The present Squire is not only an old friend of my early youth, but is connected through marriage, and he and his wife and I have always been on very friendly terms. He is the usual type of fox-hunting squire and county magistrate, did good service during the South African War by raising a corps of Yeomanry from the estate, and going out with them to fight his country's battles, and, needless to say, he received a hearty ovation from his wife and his county when he returned to them in safety. He is devoted to his beautiful house and estate, and is the last man to entertain fancies or superstitions in connection with either.
It is necessary to give these few words of explanation before relating an "incident in my life" for which I have always found it difficult to account, except on the supposition that some germ of psychic sensitiveness may exist, even under a hunting squire's "pink coat and top-boots."
I have known Greba Hall since I was a child, and all its quaint old family portraits, especially those in the fine oak-panelled hall, with the old-fashioned open fireplace and "dogs" of the fifteenth century. But there were so many of these pictures massed together that I have never distinguished one from the other, with the exception of the few immediate ancestors of my friend.
Some years ago I was staying with a lady who lived about three miles from Greba, and we had driven over there to have tea with the Squire's wife, whom I will call Mrs Lyon. The friend I have mentioned had become interested in psychic matters since my acquaintance with her, and I had discovered that she possessed some psychometric capacity.
In the interests of non-psychic readers, I may explain that psychometry is the science of learning to receive impressions and intuitions from the atmosphere surrounding any material object—a letter, a ring, a piece of pebble or shell, and so forth. We seem capable of impressing all material objects with our personality, and naturally this is especially the case in letters written and signed by us.
The lady with whom I was then staying—Mrs Fitz Herbert—had tried receiving impressions from letters several times, at my suggestion, and always with more or less success. We had been speaking of this with Mrs Lyon, who was always very sympathetic, and she suggested giving one of her own letters to Mrs Fitz Herbert to be "psychometrised."
The latter was sitting facing a door which led from the hall to an inner room, and over this door hung the half-length portrait of an old gentleman, whom I had never specially remarked before, as the picture was hung rather high, and there was nothing very characteristic about the face.
Mrs Fitz Herbert glanced at the portrait once or twice as she held the letter, and began her remarks upon the writer; but I had no reason to suppose that the glance was other than casual and accidental.
She gave, however, a very remarkably accurate description (as it turned out) of Mrs Lyon's unknown friend, both as to his character and the special and rather unique conditions of his life.
I was feeling naturally gratified that my "pupil" should have acquitted herself so well, when she suddenly uttered a little expression of pain and complained of severe headache.