Part 6 (2/2)

”On the 5th April 1873 my wife's father, Captain Towns, died at his residence, Cranbrook, Rose Bay, near Sydney, N. S. Wales.

About six weeks after his death my wife had occasion one evening about nine o'clock to go to one of the bedrooms in the house. She was accompanied by a young lady, Miss Berthon, and as they entered the room--the gas burning all the time--they were amazed to see, reflected as it were on the polished surface of the wardrobe, the image of Captain Towns. It was barely half figure, the head, shoulders, and part of the arms only showing--in fact, it was like an ordinary medallion portrait, but life-size. The face appeared wan and pale, as it did before his death, and he wore a kind of grey flannel jacket, in which he had been accustomed to sleep. Surprised and half-alarmed at what they saw, their first idea was that a portrait had been hung in the room, and that what they saw was its reflection; but there was no picture of the kind.

”Whilst they were looking and wondering, my wife's sister, Miss Towns, came into the room, and before either of the others had time to speak, she exclaimed, 'Good gracious! Do you see papa?'

One of the housemaids happened to be pa.s.sing downstairs at the moment, and she was called in and asked if she saw anything, and her reply was, 'Oh, miss! the master.' Graham--Captain Towns' old body-servant--was then sent for, and he also immediately exclaimed, 'Oh, Lord save us! Mrs Lett, it's the captain!' The butler was called, and then Mrs Crane, my wife's nurse, and they both said what they saw. Finally, Mrs Towns was sent for, and, seeing the apparition, she advanced towards it with her arm extended as if to touch it, and as she pa.s.sed her hand over the panel of the wardrobe the figure gradually faded away, and never again appeared, though the room was regularly occupied for a long time after.

”These are the simple facts of the case, and they admit of no doubt; no kind of intimation was given to any of the witnesses; the same question was put to each one as they came into the room, and the reply was given without hesitation by each. It was by the merest accident that I did not see the apparition. I was in the house at the time, but did not hear when I was called.”

”C. A. W. LETT.”

”We the undersigned, having read the above statement, certify that it is strictly accurate, as we were both witnesses of the apparition.

”SARA LETT,

”SIBBIE SMYTH

”(_nee_ TOWNS.)”

”Mrs Lett a.s.sures me,” wrote Gurney, ”that neither she nor her sister ever experienced a hallucination of the senses on any other occasion.

She is positive that the recognition of the appearance on the part of each of the later witnesses was _independent_, and not due to any suggestion from the persons already in the room.”

The following, taken from the ”Report on the Census of Hallucinations,”

may belong to either the ante-mortem or post-mortem category:--

”At Redhill on Thanksgiving Day, between eight and nine in the evening, when I was taking charge of the little daughter of a friend, during my friend's absence on that evening, I left the child sleeping in the bedroom, and went to drop the blinds in two neighbouring rooms, being absent about three minutes. On returning to the child's room in the full light of the gas-burner from above I distinctly saw, coming from the child's cot, a white figure, which figure turned, looked me full in the face, and pa.s.sed down the staircase. I instantly followed, leaned over the banisters in astonishment, and saw the glistening of the white drapery as the figure pa.s.sed down the staircase, through the lighted hall, and silently through the hall door itself, which was barred, chained, and locked. I felt for the moment perfectly staggered, went back to the bedroom, and found the child peacefully sleeping. I related the circ.u.mstance to the mother immediately on her return late that night. She was incredulous, but said that my description of the figure answered to that of an invalid aunt of the child's. The next morning came a telegram to say that this relation who had greatly wished to see her niece had died between eight and nine the previous evening.

”I had just put down the 'Pickwick Papers,' with which I had been whiling away the time, was free from trouble and in good health.”

Sister Bertha, Superior of the House of Mercy at Bovey Tracey, Newton Abbot, states:

”On the night of November 10th, 1861, I was up in my bed watching, because there was a person not quite well in the next room. I heard a voice which I recognised at once as familiar to me, and at first thought of my sister. It said in the brightest and most cheerful tone, 'I am here with you.' I answered, looking and seeing nothing, 'Who are you?' The voice said, 'You mustn't know yet.' I heard nothing more and saw nothing, and am certain that the door was not opened or shut. I was not in the least frightened, and felt convinced it was Lucy's [Miss Lucy Gambier Parry's] voice.

”I have never doubted it from that moment. I had not heard of her being worse. The last account had been good, and I was expecting to hear that she was at Torquay. In the course of the next day (the 11th), mother told me that she had died on the morning of the 10th, rather more than twelve hours before I heard her voice.”

A case reported by Mr John E. Husbands, of Melbourne House, Town Hall Square, Grimsby, is interesting:

”I was sleeping in a hotel in Madeira in January 1885. It was a bright moonlight night. The windows were open, and the blinds up. I felt someone was in my room. On opening my eyes I saw a young fellow about twenty-five, dressed in flannels, standing at the side of my bed, and pointing with the first finger of his right hand to the place where I was lying. I lay for some seconds to convince myself of someone being really there. I then sat up and looked at him. I saw his features so plainly that I recognised them in a photograph which was shown me some days afterwards. I asked him what he wanted. He did not speak, but his eyes and hands seemed to tell me that I was in his place. As he did not answer, I struck at him with my fist as I sat up, but did not reach him, and as I was going to spring out of bed he slowly vanished through the door, which was shut, keeping his eyes upon me all the time. Upon inquiry I found that the young fellow who appeared to me died in the room I was occupying.”

There is, too, the famous case of Mrs de Freville and the gardener Bard.

The percipient, who had formerly been in the employ of this somewhat eccentric lady, who was especially morbid on the subject of tombs and so forth, was in the churchyard of Hinxton, Saffron Walden, on Friday, 8th May 1885. He happened to look at the square De Freville stone vault, when, to his amazement, he distinctly saw the old lady, with a white face, leaning on the rails. When he looked again she was gone, although it puzzled him to know how she could have got out of the churchyard, as, in order to reach any of the gates, she must have pa.s.sed him. Next day he was told that Mrs de Freville was dead. As the apparition was seen about seven and a half hours after death, it could, as I have suggested, be considered a telepathic impression transmitted at the moment of death and remaining latent in the brain of the percipient; otherwise, the case belongs to the category of Haunting, which we will glance at in the next chapter.

CHAPTER VII

ON ”HAUNTINGS” AND KINDRED PHENOMENA

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