He did not like to borrow, and he had no reason to conclude that any one suspected the miserable state of his finances. The evening before his expected removal, he laid down to rest with a troubled heart. This was in the very same seaport where the circumstance happened which I have already told you. After some hours of great mental suffering sleep came to his relief, and in his dream there seemed to approach him one of a most pleasing form, who told him that he not only saw that he was in distress, but that he well knew the cause of it, and that if he would walk down on the beach to a certain place which he pointed out as in a picture, he would find under some loose stones enough for his present necessities. In the morning, accordingly, almost as soon as it was light he hastened to the indicated spot and to his great surprise and delight found a sum amounting to a trifle more than was absolutely necessary for his journey. I would just, in passing, remark that he said that on another occasion, his father who died many years before appeared to him with an angry countenance, and assured him that he would suffer much from something he had done in reference to his family, but as this was evidently an unpleasant and even painful topic I did not wish him to enlarge upon it. The other fact I shall mention, happened to my grandfather who was also a minister. I am well aware that it is of such a nature that the relation of it would in most companies excite a burst of laughter or at least a contemptuous and sceptical smile, but I know I am addressing one who has studied in a very different school of philosophy. It was in the large town of B—m where my grandfather resided for many years, that the event took place. He himself my grandfather, my aunts, and my mother used often to tell it to their friends when the conversation turned on the supernatural. I have probably heard it a hundred times and I am not ashamed to say that on the testimony of such a man as my grandfather I cannot but yield to it my belief.
One morning when breakfast had just commenced, my grandfather went from the table, at which my grandmother also was sitting, into the passage, for what purpose I have now forgotten, and there he found (for the front door had been standing open,) a strange looking man in black, with a shuffling gait and a club foot. He declared that he had an instantaneous conviction that this was a supernatural appearance, and that a spirit of evil stood before him. The man in black exclaimed, moving towards the breakfast room, "I am come to take breakfast with you this morning." My grandfather convulsively seizing the handle of the door, said, with a stern look, "you are too late sir," to which the other instantly replied, "I am not too late for the remnant," and then rushed into the street. My grandfather followed, and to his amazement saw this creature at the top of the street, which was of great length, and in a moment or two he vanished. My grandmother heard a loud talking, and when my grandfather returned to the table in considerable agitation, she naturally wished to know what had occurred, but as she was near her confinement he of course concealed the matter from her. The mysterious words of the stranger followed him continually, and he puzzled himself in seeking to explain their meaning. In a few days my grandmother was confined. The child was dead-born and her life for some time hung in jeopardy. He now believed he had arrived at the solution of the difficulty—the infant was the "remnant" referred to.
I am not the subject of remarkable dreams. I had one, however, lately, and I give it you because it stands connected in my mind with the knowledge of a singular psychical fact which I am confident will greatly interest you, if you have not yet fallen upon it in the course of your reading. About a fortnight ago I thought I saw in my sleep, a young man, who is assistant to our principal surgeon, come into my room, looking exceedingly unwell. He laid himself on the other bed in my chamber, and I thought that he had come there to linger out his last illness, at which I felt not the least surprise or objection. He seemed to be perfectly resigned, and presently he began to converse with me, and after we had talked for some time, whilst he was replying to something I had said, I distinctly saw his spirit rise up out of his body. He gazed at the corpse with the deepest interest and pleasure. One moment he would stand by the head and survey the face, and the next move to the feet, and then gaze at the entire body. He called me to come and stand by his side and view this lifeless frame, which I did with as much placidity as he seemed himself to possess, and without the slightest idea of their being anything absurd in what I saw. I could not, however, help saying "O, that I could leave my body and have such a view of it as you have now of yours!" I remember no more. In the morning I had occasion to call on a friend, who has a large library containing many rare books. Not being in the humour for close reading (for I spend many hours at a time there) I took up from a centre table a volume of a lighter kind. It happened to be Mrs. Child's "Letters from New York." Turning the leaves over carelessly, my eye lighted on a chapter headed "The spirit surveying its own body!" She there says that she was told by a pious lady, that when once in a swoon, she felt that she left the body and was standing by it during the whole time it lasted; that she distinctly heard every word spoken by the doctor and her family, and saw every movement of their countenances, and all that was done with her body. I may observe that I have not heard that anything has occurred to the young man I saw. If I have not already tired your patience you may draw on my memory for something more. A line to that effect will oblige,
Yours, very truly,
Mrs. C. Crowe. R. I. O.
LETTER IV.
Edinburgh, Aug. 10th.
Madam,
In consequence of a long absence abroad, I never had, till recently, an opportunity of reading your agreeable work, "The Night side of Nature," which contains a mass of evidence in favour of your theories, to which I take the liberty of adding a few cases from my own experience.
Many years ago I lived in a house in Edinburgh, which belonged to my mother's relatives, and in which my maternal grandfather had died, several years antecedent to my own birth. The room in which I slept was that (but at the time unknown to me) in which my relative had expired. There were two beds in the room—one a large four-poster and the other a sort of couch. The latter was next the door, and both lay between it and the window, which was barred and bolted, and opposite to them was the fireplace, with rather a high mantlepiece. Being summer, the "board" was on the chimney. It was about eleven o'clock at night; the rest of the family had retired to rest. As there were only about two inches of candle left, I placed the candlestick on the mantlepiece, intending to allow it to burn out, and went to my bed, which was on the couch. I had just lain down, and was looking towards the candle, when, to my extreme horror, I perceived a tall old man in his night dress, standing by the mantlepiece. His sight seemed impaired, for he put forth his hand and felt for something, and then moved across the fireplace, in doing which, he obscured the light on passing it. My gaze was riveted on him. He then turned towards the large bed on my left, and stretching out his hands attempted with a feeble effort to lay himself down, and in doing so I heard him sigh distinctly. He disappeared almost at the same moment. He did not appear to have noticed me. I immediately sprang out of bed and opening the door on my right hand, called out loudly, but never left the doorway, as I was resolved that if the figure were that of a living person there should be no means of egress. On the assembling of the family in my room, a search was made; but there was nothing to be seen, and there had been no possibility of a human being having been in the room; the affair was put down to an illusion. Yet so strong an impression did it leave on my mind, that a few years since (1851 or 52), when in India, I published in "Saunder's Magazine," printed at the Delhi Gazette press, an account of this apparition, in a narrative, which I wrote called "Idone, or Incidents in the life of a dreamer," and which with the exception of this introductory vision, was, in reality, a series of actual dreams of which I had kept a record, and this I endeavoured to weave into a vague story, with the view of illustrating how a person might live two distinct lives!