'Twixt two worlds : a narrative of the life and work of William Eglinton

24 'Ttuixt Two Worlds.
sofa, and drew a heavy arm-chair up in front of me. He sat down in it, so near that he
almost touched me. Every movement was in his own old manner. He has been in the
spirit world six years. He took my hand, but I felt sure he could not speak. He was
the dear friend of our daughter, who passed away nearly twelve years since, when he was in this
country with the Davenport Brothers and Mr. Fay.
" I said,
'
Dr. Ferguson, is Willie here ' (our daughter's name was Wilhelmina, but
we always called her Willie). He rose, and went towards the cabinet, rapped three times, and
disappeared. Our daughter came forward from the place where he disappeared, a slight girl
clothed in white, her golden hair flowing over her shoulders. She crossed the room, came close
to me, and knelt before me ; she took my hand, and audibly kissed it. She remained a little
time kneeling, then rose, and went towards the cabinet and disappeared.
"'Joey,' now came, and took a musical box and wound it up; he made it go, and stop,
at the word of command. He talked volubly ; he put the musical box in my lap, and kissed
the top of my head ; he passed from one to another, with cheerful words for all. After a time
the power became less, from the swinging open of the curtains of the improvised cabinet.
'Joey' said, '
I want a pin.' He looked about the room, and found a box of pins on the
mantel-shelf; he took one, remarking that he might not have power to pin the shawls
together ; he, however, succeeded, still holding the box of pins in his hand.
' I must put
this back again,' he said ;
'
a place for everything, and everything in its place. I like
to see things tidy.' He crossed the room, and laid the pin-box on the mantel-shelf. He then
disappeared, and the sonorous voice of ' Ernest ' was heard saying, ' Mrs. Nichols, you said
you would like to see a form and our medium at the same time.'
'
I did say so,' I replied,
{
'
but I have seen enough not to need such a test.' But we wish to give it,' said ' Ernest.'
After a brief interval the medium came from behind the curtains, and stood before us,
with a slight girl form beside him, that we were told was the young Indian girl
'
Daisy.'
This was the last manifestation of the evening."
The next two letters are by Dr. Nichols :—
"As the health of Willie Eglinton improves, the 'power' for manifestations seems to
increase. But, until his health is firmly established, his ' guides ' firmly refuse to enlarge the
circle, and rarely admit any one outside our family, even of the inmates of Aldwyn Tower,
without due probation and preparation. '
Joey ' is peremptory. He watches over the diet,
regimen, treatment, morals, and manners of those under his charge with fidelity and discretion.
" All our seances are under test conditions. They are held in a small upper room in
my own house, with its one door locked, and its one window, thirty feet from the ground,
fastened. The number of persons present never exceeds six, all of whom I know intimately.
I know pretty accurately what can be done by sleight of hand, ventriloquism,
'
palmistry or
otherwise.'
" It is clear that darkness is not dark to
'
Joey.' To prove this, he proposed that I
should draw something on paper for him to cut out. I drew on a small piece of paper an
obelisk on its pedestal, and wrote on it, 'Sacred to the Memory of "Joey,"' and placed it, with
a pair of scissors, on the mantelpiece. While all hands were joined, we heard him by the
fire-place cutting with the scissors. He said, 'There, I have partly cut out my monument;
I will finish it some other time.' In the perfect darkness he had followed the outline about