Page:The Naturalisation of the Supernatural.pdf/383

Rh by the noise of the first attack, and Mrs. P. remembers going in and explaining to him the cause. She remembers no further details of the dream.

"(2) Ethel Packard Newbold remembers that she was told about the dream next morning, and that Kent at breakfast kept saying, 'Oh that white horse'; with expressive gestures of horror. (N .B.—This would fix the date as falling between May 28th, when E. P. N. went to Boston, and June 16th, when I went there. I heard nothing of this. The family left Boston June 25th.)

"(3) Mr. Packard remembers being awakened by the nightmare, and is sure it was in Boston, but did not at first remember anything about the content of the dream. Upon reflection he has a dim memory of the horse incident.

"(4) Kent is at first sure he had the dream after he came to Sedgwick, and that 'Ethel only imagines she remembers it.' After some reflection he concludes that it was in Boston he had it. He dreamed that he was on a wharf, walking along. Some people, among them his mother, had just got out of a row-boat, upon the wharf. He had just passed them,—heard cries and 'yells' of 'Look out,' heard footsteps but they were not heavy—very light indeed for a horse. Glanced over his shoulder and saw a white horse, mouth open, long jaw, about to bite him,—then he sprang into the water and—woke to fond his mother shaking him.

"(5) What happened. Kent's account. He had just come out of the baggage room on the wharf at Sedgwick and was walking along the end of the wharf. A row-boat came up and the people got out, as happened in the dream, but his mother was not among them. He passed them, heard the cries, the footsteps, looked back and saw the white horse, the open mouth, the long jaw and face, the ears pressed back; he jumped, not into the water, but into a gangway about ten feet wide, which ran from the level of the pier to high-water mark. About two hours afterwards he recalled the dream and was much startled when he recognised the coincidence.

"Kent laid stress upon the points that both in the dream