before midnight; and as soon as her maid had arranged her hair she sent her to bed. She made no complaint of being unwell. The maid was woke out of her sleep by hearing her mistress call Jacinta in a voice which frightened her, and, lighting a candle, she ran to her room, followed by one of the other women, who had also heard my sister-in-law calling Jacinta, knowing that the latter had been away some time. They found their mistress lying on the sofa without her dress, and quite dead. Making allowance for the distance between us at the time it happened, her death must have taken place at the very instant when Jacinta dreamed it.”
Numerous suggestions were made by the listeners to account for the coincidence, but they were all overthrown as soon as started. The only plausible one, as it seemed to me, was that made by a Spanish priest on his way to Vigo, which was that Jacinta was aware of some complaint, being likely to end in sudden death, under which Marie was labouring, and that absence from her kept the idea prominently before her. The occurrence of the dream at the precise time when the event took place he regarded as a simple coincidence. “Indeed,” he said, “I do not regard it as being nearly so extraordinary a coincidence as many which happen in every man’s life, but which are scarcely noticed because they are associated with matters of trivial interest: the really wonderful part of the matter is the identity of the circumstances under which the death took place with those seen in the dream.”
Of dreams that may be easily accounted for is that which has been often quoted of a lady whose son was engaged to take a sail on a lake on the following day with some friends. In the course of the night she dreamed that the boat upset, and drowned all in it. She woke up very much alarmed, and after a time fell asleep, and dreamed the same thing again and again. This made such an impression upon her that she induced her son not to go. The boat was upset, and those in it drowned. This, also, is a remarkable coincidence no doubt, but nothing more. Nervous mothers are always fancying that something will happen to their sons if they go anywhere, or do anything in which there is the least possibility of danger; but it rarely happens that their fears are realised. In this instance, had the boat returned safely, nothing would have been heard of the dream.
In 1553, Nicholas Wotton, our ambassador in France, dreamed two nights in succession that his nephew Thomas Wotton, then in England, was about to join in an enterprise which would result in the death and ruin of himself and family. To prevent such a catastrophe he wrote to Queen Mary, and begged her to send for his nephew, and cause him to be examined by the Lords of the Council on some frivolous pretence, and committed to the Tower. This was done: and on the ambassador’s return Thomas Wotton confessed to him that, but for his committal to prison, he would have joined the insurrection led by Sir Thomas Wyatt. It is also recorded of the same Thomas Wotton that he, being then in Kent, dreamed one night that the Oxford University treasury had been robbed by five persons; and as he was writing to his son at the university the next day, he mentioned his dream. Singular to relate, the letter reached Sir Henry Wotton on the morning after the robbery had been actually committed, and led to the discovery of the perpetrators. M. Boismont, in a work on the subject of dreams, relates that a young woman who was living with her uncle, and whose mother was many miles distant, dreamed she saw her looking deadly pale, and apparently dying, and that she heard her ask for her daughter. The persons in the room, thinking it was her granddaughter she wanted, who had the same name, went to fetch her; but the dying woman signified that it was not she, but her daughter in Paris whom she wanted to see. She appeared deeply grieved at her absence, and in a few minutes ceased to exist. It was afterwards found that her mother did actually die on that night, and that the circumstances attending her death were precisely those her daughter had witnessed in her dream. There is another instance which we remember to have read, but we are unable at this moment to refer to the book in which it is related: it is as follows. A man who was employed in a brewery suddenly disappeared, and nothing could be ascertained respecting him. Years passed away without the mystery being cleared up, until one night one of the workmen, who slept in the same room with another, heard the latter muttering something in his sleep about the missing man. The workman questioned him, and elicited replies from him to the effect that he had put the man into the furnace beneath the vat. He was apprehended on the following day. He then confessed that he had quarrelled with the other, and that in the passion of the moment he had killed him, and disposed of the body by putting it in the furnace.
The author of “Signs before Death” tells of a certain Captain John Rogers, who commanded a vessel proceeding to Virginia—that he one night left the deck and went to bed, leaving the chief-mate in charge of the vessel. About three hours afterwards he woke, and heard the second-mate asking the other officer how the vessel was going, and heard the chief mate reply that the wind was fair, and the vessel was sailing well. The captain then fell asleep again; and dreamed that a man pulled him and told him to go on deck. He woke, turned over, and went to sleep again; and again dreamed the same thing, and this repeatedly, until he could bear it no longer, but dressed and went on deck. The night was fair, and there was nothing apparent to excite alarm. He questioned the mate and received satisfactory answers, whereupon he turned to go below; but as he did so, he seemed to hear a voice close to him say, “Heave the lead.” He asked the mate when he last took soundings, and what depth of water he got. The latter answered, “About an hour ago; and found sixty fathoms.” The captain ordered him to heave the lead again. The soundings were eleven fathoms, and at a second cast only seven fathoms. The vessel was put about immediately, and as she wore round she had only four fathoms and a half under her stern. The next morning they found they were within sight of the American coast, and that had the vessel continued