Page:The Naturalisation of the Supernatural.pdf/281

Rh May, 1892, between five and six in the afternoon. Having gone for a walk, I was returning homewards by a road in the vicinity of St. Boswells. The greater portion of the way is quite level, but at one part a short incline terminates with a sharp comer at the end. From the top of this eminence the whole road is conspicuous, with a hedge and bank on either side. Upon reaching the specified point, and finding time limited, I thought I would expedite matters by running, and had not gone many steps when I came to a sudden halt, for just a few yards beyond I perceived a tall man dressed in black, and who walked along at a moderate pace. Fancying he would think mine an extraordinary proceeding, I finally stopped altogether to permit of his getting on farther, while at the same time watching him turn the corner and pass on where his figure was still distinctly defined between the hedges referred to. He was gone in a second—there being no exit anywhere—without my having become aware of it. Greatly surprised, I then myself passed the same corner and spot where I had seen the man vanish a few seconds before, and here, a short space onward, I saw one of my sisters standing and looking about everywhere in a bewildered manner. When I came up to her I said: "Wherever has that man disappeared to?" and upon our comparing notes together it became evident that we had both experienced a similar sensation regarding the stranger, the only difference being that I had seen the apparition on in front, while she says he came facing her, and she, too, had noticed he vanished almost immediately.

But here the strangest part of it all is that we found that when the man became invisible to her, he appeared to me between the part of the road where size and I were standing. I may also here add that at the time we saw the apparition neither sister knew the other was so near.

Our experience then ended, until some weeks later, for though we thought the encounter a strange one, we did not trouble much about it. Towards the end of July, and at the same hour as before, another sister and myself were traversing the same spot, when not far distant I observed a dark