“’The firing was heard by the sentries at Lifford, and a troop of cavalry was despatched to the scene of conflict, but only arrived in time to see the heroine dragged from the burning cottage.  She had not, however, been fatally wounded, and lived for many years afterwards with a kinsmen.  My father remembered conversing with old men, when he was a boy, who remembered her well.  She seemed to take a delight in narrating incidents of the fight to those who came to visit her, and would always finish up by making them feel the pellets between the skin and her ribs.’”

CHAPTER VI

APPARITIONS AT OR AFTER DEATH

It has been said by a very eminent literary man that the accounts of the appearance of people at or shortly after the moment of death make very dull reading as a general rule.  This may be; they are certainly not so lengthy, or full of detail, as the accounts of haunted houses—­nor could such be expected.  In our humble opinion, however, they are full of interest, and open up problems of telepathy and thought-transference to which the solutions may not be found for years to come.  That people have seen the image of a friend or relative at the moment of dissolution, sometimes in the ordinary garb of life, sometimes with symbolical accompaniments, or that they have been made acquainted in some abnormal manner with the fact that such a one has passed away, seems to be demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt.  But we would hasten to add that such appearances are not a proof of existence after death, nor can they be regarded in the light of special interventions of a merciful Providence.  Were they either they would surely occur far oftener.  The question is, Why do they occur at all?  As it is, the majority of them seem to happen for no particular reason, and are often seen by persons who have little or no connection with the deceased, not by their nearest and dearest, as one might expect.  It is supposed they are veridical hallucinations, i.e. ones which correspond with objective events at a distance, and are caused by a telepathic impact conveyed from the mind of an absent agent to the mind of the percipient.

From their nature they fall under different heads.  The majority of them occur at what may most conveniently be described as the time of death, though how closely they approximate in reality to the instant of the Great Change it is impossible to say.  So we have divided this chapter into three groups: 

(1) Appearances at the time of death (as explained above).

(2) Appearances clearly after the time of death.

(3) In this third group we hope to give three curious tales of appearances some time before death.

GROUP I