The Book of Dreams and Ghosts

THE DYING MOTHER {101} "Mary, the wife of John Goffe of Rochester, being afflicted with a long illness, removed to her father's house at West Mulling, about nine miles from her own. There she died on 4th June, this present year, 1691. "The day before her departure (death) she grew very impatiently desirous to see her two children, whom she had left at home to the care of a nurse. She prayed her husband to 'hire a horse, for she must go home and die with the children'. She was too ill to be moved, but 'a minister who lives in the town was with her at ten o'clock that night, to whom she expressed good hopes in the mercies of God and a willingness to die'. 'But' said she, 'it is my misery that I cannot see my children.' "Between one and two o'clock in the morning, she fell into a trance. One, widow Turner, who watched with her that night, says that her eyes were open and fixed and her jaw fallen. Mrs. Turner put her hand upon her mouth and nostrils, but could perceive no breath. She thought her to be in a fit; and doubted whether she were dead or alive. "The next morning the dying woman told her mother that she had been at home with her children. . . . 'I was with them last night when I was asleep.'