[TO THE EDITOR 07 THE " SPECTATOR.'1
SIR,—The account given in the Spectator of June 15th by your correspondent, "Rio. 0. A.," of Miss X.'s dream of the butler with homicidal tendencies induces me to trouble you with a small incident of the same kind which happened many years ago to myself. In a cottage near our old home in the Midlands there lived a morose, cracky labourer of whom even his long-suffering sister would sometimes confess, " I won't say but what George is a bit awk'ard by times." I used to go to their cottage, and had no fear whatever of the man. But one night I dreamt that I went to a lane more than half-a-mile away to gather violets, which always appeared there sooner than anywhere else in the neighbourhood. The day, it seemed to me, was perfect in its quiet sunshine, and I began gathering my violets happily. Almost at once George 0— climbed over the hedge at my back, attacked me with a pickaxe, and there In the lane he killed me, and so made an end of my dream. It was very vivid, and on waking I told it to my sister, in whose room I was then sleeping. I promptly forgot all about it, and as the morning went on it occurred to me to wonder whether the violets were already out in the Deepings Lane. Off I set alone, and when I came in sight of the trees which shaded the entrance to the narrow lane, there I saw a man at work grubbing up gorse roots with a pickaxe. He was just on the side of the hedge where George C— had in my dream climbed over, and a few more steps showed me it was George himself, whom I had never known to work in that direction. The dream flashed into my memory. I stood still; and then, as soon as shaky knees permitted, I walked home again, and left the question of the violets unsolved. The story is trifling and inconclusive; and I only tell it because of the rarity of first..
hand testimony.—I am, Sir, &c., E. II.
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