In the year 1898 I was spending a few days in Castle Rush, which has been described by Mr W. T. Stead as the most haunted castle in Ireland. It is one of the few old Irish castles still inhabited, and is naturally haunted by the ghosts of the past in every meaning of the word.

At the time of my stay I was recovering from a severe illness, and, in fact, was sent off to bed immediately upon arrival by my kind hostess, who, with true hospitality, thought more of her guest's comfort than the conventionalities of life, and would not hear of my lingering, even to make acquaintance with my host, on the dark autumnal evening of my arrival.

This had taken place after driving many miles and waiting for a dreary long time in the little inn of a small Irish township. My doctor would not hear of any railway travelling just then, so the whole forty miles from my last stopping-place had to be negotiated between the carriages of my past and present hospitable hosts.

As a matter of fact, I believe I slept in one of the haunted rooms, but it looked cheerful enough when I entered from the gloom and darkness outside; and a dainty little dinner sent up by my kind friends below, and eaten when snugly tucked in between the sheets and resting on soft downy pillows, was enough to drive all thoughts of ghostly visitors from my head.

I am thankful to say that I neither heard nor saw anything during my short visit, and should not even have known that my room had had any evil reputation but for the visit of an eccentric and clever old lady, who had been specially asked to the castle to meet me.

After luncheon we adjourned to my bedroom, at her suggestion, and she said casually:

"Ah, you have this room, I see. It was terribly haunted once, but I held a sort of little service here some time ago, and cleared them all out."

I must explain that this good lady took a very optimistic view of her own capacities and powers in general, and spoke—from the psychic point of view—with the honest pride that a flesh and blood charwoman might display on going over premises that she had thoroughly scrubbed and "cleaned out"!

One morning after breakfast, my hostess, Mrs Kent, called to me to come quickly and see a curious sight. It was a pouring wet day—one of those days when the heavens open and the rain descends in buckets! I could see nothing more remarkable than the damp, autumnal leaves, the bare trees swaying in the wind-washed spaces, and the pouring, ceaseless rain.

"Don't you see that girl over there?"

I looked again, and did see a girl just emerging from a clump of beeches, and carrying a small trunk upon her head.

"What an extraordinary day to choose for travelling," I said drily.

"Ah, that is Irish superstition!" rejoined my hostess. "That is my last kitchen-maid you see—she is walking seven miles, with that trunk on her head, sooner than wait a few hours, when I could have sent her to the station."

"Is she mad?" was my natural comment.

"Oh no! only desperately frightened. She has not been here a week yet, and she is much too terrified to be coherent. All I can make out is that nothing on earth would induce her to spend another night at Rush. I could have sent her over to Marley easily to-morrow morning at eight o'clock, but she would not hear of it. And whether she has really seen anything, or only been frightened by the stories of the other servants, I don't know. Anyway, she has certainly the courage of her opinions, and is prepared to suffer for them! I would rather meet half-a-dozen ghosts than carry that trunk on my head seven miles in this pouring rain." Then turning round carelessly, she remarked: "I suppose you have not seen or heard anything, Miss Bates, since you came? I hope not, for I am sure you are not strong enough for mundane visitors yet, let alone the other kind."

We were passing through the handsome circular hall at the time, and I said eagerly: "Oh no! Thank goodness, I've seen and heard nothing. I don't think I should be allowed to see anything whilst I am so weak and poorly."

Almost at the moment of saying these words something impelled me to place my hand upon a particular spot in the great stone wall by my side. "But there is something here I don't like," I said, tapping it—"something uncanny—but I don't know what it is."

Mrs Kent made no remark; and I thought no more of the circumstance until the following year, when I was told by Mr Stead that Mrs Kent was over in England, and had been lunching with him and asking for me.

"She was giving me a most graphic account of the way you 'spotted' those skeletons at Rush Castle," he said.

I was completely puzzled by this remark. I had never spotted a single skeleton to my knowledge, either at Rush or elsewhere, and I told him so; but he persisted in saying that Mrs Kent had told him a very different story, and that most certainly she had mentioned me as the percipient.

"She must have mixed me up with somebody else," was my final comment. "No doubt many people have queer experiences there, and she might naturally make such a mistake."

"Well, I gave her your address, and she is writing to ask you to have tea with her at the club, so you and she can fight it out there," he said; and the conversation drifted into other channels.

Next afternoon I met Mrs Kent at her club, and before leaving, fortunately remembered the curious mistake about the skeletons I had "spotted."

"But you did 'spot' them," she said, laughing. "Don't you remember my asking you if you had noticed anything curious, or heard or seen anything, during your visit? At first you said 'Thank goodness, no!' But immediately afterwards you put your hand on a particular part of the circular hall, and said: 'There is something uncanny just here—something I don't like.'"

"Yes; I remember all that. But what of it? You never told me anything about skeletons."

"Of course not—you were not in a condition of health to discuss such eerie questions just then. All the same, you had located the exact spot where only a week before your visit, my husband's agent told him that two skeletons had been found bricked up!"

She then explained that the agent had been on the estate for many years, even before the death of the late owner of Rush—her father-in-law. Having some business with her husband the week before my arrival, this agent had casually mentioned that he and the former owner had found these skeletons in the very spot indicated by me, about forty years previously, and, strange to relate, had bricked them up again instead of burying them. This last fact may account in part at least for the spooky reputation of Castle Rush.

All good psychics know that nothing disturbs a spirit so much as any informality about his funeral arrangements!

To return to my visit to Castle Rush.

Some years previously I had met, on an Orient steamer sailing from Ceylon to Naples, a brother of the owner of Rush. He was a sailor, and as hard-headed and practical a man as it has ever been my lot to meet. It was in no way through meeting him that my visit to Rush came about, but owing to my acquaintance with Mrs Kent and her family.

I had been greatly taken by the genial common-sense of this Captain Kent, and was much grieved to hear of his death when I stayed with his sister-in-law. It had occurred shortly before my visit, and under sad circumstances.

On the surface he was certainly more lacking in sentiment than anyone I ever met, but must have been capable of very deep affection. When I met him he had only been married for a few months. His wife died within two years of their marriage, and going for a short holiday to Castle Rush soon afterwards, he said to his sister-in-law:

"I shall not live a year after her, I know!" He was the last kind of man to make such a speech, as both Mrs Kent and I observed when she mentioned it to me.

"But he was quite right, all the same," she added. "He died just three days within the year from the time of his wife's death." Yet he was an exceptionally strong, sturdy, and wiry man at the time of his great sorrow.

From Castle Rush I was going to the south of Ireland to visit relations at Cork.

On the morning of my departure I was down in the drawing-room, rather wondering why I had been brought to this old Irish castle. No special object seemed to have been achieved by my visit. I did not even know then that I had discovered two skeletons! In those days I found so often some train of circumstances—a borrowed book, a stranger coming across my path, some unexpected visit paid, which were later found to have been factors in a special experience—that I was rather surprised to realise that I was leaving the "most haunted castle in Ireland" and that nothing had happened.

But in the very moment of saying this to myself a curiously insistent impression came to me quite suddenly, and "out of the blue."

The impression was that the brother of my host, Captain Kent, was wishing very urgently to communicate something through me. I did not feel equal to taking any message at the time—I have already explained that I was only just recovering from a severe illness. Lunch and a long drive to the station and a weary railway journey lay before me, so I determined to do nothing until I was safely established with my cousins near Cork.

After a long, cold, and wet journey I arrived in pouring rain, my train being more than a hour late. The kind General who came to meet me was still patiently standing on the platform, but one of the two "cars" he had engaged for me and my baggage had taken itself off! As the rain was descending in water-spouts, I need scarcely say it was the "covered car" which had driven away!

This meant a thorough wetting for my cousin and me. How all the luggage (including a large bicycle, and two people, in addition to the driver) was ever piled up on that small "outside Irish car" I have never been able to understand. Suffice it to say the miracle was performed, and we drove up a hill at an angle of about forty-five degrees into the bargain!

Clearly these were not ideal conditions for receiving automatic messages!

I was put to bed at once with hot bottles and hot soup, and soon forgot my past troubles in a long refreshing sleep.

I was still in the invalid stage of "breakfast in bed," and when this had been cleared away, the remembrance of Captain Kent flashed into my mind, and I found pencil and papers at once, in order to redeem my promise.

The message was rather a curious one, and its opening sentence evidently referred to the eccentric old lady whom I have mentioned as being asked to meet me at luncheon at Castle Rush.

So far as I can remember them, the words (very characteristic of Captain Kent's genial but rather brusque style) ran as follows:—

After speaking of the alleged hauntings at Castle Rush as having only too much foundation in fact, he went on: "It's all rubbish, that old woman saying she had cleared them all away! Nothing of the kind. There are plenty of malicious spirits about still, and now that an heir is coming to Rush they are keener than ever to try and work some mischief. No use saying anything to Tom (his brother). He will only laugh, and say it is all skittles. But tell my little sister-in-law to PRAY—PRAY—PRAY. That is all they need and all she needs either."

Now this was not exactly the message one cared to send to a rather recent acquaintance. To begin with, the reference to Mrs Kent's valued friend in the opening sentence was scarcely polite! Then again, the prophecy of an heir to Rush was one that I regretted should have been made, as it would probably only lead to disappointment. Mrs Kent's first child had been a little son, from whose loss she had never recovered. When I was staying at the castle, two nice little girls, old enough to come down to early dinner, at our luncheon hour, comprised the family. Another child was certainly expected to arrive about Christmas-time (my visit was paid in September), but Mrs Kent herself was fully convinced that this would be another girl, as she said rather sadly. It seemed a pity to disturb her mind by raising false hopes.

But, as usual, I felt bound to send the message, with the customary explanations and apologies.

Mrs Kent was greatly interested by it and by the "PRAY—PRAY—PRAY," which, as she explained to me, had a very special meaning for her. It had only struck me as an exceedingly unlikely message for the Captain Kent I had known, to send to anyone.

I am glad to be able to record that the Christmas gift did arrive in the shape of a baby boy, "heir to Rush," who is still alive and flourishing, thank God! I hear that he calls himself "the master," with a true Irish brogue, and lords it over his elder sisters in the regular chieftain style!

To this year belongs another strong impression of psychic atmosphere, left in a room which I occupied in the south of England.

It was a most comfortable room, with nothing in the least ghostly about it. Merely I had an unpleasant feeling that controversies and discussions had taken place in the room, and that a want of harmony hung about it in consequence.

On mentioning this rather tentatively to the master of the house—a very orthodox clergyman—I was told: "Oh dear, no! Nothing of the kind—you are certainly mistaken!"

But when an opportunity arose I changed my room, and felt very much more comfortable in consequence of doing so.

Several times I had noticed on the hall table, letters which had come by post addressed to another clergyman, whose name I had not heard, and who was certainly not staying in the house. Remarking upon this casually to a nice young governess one day, she said at once that the gentleman in question had spent several months with Mr and Mrs Dale in the Vicarage, but that he had died a few weeks before my arrival. "He slept in the room you had when you first came, by-the-by. I was so glad when you changed your room."

"He was a clergyman, I see," was my next remark; and I looked at the envelope which had led to this explanation.

"Yes; he was in orders, but he had become a complete agnostic for some years. During the last few weeks of his life—when he had to keep his bed—Mr Dale was always going up there, and having long arguments and discussions with him; but I don't suppose it did much good: it only worried him very much. He was too ill to listen to long arguments then, and wanted just kind, soothing words, I should have thought."

As the girl retreated to the school-room I naturally pondered over this fresh testimony to the truth of psychic atmosphere. No sensitive can question the fact, but at present we know little or nothing of the laws which condition the fact.

My friend Mr W. T. Stead kindly allows me to mention another incident connected with personal experiences of mine in the year 1898.

In the opening month of that year he lost a much-valued friend, who had worked for him loyally, both in his office and also with regard to some of his philanthropic schemes.

This lady in a fit of delirium, incident upon a severe attack of illness, threw herself out of a window in her flat. A fortnight before this sad occurrence, she had seen another resident in the same set of flats throw herself out of the window, and Mr Stead has always feared that this acted as a suggestion upon her mind in delirium, and led her to do the same thing. Her own account of the cause of her action differs somewhat from this impression, as will be seen later.

Mr Stead was naturally greatly affected by Mrs Morris' sudden death and the circumstances attending it, and having some of her hair cut off after her death, he sent portions of it to at least twelve well-known clairvoyants, hoping to receive some satisfactory solution of the mystery, and also, possibly, a sign decided upon between him and this lady. They were both interested in psychic matters, and had agreed to believe in no communications from the other side purporting to come from one or other of them, unless this preliminary sign were given.

Mrs Besant—an intimate friend of Mr Stead—was one of the oracles consulted, and was very confident of being able to find out all details, including the mystic sign.

But both she and Mr Leadbeater were as absolutely unsuccessful as less gifted mortals proved to be.

In spite of exceptional opportunities for coming in touch with the most noted psychics, in spite of the valuable clue given by hair cut after death, the test seemed quite hopeless, since twelve of the best clairvoyants had been consulted, and all had failed in turn.

A few weeks after hearing about this from Mr Stead, I was invited by an old friend in London to meet at her house, at luncheon, Miss Rowan Vincent, a non-professional sensitive, well known to many of my readers.

I had never seen this lady before, and had little speech with her during the meal.

She was talking very earnestly to a military man—the son-in-law of our hostess—whilst the latter and I were having an interesting conversation to ourselves.

General Maxwell, having a train to catch, did not accompany us to the drawing-room.

On arrival there Miss Rowan Vincent said to me very kindly: "Can I do anything for you now, Miss Bates? Shall I try if I can see anything for you?"

Something induced me, quite against my will, to say: "Do you ever get messages by writing, Miss Vincent?"

"No; I have never done so, but I can try," she answered rather eagerly.

How I bewailed my stupidity in making such a suggestion! I had diverted her mind from her own special gift, which was that of seeing a person's psychic surroundings, and had switched her on to an entirely novel and untried experiment. I had not even the excuse of being specially interested in automatic writing, which was so easily obtained at home; whereas I was greatly interested in seeing whether any of my "other side" friends could make themselves perceptible through this sensitive.

However, the mischief was done past remedy. The suggestion had taken firm root in Miss Rowan Vincent's mind, and she was not to be diverted from it. So I resigned myself patiently to the results of my own foolish remark, whilst she took pencil and paper and sat down expectantly.

Soon she looked up, the writing having already begun.

"Do you know any William? There seems to be some message from a William, as far as I can make out."

Having had a favourite cousin of that name, I told her it might be quite correct, and I should be glad to receive any message that came.

A few moments passed, and then Miss Vincent said, in a puzzled tone:

"It is not from William—the message is to some William—I cannot understand it at all." She pushed the paper rather impatiently towards me. Written upon it clearly but faintly were these words:

Dear William,—I want to explain to you how I came to fall out of that window—it was not my fault really—someone came up behind and pushed me out. Ethel.

The signature was rather indistinct, but quite unmistakable to me; but then I knew the Christian name of Mr Stead's friend, and realised at once that she was taking this opportunity of sending a message to him.

I asked Miss Vincent what name was written at the bottom of the paper. "It looks like Ethel," she said, "but it is not very clear. I will ask the spirit to write it again." A very bold and unmistakable signature was at once given.

I concealed my excitement, and said quietly to Miss Vincent:

"I think I know from whom the message comes and for whom it is intended, but to make quite sure it would be very satisfactory if the spirit could give through you a sign agreed upon by the sender and the recipient and unknown to everyone else."

"Well, I will try," said Miss Vincent at once. She had scarcely touched the pencil when it began describing a circle. "There is no doubt about my having to make a circle," she said, laughing. "Oh, now I am to put a cross into it," she added.

Within a few seconds both these were given, and to our great delight—as well as to his—the sign was recognised by Mr Stead as being the one agreed upon, and which had hopelessly puzzled all the other mediums.