GLIMPSES OF THE SUPERNATURAL.
The Other World;
OR, GLIMPSES OF THE SUPERNATURAL.
BEING FACTS, RECORDS, AND
TRADITIONS
RELATING TO DREAMS, OMENS, MIRACULOUS OCCURRENCES,
APPARITIONS, WRAITHS, WARNINGS, SECOND-SIGHT,
WITCHCRAFT, NECROMANCY, ETC.
EDITED BY
THE REV. FREDERICK GEORGE LEE, D.C.L.
Vicar of All Saints’, Lambeth.
IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II.
HENRY S. KING AND CO., LONDON.
1875.
(All rights reserved.)
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
| Page | |
| [Chapter VI.] | |
 pectral Appearances of Persons at the Point of Death and Perturbed Spirits | [1] |
| [Chapter VII.] | |
| Haunted Houses and Localities | [79] |
| [Chapter VIII.] | |
| Modern Spiritualism | [133] |
| [Chapter IX.] | |
| Modern Spiritualism (continued) | [167] |
| [Chapter X.] | |
| Summary and Conclusion | [205] |
| General Index | [243] |
SPECTRAL APPEARANCES.
“Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a little thereof.
In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men,
Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake.
Then a Spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up:
It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an Image was before mine eyes.”—Job iv. 12-16.
SPECTRAL APPEARANCES.
xamples of Spectral Appearances are so numerous, and the Editor has collected so many, both ancient and modern, that considerable difficulty has been occasioned in determining which shall here be set forth. The following, chosen from examples, some well known and well authenticated, and others now first published, but equally interesting and important, and coming to the Editor upon very high authority, deserve the best consideration of the reader.
The following record describes what is known as the “Chester-le-Street” Apparition:—
“About the year of Our Lord 1632 (as near as I can remember, having lost my notes and the copy of the letter to Serjeant Hutton, but I am sure that I do most perfectly remember the substance of the story), near unto Chester-in-the-Street, there lived one Walker, a yeoman of good estate, and a widower, who had a young woman to his kinswoman, that kept his house, who was by the neighbours suspected to be with child, and was, towards the dark of the evening one night, sent away with one Mark Sharp, who was a collier, one who digged coals under ground, and one that had been born at Blackburn hundred in Lancashire; and so she was not heard of a long time, and no noise, or little, was made about it. In the winter time after, one James Graham, or Grime, for so in that country they call them, being a miller, and living about two miles from the place where Walker lived, was one night alone very late in the mill grinding corn; and about twelve or one of the clock at night, he came down the stairs from having been putting corn in the hopper; the mill doors being shut, there stood a woman upon the midst of the floor, with her hair about her head, hanging down and all bloody, with five large wounds on her head. He being much affrighted and amazed began to bless himself;[1] and at last asked her who she was, and what she wanted. To which she said, ‘I am the spirit of such a woman who lived with Walker, and being got with child by him, he promised to send me to a private place, where I should be well-looked to, till I was brought to bed, and well again; and then I should come again and keep his house. And, accordingly,’ said the apparition, ‘I was one night sent away with one Mark Sharp, who, upon a moor (naming a place that the miller knew) slew me with a pick, such as men dig coals withal and gave me these five wounds, and after threw my body into a coal-pit hard by, and hid the pick under a bank; and his shoes and stockings being bloody, he endeavoured to wash them; but seeing the blood would not forth, he hid them there.’ And the apparition further told the miller that he must be the man to reveal it, or else that she must still appear and haunt him. The miller returned home very sad and heavy, but spoke not one word of what he had seen, but eschewed as much as he could to stay in the mill within night without company, thinking thereby to escape the seeing again of that frightful apparition. But notwithstanding, one night when it began to be dark, the apparition met him again and seemed very fierce and cruel, and threatened him that if he did not reveal the murder she would continually pursue and haunt him; yet, for all this, he still concealed it until S. Thomas’ Eve before Christmas; when being soon after sunset walking in his garden, she appeared again, and then so threatened him, and affrighted him, that he promised faithfully to reveal it next morning. In the morning he went to a magistrate, and made the whole matter known with all the circumstances; and diligent search being made, the body was found in a coal-pit, with five wounds in the head, and the pick and shoes and stockings yet bloody; in every circumstance as the apparition had related unto the miller; whereupon Walker and Mark Sharp were both apprehended, but would confess nothing. At the assizes following, I think it was at Durham, they were arraigned, found guilty, condemned and executed; but I could never hear they confessed the fact. There were some that reported the apparition did appear unto the judge, or the foreman of the jury, who was alive in Chester-in-the-Street about ten years ago, as I have been credibly informed, but of that I know no certainty. There are many persons yet alive that can remember this strange murder, and the discovery of it; for it was, and sometimes yet is, as much discoursed of in the north country, as anything that almost hath ever been heard of, and the relation printed, though now not to be gotten. I relate this with the greater confidence (though I may fail in some of the circumstances) because I saw and read the letter that was sent to Serjeant Hutton, who then lived at Goldsburgh in Yorkshire, from the judge before whom Walker and Mark Sharp were tried, and by whom they were condemned, and had a copy of it until about the year 1658, when I had it and many other books and papers taken from me; and this I confess to be one of the most convincing stories, being of undoubted verity, that ever I read, heard, or knew of, and carrieth with it the most evident force to make the most incredulous spirit to be satisfied that there are really, sometimes, such things as apparitions.—William Lumley.”[2]
The above account, in which the object of the Spectral Appearance is obvious enough, is taken from the well-known “History of Durham,” by that celebrated antiquarian the late Mr. Robert Surtees. It needs no comment, telling as it does so well, in quaint but plain language, its own remarkable story.
The next example to be recorded, the Apparition of the Rev. Mr. Naylor, may be found in Mr. John Nichols’ “Literary Illustrations,”[3] and, though less startling than that already given, is certainly not without its own inherent interest:—
“Part of a Letter from Mr. Edward Walter, Fellow of S. John’s College, Cambridge, to his friend in the country, dated ‘Dec. 6, 1706.’
“‘I should scarce have mentioned anything of the matter you write about of my own accord; but, since you have given yourself the trouble of an inquiry, I am, I think, obliged in friendship to relate all that I know of the matter; and that I do the more willingly, because I can so soon produce my authority.
“‘Mr. Shaw, to whom the apparition appeared, was Rector of Soldern, or Souldern, in Oxfordshire, late of S. John’s College aforesaid; on whom Mr. Grove, his old Fellow Collegiate, called July last in his journey to the West, where he stayed a day or two, and promised to see him again on his return, which he did, and stayed three days with him; in that time one night after supper, Mr. Shaw told him that there happened a passage which he could not conceal from him, as being an intimate friend, and one to whom this transaction might have something more relation than another man. He proceeded therefore, and told him that about a week before that time, viz. July the 28th, 1706, as he was smoking and reading in his study about eleven or twelve at night, there came to him the apparition of Mr. Naylor, formerly Fellow of the said College, and dead some years ago, a friend of Mr. Shaw’s, in the same garb he used to be in, with his hands clasped before him. Mr. Shaw, not being much surprised, asked him how he did and desired him to sit down, which Mr. Naylor did. They both sat there a considerable time and entertained one another with various discourses. Mr. Shaw then asked him after what manner they lived in the separate state; he answered, Far different from what they do here, but that he was very well. He inquired further, whether there was any of their old acquaintance in that place where he was? he answered, ‘No, not one;’ and then proceeded and told him that one of their old friends, naming Mr. Orchard, should die quickly, and he himself should not be long after. There was mention of several people’s names; but who they were, or upon what occasion, Mr. Grove cannot or will not tell. Mr. Shaw then asked him whether he would not visit him again before that time; he answered, No, he could not; he had but three days allowed him, and farther he could not go. Mr. Shaw said, “Fiat voluntas Domini;” and the apparition left him. This is word for word as Mr. Shaw told Mr. Grove, and Mr. Grove told me.
“‘Note.—What surprised Mr. Grove was, that as he had in his journey homewards occasion to ride through Clopton, or Claxton, he called upon one Mr. Clark, Fellow of our College aforesaid and curate there, when inquiring after College news, Mr. Clark told him Arthur Orchard[4] died that week, Aug. 7, 1706, which very much shocked Mr. Grove, and brought to his mind the story of Mr. Shaw afresh. About three weeks ago Mr. Shaw died of apoplexy in the desk, [i. e. when ministering in church,] of the same distemper poor Arthur Orchard died of.
“‘Note.—Since this strange completion of matters, Mr. Grove has told this relation, and stands to the truth of it; and that which confirms the narrative is, that he told the same to Dr. Baldiston, the present Vice-Chancellor and Master of Emanuel College, above a week before Mr. Shaw’s death; and when he came to the College he was no way surprised as others were.
“‘What farthers my belief of its being a true vision and not a dream, is Mr. Grove’s incredulity of stories of this nature. Considering them both as men of learning and integrity, the one would not first have declared, nor the other have spread the same, were not the matter serious and real.
“‘Edward Walter.’”
The following example of an Apparition in Scotland, unlike those already recorded, carries with it evidences of truth:—
“A gentleman of rank and property in Scotland served in his youth in the army of the Duke of York in Flanders. He occupied the same tent with two other officers, one of whom was sent on some service. One night during his absence, this gentleman while in bed saw the figure of his absent friend sitting on the vacant bed. He called to his companion, who also saw the figure, which spoke to them, and said he had just been killed at a certain place, pointing to his wound. He then requested them on returning to England, to call at a certain agent’s house in a certain street, and to procure from him a document of great importance for the family of the deceased. If the agent, as was probable, should deny the possession of it, it would be found in a certain drawer of a cabinet in his room. Next day it appeared that the officer had been shot as he had told them, in the manner and at the time and place indicated. After the return of the troops to England, the two friends walking together one day, found themselves in the street where the agent lived, and the request of their friend recurred to both, they having hitherto forgotten it. They called on the agent, who denied having the paper in question; when they compelled him in their presence to open the drawer of the cabinet, where it was found and restored to the widow.”[5]
An authentic record of the “Tyrone,” or “Beresford Apparition,” will now be given. It created a very great sensation at the time of its occurrence; and the narrative which follows has been pronounced traditionally “true and accurate” by a member of the family:—
“Lord Tyrone and Miss —— were born in Ireland, and were left orphans in their infancy to the care of the same person, by whom they were both educated in the principles of deism. Their guardian dying when they were each of them about fourteen years of age, they fell into very different hands.
“The persons on whom the care of them now devolved, used every means to eradicate the erroneous principles they had imbibed, and to persuade them to embrace revealed religion, but in vain. Their arguments were strong enough to stagger their former faith. Though separated from each other, their friendship was unalterable, and they continued to regard each other with a sincere and fraternal affection.
“After some years were elapsed, and both were grown up, they made a solemn promise to each other that whichever should die first, would, if permitted, appear to the other, to declare what religion was most approved by the Supreme Being.
“Miss —— was shortly after addressed by Sir Martin Beresford, to whom she was after a few years married, but a change of condition had no power to alter their friendship. The families visited each other, and often spent some weeks together. A short time after one of these visits, Sir Martin remarked, that when his lady came down to breakfast, her countenance was disturbed, and inquired after her health. She assured him she was quite well. He then asked her if she had hurt her wrist: ‘Have you sprained it?’ said he, observing a black ribbon round it. She answered in the negative, and added, ‘Let me conjure you, Sir Martin, never to inquire the cause of my wearing this ribbon; you will never see me without it. If it concerned you as a husband to know, I would not for a moment conceal it: I never in my life denied you a request, but of this I entreat you to forgive me the refusal, and never to urge me further on the subject.’ ‘Very well,’ said he, smiling; ‘since you beg me so earnestly, I will inquire no more.’
“The conversation here ended; but breakfast was scarcely over when Lady Beresford eagerly inquired if the post was come in; she was told it was not. In a few minutes she rang again and repeated the inquiry. She was again answered as at first. ‘Do you expect letters?’ said Sir Martin, ‘that you are so anxious for the arrival of the post?’ ‘I do,’ she answered, ‘I expect to hear that Lord Tyrone is dead; he died last Tuesday at four o’clock.’ ‘I never in my life,’ said Sir Martin, ‘believed you superstitious; some idle dream has surely thus alarmed you.’ At that instant the servant entered and delivered to them a letter sealed with black. ‘It is as I expected,’ exclaimed Lady Beresford, ‘Lord Tyrone is dead.’ Sir Martin opened the letter; it came from Lord Tyrone’s steward, and contained the melancholy intelligence of his master’s death, and on the very day and hour Lady Beresford had before specified. Sir Martin begged Lady Beresford to compose herself, and she assured him she felt much easier than she had done for a long time; and added, ‘I can communicate intelligence to you which I know will prove welcome; I can assure you, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that I shall in some months present you with a son.’ Sir Martin received this news with the greatest joy.
“After some months Lady Beresford was delivered of a son (she had before been the mother of only two daughters). Sir Martin survived the birth of his son little more than four years.
“After his decease his widow seldom left home; she visited no family but that of a clergyman who resided in the same village; with them she frequently passed a few hours; the rest of her time was spent in solitude, and she appeared determined for ever to banish all other society. The clergyman’s family consisted of himself, his wife, and one son, who at the time of Sir Martin’s death was quite a youth; to this son, however, she was after a few years married, notwithstanding the disparity of years and the manifest imprudence of a connexion so unequal in every point of view.
“Lady Beresford was treated by her young husband with contempt and cruelty, while at the same time his conduct evinced him the most abandoned libertine, utterly destitute of every principle of virtue and humanity. By this, her second husband, she had two daughters; after which such was the baseness of his conduct that she insisted on a separation. They parted for a few years, when so great was the contrition he expressed for his former conduct, that, won over by his supplications, promises, and entreaties, she was induced to pardon, and once more to reside with him, and was in time the mother of a son.
“The day on which she had lain-in a month being the anniversary of her birthday, she sent for Lady Betty Cobb (of whose friendship she had long been possessed), and a few other friends, to request them to spend the day with her. About seven, the clergyman by whom she had been christened, and with whom she had all her life been intimate, came into the room to inquire after her health. She told him she was perfectly well, and requested him to spend the day with them; for, said she, ‘This is my birthday. I am forty-eight to-day.’ ‘No, madam,’ answered the clergyman, ‘you are mistaken; your mother and myself have had many disputes concerning your age, and I have at last discovered that I was right. I happened to go last week into the parish where you were born; I was resolved to put an end to the dispute; I searched the register, and find that you are forty-seven this day.’ ‘You have signed my death warrant,’ she exclaimed; ‘I have then but a few hours to live. I must therefore entreat you to leave me immediately, as I have something of importance to settle before I die.’
“When the clergyman had left her, Lady Beresford sent to forbid the company coming, and at the same time to request Lady Betty Cobb and her son (of whom Sir Martin was the father, and who was then about twenty-two years of age), to come to her apartment immediately. Upon their arrival, having ordered the attendants to quit the room, ‘I have something,’ she said, ‘of the greatest importance to communicate to you both before I die, a period which is not far distant. You, Lady Betty, are no stranger to the friendship which subsisted between Lord Tyrone and myself: we were educated under the same roof and in the same principles of deism. When the friends, into whose hands we afterwards fell, endeavoured to persuade us to embrace Revealed Religion, their arguments, though insufficient to convince, were powerful to stagger our former feelings, and to leave us wavering between the two opinions: in this perplexing state of doubt and uncertainty, we made a solemn promise to each other that whichever died first should (if permitted) appear to the other, and declare what religion was most acceptable to God; accordingly, one night, while Sir Martin and myself were in bed, I suddenly awoke and discovered Lord Tyrone sitting by my bedside. I screamed out and endeavoured to awake Sir Martin. “For Heaven’s sake,” I exclaimed, “Lord Tyrone, by what means or for what reason came you hither at this time of night?” “Have you then forgotten our promise?” said he; “I died last Tuesday at four o’clock, and have been permitted by the Supreme Being to appear to you to assure you that the Revealed Religion is true, and the only religion by which we can be saved. I am further suffered to inform you that you will soon produce a son, who it is decreed will marry my daughter; not many years after his birth Sir Martin will die, and you will marry again, and to a man by whose ill-treatment you will be rendered miserable: you will have two daughters and afterwards a son, in childbirth of whom you will die in the forty-seventh year of your age.” “Just Heavens!” I exclaimed, “and cannot I prevent this?” “Undoubtedly,” returned the spectre; “you are a free agent, and may prevent it all by resisting every temptation to a second marriage; but your passions are strong, you know not their power; hitherto you have had no trials. More I am not permitted to reveal, but if after this warning you persist in your infidelity, your lot in another world will be miserable indeed.” “May I not ask,” said I, “if you are happy?” “Had I been otherwise,” he replied, “I should not have been permitted to appear to you.” “I may, then, infer that you are happy?” He smiled. “But how,” said I, “when morning comes, shall I know that your appearance to me has been real, and not the mere representation of my own imagination?” “Will not the news of my death be sufficient to convince you?” “No,” I returned, “I might have had such a dream, and that dream accidentally come to pass. I will have some stronger proofs of its reality.” “You shall,” said he, and waving his hand, the bed curtains, which were crimson velvet, were instantly drawn through a large iron hoop by which the tester of the bed was suspended. “In that,” said he, “you cannot be mistaken; no mortal arm could have performed this.” “True,” said I, “but sleeping we are often possessed of far more strength than when awake; though waking I could not have done it, asleep I might; and I shall still doubt.” “Here is a pocket-book; in this,” said he, “I will write my name; you know my handwriting.” I replied, “Yes.” He wrote with a pencil on one side of the leaves. “Still,” said I, “in the morning I may doubt; though waking I could not imitate your hand, asleep I might.” “You are hard of belief,” said he. “Touch would injure you irreparably; it is not for spirits to touch mortal flesh.” “I do not,” said I, “regard a slight blemish.” “You are a woman of courage,” said he, “hold out your hand.” I did; he struck my wrist: his hand was cold as marble; in a moment the sinews shrunk up, every nerve withered. “Now,” said he, “while you live let no mortal eye behold that wrist: to see it is sacrilege.” He stopped; I turned to him again; he was gone.
“‘During the time I had conversed with him my thoughts were perfectly calm and collected; but the moment he was gone I felt chilled with horror, the very bed moved under me. I endeavoured, but in vain, to awake Sir Martin; all my attempts were ineffectual, and in this state of agitation and terror I lay for some time, when a shower of tears came to my relief and I fell asleep.
“‘In the morning Sir Martin arose and dressed himself as usual, without perceiving the state the curtains remained in. When I awoke I found Sir Martin gone down; I arose, and having put on my clothes, went to the gallery adjoining the apartment and took from thence a long broom (such as cornices are swept with); by the help of this I took down with some difficulty the curtains, as I imagined their extraordinary position might excite suspicion in the family. I then went to the bureau, took up my pocket-book, and bound a piece of black ribbon round my wrist. When I came down, the agitation of my mind had left an impression on my countenance too visible to pass unobserved by my husband. He instantly remarked it, and asked the cause; I informed him Lord Tyrone was no more, that he died at the hour of four on the preceding Tuesday, and desired him never to question me more respecting the black ribbon, which he kindly desisted from after. You, my son, as had been foretold, I afterwards brought into the world, and in little more than four years after your birth your lamented father expired in my arms. After this melancholy event I determined, as the only probable chance to avoid the sequel of the prediction, for ever to abandon all society, to give up every pleasure resulting from it, and to pass the rest of my days in solitude and retirement. But few can long endure to exist in a state of perfect sequestration: I began an intimacy with a family, and one alone; nor could I foresee the fatal consequences which afterwards resulted from it. Little did I think their son, their only son, then a mere youth, would form the person destined by fate to prove my destruction. In a very few years I ceased to regard him with indifference; I endeavoured by every possible way to conquer a passion, the fatal effects of which I too well knew. I had fondly imagined I had overcome its influence, when the evening of one fatal day terminated my fortitude and plunged me in a moment down that abyss I had so long been meditating how to shun. He had often solicited his parents for leave to go into the army, and at last obtained permission, and came to bid me adieu before his departure. The instant he entered the room he fell upon his knees at my feet, told me he was miserable, and that I alone was the cause. At that moment my fortitude forsook me, I gave myself up as lost, and regarding my fate as inevitable, without further hesitation consented to a union, the immediate result of which I knew to be misery, and its end death. The conduct of my husband after a few years amply justified a separation, and I hoped by these means to avoid the fatal sequel of the prophecy: but won over by his reiterated entreaties, I was prevailed upon to pardon and once more reside with him, though not till after I had, as I thought, passed my forty-seventh year.
“‘But alas! I have this day heard from indisputable authority that I have hitherto lain under a mistake with regard to my age, and that I am but forty-seven to-day. Of the near approach of my death then I entertain not the slightest doubt; but I do not dread its arrival; armed with the sacred precepts of Christianity I can meet the King of Terrors without dismay, and without fear bid adieu to mortality for ever.
“‘When I am dead, as the necessity for concealment closes with my life, I could wish that you, Lady Betty, would unbind my wrist, take from thence the black ribbon, and let my son with yourself behold it.’ Lady Beresford here paused for some time, but resuming the conversation she entreated her son would behave himself so as to merit the high honour he would in future receive from a union with the daughter of Lord Tyrone.
“Lady B. then expressed a wish to lay down on the bed and endeavour to compose herself to sleep. Lady Betty Cobb and her son immediately called her domestics and quitted the room, having first desired them to watch their mistress attentively, and if they observed the smallest change in her, to call instantly.
“An hour passed and all was quiet in the room. They listened at the door and everything remained still, but in half an hour more a bell rang violently; they flew to her apartment, but before they reached the door, they heard the servants exclaim, ‘Oh, she is dead!’ Lady Betty then bade the servants for a few minutes to quit the room, and herself with Lady Beresford’s son approached the bed of his mother; they knelt down by the side of it; Lady Betty lifted up her hand and untied the ribbon,—the wrist was found exactly as Lady Beresford had described it, every sinew shrunk, every nerve withered.
“Lady Beresford’s son, as had been predicted, is since married to Lord Tyrone’s daughter. The black ribbon and pocket-book were formerly in the possession of Lady Betty Cobb, Marlborough Buildings, Bath, who, during her long life, was ever ready to attest the truth of this narration, as are, to the present hour, the whole of the Tyrone and Beresford families.”[6]
Three remarkable examples of Spectral Appearances must now be given, because of their inherent interest and corresponding likeness. The first is recorded by Glanville, a learned and pious author already referred to; the second is the case of Dr. Ferrar, and the third that of the “Wynyard Ghost Story.”
(I.) Glanville tells a story regarding the appearance of a spirit in fulfilment of a promise made during lifetime, which is full of point and purpose. It runs thus. The substance, not the exact words, of the narrative are here given:—In the seventeenth century there lived two friends, Major George Sydenham of Dulverton in the county of Somerset, and Captain William Dyke of the same county. They were both reputed to be unbelievers in the Christian religion, if not avowed atheists. During the civil wars they had each served under the Parliamentary generals, and took an active part on the side of the rebels.
Having held many discussions both on the subject of religion and irreligion, they eventually argued out the fact of the immortality of the soul, which each felt disposed to deny: and finally they agreed between themselves that whichever of them died first, should (if such a possibility existed,) appear on the third day after death to the survivor in Major Sydenham’s summer-house at Dulverton, and enlighten him as to the existence of a future state of rewards and punishments.
In due course Major Sydenham died; and Captain Dyke, in company with a cousin of his own, a celebrated physician, who was attending a sick child at Major Sydenham’s house, but who knew nothing of the matter in hand, arrived there. Captain Dyke and his relative Dr. Dyke, the physician, occupied the same bedroom. The latter was surprised to hear the captain ask of the servant for two of the largest candles that could be obtained, and sought an explanation. The captain then informed him of his promise to Major Sydenham, and of his own determined resolution to fulfil it. Dr. Dyke urged with considerable force that as there was no warrant for making such engagements, they were to be regarded as unquestionably wrong; and pointed out, firstly, that evil spirits might take advantage of the situation, and secondly, that such a tempting of the Almighty was altogether wrong.
“This may be all very true,” responded Captain Dyke, “but as I faithfully promised to go, go I will. If you will come and sit up with me, well and good: and I shall be grateful. But if not, I shall certainly go alone.”
Then, placing his watch on the table, he waited until half-past eleven; when taking up the candles, he walked up and down in close proximity to the entrance of the summer-house, until two o’clock, without either seeing or hearing anything extraordinary.
Upon this he formed two conclusions; either that the soul perished with the body, or that the laws of the spiritual world forbade his friend Major Sydenham abiding by his pledge.
Six weeks afterwards, however, Captain Dyke and his relation the physician had occasion to go to Eton, where one of the sons of the former was to be placed at the college. They lodged at the S. Christopher’s Inn, occupying different sleeping-rooms. On the last morning of their stay, Captain Dyke was unusually late, and when he entered the doctor’s room was like a man struck with madness, his eyes staring, his knees refusing to support him, and his whole appearance altered.
“What is the matter?” asked Dr. Dyke.
“I have seen the major,” replied the captain; “for if ever I saw him in my life, I certainly saw him just now.”
Upon the doctor pressing for details, Captain Dyke gave the following account:—“After it was first light this morning, someone pulled back the curtains of my bed suddenly, and I saw the major exactly as I had seen him in life. ‘I could not,’ he said, ‘come at the time appointed, but I am here now to tell you that there is a God, a very just and terrible God, and that if you do not turn over a new leaf you will find it so.’ He then disappeared.”
It is said, finally, that Captain Dyke’s truthfulness was so notorious, as to preclude the possibility of doubting his relation of the occurrence. Furthermore, the apparition and warnings of his departed friend exercised a visible effect on his character and life, which latter was prolonged for two years; during which period he is said to have had the words then spoken to him always sounding in his ears.
(II.) The celebrated Nicholas Ferrar, of Little Gidding, (who, in the seventeenth century, lived a most retired, religious, and pious life,) had a brother, a physician in London. This physician made a compact with his eldest and favourite daughter that whichever of them died first should, if happy, appear to the other. This compact is said to have proved the subject of many conversations and religious discussions between father and child. The latter is reported to have been very averse to making any such agreement; but being overcome by arguments as to the reasonableness of such a course (if permitted by a gracious and merciful God) at last consented. After this she married and settled with her husband at Gillingham Lodge, in the county of Wiltshire. Here she was prematurely confined; and during her illness, one night by mistake took poison, and died quite suddenly. That very night her spirit appeared to her father in London, the curtains of whose bed she drew back, and with a sweet but mournful expression looked upon him, and then gradually faded away. In fact, and as a test of the objective reality of his daughter’s apparition, Dr. Ferrar, deeply impressed by the occurrence, announced the death of his daughter to his family two days before he received intelligence of it by the then tardy post.
(III.) John Cope Sherbroke and George Wynyard appear in the “Army List” of 1785, the one as a captain and the other lieutenant in the 33rd Regiment,—a corps which some years after had the honour to be commanded by the Hon. Arthur Wellesley, subsequently Duke of Wellington. The regiment was then on service in Canada, and Sherbroke and Wynyard, being of congenial tastes, had become great friends. It was their custom to spend in study much of the time which their brother officers devoted to idle pleasures. According to a narration[7] resting on the best authority now attainable, they were one afternoon sitting in Wynyard’s apartment. It was perfectly light, the hour was about four o’clock: they had dined, but neither of them had drunk wine, and they had retired from their mess to continue together the occupations of the morning. It ought to have been said that the apartment in which they were had two doors in it, the one opening into a passage and the other leading into Wynyard’s bedroom. There was no other means of entering the sitting-room, so that any person passing into the bedroom must have remained there unless he returned by the way he entered. This point is of consequence to the story.
“As these two young officers were pursuing their studies, Sherbroke, whose eyes happened accidentally to glance from the book before him towards the door which opened to the passage, all at once observed a tall youth of about twenty years of age whose appearance was that of extreme emaciation. Struck with the presence of a perfect stranger, he immediately turned to his friend, who was sitting near him, and directed his attention to the guest who had thus strangely broken in upon their studies. As soon as Wynyard’s eyes were turned towards the mysterious visitor his countenance became suddenly agitated. ‘I have heard,’ says Sir John Sherbroke, ‘of a man’s being as pale as death, but I never saw a living face assume the appearance of a corpse except Wynyard’s at that moment.’ As they looked silently at the form before them—for Wynyard, who seemed to apprehend the import of the appearance, was deprived of the faculty of speech, and Sherbroke, perceiving the agitation of his friend, felt no inclination to address it—as they looked silently upon the figure it proceeded slowly into the adjoining apartment, and in the act of passing them cast its eyes with an expression of somewhat melancholy affection on young Wynyard. The oppression of this extraordinary presence was no sooner removed than Wynyard, seizing his friend by the arm, and drawing a deep breath as if recovering from the suffocation of intense astonishment and emotion, muttered in a low and almost inaudible tone of voice, ‘Great God, my brother!’ ‘Your brother!’ repeated Sherbroke, ‘what can you mean? Wynyard, there must be some deception; follow me;’ and immediately taking his friend by the arm, he preceded him into the bedroom, which, as before stated, was connected with the sitting-room, and into which the strange visitor had evidently entered. It has already been said that from this chamber there was no possibility of withdrawing but by the way of the apartment, through which the figure had certainly never returned. Imagine then the astonishment of the young officers when, on finding themselves in the chamber, they perceived that the room was perfectly untenanted. Wynyard’s mind had received an impression at the first moment of his observing him, that the figure whom he had seen was the spirit of his brother. Sherbroke still persevered in strenuously believing that some delusion had been practised. They took note of the day and hour in which the event had happened, but they resolved not to mention the occurrence in the regiment, and gradually they persuaded each other that they had been imposed upon by some artifice of their fellow-officers, though they could neither account for the means of its execution. They were content to imagine anything possible rather than admit the possibility of a supernatural appearance. But though they had attempted these stratagems of self-delusion, Wynyard could not help expressing his solicitude with respect to the safety of the brother whose apparition he had either seen or imagined himself to have seen; and the anxiety which he exhibited for letters from England, and his frequent mention of his brother’s health, at length awakened the curiosity of his comrades, and eventually betrayed him into a declaration of the circumstances which he had in vain determined to conceal. The story of the silent and unbidden visitor was no sooner bruited abroad than the arrival of Wynyard’s letters from England were welcomed with more than usual eagerness, for they promised to afford the clue to the mystery which had happened among themselves.
“By the first ships no intelligence relating to the story could have been received, for they had all departed from England previously to the appearance of the spirit. At length, the long wished-for vessel arrived; all the officers had letters except Wynyard. They examined the several newspapers, but they contained no mention of any death or of any other circumstance connected with his family that could account for the preternatural event. There was a solitary letter for Sherbroke still unopened. The officers had received their letters in the mess-room at the hour of supper. After Sherbroke had broken the seal of his last packet, and cast a glance on its contents, he beckoned his friend away from the company, and departed from the room. All were silent. The suspense of the interest was now at its climax; the impatience for the return of Sherbroke was inexpressible. They doubted not but that letter had contained the long-expected intelligence.
“After the interval of an hour, Sherbroke joined them. No one dared inquire the nature of his correspondence; but they waited in mute attention, expecting that he would himself touch upon the subject. His mind was manifestly full of thoughts that pained, bewildered, and oppressed him. He drew near to the fire-place, and leaning his head on the mantlepiece, after a pause of some moments, said in a low voice to the person who was nearest him, Wynyard’s brother was dead. ‘Dear John, break to your friend Wynyard the death of his favourite brother.’ He had died on the day and at the very hour on which the friends had seen his spirit pass so mysteriously through the apartment.
“It might have been imagined that these events would have been sufficient to have impressed the mind of Sherbroke with the conviction of their truth, but so strong was his prepossession against the existence or even the possibility of any preternatural intercourse with the spirits of the departed, that he still entertained a doubt of the report of his senses, supported as their testimony was by the coincidence of sight and event. Some years after, on his return to England, he was with two gentlemen in Piccadilly, when on the opposite side of the street he saw a person bearing the most striking resemblance to the figure which had been disclosed to Wynyard and himself. His companions were acquainted with the story, and he instantly directed their attention to the gentleman opposite, as the individual who had contrived to enter and depart from Wynyard’s apartment without their being conscious of the means.
“Full of this impression, he immediately went over and addressed the gentleman. He now fully expected to elucidate the mystery. He apologized for the interruption, but excused it by relating the occurrence which had induced him to the commission of this solecism in manners. The gentleman received him as a friend. He had never been out of the country, but he was the twin brother of the youth whose spirit had been seen.
“From the interesting character of this narration—the facts of the vision occurring in daylight, and to two persons; and of the subsequent verification of likeness by the party not previously acquainted with the subject of the vision, it is much to be regretted that no direct report of particulars had come to us. There is all other desirable authentication for the story, and sufficient evidence to prove that the two gentlemen believed and often told nearly what is here reported.
“Dr. Mayo makes the following statement on the subject: ‘I have had opportunities of inquiring of two near relations of this General Wynyard, upon what evidence the above story rests. They told me that they had each heard it from his own mouth. More recently a gentleman, whose accuracy of recollection exceeds that of most people, had told me that he had heard the late Sir John Sherbroke, the other party in the ghost story, tell it in much the same way at the dinner-table. A writer in ‘Notes and Queries’ for July 3, 1858, states that the brother, not twin-brother, whose spirit appeared to Wynyard and his friend, was John Otway Wynyard, Lieutenant in the 3rd Regiment of Foot-guards, who died on the 15th of October, 1785. As this gentleman writes with a minute knowledge of the family history, this date may be considered as that of the alleged spiritual incident.
“In ‘Notes and Queries’ for July 2nd, 1859, appeared a correspondence, giving the strongest testimony then attainable to the truth of the Wynyard ghost story. A series of queries on the subject being drawn up at Quebec, by Sir John Harvey, Adjutant-General of the forces in Canada, was sent to Colonel Gore of the same garrison, who was understood to be a survivor of the officers who were with Sherbroke and Wynyard at the time of the occurrence, and Colonel Gore explicitly replied to the following effect: He was present at Sydney, in the island of Cape Breton, in the autumn of 1785 or 1786, when the incident happened. It was in the then new barrack, and the place was blocked up by ice so as to have no communication with any part of the world. He was one of the first persons who entered the room after the apparition was seen. The ghost passed them as they were sitting at coffee, between eight and nine in the evening, and went into G. Wynyard’s bed closet, the window of which was putted down. He next day suggested to Sherbroke the propriety of making a memorandum of the incident, which was done. ‘I remember the date, and on the 6th of June our first letters from England brought the news of John Wynyard’s death, [which had happened] on the very night they saw his apparition.’ Colonel Gore was under the impression that the person afterwards seen in one of the streets of London, by Sherbroke and William Wynyard, was not a brother of the latter family, but a gentleman named (he thought) Hayman, noted for being like the deceased John Wynyard, and who affected to dress like him.”
So much for these records and testimonies. The following, now to be narrated, not altogether unlike them, and producing a good result on the person who witnessed the apparition, is of almost equal interest:—
“Lord Chedworth[8] had living with him the orphan daughter of a sister of his, a Miss Wright, who often related this circumstance: Lord Chedworth was a good man, and seemed anxious to do his duty, but, unfortunately, he had considerable intellectual doubts as to the existence of the soul in another world. He had a great friendship for a gentleman, whom he had known from his boyhood, and who was, like himself, one of those unbelieving mortals that must have ocular demonstration for everything. They often met, and often, too, renewed the subject so interesting to both; but neither could help the other to that happy conviction which was honestly wished for by each.
“One morning Miss Wright observed on her uncle joining her at breakfast, a considerable gloom of thought and trouble displayed on his countenance. He ate little, and was unusually silent. At last, he said, ‘Molly’ (for thus he familiarly called her), ‘I had a strange visitor last night. My old friend B—— came to me.’
“‘How?’ said Miss Wright, ‘did he come after I went to bed?’
“‘His spirit did,’ said Lord Chedworth, solemnly.
“‘Oh! my dear uncle, how could the spirit of a living man appear?’ said she, smiling.
“‘He is dead, beyond doubt,’ replied his lordship; ‘listen, and then laugh as much as you please. I had not entered my bedroom many minutes when he stood before me. Like you, I could not but think that I was looking on the living man, and so accosted him; but he answered, “Chedworth, I died this night at eight o’clock; I come to tell you, that there is another world beyond the grave; and that there is a righteous God Who judgeth all.”’
“‘Depend upon it, uncle, it was only a dream!’ But while Miss Wright was thus speaking a groom on horseback rode up the avenue, and immediately after delivered a letter to Lord Chedworth, announcing the sudden death of his friend. Whatever construction the reader may be disposed to put upon this narrative, it is not unimportant to add that the effect upon the mind of Lord Chedworth was as happy as it was permanent. All his doubts were at once removed, and for ever.”
The well-known Lyttelton Ghost Story may now be fitly recorded. It created a great and widespread interest at the time of its occurrence, and was criticised and commented upon by many. Several versions of it have already appeared in print, and they seem to vary in certain unimportant details. The Editor, instead of writing out what has already appeared, prefers to set forth at length various documents containing independent evidence of the truth of the several apparitions, which by the courtesy and kindness of the present accomplished bearer of the title, he is enabled to embody verbatim in this volume, having been permitted to transcribe them from the originals in Lord Lyttelton’s possession.
The subject of this narrative was the son of George, Lord Lyttelton, who was alike distinguished for the raciness of his wit and the profligacy of his manners. The latter trait of his character has induced many persons to suppose the apparition which he asserted he had seen, to have been the effect of a conscience quickened with remorse and misgivings, on account of many vices. The probability of the narrative[9] has, consequently, been much questioned; but two gentlemen, one of whom was at Pitt Place, the seat of Lord Lyttelton, and the other in the immediate neighbourhood, at the time of his lordship’s death, bore ample testimony to the veracity of the whole affair. The several narratives of the singular occurrence correspond in material points; and the following are the circumstantial particulars written by the gentleman who was at the time on a visit to his lordship:—
“I was at Pitt Place, Epsom, when Lord Lyttelton died; Lord Fortescue, Mrs. Flood, and the two Miss Amphletts were also present. Lord Lyttelton had not long been returned from Ireland, and frequently had been seized with suffocating fits; he was attacked several times by them in the course of the preceding month, while he was at his house in Hill Street, Berkeley Square. It happened that he dreamt, three days before his death, that he saw a fluttering bird, and afterwards a woman appeared to him in white apparel and said to him, ‘Prepare to die, you will not exist three days!’ His lordship was much alarmed, and called to a servant from a closet adjoining, who found him much agitated and in a profuse perspiration; the circumstance had a considerable effect all the next day on his lordship’s spirits. On the third day, while his lordship was at breakfast with the above personages, he said, ‘If I live over to-night I shall have jockied the ghost, for this is the third day.’ The whole party presently set off for Pitt Place, where they had not long arrived before his lordship was visited by one of his accustomed fits. After a short interval he recovered. He dined at five o’clock that day, and went to bed at eleven, when his servant was about to give him rhubarb and mint-water, but his lordship perceiving him stir it with a toothpick, called him a slovenly dog, and bade him go and fetch a teaspoon; but on the man’s return he found his Master in a fit, and the pillow being placed high, his chin bore hard upon his neck, when the servant, instead of relieving his master on the instant from his perilous situation, ran in his fright and called out for help, but on his return he found his lordship dead.
“In explanation of this strange tale it is said that Lord Lyttelton acknowledged, previously to his death, that the woman he had seen in his dream was the ‘mother’ of the two Misses Amphletts mentioned above, whom, together with a third sister then in Ireland, his lordship had seduced and prevailed on to leave their parent, who resided near his country residence in Shropshire. It is further stated that Mrs. Amphlett died of grief through the desertion of her children at the precise time when the female vision appeared to his lordship. The most surprising part of the story, because the most difficult of explanation, yet remains to be related. On the second day Miles Peter Andrews, one of Lord Lyttelton’s most intimate friends, left the dinner-party at an early hour, being called away upon business to Dartford, where he was the owner of certain powder-mills. He had all along professed himself one of the most determined sceptics as to the vision, and therefore ceased to think of it. On the third night, however, when he had been in bed about half an hour, and still remained, as he imagined, wide awake, his curtains were suddenly pulled aside, and Lord Lyttelton appeared before him in his robe-de-chambre and night-cap. Mr. Andrews gazed at his visitor for some time in silent wonder, and then began to reproach him for so odd a freak in coming down to Dartford Mills without any previous notice, as he hardly knew how on the emergency to find his lordship the requisite accommodation. ‘Nevertheless,’ said Andrews, ‘I will get up and see what can be done for you.’ With this view he turned aside to ring the bell; but on looking round again he could see no signs of his strange visitor. Soon afterwards the bell was rung for his servant, and upon his asking what had become of Lord Lyttelton, the man, evidently much surprised at the question, replied that he had seen nothing of him since they had left Pitt Place. ‘Psha, you fool,’ exclaimed Mr. Andrews, ‘he was here this moment at my bedside.’ The servant, more astonished than ever, declared that he did not well understand how that could be, since he must have seen him enter; whereupon Mr. Andrews rose, and having dressed himself, searched the house and grounds, but Lord Lyttelton was nowhere to be found. Still, he could not help believing that his friend, who was fond of practical jokes, had played him this trick for his previously expressed scepticism in the matter of the dream. But he soon viewed the whole affair in a different light. About four o’clock on the same day an express arrived from a friend with the news of Lord Lyttelton’s death, and the whole manner of it, as related by the valet to those who were in the house at the time. In Mr. Andrews’s subsequent visits to Pitt Place, no solicitations could ever induce him to sleep there; he would invariably return, however late, to the Spread Eagle Inn, at Epsom, for the night.”
Remarkable Dream of Thomas, Lord Lyttelton.[10]
“On Thursday, the 25th of November, 1779, Thomas, Lord Lyttelton, when he came to breakfast, declared to Mrs. Flood, wife of Frederick Flood, Esq., of the kingdom of Ireland, and to the three Miss Amphletts, who were lodged in his house in Hill Street, London (where he then also was), that he had had an extraordinary dream the night before. He said he thought he was in a room which a bird flew into, which appearance was suddenly changed into that of a woman dressed in white, who bade him prepare to die. To which he answered, ‘I hope not soon, not in two months.’ She replied, ‘Yes, in three days.’ He said he did not much regard it, because he could in some measure account for it; for that a few days before he had been with Mrs. Dawson when a robin-redbreast flew into her room.
“When he had dressed himself that day to go to the House of Lords, he said he thought he did not look as if he was likely to die. In the evening of the following day, being Friday, he told the eldest Miss Amphlett that she looked melancholy; but, said he, ‘You are foolish and fearful. I have lived two days, and, God willing, I will live out the third.’
“On the morning of Saturday he told the same ladies that he was very well, and believed he should bilk the ghost. Some hours afterwards he went with them, Mr. Fortescue, and Captain Wolseley, to Pitt Place, at Epsom; withdrew to his bed-chamber soon after eleven o’clock at night, talked cheerfully to his servant, and particularly inquired of him what care had been taken to provide good rolls for his breakfast the next morning, stepped into his bed with his waistcoat on, and as his servant was pulling it off, put his hand to his side, sunk back and immediately expired without a groan. He ate a good dinner after his arrival at Pitt Place, took an egg for his supper, and did not seem to be at all out of order, except that while he was eating his soup at dinner he had a rising in his throat, a thing which had often happened to him before, and which obliged him to spit some of it out. His physician, Dr. Fothergill, told me Lord Lyttelton had in the summer preceding a bad pain in his side, and he judged that some gut vessel in the part where he felt the pain gave way, and to that he conjectured his death was owing. His declaration of his dream and his expressions above mentioned, consequential thereon, were upon a close inquiry asserted to me to have been so, by Mrs. Flood, the eldest Miss Amphlett, Captain Wolseley, and his valet-de-chambre Faulkner,[11] who dressed him on the Thursday; and the manner of his death was related to me by William Stuckey, in the presence of Mr. Fortescue and Captain Wolseley, Stuckey being the servant who attended him in his bed-chamber, and in whose arms he died.
“Westcote.[12]
“February the 13th, 1780.”
Lord Lyttelton is also asserted to have appeared to Mr. Andrews, his friend and boon companion, at the time of his lordship’s sudden and mysterious death. Of this fact testimony is furnished by Mr. Plumer Ward, M.P., in his “Illustrations of Human Life,” from which (vol. i. p. 165) the following narrative is taken:—
“I had often heard much and read much of Lord Lyttelton’s seeing a ghost before his death, and of himself as a ghost appearing to Mr. Andrews; and one evening, sitting near that gentleman, during a pause in the debates in the House of Commons, I ventured to ask him whether there was any and what truth in the detailed story so confidently related. Mr. Andrews, as perhaps I ought to have expected, did not much like the conversation. He looked grave and uneasy, and I asked pardon for my impertinent curiosity. Upon this he good-naturedly said, ‘It is not a subject I am fond of, and least of all in such a place as this; but if you will come and dine with me, I will tell you what is true and what is false.’ I gladly accepted the proposal, and I think my recollection is perfect as to the following narrative:—‘Mr. Andrews in his youth was the boon-companion, not to say fellow-rake, of Lord Lyttelton, who, as is well known, was a man distinguished for abilities, but also for a profligacy of morals which few could equal. With all this he was remarkable for what may be called unnatural cowardice in one so determinedly wicked. He never repented, yet could never stifle his conscience. He never could allow, yet never could deny, a world to come, and he contemplated with unceasing terror what would probably be his own state in such a world if there was one. He was always melancholy with fear, or mad in defiance; and probably his principal misery here was, that with all his endeavours, he never could extinguish the dread of an hereafter.... Andrews was at his house at Dartford when Lord Lyttelton died at Pitt Place, Epsom, thirty miles off. Andrews’ house was full of company, and he expected Lord Lyttelton, whom he had left in his usual state of health, to join them the next day, which was Sunday. Andrews himself feeling much indisposed on the Saturday evening, retired early to bed, and requested Mrs. Pigou, one of his guests, to do the honours of the supper-table. He admitted that, when in bed, he fell into a feverish sleep, but was waked between eleven and twelve by somebody opening his curtains. It was Lord Lyttelton in a night-gown and cap, which Andrews recognized. He also plainly spoke to him, saying he was come to tell him all was over. The world said he informed him there was another state, and bade him repent, &c. That was not so. And I confine myself to the exact words of this relation.
“‘Now it seems that Lord Lyttelton was fond of horse-play, or what we should call mauvaise plaisanterie; and, having often made Andrews the subject of it, the latter had threatened him with manual chastisement next time it occurred. On the present occasion, thinking this annoyance renewed, he threw the first thing he could find, which were his slippers, at Lord Lyttelton’s head. The figure retreated towards a dressing-room which had no ingress or egress except through the bed-chamber, and Andrews, very angry, leapt out of bed, to follow it into the dressing-room. It was not there. Surprised, he returned to the bedroom, which he strictly searched. The door was locked on the inside, yet no Lord Lyttelton was to be found. He was astonished, but not alarmed, so convinced was he that it was some trick of Lord Lyttelton, who, he supposed, had arrived, according to his engagement, but after he, Andrews, had retired. He therefore rang for his servant, and asked if Lord Lyttelton was not come. The man said, “No.” “You may depend upon it,” replied he, out of humour, “he is somewhere in the house, for he was here just now, and is playing some trick.” But how he could have got into the bedroom with the door locked puzzled both master and man. Convinced, however, that he was somewhere in the house, Andrews, in his anger, ordered that no bed should be given him, saying he might go to an inn, or sleep in the stables. Be that as it may, he never appeared again, and Andrews went to sleep.
“‘It happened that Mrs. Pigou was to go to town early the next morning. What was her astonishment, having heard the disturbance of the night before, to hear on her arrival about nine o’clock that Lord Lyttelton had died the very night he was supposed to have been seen. She immediately sent an express to Dartford with the news; upon the receipt of which, Andrews, (quite well, and remembering accurately all that had passed,) swooned away. He could not understand it, but it had a most serious effect upon him, so that—to use his own expression—he “was not his own man again for three years.”’
“Such is the celebrated story; stript of its ornamentations and exaggerations; and for one, I own, if not convinced that this was a real message from Heaven, which certainly I am not, I at least think the hand of Providence was seen in it; working upon the imagination, if you please, and therefore suspending no law of Nature (though that after all is an ambiguous term), but still Providence, in a character not to be mistaken.”
The following remarkable occurrence of the Spectral Appearances of two persons, one recently dead and the other a canonized saint of the Roman Catholic Church, which occurred about thirty years ago, is now published for the first time. It is known as “The Weld Ghost Story:”—
“Philip Weld was a younger son of Mr. James Weld of Archer’s Lodge, near Southampton, and a nephew of the late Cardinal Weld, the head of that ancient family, whose chief seat is Lulworth Castle in Dorsetshire.[13] He was sent by his father in 1844 to S. Edmund’s college, near Ware in Hertfordshire, for his education. He was a boy of great piety and virtue, and gave not only satisfaction to the masters of studies, but edification to all his fellow-students. It happened that on April 16, 1846, a play-day or whole holiday, the President of the college gave the boys leave to boat upon the river at Ware.
“In the morning of that day Philip Weld had been to the Holy Communion at the early celebration of Mass, having just finished his retreat. In the afternoon of the same day he went with his companions and some of the masters to boat on the river as arranged. This sport he enjoyed very much. When one of the masters remarked that it was time to return to the college, Philip asked whether they might not have one more row. The master consented, and they rowed to the accustomed turning-point. On arriving there, and in turning the boat, Philip accidentally fell out into a very deep part of the river; and, notwithstanding that every effort was made to save him, was drowned.
“His dead body was brought back to the college, and the Very Rev. Dr. Cox, the President, was immensely shocked and grieved. He was very fond of Philip; but what was most dreadful to him was to have to break this sad news to the boy’s parents. He scarcely knew what to do, whether to write by post, or to send a messenger. At last he determined to go himself to Mr. Weld at Southampton. So he set off the same evening, and, passing through London, reached Southampton the next day, and drove from thence to Archer’s Lodge, Mr. Weld’s residence.
“On arriving there and being shown into his private study, Dr. Cox found Mr. Weld in tears. The latter, rising from his seat and taking the doctor by the hand, said, ‘My dear sir, you need not tell me what you are come for. I know it already. Philip is dead. Yesterday I was walking with my daughter Katharine on the turnpike road, in broad daylight, and Philip appeared to us both. He was standing on the causeway with another young man in a black robe by his side. My daughter was the first to perceive him. She said to me, “Look there, papa: there is Philip.” I looked and saw him. I said to my daughter, “It is Philip, indeed; but he has the look of an angel.” Not suspecting that he was dead, though greatly wondering that he was there, I went towards him with my daughter to embrace him; but a few yards being between us, while I was going up to him a labouring man, who was walking on the same causeway, passed between the apparition and the hedge, and as he went on I saw him pass through their apparent bodies, as if they were transparent. On perceiving this I at once felt sure that they were spirits, and going forward with my daughter to touch them, Philip sweetly smiled on us, and then both he and his companion vanished away.’”
“The reader may imagine how deeply affected Dr. Cox was on hearing this remarkable statement. He of course corroborated it by relating to the afflicted father the circumstances attendant on his son’s death, which had taken place at the very hour in which he appeared to his father and sister. They all concluded that he had died in the grace of God, and that he was in happiness, because of the placid smile on his face.[14]
“Dr. Cox asked Mr. Weld who the young man was in the black robe who had accompanied his son, and who appeared to have a most beautiful and angelic countenance, but he said that he had not the slightest idea.
“A few weeks afterwards, however, Mr. Weld was on a visit to the neighbourhood of Stonyhurst in Lancashire. After hearing Mass one morning in the chapel, he, while waiting for his carriage, was shown into the guest-room, where, walking up to the fireplace, he saw a picture above the chimney-piece, which, as it pleased God, represented a young man in a black robe with the very face, form, and attitude of the companion of Philip as he saw him in the vision, and beneath the picture was inscribed ‘S. Stanislaus Kostka,’[15] one of the greatest saints of the Jesuit order, and the one whom Philip had chosen for his patron saint at his Confirmation. His father, overpowered with emotion, fell on his knees, shedding many tears, and thanking God for this fresh proof of his son’s blessedness. For in what better company could he be than in that of his patron saint, leading him, as it were, into the presence of his Creator and his Saviour, from the dangers and temptations of this state of exile to a condition of endless blessedness and happiness?”[16]
This is, perhaps, one of the most remarkable and best-authenticated recent cases of Spectral Appearances which has ever been narrated. The various independent testimonies dove-tailing together so perfectly, centre in the leading supernatural fact—the actual apparition in the daytime of a person just departed this life by sudden death, seen not by one only, but by two people, simultaneously; and seen in company with the spirit of a very holy and renowned saint, the chosen patron of the youth who had just been drowned. A more clear and conclusive example of the Supernatural it would be impossible to obtain.
The following case in certain particulars is not unlike that just recorded; for two persons, at a distance of many hundred miles apart, saw the Apparition of their departed relative who had just died in Australia:—
“Circumstances, in the year 1848,” writes a correspondent of the Editor, “induced me to allow my youngest daughter to leave England, in order to join a son of mine in Australia, who had left home about five years previously, to seek his fortune in that country. In England, at home, he had every opportunity of making his way in life, and settling advantageously, but had availed himself of none that had offered. After leaving school, he was placed under a private tutor’s care, and duly entered at Oxford. There he did nothing, or next to nothing, and left without taking any degree. Soon after this, at his own suggestion, in company with a friend, whose acquaintance he had made at the university, an acquaintance which eventually ripened into a warm friendship, he went to Australia; and he did not go empty-handed. A sum of money was placed to his credit with a colonial bank in the city of London having agencies in that colony, and nothing was left undone to secure for him a good start in his self-chosen and new life. I ought to add here that my own wish always had been that he should remain at home, and, after receiving orders, become vicar of a parish, the patronage of which was in the gift of a relation. Man proposes, but God disposes.
“In Australia, as was not otherwise than I myself had anticipated, the manner of life was utterly unlike that to which he had been accustomed. Ill-luck and want of success met him at every turn, as we afterwards found out; and not only did want of success meet him, but he had to undergo privations and hardships, which eventually weakened a constitution never too strong.
“At the time that I consented to my daughter going out, much of the above was unknown to us. He had written complaining of ill-health and weakness, and she, with great self-denial and sisterly devotion, resolved to go. She went with the understanding that she was soon to return. Just before she started, the mail brought us unexceptionally bad news of her brother’s weak state of health, written by his college friend.
“About six weeks after her departure, I was sitting musing in my arm-chair, on a summer afternoon, close to the window of my library, which looked out upon a lawn, to the left of which were three large and overspreading cedar-trees. All of a sudden I saw the life-like apparition of my son standing below the cedar-trees. He looked very pale, thin, and careworn, much altered, but my very son. He gazed at me intently, and with a mournful gaze, for about the space of two minutes. I could not speak—I could not move—I could not take my eyes off him. I seemed riveted to the spot; and, of course, I was at once convinced of the fact that he had died. Then he seemed gradually to fade away. It was weeks before I could get the thoughts of his appearance out of my mind; and nothing that the members of my family could say served to remove the impression so indelibly stamped upon it of our loss.
“Some months afterwards, we received letters from my daughter (just landed) and his other friends in Australia announcing his decease. He had died somewhat suddenly, having expressed the most anxious desire to see me before his death—a desire repeated again and again, and regarding which he seemed to be unquiet.
“The most remarkable feature yet to be told in the circumstance was this,—that my daughter, who was reposing in the ladies’ cabin of the ship, on her way to Australia, saw the apparition of her brother come into the cabin, move round it by a strange motion, and then, after looking at herself with a strained and mournful look, glide out again.
“Events afterwards showed that these appearances, both on shipboard and at my own home, occurred at or about the very time of my dear boy’s death. And nothing will convince me that the record here set down is not one of the most remarkable and undoubted examples of supernatural apparitions. May God Almighty join us all together again, after these earthly separations, in His heavenly kingdom!”
The following example, which has already appeared in print, is authenticated by a personal acquaintance of the Editor, who has kindly written him a Letter on the subject. It was first given to Dr. William Gregory,[17] who published it about twenty-three years ago. It is said to have occurred in 1849:[18]—
“An officer occupied the same room with another officer in the West Indies. One night he awoke his companion, and asked him if he saw anything in the room, when the latter answered that he saw an old man in the corner whom he did not know. ‘That,’ said the other, ‘is my father, and I am sure he is dead.’ In due time news arrived of his death in England at that very time. Long afterwards the officer took his friend who had seen the vision to visit the widow, when, on entering the room, he started, and said, ‘That is the portrait of the old man I saw.’ It was, in fact, the portrait of the father, whom the friend had never seen except in the vision.”
“This story,” writes Dr. Gregory, “I have on the best authority; and everyone knows that such stories are not uncommon. It is very easy, but not satisfactory, to laugh at them as incredible ghost stories; but there is a natural truth in them, whatever they may be.”
Examples of Apparitions at the time of Death to friends and relations are, however, so numerous that a considerable number might readily be printed. Here are two, well and duly authenticated.
The following statement is vouched for by the person signing the same:—
“In the summer of 1816, my father and mother having retired to bed about nine o’clock, the latter was about to draw down the blind, when she observed the figure of a female approaching their house by a footpath which communicated with the village. Thinking the circumstance unusual, she waited till the figure approached sufficiently near to discern its features, when she exclaimed to my father, ‘Why, here is my sister B——; what can have induced her to come here at this time of the evening?’ She was about to prepare to go downstairs to inquire the cause of such a visit at that late time of night, when my mother observed the figure retracing its steps in the same direction by which it had come. The following morning, early, intelligence was brought to my mother that her sister B—— died at the same hour at which her apparition appeared to my mother. This is a simple statement of facts.
“Signed by the son of the person to whom the apparition appeared.
“C. J. Hanmer.
“33, Henley Street, Camp Hill, Birmingham.”
The following is another statement of facts vouched for by those who formally testify to its truth:—
“One evening in the autumn of the year 1868, my wife retired to bed early. On my entering the bedroom about midnight, I found her wide awake, and in a very excited state. On inquiring the cause, she stated that she believed most firmly she had seen our old friend Mrs. G——, then residing at a distance, whom we believed to be in perfect health. My wife gave a minute description of her dress, which I had remembered to have seen her wear, and at the same time stated that when the apparition appeared to her, every object in the bedroom was strangely but distinctly visible. Of course I tried to allay my wife’s excitement by assuring her that she was suffering from the effects of an unpleasant dream, but I failed to shake her conviction that she had seen the spirit of our friend.
“Nothing occurred during the next day, but on the following we received a letter from a relative, stating that Mrs. G—— had died the night before about twelve o’clock.
“It appears that Mrs. G——, while in her garden, was observed to fall upon one of the flower beds. Having been taken to her room, medical aid was promptly procured, but without avail: she remained unconscious from that time until the moment of her death, which occurred about twelve o’clock the same evening.
“(Signed) C. L. Hanmer,
Catherine Hanmer
(Wife of the above).
“Branch Dispensary, Camp Hill, Birmingham,
Oct. 18, 1872.”
The following Account of the Apparition of a murdered man, near the place of his death, is very remarkable. It has been published, though in another form, in Australia, and is there generally accepted as true. The version given below is from those who are thoroughly competent to furnish a true and faithful account of a very impressive narrative:—
“In Australia, about twenty-five years ago, two graziers, who had emigrated from England, and entered into partnership, became, as was generally believed, possessed of considerable property, by an unlooked-for success in their precarious but not unprofitable occupation. One of them all of a sudden was missed, and could nowhere be found. Search was made for him in every quarter, likely and unlikely, yet no tidings of him or his whereabouts could be heard.
“One evening, about three weeks afterwards, his partner and companion was returning to his hut along a bye-path which skirted a deep and broad sheet of water. The shadows of twilight were deepening, and the setting sun was almost shut out by the tall shrubs, brushwood, and rank grass which grew so thick and wild. In a moment he saw the crouching figure of his companion, apparently as real and life-like as could be, sitting on the ground by the very margin of the deep pond, with his left arm bent, resting on his left knee. He was about to rush forward and speak, when the figure seemed to grow less distinct, and the ashen-coloured face wore an unusually sad and melancholy aspect; so he paused. On this the figure, becoming again more palpable, raised its right arm, and, holding down the index finger of the right hand, pointed to a dark and deep hole, where the water was still and black, immediately beside an overhanging tree. This action was deliberately done, and then twice repeated, after which the figure, growing more and more indistinct, seemed to fade away.
“The grazier was mortally terrified and alarmed. For a while he stood riveted to the spot, fearing either to go forward or backward; while the silence of evening and the strange solitude, now for the first time in his Australian life thoroughly experienced, overawed him completely. Afterwards he turned and went home. Night, which came on soon, brought him no sleep. He was restless, agitated, and disquieted.
“The next morning, in company with others, the pool was dragged, and the body of his partner discovered, in the very spot towards which the figure of the phantom had twice pointed. It had been weighted and weighed down by a large stone attached to the body; while from the same spot was recovered a kind of axe or hatchet, with which the murder had evidently been committed. This was identified as having belonged to a certain adventurer, who, on being taxed and formally charged with the murder, and found to be possessed of certain valuable documents belonging to the murdered man, eventually confessed his crime, and was executed.
“This incident, and its supernatural occurrences, made a deep impression; and, having been abundantly testified to, in a court of justice, as well as in common and general conversation, is not likely to be soon forgotten in the neighbourhood of Ballarat, in Australia, where it occurred.”
Here, of course, the purpose of the Apparition was obvious enough; and the end attained was as just and proper as it was true and righteous; for “whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.”
The following example of the appearance of the spirit of a dying woman to her children, who were at a distance of some hundreds of miles from her, is a plain unvarnished narrative of facts. It is now published for the first time.
“A lady and her husband (who held a position of some distinction in India) were returning home (A.D. 1854) after an absence of four years, to join a family of young children, when the former was seized in Egypt with an illness of a most alarming character; and, though carefully tended by an English physician and nursed with the greatest care, grew so weak that little or no hope of her recovery existed. With that true kindness which is sometimes withheld by those about a dying bed, she was properly and plainly informed of her dangerous state, and bidden to prepare for the worst. Of a devout, pious, and reverential mind, she is reported to have made a careful preparation for her latter end, though no clergyman was at hand to minister the last sacrament, or to afford spiritual consolation. The only point which seemed to disturb her mind, after the delirium of fever had passed away, was a deep-seated desire to see her absent children once again, which she frequently expressed to those who attended upon her. Day after day, for more than a week, she gave utterance to her longings and prayers, remarking that she would die happily if only this one wish could be gratified.
“On the morning of the day of her departure hence, she fell into a long and heavy sleep, from which her attendants found it difficult to arouse her. During the whole period of it she lay perfectly tranquil. Soon after noon, however, she suddenly awoke, exclaiming, ‘I have seen them all: I have seen them. God be praised for Jesus Christ’s sake!’ and then slept again. Towards evening, in perfect peace and with many devout exclamations, she calmly yielded up her spirit to God Who gave it. Her body was brought to England, and interred in the family burying-place.
“The most remarkable part of this incident remains to be told. The children of the dying lady were being educated at Torquay under the supervision of a friend of the family. At the very time that their mother thus slept, they were confined to the house where they lived, by a severe storm of thunder and lightning. Two apartments on one floor, perfectly distinct, were then occupied by them as play and recreation rooms. All were there gathered together. No one of the children was absent. They were amusing themselves with games of chance, books, and toys, in company of a nursemaid who had never seen their parents. All of a sudden their mother, as she usually appeared, entered the larger room of the two, pausing, looked for some moments at each and smiled, passed into the next room, and then vanished away. Three of the elder children recognized her at once, but were greatly disturbed and impressed at her appearance, silence, and manner. The younger and the nursemaid each and all saw a lady in white come into the smaller room, and then slowly glide by and fade away.”
The date of this occurrence, September 10, 1854, was carefully noted, and it was afterwards found that the two events above recorded happened almost contemporaneously. A record of the event was committed to paper, and transcribed on a fly-leaf of the family Bible, from which the above account was taken and given to the Editor of this book in the autumn of the year 1871, by a relation of the lady in question, who is well acquainted with the fact of her spectral appearance at Torquay, and has vouched for the truth of it in the most distinct and formal manner. The husband, who was reported to have been of a somewhat sceptical habit of mind, was deeply impressed by the occurrence. And though it is seldom referred to now, it is known to have had a very deep and lasting religious effect on more than one person who was permitted directly to witness it.[19]
A personal acquaintance of the Editor, whom he has had the pleasure of knowing for twenty years, most kindly furnishes the following example:—
“In the winter of 1872-3 I was afflicted with a long and severe illness, so severe indeed, that for six weeks I was hovering between life and death. A nurse of great knowledge and intelligence was in attendance on me; she had been brought up as a Socinian, and was entirely careless as to religious belief. At the same time she was wholly devoted to her duties, and most attentive and assiduous in the same. Two days after her arrival she was sitting up in the adjoining room, the folding-doors between which and the room where I was lying being open, and lights were burning in each apartment. It had struck two o’clock a.m., and from my critical position she was unwilling either to sleep or to secure temporary rest. On looking up at that moment she perceived a form bending over me. The figure was that of an aged person with attenuated features, straggling grey hair, and thin clasped hands, which were placed in the attitude of prayer. For a while she thought it was someone who had entered the room; but, after gazing at it intently, she was smitten with a strange awe, and stood watching it attentively for at least five minutes, when it gradually faded away and disappeared.
“On the first opportunity she mentioned this strange occurrence to the people of the house, when she heard for the first time that my father had been lying dangerously ill at his own residence, more than a hundred miles away. At the time of my own and my father’s sickness, my dangerous state, for medical and prudential reasons, was not communicated to him, and my illness was made light of, fearing the bad effect upon himself. That it was his Spirit which then appeared seems undoubted: for at two o’clock p.m. a relation came to see me from the City where my father had lived, to break to me the sad news of his decease. He had departed this life exactly at the period when his apparition in the attitude of prayer had been seen by my attendant. These facts were not made known to me until some time afterwards.”[20]
The following story, no less interesting and impressive, appears in “The Life and Times of Lord Brougham, written by Himself,” published a few years ago by Messrs. Blackwood and Co.:—
“‘A most remarkable thing happened to me—so remarkable that I must tell the story from the beginning. After I left the High School [in Edinburgh], I went with G——, my most intimate friend, to attend the classes in the University. There was no divinity class, but we frequently in our walks discussed and speculated upon many grave subjects—among others, on the immortality of the soul, and on a future state. This question and the possibility, I will not say of ghosts walking, but of the dead appearing to the living, were subjects of much speculation; and we actually committed the folly of drawing up an agreement, written with our blood, to the effect that whichever of us died first should appear to the other, and thus solve any doubts we had entertained of the “life after death.” After we had finished our classes at the College, G—— went to India, having got an appointment there in the Civil Service. He seldom wrote to me, and after the lapse of a few years I had almost forgotten him; moreover, his family having little connection with Edinburgh, I seldom saw or heard anything of them, or of him through them, so that all the old schoolboy intimacy had died out and I had nearly forgotten his existence. I had taken, as I have said, a warm bath; and while in it and enjoying the comfort of the heat after the late freezing I had undergone, I turned my head round 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. The vision produced such a shock that I had no inclination to talk about it, or to speak about it even to Stuart; but the impression it made upon me was too vivid to be easily forgotten; and 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; and that the appearance presented so distinctly to my eyes was a dream, I cannot for a moment doubt, yet for years I had had no communication with G——, nor had there been anything to recall him to my recollection; nothing had taken place during our Swedish travels either connected with G—— or with India, or with anything relating to him or to any member of his family. I recollected quickly enough our old discussion, and the bargain we had made. I could not discharge from my mind the impression that G—— must have died, and that his appearance to me was to be received by me as a proof of a future state.’ This was on December 19, 1799. In October, 1862, Lord Brougham added as a postscript:—‘I have just been copying out from my journal the account of this strange dream: certissima mortis imago! And now to finish the story, begun about sixty years since. Soon after my return to Edinburgh there arrived a letter from India announcing G——’s death! and stating that he had died on the 19th of December.’”
The following example of the apparition of a departed friend is, for reasons which will be apparent from the narrative, not unlike the three curious, but independent cases already recorded in the early part of the present chapter, and not altogether unlike that told by the late Lord Brougham. It comes directly to the Editor from the pen of the person who saw the spectral appearance:—
“I was sitting in my library one evening, towards the close of summer, somewhat late. The shadow of evening had been deepening for some time, for the sun had long gone down; and the expansive valley beyond and below my sloping garden was white with mist. Within, beyond the heavy folds of the curtains which hung beside a single and rather small and open window, there was a grey darkness which almost enshrouded the corners of the room on either side. I had been musing and meditating on a variety of subjects, theological, metaphysical, and moral, for more than an hour; while I reposed in a low arm-chair on one side of the fire-place.
“All of a sudden I saw what seemed to be an elongated perpendicular cloud of foggy-looking grey smoke, collected in the right-hand corner of the room. I could not comprehend what it was. While looking steadily at it, and rubbing my eyes (doubting for a moment whether I was awake or asleep), it seemed to form itself, by a kind of circular rolling motion of the smoke or luminous mist, into a human shape. There, before me, came out slowly, as it were, face, head, body, arms, hands and feet—at first a little indistinct in detail, but eventually so self-evident and clear that it was impossible to doubt the fact—of a figure, which a moment or two afterwards was developed into the exact and unmistakeable form of an old fellow-student at Oxford, who had died soon after we left that university, and of whom I had heard nothing whatever since the day of his death about seven years previously,[21] to that moment. Appearing just as he had lived, though death-like and ashen, he looked at me with a fixed and strangely-vacant stare, which appeared to grow alternately vivid and piercing, and dull and nebulous. I seemed to feel the air all at once chill and unearthly; and an indescribable sensation came over me which I had never experienced either before or afterwards. I felt almost paralyzed, and yet not altogether terrified. The form of my old college companion (who had been a very upright, devout and religious man) in a moment smiled at me, and raising his hand, pointed for a few seconds upwards. At this action a very bright mist, not exactly a light, but a luminous mist, seemed to hover over him. I tried to speak, but could not. My tongue clave to the roof of my mouth. Then, protecting myself with the sign of the Cross, and a mental invocation of the Blessed Trinity, I sheltered my eyes with my right hand for a few seconds, and then looking up again saw the apparition become more and more indistinct and soon altogether fade away.
“This is my ghost story, and I have always connected the appearance with arguments and conversations which, against aggressive objectors, used to be held at Oxford in defence of the Christian doctrines of the Resurrection of the Body and the Immortality of the Soul, in which my dead friend took so intelligent and earnest a part.”
Not less interesting is the following account of a Spectral Appearance which occurred in the latter part of the afternoon of a bright autumnal day, well authenticated, and here set forth for the first time:—
“The widow of a well-known Bristol merchant was, in 1856, acting as lady housekeeper to a Berkshire clergyman. One of her sons was an officer in the Indian army, and serving in the Madras Presidency. It was his custom to write to his mother by every fortnightly mail. He had not missed doing so with punctual regularity.
“One evening, however, between six and seven, in the month of October of the above year, the lady in question was walking on the lawn before the house, in company with the curate of the parish, a well-known Oxford man, when all of a sudden both of them saw what appeared to be a dog-cart containing three men drive along the lane which skirted the lawn and flower-garden, and which was separated from it by a closely-cut box-hedge, so low as to admit of those who were walking in the garden seeing with ease and distinctness any person approaching the house in a vehicle. It was driven in the direction of the carriage entrance, and, from the sound, appeared to have entered the court-yard of the house. One of the persons in it, he who sat behind, half rose, and looking towards his mother and the clergyman, smiled, and waved his right hand as a greeting. He looked very pale and ashy; otherwise there was nothing remarkable in his appearance. Both most distinctly observed the action just mentioned. Immediately on seeing it, the lady exclaimed with marked feeling and excitement, ‘Good heavens! why, there’s Robert.’ She at once rushed through a passage of the house, which led directly to the court-yard, only to find to her amazement and perplexity that no carriage nor dog-cart had arrived, and that the large gates of the house were, as usual, locked and fastened, and moreover had not been opened.
“The impression this remarkable incident made was deep and great. No doubt whatever existed in the minds of those who had seen and heard the passing vehicle, that the form on the seat behind was the son of the lady in question. She consequently felt confident that some harm had happened to him, became miserable, and was inconsolable. No remarks or reasoning to the contrary, several of which were attempted, produced the slightest effect. A deep gloom settled over her. The sequel can soon be narrated. In the course of a few weeks the mail viâ Southampton, most anxiously looked for, brought two letters to the lady in question, one intimating that her son had been suddenly struck with a most severe fever, was delirious and in great danger; the other intimating his death. This latter occurred on the very day at which the appearance in question was seen, but at a slightly different time.”
With the following example, as strange in itself as it is painfully interesting, this part of the subject will be brought to a close. It is only right to add that a version of the incident which now follows has already appeared in one of Mr. Henry Spicer’s interesting volumes:—
“A young German lady of rank, still alive to tell the story, arriving with her friends at one of the most noted hotels in Paris, an apartment of unusual magnificence on the first floor was apportioned to her use. After retiring to rest, she lay awake a long while contemplating, by the dim light of a night lamp, the costly ornaments in the room, when suddenly the folding doors opposite the bed, which she had locked, were thrown open, and amid a flood of unearthly light there entered a young man in the dress of the French navy, having his hair dressed in the peculiar mode à la Titus. Taking a chair, and placing it in the middle of the room, he sat down, and took from his pocket a pistol of an uncommon make, which he deliberately put to his forehead, fired, and fell back dead. At the moment of the explosion, the room became dark and still, and a low voice said softly, ‘Say an Ave Maria for his soul.’
“The young lady fell back, not insensible, but paralyzed with horror, and remained in a kind of cataleptic trance, fully conscious, but unable to move or speak, until at nine o’clock, no answer having been given to repeated calls of her maid, the doors were forced open. At the same moment, the powers of speech returned, and the poor young lady shrieked out to her attendants that a man had shot himself in the night, and was lying dead on the floor. Nothing, however, was to be seen, and they concluded that she was suffering from the effects of a dream.
“A short time afterwards, however, the proprietor of the hotel informed a gentleman of the party that the terrible scene witnessed by the young lady had in reality been enacted only three nights previously in that very room, when a young French officer put an end to his life with a pistol of a peculiar description, which, together with the body, was then lying at the Morgue, awaiting identification. The gentleman examined them both, and found them exactly correspond with the description of the man and the pistol seen in the apparition. The Archbishop of Paris, Monseigneur Sibour, being exceedingly impressed by the story, called upon the young lady; and, directing her attention to the words spoken by the mysterious voice, urged her to embrace the Roman Catholic faith, to whose teaching, as His Grace asserted, it pointed so clearly.”
The various examples of Spectral Appearances now given (and they might have been largely augmented) may certainly serve to provide cases, so inherently striking and conclusive in themselves, as to leave little or no doubt of their intrinsic truth. Making every allowance for unintentional misconceptions and exaggeration in the record of them, putting aside mere rhetorical ornaments and literary additions, it seems quite impossible, being guided by the ordinary rules of evidence, not to admit the force and value of such striking facts as the above. In the cases already set forth, it is quite irrational to maintain that the disturbed imagination or wild fancy of the persons who are said to have seen the Apparitions were the sole foundations of the things seen; more especially as in some instances the Appearances were beheld by two or more persons at the same time, and often the same form presented itself to different people upon different occasions. It may be that some own a power of seeing disembodied spirits, which is not possessed by others, and it is tolerably certain that the large majority of people have never beheld anything of the sort. But this, after all, is but negative testimony. That which is positive, covering, it may be, a small area, is of considerable value and importance in aiding those who are open to conviction in coming to a reasonable conclusion. For existing positive evidence cannot be rudely and arrogantly set aside, when found to be, as in the case under consideration, so completely in harmony with many of the plain and specific statements of Holy Scripture, with the express testimony of the Fathers of the Christian Church, and the almost universal tradition of mankind in every age.
HAUNTED HOUSES AND LOCALITIES.
“Nations civilized as well as uncivilized: barbarians of the rudest type, and Christians of the highest and deepest spirituality, have always believed that certain localities were the haunts of unquiet spirits.”—Richard H. Froude.
HAUNTED HOUSES AND LOCALITIES.
any who are unaffected by the demoralizing and degrading materialistic theories of life, which are now enunciated by some who name themselves, and whom their flattering admirers style “philosophers,” will not be unwilling to allow that a considerable amount of evidence[22] is in existence, indicating that certain localities are troubled by the presence of evil spirits, who from time to time manifest their powers, or sometimes appear to mankind in forms which give a shock to those who are enabled or permitted to perceive them.
If Christian tradition be accepted, a belief in the official ministry of unfallen spirits,—“the armies of the Living God,”—will be held, firmly[23] and intelligibly, as a most reasonable and beautiful part of Almighty God’s revelation, Who “has ordained and constituted the services of angels and men in a wonderful order.” So, by consequence, the existence and action of fallen angels, the Legions of Satan, and of spirits,[24] who, at the particular judgment following immediately upon death, have merited the swift and righteous condemnation of an all-just Judge, will be fully admitted.
The power, activity, and malice of Satan is apparent from numerous statements in Holy Scripture; and most Christian writers who have dealt with the subject of evil spirits have maintained that their power and influence are unquestionably greater in some localities than others. It is commonly held, that in lonely deserts, on lofty mountains, where the feet of men seldom tread, as well as in the mines of the earth,[25] and in vast forests where desolation reigns, the powers of the Devil and his angels, being unchecked and uncurbed by the positive energizing activity of Christianity, are vast. So, likewise, the universal instinct of mankind has maintained that there are certain places in which the appearances of unquiet or lost souls might be reasonably looked for, rather than in others. Deserted houses and lonely roads, where crimes of violence and special wickedness have been perpetrated; deep mines,[26] localities, unblessed by Holy Church, where the bodies of Christians have been placed to moulder away, instead of in God’s holy acre, the consecrated churchyard; battlefields, where it may be that so many have been cut off in deadly sin—
“Unhouseled, disappointed, unanealed,”
have each and all been regarded as the fitting haunts of disquieted and wandering spirits.
On this point Southey, in “The Doctor,” with much force thus writes:—“The popular belief that places are haunted where money has been concealed (as if, where the treasure was and the heart had been, there would the miserable soul be also), or where some great and undiscovered crime has been committed, shows how consistent this is with our natural sense of fitness.”
On a collateral detail of this subject (the constant and malignant activity of evil spirits), Mr. John Wesley, a thorough believer in the Supernatural, put forth his faith and convictions with singular force and lucidity, plainly maintaining the reality and importance of all those explicit statements of Holy Scripture which so directly and practically bear on the point under treatment.
“Let us consider,” wrote Wesley, “what may be the employment of unholy spirits from death to the resurrection. We cannot doubt but the moment they leave the body, they find themselves surrounded by spirits of their own kind, probably human as well as diabolical. What power God may permit these to exercise over them we do not distinctly know. But it is not improbable [that] He may suffer Satan to employ them as he does his own angels, in inflicting death or evils of various kinds on the men that know not God. For this end they may raise storms by sea or by land; they may shoot meteors through the air; they may occasion earthquakes; and in numberless ways afflict those whom they are not suffered to destroy. Where they are not permitted to take away life, they may inflict various diseases; and many of these, which we may judge to be natural, are undoubtedly diabolical. I believe this is frequently the case with lunatics. It is observable that many of these, mentioned in the Scripture, who are called ‘lunatics’ by one of the Evangelists, are termed ‘demoniacs’ by another. One of the most eminent physicians I ever knew, particularly in cases of insanity, the late Dr. Deacon, was clearly of opinion that this was the case with many, if not with most lunatics. And it is no valid objection to this, that these diseases are so often cured by natural means; for a wound inflicted by an evil spirit might be cured as any other, unless that spirit were permitted to repeat the blow. May not some of these evil spirits be likewise employed, in conjunction with evil angels, in tempting wicked men to sin, and in procuring occasions for them? Yea, and in tempting good men to sin, even after they have escaped the corruption that is in the World. Herein, doubtless, they put forth all their strength, and greatly glory if they conquer.”[27]
Although some may maintain that this passage is perhaps wanting in theological exactness, there can be little doubt that, with much force, it truly and eloquently embodies the belief of all Christian people, and gives a simple and forcible explanation of Scripture statements regarding the active and untiring energy of the legions of Hell.
Again, the Marquis de Marsay, a pious French Protestant writer of the last century, whose collected works were issued about the year 1735, sets forth from his own point of view a theory regarding the nature and character of spirits, which because it bears directly on the subject of Haunted Localities, and in some respects follows the teaching of the schoolmen, it may be well to quote here:—
“I believe,” he writes, “that there are three kind of spirits, which return to this World, after the death of their bodies. The spirits of such as are in a state of condemnation, and which are in a very miserable condition, hover about, and haunt the places where they have committed their evil deeds and iniquities. They remain at these places by divine permission, and do all the evil they can; whilst, at the same time, they suffer intolerable torments and are malignant. Some of this kind of spirits occasionally make themselves visible.... The second kind of spirits are those which roam about, because they seek to free themselves from their state of purification[28] by other means than by resignation to Divine Justice; hence they seek help from those that fear God, and in so doing, withdraw themselves from the Divine Order.... These are not evil spirits, but such as are still in their self-will, and therefore refuse to yield to the Divine Order, by voluntarily submitting themselves to the punishment imposed upon them.... The third kind of spirits, or rather souls that reappear, are those, whose punishment is to be at some certain place in this world, because they have satisfied their passions in that place, and lived according to their lusts in an idolatrous manner; for that which now causes a man lust and pleasure, must hereafter serve as his pain and punishment. Of this we have several instances; amongst others, that of a pious man, who after his death appeared to his daughter, who was likewise a pious person, and after conversing with her some time on his state, began to turn pale, to tremble, and be much distressed; and said to his daughter that the time was now arrived when he must go and remain for a time in his grave, with his putrefying and corrupting corpse; and that this happened to him every day, because in his life-time he had had too much affection and tenderness for his body.”
The dissertations of the schoolmen, and of certain English writers of the seventeenth century, are not unlike the above.[29] So, too, are several of their most reasonable deductions and conclusions. In fact, Dr. Joseph Hall, sometime Bishop of Exeter (A.D. 1627-1641, and afterwards of Norwich, from 1641 until 1656), maintained that many souls, guilty both of deadly sin (duly repented of during life), and of venial sin, in which not improbably they died, might have to suffer, by lingering, unsatisfied, because away from their Creator, and about the places where they sinned in their lifetime, until their temporal punishment was complete; a theory which though from the pen of one suspected of favouring Puritanism, is very like that embodied in the faith and practice of the Universal Church.
However this may be, at all events there is scarcely a locality in which some old tradition as regards Haunted Houses and Places does not exist; and which is not more or less accepted and believed in even now. A general rejection of the Supernatural may be the case with many, and a shallow desire not to be thought superstitious or over-credulous by more, are obvious reasons why some traditions have become weakened and others obscure. But putting aside all such, half-lost, forgotten, or fading away, and making every allowance for exaggeration and hyperbole, the facts which can still be testified to by credible witnesses, the evidence which is even now on record, coupled with that innate sentiment of awe, so common to many, and often strengthened by a sound religious belief, which gives point to old traditions, are sufficient to induce the calm and the unprejudiced not too hastily to disavow the existence of a principle of almost universal acceptance with mankind, and which neither the lame and limping logic of the sceptic, nor the imperfectly marshalled facts and random conclusions of the materialist can, in the long run, either weaken or destroy.
The following curious record, a fair example of numerous others, may now be suitably set forth:—
“Elizabeth, the third daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke (preceptor to Edward VI.) married Sir Thomas Hobby, of Bisham Abbey in Berkshire, and accompanied him to France, when as ambassador to Queen Elizabeth he went thither. On his death abroad in 1566 Lady Hobby brought his corpse home to Bisham, where he was buried in a mortuary chapel. She afterwards married John, Lord Russell. By her first husband she had a son, who when quite young is said to have entertained the greatest dislike and antipathy to every kind of learning; and such was his resolute repugnance to acquiring the art of writing that in a fit of obstinacy he would wilfully and deliberately blot his writing-books in the most slovenly manner. Such conduct so vexed and angered his mother, who was eminently intellectual, and like her three sisters, Lady Burleigh, Lady Bacon, and Lady Killigrew, an excellent classical scholar, that she beat him again and again on the shoulders and head, and at last so severely and unmercifully that he died.
“It is commonly reported that, as a punishment for her unnatural cruelty, her spirit is doomed to haunt the house where this cruel act of manslaughter was perpetrated. Several persons have seen the apparition, the likeness of which, both as regards feature and dress, to a pale portrait of her ladyship in antique widow’s weeds still remaining at Bisham, is said to be exact and lifelike. She is reported to glide through a certain chamber, in the act of washing blood stains from her hands. And on some occasions the apparition is said to have been seen in the grounds of the old mansion.
“A very remarkable occurrence in connection with this narrative, took place about thirty years ago. In taking down an old oak window-shutter of the latter part of the sixteenth century, a packet of antique copy-books of that period were discovered pushed into the wall between the joists of the skirting, and several of these books on which young Hobby’s name was written, were covered with blots, thus supporting the ordinary tradition.”[30]
Creslow in Buckinghamshire,[31] like so many old manor-houses, has its ghost story. It is said to be the disturbed and restless spirit of a lady, which haunts a certain sleeping chamber in the oldest portion of the house. She has been seldom seen but often heard only too plainly by those who have ventured to sleep in this room, or to enter it after midnight. She appears to come up from the old groined crypt, and always enters by the door at the top of the nearest staircase. After entering she is heard to walk about, sometimes in a gentle, stately manner, apparently with a long silk train sweeping the floor. Sometimes her motion is quick and hurried, her silk dress rustling violently as if she were engaged in a desperate struggle.
This chamber, though furnished as a bedroom, is seldom used, and is said to be never entered without trepidation and awe. Occasionally, however, some persons have been found bold enough to dare the harmless noises of the mysterious intruder; and many are the stories current in Buckinghamshire respecting such adventures. The following will suffice as a specimen, and may be depended on as authentic:—
“About the year 1850, a gentleman, not many years ago High Sheriff of the county, who resides some few miles’ distance from Creslow, rode over to a dinner-party; and, as the night became exceedingly dark and rainy, he was urged to stay over the night if he had no objection to sleep in the haunted chamber. The offer of a bed in such a room, so far from deterring him, induced him at once to accept the invitation. He was a strong-minded man of a powerful frame and undaunted courage, and like so many others, entertained a sovereign contempt for all haunted chambers, ghosts, and apparitions. The room was prepared for him. He would neither have a fire nor a night-light, but was provided with a box of lucifers that he might light a candle if he wished. Arming himself in jest with a cutlass and a brace of pistols, he took a serio-comic farewell of the family and entered his formidable dormitory.
“In due course, morning dawned; the sun rose, and a most beautiful day succeeded a very wet and dismal night. The family and their guests assembled in the breakfast-room, and every countenance seemed cheered and brightened by the loveliness of the morning. They drew round the table, when the host remarked that Mr. S—, the tenant of the haunted chamber, was absent. A servant was sent to summon him to breakfast, but he soon returned, saying he had knocked loudly at his door, but received no answer, and that a jug of hot water left there was still standing unused. On hearing this, two or three gentlemen ran up to the room, and, after knocking and receiving no answer, opened it and entered. It was empty. Inquiry was made of the servants; they had neither seen nor heard anything of him. As he was a county magistrate, some supposed that he had gone to attend the Board which met that morning at an early hour. But his horse was still in the stable; so that could not be. While they were at breakfast, however, he came in, and gave the following account of his last night’s experiences:—‘Having entered my room,’ said he, ‘I locked and bolted both the doors, carefully examined the whole room, and satisfied myself that there was no living creature in it but myself, nor any entrance but those which I had secured. I got into bed, and, with the conviction that I should sleep soundly as usual till six in the morning, was soon lost in a comfortable slumber. Suddenly I was awakened, and, on raising my head to listen, I certainly heard a sound resembling the light soft tread of a lady’s footstep, accompanied with the rustling as of a silk gown. I sprang out of bed, and having lighted a candle, found that there was nothing either to be seen or heard. I carefully examined the whole room. I looked under the bed, into the fire-place, up the chimney, and at both the doors, which were fastened just as I had left them. I then looked at my watch, and found it was a few minutes past twelve. As all was now perfectly quiet again, I put out the candle, got into bed, and soon fell asleep. I was again aroused. The noise was now louder than before. It appeared like the violent rustling of a stiff silk dress. A second time I sprang out of bed, darted to the spot where the noise was, and tried to grasp the intruder in my arms. My arms met together, but enclosed nothing. The noise passed to another part of the room, and I followed it, groping near the floor to prevent anything passing under my arms. It was in vain, I could feel nothing. The sound died at the doorway to the crypt, and all again was still. I now left the candle burning, though I never sleep comfortably with a light in my room, and went to bed again, but certainly felt not a little perplexed at being unable to detect the cause of the noise, nor to account for its cessation when the candle was lighted.’”
So that this gentleman’s experience (and as to ghosts, he was a sceptic) only served to strengthen the old and unbroken tradition. Of its foundation nothing very certain is known. The general facts, however, are commonly received.
Another example, unusually curious, relating to the Castle at York, is taken from the “Memoirs of Sir John Reresby:”—
“One of my soldiers being on guard about eleven in the night at the gate of Clifford Tower, the very night after the witch was arraigned, he heard a great noise at the Castle; and, going to the porch, he saw there a scroll of paper creep from under the door, which, as he imagined by moonshine, turned first into the shape of a monkey, and thence assumed the form of a turkey-cock, which passed to and fro by him. Surprised at this, he went to the prison, and called the under-keeper, who came and saw the scroll dance up and down, and creep under the door, where there was scarce an opening of the thickness of half-a-crown. This extraordinary story I had from the mouth both of one and the other.”[32]
An account of the haunting of Spedlin’s Tower was furnished to me by a Scotch friend, who asserts and vouches for the authenticity of the tradition:—
“Spedlin’s Tower, the scene of one of the best accredited and most curious ghost stories perhaps ever printed, stands on the south-west bank of the Annan, in Dumfriesshire. The ghost story is simply this:—Sir Alexander Jardine, of Applegarth, in the time of Charles II., had confined in the dungeon of his tower of Spedlin’s, a miller named Porteous, suspected of having wilfully set fire to his own premises. Sir Alexander being soon after suddenly called away to Edinburgh, carried the key of the vault with him, and did not recollect or consider his prisoner’s case till he was passing through the West Port, where, perhaps, the sight of the warder’s keys brought the matter to his mind. He immediately sent back a courier to liberate the man, but Porteous had, in the meantime, died of hunger.
“No sooner was he dead, than his ghost began to torment the household, and no rest was to be had within Spedlin’s Tower by day or by night. In this dilemma, Sir Alexander, according to old use and wont, summoned a whole legion of ministers to his aid; and by their strenuous efforts, Porteous was at length confined to the scene of his mortal agonies, where, however, he continued to scream occasionally at night, ‘Let me out, let me out, for I’m deein’ o’ hunger!’ He also used to flutter against the door of the vault, and was always sure to remove the bark from any twig that was sportively thrust through the key-hole. The spell which thus compelled the spirit to remain in bondage was attached to a large black-lettered Bible, used by the exorcists, and afterwards deposited in a stone niche, which still remains in the wall of the staircase; and it is certain that, after the lapse of many years, when the family repaired to a newer mansion (Jardine Hall), built on the other side of the river, the Bible was left behind, to keep the restless spirit in order. On one occasion, indeed, the volume requiring to be rebound, was sent to Edinburgh; but the ghost, getting out of the dungeon, and crossing the river, made such a disturbance in the new house, hauling the baronet and his lady out of bed, &c., that the Bible was recalled before it reached Edinburgh, and placed in its former situation. The good woman who told Grose this story in 1788, declared that should the Bible again be taken off the premises, no consideration whatever should induce her to remain there a single night. But the charm seems to be now broken, or the ghost must have become either quiet or disregarded, for the Bible is at present kept at Jardine Hall.”
Another example from Scotland now follows, all the more remarkable, because it is still asserted that in a certain part of the mansion unusual voices, and supernatural footsteps are said to be still heard, a fact to which the late Mr. Hope Scott often testified:—Sir Walter Scott relates a striking occurrence which happened to him at the time Abbotsford was in the course of erection. Mr. Bullock was then employed by him to fit the castle up with proper appurtenances, when during that person’s absence in London the following extraordinary circumstance took place:—In a letter to Mr. Terry in the year 1818 Scott wrote:—“The night before last we were awakened by a violent noise like drawing heavy boards along the new part of the House. I fancied something had fallen and thought no more about it. This was about two in the morning. Last night at the same witching hour the same noise recurred. Mrs. S., as you know, is rather timbersome; so up I got with Beardy’s broadsword under my arm,
‘Sat bolt upright
And ready to fight.’
But nothing was out of order; neither could I discover what occasioned the disturbance.” Now, strangely enough on the morning that Mr. Terry received this letter he was breakfasting with Mr. Erskine (afterwards Lord Kinneder) and the chief subject of their conversation was the sudden death of Mr. Bullock, which on comparing dates must have happened on the same night and as near as could possibly be ascertained at the same hour, these disturbances occurred at Abbotsford. One might be induced to maintain that some drunken workmen or disorderly persons were on the premises, but this method for accounting for the coincidence will at once be exploded on reading the following passage from Scott to the same gentleman:—“Were you not struck with the fantastical coincidence of our nocturnal disturbance at Abbotsford with the melancholy event that followed? I protest to you that the noise resembled half-a-dozen men hard at work pulling up boards and furniture, and nothing could be more certain than that there was nobody on the premises at the time.”
The following account of a haunted locality is from the pen of a scholarly and accomplished clergyman[33] in the diocese of Ripon:—“Some years ago I was residing in a village about eleven miles from York, and one mile and a half from another village, in which was the Post Office for the surrounding district. Whenever I had reason to suppose a letter was lying there for me, I used to anticipate the delivery of it on the following morning, by calling for it myself in the evening before. One night, in the latter end of November, I was going, for this purpose, along the path through the fields, and when I was midway between the two villages, I passed through a little hand-gate, and after going about twenty yards from it, I was startled and alarmed by a succession of the most horrible shrieks that can possibly be conceived. They seemed scarcely human, though I felt at the time that they were certainly uttered by some man or woman, imitating the piercing scream of a hog when the fatal knife is being plunged into its throat. The panic that seized me vanished in a moment, as the thought instantaneously flashed across my mind that I was being made the victim of some ploughman’s joke. Being armed, as I then invariably was, with a particularly tough and stout cudgel, I ran back to the little hand-gate on tip-toe, intending to take condign vengeance on some rustic, whom I felt sure I should find crouching down behind the low hedge. Just as I reached the hand-gate, the sounds suddenly ceased, and to my utmost astonishment I could see no one, although it was quite impossible for any person within the distance of two or three hundred yards to have escaped my observation. The full moon was shining brightly, with the very thinnest of fleecy clouds before her face, which did not obscure her light, but only made the whole country distinctly visible in every direction, from the absence of all strongly-defined shadow. Then, again, I must confess, an unaccountably superstitious awe crept over me, and, instead of pursuing my intended route, I returned to my own home.
“On the following morning, when reflecting on what had happened, I began to take a philosophical and reasonable view of the singular occurrence. In passing through the little gate I might, as I thought, have left it ajar, and that soon after it lost its nice equilibrium, and swung back to its accustomed resting-place. The hinges might have given a creaking sound, which the lonely solitude of the night had intensely magnified in my imagination. So much for the philosophical view. I then determined that I would put this view to the proof, and see if I could by any means get the gate to produce any noise similar to what I fancied I had heard. This was the reasonable view. I took care, however, to put my determination into practice at the earliest period of the evening, just, in fact, as the daylight had departed. Accordingly I was at the little gate between five and six o’clock, but in spite of all kinds of efforts it would make no sign, but swung backwards and forwards on its hinges with noiseless smoothness. In the midst of my experiments a very intelligent man, a Gardener by calling, came up. He was a resident of my own village, but had been working in the other village, and was then returning home from his day’s labour. He expressed some surprise at seeing me there at that time of the evening, and I gave him a brief account of the reason. ‘Well, sir,’ said he; ‘if you will walk back with me, I will tell you something more about that little hand-gate.’ I consented immediately, and he said to me as follows: ‘Some years ago, when we were all children at home, my mother had been to the other village, where she remained till night; on her return homewards, just as she passed through the little gate, she saw some kind of figure lying close by it, huddled together in a strange, mysterious manner. She was horror-stricken, and fled from the spot as fast as possible. On reaching her own cottage, she flung open the door, and fell fainting on the ground before her astonished and frightened children. When she came to herself, and was asked what had caused her evident terror, she told what she had seen, and where she had seen it. She could, however, give no definite description of the figure she had seen. She could only say, “It was something hideous.” But never could she be induced to pass that place again after night-fall, as long as she lived.’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘this is a very remarkable coincidence.’ ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘but I will tell you something more remarkable still. About forty years ago the land between the two villages was unenclosed. It was nothing more than a wild, uncultivated common. One night, about that period, as the villagers were going to bed, loud and piercing shrieks were heard coming from the common. Some of the men dressed themselves hastily, with the intention of going and seeing what was taking place. Some woman, as it seemed to them, was evidently being ill-treated. They set off on their kindly-intentioned errand, but as the sounds completely ceased, and the night was very dark, they thought it impossible to reach the exact spot where their services might be required. They went to bed, and slept soundly. On the following morning one of them was going to work at the other village, and as he passed over the common he was almost distilled to a jelly with the effect of fright at the appalling sight that suddenly met his gaze. A woman was lying before him, huddled up on the ground, quite dead, with her throat cut from ear to ear. She had evidently been murdered, on the preceding night. Who she was, whence she came, why or by whom she had been murdered, was never known, and probably never will be in this world. When, a short time after this dreadful event, the common was enclosed, it so happened that the little hand-gate was put up close to the spot where the woman’s lifeless body was found.’
“He finished his narrative. I thanked him for it, and internally resolved never, if I could help it, to pass through those fields alone in the gloom of night, on any account whatever. I scrupulously kept my resolve.”
The celebrated case of the Haunted Room in the Jewel House of the Tower of London created great interest, about fifty-five years ago. Additional interest and importance have been given to it by the publication of the following authentic account of Mr. E. Lenthal Swifte,[34] which in simple but forcible language tells its own story:—
“I have often purposed to leave behind me a faithful record of all that I know personally of this strange story.... Forty-three years have passed, and its impression is as vividly before me as on the moment of its occurrence.... In 1814 I was appointed keeper of the Crown Jewels in the Tower, where I resided with my family until my retirement in 1852. One Saturday night in October, 1817, about ‘the witching hour,’ I was at supper with my then wife, our little boy, and her sister, in the sitting room of the Jewel House, which—then comparatively modernized—is said to have been ‘the doleful prison’ of Anne Boleyn, and of the ten bishops whom Oliver Cromwell piously accommodated therein.... The room was, as it still is, irregularly shaped, having three doors and two windows, which last are cut nearly nine feet deep into the outer wall; between these is a chimney-piece projecting far into the room, and (then) surmounted with a large oil picture. On the night in question the doors were all closed; heavy and dark cloth curtains were let down over the windows, and the only light in the room was that of two candles on the table.... I sate at the foot of the table, my son on my right hand, his mother fronting the chimney-piece, and her sister on the opposite side. I had offered a glass of wine and water to my wife, when, on putting it to her lips, she paused and exclaimed, ‘Good God, what is that?’ I looked up, and saw a cylindrical figure like a glass tube, seemingly about the thickness of my arm, and hovering between the ceiling and the table. Its contents appeared to be a dense fluid, white and pale azure, like to the gathering of a summer cloud, and incessantly rolling and mingling within the cylinder. This lasted about two minutes, when it began slowly to move before my sister-in-law, then following the oblong shape of the table, before my son and myself; passing behind my wife it paused for a moment over her right shoulder (observe, there was no mirror opposite to her in which she could then behold it). Instantly she crouched down, and, with both hands covering her shoulder, she shrieked out, ‘Oh, Christ! it has seized me.’ Even now, while writing, I feel the fresh horror of that moment. I caught up my chair, struck at the wainscot behind her, rushed upstairs to the other children’s room, and told the terrified nurse what I had seen.... Neither my sister-in-law nor my son beheld this ‘appearance.’... I am bound to add that shortly before this strange event some young lady residents in the Tower had been, I know not wherefore, suspected of making phantasmagorical experiments at their windows, which, be it observed, had no command whatever on any windows in my dwelling. An additional sentry was accordingly posted so as to overlook any such attempt. Happening, however, as it might, following hard at heel the visitation of my household, one of the night sentries at the Jewel Office was, as he said, alarmed by a figure like a huge bear issuing from underneath the door. He thrust at it with his bayonet, which stuck in the door, even as my chair dinted the wainscot. He dropped in a fit, and was carried senseless to the guard-room. His fellow-sentry declared that the man was neither asleep nor drunk, he himself having seen him the moment before awake and sober. Of all this I avouch nothing more than that I saw the poor man in the guard-house prostrated with terror, and that in two or three days the fatal result, be it of fact or fancy, was that he died. Let it be understood that to all which I have herein set forth as seen by myself, I absolutely pledge my faith and my honour.—Edmund Lenthal Swifte.”
Another statement, regarding another apparition in the same part of the Tower, stated by Mr. Offor to have been produced by some instrument, but which latter assertion is pronounced impossible by Mr. Lenthal Swifte, also sufficiently illustrates the facts embodied in it:—
“Before the burning of the armouries there was a paved yard in front of the Jewel House, from which a gloomy and ghost-like doorway led down a flight of steps to the Mint. Some strange noises were heard in this gloomy corner; and on a dark night at twelve the sentry saw a figure like a bear cross the pavement and disappear down the steps. This so terrified him that he fell, and in a few hours after, having recovered sufficiently to tell the tale, he died. It was fully believed to have arisen from phantasmagoria.... The soldier bore a high character for bravery and good conduct. I was then in my thirtieth year, and was present when his body was buried with military honours in the Flemish burial ground, St. Catherine’s.
“George Offor.”
On this, however, Mr. Swifte thus writes:—
“When on the morrow I saw the unfortunate soldier in the main guard-room, his fellow sentinel was also there, and testified to having seen him on his post just before the alarm, awake and alert, and even spoken to him. Moreover, as I then heard the poor man tell his own story, the figure did not cross the pavement and disappear down the steps of the sally-port; but issued from underneath the Jewel Room door—as ghostly a door, indeed, as ever was opened to or closed on a doomed man; placed, too, beneath a stone archway as utterly out of the reach of my young friends’ apparatus (if any such they had) as were my windows. I saw him once again on the following day, but changed beyond my recognition; in another day or two—not ‘in a few hours’—the brave and steady soldier, who would have mounted a breach or led a forlorn hope with unshaken nerves, died at the presence of a shadow, as the weakest woman might have died.
“Edmund Lenthal Swifte.”
The case of a Haunted House in Northamptonshire may now follow:—
“A house at Barby,[35] a small village about eight miles from Rugby, was reputed to be haunted, and this under the following circumstances:—An old woman of the name of Webb, a native of the place, and above the usual height, died on March 3, 1851, at two A.M. aged sixty-seven. Late in life she had married a man of some means, who having predeceased her, left her his property, so that she was in good circumstances. Her chief and notorious characteristic, however, was excessive penuriousness, being remarkably miserly in her habits; and it is believed by many in the village that she thus shortened her days. Two of her neighbours, women of the names of Griffin and Holding, nursed her during her last illness, and her nephew, Mr. Hart, a farmer in the village, supplied her temporal needs; in whose favour she had made a will, by which she bequeathed to him all her possessions.
“About a month after the funeral Mrs. Holding, who, with her uncle, lived next door to the house of the deceased (which had been entirely shut up since the funeral), was alarmed and astonished at hearing loud and heavy thumps against the partition wall, and especially against the door of a cupboard in the room wall, while other strange noises, like the dragging of furniture about the rooms (though all the furniture had been removed), and the house was empty. These were chiefly heard about two o’clock in the morning.
“Early in the month of April a family of the name of Accleton, much needing a residence, took the deceased woman’s house, the only one in the village vacant, and bringing their goods and chattels, proceeded to inhabit it. The husband was often absent, but he and his wife occupied the room in which Mrs. Webb had died, while their daughter, a girl about ten years of age, slept in a small bed in the corner. Violent noises in the night were heard about two o’clock, thumps, tramps, and tremendous crashes, as if all the furniture had been collected together, and then violently banged on to the floor. One night at two A.M. the parents were suddenly awakened by the violent screams of the child, ‘Mother, mother, there’s a tall woman standing by my bed, a-shaking her head at me!’ The parents could see nothing, so did their best to quiet and compose the child. At four o’clock they were again awakened by the child’s screams, for she had seen the woman again; in fact she appeared to her no less than seven times, on seven subsequent nights.
“Mrs. Accleton, during her husband’s absence, having engaged her mother to sleep with her one night, was suddenly aroused at the same hour of two by a strange and unusual light in her room. Looking up she saw quite plainly the spirit of Mrs. Webb, which moved towards her with a gentle appealing manner, as though it would have said, ‘Speak, speak!’
“This spectre appeared likewise to a Mrs. Radbourne, a Mrs. Griffiths, and a Mrs. Holding. They assert that luminous balls of light hovered about the room during the presence of the spirit, and that streams of light seemed to go up towards a trap-door in the ceiling, which led to the roof of the cottage. Each person who saw it testified likewise to hearing a low, unearthly, moaning noise,—‘strange and unnatural-like,’ but somewhat similar in character to the moans of the woman in her death-agony.
“The subject was, of course, discussed; and Mrs. Accleton suggested that its appearance might not impossibly be connected with the existence of money hoarded up in the roof, an idea which may have arisen from the miserly habits of the dead woman. This hint having been given to and taken by her nephew, Mr. Hart, the farmer, he proceeded to the house, and with Mrs. Accleton’s personal help made a search. The loft above was totally dark, but by the aid of a candle there was discovered, firstly, a bundle of writings, old deeds, as they turned out to be, and afterwards a large bag of gold and bank-notes, out of which the nephew took a handful of sovereigns, and exhibited them to Mrs. Accleton. But the knockings, moanings, strange noises, and other disturbances did not cease upon this discovery. They did cease, however, when Mr. Hart, having found that certain debts were owing by her, carefully and scrupulously paid them. So much for the account of the Haunted House at Barby. The circumstances were most carefully investigated by Sir Charles Isham, Bart., and others, the upshot of which was that the above facts were, to the complete satisfaction of numerous enquirers, completely verified.”
The following comes to the Editor from Scotland:—
“There is, without a doubt, a ‘Haunted Room’ in Glamis Castle. Access to it now is cut off by a stone wall, and none are supposed to know where it is, except Lord Strathmore, his eldest son, and the Factor on the estate. This wall was built some years ago by the present proprietor. Strange, weird, and unearthly noises have been heard from time to time by numbers, and these by many persons wholly unprepared for the same. The following statement is from the lips of a lady who was sleeping in the castle one night, and who knew nothing of the reputation of the house:—She was undressing to retire for the night, when all of a sudden she was alarmed by a most violent noise, which made her fancy that one of the walls of the house had fallen. She rushed out into the passage, but no one but herself had been aroused by it. So she went back, and slept until morning. She mentioned the circumstance at breakfast, but the subject was evidently an unpleasant one. The conversation was at once changed, and she received a hint to take no further notice of it. Some members of the family cannot bear the subject to be alluded to, and repel all inquiries.”
“There is no doubt,” writes another correspondent, “about the reality of the noises at Glamis Castle. On one occasion, some years ago, the head of the family with several companions was determined to investigate the cause one night, when the disturbance was greater and more violent and alarming than usual. His lordship went to the Haunted Room (before it was walled up), opened the door with the key, and dropped back in a dead swoon into the arms of his companions; nor could he be ever induced to open his lips on the subject afterwards.
“On another occasion a lady and her child were staying for a few days at the castle. The child was asleep in an adjoining dressing-room, and the lady, having gone to bed, lay awake for a while. Suddenly a cold blast stole into the room, extinguishing the night-light by her bedside, but not affecting the one in the dressing-room beyond, in which her child had its cot. By that light she saw a tall mailed figure pass into the dressing-room from that in which she was lying. Immediately thereafter there was a shriek from the child. Her maternal instinct was aroused. She rushed into the dressing-room, and found the child in an agony of fear. It described what it had seen as a giant, who came and leant over its face.
“An accomplished antiquarian, who has investigated this subject, writes as follows:—There is a tradition that in olden times, during one of the frequent feuds between the Lindsays and the Ogilvies, a large number of the latter, in flying from their enemies, came to Glamis, and claimed hospitality. The master of the castle did not like to deny them the protection of his castle walls. He therefore admitted them; and on plea of hiding them, is reported to have put them into this out-of-the-way chamber. There he let them starve, and it is said that their bones lie there unto this day, the bodies never having been buried. This may have been the sight which startled the late Lord Strathmore on entering the haunted room—a large number of skeletons lying in the various parts of the place was a sight calculated to startle any man. And these are declared to be peculiarly revolting. Some had apparently died in the act of gnawing the flesh off their own arms.”
The Editor is indebted to Henry Cope Caulfeild, Esq., of Clone House, St. Leonard’s, for the following:—
“The account here set forth was recently told to me by a Captain S—— living near Cardiff, South Wales.
“A few miles from Cardiff, on the Monmouth road, there is a narrow spot held in awe by the peasantry; for a murder was committed there years ago, and it is said to be haunted by unquiet spirits.
“The brother of my friend, an officer in the army, who has seen active service in India, was returning with his wife in a dog-cart, some few months ago, from a dinner with some friends in the country a few miles from Cardiff. It was late in the night; and as they entered the narrow part of the road just mentioned, they heard the sound of wheels behind them. They looked back, and saw the lights of a carriage, and to avoid being overtaken and passed in such a narrow road, Captain S—— whipped his horse, and tried to keep well in front. Presently the sounds of wheels ceased; and to their great surprise, indeed consternation, they all of a sudden saw the lights and heard the wheels of a carriage some distance on in front of them. It was evidently the same; and yet it had never passed them! It seemed to stop at the side of the road, and Captain S—— drove his dog-cart past the strange carriage. He and his wife saw in it a dim light; there were people in it, and they seemed to be without heads! Mrs. S—— was paralysed with terror; her husband told his brother that he would rather face a battery of artillery than go through the horror of that moment; and the horse evidently was in sympathy with them, for he went like one mad.
“It appears that the very same spectral figures had been seen by a country surgeon when passing the same place; and that the land-owners in those parts had cut down trees, and clipped and altered the appearance of the hedges on each side of the road, in order to get rid, if possible, of the ghastly horror, and of the hold which it has upon the popular mind. The appearance of the carriage and its occupants, in a dim, hazy light, was to the last degree unearthly and spectral.”
A correspondent of the Editor furnishes him with the following:—
“A brother of mine, a man who is the last person in the world to believe over much, or to be in the least degree superstitious, wishing to be near a particular town, and yet within easy reach of the permanent country residence of his greatest friend, was induced (A.D. 1862) to take over the remainder of the lease of an old-fashioned furnished mansion in Cheshire, where he, with his wife, children, and servants, in due course, went to reside. He was advised to take the place as well because of the reasonableness of the rent—for it was spacious and comfortably furnished—as by the recommendation of the London house-agents, a well-known firm in the West End, with whom the letting of it rested.
“Soon after the arrival of the family and servants, the latter protested again and again that they were disturbed almost every night by a continual ‘tramp, tramp, tramp’ of heavy footsteps up the stairs, and along the narrow passage, out of which were the doors which led to their bedrooms. They would have it that the house was haunted. The sounds were sometimes so loud and alarming that, as one of the servants remarked, ‘It seemed like a regiment of foot soldiers marching over creaking boards.’ Complaints were made to my brother, who merely said that the noises must be the result of wind under the joists, or of rats, and he laughed at the whole affair. Some of the servants gave warning, and left. Still the sounds went on: not always, and every night, but, with certain cessations, from time to time.
“In the autumn of the year 1863, a lady, her daughter of fourteen, and a maid, came to stay in the House; and as the former was somewhat of an invalid, a suite of rooms in the west wing, each communicating with the other, was apportioned to them. The second night after their arrival, the lady in question, suddenly awaking, saw in her bedroom a luminous cloud, which gradually appeared to be formed into the shape of an old man, with a most painfully depressing countenance, full of the deepest sorrow, and wearing a large full-bottomed wig. She tried to raise herself in bed, to see if it were not the effect of her half-waking fancy, or the result of a disturbed dream, but could not. The room, in which there was no natural light, seemed to be partially but quite sufficiently illuminated; and she felt confident that a spectre was before her. She gazed at it for some minutes, three at least, hearing the ticking of her watch, and counting the seconds. There the apparition stood, and seemed to be making an effort to speak, while a strange, dull, inarticulate groan seemed to come up as from the floor. Upon this, seeing the bell-rope hanging within the folds of the curtains at her right hand, she braced herself up to seize it and give it a most violent pull. Immediately she did this, the face of the figure bore an expression of anger, and by degrees it faded away. The bell, which hung some distance away, was heard by no one, and she was compelled to lie alone, for she feared to rise (though the apparition did not reappear) until the church clock near struck four, when, the morning having broken, she rose, and dressed herself.
“In the morning, before she had said a word, her daughter, on meeting her, said, ‘Oh, mamma, an old man in a great wig tramped through my room twice in the night. Who could it have been?’
“The lady being so impressed by these occurrences, which her host and hostess would persist in saying were only the result of her own fancy, determined on leaving in the course of a few days (as she afterwards stated). On the following night, she slept with a night-light, and the door into her maid’s room open. But the noise of tramping, which had been hitherto heard only in the servants’ wing of the house, which was opposite, was now heard in the east side of it. ‘Tramp, tramp, tramp!’ the sounds were heard constantly, without cessation; so much so that the master of the house, my brother, rose suddenly that very night, thinking that thieves had broken in, and rushed out to the east passage. But all in a moment, they stopped; nothing was to be heard, nothing seen; all was still. This occurred again and again.
“The lady left as arranged. The noises ceased for a while, and then began once more. It was with difficulty that any of the servants could be induced to remain, believing that the house was haunted.
“About ten months afterwards, my brother having forgotten all about the supposed spectre and the noises, had been out for the day, and returned home in a dog-cart, some time after midnight, in company with his groom. Only the housekeeper had remained out of bed, as his return was quite uncertain. The horse and trap were put up, both the servants had gone to their rooms, and my brother was taking some refreshment in the housekeeper’s apartment, by the light of the fire, when all of a sudden, a loud and decisive rap was heard at the door. Thinking, of course, that it was one of the servants, he replied, ‘Come in.’ Before the words were out of his mouth, the door opened, and the apparition of the old man in a large wig stood before him. My brother was paralysed with terror for a while. He could not speak; he tried hard, as he says, but his mouth was dry and his tongue motionless. ‘Good God!’ he exclaimed at length, ‘am I awake or asleep, in my senses or gone mad?’ The motionless figure, whose face was intensely sad, looked at him beseechingly. ‘In God’s Name, what do you want, or what can I do for you?’ ‘Too late! nothing,’ was the mournful, but somewhat inarticulate response. And with that the spectre suddenly vanished away. At this moment a strong, loud, piercing, bitter wail, as of the voice of a woman, broke the awful silence. It seemed to come from the courtyard outside, and was repeated again and again round the upper part of the house. The scream was said to be like nothing human. The servants heard it, my sister-in-law was awoke by it, and the groom and housekeeper, with the others, as a consequence, came rushing downstairs. My brother, who is as brave and bold as he is remarkable for common sense, does not now dispute the reality of haunted houses.
“A few months afterwards, he and his left. And after he had given up possession, he was informed, on good and credible authority, that tradition confidently asserted the mansion to have been the residence of a disreputable Dutch hanger-on of William of Orange, who is represented to have violently made away with one of his mistresses in that very house, in a room which overlooked the park, now a disused lumber-room, at the east end of the old mansion.”[36]
An American clergyman, of what is commonly termed “the Protestant Episcopal Church,” sent the following, which, as he writes, “went the round of the newspapers,” and for the truth of which he himself vouches:—
“Few positions in life can be imagined more disagreeable than that of being imprisoned in a haunted cell in a police station. ‘The New Orleans Times’ tells a most unpleasant story of a ghost-infested cell in the Fourth Precinct police station in that city. It appears that several years ago ‘a little old woman,’ named Ann Murphy, committed suicide by hanging herself in this cell; and since that event no fewer than thirteen persons have attempted to destroy themselves in a similar manner; four of these attempts being attended with fatal results. One of those lately cut down before life was extinct was a girl named Mary Taylor, who, on recovering consciousness, declared that while lying on the floor of the cell she was aroused by a little old white woman in a faded calico dress, with no stockings and down-trodden slippers, with a faded handkerchief tied round her head. Her faded dress was bound with a sort of reddish-brown tape, and her hand was long, faded, and wrinkled, while on the fourth finger of her left hand was a plain, thin gold ring. ‘This little woman,’ said the girl, ‘beckoned me to get up, and impelled me by some mysterious power to tear my dress in strips, place one of the strips round my neck, and tie the other to the bars. I lifted my feet from the floor, and fell. I thought I was choking, a thousand lights seemed to flash before my eyes, and I forgot all until I found myself in the room with the doctors and police bending over me. It was not until then that I really comprehended what I had done, and was, I believe, under a kind of trance or influence at the time, over which I had no control.’ Mary Taylor had never heard of the suicide of Ann Murphy, whose appearance, according to the police, tallied exactly with the description given by the girl. Others having complained in a like manner of the ghostly occupant of the cell, the police, to test the real facts of the case, placed a night lodger who had just arrived in the city in this cheerful apartment. Being thoroughly tired and worn out, he fell asleep immediately, but shortly afterwards rushed into the office in a state of terrible alarm. He, too, had been visited by the little old woman, and wisely declined to sleep another hour in the station.”
The following case, as may be seen from an attestation at its conclusion, is likewise well authenticated:—
“An English clergyman, who was seeking a residence in a northern Scottish city about ten years ago, had his attention accidentally called to an old-fashioned, pleasant-looking detached house, of some size and convenience, which had been for some time vacant, about a mile and a-half from the city. It had considerable grounds round it well timbered, a high-walled garden, and was in many respects both commodious and comfortable. One attraction, likewise, was the extremely moderate rent which was asked for it. So he secured a lease of it for a short term of years. He and his family and servants came up from England in due course, and took up their abode in it. They were not there long before it soon became evident, to some of them at least, that the house was haunted. Noises of the most extraordinary character were heard in various parts. Sometimes there came the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs. At others there were knocks, both violent and gentle, at the doors, none of which could be accounted for. At midnight, on several occasions, there was a constant, uninterrupted sound in one room, as if a large sledgehammer (having been wrapped in a blanket folded several times), was steadily and regularly struck against the wall, at the head of the bed in the room, by some particularly powerful arms. ‘Thump, thump, thump,’ it sounded, as though lifted and directed with tremendous force; and this noise often lasted, with only slight intermission, for two or three hours. On other occasions persons on the stairs or in the passages felt the air move, and heard the creaking of the floor close to them, as if someone invisible were passing quickly by. One night, between twelve and two, the master and mistress of the family were awakened by a loud and startling noise, as if all the shutters of the windows of the house had been suddenly and simultaneously burst open with the greatest violence. The crash was literally tremendous; and each believed that thieves were breaking in. So the clergyman, seizing a large presentation sword which hung on the wall of the landing, unsheathed it, and went downstairs with a light, expecting to face the intruders. He first examined the dining-room (from whence the noise seemed chiefly to come), but everything was just as usual. No shutter was open; no cupboards forced. So, too, in hall and library. Nothing was moved. Then he descended into the large cellars; but there, likewise, everything was untouched, and nothing unusual was seen. A large retriever dog, which lay at the foot of the front stairs, however, was greatly agitated, trembled and howled. But still nothing was to be seen. Perfect silence reigned. So the clergyman and his wife returned to their sleeping-room, only to hear, all of a sudden, precisely the same strange noise repeated about ten minutes after their return, with, if anything, even greater violence.
It was currently reported, and commonly believed by several residents thereabouts, that many years previously, the cast-off mistress of a Scotch nobleman, having been handed over to a physician and university professor for marriage, and the latter having received from the nobleman in consideration of the marriage the gift of the house and lands in question, subsequently murdered the woman, for whom he had conceived a special dislike, and buried her body on the premises. This story, with slight but unimportant variations, was told by several; and it is quite certain that a young female Scotch servant, who once lived in the house, following the sound of heavy footsteps up to an attic in the front portion of the house, which she had pledged herself to do when next she heard them, fell down in a swoon or fit at the top of the stairs; from that moment lost her reason, and is now in a lunatic asylum, near the City in question. These are facts testified to by those who know the circumstances.[37] As to the general accuracy of the foregoing, the Editor is enabled, on the testimony of several, to pledge his word thereto.
I am indebted for the following narrative to a friend,[38] who in her own words has given all the details of another remarkable example of a Haunted House:—
“Monsieur de Goumoëns, a magistrate, or a gentleman holding a high judicial position at Berne in Switzerland, a man of undoubted and well-established character for personal courage, as well as for moral rectitude, related to my father, Mr. Caulfeild of Bath, with whom he was on the most intimate terms of personal friendship, the following circumstance, at once so extraordinary and so painful, which had come within the precincts of his own house, as to drive him from his place of residence. The account was given to my father in the year 1829, when he was residing with his family at Berne. Noises and disturbances had been frequently heard in M. de Goumoëns’ bedroom, as of footsteps, the opening and shutting of drawers, and of an escritoire when papers were shuffled about. The heavy curtains of the large old four-posted bed were drawn and undrawn by no human hand, and were sometimes suddenly flung up on to the top of the bed; while the sound of the flapping of the wings of some very large bird was often heard. All these and other sounds so disturbed M. de Goumoëns and his wife, that the health of the latter began perceptibly and seriously to fail. Examinations of the house made by himself, in conjunction with the police, and special investigations of the bedroom and other adjoining apartments, afforded no solution whatsoever of the mystery. At length Madame de Goumoëns’ maid gave warning to leave her service, complaining that her sleep and peace were completely broken by these supernatural occurrences. While consulting together as to what could be done, and hesitating as to whether they might not be compelled to leave the place, the strange sounds became louder than ever. One night they were suddenly aroused by hearing sharp cries of distress from one of their children, a little boy, who slept in their room, and who in great terror called out fretfully again and again, ‘Let me alone; let me alone; don’t you hurt me!’ as he pointed into vacancy. This particular event was the last straw which broke the camel’s back, and led the child’s parents to determine on leaving the house immediately.
“I may add that on a subsequent and more searching examination of the house, one room was found to be both locked and fastened up; regarding the character of which the owner was somewhat reticent. However, the boarding before the door, which had been papered over, was removed, the keys were forthcoming, and the room was carefully examined. On the shutters being opened, it was found just as it had been left since its occupation by a previous tenant, who had gone by the sobriquet of ‘the Black Styger.’ He was a nobleman of bad reputation, and had committed suicide in that very apartment by blowing out his brains; the traces of which with blood were found scattered both on wall and floor. It was generally believed that his disturbed spirit haunted the place.”
One of the most singular recent examples, testified to by two independent eye-witnesses, now deserves to be reproduced. The appearance of a large spectral bird is thus recorded by Mr. Henry Spicer in one of his curious and thoughtfully written volumes entitled “Strange Things amongst Us:”—
“Captain Morgan, a gentleman of the highest honour and veracity, and who certainly was not over-gifted with ideality, arrived in London one evening in 18—, in company with a friend, and took up his lodgings in a large old-fashioned house of the last century, to which chance had directed them. Captain Morgan was shown into a large bed-chamber, with a huge four-posted bed, heavy hangings, and altogether that substantial appearance of good, solid respectability and comfort which associated itself with our ideas of the wealthy burghers and merchants of the time of Queen Anne and the first George, when so many strange crimes of romantic daring or of deep treachery stained the annals of the day, and the accursed thirst for gold, the bane of every age, appeared to exercise its most terrific influence.
“Captain Morgan retired to bed, and slept, but was very soon awaked by a great flapping of wings close beside him, and a cold, weird-like sensation such as he had never before experienced spread through his frame. He started, and sat upright in bed; when an extraordinary appearance declared itself in the shape of an immense black bird, with outstretched wings, and red eyes flashing as it were with fire.
“It was right before him and pecked furiously at his face and eyes so incessantly, that it seemed to him a wonder that he was enabled, with his arms and the pillow, to ward off the creature’s determined assaults. During the battle it occurred to him that some large pet bird belonging to the family had effected its escape, and been accidentally shut up in the apartment.
“Again and again the creature made at him with a malignant ferocity perfectly indescribable; but though he invariably managed to baffle the attack, he noticed that he never once succeeded in touching his assailant. This strange combat having lasted several minutes, the gallant officer, little accustomed to stand so long simply on the defensive, grew irritated, and leaping out of bed, dashed at his enemy. The bird retreated before him. The captain followed in close pursuit, driving his sable foe, fluttering and fighting, towards a sofa which stood in the corner of the room. The moonlight shone full into the chamber, and Morgan distinctly saw the creature settle down, as if in terror, upon the embroidered seat of the sofa.
“Feeling now certain of his prey he paused for a second or two, then flung himself suddenly upon the black object, from which he had never removed his gaze. To his utter amazement it seemed to fade and dissolve under his very fingers. He was clutching the air; and in vain he searched, with lighted lamp, every nook and corner of the apartment, unwilling to believe that his senses could be the victims of so gross a delusion—no bird was to be found. After a long scrutiny the baffled officer once more retired to rest, and met with no further disturbance.
“While dressing in the morning, he resolved to make no allusion to what he had seen, but to induce his friend, on some pretext, to change rooms with him. That unsuspecting individual readily complied, and the next day reported, with much disgust, that he had had to contend for possession of the chamber with the most extraordinary and perplexing object[39] he had ever encountered, to all appearance a huge black bird, which constantly eluded his grasp, and ultimately disappeared, leaving no clue to its mode of exit.”[40]
And with this, the present chapter is closed. Numerous other cases of Haunted Localities might have been provided; some which have long been in print, others which have been heard from the lips of those whose experience and good faith testify to the truth of their narratives. In so many examples collected, almost every one owns certain features in common: and all in some measure are alike. Repetition, by consequence, becomes wearisome. The cases here put on record, therefore, while sufficiently diversified, serve abundantly to set forth the reality of those facts, to a brief record of which this chapter has been devoted.
MODERN SPIRITUALISM.
“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that, in the latter times, some shall depart from the Faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.”—1 Tim. iv. 1.
“Many believe that the final assault upon Christianity will be made by the enemies of God, bonded and compacted together into an universal kingdom. It may be, as some have held, that another Incarnation shall take place; and that the Enemy of souls will be permitted to assume man’s nature. Anyhow, we are told that Antichrist shall reign. Thousands, deluded by false miracles and lying wonders, will become his subjects, his willing votaries; and own him as their king. His worship will be an adroit counterfeit of the worship of the True God—his kingdom a parody of the Catholic Church; while its doctrines will be at once so attractive and delusive to fallen man as that the predicted Apostasy will be great and widespread.”—Sermons on Antichrist.
MODERN SPIRITUALISM.
hen, in a country where for at least twelve centuries the Christian Religion has been accepted, and by which that country has received unknown blessings both temporal and spiritual, schools of thought arise, in which Historical Christianity is not simply patronized, but put out of court, the phenomenon is both portentous and noteworthy. That this is so at the present time in England with many, need scarcely be pointed out. The scepticism which has deluged the Continent, coming upon a people whose religious convictions had been so seriously disturbed by the Reformation, and whose conceptions of objective political truth had been so ruthlessly disorganized by the events of the Commonwealth and the Revolution of 1688, has found the ground well prepared for a scattering of the seeds of doubt. Abroad they were sown some generations ago, and brought forth deadly fruit. The French Revolution and its horrors followed as a matter of course. Events before our eyes tell in very plain language that our own turn has at last come.[41] The day of trial is now upon us. True, the vulgarity of the eighteenth-century unbelievers is not at present so manifestly apparent; though it exists amongst certain active leaders of the lower classes with whom scepticism is popular. But the tone and temper of public opinion, the bold utterances of serials and newspapers, the public political policy now in vogue and popular, the too general understanding that Christianity is to be as far as possible ignored in legislation—all indicate the steady and rapid progress of sceptical liberalism.
The Broad Church party in the established communion has done much, and will no doubt do much more, to eliminate the Supernatural from the minds of its admirers and of the people of England. Disliking dogma, its teaching, when the fog which surrounds it allows that teaching to be partly comprehended, is of the earth earthy. It dovetails in with the low material views and carnal desires of the money-grubbing many. Its ideal of bliss, not always wrapped up in philosophical jargon (and therefore sometimes intelligible), is simply commercial prosperity and temporal wealth; eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, comfort, material pleasure and ease; the conquest of Nature by scientific research and progress; an enjoyment of the present and only the present; and a complete banishment of the old-world theology—useful, it may have been, in times gone by, when the World was being educated; but now to be thrown aside as lumber, worn out and valueless. In place of that Historical Christianity accepted since the days of S. Augustine of Canterbury, we are promised doubt, disbelief, a refined as well as an unrefined intellectual Paganism; and in the end—though such an end may not now be contemplated by all members of that ecclesiastical school—a positive rejection of the distinct nature of God.
At present, of course, the figure is decently draped. Its ugly proportions and hateful outline are not apparent. Its admirers have to accommodate themselves with some skill to the strong prejudices of the age; to tolerate systems which they contemn, to carry out the silent but certain operation of destruction, under the hypocritical desire of assisting mankind to complete the work of temporal progress.
All this is before us and around us, if we would but note it. And this being so, the state of thought and of society, as few can fail to observe, is eminently calculated to afford those who disbelieve in the Supernatural, good opportunities of advance in the direction of negations. On the other hand, the presence amongst us of a sect of persons who call themselves “Spiritualists,” and whose notorious words and works may be noted and criticized, is full of moment and importance. Spiritualism, when first it appeared and took shape, was treated with contempt. The facts urged by its supporters were denied; the manifestations almost universally disbelieved in. It was declared to be the work of acute knaves, or the offspring of idle and imaginative dreamers. Public writers treated it with scornful contempt. Reports of its strange proceedings and extraordinary developments were knowingly and deliberately suppressed. It was hastily hustled off the public stage, refused a hearing, and denied a defence. This policy, however convenient to its promoters, has failed. Sneers have not killed it. Its ideas and theories have been recently reduced to a formal system, while its votaries have increased to an extent scarcely credited. Christians and non-Christians, Roman Catholics, Church-of-England people and Protestants, have ranged themselves under its banner, and accept and propagate its views. To some the existence of spurious coin proves the value of the true; and the portents of these latter times are surely full of warning and value.
At all periods, it should be observed, certain classes of leaders of men’s thoughts have succeeded in banishing the Supernatural from the field of human action. For example, Thucydides, representing the World exclusively in its natural aspect, did this. He had neither ear nor eye for the marvellous. In recent times, from the period of Locke to the beginning of the present century, a similar course was adopted by a very influential school of writers, remarkable for their careful dismissal of the miraculous, both from ken and consideration. To such, the World was a machine, wound up once for all by its Author, and needing no further application of that power which appeared to have spent itself, so to speak, in the act of creation. Like S. Peter’s “scoffers,” “walking after their own lusts,” they practically declared, “since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.”[42]
But, of course, such a state of thought could only be transitory. The universal convictions of man’s conscience, and the most earnest desires of his heart, produced a reversion of opinion. The very dogmatic philosophers soon found themselves at sea. Reason and Imagination were starved, while the Understanding was profoundly flattered. This has so turned out, not once, nor twice, but continually. Scepticism has followed Superstition, and Superstition Scepticism. Wherever the Catholic Religion, having once been had, has been deliberately cast out and denied, there, as in Scotland at the present day, Superstition is more than ordinarily widespread and rampant. The Gnosticism and Manichæism of the early Christian era have reproduced themselves in later times; while Materialism has lived side by side with that Superstition which, on the surface, it seemed so necessary for the same Materialism to deny.
The following faithful account of the rise of the modern system of Spiritualism is borrowed from a contemporary record:—
“In December, 1847, a respectable farmer and his family, named Fox, settled in a house at Hydesville, a hamlet near Newark, in the State of New York. They were troubled from the first with noises, which in January, 1848, assumed the definite character of knockings, like that of a hammer. Two children, since so famous as the Misses Fox, felt something heavy, like a dog, lie on their feet when in bed, and one of them felt as if a cold hand were passed over her face. The knockings went on increasing in violence, and at length it was observed, on some occasion when Farmer Fox tried the windows to see if they could be caused by the wind, that the knockings exactly answered the rattle accidentally made by the moving sash. This suggested the idea of inviting the noises, or rather the beings who caused them, to reply by rapping, on repetition of the letters of the alphabet, to questions put to them. This was first tried at a place called Rochester, with which the family were connected, whence the term ‘Rochester knockings’ came into use. The experiment succeeded perfectly, and this was the origin of ‘spirit-rapping,’ which has since grown into a regular system. The neighbours being called in, the affair soon thickened and developed into a ‘movement.’ The rappings revealed a murder which had taken place in the house when in other hands. Public meetings were called, committees of ladies formed to examine the children, and prevent the possibility of deception. Similar phenomena began to show themselves in various parts of the country, and under yet more extraordinary conditions. Raps were heard on all sorts of objects—ceilings, tables, chairs, &c., and it was discovered that certain persons were better fitted than others to communicate with the spirits, to whom these noises were now attributed. Such persons were called mediums, a name with which the World is now sufficiently familiar, and when they were present, tables and chairs would move about and rise from the ground. Many other astonishing things became common, as drawing and music, executed under this strange influence, by persons who knew nothing of these arts.”
As to its principles and policy, no better nor fairer exposition of them can be had than from the various publications which are so largely and generally circulated. From a pamphlet written with some system[43] by Mr. T. Grant of Maidstone, the following extracts, explanatory of the now formulated principles of Modern Spiritualism, are made:—
“Table of Media.
| Outward. | Inward. | |||
| 1. | Vibratory Medium. | 7. | Pulsatory Medium. | |
| 2. | Motive Medium. | 8. | Manipulating Medium. | |
| 3. | Gesticulating Medium. | 9. | Neurological Medium. | |
| 4. | Tipping Medium. | 10. | Sympathetic Medium. | |
| 5. | Pantomimic Medium. | 11. | Clairlative Medium. | |
| 6. | Impersonating Medium. | 12. | Homo-motor Medium. | |
| Onward. | Upward. | |||
| 13. | Symbolic Medium. | 19. | Therapeutic Medium. | |
| 14. | Psychologic Medium. | 20. | Missionary Medium. | |
| 15. | Psychometric Medium. | 21. | Telegraphic Medium. | |
| 16. | Pictorial Medium. | 22. | Speaking Medium. | |
| 17. | Duodynamic Medium. | 23. | Clairvoyant Medium. | |
| 18. | Developing Medium. | 24. | Impressional Medium. | |
“The Outward stratum includes all kinds of mediumship in which spirits act only on the physical organism, first using simply the electrical or magnetic emanations from the medium and others in the room to produce movements of objects, or concussions called rappings, and to control matter in various ways; and secondly, using portions or the whole of the medium’s body by direct action of spirits upon the bodily organs, the medium’s spirit being more or less passive, and not taking part in the performance....
“Vibratory Mediumship. I have often met with instances in my experience, and multitudes of persons are sometimes attacked together, with variations in accordance with individual character. The physical excitement and convulsive phenomena often witnessed at revival meetings are chiefly of this kind....
“The Motive Medium comes next in order; he furnishes the magnetic power by which spirits are enabled to move tables and other material objects....
“The third class is Gesticulating Mediumship, which appears to be a development of the vibratory. It is exhibited by the sect of ‘Shakers’ of the present day in the initiatory stage of their development, and was a form of mediumship common amongst the prophets of the Cevennes, the votaries of S. Vitus, and in most religious excitements.
“Tipping Mediumship follows next, and this again is a step in advance from the Motive mediumship, the movements of tables and other objects being so regulated by the intelligence of spirits as to produce telegraphic communications....
“Pantomimic media belong to the fifth class; they are made, by the controlling or guardian spirit, to put themselves in various postures, so as to represent any peculiarity belonging to spirit-friends who are standing by, wishing to make their presence known and to communicate. Lecturers on electro-biology produce, to some extent, the same effects.
“The last in this stratum is the Impersonating Mediumship, which is a development from the Pantomimic. In this case the communicating spirit enters and takes full possession of the medium’s body, whilst his own spirit stands aside.”