-box in the kitchen or somebody’s pocket, as he did +out of mine, and after kindling a fire in the bundle, tell Esther that +he had started a fire, but would not tell where; or perhaps not tell +her at all, in which case the first intimation we would have was the +smell of the smoke pouring through the house, and then the most intense +excitement, everybody running with buckets of water. I say it +was the most truly awful calamity that could possible befall any family, +infidel or Christian, that could be conceived in the mind of man or +ghost.</p> +<p>“And how much more terrible did it seem in this little cottage, +where all were strict members of church, prayed, sang hymns and read +the Bible. Poor Mrs. Teed!”</p> +<p>On Mr. Hubbell’s remarking that the cat was not tormented, +“she was instantly lifted from the floor to a height of five feet, +and then dropped on Esther’s back. . . . I never saw any +cat more frightened; she ran out into the front yard, where she remained +for the balance (rest) of the day.” On 27th June “a +trumpet was heard in the house all day”.</p> +<p>The Rev. R. A. Temple now prayed with Esther, and tried a little +amateur exorcism, including the use of slips of paper, inscribed with +Habakkuk ii. 3. The ghosts cared no more than Voltaire for <i>ce +coquin d’Habacuc.</i></p> +<p>Things came to such a pass, matches simply raining all round, that +Mr. Teed’s landlord, a Mr. Bliss, evicted Esther. She went +to a Mr. Van Amburgh’s, and Mr. Teed’s cottage was in peace.</p> +<p>Some weeks later Esther was arrested for incendiarism in a barn, +was sentenced to four months’ imprisonment, but was soon released +in deference to public opinion. She married, had a family; and +ceased to be a mystery.</p> +<p>This story is narrated with an amiable simplicity, and is backed, +more or less, by extracts from Amherst and other local newspapers. +On making inquiries, I found that opinion was divided. Some held +that Esther was a mere impostor and fire-raiser; from other sources +I obtained curious tales of the eccentric flight of objects in her neighbourhood. +It is only certain that Esther’s case is identical with Madame +Shchapoff’s, and experts in hysteria may tell us whether that +malady ever takes the form of setting fire to the patient’s wardrobe, +and to things in general. <a name="citation239a"></a><a href="#footnote239a">{239a}</a></p> +<p>After these modern cases of disturbances, we may look at a few old, +or even ancient examples. It will be observed that the symptoms +are always of the same type, whatever the date or country. The +first is Gaelic, of last century.</p> +<h3>DONALD BAN AND THE BOCAN <a name="citation239b"></a><a href="#footnote239b">{239b}</a></h3> +<p>It is fully a hundred years ago since there died in Lochaber a man +named Donald Ban, sometimes called “the son of Angus,” but +more frequently known as Donald Ban of the Bocan. This surname +was derived from the troubles caused to him by a bocan—a goblin—many +of whose doings are preserved in tradition.</p> +<p>Donald drew his origin from the honourable house of Keppoch, and +was the last of the hunters of Macvic-Ronald. His home was at +Mounessee, and later at Inverlaire in Glenspean, and his wife belonged +to the MacGregors of Rannoch. He went out with the Prince, and +was present at the battle of Culloden. He fled from the field, +and took refuge in a mountain shieling, having two guns with him, but +only one of them was loaded. A company of soldiers came upon him +there, and although Donald escaped by a back window, taking the empty +gun with him by mistake, he was wounded in the leg by a shot from his +pursuers. The soldiers took him then, and conveyed him to Inverness, +where he was thrown into prison to await his trial. While he was +in prison he had a dream; he saw himself sitting and drinking with Alastair +MacCholla, and Donald MacRonald Vor. The latter was the man of +whom it was said that he had two hearts; he was taken prisoner at Falkirk +and executed at Carlisle. Donald was more fortunate than his friend, +and was finally set free.</p> +<p>It was after this that the bocan began to trouble him; and although +Donald never revealed to any man the secret of who the bocan was (if +indeed he knew it himself), yet there were some who professed to know +that it was a “gillie” of Donald’s who was killed +at Culloden. Their reason for believing this was that on one occasion +the man in question had given away more to a poor neighbour than Donald +was pleased to spare. Donald found fault with him, and in the +quarrel that followed the man said, “I will be avenged for this, +alive or dead”.</p> +<p>It was on the hill that Donald first met with the bocan, but he soon +came to closer quarters, and haunted the house in a most annoying fashion. +He injured the members of the household, and destroyed all the food, +being especially given to dirtying the butter (a thing quite superfluous, +according to Captain Burt’s description of Highland butter). +On one occasion a certain Ronald of Aberardair was a guest in Donald’s +house, and Donald’s wife said, “Though I put butter on the +table for you tonight, it will just be dirtied”. “I +will go with you to the butter-keg,” said Ronald, “with +my dirk in my hand, and hold my bonnet over the keg, and he will not +dirty it this night.” So the two went together to fetch +the butter, but it was dirtied just as usual.</p> +<p>Things were worse during the night and they could get no sleep for +the stones and clods that came flying about the house. “The +bocan was throwing things out of the walls, and they would hear them +rattling at the head of Donald’s bed.” The minister +came (Mr. John Mor MacDougall was his name) and slept a night or two +in the house, but the bocan kept away so long as he was there. +Another visitor, Angus MacAlister Ban, whose grandson told the tale, +had more experience of the bocan’s reality. “Something +seized his two big toes, and he could not get free any more than if +he had been caught by the smith’s tongs. It was the bocan, +but he did nothing more to him.” Some of the clergy, too, +as well as laymen of every rank, were witnesses to the pranks which +the spirit carried on, but not even Donald himself ever saw him in any +shape whatever. So famous did the affair become that Donald was +nearly ruined by entertaining all the curious strangers who came to +see the facts for themselves.</p> +<p>In the end Donald resolved to change his abode, to see whether he +could in that way escape from the visitations. He took all his +possessions with him except a harrow, which was left beside the wall +of the house, but before the party had gone far on the road the harrow +was seen coming after them. “Stop, stop,” said Donald; +“if the harrow is coming after us, we may just as well go back +again.” The mystery of the harrow is not explained, but +Donald did return to his home, and made no further attempt to escape +from his troubles in this way.</p> +<p>If the bocan had a spite at Donald, he was still worse disposed towards +his wife, the MacGregor woman. On the night on which he last made +his presence felt, he went on the roof of the house and cried, “Are +you asleep, Donald Ban?” “Not just now,” said +Donald. “Put out that long grey tether, the MacGregor wife,” +said he. “I don’t think I’ll do that tonight,” +said Donald. “Come out yourself, then,” said the bocan, +“and leave your bonnet.” The good-wife, thinking that +the bocan was outside and would not hear her, whispered in Donald’s +ear as he was rising, “Won’t you ask him when the Prince +will come?” The words, however, were hardly out of her mouth +when the bocan answered her with, “Didn’t you get enough +of him before, you grey tether?”</p> +<p>Another account says that at this last visit of the bocan, he was +saying that various other spirits were along with him. Donald’s +wife said to her husband: “I should think that if they were along +with him they would speak to us”; but the bocan answered, “They +are no more able to speak than the sole of your foot”. He +then summoned Donald outside as above. “I will come,” +said Donald, “and thanks be to the Good Being that you have asked +me.” Donald was taking his dirk with him as he went out, +but the bocan said, “leave your dirk inside, Donald, and your +knife as well”.</p> +<p>Donald then went outside, and the bocan led him on through rivers +and a birch-wood for about three miles, till they came to the river +Fert. There the bocan pointed out to Donald a hole in which he +had hidden some plough-irons while he was alive. Donald proceeded +to take them out, and while doing so the two eyes of the bocan were +causing him greater fear than anything else he ever heard or saw. +When he had got the irons out of the hole, they went back to Mounessie +together, and parted that night at the house of Donald Ban.</p> +<p>Donald, whether naturally or by reason of his ghostly visitant, was +a religious man, and commemorated his troubles in some verses which +bear the name of “The Hymn of Donald Ban of the Bocan”. +In these he speaks of the common belief that he had done something to +deserve all this annoyance, and makes mention of the “stones and +clods” which flew about his house in the night time. Otherwise +the hymn is mainly composed of religious sentiments, but its connection +with the story makes it interesting, and the following is a literal +translation of it.</p> +<h3>THE HYMN OF DONALD BAN</h3> +<blockquote><p>O God that created me so helpless,<br /> +Strengthen my belief and make it firm.<br /> +Command an angel to come from Paradise,<br /> +And take up his abode in my dwelling,<br /> +To protect me from every trouble<br /> +That wicked folks are putting in my way;<br /> +Jesus, that did’st suffer Thy crucifixion,<br /> +Restrain their doings, and be with me Thyself.</p> +<p>Little wonder though I am thoughtful—<br /> +Always at the time when I go to bed<br /> +The stones and the clods will arise—<br /> +How could a saint get sleep there?<br /> +I am without peace or rest,<br /> +Without repose or sleep till the morning;<br /> +O Thou that art in the throne of grace,<br /> +Behold my treatment and be a guard to me.</p> +<p>Little wonder though I am troubled,<br /> +So many stories about me in every place.<br /> +Some that are unjust will be saying,<br /> +“It is all owing to himself, that affair”.<br /> +Judge not except as you know,<br /> +Though the Son of God were awaking you;<br /> +No one knows if I have deserved more<br /> +Than a rich man that is without care.</p> +<p>Although I am in trouble at this time,<br /> +Verily, I shall be doubly repaid;<br /> +When the call comes to me from my Saviour,<br /> +I shall receive mercy and new grace;<br /> +I fear no more vexation,<br /> +When I ascend to be with Thy saints;<br /> +O Thou that sittest on the throne,<br /> +Assist my speaking and accept my prayer.</p> +<p>O God, make me mindful<br /> +Night and day to be praying,<br /> +Seeking pardon richly<br /> +For what I have done, on my knees.<br /> +Stir with the spirit of Truth<br /> +True repentance in my bosom,<br /> +That when Thou sendest death to seek me,<br /> +Christ may take care of me.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The bocan was not the only inhabitant of the spirit-world that Donald +Ban encountered during his lifetime. A cousin of his mother was +said to have been carried off by the fairies, and one night Donald saw +him among them, dancing away with all his might. Donald was also +out hunting in the year of the great snow, and at nightfall he saw a +man mounted on the back of a deer ascending a great rock. He heard +the man saying, “Home, Donald Ban,” and fortunately he took +the advice, for that night there fell eleven feet of snow in the very +spot where he had intended to stay.</p> +<p>We now take two modern Icelandic cases, for the purpose of leading +up to the famous Icelandic legend of Grettir and Glam the Vampire, from +the Grettis Saga. It is plain that such incidents as those in +the two modern Icelandic cases (however the effects were produced) might +easily be swollen into the prodigious tale of Glam in the course of +two or three centuries, between Grettir’s time and the complete +formation of his Saga.</p> +<h3>THE DEVIL OF HJALTA-STAD <a name="citation246"></a><a href="#footnote246">{246}</a></h3> +<p>The sheriff writes: “The Devil at Hjalta-stad was outspoken +enough this past winter, although no one saw him. I, along with +others, had the dishonour to hear him talking for nearly two days, during +which he addressed myself and the minister, Sir Grim, with words the +like of which ‘eye hath not seen nor ear heard’. As +soon as we reached the front of the house there was heard in the door +an iron voice saying: ‘So Hans from Eyrar is come now, and +wishes to talk with me, the --- idiot’. Compared with other +names that he gave me this might be considered as flattering. +When I inquired who it was that addressed me with such words, he answered +in a fierce voice, ‘I was called Lucifer at first, but now I am +called Devil and Enemy’. He threw at us both stones and +pieces of wood, as well as other things, and broke two windows in the +minister’s room. He spoke so close to us that he seemed +to be just at our side. There was an old woman there of the name +of Opia, whom he called his wife, and a ‘heavenly blessed soul,’ +and asked Sir Grim to marry them, with various other remarks of this +kind, which I will not recount.</p> +<p>“I have little liking to write about his ongoings, which were +all disgraceful and shameful, in accordance with the nature of the actor. +He repeated the ‘Pater Noster’ three times, answered questions +from the Catechism and the Bible, said that the devils held service +in hell, and told what texts and psalms they had for various occasions. +He asked us to give him some of the food we had, and a drink of tea, +etc. I asked the fellow whether God was good. He said, ‘Yes’. +Whether he was truthful. He answered, ‘Not one of his words +can be doubted’. Sir Grim asked him whether the devil was +good-looking. He answered: ‘He is far better-looking than +you, you --- ugly snout!’ I asked him whether the devils +agreed well with each other. He answered in a kind of sobbing +voice: ‘It is painful to know that they never have peace’. +I bade him say something to me in German, and said to him <i>Lass uns +Teusc redre</i> (<i>sic</i>), but he answered as if he had misunderstood +me.</p> +<p>“When we went to bed in the evening he shouted fiercely in +the middle of the floor, ‘On this night I shall snatch you off +to hell, and you shall not rise up out of bed as you lay down’. +During the evening he wished the minister’s wife good-night. +The minister and I continued to talk with him during the night; among +other things we asked him what kind of weather it was outside. +He answered: ‘It is cold, with a north wind’. We asked +if he was cold. He answered: ‘I think I am both hot and +cold’. I asked him how loud he could shout. He said, +‘So loud that the roof would go off the house, and you would all +fall into a dead faint’. I told him to try it. He +answered: ‘Do you think I am come to amuse you, you --- idiot?’ +I asked him to show us a little specimen. He said he would do +so, and gave three shouts, the last of which was so fearful that I have +never heard anything worse, and doubt whether I ever shall. Towards +daybreak, after he had parted from us with the usual compliments, we +fell asleep.</p> +<p>“Next morning he came in again, and began to waken up people; +he named each one by name, not forgetting to add some nickname, and +asking whether so-and-so was awake. When he saw they were all +awake, he said he was going to play with the door now, and with that +he threw the door off its hinges with a sudden jerk, and sent it far +in upon the floor. The strangest thing was that when he threw +anything it went down at once, and then went back to its place again, +so it was evident that he either went inside it or moved about with +it.</p> +<p>“The previous evening he challenged me twice to come out into +the darkness to him, and this in an angry voice, saying that he would +tear me limb from limb. I went out and told him to come on, but +nothing happened. When I went back to my place and asked him why +he had not fulfilled his promise, he said, ‘I had no orders for +it from my master’. He asked us whether we had ever heard +the like before, and when we said ‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘That +is not true: the like has never been heard at any time’. +He had sung ‘The memory of Jesus’ after I arrived there, +and talked frequently while the word of God was being read. He +said that he did not mind this, but that he did not like the ‘Cross-school +Psalms,’ and said it must have been a great idiot who composed +them. This enemy came like a devil, departed as such, and behaved +himself as such while he was present, nor would it befit any one but +the devil to declare all that he said. At the same time it must +be added that I am not quite convinced that it was a spirit, but my +opinions on this I cannot give here for lack of time.”</p> +<p>In another work <a name="citation249"></a><a href="#footnote249">{249}</a> +where the sheriff’s letter is given with some variations and additions, +an attempt is made to explain the story. The phenomena were said +to have been caused by a young man who had learned ventriloquism abroad. +Even if this art could have been practised so successfully as to puzzle +the sheriff and others, it could hardly have taken the door off its +hinges and thrown it into the room. It is curious that while Jon +Espolin in his <i>Annals</i> entirely discredits the sheriff’s +letter, he yet gives a very similar account of the spirit’s proceedings.</p> +<p>A later story of the same kind, also printed by Jon Arnason (i., +311), is that of the ghost at Garpsdal as related by the minister there, +Sir Saemund, and written down by another minister on 7th June, 1808. +The narrative is as follows:—</p> +<h3>THE GHOST AT GARPSDAL</h3> +<p>In Autumn, 1807, there was a disturbance by night in the outer room +at Garpsdal, the door being smashed. There slept in this room +the minister’s men-servants, Thorsteinn Gudmundsson, Magnus Jonsson, +and a child named Thorstein. Later, on 16th November, a boat which +the minister had lying at the sea-side was broken in broad daylight, +and although the blows were heard at the homestead yet no human form +was visible that could have done this. All the folks at Garpsdal +were at home, and the young fellow Magnus Jonsson was engaged either +at the sheep-houses or about the homestead; the spirit often appeared +to him in the likeness of a woman. On the 18th of the same month +four doors of the sheep-houses were broken in broad daylight, while +the minister was marrying a couple in the church; most of his people +were present in the church, Magnus being among them. That same +day in the evening this woman was noticed in the sheep-houses; she said +that she wished to get a ewe to roast, but as soon as an old woman who +lived at Garpsdal and was both skilled and wise (Gudrun Jons-dottir +by name) had handled the ewe, its struggles ceased and it recovered +again. While Gudrun was handling the ewe, Magnus was standing +in the door of the house; with that one of the rafters was broken, and +the pieces were thrown in his face. He said that the woman went +away just then. The minister’s horses were close by, and +at that moment became so scared that they ran straight over smooth ice +as though it had been earth, and suffered no harm.</p> +<p>On the evening of the 20th there were great disturbances, panelling +and doors being broken down in various rooms. The minister was +standing in the house door along with Magnus and two or three girls +when Magnus said to him that the spirit had gone into the sitting-room. +The minister went and stood at the door of the room, and after he had +been there a little while, talking to the others, a pane of glass in +one of the room windows was broken. Magnus was standing beside +the minister talking to him, and when the pane broke he said that the +spirit had gone out by that. The minister went to the window, +and saw that the pane was all broken into little pieces. The following +evening, the 21st, the spirit also made its presence known by bangings, +thumpings, and loud noises.</p> +<p>On the 28th the ongoings of the spirit surpassed themselves. +In the evening a great blow was given on the roof of the sitting-room. +The minister was inside at the time, but Magnus with two girls was out +in the barn. At the same moment the partition between the weaving-shop +and the sitting-room was broken down, and then three windows of the +room itself—one above the minister’s bed, another above +his writing-table, and the third in front of the closet door. +A piece of a table was thrown in at one of these, and a spade at another. +At this the household ran out of that room into the loft, but the minister +sprang downstairs and out; the old woman Gudrun who was named before +went with him, and there also came Magnus and some of the others. +Just then a vessel of wash, which had been standing in the kitchen, +was thrown at Gudrun’s head. The minister then ran in, along +with Magnus and the girls, and now everything that was loose was flying +about, both doors and splinters of wood. The minister opened a +room near the outer door intending to go in there, but just then a sledge +hammer which lay at the door was thrown at him, but it only touched +him on the side and hip, and did him no harm. From there the minister +and the others went back to the sitting-room, where everything was dancing +about, and where they were met with a perfect volley of splinters of +deal from the partitions. The minister then fled, and took his +wife and child to Muli, the next farm, and left them there, as she was +frightened to death with all this. He himself returned next day.</p> +<p>On the 8th of December, the woman again made her appearance in broad +daylight. On this occasion she broke the shelves and panelling +in the pantry, in presence of the minister, Magnus, and others. +According to Magnus, the spirit then went out through the wall at the +minister’s words, and made its way to the byre-lane. Magnus +and Gudrun went after it, but were received with throwings of mud and +dirt. A stone was also hurled at Magnus, as large as any man could +lift, while Gudrun received a blow on the arm that confined her to her +bed for three weeks.</p> +<p>On the 26th of the month the shepherd, Einar Jonsson, a hardy and +resolute fellow, commanded the spirit to show itself to him. Thereupon +there came over him such a madness and frenzy, that he had to be closely +guarded to prevent him from doing harm to himself. He was taken +to the house, and kept in his bed, a watch being held over him. +When he recovered his wits, he said that this girl had come above his +head and assailed him. When he had completely got over this, he +went away from Garpsdal altogether.</p> +<p>Later than this the minister’s horse was found dead in the +stable at Muli, and the folks there said that it was all black and swollen.</p> +<p>These are the most remarkable doings of the ghost at Garpsdal, according +to the evidence of Sir Saemund, Magnus, Gudrun, and all the household +at Garpsdal, all of whom will confirm their witness with an oath, and +aver that no human being could have been so invisible there by day and +night, but rather that it was some kind of spirit that did the mischief. +From the story itself it may be seen that neither Magnus nor any other +person could have accomplished the like, and all the folk will confirm +this, and clear all persons in the matter, so far as they know. +In this form the story was told to me, the subscriber, to Samuel Egilsson +and Bjarni Oddsson, by the minister himself and his household, at Garpsdal, +28th May, 1808. That this is correctly set down, after what the +minister Sir Saemund related to me, I witness here at Stad on Reykjanes, +7th June, 1808.</p> +<p>GISLI OLAFSSON</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>Notwithstanding this declaration, the troubles at Garpsdal were attributed +by others to Magnus, and the name of the “Garpsdale Ghost” +stuck to him throughout his life. He was alive in 1862, when Jon +Arnason’s volume was published.</p> +<p>These modern instances lead up to “the best story in the world,” +the old Icelandic tale of Glam.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XII<br /> +The Story of Glam. The Foul Fords.</h2> +<h3>THE STORY OF GLAM</h3> +<p>There was a man named Thorhall, who lived at Thorhall-stead in Forsaela-dala, +which lies in the north of Iceland. He was a fairly wealthy man, +especially in cattle, so that no one round about had so much live-stock +as he had. He was not a chief, however, but an honest and worthy +yeoman.</p> +<p>“Now this man’s place was greatly haunted, so that he +could scarcely get a shepherd to stay with him, and although he asked +the opinion of many as to what he ought to do, he could find none to +give him advice of any worth.</p> +<p>“One summer at the Althing, or yearly assembly of the people, +Thorhall went to the booth of Skafti, the law man, who was the wisest +of men and gave good counsel when his opinion was asked. He received +Thorhall in a friendly way, because he knew he was a man of means, and +asked him what news he had.</p> +<p>“‘I would have some good advice from you,’ said +Thorhall.</p> +<p>‘“I am little able to give that,’ said Skafti; +‘but what is the matter?’</p> +<p>“‘This is the way of it,’ said Thorhall, ‘I +have had very bad luck with my shepherds of late. Some of them +get injured, and others will not serve out their time; and now no one +that knows how the case stands will take the place at all.’</p> +<p>“‘Then there must be some evil spirit there,’ said +Skafti, ‘when men are less willing to herd your sheep, than those +of others. Now since you have asked my advice, I will get a shepherd +for you. Glam is his name, he belongs to Sweden, and came out +here last summer. He is big and strong, but not very well liked +by most people.’</p> +<p>“Thorhall said that he did not mind that, if he looked well +after the sheep. Skafti answered that there was no hope of other +men doing it, if Glam could not, seeing he was so strong and stout-hearted. +Their talk ended there, and Thorhall left the booth.</p> +<p>“This took place just at the breaking up of the assembly. +Thorhall missed two of his horses, and went to look for them in person, +from which it may be seen that he was no proud man. He went up +to the mountain ridge, and south along the fell that is called Armann’s +fell. There he saw a man coming down from the wood, leading a +horse laden with bundles of brushwood. They soon met each other +and Thorhall asked his name. He said he was called Glam. +He was tall of body, and of strange appearance; his eyes were blue and +staring, and his hair wolf-grey in colour. Thorhall was a little +startled when he saw him, and was certain that this was the man he had +been told about.</p> +<p>“‘What work are you best fitted for?’ he asked. +Glam said that he was good at keeping sheep in winter.</p> +<p>“‘Will you look after <i>my</i> sheep?’ said Thorhall. +‘Skafti has put you into my hands.’</p> +<p>“‘On this condition only will I take service with you,’ +said Glam, ‘that I have my own free will, for I am ill-tempered +if anything does not please me.’</p> +<p>“‘That will not harm me,’ said Thorhall, ‘and +I should like you to come to me.’</p> +<p>“‘I will do so,’ said Glam; ‘but is there +any trouble at your place?’</p> +<p>“‘It is believed to be haunted,’ said Thorhall.</p> +<p>“‘I am not afraid of such bug-bears,’ said Glam, +‘and think that it will be all the livelier for that.’</p> +<p>“‘You will need all your boldness,’ said Thorhall, +‘It is best not to be too frightened for one’s self there.’</p> +<p>“After this they made a bargain between them, and Glam was +to come when the winter nights began. Then they parted, and Thorhall +found his horses where he had just newly looked for them, and rode home, +after thanking Skafti for his kindness.</p> +<p>“The summer passed, and Thorhall heard nothing of the shepherd, +nor did any one know the least about him, but at the time appointed +he came to Thorhall-stead. The yeoman received him well, but the +others did not like him, and the good-wife least of all. He began +his work among the sheep which gave him little trouble, for he had a +loud, hoarse voice, and the flock all ran together whenever he shouted. +There was a church at Thorhall-stead, but Glam would never go to it +nor join in the service. He was unbelieving, surly, and difficult +to deal with, and ever one felt a dislike towards him.</p> +<p>“So time went on till it came to Christmas eve. On that +morning Glam rose early and called for his food. The good-wife +answered: ‘It is not the custom of Christian people to eat on +this day, for to-morrow is the first day of Christmas, and we ought +to fast to-day’. Glam replied: ‘You have many foolish +fashions that I see no good in. I cannot see that men are any +better off now than they were when they never troubled themselves about +such things. I think it was a far better life when men were heathens; +and now I want my food, and no nonsense.’ The good-wife +answered: ‘I am sure you will come to sorrow to-day if you act +thus perversely’.</p> +<p>“Glam bade her bring his food at once, or it would be the worse +for her. She was afraid to refuse, and after he had eaten he went +out in a great rage.</p> +<p>“The weather was very bad. It was dark and gloomy all +round; snowflakes fluttered about; loud noises were heard in the air, +and it grew worse and worse as the day wore on. They heard the +shepherd’s voice during the forenoon, but less of him as the day +passed. Then the snow began to drift, and by evening there was +a violent storm. People came to the service in church, and the +day wore on to evening, but still Glam did not come home. There +was some talk among them of going to look for him, but no search was +made on account of the storm and the darkness.</p> +<p>“All Christmas eve Glam did not return, and in the morning +men went to look for him. They found the sheep scattered in the +fens, beaten down by the storm, or up on the hills. Thereafter +they came to a place in the valley where the snow was all trampled, +as if there had been a terrible struggle there, for stones and frozen +earth were torn up all round about. They looked carefully round +the place, and found Glam lying a short distance off, quite dead. +He was black in colour, and swollen up as big as an ox. They were +horrified at the sight, and shuddered in their hearts. However, +they tried to carry him to the church, but could get him no further +than to the edge of a cleft, a little lower down; so they left him there +and went home and told their master what had happened.</p> +<p>“Thorhall asked them what had been the cause of Glam’s +death. They said that they had traced footprints as large as though +the bottom of a cask had been set down in the snow leading from where +the trampled place was up to the cliffs at the head of the valley, and +all along the track there were huge blood-stains. From this they +guessed that the evil spirit which lived there must have killed Glam, +but had received so much hurt that it had died, for nothing was ever +seen of it after.</p> +<p>“The second day of Christmas they tried again to bring Glam +to the church. They yoked horses to him, but after they had come +down the slope and reached level ground they could drag him no further, +and he had to be left there.</p> +<p>“On the third day a priest went with them, but Glam was not +be found, although they searched for him all day. The priest refused +to go a second time, and the shepherd was found at once when the priest +was not present. So they gave over their attempts to take him +to the church, and buried him on the spot.</p> +<p>“Soon after this they became aware that Glam was not lying +quiet, and great damage was done by him, for many that saw him fell +into a swoon, or lost their reason. Immediately after Yule men +believed that they saw him about the farm itself, and grew terribly +frightened, so that many of them ran away. After this Glam began +to ride on the house-top by night, <a name="citation259"></a><a href="#footnote259">{259}</a> +and nearly shook it to pieces, and then he walked about almost night +and day. Men hardly dared to go up into the valley, even although +they had urgent business there, and every one in the district thought +great harm of the matter.</p> +<p>“In spring, Thorhall got new men, and started the farm again, +while Glam’s walkings began to grow less frequent as the days +grew longer. So time went on, until it was mid-summer. That +summer a ship from Norway came into Huna-water (a firth to the north +of Thorhall-stead), and had on board a man called Thorgaut. He +was foreign by birth, big of body, and as strong as any two men. +He was unhired and unmarried, and was looking for some employment, as +he was penniless. Thorhall rode to the ship, and found Thorgaut +there. He asked him whether he would enter his service. +Thorgaut answered that he might well do so, and that he did not care +much what work he did.</p> +<p>“‘You must know, however,’ said Thorhall, ‘that +it is not good for any faint-hearted man to live at my place, on account +of the hauntings that have been of late, and I do not wish to deceive +you in any way.’</p> +<p>“‘I do not think myself utterly lost although I see some +wretched ghosts,’ said Thorgaut. ‘It will be no light +matter for others if <i>I</i> am scared, and I will not throw up the +place on that account.’</p> +<p>“Their bargain was quickly made, and Thorgaut was to have charge +of the sheep during the winter. The summer went past, and Thorgaut +began his duties with the winter nights, and was well liked by every +one. Glam began to come again, and rode on the house-top, which +Thorgaut thought great sport, and said that the thrall would have to +come to close quarters before he would be afraid of him. Thorhall +bade him not say too much about it. ‘It will be better for +you,’ said he, ‘if you have no trial of each other.’</p> +<p>“‘Your courage has indeed been shaken out of you,’ +said Thorgaut, ‘but I am not going to fall dead for such talk.’</p> +<p>“The winter went on till Christmas came again, and on Christmas +eve the shepherd went out to his sheep. ‘I trust,’ +said the good-wife, ‘that things will not go after the old fashion.’</p> +<p>“‘Have no fear of that, good-wife,’ said Thorgaut; +‘there will be something worth talking about if I don’t +come back.’</p> +<p>“The weather was very cold, and a heavy drift blowing. +Thorgaut was in the habit of coming home when it was half-dark, but +on this occasion he did not return at his usual time. People came +to church, and they now began to think that things were not unlikely +to fall out as they had done before. Thorhall wished to make search +for the shepherd, but the church-goers refused, saying that they would +not risk themselves in the hands of evil demons by night, and so no +search was made.</p> +<p>“After their morning meal on Christmas day they went out to +look for the shepherd. They first made their way to Glam’s +cairn, guessing that he was the cause of the man’s disappearance. +On coming near to this they saw great tidings, for there they found +the shepherd with his neck broken and every bone in his body smashed +in pieces. They carried him to the church, and he did no harm +to any man thereafter. But Glam began to gather strength anew, +and now went so far in his mischief that every one fled from Thorhall-stead, +except the yeoman and his wife.</p> +<p>“The same cattleman, however, had been there for a long time, +and Thorhall would not let him leave, because he was so faithful and +so careful. He was very old, and did not want to go away either, +for he saw that everything his master had would go to wreck and ruin, +if there was no one to look after it.</p> +<p>“One morning after the middle of winter the good-wife went +out to the byre to milk the cows. It was broad daylight by this +time, for no one ventured to be outside earlier than that, except the +cattleman, who always went out when it began to grow clear. She +heard a great noise and fearful bellowing in the byre, and ran into +the house again, crying out and saying that some awful thing was going +on there. Thorhall went out to the cattle and found them goring +each other with their horns. To get out of their way, he went +through into the barn, and in doing this he saw the cattleman lying +on his back with his head in one stall and his feet in another. +He went up to him and felt him and soon found that he was dead, with +his back broken over the upright stone between two of the stalls.</p> +<p>“The yeoman thought it high time to leave the place now, and +fled from his farm with all that he could remove. All the live-stock +that he left behind was killed by Glam, who then went through the whole +glen and laid waste all the farms up from Tongue.</p> +<p>“Thorhall spent the rest of the winter with various friends. +No one could go up into the glen with horse or dog, for these were killed +at once; but when spring came again and the days began to lengthen, +Glam’s walkings grew less frequent, and Thorhall determined to +return to his homestead. He had difficulty in getting servants, +but managed to set up his home again at Thorhall-stead. Things +went just as before. When autumn came, the hauntings began again, +and now it was the yeoman’s daughter who was most assailed, till +in the end she died of fright. Many plans were tried, but all +to no effect, and it seemed as if all Water-dale would be laid waste +unless some remedy could be found.</p> +<p>“All this befell in the days of Grettir, the son of Asmund, +who was the strongest man of his day in Iceland. He had been abroad +at this time, outlawed for three years, and was only eighteen years +of age when he returned. He had been at home all through the autumn, +but when the winter nights were well advanced, he rode north to Water-dale, +and came to Tongue, where lived his uncle Jökull. His uncle +received him heartily, and he stayed there for three nights. At +this time there was so much talk about Glam’s walkings, that nothing +was so largely spoken of as these. Grettir inquired closely about +all that had happened, and Jökull said that the stories told no +more than had indeed taken place; ‘but are you intending to go +there, kinsman?’ said he. Grettir answered that he was. +Jökull bade him not do so, ‘for it is a dangerous undertaking, +and a great risk for your friends to lose you, for in our opinion there +is not another like you among the young men, and “ill will come +of ill” where Glam is. Far better it is to deal with mortal +men than with such evil spirits.’</p> +<p>“Grettir, however, said that he had a mind to fare to Thorhall-stead, +and see how things had been going on there. Jökull replied: +‘I see now that it is of no use to hold you back, but the saying +is true that “good luck and good heart are not the same’”. +Grettir answered: ‘“Woe stands at one man’s door when +it has entered another’s house”. Think how it may +go with yourself before the end.’</p> +<p>“‘It may be,’ said Jökull, ‘that both +of us see some way into the future, and yet neither of us can do anything +to prevent it.’</p> +<p>“After this they parted, and neither liked the other’s +forebodings.</p> +<p>“Grettir rode to Thorhall-stead, and the yeoman received him +heartily. He asked Grettir where he was going, who said that he +wished to stay there all night if he would allow him. Thorhall +said that he would be very glad if he would stay, ‘but few men +count it a gain to be guests here for long. You must have heard +how matters stand, and I shall be very unwilling for you to come to +any harm on my account. And even although you yourself escape +safe and sound, I know for certain that you will lose your horse, for +no man that comes here can keep that uninjured.’</p> +<p>“Grettir answered that there were horses enough to be got, +whatever might happen to this one. Thorhall was delighted that +he was willing to stay, and gave him the heartiest reception. +The horse was strongly secured in an out-house; then they went to sleep, +and that night passed without Glam appearing.</p> +<p>“‘Your coming here,’ said Thorhall, ‘has +made a happy change, for Glam is in the habit of riding the house every +night, or breaking up the doors, as you may see for yourself.’</p> +<p>“‘Then one of two things will happen,’ said Grettir; +‘either he will not restrain himself for long, or the hauntings +will cease for more than one night. I shall stay for another night, +and see how things go.’</p> +<p>“After this they went to look at Grettir’s horse, and +found that he had not been meddled with, so the yeoman thought that +everything was going on well, Grettir stayed another night, and still +the thrall did not come about them. Thorhall thought that things +were looking brighter, but when he went to look to Grettir’s horse +he found the out-house broken up, the horse dragged outside, and every +bone in it broken. He told Grettir what had happened, and advised +him to secure his own safety, ‘for your death is certain if you +wait for Glam’.</p> +<p>“Grettir answered: ‘The least I can get for my horse +is to see the thrall’. Thorhall replied that it would do +him no good to see him, ‘for he is unlike anything in human shape; +but I am fain of every hour that you are willing to stay here’.</p> +<p>“The day wore on, and when it was bed-time Grettir would not +take off his clothes, but lay down on the floor over against Thorhall’s +bed-closet. He put a thick cloak above himself, buttoning one +end beneath his feet, and doubling the other under his head, while he +looked out at the hole for the neck. There was a strong plank +in front of the floored space, and against this he pressed his feet. +The door-fittings were all broken off from the outer door, but there +was a hurdle set up instead, and roughly secured. The wainscot +that had once stretched across the hall was all broken down, both above +and below the cross-beam. The beds were all pulled out of their +places, and everything was in confusion.</p> +<p>“A light was left burning in the hall, and when the third part +of the night was past Grettir heard loud noises outside. Then +something went up on top of the house, and rode above the hall, beating +the roof with its heels till every beam cracked. This went on +for a long time; then it came down off the house and went to the door. +When this was opened Grettir saw the thrall thrust in his head; ghastly +big he seemed, and wonderfully huge of feature. Glam came in slowly, +and raised himself up when he was inside the doorway, till he loomed +up against the roof. Then he turned his face down the hall, laid +his arms on the cross-beam, and glared all over the place. Thorhall +gave no sign during all this, for he thought it bad enough to hear what +was going on outside.</p> +<p>“Grettir lay still and never moved. Glam saw that there +was a bundle lying on the floor, and moved further up the hall and grasped +the cloak firmly. Grettir placed his feet against the plank, and +yielded not the least. Glam tugged a second time, much harder +than before, but still the cloak did not move. A third time he +pulled with both his hands, so hard that he raised Grettir up from the +floor, and now they wrenched the cloak asunder between them. Glam +stood staring at the piece which he held in his hands, and wondering +greatly who could have pulled so hard against him. At that moment +Grettir sprang in under the monster’s hands, and threw his arms +around his waist, intending to make him fall backwards. Glam, +however, bore down upon him so strongly that Grettir was forced to give +way before him. He then tried to stay himself against the seat-boards, +but these gave way with him, and everything that came in their path +was broken.</p> +<p>“Glam wanted to get him outside, and although Grettir set his +feet against everything that he could, yet Glam succeeded in dragging +him out into the porch. There they had a fierce struggle, for +the thrall meant to have him out of doors, while Grettir saw that bad +as it was to deal with Glam inside the house it would be worse outside, +and therefore strove with all his might against being carried out. +When they came into the porch Glam put forth all his strength, and pulled +Grettir close to him. When Grettir saw that he could not stay +himself he suddenly changed his plan, and threw himself as hard as he +could against the monster’s breast, setting both his feet against +an earth-fast stone that lay in the doorway. Glam was not prepared +for this, being then in the act of pulling Grettir towards him, so he +fell backwards and went crashing out through the door, his shoulders +catching the lintel as he fell. The roof of the porch was wrenched +in two, both rafters and frozen thatch, and backwards out of the house +went Glam, with Grettir above him.</p> +<p>“Outside there was bright moonshine and broken clouds, which +sometimes drifted over the moon and sometimes left it clear. At +the moment when Glam fell the cloud passed off the moon, and he cast +up his eyes sharply towards it; and Grettir himself said that this was +the only sight he ever saw that terrified him. Then Grettir grew +so helpless, both by reason of his weariness and at seeing Glam roll +his eyes so horribly, that he was unable to draw his dagger, and lay +well-nigh between life and death.</p> +<p>“But in this was Glam’s might more fiendish than that +of most other ghosts, that he spoke in this fashion: ‘Great eagerness +have you shown to meet me, Grettir, and little wonder will it be though +you get no great good fortune from me; but this I may tell you, that +you have now received only half of the strength and vigour that was +destined for you if you had not met with me. I cannot now take +from you the strength you have already gained, but this I can see to, +that you will never be stronger than you are now, and yet you are strong +enough, as many a man shall feel. Hitherto you have been famous +for your deeds, but henceforth you shall be a manslayer and an outlaw, +and most of your deeds will turn to your own hurt and misfortune. +Outlawed you shall be, and ever have a solitary life for your lot; and +this, too, I lay upon you, ever to see these eyes of mine before your +own, and then you will think it hard to be alone, and that will bring +you to your death.’</p> +<p>“When Glam had said this the faintness passed off Grettir, +and he then drew his dagger, cut off Glam’s head, and laid it +beside his thigh. Thorhall then came out, having put on his clothes +while Glam was talking, but never venturing to come near until he had +fallen. He praised God, and thanked Grettir for overcoming the +unclean spirit. Then they set to work, and burned Glam to ashes, +which they placed in a sack, and buried where cattle were least likely +to pasture or men to tread. When this was done they went home +again, and it was now near daybreak.</p> +<p>“Thorhall sent to the next farm for the men there, and told +them what had taken place. All thought highly of the exploit that +heard of it, and it was the common talk that in all Iceland there was +no man like Grettir Asnundarson for strength and courage and all kinds +of bodily feats. Thorhall gave him a good horse when he went away, +as well as a fine suit of clothes, for the ones he had been wearing +were all torn to pieces. The two then parted with the utmost friendship.</p> +<p>“Thence Grettir rode to the Ridge in Water-dale, where his +kinsman Thorvald received him heartily, and asked closely concerning +his encounter with Glam. Grettir told him how he had fared, and +said that his strength was never put to harder proof, so long did the +struggle between them last. Thorvald bade him be quiet and gentle +in his conduct, and things would go well with him, otherwise his troubles +would be many. Grettir answered that his temper was not improved; +he was more easily roused than ever, and less able to bear opposition. +In this, too, he felt a great change, that he had become so much afraid +of the dark that he dared not go anywhere alone after night began to +fall, for then he saw phantoms and monsters of every kind. So +it has become a saying ever since then, when folk see things very different +from what they are, that Glam lends them his eyes, or gives them glam-sight.</p> +<p>“This fear of solitude brought Grettir, at last, to his end.”</p> +<p>Ghosts being seldom dangerous to human life, we follow up the homicidal +Glam with a Scottish traditional story of malevolent and murderous sprites.</p> +<h3>‘THE FOUL FORDS’ OR THE LONGFORMACUS FARRIER</h3> +<p>“About 1820 there lived a Farrier of the name of Keane in the +village of Longformacus in Lammermoor. He was a rough, passionate +man, much addicted to swearing. For many years he was farrier +to the Eagle or Spottiswood troop of Yeomanry. One day he went +to Greenlaw to attend the funeral of his sister, intending to be home +early in the afternoon. His wife and family were surprised when +he did not appear as they expected and they sat up watching for him. +About two o’clock in the morning a heavy weight was heard to fall +against the door of the house, and on opening it to see what was the +matter, old Keane was discovered lying in a fainting fit on the threshold. +He was put to bed and means used for his recovery, but when he came +out of the fit he was raving mad and talked of such frightful things +that his family were quite terrified. He continued till next day +in the same state, but at length his senses returned and he desired +to see the minister alone.</p> +<p>“After a long conversation with him he called all his family +round his bed, and required from each of his children and his wife a +solemn promise that they would none of them ever pass over a particular +spot in the moor between Longformacus and Greenlaw, known by the name +of ‘The Foul Fords’ (it is the ford over a little water-course +just east of Castle Shields). He assigned no reason to them for +this demand, but the promise was given and he spoke no more, and died +that evening.</p> +<p>“About ten years after his death, his eldest son Henry Keane +had to go to Greenlaw on business, and in the afternoon he prepared +to return home. The last person who saw him as he was leaving +the town was the blacksmith of Spottiswood, John Michie. He tried +to persuade Michie to accompany him home, which he refused to do as +it would take him several miles out of his way. Keane begged him +most earnestly to go with him as he said he <i>must</i> pass the Foul +Fords that night, and he would rather go through hell-fire than do so. +Michie asked him why he said he <i>must</i> pass the Foul Fords, as +by going a few yards on either side of them he might avoid them entirely. +He persisted that he <i>must</i> pass them and Michie at last left him, +a good deal surprised that he should talk of going over the Foul Fords +when every one knew that he and his whole family were bound, by a promise +to their dead father, never to go by the place.</p> +<p>“Next morning a labouring man from Castle Shields, by name +Adam Redpath, was going to his work (digging sheep-drains on the moor), +when on the Foul Fords he met Henry Keane lying stone dead and with +no mark of violence on his body. His hat, coat, waistcoat, shoes +and stockings were lying at about 100 yards distance from him on the +Greenlaw side of the Fords, and while his flannel drawers were off and +lying with the rest of his clothes, his trousers were on. Mr. +Ord, the minister of Longformacus, told one or two persons what John +Keane (the father) had said to him on his deathbed, and by degrees the +story got abroad. It was this. Keane said that he was returning +home slowly after his sister’s funeral, looking on the ground, +when he was suddenly roused by hearing the tramping of horses, and on +looking up he saw a large troop of riders coming towards him two and +two. What was his horror when he saw that one of the two foremost +was the sister whom he had that day seen buried at Greenlaw! On +looking further he saw many relations and friends long before dead; +but when the two last horses came up to him he saw that one was mounted +by a dark man whose face he had never seen before. He led the +other horse, which, though saddled and bridled, was riderless, and on +this horse the whole company wanted to compel Keane to get. He +struggled violently, he said, for some time, and at last got off by +promising that one of his family should go instead of him.</p> +<p>“There still lives at Longformacus his remaining son Robert; +he has the same horror of the Foul Fords that his brother had, and will +not speak, nor allow any one to speak to him on the subject.</p> +<p>“Three or four years ago a herd of the name of Burton was found +dead within a short distance of the spot, without any apparent cause +for his death.” <a name="citation272"></a><a href="#footnote272">{272}</a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII<br /> +The Marvels at Fródá</h2> +<p>The following tale has all the direct simplicity and truth to human +nature which mark the ancient literature of Iceland. Defoe might +have envied the profusion of detail; “The large chest with a lock, +and the small box,” and so on. Some of the minor portents, +such as the disturbances among inanimate objects, and the appearance +of a glow of mysterious light, “the Fate Moon,” recur in +modern tales of haunted houses. The combination of Christian exorcism, +then a novelty in Iceland, with legal proceedings against the ghosts, +is especially characteristic.</p> +<h3>THE MARVELS AT FRÓDÁ <a name="citation273"></a><a href="#footnote273">{273}</a></h3> +<p>During that summer in which Christianity was adopted by law in Iceland +(1000 A.D.), it happened that a ship came to land at Snowfell Ness. +It was a Dublin vessel, manned by Irish and Hebrideans, with few Norsemen +on board. They lay there for a long time during the summer, waiting +for a favourable wind to sail into the firth, and many people from the +Ness went down to trade with them. There was on board a Hebridean +woman named Thorgunna, of whom her shipmates said that she owned some +costly things, the like of which would be difficult to find in Iceland. +When Thurid, the housewife at Fródá, heard of this she +was very curious to see the articles, for she was a woman that was fond +of show and finery. She went to the ship and asked Thorgunna whether +she had any woman’s apparel that was finer than the common. +Thorgunna said that she had nothing of the kind to sell, but had some +good things of her own, that she might not be affronted at feasts or +other gatherings. Thurid begged a sight of these, and Thorgunna +showed her treasures. Thurid was much pleased with them, and thought +them very becoming, though not of high value. She offered to buy +them, but Thorgunna would not sell. Thurid then invited her to +come and stay with her, because she knew that Thorgunna was well provided, +and thought that she would get the things from her in course of time.</p> +<p>Thorgunna answered, “I am well pleased to go to stay with you, +but you must know that I have little mind to pay for myself, because +I am well able to work, and have no dislike to it, though I will not +do any dirty work. I must be allowed to settle what I shall pay +for myself out of such property as I have.”</p> +<p>Although Thorgunna spoke in this fashion, yet Thurid would have her +to go with her, and her things were taken out of the ship; these were +in a large chest with a lock and a small box, and both were taken home +to Fródá. When Thorgunna arrived there she asked +for her bed to be shown her, and was given one in the inner part of +the hall. Then she opened up the chest, and took bed-clothes out +of it: they were all very beautiful, and over the bed she spread English +coverlets and a silken quilt. Out of the chest she also brought +a bed-curtain and all the hangings that belonged to it, and the whole +outfit was so fine that folk thought they had never seen the like of +it.</p> +<p>Then said Thurid the housewife: “Name the price of all your +bed-clothes and hangings”.</p> +<p>Thorgunna answered, “I will not lie among straw for you, although +you are so stately, and bear yourself so proudly”.</p> +<p>Thurid was ill pleased at this, and offered no more to buy the things.</p> +<p>Thorgunna worked at cloth-making every day when there was no hay-making, +but when the weather was dry she worked among the dry hay in the home +field, and had a rake made for herself which she alone was to use. +Thorgunna was a big woman, both broad and tall, and very stout; she +had dark eyebrows, and her eyes were close set; her hair brown and in +great abundance. She was well-mannered in her daily life, and +went to church every day before beginning her work, but she was not +of a light disposition nor of many words. Most people thought +that Thorgunna must be in the sixties, yet she was a very active woman.</p> +<p>At this time one Thorir “wooden-leg” and his wife Thorgrima +“charm-cheek” were being maintained at Fródá, +and there was little love between them and Thorgunna. The person +that she had most ado with was Kjartan, the son of the house; him she +loved much, but he was rather cold towards her, and this often vexed +her. Kjartan was then fifteen years old, and was both big of body +and manly in appearance.</p> +<p>The summer that year was very wet, but in the autumn there came dry +days. By this time the hay-work at Fródá was so +far advanced that all the home field was mown, and nearly the half of +it was quite dry. There came then a fine dry day, clear and bright, +with not a cloud to be seen in all the sky. Thorodd, the yeoman, +rose early in the morning and arranged the work of each one; some began +to cart off the hay, and some to put it into stalks, while the women +were set to toss and dry it. Thorgunna also had her share assigned +to her, and the work went on well during the day. When it drew +near to three in the afternoon, a mass of dark clouds was seen rising +in the north which came rapidly across the sky and took its course right +above the farm. They thought it certain that there was rain in +the cloud and Thorodd bade his people rake the hay together; but Thorgunna +continued to scatter hers, in spite of the orders that were given. +The clouds came on quickly, and when they were above the homestead at +Fródá there came such darkness with them that the people +could see nothing beyond the home field; indeed, they could scarcely +distinguish their own hands. Out of the cloud came so much rain +that all the hay which was lying flat was quite soaked. When the +cloud had passed over and the sky cleared again, it was seen that blood +had fallen amid the rain. In the evening there was a good draught, +and the blood soon dried off all the hay except that which Thorgunna +had been working at; it did not dry, nor did the rake that she had been +using.</p> +<p>Thurid asked Thorgunna what she supposed this marvel might portend. +She said that she did not know, “but it seems to me most likely +that it is an evil omen for some person who is present here”. +In the evening Thorgunna went home and took off her clothes, which had +been stained with the blood; then she lay down in her bed and breathed +heavily, and it was found that she was taken with sickness. The +shower had not fallen anywhere else than at Fródá.</p> +<p>All that evening Thorgunna would taste no food. In the morning +Thorodd came to her and asked about her sickness, and what end she thought +it would have. She answered that she did not expect to have any +more illnesses. Then she said: “I consider you the wisest +person in the homestead here, and so I shall tell you what arrangements +I wish to make about the property that I leave behind me, and about +myself, for things will go as I tell you, though you think there is +nothing very remarkable about me. It will do you little good to +depart from my instructions, for this affair has so begun that it will +not pass smoothly off, unless strong measures are taken in dealing with +it.”</p> +<p>Thorodd answered: “There seems to me great likelihood that +your forebodings will come true; and therefore,” said he, “I +shall promise to you not to depart from your instructions”.</p> +<p>“These are my arrangements,” said Thorgunna, “that +I will have myself taken to Skálholt if I die of this sickness, +for my mind forbodes me that that place will some time or other be the +most glorious spot in this land. I know also that by now there +are priests there to sing the funeral service over me. So I ask +you to have me carried thither, and for that you shall take so much +of my property that you suffer no loss in the matter. Of my other +effects, Thurid shall have the scarlet cloak that I own, and I give +it her so that she may readily consent to my disposing of all the rest +as I please. I have a gold ring, and it shall go to the church +with me; but as for my bed and bed-hangings, I will have them burned +with fire, because they will be of service to no one. I do not +say this because I grudge that any one should possess these treasures, +if I knew that they would be of use to them; rather am I so earnest +in the matter, because I should be sorry for folk to fall into such +trouble for me, as I know will be the case if my words are not heeded.”</p> +<p>Thorodd promised to do as she asked him, and after this Thorgunna’s +sickness increased, so that she lay but few days before she died. +The body was first taken to the church, and Thorodd had a coffin made +for it. On the following day Thorodd had all the bed-clothes carried +out into the open air, and made a pile of wood beside them. Then +Thurid the housewife came up, and asked what he was going to do with +the bed-clothes. He answered that he was to burn them with fire, +as Thorgunna had directed him. “I will not have such treasures +burned,” said Thurid. Thorodd answered: “She declared +strongly that it would not do to depart from what she said”. +“That was mere jealousy,” said Thurid; “she grudged +any other person the use of them, and that was why she gave these orders; +but nothing terrible will happen though her words are set aside.” +“I doubt,” said he, “whether it will be well to do +otherwise than as she charged me.”</p> +<p>Then Thurid laid her arms round his neck, and besought him not to +burn the furnishings of the bed, and so much did she press him in this +that his heart gave way to her, and she managed it so that Thorodd burned +the mattresses and pillows, while she took for herself the quilt and +coverlets and all the hangings. Yet neither of them was well pleased.</p> +<p>After this the funeral was made ready; trustworthy men were sent +with the body, and good horses which Thorodd owned. The body was +wrapped in linen, but not sewed up in it, and then laid in the coffin. +After this they held south over the heath as the paths go, and went +on until they came to a farm called Lower Ness, which lies in the Tongues +of Staf-holt. There they asked leave to stay over night, but the +farmer would give them no hospitality. However, as it was close +on nightfall, they did not see how they could go on, for they thought +it would be dangerous to deal with the White River by night. They +therefore unloaded their horses, and carried the body into an out-house, +after which they went into the sitting-room and took off their outer +clothes, intending to stay there over night without food.</p> +<p>The people of the house were going to bed by daylight, and after +they were in bed a great noise was heard in the kitchen. Some +went to see whether thieves had not broken in, and when they reached +the kitchen they saw there a tall woman. She was quite naked, +with no clothes whatever upon her, and was busy preparing food. +Those who saw her were so terrified that they dared not go near her +at all. When the funeral party heard of this they went thither, +and saw what the matter was—Thorgunna had come there, and it seemed +advisable to them all not to meddle with her. When she had done +all that she wanted, she brought the food into the room, set the tables +and laid the food upon them. Then the funeral party said to the +farmer: “It may happen in the end, before we part, that you will +think it dearly bought that you would show us no hospitality”. +Both the farmer and the housewife answered: “We will willingly +give you food, and do you all other services that you require”.</p> +<p>As soon as the farmer had offered them this, Thorgunna passed out +of the room into the kitchen, and then went outside, nor did she show +herself again. Then a light was kindled in the room, and the wet +clothes of the guests were taken off, and dry ones given them in their +place. After this they sat down at table, and blessed their food, +while the farmer had holy water sprinkled over all the house. +The guests ate their food, and it harmed no man, although Thorgunna +had prepared it. They slept there that night, and were treated +with great hospitality.</p> +<p>In the morning they continued their journey, and things went very +smoothly with them; wherever this affair was heard of, most people thought +it best to do them all the service that they required, and of their +journey no more is to be told. When they came to Skálholt, +they handed over the precious things which Thorgunna had sent thither: +the ring and other articles, all of which the priests gladly received. +Thorgunna was buried there, while the funeral party returned home, which +they all reached in safety.</p> +<p>At Fródá there was a large hall with a fireplace in +the midde, and a bed-closet at the inner end of it, as was then the +custom. At the outer end were two store-closets, one on each side; +dried fish were piled in one of these, and there was meal in the other. +In this hall fires were kindled every evening, as was the custom, and +folk sat round these fires for a long while before they went to supper. +On that evening on which the funeral party came home, while the folk +at Fródá were sitting round the fires, they saw a half-moon +appear on the panelling of the hall, and it was visible to all those +who were present. It went round the room backwards and against +the sun’s course, nor did it disappear so long as they sat by +the fires. Thorodd asked Thorir Wooden-leg what this might portend. +“It is the Moon of Fate,” said Thorir, “and deaths +will come after it.” This went on all that week that the +Fate-Moon came in every evening.</p> +<p>The next tidings that happened at Fródá were that the +shepherd came in and was very silent; he spoke little, and that in a +frenzied manner. Folk were most inclined to believe that he had +been bewitched, because he went about by himself, and talked to himself. +This went on for some time, but one evening, when two weeks of winter +had passed, the shepherd came home, went to his bed, and lay down there. +When they went to him in the morning he was dead, and was buried at +the church.</p> +<p>Soon after this there began great hauntings. One night Thorir +Wooden-leg went outside and was at some distance from the door. +When he was about to go in again, he saw that the shepherd had come +between him and the door. Thorir tried to get in, but the shepherd +would not allow him. Then Thorir tried to get away from him, but +the shepherd followed him, caught hold of him, and threw him down at +the door. He received great hurt from this, but was able to reach +his bed; there he turned black as coal, took sickness and died. +He was also buried at the church there, and after this both the shepherd +and Thorir were seen in company, at which all the folk became full of +fear, as was to be expected.</p> +<p>This also followed upon the burial of Thorir, that one of Thorodd’s +men grew ill, and lay three nights before he died; then one died after +another, until six of them were gone. By this time the Christmas +fast had come, although the fast was not then kept in Iceland. +The store-closet, in which the dried fish were kept, was packed so full +that the door could not be opened; the pile reached nigh up to the rafters, +and a ladder was required to get the fish off the top of it. One +evening while the folk were sitting round the fires, the fish were torn, +but when search was made no living thing could be found there.</p> +<p>During the winter, a little before Christmas, Thorodd went out to +Ness for the fish he had there; there were six men in all in a ten-oared +boat, and they stayed out there all night. The same evening that +Thorodd went from home, it happened at Fródá, when folk +went to sit by the fires that had been made, that they saw a seal’s +head rise up out of the fireplace. A maid-servant was the first +who came forward and saw this marvel; she took a washing-bat which lay +beside the door, and struck the seal’s head with this, but it +rose up at the blow and gazed at Thorgunna’s bed-hangings. +Then one of the men went up and beat the seal, but it rose higher at +every blow until it had come up above the fins; then the man fell into +a swoon, and all those who were present were filled with fear. +Then the lad Kjartan sprang forward, took up a large iron sledge-hammer +and struck at the seal’s head; it was a heavy blow, but it only +shook its head, and looked round. Then Kjartan gave it stroke +after stroke, and the seal went down as though he were driving in a +stake. Kjartan hammered away till the seal went down so far that +he beat the floor close again above its head, and during the rest of +the winter all the portents were most afraid of Kjartan.</p> +<p>Next morning, while Thorodd and the others were coming in from Ness +with the fish, they were all lost out from Enni; the boat and the fish +drove on shore there, but the bodies were never found. When the +news of this reached Fródá, Kjartan and Thurid invited +their neighbours to the funeral banquet, and the ale prepared for Christmas +was used for this purpose. The first evening of the feast, however, +after the folk had taken their seats, there came into the hall Thorodd +and his companions, all dripping wet. The folk greeted Thorodd +well, thinking this a good omen, for at that time it was firmly believed +that drowned men, who came to their own funeral feast, were well received +by Rán, the sea-goddess; and the old beliefs had as yet suffered +little, though folk were baptised and called Christians.</p> +<p>Thorodd and his fellows went right along the hall where the folk +sat, and passed into the one where the fires were, answering no man’s +greeting. Those of the household who were in the hall ran out, +and Thorodd and his men sat down beside the fires, where they remained +till they had fallen into ashes; then they went away again. This +befel every evening while the banquet lasted, and there was much talk +about it among those who were present. Some thought that it would +stop when the feast was ended. When the banquet was over the guests +went home, leaving the place very dull and dismal.</p> +<p>On the evening after they had gone, the fires were kindled as usual, +and after they had burned up, there came in Thorodd with his company, +all of them wet. They sat down by the fire and began to wring +their clothes; and after they had sat down there came in Thorir Wooden-leg +and his five companions, all covered with earth. They shook their +clothes and scattered the earth on Thorodd and his fellows. The +folk of the household rushed out of the hall, as might be expected, +and all that evening they had no light nor any warmth from the fire.</p> +<p>Next evening the fires were made in the other hall, as the dead men +would be less likely to come there; but this was not so, for everything +happened just as it had done on the previous evening, and both parties +came to sit by the fires.</p> +<p>On the third evening Kjartan advised that a large fire should be +made in the hall, and a little fire in another and smaller room. +This was done, and things then went on in this fashion, that Thorodd +and the others sat beside the big fire, while the household contented +themselves with the little one, and this lasted right through Christmas-tide.</p> +<p>By this time there was more and more noise in the pile of fish, and +the sound of them being torn was heard both by night and day. +Some time after this it was necessary to take down some of the fish, +and the man who went up on the pile saw this strange thing, that up +out of the pile there came a tail, in appearance like a singed ox-tail. +It was black and covered with hair like a seal. The man laid hold +of it and pulled, and called on the others to come and help him. +Others then got up on the heap, both men and women, and pulled at the +tail, but all to no purpose. It seemed to them that the tail was +dead, but while they tugged at it, it flew out of their hands taking +the skin off the palms of those who had been holding it hardest, and +no more was ever seen of the tail. The fish were then taken up +and every one was found to be torn out of the skin, yet no living thing +was to be found in the pile.</p> +<p>Following upon this, Thorgrima Charm-cheek, the wife of Thorir Wooden-leg, +fell ill, and lay only a little while before she died, and the same +evening that she was buried she was seen in company with her husband +Thorir. The sickness then began a second time after the tail had +been seen, and now the women died more than the men. Another six +persons died in this attack, and some fled away on account of the ghosts +and the hauntings. In the autumn there had been thirty in the +household, of whom eighteen were dead, and five had run away, leaving +only seven behind in the spring.</p> +<p>When these marvels had reached this pitch, it happened one day that +Kjartan went to Helga-fell to see his uncle Snorri, and asked his advice +as to what should be done. There had then come to Helga-fell a +priest whom Gizurr the white had sent to Snorri, and this priest Snorri +sent to Fródá along with Kjartan, his son Thord, and six +other men. He also gave them this advice, that they should burn +all Thorgunna’s bed-hangings and hold a law court at the door, +and there prosecute all those men who were walking after death. +He also bade the priest hold service there, consecrate water, and confess +the people. They summoned men from the nearest farms to accompany +them, and arrived at Fródá on the evening before Candlemas, +just at the time when the fires were being kindled. Thurid the +housewife had then taken the sickness after the same fashion as those +who had died. Kjartan went in at once, and saw that Thorodd and +the others were sitting by the fire as usual. He took down Thorgunna’s +bed-hangings, went into the hall, and carried out a live coal from the +fire: then all the bed-gear that Thorgunna had owned was burned.</p> +<p>After this Kjartan summoned Thorir Wooden-leg, and Thord summoned +Thorodd, on the charge of going about the homestead without leave, and +depriving men of both health and life; all those who sat beside the +fire were summoned in the same way. Then a court was held at the +door, in which the charges were declared, and everything done as in +a regular law court; opinions were given, the case summed up, and judgment +passed. After sentence had been pronounced on Thorir Wooden-leg, +he rose up and said: “Now we have sat as long as we can bear”. +After this he went out by the other door from that at which the court +was held. Then sentence was passed on the shepherd, and when he +heard it he stood up and said: “Now I shall go, and I think it +would have been better before”. When Thorgrima heard sentence +pronounced on her, she rose up and said: “Now we have stayed while +it could be borne”. Then one after another was summoned, +and each stood up as judgment was given upon him; all of them said something +as they went out, and showed that they were loath to part. Finally +sentence was passed on Thorodd himself, and when he heard it, he rose +and said: “Little peace I find here, and let us all flee now,” +and went out after that. Then Kjartan and the others entered and +the priest carried holy water and sacred relics over all the house. +Later on in the day he held solemn service, and after this all the hauntings +and ghost-walkings at Fródá ceased, while Thurid recovered +from her sickness and became well again.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> +<p><i>Spiritualistic Floating Hands. Hands in Haunted Houses. +Jerome Cardan’s Tale. “The Cold Hand.” +The Beach-comber’s Tale. “The Black Dogs and the Thumbless +Hand.” The Pakeha Maori and “The Leprous Hand”. +“The Hand of the Ghost that Bit.”</i></p> +<h3>HANDS ALL ROUND</h3> +<p>Nothing was more common, in the <i>séances</i> of Home, the +“Medium,” than the appearance of “Spirit hands”. +If these were made of white kid gloves, stuffed, the idea, at least, +was borrowed from ghost stories, in which ghostly hands, with no visible +bodies, are not unusual. We see them in the Shchapoff case, at +Rerrick, and in other haunted houses. Here are some tales of Hands, +old or new.</p> +<h3>THE COLD HAND</h3> +<p>[Jerome Cardan, the famous physician, tells the following anecdote +in his <i>De Rerum Varietate</i>, lib. x., 93. Jerome only once +heard a rapping himself, at the time of the death of a friend at a distance. +He was in a terrible fright, and dared not leave his room all day.]</p> +<p>A story which my father used often to tell: “I was brought +up,” he said, “in the house of Joannes Resta, and therein +taught Latin to his three sons; when I left them I supported myself +on my own means. It chanced that one of these lads, while I was +studying medicine, fell deadly sick, he being now a young man grown, +and I was called in to be with the youth, partly for my knowledge of +medicine, partly for old friendship’s sake. The master of +the house happened to be absent; the patient slept in an upper chamber, +one of his brothers and I in a lower room, the third brother, Isidore, +was not at home. Each of the rooms was next to a turret; turrets +being common in that city. When we went to bed on the first night +of my visit, I heard a constant knocking on the wall of the room.</p> +<p>“‘What is that?’ I said.</p> +<p>“‘Don’t be afraid, it is only a familiar spirit,’ +said my companion. ‘They call them <i>follets</i>; it is +harmless enough, and seldom so troublesome as it is now: I don’t +know what can be the matter with it.’</p> +<p>“The young fellow went to sleep, but I was kept awake for a +while, wondering and observing. After half an hour of stillness +I felt a thumb press on my head, and a sense of cold. I kept watching; +the forefinger, the middle finger, and the rest of the hand were next +laid on, the little finger nearly reaching my forehead. The hand +was like that of a boy of ten, to guess by the size, and so cold that +it was extremely unpleasant. Meantime I was chuckling over my +luck in such an opportunity of witnessing a wonder, and I listened eagerly.</p> +<p>“The hand stole with the ring finger foremost over my face +and down my nose, it was slipping into my mouth, and two finger-tips +had entered, when I threw it off with my right hand, thinking it was +uncanny, and not relishing it inside my body. Silence followed +and I lay awake, distrusting the spectre more or less. In about +half an hour it returned and repeated its former conduct, touching me +very lightly, yet very chilly. When it reached my mouth I again +drove it away. Though my lips were tightly closed, I felt an extreme +icy cold in my teeth. I now got out of bed, thinking this might +be a friendly visit from the ghost of the sick lad upstairs, who must +have died.</p> +<p>“As I went to the door, the thing passed before me, rapping +on the walls. When I was got to the door it knocked outside; when +I opened the door, it began to knock on the turret. The moon was +shining; I went on to see what would happen, but it beat on the other +sides of the tower, and, as it always evaded me, I went up to see how +my patient was. He was alive, but very weak.</p> +<p>“As I was speaking to those who stood about his bed, we heard +a noise as if the house was falling. In rushed my bedfellow, the +brother of the sick lad, half dead with terror.</p> +<p>“‘When you got up,’ he said, ‘I felt a cold +hand on my back. I thought it was you who wanted to waken me and +take me to see my brother, so I pretended to be asleep and lay quiet, +supposing that you would go alone when you found me so sound asleep. +But when I did not feel you get up, and the cold hand grew to be more +than I could bear, I hit out to push your hand away, and felt your place +empty—but warm. Then I remembered the <i>follet</i>, and +ran upstairs as hard as I could put my feet to the ground: never was +I in such a fright!’</p> +<p>“The sick lad died on the following night.”</p> +<p>Here Carden the elder stopped, and Jerome, his son, philosophised +on the subject.</p> +<p>Miss Dendy, on the authority of Mr. Elijah Cope, an itinerant preacher, +gives this anecdote of similar familiarity with a <i>follet</i> in Staffordshire.</p> +<p>* * * * * </p> +<p>“Fairies! I went into a farmhouse to stay a night, and +in the evening there came a knocking in the room as if some one had +struck the table. I jumped up. My hostess got up and ‘Good-night,’ +says she, ‘I’m off’. ‘But what was it?’ +says I. ‘Just a poor old fairy,’ says she; ‘Old +Nancy. She’s a poor old thing; been here ever so long; lost +her husband and her children; it’s bad to be left like that, all +alone. I leave a bit o’ cake on the table for her, and sometimes +she fetches it, and sometimes she don’t.”</p> +<h3>THE BLACK DOG AND THE THUMBLESS HAND</h3> +<p>[Some years ago I published in a volume of tales called <i>The Wrong +Paradise</i>, a paper styled “My Friend the Beach-comber”. +This contained genuine adventures of a kinsman, my oldest and most intimate +friend, who has passed much of his life in the Pacific, mainly in a +foreign colony, and in the wild New Hebrides. My friend is a man +of education, an artist, and a student of anthropology and ethnology. +Engaged on a work of scientific research, he has not committed any of +his innumerable adventures, warlike or wandering, to print. The +following “yarn” he sent to me lately, in a letter on some +points of native customs. Of course the description of the Beach-comber, +in the book referred to, is purely fictitious. The yarn of “The +Thumbless Hand” is here cast in a dialogue, but the whole of the +strange experience described is given in the words of the narrator. +It should be added that, though my friend was present at some amateur +<i>séances</i>, in a remote isle of the sea, he is not a spiritualist, +never was one, and has no theory to account for what occurred, and no +belief in “spooks” of any description. His faith is +plighted to the theories of Mr. Darwin, and that is his only superstition. +The name of the principal character in the yarn is, of course, fictitious. +The real name is an old but not a noble one in England.]</p> +<p>“Have the natives the custom of walking through fire?” +said my friend the Beach-comber, in answer to a question of mine. +“Not that I know of. In fact the soles of their feet are +so thick-skinned that they would think nothing of it.”</p> +<p>“Then have they any spiritualistic games, like the Burmans +and Maories? I have a lot of yarns about them.”</p> +<p>“They are too jolly well frightened of bush spirits to invite +them to tea,” said the Beach-comber. “I knew a fellow +who got a bit of land merely by whistling up and down in it at nightfall. +<a name="citation292"></a><a href="#footnote292">{292}</a> They +think spirits whistle. No, I don’t fancy they go in for +<i>séances</i>. But we once had some, we white men, in +one of the islands. Not the Oui-ouis” (native name for the +French), “real white men. And that led to Bolter’s +row with me.”</p> +<p>“What about?”</p> +<p>“Oh, about his young woman. I told her the story; it +was thoughtless, and yet I don’t know that I was wrong. +After all, Bolter could not have been a comfortable fellow to marry.”</p> +<p>In this opinion readers of the Beach-comber’s narrative will +probably agree, I fancy.</p> +<p>“Bad moral character?”</p> +<p>“Not that I know of. Queer fish; kept queer company. +Even if she was ever so fond of dogs, I don’t think a girl would +have cared for Bolter’s kennel. Not in her bedroom anyway.”</p> +<p>“But she could surely have got him to keep them outside, however +doggy he was?”</p> +<p>“He was not doggy a bit. I don’t know that Bolter +ever saw the black dogs himself. He certainly never told me so. +It is that beastly Thumbless Hand, no woman could have stood it, not +to mention the chance of catching cold when it pulled the blankets off.”</p> +<p>“What on earth are you talking about? I can understand +a man attended by black dogs that nobody sees but himself. The +Catholics tell it of John Knox, and of another Reformer, a fellow called +Smeaton. Moreover, it is common in delirium tremens. But +you say Bolter didn’t see the dogs?”</p> +<p>“No, not so far as he told me, but I did, and other fellows, +when with Bolter. Bolter was asleep; he didn’t see anything. +Also the Hand, which was a good deal worse. I don’t know +if he ever saw it. But he was jolly nervous, and he had heard +of it.”</p> +<p>The habits of the Beach-comber are absolutely temperate, otherwise +my astonishment would have been less, and I should have regarded all +these phenomena as subjective.</p> +<p>“Tell me about it all, old cock,” I said.</p> +<p>“I’m sure I told you last time I was at home.”</p> +<p>“Never; my memory for yarns is only too good. I hate +a chestnut.”</p> +<p>“Well, here goes! Mind you I don’t profess to explain +the thing; only I don’t think I did wrong in telling the young +woman, for, however you account for it, it was not nice.”</p> +<p>“A good many years ago there came to the island, as a clerk, +<i>un nommé</i> Bolter, English or Jew.”</p> +<p>“His name is not Jewish.”</p> +<p>“No, and I really don’t know about his breed. The +most curious thing about his appearance was his eyes: they were large, +black, and had a peculiar dull dead lustre.”</p> +<p>“Did they shine in the dark? I knew a fellow at Oxford +whose eyes did. Chairs ran after him.”</p> +<p>“I never noticed; I don’t remember. ‘Psychically,’ +as you superstitious muffs call it, Bolter was still more queer. +At that time we were all gone on spirit-rapping. Bolter turned +out a great acquisition, ‘medium,’ or what not. Mind +you, I’m not saying Bolter was straight. In the dark he’d +tell you what you had in your hand, exact time of your watch, and so +on. I didn’t take stock in this, and one night brought some +photographs with me, and asked for a description of them. This +he gave correctly, winding up by saying, ‘The one nearest your +body is that of ---’”</p> +<p>Here my friend named a person well known to both of us, whose name +I prefer not to introduce here. This person, I may add, had never +been in or near the island, and was totally unknown to Bolter.</p> +<p>“Of course,” my friend went on, “the photographs +were all the time inside my pocket. Now, really, Bolter had some +mystic power of seeing in the dark.”</p> +<p>“Hyperæsthesia!” said I.</p> +<p>“Hypercriticism!” said the Beach-comber.</p> +<p>“What happened next <i>might</i> be hyperæsthesia—I +suppose you mean abnormal intensity of the senses—but how could +hyperæsthesia see through a tweed coat and lining?”</p> +<p>“Well, what happened next?”</p> +<p>“Bolter’s firm used to get sheep by every mail from ---, +and send them regularly to their station, six miles off. One time +they landed late in the afternoon, and yet were foolishly sent off, +Bolter in charge. I said at the time he would lose half the lot, +as it would be dark long before he could reach the station. He +didn’t lose them!</p> +<p>“Next day I met one of the niggers who was sent to lend him +a hand, and asked results.</p> +<p>“‘Master,’ said the nigger, ‘Bolter is a +devil! He sees at night. When the sheep ran away to right +or left in the dark, he told us where to follow.’”</p> +<p>“He <i>heard</i> them, I suppose,” said I.</p> +<p>“Maybe, but you must be sharp to have sharper senses than these +niggers. Anyhow, that was not Bolter’s account of it. +When I saw him and spoke to him he said simply, ‘Yes, that when +excited or interested to seek or find anything in obscurity the object +became covered with a dim glow of light, which rendered it visible’. +‘But things in a pocket.’ ‘That also,’ +said he. ‘Curious isn’t it? Probably the Röntgen +rays are implicated therein, eh?’”</p> +<p>“Did you ever read Dr. Gregory’s <i>Letters on Animal +Magnetism</i>?”</p> +<p>“The cove that invented Gregory’s Mixture?”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“Beast he must have been. No, I never read him.”</p> +<p>“He says that Major Buckley’s hypnotised subjects saw +hidden objects in a blue light—mottoes inside a nut, for example.”</p> +<p>“Röntgen rays, for a fiver! But Bolter said nothing +about seeing <i>blue</i> light. Well, after three or four <i>séances</i> +Bolter used to be very nervous and unwilling to sleep alone, so I once +went with him to his one-roomed hut. We turned into the same bed. +I was awakened later by a noise and movement in the room. Found +the door open; the full moon streaming in, making light like day, and +the place full of great big black dogs—well, anyhow there were +four or five! They were romping about, seemingly playing. +One jumped on the bed, another rubbed his muzzle on mine! (the bed was +low, and I slept outside). Now I never had anything but love for +dogs of any kind, and as—<i>n’est-ce pas</i>?—love +casts out fear, I simply got up, turned them all out, shut the door, +and turned in again myself. Of course my idea was that they were +flesh and blood, and I allude to physical fear.</p> +<p>“I slept, but was anew awakened by a ghastly feeling that the +blanket was being dragged and creeping off the bed. I pulled it +up again, but anew began the slow movement of descent.</p> +<p>“Rather surprised, I pulled it up afresh and held it, and must +have dozed off, as I suppose. Awoke, to feel it being pulled again; +it was slipping, slipping, and then with a sudden, violent jerk it was +thrown on the floor. <i>Il faut dire</i> that during all this +I had glanced several times at Bolter, who seemed profoundly asleep. +But now alarmed I tried to wake him. In vain, he slept like the +dead; his face, always a pasty white, now like marble in the moonlight. +After some hesitation I put the blanket back on the bed and held it +fast. The pulling at once began and increased in strength, and +I, by this time thoroughly alarmed, put all my strength against it, +and hung on like grim death.</p> +<p>“To get a better hold I had taken a turn over my head (or perhaps +simply to hide), when suddenly I felt a pressure outside on my body, +and a movement like fingers—they gradually approached my head. +Mad with fear I chucked off the blanket, grasped a Hand, gazed on it +for one moment in silent horror, and threw it away! No wonder, +it was attached to no arm or body, it was hairy and dark coloured, the +fingers were short, blunt, with long, claw-like nails, and it was minus +a thumb! Too frightened to get up I had to stop in bed, and, I +suppose, fell to sleep again, after fresh vain attempts to awaken Bolter. +Next morning I told him about it. He said several men who had +thus passed the night with him had seen this hand. ‘But,’ +added he, ‘it’s lucky you didn’t have the big black +dogs also.’ <i>Tableau</i>!</p> +<p>“I was to have slept again with him next night to look further +into the matter, but a friend of his came from --- that day, so I could +not renew the experiment, as I had fully determined to do. By-the-bye, +I was troubled for months after by the same feeling that the clothes +were being pulled off the bed.</p> +<p>“And that’s the yarn of the Black Dogs and the Thumbless +Hand.”</p> +<p>“I think,” said I, “that you did no harm in telling +Bolter’s young woman.”</p> +<p>“I never thought of it when I told her, or of her interest +in the kennel; but, by George, she soon broke off her engagement.”</p> +<p>“Did you know Manning, the Pakeha Maori, the fellow who wrote +<i>Old New Zealand</i>?”</p> +<p>“No, what about him?”</p> +<p>“He did not put it in his book, but he told the same yarn, +without the dogs, as having happened to himself. He saw the whole +arm, and <i>the hand was leprous</i>.”</p> +<p>“Ugh!” said the Beach-comber.</p> +<p>“Next morning he was obliged to view the body of an old Maori, +who had been murdered in his garden the night before. That old +man’s hand was the hand he saw. I know a room in an old +house in England where plucking off the bed-clothes goes on, every now +and then, and has gone on as long as the present occupants have been +there. But I only heard lately, and <i>they</i> only heard from +me, that the same thing used to occur, in the same room and no other, +in the last generation, when another family lived there.”</p> +<p>“Anybody see anything?”</p> +<p>“No, only footsteps are heard creeping up, before the twitches +come off.”</p> +<p>“And what do the people do?”</p> +<p>“Nothing! We set a camera once to photograph the spook. +He did not sit.”</p> +<p>“It’s rum!” said the Beach-comber. “But +mind you, as to spooks, I don’t believe a word of it.” <a name="citation299"></a><a href="#footnote299">{299}</a></p> +<h3>THE GHOST THAT BIT</h3> +<p>The idiot Scotch laird in the story would not let the dentist put +his fingers into his mouth, “for I’m feared ye’ll +bite me”. The following anecdote proves that a ghost may +entertain a better founded alarm on this score. A correspondent +of <i>Notes and Queries</i> (3rd Sept., 1864) is responsible for the +narrative, given “almost <i>verbatim</i> from the lips of the +lady herself,” a person of tried veracity.</p> +<p>“Emma S---, one of seven children, was sleeping alone, with +her face towards the west, at a large house near C---, in the Staffordshire +moorlands. As she had given orders to her maid to call her at +an early hour, she was not surprised at being awakened between three +and four on a fine August morning in 1840 by a sharp tapping at her +door, when in spite of a “thank you, I hear,” to the first +and second raps, with the third came a rush of wind, which caused the +curtains to be drawn up in the centre of the bed. She became annoyed, +and sitting up called out, “Marie, what are you about?”</p> +<p>Instead, however, of her servant, she was astonished to see the face +of an aunt by marriage peering above and between the curtains, and at +the same moment—whether unconsciously she threw forward her arms, +or whether they were drawn forward, as it were, in a vortex of air, +she cannot be sure—one of her thumbs was sensibly pressed between +the teeth of the apparition, though no mark afterwards remained on it. +All this notwithstanding, she remained collected and unalarmed; but +instantly arose, dressed, and went downstairs, where she found not a +creature stirring. Her father, on coming down shortly afterwards, +naturally asked what had made her rise so early; rallied her on the +cause, and soon afterwards went on to his sister-in-law’s house, +where he found that she had just unexpectedly died. Coming back +again, and not noticing his daughter’s presence in the room, in +consequence of her being behind a screen near the fire, he suddenly +announced the event to his wife, as being of so remarkable a character +that he could in no way account for it. As may be anticipated, +Emma, overhearing this unlooked-for <i>denouement</i> of her dream, +at once fell to the ground in a fainting condition.</p> +<p><i>On one of the thumbs of the corpse was found a mark as if it had +been bitten in the death agony</i>. <a name="citation300"></a><a href="#footnote300">{300}</a></p> +<p>We have now followed the “ghostly” from its germs in +dreams, and momentary hallucinations of eye or ear, up to the most prodigious +narratives which popular invention has built on bases probably very +slight. Where facts and experience, whether real or hallucinatory +experience, end, where the mythopœic fancy comes in, readers may +decide for themselves.</p> +<h2>Footnotes:</h2> +<p><a name="footnote0a"></a><a href="#citation0a">{0a}</a> <i>Principles +of Psychology</i>, vol. ii., p. 115. By Professor William James, +Harvard College, Macmillan’s, London, 1890. The physical +processes believed to be involved, are described on pp. 123, 124 of +the same work.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0b"></a><a href="#citation0b">{0b}</a> <i>Op. +cit</i>., ii., 130.</p> +<p><a name="footnote4"></a><a href="#citation4">{4}</a> Story +received from Miss ---; confirmed on inquiry by Drumquaigh.</p> +<p><a name="footnote5a"></a><a href="#citation5a">{5a}</a> <i>Phantasms +of the Living</i>, ii., 382.</p> +<p><a name="footnote5b"></a><a href="#citation5b">{5b}</a> To +“send” a dream the old Egyptians wrote it out and made a +cat swallow it!</p> +<p><a name="footnote8"></a><a href="#citation8">{8}</a> See “Queen +Mary’s Jewels” in chapter ii.</p> +<p><a name="footnote10"></a><a href="#citation10">{10}</a> Narrated +by Mrs. Herbert.</p> +<p><a name="footnote11a"></a><a href="#citation11a">{11a}</a> +Story confirmed by Mr. A.</p> +<p><a name="footnote11b"></a><a href="#citation11b">{11b}</a> +This child had a more curious experience. Her nurse was very ill, +and of course did not sleep in the nursery. One morning the little +girl said, “Macpherson is better, I saw her come in last night +with a candle in her hand. She just stooped over me and then went +to Tom” (a younger brother) “and kissed him in his sleep.” +Macpherson had died in the night, and her attendants, of course, protested +ignorance of her having left her deathbed.</p> +<p><a name="footnote11c"></a><a href="#citation11c">{11c}</a> +Story received from Lady X. See another good case in <i>Proceedings +of the Psychical Society</i>, vol. xi., 1895, p. 397. In this +case, however, the finder was not nearer than forty rods to the person +who lost a watch in long grass. He assisted in the search, however, +and may have seen the watch unconsciously, in a moment of absence of +mind. Many other cases in <i>Proceedings of S.P.R.</i></p> +<p><a name="footnote13"></a><a href="#citation13">{13}</a> Story +received in a letter from the dreamer.</p> +<p><a name="footnote16"></a><a href="#citation16">{16}</a> Augustine. +In Library of the Fathers, <i>XVII. Short Treatises</i>, pp. 530-531.</p> +<p><a name="footnote18"></a><a href="#citation18">{18}</a> St. +Augustine, <i>De Cura pro Mortuis.</i></p> +<p><a name="footnote20"></a><a href="#citation20">{20}</a> The +professor is not sure whether he spoke English or German.</p> +<p><a name="footnote24"></a><a href="#citation24">{24}</a> From +<i>Some Account of the Conversion of the late William Hone</i>, supplied +by some friend of W. H. to compiler. Name not given.</p> +<p><a name="footnote28"></a><a href="#citation28">{28}</a> What +is now called “mental telegraphy” or “telepathy” +is quite an old idea. Bacon calls it “sympathy” between +two distant minds, sympathy so strong that one communicates with the +other without using the recognised channels of the senses. Izaak +Walton explains in the same way Dr. Donne’s vision, in Paris, +of his wife and dead child. “If two lutes are strung to +an exact harmony, and one is struck, the other sounds,” argues +Walton. Two minds may be as harmoniously attuned and communicate +each with each. Of course, in the case of the lutes there are +actual vibrations, physical facts. But we know nothing of vibrations +in the brain which can traverse space to another brain.</p> +<p>Many experiments have been made in consciously transferring thoughts +or emotions from one mind to another. These are very liable to +be vitiated by bad observation, collusion and other causes. Meanwhile, +intercommunication between mind and mind without the aid of the recognised +senses—a supposed process of “telepathy”—is +a current explanation of the dreams in which knowledge is obtained that +exists in the mind of another person, and of the delusion by virtue +of which one person sees another who is perhaps dying, or in some other +crisis, at a distance. The idea is popular. A poor Highland +woman wrote to her son in Glasgow: “Don’t be thinking too +much of us, or I shall be seeing you some evening in the byre”. +This is a simple expression of the hypothesis of “telepathy” +or “mental telegraphy”.</p> +<p><a name="footnote31"></a><a href="#citation31">{31}</a> Perhaps +among such papers as the <i>Casket Letters</i>, exhibited to the Commission +at Westminster, and “tabled” before the Scotch Privy Council.</p> +<p><a name="footnote35a"></a><a href="#citation35a">{35a}</a> +To Joseph himself she bequeathed the ruby tortoise given to her by his +brother. Probably the diamonds were not Rizzio’s gift.</p> +<p><a name="footnote35b"></a><a href="#citation35b">{35b}</a> +Boismont was a distinguished physician and “Mad Doctor,” +or “Alienist”. He was also a Christian, and opposed +a tendency, not uncommon in his time, as in ours, to regard all “hallucinations” +as a proof of mental disease in the “hallucinated”.</p> +<p><a name="footnote39a"></a><a href="#citation39a">{39a}</a> +<i>S.P.R</i>., v., 324.</p> +<p><a name="footnote39b"></a><a href="#citation39b">{39b}</a> +<i>Ibid</i>., 324.</p> +<p><a name="footnote42"></a><a href="#citation42">{42}</a> <i>Proceedings +of the Society for Psychical Research</i>, vol. v., pp. 324, 325.</p> +<p><a name="footnote43"></a><a href="#citation43">{43}</a> <i>Proceedings</i>, +<i>S.P.R</i>., vol. xi., p. 495.</p> +<p><a name="footnote45a"></a><a href="#citation45a">{45a}</a> +Signed by Mr. Cooper and the Duchess of Hamilton.</p> +<p><a name="footnote45b"></a><a href="#citation45b">{45b}</a> +See Galton, <i>Inquiries into Human Faculty</i>, p. 91.</p> +<p><a name="footnote48"></a><a href="#citation48">{48}</a> <i>Proceedings</i>, +<i>S.P.R</i>., vol. xi., p. 522.</p> +<p><a name="footnote50"></a><a href="#citation50">{50}</a> The +case was reported in the <i>Herald</i> (Dubuque) for 12th February, +1891. It was confirmed by Mr. Hoffman, by Mr. George Brown and +by Miss Conley, examined by the Rev. Mr. Crum, of Dubuque.—<i>Proceedings</i>, +<i>S.P.R</i>., viii., 200-205. Pat Conley, too, corroborated, +and had no theory of explanation. That the girl knew beforehand +of the dollars is conceivable, but she did not know of the change of +clothes.</p> +<p><a name="footnote56a"></a><a href="#citation56a">{56a}</a> +Told by the nobleman in question to the author.</p> +<p><a name="footnote56b"></a><a href="#citation56b">{56b}</a> +The author knows some eight cases among his friends of a solitary meaningless +hallucination like this.</p> +<p><a name="footnote58"></a><a href="#citation58">{58}</a> As +to the fact of such visions, I have so often seen crystal gazing, and +heard the pictures described by persons whose word I could not doubt, +men and women of unblemished character, free from superstition, that +I am obliged to believe in the fact as a real though hallucinatory experience. +Mr. Clodd attributes it to disorder of the liver. If no more were +needed I could “scry” famously!</p> +<p><a name="footnote60a"></a><a href="#citation60a">{60a}</a> +Facts attested and signed by Mr. Baillie and Miss Preston.</p> +<p><a name="footnote60b"></a><a href="#citation60b">{60b}</a> +Story told to me by both my friends and the secretary.</p> +<p><a name="footnote62"></a><a href="#citation62">{62}</a> <i>Mémoires</i>, +v., 120. Paris, 1829.</p> +<p><a name="footnote66"></a><a href="#citation66">{66}</a> Readers +curious in crystal-gazing will find an interesting sketch of the history +of the practice, with many modern instances, in <i>Proceedings</i>, +<i>S.P.R</i>., vol. v., p. 486, by “Miss X.”. There +are also experiments by Lord Stanhope and Dr. Gregory in Gregory’s +<i>Letters on Animal Magnetism</i>, p. 370 (1851). It is said +that, as sights may be seen in a glass ball, so articulate voices, by +a similar illusion, can be heard in a sea shell, when</p> +<blockquote><p>“It remembers its august abodes,<br /> +And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there”.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><a name="footnote68"></a><a href="#citation68">{68}</a> A set +of scientific men, as Lélut and Lombroso, seem to think that +a hallucination stamps a man as <i>mad</i>. Napoleon, Socrates, +Pascal, Jeanne d’Arc, Luther were all lunatics. They had +lucid intervals of considerable duration, and the belief in their lunacy +is peculiar to a small school of writers.</p> +<p><a name="footnote69a"></a><a href="#citation69a">{69a}</a> +A crowd of phantom coaches will be found in Messrs. Myers and Gurney’s +<i>Phantasms of the Living.</i></p> +<p><a name="footnote69b"></a><a href="#citation69b">{69b}</a> +See <i>The Slaying of Sergeant Davies of Guise’s.</i></p> +<p><a name="footnote70"></a><a href="#citation70">{70}</a> <i>Principles +of Psychology</i>, by Prof. James of Harvard, vol. ii., p. 612. +Charcot is one of sixteen witnesses cited for the fact.</p> +<p><a name="footnote74"></a><a href="#citation74">{74}</a> Story +written by General Barter, 28th April, 1888. (<i>S.P.R</i>.) +Corroborated by Mrs. Barter and Mr. Stewart, to whom General Barter +told his adventure at the time.</p> +<p><a name="footnote75"></a><a href="#citation75">{75}</a> Statement +by Mr. F. G., confirmed by his father and brother, who were present +when he told his tale first, in St. Louis. <i>S.P.R. Proceedings</i>, +vol. vi., p. 17.</p> +<p><a name="footnote76"></a><a href="#citation76">{76}</a> <i>S.P.R</i>., +viii., p. 178.</p> +<p><a name="footnote77"></a><a href="#citation77">{77}</a> +Mrs. M. sent the memorandum to the S.P.R. “March 13, 1886. +Have just seen visions on lawn—a soldier in general’s uniform, +a young lady kneeling to him, 11.40 p.m.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote78"></a><a href="#citation78">{78}</a> <i>S.P.R</i>., +viii., p. 178. The real names are intentionally reserved.</p> +<p><a name="footnote80a"></a><a href="#citation80a">{80a}</a> +Corroborated by Mr. Elliot. Mrs. Elliot nearly fainted. +<i>S.P.R</i>., viii., 344-345.</p> +<p><a name="footnote80b"></a><a href="#citation80b">{80b}</a> +Oddly enough, maniacs have many more hallucinations of hearing than +of sight. In sane people the reverse is the case.</p> +<p><a name="footnote82"></a><a href="#citation82">{82}</a> Anecdote +by the lady. <i>Boston Budget</i>, 31st August, 1890. <i>S.P.R</i>., +viii., 345.</p> +<p><a name="footnote85a"></a><a href="#citation85a">{85a}</a> +<i>Tom Sawyer</i>, <i>Detective.</i></p> +<p><a name="footnote85b"></a><a href="#citation85b">{85b}</a> +<i>Phantasms of the Living</i>, by Gurney and Myers.</p> +<p><a name="footnote85c"></a><a href="#citation85c">{85c}</a> +The story is given by Mr. Mountford, one of the seers.</p> +<p><a name="footnote86"></a><a href="#citation86">{86}</a> <i>Journal +of Medical Science</i>, April, 1880, p. 151.</p> +<p><a name="footnote88"></a><a href="#citation88">{88}</a> Catholic +theology recognises, under the name of “Bilocation,” the +appearance of a person in one place when he is really in another.</p> +<p><a name="footnote91a"></a><a href="#citation91a">{91a}</a> +<i>Phantasms</i>, ii., pp. 671-677.</p> +<p><a name="footnote91b"></a><a href="#citation91b">{91b}</a> +<i>Phantasms of the Living.</i></p> +<p><a name="footnote91c"></a><a href="#citation91c">{91c}</a> +Mr. E. B. Tylor gives a Maori case in <i>Primitive Culture</i>. +Another is in <i>Phantasms</i>, ii., 557. See also Polack’s +<i>New Zealand</i> for the prevalence of the belief.</p> +<p><a name="footnote92"></a><a href="#citation92">{92}</a> Gurney, +<i>Phantasms</i>, ii., 6.</p> +<p><a name="footnote93"></a><a href="#citation93">{93}</a> The +late Surgeon-Major Armand Leslie, who was killed at the battle of El +Teb, communicated the following story to the <i>Daily Telegraph</i> +in the autumn of 1881, attesting it with his signature.</p> +<p><a name="footnote95a"></a><a href="#citation95a">{95a}</a> +This is a remarkably difficult story to believe. “The morning +bright and calm” is lit by the rays of the moon. The woman +(a Mrs. Gamp) must have rushed <i>past</i> Dr. Leslie. A man who +died in Greece or Russia “that morning” would hardly be +arrayed in evening dress for burial before 4 a.m. The custom of +using goloshes as “hell-shoes” (fastened on the Icelandic +dead in the Sagas) needs confirmation. Men are seldom buried in +eye-glasses—never in tall white hats.—<i>Phantasms of the +Living</i>, ii., 252.</p> +<p><a name="footnote95b"></a><a href="#citation95b">{95b}</a> +From a memorandum, made by General Birch Reynardson, of an oral communication +made to him by Sir John Sherbrooke, one of the two seers.</p> +<p><a name="footnote101"></a><a href="#citation101">{101}</a> +This is an old, but good story. The Rev. Thomas Tilson, minister +(non-conforming) of Aylesford, in Kent, sent it on 6th July, 1691, to +Baxter for his <i>Certainty of the World of Spirits</i>. The woman +Mary Goffe died on 4th June, 1691. Mr. Tilson’s informants +were her father, speaking on the day after her burial; the nurse, with +two corroborative neighbours, on 2nd July; the mother of Mary Goffe; +the minister who attended her, and one woman who sat up with her—all +“sober intelligent persons”. Not many stories have +such good evidence in their favour.</p> +<p><a name="footnote103"></a><a href="#citation103">{103}</a> +<i>Phantasms</i>, ii., 528.</p> +<p><a name="footnote111"></a><a href="#citation111">{111}</a> +“That which was published in May, 1683, concerning the Daemon, +or Daemons of <i>Spraiton</i> was the extract of a letter from T. C., +Esquire, a near neighbour to the place; and though it needed little +confirmation further than the credit that the learning and quality of +that gentleman had stampt upon it, yet was much of it likewise known +to and related by the Reverend Minister of Barnstaple, of the vicinity +to Spraiton. Having likewise since had fresh testimonials of the +veracity of that relation, and it being at first designed to fill this +place, I have thought it not amiss (for the strangeness of it) to print +it here a second time, exactly as I had transcribed it then.”—BOVET.</p> +<p><a name="footnote118"></a><a href="#citation118">{118}</a> +Shchapoff case of “The Dancing Devil” and “The Great +Amherst Mystery”.</p> +<p><a name="footnote121"></a><a href="#citation121">{121}</a> +Additional MSS., British Museum, 27,402, <i>f</i>. 132.</p> +<p><a name="footnote122"></a><a href="#citation122">{122}</a> Really +1628, unless, indeed, the long-continued appearances began in the year +before Buckingham’s death; old style.</p> +<p><a name="footnote127"></a><a href="#citation127">{127}</a> +It may fairly be argued, granting the ghost, his advice and his knowledge +of a secret known to the countess, that he was a hallucination unconsciously +wired on to old Towse by the mind of the anxious countess herself!</p> +<p><a name="footnote129a"></a><a href="#citation129a">{129a}</a> +Hamilton’s <i>Memoirs.</i></p> +<p><a name="footnote129b"></a><a href="#citation129b">{129b}</a> +Mrs. Thrale’s <i>Diary</i>, 28th November, 1779.</p> +<p><a name="footnote129c"></a><a href="#citation129c">{129c}</a> +<i>Diary</i> of Lady Mary Coke, 30th November, 1779.</p> +<p><a name="footnote130a"></a><a href="#citation130a">{130a}</a> +See <i>Phantasms</i>, ii., 586.</p> +<p><a name="footnote130b"></a><a href="#citation130b">{130b}</a> +The difficulty of knowing whether one is awake or asleep, just about +the moment of entering or leaving sleep is notorious. The author, +on awaking in a perfectly dark room, has occasionally seen it in a dim +light, and has even been aware, or seemed to be aware, of the pattern +of the wall paper. In a few moments this effect of light disappears, +and all is darkness. This is the confused mental state technically +styled “Borderland,” a haunt of ghosts, who are really flitting +dreams.</p> +<p><a name="footnote131"></a><a href="#citation131">{131}</a> +<i>Life of Lockhart.</i></p> +<p><a name="footnote132"></a><a href="#citation132">{132}</a> +The author has given authorities in <i>Blackwood’s Magazine</i> +March, 1895. A Mr. Coulton (not Croker as erroneously stated) +published in the <i>Quarterly Review</i>, No. 179, an article to prove +that Lyttelton committed suicide, and was Junius. See also the +author’s <i>Life of Lockhart.</i></p> +<p><a name="footnote140"></a><a href="#citation140">{140}</a> +A prominent name among the witnesses at the trial.</p> +<p><a name="footnote141"></a><a href="#citation141">{141}</a> +The report of the trial in the <i>Scots Magazine</i> of June, 1754 (magazines +appeared at the end of the month), adds nothing of interest. The +trial lasted from 7 a.m. of June 11 till 6 a.m. of June 14. The +jury deliberated for two hours before arriving at a verdict.</p> +<p><a name="footnote142"></a><a href="#citation142">{142}</a> +Sydney, no date.</p> +<p><a name="footnote144"></a><a href="#citation144">{144}</a> +<i>Phantasms</i>, ii., 586, quoting (apparently) the <i>Buckingham Gazette</i> +of the period.</p> +<p><a name="footnote145a"></a><a href="#citation145a">{145a}</a> +Oddly enough a Mr. William Soutar, of Blairgowrie, tells a ghost story +of his own to the S.P.R.!</p> +<p><a name="footnote145b"></a><a href="#citation145b">{145b}</a> +I put them for convenience at the foot.—W. L. L.</p> +<p><a name="footnote146a"></a><a href="#citation146a">{146a}</a> +The dogs in all these towns (farms) of Mause are very well accustomed +with hunting the fox.</p> +<p><a name="footnote146b"></a><a href="#citation146b">{146b}</a> +Blair (Blairgowrie) is the kirk-town of that parish, where there is +also a weekly market: it lies about a mile below Middle Mause on the +same side of the river.</p> +<p><a name="footnote146c"></a><a href="#citation146c">{146c}</a> +Knockhead is within less than half a mile of Middle Mause, and the Hilltown +lies betwixt the two. We see both of them from our window of Craighall +House.</p> +<p><a name="footnote148a"></a><a href="#citation148a">{148a}</a> +This George Soutar died about two or three years ago, and was very well +known to William.</p> +<p><a name="footnote148b"></a><a href="#citation148b">{148b}</a> +The Isle is a spot of ground in the wood of Rychalzie, about a mile +above Middle Mause, on the same side of the river.</p> +<p><a name="footnote149a"></a><a href="#citation149a">{149a}</a> +Glasclune is a gentleman of the name of Blair, whose house lies about +three-quarters of a mile south-west from Middle Mause.</p> +<p><a name="footnote149b"></a><a href="#citation149b">{149b}</a> +He said the voice answered him as if it had been some distance without +the door.</p> +<p><a name="footnote150"></a><a href="#citation150">{150}</a> +Besides the length of time since the murder was committed, there is +another reason why all the bones were not found, <i>viz</i>., that there +is a little burn or brook which had run for the space of twenty years, +at least, across upon the place when the bones were found, and would +have carried them all away had it not been that the bush, at the side +of which they were buried, had turned the force of the stream a little +from off that place where they lay, for they were not more than a foot, +or at most a foot and a half, under ground, and it is only within these +three years that a water-spate has altered the course of the burn.</p> +<p><a name="footnote151"></a><a href="#citation151">{151}</a> +The course of the river (the Ericht) is from north to south. Middle +Mause lies on the west side of it, and Craighall on the east.</p> +<p><a name="footnote155a"></a><a href="#citation155a">{155a}</a> +With reference to the last statement in Mr. Newton’s notes see +the <i>Journal</i> of Sir Walter Scott (edit., 1891, p. 210) under date +13th June, 1826.</p> +<p><a name="footnote155b"></a><a href="#citation155b">{155b}</a> +<i>L’Homme Posthume.</i></p> +<p><a name="footnote155c"></a><a href="#citation155c">{155c}</a> +Denny’s <i>Folklore of China.</i></p> +<p><a name="footnote156"></a><a href="#citation156">{156}</a> +Story received in a letter from Lieutenant --- of H.M.S gunboat ---.</p> +<p><a name="footnote157"></a><a href="#citation157">{157}</a> +He fought at Culloden, of course for King George, and was appealed to +for protection by old Glengarry.</p> +<p><a name="footnote158a"></a><a href="#citation158a">{158a}</a> +Fox’s hole.</p> +<p><a name="footnote158b"></a><a href="#citation158b">{158b}</a> +How did Inverawe get leave to wear the Highland dress?</p> +<p><a name="footnote160"></a><a href="#citation160">{160}</a> +In every version of the story that I have heard or read Ticonderoga +is called St. Louis, and Inverawe was ignorant of its other name. +Yet in all the histories of the war that I have seen, the only name +given to the place is Ticonderoga. There is no mention of its +having a French name. Even if Inverawe knew the fort they were +to storm was called Ticonderoga, he cannot have known it when the ghost +appeared to him in Scotland. At that time there was not even a +fort at Ticonderoga, as the French only erected it in 1756. Inverawe +had told his story to friends in Scotland before the war broke out in +America, so even if in 1758 he did know the real name of the fort that +the expedition was directed against, I don’t see that it lessens +the interest of the story.—E. A. C.</p> +<p>The French really called the place Fort Carillon, which disguised +the native name Ticonderoga. See <i>Memoirs of the Chevalier Johnstone</i>.—A. +L.</p> +<p><a name="footnote162"></a><a href="#citation162">{162}</a> +Abercromby’s force consisted of the 27th, 42nd, 44th, 46th, 55th, +and battalions of the 60th Royal Americans, with about 9000 Provincials +and a train of artillery. The assault, however, took place before +the guns could come up, matters having been hastened by the information +that M. de Lévy was approaching with 3000 French troops to relieve +Ticonderoga garrison.</p> +<p><a name="footnote177a"></a><a href="#citation177a">{177a}</a> +I know one inveterate ghost produced in an ancient Scottish house by +these appliances.—A. L.</p> +<p><a name="footnote177b"></a><a href="#citation177b">{177b}</a> +Such events are common enough in old tales of haunted houses.</p> +<p><a name="footnote177c"></a><a href="#citation177c">{177c}</a> +This lady was well known to my friends and to Dr. Ferrier. I also +have had the honour to make her acquaintance.</p> +<p><a name="footnote179"></a><a href="#citation179">{179}</a> +Apparently on Thursday morning really.</p> +<p><a name="footnote182"></a><a href="#citation182">{182}</a> +She gave, not for publication, the other real names, here altered to +pseudonyms.</p> +<p><a name="footnote186"></a><a href="#citation186">{186}</a> +<i>Phantasms</i>, ii., 202.</p> +<p><a name="footnote188a"></a><a href="#citation188a">{188a}</a> +Maspero, <i>Etudes Egyptiennes</i>, i., fascic. 2.</p> +<p><a name="footnote188b"></a><a href="#citation188b">{188b}</a> +Examples cited in <i>Classical Review</i>, December, 1896, pp. 411, +413.</p> +<p><a name="footnote188c"></a><a href="#citation188c">{188c}</a> +<i>Proceedings</i>, <i>S.P.R</i>., vol. xii., p. 45-116.</p> +<p><a name="footnote189"></a><a href="#citation189">{189}</a> +See “Lord St. Vincent’s Story”.</p> +<p><a name="footnote190"></a><a href="#citation190">{190}</a> +Anecdote received from the lady.</p> +<p><a name="footnote191"></a><a href="#citation191">{191}</a> +Story at second-hand.</p> +<p><a name="footnote192"></a><a href="#citation192">{192}</a> +See <i>The Standard</i> for summer, 1896.</p> +<p><a name="footnote196"></a><a href="#citation196">{196}</a> +I have once seen this happen, and it is a curious thing to see, when +on the other side of the door there is nobody.</p> +<p><a name="footnote198a"></a><a href="#citation198a">{198a}</a> +<i>S.P.R</i>., iii., 115, and from oral narrative of Mr. and Mrs. Rokeby. +In 1885, when the account was published, Mr. Rokeby had not yet seen +the lady in grey. Nothing of interest is known about the previous +tenants of the house.</p> +<p><a name="footnote198b"></a><a href="#citation198b">{198b}</a> +<i>Proceedings</i>, <i>S.P.R</i>., vol. viii., p. 311.</p> +<p><a name="footnote199"></a><a href="#citation199">{199}</a> +Letter of 31st January, 1884.</p> +<p><a name="footnote200"></a><a href="#citation200">{200}</a> +Six separate signed accounts by other witnesses are given. They +add nothing more remarkable than what Miss Morton relates. No +account was published till the haunting ceased, for fear of lowering +the letting value of Bognor House.</p> +<p><a name="footnote201"></a><a href="#citation201">{201}</a> +Mr. A. H. Millar’s <i>Book of Glamis</i>, Scottish History Society.</p> +<p><a name="footnote202"></a><a href="#citation202">{202}</a> +This account is abridged from Mr. Walter Leaf’s translation of +Aksakoff’s <i>Predvestniki Spiritizma</i>, St. Petersburg, 1895. +Mr. Aksakoff publishes contemporary letters, certificates from witnesses, +and Mr. Akutin’s hostile report. It is based on the possibility +of imitating the raps, the difficulty of locating them, and the fact +that the flying objects were never seen to start. If Mrs. Shchapoff +threw them, they might, perhaps, have occasionally been seen to start. +<i>S.P.R</i>., vol. xii., p. 298. Precisely similar events occurred +in Russian military quarters in 1853. As a quantity of Government +property was burned, official inquiries were held. The reports +are published by Mr. Aksakoff. The repeated verdict was that no +suspicion attached to any subject of the Czar.</p> +<p><a name="footnote205"></a><a href="#citation205">{205}</a> +The same freedom was taken, as has been said, with a lady of the most +irreproachable character, a friend of the author, in a haunted house, +of the usual sort, in Hammersmith, about 1876.</p> +<p><a name="footnote206"></a><a href="#citation206">{206}</a> +<i>Proceedings</i>, <i>S.P.R</i>., vol. xii., p. 49.</p> +<p><a name="footnote212"></a><a href="#citation212">{212}</a> +John Wesley, however, places Hetty as next in seniority to Mary or Molly. +We do not certainly know whether Hetty was a child, or a grown-up girl, +but, as she always sat up till her father went to bed, the latter is +the more probable opinion. As Hetty has been accused of causing +the disturbances, her age is a matter of interest. Girls of twelve +or thirteen are usually implicated in these affairs. Hetty was +probably several years older.</p> +<p><a name="footnote220"></a><a href="#citation220">{220}</a> +30th January, 1717.</p> +<p><a name="footnote221"></a><a href="#citation221">{221}</a> +Glanvil’s <i>Sadducismus Triumphatus</i>, 1726. Preface +to part ii., Mompesson’s letters.</p> +<p><a name="footnote222"></a><a href="#citation222">{222}</a> +<i>Gentleman’s Magazine</i>, November, December, 1872.</p> +<p><a name="footnote223"></a><a href="#citation223">{223}</a> +This happened, to a less degree, in the Wesley case, and is not uncommon +in modern instances. The inference seems to be that the noises, +like the sights occasionally seen, are hallucinatory, not real. +<i>Gentleman’s Magazine</i>, Dec., 1872, p. 666.</p> +<p><a name="footnote229"></a><a href="#citation229">{229}</a> +<i>S.P.R. Proceedings</i>, vol. xii., p. 7.</p> +<p><a name="footnote232"></a><a href="#citation232">{232}</a> +<i>Demon Possession in China</i>, p. 399. By the Rev. John L. +Nevius, D.D. Forty years a missionary in China. Revel, New +York, 1894.</p> +<p><a name="footnote233a"></a><a href="#citation233a">{233a}</a> +Translated from report of Hsu Chung-ki, Nevius, p. 61.</p> +<p><a name="footnote233b"></a><a href="#citation233b">{233b}</a> +Nevius, pp. 403-406.</p> +<p><a name="footnote234"></a><a href="#citation234">{234}</a> +<i>Op. cit</i>., p. 415. There are other cases in Mr. Denny’s +<i>Folklore of China.</i></p> +<p><a name="footnote239a"></a><a href="#citation239a">{239a}</a> +<i>The Great Amherst Mystery</i>, by Walter Hubbell. Brentano, +New York, 1882. I obtained some additional evidence at first hand +published in <i>Longman’s Magazine.</i></p> +<p><a name="footnote239b"></a><a href="#citation239b">{239b}</a> +The sources for this tale are two Gaelic accounts, one of which is printed +in the <i>Gael</i>, vol. vi., p. 142, and the other in the <i>Glenbard +Collection of Gaelic Poetry</i>, by the Rev. A. Maclean Sinclair, p. +297 ff. The former was communicated by Mr. D. C. Macpherson from +local tradition; the latter was obtained from a tailor, a native of +Lochaber, who emigrated to Canada when about thirty years of age. +When the story was taken down from his lips in 1885, he was over eighty +years old, and died only a few months later.</p> +<p><a name="footnote246"></a><a href="#citation246">{246}</a> +John Arnason, in his <i>Icelandic Folklore and Fairy Tales</i> (vol. +i., p. 309), gives the account of this as written by the Sheriff Hans +Wium in a letter to Bishop Haldorr Brynjolfsson in the autumn of 1750.</p> +<p><a name="footnote249"></a><a href="#citation249">{249}</a> +<i>Huld</i>, part 3, p. 25, Keykjavik, 1893.</p> +<p><a name="footnote259"></a><a href="#citation259">{259}</a> +As at Amherst!</p> +<p><a name="footnote272"></a><a href="#citation272">{272}</a> +Written out from tradition on 24th May, 1852. The name of the +afflicted family is here represented by a pseudonym.</p> +<p><a name="footnote273"></a><a href="#citation273">{273}</a> +From <i>Eyrbyggja Saga</i>, chaps, l.-lv. Fródá +is the name of a farm on the north side of Snæfell Ness, the great +headland which divides the west coast of Iceland.</p> +<p><a name="footnote292"></a><a href="#citation292">{292}</a> +Fact.</p> +<p><a name="footnote299"></a><a href="#citation299">{299}</a> +<i>Cornhill Magazine</i>, 1896.</p> +<p><a name="footnote300"></a><a href="#citation300">{300}</a> +This story should come under the head of “Common Deathbed Wraiths,” +but, it is such an uncommon one!</p> +<p>End of the Project Gutenberg eBook Dreams and Ghosts *** Corrected +to here and fully spell-checked to here ***</p> +<p> </p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF DREAMS AND GHOSTS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 12621-h.htm or 12621-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/6/2/12621 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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