The history of the life and adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell : $b a gentleman, who, tho' deaf and dumb, writes down any stranger's name at first sight, with their future contingencies of fortune
General
The history of the life and adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell : $b a gentleman, who, tho' deaf and dumb, writes down any stranger's name at first sight, with their future contingencies of fortune
Campbell, Duncan, 1680?-1730; Deaf people -- Great Britain -- Biography; Occultism -- Early works to 1900; Prophets -- Great Britain -- Biography
The next day being Sunday, the landlord carried his guests to see the
country, and after a handsome walk, they came through the churchyard.
They were poring upon the tombs; no delight can be greater to Mr.
Campbell than that; and really, by the frequent walks he usually takes
in Westminster abbey, and the churchyards adjacent to this metropolis,
one would imagine he takes delight to stalk along by himself on that
dumb silent ground, where the characters of the persons are only to be
known, as his own meaning is, by writings and inscriptions on the
marble. When they had sufficiently surveyed the churchyard, it grew near
dinner-time, and they went homewards; but before they had got many yards
out of the churchyard, Mr. Campbell makes a full stop, pointing up to a
house, and stopping his friends a little, he pulls out of his pocket a
pencil and paper, and notes down the following words: That, that is the
house my vision presented to me; I could swear it to be the same, I know
it to be the same, I am certain of it. The gentlemen with him remarked
it, would not take any farther notice at that time intending to inquire
into it with secrecy, and so went on to the inn to dinner.
As merry as they had been the night before after supper, they were
still more innocently cheerful this day after dinner, till the time of
service begun. When the duty of the day was performed and over, they
returned to divert and unbend their minds with pleasant but harmless
conversation. I suppose nobody but a set of very great formalists will
be offended with scandal or scruples, that to travellers just ready to
depart the town, Mr. Perkin came on that good day and decided the
wagers, by owning to all the company, secrecy being first enjoined, that
he was a Roman Catholic, though nobody of the family knew it in so many
years as he had lived there, which was before Mr. Campbell was born.
This and other innocent speeches afforded as much cheerfulness as the
Lord's-day would allow of.
On the next day, being Monday, they sent for one Mr. Toland Toler, an
attorney of the place, to find out to whom that house belonged, but by
all the inquiry that could possibly be made with convenient secrecy,
nobody could find it out for a long time; but at last it came to light
and appeared to be justly to a tittle as Mr. Campbell had predicted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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