As Mr. Andrew Lang points out in the ‘Nineteenth Century,’[225] Lord Tyrone merely did what many ghosts had done before in the matter of touching Lady Beresford’s wrist. Thus, as he says, according to Henry More, ‘one’ (bogie) ‘took a relation of Melanchthon’s by the hand, and so scorched her that she bore the mark of it to her dying day.’ Before Melanchthon the anecdote was improved by Eudes de Shirton, in a sermon, who tells how a certain clerk, Serlon, made with a friend the covenant which Miss Blank made with Lord Tyrone. The friend died, and appeared to Serlon ‘in a parchment cloak, covered with the finest writing in the world.’ Being asked how he fared, he said that this cloak, a punishment for his love of logic, weighed heavier than lead, and scorched like the shirt of Nessus. Then he held out his hand, and let fall a drop which burned Serlon to the bone—
And evermore that master wore
A covering on his wrist.
Before Eudes de Shirton, William of Malmesbury knew this anecdote. His characters are two clerks, an Epicurean and a Platonist, who made the usual compact that the first to die should appear to the survivor, and state whether Plato’s ideas, or Epicurus in his atoms, were the correct reply to the conundrum of the universe. The visit was to be paid within thirty days of the death. One of the philosophical pair was killed, and appeared to the other, but after the time arranged, explaining that he had been unable to keep his appointment earlier, and, stretching out his hand, let fall three burning drops of blood, which branded the brow of the psychical inquirer.
Mrs. Grant, in her ‘Superstitions of the Highlands,’ tells how a widow, returning home through a wood at dusk, was met by her husband’s ghost, ‘who led her carefully along a difficult bridge, but left a blue mark on her wrist which the neighbours had opportunities of seeing during the week; she survived the adventure.’ A similar circumstance is related by Richard Baxter,[226] in connection with a lady, soon after the Restoration, when Parliament was passing Acts which pressed sore on the dissenters. While praying for the deliverance of the faithful from the evils which threatened them, ‘it was suddenly given her, that there should be a speedy deliverance, even in a very short time. She desired to know which way, and it being set strongly on her as a revelation, she prayed earnestly that if this were a true divine impulse and revelation, God would certify her by some sign, and she ventured to choose the sign herself, and laid her hand on the outside of the upper part of her leg, begging of God, that if it were a true answer, He would make on that place some visible mark. There was presently the mark of black spots, like as if a hand had burnt it, which her sister witnessed, there being no such sign before.’
In Scott’s well-known ballad, the phantom knight impresses an indelible mark on the lady who has been his paramour, and in the Tartan stories, written by a Frenchman, a ghost appears to Prince Faruk in a dream, and touches him on the arm. The Prince finds the mark of the burn when he awakes.[227] There are numerous stories of this kind scattered here and there in the traditionary lore of this and other countries, and such indelible marks, left by ghosts of their visits, have been held as a mysterious proof of their materialistic power.
A correspondent of ‘Notes and Queries’ (2nd S. v. 343) vouches for the authenticity of the following ‘incontrovertible facts,’ which, he says, ‘occurred to a friend of my own, and to the companion of his early youth, who, having obtained a cadetship, went to India.’ The story runs thus. ‘The former was towards evening driving across a long barren heath. Suddenly, by his side in the vehicle, was seen the figure of his playmate. Happening to turn his head from him to the horse, and on looking again, the apparition had vanished. Remembering the conversation that they had held together at parting, he doubted not but that his friend was at that moment dead, and that in his appearing to him, he was come in the fulfilment of their mutual promise, in order to remove all pre-existing doubts as to the possibility of a denizen of a higher sphere appearing to its friend on earth. By the next Indian Mail was received intelligence of his death, showing the exact coincidence as to the time of the two events.’
In the biography of William Smellie is the history of a compact he made with his friend William Greenlaw, whereby it was mutually agreed that whoever died first should return and give the other an account of his condition after death. Shortly after the anniversary of his death, the ghost of Greenlaw is reported to have appeared to Smellie, and in a solemn tone informed him ‘that he had experienced great difficulties in procuring permission to return to this earth, according to their agreement; that he was now in a much better world than the one he had left,’ but added ‘that the hopes and wishes of its inhabitants were by no means satisfied, as, like those of the lower world, they still looked forward in the hope of eventually reaching a still happier state of existence.’ Another case of a similar kind is that of the appearance of the Rev. Theodore Alois Buckley, formerly one of the chaplains of Christ Church, Oxford, to his friend Mr. Kenneth Mackenzie. The story, as narrated in Newton Crosland’s ‘Theory of Apparitions,’ is, that about the year 1850 the two friends, when at Oxford, entered into a compact of the kind already described, the signal of appearance arranged between them being the laying of a ghostly hand on the forehead of the surviving friend. On January 30, 1856, Mr. Buckley died, and on February 2, it is said, kept the agreement, for as Mr. Mackenzie ‘was lying in bed, watching the candle expiring, he felt placed over one eye and his forehead a cool, damp hand, and on looking up saw Buckley in his ordinary apparel, with his portfolio under his arm standing by his bedside.’
The Duchess of Mazarin is said to have appeared to Madame de Beauclair, in accordance with a solemn compact made in life, that whoever died first should return, if it were possible, and inform the other of the existence of the future state. But it was some years after her death that the Duchess kept her promise, and when she did, it was to make this announcement: ‘Beauclair, between the hours of twelve and one this night you will be with me.’ The non-appearance of her friend’s spirit for so long had caused Madame de Beauclair to doubt the non-existence of a future life.[228]
But in some cases such compacts have not been kept. Dr. Chance tells us in ‘Notes and Queries’ (6th S. ii. 501) that in 1846-1847, as a young man, he made such a compact, but when his friend died in 1878 he did not appear, neither has he ever done so. To quote Dr. Chance’s words: ‘It is true my friend died about noon, and that I knew of his death the same evening, so that if he had appeared to me I should have learnt nothing new, whilst in most, if not all, of the recorded cases the apparition has been the first to convey the intelligence of the death. But this did not exonerate my friend from his promise; and if he did not keep it, I must take it that he could not come, for nothing but inability would have kept me from fulfilling my share of the compact if I had been called upon to do so.’