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CHAPTER XVII
‘SECOND SIGHT’
The power of seeing things invisible to others is commonly known as ‘second sight,’ a peculiarity which the ancient Gaels called ‘shadow sight.’ The subject has, for many years past, excited popular interest, and demanded the attention even of our learned men. Dr. Johnson was so favourably impressed with the notion of ‘second sight,’ that after, in the course of his travels, giving the subject full inquiry, he confessed that he never could ‘advance his curiosity to conviction, but came away at last only willing to believe.’ Sir Walter Scott, too, went so far as to say that ‘if force of evidence could authorise us to believe facts inconsistent with the general laws of nature, enough might be produced in favour of the existence of “second sight.”’ When we recollect how all history and tradition abound in instances of this belief, oftentimes apparently resting on evidence beyond impeachment, it is not surprising that it has numbered among its adherents advocates of most schools of thought. Although, too, of late years the theory of ‘second sight’ has not been so widely preached as formerly, yet it must not be supposed that the stories urged in support of it are less numerous, or that it has ceased to be regarded as great a mystery as in days gone by.
In defining ‘second sight’ as a singular faculty ‘of seeing an otherwise invisible object without any previous means used by the person that beholds it for that end,’ we are at once confronted with the well-known axiom that ‘a man cannot be in two places at once,’ a rule with which it is difficult to reconcile such statements as those recorded by Pennant of a gentleman of the Hebrides said to have had the gift of foreseeing visitors in time to get ready for them, or the anecdote which tells how St. Ambrose fell into a comatose state while celebrating the mass at Milan, and on his recovery asserted that he had been present at St. Martin’s funeral at Tours, where it was afterwards declared he had been seen. But it must be remembered that believers in ‘second sight’ base their faith not so much on metaphysical definitions as on the evidence of daily experience, it being of immaterial importance to them how impossible a certain doctrine may seem, provided it only has the testimony of actual witnesses in its favour. Hence, in spite of all arguments against the so-called ‘second sight,’ it is urged, on the other hand, that visions coinciding with real facts and events occurring at a distance – oftentimes thousands of miles away – are beheld by persons possessing this remarkable faculty. Thus Collins, in his ode on the ‘Popular Superstitions of the Highlands,’ alludes to this belief:
To monarchs dear, some hundred miles astray
Oft have they seen Fate give the fatal blow.
The seer, in Sky, shrieked as the blood did flow
When headless Charles warm on the scaffold lay.
Accounts differ largely respecting the faculty of ‘second sight.’ Some make it hereditary, and according to an account communicated to Aubrey from a gentleman at Strathspey, some of the seers acknowledged the possibility of teaching it. A correspondent of the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’219 says ‘the visions attendant on “second sight” are not confined to solemn or important events. The future visit of a mountebank or piper, the arrival of common travellers, or, if possible, still more trifling matters than these, are foreseen by the seers. Not only aged men and women have the “second sight,” but also children, horses, and cows. Children endowed with that faculty manifest it by crying aloud at the very time a corpse appears to a seer. That horses possess it is likewise plain, from their violent and sudden starting when their rider, or a seer in company with him, sees a vision of any kind, by night or by day. It is observable of a horse, that he will not go forwards towards the apparition but must be led round, at some distance from the common road; his terror is evident, from his becoming all over in a profuse sweat, although quite cool a moment before. Balaam’s ass seems to have possessed this power or faculty; and, perhaps, what we improperly style a startlish horse may be one who has the gift of the “second sight.” That cows have the “second sight” is proved by the following circumstance. If a woman, whilst milking a cow, happen to have a vision of that kind, the cow runs away in a great fright at the same instant, and cannot, for some time, be brought to stand quietly.’ It is further added, that persons who have not long been gifted with ‘second sight,’ after seeing a vision without doors, on coming into a house, and approaching the fire, will immediately fall into a swoon. All those, too, who have the ‘second sight’ do not see these appearances at the same time, but if one having this faculty designedly touches his fellow seer at the instant that a vision appears to him, in that case it will be seen by both.
Goethe relates that as he was once riding along a footpath towards Drusenheim, he saw, ‘not with the eyes of his body, but with those of his spirit, himself on horseback coming towards him, in a dress that he then did not possess. It was grey, and trimmed with gold. Eight years afterwards he found himself, quite accidentally, on that spot, on horseback, and in precisely that attire.’220
In 1652 a Scottish lawyer, Sir George Mackenzie, afterwards Lord Tarbat, when driven to the Highlands by fear of the Government of Cromwell, made very extensive inquiries concerning this supposed supernatural faculty, and wrote an elaborate account of its manifestations to the celebrated Robert Boyle, published in the correspondence of Samuel Pepys. Aubrey, too, devoted considerable attention to the subject, and in the year 1683 appeared the treatise of ‘Theophilus Insularum,’ with about one hundred cases gathered from various sources.
It was, however, in Scotland that this belief gained a specially strong footing. In the year 1799, a traveller writing of the peasants of Kirkcudbrightshire relates: ‘It is common among them to fancy that they see the wraiths of persons dying which will be visible to one and not to others present with him. Within these last twenty years it was hardly possible to meet with any person who had not seen many wraiths and ghosts in the course of his experience.’ Indeed, we are told that many of the Highlanders gained a lucrative livelihood by enlightening their neighbours on matters revealed to them through ‘second sight;’ and Mr. Jamieson writes: ‘Whether this belief was communicated to the Scotch by the northern nations who so long had possession of it, I shall not pretend to determine, but traces of the same wonderful faculty may be found among the Scandinavians.’ One of the best illustrations of this superstition as it prevailed in the Highlands is that given by Dr. Johnson in his ‘Journey to the Hebrides’: ‘A man on a journey far from home falls from a horse; another, who is perhaps at work about the house, sees him bleeding on the ground, commonly with a landscape of the place where the accident befalls him. Another seer, driving home his cattle, or wandering in idleness, or musing in the sunshine, is suddenly surprised by the appearance of a bridal ceremony, or funeral procession, and counts the mourners or attendants, of whom, if he knows them, he relates the names; if he knows them not, he can describe the dresses. Things distant are seen at the instant when they happen.’ ‘At the Literary Club,’ says Boswell, ‘before Johnson came in, we talked of his “Journey to the Western Islands,” and of his coming away “willing to believe the ‘second sight,’” which seemed to excite some ridicule. I was then so impressed with many of the stories which I had been told, that I avowed my conviction, saying, “He is only willing to believe – I do believe; the evidence is enough for me, though not for his great mind. What will not fill a quart bottle will fill a pint bottle; I am filled with belief.” “Are you?” said George Colman; “then cork it up.”’ It is not many years ago since a man lived at Blackpool who was possessed, as he pretended, by this faculty, and was visited by persons from all parts anxious to gain information about absent friends. This belief, it may be added, is not confined to our own country, curious traces of it being found among savage tribes. Thus Captain Jonathan Carver obtained from a Cree medicine man a correct prophesy of the arrival of a canoe with news the following day at noon; and we are told how, when Mr. Mason Brown was travelling with the voyageurs on the Coppermine river, he was met by Indians of the very band he was seeking, these having been despatched by their medicine-man, who, on being interrogated, affirmed that ‘he saw them coming, and heard them talk on their journey.’
Again, persons gifted with ‘second sight’ are said not only to know particular events at a distance precisely at the same moment as they happen, but also to have a foreknowledge of them before they take place, for —
As the sun,
Ere it is risen, sometimes paints its image
In the atmosphere, so often do the spirits
Of great events stride on before the events,
And in to-day already walks to-morrow.
Dr. Tylor, in his ‘Primitive Culture,’ relates the case of a Shetland lady who affirmed how, some years ago, she and a girl leading her pony recognised the familiar figure of one Peter Sutherland, whom they knew to be at the time in Edinburgh. He turned a corner, and they saw him no more, but next week came the news of his sudden death.
A curious old story illustrative of ‘second sight,’ of which there are several versions, is that of ‘Booty’s Ghost,’ an account of which occurs in Kirby’s ‘Wonderful and Eccentric Museum’ (ii. 247). It was an action for slander of a deceased husband brought by the widow, and the following extract, which contains an outline of the strange tale, is from the journal of Mr. Spinks:
‘Friday, May 15, 1687.– We had the observation of Mr. Booty this day. Captain Barrisby, Captain Bristowe, Captain Brown, I, and Mr. Ball, merchant, went on shore in Captain Barnaby’s boat to shoot rabbits upon Stromboli; and when we had done, we called our men together by us, and about half an hour and fourteen minutes after three in the afternoon, to our great surprise, we all of us saw two men come running towards us with such swiftness that no living man could run half so fast as they did run, when all of us heard Captain Barnaby say, “Lord, bless me! the foremost is old Booty, my next door neighbour,” but he said he did not know the other that run behind; he was in black clothes, and the foremost was in grey. Then Captain Barnaby desired all of us to take an account of the time, and put it down in our pocket-books, and when we got on board we wrote it in our journals; for we saw them into the flames of fire, and there was a great noise which greatly affrighted us all, for we none of us ever saw or heard the like before. Captain Barnaby said he was certain it was old Booty, which he saw running over Stromboli and into the flames of hell. It is stated that Captain Barnaby told his wife, and she told somebody else, and that it was afterwards told to Mrs. Booty, who arrested Captain Barnaby in a thousand pound action for what he had said of her husband. Captain Barnaby gave bail to it, and it came on to a trial in the Court of King’s Bench, and they had Mr. Booty’s wearing apparel brought into Court, and the sexton of the parish, and the people that were with him when he died; and we swore to our journals, and it came to the same time within two minutes. Ten of our men swore to the buttons on his coat, and that they were covered with the same sort of cloth his coat was made of, and so it proved. The jury asked Mr. Spinks if he knew Mr. Booty. He answered, “I never saw him till he ran by me on the burning mountain.”’
The Chief Justice from April 1687 to February 1689 was Sir Robert Wright. His name is not given in the report, but the judge said: ‘Lord, have mercy on me, and grant that I may never see what you have seen. One, two, or three may be mistaken, but thirty can never be mistaken.’ So the widow lost her suit.221
It appears, also, that coming events are mostly forecasted by various symbolic omens which generally take the form of spectral exhibitions. Thus, a phantom shroud seen in the morning on a living person is said to betoken his death in the course of the day; but if seen late in the evening, no particular time is indicated, further than that it will take place within the year. If, too, the shroud does not cover the whole body, the fulfilment of the vision may be expected at some distant period.
But these kind of omens vary largely in different countries; and, on the Continent, where much misplaced faith is attached to them, they are frequently the source of much needless dread.
CHAPTER XVIII
COMPACTS BETWEEN THE LIVING AND DEAD
Sometimes ghosts appear in consequence of an agreement made before death with some particular friend, that he or she who first died should appear to the survivor. Numerous tales are told illustrative of this belief, one of the best authenticated being that recorded by Lord Brougham,222 who, speaking of his intimate friend at the University, writes: ‘There was no divinity class, but we frequently in our walks discussed and speculated upon many grave subjects, among others, on the immortality of the soul and on a future state. This question and the possibility, I will not say of ghosts walking, but of the dead appearing to the living, were subjects of much speculation; and we actually committed the folly of drawing up an agreement written with our blood, to the effect that whichever of us died first should appear to the other, and thus solve any doubts we had entertained of the “life after death.”’ Years afterwards – on December 19, 1799 – when Lord Brougham had almost forgotten the existence of his friend, as he was taking a warm bath, he appeared to him; but, as he adds, ‘No doubt I had fallen asleep, and the appearance presented to my eyes was a dream. I recollected quickly enough our old discussion, and the bargain we had made. I could not discharge from my mind the impression that my friend must have died, and that his appearance to me was to be received by me as a proof of his future state.’ In October 1862 Lord Brougham made this postscript: ‘I have just been copying out from my journal the account of this strange dream —certissima mortis imago. And now to finish the story begun about sixty years since. Soon after my return to Edinburgh, there arrived a letter from India, announcing G – ’s death, and stating that he had died on the 19th of December.’
A curious story is told by John Darley, Carthusian monk, who relates that, as he was attending upon the death bed of Father Raby, in 1534, he said to the expiring man, ‘Good Father Raby, if the dead can visit the living, I beseech you to pay a visit to me by-and-by;’ and Raby answered, ‘Yes;’ immediately after which he drew his last breath. But on the same afternoon, about five o’clock, as Darley was meditating in his cell, the departed man suddenly appeared to him in a monk’s habit, and said to him, ‘Why do you not follow our father?’ And I replied, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘Because he is a martyr in heaven next to the angels.’ Then I said, ‘Where are all our fathers who did like to him?’ He answered and said, ‘They are all pretty well, but not so well as he is.’ And then I asked him how he was, and he said ‘Pretty well.’ And I said, ‘Father, shall I pray for you?’ To which he replied, ‘I am as well as need be, but prayer is at all times good,’ and with these words he vanished.223
There is the well-known Beresford ghost tale, about which so many accounts have been given. It appears that Lord Tyrone and Miss Blank were orphans, educated in the same house ‘in the principles of Deism.’ When they were about fourteen years old their preceptor died, and their new guardian tried to persuade them to embrace revealed religion. The boy and girl stuck to Deism. But they made a compact, that he or she who died first should appear to the survivor, ‘to declare what religion was most approved by the Supreme Being.’ Miss Blank married St. Martin Beresford, and one day she appeared at breakfast with a pale face, and a black band round her wrist. On her death-bed she explained how the ghost of Lord Tyrone had appeared to her at the hour of his death, and had correctly prophesied her future: ‘He struck my wrist; his hand was as cold as marble; in a moment the sinews shrank up, every nerve withered… I bound a piece of black ribbon round my wrist.’ The black ribbon was formerly in the possession of Lady Betty Cobb, who, during her long life, was ever ready to attest the truth of this narration, as are, to the present hour, the whole of the Tyrone and Beresford families.224
As Mr. Andrew Lang points out in the ‘Nineteenth Century,’225 Lord Tyrone merely did what many ghosts had done before in the matter of touching Lady Beresford’s wrist. Thus, as he says, according to Henry More, ‘one’ (bogie) ‘took a relation of Melanchthon’s by the hand, and so scorched her that she bore the mark of it to her dying day.’ Before Melanchthon the anecdote was improved by Eudes de Shirton, in a sermon, who tells how a certain clerk, Serlon, made with a friend the covenant which Miss Blank made with Lord Tyrone. The friend died, and appeared to Serlon ‘in a parchment cloak, covered with the finest writing in the world.’ Being asked how he fared, he said that this cloak, a punishment for his love of logic, weighed heavier than lead, and scorched like the shirt of Nessus. Then he held out his hand, and let fall a drop which burned Serlon to the bone —
And evermore that master wore
A covering on his wrist.
Before Eudes de Shirton, William of Malmesbury knew this anecdote. His characters are two clerks, an Epicurean and a Platonist, who made the usual compact that the first to die should appear to the survivor, and state whether Plato’s ideas, or Epicurus in his atoms, were the correct reply to the conundrum of the universe. The visit was to be paid within thirty days of the death. One of the philosophical pair was killed, and appeared to the other, but after the time arranged, explaining that he had been unable to keep his appointment earlier, and, stretching out his hand, let fall three burning drops of blood, which branded the brow of the psychical inquirer.
Mrs. Grant, in her ‘Superstitions of the Highlands,’ tells how a widow, returning home through a wood at dusk, was met by her husband’s ghost, ‘who led her carefully along a difficult bridge, but left a blue mark on her wrist which the neighbours had opportunities of seeing during the week; she survived the adventure.’ A similar circumstance is related by Richard Baxter,226 in connection with a lady, soon after the Restoration, when Parliament was passing Acts which pressed sore on the dissenters. While praying for the deliverance of the faithful from the evils which threatened them, ‘it was suddenly given her, that there should be a speedy deliverance, even in a very short time. She desired to know which way, and it being set strongly on her as a revelation, she prayed earnestly that if this were a true divine impulse and revelation, God would certify her by some sign, and she ventured to choose the sign herself, and laid her hand on the outside of the upper part of her leg, begging of God, that if it were a true answer, He would make on that place some visible mark. There was presently the mark of black spots, like as if a hand had burnt it, which her sister witnessed, there being no such sign before.’
In Scott’s well-known ballad, the phantom knight impresses an indelible mark on the lady who has been his paramour, and in the Tartan stories, written by a Frenchman, a ghost appears to Prince Faruk in a dream, and touches him on the arm. The Prince finds the mark of the burn when he awakes.227 There are numerous stories of this kind scattered here and there in the traditionary lore of this and other countries, and such indelible marks, left by ghosts of their visits, have been held as a mysterious proof of their materialistic power.
A correspondent of ‘Notes and Queries’ (2nd S. v. 343) vouches for the authenticity of the following ‘incontrovertible facts,’ which, he says, ‘occurred to a friend of my own, and to the companion of his early youth, who, having obtained a cadetship, went to India.’ The story runs thus. ‘The former was towards evening driving across a long barren heath. Suddenly, by his side in the vehicle, was seen the figure of his playmate. Happening to turn his head from him to the horse, and on looking again, the apparition had vanished. Remembering the conversation that they had held together at parting, he doubted not but that his friend was at that moment dead, and that in his appearing to him, he was come in the fulfilment of their mutual promise, in order to remove all pre-existing doubts as to the possibility of a denizen of a higher sphere appearing to its friend on earth. By the next Indian Mail was received intelligence of his death, showing the exact coincidence as to the time of the two events.’
In the biography of William Smellie is the history of a compact he made with his friend William Greenlaw, whereby it was mutually agreed that whoever died first should return and give the other an account of his condition after death. Shortly after the anniversary of his death, the ghost of Greenlaw is reported to have appeared to Smellie, and in a solemn tone informed him ‘that he had experienced great difficulties in procuring permission to return to this earth, according to their agreement; that he was now in a much better world than the one he had left,’ but added ‘that the hopes and wishes of its inhabitants were by no means satisfied, as, like those of the lower world, they still looked forward in the hope of eventually reaching a still happier state of existence.’ Another case of a similar kind is that of the appearance of the Rev. Theodore Alois Buckley, formerly one of the chaplains of Christ Church, Oxford, to his friend Mr. Kenneth Mackenzie. The story, as narrated in Newton Crosland’s ‘Theory of Apparitions,’ is, that about the year 1850 the two friends, when at Oxford, entered into a compact of the kind already described, the signal of appearance arranged between them being the laying of a ghostly hand on the forehead of the surviving friend. On January 30, 1856, Mr. Buckley died, and on February 2, it is said, kept the agreement, for as Mr. Mackenzie ‘was lying in bed, watching the candle expiring, he felt placed over one eye and his forehead a cool, damp hand, and on looking up saw Buckley in his ordinary apparel, with his portfolio under his arm standing by his bedside.’
The Duchess of Mazarin is said to have appeared to Madame de Beauclair, in accordance with a solemn compact made in life, that whoever died first should return, if it were possible, and inform the other of the existence of the future state. But it was some years after her death that the Duchess kept her promise, and when she did, it was to make this announcement: ‘Beauclair, between the hours of twelve and one this night you will be with me.’ The non-appearance of her friend’s spirit for so long had caused Madame de Beauclair to doubt the non-existence of a future life.228
But in some cases such compacts have not been kept. Dr. Chance tells us in ‘Notes and Queries’ (6th S. ii. 501) that in 1846-1847, as a young man, he made such a compact, but when his friend died in 1878 he did not appear, neither has he ever done so. To quote Dr. Chance’s words: ‘It is true my friend died about noon, and that I knew of his death the same evening, so that if he had appeared to me I should have learnt nothing new, whilst in most, if not all, of the recorded cases the apparition has been the first to convey the intelligence of the death. But this did not exonerate my friend from his promise; and if he did not keep it, I must take it that he could not come, for nothing but inability would have kept me from fulfilling my share of the compact if I had been called upon to do so.’
In Mather’s ‘Remarkable Providences’ the failure of a spirit to keep a promise of appearing after its separation from the body is referred to, the author being of opinion that there is great hazard attending such covenants. To quote his words: ‘It may be after men have made such agreements, devils may appear to them pretending to be their deceased friends, and thereby their souls may be drawn in woful snares. Who knoweth whether God will permit the persons, who have thus confederated, to appear in the world again after their death? And if not, then the survivor will be under great temptation unto Atheism, as it fell out with the late Earl of Rochester, who (as is reported in his life by Dr. Burnet) did in the year 1665 enter into a formal engagement with another gentleman, not without ceremonies of religion, that if either of them died, he should appear, and give the other notice of the future state if there were any. After this the other gentleman was killed, but did never appear after his death to the Earl of Rochester, which was a great snare to him during the rest of his life. Though, when God awakened the Earl’s conscience upon his death-bed, he could not but acknowledge that one who had so corrupted the natural principles of truth as he had done, had no reason to expect that such an extraordinary thing should be done for his conviction. Or if such agreement should necessitate an apparition, how would the world be confounded with spectres; how many would probably be scared out of their wits; or what curious questions would vain men be proposing about things which are (and it is meet they should be) hid from mortals?’
