Real Ghost Stories Part 8

_Mr. Burt's Dream._

When I was in Newcastle I availed myself of the opportunity to call upon Mr. Burt, M.P. On questioning him as to whether he had ever seen a ghost, he replied in the negative, but remarked that he had had one experience which had made a deep impression upon his mind, which partook more of the nature of clairvoyance than the apparition of a phantom. "I suppose it was a dream," said Mr. Burt. "The dream or vision, or whatever else you call it, made a deep impression upon my mind. You remember Mr. Crawford, the Durham miners' agent, was ill for a long time before his death. Just before his death he rallied, and we all hoped he was going to get better. I had heard nothing to the contrary, when one morning early I had a very vivid dream. I dreamed that I was standing by the bedside of my old friend. I pa.s.sed my hand over his brow, and he spoke to me with great tenderness, with much greater tenderness than he had ever spoken before. He said he was going to die, and that he was comforted by the long and close friendship that had existed between us.

I was much touched by the feeling with which he spoke, and felt awed as if I were in the presence of death. When I woke up the impression was still strong in my mind, and I could not resist the feeling that Crawford was dying. In a few hours I received a telegram stating that he was dead. This is more remarkable because I fully expected he was going to get better, and at the moment of my dream he seems to have died. I cannot give any explanation of how it came about. It is a mystery to me, and likely to remain so."

This astral camera, to which "future things unfolded lie," also retains the imperishable image of all past events. Mr. Browning's great uncle's studs brought vividly to the mind of the clairvoyant a smell of blood, and recalled all the particulars of the crime of which they had been silent witnesses. Any article or relic may serve as a key to unlock the chamber of this hidden camera.

Chapter II.

Tragic Happenings Seen in Dreams.

_An Irish Outrage Seen in a Dream._

One of the best stories of clairvoyance as a means of throwing light on crime is thus told by a correspondent of the Psychical Research Society:

One morning in December, 1836, he had the following dream, or, he would prefer to call it, revelation. He found himself suddenly at the gate of Major N. M.'s avenue, many miles from his home. Close to him was a group of persons, one of whom was a woman with a basket on her arm, the rest men, four of whom were tenants of his own, while the others were unknown to him. Some of the strangers seemed to be murderously a.s.saulting H. W., one of his tenants, and he interfered. "I struck violently at the man on my left, and then with greater violence at the man's face on my right.

Finding, to my surprise, that I had not knocked down either, I struck again and again with all the violence of a man frenzied at the sight of my poor friend's murder. To my great amazement I saw my arms, although visible to my eye, were without substance, and the bodies of the men I struck at and my own came close together after each blow through the shadowy arms I struck with. My blows were delivered with more extreme violence than I ever think I exerted, but I became painfully convinced of my incompetency. I have no consciousness of what happened after this feeling of unsubstantiality came upon me." Next morning he experienced the stiffness and soreness of violent bodily exercise, and was informed by his wife that in the course of the night he had much alarmed her by striking out again and again with his arms in a terrific manner, 'as if fighting for his life.' He, in turn, informed her of his dream, and begged her to remember the names of those actors in it who were known to him. On the morning of the following day (Wednesday) he received a letter from his agent, who resided in the town close to the scene of the dream, informing him that his tenant had been found on Tuesday morning at Major N. M.'s gate, speechless and apparently dying from a fracture of the skull, and that there was no trace of the murderers. That night he started for the town, and arrived there on Thursday morning. On his way to a meeting of magistrates he met the senior magistrate of that part of the country, and requested him to give orders for the arrest of the three men whom, besides H. W., he had recognised in his dream, and to have them examined separately. This was at once done. The three men gave identical accounts of the occurrence, and all named the woman who was with them. She was then arrested, and gave precisely similar testimony. They said that between eleven and twelve on the Monday night they had been walking homewards along the road, when they were overtaken by three strangers, two of whom savagely a.s.saulted H. W., while the other prevented his friends from interfering. H. W. did not die, but was never the same man afterwards; he subsequently emigrated. (Vol. I. p.

142.)

The advantage which would accrue from the universal establishment of this instantaneous vision would not be unmixed. That it is occasionally very useful is obvious.

_A Clairvoyant Vision of a Murder._

The most remarkable experiment in clairvoyant detection that I have ever come across is told by Dr. Backman, of Kalmar, in a recent number of the "Psychical Research Society's Proceedings." It is as follows:--

"In the month of October, 1888, the neighbourhood of Kalmar was shocked by a horrible murder committed in the parish of Wissefjerda, which was about fifty kilometres from Kalmar as the crow flies. What happened was that a farmer named P. J. Gustafsson had been killed by a shot when driving, having been forced to stop by stones having been placed on the road. The murder had been committed in the evening, and a certain tramp was suspected, because Gustafsson, in his capacity of under bailiff, had arrested him, and he had then undergone several years' penal servitude.

"This was all that I or the public knew about the case on November 1st of the same year. The place where the murder was committed and the persons implicated in it were quite unknown to me and the clairvoyant.

"On the same day, November 1st, having some reason to believe that such a trial would be at least partially successful, I experimented with a clairvoyant, Miss Agda Olsen, to try if it was possible to get some information in this way about such an event.

"The judge of the neighbourhood, who had promised to be present, was unfortunately prevented from coming. The clairvoyant was hypnotised in my wife's presence, and was then ordered 'to look for the place where the murder had been committed and see the whole scene, follow the murderer in his flight, and describe him and his home and the motive for the murder.' Miss Olsen then spoke as follows, in great agitation, sometimes using violent gestures. I took notes of her exact words and reproduce them here fully.

"'It is between two villages--I see a road--in a wood--now it is coming--the gun--now he is coming along, driving--the horse is afraid of the stones--hold the horse! hold the horse! now! now he is killing him--he was kneeling when he fired--blood! blood!--now he is running in the wood--seize him!--he is running in an opposite direction to the horse in many circuits--not on any footpaths. He wears a cap and grey clothes--light--has long coa.r.s.e brown hair, which has not been cut for a long time--grey-blue eyes--treacherous looks--great dark brown beard--he is accustomed to work on the land. I believe he has cut his right hand.

He has a scar or a streak between his thumb and forefinger. He is suspicious and a coward.

"'The murderer's home is a red wooden house, standing a little way back from the road. On the ground-floor is a room which leads into the kitchen, and from that again into the pa.s.sage. There is also a larger room which does not communicate with the kitchen. The church of Wissefjerda is situated obliquely to your right when you are standing in the pa.s.sage.

"'His motive was enmity; it seems as if he had bought something--taken something--a paper. He went away from home at daybreak, and the murder was committed in the evening.'

"Miss Olsen was then awakened, and like all my subjects, she remembered perfectly what she had been seeing, which had made a very profound impression on her; she added several things which I did not write down.

"On November 6th (Monday) I met Miss Olsen, and she told me in great agitation that she had met the murderer from Wissefjerda in the street.

He was accompanied by a younger person and followed by two policemen, and was walking from the police office to the gaol. I at once expressed my doubts of her being right, partly because country people are generally arrested by the country police, partly because they are always taken directly to gaol. But when she insisted on it, and maintained that it was the person she had seen when asleep, I went to the police office.

"I inquired if any one had been arrested on suspicion of the crime in question, and a police-constable answered that such was the case, and that, as they had been taken to the town on Sunday, they had been kept in the police-station over night, and after that had been obliged to go on foot to gaol, accompanied by two constables." (The police-constable, T. A. Ljung, states that Dr. Backman described quite accurately the appearance of the house, its furniture, how the rooms were situated, where the suspected man lived, and gave a very correct account of Niklas Jonna.s.son's personal appearance. The doctor also asked him if he had observed that Jonna.s.son had a scar on his right hand. He said he had not then observed it, but ascertained later that it really was so, and Jonna.s.son said that he got it from an abscess).

"The trial was a long one, and showed that Gustafsson had agreed to buy for Jonna.s.son, but in his own name, the latter's farm, which was sold by auction on account of Jonna.s.son's debts. This is what is called a thief's bargain. Gustafsson bought the farm, but kept it for himself.

The statements of the accused men were very vague; the father had prepared an _alibi_ with much care, but it failed to account for just the length of time that was probably enough to commit the murder in. The son tried to prove an _alibi_ by means of two witnesses, but these confessed that they had given false evidence, which he had bribed them to do when they were in prison with him on account of another matter.

"But though the evidence against the defendants was very strong, it was not considered that there was sufficient legal evidence, and, there being no jury in Sweden, they were left to the verdict of posterity."

(pp. 213-216.)

_A Terrible Vision of Torture at Sea._

The following marvellous story of a vision reaches me from Scotland. The Rev. D. McQueen writes me from 165, Dalkeith-road, Edinburgh, December 14th, as follows:--

"I have been much interested in your Ghost Stories. I wish to inform you of one I have heard, and which I think eclipses in interest, minuteness of detail, and tragical pathos anything I have ever known, and which, if published and edited by your graphic pen, would cause a sensation in every scientific society in Great Britain.

"It is not in my power to write the whole story, as it is nearly sufficient for a pamphlet by itself, but its accuracy can be vouched for by many of the most respectable and intelligent people in the neighbourhood of Old c.u.mnock. I heard the story some years ago, and would have written you sooner, only I wished to make inquiries as to the whereabouts of the subject of the remarkable vision.

"About twenty years ago a young man belonging to Ayrshire embarked from an Australian port to re-visit his friends in this country. His mother and father still live. The former saw all that befell her son from the moment he set foot on the deck till he was consigned to the sea. She can describe the port from which he sailed, the crew of the ship, his fellow pa.s.sengers. It was a weird story, for her son, by name George, was done to death by the brutality of the officers. This was partially corroborated by a pa.s.senger named Gilmour, who called on her after his arrival in London. When he entered the house she said, 'Why did you allow them to ill-use my son.' He started, and said, 'Who told you?' She related all that happened during the weeks her son was ill, and when she finished her guest fainted. According to her, her son was ill-used from the time he started till his death. For example, she saw her son struck by a ball of ropes, as she said (a cork fender). He said that was so.

She saw him put into a strait jacket and lowered into the hold of the ship, which actually took place. She saw them playing cards on deck and putting the counters into her son's pocket, which were actually found in his clothes when they came back. She can describe the berth her son occupied, the various parts of the ship, with an accuracy that is surprising to one that never has been on board ship. And last of all she tells the manner of his burial, the dress, the service that was read, the body moving, the protest of one pa.s.senger that he was not dead. She had a succession of trances by day and night which are unparalleled. She saw some of the painful scenes in church, and has been known to cry out in horror and agony. If you could only get some one to take it down from her own lips--she alone can tell it--you would make a narrative that would thrill the heart of every reader in the kingdom. The woman is reliable. She is the wife of a well-to-do farmer. Her name is Mrs.

Arthur, Benston Farm, Old c.u.mnock.

"I have written an incoherent letter, as I am hurried at present, but I hope you will see your way to investigate it. I say again, I have never heard so weird and true a tale. But get the lady to tell her own story.

It is wonderful! wonderful!"

On January 9th, 1892, the Rev. A. Macdonald, of the U.P. Manse, Old c.u.mnock, wrote to me as follows:--

"I have much pleasure in replying to the questions you put to me, whether I am aware of the clairvoyant experiences of Mrs. Arthur (Benston, New c.u.mnock), and whether I consider her a reliable witness.

"It is many years since I heard Mrs. Arthur relate her strange visions, and there are other friends, beside myself, who have heard the same narrative from her own lips.

"Mrs. Arthur, I hold, is incapable of inventing the story which she tells, for she is a truthful, conscientious, and Christian woman. She herself believes in the reality of the vision as firmly as she believes in her own existence. The death of her son on his way back from Australia was the cause of a sorrow too deep for the mother to weave such a romance around it. Further, her statements are not the accretions of after years, but were told, and told freely, at the time when her son was known to have died. This is about twenty years ago. During these twenty years she has not varied in her statements, and repeats them still with all the faith and with all the circ.u.mstantial details of the first narration.

"I consider her vision--extending as it does from the time the homeward-bound vessel left the harbour, over many days, until the burial of her son's body at sea--worthy of a place alongside the best of the Ghost Stories you have given to the world."

Mr. Arthur, the son of the percipient in this strange story, wrote to me as follows from Loch-side, New c.u.mnock, Ayrshire, on the 14th January, 1892:--

"My mother, Mrs. Arthur, of Benston, New c.u.mnock, Ayrshire, received your valued favour of 8th inst., together with a copy of the Christmas Number of the _Review of Reviews_. The circ.u.mstances you refer to happened twenty-one years ago, a short account of which appeared in a Scotch paper, and a much fuller one appeared in an Australian paper, but, unfortunately, no copy has been preserved, even the diary in which the particulars were written has been destroyed.

"It would not serve any good purpose for you to send a shorthand writer to interview my mother, as she is approaching fourscore years, and her memory is rapidly failing. I believe I can get a very full account (barring _minutiae_) from a younger brother. But if the young man who was a fellow-pa.s.senger with my brother (when my brother died at sea off the Cape of Good Hope) is still alive, he is the proper party to give a full and minute account. He was the party who informed my parents of my brother's death. My mother lost no time in visiting him for particulars. I think the young man's name was Gilmour. He was then in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. When he began to narrate what had taken place, my mother stopped him and asked him to listen to her. She then went on to say that on a certain date, while she was about her usual household duties, her son came into the room where she was, said so and so and so and so, and walked out. Mr. Gilmour said that what she had said was exactly what had occurred during his illness, and the date he had visited her was the day of his death.

"I was at this time living in Belize, British Honduras. On my mentioning this circ.u.mstance to some of my friends there, Mr. c.o.c.kburn, who was Police Magistrate in Belize, said that his daughter, Miss c.o.c.kburn, had a similar experience. He lived at that time in Grenada, and Miss c.o.c.kburn was at school in England. One day she was out walking with the other school girls; suddenly she saw her mother walking along the street in front of her. Miss C. ran off to speak to her, but before she caught her up, her mother turned down a side street. When the daughter reached the corner the mother was nowhere to be seen. Miss c.o.c.kburn wrote to her mother, telling her what she had seen, by the outgoing mail. Her letter crossed one from her father, telling her that her mother had died that day."

Clairvoyance is closely related to the phenomenon of the Double, for the clairvoyant seems to have either the faculty of transporting herself to distant places, or of bringing the places within range of her sight.

Here is a narrative sent me by Mr. Masey, Fellow of the Geological Society, writing to me from 8, Gloucester Road, Kew, which ill.u.s.trates the connection between clairvoyance and the Double:--

"Mrs. Mary Masey, who resided on Redcliffe Hill, Bristol, at the beginning of this century, was a member of the Society of Friends, and was held in high esteem for piety.

"A memorable incident in her life was that one night she dreamt that a Mr. John Henderson, a noted man of the same community, had gone to Oxford, and that he had died there. In the course of the next day, Mr.