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Ghosts I Have Seen, and Other Psychic Experiences

by Violet Tweedale · English · Gutenberg #39769 · 504,129 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Ghosts I Have Seen, and Other Psychic Experiences

Author: Violet Tweedale


        
Release date: May 23, 2012 [eBook #39769]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN, AND OTHER PSYCHIC EXPERIENCES ***




Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Josephine Paolucci and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)








GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN

AND OTHER PSYCHIC EXPERIENCES

BY

VIOLET TWEEDALE


NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

_Copyright, 1919, by_
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

_All rights reserved_




CONTENTS


CHAPTER                                                    PAGE

I "SILK DRESS" AND "RUMPUS"                                   1

II THE GHOST OF BROUGHTON HALL                               14

III CURIOUS PSYCHIC EXPERIENCES                              33

IV EAST END DAYS AND NIGHTS                                  48

V THE MAN IN THE MARYLEBONE ROAD                             66

VI THE GHOST OF PRINCE CHARLIE                               74

VII PILGRIMS AND STRANGERS                                   91

VIII SOME STRANGE EVENTS                                     98

IX POMPEY AND THE DUCHESS                                   114

X THE INVISIBLE HANDS                                       124

XI DAWNS                                                    133

XII PEACOCK'S FEATHERS--THE SKELETON HAND AT MONTE CARLO    146

XIII I COMMIT MURDER                                        157

XIV THE ANGEL OF LOURDES                                    175

XV THE WRAITH OF THE ARMY GENTLEMAN                         184

XVI AN AUSTRIAN ADVENTURE                                   197

XVII ACROSS THE THRESHOLD                                   211

XVIII HAUNTED ROOMS                                         221

XIX "THE NEW JEANNE D'ARC"                                  241

XX HAUNTED HOUSES--"CASTEL A MARE"                          251

XXI THE SEQUEL                                              263

XXII THE HAUNTED LODGE                                      276

XXIII AURAS                                                 291

XXIV ADIEU                                                  307




GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN




CHAPTER I

"SILK DRESS" AND "RUMPUS"


From the terrible conditions of the present I have turned back to the
past, for a little joy and a great deliverance.

In the present one lives no longer from day to day, but from hour to
hour, and even a fleeting memory of the joys that are no more refreshes
the soul--wearied, and fainting with a pallid anxiety that wraith-like
envelops the whole being in a thrall of sadness.

To-day I heard music which I had known and loved in the happy, careless
long ago, and whilst I was lost in a dream of half-forgotten bliss I
smelt the fragrance of mimosa flower. I cannot describe the sensations
of joy that thrilled through my whole being. An involuntary moving of
the spirit, an emergence into a dream world, described by the Greeks as
"ecstasy." The music fashioned the invisible link, and I was back again
on a hillside where the mimosa grew in native abundance. Now, one thinks
of France only as a hideous battle plain, but memory, the true
dispensator of time, is never bound by years. She keeps ever fresh, in
glowing colors, those ideal moments that gather up the utter joys of
life into one divine sheaf of memory.

It is not only for its great uses that we must have memory, but for its
joys. It rends the gray veil shrouding present existence, and shows us
life as what it really is. A phantasmagoria of wonder, wrapped in
mystery.

The day of miracles is not past, it never will be past, but if you want
miracles you must have the power of seeing them.

I have written in this book of the miracles I have seen. Some of them
any one can see, others are reserved for the delectation of the few.

I have written of strange visitants from other realms, and of that vivid
illumination which at moments lays bare the hidden springs of life, when
the spirit emerges beyond the limit of human thought, and familiar
things, beyond the horizon of life, and touches a sphere beyond
immortality. It is a condition that the grave has nothing to do with, a
beholding beyond the frontiers of the soul.

I have written of the spiritual life, for without this spiritual life a
palace would be no wider than a tomb. The vastness of the spirit world
defies description. It can choose its own pathways, and any one of these
long, long roads leading to the great mysteries.

It is now almost universally acknowledged that psychic experiences, of a
specific nature, occur at certain times to certain people, that are not
explicable by any known science. Generally, they are experiences which
point to the continuity of the human consciousness with a wider
spiritual environment, from which the normal man is shut off.

A few such experiences that have come to me I record.

I hope that I have never tried to convince others of the truth of these
experiences. If I have done so it has been unconsciously done. I am
absolutely persuaded that such phenomena can only become convincing when
personally experienced. Such matters ought not to be accepted on
hearsay. It is mere folly for one woman to attempt to demonstrate to
another the existence of the human soul. The most that A can communicate
to B, of any part of her own experiences, is so much of it as is common
to the experiences of both.

I have proved conclusively to my own consciousness that I am linked up
with a wider consciousness from which, at times, such experiences flow
in.

I know my soul to be in touch with a greater soul, which at moments
enters into communication with me, and opens out a vastness which it is
impossible to translate into words, and which annihilates space and
time.

I have had my vision, and I know. Therefore I am quite unmoved by
criticism or ridicule.

I believe that what has come to me will come to all, and there is no
need to hurry the process. We are simply a tiny part of a whole, which
has neither beginning nor end. We live in a universe which is infinite
in time and space, which has always existed in some form, and will go on
in some form for ever. The discovery of the law of the indestructibility
of matter has proved this beyond a doubt.

At some second in time our Universe will be dissolved into new systems,
for the life of a solar system lasts only a second in eternity, but that
need not worry us yet. There is lots of time for man to realize his
soul, and all will doubtless do so at some moment in their many earth
lives.

The classic idea is that the Golden Age lies in the past, but the Stoic
doctrine of recurring cycles in the ages of the world seems to suggest
that the Golden Age may return.

There are people to-day who ask, "Is this the end of the world?"

More probably it is the end of an age. The harvest may be ripe for the
sickle to be thrust in. The opposition of good and evil may have reached
their fullest manifestation. It may be the hour in eternity for a
complete readjustment of the little ant-hills we call great nations.

We know the rise and fall of nations to be an historical fact,
apparently based on an immutable law. This recurring phenomenon cannot
be explained, though there are theories. Possibly the true one may be
found in the failure or compliance to respond to the challenge: "Advance
to a higher spiritual plane or perish." It may be that the right of
continuance depends upon the answer to that challenge.

What brought about the decline of those mighty civilizations whose
monuments of antiquity seem to mock our pride? What insidious disease
brought about the fall of Rome? The beauty and inspiration of Greece was
arrested by some swift decay, and the giant temples and Pyramids of
Egypt, and the Mounds of Mesopotamia, testify to a grandeur far
surpassing ours.

In the world's morning time, before the mists began to clear, we can
trace the rise and fall of a score of mighty Empires. From out their
present tombs of tragic silence arise figures, colossal sculptured
figures, with faces and forms of commanding power. Assyrians, a mighty
race, leaving behind whole libraries of record, chiseled upon
indestructible pages. The lost arts of three thousand years ago.

Earlier still the earth resounded to the thunder of Xenophon's
thousands, and the chariots of Persia sweeping after them. Lying deeper
still in the shroud of antiquity the Pharaohs emerge as mighty
conquerors, and we can dimly discern in the Empire of the Chaldeans the
movement of a gorgeous civilization, and the majestic figures of men
versed in mystic, and, to us, unknown lore. In Italy, memorials of a
refined people, who were precursors of Roman power, have been found,
forms of perfect grace in delicate vases and coins of gold and silver.
The old Etruscan art is traced back to the Assyrians' sculpture. The
snowy crown of ancient Greece budded and bloomed in the mighty halls of
Assyria's splendor, hundreds of years before Christ. No phantom world
could furnish a mightier or more resplendent host.

Reading of those proud and mighty civilizations brings the simple life
of the Nazarene very near to us in years, it also shows us how quickly
great splendors are sanded over by the hands of time. The British Museum
holds the sculptured records of twenty-five hundred years. Whilst the
flames, kindled by the mob of Christian monks, from the great
Alexandrian library rose to Heaven, the temple fronts of the Pharaohs,
the Pyramids, the Sphinx, loomed out of the conflagration. The impotent
torches of the fanatics were powerless against such imperishable
records. What of our records? Will these ancient civilizations be
remembered when the fame of modern nations has vanished utterly? Which
has the best chance of enduring in the future? The paper and pasteboard
of to-day, or the monuments of stone, to which the Monarchs of bygone
Empires entrusted the history of their unsurpassed grandeur?

"If thou hadst known in this thy day, even thou, the things which belong
to thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes."

This is the epitaph written across the tombs of all nations now
crumbling into dust.

"The things which belong to thy peace." The things which never die or
fade, whose continuity is never broken, the Divine seeds that cannot
perish, the things which are immortal. The winged soul in its aeon-long
pilgrimages through eternity to home.

I find it easy to write to-day upon psychic subjects, for everywhere I
discern the dawn of what Conan Doyle, in his deeply interesting book,
calls "The new revelation."

To one who, for the last forty years, has been immersed in all branches
of occult research, the change of view that has come over the world in
four years is very remarkable. Every one is now interested in the human
soul, and all that appertains to it. The speeding up in the number of
psychic experiences coming to light is enormous. So often now I come
across "the last man in the world to see or hear anything" who has just
been accorded a startling experience, and the rank skeptic is becoming a
thing of the past.

Whilst sitting in solitude it is interesting to let one's thoughts slip
back to childhood, and trace the present life in the mirror of the old.
I discover that in the immediate now there is nothing new, but only that
which has its symbol in the old. I seem to get only the much clearer
vision of what once was vague and cloudy, or wholly unconsidered by the
mind of youth.

In that garden of memory I can set old happenings in a new light, and
measure my slow footprints in the age-long journey behind me. Two facts
emerge from out such musings. Firstly, the journey of my soul takes a
spiral path, which at intervals brings me face to face with the old
things that I have learned to modernize by dressing in fresh thought
forms, as new perceptions are won. Perceptions prophetic of the greater
capacity for attainment when the Divine Power is permitted to unfold
itself without let or hindrance.

Secondly, the further on the soul journeys the more solitary the road
becomes. One by one the old companion pilgrims drop away. Perhaps it is
that on that long, lone trail the traveler must be free.

Very early in my life came the consciousness that everywhere about me,
in the infinitely above, in the infinitely below, permeating heart, mind
and soul, is life--endless, eternal.

On this shoreless ocean of existence, without form or name, the soul is
afloat. Birth and death are the tides, the ebb and flow of the ocean of
life. The human soul is but a ripple on the sea of existence, and
phenomenal life is but a flash in the eternity of eternities. All the
teeming lives of effort around us, all the travail and suffering to
which humanity is destined, are ordained for the great purpose of soul
evolution. God sets the balance at every grave. That which distinguishes
every man is the vast dower of our nature, eventually the same to all,
the passing incidents of station, fortune, talent, are mere surface
varieties.

I find in my mind the existence of something illimitably beyond mind,
doubtless a common experience. I do not know what that something is, but
it is very real, and it invariably shows me how cribbed, cabined and
confined this life really is. I cannot even tell what it is that
confines me. I only know that there is a limitless world full of
infinite possibilities all around me. I seem always to have known this,
but I cannot grasp it. True, at rare intervals, I catch a glimpse
through a rift in the clouds, then they close again.

At such moments I experience an ecstasy of heart sweet happiness, so
marvelously sweet, so pure, so near Divine with its deep wordless
thoughts of infinite beauty. Such regions are not so much impenetrable
as ineffable. They are glimpses gained at some great altitude, from
which I can look down on the mortal pageant and behold mysteries in
which I take no part, but by which I am encircled, as an island, by
infinity. Such are luminous and splendid moments, when the soul beholds
the world in its real mystic beauty. It is the hour of transfiguration,
in which the veil drops from the heart and the film from the eyes, so
that we see life as God means it to be.

Often, as a mere child, when lying awake in those nights, whose
stillness have a quality of awe, the silence would be broken by weird,
barbaric songs which wafted a sense of old, wild adventurous life, and
in a curious quality of mystery I saw violet mountains sleeping in
sunlight, above a sea of amethyst. Childish visions, but sacred nights.
Very many years passed before I understood them.

On hot velvety nights in June a curious scent of smoke would come to me,
the measured hollow beating of bells, and a tremulous far-away piping.
Years after, I stood alone one evening on the slopes of Etna, amid the
pale asphodels and the desolation of tumbling lava fields, and I heard
the pipes of Pan, the reed pipe of the herd boy, and linked the past
with the present. Again, passing through a region where the smoke rose
from the charcoal burners' fires the scent of an ancient memory came
vaporing up, the unfamiliar scent that puzzled my childhood, and I was
away in a flash, to wait for the soul to free herself and return from
the world's edge.

I had to journey further east before I heard again at dawn the ring of
camel bells as a caravan broke camp, and then I understood the visions
of my youth, as I listened to the measured hollow beating, and watched a
strange medley of eastern traffic trail away across the desert.

Sometimes, when the nursery clock seemed to tick more loudly than usual,
I saw a gigantic water-wheel, and behind it massive rocks with the hewn
tombs of ancient kings, and beyond them lay distant glamorous mountains,
white sails creeping amid warm purple isles, set in a gulf of turquoise.
Sometimes I have dreamed holy things, and waked to find myself over-awed
by the sublimity of the vision and the glory of the Universe.

So many of those childish visions I have identified in later life, but
there is one which eludes me. It is a great white road leading to the
farther east, and I see it drenched in white sunlight. Tinkling mule
trains pass along it, and I know now it is in some way connected with
Ida that saw ancient Troy, and the Capital of Pontus, the seat of
Mithridates' Court, and the Empire of Trebizond. Some day, who knows, I
may walk upon it.

Looking back I can recollect nothing psychic happening to me before the
age of six. I can fix that date upon which I became actually aware of
the other world. It all happened through "Silk dress" and "Rumpus."

I slept in a bed in one corner, and my younger brother slept in another
corner. The room was large, and at the top of a modern, quite ordinary,
town house. Two flights of stairs ran down to the ground floor. "Silk
dress" was something we were extremely interested in, but I cannot
recollect that we were ever in the least afraid.

When we first became aware of "silk dress" I do not know, but in looking
back across those many years I think that in the beginning we must have
accepted "it" as something or somebody "real." Only after several
experiences did it dawn upon us that "it" was not real. By then we had
passed beyond the stage when we might have felt fear. After we had gone
to bed we were left quite alone in the dark, and the nurses went down to
supper. The younger children slept in another room. It was during such
periods of silence that "silk dress" began its ascent.

Just as we were dropping off to sleep one of us would murmur drowsily,
"Here comes silk dress." Then we lay quite still, very wide awake again
and listened intently.

From far down on the ground floor we heard footsteps quietly and
methodically ascending, and the rustle of a silk dress. We could hear
quite distinctly when "it" arrived at the first floor, which was
occupied by our parents, then "it" passed on to the next flight of
stairs leading to our floor.

The sound of footsteps and the rustle of the silk dress became more and
more clearly audible as "it" drew ever nearer. We could tell the second
at which "it" passed from the last step on to the corridor which led
past our half-open door. Then there was a thrilling moment or two, when
the tip-tap of shoes, and the swish of silk on the linoleum was quite
loud, but the footsteps never halted. They always swept past the
half-closed door, and went on into a small room beyond, which was used
for storing boxes. Then dead silence fell again.

In those days we never heard the word "ghost" mentioned, yet I cannot
recollect thinking of "silk dress" as anything but a visitor from the
other world. We talked of "it" freely in the household, but probably
because we expressed no fear, no one seemed in the least interested. On
wakeful nights we occupied ourselves in waiting for "it," and on wet
nights we could not hear "it" clearly because the rain pattered so
loudly on a large skylight outside our door. What interested us
enormously was the fact that we never heard "it" descend again. How "it"
got down in order to mount once more was a great puzzle.

"Rumpus" was quite another matter, quite another order of manifestation.
"Rumpus" always began when we were sound asleep, and "Rumpus" always
wide awakened us. "They" came at longer intervals, about every ten days,
whilst "it" came on most nights. During the summer mornings in the
North, when one could often read a book in the light of a one a. m.
dawn, "they" were very interesting, because when "their" hour, five a.
m., arrived the room was flooded with sunshine. In winter mornings, when
the room was in black darkness, we were merely bored, and cross at being
roused, and we simply lay still and endured "them" till they had quite
finished. But in the summer mornings we always sat up in bed and
intently watched something we never saw.

When "Rumpus" roused us brusquely from our slumbers it was by means of a
demoniac pandemonium. The room was in possession of "them," and "they"
crashed, and banged, and tossed about the furniture in the most reckless
fashion. Crash went the wardrobe, bang went one chair after another,
hurtling across the room. Crash went wardrobe back into its place again,
clang went the fire-irons. Rushing collisions, and rappings on the
window-panes, thuds on the floor, rattlings and clatterings of crockery,
jingling of brass, creakings and groanings of expostulation from the old
sofa, clanking of the fireguard, a veritable tornado of noise, enough
surely to awaken the dead, yet out of the living it only awakened--us.
No one else in the house ever heard it, and our vivid descriptions were,
perhaps, naturally attributed to nightmare.

We, of course, knew that it was nothing of the sort. We were, indeed,
very wide awake during the ten to fifteen minutes the pandemonium
continued, and our eyes were kept darting from side to side following
the track of the noises, as they grew in volume and intensity. Creak,
groan, crash! No mistaking the spot where that deafening sound came
from. That was the old mahogany wardrobe being hurled face downwards on
the floor, but whilst our eyes were riveted on its statuesque and utter
immobility jingle, clank, from the fender, where the fire-irons
commenced to jig. A wildly confused uproar over all the room, then boom,
thud, beneath us, and our beds shivered convulsively, and sent thrills
of wild excitement coursing through our nerves.

Suddenly the tumult would cease. The mystery lay in the fact that we
never saw anything move, though we distinctly heard everything moving,
and could feel our beds reel beneath us.

I have no explanations to offer of those happenings. They are very
clearly fixed in my objective memory, and when we were both grown up,
and had finally left that house my brother used often to say to me, "Do
you remember 'Silk Dress' and 'Rumpus'?"

Such recollections crowd back upon me now, with many other images of
childhood. No sooner do I recollect one than another emerges like a
shining cloud from below the horizon. Where have they been lying hidden
during all those flying years? They have dwelt deep down in the eternal
memory, the heart of God which beats in all humanity. Within that heart
are stored aeonic treasures. They lie ever in wait to be bidden arise and
cross the threshold.




CHAPTER II

THE GHOST OF BROUGHTON HALL


I was about six years old when my family moved to a brand new house in
Claremont Crescent, that had just been erected on the outskirts of
Edinburgh. There were still some green fields unbuilt upon, and some
fine old trees left standing close to us, and those were still included
in a triangular group of three grand old Manors--Broughton Hall, Powder
Hall, and Logie Green. All three had the reputation of being badly
haunted. The first named stood almost within a stone's throw of our end
of the Crescent, and was occupied by an ancient family named Walker, who
had held the property for generations. They still existed as a very
charming relic of Scotch antiquity, and they had always been friends of
our family.

The house from the outside was very grim and forbidding-looking. It was
hidden from the eyes of the curious behind very high walls, and was
entered upon by two huge gates, always kept closed.

Inside, the house was most interesting and attractive. There were many
closed rooms and winding staircases, and odd steps in long, dark
corridors, but the rooms that were lived in were beautiful of their
kind. There were desks with secret drawers, wonderful pieces of
Chippendale, tenderly cared for, quantities of rare old china and cut
glass, and on the walls hung glorious Romneys and Hoppners, which
fetched huge prices at Christie's when the household was finally broken
up by death.

The family consisted of three sisters, Fanny, Hope, and Kitty, the
latter a widow, named Mrs. Chew. There were two brothers, Adam and John.
The former lived with his sisters. John was a minister, and only paid
visits. There was a nephew, the heir, William Stephens, who also paid
long visits to the Hall. Though, at the date of which I speak, about
1870, he must have been at least sixty, he was always referred to as
"the Laddie."

The three sisters occupied distinct positions in the house. Mrs. Chew
acted as cook, though servants were kept, and she always sat in the
kitchen, only coming "through" to the dining-room for her meals. Miss
Hope was the worldly member of the family. She had been to London Town,
and could not be relied upon to stop at home. She looked after the
polishing of the furniture, the old glass and china. Miss Fanny was the
lady of the family. She always sat in the best parlor. Every one waited
on her, and she was never permitted to do anything for herself.

She dressed for the part in thick, black satin, with, in winter, a white
silk embroidered Chinese shawl, and, in summer, old Brussels lace.
Across her forehead was a band of black velvet, with a pear-shaped pearl
depending between the eyebrows. Over her snow-white hair was flung a
piece of old lace surmounting a wreath of artificial flowers. Her
claw-like hands were covered by lace mittens and many rings. I saw her
constantly, and she was always idle. I never saw her read, or sew, or
knit, and often I wondered what she thought about, as she sat there
always in the same chair, year in year out, and with no companion but a
large gray parrot. True, her surroundings were delightful. From her
chair near the fire she could look out on the quaint old garden, always
full of flowers, and she could glance around her at the many beautiful
objects the room contained.

I especially admired one Hoppner. The subject was a beautiful woman,
with a mass of powdered hair, seated by an open window. Her cheek was
supported in her hand, and at her elbow was a quaint little wicker cage
containing a bird. I think the artist meant to suggest that both were
captives. Though quite well in health, Miss Fanny never left the house,
even to walk in the garden.

My father and I went very often to call upon those curious old people,
who were so utterly out of touch with modern life, backward though life
was then in the Northern Capital. We arrived at all sorts of hours, but
refreshments were always produced. An amazingly rich cake, and fruity
old port, served in large quarter-pint cut-glass rummers. It was not
considered polite to refuse those offerings, which were always kept in a
corner cupboard, and served by Mrs. Chew, who emerged from the kitchen,
or Miss Hope, who left her housework to greet us.

Though Broughton Hall was commonly reputed to be haunted, no one seemed
to know what form the ghost took. I was great friends with Mr. Adam, a
majestic, clean-shaven old man, who carried his chin very high above an
enormous black silk stock, and often I tried to draw him on the subject
of the ghost, but without success. He took it very seriously, and warned
me that "I wouldn't be any the better for having seen it. Besides," he
always concluded, "it's a family affair." The sisters were even more
uncommunicative.

My father and I were profoundly interested in this ghost. There was
something about the whole establishment that was extremely promising,
from the ghost-hunter point of view. The consequence of this was that we
were always on the prowl. Nothing discouraged us, and we spared neither
time nor trouble. There is no research which requires such infinite
patience as psychic research. Several years passed before the great
moment arrived, and when it did arrive it was all over in about four
minutes.

My father had a way of suddenly looking up from his work and saying,
"Let's go to Broughton Hall." I would at once rise, and together we
would pass out into the night, without either hats or coats. Very
eccentric, it may be said, but then we frankly were very eccentric. We
would steal away together around the Crescent, and down the road till we
reached the great gates. Very softly we opened and closed them, and
keeping well in the shadow of the trees and bushes we would creep round
the silent house.

I cannot describe the thrill of those nocturnal adventures. It was all
so eerie, so full of vague, terrifying possibilities. I don't know what
we expected to see, and we were generally back again in our own house in
half an hour; but one night our patience really was rewarded.

It was November, dry, but wild and bitterly cold. Billowy white snow
clouds scudding before a brisk north wind threw us alternately into
light and darkness, as they covered and uncovered the face of the full
moon. We had emerged from our house about half-past nine, and had
reached the back of Broughton Hall. The house was shrouded in darkness
and dead silence, every blind was close drawn, and the suggestion was
one of utter emptiness. My father and I were walking apart, I being
right under the shadow of the walls, whilst he was in the middle of the
paved court, which had neither hedge nor walls, but met the edge of the
field running up to it.

Suddenly I heard him whisper "Hush!" though we never did utter a word
whilst close to the house. His arm was pointing in front of him. I
stared ahead, and then I saw, clearly lit by the moon, a woman who had
apparently just rounded the corner of the house. She was running hard,
straight towards us, and her feet made no sound on the round cobble
stones.

Terror suddenly seized me, and I darted across to my father, and got
well behind him, seizing him firmly round the waist. The woman came on,
rushing wildly. She had nearly reached us, and I was almost thrown over
as my father faced her, and backed to allow her to pass. I peeped round
him, and saw a woman, ghastly pale, and distraught-looking, clad in a
white nightdress. Two long strands of black hair streamed out behind
her, and her bare arms were outstretched in front. In a flash she had
passed, and absolutely silently, and I found myself lying on the ground
alone, and my father vanishing in hot pursuit.

Needless to say I very quickly picked myself up again, and joined the
chase. Terror lent me wings, and in a minute or two I came up with him,
standing breathless by the gate.

"Vanished into thin air just as I reached her. That's always the way.
You can't catch them," he said.

We made a little detour before going home, in order to discuss the
great event. We had no doubt that we had seen a genuine apparition. We
knew all the occupants of the Hall, and the woman had vanished in the
open, and in full flight, just as my father had come up alongside her.
He cautioned me against mentioning our adventure to any one, and I kept
silence until years after, when Broughton Hall was pulled down and its
inmates were all dead.

Before going on to our next ghostly adventure I will say a few words
about my father, Robert Chambers, who in those days was something of a
celebrity, and a very remarkable man.

In appearance he was very handsome, extremely tall and well built, and
with features that were well-nigh perfect. It was the fashion in his
time to wear the hair rather long, and his was dark and very curly. He
always dressed well, in the style of the country gentleman, rather than
as a town dweller.

In character he was extremely independent, and was utterly indifferent
to two things--money and public opinion. His intellect was
extraordinary, and it was commonly said that he knew a great deal about
most things, and something about all things.

In Scotland, in those days, it was not considered necessary to trouble
about the education of girls. No one ever tried to educate me,
consequently at a very early age I was absolutely free to devote myself
entirely to my father, and we were inseparable. Our intercourse was not
that of father and daughter. It was that of confidential friends of an
equal age. At that period my mother was more or less of an invalid, and
had her own attendants.

My father and I went every morning at ten o'clock to the old business
house of W. and R. Chambers, in the High Street of Edinburgh, and
remained there till half-past two, when we walked home together,
sometimes paying a call or two on the way. Though a mere uneducated
child I helped him in his literary work, and at odd hours committed to
memory many poets. We returned to four o'clock dinner, the correct hour
in those days, and at six o'clock a porter arrived with my father's bag,
containing manuscripts to be read and selected for _Chambers' Journal_.
From six p. m. till midnight he worked at reading manuscript, not typed
then, and proof correcting.

Twice a week we went to the theater--there was only one in Edinburgh
then. It was managed by a hard working couple, Mr. and Mrs. Howard, who
sometimes filled up a week by acting themselves. I am bound to say we
spent most of our time in the Green Room, and I knew every turn and
twist behind the curtain. This turned out to be lucky for us.

One night we went to a performance given by the Arthur Sullivan Company,
and about halfway through a cry of "Fire" was raised. Great masses of
burning stuff began to drop from the ceiling down into the auditorium.
Instantly there was a panic, and a terrible stampede, and my father and
I leaned forward, protecting our heads behind the backs of the stalls in
front, whilst the mad rush climbed over us. When all was clear in front
of us we made our way to the back of the stage, and escaped quite
easily. I looked behind me, and I can see now the dense mass of
struggling humanity wedged in the doorway.

I remained safely with Mrs. Howard whilst my father ran around to the
front and helped to extricate the dead. The theater was burned to the
ground, but was very rapidly built up again.

My first literary effort must here be recorded. I collaborated with
Professor Andrew Wilson in writing the pantomime of "Ali Baba and the
Forty Thieves."

Andrew Wilson was Professor of Natural Science, and an extremely
versatile person--a passionate love of the drama was added to his many
scientific attainments. We wrote the dialogue together, in one long
revelry of laughter, and I was responsible for the words of the songs.
As a literary effort I can only describe it as appalling. The pantomime
was, however, a great success. The audacity of our utter incompetence
proved highly successful, and the critics justly described it as "The
funniest Pantomime in Scotland." No wonder the audience laughed from
start to finish.

My father always called at once upon any celebrity who happened to be
passing through the city, and thus I became acquainted with many
interesting and amusing people. Henry Irving was amongst the number. We
always called upon him on our way to business, a little before ten. If
he was playing for a week we called on him every morning, and often
looked into the Green Room at night. He and my father were great
friends, and at the hour of our visit he was always propped up in bed
having breakfast. I used to perch on the bed whilst the two men talked.
Irving's nightshirt interested me (pyjamas had not come in then). It was
white cambric with two enormous double frills down the front, and quite
a pierrot ruffle round his neck. He was profoundly interested in the
occult, and told me that a ghost he had once seen had suggested to him a
particular action of his whilst playing in "The Bells." At the moment
when he parted the curtains, and looked wildly out, shouting hoarsely,
"The Bells, the Bells."

Through Irving we came to know the Baroness Burdett Coutts, his ardent
admirer. She was very kind to me, and presented me with a green silk
dress, but I always thought her a very melancholy woman, even when
entertaining many interesting people in her celebrated corner house in
Piccadilly, with its white china parrot swinging in the window. She was
much attached to my father, and treated him with a humble and touching
deference.

Robert Chambers was a very keen sportsman, who fortunately did not
require much practice to keep up his game. He held championships in golf
and bowling. He was too ardent a naturalist and ornithologist to care
for shooting, but he was an expert angler. He was also a born actor and
mimic, and used to keep a Green Room in roars by "taking off" any of
"the profession" called for, and I never heard a better ventriloquist.
He adored music, and played the flute well. As a platform speaker he was
extremely fluent and perfectly at ease.

His indifference to money resulted in his never having a penny in his
pocket at night, no matter how much he took with him in the morning, and
one of my tasks was to prevent his being fleeced by those who lay in
wait for him. He took any amount of trouble over impecunious and
incompetent authors, and constantly re-wrote their work for them in
order to make it fit for publication. He was a unique editor, and his
labors in the cause of charity were strenuous, secret, and, I fear,
rather indiscriminate.

During this period of my life, the head of the house, William Chambers,
was still living, with his quaint old wife, in the West End of
Edinburgh. William, who had survived his more versatile brother, Robert
(my grandfather), was a little shriveled-up old man, with a dry and
severe manner. Most people were afraid of him, few liked him, but I got
on with him famously. I have always been extremely proud of the fact
that he rose from nothing to great wealth. There must be something fine
in a man, who, as a lad, rose at four a. m. to read classics to an
intelligent baker, whilst the batch of bread was being baked, and who
gladly accepted as payment a copper or a roll.

William and Robert Chambers had left their widowed mother to fend for
themselves. The family was at the lowest financial ebb. Much money had
been spent on the French refugees who flocked into Scotland in 1810, and
there was nothing to spare now. We were originally French, like so very
many of the old Scotch families. The first of us in history is recorded
as Guillaume de la Chaumbre, who, as the most prominent man in Peebles,
signed the Ragman Roll in 1296. My people had always lived in the dales
of the Tweed, so very appropriately I married a man called Tweedale.

Towards the end of his life William Chambers amused himself by spending
many thousands on the restoration of St. Giles' Cathedral, an historic
church which had fallen into great disrepair. This was a time of great
interest for me, and I used to spend hours helping the workmen to gather
up the thousands of human skulls that paved the church to a good depth.
There were tombs laid bare of many celebrated people of the long ago,
and these had to be identified, and carefully kept intact, until finally
given a safer resting-place.

William Chambers had been offered a baronetcy some years previously, but
he refused it. He told me he did not consider it a dignified thing for a
man of letters to bear any other honor than that accorded to brain power
by a benefited world. He and his brother Robert were the pioneers of
cheap and good educational literature for the laboring man, and the
avidity with which this literature, "Chambers' Information for the
People," was consumed, appeared to be a fitting reward. In those days it
was an unheard-of thing for a publisher to be honored by a title. Now,
however, on the eve of the re-opening of St. Giles' Cathedral, Her
Majesty, Queen Victoria, commanded William Chambers to accept a
baronetcy. The old couple were much agitated, but had to submit, and the
Queen announced her intention of performing the opening ceremony.

When the day arrived William Chambers lay dead in his house, and my
father and I took the place of the old couple. The Queen was indisposed,
and Lord Aberdeen took her place.

After the ceremony both Lord Aberdeen and Lord Rosebery urged upon my
father to take up the baronetcy, more especially as he was his uncle's
heir, but this he utterly refused to do.

Old Lady Chambers, the widow, discarded her title immediately and
remained Mrs. Chambers till the day of her death.

It must have been at least a month after William Chambers' death that he
visited me in a very vivid dream. I dreamed that he was standing beside
my bed, and suddenly he bent over me and whispered in my ear, "I've left
you all my money." On waking I had totally forgotten the dream, but
later in the day an old servant of ours said to me, "I saw the wraith
of your Uncle William last night, but he had nothing to say to me."

Then my dream flashed back to me. A day or two afterwards I said
suddenly to the old family lawyer, "Was there ever a question of Uncle
William leaving his money to me?"

The dry answer was, "Yes! at one time there was a question of that." I
could never extract anything further from him on the subject.

Though now possessed of considerable wealth my father made no difference
in his mode of life, and he continued to work just as hard as ever, and
to give away large sums of money. He never wanted anything for himself,
but was always ready to give to others. He had a great love of precious
stones, and always carried about little packets of diamonds, which
looked like packets of chemists' powders. Had I desired I could have
loaded myself with jewels. He never denied me anything and we continued
our close companionship, the only difference now being we took some
holidays in the form of afternoons off.

On one of these occasions we saw our second ghost.

We went to pay a visit to a very old woman, whose name I cannot
remember. She lived alone with one servant in an ancient dwelling in
Inveresk. The house was a large one, and was enclosed by very high
walls, which entirely isolated it from the busy streets that surrounded
it. The original old garden remained, in all its beauty, and the rooms
were full of quaint heirlooms.

We were always made very welcome, and the servant at once produced a
delicious tea, consisting of fresh baked scones, butter made of real
cream--margarine being not then invented--home-made strawberry jam, and
home-laid eggs. Russian eggs were not then imported.

I must here interpose that deliciously innocent telegram sent by an
Aberdeen merchant in the first days of the Great War, and which set all
England and Scotland mad to see the fur and snow-clad Russian troops
passing through to the Front. The telegram ran as follows:--

    "Twenty thousand Russians arrived."

The twenty thousand Muscovites were only twenty thousand stale eggs, but
Lord Kitchener's order was, "Let it stand."

To return to my story.

One glorious late spring evening we were seated at tea, and the window
was thrown wide to the perfumed garden, where lilacs, and wallflowers,
and lilies of the valley rioted gloriously. The birds were in full song
in this peaceful sanctuary, which might have been a hundred miles away
from a town. My father had put his invariable question to the old woman,
"Have you seen her again?" Sometimes the answer was Yes, sometimes No. I
gathered that this question referred to the old woman's dead daughter,
her only child. This daughter had been violently insane for many years
and had remained under her mother's protection. She had died some years
previously, at the age of fifty-five, having endured a terribly long
martyrdom.

Suddenly my father broke off the conversation.

"My God! there she is!" He half rose from his chair and stared through
the open window. I looked in the same direction. A woman was strolling
aimlessly along the path just outside. There was a curious uncertainty
about her movements. She walked like a blind person, who has neither
stick nor arm to guide her. Strangely enough I never thought of
connecting this woman with the ghost of the mad daughter. She looked so
natural, so commonplace. Her hollow face was quite gray, and her dark
hair was drawn tightly back from it, and rolled in an ugly knob behind.
Her dress was of some dark material, her boots were of cloth, and her
hands and arms were rolled up in a stuff apron she wore.

There she was, vacantly wandering in the garden, in the lovely spring
evening, with the blackbirds and thrushes singing their hearts out all
around her, and I did not comprehend why such an ordinary, unattractive
looking person should so deeply interest my father.

I turned round to say something to the old woman, then I instantly
understood. She had gone down on her knees, and had hidden herself by
throwing the end of the tablecloth over her head.

Then I turned my eyes back to the apparition. I don't suppose she was
visible for more than four minutes. I remember my father uttering
consoling words to the effect that "she's gone," and helping the old
woman into her chair again, when we resumed our tea and conversation, as
if nothing unusual had occurred.

Looking back upon these incidents I contrast the infinite trouble we
took in our hunt for ghosts, with present-day psychical research. I
think of the innumerable half hours we spent at Broughton Hall, and only
once were we rewarded by seeing anything. We visited the old woman at
Inveresk whenever we found time. There was nothing in the least
inspiring or interesting in her conversation, yet to us there was an
unspeakable charm about her outward circumstances.

There was the spiritual charm of the silent old house, with its
vibrating memories of the long departed. The charm of the cloistered
peace, amidst which the woman lived and dreamed, shut away from the
world by the high walls. It was a retreat in which to meditate, and that
always appealed to me. A dwelling with a beautiful view has a great
charm, but it draws the thoughts always outward to the external. Still,
when I pass a quiet old homestead, hidden away in its own flowery old
garden from the eyes of the world, it attracts me far more than the
far-flung grandeur of many a stately English mansion.

Only in such retreats of ancient peace can the thoughts be turned
continuously inward, to their true bourne--the temple of the living God.

I seem to have been born with an ingrained belief in the enormous virtue
of renunciation. Self-sacrifice, I am certain, is the foundation stone
upon which is built the moral progress of man. I had occasion to prove
this for myself at a comparatively early age. My mother suddenly became
much more ailing than usual, and began to suffer a great deal of pain. A
consultation of doctors was called by our own family physician, and two
of the greatest surgeons in Edinburgh arrived one morning at our house.

After about an hour they came into the room in which I awaited them.
Their faces were very grave. They informed me, as kindly as they could,
that they had arrived at the unanimous opinion that my mother was
suffering from internal cancer, and that she might possibly live another
six months. Our own doctor confessed that he had long suspected this,
and the two surgeons corroborated his opinion. There was no doubt in
their minds, as the disease had openly declared itself.

I took this shock in perfect silence for a minute or two, then I decided
upon my first course of action. I asked them in the meanwhile to keep
this matter secret from every one, even from my father.

To this they rather demurred, saying that it was only right that he
should know the truth, and that he would certainly question them. I then
urged that our family doctor had known of this, and had hidden his
knowledge up to to-day. It would be easy enough for him to go on hiding
the truth for a short time longer.

The doctors sought to know my reason for this secrecy; it would do no
good, the truth would have to come out. I could give no reason. I had no
reason, only a very strong instinct, and I wanted time. I asked for a
fortnight, after which I would myself inform my father of the nature of
my mother's malady.

They agreed to this, doubtless much relieved that so unpleasant a task
was removed to other shoulders, and they went away.

That night I did not sleep. I had too much to think out. My mother must
not die. I had to form some plan to save her, if it were humanly
possible. She was absolutely necessary, I considered, to the younger
children. She would be required for some years yet. My life was wholly
given up to my father, I had become necessary to him, and this left me
no time to mother the young ones. His health was not of the best. A
curious tendency to hemorrhage kept him constantly weak. If he had a
tooth drawn bleeding would continue for days after. He needed all my
attention.

At that particular time I possessed something--never mind what--that
meant more to me than anything else in the whole wide world. It was the
greatest thing I had in life. I decided before morning that with this,
my one great possession, I would strike a bargain with the Almighty. I
would give Him a fortnight to consider it. I would offer Him the
greatest thing in my life in exchange for my mother's life.

Quite conceivably He might refuse to consider the proposition, in which
case I stood to lose everything. I could never again recover what I
proposed to risk, but I came to the deliberate conclusion that it was
worth it. The case demanded a desperate remedy.

Having made up my mind, I went about the business in the crudest and
most practical manner. I set aside certain odd half hours during the
coming fortnight, in which I would state my case. I wanted God to have
every opportunity of considering my suggestion on its simple merits.

I began by pointing out to Him why it was so necessary that my mother
should live, and then I went on to say that He might be sure I asked
nothing for myself. I proposed to give in exchange for my mother's life
the greatest thing I possessed on earth, a thing that doubtless was of
little interest to Him, but nevertheless meant a very great deal to
me--in fact, my all. I really had nothing else of any value to offer.

Now, in thus addressing the Almighty, I was not acting as a primitive
savage, for I had considered the subject of Deity for several years, and
had studied most of the great theologians. I addressed Him thus as a
Spirit of too supreme a potency, of too extraneous a mentality and
majesty, to be addressed in any other terms but plain downright
reasoning. Elaborate and propitiatory words were good enough for earthly
princelets, but ridiculous when offered up to the Supreme Creative
Power. That was my way of looking at it, and I began at once to carry
out my plan. There was no time to lose. Meanwhile, no living soul, save
the doctors, knew of my secret.

At the end of the second day my mother was free from pain. At the end of
the first week she was recovering rapidly. The family doctor was
intensely puzzled, but still adhered to his original conviction. On the
eighth day I ceased my half-hourly reasoning with God. I merely thanked
Him for concluding the bargain. He had accepted my sacrifice, the
greatest I could make, and there that matter ended. I felt, without the
smallest irreverence, that we were quits.

At the end of the month the two great surgeons returned, at our own
doctor's request. I awaited them with perfect assurance and
tranquillity. When they came in to me they still looked perturbed. They
told me that they had examined my mother, and found all traces of the
malady had disappeared. They could not account for it, they reiterated
their former diagnosis, dwelling upon certain facts, in very natural
self-justification. They expressed, in the very kindest manner, their
deep regret for all the suffering and anxiety they must have caused me,
and said how very lucky it was that no one had been made aware of their
original convictions, save myself. The case was extraordinary, abnormal,
there was nothing more to say. Then they went away for the last time.

My father was greatly puzzled at their refusing to accept any fee, and
to the day of his death our own doctor, whenever he found me alone,
referred to the case as the most marvelous he had ever come across. My
mother quite regained her health, and died many years after from lung
trouble.

One other great sacrifice I had to make a year or two after. My father
was entirely confined to bed with a severe attack of internal
hemorrhage, and at the same time my youngest sister was threatened with
consumption. She was ordered to go to the South of France immediately.

It was decided that I must go with her, as she could not be trusted to
strangers. My mother, absolutely restored to health, would be left with
my father, who had also a good nurse valet.

My father and I bade each other farewell one early morning in February,
1888. We knew we would not meet again on earth.

Only one other curious incident do I remember in connection with that
town house we lived in. On the night of the 28th December we were all
assembled in the library, most of us were reading, and a violent wind
storm was howling round the house. Suddenly my father laid down the
proof sheets he was correcting, and took out his watch. Then he turned
to us and said: "At this moment, seven fifteen, on Sunday the 28th of
December, 1879, something terrible has happened. I think a bridge must
be down."

The next day we learned that the Tay Bridge had been blown down at that
very hour, and the train and its occupants hurled to death in the waters
below.




CHAPTER III

CURIOUS PSYCHIC EXPERIENCES


After my father's death I began to live a much more independent life. I
was financially independent, and I proceeded to London, where I felt I
would have a wider range of intellectual companionship. I lived in
hotels and dispensed with all chaperonage, thus leaving myself free to
join my mother on the Riviera in the early spring months.

I never cared for dancing, and always having had the companionship of
people who were years older than myself, I had made few girl friends. My
first cousin, Lady Campbell, wife of Sir Guy Campbell, Bart., 60th
Rifles, and another first cousin, Menie Muriel Dowie, were the only two
I really saw much of.

Lady Campbell was, and is, a very attractive woman, possessed of great
charm of manner. Exceedingly cultured and intelligent, she is also an
artist to her finger tips. As girls we used to be fond of attending
Queen Victoria's Drawing-rooms. A bevy of us would take lunch with us in
the carriages, and thoroughly enjoy our day out. I was the last woman to
kiss the hand of Queen Victoria at a Drawing-room. I was stopped by a
Court official just as I was moving forward, and told to wait as "Her
Majesty is going to withdraw." The present Dowager Queen Alexandra, as
Princess of Wales, then took her place. On this occasion I heard the
Queen say, "Let this lady pass." I was then told to proceed.

Being very tall I had always a certain difficulty in getting down low
enough to kiss the tiny Queen's hand. After I had passed, and as I
backed out of "the presence," I saw Her Majesty being assisted out of
the queer little half chair, half stool she used. She never held another
Drawing-room, and I regret that, being abroad, I had not the honor of
making a last curtsy to the little coffin as it passed through the
streets of London.

Menie Muriel Dowie was a brilliant bohemian, as can be gathered by those
who have read her book, "A Girl in the Carpathians." I have never known
any woman who was possessed of so many natural talents. She is as much
at home in skilled and polished diplomacy as in practical agriculture.
She has always been a great traveler, yet a delicate woman. Only her
indomitable spirit kept her going in her youth, as it still does in her
beautiful house in Green Street, and her model farm in Gloucestershire.

My greatest older friends were Mrs. Lynn Linton, the novelist, Browning,
the poet, Lord Leighton, the painter, and Mrs. Proctor, widow of Barry
Cornwall, and mother of Adelaide Proctor, the poet. All people old
enough to be my parents.

I had a great admiration for Mrs. Lynn Linton's strong, cold intellect;
it was so invigorating, and she was so self-reliant, an uncommon thing
for a woman to be in those days. We had long arguments over matters
occult, but I never could make the least impression upon her strong
materialism. "I won't leave this earth even with you," she used to
protest. She was a great friend and admirer of my aunt, Lady Priestley,
also a woman of very fine intellect, who devoted herself to scientific
pursuits. Had she been a man, or had she lived in the present day, when
woman has at last come into her own, she would have made a very strong
mark.

Robert Browning, whom I had known for some years, used to drop in very
often to have a chat, and I rejoiced in him exceedingly as a born mystic
of a high order. We often discussed the possibility of his work being
directed from the other side, and we argued as to whether he received
inspiration from various quarters, or whether he was the beloved of some
poet of a former age, who, active still in the spirit world, expressed
his great thoughts through Robert Browning on earth. So many people at
that time frankly said they could not understand Browning's poetry, and
this I told him was to be attributed to lack of the mystic perception.
Now that mysticism has so enormously developed, his work is much more
comprehensive to the world.

I had alas! only one year of really close friendship with him, for he
died the year after I came to London.

One curious thing Browning told me.

He dropped in one night to see me, after dinner at a house where
Millais, the painter, had been one of the guests.

"Johnnie Millais told me an odd thing to-night," he said. "He's
constantly seeing figures appearing and disappearing on the face of the
canvas he's working upon."

"What sort of figures?" I asked.

Browning shot out his cuff.

"Here they are. I knew you'd be interested, so I took them down for you.
Better write them down for yourself, but don't mention the subject to
him or any of his family."

I fetched a piece of paper and copied from Browning's cuff.

"13. 1.8.9.6. The figures don't always come in that order," he said,
"but more often than not they do. The 13 always comes up as 13, but he's
seen 9.6.1.8. What do you make of it?"

"At present nothing, but the future may throw light upon the
phenomenon," I answered.

I never mentioned this occurrence to any one, and, indeed, forgot all
about it till some years after Millais' death, when I came upon my notes
in an old box. I then realized that the great painter had been looking
upon the dates of his own death. He died on August 13th, 1896.

One night some one, I have not the least idea who, came to me in my
sleep and bade me take up pencil and paper, and write to dictation.
Still sound asleep I did as I was bidden. I always kept writing
materials by my bedside.

In the morning I remembered nothing of this till my eye fell upon some
sheets of paper. The writing upon them was mine, but very big and
untidy. Then I recollected the command I had received in the night and
eagerly read what I had written. Here it is. I gave Browning a copy as
he was so deeply interested--

     "A solitary cottage stood on the edge of a bleak moorland. The sun
     sank behind the low horizon, and left marshy pools glowing like
     living opals. A stream of homeward flying rooks made a streak of
     indigo across the topaz sky where gauzy wind-riven clouds floated
     westward. The sacred hush of eventide brooded under the calm wings
     of night.

     "Out on the waste wandered the Angel of 'Sleep,' and the Angel of
     'Death' with arms fraternally entwined, and whilst the brotherly
     genii embraced each other, night stole down with velvet footfall,
     and the green stars peered forth.

     "Then the Angel of Sleep shook from out his hands the invisible
     grains of slumber, and bade the night wind waft them o'er the
     world. And soon the child in its cradle, the tired mother, the aged
     man, and the pain-laden woman were at peace. The curfew tolled out
     from the distant hamlet and then was still.

     "Inside the cottage a rushlight burned faintly, indicating the
     poverty of the room, and illuminating the death-like features of
     the boy who lay on the bed. By his side, worn out, sat the father,
     his horny hand clasped in that of his child.

     "And the two brother Angels advanced, hand in hand, and peered in
     at the window, and the Angel of Sleep said: 'Behold how gracious a
     thing it is, that we can visit this humble dwelling and scatter
     grains of slumber around, and send oblivion to the weary watcher. I
     am beloved and courted by all. How merciful is our vocation.' And
     silently he entered the room.

     "He kissed the eyelids of the weary watcher, and as he did so some
     grains fell from out the wreath of scarlet poppies that lay like
     drops of blood upon his brow.

     "But the Angel of Death sat without, his pallid face shrouded in
     the sable of his wings.

     "And he spake to the Angel of Sleep, 'Of a truth thou art happy and
     beloved. The welcome guest of all, whereas I am shunned, the door
     is barred as against a secret foe, and I am counted the enemy of
     the world.'

     "But the Angel of Sleep wiped away the immortal tears from the dark
     and mournful eyes of his brother Death.

     "'Are we not children born of the one Father?' said he, 'and do not
     the good call thee friend, and the lonely, the homeless, the weary
     laden bless thy hallowed name when they wake in Paradise.'

     "And the Angel of Death unfurled his sable wings and took heart.
     And as Lucifer the light-bringer paled in the violet Heavens he
     silently entered the dwelling. With his golden scythe he cut the
     silver cord of life, and gathered the child to his faithful bosom."

The evenings I most enjoyed were those I spent in the studio of Felix
Moscheles, the great apostle of peace. There one met all the genius and
talent in London, and any genius of foreign nationality who happened to
be visiting England. The cosmopolitan element always attracted me, and I
went to several frankly revolutionary houses, where red ties flaunted,
and where those Russian Nihilists found a welcome who were constantly
rushing over here to escape Siberia. Through them I learned to
understand what the real woes of Russia were, and to expect the present
revolution as the inevitable result of brutal repression and
misgovernment.

During one winter at Nice I renewed my acquaintance with one of the most
remarkable mystics of modern times, Marie, Countess of Caithness and
Duchesse de Pomar.

I had first met her in Edinburgh in 1872 when she was on the eve of her
second marriage with Lord Caithness. My father and mother attended her
very quiet wedding. Now we met again many years after at her beautiful
home, the Palais Tiranty, Nice. Lady Caithness was widowed for the
second time, Lord Caithness having died in 1881, and lived alone with
her devoted son, the Duc de Pomar. She had a magnificent home in Paris,
"Holyrood," Avenue Wagram. This house contained a large lecture hall
filled with gilt chairs, and hung round with fine pictures. Leading from
this hall down a flight of marble stairs one came to a chapel or seance
room, used for direct communication with the spirit of Mary Stuart, and
said to have been built "under the Queen's instructions."

This presupposes Queen Mary to be still on "the other side." Other
occultists maintain that she has reincarnated again in the person of a
very old Empress, who still lives on earth.

It has been often said of Lady Caithness that she believed herself to be
the reincarnation of Mary Stuart. During all the years I knew her
intimately I never heard her even hint at such a belief, and the fact
that she believed herself to be in touch with the Queen on "the other
side" precludes in my opinion the possibility of her having formed such
a conception.

What may have given rise to the suggestion was the fact that she dressed
after the fashion of the Scottish Queen, and was surrounded by "Mary
relics." Also, there is no doubt that she had a deeply sympathetic
interest in the unfortunate Queen, and had elevated her memory into what
amounted almost to a religion. In the chapel there is a full length
lovely portrait of Mary, which is so lighted and arranged that it gives
the impression of a living woman. Leading out of the dining-room was the
bedroom of Lady Caithness, a sumptuous apartment. The bed was a state
bed, plumes of ostrich feathers uprose at each corner. At one end was a
crown, and behind the pillows was a fresco painting representing Jacob's
Ladder, with a multitude of angels ascending and descending. Often Lady
Caithness received in bed, as was the habit of the French Queens of
former days.

The jewels possessed by Lady Caithness were the most gorgeous I have
ever seen. Nothing worn by crowned heads, at the many English Courts I
have attended, were comparable to them. I can remember an Edinburgh
jeweler inviting my father and me to inspect some diamonds belonging to
her that he was cleaning. There was a long chain of huge diamonds
reaching to the knees, with a cross attached, which no casual observer,
not possessing the jeweler's guarantee as we did, would have believed to
be genuine. When standing receiving her guests in the beautiful salons
of the Palais Tiranty, clad in crimson velvet, she looked a very
wonderful figure, for she possessed exceptional personal beauty as well.

As may be supposed, a woman of such commanding presence who was known to
possess a deep interest in the occult, could secure the services of the
best mediums the world over. I sat with her through many seances,
successful, barren, and indifferent, conducted by mediums of various
nationalities. I remember one conducted by a South American medium,
where the "controls" became very noisy and troublesome, and threatened
to do serious damage. The medium could not be roused out of the trance
she had fallen into, and it had really become necessary to put an end to
the performance. She was a very big, heavy woman, and had sunk half off
her chair on to the floor. I suggested to Lady Caithness that if we
could drag or carry her into another room matters might then quiet down,
but I added dubiously, "She must be a great weight."

Lady Caithness replied with a smile: "Try. You'll probably find her very
light indeed."

I did try, and this was the only time in my life that I had the
opportunity of proving to myself how tremendously a medium loses weight
whilst genuine manifestations are in progress. I found it quite easy to
lift this woman, who in ordinary circumstances must have weighed at
least twelve or thirteen stone.

Sir William Crookes has given to the world a very interesting account of
his work in weighing mediums, before and during materialization. He
always found that a great decrease in weight took place during the
materializations, proving how enormous is the drain on the strength of
the medium. Such evidence is most valuable, as coming from our greatest
chemist.

On this particular night I had no doubt as to the genuineness of the
medium. Had she been a fraud she would have stopped the seance at once,
on seeing how annoyed Lady Caithness was. She had every reason to
conciliate her, and was greatly distressed to hear that her services
would no longer be required. The troublesome spirits followed her into
the next room, but gradually subsided as we succeeded in bringing the
woman back out of her trance.

I used to go very often to the theater at Nice with Lady Caithness. She
had her own box, and often invited Don Carlos of Spain, and other
distinguished personages, to accompany her. One night we went to hear
the incomparable Judic. We were only a party of three, the third being
Prince Valori.

The Prince was then a man past middle age. He suggested a magnificent
ruin, retaining as he did the battered remains of great good looks, and
it was plain to see that his valet was exceedingly skillful. He
possessed also a European reputation for heiress hunting, but to the day
of his death he never succeeded in catching one, though it was said he
had pursued his quarry in all parts of the world. Perhaps the figure he
placed upon his ancient lineage and his personal charm was too high;
perhaps he had begun his quest too late in life, though the position of
a widowed Princess Valori would certainly not have been without
attraction. I attributed his single blessedness to quite a different
cause.

That night, whilst my attention was fixed on the stage, I became dimly
aware that some one had entered our box, but until the song was over I
did not turn round to look who it was. We always had visitors coming and
going. When at last I did glance round I saw nothing remarkable. Only a
man in fancy dress seated behind Valori, a man whom I had never seen
before.

At that period Nice went mad during the winter season. The most
extravagant amusements were entered into with a wild zest, by the very
cosmopolitan society of extremely wealthy people. There were fancy
dress balls every night somewhere, and no one thought it strange to see
bands of revelers in fancy costume walking about the streets and
thronging the cafes at all hours of the night.

I was not therefore astonished to see this man in fancy dress, leaning
familiarly over the back of Prince Valori's chair. He was a very thin
man, with very long, thin legs, and he was dressed entirely in chocolate
brown--a sort of close-fitting cowl was drawn over his head, and his
curious long, impish face was made more weird by small, sharply pointed
ears rising on each side of his head. He appeared to have "got himself
up" to look like a satyr, or some such mythical monstrosity. He was not
introduced to me at the moment, and other people entering our box whom I
knew, I forgot about him. When the box cleared before the next act I
noticed he had gone.

A week or so after this I went to a fancy dress ball given by a Russian
friend of mine--Princess Lina Galitzine. There was a great crowd, and a
number of Grand Dukes and Grand Duchesses, some of whom had driven long
distances from their villas and hotels in Mentone, Monte Carlo, and
Beaulieu, etc. I soon saw Prince Valori making his way towards me,
dressed very magnificently, in a French costume of the eighteenth
century. By his side moved the man in brown.

Now that I saw "the satyr" under brilliant light he struck me at once as
something peculiar. His walk was alone sufficient to attract attention.
He strutted on tiptoes, with a curious jerk with every step he made.
Those who remember Henry Irving's peculiar walk may form some idea of
"the satyr's" movements. They were Irving's immensely exaggerated. I
concluded that Valori was bringing him up to present him to me, but
such proved not to be his intention. Valori shook hands, coolly
requested the young American to whom I was talking to move off and find
some one to dance with, and seated himself in the vacated chair. "The
satyr" stood by his side and said nothing. I thought this very odd, and
glancing, whenever I could do so unobserved, at the silent brown figure,
I began to feel uneasy and shivery. It was impossible, whilst he stood
there listening to all we said, to ask Valori who he was, and no mention
was made of him.

As soon as I could I escaped to talk to some one else, and for an hour
or two I avoided both. During this time I asked several people who "the
satyr" was, but no one seemed to have noticed him in the crowd. At last,
when seated at supper with the late James Gordon Bennett, who did not
usually go to balls, but had looked in here for half an hour for some
purpose of his own, I found myself seated next to a very charming Pole,
married to a Russian, the Princess Schehoffskoi. I knew her to be a
genuine mystic, one of the group who first instituted spiritualism into
the Russian Court circles. I seized an opportunity, whilst Gordon
Bennett was occupied with some one else, to ask her who the brown satyr
was who had attached himself to Valori.

She was at once absorbed in the question, and, lowering her voice, she
said, "Why, how interesting! Don't you know that is his 'Familiar' who
is constantly in attendance upon him. People say they became attached
whilst he was attending a 'Sabbath' in the Vosges, and he can't get rid
of it."

"A Sabbath!" I echoed blankly.

"Yes! Surely you have heard of a 'Witch's Sabbath.' They still hold them
at Lutzei, and each person receives a 'Familiar.' Those 'Sabbaths' are
the most appalling orgies and hideously blasphemous. The 'Familiars'
have names--Minette, Verdelet, etc. I had an ancestor who owned a
'Familiar' called Sainte Buisson. His name was de Laski. Of course, he
was a Pole, and a Prince of Siradia, and he came across Dr. Dee, the
necromancer of Queen Elizabeth's time. They seem to have entered into a
sort of partnership."

All this the Princess told me quite seriously, and I found out later
from her that Satanism or devil worship was largely practiced in France.
It is interesting to note that the names of the French war mascots of
the moment are all taken from the names of well-known "Familiars" in
occult lore.

"Then the 'satyr' attached to Valori is not human flesh and blood; how
horrible!" I whispered back. "Have many people seen him? Is he always
there?"

The Princess nodded, "The clairvoyantes here all know about it, and I
myself have seen him, not here, but in Paris. I shall go in search of
Valori directly after supper."

"And I shall go home to bed," I answered.

The next morning I met Valori, alone, on the Promenade des Anglais. He
turned and strolled by my side, and I determined to put a straight
question. After a little trivial conversation I said, "By the way, who
is that brown man, dressed like a Satyr, who has been with you lately?"

I watched Valori's face as I put the question, and as I saw the change
that came over it I felt very sorry and ashamed of having spoken. He
looked so utterly dejected and miserable.

"You also?" he muttered, then fell to silence.

I gathered that the same question had been put to him before, and I
hastened to reassure him. "Don't answer. My question was impertinent;
let us speak of other things," I said hastily, but he remained silent,
staring down at the ground. Then suddenly he said--

"I am not the only one in the world so afflicted."

I did not pursue the subject. His words were true. That evening I
received a large bouquet of Russian violets, and on a card was written
the following French proverb:--"La reputation d'un homme est comme son
ombre, qui tantot le suit et tantot le precede; quelquefois elle est
plus longue et quelquefois plus courte que lui."

At that time the whole Riviera was swarming with professional
clairvoyantes, and it soon "got wind" that Prince Valori's "Familiar"
was walking about with him. He treated the matter almost as lightly as a
distinguished English General treated his "Familiar."

The Englishman, General Elliot, who commanded the forces in Scotland,
was a very well-known society man, about twenty-five years ago. He had a
name for his Familiar, "Wononi," and used actually to speak aloud with
him in the middle of a dinner-party. The General occupied a very
distinguished position, not only in his profession, but in the social
world, and to look at he was the very last man that one would associate
with matters occult.

In 1895 Marie, Duchesse de Pomar and Countess of Caithness, died. She
had the right to claim burial in Holyrood Chapel, and a very simple
stone marks her last resting-place. To her I owe the warmest friendship
of my life, for it was in her opera box I met the present Lady Treowen,
born a daughter of Lord Albert Conynghame, who afterwards became the
first Lord Londesborough. To the many who know and love her, Albertina
Treowen represents a type of perfect breeding, alas! fast becoming
extinct in these days. She has lived the reality of noblesse oblige, has
the rare gift of perfect friendship, and combines a rare refinement of
mind with strong moral courage.




CHAPTER IV

EAST END DAYS AND NIGHTS


If we had found the golden thread of meaning which gives coherence to
the whole; if we had been taught as our religion that every man and
woman was receiving the strictest justice at the Divine hands, and that
our conditions to-day were exactly those our former lives entitled us
to, how different would be our outlook on life. As it is, men have
fallen away in their bitter discontent from a God in whose justice they
have ceased to believe, and of whose impartiality they see no sign.

I doubt if any religion extant has claimed such a wide diversity in its
adherents as Christianity. Calvin, Knox, Torquemada, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, and Kaiser Wilhelm. Mr. Gladstone, and Czar Nicolas. The
Pope of Rome, and Spurgeon. Even those nine names, which might be
multiplied indefinitely, show us diametrically opposed readings of the
same faith.

It would be of enormous benefit to us if we studied all the great
religions, and separated from each the obviously false from the true,
and appropriated the latter. The Bible would gain enormously in value if
studied in conjunction with other sacred books written before the advent
of Christ.

A careful study of the ancient faiths will reveal a wonderful
similarity. We are beginning to break down the limitations which have
been presumptuously cast around the conceptions of the Divine teachings.
We begin to see that not only in Palestine, but in all the world, and
amongst all peoples, God has been revealing Himself to the hearts of
men.

It is always folly for the orthodox to hold up hands in holy horror at
the views of the unorthodox. It is a selfish standpoint, and makes
matters no better. Doubt does not spring from the wish to doubt. It
arises solely from the play of the mind on the facts of daily life
surrounding us. The truth remains, that, unless the Church recovers
those vital doctrines that she has lost, and which alone make life
rational to the intelligent, she will be finally abandoned when the
present generation dies out.

We can never rest content with a faith which flatly contradicts the
facts of life which surround us, and press in on us from every side in
our daily existence. We hold that what we undoubtedly find in life ought
to have its complement in religion. The searching temper of our vast
sacrifices in war are thrusting faith down to primitive bed-rock.
Orthodoxies and heterodoxies will not matter much now. What will matter
will be honesty, effectiveness, and a rational explanation of life. For
nineteen hundred years we have professed the religion of what others
said about Christ. Now the hour is approaching when we must try the
religion of what Christ said about us and the world.

I was always of a very inquiring turn of mind, and I had abandoned
orthodoxy before I was twenty. I had read everything I could lay my
hands on, and I emerged after a year or two, an out-and-out agnostic, in
the popular sense of the term.

I had, however, no intention of remaining in that condition. I was
convinced there must be some link between Science and Religion, and that
a just God, worthy of all worship, was to be found, if only I knew where
to seek. I can look back on this crude stage of my life, and see what a
nuisance I must have been, with my defiant disbelief and constant
questioning. I became an ardent truth-seeker, but my demands, I can now
realize, grew out of my palpitating desire to reduce the world of
disorder to the likeness of a supreme and beneficent Creator. If God be
just and good, then what is the explanation of this hideous discrepancy
in human lives?

Following on this came the question: "Is it possible that a just God is
going to judge us, one and all, on our miserable record of three score
years and ten?"

"Whatsoever ye soweth that shall ye reap." So the criminal and the
savage were to be judged by their deeds, though, through no fault of
their own, they were born under circumstances which precluded any
glimmer of light to shine in on their darkness. "Ah!" but I was told,
"God will make it up to them hereafter. Of course, He won't judge them
as He will judge you."

This seemed to me pure nonsense. I could not understand a God who
arranged His creation so badly. Whilst in London I started out on a
search for truth.

Amongst those who accorded me interviews were Cardinal Newman and the
late Archdeacon Liddon. The former was exquisitely sympathetic and
patient, but he gave me no mental satisfaction. I helped him for some
weeks in the great dock strike, and then we drifted apart for ever.
Liddon listened patiently, then told me flatly he could not solve the
mysteries I sought to probe. I also was accorded an unsatisfactory
interview with Basil Wilberforce. After a lapse of thirty years we met
again, though I never recalled to him the visit I had paid him in my
youth, being sure he must have forgotten all about it. I found him
enormously changed mentally. He had outgrown all resemblance to his
former mental self.

At that early period some one happened to mention to me that a certain
Madame Blavatsky had just arrived in London, bringing with her a new
religion. My curiosity was at once fired, and I set off to call upon
her.

I shall never forget that first interview with a much maligned woman,
whom I rapidly came to know intimately and love dearly. She was seated
in a great armchair, with a table by her side on which lay tobacco and
cigarette paper. Whilst she spoke her exquisite taper fingers
automatically rolled cigarettes. She was dressed in a loose black robe,
and on her crinkly gray hair she wore a black shawl. Her face was pure
Kalmuk, and a network of fine wrinkles covered it. Her eyes, large and
pale green, dominated the countenance--wonderful eyes in their
arresting, dreamy mysticism.

I asked her to explain her new religion, and she answered that hers was
the very oldest extant, and formed the belief of five hundred million
souls. I inquired how it was that this stupendous fact had not yet
touched Christendom, and her reply was that there had never been any
interference with Christian thought. Though judge of all, Christianity
had been judged by none. The rise of Japan was a factor of immense
potency, and in time would open out a new era in the comprehension of
East by West. Then the meaning would flash upon the churches of the
words, "Neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem."

I explained to her my difficulties, which she proceeded to solve by
expounding the doctrines of reincarnation and Karma. They jumped
instantly to my reason. I there and then found the Just God, of whom I
had been in search. From that day to this I have never had reason to
swerve from those beliefs. The older I grow, the more experience I
gather, the more I read, the more confirmed do I become in the belief
that such provide the only rational explanation of this life, the only
natural hope in the world to come.

I have offered those beliefs to very many people whom I discovered to be
on the same quest as I had been. I have never once had them rejected by
any serious truth-seeker, and I have seen them passed on and on by these
people to others, forming enormous ramifications which became lost to
view in the passage of time and their own magnitude.

In these early days there was little literature available for the
student, but the circle of clever brains which rapidly surrounded
Blavatsky set to work with a will under her guidance, and now, after the
lapse of thirty years, there is an enormous literature always commanding
a wide sale, and the little circle that gathered round "the old lady"
has swollen into very many thousands.

What was the secret of Helena Petrovski Blavatsky's instant success? I
have no doubt that it lay in her power to give to the West the Eastern
answers to those problems which the Church has lost.

In her way Blavatsky was a true missioner. "Go forth on your journey for
the weal and the welfare of all people, out of compassion for the world
and the welfare of angels and mortals," was the command given by the
Lord Buddha to his disciples, and Christ, following the universal ideal,
five hundred years later, commanded, "Go ye into all the world and
preach the Gospel of the whole Creation."

I began to study those, to me, new doctrines at once, and I also took up
their occult side, no light task, but one of absorbing interest. Not
till then did I fully realize that in no one human life could that long,
long path be trodden, in no new-born soul could be developed those
divine possibilities of which I could catch but a fleeting illusive
vision.

"Thou canst not travel in the Path before thou hast become the Path
itself." Did not the Christ warn his followers that the Path must be
trodden more or less alone? "Forsake all and follow Me." So, also in the
Bhagavad Gita it is written: "Abandoning all duties come unto me alone
for shelter. Sorrow not, I will liberate thee from thy sins."

"The secret doctrine" written by Blavatsky proved a mine of wealth, and
I read the volumes through seven times in seven different keys. The
works of A. P. Sinnett, text books then, and now brought up to date by
expanding knowledge, were extremely helpful. For advanced students "The
Growth of the Soul" is unsurpassed. A very short time elapsed before
mental food was supplied for practically every branch of mysticism and
occult development, and students flocked into headquarters from all
parts of the world.

It is interesting to remember the two adjoining villas in Avenue Road,
St. John's Wood, where we used to congregate to study, and hear lectures
thirty years ago, and to look now on the stately buildings in Tavistock
Square. They are designed by the great architect Lutyens, whose wife,
Lady Emily, is an ardent theosophist. I am glad that I have lived to see
these doctrines take firm root in the West, and grow so amazingly that
in all cities they are now held by vast numbers, and even in cases where
they have not been finally adopted they are acknowledged to be the only
logical conclusion for those who desire to possess a rational belief. I
am glad that I can look back with love and profound gratitude to Helena
P. Blavatsky, the woman who grafted on the West the wisdom of the ages.
I have no doubt that she is enabled to see the mighty structure raised
on her small beginnings, and doubtless she has met on "the other side"
men and women whose debt to her is equally as great as mine.

Blavatsky began by exploding the theory that men are born equal. If this
one life were all, then this great error ought, in common justice, to be
absolute truth, and every man should possess common rights in the
community, and one man ought to be as good as another. If every soul
born to-day is a fresh creation, who will in the course of time pass
away from this life for ever, then why is it that one is only fitted to
obey, whilst another is eminently fitted to rule? One is born with a
tendency to vice and crime, another to virtue and honesty. One is born a
genius, another is born to idiocy. How, she asked, could a firm social
foundation ever be built up on this utter disregard of nature? How
treat, as having right to equal power, the wise and the ignorant, the
criminal and the saint? Yet, if man be born but once it would be very
unjust to build on any other foundation.

Re-incarnation implies the evolution of the soul, and it makes the
equality of man a delusion. In evolution time plays the greatest part,
and through evolution humanity is climbing. "Souls while eternal in
their essence are of different ages in their individuality."

Many of us must know people who though quite old in years are children
in mind. Men and women who having arrived at three score years and ten
are still utterly childish and inconsequent. They are young souls who
have had the experiences of very few earth lives. Again, we all know
children who seem born abnormally old. Infant prodigies, musicians,
calculators, painters who have brought over their genius from a former
life.

I remember once meeting with a curious experience, which is not very
easy to describe. It was an experience more of feeling than of seeing.

I was standing in Milan Cathedral. In front of me and behind was
gathered a crowd of peasants. High Mass was being celebrated, and all
the seats were occupied.

After a few moments I began to feel a curious sensation of being
intently watched. Some penetrating influence was probing me through and
through, with a quiet but intensely powerful directness. I had the
sensation that my soul was being stripped bare. I looked round, but
could see nothing to account for my sensation. Every one seemed intent
on their devotions. I began to wonder if some malicious old peasant was
throwing over me the spell of the evil eye, but again my feelings were
not conscious of an evil intent; it was more an absorbed speculation
directed towards me. Some one was probing my soul, speculating on my
spiritual worth or worthlessness, with an intensely earnest yet cold
calculation.

Just in front of me stood a peasant woman of the poorest class. Her back
was towards me, and over her shoulder hung a baby of not more than a
year old. Suddenly I met the eyes of the child full. Then I knew. As a
psychological experience it was most interesting, but it sent a little
thrill of creepiness through me.

The baby did not withdraw its gaze, but continued leisurely to look me
through and through. The eyes were large and gray, the expression that
of a contemplative savant, with a faint dash of irony in their glance. I
do not pretend to be anything but what is now called "psychic," but I am
certain that those windows of the soul, with that age-long experience
flooding out of them, would have arrested the most material person. My
husband, who is accustomed to my "flights of imagination," was very much
struck by that look of maturity, that suggestion of aeonic knowledge.

Blavatsky taught me to look on man as an evolving entity, in whose life
career births and deaths are recurring incidents. Birth and death begin
and end only a single chapter in the book of life. She taught me that we
cannot evade inexorable destiny. I made my present in my past. To-day I
am making my future. In proportion as I outwear my past, and change my
present abysmal ignorance into knowledge, so shall I become free.

I have often heard Blavatsky called a charlatan, and I am bound to say
that her impish behavior often gave grounds for this description. She
was foolishly intolerant of the many smart West End ladies who arrived
in flocks, demanding to see spooks, masters, elementals, anything, in
fact, in the way of phenomena.

Madame Blavatsky was a born conjuror. Her wonderful fingers were made
for jugglers' tricks, and I have seen her often use them for that
purpose. I well remember my amazement upon the first occasion on which
she exhibited her occult powers, spurious and genuine.

I was sitting alone with her one afternoon, when the cards of Jessica,
Lady Sykes, the late Duchess of Montrose and the Honorable Mrs. S.----
(still living) were brought in to her. She said she would receive the
ladies at once, and they were ushered in. They explained that they had
heard of her new religion, and her marvelous occult powers. They hoped
she would afford them a little exhibition of what she could do.

Madame Blavatsky had not moved out of her chair. She was suavity itself,
and whilst conversing she rolled cigarettes for her visitors and invited
them to smoke. She concluded that they were not particularly interested
in the old faith which the young West called new; what they really were
keen about was phenomena.

That was so, responded the ladies, and the burly Duchess inquired if
Madame ever gave racing tips, or lucky numbers for Monte Carlo?

Madame disclaimed having any such knowledge, but she was willing to
afford them a few moments' amusement. Would one of the ladies suggest
something she would like done?

Lady Sykes produced a pack of cards from her pocket, and held them out
to Madame Blavatsky, who shook her head.

"First remove the marked cards," she said.

Lady Sykes laughed and replied, "Which are they?"

Madame Blavatsky told her, without a second's hesitation. This charmed
the ladies. It seemed a good beginning.

"Make that basket of tobacco jump about," suggested one of them.

The next moment the basket had vanished. I don't know where it went, I
only know it disappeared by trickery, that the ladies looked for it
everywhere, even under Madame Blavatsky's ample skirts, and that
suddenly it reappeared upon its usual table. A little more jugglery
followed and some psychometry, which was excellent, then the ladies
departed, apparently well satisfied with the entertainment.

When I was once more alone with Madame Blavatsky, she turned to me with
a wry smile and said, "Would you have me throw pearls before swine?"

I asked her if all she had done was pure trickery.

"Not all, but most of it," she unblushingly replied, "but now I will
give you something lovely and real."

For a moment or two she was silent, covering her eyes with her hand,
then a sound caught my ear. I can only describe what I heard as fairy
music, exquisitely dainty and original. It seemed to proceed from
somewhere just between the floor and the ceiling, and it moved about to
different corners of the room. There was a crystal innocence in the
music, which suggested the dance of joyous children at play.

"Now I will give you the music of life," said Madame Blavatsky.

For a moment or two there fell a trance-like silence. The twilight was
creeping into the room, and seemed to bring with it a tingling
expectancy. Then it seemed to me that something entered from without,
and brought with it utterly new conditions, something incredible,
unimagined and beyond the bounds of reason.

Some one was singing, a distant melody was creeping nearer, yet I was
aware it had never been distant, it was only becoming louder.

I suddenly felt afraid of myself. The air about me was ringing with
vibrations of weird, unearthly music, seemingly as much around me as it
was above and behind me. It had no whereabouts, it was unlocatable. As I
listened my whole body quivered with wild elation, and the sensation of
the unforeseen.

There was rhythm in the music, yet it was unlike anything I had ever
heard before. It sounded like a Pastorale, and it held a call to which
my whole being wildly responded.

Who was the player, and what was his instrument? He might have been a
flautist, and he played with a catching lilt, a luxurious abandon that
was an incarnation of Nature. It caught me suddenly away to green
Sicilian hills, where the pipes of unseen players echo down the mountain
sides, as the pipes of Pan once echoed through the rugged gorges and
purple vales of Hellas and Thrace.

Alluring though the music was, and replete with the hot fever of life,
it carried with it a thrill of dread. Its sweetness was cloying, its
tenderness was sensuous. A balmy scent crept through the room, of wild
thyme, of herbs, of asphodel and the muscadine of the wine press. It
enwrapt me like an odorous vapor.

The sounds began to take shape, and gradually mold themselves into
words. I knew I was being courted with subtlety, and urged to fly out of
my house of life and join the Saturnalia Regna. The player was speaking
a language which I understood, as I had understood no tongue before. It
was my true native tongue that spoke in the wild ringing lilt, and I
could not but give ear to its enchantments and the ecstasy of its joy.

My soul seemed to strain at the leash. Should I let go? Like a powerful
opiate the allurement enfolded me, yet from out its thrall a small
insistent voice whispered "Caution! Where will you be led: supposing you
yield your will, would it ever be yours again?"

Now my brain was seized with a sense of panic and weakness. The music
suddenly seemed replete with gay sinfulness and insolent conquest. It
spoke the secrets which the nature myth so often murmurs to those who
live amid great silences, of those dread mysteries of the spirit which
yet invest it with such glory and wonderment.

With a violent reaction of fear I rose suddenly, and as I did so the
whole scene was swept from out the range of my senses. I was back once
more in Blavatsky's room with the creeping twilight and the far off
hoarse roar of London stealing in at the open window. I glanced at
Madame Blavatsky. She had sunk down in her chair, and she lay huddled up
in deep trance. She had floated out with the music into a sea of earthly
oblivion. Between her fingers she held a small Russian cross.

I knew that she had thrust me back to the world which still claimed me,
and I went quietly out of the house into the streets of London.

On another occasion when I was alone with Madame Blavatsky she suddenly
broke off our conversation by lapsing into another language, which I
supposed to be Hindustanee. She appeared to be addressing some one else,
and on looking over my shoulder I saw we were no longer alone. A man
stood in the middle of the room. I was sure he had not entered by the
door, window or chimney, and as I looked at him in some astonishment, he
salaamed to Madame Blavatsky, and replied to her in the same language in
which she had addressed him.

I rose at once to leave her, and as I bade her good-by she whispered to
me, "Do not mention this." The man did not seem aware of my presence; he
took no notice of me as I left the room. He was dark in color and very
sad looking, and his dress was a long, black cloak and a soft black hat
which he did not remove, pulled well over his eyes.

I found out that evening that none of the general staff were aware of
his arrival, and I saw him no more.

I remember clearly the first night that Annie Besant came to
headquarters as an interested inquirer. She arrived with the socialist,
Herbert Burrows. Madame Blavatsky told me she was destined to take a
very great part in the future Theosophical movement. At that time such a
thing seemed incredible, yet it has come to pass.

About this period I went to live in the East End of London, Haggerston
and Whitechapel, where I had a night shelter of my own. There I saw into
what surroundings children were born, how they grow up, and how their
parents live and die. I have seen so much of the lives of the outcast
poor that I can feel nothing but the most passionate pity for them,
even though I can now look upon them as souls just beginning to climb
the ladder of evolution.

My night shelter was for women only, and was purposely of the roughest
description. The floor was bare concrete, and round the walls were heaps
of millers' sacks I had bought cheap, owing to mice having eaten holes
in them.

According to our laws the legal age at which a girl can marry is
thirteen, and I used to get many of these girl wives in for the night,
as their lawful husbands used to turn them out of doors. I discovered
that it was no uncommon practice for a man to buy one of those children
from the parents for a few pence, the parents' consent being necessary.
The marriage was solemnized, and the child wife was used only as a
drudge to slave for the husband and his mistress, who was of a more
suitable age to become his mate.

I used to be very much troubled by women in the throes of delirium
tremens. They would come in quite quietly when the shelter opened,
strip, pick up a sack and get into it, and then lie down and at once go
to sleep. After a few hours' dead slumber they would get up, raving mad,
and disturb all the other sleepers. The reason of this peculiar form of
D. T. was explained to me by a doctor in the neighborhood. The publicans
kept a pail behind the bar, into which was thrown the dregs of every
species of liquor sold during the day. This concoction was distributed
cheap at closing time, and its effects were cumulative.

One night I had a curious experience. The room was unusually quiet, and
I had closed my eyes, but I was not asleep. I opened them, and, in the
bright light of one unshaded gas jet, I saw a dark figure moving. Its
back was towards me, and I instantly thought a plain clothes policeman
had entered, no unusual occurrence, without my hearing him. In these
days detectives used often to escort the West End ladies on slumming
expeditions, and they usually called on me. Then I saw this figure was
clad in dark robes, and was very tall. Again I thought, this is some old
Jew who has crept in, and I was just about to rise and eject him, when
something suddenly stopped me.

_I saw through him and beyond him._ I then and there realized that
feeling of hair of one's head rising on one's scalp is no mere figment
of speech.

The figure moved softly round the room, it made no sound whatever, and
as it came to each sleeper it bent down, as if closely scrutinizing each
face. It occurred to me that it was looking for some one. I began to
dread the moment when the search was over, and the figure would turn its
face towards me. I felt that my hair had turned into the quills of a
porcupine. I wanted to shut my eyes, but dared not. Then before that
quest was over, the figure straightened itself and turned full towards
me. My fears instantly fell away from me like a fallen mantle, for
though I knew the visitor had come from the other side, there was
something so profoundly sad in the pale weary face, that compassion
quite eclipsed fear. Another second and it had vanished.

I lived in Whitechapel during the dread visitation of "Jack the Ripper,"
and all women at once adopted the habit of walking in the middle of the
road amongst the horses and carts. Fortunately there were no motors in
those days to add to the confusion. When we came to the house or alley
we wished to enter, we made a sudden dash for it.

One night I had occasion to pass the entire night by the bedside of a
dying prostitute. She lived in one of four rooms, all occupied by the
same class, and all opening into a court not larger than ten feet by
ten. I suppose I must have been very tired, for I fell asleep, and about
five a. m. I woke and found I was alone, the woman was dead. I went out
into the court, hearing a sudden noise of excited voices, and discovered
that "Jack" had been at work in the adjoining room, only separated from
mine by a match-board partition. Portions of the unfortunate woman were
neatly arranged on a deal table. I had heard absolutely nothing. Later
on that same day I revisited the scene, and found a curious contrast.
Seeing his way to a cheap furnished lodging, a coster had married his
donah in a hurry, and the wedding breakfast was being eaten off the
blood-stained table!

It was in those days that I developed into a convinced Suffragist. I saw
that until men and women came together to improve and mold our
civilization, very little improvement could be expected. The son of the
bondwoman is not on a level with the son of the free woman, and we saw
that the struggle must go on until we were accorded the right to govern
our own lives.

I could always see the anti's point of view, for, had I thought only of
my own position as an isolated unit, a vote would have seemed to me a
needless responsibility. No social worker who has penetrated to the
depths can maintain this attitude, and so, in company with all other
women workers, I entered on the crusade which has just terminated in
victory. Much as I dislike militancy, I am convinced that it hastened
our victory by very many years, by bringing the subject before the
world. Also the enormous number of idle and, formerly, indifferent
women, who have rushed into work in answer to their country's call, has
helped our cause enormously. I have invariably found that directly a
woman enters the ranks of active labor, her views, however strongly they
have been opposed to us, at once swing round. Once a woman _proves for
herself_ the disabilities under which we labor, she is at once
converted. To the very many women who suffered acute physical torture
during the militant campaign, our easy victory must seem passing
strange.




CHAPTER V

THE MAN IN THE MARYLEBONE ROAD


It is thirty years ago since I became a convert to Spiritualism. At that
time I made up my mind that I would attend fifty seances, and if, out of
that number, I did not come across one that I could be absolutely
certain was genuine I would attend no more. Spiritualism, in itself,
never interested me, but I was determined to see for myself if there was
really anything in it.

I attended twenty-nine seances before I happened on one that was
absolutely convincing. Several had been almost convincing, but a
loophole for fraud had remained, and so long as that was the case I
persevered.

I went one summer morning to see an old man who lived in the Marylebone
Road. I was shown up into a sunny little room on the first floor. It had
neither carpet, curtains nor window blind, and it looked on the street.
The furniture consisted of a plain, uncovered deal table in the middle
of a clean planked floor, and eight plain uncovered deal chairs were
ranged round the walls. The room was utterly destitute of ornament,
there was not even a clock, and I was the only occupant.

Soon the old man entered, a very ordinary looking person, and civilly
asked what I wanted.

I said that I understood he was possessed of psychic powers, and I would
like to see an exhibition of them.

He smiled and answered, "My fee is two-and-six for a quarter of an
hour. Choose your own phenomenon, and I'll see what I can do."

I was puzzled at first, and looked round the bare walls for inspiration.
There was not even a photograph or picture. Then suddenly I thought of
something rather silly.

"Please make those four chairs opposite to us cross the floor and mount
on to the table," I said.

The old man drew his chair quite close to mine, "Then give me your
hand." I removed my glove and did as he asked.

He looked, not at the chairs, but into my face, and I at once warned
him.

"I am no good as a subject for hypnotism, so it is useless to try."

He laughed and answered, "I am not a hypnotist, but I see you have
power. You may as well lend me some. You are young, and I am old."

At that second my attention was distracted by a grating sound, and I
forgot all about my companion. I saw the four chairs leave the wall and
advance towards the table, in exactly the position, and tilted forward,
they would be in if a human hand was dragging them across the floor.
There appeared to be four invisible hands at the work. Then, one by one,
they were neatly balanced, one on the top of the other, on the table.

When the manifestation was complete I remembered the old man, and looked
round at him. He was watching the business, as keenly interested as I
was.

"Good boys! good boys," I heard him murmur.

"How is it done?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "The Petris (spirits) do it. I don't."

"Then ask 'the Petris' to put the chairs neatly back again."

"The Petris" performed this feat very expeditiously, and I paid
two-and-sixpence and departed. There was no loophole here for fraud, not
a wire, or string, or any human manipulation, and I was not hypnotized.
I never have been. For that sort of test I had seen enough.

Shortly after I witnessed a materialization in broad daylight. I was
free to move about the room, and stand by the medium as she lay bound
and deeply entranced. I was free to make any examinations I pleased,
whilst others present conversed with the spirit, and I left the house
absolutely convinced of the genuineness of that phenomenon.

That was the last test seance I attended, and for years afterwards I did
not interest myself in spiritualism, nor did I attend many private
sittings.

Towards the close of the South African War I was ordered from "the other
side" to begin again, but on different lines. I was ordered to be a
medium.

A man whom I barely knew, and who had passed over, wished to communicate
with his people. This put me in a quandary. I hardly knew his people,
and their social position was not such as could be treated
unceremoniously by a casual acquaintance. I had never heard that they
were interested in "other side" subjects. The very little I knew of them
suggested quite the reverse.

I consulted with my husband. "One cannot," I argued, "go up to people
who are almost strangers and tell them their son wishes to communicate
with them through me."

My husband quite saw the difficulty, but it had always happened that
when any one wished to communicate with us, and we paid no attention, we
were given no peace till we did take heed, and sat down with an Ouija
board to receive the message. He therefore proposed that we should
consult Mr. A. P. Sinnett, now such a well-known writer on Occultism,
and an old friend of ours. We therefore laid the matter before him.

His reply was uncompromising.

"Do as you are told from the other side. It is not for you to question
or consider the social consequences to yourselves."

This advice we immediately followed, and we were met with the utmost
kindness and sympathetic understanding. Sittings were arranged,
communication established. Test questions were put, which we did not
understand, but which were satisfactory to the questioners, and for many
years the sittings continued until the "other side" made arrangements
for a change of mediums and I was set free for other work. I say, set
free, because during all those years we had held ourselves entirely at
the disposal of this wonderful spirit, who communicated through me, and
it is no exaggeration to say that our daily lives, our worldly plans,
entirely depended upon his wishes. He had his own work to do, and our
earth lives were always arranged to suit his convenience.

About the same time as the above experience began my husband was
disturbed by noises in his library, and he came to the conclusion that
some one had something to say and was determined to say it. One evening,
when the disturbance prevented serious reading, we sat down with the
Ouija board. The result was as follows--

A spirit who purported to be a well-known soldier of fortune who had
lately committed suicide, desired to give a message. This astonished us,
as we had known him only slightly, and we wondered why he had chosen to
bestow his attentions on us. He said he was very unhappy because he owed
a certain sum of money to a friend, whom I will call B. This money B.
could have refunded to him if he would communicate with a certain London
address, which the departed soldier gave us in full.

We knew B., and knew that he had been a close friend of the departed. We
also knew that B. was on the Gold Coast. We promised, however, to send
him the message, and that was the last we ever heard of the soldier.

My husband wrote to B. on the Gold Coast simply giving him the message
and leaving it at that. We were sure B. was an absolute skeptic. He was!
and did nothing till his return to England three years later, when he
applied at the address which he happened to have kept, and received his
money.

I first became interested in Occultism, not only through my own very
early experiences, but through hearing as a mere child that my
grandfather, Robert the younger of the two well-known publishing
brothers, W. and R. Chambers, had investigated spiritualism to his
entire satisfaction.

In those days, about 1860, scientific men did not trouble about occult
subjects, which were deemed beneath their notice. Science was so
strictly orthodox that my grandfather published his "Vestiges of
Creation" anonymously. It created an enormous sensation, and upon that
book and the writings of Lamarck, Darwin founded his "Origin of
Species." Robert Chambers determined to go to America and investigate
for himself the reported marvelous happenings there. He had sittings
with all the renowned mediums, bringing to bear upon their phenomena the
acumen of his scientific mind, and he returned to Europe a convinced
believer. He carried on regular sittings with Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall
and other intellectuals, and with General Drayson, then a young beginner
who went very far in his investigations before he died.

About the year 1885 I happened to be staying at Hawarden with Mr. and
Mrs. Gladstone, and the only other guest, outside the family party, was
the late Canon Malcolm McColl, through whose instrumentality I became a
member of the Psychical Society.

McColl was a most interesting personality, a leading light on matters
occult, and a famous recounter of ghost stories. He was also _persona
grata_ in the Gladstone household, and Mrs. Gladstone often spoke to me
of their deep love for him.

I forget now what led up to the subject, but one night, when we were
sitting talking, I told Mr. Gladstone that my grandfather, Robert
Chambers, had been a convinced spiritualist. The Canon at once tried to
draw the G.O.M., and to our mutual amazement his arguments in favor of
the return of the disembodied soul to earth were met by concurring short
ejaculations, such as "Of course! Naturally! Why, certainly!"

Then quite suddenly Mr. Gladstone began to prove to us that the old
Biblical scribes were convinced spiritualists. From his intimate
knowledge of the Bible he quoted text after text in support of his
contention. "Here He worked no wonders because the people were wanting
in faith," he compared to the present day medium's difficulty in
working with skeptics. When Christ asked, "Who has touched Me? Much
virtue has passed out of Me," He but spoke as many a modern healer
speaks on feeling a failure of power. "Try the spirits whether they be
of God," is what all spiritualists of to-day should practice rigorously.

Conan Doyle, in his book, "The New Revelation," touches upon those
facts, and it was only on reading his book with profound interest that I
remembered the impressive talk I had so many years ago with Mr.
Gladstone. As Conan Doyle truly says, "The early Christian Church was
saturated with spiritualism."

What, it may be asked, is the value to a woman of psychic experiences,
whose reality may be convincing to herself, but never to others?

Firstly, there is this enormous value for me, that certain psychic
experiences I have had make a future existence, after so-called death, a
certainty.

Secondly, other varieties of psychic phenomena have furnished me with
unmistakable proof that I possess an immortal soul.

Thirdly, still other varieties of experiences have provided me with the
implicit belief in a God, who is in actual touch with Humanity.

Again, all soul experiences, begotten from out the supreme mystery of
Being, show us that our real life is not contained in our present normal
consciousness, but in a vastly wider, grander plane, which, as yet, is
but dimly sensed by the few.

Those who have bathed in "the light invisible" can bring glory to those
in gloom. They visit, but no longer live in the day. Their glory is in
the night, when they walk with the Immortals, and bear with them the
golden lamps of life eternal. Those who have realized the powers within,
powers which not only are the pillars of infinite harmony, but the
mainspring of eternal life, have builded on a rock which no tempest can
destroy.


    "'Tis time
    New hopes should animate the world,
    New light should dawn from new revealings to a race
        Weighed down so long."

                         PARACELSUS.




CHAPTER VI

THE GHOST OF PRINCE CHARLIE


Scotland in the autumn of the pre-war days was a very gay place. The big
country houses were filled with shooting parties, and for the Autumn
Meetings, Ayr races, Perth races, and games, The Inverness Gathering,
etc. The dates were so arranged that one could go the round, and thus
dance through several weeks. I used to go regularly to Inverness, and
afterwards visit friends in the surrounding neighborhood. One of the
most delightful houses to visit was Tarbat, belonging to the Countess of
Cromartie. Any one who has read her unique books must have come to the
conclusion that Lady Cromartie is a mystic of no ordinary type, but only
those who know her intimately are aware how predominating in her
character is this inborn mysticism.

I first remember the two sisters, Lady Sibell and Lady Constance
Mackenzie, hanging on to their father's arms as they walked about
Folkestone. They were then tiny tots, and I was staying with their
mother, the beautiful Lilian, daughter of Lord Macdonald of the Isles.
Beautiful was the only word to describe Lord Cromartie's wife--and Lily
seemed the most suitable name that could have been bestowed upon her.
She was intensely musical and interested in ghosts. Born the daughter of
a Highland chieftain she understood how to live the life of a great
Scottish noblewoman. She was always very kind to me, and I used to stay
with her very often.

In 1893 Lord Cromartie died, and his eldest daughter, Lady Sibell,
became Countess of Cromartie in her own right--the title going in the
female line. As a child the young Countess had been a great reader. I
remember she used often to be missing, and found in some quiet room
buried in a book. To this day she has the faculty of so absorbing
herself in a book that no amount of talking and noise in the room
penetrates her ears. Lady Constance was quite different, devoted to
out-of-door life, and I shall never forget how adoring the old people on
the properties were to her, and how she loved them. One sterling and
unusual quality she had. I never heard her say an unkind word of any
one.

In 1899 the Countess of Cromartie married Major, now Colonel Blunt, and
she has three fine children, two boys and a girl.

One of the most remarkable facts about her is her agelessness. She never
alters with the years. Her white delicate skin, her girlish figure and
dark glowing eyes, always retain their look of extreme youth.

I have said that her mysticism must at once become apparent to the
readers of her books, but to those, who like myself have known her from
childhood, her psychic powers have always been extraordinary.

I remember one autumn staying at Tarbat with only a very few other
guests, I forget now who they all were. It had been a dead, still day.
One of those sad, brooding days one gets so often in the north. In the
afternoon, when we were out walking, Lady Cromartie said suddenly to me
and a Miss Drummond, whom we were both very fond of, "There is going to
be an earthquake to-night."

We received this piece of information as a joke, and I thought nothing
more of the matter till tea-time, when a gorgeous sunset was
illuminating the heavens. As we were standing at the window looking out
at it we were all startled by a tremendous roar, more like a very loud
peal of thunder than anything else, yet we knew, by the look of the sky,
that it could not have been thunder. Every one offered a different
opinion as to what the noise could mean, but Lady Cromartie calmly said,
"The noise is in the earth, not in the sky; it is the forerunner of the
earthquake."

We now began to take this earthquake business more seriously. Sibell
Drummond, also very psychic, said she knew the noise came from the
interior of the earth, and that very early that morning she had heard
the same sound, only much more distant. We asked Lady Cromartie how she
could possibly tell that an earthquake was coming. Such convulsions are
not common enough in Scotland to admit of lucky guesses.

"I can tell those things of Nature; something in me is akin to them,"
she explained. "It is quite certain this earthquake will come before
morning."

As the sun went down the quiet weather changed, and by bed-time it was
blowing such a gale that we forgot all about Lady Cromartie's prophecy.
At one o'clock in the morning, when we were all asleep, the earthquake
arrived, and awakened us all instantly. My bed rocked, and the china
clattered, and I heard a big picture near my bed move out from the wall
and go back again. Some of us got up, but there was only the one sharp
shock. In the morning we heard that considerable damage had been done.
Several houses and stables had been razed to the ground, and some
animals killed and people injured.

Another curious incident I remember happening during a visit to Tarbat.

At breakfast one morning Lady Cromartie told us that she had a very
vivid dream just before daylight. She dreamed that if she went into a
certain room in the house she would find some jewels that had been
hidden there. She seemed to have been told this in her sleep by some one
she did not know. The room was indicated, but not the spot where the
jewels lay. The present Duke of Argyll, always keenly alive to psychic
phenomena, was of our party, and he at once proposed that directly after
we had finished breakfast we should all proceed to the room, rarely
used, but formerly a business room, and make a thorough search.

By the way, I cannot refrain here from suggesting what a wonderful book
of Scottish ghost stories the Duke could give us if he chose. His
repertoire was endless and most thrilling, and he knew how to tell a
ghost story.

After breakfast we adjourned to the room indicated in the dream, and
began our search. The only likely place seemed a large bookcase, full of
books, with cupboards beneath. All the doors were locked and keyless. A
pause ensued whilst keys were fetched from the housekeeper's room, and
for a long time we could find nothing to fit the doors, but at last we
were rewarded. The cupboards below were opened, disclosing a quantity of
rubbish. Old books, estate maps, fishing tackle, every sort of thing,
but no jewels.

At last the Duke, down on his knees fumbling amongst the dust, drew
forth two tin japanned boxes. He shook them, and the thumping inside
proved that they were not empty. The trouble was they also were locked
and keyless. Again there was a scramble to fit keys. We were all on the
tiptoe of excited expectation.

At last both boxes were opened, and there lay the jewels. Fine,
old-fashioned pieces that had lain there, who knows for how long, and
probably had belonged to Lady Cromartie's grandmother, "the Countess
Duchess" 3rd Duchess of Sutherland.

Still another reminiscence of beautiful Tarbat.

Lady Cromartie asked me to join a shooting party she and Major Blunt
were giving, to meet Prince Arthur of Connaught.

I arrived one evening in wild winter weather. There had been a heavy
snowstorm, and the sky looked as if there was considerably more to come.
I found all the other guests had already arrived, and we were a very
merry party. It was Prince Arthur's first "shoot" in the far North, and
his first experience of what Scotland could provide in the way of autumn
weather, and he was glad to avail himself of a thick woolen sweater of
mine, which I was proud to present to him. He was perfectly charming to
us all, and there was, owing to his simplicity, no sense of stiffness
introduced into our party. That evening, after dinner, he was strolling
round the room, looking at the pictures, and he paused opposite a framed
letter, written by Prince Charles Edward during the '45 to the Lord
Cromartie of that time, who was his earnest supporter.

"Why!" exclaimed Prince Arthur, "that letter is written by 'The
Pretender,' isn't it?"

There was no answer. A thrill of horror ran through the breasts of the
ardent Jacobites present. Dead silence reigned.

Then I could stand it no longer. "Please, sir," I said, "we all call him
Prince Charles Edward Stuart."

Prince Arthur turned round laughingly. "I beg his pardon and all of
yours," he exclaimed in the most charming manner, and the hearts of all
the outraged Jacobites warmed to him at once.

I was just about to creep into bed, very late that night, and very tired
after my long, cold journey in a desperately sluggish train, when Lady
Cromartie peeped in at my door. Her wonderful dark eyes were ablaze, and
I knew at once she had something psychic to tell me. Her eyes looked
like nothing else in the world but her eyes, when she is on the track of
a ghost, or one of her "other side" experiences.

"I have just seen Prince Charles Edward," she announced.

I took her firmly by the arm. Prince Charles Edward means a very great
deal to me, and I don't let anything pass me by that concerns his
beloved memory.

"Tell me quick. Where did you see him?" I asked.

"I was just going to get into bed when I saw him standing looking at me,
at the far end of the room. He was smiling, and as I stared back at him
he slowly crossed the floor, his smiling face always turned to me, and
vanished through the wall," was Lady Cromartie's answer.

Then I told her of a certain feeling I had experienced earlier in the
evening. At the moment when our Jacobite hearts were stung to deep,
though fleeting resentment, we had formed a thought form, powerful
enough to reach the spirit of Bonny Prince Charlie on "the other side."
Our spirits had called on him, and he had heard and responded. Why not?
If we believe in the immortality of the soul, the soul of Prince Charles
Edward surely lives. Where? On the Astral plane, where the souls of all
must go to divest themselves of the lower passions of earth, and the
veil between the Physical plane and the Astral plane is wearing very
thin in these days.

For many of us there are rents through which we are permitted to see the
old friends who are not lost but gone before, and who await us in a
sphere where we in turn will await the coming of those who follow after.
Indeed, the time does not now seem to be so far distant when so-called
death will be pushed one stage further back, and the transference of the
soul from earth to the Astral plane will no longer be treated as
severance. What then will be termed the severance we now call death? It
will be the passing of the cleansed soul from the Astral plane to the
Heaven world, for a period of blissful rest before the life urge compels
the reincarnating ego to take on once more the veil of flesh, in a
transient human world.

I doubt if it is possible for an English person to comprehend what it
means to be a Jacobite. One is born a Jacobite or one is not. I was born
a Jacobite, and I never lose my passionate love and regret for the
sufferings and sorrows of Prince Charles Edward. No female figure in the
past attracts me so much as does Flora MacDonald. Had I lived during the
'45 I would have worn the white cockade, and parted with my last "shift"
for the love of Bonny Prince Charlie. All very ridiculous, many may say,
but there it is. That is what it means to be born a Jacobite.

My grandfather was an ardent Jacobite, and consorted largely with old
Jacobite families. The Sobieski Stuarts often made their home with him.
Grand looking men of striking physique and good looks. Robert Chambers
used to tell a story of the ghost Piper of Fingask; the property of a
fine old Jacobite, Sir Peter Murray Threipland. The baronetcy is now
extinct.

One night, whilst my grandfather was visiting Sir Peter, they were
sitting at supper in the old dining-hall. The two old sisters of Sir
Peter, Eliza and Jessie, were present. Suddenly the faint strain of the
pipes was heard in the distance, surely no uncommon sound in Scotland,
where every Laird has his own piper to play round the dining-table, yet
a sudden silence fell upon the little party of four. All ears were
listening intently, and straining eyes were blank to all but the
evidence of hearing. The noise grew louder, the piper seemed to be
mounting the stone staircase, yet his brogues made no sound as he
ascended.

Sir Peter dropped his head down into his arms folded upon the table. He
sought to hide the fear in his old eyes. The women sat as if chiseled
out of granite, gray to the lips. The piper of Fingask had come for one
of them. Which? Now the piper of death was drawing very near, the skirl
of his pipes had nearly reached the door. In another moment, with a full
blast of triumph that beat about their ears as it surged into the hall,
he had passed, and had begun his ascent to the ramparts. The skirl was
dying away into a wail. Miss Eliza spoke: "He's come for you, Jessie."
There was no response. The piper of Fingask was playing a "Last Lament"
now, as he swung round the ramparts.

True enough he had come for Miss Jessie, and very shortly after she
obeyed the call.

To this day there are men and women who never forget to offer up their
passionate regret for Prince Charles before they sleep. I know of one
old Scottish house where his memory is an ever-present, ever-living
thing. The shadowy old room is consecrated to him. On the walls hang
portraits of him, and trophies of the '15 and the '45 stand round in
glass cases. On one table lies a worn, white cockade, yellow with age,
and a lock of fair hair clasped by a band of blackened pearls. In a tall
slender glass there is always, in summer-time, a single white rose.

Above is the portrait of the idol of the present house, who gave in the
past of their all in life and treasure, for the cause they hold so
sacred, so dear. I cannot look upon that gay, careless, handsome face
without the tears rising to my eyes. His eyes smile into mine.
Involuntarily I bend before him. What was the power in you, Prince
Charles Edward Stuart, that drew from countless women and men that wild
unswerving devotion? Which made light of terrible hardships, which
followed you faithfully through glen and corrie? What is that power
which you still exert over those to whom your name is but a memory, but
who still, when they think on you or look upon your pictured face, cry
silently in their hearts for the lost House of Stuart? "Oh! waes me for
Prince Charlie!"

One must be Scotch to understand that the Union did nothing to unite
England and Scotland. To the Scottish plowman the Englishman is still a
foreigner, whom he dislikes. Scotch and English servants do not work
well in the same house. To us, Mary Queen of Scots lived "only the
other day." When the House of Stuart passed from us our history ended.

Our old houses are full of ghosts, the atmosphere is saturated with the
tragic history of the past, the very skies seem to brood in melancholy
over the soil, where so many wild bloody scenes were enacted. To the
Psychic, Scotland is a land not yet emerged from the dour savagery of
the past. Once, on visiting an historic old castle, my host pointed out
to me a group of seven old trees standing close to the entrance.

"Seven skeletons lie there," he said. "My grandfather went after a
neighboring clan who had raided his cattle. He brought back seven men
with halters round their necks and strung them up to those trees. Holes
were dug beneath, and they all dropped into them by degrees, and then
the earth was shoveled over them again."

What will become of all those grand old places in the future? They are
so costly to maintain. I think of all those lying around our own
Aberdeenshire home; Fyvie Castle, a great stately pile, beautiful to
look upon always, but more especially so when the red fires of a winter
sunset blaze upon its many windows, and turn to rose the mantling snow
on battlements and towers, whilst all around is wrapped in a garment of
spotless white: House of Monymusk, Craigston Castle, Craigievar.

I have just mentioned a few, all have their ghosts, and some have a
curse upon them.

A friend of ours came to see us, not very long ago, and told us of a
horrible experience he had been through recently.

He had been visiting a great house in the North, noted in Scottish
history. The new Laird had only entered into possession during the last
few years, on the death of a near relative, who had died from excessive
drinking, the Scotchman's curse. Our friend had heard that this dead
Laird "walked," but he had not met any one who had actually seen his
ghost. After spending a pleasant evening with his host, and going
through many reminiscences of his former visits to the house, and to the
late Laird, who in spite of his fatal propensities had been a gallant
gentleman and a great sportsman, our friend retired to bed.

The room he slept in was a large one, and the bed faced the door, and a
washstand stood on one side of it. He remembered the room, having slept
in it on former occasions. He was roused in the night by some one rather
noisily fumbling at the handle of his door, which was not locked. He sat
up in bed and called out, "Who is it?"

There was a full moon riding in a clear, frosty sky, and the room was
only in semi-darkness. He stared at the door, which at that moment burst
open, and standing in the aperture was a man, the dead Laird. Outside,
was a long corridor with several windows, through which the moonlight
poured. Against this silvery background stood the huge figure of the
late Laird. He leaned forward, supporting himself by holding with both
hands to the framework of the door, and with a glowering, half-drunken
stare his eyes were fixed on the startled occupant of the bed.

A panic seized our friend, who felt that if that menacing figure
advanced into the room he would go mad. There was only one door, and no
other means of escape, and very stealthily he slid to the opposite side
of the bed, and reaching out, seized the water-bottle on his washstand.

This action did not pass unnoticed by his terrible visitor. Suddenly
relaxing his hold on the doorposts, he dropped down on his knees, and
began rapidly crawling on all fours towards the bed, his inflamed eyes
blazing with anger.

Our friend did not wait for his arrival. With a blood-curdling yell he
hurled the water-bottle full at his old friend, and leaping from the
other side of the bed tore to the door and fled down the passage, as if
pursued by a pack of devils. Hardly knowing what he did, he battered
with his hands on the door of the room he knew to be occupied by his
host and hostess, shouting out at the same time a call for assistance.
Then he heard the voice of the wife saying to the husband, "It's
Charlie. Open the door. I believe he's seen poor Angus."

He had indeed seen "poor Angus," and for the last time, he assured us.
Old friendship could not stand the test of so horrible an apparition.
The room was empty when he returned to it with his host. Angus had gone
back again to the land of the shadows, and only the scattered fragments
of the water-bottle remained as a souvenir of his visit.

Several servants had seen Angus, and it was difficult to keep the house
staffed. One old housemaid, who had been in the family many years, had
seen him frequently, and had even ventured to remonstrate with her
former master, bidding him go back to his shroud and sleep peacefully in
his grave like a respectable man, but apparently to no purpose. Angus
preferred to "walk" and to terrify all to whom he had the power to show
himself.

Speaking of the Duke of Argyll has reminded me of some curious
occurrences in connection with Lord Colin Campbell. At one time of my
life, soon after my father's death, I saw a good deal of him. He was
then studying law and intended later to practice in India. This plan he
carried out, and in India he died, the result of a chill.

Lord Colin was a very interesting man, a keen geologist and something of
an artist. There were few subjects he was not interested in, and though
somewhat shy of the subject, he had a decided aptitude for ghosts.

One day in London he brought to my house a small gold cross fixed to a
slab of gray marble, and asked me if I would keep it for him. He
explained that it was an exact reproduction of the old stone cross of
Inverary. He was then living in Argyll Lodge, Campden Hill, and I said I
should have thought there was room enough for it there. I could not
understand why he brought it to me. He looked uneasy and said he wished
to get rid of it out of the house. When pressed to say why, he confessed
that there was something uncanny about it. He thought it made him "see
things," and he added, "Garry hates it."

Garry was a fine, sable collie, devoted to his master and he to it.
Garry had the misfortune to break his leg, and this caused Lord Colin
acute distress. The leg was set, and the dog lay in a large clothes
basket, and eventually got well. Garry was just recovering when Lord
Colin brought me the cross.

He became more expansive in a few moments, and said that he had seen a
figure bending over the cross, as if to examine it. The figure had a
hood, and he thought it must be the ghost of a monk. He had seen this
many times, and Garry often growled, and his hair bristled at the very
moment when his master caught sight of the apparition. Anything that
distressed the dog must be removed, and knowing how interested I was in
ghosts he had brought the cross to me.

Of course I was delighted to have a chance of witnessing psychic
phenomena of any kind, but alas, though I kept the cross for years, and
only sent it lately to the present Duke, I never saw anything in
connection with it.

I did, however, see something interesting in connection with Lord Colin.

One hot June evening, in London, I was sitting alone by the open window.
The day had been very exhausting; it was one of those hot spells that
come so often before regular summer sets in, and I was glad to rest
quietly and do nothing.

The street was wonderfully quiet at that hour, nine o'clock, when all
the world of fashion was dining, and the daylight was strong enough to
read by, had I so desired. Suddenly my attention was attracted by a
slight noise behind me, and glancing round at the open door I saw that
Lord Colin and his dog had just entered the room, as was their habit,
unannounced. In his hand he carried a huge bunch of white and mauve
lilac blossoms. I had not expected him that evening, but I was very
pleased to see him, and exclaimed, "Why, Colin, what a glorious bouquet!
I can smell it already."

He was smiling as he and his dog moved up the long room towards me, but
he said nothing. I had risen and held out my hand, but when about
halfway across the floor both he and the dog vanished entirely and quite
suddenly.

I shall never forget my utter amazement and consternation. I could not
disbelieve the evidence of my own senses, for I was absolutely certain
I could still smell the lilac, and I had no doubt whatever that I had
seen Lord Colin and his dog.

I sat down again and fell to considering the extraordinary circumstance.
I was perfectly well and normal, I had not been thinking of Lord Colin,
and yet in the midst of other thoughts a sound had attracted my
attention, and looking round I had seen him enter with his dog. For the
space of quite two minutes both had been visible. I got up again and
timed the whole affair by my wrist watch. The room I sat in was very
long. I was at one end, and the door at the other. It took me just one
minute to walk leisurely forward over the ground they had covered,
before they vanished from my sight.

I sat down again and began to wonder if Lord Colin was ill, or was he
dead, and why was he carrying lilacs? 'Phones were uncommon things in
those days; I had no means of communication with Argyll Lodge.

For an hour I sat considering the wonderful vividness of my curious
experience. The daylight had faded into a close, soft twilight, but I
wanted no artificial light. Then just as ten o'clock was striking I
heard a voice in the hall below; a voice I was sure was Lord Colin's,
and he was answered by one of my servants. Steps sounded on the stairs,
and in another moment in he walked with Garry, and in his hand he
carried a big bunch of white and mauve lilacs.

I stood staring at him in the dim twilight. Was this the real man and
dog at last?

"I know it's awfully late to pay a call, but I thought you would like
some lilac," he exclaimed; "it's so lovely in our garden just now," and
he held out the flowers.

I took them and bade him be seated. Garry came to me and rested his nose
on my lap. For a moment I could not speak.

"Aren't you well?" asked Colin.

Then I recovered myself, but I did not tell him what had happened only
an hour before. As we talked I discovered that he had intended to come
at nine o'clock, and was just starting when a relative arrived and
detained him.

On another occasion he told me of a curious dream he had as a boy.

Queen Victoria came to Inverary to pay a visit to the Duke and Duchess
of Argyll, Lord Colin's parents, and it was arranged that the young sons
of the house should act as pages to Her Majesty. The night of the day on
which the Queen arrived, Colin dreamed that some one whom he did not
know came to him and said, "To-morrow the Queen will give you twenty
shillings."

When the boy wakened up in the morning he remembered this dream, and all
day long he was on the outlook for its fulfillment. The hours passed,
but though he was often in her presence and kept as close to her as he
dared, the Queen never produced her purse. Just before reentering the
house towards evening, she suddenly turned to John Brown, her constant
attendant, and said something which Colin did not catch. What was his
joy on perceiving that surly henchman extract from a shabby old purse a
filthy Scotch one pound note, which he handed to Her Majesty.

"My little Colin, here is a present for you," said the Queen, and making
his best bow the boy accepted the gift. His dream had come true.

John Brown was the terror of all the great nobles whom the Queen was
pleased to visit. Her Majesty took him everywhere with her, and he was
her closest attendant. Born of the humblest Scotch parents on the Estate
of Balmoral, he died in the position of a potentate in a royal
residence. His manners were terribly rough and objectionable, and his
behavior to the gentlemen with whom he constantly came into contact was
insulting to the last degree. He had one invariable habit. When the
Queen paid a visit naturally her honored host was in waiting to hand her
out of her carriage. Brown contrived to nip down from his perch at the
back of the carriage, just at a certain moment, and with a violent push
thrust aside the prince, duke or peer who sought to do honor to the
Sovereign.

Some of the gentlemen about the Court paid him very liberally, not for
civility, but simply to desist from his habitual insults, and it has
been said that Disraeli discovered some method of conciliation, but
Brown took an absolute pleasure in insulting all who had occasion to
approach Her Majesty. Latterly he drank very heavily, and when he died,
to the unutterable relief of all and sundry he bequeathed all his
savings and possessions, even the watch he wore, to Her Majesty. His
many poor relatives living in cottages on the estate never saw a penny
of his money, nor so much as a button from his doublet.




CHAPTER VII

PILGRIMS AND STRANGERS


We are all of us, in this world, strangers and pilgrims, and to each
human being, in turn, and in varied ways, comes the knowledge, "A
stranger with Thee and a sojourner as all my Fathers were."

Like ships that pass in the night "we exchange signals with one
another," and pass on our different ways through the ocean of life. I
think it is the sea that most clearly brings home to me the transitory
nature of our pilgrimage. Leaning over the side of a ship in mid ocean,
and watching a trail of smoke from another ship on the horizon, I am
always impelled to wonder about its human cargo. Who and what are they,
and for what distant shores are they bound? Again one sweeps the far
horizons only to find them empty of aught but a vast tumbling expanse of
waters. Then, without warning, we are wrapped in a dense blanket of fog.
The sirens sound insistently, and are at once answered by ships on every
side. It is startling to find there are many so near, but utterly
invisible. In a few minutes we have emerged again into distance and
clear skies, and again there is nothing that meets the eye but the empty
watery expanse.

Looking back on my life I can recall many meetings with fellow pilgrims
that apparently were purely accidental, yet they left their mark upon
my life. Meetings such as those, when two souls thrown together by the
force of circumstances, in quiet far-away places; or in the marts of the
world, become in a few short hours like old and tried friends. How often
have I heard it said, even after one short hour, "I feel as if I had
known you all my life." Such I look upon as epochs in my pilgrimage,
milestones and guiding stars on my life's road. Yet the limitations of
such epochs are obvious enough. Time on earth is circumscribed, still
there is subconsciously the instant recognition of two kindred souls who
hear and remember, who instinctively know that once, perchance many
times before, they have landed together on the shores of time, from the
storm-tossed bark of life.

It seems strange that those chance meetings should have no continuity. I
remember one such meeting in the East, and how utterly by chance it
seemed to come about. It lasted for three days, yet after three hours I
knew more of my fellow pilgrim and he of me than we would have known of
each other in three months at home. We were both quite alone, but I
remember his recalling the pre-Buddha words written a thousand years
before the coming of the Christ: "Thou shalt not separate thy Being from
Being, and the rest, but merge the ocean in the drop, the drop within
the ocean. So shalt thou be in full accord with all that lives, bear
love to men as though they were thy brother pupils, disciples of one
teacher, the sons of one sweet mother."

When we bade each other good-by and I boarded my ship we told each other
we would meet again, but instinctively we knew we never should. I have
forgotten his name, but all else I can remember very clearly, and the
wonderful comradeship two souls, drifting together for a second in time,
can give each other. He gave me the sufi mysticism of Omar Khayyam, and
I can still see the English face burnt dark with eastern suns, under the
snowy turban, and the brilliant parrot swinging on a palm bough above
his head. I can still hear the low grave voice reciting the quatrains of
Persia's astronomer poet, written a thousand years ago. They fitted in
with our surroundings:--

    "There was a door to which I found no key.
    There was a veil past which I could not see!
    Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee
    There seemed, and then no more of Me and Thee."

I suppose we all have many such recollections in our lives, and it is
impossible (for me) to believe them to be a mere matter of chance, for,
always on parting, I have been conscious that I have received some
lasting good, or it has mercifully chanced that I have been able to help
a stranger and pilgrim on a difficult way.

Again, I remember another interesting meeting. A woman was sitting alone
on a bench in the outskirts of Cairo, and her worn face was turned to
the dying fires of sunset. She was very shabby and poor looking, and
obviously she was a European. In my casual glance I caught something
familiar, and after going on some paces I felt a compelling force
bidding me return. I sat down beside her and at once spoke to her. I
knew who she was when she turned her face to me, and the hideous
contrast of her past and her present appalled me. She does not know
to-day that I am aware of her real identity. She is in England, and all
now is well with her. One can always, as the pre-Buddhist taught us,
"Point out the way however dim and lost amongst the Host, as does the
evening star to those who tread their path in darkness."

Again, it is strange to tell why unknown pilgrims should leave their
mark upon us for all earthly time, pilgrims to whom one has never
spoken, and of whom one knows nothing. When I was quite a child I passed
every day through a very quiet and well-to-do street of dwelling-houses.
At a window behind two flower-pots, sat a woman whom I supposed to be
sewing, though her hands were hidden from view. I can see her as clearly
now as I saw her then, over forty years ago in the northern capital. The
pale, tragic profile, the down-drooped eyelids, the meekly-banded hair.
I used to wonder about her constantly. She possessed me, and interested
me at that time more than anything else in my life. Even to this day she
comes unbidden into my mind at frequent intervals.

Again from my bedroom window in Belgrade I used to watch another woman.
She came out on her balcony twice a day, always at the same hours. She
put her hands on the rails, and turned her dark, southern face up to the
skies, and there she would stand for an hour, gazing fixedly above. I
never once saw her eyes drop to the busy street below, and once a
prisoner, dragging his heavy chains behind him, paused and looked up and
cried out to her for bread. She appeared not to hear him, her rigid
attitude never relaxed.

It is the thoughts of such pilgrims, as one conjectures them to be, that
form the interest, or perhaps it really is something more, a far-off
kinship, stretching invisible threads down through the ages. With both
those women I had a feeling of kinship. I had picked them out of the
world's crowd, because of some silent influence they exerted over me,
the lingering power of some far back, forgotten touch, which had once
drawn us together. I know that in my life I had met those "that I have
loved long since and lost awhile."

For me there was purpose in those "stars" that shine through my life, as
looking back they show me where I had arrived at the moment of their
uprising, and their rays pierce the penumbra shadows wherein the soul
lies hid. Each star showed me the lees in the cup of destiny, brought to
me a new revelation of soul, and elucidated for me something of the
mystery of life.

Again, surely there is Divine purpose in those islets of friendship
which jewel-like stud the gray vesture of ordinary existence. They are
close, warm, and utterly sincere, often for many long years, then they
are suddenly sundered by the inrush of some invading force which cuts
them off in their full bloom. Sometimes the Master Death bids them pass
on, sometimes the break comes by some utterly trivial, yet inexorable
fiat of human destiny.

In the clash of human interests it must needs be that pain must come to
some. Life cannot be all serenity and peace to the pilgrims who toil
upon its stormy way, its _via dolorosa_. Such crises teach us the just
attitude that should prevail in all such trials and circumstances. Amiel
says, "There is one wrong man is not bound to punish, that of which he
himself is the victim. Such a wrong is to be healed, not avenged." For
hate there is but one antidote--love. The art of forgetfulness is not
yet a science, but to forget the evil one has but to remember the good.
Love knows neither saint nor sinner, for she seeks in every heart the
hidden gem of good. She thinks no ill, because she knows the trials of
each one are penalty enough for deeds already done. Neither in the case
of Death's intervention, nor in the case of human misunderstanding
should there be sorrow for lost friendships, though there must
inevitably be regret.

Love brings with it suffering, for all who love suffer with those they
love. Unkindness and injustices are hard to bear, and the loss of those
we love is a bitter pain, but those whose hearts are great enough still
find others on whom to lavish love. Are there not many who need it, and
are there not great rewards for those who have love to spare. To be
required, to be appealed to, and turned to as a help and refuge. Such
are the prizes for those whose hearts are always alight with love, who
from one flame can kindle many.

When death looses the silver cord, and souls seem torn asunder for ever
more, there will be sadness of spirit. When a break comes, perhaps
through third-party treachery, there may come the sense of eternal
severance, but is it eternal? I doubt it. More probably there lies
before us an existence of clearer judgment and understanding, of vaster
possibilities, in which we shall know, even as also we are known. Though
now we see each other through a glass darkly, a day will come when we
shall no longer see in part, but face to face. When faith, hope and love
shall be reunited, and we shall realize that the greatest of these three
is love, which suffereth long, and is kind and thinketh no evil.

Again, there are these loves in one's life, some fleeting, some
lasting, that are too sacred to write of, and of which one never speaks.
The joys and sorrows they brought, the prose or poesy of our intercourse
are graven deep on the heart. Whether it be they still walk by our side,
or have gone west to rest after labor, we must learn to say with the
pre-Buddhists of old time: "Do not grieve for the living or the dead.
Never did I not exist for you... nor will any one of us ever hereafter
cease to be."

Such sacramental hours sanctify the variety of our lot, combine the
pathos of love and death, and stretch through the corridors of memory
into the hush and shadow of the haunted past; where all the mystery of
such hours seem gathered for inspiration. There linger the symbols of
our sojourn here. How potent, yet how fragmentary they are! The scent of
a flower, the long embrace, the hand held out in vain, the flash of
recognition, the chime of the clock which altered the course of the
pilgrimage. The meek hands folded on the still breast. Such symbols
abide with us like the image of a Divine form, some echo of immortal
music, some lingering word of angels. Their cadences come ever back to
us from infinite distances, ghostly chords and evanescent. Harmonies
which come and go too fitfully for apprehension.




CHAPTER VIII

SOME STRANGE EVENTS


After my marriage my husband and I passed some time in the United States
and Canada; we then returned to England and took a place in
Cambridgeshire. We were both very fond of racing, and attended all the
meetings at Newmarket.

One day I drove by appointment to the house of a neighbor who had asked
me to meet Miss Catherine Bates, author of that interesting book, "Seen
and Unseen."

Just before I started my husband, half in fun, and knowing Miss Bates to
be a psychic, said, "Ask her what horse is going to win the
Cambridgeshire."

I promised to put the question and drove off. I had a most interesting
visit, but I totally forgot to ask Miss Bates for the winner of the
coming race.

It was not until I was seated in the victoria, exchanging a few parting
words with the two ladies standing in the doorway to bid me good-by,
that I suddenly recollected my husband's request. As the horses were
starting I called out to Miss Bates--

"Tell me what's going to win 'The Cambridgeshire?'"

The answer was prompt and clear:

"Marco to win, ---- for a place." (I regret I cannot remember the name
of the second horse.)

As I drove away I waved my thanks, and directly I got home I told my
husband--"Marco to win, ---- for a place."

He was much interested in this "tip" from so well-known a psychic, and
of course we backed "Marco to win and ---- for a place" for all we were
worth. I wish I could remember the odds. I only know that they were
"long."

The event duly came off, and I wrote to Miss Bates thanking her for the
good turn she had done us.

Her reply astounded me.

She began by saying she had not heard me put any question to her
regarding the winner of the Cambridgeshire, and went on to say that she
knew nothing about racing, and knew none of the horses' names, therefore
it was impossible that she could have given me the "tip."

Her hostess cared nothing for racing, and was as ignorant as she was
upon the subject, but she did remember hearing me call out to Miss
Bates, "What's going to win the Cambridgeshire?"

I then questioned our coachman and footman. Both distinctly remembered
my calling out the question, and both, keen on racing, listened for the
reply, but they heard none.

Where did that answer come from? I cannot tell. Was some spirit
interested in racing hovering near? Did he contrive to drop the "tip"
into my mind, open at that moment and eager to catch the response?

A year after the event I have recounted above, I was resting one
afternoon in the summer-time. I had been ill, and was not yet strong
enough to lead an ordinary life, and I was lying on a sofa in a top
floor room. The room immediately beneath me was the drawing-room, and
the weather being hot all the windows were wide open. The house we
inhabited was quite isolated in its own park, and the village was about
half a mile distant. My husband was from home, and I was alone in that
particular part of the house, the servants' quarters being at the back,
and shut off from the rest.

Out of the absolute quiet suddenly came the sound of music. Some one was
playing my piano in the drawing-room below. This, in itself, caused me
irritation, but no surprise. I was not well enough to entertain callers
at tea, due in half an hour, and I had given orders that I would see no
one, but it had happened before that the musical neighbors had called,
and whilst waiting for me had sat down to the piano.

I was too annoyed to hasten downstairs. I lay waiting for the butler to
come to me and inform me why my orders had been disobeyed. Meanwhile I
listened to the music, and wondered greatly who the brilliant pianist
could be. I did not recognize the music, but it sounded quite modern,
and requiring a great amount of technique. The player was, however, a
most brilliant performer, who had acquired considerable skill.
"Evidently a professional," I thought, and wondered all the more who it
could possibly be.

Still there were no signs of the ascending butler, and time continued to
pass. I began to feel obstinate, and determined to remain where I was,
until I was correctly informed of the caller's identity.

The music steadily continued, every note borne to my ears as clearly as
if I had been in the room with the performer. "Very wonderful music, but
soulless," I concluded, and though my curiosity was growing every
moment my obstinacy prevailed, and I remained where I was. At last,
after quite twenty minutes, the music suddenly stopped; it broke off in
the middle of a movement.

I rose at once, and went downstairs feeling very cross. I pushed open
the drawing-room door and entered. It was absolutely empty, but the
piano, which had not been opened for several weeks, was open now. I went
to the window which commanded the avenue; not a soul was in sight. Then
I rang the bell, and when the butler entered the following dialogue took
place:----

"Who was the caller who has just been?"

"There have been no callers to-day, madam."

"But surely you heard the piano being played?"

"We heard a lot of music, but we thought it was you playing, madam."

"Then you all heard it?"

"All of us in the hall heard it, madam."

I left it at that. Suddenly it came to me that I had better not push my
inquiries further. Until that second it had never occurred to me that
the performer might be a disembodied spirit.

The butler did not leave the matter alone, but made every inquiry at the
Lodge, and also of the out-door servants, but nothing came of it. No one
had seen a stranger, and the silver was intact. My maid told me some
time afterwards that the household had shaken down to the conviction
that I had really been the performer, and that my recent illness had
caused me to forget the fact. I let this conviction remain unshaken, but
I marveled at the lack of musical discrimination my household displayed.
The disparity between my strumming and the brilliant execution of my
spirit guest was so vast that I could not even feel flattered by their
mistake.

A year or two after we took a cottage on the Thames, and there, during
our summer visits, I had an uncomfortable time.

There was something wrong with the sideboard end of the dining-room. For
a long time I could not make out what it was. My attention was
constantly being attracted to the spot. If I passed the door I thought
instantly of the sideboard. In plain language, I was constantly being
invited, by some invisible person, to come in and have a drink. If I was
putting anything away in the sideboard the suggestion was always very
strong. On the outside stood a tantalus of spirits and soda water, ready
to refresh any calling boating men. Inside the cupboards were wine
decanters.

I always resisted the suggestion, I suppose because I did not happen to
want anything to drink--for years I have been a total abstainer, and at
the time I certainly did not realize the menace of those suggestions.

Now and again I caught sight of a small oblong gray cloud hovering in
front of the sideboard but it was not till many months afterwards that I
saw something much more definite. The gray shadow had become the clearly
defined shade of a small woman. She hovered about the spot in a
wavering, undecided manner. It was apparent that she was seeking
something. One day, in a flash, I recognized the truth, the suggestion
came from her. She was inviting me to drink with her.

My husband and I set to work to find out who this unfortunate woman had
been when she dwelt on earth. We discovered a very sad story. She had
been a celebrity of the half world, and I had actually seen her in the
flesh. She had traveled to Monte Carlo one winter in the next sleeping
compartment to ours, and she had lived for some years in our riverside
cottage. Latterly she had fallen an incurable victim to drinking, and
had died of it. Poor little soul; my heart went out to her in deepest
pity, but I was glad to leave the cottage forever, when in 1898 we went
to live at my husband's place, Balquholly, Aberdeenshire.

Some people, perhaps once in their lives, become sensitive enough to
recognize a visitor from the Astral plane. If the occasion is not
repeated they believe themselves to have been victims of hallucinations.
Others find themselves seeing and hearing, with increasing frequency,
something to which those around them are blind and deaf. They realize,
in fact, that they are in touch with the Astral plane, the region lying
next to our world of dense matter, and often some Astral entity on the
lowest levels of that plane is continuously striving to work through
their mediumship. The world is very far from realizing this danger. What
are those entities working for?

The man or woman who has led a decently pure life on earth will have no
attraction to the lowest levels, contiguous with earth, of the Astral
plane, and will, at so-called death, pass swiftly through it. But, alas!
the vast majority have by no means freed themselves from all lower
desires before passing over, and it takes a considerable time before the
evil forces generated on earth work themselves out on "the other side."

The length of man's detention on the lower level will depend entirely
on the earthly life he has lived, and the quality of the desires he has
indulged in.

The desires of a drunkard, a debaucher, are as strong after death as
before. The present Bishop of London made that very clear in one of his
Easter addresses, but the subject finds it impossible, without a
physical body, to gratify his lusts. Occasionally it can be done in a
vicarious manner, when he is able to seize on a like minded person and
obsess him or her, or when he finds a medium who consciously or
unconsciously panders to his desires. For this reason I hold it to be
imperative for safety's sake, that every genuine medium should be a
total abstainer.

How often one is asked the question: "What is a medium?"

It is a difficult question to answer in a few words. I should put it
thus----

A medium is one whose principles, physical, mental, spiritual, are so
loosely bound together that an Astral entity can draw from him without
difficulty the matter it requires for manifestation. The very essence of
mediumship is the ready separability of the principles.

In the case of the poor little woman I have mentioned, she was fortunate
enough not to meet with (in me) a sensitive, through whom her passion
could be vicariously gratified.

Such unfulfilled desires gradually burn themselves out, and the
suffering caused in the process no doubt goes to work off evil Karma
generated in the past life. It is the soul that desires, the body is but
the tool to grasp the desire, and after death old lusts crowd upon the
departed. Thirsty with no throat; sensual with no body to grip the foul
desire, soon it is learned that the worst evils and the hardest to undo
have been woven out of the mind.

Here is another story or two relating to one of the most puzzling
mysteries in ghost lore--the phenomena of temporary hauntings.

Why do ghosts suddenly take possession of a house with which, in their
incarnate days, they have had no connection?

Such ghosts differ from those only seen once. They take up their abode
in a dwelling which has absolutely no traditions of haunting. They will
be seen and heard on many occasions, for a few months, possibly for a
few years. They will then suddenly depart, and be seen or heard no more.

Such apparitions cannot readily be traced to any defunct friend or
member of the family. They have no known connection with the house in
which they appear, and no one can form the faintest conception why they
should suddenly elect to "walk" within those four walls, which hitherto
have been normal and free from "other side" visitors.

A case of this description happened to my youngest brother, who, before
he bought his present country house, lived in a detached, new building,
not far from the Dean Bridge, in Edinburgh.

He had occupied this house for some years previous to his experience,
and had neither heard nor seen anything of a spooky nature. The
manifestation only lasted for a few weeks. Nothing in the form of a
ghost was seen, but much was heard.

I will give the story in my brother's own words:

"On a certain evening, a year or two ago, I went out after dinner to
visit some friends, and returned home about half-past eleven.

"Not feeling inclined to go to bed, I took up a book and sat down to
read for half an hour.

"About a quarter-past midnight I suddenly became aware that stealthy
footsteps were coming upstairs. Looking at my watch I thought it very
strange that any of the maids should be still up at such a late hour.

"The door was well ajar, and I arose from my chair, listening intently,
as I crossed the room. The footsteps were now quite distinct, and I knew
at once they were not those of any woman. They were the stealthy
footsteps of a man, and naturally I at once concluded that he was a
burglar.

"I calculated swiftly that he would either enter the room in which I
stood, or he would go on and up the next flight of stairs to the
bedrooms. In any case, he had to be faced and caught. I realized that,
and I much regretted I had nothing at hand which would help me, should
he prove to be armed.

"There was, however, no time for further thought. Every second brought
him nearer, and taking up a position just behind the door, I waited till
he arrived on the landing, and until he came to the spot when he must
either turn in, or go on upstairs.

"The moment came, almost at once. With a sudden bound I sprang out to
close with him. Lo! and behold! nothing was to be seen! Nothing was now
to be heard, except the ticking of a clock.

"I stood still and absolutely astounded. The footsteps had been no trick
of imagination, I was very sure of that. Had I not heard them stealthily
beginning the ascent of the stairs, and grow louder the nearer they
approached me?

"I mopped my brow. Would any self-respecting burglar have come on, and
up a lighted staircase, and along a landing towards a room which he must
have known was still occupied, as the light shone through the half-open
door? Are burglars ever as rash as that?

"Then I reminded myself that as there was no burglar in the case my
speculations were mere waste of time.

"I put out the lights, and went to bed in a very uncomfortable frame of
mind.

"The next day, when I returned home from business, my housekeeper
informed me that a strange man had been walking about the house. She had
not seen him, though she had looked for him--that was the curious part
of it, but she had heard him quite distinctly, several times, and she
didn't like it one little bit. Not that she was frightened! Oh! dear no,
but it was uncanny, and she thought she had better tell me. I thanked
her and assured her that there was nothing to fear. The house was quite
new, and uncanny things never happen in new houses. I advised her not to
mention the subject to any one but me, and told her that I was not going
out again that evening.

"After dinner I settled down in my room, to wait for the footsteps I
instinctively felt sure would return. I kept the lights burning on
stairs and landing, and set the door half open, placing my chair in such
a position that I could see any one who passed outside the room on the
landing. This time I did not think of arming myself. I had come to the
firm conclusion that the sounds came from no person living in the flesh.
As no house adjoined mine I had no 'next door' on which to lay the
blame for the disturbance.

"Sure enough, about an hour earlier this time, the unknown, unseen
visitor began his ascent of my staircase. I cannot describe my feelings
during those moments of waiting for 'it' to pass. I can only say they
were intensely unpleasant, and I hope I may never again have to confess
myself to be a wretched coward. A burglar would at that moment have
appeared to me in the guise of a dear friend.

"However, the thing had to be faced, there was no one else that I could
put onto the job, and so I simply sat still and waited, with my eyes
fixed on the landing outside. The steps came on, distinct enough, and
growing nearer and louder. They arrived on the landing, they reached my
door, they passed, and proceeded to mount the next flight of steps to
the bedrooms. I had seen absolutely nothing.

"I rose and walked out on to the landing, and looked up at the brightly
lit staircase. I could mark, by the sound, the progress made by those
invisible feet. They passed on to the bedroom floor, and with heartfelt
gratitude I heard them enter, not mine, but an empty room. I heard
nothing more that night. Presumably the ghost remained quietly in his
comfortable quarters.

"The next day came more complaints from the housekeeper. The 'strange
man' not only promenaded the house at intervals, but he had the
impertinence to ring several bells. I wondered if a whisky and soda left
casually on his dressing-table would appease his thirst for summoning
the servants in this irritating fashion.

"For some days after this we were left in peace, and I began to hope
that 'it' had betaken itself to the house of some other chap, but no
such luck!

"One evening I was in the dining-room decanting some wine before dinner.
It was just seven o'clock, when I heard 'its' footsteps again. This time
they were coming downstairs. I went to the door and looked out. There
was no one to be seen. I reentered the dining-room and shut 'it' out. I
suppose 'it' had been having a rest in the bedroom. I trusted 'it' meant
to have a night out.

"A moment or two later I heard a click near the fireplace, and looking
towards the spot whence this sound came, I saw the handle of the bell
being pulled back. In another second the bell rang.

"When the maid answered it I was ready for her.

"'Oh! don't you know what that is?' I inquired with mild sarcasm. 'Only
mice crossing the wires. Nothing to be frightened of in that, is there?'

"I stuck to this all through the weeks that followed. The maids ceased
to answer the bells, and went early to bed in a bunch. They no longer
required rooms to themselves.

"In a few months the trouble stopped as suddenly as it had begun. 'It'
had evidently found other quarters more to 'its' liking. The mice were
equally obliging. They ceased running across the wires."

What theory will explain this species of haunting which is quite common?
May it not be that this disembodied entity attached itself to my brother
whilst he was out, and like a lost dog followed him home? There must be
countless entities wandering about all over this globe, seeking an
abiding-place for their restless souls. People who find themselves as
bereft of friends on the other side of death, as they were in earth
life. Those who have friends here have doubtless friends there.

In old days we used to think of a post-mortem abode as somewhere in the
skies. Some even mentioned a receiving station in the bowels of the
earth. Now I find that the majority of educated people have come to
regard so-called death as merely a change of consciousness, and the
immediate post-mortem sphere of our activities to be a region
interpenetrating this earth.

       *       *       *       *       *

A county neighbor of ours in Aberdeenshire told me of a very tantalizing
experience he had a very few years ago of temporary haunting. This was a
case of seeing, not hearing.

The time was late autumn, and his family had gone south for the winter,
leaving him alone for a week or two to finish up the shooting.

One night, immediately after he had dined, he ran upstairs to his
bedroom to fetch something. On coming out of his room again, what was
his astonishment to see, walking in front of him, a tall young lady,
very smartly dressed in the height of the prevailing fashion. She wore
black satin, cut very low and without sleeves, and she moved very
quietly along the passage, and proceeded to go downstairs. She never
turned her elaborately coiffed head, and he could not see her face. He
followed, too speechless with amazement to address her. Who on earth
could she be? Where was she going? Nine o'clock at night; only two old
servants in the house! In the depth of the country, and nine miles away
from anywhere! And this charming young lady who so unexpectedly had made
her appearance to brighten his solitude!

What a surprising adventure! The situation was piquant to say the least
of it.

He followed immediately behind the attractive vision. He even wondered
what room he would have prepared for her. So absolutely real did she
look, that not for a second did he doubt she was ordinary flesh and
blood.

When describing her afterwards to me he said, "I can assure you I saw
the actual white flesh of her bare arms and shoulders. I was close
behind her."

The lady moved composedly on, walking with supple grace and perfect
self-possession. She was not in the least hurried or flustered. She
reached the bottom of the stairs, and he had a momentary fear that she
would make for the front door, where surely a Rolls Royce would be
awaiting her. Not so! She walked straight into the dining-room. He
followed.

As he entered the door she had gained the opposite end of the room,
where the sideboard stood.

For a second she stood still, turned and glanced round at him with an
enchanting smile of delicate raillery. Then she deliberately walked
through the sideboard and wall beyond, and was lost to sight.

The beholder of this ghost had never seen anything of the sort before,
and was, if anything, a disbeliever in psychic phenomena. He is a
perfectly healthy, normal country gentleman, whose principal hobby is
sport, and who prefers a country life out of doors to the life of an
intellectual student.

Needless to say the occurrence puzzled him beyond measure. He could not
"place" the lady, and was certain that he had never seen her before. Her
dress proclaimed her to be absolutely modern.

Though in roundabout ways he tried to find out if any woman, answering
to her description, was visiting at the time in any of the neighboring
country houses, he failed entirely to get any result.

Being rather shy of the chaff he knew would be indulged in at his
expense, he mentioned the incident to no one. He took careful notes of
date, time, and other particulars, and kept a strict watch, but the lady
appeared no more during his stay, and before Christmas he went south to
rejoin his family.

He did not forget the experience. When the following autumn came round
he found himself again in the North, under exactly similar
circumstances. Eagerly he anticipated the anniversary of his first
ghost. He was waiting for her on the landing outside his bedroom door,
and suddenly she sprang into sight from nowhere. To-night he had
determined to lay hold of her, but he calculated without his ghost. She
sped downstairs, this time as if she was well aware that he was in
pursuit. They gained the dining-room almost neck to neck, and this time
she made no pause before slipping through the wall. She simply looked
back at him over her shoulder, and smiled at him enchantingly,
provokingly. Then he found himself alone.

The following year was blank. She came no more.

Why did she come to that house, with which, it is certain, she had no
connection? Why did she only appear twice, and both times on the same
date?

Such are the questions one asks in vain, but such fugitive visions
suggest the whisperings of a voice which calls out in the wilderness,
and leads through life's enigmas to the final awakening.

There are visions of beauty to which we are blind, and joyous harmonies
we do not hear. There are depths of feeling we have not plumbed, and
heights we have not aspired to, yet I am sure if we but place ourselves
in a simple attitude of receptiveness, we will draw nearer to the glory
of the unseen, and Nature's finer forces will draw nearer to us.




CHAPTER IX

POMPEY AND THE DUCHESS


Have animals souls?

I unhesitatingly answer "Yes."

If my dog has not a soul then neither have I--my dreams of immortality
are merely a delusion. I base my belief upon the God-like qualities
found in animals--the highest quality of all, love, pure, and
unadulterated by self-seeking.

The oldest scriptures of the world tell us that when wild animals die
their life flows back into a group soul, a mass, as it were, of
undifferentiated life essence. As the animal becomes domesticated, as a
dog or cat learns to live with man, shares in his joys and sorrows, to
be his constant companion, then it advances rapidly in evolution. It is
developing human qualities, and in due time will no more return to merge
in the group soul, but be born into the human family. A lowly human
family it is true, a primitive savage to begin with, but that animal has
passed one of the most important milestones on the long, lone trail. It
will never more return to the world in the form of the beast, henceforth
it will commence its slow ascent from the most elementary human body to
the exalted heights of a god. They tell us in the East: "First a stone,
then a plant, then an animal, then a man, and finally a God." This is
how the wisdom of the East understands Divine evolution.

Cases where the ghosts of animals have been seen are becoming quite
common. Before describing the astral apparitions of some of our animals,
I will recall a very interesting case which was investigated in recent
years at Ballechin, Perthshire. The accounts of the Ballechin hauntings
are contained in a big volume, but at present I am only concerned in the
four-footed ghosts that were seen. The trouble began upon the death of
the eccentric owner, old Major Stewart, in 1876. He had frequently
stated his intention of haunting the place after his death, and,
furthermore, had asserted his determination to "walk" in the form of one
of his many dogs, a favorite black spaniel.

The family, anxious, as they thought, to be on the safe side, had all
the pack, numbering fourteen, destroyed at the death of their master,
but this wholesale slaughter of the innocents proved of no avail.

The first intimation of its futility was immediately apparent. The wife
of the old Major's nephew and heir was seated one day adding up accounts
in the dead man's study, when the room was suddenly invaded by the old
doggy smell, and an unseen dog pushed distinctly up against her.

Many other unpleasant incidents followed after, but the really great
happenings did not begin till 1896, when a shooting tenant, after a week
or two, was compelled to quit the house, and forfeit the considerable
rent he had paid in advance.

The above fact came to the notice of that inveterate ghost-hunter, the
late Marquis of Bute, and he, and several other members of the Psychical
Society, hired the house, and went into residence. _The Times_ of June,
1897, contains elaborate details of the various experiences and the
names of the investigators.

The phenomena they describe are very startling, but perhaps the most
unnerving specter was the frequent appearance of a black spaniel, which
was seen by numerous persons. One member of the party had brought a
black spaniel of his own. He saw it run across the room, when at that
moment the real dog--his own--entered and began to fraternize with the
ghost dog.

Two ladies occupying the same bedroom had a curious experience. A pet
dog on the end of the bed began to whine, and looking to where its eyes
were fixed they saw, not the black spaniel, but two black paws on the
table by the bed.

Various other sorts of dogs were seen by many people. The black spaniel
by no means had the monopoly, and dogs, purposely brought by the
investigators to aid them in their elucidation of the mystery, made
friends or exhibited mistrust of the pack of ghost dogs haunting both
house and grounds.

Twice in my life I have seen the wraith of our own dogs, "Pompey" and
"Triff." Pompey was a big brindled bulldog of terrifying aspect and
angelic nature. My husband and I adored him, and his death caused us
great grief. Indeed, the whole household mourned him long and deeply.
One day, about ten days after his death, I suddenly caught sight of him
walking in front of me down the avenue.

On the spur of the moment I called him by name, then he vanished.

I mentioned this occurrence to my maid, who at once told me the
kitchenmaid had seen him in exactly the same place.

When alive on earth "Pompey" had a habit of stealing into a guest's room
when the early tea was brought up. He would lie in wait in a dark
corner and then attempt to enter behind the maid or valet. When the door
was shut again he would emerge from his hiding-place, and attempt to
leap on the bed. He was exceedingly gentle and affectionate, but
externally he was so forbidding that his offers of friendship were not
always accepted, and he was a great weight.

One day a Mrs. Shelton came to stay with us, and the next morning asked
to have her room changed, because "Pompey" had kept walking round her
bed all night, and she had not been able to sleep. She was sure it was
"Pompey," because she recognized his peculiar, heavy, slithering
movements.

Some time after this Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland, came to pay us a
visit. She had been very overworked, and needed a complete rest. She
brought with her a maid and a small French bulldog, and she and the maid
occupied a suite of three rooms, two bedrooms and a bathroom, shut off
from the rest of the house by a heavy swing door.

The French bulldog was accustomed to sleep in the maid's room. We had no
dog left of our own. The beautiful Duchess went to bed about half-past
ten; she was very tired and ought to have slept well, but she didn't.

In the night she was awakened by what she took to be her own bulldog
prowling round her bed, yet its footsteps sounded strangely heavy.

She knew nothing about "Pompey's" ghostly visits; we had been careful
not to mention them.

When she came downstairs the next morning she told us what a disturbed
night she had passed through. She was awakened soon after midnight by
the restless movements of a bulldog round her bed. She did not doubt it
was her own dog, that owing to the forgetfulness of her maid had been
left asleep under her bed. She called it, and at the same time switched
on the light, but could see no signs of any dog at all. Rather puzzled,
but concluding that she must have been mistaken, she composed herself to
sleep once more.

Before very long the noise began again. A bulldog with its heavy,
slouching tread was moving about round her bed.

This time the Duchess got up, and made a thorough search of her room,
but could see nothing in the shape of any animal. Yet so convinced was
she that a dog had been in the room, that she determined to look into
her maid's room to see if her own dog was there.

She opened her maid's door, which was shut, and went into the room. The
woman was asleep, and on the bed at her feet slept the French bulldog.

There was nothing to be done but to go back to her own bed once more,
and try to sleep in spite of the disturbances.

This was the story the Duchess told us, and added to me, "If he comes
again to-night I shall come along to your room and rouse you."

It did not come again. The peculiarity of "Pompey's" visits was that
they only occurred once to each stranger, though he came several times
to me, as was but natural.

We honored his memory by raising to him a large granite headstone, on
which was inscribed--

    "Soft lies the turf on one who finds his rest,
    Here, on our common Mother's ample breast,
    Unstained by meanness, avarice and pride,
    He never flattered and he never lied.
    No gluttonous excess his slumbers broke,
    No burning alcohol, no stifling smoke.
    He ne'er intrigued a rival to displace,
    He ran, but never betted on a race.
    Content with harmless sports and moderate food,
    Boundless in love, and faith and gratitude.
    Happy the man, if there be any such,
    Of whom his epitaph can say as much.

                    "On this spot
          are deposited the remains of one
        who possessed beauty without vanity,
              strength without insolence,
              courage without ferocity,
      and all the virtues of man without his vices.
    This praise, which would be unmeaning flattery
            if inscribed over human ashes,
         is but a just tribute to the memory of
                     'Pompey' a dog.
         Born 1891.                Died 1902."

Our next dog, "Triff," was a very handsome sable collie. Of course, we
became devoted to him, and when he also passed away we felt very
desolate without him.

For a long time I never could feel that he had left me. Though I could
not see him, I used to speak to him, just as if I could see the dear
presence I so strongly felt. It was hard that I never could catch a
glimpse of him, because others did. The butler saw him many times, and
my maid caught sight of him twice.

One often reads in ghost books of abnormal animal-like creatures being
seen by psychics, but it is rare to meet with living individuals who can
testify to such personal experiences.

I remember Lilian, Countess of Cromartie, telling me of a strange
incident that once happened to her.

She was walking alone one bright summer morning in Windsor Great Park.
Suddenly she saw an amazing looking creature loping slowly towards her.
It resembled an enormous hare. That is to say, its legs and head were
those of a hare, but its size was that of a goat, and its horned head
was half-goat, half-hare. This creature, loping without any fear, and
with a hare's movement straight towards her, caused her to pause. She
stood still and breathlessly waited its approach. It passed quite close
to her, and as it did so she struck at it with her parasol. Instantly it
disappeared.

Princess Frederica of Hanover, always intensely interested in psychic
phenomena, and herself no tyro in psychic knowledge, told me many years
ago that she had seen several different sorts of abnormal animals, quite
unknown to this earth, and under circumstances which left no doubt as to
their actual existence.

Many years ago there was much talk amongst a certain set of an
experience that had come to a foreign Grand Duchess and her husband, who
spent much of their time in England. This couple were traveling in the
wilds of Greece, and one night they wandered out together on to a bare
mountain side. Sitting down to rest they were enjoying the beauty and
utter loneliness of the moonlit scene, when they suddenly heard the
galloping of many horses' hoofs approaching them. This astonished them
greatly, as they were in so wild and unfrequented a part of the country.
There was no road near them, and it seemed strange to hear horses
galloping so fast on such rough ground at night, even though there was a
moon.

Husband and wife stood up immediately in order to show themselves. The
sound suggested a headlong rush, and they feared that in another second
a whole regiment might ride over them.

They had not long to wait. A troop of creatures, half-men, half-horses,
tore past them, helter-skelter. Fleet and sure-footed they thundered by,
and they brought with them the most wonderful sense of joy and
exhilaration. Neither the Grand Duchess nor her husband felt the
smallest fear; on the contrary, both were seized by a wild elation, a
desire to be one of that splendid legion. The thundering of their hoofs
spread over the hills, and died away into the distance.

On returning to their camp the husband and wife found an uproar.
Something had gone wrong with the Greek servants, who were shivering
with terror, and struggling with equally terrified horses to prevent a
stampede. All that could be learned from the Greeks was that they had
heard something, something known of and greatly feared.

I happened to hear the Grand Duchess tell of her weird experience, and I
have often wondered in later years if Algernon Blackwood had also heard
the story, and founded upon it his fascinating book, "The Centaur."

There were several people in the room whilst the Grand Duchess was
unfolding, in the most impressive manner, this strange event. Amongst
them was the first Lady Henry Grosvenor, born Miss Erskine Wemyss of
Wemyss Castle.

She told us that when a child of seven years old, she had passed through
some minutes of such absolute terror, that as long as she lived she
would never forget the experience.

With another child, and a nurse in attendance, she was playing one
summer morning out of doors. After a little while the nurse rose from
her seat amongst the heather, and wandered away a short distance, out of
sight but not out of hearing.

A few moments after the two little girls heard some bushes behind them
rustling, and a huge creature, half-goat, half-man, emerged and
leisurely crossing the road in front of them plunged into the woods
beyond and was lost to sight. Both children were thrown into a paroxysm
of terror, and screamed loudly. The nurse ran back to them, and when
told what was the matter scolded them for their foolish fancies. No such
animal existed, such as they described, an animal much bigger than a
goat, that walked upright, and had but two legs, and two hoofs, that was
covered with shaggy brown hair from the waist downward, and had the
smooth skin of a man from the waist upward!

The nurse bade them come home at once, and as they gained the road Miss
Wemyss pointed down into the dust. Clearly defined was the track of a
two-hoofed creature that had crossed at that spot. The nurse stared for
a moment or two, then with one accord they all ran. She never took her
charges near that spot again.

Lady Henry said that the memory of that experience was so firmly grafted
on her mind that she could always recall with perfect clarity the exact
appearance of this appalling creature. In after years, when grown up,
she realized from pictures that what she had seen was a Faun or Satyr.
Such pictures or statues always sent a thrill of horror through her. She
attributed this apparition to the fact that she and her companion were
playing close to the site of a Roman camp, and the road was an old Roman
road.

She went on to say that the Grand Duchess had given her courage to tell
this incredible story. It was as absolutely real to her as was the
passing of the Centaurs to the Grand Duchess.

The whole scene stood out in brilliant light as a picture before her,
whenever she thought of it, which she very often did. She never
mentioned it to any one, as she felt that no one would believe her. She
could always smell again the scent of summer, and the odor of pine
trees, and hear the trickling of water from a tiny stream. She could
always see a wide, white road, ribbon-like stretching away to the
horizon. Then, suddenly, she and her young companion stood face to face
with a presence, a hideous, unspeakable shape, that was neither man nor
beast.

She believed that there was a real world beyond the glamour and vision
of our ordinary senses, and sometimes this veil was lifted for a few
seconds. She believed that much of the tradition of mythical creatures
represented solid fact, and that it was possible there were failures of
creation still extant. Again, might there not be races fallen out of
evolution, but retaining as a survival certain powers that to us appear
miraculous. A very gifted being was Miminie Erskine Wemyss, who married
Lord Henry Grosvenor. One of my earliest memories is the thrill her
beauty gave me when first I saw her, as she walked into church, a silver
prayer-book, slung on a silver chain, depending from her arm.




CHAPTER X

THE INVISIBLE HANDS


All through my life there have come to me moments never to be forgotten.
Often the incidents that so deeply impressed me were utterly trivial in
themselves, still they were sacramental, inasmuch as they proved to me,
absolutely and conclusively, the immortality of the soul, and the power
possessed by the soul after so-called death to concern itself with
terrestrial happenings. Such moments are sacramental, in the sense that
Nature is sacramental, in its showing forth of God's glory, and the
manifestation of His handiwork.

       *       *       *       *       *

I was sitting near the library window, reading, in the fading light of a
quiet November afternoon. It was one of those utterly still, mournful
days, with a gray, brooding sky, save where, in the west, a pale
primrose sunset was bathing the horizon in light. I was reading "Man and
the Universe," by Sir Oliver Lodge, and had arrived at page 137, which
ends Chapter VI.

In those days, the year was 1908, I always tried to arrange at least one
week of perfect quiet for the study of a new book which I had just
ordered. I would calculate on which day the post would bring it to my
country home, and I would arrange my life accordingly. This may sound
rather ridiculous, but the truth is that a book like "Man and the
Universe" is such a pure intellectual treat to me, that I like to gloat
over it, to taste it slowly, and imbibe it gradually. I try to spin out
the joy of it as long as possible by reading slowly, and thinking over
the problems presented.

At last I put the book down on a table by my side. I was in no hurry. It
lay on its back, open, the pages uppermost; just where I had stopped
reading. I fell to wondering on the words I had just read.

"A reformer must not be in haste. The kingdom cometh not by observation,
but by secret working as of leaven. Nor must he advocate any compromise
repugnant to an enlightened conscience. Bigotry must die, but it must
die a natural, not a violent death. Would that the leaders in Church and
State had always been able to receive an impatient enthusiast in the
spirit of the lines--

    "Dreamer of dreams! no taunt is in our sadness,
    What e'er our fears our hearts are with your cause,
    God's mills grind slow; and thoughtless haste were madness,
    To gain Heaven's ends we dare not break Heaven's laws."

I must have sat thinking for quite ten minutes when my attention was
suddenly attracted by a sound. The sound of paper leaves being rustled.
The room was so dead still that the faintest sound would have called my
attention, but this sound was by no means faint. I turned my head and
looked at the book I had been reading, because, from it, unmistakably
the noise proceeded.

I beheld a most enthralling phenomenon. Unseen hands were turning over
the pages.

A thrill of intense excitement ran through me, and I stared at the book
in breathless interest. The hands seemed to be searching for some
particular passage. The number of the page upon which the passage was
printed was not, apparently, known to the searcher. I will try to
describe what actually happened.

Several leaves of the book were turned over rather rapidly, each leaf
making the usual sound which accompanies such an ordinary physical
action. Then, as if fearing that the passage required had been
overlooked or passed by, several leaves were turned back again.

This manifestation continued for at least ten minutes, and I could see
nothing but the pages of the book being turned quite methodically, as by
a human hand.

At moments there was rather a long pause in the search, and at the first
pause I thought the demonstration might be over, but once again the
invisible entity resumed the search, and I found myself saying, "He
found something there that interested him. That is why he stopped." For
no reason I can give I felt certain my visitor was a male spirit.

On the second pause in the search occurring I had no doubt that again he
had found something that interested him. The whole manifestation was
very leisurely and wonderfully human. As I sat watching the book being
manipulated by unseen fingers, every smallest action suggested design.
One could not doubt as to what was taking place. At length there came a
pause longer than usual. The book lay flat on its back wide open. There
was now no quiver of the leaves. The invisible entity had found what he
wanted and gone.

I curbed my curiosity for five minutes more, then feeling convinced
that I was again alone I stretched out my hand, took the book and,
rising, carried it close to the window.

There was still enough light to read by, and the leaves were open at
pages 172-173.

I had only read as far as page 137.

I scanned them eagerly, and at once discovered that a mark had been made
on the margin of page 172. A long cross had been placed against a
paragraph. The mark was such as might have been made by a sharp
finger-nail. The words marked were--

"I want to make the distinct assertion that a really existing thing
never perishes, but only changes its form."

To-day the mark is as clearly visible on the page as on the day it was
made. I can form no conjecture as to who the entity was, but he
certainly knew the contents of the book. No one watching the search
could doubt that, or that he was desirous of impressing upon the readers
of the book a certain fact stated therein, which must have previously
attracted his attention.

In the year 1900 we took a house for the winter months in the West End
of London.

It was a small house though joined on either side by great mansions, and
once upon a time it had actually been a farmhouse standing amid smiling
fields.

It retained many relics of its ancient origin in fine oak paneling and
quaint nooks an

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