Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1875-03-19

intended delusions. That singular power
or provision which has a great antiquity
| among the Highland Scotch, has been set
down among the auld wives fables by
most people who have heard of it beyond
its own immediate locality. And others,
who have not been disposed thus 10 make
| jest of it, have turned it over into th el limbo
| of unanswerable conundrums, rather
| thinking that the "father of lies" has
| good deal more TO do with 1t than any more
honest operator. But it is possible that,
after all, we have here also another of those
eccentricites Of abnormal human action
which are TO find their common explana-
| tion neither in demoniacal or any other
| spiritual agency; but are to come, by and
| by, into the regular categories of scientific
phenomena, marked and classified and
| hung up in our museums of curiosities
| just like any wired skeletons. If Mr..
Fairfield's "New Solution of an old Puz-
zle," in Scribner, is on the right track to
| explain the Katie King and similar mar
vels, it would appear to be very easy TO
bring the Scotch second sight under the
action of his "nerve AURA theory, for ma
| ny of its strange exhibitions are much like
those more recent performances among
| ourselves, and may well be set down as
effects 'of the same nervous disorder to
which, as a center, is tethered a startling
circle of strange sensorial impressions and
preternatural states of consciousness, in
volying in its nocturnal aspects Fremont
tory dreams, and in its diurnal, the element
of provision"
In tho fourth volume of the diary and
correspondence of Samuel Pepys are sew
eral letters which this inquistive and gos-
| sippy old virtuoso drew from some of his
Scotch friends, containing quite a number
of these wierdly, phrophetic revelations,
which are vouched for by gentlemen OF
high intelligence and social standing as
well as undoubted honesty, among them
eminent divines and members OF the no.
bility. One of the latter Lord Reay, ga
nobleman ofparts and learning" tell Pepys
these among other incidents, from within
his own circle OF observation. A servant
woman (residence and name given) told
her mistress that she saw a gallows-rope
around her brothers neck, who was, so far
as known, an honest man; which so dis
|
want out of the house. But, stealing some
goods, this brother was sentenced TO be
hung, August %, 1893. BY the interces-
sion, however, of several gentlemen, the
sentence was revoked, they becoming bail
for his future good conduct, which occa-
stoned one ef the gentlemen to tell the wo-
man that for once at least, she had been
mistaken, to which she replied, that the
man wasn't dead yet but would certainly
be hanged. And so he was, on the 18th of
February, l699, having again been caught
at his old tricks. Now, if this shrewd
Scotch lassie had some private reasons of
her own to guess that this mans neck
would make acquaintance with a gallows
rope, which does not, however, at all APP
pear in the narrative, the next relation Civ
en- by Lord Reay, in another letter TO Pepys,
could admit of no such suspicion. 1t is as
follows: A gentleman in the county of Ross
visiting one Drynic, his cousin, having
called him 10 the door on some business,
tainted in great fright, and coming to, re-
fused TO stay that night in the house, but
with his wife went TO farmers hard by,
and being asked by the farmers wife why
Dt iell MS COuSlllSi sdll, Dttdust no kUtW
Drynic would die that night; for when
they went to the door he saw his winding
sheet about him. Accordingly, Drynic did
die that night, though he went TO bed in
usual health. ~ had this story" says
Lord Reay, "from DryncS own son, the
farmer, his servant, and the man himself
who saw il. For my own part l am fully
convinced of this sight; but what to attrib-
ute it to know not" The nerve atmos-
perhaps solve the problem.
Pepys gets from another OF his noble cor
respondents, Henry, second Earl of Clar-
endon, this account of the singular death o
, his own wifs. Another earl, Marlborough
and a Scotch gentleman, were dining will
Clarendon. Standing and talking together
after dinner, the Scotchman drew attention
, TO himself by looking very long and in
| tently at Clarendons wife, beautiful
l young woman. Being asked the reason o
this, lie replied that he saw blood on her
r This produced rather dry laugh amonl
3 them, and the company broke up. Th
= lady was then in perfect health but, tn
:. next month, she fell i'll OF the small pox
E on the ninth day she bed at the nose, ant
in the afternoon blood burst forth agail
= from nose and mouth with great violence
# and about eleven at night she died "almos
: welteiing in blood" The Scotchmau ha,
never seen the lady, except at the Dime
party. Her husband might very well sa
that it was wonderful that a man look in
r thus casually on woman should give sue
, a prognostic,
Still another of these correspondents {
the inquisitive diarist, Lord Tarbut, con
10 tributes to this collection of stories, wit
a some attempt at explaining the marveli
though not eminently successful. II
- notes, however, a few things that run in th
line of the Scribner theory. Thus, the sui
= jects of this anamolous condition find it
- troublesome possession, affecting them III
> pleasantly. The degree of the power seem
to be in the ratio of physical vigor. III
- sight is not of long duration, but only col
tinuing so long as the eyes were steadil
fixed. They can see their absent friend
= at a great distance, sometimes as far {
- from Scotland TO America, sitting, wall
ing standing. This Lord Tarbut tells Il
y following: He was travelling in the Higl
r. lands with a number of servants, when OF
of them, going little ahead to enter
10 house where they were to spend the nigh
" started back with screech and fell almo
stone at the door. Being interrogated
to the cause of his fright, he answered th
-. they must not lodge there, for shortly
IN coffin would be carried out of the hous
"a for he saw people bearing one from
at his master, however, concluded to 7