TRUE TALES OF THE WEIRD
TRUE TALES OF THE WEIRD
_A Record of Personal Experiences
of the Supernatural_
BY
SIDNEY DICKINSON
_With an Introduction By_
R. H. STETSON
_Professor of Psychology
Oberlin College_
_And a Prefatory Note By_
G. O. TUBBY
_Assistant Secretary American
Society Psychical Research_
[Illustration: LOGO]
NEW YORK
DUFFIELD AND COMPANY
1920
Copyright, 1920, by
DUFFIELD AND COMPANY
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFATORY NOTE vii
INTRODUCTION 1
AUTHOR'S PREFACE 5
I
A MYSTERY OF TWO CONTINENTS 11
"A SPIRIT OF HEALTH" 25
THE MIRACLE OF THE FLOWERS 41
THE MIDNIGHT HORSEMAN 57
II
THE HAUNTED BUNGALOW
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE CONDEMNED 75
II. THE CRIME 83
III. THE FLIGHT AND CAPTURE 96
IV. THE EXPIATION 105
V. THE HOUSE ON THE HILL 116
VI. ON THE WINGS OF THE STORM 126
VII. A GHOSTLY CO-TENANCY 141
VIII. THE DEAD WALKS 152
IX. THE GOBLINS OF THE KITCHEN 162
X. A SPECTRAL BURGLARY 178
XI. "REST, REST, PERTURBÉD SPIRIT!" 187
XII. THE DEMONS OF THE DARK 200
PREFATORY NOTE
It is a pleasure to testify that the MS. of this volume of stories has
been submitted with abundant testimonies from the individuals who knew
their author and his facts at first hand, to the American Society for
Psychical Research for approval or disapproval.
No more interesting or better attested phenomena of the kind have come
to our attention, and we have asked that a copy of the MS. be filed
permanently in the Society's archives for preservation from loss. These
accounts by Mr. Dickinson bear internal evidence to their true psychic
origin and to the trained observer scarcely need corroboration or other
external support. They ring true. And they are, in addition, moving
human documents, with a strong literary appeal.
GERTRUDE OGDEN TUBBY,
Asst. Sec., A. S. P. R.
April 5, 1920.
INTRODUCTION
This account of striking and peculiar events by Mr. Sidney Dickinson
is but the fulfillment of an intention of the writer interrupted by
sudden death. Mr. Dickinson had taken careful notes of the happenings
described and, being a professional observer and writer, it was
inevitable that he should preserve the narrative. He had been slow
to prepare it for publication because of the prominent and enabling
part played by his wife in the occurrences. After her death, when an
increasing interest in the subject had developed, it seemed to Mr.
Dickinson that the narrative might be received as he had written it--as
a careful and exact account of most remarkable events. In reverence to
the memory of his wife and out of respect to the friends concerned he
could not present it otherwise to the public.
As the narrative is of some time ago and the principal witnesses
are dead or inaccessible the account must stand for itself; the
endorsement of the American Society for Physical Research testifies
to its intrinsic interest. But the character and personality of
the writer is a vital consideration. Mr. Sidney Dickinson was a
professional journalist and lecturer. After graduation from Amherst in
1874 he served on the Springfield _Republican_ and the San Francisco
_Bulletin_. Later he was prominent as an art and dramatic critic on
the staff of the Boston _Journal_. After extended study of art in
European galleries he lectured before many colleges, universities and
art associations. He spent some years in Australia, where many of the
events of this account took place. While travelling in Europe and
Australia he was correspondent for a number of papers and magazines,
including _Scribner's Monthly_, the New York _Times_, the Boston
_Journal_, and the Springfield _Republican_. During a visit to New
Zealand he was engaged by the Colonial Government to give lectures on
New Zealand in Australia and America.
His work and his associates testify to careful observation and sane
judgment. Mr. Dickinson had an unusual memory, a keen sense of accuracy
and he was cool and practical rather than emotional or excitable. No
one who was much with him in the later days could doubt the entire
sincerity of the man. There could have been no ulterior motive as the
account itself will show. The narrative was written because he felt
that it might well be a contribution of some scientific interest.
R. H. STETSON,
Professor of Psychology,
Oberlin College.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
These stories are not "founded upon fact"; they _are_ fact. If I may
claim any merit for them it is this--they are absolutely and literally
true. They seem to me to be unusual even among the mass of literature
that has been written upon the subject they illustrate; if they possess
any novelty at all it may be found in the fact that the phenomena they
describe occurred, for the most part, without invitation, without
reference to "conditions," favorable or otherwise, and without
mediumistic intervention.
I have written these stories with no purpose to bolster up any theory
or to strengthen or weaken any belief, and I must say frankly that, in
my opinion, they neither prove nor disprove anything whatsoever. I am
not a believer, any more than I am a sceptic, in regard to so-called
"Spiritualism," and have consistently held to my non-committal attitude
in this matter by refraining, all my life, from consulting a medium or
attending a professional séance. In the scientific study of Psychology
I have a layman's interest, but even that is curious rather than
expectant;--my experience, which I think this book will show to have
been considerable, in the observation of occult phenomena has failed to
afford me anything like a positive clue to their causes or meaning.
In fact, I have long ago arrived at the opinion that any one who
devotes himself to the study of what, for want of a better word, we may
call "supernatural" will inevitably and at last find himself landed in
an _impasse_. The first steps in the pursuit are easy, and seductively
promise final arrival at the goal--but in every case of which I, at
least, have knowledge the course abruptly ends (sometimes sooner,
sometimes later) against a wall so high as to be unscalable, not to be
broken through, extending to infinity on either hand.
That disembodied spirits can at least make their existence known to us
appears to me as a well-approved fact; that they are "forbid to tell
the secrets of their prison-house" is my equally firm conviction. I
am aware that such an opinion can be only personal, and that it is
hopeless to attempt to commend it by satisfactory evidence; those who
have had experiences similar to those which I have recorded (and their
number is much greater than is generally supposed) will understand how
this opinion has been reached--to others it will be inconceivable, as
based upon what seems to them impossible.
If what I have written should seem to throw any light, however faint,
upon the problem of the Mystery of Existence in whose solution some
of the profoundest intellects of the world are at present engaged, my
labor will have been worth the while. I submit the results of this
labor as a record, with a lively sense of the responsibility I assume
by its publication.
TRUE TALES OF THE WEIRD
A MYSTERY OF TWO CONTINENTS
This story, as well as the one that immediately follows it, was first
related to the late Wilkie Collins, the noted English novelist,
with whom I had the good fortune to be acquainted--and who, as all
his intimates know, and as those whose knowledge of him is derived
from his romances may surmise, was an earnest and careful student of
occult phenomena. I placed in his hands all the concurrent _data_
which I could secure, and furnished the names of witnesses to the
incidents--which names are now in possession of the publishers of
this volume--equipped with which he carried out a thorough personal
investigation. The result of this investigation he made known to me,
one pleasant spring afternoon, in his study in London.
"During my life," he said, "I have made a considerable study of the
supernatural, but the knowledge I have gained is not very definite.
Take the matter of apparitions, for instance, to which the two
interesting stories you have submitted to me relate:--I have come to
regard these as subjective rather than objective phenomena, projections
from an excited or stimulated brain, not actual existences. Why, I
have seen thousands of ghosts myself! Many a night, after writing
until two o'clock in the morning, and fortifying myself for my work
with strong coffee, I have had to shoulder them aside as I went
upstairs to bed. These apparent presences were nothing to me, since
I knew perfectly well that their origin was nowhere else than in my
overwrought nerves--and I have come to conclude that most cases of
visions of this sort are to be explained by attributing them to a
temporary or permanent disorganization of the brain of the percipient.
Mind, I do not say _all_ cases--there are many that are not to be set
aside so readily. Again, it is not easy to arrive at the facts in any
given case; even if the observer is honest, he may not have cultivated
the habit of exact statement--moreover, stories are apt to grow by
repetition, and a tendency to exaggerate is common to most of us.
Now and then, however, I have come upon an account of supernatural
visitation which seems an exception to the general run, and upsets my
theories; and I must say that, having from time to time investigated
at least fifteen hundred such instances, the two stories you have
furnished me are of them all the best authenticated."
Some years ago, in the course of a tour of art study which took me
through the principal countries of Europe, I found myself in Naples,
having arrived there by a leisurely progress that began at Gibraltar,
and had brought me by easy stages, and with many stops _en route_,
through the Mediterranean. The time of year was late February, and the
season, even for Southern Italy, was much advanced;--so, in visiting
the Island of Capri (the exact date, I recollect, was February 22) I
found this most charming spot in the Vesuvian Bay smiling and verdant,
and was tempted by the brilliant sunshine and warm breezes to explore
the hilly country which rose behind the port at which I had landed.
The fields upon the heights were green with grass, and spangled with
delicate white flowers bearing a yellow centre, which, while smaller
than our familiar American field-daisies, and held upon more slender
stalks, reminded me of them. Having in mind certain friends in then
bleak New England, whence I had strayed into this Land of Summer, I
plucked a number of these blossoms and placed them between the leaves
of my guide-book--Baedeker's "Southern Italy,"--intending to inclose
them in letters which I then planned to write to these friends,
contrasting the conditions attending their "Washington's Birthday" with
those in which I fortunately found myself.
Returning to Naples, the many interests of that city put out of my head
for the time the thought of letter-writing, and three days later I
took the train for Rome, with my correspondence still in arrears. The
first day of my stay in Rome was devoted to an excursion by carriage
into the Campagna, and on the way back to the city I stopped to see
that most interesting and touching of Roman monuments, the Tomb of
Cecilia Metella. Every tourist knows and has visited that beautiful
memorial--so I do not need to describe its massive walls, its roof (now
fallen and leaving the sepulchre open to the sky) and the heavy turf
which covers the earth of its interior. This green carpet of Nature,
when I visited the tomb, was thickly strewn with fragrant violets, and
of these, as of the daisylike flowers I had found in Capri, I collected
several, and placed them in my guide-book--this time Baedeker's
"Central Italy."
I mention these two books--the "Southern" and the "Central
Italy"--because they have an important bearing on my story.
The next day, calling at my banker's, I saw an announcement that
letters posted before four o'clock that afternoon would be forwarded to
catch the mail for New York by a specially fast steamer for Liverpool,
and hastened back to my hotel with the purpose of preparing, and thus
expediting, my much-delayed correspondence. The most important duty of
the moment seemed to be the writing of a letter to my wife, then living
in Boston, and to this I particularly addressed myself. I described my
trip through the Mediterranean and my experience in Naples and Rome,
and concluded my letter as follows:
"In Naples I found February to be like our New England May, and in
Capri, which I visited on 'Washington's Birthday,' I found the heights
of the island spangled over with delicate flowers, some of which I
plucked, and enclose in this letter. And, speaking of flowers, I
send you also some violets which I gathered yesterday at the Tomb of
Cecelia Metella, outside of Rome--you know about this monument, or,
if not, you can look up its history, and save me from transcribing a
paragraph from the guide-book. I send you these flowers from Naples and
Rome, respectively, in order that you may understand in what agreeable
surroundings I find myself, as compared with the ice and snow and
bitter cold which are probably your experience at this season."
Having finished the letter, I took from the guide-book on "Central
Italy" which lay on the table before me, the violets from the Tomb of
Cecilia Metella, enclosed them, with the sheets I had written, in an
envelope, sealed and addressed it, and was about to affix the stamp,
when it suddenly occurred to me that I had left out the flowers I had
plucked at Capri. These, I then recalled, were still in the guide-book
for "Southern Italy," which I had laid away in my portmanteau as of
no further present use to me. Accordingly I unstrapped and unlocked
the portmanteau, found the guide-book, took out the flowers from Capri
which were still between its leaves, opened and destroyed the envelope
already addressed, added the daisies to the violets, and put the whole
into a new inclosure, which I again directed, stamped, and duly dropped
into the mail-box at the bankers'.
I am insistent upon these details because they particularly impressed
upon my mind the certainty that both varieties of flowers were inclosed
in the letter to my wife. Subsequent events would have been strange
enough if I had not placed the flowers in the letter at all--but the
facts above stated assure me that there is no question that I did so,
and make what followed more than ever inexplicable.
So much for the beginning of the affair--in Italy; now for its
conclusion--in New England.
* * * * *
During my year abroad, my wife was living, as I have said, in Boston,
occupying at the Winthrop House, on Bowdoin street--a hotel which has
since, I believe, been taken down--a suite of rooms comprising parlor,
bedroom and bath. With her was my daughter by a former marriage, whose
mother had died at her birth, some seven years before. On the same
floor of the hotel were apartments occupied by Mrs. Celia Thaxter, a
woman whose name is well known in American literature, and with whom my
wife sustained a very intimate friendship. I am indebted for the facts
I am now setting down not only to my wife, who gave me an oral account
of them on my return from Europe, four months later, but also to this
lady who wrote out and preserved a record of them at the time of their
occurrence, and sent me a copy of the same while I was still abroad.
About ten days after I had posted my letter, inclosing the flowers
from Capri and Rome, my wife suddenly awoke in the middle of the
night, and saw standing at the foot of her bed the form of the child's
mother. The aspect of the apparition was so serene and gracious that,
although greatly startled, she felt no alarm; moreover, it had once
before appeared to her, as the reader will learn in the second story
of this series, which, for reasons of my own, I have not arranged in
chronological order. Then she heard, as if from a voice at a great
distance, these words: "I have brought you some flowers from Sidney."
At the next instant the figure vanished.
The visitation had been so brief that my wife, although she at once
arose and lighted the gas, argued with herself that she had been
dreaming, and after a few minutes extinguished the light and returned
to bed, where she slept soundly until six o'clock the next morning.
Always an early riser, she dressed at once and went from her bedroom,
where the child was still sleeping, to her parlor. In the centre of the
room was a table, covered with a green cloth, and as she entered and
happened to glance at it she saw, to her surprise, a number of dried
flowers scattered over it. A part of these she recognized as violets,
but the rest were unfamiliar to her, although they resembled very small
daisies.
The vision of the night before was at once forcibly recalled to her,
and the words of the apparition, "I have brought you some flowers,"
seemed to have a meaning, though what it was she could not understand.
After examining these strange blossoms for a time she returned to her
chamber and awakened the child, whom she then took to see the flowers,
and asked her if she knew anything about them.
"Why, no, mamma," the little girl replied; "I have never seen them
before. I was reading my new book at the table last night until I went
to bed, and if they were there I should have seen them."
So the flowers were gathered up and placed on the shelf above the
fireplace, and during the morning were exhibited to Mrs. Thaxter, who
came in for a chat, and who, like my wife, could make nothing of the
matter.
At about four o'clock in the afternoon of that day the postman called
at the hotel, bearing among his mail several letters for my wife, which
were at once sent up to her. Among them was one that was postmarked
"Rome" and addressed in my handwriting, and with this she sat down as
the first to be read. It contained an account, among other things, of
my experiences in Naples and Rome, and in due course mentioned the
enclosure of flowers from Capri and from the Tomb of Cecilia Metella.
There were, however, no flowers whatever in the letter, although each
sheet and the envelope were carefully examined; my wife even shook her
skirts and made a search upon the carpet, thinking that the stated
enclosure might have fallen out as the letter was opened. Nothing could
be found--yet ten hours before the arrival of the letter, flowers
exactly such as it described had been found on the centre-table!
Mrs. Thaxter was summoned, and the two ladies marvelled greatly. Among
Mrs. Thaxter's friends in the city was a well-known botanist, and she
at once suggested that the flowers be offered for his inspection.
No time was lost in calling upon him, and the flowers were shown
(without, however, the curious facts about them being mentioned), with
the request that he state, if it were possible, whence they came. He
examined them carefully and then said:
"As to the violets, it is difficult to say where they grew, since
these flowers, wherever they may be found in the world (and they are
of almost universal occurrence, through cultivation or otherwise)
may everywhere be very much alike. Certain peculiarities in these
specimens, however, coupled with the scent they still faintly retain
and which is characteristic, incline me to the opinion that they came
from some part of Southern Europe--perhaps France, but more likely
Italy. As to the others, which, as you say, resemble small daisies,
they must have come from some point about the Bay of Naples, as I am
not aware of their occurrence elsewhere."
"A SPIRIT OF HEALTH"
"A SPIRIT OF HEALTH"
It is common, and, in the main, a well-founded objection to belief in
so-called supernatural manifestations, that they seem in general to
subserve no purpose of usefulness or help to us who are still upon
this mortal plane, and thus are unworthy of intelligences such as both
love and reason suggest our departed friends to be. The mummeries and
too-frequent juggleries of dark-séances, and the inconclusive and
usually vapid "communications" that are vouchsafed through professional
mediums, have done much to confirm this opinion, and the possibility of
apparitions, particularly, has been weakened, rather than strengthened,
in the minds of intelligent persons by the machinery of cabinets
and other appliances which seem to be necessary paraphernalia in
"materializing" the spirits of the dead.
That the departed _ever_ reappear in such form as they presented during
life I am not prepared to affirm, even in view of many experiences
of a nature like that which I am about to relate. In the generality
of such cases I am decidedly in agreement with the opinion of the
late Wilkie Collins, as set forth in the preceding story--although I
should be inclined to extend that opinion far enough to include the
admission of the possibility that it was the actual Presence which so
worked upon the mind of the percipient as to cause it to project from
itself the phantom appearance. This may seem somewhat like a quibble
to confirmed believers in apparitions, of whom there are many, and
perhaps it is--while those who are impatient of ingenious psychological
explanations may find in the following story a confirmation of the
conviction which they hold, that the dead may appear in the form in
which we knew them, bringing warning and aid to the living.
* * * * *
It is now thirty-one years ago that the wife of my youth, after less
than a year of married life, was taken from me by death, leaving to
me an infant daughter, in whom all the personal and mental traits of
the mother gradually reproduced themselves in a remarkable degree.
Some three years later I married again, and the child, who, during
that period, had been in the care of her grandparents, at regular
intervals, on either side of the house respectively, was taken into the
newly-formed home.
A strong affection between the new mother and the little girl was
established at once, and their relations soon became more like those of
blood than of adoption. The latter, never having known her own mother,
had no memory of associations that might have weakened the influence of
the new wife, and the step-mother, as the years passed and she had no
children, grew to regard the one who had come to her at her marriage as
in very truth her own.
I often thought, when seeing those two together, so fond and devoted
each to each, that if those we call dead still live and have knowledge
of facts in the existence they have left behind, the mother of the
child may have felt her natural yearnings satisfied in beholding their
mutual affection, and even have found therein the medium to extend from
her own sphere the influence of happiness which some may believe they
see exercised in the events that this narrative, as well as others in
the series, describes.
At the time in which these events occurred, I was traveling in Europe,
and my wife and daughter were living in Boston, as stated in the story
with which this book opens. In the adjoining town of Brookline there
resided a lady of wealth and social prominence, Mrs. John W. Candler,
wife of a gentleman who had large railway interests in the South, and
who was, moreover, Representative for his district in the Lower House
of Congress. Mrs. Candler was a woman of rare beauty and possessed
unusual intellectual gifts; she was also a close personal friend of
Mrs. Thaxter, whom I have before mentioned and who introduced her to
my wife--the acquaintance thus formed developing into an affectionate
intimacy that ended only with Mrs. Candler's death, a dozen years
ago. As her husband's business interests and legislative duties
frequently compelled his absence from home, it was Mrs. Candler's
delight to enliven her enforced solitudes by dispensing her large and
unostentatious hospitality to her chosen friends--so that it often
happened that Mrs. Thaxter, and my wife and child, were guests for
considerable periods at her luxurious residence.
One afternoon in mid-winter, Mrs. Candler drove into the city to call
upon my wife, and, finding her suffering from a somewhat obstinate
cold, urged her, with her usual warmth and heartiness, to return home
with her for a couple of days, for the sake of the superior comforts
which her house could afford as compared with those of the hotel. My
wife demurred to this, chiefly on the ground that, as the weather was
very severe, she did not like to take the child with her, since, being
rather delicate that winter although not actually ill, she dared not
remove her, even temporarily, from the equable temperature of the hotel.
While the matter was being discussed another caller was announced in
the person of Miss Mae Harris Anson, a young woman of some eighteen
years, daughter of a wealthy family in Minneapolis, who was pursuing
a course of study at the New England Conservatory of Music. Miss
Anson was very fond of children, and possessed an unusual talent for
entertaining them--and thus was a great favorite of my little daughter,
who hailed her arrival with rapture. This fact furnished Mrs. Candler
with an idea which she immediately advanced in the form of a suggestion
that Miss Anson might be willing to care for the child during my wife's
absence. To this proposal Miss Anson at once assented, saying, in her
lively way, that, as her school was then in recess for a few days, she
would like nothing better than to exchange her boarding-house for a
hotel for a while, and in consideration thereof to act as nursemaid
for such time as might be required of her. It was finally agreed,
therefore, that Miss Anson should come to the hotel the next morning,
prepared for a two or three days' stay;--this she did, and early in
the afternoon Mrs. Candler arrived in her sleigh, and with my wife was
driven to her home.
* * * * *
The afternoon and evening passed without incident, and my wife retired
early to bed, being assigned to a room next to Mrs. Candler, and one
that could be entered only through that lady's apartment. The next
morning she arose rather late, and yielding to the arguments of her
hostess, who insisted that she should not undergo the exertion of going
down to breakfast, that repast was served in her room, and she partook
of it while seated in an easy chair at a table before an open fire that
blazed cheerily in the wide chimney-place. The meal finished and the
table removed, she continued to sit for some time in her comfortable
chair, being attired only in dressing-gown and slippers, considering
whether she should go to bed again, as Mrs. Candler had recommended, or
prepare herself to rejoin her friend, whom she could hear talking in
the adjoining room with another member of the household.
The room in which she was sitting had a large window fronting upon the
southeast, and the morning sun, shining from a cloudless sky, poured
through it a flood of light that stretched nearly to her feet, and
formed a golden track across the carpet. Her eyes wandered from one to
another object in the luxurious apartment, and as they returned from
one of these excursions to a regard of her more immediate surroundings,
she was startled to perceive that some one was with her--one who,
standing in the full light that came through the window, was silently
observing her. Some subtle and unclassified sense informed her that
the figure in the sunlight was not of mortal mold--it was indistinct
in form and outline, and seemed to be a part of, rather than separate
from, the radiance that surrounded it. It was the figure of a young
and beautiful woman with golden hair and blue eyes, and from both face
and eyes was carried the impression of a great anxiety; a robe of some
filmy white material covered her form from neck to feet, and bare arms,
extending from flowing sleeves, were stretched forth in a gesture of
appeal.
My wife, stricken with a feeling in which awe dominated fear, lay back
in her chair for some moments silently regarding the apparition, not
knowing if she were awake or dreaming. A strange familiarity in the
face troubled her, for she knew she had never seen it before--then
understanding came to her, and the recollection of photographs, and of
the features of her daughter by adoption, flashed upon her mind the
instant conviction that she was gazing at the mother who died when the
child was born.
"What is it?" she finally found strength to whisper. "Why do you come
to me?"
The countenance of the apparition took on an expression of trouble more
acute even than before.
"The child! The child!"--the cry came from the shadowy lips distinctly,
yet as if uttered at a great distance. "Go back to town at once!"
"But why?" my wife inquired. "I do not understand what you mean."
The figure began to fade away, as if reabsorbed in the light that
enveloped it, but the voice came again as before:--"Go to your room and
look in your bureau drawer!"--and only the sunlight was to be seen in
the spot where the phantom had stood.
For some moments my wife remained reclining in her chair, completely
overcome by her strange vision; then she got upon her feet, and half
ran, half staggered, into the next room where Mrs. Candler and her
companion were still conversing.
"Why, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Candler, "what in the world is the
matter? You are as pale as a ghost!"
"I think I have seen one," panted my wife. "Tell me, has anyone passed
through here into my room?"
"Why, no," her friend replied; "how could anyone? We have both been
sitting here ever since breakfast."
"Then it is true!" cried my wife. "Something terrible is happening in
town! Please, please take me to my rooms at once!"--and she hurriedly
related what she had seen.
Mrs. Candler endeavored to soothe her--she had been dreaming; all must
be well with the child, otherwise Miss Anson would at once inform
them;--moreover, rather than have her brave a ride to town in the
bitter cold of the morning, she would send a servant after luncheon
to inquire for news at the hotel. My wife was not convinced by these
arguments but finally yielded to them; Mrs. Candler gave her the
morning paper as a medium for quieting her mind, and she returned with
it to her room and resumed her seat in the easy chair.
She had hardly begun her reading, however, when the newspaper was
snatched from her hand and thrown to the opposite side of the room, and
as she started up in alarm she saw the apparition again standing in the
sunlight, and again heard the voice--this time in a tone of imperious
command--"Go to your rooms at once and look in your bureau drawer!"
At the utterance of these words the apparition vanished, leaving my
wife so overwhelmed with fear and amazement that for some time she was
powerless to move--then reason and control of action returned to her,
and she was able to regain her friend's room and acquaint her with the
facts of this second visitation. This time Mrs. Candler made no attempt
to oppose her earnest purpose to return to town, the horses and sleigh
were ordered from the stables, my wife hurriedly dressed herself, and
in half an hour both ladies were speeding toward Boston.
When they reached the entrance of the hotel, my wife, whose excitement
had increased greatly during the drive, sprang from the sleigh and
rushed upstairs, with Mrs. Candler close behind her, burst into the
door of her rooms like a whirlwind, and discovered--the child absorbed
in architectural pursuits with a set of building blocks in the middle
of the sitting-room, and Miss Anson calmly reading a novel in a
rocking chair by the window!
The picture thus presented was so serene and commonplace by comparison
with what my wife's agitation had led her to expect, that Mrs. Candler
at once burst out laughing; my wife's face also showed intense
bewilderment--then, crying, "She said 'look in the bureau drawer!'" she
hurried into the bedroom with Mrs. Candler at her heels.
The bureau, a conventional piece of bedroom furniture, stood at the
head of the child's bed, and presented an entirely innocent appearance;
nevertheless my wife went straight up to it, and, firmly grasping the
handles, pulled out the topmost drawer. Instantly a mass of flame
burst forth, accompanied by a cloud of acrid smoke that billowed to
the ceiling, and the whole interior of the bureau seemed to be ablaze.
Mrs. Candler, with great presence of mind, seized a pitcher of water
and dashed it upon the fire, which action checked it for the moment,
and Miss Anson flew into the hall, arousing the house with her cries.
Mrs. Thaxter, who was at the moment coming to my wife's apartment from
her own, hurried in and saw the blazing bureau and the two white-faced
women before it and turned quickly to summon help--employes came
running with an extinguisher, and in five minutes the danger was over.
When the excitement had subsided, an examination was made as to the
cause of the conflagration, with the following result:
My wife, who was a skilful painter in oils, and devoted much of her
time to this employment, was accustomed to keep her colors and brushes
in the upper drawer of the bureau in her bedroom. She had also, and
very carelessly, placed in a corner of the drawer a quantity of loose
rags which had become thoroughly saturated with oil and turpentine from
their use in cleaning her palette and brushes.
I am indebted for the above facts not only to Mrs. Thaxter and Mrs.
Candler, both of whom I have frequently heard relate this story, but,
particularly, to Miss Anson herself, who has been, at the time of
writing this, for several years connected with the editorial staff of
the Minneapolis _Journal_. In a letter which she sent me in response
to my request that she should confirm my recollection, she set forth
clearly the causes of the conflagration in the following words:
"Some time before she [my wife] had put a whole package of matches into
a stewpan, in which she heated water, and set the pan in with these
paints and rags. Then, one night, when in a hurry for some hot water,
she had gone in, in the dark, and forgetting all about the matches, had
dumped them upon the tubes of oil paints when she pulled out the pan.
"Every one of the heads of these matches had been burned off, evidently
through spontaneous combustion. I went through them all, and not one
had been ignited. The rags were burned and the whole inside of the
drawer was charred. The fire could not have been kept under longer than
the following night, and would probably have burned the child and me in
bed, before anyone dreamed there was a fire."
THE MIRACLE OF THE FLOWERS
THE MIRACLE OF THE FLOWERS
Among the "phenomena" which attend the average spiritualistic séance
a favorite one is the apparent production from space of quantities
of flowers--to the supernatural source of which credence or doubt is
given according to the degree of belief or scepticism inherent in the
individual sitters. Having never attended one of these gatherings, I
am not able to describe such an incident as occurs under such
auspices; but the suggestion recalls to my mind two very remarkable
events in which flowers were produced in a seemingly inexplicable
manner, and without the assistance (if that be the right word) of
mediumistic control. In one of these experiences I personally
participated, and in both of them my wife was concerned--therefore I
can vouch for their occurrence.
Some months after the happenings recorded in the two previous
narratives, I was spending the summer following my return from Europe
in Northampton, Massachusetts, at the residence of my father, having
with me my wife and daughter. The mother of the child, who, as I
have said, died in giving her birth, was a resident of the town at
the time of our marriage, and her body reposed in our family's lot in
the cemetery. The circumstance of this bereavement caused the warmest
affections of my father and mother to centre upon my daughter, she
being then their only grandchild.
The little girl was passionately fond of flowers, and her indulgent
grandfather, himself a zealous horticulturist and grower of choice
fruits, had that summer allotted to her sole use a plot six feet square
in his spacious gardens, which became the pride of her heart from the
brilliant array of blooms which she had coaxed to grow in it. Her
favorite flowers were pansies, with the seeds of which she had planted
nearly one-half of the space at her disposal. They had germinated
successfully and flourished amazingly, and at the time of which I write
that part of the bed devoted to them was a solid mass of pansies of
every conceivable variety.
At about four o'clock one afternoon my wife and I set out for a walk
through the famous meadows that stretched away from the back of the
grounds, and on our return, some two hours later, we saw at a distance
the child standing upon the terrace awaiting us, clean and wholesome
in a fresh white frock, and bearing a large bouquet of her favorite
pansies in her hand. As we approached she ran to meet us and extended
the pansies to my wife, saying:--"Mamma, see these lovely pansies! I
have picked them for you from my pansy-bed."
My wife thanked the child and kissed her, and we went upstairs to our
room together to prepare for supper that was then about to be served.
A vase stood on the shelf at one side of the room, and in this, first
partly filling it with water, I placed the bunch of pansies.
After supper I suggested to my wife that we should call upon some
relatives who lived about a quarter of a mile away, and went with
her to our room while she made her preparations for our excursion.
While waiting for her I took from the shelf the vase containing the
pansies, and we examined and commented upon them for some time; then,
her toilette being completed, I restored the vase and flowers to their
former position, and we left the room, and immediately thereafter the
house, together.
* * * * *
We found our friends at home and spent a pleasant evening with them,
leaving on our return at about ten o'clock. The night was warm and
perfectly calm, and, as there was no moon, the way was dark save
where, here and there, a street lamp threw about its little circle of
light. As we turned into the street which led to my father's house we
passed under a row of maple trees whose heavy foliage made the darkness
even more profound than we had known it elsewhere, and beside a high
hedge which enclosed the spacious grounds of a mansion that stood at
the corner of the two highways. This hedge extended for a distance
of about fifty yards, and as many feet beyond the point where it
terminated a lighted street lamp dimly illumined the pathway. We were
at a point about midway of the hedge when my wife, who was the nearer
to it, suddenly stopped and exclaimed: "Was it you that gave that pull
at my shawl?" and readjusted the garment--a light fleecy affair--which
I at once observed was half off her left shoulder.
"Why, no," I replied, "I did not touch your shawl. What do you mean?"
"I mean," she answered, "that I felt a hand seize my shawl and try to
draw it away from me."
I pointed out the fact that I could not well have reached her shawl
on the side on which it had been disarranged, and suggested that it
might have caught upon a projecting twig; but although she accepted
this explanation as reasonable she still insisted that she had the
consciousness of some person having laid a hand upon her.
After a few moments we went on, and had left the hedge behind us and
were within a few feet of the street lamp, when my wife stopped a
second time, declaring that her shawl had been seized again. Sure
enough, the garment was as before, lying half off her shoulder, and
this time obviously not because of any projecting twig, since we were
in a perfectly clear space, and could look about us over an area of
several yards in every direction. This we did, puzzled but not alarmed
at the twice-recurring incident; then, on a sudden, my wife seized
my arm with a convulsive grip, and, raising her eyes until I thought
she was looking at the light in the street lamp before us, whispered:
"Heavens! Do you see _that_?"
I followed the direction of her gaze, but could see nothing, and told
her so, in the same breath asking her what she meant.
"It is Minnie!" she gasped (thus uttering the name of my dead wife)
"and she has her hands full of flowers! Oh, Minnie, Minnie, what are
you doing?" and hid her face in her hands. I clasped her in my arms,
thinking she was about to faint, and gazed fearfully above us in a
vain effort to discern the declared apparition--and at the same moment
I felt a shower of soft objects strike upon my upturned face and upon
my straw hat, and saw against the light before me what seemed like
blossoms floating downward to the ground.
As soon as I could quiet my wife's agitation and induce her to look
again for the appearance which she believed she had beheld, but which
she told me had now vanished, I made a search upon the sidewalk for
the objects whose fall I had both felt and seen. They were plainly
evident, even in the dim light, and I gathered up a number of them and
carried them under the lamp for examination. They were pansies, freshly
gathered, and with their leaves and stems damp, as if just taken from
water. Hastening to the house, we went directly to our room, and
lighting the gas looked eagerly toward the shelf where we had left the
vase filled with pansies some three hours before. The vase was there,
half-filled with water, but not a single flower was standing in it.
* * * * *
The next day was Sunday and all the family went to morning service
at the church. As my wife and I, with our daughter between us and
following my father and mother at some distance, reached the scene
of our adventure on the previous night, we saw lying on the sidewalk
a half-dozen pansies which we had evidently overlooked, owing to the
dim light in which we had gathered up the others. At sight of them the
little girl dropped my hand, to which she was clinging, and with a cry
of surprise ran to pick them up.
"Why," she exclaimed, "how did these come here? They are the pansies I
picked for mamma yesterday from my pansy bed!"
"Oh, no, dear," I said; "these are probably some other pansies; how can
you tell they came from your bed?"
"Why," she replied, "I know every one of my pansies, and this
one"--holding up a blossom that was of so deep and uniform a purple as
to appear almost black--"I could tell anywhere, for there was no other
in the bed like it."
So she collected all the scattered flowers and insisted on carrying
them to church, and on returning home they were replaced, with
their fellows, in the vase from which they had been so mysteriously
transferred the night before.
* * * * *
It has been my purpose, in preparing these stories for publication,
not to permit myself to be led into any attempt to explain them, or
even to embellish them with comment, and thus perhaps weaken what I
desire to present as a plain statement of fact--yet this incident
of the pansies seems to me (although for quite personal reasons) so
touching, and so tender in its suggestions, that I cannot forbear a
word or two concerning it. In thus indulging myself I am aware that
the reader may think he finds a contradiction of the statement I have
made in the preface of this book as to my non-committal attitude
regarding Spiritualism. On this point I can only say that while I am
not convinced as to the origin of the phenomenon, I should find much
comfort if I could with assurance attribute it to a spiritualistic
source. There are doubtless many who will thus refer it, and I write
these lines in sympathy, even if somewhat doubtingly, with their point
of view.
In every way this event stands unique in my experience--in place of its
occurrence, and in all its circumstances. The town was the scene of my
youthful wooing--the street one in which my _fiancée_ and I had walked
and talked a thousand times on the way between my home and hers. To
this town, and to this familiar path, the new wife had come with me,
and with us both the child of _her_ love and sacrifice. Is there no
significance, is there no consolation, not only to myself but to others
who have been bereaved, in this episode? The loving gift of flowers to
her new guardian by the innocent and unconscious child; the approval
of the offering through its repetition, by the apparent spirit of the
mother that bore her!--these things may mean nothing, yet in me whom
they approached so nearly they have strengthened the hope that lives
in every human heart, that the flame of our best and purest affections
shall survive the seeming extinguishment of the grave.
Science, to be sure, has its explanation, and in fairness that
explanation should be heard. To quote an eminent authority who has
favored me with his views on the subject:--"The power that moved the
pansies was a psychic force inherent in the human personality [of
your wife] and exercised without the knowledge or cooperation of the
objective self." (Dr. John D. Quackenbos.)
In other words, it was not the spirit of the dead wife that lifted the
pansies and showered them upon us, but what we must call, for want of
a better term, the living wife's "subliminal self." The vision that
appeared and seemed to be casting the flowers was a freak of the
psychical consciousness--there was no apparition save in my wife's
overwrought imagination.
To quote again: "But that does not preclude the possibility of the
levitation of the pansies, which levitation was accomplished by the
lady herself, however ignorant of the operation of this psychic force
she used objectively. The fact that she was thus objectively ignorant
would be no obstacle to her subjective mind using in the objective
earth-life her own super-sensible attributes and powers."
The principal objection to this argument seems to me to lie in
this:--the pansies did not first fall upon us, and thus, by suggestion
or otherwise, so excite my wife's imagination that she thought she saw
the apparition; the apparition was first manifest, and the rain of
flowers followed. That is to say, an appearance of the immaterial was
followed by a tangible manifestation--there was nothing imaginary about
_that_. Had the conditions been reversed, the fall of the flowers might
very well have excited apprehension of the vision--but I cannot see
where there was any place for fancy in experience of this incident.
* * * * *
The second episode to which I have alluded in the opening paragraph
of this narrative occurred in the following winter, and was, in a
certain sense, a sequel to the first. Business took me from my home
in Boston, and during my absence my wife and daughter were invited by
the lady I have already mentioned to spend a few days at her house in
Brookline. Her husband was away on one of his frequent business trips,
leaving with his wife her widowed sister, Mrs. Myra Hall, his daughter,
a girl of eighteen, and a young German lady, Fräulein Botha, whose
acquaintance the hostess had formed abroad, and who at the time was at
the head of the Department of Instruction in Art at Wellesley College.
All these were witnesses, with my wife, of the remarkable event which I
am about to describe.
On the afternoon of the second day of my wife's visit, the child
became suddenly ill, and as evening drew on exhibited rather alarming
symptoms of fever. A physician was summoned who prescribed remedies,
and directed that the patient should be put to bed at once. This was
done, and at about ten o'clock my wife, accompanied by the ladies I
have mentioned, went quietly upstairs to observe her condition before
retiring for the night themselves. The upper floor was reached by a
very broad staircase which branched near the top to give access to the
chambers upon a wide hall, from every part of which one could look down
over a railing upon the floor below--and the room in which the child
lay was about half-way around this hall on the left-hand side.
The ladies entered the chamber and the hostess turned up the gas,
showing the child peacefully slumbering and with forehead and hands
moist with a wholesome perspiration, although her face was still
somewhat flushed. As the night was a bitter cold one in mid-January,
the mistress of the house suggested that some additional covering
should be placed upon the bed, and produced from another room an
eider-down counterpane, covered with scarlet silk, which was carefully
arranged without waking the sleeper. All then left the room and started
downstairs again, the hostess being the last to go out, after lowering
the gas until it showed only a point of light.
* * * * *
They were near the bottom of the staircase when my wife suddenly cried
out: "Oh, there is Minnie! She passed up the stairs by me, all in
white, and has gone into the room! Oh, I know something dreadful is
going to happen!"--and she rushed frantically to the upper floor,
followed by the others in a body. At the half-open door of the child's
room they all stopped and listened, not daring for the moment to
enter, but no sound came from within. Then, mustering up courage and
clinging to each others' hands, they went softly in, and the hostess
turned up the gas. With one accord they looked toward the bed, and,
half-blinded by the sudden glare of the gaslight, could not for a
moment credit what their eyes showed them--that the sleeping child was
lying under a coverlet, not of scarlet, as they had left her hardly a
minute before, but of snowy white. Recovering from their astonishment,
an examination revealed the cause of the phenomenon. The scarlet
eider-down counterpane was in its place, but completely covered with
pure white lilies on long stalks, so spread about and lying in such
quantities that the surface of the bed was hidden under their blooms.
By actual count there were more than two hundred of these rich and
beautiful blossoms strewn upon the coverlet, representing a moderate
fortune at that time of year, and probably unprocurable though all the
conservatories in the city had been searched for them.
They were carefully gathered and placed about the house in vases, jugs,
and every other receptacle that could be pressed into service to hold
them, filling the rooms for several days with their fragrance until,
like other flowers, they faded and died.
THE MIDNIGHT HORSEMAN
THE MIDNIGHT HORSEMAN
On a brilliant moonlit evening in August, 1885, a considerable party
of friends and more or less intimate acquaintances of the hostess
assembled at the summer cottage of Mrs. Thaxter at Appledore Island,
Isles of Shoals. Included in the company were the then editor of the
New York _Herald_, Rev. Dr. Hepworth,--also well known as a prominent
divine and pulpit orator--two of the leading musicians of Boston
(Julius Eichberg and Prof. John K. Paine)--of whom one occupied
a chair in Harvard University,--and, among others, my wife and
myself. The cottage was the charming resort which the visitor would
be led to expect from the well-known refinement and artistic taste
of its occupant, and its interior attractions might well have been
suggested even to the casual passer-by who looked upon its wonderful
flower-garden, wherein seeds of every variety had in spring been
scattered broadcast and in profusion, and now, as autumn approached,
had developed into a jungle of blooms of every conceivable color.
We had some music, as I remember, and after that an interesting
conversation, which, in consequence of the many varied and brilliant
intellects there assembled, took a wide range, coming around finally--I
do not recall by what steps--to occultism, clairvoyance, and the
phenomena of so-called "Spiritualism." In the course of the discussion
of this topic, the editor interested us by a humorous account of some
recent experiences of his own in "table-tipping" and "communications"
by rappings--and incidentally remarked that he believed any assembly
of persons who wished could experience similar phenomena, even though
none of them possessed what it is usual to describe as "mediumistic"
powers. Some one else then suggested that, as our company seemed to
fulfil this condition, the present might be a favorable time to test
the theory--whereupon we all proceeded to the adjoining dining-room
with the view of making experiment by means of the large dinner table
that stood in the middle of it.
(I may here state that although my wife had already had some abnormal
experiences, only Mrs. Thaxter and I were acquainted with the fact, and
even these had come to her unsought in every instance.)
Somewhat to our disappointment, the table failed to show itself
susceptible to any "influence" other than the law of gravitation,
but remained insensible and immovable, even though we sat about it
under approved "conditions" for half an hour or so--lights lowered,
and our imposed hands touching each other in order to form upon it an
uninterrupted "circuit." We finally tired of this dull sport, turned
up the lights, and pushing back our chairs from the table, fell into
general conversation.
Hardly had we done so, when my wife suddenly exclaimed:--"How strange!
Why, the wall of the room seems to have been removed, and I can see
rocks and the sea, and the moonlight shining upon them!" At this
interruption our talk naturally ceased abruptly, and one of us asked
her to describe more in detail what was visible to her.
"It is growing stranger still," she replied. "I do not see the sea any
more. I see a long, straight road, with great trees like elms here and
there on the side of it, and casting dark shadows across it. There are
no trees like those and no such road near here, and I cannot understand
it. There is a man standing in the middle of the road, in the shadow of
one of the trees. Now he is coming toward me and I can see his face in
the moonlight. Why! it is John Weiss!" (naming the Liberal clergyman
and writer whom most of us had known in Boston, and who had died some
five or six years before) "Why, is that you? What are you doing here,
and what does this mean? He smiles, but does not speak. Now he has
turned and gone back into the shadow of the tree again."
After a few moments' pause:--"Now I can see something coming along
the road some distance away. It is a man on horseback. He is riding
slowly, and he has his head bent and a slouch hat over his eyes, so
that I cannot see his face. Now John Weiss steps out of the shadow into
the moonlight; the horse sees him and stops--he rears up in the air
and whirls about and begins to run back in the direction from which he
came. The man on his back pulls him up, lashes him with his whip, turns
him around, and tries to make him go forward. The horse is terrified
and backs again, trying to break away from his rider; the man strikes
him again, but he will not advance.
"The man dismounts and tries to lead the horse, looking about to see
what he is frightened at. I can see his face now very clearly--I should
know him anywhere! John Weiss is walking toward him, but the man does
not see him. The horse does, though, and plunges and struggles, but
the man is strong and holds him fast. Now John Weiss is so close to the
man that he _must_ see him. Oh! Oh! he does see him, and is horribly
frightened! He steps back but John Weiss does not follow--only points
his hand at him. The man jumps on his horse and beats him fiercely
with his whip, and the two fly back down the road and disappear in the
distance. Tell me, John Weiss, what it all means? He smiles again and
shakes his head--now _he_ is gone, too; I can see nothing more."
We were all profoundly impressed by this graphic recital and spent some
time discussing what possible meaning the strange vision could have;
but we were compelled to abandon all efforts to elucidate it, and it
was not until some seven months later that the sequel to the mystery
was furnished--a sequel that for the moment seemed about to offer an
explanation, but, if anything, beclouded the matter even more deeply
than before.
Early in March of the following year a party of eight or ten persons
was dining at the house of Mrs. Candler, in Brookline, already
mentioned in this series, and after dinner went up to the sitting-room
of the hostess, upon the second floor. The weather for a week previous
had been warm and spring-like, but on the day in question a heavy
snowstorm had been raging, which cleared at nightfall, leaving a foot
or so of snow upon the ground. Of the dinner-party only my wife and I
had been at the Isles of Shoals the previous summer when the incident
above narrated had occurred;--but all present were acquainted with the
circumstance, which had been a frequent subject of conversation among
us at our frequent gatherings at one another's houses during the autumn
and winter that had followed.
As I sat near the door and let my eye wander about the apartment, I
idly noticed, among the many souvenirs of foreign travel which it
contained, two Japanese vases set upon brackets in opposite corners,
and about six feet from the floor. These vases were, perhaps, twenty
feet apart--the width of the room. The vase on the bracket at my right
was empty, while the other contained a bunch of "pussy-willows," which
attracted my attention as the usual season for these growths had
not arrived. I commented upon this circumstance to my hostess, who
replied:--"Yes, it is very early for them, is it not? I was driving
yesterday, and was surprised to see a willow-tree bearing those
'pussies' in a sheltered spot beside Jamaica Pond. I had the footman
get down and gather them, and when I reached home I put them in that
vase."
This remark, of course, drew all eyes to the bracket bearing the
vase filled with the "pussies"--which, thereupon and at the instant,
disappeared, leaving the vase in its place, but quite empty; a soft
thud was heard as two or three of the stalks fell upon the carpet
midway between the two brackets, and a rustling sound in the right-hand
corner attracted the attention of all present to the singular fact that
the "pussies" were now standing in the vase on the second bracket as
quietly as if they had been there at the outset.
It is to be noted that no one in the room was within a dozen feet of
either of the two vases, and that neither of them could be reached
by anyone who did not stand upon a chair for the purpose. Moreover,
the room was brilliantly illuminated by several gas-jets. We had
been accustomed to singular happenings in this particular house,
and consequently were amused rather than startled by the whimsical
nature of this one. In discussing it some one suggested that peculiar
influences seemed to be about, and it was agreed to invite them to
further manifestations if possible. Consequently the centre of the
room was cleared and a large table moved into it--around which, after
locking the door that led into the hall, and extinguishing all the
lights but one (which also was turned down to a faint glimmer), we drew
up our chairs and awaited developments. A half-hour passed without
anything whatever happening--whereupon, deciding that conditions were
unfavorable, we relighted all the gas-jets and fell into general
conversation, although leaving the table still in its position in the
middle of the room.
In a few minutes our hostess said:--"Oh, by the way, I want you to see
the new decorations I have had placed in my daughter's room. You know
it is her birthday"--in fact, I believe that evening's dinner party
was in honor of the event--"and I have had her room entirely refitted,
since she is no longer a girl, but a young lady."
So, following her lead, we all trooped away to inspect the new
arrangement. In doing so we passed down the hall for a distance of some
fifty feet, and entered the room in question, which was at the front
of the house and overlooked its extensive grounds. The apartment was
decorated with all the luxury and display of taste that large means and
the command of expert skill could provide, and we spent some time in
examination of its rich and beautiful details.
One item that particularly attracted our attention was a small but very
heavy clock that stood on the mantelpiece, its case of Japanese carved
bronze, and its interior mechanism giving forth a very peculiarly
musical and rapid "tick-tock, tick-tock" as its short pendulum swung to
and fro. It was, in fact, a unique and curious ornament, and all the
members of the party admiringly examined it--for my own part, I was
so struck with its rare character that I stood regarding it after the
others had left the room, and turned from it only when our hostess, who
alone remained, playfully inquired if I intended to study the clock all
night, and, extinguishing the light, passed out into the hall with me.
Returning to the sitting-room, we decided to make some further
experiment, and, again extinguishing the lights and relocking the door
leading into the hall, seated ourselves around the table as before. We
had not been in this position more than a few minutes when there came
a tremendous thump upon the table, like the fall of some heavy object.
Being nearest to the lowered gas-jet which gave the only light to the
room, I jumped up and turned it on to its full capacity--whereupon
everyone present saw standing, in the exact centre of the table, its
"tick-rock, tick-tock" ringing out sonorously, the carved bronze clock
which we had so recently inspected in the distant bedchamber, and
which had been passed in some mysterious fashion along fifty feet of
hall space, and through a shut and locked door, to astonish us by its
present appearance.
* * * * *
Forming ourselves into a committee of the whole, we carried the
clock back to its former place, which, it need not be said, we found
unoccupied--then returned to the sitting-room, where, with lowered
lights, we discussed the strange occurrences of the evening. Although
curious to see if any other manifestations would occur, we made no
effort to invite them beyond dimming the lights, and as we found the
room had become rather warm and close, we opened the door into the
hall for the sake of better ventilation. The hall was only partially
lighted, but objects in it were easily visible in comparison with the
almost total darkness that shrouded the sitting-room. Our talk was of
ghosts and of other subjects uncanny to the uninitiated, and might have
seemed unpleasantly interesting to anyone listening to it from the
hall--as we were afterward led to believe was the case.
Directly facing the open door, and the only one of the company so
seated, was my wife--who suddenly startled us all by springing to her
feet and crying out:--"There he is! There is the man I saw at the Isles
of Shoals last summer!"
"What is it?" we inquired; "an apparition?"
"No, no!" she exclaimed; "it is a living man! I saw him look around the
edge of the door and immediately draw back again! He is here to rob the
house! Stop him! Stop him!"--and she rushed out into the hall with the
whole company in pursuit. The servants, who by this time had gone to
bed, were aroused and set to work to examine the lower floors, while we
above searched every room, but in each case without result.
Next to the sitting-room was a large apartment some thirty feet long
by twenty wide, which was used for dancing parties, and dinners
on occasions when many guests were invited. It was at the time
unfurnished, except, I believe, that a few chairs were scattered
about it, and along one side was a row of several windows, before
which hung heavy crimson draperies that completely covered them. We
lighted the gas in this room, but a glance was sufficient to show that
it was unoccupied and afforded no possible place of concealment. I
passed through it, however, and, as I did so, felt a current of cold
air, which I immediately traced, by the swaying of one of the heavy
curtains, to a window which its folds covered.
Going up to the drapery and drawing it aside, I saw that the window
behind it was half open, and on the sill and the stone coping outside
I perceived, in the several inches of snow that covered both, marks
which showed the passage of what was evidently a human body. Reaching
nearly to the window was the slanting roof, formed by heavy plate
glass, of the conservatory, which opened from the dining-room on the
lower floor--and in the snow which covered this was a furrow which
indicated that someone had by this means allowed himself to slide from
the second story to the ground. Further investigation below showed,
by the tell-tale marks in the snow, that the person who had thus
escaped from the house, and who, after gliding down the glass roof of
the conservatory, had fallen sprawling under it, had lost no time in
picking himself up, and making good his escape. The footsteps of a
man running with long strides were traced through the grounds to the
street, two hundred yards away, where they were lost in the confused
tracks of the public highway--and from that time to the present the
mystery has remained unsolved.
THE HAUNTED BUNGALOW
THE HAUNTED BUNGALOW
PREFATORY NOTE
The annals of crime contain few chapters more lurid than those
contributed to them by the record of Frederick Bailey Deeming, who
suffered the extreme penalty of the law on the scaffold of the
Melbourne (Victoria, Australia) jail on the morning of the twenty-third
of May, in the year one thousand, eight hundred and ninety-two.
The details of his misdeeds, his trial, and his punishment were set
forth by me at the time in letters to the New York _Times_ and the
Boston _Journal_--of which, as well as of several other publications,
I was accredited correspondent during several years of residence and
travel in Australasia and the South Seas.
In the narrative that follows, so far as it describes atrocities
which shocked the whole English-speaking world, I have endeavored to
subordinate particulars in the presentation of a general effect; my
purpose has been, not to picture horrors, but to suggest the strange
and abnormal personality that lay behind them.
In regard to the peculiar manifestations which followed the criminal's
execution, and for which some undefined influence that survived his
physical extinction seemed, in part at least, to be responsible, I can
advance no opinion.
CHAPTER I
THE CONDEMNED
When I called upon the Colonial Secretary, in the Government Offices
at Melbourne, with a request that I might be allowed to visit the
prisoner as he lay in jail awaiting execution, I was informed that such
permission was contrary to all precedent.
I had sat directly under the eye of the culprit four weary days while
the evidence accumulated that should take away his life. I had watched
his varied changes of expression as the tide of testimony ebbed and
flowed, and finally swelled up and overwhelmed him. I had heard against
him the verdict of "the twelve good men and true" who had sat so long
as arbiters of his fate, and the words of the judge condemning him to
"be hanged by the neck until he was dead," and commending his soul
to the mercy of a God who seemed far aloof from the scheme of human
justice so long and so laboriously planned.
Short shrift had been allowed him. Condemned and sentenced on a
Monday, the date for his act of expiation had been set for the early
morning of the Monday then a scant three weeks away;[1] an appeal
for a respite had been quickly and formally made, and as quickly and
formally disallowed; the days granted for preparation had glided by
with portentous speed, and now but five remained between him and his
introduction to the gallows and the cord.
As a special and gruesome favor I had received one of the few cards
issued for the execution; and it was perhaps due as much to this
fact as to that of my newspaper connections (as already stated) that
the Colonial Secretary finally consented to waive in my interest the
usual rule of exclusion, and handed me his order for my admission to
the jail. I cannot confess to any high exultation when the mandate of
the Secretary, bravely stamped with the Great Seal of the Colony of
Victoria, was placed in my hands--particularly as it was accompanied
by a strict injunction that no public account should be given of the
interview.
"At least," said the Colonial Secretary, "not at present. The trial
has been so sensational, the crimes traced home to this unhappy man so
atrocious, that popular feeling has risen to such a pitch as to make
it desirable to add thereto no new occasion of excitement. Moreover, I
have refused many requests similar to yours from the local newspapers;
you may imagine the position I should find myself in if it became known
that I had discriminated in favor of a foreign journalist--therefore I
rely upon your discretion."
Thus the Colonial Secretary--in consideration of whose injunction I
made no professional use of my opportunity at the time, and report
upon it now only because of its relation to this present record of
events. Not that I asseverate the existence of such a relation, or
theorize upon it even if it were, for the sake of argument, accepted
as containing the nucleus of a mystery that, after many years of
consideration, remains a mystery still.
I was not alone in my visit to the condemned cell in which, heavily
ironed and guarded day and night by the death-watch, Frederick Bailey
Deeming awaited his doom.[2] My wife, who was included in the warrant
from the Colonial Secretary, accompanied me; she who had been my
companion in journeys that had taken me twice around the globe, and
who had shared with me many of the inexplicable experiences to which
I have alluded in my "Preface;" and who, seeming throughout her life
more sensitive than most of us to occult forces that at times appear
to be in operation about us, has since crossed the frontier of the
Undiscovered Country, there to find, perhaps, solution of some of
the riddles that have perplexed both her and me. Intensely human as
she was, and in all things womanly, her susceptibility to weird and
uncomprehended influences must always seem a contradiction--and the
more so since they always came upon her not only without invitation,
but even in opposition to a will of unusual force and sanity, which,
until the incidents occurred that I am about to relate, kept them
measurably in control.
A memento of my interview with the murderer stands before me on the
table as I write:--a memento also of my wife's skill in modeling, on
account of which I had with difficulty induced her to be my companion
on my sinister errand--an impression in plaster of his right hand;
the hand against which had been proved the "deep damnation of the
taking-off" of two women and four children, and in whose lines thus
preserved those learned in such matters profess to discern the record
of other like crimes that have been suspected of him, but could not be
confirmed. I will not weary the reader with the histories that have
been read to me from this grisly document, and no one now may ever
know whether they be true or false:--at all events the hand that made
this impress was duly found guilty of the atrocities I have recorded
against it, and the price that was exacted for them will seem to none
excessive, and to some a world too small.
I remember being much struck at the time with the interest which the
condemned man manifested in assisting me to secure the record. My
warrant from the Colonial Secretary included permission to obtain it,
and the consent of the prisoner followed promptly on the asking. It
came, in fact, with a sort of feverish readiness, and I fancied that
his mind found in the operation some brief respite from the thoughts
that his position, and the swift approach of his fate, forced upon
him. He regarded with intentness the moistening of the plaster, and
its manipulation into the proper degree of consistency; followed
intelligently the instruction to lay his hand with even pressure upon
the yielding mass, and when the cast had hardened, and was passed
through the bars for his inspection, he examined it with an appearance
of the liveliest satisfaction.
"Do those lines mean anything?" he asked.
"Many think so," I replied, "and even profess to read a record from
them. For myself, I am ignorant of the art."
"I have heard of that," he returned. "They call it 'palmistry,' don't
they? I wish you could find out whether they are going to hang me next
Monday. But they'll do that, right enough. I'm thirty-nine now, and my
mother always said I would die before forty. _She_ died a good while
ago--but she keeps coming back. She comes every night, and of late
she comes in the daytime, too. What does she bother me so for? Why
can't she leave me alone?" (glancing over his shoulder.) "She's here
now--over there in the corner. You can't see her? That's queer. Can't
_you_ see her?"--addressing the governor of the jail, who accompanied
me, and who shook his head to the question. "I thought perhaps you
could. But you don't miss much. She ain't pretty to look at, crying all
the time and wringing her hands, and saying I'm bound to be hanged!
I don't mind her so much in the daylight, but coming every night at
two o'clock, and waking me up and tormenting me!--that's what I can't
stand."
"Is this insanity?" I asked the governor as I came away.
"I don't know what it is," he replied. "We all thought at first it was
shamming crazy, and the government sent in a lot of doctors to examine
him; but he seemed sane enough when they talked with him--the only
thing out about him was when he complained of his mother's visits;
just as he did to you. And it is certainly true that he has a sort of
fit about two o'clock every morning, and wakes up screaming and crying
out that his mother is in the cell with him; and talks in a frightful,
blood-curdling way to someone that nobody can see, and scares the
death-watch half out of their wits. Insanity, hallucination, or an
uneasy conscience--it might be any of them; I can't say. Whatever it
is, it seems strange that he always talks about visitations from his
mother, who, as far as I can learn, died quietly in her bed, and never
of apparitions of his two wives and four children whose throats he cut
with a knife held in the hand whose print you've got there under your
arm. Perhaps you won't mind my saying it--but it strikes me you've got
a queer taste for curiosities. I wouldn't be able to sleep with that
thing in the house."
I laughed at the worthy governor's comment; yet, as it turned out, his
words were pregnant with prophecy.