'I asked her if she had heard a sound when Mrs. Veal clapped her hand upon her knee; she said she did not remember that she did, but added: "She appeared to be as much a substance as I did, who talked with her; and I may be as soon persuaded that your apparition is talking to me now as that I did not really see her, for I was under no manner of fear; I received her as a friend and parted with her as such. I would not," she concluded "give one farthing to make anyone believe it, for I have no interest in it."'
From Defoe's day to this many people have read the tale, and several have held it to be a pure invention of the novelist. But some have taken the trouble to search out the history of the persons mentioned in it, and have found that they at any rate were real, and living in Dover and in Canterbury at the very dates required by the story. In the reign of Charles I. a Bargrave had been Dean of Canterbury, and a Richard Bargrave married a widow in the church of St. Alphege in 1700. There had been also Veals connected with Canterbury, which is curious, and we find that a son of William Veal was baptised in St. Mary's, Dover, in August 1707. Now, as Mrs. Veal kept her brother's house when they moved into Dover, he must have married after his sister's death on September 7, 1705. And if we turn over the Parish Register of that very year, we shall see the burial of a 'Mrs. Veal' on September 10.
The Watsons are also to be found in Canterbury, and an 'old Mr. Breton' in Dover, who was known to have given Mrs. Veal £10 a year.
Of course it does not follow from this that, because the characters of the tale published by Defoe only ten months after Mrs. Veal's death were actually alive in the very places where he said we should find them, Mrs. Veal's ghost did really appear to Mrs. Bargrave. But if not, why drag in all these people to no purpose? They could all have contradicted him, but the only person who did so was Mr. Veal himself, and he alone had a motive in disbelieving the appearance of his sister, as he may not have wished to hand over the rings which she had bequeathed to her friends, or to diminish the contents of the purse of gold he was driven to admit that she possessed.
Once more, it is perfectly certain that Mrs. Bargrave told and stood by her story, for in May 1714 a gentleman went to see her and cross-examine her. Mrs. Bargrave said that she did not know the editor of her story, but that it was quite correct except in three or four small points; for instance, that she and Mrs. Veal had talked about the persecution of Dissenters in the time of Charles II. was omitted in the printed version. The gentleman then made the corrections by his copy of the book, and added a long note in Latin about his visit to Mrs. Bargrave on May 21, 1714.
This copy of the book Mr. Aitken found in the British Museum; so, whether we believe Mrs. Bargrave's story or not, she undoubtedly told it, and it was not invented by Defoe.
The facts were discovered by Mr. G. A. Aitken, who published them in his edition of Defoe's tales. He does not seem to have known that in an old book, Dr. Welby's 'Signs before Death,' there is another version, with curious information about Mistress Veal's broken engagement with Major-General Sibourg, killed in the battle of Mons; and about the kinship of the mother of Mrs. Veal with the family of the Earl of Clarendon, which induced Queen Anne, moved by Archbishop Tillotson, to give Mr. Veal his place in the Customs. We also learn that Mrs. Bargrave's cold on the Sunday was caused by the conduct of her husband, who came home intoxicated, found her excited by her interview with Mrs. Veal, and saying, 'Molly, you are hot, you want to be cooled,' led her into the garden, where she passed the night.
THE CHIEF'S DAUGHTER
Raven's wife had died, and as he felt very lonely he soon determined to marry a second, but it was not very easy to find a girl to suit him, for she was obliged to be of noble birth as the other had been. And to add to the difficulties, a mischief-maker called Tsagwan was also seeking a wife of the same kind, and wherever Raven went Tsagwan flew after him, and told untrue stories about Raven, so that fathers refused to give him their daughters. At last Raven discovered this and went straight to the chief of the town.