The Portland daily press., 1880-12-31
From Dreamland.
The Great Wave that Was Close Upon
Them.
London NeWs.l


Most people remember the terrible railway
accident in which Dickens himself and his
proof-sheets escaped, while so many victims
perished. In the train there chanced to be a
gentleman and lady just landed in England af-
ter their return from India. The lady said to
her husband: "I see the great wave rolling
on; it is close to u.s." and then the crash came
and she was corpse. The husband was un-
hurt, and at a later time, explained his wife's
strange words. Ever since they set sail from
India she had been haunted in her sleep by the
dream of a vast silvery wave, and always as it
was about to break on her she had wakened in
terror. This was the phenomenon which she
recognized Immediately before the accident
which caused her death.
Less tragic, but quite odd enough for Mr..
Proctor's collection, is the anecdote Of the
south country farmers dream. The good man
wakened from his first sleep and aroused his
wife to tell her about a startling vision. He
had dreamed that he saw favorite COW drown
ing in pond in a neighboring common.
'There hain't no pond there,' said the wife.
with natural irritation and double-shotted neg
atives. This was undeniably true, but the
former was uneasy. AT last he arose, dressed
and walked up the long lane which led to the
common. Everything was quiet, but just at
the top OF the lane the farmer heard sound as
of man digging. Then light caught his eye
glimmering through hedge that divided the
lane from the fields. The farmer cautiously
drew near till he was just above the ditch.
There he spied a country fellow with lantern
digging a long, straight, deep hole in tho
sround. An axe lay beside the hole. At this
| point rAe farmer slipped, the hedge rustled,
and the deliver ned away The farmer secured
the lantern and made Tor home. Just at the
| entrance to the lane, the time being about
| o'clock in the morning, he met one of his ser.
| want wenches hurrying in the direction whence
| he had come. "What do you want, my lass?
| No good, fear" said the agricultural moral
| ist: and, in short, he made the girl tell him
| her story. She was going to an assignation
with her ''young man." who had Tilted her and
| was courting another girl. She had threat
| ened him with an action for breach of promise
| of marriage, and the swain had promised that,
i if she would but meet him at O'Clock in the
| morning at the bend Of the lane, he would sat
| isfy her and remove all jealousy and differ
| ences. Every WELL my lass,', said the farmer,
''come, and I'll show you what he had to give
| YOU" He led the way, and revealed to the
Mortified girl the long, deep, narrow hole. and
| the sharp ak which had awaited her Natu-
| rally she did not any longer pursue her love,
| and here is dream which even Mr.. Proctor
| will admit not 10 have been purposeless. In
| deed the macnInery OF the drowning COW
| made the vision appeal direct to the bncolic
mind. If the authority for the story is not all
| we could wish, What can excel that for the
| spiritual rendezvous at ''Ticonderogs," story
lately told by Dean Stanley in Frasers Maga-
| zine? How could man dream that spirit
| offered to meet him at Ticonderoga, place
| which he never heard the name OF till he fell
| mortally wounded in the battle there, if there
were nothing not naturally explicable in
| dreams?
To these may be added the following from a
Baltimore paper:
Mrs. Owen Dougherty of Chester, Maryland,
| dreamed three nights in succession that there
] was gold under certain rock near Rising Sun.
| The rock, in her mind, had an ancient moss
| covered brick upon it. Accompanied by her
father-in-law, she visited one day recently the
| locality and found the rock with brick on it
as seen in her dream. On digging under the
rock gold to the value of $4,000 was discov-
cred, and the digging is still going on.