Lord Tyrone and Lady Beresford were born in Ireland; they were both
left orphans in their infancy, to the care of the same person, by whom
they were both educated in the principles of Deism. When they were
each of them about fourteen years of age they fell into very different
hands. The persons on whom the care of them now devolved, used every
possible endeavor to eradicate the erroneous principles they had
imbibed, and to persuade them to embrace the revealed religion, but in
vain; their arguments were insuffient to convince them, but they were
powerful enough to stagger their former faith. Though now separated
from each other, their friendship continued unalterable, and they
seemed to regard each other with a sincere and fraternal affection.
After some years had elapsed, and they were each of them grown up, they
made a solemn promise to each other, that whoever should first die,
would, if permitted, appear to the other to declare what religion was
most approved of by the Supreme Being. Lady Beresford was shortly after
addressed by Sir Marcus Beresford, to whom, after a few years; she was
married; but no change in condition had power to alter her friendship;
the families frequently visited each other, and often spent more than a
fortnight together. A short time after one of those visits, Sir Marcus
Beresford remarked when his lady came down to breakfast in the morning,
that her countenance was unusually pale, and bore evident marks of
terror and confusion; he inquired anxiously after her health, she
assured him she was well, perfectly well; he repeated his inquiries,
and begged to know if anything had disordered her; she replied no, she
was as well as usual. “Have you hurt your wrist, have you sprained it?”
said he, observing a black ribbon bound round it. She replied no, she
had not; but added, “let me conjure you, Sir M. never to inquire the
cause of my wearing this ribbon, you will never more see me without it;
if it concerned you as a husband to know it, I would not for a moment
conceal it from you. I never in my life denied a request, but of this
I must entreat you to forgive my refusal, and never to urge me further
on the subject.” “Very well, my lady, (said he, smiling) since you so
earnestly desire me, I will inquire no further.” The conversation here
ended; but breakfast was scarcely over when Lady B. inquired if the
post was come in? she was told it was not. In a few minutes she again
rang the bell for her servant, and repeated the inquiry, “Is not the
post yet come?” she was told it was not. “Do you expect any letter,
(said Sir M.) that you are so anxious concerning the coming of the
post?” “I do, (she answered) I expect to hear that Lord Tyrone is dead:
he died last Tuesday, at four o’clock.” “I never in my life, (said Sir
M.) believed you superstitious, but you must have had some idle dream
which has thus alarmed you.”
At that instant a servant opened the door, and delivered to them a
letter, sealed with black. “It is as I expected, (exclaimed Lady B.) he
is dead.” Sir M. opened the letter, it came from Lord Tyrone’s stewart,
and contained the melancholy intelligence that his master died the
Tuesday preceding, at the very time that Lady B. had specified. Sir M.
entreated her to compose her spirits, and to endeavor as much as lay in
her power not to make herself unhappy. She assured him that she felt
much easier than she had for some time past; and added, “I can inform
you of something which I know will prove welcome. I can assure you
beyond the possibility of a doubt, that I am with child of a son.” Sir
M. received the intelligence with that pleasure that might be expected,
and expressed in the strongest terms, the felicity he should experience
from such an event, which he had so long ardently desired.
After a period of some months, Lady B. was delivered of a son; she had
before been the mother of two daughters only. Sir Marcus survived the
birth of his son little more than four years. After his decease his
lady went but little from home; she visited no family but that of a
clergyman, who resided in the same village, with whom she frequently
passed a few hours, the rest of her time was entirely devoted to
solitude, and she appeared forever determined to banish all other
society. The clergyman’s family consisted of himself, his wife, and one
son, who at Sir M’s. death was quite a youth; to this son, however, she
was afterwards married, in the space of a few years, notwithstanding
the disparity of his years, and the manifest imprudence of such a
connection, so unequal in every respect.
The event justified the expectation of every one. Lady B. was treated
by her young husband with neglect and cruelty, and the whole of his
conduct evinced him the most abandoned libertine, utterly destitute of
every principle of virtue and humanity. To this her second husband,
Lady B. brought two daughters; afterwards, such was the profligacy of
his conduct, that she insisted upon a separation. They parted for
sometime, when so great was the sorrow he expressed for his former
ill conduct, that, won over by his supplication and promises, she
was induced to pardon, and once more reside with him; and was, after
sometime made the mother of a son.
The day on which she had him in a month, being the anniversary of her
birthday, she sent for Lady ――, of whose friendship she had long been
possessed, and a few friends, to request them to spend the day with
her. About noon the clergyman by whom she had been baptised, and with
whom she had all her life maintained an intimacy, came into the room
to inquire after her health; she told him she felt perfectly well,
and requested him to spend the day with her, it being her birthday.
“For, (said she) I am forty-eight this day.” “No, my lady, (answered
the clergyman) you are mistaken, your mother and myself have had many
disputes concerning your age, and I have at length discovered I am
right; happening to go last week to the parish where you were born, I
was resolved to put an end to my doubt by searching the register, and
find that you are forty-seven this day.”
“You have signed my death warrant, (said she) I have not much longer to
live. I must, therefore entreat you to leave me immediately, as I have
something of importance to settle before I die.”
When the clergyman had left Lady B. she sent to forbid her company
coming; and at the same time to request Lady ――, and her son, of whom
Sir M. Beresford was father, and who then was about twelve years of
age, to come to her apartment. Immediatly upon their arrival, having
ordered her attendants to quit the room, “I have (said she) something
to communicate to you both before I die, a period which is not far
distant. You, lady are no stranger to the friendship that always
existed between Lord Tyrone and myself; we were educated under the
same roof, in the same principles, those of Deism. When the friends
into whose hands we afterwards fell, endeavored to persuade us to
embrace the revealed religion, their arguments, though insufficient
to convince us, were powerful enough to stagger our former faith, and
to leave us wavering between two opinions. In this perplexing state
of doubt and uncertainty, we made a solemn promise to each other,
that whichever should happen to die first, would, if permitted by the
Almighty, appear to the other to declare what religion was acceptable
to him. Accordingly one night, when Sir M. and myself were in bed, I
awoke, and discovered Lord Tyrone sitting by my bedside; I screamed
out, and endeavored, but in vain, to awake Sir M. ‘For heaven’s sake,
Lord Tyrone, (said I) by what means, or for what purpose came you this
time of night?’ ‘Have you forgot our promise? (said he) I died last
Tuesday, at four o’clock, and have been permitted by the Supreme Being
to appear to you, to assure you that the revealed religion is the true
and only religion by which we can be saved. I am further suffered to
inform you, that you are with child of a son, who is decreed to marry
my daughter; not many years after his birth, Sir M. will die, and you
will marry again, and to a man whose ill treatment you will be rendered
miserable by; you will bring him two daughters, and afterwards a son,
in child-bed of whom you will die, in the forty-seventh year of your
age.’
“Just heaven, (exclaimed I) and cannot I prevent this?’ ‘Undoubtly you
may, (returned he); you have a free assent, and may prevent all by
resisting every temptation to a second marriage; but your passions are
strong, you know not their power; hitherto you have had no trial, nor
am I allowed to tell you, but if after this warning you persist in your
infidelity, your lot in another world will be miserable indeed.’ ‘May
I ask, (said I) if you are happy?’ ‘Had I been otherwise, (said he) I
should not have been thus permitted to appear to you.’ ‘I may thence
infer that you are happy?’ He smiled, but did not answer.
“But how, said I, when the morning comes, shall I be convinced that
your appearance to me thus has been real, and not the mere phantom
of my imagination.’ ‘Will not the news of my death, (said he) be
sufficient to convince you?’ ‘No (returned I,) I might have had such
a dream, and that dream might accidentally come to pass; I must have
stronger proofs of its reality.’ ‘You shall,’ said he; then waving his
hand, the bed curtains, which were of crimson velvet, were instantly
drawn through a large iron hoop, by which the tester of the bed, which
was of an oval form, was suspended: ‘In that (said he) you cannot be
mistaken; no mortal could have performed this.’ ‘True, (said I) but
sleeping we are often possessed of far greater strength than awake;
though awake I could not have done it, asleep I might. I shall still
doubt.’ He then said, ‘You have a pocket-book, on the leaves of which
I will write: you know my handwriting.’ I replied ‘Yes.’ He wrote with
a pencil on one side of the leaves. ‘Still, (said I) in the morning, I
doubt, though awake I may not imitate your hand, asleep I might.’
‘You are born of belief, I must not touch you, it would injure you
irreparably, it is not for spirits to touch mortal flesh.’ I do not
mind a small blemish,’ said I. ‘You are a woman of spirit, (said he)
hold out your hand.’ I did; he touched my wrist; his hand was as cold
as marble; in a moment the sinews shrunk up, every nerve withered. ‘Now
(said he) while you live, let no mortal eye behold that wrist, to see
it will be sacrilege.’ He stopped; I turned to him again―he was gone.
During the time in which I had conversed with him, my thoughts were
perfectly calm and collected, but the moment he was gone I felt chilled
with horror, and a cold sweat came over me; every limb and joint shook
under me; I endeavored to awake Sir M. but in vain; all my efforts were
ineffectual. In this state of agitation I lay some time, when a shower
of tears came to my relief, and I droped asleep. In the morning Sir
Marcus arose and dressed himself as usual, without perceiving the state
in which the curtains remained. When I awoke, I found Sir Marcus was
gone down. I arose, and having put on my clothes, went into the gallery
adjoining our apartment, and took from thence a long broom, such a one
as in a large house is frequently used to sweep the cornices, with the
help of which, though not without difficulty, I took down the curtains,
as I imagined their extraordinary position would excite wonder among
the servants, and occasion inquiries I wished to avoid. I then went
to my bureau, locked up the pocket-book and took out a piece of black
ribbon which I bound round my wrist. When I came down, the agitation of
my mind on my countenance, was too visible to pass long unobserved by
Sir Marcus; he instantly remarked my confusion, and inquired the cause.
I told him I was well, perfectly well, but informed him Lord Tyrone was
no more, that he died on the preceding Tuesday at the hour of four, and
at the same time entreated him to drop all inquiries concerning the
black ribbon he noticed on my wrist. He kindly desisted any further
importunity, nor did he ever after imagine the cause. You, my son, as
had been foretold, I brought into the world with much rejoicing, and
in little more than four years after your birth your father died in my
arms. After the melancholy event, I determined, as the, only probable
means by which to avoid the dreadful sequel of the prediction, to give
up every pleasure, and to pass the remainder of my days in solitude.
But few can endure to remain in a state of superstition. I commenced
an intercourse with one family, and only one; nor could I then see
the fatal consequences which afterwards resulted from it. Little did
I imagine that their son, their only son, then a mere youth, would
prove the person alloted by fate to prove my undoing. In a few years I
ceased to regard him with indifference; I endeavored by every possible
means to repel a passion, the fatal consequences of which, if ever I
should be weak enough to yield to its impulse, I too well knew, and
fondly imagined I should overcome its influence; when in the evening
of one fatal day ended my fortitude, and plunged me in a moment down
that abyss I had been so long meditating how to shun. He had frequently
been soliciting his parents to go into the army, and at length obtained
their permission, and came to bid me farewell before his departure.
The moment he entered the room he fell down on his knees at my feet
and, told me he was miserable, that I alone was the cause of it.
That instant my fortitude forsook me, I gave myself up for lost; and
considering my fate as inevitable, without further hesitation consented
to an union, the immediate result of which I knew to be misery, and its
end death. The conduct of my husband, after a few years were passed,
amply warranted my demand for a separation; I hoped by this means to
avoid the fatal sequel to the prophecy; but, won over by his repeated
entreaties, I was prevailed on to pardon and once more to reside with
him, though not until I had, as I supposed, passed my forty-seventh
year; but, I have heard this day from indisputable authority that I
have hitherto laid under a mistake with regard to my age, that I am but
forty-seven this day. Of the near approach of my death, I entertain not
the least doubt, but I do not dread it; armed with the sacred precepts
of Christianity, I can meet the King of Terrors without dismay; and,
without a tear, bid adieu to the regions of mortality for ever.
“When I am dead, as the necessity of its concealment closes with my
life, I wish that you, my lady, would unbind my wrist, take from hence
the ribbon, and let my son with yourself behold it.” Lady B. here
paused for some time, but resuming her conversation, she entreated her
son to behave so as to merit the high honor he would in future receive
from an union with lord Tyrone’s daughter. Lady B. then expressed a
wish to lie down on a bed to compose herself asleep. Lady ――, and
her son immediately called her attendants, and quitted the room, after
having first desired them attentively to watch their mistress, and
should they observe any change in her, to call instantly. An hour
passed, and all was silent in the room, they listened at the door and
every thing was still; but in half an hour more a bell rung violently,
they flew to her apartment, but before they reached the door of it
they heard the servants exclaim, “my mistress is dead.” Lady ――, then
desiring the servants to quit the room. Lady B’s son with herself then
approached the bed of his mother, they knelt down by the side of it.
Lady ――, they lifted up her hand, unbound the black ribbon, and found
the wrist exactly in the same state Lady B. had described, every nerve
withered, every sinew shrunk up. Lady B’s son, as has been predicted,
is now married to Lord Tyrone’s daughter; the black ribbon and
pocket-book are now in the possession of Lady ――, by whom the above
narrative is stated, in Ireland; who together with the Tyrone family,
will be found to attest its truth.