A spectre appeared at the Christopher Inn, Eton, in the reign of King Charles II in order to keep a promise.
Major George Sydenham of Dulverton in Somerset had often discussed with his friend, Captain William Dyke, the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. They promised each other that whoever died first would, if possible, appear between twelve midnight and one o’clock, on the third night after the funeral, in the little summerhouse in the Major’s garden.
Sydenham was the first to die, and, shortly after his death, Captain Dyke, who had been called to attend a sick child. At half past eleven that night, Captain Dyke called for two candles and went to the summerhouse. Although he waited for two and a half hours, Sydenham did not appear. He reported this to the doctor. ‘But I know,’ said he, ‘that my major would surely have come had he been able.’
Six weeks later, Captain Dyke took his son to Eton to school and put up at the Christopher Inn. His cousin the doctor was again with him. The morning before they left, the captain was later than usual calling on the doctor, and, when he appeared, looked unlike his usual self. His hair stood on end, his eyes were staring, and he was trembling all over. When the doctor asked what was wrong, he answered, ‘I have seen my major.’ He continued:
This morning after it was light, some one comes to my bed side, and suddenly drawing back the curtains, calls, Captain, captain, to whom I replied, What, my major? To which he returns, I could not come at the time appointed but I am now come to tell you. That there is a GOD and a very just and terrible one, and if you do not turn over a new leaf, you shall find it so.
The ghost then walked about the room, stopping by the table on which lay a sword the major had given him. Drawing the sword and finding it not so clean as it should be: ‘Captain, captain, this sword did not use to be kept after this manner when it was mine.’ Shortly afterwards, he vanished.
According to George Sinclair, recording this story in Satan’s Invisible World Discovered (1789), the captain who had been ‘brisk and jovial’, was much altered from that night and those who knew him believed that the worlds of his dead friend often sounded in his ears during the remainder of his life. He himself died two years later.