"During the seven years" war in Germany," writes Mrs. Crowe, in her _Night Side of Nature_, "a drover lost his life in a drunken squabble on the high road.
"For some time there was a sort of rude tombstone, with a cross on it, to mark the spot where his body was interred, but this has long fallen, and a milestone now fills its place. Nevertheless, it continues to be commonly a.s.serted by the country people, and also by various travellers, that they have been deluded on that spot by seeing, as they imagine, herds of beasts, which on investigation prove to be merely visionary. Of course, many people look upon this as a superst.i.tion; but a very regular confirmation of the story occurred in the year 1826, when two gentlemen and two ladies were pa.s.sing the spot in a post-carriage. One of these was a clergyman, and none of them had ever heard of the phenomenon said to be attached to the place. They had been discussing the prospects of the minister, who was on his way to a vicarage, to which he had just been appointed, when they saw a large flock of sheep, which stretched quite across the road, and was accompanied by a shepherd and a long-haired black dog. As to meet cattle on that road was nothing uncommon, and indeed they had met several droves in the course of one day, no remark was made at the moment, till suddenly each looked at the other, and said, "What"s become of the sheep?" Quite perplexed at their sudden disappearance, they called to the postilion to stop, and all got out, in order to mount the little elevation and look around, but still unable to discover them, they now bethought themselves of asking the postilion where they were; when, to their infinite surprise, they learned that he had not seen them. Upon this, they bade him quicken his pace, that they might overtake a carriage that had pa.s.sed them shortly before, and enquire if that party had seen the sheep; but they had not.
"Four years later a postmaster, named J., was on the same road, driving a carriage, in which were a clergyman and his wife, when he saw a large flock of sheep near the same spot. Seeing they were very fine wethers, and supposing them to have been bought at a sheep-fair that was then taking place a few miles off, J. drew up his reins and stopped his horses, turning at the same time to the clergyman to say that he wanted to enquire the price of the sheep, as he intended going next day to the fair himself. Whilst the minister was asking him what sheep he meant, J.
got down and found himself in the midst of the animals, the size and beauty of which astonished him. They pa.s.sed him at an unusual rate, whilst he made his way through them to find the shepherd; when, on getting to the end of the flock, they suddenly disappeared. He then first learnt that his fellow-travellers had not seen them at all."
So writes Mrs. Crowe, and I quote the case in support of my argument that sheep, like horses, cats, dogs and all other kinds of animals, possess spirits, and consequently have a future state of existence.
I have not yet experimented with sheep, goats, or pigs, but I do not doubt but that they are more or less sensitive to superphysical influences, and possess the psychic faculty of scenting the Unknown--though not, perhaps, in so great a degree as any of the other animals I have enumerated.
PART II
WILD ANIMALS AND THE UNKNOWN
CHAPTER V
WILD ANIMALS AND THE UNKNOWN
_Apes_
The following case of animal hauntings was recorded in automatic writing:--
"I sank wearily into my easy chair before the fire, which burned with a fitful and sullen glow in the tiny grate of my one room--bare and desolate as only the room of an unsuccessful author can be.
"My condition was pitiable. For the past twelve months I had not earned a cent, and of my small capital there now remained but two pounds to ward the hound of starvation from my door. In the moonlight I could perceive all the bareness of the apartment. Would to G.o.d Fancy would ride to me on this moonbeam and give me inspiration! "Twas indeed weird--this silver ethereal path connecting the moon with the earth, and the more I gazed along it, the more I wished to leave my body and escape to the star-lighted vaults. Certainly, from a conversation I had once had with a member of the New Occult Society, I believed it possible by concentrating all the mental activities in one channel, so to overcome the barriers which prevent the soul visiting scenes of the ethereal world, as to pa.s.s materialized to the spot upon which the ideas are fixed. But although I had essayed--how many times I do not like to confess--to gain that amount of concentration necessary for the separation of the soul from the body, up to the present all my attempts had been fruitless. Doubtless there had been a something--too minute even for definition--that had interrupted my self-abstraction--a something that had wrecked my venture, just when I felt it to be on the verge of completion. And was it likely that now, when my ideas were misty and vague, I should be more successful? I wanted to quit the cruel bonds of nature and be free--free to roam and ramble. But where?
"At length, as I gazed into the moonlight, I lost all cognizance of the objects around me, and my eyes became fixed on the mountains of the moon, which I discovered, with a start, were no longer specks. I found, to my amazement, I had left my body and was careering swiftly through s.p.a.ce--infinite s.p.a.ce. The range opened up in front of me, spreading out far and wide, winding, black and awful--their solemn grandeur lost in that terrible desolation which makes the moon appear like a hideous nightmare. I could see with amazing clearness the sides of the mountains; there were enormous black fissures, some of them hundreds of feet in width--and the more I gazed the more impressed I grew with the silence. There was no life. There were no seas, no lakes, no trees, no gra.s.s, no sighing nor moaning of the wind, nothing to remind me of the earth I now found to my terror I had actually quitted. Everything around me was black--the sky, the mountains, the vast pits, the dried-up mouths of which gaped dismally.
"With the movements of a man in a fit, I essayed to hinder the finis of my mad plunge. I waved my limbs violently, kicking out and shrieking in the agonies of fear. I cursed and prayed, wept and laughed alternately, did everything, yet nothing, that could save me from contact with the lone desert so horribly close. Nearer and nearer I approached, until at last my feet rested on the hard caked soil. For the first few minutes after my arrival I was too overwhelmed with fear to do other than remain stationary. The ground beneath my feet swarmed with myriads of foul and long-legged insects, things with unwieldy pincers and protruding eyes; things covered with scaly armour; hybrids of beetles and scorpions. I have a distinct recollection of one huge-jointed centipede making a vicious grab at my leg; he failed to make his teeth meet in anything tangible, and emitting a venomous hiss disappeared in a circular pit.
"Whilst I was the victim of this insect"s ferocity the horizon had become darkened by the shadowy outline of an enormous apish form. I wanted to run away, but could not, and was compelled, sorely against my will, to witness its approach. Never shall I forget the agonies of doubt I endured during its advance. No man in a tiger"s den, nor deer tied to a tree awaiting its destroyer, could have suffered more than I did then, and my terror increased tenfold when I recognized in the monster--Neppon--a young gorilla that had been under my charge and had given me no end of trouble when I was head keeper in the Zoological Gardens at Berne.
"I never hated anything so much as I had hated that baboon. At my hands it had undergone a thousand subtle torments. I had pinched it, poked it, pulled its hair, frightened it by putting on masks and making all sorts of queer noises, and finally I had secretly poisoned it. And now we stood face to face without any bars between us. Never shall I forget the look of intense satisfaction in its hideous eyes, as its gaze encountered mine.
"In that strange forlorn world we faced each other; I, the tyrant once, now the quarry. In the wildness of its glee it capered about like a mad thing, executing the most exaggerated antics that augmented my terror.
Every second I antic.i.p.ated an a.s.sault, and the knowledge of my fears lent additional fierceness to its gambols. A sudden change in my att.i.tude at length made it cease. The use had returned to my limbs; my muscles were quivering, and before it could stop me I had fled! The wildest of chases then ensued. I ran with a speed that would have shamed a record-beater on earth. With extraordinary nimbleness I vaulted over t.i.tanic boulders of rocks; jumped across d.y.k.es of infinite depth, scurried like lightning over tracts of rough, lacerating ground, and never for one instant felt like flagging.
"Suddenly, to my horror, I came to an abrupt standstill, and the cry of some hunted animal burst from my lips. Unwittingly I had run against a huge wall of granite, and escape was now impossible. Again and again I clawed the hard rock, until the skin hung in shreds from my fingers, and the blood pattered on the dark soil, that in all probability had never tasted moisture before. All this amused my pursuer vastly; it watched with the leisure of one who knows its fish will be landed in safety, and there suddenly came to me, through my olfactory nerves, a knowledge that it was speaking to me in the language of scents--the language I never understood till now was the language of all animals.
""Reach, a little higher," it said; "there are niches up there, and you must stretch your limbs. Ha! ha! Do you remember how you used to make me stretch mine? You do! Well, you needn"t shiver. Explain to me how it is I find you here."
""I cannot comprehend," I gasped with a gesticulation that was grotesque.
"The great beast laughed in my face. "How so?" it queried. "You used to quibble me upon my dull wits; must I now return the compliment? Ha!
There"s blood on your hands. Blood! I will lick it up." And with a mocking grin it advanced.
""Keep off! Keep off!" I shouted. "My G.o.d, will this dream never cease?"
""The dream, as you call it," the gorilla jeered, "has only just begun; the climax of your horrors has yet to come. If you cannot tell me the purport of your visit I will tell you mine. Can your lordship spare the time to listen?"
"I gave no answer. I clutched the wall and uttered incoherent cries like some frightened madman.
"The gorilla felt the muscles in its hairy fingers, and showed its huge teeth. I looked eagerly at my enemy.
""Come, you haven"t yet guessed my riddle; you are dull to-night," it said lightly. "That old wine of yours made you sleep too soundly. Don"t let me disturb you. I will explain. This moon is now my home--I share it with the spirits of all the animals and insects that were once on your earth. And now that we are free from such as you--free to wander anywhere we like without fear of being shot, or caught and caged--we are happy. And what makes us still happier is the knowledge that the majority of men and women will never have a joyous after-state like ours. They will be earth-bound in that miserable world of theirs, and compelled to keep to their old haunts, scaring to death with their ugly faces all who have the misfortune to see them. There is another fate in store for you, however. Do you know what it is?"
"It paused. No sound other than that occasioned by his b.u.mping on the soil broke the impressive hush.
""Do you know?" it said again. "Well, I will tell you. I"m going to kill you right away, so that your spirit--it"s all nonsense to talk about souls, such as you have no soul--will be earth-bound here--here for ever--and will be a perpetual source of amus.e.m.e.nt to all of us animal ghosts."
"It then began to jabber ferociously, and, crouching down, prepared to spring.
""For Heaven"s sake," I shrieked, "for Heaven"s sake."
"But I might as well have appealed to the wind. It had no sense of mercy.
""He, he!" it screamed. "What a joke--what a splendid joke. Your wit never seems to degenerate, Hugesson! I"m wondering if you will be as funny when you"re a ghost. Get ready. I"m coming, coming," and as the sky deepened to an awe-inspiring black, and the stars grew larger, brighter, fiercer; and the great lone deserts appealed to me with a force unequalled before, it sprang through the air.
"A singing in my ears and a great b.l.o.o.d.y mist rose before my eyes. The wailing and screeching of a million souls was borne in loud protracted echoings through the drum of my ears. Men and women with evil faces rose up from crag and boulder to spit and tear at me. I saw creatures of such d.a.m.ning ugliness that my soul screamed aloud with terror. And then from the mountain tops the bolt of heaven was let loose. Every spirit was swept away like chaff before the burst of wind that, hurling and shrieking, bore down upon me. I gave myself up for lost. I felt all the agonies of suffocation, my lungs were torn from my palpitating body; my legs wrenched round in their sockets; my feet whirled upwards in that gust of devilish air. All--excruciating, d.a.m.ning pain--and _pro tempore_--I knew no more."
N.B.--It was subsequently ascertained, by my friend the late Mr. Supton, that a man named Hugesson, who had been for a short time head keeper at the Zoological Gardens, had been found dead, in bed, by his landlady, with a look on his face so awful that she had fled shrieking from the room. The death was, of course, attributed to syncope, but my friend--who, by the way, had never heard of Hugesson before he received the foregoing account through the medium of planchette--told me, and I agreed with him, that from similar cases that had come within his experience, it was most probable that Hugesson had in reality projected himself, and had perished in the manner described.
No more improbable than the above story is that sent me by my old school friend Martin Tristram, who died last year.
I style it "The Case of Martin Tristram." It is reproduced from a magazine published some three years ago.
After Martin Tristram once took up spiritualism his visits to me became most erratic, and I not only never knew when to expect him, but I was not always sure, when he did come, that it was he.
This sounds extraordinary--to see a man is a.s.suredly to recognize him!
Not always--by no means always!
There are circ.u.mstances in which a man loses his ident.i.ty, when his "ego" is supplanted by another ego, when he ceases to be himself, and a.s.sumes an individuality which is entirely different from himself.
This is undoubtedly the case in madness, imbecility, epilepsy, so-called total loss of memory through cerebral injury, hypnotism, sometimes in projection when the astral body gets detained, and also not infrequently in investigating peculiar instances of psychic phenomena.
But if the astral body has been evicted from its carnal home, whither has it gone? and what is the nature of the thing that has taken its place?
Ah! These are indeed puzzles--puzzles I am devoting a lifetime to solve.