425 E. I shall conclude this group with a case (quoted from Proceedings S.P.R., vol. xi. p. 577) where there is again a suggestion of personal guardianship and care. But the facts prefigured do not fall within the life-history of the decedent; so that if we suppose that it was his spirit which foresaw and informed his niece of the future, we must suppose also that he foresaw what would happen to his body after his death. The percipient, whom I have called Lady Q., has given me orally a slightly fuller account. An unauthorised version of the main points here to be detailed was compiled shortly after the event.

December 22nd, 1892.

I have been asked to give an account of an experience which was certainly the most remarkable in my life: a dream which came to me three times at long intervals, and which was at last fulfilled.

My father died when I was a child; my mother married again, and I went to live with an uncle, who became like a father to me. In the spring of 1882 I dreamt that my sister and I were sitting in my uncle's drawing-room. In my dream it was a brilliant spring day, and from the window we saw quantities of flowers in the garden, many more than were in fact to be seen from that window. But over the garden there lay a thin covering of snow. I knew in my dream that my uncle had been found dead by the side of a certain bridle-path about three miles from the house - a field-road where I had often ridden with him, and along which he often rode when going to fish in a neighbouring lake. I knew that his horse was standing by him, and that he was wearing a dark homespun suit of cloth made from the wool of a herd of black sheep which he kept. I knew that his body was being brought home in a waggon with two horses, with hay in the bottom, and that we were waiting for his body to arrive. Then in my dream the waggon came to the door; and two men well known to me - one a gardener, the other the kennel huntsman - helped to carry the body up the stairs, which were rather narrow.

My uncle was a very tall and heavy man, and in my dream I saw the men carrying him with difficulty, and his left hand hanging down and striking against the banisters as the men mounted the stairs. This detail gave me in my dream an unreasonable horror. I could not help painfully thinking, "Oh, why did they not prevent his hand from being bruised in this way ? "

In the sadness and horror of this sight I awoke, and I slept no more that night. I had determined not to tell my uncle of the dream; but in the morning I looked so changed and ill that I could not escape his affectionate questioning; and at last I told him of my vision of him lying dead in that field-road. I had no anxiety about his health. He was a robust man of sixty-six, accustomed to hunt his own pack of hounds and to take much exercise. He listened to me very kindly, and although he was not himself at all alarmed by my dream, he offered me to do anything I liked which might calm my mind. I begged him to promise me never to go alone by that particular road. He promised me that he would always make an excuse to have a groom or some one with him; I remember my compunction at the thought of giving him this trouble - and yet I could not help asking for his promise.

The impression of the dream grew gradually fainter, but it did not leave me; and I remember that when a little boy came to stay with us some time after, and boy-like drew his stick along the banisters as he went upstairs, the sound brought back the horror of my dream. Two years passed by, and the thought of the dream was becoming less frequent, when I dreamt it again with all its details the same as before, and again with the same profoundly disturbing effect. I told my uncle, and said to him that I felt sure that he had been neglecting his promise, and riding by that field-road alone. He admitted that he had occasionally done so, "although," he said, "I think I have been very good on the whole." He renewed the promise; and again the impression grew weaker as four years passed by, during which I married and left his home. In the May of 1888 I was in London, expecting my baby. On the night before I was taken ill, I dreamt the same dream again, but with this variation. Instead of dreaming that I was at my uncle's home with my sister, I knew in my dream that I was lying in bed in our London house. But from that bedroom, just as from the drawing-room in the former dreams, I seemed to see my uncle lying dead in the same well-known place.

And I seemed also to perceive the same scene of the bringing home of the body. Then came a new point. As I lay in bed, a gentleman dressed in black, but whose face I could not see, seemed to stand by me and tell me that my uncle was dead. I woke in great distress. But as I was ill from then for two days, as soon as the child was born I ceased to dwell on the dream - only I felt an overpowering desire to write at once to my uncle myself and to tell him that I was getting better. I was not allowed to do this; but afterwards I managed to write a few lines in pencil unknown to any one but the nurse. This note reached my uncle two days before his death.

As I grew better, I began to wonder greatly at not hearing from my uncle, who generally wrote to me every day. Then my dream came back to me, and I was certain that he was ill or dead - but my husband, nurse, and maid (all I saw) seemed cheerful as usual. Then one morning my husband said my stepfather wished to see me, and I at once guessed his errand. He entered the room dressed in black and stood by my bedside. At once I recognised that this was the figure which I had seen in my dream. I said, " The Colonel is dead - I know all about it - I have dreamt it often." And as he was unable to speak from emotion, I told him all about it, place, time of day (morning), and the clothes my uncle wore.