"I was engaged to a young lady whom I very much loved. During the early part of this engagement I visited the Hall in the village, not far from the Vicarage, where the young lady resided. I was in the habit of spending from Sunday to Monday at the Hall. On one of these mornings of my departure I found myself standing between the two closed windows in the lady's bedroom. It was about five o'clock on a bright summer morning. Her room looked eastward, mine directly west, and the church stood between the two houses, which were about five hundred yards apart. I have no impression whatever how I became transplanted from the house. The lady was in a camp bedstead, directly opposite to me, looking at and reaching out her arms towards me, when my disembodied spirit instantly disappeared to join the material body which it had left in some mysterious way. As I returned and was fitting in to my body on my left side, when half united I could see within me the ununited spiritual part on glow like an electric light, while the other united half was hidden in total darkness, looking black as through a thunder cloud, when, like the shutting of a drawer, the whole body became united, and I awoke in great alarm, with a belief that if any one had entered my room and moved my body from the position in which it lay on its back, the returning spirit could not have joined its material case, and that death, as it is vulgarly called, would have been inevitable."
In the morning at the breakfast-table the young lady said she had a strange experience. She saw M.D. in her bedroom, looking at her as she sat up in bed, and that he disappeared after a short stay; but how he got there she could not say, as she was positive she had locked her bedroom door. So one experience corroborated the other.[5] ]
5 ([Return])
Quoted from a remarkable work by James Gillingham, surgical mechanist, Chard, Somerset. Mr. Gillingham sent me the name of the doctor, and assures me that the narrative is quite authentic.
Speaking Doubles.
While discussing the subject, some friends called at Mowbray House, and were, as usual, asked to pay toll in the shape of communicating any experience they had had of the so-called supernatural. One of my visitors gave me the following narrative, the details of which are in the possession of the Psychical Research Society:—
"Some years ago my father and another son were crossing the Channel at night. My mother, who was living in England, was roused up in the middle of the night by the apparition of my father. She declares that she saw him quite distinctly standing by her bedside, looking anxious and distraught. Knowing that at that moment he was in mid-Channel, she augured that some disaster had overtaken him or the boy. She said, 'Is there some trouble?' He said, 'There is; the boy——' and then he faded from her sight. The curious part of the story is that my father at that very time had been thinking on board the steamer of having to tell his wife of the loss of the boy. The lad had been missed, and for a short time father feared he had fallen overboard. Shortly afterwards he was discovered to be quite safe. But during the period of suspense father was vividly conscious of the pain of having to break the news to his wife. It was subsequently proved by a comparison of the hour that his double had not only appeared but had spoken at the very moment he was thinking of how to tell her the news midway between France and England."
Another case in which the double appeared was that of Dr. F. R. Lees, the well-known temperance controversialist. On communicating with the Doctor, the following is his reply:—
"The little story or incident of which you have heard occurred above thirty years ago, and may be related in very few words. Whether it was coincidence, or transference of vivid thought, I leave to the judgment of others.
"I had left Leeds for the Isle of Jersey (though my dear wife was only just recovering from a nervous fever) to fulfil an important engagement. On a Good Friday, myself and a party of friends in several carriages drove round a large portion of the island, coming back to St. Heliers from Bouley Bay, taking tea about seven o'clock at Captain ——'s villa. The party broke up about ten o'clock, and the weather being fine and warm, I walked to the house of a banker who entertained me. Naturally, my evening thoughts reverted to my home, and after reading a few verses in my Testament, I walked about the room until nearly eleven, thinking of my wife, and breathing the prayer, 'God bless you.'