The following is an old but good story. The Rev. Joseph Wilkins died,an aged man, in 1800. He left this narrative, often printed; the dateof the adventure is 1754, when Mr. Wilkins, aged twenty-three, was aschoolmaster in Devonshire. The dream was an ordinary dream, and didnot announce death, or anything but a journey. Mr. Wilkins dreamed,in Devonshire, that he was going to London. He thought he would go byGloucestershire and see his people. So he started, arrived at hisfather's house, found the front door locked, went in by the back door,went to his parents' room, saw his father asleep in bed and his motherawake. He said: "Mother, I am going a long journey, and have come tobid you good-bye". She answered in a fright, "Oh dear son, thou artdead!" Mr. Wilkins wakened, and thought nothing of it. As early as aletter could come, one arrived from his father, addressing him as ifhe were dead, and desiring him, if by accident alive, or any one intowhose hands the letter might fall, to write at once. The father thengave his reasons for alarm. Mrs. Wilkins, being awake one night,heard some one try the front door, enter by the back, then saw her soncome into her room and say he was going on a long journey, with therest of the dialogue. She then woke her husband, who said she hadbeen dreaming, but who was alarmed enough to write the letter. Noharm came of it to anybody.The story would be better if Mr. Wilkins, junior, like Laud, had kepta nocturnal of his dreams, and published his father's letter, withpost-marks.The story of the lady who often dreamed of a house, and when by chanceshe found and rented it was recognised as the ghost who had recentlyhaunted it, is good, but is an invention!A somewhat similar instance is that of the uproar of moving heavyobjects, heard by Scott in Abbotsford on the night preceding and thenight of the death of his furnisher, Mr. Bullock, in London. Thestory is given in Lockhart's Life of Scott, and is too familiar forrepetition.On the whole, accepting one kind of story on the same level as theother kind, the living and absent may unconsciously produce thephenomena of haunted houses just as well as the dead, to whose allegedperformances we now advance. Actual appearances, as we have said, arenot common, and just as all persons do not hear the sounds, so many donot see the appearance, even when it is visible to others in the sameroom. As an example, take a very mild and lady-like case of haunting.
