Broadsides; Chapbooks; Street literature -- Great Britain
Disturbed at this extraordinary call, he got up, determined to discover
the cause, and taking the poker in his hand, being the first thing
he could lay hold on, he passed through the bar into the back room,
where, to his great astonishment and terror, for he allowed that he
was severely frightened, he beheld the figure of a good-looking female
personage, dressed in brown, much like a Quaker, seated in a chair,
between the two back windows, and leaning upon a long stick, which
seemed to support her.
At first Mr Harris was too much affected to speak, for though very
valiant and noisy in company, there was something about the figure
before him which declared her not to be of this world: besides, his own
conscience upbraided him with more evil than his memory could just then
recollect. However, he summoned power enough to put the old foolish
question, “what art thou?” and with that fell on his knees in a devout
manner to pray. “What I am is not now my business to relate, but what
you may hereafter become if you do not amend your life and manners; so
get up man, and remember the warning voice of one from the dead. You
have but a few years to live, make the most of your time, and train up
your daughter _Phœbe_ in a good way, and keep her from such and such
company, or she will die young, violently, and by the force of justice.
Consider her life is just now in your hands, a little time will place
it out of your power to reverse the evil that awaits her.--Remember
this, and live accordingly.”--With this she seemed to strike the ground
with her stick and immediately disappeared, leaving Mr Harris much
astonished at what he had both heard and seen, and only lamenting that
he had no witness to the truth of this accident.
Be it as it will, it produced a wonderful alteration in him for the
best; and though his former companions laughed at him for becoming a
methodist, he ever after adhered to the paths of prudence and sobriety,
and remained a very orderly and sober man, and from his invariable
relation of this matter we have no doubt of its truth.
The prediction with respect to his daughter Phœbe was too fatally
accomplished a few years since, she being burnt for treason as it is
called, that is, for counterfeiting the current coin called a shilling.
APPARITION OF A GHOST TO A MILLER, TO DISCOVER A HIDDEN MURDER.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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