About 6 weeks after, the Captain rides to Eaton to place his Son a Scholar there, when the Doctor went thither with him.  They lodged there at an Inn, the Sign was the Christopher, and tarried two or three Nights, not lying together now as before at Dulverton, but in two several Chambers.  The morning before they went thence, the Captain staid in his Chamber longer than he was wont to do before he called upon the Doctor.  At length he comes into the Doctor’s Chamber, but in a Visage and Form much differing from himself, with his Hair and Eyes staring, and his whole Body shaking and trembling:  Whereupon at the Doctor wondering, presently demanded:  What is the matter Cousin Captain?  The Captain replies, I have seen my Major:  At which the Doctor seeming to smile, the Captain immediately confirms it, saying, If ever I saw him in my life, I saw him but now:  And then he related to the Doctor what had passed, thus:  This morning after it was light, someone comes to my bedside, and suddenly drawing back the Curtains, calls, Cap.  Cap. (which was the term of familiarity that the Major used to call the Captain by).  To whom I replied, What my Major? To which he returns, I could not come at the time appointed, but I am now come to tell you, That there is a God, and a very just and terrible one, and if you do not turn over a new leaf, (the very Expressions as is by the Doctor punctually remembered) you will find it so.  The Captain proceeded:  On the Table by there lay a Sword, which the Major had formerly given me.  Now after the Apparition had walked a turn or two about the Chamber, he took up the Sword, drew it out, and finding it not so clean and bright as it ought, Cap.  Cap. says he, this Sword did not use to be kept after this manner when it was mine.  After which Words he suddenly disappeared.

The Captain was not only thoroughly persuaded of what he had thus seen and heard, but was from that time observed to be very much affected with it:  and the Humour that before in him was brisk and jovial, was then strangely alter’d; insomuch, as very little Meat would pass down with him at Dinner, though at the taking leave of their Friends there was a very handsome Treat provided:  Yea it was observed that what the Captain had thus seen and heard, had a more lasting Influence upon him, and ’tis judged by those who were well acquainted with his Conversation, that the remembrance of this Passage stuck close to him, and that those words of his dead Friend were frequently sounding fresh in his Ears, during the remainder of his Life, which was about Two Years.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 11:  Sadducismus Triumphatus.]

XXII

THE MIRACULOUS CASE OF JESCH CLAES

From CHRISTMAS’ “Phantom World”

In the year 1676, about the 13th or 14th of this Month October, in the Night, between one and two of the Clock, this Jesch Claes, a cripple, being in bed with her Husband, who was a Boatman, she was three times pulled by her Arm, with which she awaked and cried out, “O Lord! what may this be?”