A very tall figure

I do not think I am given to vivid dreams. That about my husband was exceptionally vivid. I call exceptionally vivid a dream that takes hold of me, and that I cannot forget all the next day. The aunt to whom I told it has since died. I have no idea whether my husband sat on the gate before or after my dream, nor did I try to ascertain that at the time. (123) In September, 1881, I had another curious dream, so vivid that I seemed to see it. My two boys of 18 and 16 were staying in the Black Forest, under the care of a Dr. Fresenius. I must say here that I always supposed the boys would go everywhere together, and I never should have supposed that in that lonely country, so new to them, they would be out after dark. z 2 356 DREAMS WHICH MAY BE REASONABLY [chap. My husband and I were staying at St Leonards, and on Saturday night I woke at about 12 o'clock (rather before, as I heard it strike), having just seen vividly a dark night on a mountain, and my eldest boy lying, on his back at the bottom of some steep place, his eyes wide open and saying, ' Good-bye, mother and father, I shall never see you again.' I woke with a feeling of anxiety, and the next morning when I told it to my husband, though we both agreed it was absurd to be anxious, yet we would write and tell the boys we hoped they would never go out alone after dark. To my surprise my eldest boy, to whom I wrote the dream, wrote back expressing his great astonishment, for on that Saturday night he was coming home over the mountains, past 1 1 o'clock ; it was pitch dark, and he slipped and fell down some 12 feet or so, and landed on his back, looking up to the sky. However, he was not much hurt and soon picked himself up and got home all right. He did not say what thoughts passed through his mind as he fell. « Octavia Freese. In answer to inquiries, Mrs. Freese adds : — Before my son wrote about his fall in the Black Forest, I related my dream to my husband, and as he seemed a little moved by it, I wrote an account of it to my boy, saying his father did not wish them to be out after dark alone. I had not told my boy when it was, deeming that immaterial, but when in his letter, received days after, he said, ' Was it Saturday night 1 because then so-and-so,' I remembered what I should not otherwise have noted, that it was Saturday night ; for on the Sunday morning my husband, being much worried about some business matter, elected to spend the morning with me in the fields instead of going to church, and as much to divert his mind as anything I related to him my dream of the night before. Mrs. Freese sent us the letter from her son, which contained the following passage : — With regard to your dream : did you dream it on September 3rd ? if so it was on that night, coming home rather late, that I fell down a precipice of 8 feet, or perhaps more, in the dark, and might have broken my neck, but didn't. However, I don't think you will find me walking about after dark more than I can help, as the roads are very dark, and the fogs in the village awful.