744 A. From Phantasms of the Living, vol. ii. p. 619. This case, if telepathically originated, is an interesting instance of the appearance of a phantasm to certain percipients on local, not personal, grounds. The account comes from Miss Edith Farquharson, who writes:-

June 1885.

In the year 1868, No. 9 Drummond Place, Edinburgh, was in the occupation of Mr. Farquharson, formerly a Judge of the High Court of Jamaica. On the night of Good Friday in that year, two of his daughters, Miss Edith Far-quharson, her sister Marianne [now Mrs. Henry Murray], and a little cousin, Agnes Spalding, aged six years, were sleeping in a room at the top of the house. About 11.45 pm., the two sisters were awakened by hearing loud screams from the child, who was sleeping on a mattress placed on the floor beside their bed. The mattress was against the door leading into a dressing-room; this door was locked and sealed with white tapes and black wax; it had been thus closed by a member of the family to whom the house belonged before Mr. Farquharson entered upon his tenancy. The death of the head of the family, and the delicacy of health of one of the daughters, had caused them to wish to leave Edinburgh and spend the winter in Torquay.

On hearing the child's screams of terror, Miss M. F. touched her sister and said, "Do you hear the child screaming?" Miss E. F. replied that she did, and turned her head round to listen better. When the child was asked what she was screaming about, she said, "I am wide awake, and I have seen a figure which was leaning over me," and when further questioned where the figure went to, said, " Round the side of your bed".

Miss E. F., when she turned round, saw a figure slide from near the child's bed and pass along the foot of the bed whereon she and her sister were. (At the first moment she thought it was a thief.) The latter, on hearing her say in French, "II y a quelqu'un," was so terrified that she hid her head under the bed-clothes.

Miss E. F. describes the figure as being dressed in a rough brown shawl held tightly round the bust, a wide-brimmed hat, and a veil. When the child was questioned afterwards she gave the same account of the costume. Miss E. F. says that after passing along the foot of the bed with a noiseless gliding motion, the figure disappeared into the darkness. Except the door which was locked and sealed, the only door of exit to the room was one which was quite close to the bed; at right angles with the door and with the head of the bed was a large hanging cupboard.

Both the ladies got up instantly. They found the door of their room closed as they had left it. Their brother's room was next to theirs; they knocked at his door to rouse him, at the same time keeping a sharp look-out on the door of their own room to see that no one escaped. The whole party then made a thorough search in the room and cupboard, found nothing disturbed, and once more retired to rest. The next morning the page-boy said that he had been unable to sleep all night on account of the sounds he heard of some one scratching at his window. He declared that he had shied all his boots and everything he could lay hold of in the direction whence the noise came, but without effect. He could stand it no longer, and went to the room where some of the women servants slept, begging to be let in. They had neard nothing, however, though they, like himself, slept in the basement of the house.

The whole family were hardly assembled on the Saturday morning, when the son-in-law of the late owner of the house arrived, and asked to see Mr. Farquharson. He wished particularly to know exactly what day this gentleman and his family intended leaving the house (their term would expire the following week), for he had just received a telegram informing him that his sister-in-law had died that night, and they were anxious to bring her body there immediately for burial.

With respect to this last paragraph, the narrator's father writes:-

The above is a correct statement of the occurrence.

C. M. Farquharson. Miss Farquharson continues:-

The possible solution of what we presume to have been an apparition of this lady is, that the bedroom occupied by the Misses Farquharson being the one she habitually used, in her dying moments she desired to visit it once more, or else that there was something in the dressing-room which she particularly wished for. Edith A. Farquharson.

The following independent account is from Mrs. Murray:-

Cobo, Guernsey, June 24th, 1885. Our home was in Perthshire; but in the winter of 1868 my father took a house for four mouths in Drummond Place, No. 8 [? 9] in Edinburgh, in order to give us a change. The house belonged to General Stewart, who had a delicate daughter, and he let it, to take the daughter to Torquay for the winter. We did not know the Stewarts, so our imagination could not have assisted in any way to account for the curious apparition that was seen. I myself did not see it, but I was in the room with my sister and little cousin, who both did. My belief is that Providence prevented my seeing it, as I am of a very nervous temperament, and it might have had a very bad effect on me if I had. Well, the apparition took place on Good Friday night at about twelve o'clock This little cousin, who was only about six years old, had come into town from the country, and as our house was very full she had a shake-down beside our bed on my side. I was the first to be awakened by hearing her calling out in a frightened way. So I said, "What is the matter, Addie?" "Oh," she said, "Cousin Marianne, I am so frightened.

A figure has been leaning over me, and whenever I put out my hands to push it off it leant back on your bed!" At this I was alarmed and awoke my sister, who lifted her head from her pillow and looked up, when she saw a figure gliding across the foot of our bed wrapped in a shawl, with a hat and veil on. She whispered to me in French, "Il y a quelqu'un" thinking it was a thief, whereat we both jumped out of bed together and went to the next room to get our brother, Captain Farquharson. His bedroom door had a shaky lock which made a noise, so he had barricaded it with a portmanteau. While he was coming to our help, we kept our eyes fixed on our door in case any one should have escaped, but we saw nothing, and after our all searching every corner of the bedroom we came to the conclusion that no one had been there, for everything was intact. We then questioned little Addie as to what she had seen, and what the figure was like. She described it as that of a lady with a shawl on and a hat, and a veil over her face, and said that as I spoke she had gone across the foot of the bed in the same direction that my sister had seen her go.

This child, I must tell you, had been most carefully brought up by her mother, and was not allowed to read even fairy tales for fear of having foolish ideas in her head, which makes the thing more remarkable, for she had certainly never heard of a ghost. . . .

Then the next morning we were relating our adventures, when a ring came to the door, and the servant said a gentleman wanted to speak to my father. This gentleman was a Mr. Findlay, who had married a Miss Stewart. He came to ask when we were to leave, for he knew it was about the time, as he had received a telegram that morning to say that Miss Stewart had died in Torquay during the night, and they wanted to bring her body to Edinburgh. We heard afterwards from friends of the Stewarts that the bedroom we had had been hers. I forgot to mention that the child's bed lay across the door of a small room which had been locked up by the Stewarts, and they had put tapes across and sealed them with black wax.

We have none of us ever had any hallucinations either before or after this strange affair. Marianne Murray.

We find from the Scotsman and the Edinburgh Courant that Miss Stewart died on April 11, 1868, the day following Good Friday. If the death took place in the course of a few hours after midnight, "during the night" would of course be the natural expression.

The above account was first printed in the Journal S.P.R., soon after which we received a letter from a lady who stated that she had heard of the incident "just as related in the Journal" within a few days of its occurrence from some cousins of the Miss Farquharsons, who had been told by the house-agent that the description of the lady in the large hat and veil exactly resembled Miss Stewart. Mrs. Murray, however, says: "I do not think any of us mentioned it to Mr. Boyd [the agent]. I have no reason to believe that the dress of the figure was in any way characteristic of Miss Stewart." Thus it appears that the resemblance of the figure seen to the lady who died is entirely problematic. Its association with her depends only on the coincidence of its appearance in her old home on the night of her death. It must also be observed that in this case the apparition was seen shortly before the death, though it seems to belong to the same general category as the other cases in this section.