"'It is very stormy,' said Murdoch, 'if you would be so kind as come over for me at six o'clock in the morning I would go home again I must be down passed the Governor's before he gets up you know.'
"'Oh! I'll do that for you Murdoch,' said Donald. So Murdoch went home again that night and next morning by six o'clock he was at the ferry again. 'Well done, Donald. You are a man of your word,' said he, as he saw what he thought was Donald on the pier waiting him with his boat along side,—the morning was calm and fair though pretty dark, he thought it strange Donald did not answer him, but hurrying down the pier was about to step into the boat, when he felt someone strike him a violent blow on the ear with the open hand. Looking sharply round he was astonished to find no one near, but he thought as he turned round he had seen a dark shadow disappear in the distance.
"'God be with us,' said he, turning to Donald, 'what was that?' He was horror struck to see a most hideous object for what he had taken to be Donald, glaring at him with eyes of fire. 'God have mercy on my soul,' said he, as he turned to run, but he had no sooner done so than he was seized by a grasp of iron and pressed down towards the boat, then began a struggle for life. He wrestled and struggled with all his strength and you know he was a very strong man, but he could do nothing in the iron grasp of his foe, and that foe a mere shadow, he was surely and steadily forced towards the boat, he was being forced over the side of the pier and into the boat through which he could see the waves rolling quite clearly, it was a mere shadow also.
"'Oh God help me,' he cried from the depth of his heart as he gave himself up for lost. Suddenly as though forced by some unseen power the grasp that held him ceased and Murdoch fell back upon the pier unconscious.
"How long he lay he could not say, but it was Donald throwing water in his face that brought him round, they went into the Hotel where the people were just getting up, and he got a glass of brandy to steady his nerves, and after a short time they started and Murdoch got back to his work sometime during the day, where he told me the whole affair.
"Poor Murdoch was much changed after that, for the few days that he lived you could easily see the thing was pressing upon his mind a good deal.
"I need not tell you of the boat accident, you all know that well enough already, how Murdoch's dream became true even to the very letter. Mr. Ross the Minister was preaching in the little church up here we went to put him across the Loch and it was while coming back that we were caught in the storm and the boat was swamped. Big David and Donald never were seen. Murdoch and I tried to swim to the shore but he only got a short way when he also sank and was drowned. I got near enough to catch a rope that they threw out to me and they pulled me in although I was just about dead too."
There are many cases of this unavailing warning. Mr. T. A. Hamilton, of Ryedale Terrace, Maxwelltown, Dumfries, writes:—
"Thirty years ago I had the misfortune to lose my right eye under peculiar circumstances, and the night previous to the day on which it happened my sister dreamt that it had happened under precisely the same circumstances to which it did, and related her dream to the household before it had occurred. The distance between the scene of the accident and the house in which she slept was eight miles."
How a Betting Man was Converted.