I shall now endeavor to relate a few remarkable circumstances which have occurred either to myself or to personal friends, on whose veracity I place implicit reliance; they are altogether unlike the preceding, and I think I shall be enabled to show that, by a quiet, cool, persevering investigation, we may generally be enabled to account in a natural way, for imaginary preternatural circumstances and appearances, although the senses may have been many times deceived.
Every story or averment of the sort ought to be taken quære tamen, or sed quære, as the lawyers have it—searched, sifted, scrutinized.
In Scotland, the land of second-sight, of brownies, bogles, kelpies, and fairies, a superstition prevailed when I was a child, which was called the Dead Candle. It was said that when a person was in the last agony, in the act of departing this life, a pale blue gleam of light, resembling the flame of a small spirit-lamp, was seen to flit slowly across the room and through the passages, and disappear, without its being evident whence it came, or whither it went. It was said and supposed to be the soul of the departed, taking its flight for eternity. Many were the dismal narratives of the dead candle, to which, while a mere boy, I had listened amongst the servants of my father’s household.
In a certain ancient city in Scotland which I could name, the houses are very large and very old; they are built entirely of granite, having very thick walls, in a far more substantial manner than houses of the present day.
The different floors, or flats, as they are there called, are shut off from the general stair-case, and are let out to separate families, each having a complete suite of apartments within itself.
In a large antique house of this sort, in the city alluded to, whilst I and my brother were at school, under the charge of a sister considerably older than ourselves, there resided in the flat above us, a young lady who was lying dangerously ill of a brain fever. One night, about eleven o’clock, during her illness, some time after my brother and I had retired to bed, and as I lay thinking of the poor girl, I distinctly saw a faint gleam of light pass across the foot of the bed in which I and my brother were reposing. The house at the moment was perfectly still, and the beam of light passed without the slightest sound; its appearance exactly corresponded with what, in my childhood, I had been told was presented by a “dead candle.” I was considerably alarmed, but probably not so much as might have been expected in a boy twelve years of age, inasmuch as from my earliest years, my parents had endeavored to disabuse my mind of all superstitious fancies, and the venerable and venerated clergyman, at whose school I then was, had, I believe, almost eradicated them.
I watched the light as it slowly moved across the inequalities of the bed-clothes, over my own and brother’s feet; and as its appearance recalled all the dismal stories of dead candles, I fully expected the young person who lay sick had just then expired. But next morning I found that although she had been exceedingly ill, she was still alive.
On the following night, about the same hour, I again saw the self-same appearance, in every respect as on the preceding night. The pale beam of light was clearly and palpably defined, moving slowly athwart the foot of the bed, as it had done on the former occasion; it was impossible I could be mistaken—seeing is believing.
The young lady certainly did die that night, about the very hour that I saw what I then verily believed to be her dead candle. I found it impossible to divest myself of the impressions with which my infant mind had been imbued; but what was, perhaps, rather singular in so young a person as I then was, I concealed the circumstance of seeing her spirit even from my brother; he was my senior by some years, and I well knew he would have jeered and laughed at me, if I had told him—I was a trifle more sensitive to ridicule then than now. My brother had been asleep on both occasions and did not see it.
Of course, I pondered much on so extraordinary an appearance, which I then actually believed to be a real dead candle, and it was not long before I had all doubt respecting its reality removed. On the following night, at the same hour, I saw the apparition a third time, and—the explanation shall be detailed in the sequel.