[The Book of Dreams and Ghosts by Andrew Lang]@TWC D-Link book
The Book of Dreams and Ghosts

CHAPTER VIII
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When I am gone, I wish that you, my children, should unbind this black ribbon and alone behold my wrist before I am consigned to the grave.' "She then requested to be left that she might lie down and compose herself, and her children quitted the apartment, having desired her attendant to watch her, and if any change came on to summon them to her bedside.

In an hour the bell rang, and they hastened to the call, but all was over.

The two children having ordered every one to retire, knelt down by the side of the bed, when Lady Riverston unbound the black ribbon and found the wrist exactly as Lady Beresford had described it--every nerve withered, every sinew shrunk.
"Her friend, the Archbishop, had had her buried in the Cathedral of St.Patrick, in Dublin, in the Earl of Cork's tomb, where she now lies." * * * * * The writer now professes his disbelief in any spiritual presence, and explains his theory that Lady Beresford's anxiety about Lord Tyrone deluded her by a vivid dream, during which she hurt her wrist.
Of all ghost stories the Tyrone, or Beresford Ghost, has most variants.

Following Monsieur Haureau, in the Journal des Savants, I have tracked the tale, the death compact, and the wound inflicted by the ghost on the hand, or wrist, or brow, of the seer, through Henry More, and Melanchthon, and a mediaeval sermon by Eudes de Shirton, to William of Malmesbury, a range of 700 years.

Mrs.Grant of Laggan has a rather recent case, and I have heard of another in the last ten years! Calmet has a case in 1625, the spectre leaves The sable score of fingers four on a board of wood.
Now for a modern instance of a gang of ghosts with a purpose! When I narrated the story which follows to an eminent moral philosopher, he remarked, at a given point, "Oh, the ghost _spoke_, did she ?" and displayed scepticism.


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