Real Ghost Stories by William Thomas Stead (best non fiction books to read txt) 📖

and was walking from the police office to the gaol. I at once expressed my doubts of her being right, partly because country people are generally arrested by the country police, partly because they are always taken directly to gaol. But when she insisted on it, and maintained that it was the person she had seen when asleep, I went to the police office.

"I inquired if any one had been arrested on suspicion of the crime in question, and a police-constable answered that such was the case, and that, as they had been taken to the town on Sunday, they had been kept in the police-station over night, and after that had been obliged to go on foot to gaol, accompanied by two constables." (The police-constable, T. A. Ljung, states that Dr. Backman described quite accurately the appearance of the house, its furniture, how the rooms were situated, where the suspected man lived, and gave a very correct account of Niklas Jonnasson's personal appearance. The doctor also asked him if he had observed that Jonnasson had a scar on his right hand. He said he had not then observed it, but ascertained later that it really was so, and Jonnasson said that he got it from an abscess).

"The trial was a long one, and showed that Gustafsson had agreed to buy for Jonnasson, but in his own name, the latter's farm, which was sold by auction on account of Jonnasson's debts. This is what is called a thief's bargain. Gustafsson bought the farm, but kept it for himself. The statements of the accused men were very vague; the father had prepared an alibi with much care, but it failed to account for just the length of time that was probably enough to commit the murder in. The son tried to prove an alibi by means of two witnesses, but these confessed that they had given false evidence, which he had bribed them to do when they were in prison with him on account of another matter.

"But though the evidence against the defendants was very strong, it was not considered that there was sufficient legal evidence, and, there being no jury in Sweden, they were left to the verdict of posterity." (pp. 213-216.)

A Terrible Vision of Torture at Sea.

The following marvellous story of a vision reaches me from Scotland. The Rev. D. McQueen writes me from 165, Dalkeith-road, Edinburgh, December 14th, as follows:—

"I have been much interested in your Ghost Stories. I wish to inform you of one I have heard, and which I think eclipses in interest, minuteness of detail, and tragical pathos anything I have ever known, and which, if published and edited by your graphic pen, would cause a sensation in every scientific society in Great Britain.

"It is not in my power to write the whole story, as it is nearly sufficient for a pamphlet by itself, but its accuracy can be vouched for by many of the most respectable and intelligent people in the neighbourhood of Old Cumnock. I heard the story some years ago, and would have written you sooner, only I wished to make inquiries as to the whereabouts of the subject of the remarkable vision.

"About twenty years ago a young man belonging to Ayrshire embarked from an Australian port to re-visit his friends in this country. His mother and father still live. The former saw all that befell her son from the moment he set foot on the deck till he was consigned to the sea. She can describe the port from which he sailed, the crew of the ship, his fellow passengers. It was a weird story, for her son, by name George, was done to death by the brutality of the officers. This was partially corroborated by a passenger named Gilmour, who called on her after his arrival in London. When he entered the house she said, 'Why did you allow them to ill-use my son.' He started, and said, 'Who told you?' She related all that happened during the weeks her son was ill, and when she finished her guest fainted. According to her, her son was ill-used from the time he started till his death. For example, she saw her son struck by a ball of ropes, as she said (a cork fender). He said that was so. She saw him put into a strait jacket and lowered into the hold of the ship, which actually took place. She saw them playing cards on deck and putting the counters into her son's pocket, which were actually found in his clothes when they came back. She can describe the berth her son occupied, the various parts of the ship, with an accuracy that is surprising to one that never has been on board ship. And last of all she tells the manner of his burial, the dress, the service that was read, the body moving, the protest of one passenger that he was not dead. She had a succession of trances by day and night which are unparalleled. She saw some of the painful scenes in church, and has been known to cry out in horror and agony. If you could only get some one to take it down from her own lips—she alone can tell it—you would make a narrative that would thrill the heart of every reader in the kingdom. The woman is reliable. She is the wife of a well-to-do farmer. Her name is Mrs. Arthur, Benston Farm, Old Cumnock.

"I have written an incoherent letter, as I am hurried at present, but I hope you will see your way to investigate it. I say again, I have never heard so weird and true a tale. But get the lady to tell her own story. It is wonderful! wonderful!"

On January 9th, 1892, the Rev. A. Macdonald, of the U.P. Manse, Old Cumnock, wrote to me as follows:—

"I have much pleasure in replying to the questions you put to me, whether I am aware of the clairvoyant experiences of Mrs. Arthur (Benston, New Cumnock), and whether I consider her a reliable witness.

"It is many years since I heard Mrs. Arthur relate her strange visions, and there are other friends, beside myself, who have heard the same narrative from her own lips.

"Mrs. Arthur, I hold, is incapable of inventing the story which she tells, for she is a truthful, conscientious, and Christian woman. She herself believes in the reality of the vision as firmly as she believes in her own existence. The death of her son on his way back from Australia was the cause of a sorrow too deep for the mother to weave such a romance around it. Further, her statements are not the accretions of after years, but were told, and told freely, at the time when her son was known to have died. This is about twenty years ago. During these twenty years she has not varied in her statements, and repeats them still with all the faith and with all the circumstantial details of the first narration.

"I consider her vision—extending as it does from the time the homeward-bound vessel left the harbour, over many days, until the burial of her son's body at sea—worthy of a place alongside the best of the Ghost Stories you have given to the world."

Mr. Arthur, the son of the percipient in this strange story, wrote to me as follows from Loch-side, New Cumnock, Ayrshire, on the 14th January, 1892:—

"My mother, Mrs. Arthur, of Benston, New Cumnock, Ayrshire, received your valued favour of 8th inst., together with a copy of the Christmas Number of the Review of Reviews. The circumstances you refer to happened twenty-one years ago, a short account of which appeared in a Scotch paper, and a much fuller one appeared in an Australian paper, but, unfortunately, no copy has been preserved, even the diary in which the particulars were written has been destroyed.

"It would not serve any good purpose for you to send a shorthand writer to interview my mother, as she is approaching fourscore years, and her memory is rapidly failing. I believe I can get a very full account (barring minutiæ) from a younger brother. But if the young man who was a fellow-passenger with my brother (when my brother died at sea off the Cape of Good Hope) is still alive, he is the proper party to give a full and minute account. He was the party who informed my parents of my brother's death. My mother lost no time in visiting him for particulars. I think the young man's name was Gilmour. He was then in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. When he began to narrate what had taken place, my mother stopped him and asked him to listen to her. She then went on to say that on a certain date, while she was about her usual household duties, her son came into the room where she was, said so and so and so and so, and walked out. Mr. Gilmour said that what she had said was exactly what had occurred during his illness, and the date he had visited her was the day of his death.

"I was at this time living in Belize, British Honduras. On my mentioning this circumstance to some of my friends there, Mr. Cockburn, who was Police Magistrate in Belize, said that his daughter, Miss Cockburn, had a similar experience. He lived at that time in Grenada, and Miss Cockburn was at school in England. One day she was out walking with the other school girls; suddenly she saw her mother walking along the street in front of her. Miss C. ran off to speak to her, but before she caught her up, her mother turned down a side street. When the daughter reached the corner the mother was nowhere to be seen. Miss Cockburn wrote to her mother, telling her what she had seen, by the outgoing mail. Her letter crossed one from her father, telling her that her mother had died that day."

Clairvoyance is closely related to the phenomenon of the Double, for the clairvoyant seems to have either the faculty of transporting herself to distant places, or of bringing the places within range of her sight. Here is a narrative sent me by Mr. Masey, Fellow of the Geological Society, writing to me from 8, Gloucester Road, Kew, which illustrates the connection between clairvoyance and the Double:—

"Mrs. Mary Masey, who resided on Redcliffe Hill, Bristol, at the beginning of this century, was a member of the Society of Friends, and was held in high esteem for piety.

"A memorable incident in her life was that one night she dreamt that a Mr. John Henderson, a noted man of the same community, had gone to Oxford, and that he had died there. In the course of the next day, Mr. Henderson called to take leave of her, saying he was going to Oxford to study a subject concerning which he could not obtain the information he wanted in Bristol. Mrs. Masey said to him, 'John Henderson, thou wilt die there.'

"Some time afterwards, Mrs. Masey woke her husband one night, saying, 'Remember, John Henderson died at Oxford at two o'clock this morning, and it is now three.' Her husband, Philip Masey, made light of it; but she told him that while asleep she had been transported to Oxford, where she had never been before, and that she had entered a room there, in which she saw Mr. John Henderson in bed, the landlady supporting his head, and the landlord with several other persons standing around. While gazing at him some one gave him medicine, and the patient, turning round, perceived her, and exclaimed, 'Oh, Mrs. Masey, I am going to die; I am so glad you are come, for I want to tell you that my father is going to be very ill, and you must go and see him.' He then proceeded to describe a room in his father's house, and a bureau in it,