Touched

One night, having retired in the ordinary way, we were aroused by a shaking and scratching at the bedroom door, so distinct and impressive that we began to be alarmed, and I arose, and striking a light, went to the door, and opened it. With an exclamation I started back. Something touched my feet. Something seemed, as it were, to be grovelling at my feet, but I could see nothing. I then searched the house and found all undisturbed, as we left it. I looked at the time ; it was 2 o'clock. I could not sleep any more that night. The next day I heard that a man, who had expressed to my wife that he would do a great wrong to me, had died. I informed my wife, and she said she would visit the widow. She went, and Mrs. H., in relating the incidents most remarkable in her husband's death, informed her that he had died, as it were, twice ; for after he was pronounced dead, and the nurse was laying him out, he seemed to return to life, and murmured the name ' Windridge.' Life was not extinct for a quarter of an hour after this. Mrs. H. informed my wife that her husband died at 2 o'clock, the time I looked at my watch. a -q Windridge. We find from the Register of Deaths that the death took place on September 14, 1863. In conversation, Mr. Windridge informed Mr. Podmore that he had never experienced any other hallucination. Mrs. Windridge has experienced one other, which was of a singular kind, and is described in the Proceedings of the S.P.R., Vol. III., p. 89. Mr. Windridge could not clearly remember having been touched, as he puts it in his letter ; he can only be sure that he had the impression of something grovelling at his feet. That impression may, however, have been conveyed by sound only. Mrs. Windridge states that he told her at the time that he had been touched. The following is a further specimen of the musical class,^ parallel to No. 388. With respect to its place in the present collection, I must again refer to pp. 190-2, (684) A gentleman who is a master at Eton College wrote to us, on Feb. 3, 1884 :— I enclose a copy of a memorandum made a few days after the event referred to. My memorandum has been copied for me by Miss H., whose name occurs in it. She is my matron ; a sensible, middle-aged, active, and experienced woman. None of the people concerned were young, flighty, or fanciful. I have the doctor's letter ; his name is G-., and he still resides here. Miss H. only wishes to add that it must have occurred from 20 minutes to perhaps 30 after dissolution, and she says that she has never heard anything like the extreme sweetness of the sound.