Invisible Helpers

A remarkable case in which children were miraculously protected occurred on the banks of the Thames near Maidenhead a few years earlier than our last example. This time the danger from which they were saved arose not from fire but from water. Three little ones, who lived (if I recall correctly) in or near the village of Shottesbrook, were taken out for a walk along the towing-path by their nurse. They rushed suddenly around a corner upon a horse that was drawing a barge, and in the confusion, two of them went on the wrong side of the tow-rope and were thrown into the water.

The boatman, who saw the accident, sprang forward to try to save them, and he noticed that they were floating high in the water “in quite an unnatural way, like,” as he said, and moving quietly toward the bank. This was all that he and the nurse saw, but the children each declared that “a beautiful person, all white and shining,” stood beside them in the water, held them up, and guided them to the shore. Nor was their story without corroboration, for the bargeman's little daughter, who ran up from the cabin when she heard the nurse’s screams,