A lady, with whose family I am acquainted, had a son abroad. One night she was lying in bed, with a door open which led into an adjoining room, where there was a fire. She had not been asleep, when she saw her son cross this adjoining room and approach the fire, over which he leaned, as if very cold. She saw that he was shivering and dripping wet. She immediately exclaimed, “That’s my G——!” The figure turned its face round, looked at her sadly, and disappeared. That same night the young man was drowned.
Mr. P——, the American manager, in one of his voyages to England, being in bed one night, between sleeping and waking, was disturbed by somebody coming into his cabin, dripping with water. He concluded that the person had fallen overboard, and asked him why he came there to disturb him, when there were plenty of other places for him to go to. The man muttered something indistinctly, and Mr. P—— then perceived that it was his own brother. This roused him completely, and feeling quite certain that somebody had been there, he got out of bed to feel if the carpet was wet on the spot where his brother stood. It was not, however; and when he questioned his shipmates, the following morning, they assured him that nobody had been overboard, nor had anybody been in his cabin. Upon this, he noted down the date and the particulars of the event, and, on his arrival at Liverpool, sent the paper sealed to a friend in London, desiring it might not be opened till he wrote again. The Indian post, in due time, brought the intelligence that on that night Mr. P——’s brother was drowned.
A similar case to this is that of Captain Kidd, which Lord Byron used to say he heard from the captain himself. He was one night awakened in his hammock, by feeling something heavy lying upon him. He opened his eyes, and saw, or thought he saw, by the indistinct light in the cabin, his brother, in uniform, lying across the bed. Concluding that this was only an illusion arising out of some foregone dream, he closed his eyes again to sleep; but again he felt the weight, and there was the form still lying across the bed. He now stretched out his hand, and felt the uniform, which was quite wet. Alarmed, he called out for somebody to come to him; and, as one of the officers entered, the figure disappeared. He afterward learned that his brother was drowned on that night in the Indian ocean.
Ben Jonson told Drummond, of Hawthornden, that, being at Sir Robert Cotton’s house, in the country, with old Cambden, he saw, in a vision, his eldest son, then a child at London, appear to him with a mark of a bloody cross on his forehead; at which, amazed, he prayed to God; and, in the morning, mentioned the circumstance to Mr. Cambden, who persuaded him it was fancy. In the meantime, came letters announcing that the boy had died of the plague. The custom of indicating an infected house by a red cross is here suggested, the cross apparently symbolizing the manner of the death.
Mr. S—— C——, a gentleman of fortune, had a son in India. One fine, calm summer’s morning, in the year 1780, he and his wife were sitting at breakfast, when she arose and went to the window; upon which, turning his eyes in the same direction, he started up and followed her, saying, “My dear, do you see that?”—“Surely,” she replied, “it is our son. Let us go to him!” As she was very much agitated, however, he begged her to sit down and recover herself; and when they looked again, the figure was gone. The appearance was that of their son, precisely as they had last seen him. They took note of the hour, and afterward learned that he had died in India at that period.
A lady, with whose family I am acquainted, was sitting with her son, named Andrew, when she suddenly exclaimed that she had seen him pass the window, in a white mantle. As the window was high from the ground, and overhung a precipice, no one could have passed; else, she said, “Had there been a path, and he not beside her at the moment, she should have thought he had walked by on stilts.” Three days afterward, Andrew was seized with a fever which he had caught from visiting some sick neighbors, and expired after a short illness.
In 1807, when several people were killed in consequence of a false alarm of fire, at Sadler’s Wells, a woman named Price, in giving her evidence at the inquest, said that her little girl had gone into the kitchen about half-past ten o’clock, and was surprised to see her brother there, whom she supposed to be at the theatre. She spoke to him, whereupon he disappeared. The child immediately told her mother, who, alarmed, set off to the theatre, and found the boy dead.
In the year 1813, a young lady in Berlin, whose intended husband was with the army at Dusseldorf, heard some one knock at the door of her chamber, and her lover entered in a white negligé, stained with blood. Thinking that this vision proceeded from some disorder in herself, she arose and quitted the room, to call a servant; who not being at hand, she returned, and found the figure there still. She now became much alarmed, and having mentioned the circumstance to her father, inquiries were made of some prisoners that were marching through the town, and it was ascertained that the young man had been wounded, and carried to the house of Dr. Ehrlick, in Leipsic, with great hopes of recovery. It afterward proved, however, that he had died at that period, and that his last thoughts were with her. This lady earnestly wished and prayed for another such visit, but she never saw him again.
In the same year, a woman in Bavaria, who had a brother with the army in Russia, was one day at field-work, on the skirts of a forest, and everything quiet around her, when she repeatedly felt herself hit by small stones, though, on looking round, she could see nobody. At length, supposing it was some jest, she threw down her implements, and stepped into the wood whence they had proceeded, when she saw a headless figure, in a soldier’s mantle, leaning against a tree. Afraid to approach, she summoned some laborers from a neighboring field, who also saw it; but on going up to it, it disappeared. The woman declared her conviction that the circumstance indicated her brother’s death; and it was afterward ascertained that he had, on that day, fallen in a trench.
Some few years ago, a Mrs. H——, residing in Limerick, had a servant whom she much esteemed, called Nelly Hanlon. Nelly was a very steady person, who seldom asked for a holy-day, and consequently Mrs. H—— was the less disposed to refuse her when she requested a day’s leave of absence for the purpose of attending a fair that was to take place a few miles off. The petition was therefore favorably heard; but when Mr. H—— came home and was informed of Nelly’s proposed excursion, he said she could not be spared, as he had invited some people to dinner for that day, and he had nobody he could trust with the keys of the cellar except Nelly, adding that it was not likely his business would allow him to get home time enough to bring up the wine himself.