Page:Angels of Mons second edition.pdf/49

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

INTRODUCTION

And it seems to me that there are four hypotheses open to us.

Firstly, these experiences may have been true vision, the sight "coelorum apertorum," of the Rood set flaming in the heavens, of the companies of the hosts of the Lord.

At the opposite extreme to this possibility is the hypothesis of mere mistaking of effects of cloud and light and mist. The lieutenant-colonel's experience may have been the experience of Lance-Corporal A. Johnstone: "We saw in front of us large bodies of cavalry, all formed up into squadrons." Corporal Johnstone and his friends were certain that there were squadrons of French cavalry; they almost heard "the champing of the horses' bits"—and it was but wreaths and banks of mist and trees and bushes. So the lance-corporal who testified in The Daily Mail may have

47