SOME SUPERNATURAL EXPERIENCES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2258, 10 June 1897, Page 49

SOME SUPERNATURAL EXPERIENCES.

Only "Red Cap." The ghost or revenant which belonged to our house I have never seen, though I hava often heard it. A certain gentleman, known familiarly as "Ked Cap," used to drive up to the hall door and thence to the stables, which ware at some little distance, and sometimes he has been seen to drive a pair of grey horses round the stable-yard. There can be no doubt that I, as well as all my family, have often heard moat distinctly a carriage drive past the house, with the regular beat of the horses' feet' and the grinding of wheel*, where there was no possible known origin for the peculiar and wellmarked sounds. .So accustomed wera we to the occurrence that we paid no attention to it, and I remember that frequently, when we had company in the evening, a stranger would ask who was the late ar-riva?, and would be told, "OH, IT"S NOTHING; IT'S ONLY BED CAP," very much to his or her astonishment when the explanation was given. The story ran that in olden days a member of a country family had been ahot at our gate, and that his uc quiet spirit still often revisited the scene of his death. But " Esd Gap's " visits had no particular meaning, and did not portend either disaster or good fortune. It was very different with occurrences at a country house, the property of one of our oldest fnends. There, before the death o£ one cf the family, a pack ef hounds was said to be seen hunting- in the wooda near the house. I have often heard that when the old squire, a contemporary of my grandfather, died many people saw the hounds in full cry ; but I know that, on one Sunday in my own recollection, several people who were wal! known saw and heard a pack of hounds hunting through the woods. The owner of the property, a colonel in she army, was one of them, and was, in the first instance, very much annoyed that anybody should have had houndß out on his ground on such a day. He thought that some of the county hounds had possibly got away from their kennels and were hunting on their own account, and sent to inquire if this waa the case ; but no, the hounds had remained qui«t all that day. Then he sent to rather a wild young gentleman who kept i A PACK OF HABRIEIIS, j and might have forgotten propriety so far as to have them out en a Sunday. But he al«o conld show that he and his harriers had baen at home. The curious thing was that a telegram was shortly afterwards received, saying that the colonel's brother and heir had died of cholera in India. At tho same house, when I myself was staying there on a visit, occurred aomo incidents whloh made a very d6ep impression on me, and indeed on all the other guests. I dareaay many readers may know that PEACOCKS are supposed, by unusual conduct, to presage misfortune. Neither I nor most, at any rate, of the other inmates of House at the time I speak of knew of this belief, so the sequel of the circumstances which I shall relate struck us with peculiar force and i vividness. A lady staying in the house had. a young

child with her which had been ailing for some days. One evening she came downstairs in very low spirits after nursing her ohild all day, and said, "I'm gu-re I must give up all hope, for tho peacook has come round to my side of the house, and all to-day it baa been sitting on the window-gill." Of coursa all the rest of the party poohpoohed the notion, and tried to cheer her a little. No one was more emphatic in scorning the idea that the peacock could give a bad omen than a young man of the highest promise, and extremely popular with all of us, as he was in every society. Nothing that could be said brought any confidence or comfort to the mother, however, and to our great sorrow her forebodings \ were justified, for THE POOR CHILD DIED . during the following night. Even th9n none of us thought any more about the peacock, or, if wo remembered its conduct at all, we only looked upon it as a strange coincidence. The mother with her dead child left the house, and about two daya afterwards the young man whom I mentioned above told us at breakfast, " If I was inclined to be superstitious, I should be afraid that something was going to happen to me next, for the peacock now insists upon haunting my side of the house, and has been sitting on my win-dow-sill." As be was in the best of spirits, and apparently in the highest health, we all joined with him in laughing at the implied warnicg by the bird. He lett us on either that or the following day, and the next we heard of him was thafc he had suddenly taken ill, and had died in London. Another house in our old county belongs to Lord , and it is said that before the death of the head of the family FOXES are always fieen sitting on the doorstep of the house. Only one of the Lords has died in my time, and it is well known that two foxes were seen during all the day previous to the good old man's death playing about on the lawns, and in the early morning of the day itself they were seen sitting on the doorsteps. As the house is in the heart of the best hunticg country in Ireland, where foxes are most carefully preserved, • perhaps it is too much to say that the sight j of a fox or foxes has there at any time any unusual significance. To pass to what was a case of very cariously justified foreboding. There was a piano tuner who ueed to come from Dublin periodically to tune our piano and do the same service in the various country houses. He had an unconquerable dread of being drowned, and could never be induced to enter a boat or trust h'mself on water under any conditions. Aud yet HE MET HIS DEATH BY DROWSING in a very strange manner. He was in an omnibus in Dublin which by some accident was capsized while crossing a bridge over the canal, and, falling over the low parapet, waa precipitated into the lock. The water was only l£t or 2ft deep, and there was no reason why the passengers should not all have been extricated at the cost «f a few broken bones and bruises. If the result had not been so ghastly, the peculiarly Irish train of the canal lockkeeper's reasoning would bs in tho highest I degree droll. He felt he ought to do somej thing whon he saw tbe accident, and, thinkiDg that; the simplest way of getting tha omnibus out would bs to float it, forthwith stirned on all the water into the lock. [ Ssvaral— l forget how many — of the inside , passengers were drowned, amongst them the ' uafortunate piano tuner. — From "Recollections of an Irish Home," in Blackwood.