825 A. From Phantasms of the Living, vol. i. p. 285.

Cathedral Yard, Winchester, January 31st, 1884.

I respectfully beg to offer you a short statement of my experience on a subject which I do not understand. Let me premise that I am not a scholar, as I left school when twelve years of age in 1827, and I therefore hope you will forgive all sins against composition and grammar. I am a working foreman of masons at Winchester Cathedral, and have been for the last nine years a resident in this city. I am a native of Edinburgh.

It is now more than thirty years ago that I was living in London, very near where the Great Western Railway now stands, but which was not then built. I was working in the Regent's Park for Messrs. Mowlem, Burt, & Freeman, who at that time had the Government contract for three years for the masons' work of the capital, and who yet carry on a mighty business at Millbank, Westminster. I think it was Gloucester Gate, if I mistake not. At all events, it was that gate of Regent's Park to the eastward of the Zoological Gardens, at the north-east corner of the park. The distance from my home was too great for me to get home to meals, so I carried my food with me, and therefore had no call to leave the work all day. On a certain day, however, I suddenly felt an intense desire to go home, but as I had no business there I tried to suppress it, - but it was not possible to do so. Every minute the desire to go home increased. It was ten in the morning, and I could not think of anything to call me away from the work at such a time. I got fidgety and uneasy, and felt as if I must go, even at the risk of being ridiculed by my wife, as I could give no reason why I should leave my work and lose 6d. an hour for nonsense.

However, I could not stay, and I set off for home under an impulse which I could not resist.

When I reached my own door and knocked, the door was opened by my wife's sister, a married woman, who lived a few streets off. She looked surprised, and said, "Why, Skirving, how did you know?" "Know what?" I said. "Why, about Mary Ann." I said, "I don't know anything about Mary Ann" (my wife). "Then what brought you home at present?" I said. "I can hardly tell you. I seemed to want to come home. But what is wrong?" I asked. She told me that my wife had been run over by a cab and been most seriously injured about an hour ago, and she had called for me ever since, but was now in fits, and had several in succession. I went upstairs, and though very ill she recognised me, and stretched forth her arms and took me round the neck and pulled my head down into her bosom. The fits passed away directly, and my presence seemed to tranquillise her, so that she got into sleep, and did well. Her sister told me that she had uttered the most piteous cries for me to come to her, although there was not the least likelihood of my coming. This short narrative has only one merit; it is strictly true.

Alexander Skirving.

In answer to the question whether the time of the accident corresponded with the time when he felt a desire to go home, Mr. Skirving says:-

I asked my wife's sister what time the accident occurred, and she said "An hour and a half ago" - that is, from the time I came home. Now, that was exactly coincident with the time I wanted to leave work. It took me an hour to walk home; and I was quite half-an-hour struggling in my mind to overcome the wish to leave work before I did so.

[He adds:] You ask me if I ever had a similar impression on any other occasion. I never had. It was quite a single and unique experience.

Mr. Skirving's wife is dead. His sister-in-law, Mrs. Vye, is in New Zealand. Her husband, writing from Otago on July 1st, 1885, says that she cannot now give particulars of the occurrence, though she remembers the accident very well.