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

A Premonition of a Bad Debt.

When in Edinburgh I had the good fortune to meet a gentleman, who had held an important position of trust in connection with the Indian railways. Speaking on the subject of premonitions, he said that on two occasions he had had very curious premonitions of coming events in dreams. One was very trivial, the other more serious, but both are quite inexplicable on the theory of coincidence. The evidential value is enhanced by the fact that each time he mentioned his dreams to his wife before the realisation came about. I saw his wife and she confirmed his stories. The first was curious from its simplicity. A certain debtor owed Mr. T. an amount of some £30. One morning he woke up and informed his wife that he had had a very disagreeable dream, to the effect that the money would never be paid, and that all he would recover of the debt was seven pounds odd shillings and sixpence. The number of shillings he had forgotten, but he remembered distinctly the pounds and the sixpence. A few days later he received an intimation that something had gone wrong with the debtor, and the total sum which he ultimately recovered was the exact amount which he had heard in his dream and had mentioned on the following morning to his wife.

A Dream of Death.

His other dream was more curious. An acquaintance of his in India was compelled to return home on furlough on account of the ill-health of his wife, and he agreed to let his bungalow to Mr. T. One morning Mr. T. woke up and told his wife of what he had dreamt. He had gone to Lucknow railway station to take possession of Mr. C's. bungalow, but when stepping on the platform the stationmaster had told him that Mr. C. was dead, and that he hoped it would not make any difficulties about the bungalow. So deeply impressed was he with the dream that he telegraphed to his friend C. to ask when he was going to start for England, feeling by no means sure that the reply telegram might not announce that he was dead. The telegram, however, came back in due course. Mr. C. stated that he was going to leave on such and such a date. Reassured, therefore, Mr. T. dismissed the idea of the dream as a subjective delusion. At the appointed time he departed for Lucknow. When he alighted he was struck by the strange resemblance of the scene to that in his dream, and this was further recalled to his mind when the stationmaster came up to him and said, not that Mr. C. was dead but that he was seriously ill, and that he hoped it would not make any difference about the bungalow. Mr. T. began to be uneasy. The next morning, when he entered the office, his chief said to him, "You will be very sorry to hear that Mr. C. died last night." Mr. T. has never had any other hallucinations, nor has he any theory to account for his dreams. All that he knows is that they occurred, and that in both cases what he saw was realised—in one case to the very letter, and in the other with a curious deviation which adds strong confirmatory evidence to the bonâ fides of the narrator. Both stories are capable of ample verification if sufficient trouble were taken, as the telegram in one case could be traced, the death proved, and in the other the receipt might probably be found.

Dreams which give timely notice of coming accidents are, unfortunately, quite as often useless as they are efficacious for the protection of those to whom they are sent. Mr. Kendall, from whose psychical diary I have often quoted, sends me the following story of a dream which occurred, but which failed to save the dreamer's leg, although he struggled against it, and did his best to avert his evil fate:—

"Taking tea at a friend's house in the road where I live, I met with the Rev. Mr. Johnson, superintendent of the South Shields Circuit among the Primitive Methodists. He spoke with great confidence of the authenticity of a remarkable dream which he related. He used to reside at Shipley, near Bradford. His class-leader there had lost a leg, and he had heard direct from himself the circumstances under which the loss took place and the dream that accompanied. This class-leader was a blacksmith at a manufacturing mill which was driven by a water-wheel. He knew the wheel to be out of repair, when one night he dreamed that at the close of the day's work the manager detained him to repair it, that his foot slipped and became entangled between the two wheels, and was injured and afterwards amputated. In consequence he told his wife the dream in the morning, and made up his mind to be out of the way that evening, if he was wanted to repair the wheel. During the day the manager announced that the wheel must be repaired when the workpeople left that evening, but the blacksmith determined to make himself scarce before the hour arrived. He fled to a wood in the vicinity, and thought to hide himself there in its recesses. He came to a spot where some timber lay which belonged to the mill, and detected a lad stealing some pieces of wood from the heap. He pursued him in order to rescue the stolen property, became excited, and forgot all about his resolution. He found himself ere he was aware of it back at the mill just as the workpeople were being dismissed. He could not escape, and as he was principal smith he had to go upon the wheel, but he resolved to be very careful. In spite of his care, however, his foot slipped and got entangled between the two wheels just as he had dreamed. It was crushed so badly that he had to be carried to the Bradford Infirmary, where the leg was amputated above the knee. The premonitory dream was thus fulfilled throughout."

A Death Warning.

A much more painful story and far more detailed is contained in the fifth volume of the "Proceedings of the Psychical Research Society," on the authority of C. F. Fleet, of 26, Grosvenor Road, Gainsborough. He swears to the authenticity of the facts. The detailed story is full of the tragic fascination which attaches to the struggle of a brave man, repeatedly warned of his coming death, struggling in vain to avert the event which was to prove fatal, and ultimately perishing within the sight of those to whom he had revealed the vision. The story in brief is as follows: Mr. Fleet was third mate on the sailing ship Persian Empire, which left Adelaide for London in 1868. One of the crew, Cleary by name, dreamed before starting that on Christmas morning, as the Persian Empire was passing Cape Horn in a heavy gale, he was ordered, with the rest of his watch, to secure a boat hanging in davits over the side. He and another got into the boat, when a fearful sea broke over the ship, washing them both out of the boat into the sea, where they were both drowned. The dream made such an impression upon him that he was most reluctant to join the ship, but he overcame his scruples and sailed. On Christmas Eve, when they were nearing Cape Horn, Cleary had a repetition of his dream, exact in all particulars. He uttered a terrible cry, and kept muttering, "I know it will come true." On Christmas Day, exactly as he had foreseen, Cleary and the rest of the watch were ordered to secure a boat hanging in the davits. Cleary flatly refused. He said he refused because he knew he would be drowned, that all the circumstances of his dream had come true up to that moment, and if he went into that boat he would die. He was taken below to the captain, and his refusal to discharge duty was entered in the log. Then the chief officer, Douglas, took the pen to sign his name. Cleary suddenly looked at him and exclaimed, "I will go to my duty for now I know the other man in my dream." He told Douglas, as they were on deck, of his dream. They got into the boat, and when they were all making tight a heavy sea struck the vessel with such force that the crew would have been washed overboard had they not clung to the mast. The boat was turned over, and Douglas and Cleary were flung into the sea. They swam for a little time, and then went down. It was just three months after he had dreamed of it before leaving Adelaide.

Here we have inexorable destiny fulfilling itself in spite of the struggles of its destined victim. It reminds me of a well-known Oriental story, which tells how a friend who was with Solomon saw the Angel of Death looking at him very intently. On learning from Solomon whom the strange visitor was, he felt very uncomfortable under his gaze, and asked Solomon to transport him on his magic carpet to Damascus. No sooner said than done. Then said the Angel of Death to Solomon, "The reason why I looked so intently at your friend was because I had orders to take him at Damascus, and, behold, I found him at Jerusalem. Now, therefore, that he has transported himself thither I shall be able to obey my orders."

A Life Saved by a Dream.

The Rev. Alexander Stewart, LL.D., F.S.A., etc., Nether Lochaber, sends me the following instance of a profitable premonition:—

"It was in the winter of 1853 that my brother-in-law, Mr. Kenneth Morrison, came on a visit to us here at the Manse of Nether Lochaber. Mr. Morrison was at that time chief officer of the steamship City of Manchester, of the Inman line, one of the ocean 'greyhounds' of her day, sailing between Liverpool and Philadelphia.

"In my service here, at the time of Mr. Morrison's visit, was a native of Lochaber, Angus MacMaster by name, an active, intelligent man, of about thirty years of age, a most useful man, a capital shot, an expert angler, and one of the best violinists in the West Highlands. No great wonder, therefore, that Morrison took a liking for Angus, and that the end of it was that Morrison invited Angus to join him on board the City of Manchester, where, it was arranged, he should act as one of the steerage stewards, and, at the same time, as Mr. Morrison's valet. To this Angus very willingly agreed, and so it was that when Mr. Morrison's leave of absence expired, he and Angus joined the City of Manchester at Liverpool.

"Within a twelvemonth afterwards, Mr. Morrison wrote to say that he was about to be promoted to the command of the new Inman Steamship City of Glasgow—at that time, of her class and kind, the finest ship afloat—and that having got a few weeks' holiday, he was coming down to visit his friends in Lochaber, bringing Angus MacMaster along with him, for he had proved so good and faithful a servant that he was resolved not to part with him.

"Sooner than was expected, and when his leave had only extended to some twenty days, Captain Morrison was summoned to Liverpool to take charge of his ship, which had already booked her full complement of passengers, and taken in most of her cargo, and only required some little putting to rights, which had better be done under her commander's supervision, before she sailed on her maiden trip to Philadelphia. 'I must be off the day after to-morrow,' said Morrison, as he handed the letter to me