“By the first ships no intelligence relating to the story could have been received, for they had all departed from England previously to the appearance of the spirit. At length, the long wished-for vessel arrived; all the officers had letters except Wynyard. They examined the several newspapers, but they contained no mention of any death or of any other circumstance connected with his family that could account for the preternatural event. There was a solitary letter for Sherbroke still unopened. The officers had received their letters in the mess-room at the hour of supper. After Sherbroke had broken the seal of his last packet, and cast a glance on its contents, he beckoned his friend away from the company, and departed from the room. All were silent. The suspense of the interest was now at its climax; the impatience for the return of Sherbroke was inexpressible. They doubted not but that letter had contained the long-expected intelligence.
“After the interval of an hour, Sherbroke joined them. No one dared inquire the nature of his correspondence; but they waited in mute attention, expecting that he would himself touch upon the subject. His mind was manifestly full of thoughts that pained, bewildered, and oppressed him. He drew near to the fire-place, and leaning his head on the mantlepiece, after a pause of some moments, said in a low voice to the person who was nearest him, Wynyard’s brother was dead. ‘Dear John, break to your friend Wynyard the death of his favourite brother.’ He had died on the day and at the very hour on which the friends had seen his spirit pass so mysteriously through the apartment.
“It might have been imagined that these events would have been sufficient to have impressed the mind of Sherbroke with the conviction of their truth, but so strong was his prepossession against the existence or even the possibility of any preternatural intercourse with the spirits of the departed, that he still entertained a doubt of the report of his senses, supported as their testimony was by the coincidence of sight and event. Some years after, on his return to England, he was with two gentlemen in Piccadilly, when on the opposite side of the street he saw a person bearing the most striking resemblance to the figure which had been disclosed to Wynyard and himself. His companions were acquainted with the story, and he instantly directed their attention to the gentleman opposite, as the individual who had contrived to enter and depart from Wynyard’s apartment without their being conscious of the means.
“Full of this impression, he immediately went over and addressed the gentleman. He now fully expected to elucidate the mystery. He apologized for the interruption, but excused it by relating the occurrence which had induced him to the commission of this solecism in manners. The gentleman received him as a friend. He had never been out of the country, but he was the twin brother of the youth whose spirit had been seen.
“From the interesting character of this narration—the facts of the vision occurring in daylight, and to two persons; and of the subsequent verification of likeness by the party not previously acquainted with the subject of the vision, it is much to be regretted that no direct report of particulars had come to us. There is all other desirable authentication for the story, and sufficient evidence to prove that the two gentlemen believed and often told nearly what is here reported.
“Dr. Mayo makes the following statement on the subject: ‘I have had opportunities of inquiring of two near relations of this General Wynyard, upon what evidence the above story rests. They told me that they had each heard it from his own mouth. More recently a gentleman, whose accuracy of recollection exceeds that of most people, had told me that he had heard the late Sir John Sherbroke, the other party in the ghost story, tell it in much the same way at the dinner-table. A writer in ‘Notes and Queries’ for July 3, 1858, states that the brother, not twin-brother, whose spirit appeared to Wynyard and his friend, was John Otway Wynyard, Lieutenant in the 3rd Regiment of Foot-guards, who died on the 15th of October, 1785. As this gentleman writes with a minute knowledge of the family history, this date may be considered as that of the alleged spiritual incident.
“In ‘Notes and Queries’ for July 2nd, 1859, appeared a correspondence, giving the strongest testimony then attainable to the truth of the Wynyard ghost story. A series of queries on the subject being drawn up at Quebec, by Sir John Harvey, Adjutant-General of the forces in Canada, was sent to Colonel Gore of the same garrison, who was understood to be a survivor of the officers who were with Sherbroke and Wynyard at the time of the occurrence, and Colonel Gore explicitly replied to the following effect: He was present at Sydney, in the island of Cape Breton, in the autumn of 1785 or 1786, when the incident happened. It was in the then new barrack, and the place was blocked up by ice so as to have no communication with any part of the world. He was one of the first persons who entered the room after the apparition was seen. The ghost passed them as they were sitting at coffee, between eight and nine in the evening, and went into G. Wynyard’s bed closet, the window of which was putted down. He next day suggested to Sherbroke the propriety of making a memorandum of the incident, which was done. ‘I remember the date, and on the 6th of June our first letters from England brought the news of John Wynyard’s death, [which had happened] on the very night they saw his apparition.’ Colonel Gore was under the impression that the person afterwards seen in one of the streets of London, by Sherbroke and William Wynyard, was not a brother of the latter family, but a gentleman named (he thought) Hayman, noted for being like the deceased John Wynyard, and who affected to dress like him.”
So much for these records and testimonies. The following, now to be narrated, not altogether unlike them, and producing a good result on the person who witnessed the apparition, is of almost equal interest:—
“Lord Chedworth[8] had living with him the orphan daughter of a sister of his, a Miss Wright, who often related this circumstance: Lord Chedworth was a good man, and seemed anxious to do his duty, but, unfortunately, he had considerable intellectual doubts as to the existence of the soul in another world. He had a great friendship for a gentleman, whom he had known from his boyhood, and who was, like himself, one of those unbelieving mortals that must have ocular demonstration for everything. They often met, and often, too, renewed the subject so interesting to both; but neither could help the other to that happy conviction which was honestly wished for by each.
“One morning Miss Wright observed on her uncle joining her at breakfast, a considerable gloom of thought and trouble displayed on his countenance. He ate little, and was unusually silent. At last, he said, ‘Molly’ (for thus he familiarly called her), ‘I had a strange visitor last night. My old friend B—— came to me.’