son of one to whom the dream was told _before_ the event, was then a
boy of fourteen, and sixty-one years later was sure that he himself
heard of Mr. Williams's dream _before_ the news of the murder arrived.
After sixty years, however, the memory cannot be relied upon.

One very curious circumstance in connection with the assassination of
Mr. Perceval has never been noticed. A rumour or report of the deed
reached Bude Kirk, a village near Annan, on the night of Sunday, May
10, a day before the crime was committed! This was stated in the
Dumfries and Galloway Courier, and copied in The Times of May 25. On
May 28, the Perth Courier quotes the Dumfries paper, and adds that
"the Rev. Mr. Yorstoun, minister of Hoddam (ob. 1833), has visited
Bude Kirk and has obtained the most satisfactory proof of the rumour
having existed" on May 10, but the rumour cannot be traced to its
source. Mr. Yorstoun authorises the mention of his name. The Times
of June 2 says that "the report is without foundation". If Williams
talked everywhere of his dream, on May 3, some garbled shape of it may
conceivably have floated to Bude Kirk by May 10, and originated the
rumour. Whoever started it would keep quiet when the real news
arrived for fear of being implicated in a conspiracy as accessory
before the fact. No trace of Mr. Williams's dream occurs in the
contemporary London papers.

The best version of the dream to follow is probably that signed by Mr.
Williams himself in 1832. {39a}

It may, of course, be argued by people who accept Mr. Williams's dream
as a revelation of the future that it reached his mind from the
_purpose_ conceived in Bellingham's mind, by way of "mental
telegraphy". {39b}