Part 2 (1/2)

The episode struck me as curious at the time; but the impression pa.s.sed, and a few days later I went to pay a visit to friends of mine in Buckinghams.h.i.+re. Soon after my arrival I happened to mention the story, and was much laughed at as a ”superst.i.tious little creature, to think twice of such nonsense.” ”Of course, everyone had been mistaken in supposing they heard wheels or horses' hoofs--nothing could be simpler!”

And yet before I left that house, three weeks later, all the newspapers were full of long obituary notices of the Marquis of Hastings. These were so interesting that my friend's husband had reached the second long column in _The Times_ before any of us remembered my story, which had been treated with so much contempt. It suddenly flashed across my mind: ”Owen! Remember the carriage and pair and how you laughed at me!”

They were forced to confess ”_it was certainly rather odd_,” the usual refuge of the psychically dest.i.tute!

A shake of the kaleidoscope, and I see another incident before me of more personal interest.

At the time of the outbreak of the Afghan War, in the autumn of 1878, I was living with very old friends in Oxford. My brother of the Ram Din incident was once more in India, and had been Military Secretary for some years at Lah.o.r.e to Sir Robert Egerton, who was at that time Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab.

When the war broke out, my brother, of course, went off to join his regiment for active service; but at the time of my experience it was impossible that he could have reached the seat of war, and I knew this well.

I was in excellent spirits about him, for he had been through many campaigns, and loved active service, as all good soldiers do. Moreover, I had just read a charming letter which Sir Robert Egerton had sent him on resigning his appointment as Military Secretary to take up more active duty to his country.

Yet it was just at this juncture--when, humanly speaking, there was no cause for any special anxiety--that I woke up one morning with the gloomiest and most miserable forebodings about this special brother.

Nothing of the kind had ever occurred to me before, though he had been through many campaigns in India, China, Abyssinia, and elsewhere.

It was an overwhelming conviction of some great and definite disaster to him, and my friends in vain tried to argue me out of such an unreasonable terror by pointing out, truly enough, that he could not possibly be within the zone of danger at that time. I could only repeat: ”I _know_ that something terrible has happened to him, wherever he is. It may not be death, but it is some terrible calamity.”

I spent the day in tears and in absolute despair, and wrote to tell him of my conviction. Allowing for difference of time between Quetta and Oxford, my mental telegram reached me in the same hour that my brother, whilst on the march, and only thirty miles beyond Quetta, was suddenly struck down in his tent by the paralysis which kept him confined to his chair--a helpless sufferer--for twenty-eight years.

Perhaps, now that I know so much more of mental currents, I might have received a more definite message as regards the true _nature_ of the calamity. It could not have been more marked, nor more definite as regards the _fact_ of it.

My condition of hopeless misery obliged me to put off all engagements that day, and I did nothing but fret and lament over him, with the exception of writing the one letter mentioned, in which I told him of my strange and sad experience.

In time, of course, the first sharp impression pa.s.sed, and soon a cheery letter arrived from him, written, of course, before the fatal day. My experience in Oxford occurred on the morning of 4th December 1878. It was well on in January 1879 before the corroboration arrived, in a letter written to us by a stranger. Communication was delayed not only by the war, but also by the fact that my poor brother was lying at the time deprived of both movement and speech, and could only spell out later, by the alphabet, the address of his people at home.

CHAPTER II

INVESTIGATIONS IN AMERICA, 1885-1886

An interval of seven years occurs between the events recorded in the last chapter and my first visit to America, which took place in the autumn of 1885.

During these years no abnormal experiences came to me, nor had I the smallest wish for any.

The table turnings with Morton Freer were a thing of the past, and were looked back upon by me in the light of a childish amus.e.m.e.nt rather than anything else. Quite other interests had come into my life, specially as regards literature and music; and I never gave a thought to spooks or spiritualism, nor did I really know anything about the latter subject.

It is true that on one occasion a curate at Great Marlow had spoken to me about Mr S. C. Hall and his researches, and I think he must have given me an introduction to the dear old man, for I remember going to see him ”with a lady friend” (he made a great point of this, somewhat to my amus.e.m.e.nt), and finding a charming old man with silver locks, a fine head, and a nice white frilly s.h.i.+rt.

He spoke of his dear friend ”Mrs Jencken,” whom he considered the only reliable medium, and showed us some sheets full of hieroglyphics, which he said were messages obtained through her influence from ”his dear wife.”

It was all so much Greek to me in those days, and only true sympathy with the poor old man's evident loneliness and adoration of his wife's memory prevented my making merry over the extraordinary delusions of the old gentleman, when my companion and I had left his rooms in Suss.e.x villas.

Later, I lived during two years with Mrs Lankester and her daughters whilst looking after an invalid brother in London; and I need scarcely point out that constant intercourse with Professor Ray Lankester in his mother's house was not calculated to encourage any psychic proclivities, even had these latter not been entirely latent with me at that time.

I heard a great deal about the ”Slade exposure,” both from Professor Lankester and his friend Dr Donkin, who often came to us with him. When arranging my American tour in 1885, Mrs Lankester kindly gave me an introduction to Mrs Edna Hall, an old friend of theirs, who had been living in their house during the whole period of the Slade trial. This lady--an American--lived permanently in Boston, and curiously enough (in view of the preceding facts) it was she who persuaded Miss Greenlow and me to attend our first _seance_ in Boston. Mrs Edna Hall had honoured Mrs Lankester's introduction most hospitably; but she was too busy a woman to do as much for us as her kindness suggested, and she had therefore introduced us to another friend--Mrs Maria Porter--a most picturesque, clever, and characteristic figure in Boston society in the eighties.

Both these ladies accompanied us to the ”Sisters Berry.” Mrs Edna Hall had no sort of illusions on the subject. She said quite frankly that she only took us there because it was a feature of American life which we ought not to miss, and which would probably amuse us, if only by showing the gullibility of Human Nature.