Seen and Unseen | Page 5

"the table" one afternoon, and he was told correctly
the names of two or three of these American gentlemen.
"I must have mentioned them to my sister in my letters," he said,
turning to the younger man. I knew this was not the case, but it was
difficult to prove a negative.
It was a relief, therefore, when my brother suggested what he
considered a "real test," where previous knowledge on my part must be
excluded.
"Let them tell me the name of a bearer I had once in India--he lived
with me for more than twelve years--always returning to me when I
came back from English furlough, and yet at the end of that time he
suddenly disappeared, without rhyme or reason, and I have neither seen
nor heard of him since. I know my sister has never heard his name. That
would be something like a test, but, of course, it won't come off," he
added cynically.
The wearisome spelling out began.
The table rose up at R, then at A.
"Quite wrong," my brother called out in triumph. "I knew how it would
be when any real test came. Fortunately, too, it is wildly wrong--neither
the letter before nor the letter after the right one, so you cannot wriggle
out of it that way."
"Never mind, Major Bates," said Morton Freer good-naturedly. "Let us
go on all the same, and see what they mean to spell out."
Fortunately, we did so, with a most interesting result; for the right name
was given after all, but spelt in the Hindoostanee and not the European
fashion. The name in true Hindoostanee was Rám Dín--but Europeans
spelt it Rham Deen--and so my brother himself had entirely forgotten

when the A was given that it had any connection with the man's name.
When the whole word was spelt out, of course he remembered, and
then his face was a study!
"Good gracious! it is right enough, and that is the real Hindoostanee
spelling, too. I never thought of that when the A came!"
I think this episode knocked the bottom out of his scepticism for some
years to come.
Even now this case precludes ordinary and conscious telepathy. Mr
Podmore would be reduced to explaining that the Hindoostanee
spelling was latent in my brother's consciousness, though his normal
self repudiated it.
Another curious incident--still more difficult to explain upon the
Thought Transference Theory (unless we stretch it to include a possible
impact of all thoughts, at all times and from all quarters of the globe,
upon everyone else's brain)--occurred under the same hospitable roof.
One of the Archdeacon's nieces came to stay in the house about this
time. She was considerably my senior, and was very kind to me, with
the thoughtful kindness an older woman can show to a sensitive young
girl. This awakened in me an affection which, I am thankful to say, still
exists between us. This lady was considerably under thirty years old at
the time, but to my young ideas she seemed already in the sear and
yellow leaf from the matrimonial point of view! One must remember
how different the standard of age was more than thirty years ago!
It was also the time when marriage was looked upon not only as the
most desirable, but as almost the only possible, career for a woman.
So when Morton and this lady and I were "sitting at the table" in the
gloaming one evening, I said, with trembling eagerness: "Morton, do
ask if Carrie will ever be married," for the case seemed to me almost
desperate at the advanced age of twenty-seven or twenty-eight!
I must mention that for some occult reason (which I have entirely

forgotten) I trusted fervently that a Hungarian or Polish name might be
given after the satisfactory "Yes" had been spelt out, but, alas! nothing
of the kind occurred.
"The table" began with a D, and then successively E, H, A, V were
given. No one ever heard of a Polish or Hungarian name of the kind,
and I remember saying petulantly: "Oh, give it up, Morton. It's all
nonsense! Nobody ever heard of a Mr Dehav."
Once more Morton rescued a really good bit of evidence by his
imperturbable perseverance.
"Wait a bit! Let us see what is coming," he said.
I took no further personal interest in the experiment. Either Morton
concluded the name was finished, or there was some confusion in
getting the next letters, owing doubtless to my impetuous disgust.
Anyway, he went on to say:
"Let us ask where the fellow lives at the present time." This was
instantly answered by "Freshwater," and the further information given
that he was a widower.
None of us knew any man, married or single, who lived at Freshwater,
and the incident