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

of bed and looked about the room and satisfied himself that he had made no mistake, but that he had really talked with his father and seen him go out at the window. In the morning, when he entered his father's room, the first words he heard were, 'Crawford, I want you to make me a promise before I die.' Mr. M. replied, 'Father, I will; what is it?' 'That you will take care of your mother.' 'Father, I promise you.' 'Then I can die happy.' Thus the conversation that took place during the night under such singular circumstances was repeated verbatim in the morning; and while it implied that the father had been previously brooding over the subject of his wife's comfort after he should be taken away, it also supplied important evidence that the strange affair of the night was not mere imagination on the part of the son. The father died soon afterwards."

A Spectral Postman.

Of a somewhat similar nature, although in this case it was visible and not audible, is that told me by the Rev. J. A. Dalane, of West Hartlepool, who, on August 14th, 1886, about three o'clock in the morning, saw a hand very distinctly, as in daylight, holding a letter addressed in the handwriting of an eminent Swedish divine. Both the hand and the letter appeared very distinctly for the space of about two minutes. Then he saw a similar hand holding a sheet of foolscap paper on which he saw some writing, which he, however, was not able to read. After a few minutes this gradually faded and vanished away. This was repeated three different times. As soon as it had disappeared the third time he got up, lighted the gas, and wrote down the facts. Six hours afterwards, at nine o'clock, the post brought a letter which in every particular corresponded to the spectral letter which had been three times shown to him in the early morning.

An Examination Paper Seen in Dream.

The Rev. D. Morris, chaplain of Walton Gaol, near Liverpool, had a similar, although more useful experience, as follows:—

"In December, 1853, I sat for a schoolmaster's certificate at an examination held in the Normal College, Cheltenham. The questions in the various subjects were arranged in sections according to their value, and printed on the margin of stiff blue-coloured foolscap, to which the answers were limited. It had been the custom at similar examinations in previous years for the presiding examiners to announce beforehand the daily subjects of examinations, but on this occasion the usual notice was omitted.

"After sitting all day on Monday, my brain was further excited by anxious guessings of the morrow's subjects, and perusals of my note-books. That night I had little restful sleep, for I dreamt that I was busy at work in the examination hall, I had in my dream vividly before me the Geometry (Euclid) paper. I was so impressed with what I had seen that I told my intimate friends to get up the bottom question in each section (that being the bearer of most marks), and, it is needless to say, I did the same myself. When the geometry paper was distributed in the hall by the examiners, to my wonder it was really in every respect, questions and sections, the paper that I had seen in my dream on the Monday night.

"Nothing similar to it happened to me before or since. The above fact has never been recorded in any publication."

Forebodings and Dreams.

An instance in which a dream was useful in preventing an impending catastrophe is recorded of a daughter of Mrs. Rutherford, the granddaughter of Sir Walter Scott. This lady dreamed more than once that her mother had been murdered by a black servant. She was so much upset by this that she returned home, and to her great astonishment, and not a little to her dismay, she met on entering the house the very black servant she had met in her dream. He had been engaged in her absence. She prevailed upon a gentleman to watch in an adjoining room during the following night. About three o'clock in the morning the gentleman hearing footsteps on the stairs, came out and met the servant carrying a quantity of coals. Being questioned as to where he was going, he answered confusedly that he was going to mend the mistress's fire, which at three o'clock in the morning in the middle of summer was evidently impossible. On further investigation, a strong knife was found hidden in the coals. The lady escaped, but the man was subsequently hanged for murder, and before his execution he confessed that he intended to have assassinated Mrs. Rutherford.

A correspondent in Dalston sends me an account of an experience which befell him in 1871, when a lady strongly advised him against going from Liverpool to a place near Wigan, where he had an appointment on a certain day. As he could not put off the appointment, she implored him not to go by the first train. In deference to her foreboding, he went by the third train, and on arriving at his destination found that the first train had been thrown off the line and had rolled down an embankment into the fields below. The warning in this case, he thinks, probably saved his life.

Another correspondent, Mr. A. N. Browne, of 19, Wellington Avenue, Liverpool, communicates another instance of a premonitory dream, which unfortunately did not avail to prevent the disaster:

"My sister-in-law was complaining to me on a warm August day, in 1882, of being out of sorts, upset and altogether depressed. I took her a bit to task, asked her why she was depressed, and elicited that she was troubled by dreaming the preceding night that her son Frank, who was spending his holidays with his uncle near Preston, was drowned. Of course I ridiculed the idea of a dream troubling any one. But she only answered that her dreams often proved more than mere sleep-disturbers. That was told to me at 2 p.m. or about. At 6.30 we dined, and all thought of the dream had vanished out of my mind and my sister-in-law seemed to have overcome her depression. We were sitting in the drawing-room, say 8 p.m., when a telegram arrived. My sister-in-law received it, turned to her husband and said, 'It is for you, Tom.' He opened it and cried, 'My God! My God!' and fell into a chair. My sister-in-law snatched the telegram from her husband, looked at it, screamed, and fell prostrate. I in turn took the telegram, and read, 'Frank fell in the river here to-day, and was drowned.' It was a telegram from the youth's uncle, with whom he had been staying."

Dr. H. Grosvenor Shaw, M.R.C.S., medical officer to one of the asylums under the London County Council, sends me the following brief but striking story, which bears upon the subject under discussion:—

"Four men were playing whist. The man dealing stopped to drink, and whilst drinking the man next to him poked him in the side, telling him to hurry up. Some of the fluid he was drinking entered the larynx, and before he could recover his breath he fell back, hitting his head against the door post, and lay on the ground stunned for something under a minute. When he came to he was naturally dazed, and for the moment surprised at his surroundings. He said he had been at the bedside of his friend—mentioning his name—who was dying. The next morning a telegram came to say the friend was dead, and he died, it was ascertained at the exact time the accident at the card table took place. I would remark the dead man had been enjoying perfect health, and no one had received any information that he was ill, which illness was sudden."

A Vision of Coming Death.

One familiar and very uncanny form of premonition, or of foreseeing, is that in which a coffin is seen before the death of some member of the household. The following narrative is communicated to me by Mrs. Crofts, of 22, Blurton Road, Clapton. She is quite clear that she actually saw what she describes:—

"A week prior to the death of my husband, when he and I had retired to rest, I lay for a long while endeavouring to go to sleep, but failed; and after tossing about for some time I sat up in bed, and having sat thus for some time was surprised to see the front door open, I could see the door plainly from where I was, our bedroom door being always kept open. I was astonished but not afraid when, immediately after the door opened, two men entered bearing a coffin which they carried upstairs, right into the room where I was, and laid it down on the hearth-rug by the side of the bed, and then went away shutting the front door after them. I was of course somewhat troubled over the matter, and mentioned it to my husband when having breakfast the following morning. He insisted that I had been dreaming, and I did not again let the matter trouble my mind. A week that day my husband died very suddenly. I was engaged in one of the rooms upstairs the evening afterwards, when a knock came to the door, which was answered by my mother, and I did not take any notice until I heard the footsteps of those coming up the stairs, when I looked out, and lo! I beheld the two men whom I had seen but a week previously carry and put the coffin in exactly the same place that they had done on their previous visit. I cannot describe to you my feelings, but from that time until the present I am convinced that, call them what you like—apparitions, ghosts, or forewarnings—they are a reality."

Profitable Premonitions.

There are, however, cases in which a premonition has been useful to those who have received timely warning of disaster. The ill-fated Pegasus, that went down carrying with it the well-known Rev. J. Morell Mackenzie, an uncle of the well-known physician, who preserves a portrait of the distinguished divine among his heirlooms, is associated with a premonition which saved the life of a lady and her cousin, the wives of two Church of England ministers. They had intended to sail in the Pegasus on Wednesday, but a mysterious and unaccountable impression compelled one of the ladies to insist that they should leave on the Saturday. They had just time to get on board, and so escaped going by the Pegasus which sailed on the following Wednesday and was wrecked, only two on board being saved.

Like to this story, in so far as it records her avoidance of an accident by the warning of a dream, but fortunately not resembling it in its more ghostly detail, is the story told in Mrs. Sidgwick's paper on the Evidence for Premonitions, on the authority of Mrs. Raey, of 99, Holland Road, Kensington. She dreamed that she was driving from Mortlake to Roehampton. She was upset in her carriage close to her sister's house. She forgot about her dream, and drove in her carriage from Mortlake to her sister's house. But just as they were driving up the lane the horse became very restive. Three times the groom had to get down to see what was the matter, but the third time the dream suddenly occurred to her memory. She got out and insisted on walking to the house. He drove off by himself, the horse became unmanageable, and in a few moments she came upon carriage, horse, and groom, all in a confused mass, just as she had seen the night before, but not in the same spot. But for the dream she would certainly not have alighted from the carriage.

The Visions of an Engine-Driver.

In the same paper there is an account of a remarkable series