STRANGE RECOVERIES.

Western Star, Issue 374, 21 August 1880, Page 9 (Supplement)

STRANGE RECOVERIES.

LOST IN A MUFF. I bad been made a present 'of a very beautiful half-boop emerald ring by my uncle, who brought it to me from India, and accordingly I valued it very much, and always. wore it. One day, on my return from a morning concert, I missed it. How or where I had lost it I did not " know. I remember perfectly well seeing it on my finger in the concert-room, for I bad taken off my glove to arrange the opera-glass. I looked in all directions for it. Thinking I might have, dropped it in the street, I had bills printed and posted everywhere, offering a large reward for its recovery. But as weeks and months went by, andl heard nothing of it, .1 gave up all hopes of over seeing my favourite ring again. It was nearly six years after that, noticing the lining in my muff had become rather worn, I . wripped it off, to measure what quantity of silk would be required for relining it, when I thought I felt something hard in the stuffing. On taking it out what was iny delight to see once more my much-; valued, long-lost emerald ring! .. Although I did not distinctly remember it, I must have had the muff with me , the day I was at ttye concert, and my glove being off, in some way or other the ring must have slipped in through a rip' n the silk lining. ' ;

FOUND ON A TREE. A gentleman sitting at an open window being called out of the room, left on the window-sill a small, gold pencil, with whieh he had been writing. When be returned in a few minutes, no pencil was there. This appeared very strange to him, for no one had entered the room I while he was away, so he was completely puzzled as to where it had so quickly disappeared. The window was at the top of the'house, so no one could have got it that, way. Next autumn, when the leaves; were off the trees, a bright object was, seen hanging from the very highestbranch. of a large beech tree. With some diffi- i .culty it was reached, and proved to be the ; .missing pencil, which had a short piece 1 i of black cord fastened to it. As the trees: about there were known to be a favorite 1 resort of magpies, it was thought’ that one of them had snatched the pencil off the •windowsill,asthey arewell-known thieves of any shining objects; and most likely the cord had caught in the branch; and i held, before the magpie could convey it to his hiding-place. ,j, ’ r BEVEAIED BY A DBEAM. (Strange and unaccountable as it may appear, it is nevertheless a. fact that the whereabouts of missing articles have often been revealed by dreams. The following instances have been told to me by persons of undoubted veracity, who could have no possible motive for stating what was not true: — . , . John Callaghan was a.well-to-do farmer, residing in the County Cork. He was a sober, steady man, and had never been known to be behindhand in paying his rent. Though his farm was not very large, still by good management he was able to support his family comfortably -out of it. There came one summer, however, that the weather was so bad that nearly all poor John's crop failed, so that when rent day came he had no money to meet it. There was only one thing to be done under the circumstances —he must sell some of his stock. He regretted much being obliged to do this, but he had. no other alternative, if he wished to retain the farm, for the agent was a very hard man and would soon turn him out if he did not pay punctually. So the next fair day John look away two of his best cows and some fat pigs to sell at the fair. He spent all day there trying to get a good price for them, and at last he succeeded in doing so. He was very tired on his return, and looked so ill that his wife remarked it to him. Assuring her it was nothing but overfatigue, and that he would be all right in the morning, he told her that he had sold the cattle very well, having got £SO i for them, which was enough for the half-year's rent, and something over. He went’ to bed immediately after his supper, and soon fell asleep. Next morning, however, his wife wondered he diff hot ansWer when she spoke to him. At first she thought he' .was in a faint, and sent at once, for thedoctor, who pronounced him dead. It was supposed that the anxious state of his mind, and the over-fatigue he had gone through the day before, bad hastened! his death, his heart having been affected for some time past.- ss j 'i‘\ * Poor Mrs. Callaghan got such a shock by this sad occurrence that at first she did hot think of ‘ looking for the money her husband had said he had got at the fair; but as the rent was due, and accounts came in for the funeral, she went to the place where her husband usually fiopt Ms money. Her search was fruitless; no money was there 1 She looked in the pockets of the clothes he had worn, and in every press and drawer in the room. It was all in vain. The £SO could not be found anywhere. Could he have lost it on the wajr home ? Or had ho been robbed P Perhaps so. He certainly said he had got the money; but she had not seen him wjfih it. It may have been only promised to him by the parties, ho sold to; but that was not, likely. The poor woman was in a sad way, and spent all her time in searching for the missing money, and could think of nothing else. In a few days the agent was to call for the rent, and if she did not pay she and her helpless little ones would have to leave their dearly loved home and! either beg or starve. Such was the state of things when, the very night before the agent’s expected visit, Mrs. Callaghan dreamed that her husband came to her and told her that she would find the £SO pinned to the paper behind the looking-glass over the chimney-piece in the bedroom. He put it there for safety, he said, fearing the house might be robbed, as it was ‘known be brought the money with him, and thougltf it would be safer t3j®|o than

in the press. r »The moment Mrs. Callaghan woke she went over to tbe place mentioned by her husband in her drnam, and to her inexpressible delight found the bank-notes in the exact position he had described. A young lady had a present of a very valuable watch. One day, however, it suddenly stopped, and not wishing to meddle with it herself she took it to a watchmaker to have it repaired. In a few days she called for it, but it was not done; so she said she would come again in a day or two. That night she dreamed that the watchmaker’s shop would be burned next evening; so early next morning she asked her sister to call for her watch, and not to leave the shop without getting it. Her sister said she was sure it would not be ready. “No matter,” she said ; “ get it for me as it is, done or not. Don’t come back without it, for the shop will be burned this evening ; I know it will; I saw it in my dream last night.” Immediately after breakfast her sister went for the watch, but was told that it was not mended. “ How long will it take to do it ? ” she asked. “ About an hour,” the man answered. “Very well, then,” she said, " I will wait for it.” So she sat down and waited patiently until it was repaired, for her sister was in a most excited state of mind about it, and would have been greatly annoyed if she had returned without it. That evening, at 7 o’clock, the house took fire, and the flames spread so rapidly that it was impossible to save anything; and, had the watch been left there, it would have been destroyed with the other valuable jewellery. CONVICTED BY A DKEAM. A friend who lived in the country had for some time past been missing various things.; That there was a thief in the house could not be doubted, but who it was it was impossible to find out. Bread, meat, butter, bottles of wine, ale, etc., all disappeared in a most unaccountable manner, and always in' the night. That none of the servants left the house at night was an ascertained fact, and it was equally, certain that no one entered from without. How then were the articles conveyed away ? And by whom ? These were questions which puzzled Mrs. M , and caused her a good deal of anxiety. At last she dreamed one night that she was standing in tbe garden, and looking toward the house, she saw in the moonlight a man’s face gliding up tho avenue, and stand under the window of one of the servants’ rooms. Presently the window was softly opened, and a basket well filled with provisions was let down by a rope. The person below untied the basket, and quickly disappeared among the surrounding trees. Tho rope was then drawn' up again, and the window very gently closed. On waking next morning Mrs. M—told her husband of her strange dream It made such an impression on her that at length she persuaded her husband to watch in the garden that night; So accordingly he and one of his sons stationed themselves in a summer house in the garden which commanded a view .of the window in question. I may as well mention that neither of them had the least faith in any kind of dreams or visions. What then was their astonishment wheh they beheld the very figure described by Mrs. M— — glide softly up the avenue and stand under the window, which was opened, and the basket let dbwh, all exactly as she had told them ! Before, however, the man had time to make off, they rushed out and seized him. He was brought into the house, and the police were sent for. They immediately recognised him as a very bad character, a returned convict. The wretched woman who was his partner in guilt was his mother. They were both | tried at the next Assizes, and punished las they deserved .—Chambers Joimial.