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Ghost Story:
'He had been asleep only a short time,' this account states, 'when he was awakened, by
his own account, by a noise like the fluttering of a bird, outside the bed-curtains. He drew them
back, and saw a figure dressed in white.
'Shocked, he demanded 'What do you want?' To which the apparition replied, 'Prepare
to die. I am here to warn you that you have very little time left.' 'How long?' his lordship
demanded in return. 'Weeks, months, perhaps a year?' 'You will die within three days,' the
figure replied.
'His lordship was much alarmed, and called to a servant in a closet adjoining, who found
him much agitated and in a profuse perspiration. The circumstance had a considerable effect all
the next day upon his lordship's spirits. On the third day, which was a Saturday, his lordship was
at breakfast with his guests, and was observed to have grown very thoughtful, but attempted to
carry if off by the transparent ruse of accusing the others at table of unusual gravity. 'Why do
you look so grave?' he asked. 'Are you thinking of the ghost? I am as well as ever I was in my
life.'
'Later on he remarked, 'If I live over tonight, I shall have jockeyed the ghost, for this is
the third day.'
'Early in the afternoon, his lordship experienced one of the suffocating fits which had
troubled him during the preceding month. After a short interval he recovered, dined at five
o'clock, and went to bed at eleven. When his servant was about to give him a dose of rhubarb
and mint-water, his lordship, perceiving him stirring it with a toothpick, called him a slovenly
dog, and bade him go and fetch a teaspoon.
'On the man's return, he found his master in a fit, and, the pillow being placed high, his
chin bore hard upon his neck; when the servant, instead of relieving his lordship on the instant
from his perilous situation, ran, in his fright, and called out for help; but on his return he found his
lordship dead.'
So, he did not 'jockey the ghost,' as he expressed it and as he might reasonably have
hoped to do, for he was only thirty-five.
Another strange incident is told in connection with his death. It would seem that Lord
Lyttleton had proposed visiting an intimate friend, Miles Peter Andrews, who lived at Darford, on
the day of his death. His spirits were so low, however, that he did not feel equal to the occasion;
he also failed to send an explanation for his absence.
During the evening Andrews was taken ill and retired to bed early. He had not yet fallen
asleep when the curtains of his bed were suddenly drawn back, and he saw Lord Lyttleton
standing there, wearing the distinctive dressing-gown which he kept at his friend's house.
The surprised Andrews believed that Lyttleton had made a belated arrival, and probably
intended some practical joke. So he called out to the figure, 'You are up to some of your tricks.
Go to bed, or I'll throw something at you.' But the figure merely gazed at him seriously, and
said, 'It's all over with me, Andrews.'
Andrews, who still believed that it was his friend who stood before him, reached down,
picked up a slipper and threw it; whereupon the figure moved silently into the dressing-room.
Having been a previous victim of Lyttleton's practical joking, Andrews got from his bed and
followed the figure into the dressing-room. But when he tried both the door of the dressing-room
and the door of his own bedroom, he found that both were bolted.
Mystified, but still suspecting nothing but a trick, he rang for the servants, and asked them
where Lord Lyttleton was. They replied that so far as they knew, he was not in the house.
'Well,' said Andrews, 'if he does come, tell him that all the beds are occupied, and that
he must seek a room in one of the inns at Darford.'
It was not until late on the following day that Andrews heard of his friend's death. He fell
into a deep faint, and 'was not his own man again for three years.'
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