429 B. The next case (quoted from Phantasms of the Living, vol. i. p. 453) is from Mrs. Lightfoot, a lady who was none the worse witness because she took not the slightest interest in our work. The names and dates were filled in by Gurney, immediately after a personal interview, January 30th, 1884.

51 Shaftesbury Road, Ravenscourt Park, W., January nth, 1884.

In giving the following experience, I may premise that as a child, and since, I have comparatively had but little knowledge (as a personal experience) of fear; and in the existence of ghosts I have always disbelieved. Did I ever see or hear sights or sounds for which, on examination, I could not account, I have always come to the conclusion that they arose from natural causes which were beyond my reach of inquiry - hence I always refused to accept anything without proof, and I may add, that I have rarely been convinced.

Some ten years ago, when in India, I contracted a great friendship, which was reciprocated, for a lady, Mrs. Reed, the wife of an officer. She had not been very strong, but when I parted from her with the intention of returning to England, no danger (the word had not even been mentioned) was anticipated, and for some few months after my return, I heard from her, bright and cheerful letters enough. In them she certainly spoke of her health not being good, but nothing more. Then after a time her letters ceased, but I heard very regularly from others in the same place, and they mentioned that her health was gradually getting worse, and that she would probably be ordered to England for a thorough change, but still I heard no sound of fatal ending, and I was looking forward to her return with a great degree of pleasure.

It was my practice not only to go to bed very late, but also for the last half-hour to pick up a book, the most uninteresting and dry that it was possible to find, and so try to soothe the mind. The moment I commenced to really feel sleepy I would lower the gas to almost a pin's point (for I did not care to extinguish it, as I had a child of three sleeping in the same room), and then I could always compose myself comfortably to a sleep into which I could then fall in a very few minutes.

On the night of September 21st, 1874, I had followed this exact routine. I had put aside my book, lowered the gas, and at a little after midnight I was sound asleep. As I knew afterwards, I must have slept about three hours, when I was suddenly aroused (and was, so far as I knowperfectly wide awake) by a violent noise at my door, which was locked. I have some recollection of feeling astonished (of fear I then had none) at seeing or rather hearing within the instant my door thrown violently open, as though by some one in great anger, and I was instantly conscious that some one, something, what shall I call it, was in the room. For the hundredth part of a second it seemed to pause just within the room, and then by a movement, which it is impossible for me to describe - but it seemed to move with a rapid push - it was at the foot of my bed. Again a pause; for again the hundredth part of a second, and the figure-shape rose. I heard it, but as it got higher its movements quieted, and presently it was above my bed, lying horizontally, its face downwards, parallel with my face, its feet to my feet, but with a distance of some three or four feet between us.

This for a moment, whilst I waited simply in astonishment and curiosity (for I had not the very faintest idea of either who or what it was), but no fear, and then it spoke. In an instant I recognised the voice, the old familiar imperious way of speaking, as my Christian name sounded clear and full through the room. "Frances," it repeated, "I want you; come with me. Come at once." My voice responded as instantaneously, "Yes, I'll come. What need for such a hurry?" and then came a quick imperative reply, " But you must come at once; come instantly, and without a moment's pause or hesitation." I seemed to be drawn upwards by some extraordinary magnetic influence, and then just as suddenly and violently thrown down again.

In one second of time the room was in a deathly stillness, and the words, "She is dead," were simply burnt into my mind. I sat up in bed dazed, and now, for the first time, frightened beyond measure. I sat very still for a few moments, gradually making out the different forms in the room, then I turned the gas, which was just above my head, full on, only to see that the room was totally unchanged. At the foot of my bed, at some distance from it, was the child's iron cot. I got up and looked at him; he was sleeping quite peacefully, and had evidently been totally undisturbed. I went to the door, to find it fast locked. I opened it, and gazed into the passage - total silence and stillness everywhere. I went into the next room, where there were sleeping two other children and their nurse, to find equal quietness there. Then I returned to my room, and I must confess it, with an awful fear oppressing me. She had come once - might she not come again? I wrote down the date and the hour, and then opening shutter and window only looked out for the welcome dawn.

I went down to breakfast that morning, but said nothing of the details of my dream,1 only mentioning that I had had a very bad and a very vivid one. Afterwards I found I could settle to nothing, and at last was becoming positively so ill that I was obliged to go back to bed. That same afternoon, curiously enough, a sister came to see me, who had been abroad with me, and whilst there had known and liked this same friend. She saw I was much upset about something of which I did not care to speak, and, by way of cheering me up, began telling me news of various mutual friends. At last, during a slight pause, she said, "By the way, have you heard anything lately of Mrs. Reed? when last I heard, she was not very well." Instantly came my reply, "Oh, she is dead," and it was only my sister's look of blank horror and astonishment that recalled me to myself. "What do you mean? when did you hear?" came from her in rapid utterance, and then I bethought me how indeed did I hear? who had told me? But tell her the dream I could not, so I merely answered, "You will see that I am right when you look in the newspapers - how I have heard of it I will tell you some other time," and directly I changed the conversation.

The visit did good, however, for I got up and went out with her, and I can only say that the impression my manner and words made upon her was so deep that the moment she arrived home she sat down and wrote to a lady in the West of England - one who knew us all, and who heard by every mail from her husband, who was in the same place as our friend. My sister told her exactly what I had said, and begged that she would at once send her particulars, since I had not done so. By return came the reply: -

1 Though the narrator twice uses this word, she certainly did not regard her experience as a dream.

"I cannot, dear Lady B., in the least understand your letter, nor what your sister can possibly mean. The last foreign mail only came in this morning" (after the date, of course, of my dream), "and so far from being 'dead,' my husband tells me Mrs. Reed is much better; therefore, where Mrs. L. (myself) can have obtained her news is beyond my comprehension, for it is quite impossible that she can have had later news than mine, in fact, not so late, since my foreign letter arrived after your visit to her." [This is not a copy, but a reminiscence of the letter].

And so the matter rested, but within a month from the date of my dream came the news of Mrs. Reed's death, on September 21st.

I have but little now to add. The bereaved husband returned to England and called upon me. He gave me some details of the last days, and on my asking whether he remembered her last words, he turned to me with quite a look of surprise, and said, "Why, Mrs. Lightfoot, I believe your name was the last she mentioned." Further, it was many months afterwards before my sister again broached the subject, but at last one day she said, " I do wish you would tell me how you knew of Mrs. Reed's death." Of course I then told her, and I may add, that so deep was the impression produced upon her that even in her last illness, which occurred seven or eight years afterwards, she spoke of it. For myself I never really recovered the shock for a long time, and even now the impression is as vivid as though it had only happened yesterday.

Frances W. Lightfoot.

Gurney adds to this account: -

Both the Calcutta Englishman and the Pioneer Mail (Allahabad) give September 20th, 1874, as the date of Mrs. Reed's death. Mrs. Lightfoot has unfortunately not kept her note of the day and hour. As she has now no independent recollection of the date of her experience, but only remembers the fact of the coincidence, and as it is practically certain that she heard the correct date of the death, the 20th, which has since become converted in her memory to the 21st, it seems tolerably safe to assume that her experience fell on the night of the 20th, that is, on the early morning of the 21st - not on the night of the 21st, as stated in the account.

In answer to the question whether this was the only occasion on which she has had a sensory hallucination of this kind, Mrs. Lightfoot answered " Yes." She adds that her sister, Lady B., "mentioned the matter at once to several friends and relatives." This sister has since died.

In conversation, Mrs. Lightfoot confirmed again the fact of having had no sort of visual hallucination on any other occasion. She once, and once only, has had another remarkable anditory experience, when the sudden hearing of her christian name saved her from a terrible fall in the dark. The origin of the sound was carefully inquired into and could not be ascertained.

As a proof of the absolute conviction produced in her that her friend was dead, she told me that she had prepared a birthday present to send her, and the box was actually soldered up, and had been going by the next mail; but she felt it impossible to send it.

She had been under the impression that the time of death exactly coincided with her vision; but she had reckoned difference of longitude the wrong way. Mrs. Reed's husband informed her, on her inquiry, that the death took place at eleven, that is, 11 p.m. (as she thinks of September 21st, but no doubt of September 20th); and the vision was probably, therefore, eight or nine hours after it.

My impression of Mrs. Lightfoot entirely corresponds with her own description of herself - that she is a practical person, and without any sort of predisposition to frights or visions. The present one gave her a most severe shock, the effects of which lasted for some time.