Real Ghost Stories Part 10

I was never a moment in doubt. I knew I was going to gaol from the moment Rebecca Jarrett broke down in the witness-box. This may be said to be nothing extraordinary; but what was extraordinary was that I had the most absolute conviction that I was going to gaol for two months. I was told by those who considered themselves in a position to speak with authority that I was perfectly safe, that I should not be imprisoned, and that I should make preparations to go abroad for a holiday as soon as the trial was over.

To all such representations I always replied by a.s.serting with the most implicit confidence that I was certain to go to gaol, and that my sentence would be two months. When, however, on November, 10th, 1885, I stood in the dock to receive sentence, and received from the judge a sentence of three months, I was very considerably taken aback. I remember distinctly that I had to remember where I was in order to restrain the almost irresistible impulse to interrupt the judge and say, "I beg your pardon, my lord, you have made a mistake, the sentence ought to have been _two_ months." But mark what followed. When I had been duly confined in Coldbath-on-the-Fields Prison, I looked at the little card which is fastened on the door of every cell giving the name of the prisoner, his offence, and the duration of his sentence. I found to my great relief that my presentiment had not been wrong after all. I had, it is true, been sentenced to three months' imprisonment, but the sentence was dated from the first day of the sessions. Our trial had been a very long one, and there had been other cases before it. The consequence was that the judge's sentence was as near two months as he possibly could have pa.s.sed. My actual sojourn in gaol was two months and seven days. Had he sentenced me to two months' imprisonment I should only have been in gaol one month and seven days.

These three presentiments were quite unmistakable, and were not in the least to be confounded with the ordinary uneasy forebodings which come and go like clouds in a summer sky. Of the premonitions which still remain unfulfilled I will say nothing, excepting that they govern my action, and more or less colour the whole of my life. No person can have had three or four premonitions such as those which I have described without feeling that such premonitions are the only certainties of the future. They will be fulfilled, no matter how incredible they may appear; and amid the endless s.h.i.+fting circ.u.mstances of our life, these fixed points, towards which we are inevitably tending, help to give steadiness to a career, and a feeling of security to which the majority of men are strangers.[8] Premonitions are distinct from dreams, although many times they are communicated in sleep. Whether in the sleeping or waking stage there are times when mortal men gain, as it were, chance glimpses behind the veil which conceals the future. Sometimes this premonition takes the shape of a deep indwelling consciousness, based not on reason or on observation, that for us awaits some great work to be done, which we know but dimly, but which is, nevertheless, the one reality of life.

[8] One of the premonitions referred to by my Father was fulfilled on that fatal night in April, 1912, when the t.i.tanic struck an iceberg and sunk with 1,600 souls, and his life on this plane ended.

He had known for years and stated the fact to many that he would not die in his bed and that his "pa.s.sing" would be sudden and dramatic--that he would, as he put it, "die in his boots."

As to the actual cause or place of his "pa.s.sing" he had no premonition--but rather inclined to the idea that he would be kicked to death in the streets by an angry mob whilst defending some unpopular cause. E. W. Stead.

Chapter II.

Warnings Given in Dreams.

In my case each of my premonitions related to an important crisis in my life, but often premonitions are of a very different nature. One which was told me when I was in Glasgow came in a dream, but it is so peculiar that it is worthy of mention in this connection. The Rev. William Ross, minister of the Church of Cowcaddens, in Glasgow, is a Highlander. On the Sunday evening after I had addressed his congregation, the conversation turned on premonitions and second sight, and he told me the following extraordinary dream:--When he was a lad, living in the Highlands, at a time when he had never seen a game of football, or knew anything about it, he awoke in the morning with a sharp pain in his ankle. This pain, which was very acute, and which continued with him throughout the whole day, was caused, he said, by an experience which he had gone through in a dream. He found himself in a strange place and playing at a game which he did not understand, and which resembled nothing that he had seen played among his native hills. He was running rapidly, carrying a big black thing in his arms, when suddenly another youth ran at him and kicked him violently on the ankle, causing such intense pain that he woke. The pain, instead of pa.s.sing away, as is usual when we happen anything in dreamland, was very acute, and he continued to feel it throughout the day.

Time pa.s.sed, and six months after his dream he found himself on the playing fields at Edinburgh, engaged in his first game of football. He was a long-legged country youth and a swift runner, and he soon found that he could rush a goal better by taking the ball and carrying it than by kicking it. After having made one or two goals in this way, he was endeavouring to make a third, when, exactly as he had seen in his dream, a player on the opposite side swooped upon him and kicked him heavily upon the ankle. The blow was so severe that he was confined to the house for a fortnight. The whole scene was exactly that which he had witnessed in his dream. The playing fields, the game, the black round ball in his arms, and finally the kick on the ankle. It would be difficult to account for this on any ground of mere coincidence, the chances against it are so enormous. It is a very unusual thing for any one to suffer physical pain in the waking state from incidents which take place in dreams.

_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 s.h.i.+llings and sixpence. The number of s.h.i.+llings 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. Rea.s.sured, 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 _bona 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 s.h.i.+elds 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 s.h.i.+pley, near Bradford. His cla.s.s-leader there had lost a leg, and he had heard direct from himself the circ.u.mstances under which the loss took place and the dream that accompanied. This cla.s.s-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 princ.i.p.al 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 peris.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+p _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 pa.s.sing 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 s.h.i.+p, was.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+p, but he overcame his scruples and sailed. On Christmas Eve, when they were nearing Cape Horn, Cleary had a repet.i.tion 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 circ.u.mstances 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 steams.h.i.+p _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 Steams.h.i.+p _City of Glasgow_--at that time, of her cla.s.s and kind, the finest s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p, which had already booked her full complement of pa.s.sengers, 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 across the table. 'Please send for Angus,' he continued, 'I wish him to come at once, that we may be ready to start by Wednesday morning.' This was at the breakfast table on a Monday morning; and that same evening Angus, summoned by a special messenger from the glen in which he was staying with his friends, arrived at the Manse, but in so grave and cheerless a mood that I noticed it at once, and wondered what could be the matter with him. Taking him into a private room, I said, 'Angus, Captain Morrison leaves the day after to-morrow. You had better get his things packed at once. And, by the way, what a lucky fellow you are! If you did so well on the _City of Manchester_, you will in a year or two make quite a fortune in the _City of Glasgow_.' To my astonishment Angus replied, 'I am not going in the _City of Glasgow_--at least, not on this voyage--and I wish you could persuade Captain Morrison--the best and kindest master ever man had--not to go either.' 'Not going? What in the world do you mean, Angus?' was my very natural exclamation of surprise.

'Well, sir,' said Angus (the reader will please understand that our talk was in Gaelic). 'Well, sir,' said Angus, 'You must not be angry with me if I tell you that on the last three nights my father, who has been dead nine years, as you know, has appeared to me and warned me not to go on this voyage, for that it will prove disastrous. Whether in dream or waking vision of the night, I cannot say; but I saw him, sir, as distinctly as I now see you; clothed exactly as I remember him in life; and he stood by my bedside, and with up-lifted hand and warning finger, and with a most solemn and earnest expression of countenance, he said, "Angus, my beloved son, don't go on this voyage. It will not be a prosperous one." On three nights running has my father appeared to me in this form, and with the same words of warning; and although much against my will, I have made up my mind that in the face of such warning, thrice repeated, it would be wrong in me to go on this voyage. It does not become me to do it, but I wish you, sir, would tell Captain Morrison what I have now told you; and persuade him if possible to make the best excuse he can, and on no account to go on this voyage in the _City of Glasgow_.' I said all I could, of course, and when Captain Morrison was told of it, he, too, said all he could to shake Angus from his resolution; but all in vain. And so it was that Morrison left without him; poor Angus actually weeping as he bade his master good-bye.

"Early in March of that year, the _City of Glasgow_, with a valuable cargo and upwards of five hundred pa.s.sengers on board, sailed under Morrison's command for Philadelphia; and all that was good and prosperous was confidently predicted of the voyage of so fine a s.h.i.+p under charge of so capable a commander. When sufficient time had expired, and there was still no word of the s.h.i.+p's arrival at Philadelphia, Angus came to enquire if we had heard anything about her.

I could only reply that there was as yet no word of her, but that the owners, in reply to my inquiries, were confident of her safety--their theory being that something had gone wrong with her engines, and that she was probably proceeding under sail. 'Pray G.o.d it may be so!' said Angus, with the tears in his eyes; and then in his own emphatic language--_ach s'eagal leam, aon chuid dhuibhse na dhomhsa nach tig fios na forfhais oiree gu brath_--(but great is my fear that neither to you, sir, nor to me shall word of her safety, or message from her at all ever arrive). And it was even so: from the day she left the Mersey until this day no word of the _City of Glasgow_ has ever been heard. It was the opinion of those best able to offer a probable conjecture at the time, that she must have come into contact with an iceberg, and instantly gone down with all on board.

"I may add that Angus was a Catholic, and that Father Macdonald, his priest, told me shortly afterwards that Angus, before my messenger calling him to the Manse could have reached him, had communicated the thrice-repeated dream or vision to him in confession, and precisely in the same terms he used in describing it to me. When no hope of the safety of the _City of Glasgow_ could any longer be entertained, Angus emigrated to Australia, whence after the lapse of several years, he wrote me to say that he was well and doing well. Whether he is still in life, or gone over to the majority, I do not know."

_A Highlander's Dream of his Drowning._

Another story, which was sent me by my old friend the housekeeper of the Hon. Auberon Herbert's Highland retreat on the sh.o.r.es of Loch Awe, is an awful tale of destiny, the premonition of which only renders it more tragic.

They were all sitting round the fire one winter night each relating his best story. Each had told his story of the most wonderful things he had heard or seen in the Ghost line except Martin Barraw from Uist who sat silently listening to all.

"Come, Martin," said the man of the house "are you not going to tell a story, I am sure you know many?"

"Well yes," said Martin. "I know some and there is one strange one, running in my mind all this night, that I have never told to anyone yet, but I think I must tell it to-night."

"Oh, yes, do, Martin," cried all present.

"Well," said Martin, "you all I am sure remember the night of the fatal boat accident at Portroch ferry, when Murdoch McLane, big David the Gamekeeper, and Donald McRae, the ferryman were drowned and I was the only one saved of the four."

"Yes we do that Martin, remember it well," said the good man, "that was the night the Taybridge was blown down, it was a Sunday night the 28th of Dec. '79."

"Yes you are right that was the very night. Well you know Murdoch and I were Salmon watching down the other side of the Loch that winter. Well one night about the middle of November we were sitting by the side of Altanlarich, it would be about midnight, we had sat for some time without speaking I thought Murdoch was asleep and I was very nearly so, when suddenly Murdoch sprung to his feet with a jump that brought me to mine in a second.

"Goodness what is wrong with you," said I, looking round in every direction to see what startled him but could see nothing.

"'O dear, dear! what a horrid dream I have had,' said he. 'A dream,'

said I. 'My' I thought you had seen a ghost or something by the spring you gave.'

"'Well! you would spring too if you could and you drowning.' Then he told me that he thought it was the 28th of December and there was such a storm he had never seen anything like it in his life before. 'We were crossing the loch at the ferry,' said he. 'We had the big white boat and four oars on her. Big David the keeper Donald the ferryman you and I.

And man but it was awful. The boat right up on end at times every wave was.h.i.+ng over us and filling the boat more and more, and no way of bailing her, because no one could let go his oar, you and I were on the weather side, and Big David and Donald on the other, they of course had the worst of it, we got on until we were near the other side, the waves were getting bigger and the boat getting heavier, we were going to run for the creek, when she was struck by a huge wave that filled her up to the seats and sent David and Donald on their backs, they lost their oars, and the next wave came right over her and down she went. The other two never were seen, you and I came up and tried to swim to the sh.o.r.e, you got near enough to catch a rope that was thrown you, but I could not get through the tremendous waves and was just going down when I awoke with such a start.'