Dreams with more interesting sequels have occurred. There is a well-known instance of an English landowner, whose father appeared in a dream and told the details of a debt which he had paid, but could not be proved by the son to have been satisfied. Still better in this connection is a story St. Augustine tells. “Of a surety, when we were at Milan, we heard tell of a certain person of whom was demanded payment of a debt, with production of his deceased father’s acknowledgment, which debt, unknown to the son, the father had paid; whereupon the man began to be very sorrowful, and to marvel that his father while dying did not tell him what he owed when he also made his will. Then in this exceeding anxiousness of his, his said father appeared to him in a dream, and made known to him where was the counter acknowledgment by which that acknowledgment was cancelled. Which when the young man had found and showed, he not only rebutted the wrongful claim of a false debt, but also got back his father’s note of hand, which the father had not got back when the money was paid.”
A long story to the purpose is told in the “History of Apparitions” already mentioned. The Rev. Dr. Scott, “a man whose Learning and Piety was eminent, and whose Judgment was known to be so good, as not to be easily imposed upon,” was sitting alone in his room in Broad Street. Suddenly he looked up from his book and saw a figure in the room. Distracted by the sight, it was a long time before he could gain composure, but eventually he became sufficiently calm to ask upon what errand the spirit came. He said that he had left a good estate which his grandson rightly enjoyed, but which was sued for by two nephews of the deceased. ‘It is not’ (said the spectre) ‘that the Nephews have any Right; but the grand Deed of Settlement, being the conveyance of the Inheritance, is lost; and for want of the Deed they will not be able to make out their Title to the Estate.’
“‘Well,’ says the Doctor, ‘and still what can I do in the Case?’
“‘Why,’ said the Spectre, ‘if you will go down to my Grandson’s House, and take such Persons with you as you can trust, I will give you such Instructions as that you shall find out the Deed or Settlement, which lies concealed in a Place where I put it with my own Hands, and where you shall direct my Grandson to take it out in your Presence.’
“‘But why then can you not direct your Grandson himself to do this?’ says the Doctor.
“‘Ask me not about that,’ says the Apparition: ‘there are divers Reasons which you may know hereafter.’ ...
“After this Discourse, and several other Expostulations, (for the Doctor was not easily prevail’d upon to go ’till the Spectre seemed to look angrily, and even to threaten him for refusing,) he did at last Promise him to go.
“Having obtained a Promise of him, he told him he might let his Grandson know that he had formerly convers’d with his Grandfather, (but not how lately, or in what manner,) and ask to see the House; and that in such an upper Room or Loft, he should find a great deal of old Lumber, old Coffers, old Chests, and such Things as were out of Fashion now, thrown by, and pil’d up upon one another, to make room for more modish Furniture, Cabinets, Chests of Drawers, and the like.
“That in such a particular Corner was such a certain old Chest, with an old broken Lock upon it, and a Key in it, which could neither be turn’d in the Lock, or pulled out of it.
“N.B. Here he gave him a particular Description of the Chest, and of the Outside, the Lock and the Cover, and also of the Inside, and of a private place in it, which no Man could come to, or find out, unless the whole Chest was pull’d in Pieces.