When the servant returned a few minutes later he found, to his horror, his master lying back on the pillow, unconscious and breathing heavily. He ran downstairs again, shouting, "Help! Help! My lord is dying!" The alarmed guests rushed frantically to the chamber, only to find their host almost at his last gasp. A few moments later he was dead, with the watch still clutched in his hand, pointing to half-past twelve. He had died at the very stroke of midnight, as foretold by his ghostly visitant of three nights previously.
Thus strangely and dramatically died Thomas, second Lord Lyttelton, statesman, wit, and debauchee, precisely as he had been warned that he would die in a dream or vision of the night. How far his death was due to natural causes, to the effect of fear on a diseased heart, none can say with certainty. That his heart was diseased, that he had had many former seizures, during which his life seemed in danger, is beyond question; but if it was merely coincidence, it was surely the most remarkable coincidence on record, that his death should come at the exact moment foretold by the lady of his vision, as related by himself three days before the event.
Such a happening was strange and weird enough in all conscience; but it was no more inexplicable on natural grounds than what follows. Among Lord Lyttelton's boon companions was a Mr Andrews, with whom he had often discussed the possibilities of a future life. On one such occasion his lordship had said: "Well, if I die first, and am allowed, I will come and inform you."
The words were probably spoken more in jest than in earnest, and Mr Andrews no doubt little dreamt how the promise would be fulfilled. On the night of Lord Lyttelton's death Mr Andrews, who expected his lordship to pay him a visit on the following day, had retired to bed at his house at Dartford, in Kent.
When in bed, to quote from Mr Plumer Ward's "Illustrations of Human Life," he fell into a sound sleep, but was waked between eleven and twelve o'clock by somebody opening his curtains. It was Lord Lyttelton, in a nightgown and cap which Andrews recognised. He also spoke plainly to him, saying that he was come to tell him all was over. It seems that Lord Lyttelton was fond of horseplay; and, as he had often made Andrews the subject of it, the latter had threatened his lordship with physical chastisement the very next time that it should occur. On the present occasion, thinking that the annoyance was being renewed, he threw at Lord Lyttelton's head the first thing that he could find—his slippers. The figure retreated towards a dressing-room, which had no ingress or egress except through the bed-chamber; and Andrews, very angry, leaped out of bed in order to follow it into the dressing-room. It was not there, however.
Surprised and amazed, he returned at once to the bedroom, which he strictly searched. The door was locked on the inside, yet no Lord Lyttelton was to be found. In his perplexity, Mr Andrews rang for his servant, and asked if Lord Lyttelton had not arrived. The man answered: "No, sir." "You may depend upon it," said Mr Andrews, thoroughly mystified and out of humour, "that he is somewhere in the house. He was here just now, and he is playing some trick or other. However, you can tell him that he won't get a bed here; he can sleep in the stable or at the inn if he likes."
After a further vain search of the bed-chamber and the dressing-room, Mr Andrews returned to bed and to sleep, having no doubt whatever that his too jocular friend was in hiding somewhere near. On the afternoon of the following day news came to him that Lord Lyttelton had died the previous night at the very time that he (Mr Andrews) was searching for his midnight visitant, and abusing him roundly for what he considered his ill-timed practical joke. On hearing the news, we are told, Mr Andrews swooned away, and such was its effect on him that, to use his own words, "he was not himself or a man again for three years."