REM ARKABLE GHOST STORY

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1050, 30 May 1912, Page 4

REM ARKABLE GHOST STORY

A VISIT FROM THE DEAD. Lord Tyrone, an Irish nobleman and Miss Gower (afterward married to Sir Martin Beresford) were wards of the same guardian and grew up as brother and sister at the close of the eighteenth century. Having no religious faith, they pledged each other solemnly that the first to die would return if possible and inform the other as to the truth about immortality. Not long after Lady Beresford’s marriage Lord Tyrone's ghost appeared at her bedside and informed her that he had died “last Tuesday at 4 o’clock.’’ Then he told her that she would die when she was forty-seven years old, adding numerous details of the life she would have before that time.

She refused to believe anything he said, and declared that it was only a dream that she was experiencing. So to convince her he waved his hand and the heavy velvet curtains of her bed were instantly drawn up through the large iron hoop which supported them.

Still she refused to believe him, saying that she might have done that in her sleep. So he wrote his name in a pocket-book, telling her that she that she could not mistake his handwriting. Even that was not enough, for she said though she could not imitate his bandwriting while awake she might do so in her sleep.

"You are hard of belief,” said the ghost, “I might by a single touch leave a mark on your flesh that would convince you, but it would injure you irreparably. It is not for spirits to touch mortal flesh.”

At this she extended her hand and demanded that he give her the proof she required. He touched her wrist and instantly the sinews shrank and all the nerves withered. Then he warned her not to allow anyone to see the mark as it would be sacrilege. In the morning she bound a black ribbon around her wrist, and was never seen again alive without such a covering asking her husband not to demand an explanation.

She also told him that Lord Tyrone had died on the preceding Tuesday. Letters that came by the next post confirmed this.

Time went on, and all the ghost had told her of the incidents of her lile was fulfilled exactly until she reached, as she supposed, her forty-eighth birthday. She imagined then that one portion of the prophecy would prove to be false. But when she spoke to a clergyman of her acquaintance about her age he declared that she was mistaken.

“I have often disputed with your mother about your age,” he said, “and I happened to go last week into the parish where you were born. I was right in the dispute, lor you are just fortyseven to-day.” The unhappy lady immediately retired to her room, refusing to receive the company she had invited to celebrate the day. Sending lor her son and Uady Betty Cobb, a lifelong friend of hers, she told them all that is here related.

Saying that she would inevitably die that night, she dismissed them, bidding them remove the black ribbon alter her death ; and then lav down to try to sleep. In an hour she was dead ; and the ribbon being removed, her wrist was found to be in the exact condition she had described.