The Thursday and Friday night mentioned in this account are December 26th and 27th [27th and 28th], 1883. It was upon the Thursday night my dream occurred.
Walter Bruce.
In reply to questions, Mrs. Stubbing says:—
Yes, I saw one man cut the other. The wound was told to me to be just like what I had seen in my dream. I received a telegram announcing the death of my brother on Saturday morning. No, I never had any such dream as that before.
IV. E. I quote the following case from Phantasms of the Living, vol. i. p. 425. The account was written by Mrs. T—— in 1883.
On November 18th, 1863, I was living near Adelaide, and not long recovered from a severe illness at the birth of an infant, who was then five months old. My husband had also suffered from neuralgia, and had gone to stay with friends at the seaside for the benefit of bathing. One night during his absence the child woke me about midnight; having hushed him off to sleep, I said, "Now, sir, I hope you will let me rest!" I lay down, and instantly became conscious of two figures standing at the door of my room. One, M. N. (these are not the real initials), whom I recognised at once, was that of a former lover, whose misconduct and neglect had compelled me to renounce him. Of this I am sure, that if ever I saw him in my life, it was then. I was not in the least frightened; but said to myself, as it were, "You never used to wear that kind of waistcoat." The door close to which he stood was in a deep recess close to the fireplace, for there was no grate; we burnt logs only. In that recess stood a man in a tweed suit. I saw the whole figure distinctly, but not the face, and for this reason: on the edge of the mantelshelf always stood a morocco leather medicine chest, which concealed the face from me. (On this being stated to our friends, the Singletons, they asked to go into the room and judge for themselves. They expressed themselves satisfied that would be the case to any one on the bed where I was.) I had an impression that this other was a cousin of M. N.'s, who had been the means of leading him astray while in the North of England. I never saw him in my life; he died in India.
M. N. was in deep mourning; he had a look of unutterable sorrow upon his face, and was deadly pale. He never opened his lips, but I read his heart as if it were an open book, and it said, "My father is dead, and I have come into his property." I answered, "How much you have grown like your father!" Then in a moment, without appearing to walk, he stood at the foot of the child's cot, and I saw distinctly the blueness of his eyes as he gazed on my boy, and then raised them to Heaven as if in prayer.
All vanished. I looked round and remarked a trivial circumstance, viz., that the brass handles of my chest of drawers had been rubbed very bright. Not till then was I conscious of having seen a spirit, but a feeling of awe (not fear) came over me, and I prayed to be kept from harm, although there was no reason to dread it. I slept tranquilly, and in the morning I went across to the parsonage and told the clergyman's wife what I had seen. She, of course, thought it was merely a dream. But no—if it were a dream should I not have seen him as I had known him, a young man of twenty-two, without beard or whiskers? But there was all the difference that sixteen years would make in a man's aspect.
On Saturday my husband returned, and my brother having ridden out to see us on Sunday afternoon, I told them both my vision as we sat together on the verandah. They treated it so lightly that I determined to write it down in my diary and see if the news were verified. And from that diary I am now quoting. Also I mentioned it to at least twelve or fourteen other people, and bid them await the result.
And surely enough, at the end of several weeks, my sister-in-law wrote that M. N.'s father died at C—— Common on November 18th, 1863, which exactly tallied with the date of the vision. He left £45,000 to be divided between his son and daughter, but the son has never been found.