Case CXXXIII

In 1623 or 1624, a man named Fletcher, a considerable land-owner, of Rascal, a town in Yorkshire, married a young woman who had formerly been on terms of intimacy with Ralph Raynal, an innkeeper, living on the York road, about half a mile from Rascal, and whose sister lived with him. The connection being continued after the young woman had married, she, not finding herself sufficiently free, projected, together with a person named Marth Dunn, the death of her husband. In May, the deed was committed by Raynal and Dunn, by drowning Fletcher, on his return from the town of Herby. The woman, who was apprised of the murder, gave them a sack, in which they placed the body. It was buried behind Raynal's house, in a spot from whence they had torn the roots of an old oak and had planted it with mustard-seed, in order the better to conceal the crime. The neighbors were much surprised at Fletcher's absence, but his wife said that he had absconded, to be out of the way of a writ. Things went on thus until the 7th of July, when Raynal, whilst saddling his horse, to go to Topcliffe Fair, saw the ghost of Fletcher suddenly start up before him. "O, Ralph!" it said, "repent, repent, for my vengeance is at hand." From that time until his imprisonment, the spirit never left him, which made him melancholy and sleepless. His sister, hearing from another person, this confession, and alarmed on her own account, revealed it to Sir William Sheffield, a magistrate, who lived at Rascal.

* Sauze, Essai Medico-historique sur les possedes de Loudun, p. 45. Paris, 1839.

† Collection des Memoircs relatifs a l'Histoire de France, 2 serie, t. i. p. 245.

They were all three arrested and put in York prison; they were condemned, and executed on the spot where Fletcher was buried.*

The punishment of Beaufort, the assassin of the Duke of Gloucester, was accompanied by terrible circumstances. A prey to all the agonies of despair, he offered immense riches to the dead, if he would grant him a respite of a few days. A few minutes before his death, he appeared to suffer the torment of the damned. With both hands spread out before him, he exclaimed: " Begone! begone! why dost thou look at me thus?" an evident proof that some horrible spectre was before him, no doubt that of his victim.

M. L'Abbe Guillon, in his Entretiens sur le Suicide, has related the remarkable case of a duellist who had killed seventeen persons in single combat, and who was everywhere pursued by the phantoms of his victims.

The following relation is a convincing proof of the influence of remorse on hallucinations: -

Case CXXXIV

Jarvis Matoham was pay-sergeant of a regiment, and was esteemed a correct and well-behaved man. Profiting by this reputation, he found it easy to abstract a considerable portion of the money placed in his hands for the purpose of paying the men, engaging recruits, and other matters in his department. He was recalled to his regiment from a town where he had been raising recruits; perhaps there were some suspicions against him. Matcham saw that the discovery was at hand, and would have deserted, but for the presence of a little drummer-boy, who had been sent on alone to recall him. In the despair inspired by his crime, he resolved to assassinate the poor child, and to escape with the money that still remained in his hands. He the more readily determined on this course, as he looked on the boy as a spy. Having committed the crime, he changed his dress, crossed the fields, and reached an inn on the Portsmouth road; there he stopped, and desired to be aroused when the first stage passed. The boy to whom he gave the order did as he was desired; and, long afterwards, recollected that when he shook Matcham by the shoulder, in order to awaken him, the first words that he uttered, were: "My God! I did not kill him."

* Webster on Witchcraft, p. 296. Webster had attended the trial.

Matcham arrived at Portsmouth by the stage, and immediately engaged himself as a marine. His sobriety and faithfulness to his duty made him equally esteemed by his superiors in this service as he had been in the army. He passed several years at sea, and was noticed for his good conduct on several occasions. Finally, his vessel entered Plymouth harbor; the crew were paid off, and several marines dismissed as too old for service. Jar-vis Matcham was of the number. He resolved, with another marine, to visit the city, and took the road to Salisbury. At the distance of two or three miles from that celebrated city, they were overtaken by a storm, accompanied with lightning and such terrible claps of thunder that the conscience of the aged sinner began to be awakened. He exhibited an excess of terror very unnatural in a man familiarized with the war of the elements, and began to look so wild, and talk so incoherently, that his companion easily saw he was agitated by some extraordinary excitement.

Finally, Matcham complained that the stones left the road to run after him, and begged his comrade to walk on the other side of the way, to see if the stones would follow him when alone.

The marine complied, and Matcham insisted that they still followed him, but not his companion. "But there is something still worse," said he, coming close up, and speaking in a mysterious undertone. "Who is that little drummer? What does he mean by following us so closely?" - "I do not see any one," replied his comrade, struck with the contagion of superstitious terror evinced by his companion. "How? You do not see that child with bloodstained trowsers?" cried the murderer, in a tone which so terrified his comrade, that he conjured him, if anything was weighing on his conscience, to relieve his mind as much as possible by making a confession.

The criminal heaved a profound sigh and declared that it was impossible for him any longer to endure the agonies he had suffered for several years past; he then acknowledged the murder, and added that, as a considerable reward had been offered for his apprehension, he desired that his companion would give him up to the authorities in Salisbury, being desirous that an old comrade should profit by his unhappy fate, which now seemed inevitable.

Having overcome the objections made by his friend to this proceeding, he was taken before a magistrate in Salisbury, where he made a complete confession. Before his trial, however, the love of life prevailing, he retracted his avowal, and declared himself innocent. But proofs had been obtained, which left no doubt of his guilt; witnesses from his own regiment proved his identity with the deserter and assassin; the boy in the inn, where he had slept, recollected the remarkable words he had uttered on awaking. Jarvis Matcham was condemned. When all hope of life was over, he confirmed his first confession, and, to the last, persisted in the reality of the vision he had seen on Salisbury Plain.

"Many similar cases," says Sir Walter Scott, "might be related, proving that, by the will of God, the influence of a superstitious terror may be a means used by Providence to excite repentance in the heart of a criminal for the salvation of his soul, and to insure his punishment for the benefit of society."

Physicians to the insane have all remarked that hallucinations are often manifested in subjects powerfully preoccupied by an idea, or a passion. The celebrated Esquirol says, in his work, that they generally bear relation to the occupations of mind or of body of the person affected, or that they are linked with the nature of the cause that has produced the overthrow of reason. "Hallucinations," he adds, "may also be the effects of voluntary or forced repetition of the same action of the brain."*

When recollections and reminiscences acquire the vivacity of first impressions, or when the same sensations are prolonged, it becomes impossible to make the distinction. This happens, when the brain, being occupied incessantly with one object, is overexcited. Thoughts become as palpable to the senses of sight and hearing, as if the images and sounds came from without, and reason wanders, deceived by fallacious sensations.