A curious old story illustrative of ‘second sight,’ of which there are several versions, is that of ‘Booty’s Ghost,’ an account of which occurs in Kirby’s ‘Wonderful and Eccentric Museum’ (ii. 247). It was an action for slander of a deceased husband brought by the widow, and the following extract, which contains an outline of the strange tale, is from the journal of Mr. Spinks:

‘Friday, May 15, 1687.—We had the observation of Mr. Booty this day. Captain Barrisby, Captain Bristowe, Captain Brown, I, and Mr. Ball, merchant, went on shore in Captain Barnaby’s boat to shoot rabbits upon Stromboli; and when we had done, we called our men together by us, and about half an hour and fourteen minutes after three in the afternoon, to our great surprise, we all of us saw two men come running towards us with such swiftness that no living man could run half so fast as they did run, when all of us heard Captain Barnaby say, “Lord, bless me! the foremost is old Booty, my next door neighbour,” but he said he did not know the other that run behind; he was in black clothes, and the foremost was in grey. Then Captain Barnaby desired all of us to take an account of the time, and put it down in our pocket-books, and when we got on board we wrote it in our journals; for we saw them into the flames of fire, and there was a great noise which greatly affrighted us all, for we none of us ever saw or heard the like before. Captain Barnaby said he was certain it was old Booty, which he saw running over Stromboli and into the flames of hell. It is stated that Captain Barnaby told his wife, and she told somebody else, and that it was afterwards told to Mrs. Booty, who arrested Captain Barnaby in a thousand pound action for what he had said of her husband. Captain Barnaby gave bail to it, and it came on to a trial in the Court of King’s Bench, and they had Mr. Booty’s wearing apparel brought into Court, and the sexton of the parish, and the people that were with him when he died; and we swore to our journals, and it came to the same time within two minutes. Ten of our men swore to the buttons on his coat, and that they were covered with the same sort of cloth his coat was made of, and so it proved. The jury asked Mr. Spinks if he knew Mr. Booty. He answered, “I never saw him till he ran by me on the burning mountain.”’

The Chief Justice from April 1687 to February 1689 was Sir Robert Wright. His name is not given in the report, but the judge said: ‘Lord, have mercy on me, and grant that I may never see what you have seen. One, two, or three may be mistaken, but thirty can never be mistaken.’ So the widow lost her suit.[221]

It appears, also, that coming events are mostly forecasted by various symbolic omens which generally take the form of spectral exhibitions. Thus, a phantom shroud seen in the morning on a living person is said to betoken his death in the course of the day; but if seen late in the evening, no particular time is indicated, further than that it will take place within the year. If, too, the shroud does not cover the whole body, the fulfilment of the vision may be expected at some distant period.

But these kind of omens vary largely in different countries; and, on the Continent, where much misplaced faith is attached to them, they are frequently the source of much needless dread.

CHAPTER XVIII
COMPACTS BETWEEN THE LIVING AND DEAD

Sometimes ghosts appear in consequence of an agreement made before death with some particular friend, that he or she who first died should appear to the survivor. Numerous tales are told illustrative of this belief, one of the best authenticated being that recorded by Lord Brougham,[222] who, speaking of his intimate friend at the University, writes: ‘There was no divinity class, but we frequently in our walks discussed and speculated upon many grave subjects, among others, on the immortality of the soul and on a future state. This question and the possibility, I will not say of ghosts walking, but of the dead appearing to the living, were subjects of much speculation; and we actually committed the folly of drawing up an agreement written with our blood, to the effect that whichever of us died first should appear to the other, and thus solve any doubts we had entertained of the “life after death.”’ Years afterwards—on December 19, 1799—when Lord Brougham had almost forgotten the existence of his friend, as he was taking a warm bath, he appeared to him; but, as he adds, ‘No doubt I had fallen asleep, and the appearance presented to my eyes was a dream. I recollected quickly enough our old discussion, and the bargain we had made. I could not discharge from my mind the impression that my friend must have died, and that his appearance to me was to be received by me as a proof of his future state.’ In October 1862 Lord Brougham made this postscript: ‘I have just been copying out from my journal the account of this strange dream—certissima mortis imago. And now to finish the story begun about sixty years since. Soon after my return to Edinburgh, there arrived a letter from India, announcing G——’s death, and stating that he had died on the 19th of December.’

A curious story is told by John Darley, Carthusian monk, who relates that, as he was attending upon the death bed of Father Raby, in 1534, he said to the expiring man, ‘Good Father Raby, if the dead can visit the living, I beseech you to pay a visit to me by-and-by;’ and Raby answered, ‘Yes;’ immediately after which he drew his last breath. But on the same afternoon, about five o’clock, as Darley was meditating in his cell, the departed man suddenly appeared to him in a monk’s habit, and said to him, ‘Why do you not follow our father?’ And I replied, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘Because he is a martyr in heaven next to the angels.’ Then I said, ‘Where are all our fathers who did like to him?’ He answered and said, ‘They are all pretty well, but not so well as he is.’ And then I asked him how he was, and he said ‘Pretty well.’ And I said, ‘Father, shall I pray for you?’ To which he replied, ‘I am as well as need be, but prayer is at all times good,’ and with these words he vanished.[223]

There is the well-known Beresford ghost tale, about which so many accounts have been given. It appears that Lord Tyrone and Miss Blank were orphans, educated in the same house ‘in the principles of Deism.’ When they were about fourteen years old their preceptor died, and their new guardian tried to persuade them to embrace revealed religion. The boy and girl stuck to Deism. But they made a compact, that he or she who died first should appear to the survivor, ‘to declare what religion was most approved by the Supreme Being.’ Miss Blank married St. Martin Beresford, and one day she appeared at breakfast with a pale face, and a black band round her wrist. On her death-bed she explained how the ghost of Lord Tyrone had appeared to her at the hour of his death, and had correctly prophesied her future: ‘He struck my wrist; his hand was as cold as marble; in a moment the sinews shrank up, every nerve withered.... I bound a piece of black ribbon round my wrist.’ The black ribbon was formerly in the possession of Lady Betty Cobb, who, during her long life, was ever ready to attest the truth of this narration, as are, to the present hour, the whole of the Tyrone and Beresford families.[224]