Then, placing his watch on the table, he waited until half-past eleven; when taking up the candles, he walked up and down in close proximity to the entrance of the summer-house, until two o’clock, without either seeing or hearing anything extraordinary.
Upon this he formed two conclusions; either that the soul perished with the body, or that the laws of the spiritual world forbade his friend Major Sydenham abiding by his pledge.
Six weeks afterwards, however, Captain Dyke and his relation the physician had occasion to go to Eton, where one of the sons of the former was to be placed at the college. They lodged at the S. Christopher’s Inn, occupying different sleeping-rooms. On the last morning of their stay, Captain Dyke was unusually late, and when he entered the doctor’s room was like a man struck with madness, his eyes staring, his knees refusing to support him, and his whole appearance altered.
“What is the matter?” asked Dr. Dyke.
“I have seen the major,” replied the captain; “for if ever I saw him in my life, I certainly saw him just now.”
Upon the doctor pressing for details, Captain Dyke gave the following account:—“After it was first light this morning, someone pulled back the curtains of my bed suddenly, and I saw the major exactly as I had seen him in life. ‘I could not,’ he said, ‘come at the time appointed, but I am here now to tell you that there is a God, a very just and terrible God, and that if you do not turn over a new leaf you will find it so.’ He then disappeared.”
It is said, finally, that Captain Dyke’s truthfulness was so notorious, as to preclude the possibility of doubting his relation of the occurrence. Furthermore, the apparition and warnings of his departed friend exercised a visible effect on his character and life, which latter was prolonged for two years; during which period he is said to have had the words then spoken to him always sounding in his ears.
(II.) The celebrated Nicholas Ferrar, of Little Gidding, (who, in the seventeenth century, lived a most retired, religious, and pious life,) had a brother, a physician in London. This physician made a compact with his eldest and favourite daughter that whichever of them died first should, if happy, appear to the other. This compact is said to have proved the subject of many conversations and religious discussions between father and child. The latter is reported to have been very averse to making any such agreement; but being overcome by arguments as to the reasonableness of such a course (if permitted by a gracious and merciful God) at last consented. After this she married and settled with her husband at Gillingham Lodge, in the county of Wiltshire. Here she was prematurely confined; and during her illness, one night by mistake took poison, and died quite suddenly. That very night her spirit appeared to her father in London, the curtains of whose bed she drew back, and with a sweet but mournful expression looked upon him, and then gradually faded away. In fact, and as a test of the objective reality of his daughter’s apparition, Dr. Ferrar, deeply impressed by the occurrence, announced the death of his daughter to his family two days before he received intelligence of it by the then tardy post.
(III.) John Cope Sherbroke and George Wynyard appear in the “Army List” of 1785, the one as a captain and the other lieutenant in the 33rd Regiment,—a corps which some years after had the honour to be commanded by the Hon. Arthur Wellesley, subsequently Duke of Wellington. The regiment was then on service in Canada, and Sherbroke and Wynyard, being of congenial tastes, had become great friends. It was their custom to spend in study much of the time which their brother officers devoted to idle pleasures. According to a narration[7] resting on the best authority now attainable, they were one afternoon sitting in Wynyard’s apartment. It was perfectly light, the hour was about four o’clock: they had dined, but neither of them had drunk wine, and they had retired from their mess to continue together the occupations of the morning. It ought to have been said that the apartment in which they were had two doors in it, the one opening into a passage and the other leading into Wynyard’s bedroom. There was no other means of entering the sitting-room, so that any person passing into the bedroom must have remained there unless he returned by the way he entered. This point is of consequence to the story.
“As these two young officers were pursuing their studies, Sherbroke, whose eyes happened accidentally to glance from the book before him towards the door which opened to the passage, all at once observed a tall youth of about twenty years of age whose appearance was that of extreme emaciation. Struck with the presence of a perfect stranger, he immediately turned to his friend, who was sitting near him, and directed his attention to the guest who had thus strangely broken in upon their studies. As soon as Wynyard’s eyes were turned towards the mysterious visitor his countenance became suddenly agitated. ‘I have heard,’ says Sir John Sherbroke, ‘of a man’s being as pale as death, but I never saw a living face assume the appearance of a corpse except Wynyard’s at that moment.’ As they looked silently at the form before them—for Wynyard, who seemed to apprehend the import of the appearance, was deprived of the faculty of speech, and Sherbroke, perceiving the agitation of his friend, felt no inclination to address it—as they looked silently upon the figure it proceeded slowly into the adjoining apartment, and in the act of passing them cast its eyes with an expression of somewhat melancholy affection on young Wynyard. The oppression of this extraordinary presence was no sooner removed than Wynyard, seizing his friend by the arm, and drawing a deep breath as if recovering from the suffocation of intense astonishment and emotion, muttered in a low and almost inaudible tone of voice, ‘Great God, my brother!’ ‘Your brother!’ repeated Sherbroke, ‘what can you mean? Wynyard, there must be some deception; follow me;’ and immediately taking his friend by the arm, he preceded him into the bedroom, which, as before stated, was connected with the sitting-room, and into which the strange visitor had evidently entered. It has already been said that from this chamber there was no possibility of withdrawing but by the way of the apartment, through which the figure had certainly never returned. Imagine then the astonishment of the young officers when, on finding themselves in the chamber, they perceived that the room was perfectly untenanted. Wynyard’s mind had received an impression at the first moment of his observing him, that the figure whom he had seen was the spirit of his brother. Sherbroke still persevered in strenuously believing that some delusion had been practised. They took note of the day and hour in which the event had happened, but they resolved not to mention the occurrence in the regiment, and gradually they persuaded each other that they had been imposed upon by some artifice of their fellow-officers, though they could neither account for the means of its execution. They were content to imagine anything possible rather than admit the possibility of a supernatural appearance. But though they had attempted these stratagems of self-delusion, Wynyard could not help expressing his solicitude with respect to the safety of the brother whose apparition he had either seen or imagined himself to have seen; and the anxiety which he exhibited for letters from England, and his frequent mention of his brother’s health, at length awakened the curiosity of his comrades, and eventually betrayed him into a declaration of the circumstances which he had in vain determined to conceal. The story of the silent and unbidden visitor was no sooner bruited abroad than the arrival of Wynyard’s letters from England were welcomed with more than usual eagerness, for they promised to afford the clue to the mystery which had happened among themselves.