Mr. H——, an eminent artist, was walking arm in arm with a friend in Edinburgh, when he suddenly left him, saying, “Oh, there’s my brother!” He had seen him with the most entire distinctness; but was confounded by losing sight of him, without being able to ascertain whither he had vanished. News came, ere long, that at that precise period his brother had died.
Mrs. T——, sitting in her drawing-room, saw her nephew, then at Cambridge, pass across the adjoining room. She started up to meet him, and, not finding him, summoned the servants to ask where he was. They, however, had not seen him, and declared he could not be there; while she as positively declared he was. The young man had died at Cambridge quite unexpectedly.
A Scotch minister went to visit a friend who was dangerously ill. After sitting with the invalid for some time, he left him to take some rest, and went below. He had been reading in the library some little time, when, on looking up, he saw the sick man standing at the door. “God bless me!” he cried, starting up, “how can you be so imprudent?” The figure disappeared; and, hastening up stairs, he found his friend had expired.
Three young men at Cambridge had been out hunting, and afterward dined together in the apartments of one of them. After dinner, two of the party, fatigued with their morning’s exercise, fell asleep, while the third, a Mr. M——, remained awake. Presently the door opened, and a gentleman entered and placed himself behind the sleeping owner of the rooms, and, after standing there a minute, proceeded to the gyp-room—a small inner chamber, from which there was no egress. Mr. M—— waited a little while, expecting the stranger would come out again; but, as he did not, he awoke his host, saying, “There’s somebody gone into your room: I don’t know who it can be.”
The young man rose and looked into the gyp-room; but, there being nobody there, he naturally accused Mr. M—— of dreaming; but the other assured him he had not been asleep. He then described the stranger—an elderly man, &c., dressed like a country squire, with gaiters on, &c. “Why that’s my father,” said the host, and he immediately made inquiry, thinking it possible the old gentleman had slipped out unobserved by Mr. M——. He was not, however, to be heard of; and the post shortly brought a letter announcing that he had died at the time he had been seen in his son’s chamber at Cambridge.
Mr. C—— F—— and some young ladies, not long ago, were standing together looking in at a shop window at Brighton,—when he suddenly darted across the way, and they saw him hurrying along the street, apparently in pursuit of somebody. After waiting a little while, as he did not return, they went home without him; and, when he was come, they of course arraigned him for his want of gallantry.
“I beg your pardon,” said he; “but I saw an acquaintance of mine that owes me money, and I wanted to get hold of him.”
“And did you?” inquired the ladies.
“No,” returned he; “I kept sight of him some time; but I suddenly missed him—I can’t think how.”
No more was thought of the matter; but, by the next morning’s post, Mr. C—— F—— received a letter enclosing a draft, from the father of the young man he had seen, saying that his son had just expired, and that one of his last requests had been that he would pay Mr. C—— F—— the money that he owed him.