Real Ghost Stories Part 9

Henderson called to take leave of her, saying he was going to Oxford to study a subject concerning which he could not obtain the information he wanted in Bristol. Mrs. Masey said to him, 'John Henderson, thou wilt die there.'

"Some time afterwards, Mrs. Masey woke her husband one night, saying, 'Remember, John Henderson died at Oxford at two o'clock this morning, and it is now three.' Her husband, Philip Masey, made light of it; but she told him that while asleep she had been transported to Oxford, where she had never been before, and that she had entered a room there, in which she saw Mr. John Henderson in bed, the landlady supporting his head, and the landlord with several other persons standing around. While gazing at him some one gave him medicine, and the patient, turning round, perceived her, and exclaimed, 'Oh, Mrs. Masey, I am going to die; I am so glad you are come, for I want to tell you that my father is going to be very ill, and you must go and see him.' He then proceeded to describe a room in his father's house, and a bureau in it, 'in which is a box containing a remedy; give it him, and he will recover.' Her impression and recollection of all the persons in the room at Oxford was most vivid, and she even described the appearance of the house on the opposite side of the street. The only person she appeared not to have seen in the room was a clergyman who was present. The husband of Mrs.

Masey accompanied Mr. Henderson's father to the funeral, and on their journey from Bristol to Oxford by coach (the period being before railways and telegraphs existed), Mr. Philip Masey related to him the particulars of his son's death, as described by his wife, which, on arrival, they found to have been exactly as told by Mrs. Masey.

"Mrs. Masey was so much concerned about the death of Mr. Henderson, jun., that she forgot all about the directions he had given her respecting the approaching illness of his father, but some time afterwards she was sent for by the father, who was very ill. She then remembered the directions given her by the son on his death-bed at Oxford. She immediately proceeded to the residence of Mr. Henderson, and on arrival at the house she found the room, the bureau, the box, and the medicine exactly as had been foretold to her. She administered the remedy as directed, and had the pleasure of witnessing the beneficial effect by the complete recovery of Mr. Henderson from a serious illness."

Here we have almost every variety of psychic experience. First of all there is second sight pure and simple; second, there is the aerial journey of the Double, with the memory of everything that had been seen and heard at the scene which it had witnessed; third, there is communication of information which at that moment was not known to the percipient; fourth, we have another prediction; and finally, we have a complete verification and fulfilment of everything that was witnessed.

It is idle to attempt to prove the accuracy of statements made concerning one who has been dead nearly a hundred years, but the story, although possessing no evidential value, is interesting as an almost unique specimen of the comprehensive and complicated prophetic ghost and clairvoyant story.

These facts, which are well accredited, would seem to show that in the book of Job Elihu was not far wrong when he said, "In slumberings upon the bed G.o.d openeth the ears of men and sealeth their destruction." Or, to quote from an author who uses more modern dialect, it justifies Abercromby's remark that "the subject of dreaming appears to be worthy of careful investigation, and there is much reason to believe that an extensive collection of authentic facts, carefully a.n.a.lysed, would unfold principles of very great interest in reference to the philosophy of the mental powers."

Clairvoyance is a gift, and a comparatively rare gift. It is a gift which requires to be much more carefully studied and scientifically examined than it has been hitherto. It is a by-path to many secrets. It may hold in it the clue to the acquisition of great faculties, hitherto regarded as forbidden to mere mortals.

Chapter III.

My Own Experience.

It is difficult for those who are not clairvoyant to understand what those who are clairvoyant describe, often with the most extraordinary precision and detail. Unfortunately for myself I am not a clairvoyant, but on one occasion I had an experience which enabled me to understand something of clairvoyant vision. I had been working late at night, and had gone to bed at about two o'clock in the morning somewhat tired, having spent several hours in preparing "Real Ghost Stories" for the press. I got into bed, but was not able to go to sleep, as usual, as soon as my head touched the pillow. I suppose my mind had been too much excited by hard work right up to the moment of going to bed for me readily to go to sleep. I shut my eyes and waited for sleep to come; instead of sleep, however, there came to me a succession of curiously vivid clairvoyant pictures. There was no light in the room, and it was perfectly dark; I had my eyes shut also. But, notwithstanding the darkness, I suddenly was conscious of looking at a scene of singular beauty. It was as if I saw a living miniature about the size of a magic-lantern slide. At this moment I can recall the scene as if I saw it again. It was a seaside piece. The moon was s.h.i.+ning upon the water, which rippled slowly on to the beach. Right before me a long mole ran out into the water. On either side of the mole irregular rocks stood up above the sea-level. On the sh.o.r.e stood several houses, square and rude, which resembled nothing that I had ever seen in house architecture. No one was stirring, but the moon was there, and the sea and the gleam of the moonlight on the rippling waters was just as if I had been looking out upon the actual scene. It was so beautiful that I remember thinking that if it continued I should be so interested in looking at it that I should never go to sleep. I was wide awake, and at the same time that I saw the scene I distinctly heard the dripping of the rain outside the window. Then suddenly, without any apparent object or reason, the scene changed. The moonlit sea vanished, and in its place I was looking right into the interior of a reading-room. It seemed as if it had been used as a schoolroom in the daytime and was employed as a reading-room in the evening. I remember seeing one reader, who had a curious resemblance to Tim Harrington, although it was not he, hold up a magazine or book in his hand and laugh. It was not a picture--it was there. The scene was just as if you were looking through an opera-gla.s.s; you saw the play of the muscles, the gleaming of the eye, every movement of the unknown persons in the unnamed place into which you were gazing. I saw all that without opening my eyes, nor did my eyes have anything to do with it.

You see such things as these, as it were, with another sense, which is more inside your head than in your eyes. This was a very poor and paltry experience, but it enabled me to understand better than any amount of disquisition how it is that clairvoyants see. The pictures were _apropos_ of nothing; they had been suggested by nothing I had been reading or talking of, they simply came as if I had been able to look through a gla.s.s at what was occurring somewhere else in the world. I had my peep and then it pa.s.sed, nor have I had a recurrence of a similar experience.

_Crystal-Gazing._

Crystal-gazing is somewhat akin to clairvoyance. There are some people who cannot look into an ordinary globular bottle without seeing pictures form themselves, without any effort or will on their part, in the crystal globe. This is an experience which I have never been able to enjoy. But I have seen crystal-gazing going on at a table at which I have been sitting on one or two occasions with rather remarkable results. The experiences of Miss X. in crystal-gazing have been told at length and in detail in the "Proceedings of the Psychical Research Society." On looking into the crystal on two occasions as a test, to see if she could see me when she was several miles off, she saw, not me, but a different friend of mine on each occasion, whom she had never seen, but whom she immediately identified on seeing them afterwards at my office.

Crystal-gazing seems to be the least dangerous and most simple of all methods of experimenting. You simply look into a crystal globe the size of a five-s.h.i.+lling piece, or a water-bottle which is full of clear water, and is placed so that too much light does not fall upon it, and then simply look at it. You make no incantations and engage in no mumbo-jumbo business; you simply look at it for two or three minutes, taking care not to tire yourself, winking as much as you please, but fixing your thought upon whoever it is you wish to see. Then, if you have the faculty, the gla.s.s will cloud over with a milky mist, and in the centre the image is gradually precipitated in just the same way as a photograph forms on the sensitive plate. At least, the description given by crystal-gazers as to the way in which the picture appears reminded me of nothing so much as what I saw when I stood inside the largest camera in the world, in which the Ordnance Survey photographs its maps at Southampton.

PART IV.

PREMONITIONS AND SECOND SIGHT.

"But there are many such things in Nature, though we have not the right key to them. We all walk in mysteries. We are surrounded by an atmosphere of which we do not know what is stirring in it, or how it is connected with our own spirit. So much is certain--that in particular cases we can put out the feelers of our soul beyond its bodily limits, and that a presentiment, nay, an actual insight into, the immediate future is accorded to it."--Goethe's "Conversations with Eckermann."

Chapter I.

My Own Extraordinary Premonitions.

If clairvoyance partakes of the nature of the camera obscura, by which persons can see at a distance that which is going on beyond the direct range of their vision, it is less easy to suggest an a.n.a.logy to explain the phenomena of premonition or second sight. Although I have never seen a ghost--for none of my hallucinations are scenic--I may fairly claim to have a place in this census on the ground of the extraordinary premonitions I have had at various times of coming events. The second sight of the Highlander is always scenic; he does not hear so much as he sees. If death is foreshadowed, the circ.u.mstances preceding and following the event pa.s.s as in dramatic scene before the eyes of the seer. It is much as if the seers had access to a camera obscura which enabled them not only to see that which was occurring at the same moment in various parts of the world, but in its magic mirror could reflect events which have not yet been as if they were already existent.

The phenomena of premonition, combined with the faculties of clairvoyance by which the percipient is able to reproduce the past, make a great breach in our conceptions of both time and s.p.a.ce. To the Deity, in the familiar line of the hymn, "future things unfolded lie"; but from time to time future things, sometimes most trivial, sometimes most important, are unfolded to the eye of mortal man. Why or how one does not know. All that he can say is that the vision came and went in obedience to some power over which he had no conscious control. The faculty of foreseeing, which in its higher forms const.i.tutes no small part of a prophet's power, is said to exist among certain families, and to vary according to the locality in which they are living. Men who have second sight in Skye are said to lose it on the mainland. But residence in Skye itself is not sufficient to give the Englishman the faculty once said to be possessed by its natives. In England it is rare, and when it exists it is often mixed up with curious and somewhat bewildering superst.i.tions, signs and omens portending death and disaster, which can hardly be regarded as being more than seventh cousins of the true faculty.

I can make no claim to the proud prerogative of the seer, but upon several occasions I have had some extraordinary premonitions of what was about to happen. I can give no explanation as to how they came, all that I know is they arrived, and when they arrived I recognised them beyond all possibility of mistake. I have had three or four very striking and vivid premonitions in my life which have been fulfilled to the letter. I have others which await fulfilment. Of the latter I will not speak here--although I have them duly recorded--for were I to do so I should be accused of being party to bringing about the fulfilment of my own predictions. Those which have already been fulfilled, although of no general importance to any one else, were of considerable importance to me, as will be seen by the brief outline concerning three of them.

_Leaving Darlington Fore-seen._

The first occasion on which I had an absolutely unmistakable intimation of the change about to occur in my own circ.u.mstances was in 1880, the year in which I left the editors.h.i.+p of the _Northern Echo_ to become the a.s.sistant of Mr. John Morley[6] on the _Pall Mall Gazette_.

[6] Now Lord Morley.

On New Year's Day, 1880, it was forcibly impressed upon my mind that I was to leave Darlington in the course of that year. I remember on the 1st of January meeting a journalistic confrere on my way from Darlington station to the _Northern Echo_ office. After wis.h.i.+ng him a Happy New Year, I said, "This is the last New Year's Day I shall ever spend in Darlington; I shall leave the _Northern Echo_ this year." My friend looked at me in some amazement, and said, "And where are you going to?"

"To London," I replied, "because it is the only place which could tempt me from my present position, which is very comfortable, and where I have perfect freedom to say my say." "But," said my friend, somewhat dubiously, "what paper are you going to?" "I have no idea in the world,"

I said; "neither do I know a single London paper which would offer me a position on their staff of any kind, let alone one on which I would have any liberty of utterance. I see no prospect of any opening anywhere. But I know for certain that before the year is out I shall be on the staff of a London paper." "Come," said my friend, "this is superst.i.tion, and with a wife and family I hope you will do nothing rashly." "You need not fear as to that," I said; "I shall not seek any position elsewhere, it will have to come to me if I have to go to it. I am not going to throw myself out of a berth until I know where my next place is to be. Humanly speaking, I see no chance of my leaving Darlington, yet I have no more doubt than of my own existence that I shall be gone by this time next year." We parted.

The General Election soon came upon us, and when the time came for renewing my engagement on the _Northern Echo_, I had no option but to renew my contract and bind myself to remain at Darlington until July, 1880. Although I signed the contract, when the day arrived on which I had either to give notice or renew my engagement, I could not shake from me the conviction that I was destined to leave Darlington at least six months before my engagement expired. At that time the _Pall Mall Gazette_ was edited by Mr. Greenwood, and was, of all the papers in the land, the most antipathetic to the principles upon which I had conducted the _Northern Echo_.

The possibility of my becoming a.s.sistant editor to the editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ seemed at that time about as remote as that of the Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland receiving a cardinal's hat from the Pope of Rome. Nevertheless, no sooner had Mr. Gladstone been seated in power than Mr. George Smith handed over the _Pall Mall Gazette_ to his son-in-law, Mr. Henry Yates Thompson. Mr. Greenwood departed to found and edit the _St. James' Gazette_, and Mr. Morley became editor. Even then I never dreamed of going to the _Pall Mall_. Two other North-country editors and I, thinking that Mr.

Morley was left in rather a difficulty by the secession of several of the _Pall Mall_ staff, agreed to send up occasional contributions solely for the purpose of enabling Mr. Morley to get through the temporary difficulty in which he was placed by being suddenly summoned to edit a daily paper under such circ.u.mstances.

Midsummer had hardly pa.s.sed before Mr. Thompson came down to Darlington and offered me the a.s.sistant editors.h.i.+p. The proprietor of the _Northern Echo_ kindly waived his right to my services in deference to the request of Mr. Morley. As a result I left the _Northern Echo_ in September, 1880, and my presentiment was fulfilled. At the time when it was first impressed upon my mind, no living being probably antic.i.p.ated the possibility of such a change occurring in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ as would render it possible for me to become a.s.sistant editor, so that the presentiment could in no way have been due to any possible calculation of chances on my part.

_The Editors.h.i.+p of the "Pall Mall Gazette."_

The second presentiment to which I shall refer was also connected with the _Pall Mall Gazette_, and was equally clear and without any suggestion from outward circ.u.mstances. It was in October, 1883. My wife and I were spending a brief holiday in the Isle of Wight, and I remember that the great troopers, which had just brought back Lord Wolseley's army from the first Egyptian campaign, were lying in the Solent when we crossed. One morning about noon we were walking in the drizzling rain round St. Catherine's Point. It was a miserable day, the ground slippery and the footpath here and there rather difficult to follow. Just as we were at about the ugliest part of our climb I felt distinctly, as it were, a voice within myself saying: You will have to look sharp and make ready, because by a certain date (which as near as I can recollect was the 16th of March next year) you will have sole charge of the _Pall Mall Gazette_.

I was just a little startled and rather awed because, as Mr. Morley was then in full command and there was no expectation on his part of abandoning his post, the inference which I immediately drew was that he was going to die. So firmly was this impressed upon my mind that for two hours I did not like to speak about it to my wife. We took shelter for a time from the rain, but afterwards, on going home, I spoke on the subject which filled me with sadness, not without reluctance, and said to my wife, "Something has happened to me which has made a great impression upon my mind. When we were beside St. Catherine's Lighthouse I got into my head that Mr. Morley was going to die." "Nonsense," she said, "what made you think that?" "Only this," said I, "that I received an intimation as clear and unmistakable as that which I had when I was going to leave Darlington, that I had to look sharp and prepare for taking the sole charge of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ on March 16th next. That is all, and I do not see how that is likely to happen unless Mr. Morley is going to die." "Nonsense," said my wife, "he is not going to die; he is going to get into Parliament, that is what is going to happen." "Well," said I, "that may be. Whether he dies or whether he gets into Parliament, the one thing certain to me is that I shall have sole charge of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ next year, and I am so convinced of that that when we return to London I shall make all my plans on the basis of that certainty." And so I did. I do not hedge and hesitate at burning my boats.

As soon as I arrived at the _Pall Mall Gazette_ office, I announced to Mr. Thompson, to Mr. Morley, and to Mr. Milner,[7] who was then on the staff, that Mr. Morley was going to be in Parliament before March next year, for I need hardly say that I never mentioned my first sinister intimation. I told Mr. Morley and the others exactly what had happened, namely, that I had received notice to be ready to take sole charge of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ by March 16th next. They shrugged their shoulders, and Mr. Morley scouted the idea. He said he had almost given up the idea of entering Parliament, all preceding negotiations had fallen through, and he had come to the conclusion that he would stick to the _Pall Mall Gazette_. I said that he might come to what conclusion he liked, the fact remained that he was going to go.

[7] Now Lord Milner.

I remember having a talk at the time with Mr. Milner about it. I remarked that the worst of people having premonitions is that they carefully hide up their prophecies until after the event, and then no one believed in them. "This time no one shall have the least doubt as to the fact that I have had my premonition well in advance of the fact. It is now October. I have told everybody whom it concerns whom I know. If it happens not to come to pa.s.s I will never have faith in my premonitions any more, and you may chaff me as much as you please as to the superst.i.tion. But if it turns up trumps, then please remember that I have played doubles or quits and won."

n.o.body at the office paid much attention to my vision, and a couple of months later Mr. Morley came to consult me as to some slight change which he proposed to make in the terms of his engagement which he was renewing for another year. As this change affected me slightly he came, with that courtesy and consideration which he always displayed in his dealings with his staff, to ask whether I should have any objection to this alteration. As he was beginning to explain what this alteration would be I interrupted him. "Excuse me, Mr. Morley," said I, "when will this new arrangement come into effect?" "In May, I think," was the reply. "Then," said I, "you do not need to discuss it with me. I shall have sole charge of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ before that time. You will not be here then, you will be in Parliament." "But," said Mr.

Morley, "that is only your idea. What I want to know is whether you agree to the changes which I propose to make and which will somewhat affect your work in the office?" "But," I replied, "it is no use talking about that matter to me. You will not be here, and I shall be carrying on the _Pall Mall Gazette_; then what is the use of talking about it." Then Mr. Morley lifted his chin slightly in the air, and looking at me with somewhat natural disdain, he asked, "And, pray, do you mean to tell me that I have not to make a business arrangement because you have had a vision?" "Not at all," said I; "you, of course, will make what business arrangements you please,--I cannot expect you to govern your conduct by my vision;--but as I shall have charge of the paper it is no use discussing the question with me. You can make what arrangements you please so far as I am concerned. They are so much waste paper. I ask you nothing about the arrangement, because I know it will never come into effect so far as relates to my work on the paper." Finding that I was impracticable, Mr. Morley left and concluded his arrangement without consultation. One month later Mr. Ashton Dilke sickened with his fatal illness, and Mr. Morley was elected on February 24th, 1884, as Liberal candidate for Newcastle-on-Tyne. I remember that when the news came to Northumberland Street, the first remark which Mr. Thompson made was, "Well, Stead's presentiment is coming right after all."

I remember all through that contest, when the issue was for some time somewhat in doubt, feeling quite certain that if Mr. Morley did not get in he would die, or he would find some other const.i.tuency. I had no vision as to the success of his candidature at Newcastle. The one thing certain was that I was to have charge of the paper, and that he was to be out of it. When he was elected the question came as to what should be done? The control of the paper pa.s.sed almost entirely into my hands at once, and Mr. Morley would have left altogether on the day mentioned in my vision, had not Mr. Thompson kindly interfered to secure me a holiday before saddling me with the sole responsibility. Mr. Morley, therefore, remained till midsummer; but his connection with the paper was very slight, parliamentary duties, as he understood them, being incompatible with close day-to-day editing of an evening paper.

Here, again, it could not possibly have been said that my premonition had any share in bringing about its realisation. It was not known by Mr.

Ashton Dilke's most intimate friends in October that he would not be able to face another session. I did not even know that he was ill, and my vision, so far from being based on any calculation of Mr. Morley's chances of securing a seat in Parliament, was quite independent of all electoral changes. My vision, my message, my premonition, or whatever you please to call it, was strictly limited to one point, Mr. Morley only coming into it indirectly. I was to have charge of certain duties which necessitated his disappearance from Northumberland Street. Note also that my message did not say that I was to be _editor_ of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ on Mr. Morley's departure, nor was I ever in strict t.i.tle editor of that paper. I edited it, but Mr. Yates Thompson was nominally editor-in-chief, nor did I ever admit that I was editor until I was in the dock at the Old Bailey, when it would have been cowardly to have seemed to evade the responsibility of a position which I practically occupied, although, as a matter of fact, the post was never really conferred upon me.

_My Imprisonment._

The third instance which I will quote is even more remarkable, and entirely precluded any possibility of my premonition having any influence whatever in bringing about its realization. During what is known as the Armstrong trial it became evident from the judge's ruling that a conviction must necessarily follow. I was accused of having conspired to take Eliza Armstrong from her parents without their consent. My defence was that her mother had sold the child through a neighbour for immoral purposes. I never alleged that the father had consented, and the judge ruled with unmistakable emphasis that her mother's consent, even if proved, was not sufficient. Here I may interpolate a remark to the effect that if Mrs. Armstrong had been asked to produce her marriage lines the sheet anchor of the prosecution would have given way, for long after the trial it was discovered that from a point of law Mr. Armstrong had no legal rights over Eliza, as she was born out of wedlock. The council in the case, however, said we had no right to suggest this, however much we suspected it, unless we were prepared with evidence to justify the suggestion. As at that time we could not find the register of marriage at Somerset House the question was not put, and we were condemned largely on the false a.s.sumption that her father had legal rights as custodian of his daughter. And this, as it happened, was not the case. This, however, by the way.

When the trial was drawing to a close, conviction being certain, the question was naturally discussed as to what the sentence would be. Many of my friends, including those actively engaged in the trial on both sides, were strongly of opinion that under the circ.u.mstances it was certain I should only be bound over in my own recognisance to come up for judgment when called for. The circ.u.mstances were almost unprecedented; the judge, and the Attorney-General, who prosecuted, had in the strongest manner a.s.serted that they recognised the excellence of the motives which had led me to take the course which had landed me in the dock. The Attorney-General himself was perfectly aware that his Government could never have pa.s.sed the Criminal Law Amendment Act--would never even have attempted to do so--but for what I had done. The jury had found me guilty, but strongly recommended me to mercy on the ground, as they said, that I had been deceived by my agent. The conviction was very general that no sentence of imprisonment would be inflicted.