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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Spectre In The Cart, by Thomas Nelson Page
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Spectre In The Cart
+       1908
+
+Author: Thomas Nelson Page
+
+Release Date: November 16, 2007 [EBook #23515]
+Last Updated: March 8, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPECTRE IN THE CART ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SPECTRE IN THE CART
+
+By Thomas Nelson Page
+
+Charles Scribner's Sons New York, 1908
+
+Copyright, 1891, 1904, 1906
+
+
+I had not seen my friend Stokeman since we were at college together,
+and now naturally we fell to talking of old times. I remembered him as
+a hard-headed man without a particle of superstition, if such a thing
+be possible in a land where we are brought up on superstition, from the
+bottle. He was at that time full of life and of enjoyment of whatever it
+brought. I found now that his wild and almost reckless spirits had been
+tempered by the years which had passed as I should not have believed
+possible, and that gravity had taken place of the gaiety for which he
+was then noted.
+
+He used to maintain, I remember, that there was no apparition or
+supernatural manifestation, or series of circumstances pointing to such
+a manifestation, however strongly substantiated they appeared to be,
+that could not be explained on purely natural grounds.
+
+During our stay at college a somewhat notable instance of what was by
+many supposed to be a supernatural manifestation occurred in a deserted
+house on a remote plantation in an adjoining county.
+
+It baffled all investigation, and got into the newspapers, recalling the
+Cock Lane ghost, and many more less celebrated apparitions. Parties were
+organized to investigate it, but were baffled. Stokeman, on a bet of a
+box of cigars, volunteered to go out alone and explode the fraud; and
+did so, not only putting the restless spirit to flight, but capturing it
+and dragging it into town as the physical and indisputable witness both
+of the truth of his theory and of his personal courage. The exploit gave
+him immense notoriety in our little world.
+
+I was, therefore, no little surprised to hear him say seriously now that
+he had come to understand how people saw apparitions.
+
+“I have seen them myself,” he added, gravely.
+
+“You do not mean it!” I sat bolt upright in my chair in my astonishment.
+I had myself, largely through his influence, become a sceptic in matters
+relating to the supernatural.
+
+“Yes, I have seen ghosts. They not only have appeared to me, but were as
+real to my ocular vision as any other external physical object which I
+saw with my eyes.
+
+“Of course, it was an hallucination. Tell me; I can explain it.”
+
+“I explained it myself,” he said, dryly. “But it left me with a little
+less conceit and a little more sympathy with the hallucinations of
+others not so gifted.”
+
+It was a fair hit.
+
+“In the year--,” he went on, after a brief period of reflection, “I was
+the State's Attorney for my native county, to which office I had been
+elected a few years after I left college, and the year we emancipated
+ourselves from carpet-bag rule, and I so remained until I was appointed
+to the bench. I had a personal acquaintance, pleasant or otherwise,
+with every man in the county. The district was a close one, and I could
+almost have given the census of the population. I knew every man who was
+for me and almost every one who was against me. There were few neutrals.
+In those times much hung on the elections. There was no borderland. Men
+were either warmly for you or hotly against you.
+
+“We thought we were getting into smooth water, where the sailing was
+clear, when the storm suddenly appeared about to rise again. In the
+canvass of that year the election was closer than ever and the contest
+hotter.
+
+“Among those who went over when the lines were thus sharply drawn was an
+old darky named Joel Turnell, who had been a slave of one of my nearest
+neighbors, Mr. Eaton, and whom I had known all my life as an easygoing,
+palavering old fellow with not much principle, but with kindly manners
+and a likable way. He had always claimed to be a supporter of mine,
+being one of the two or three negroes in the county who professed to
+vote with the whites.
+
+“He had a besetting vice of pilfering, and I had once or twice defended
+him for stealing and gotten him off, and he appeared to be grateful to
+me. I always doubted him a little; for I believed he did not have force
+of character enough to stand up against his people, and he was a chronic
+liar. Still, he was always friendly with me, and used to claim the
+emoluments and privileges of such a relation. Now, however, on a sudden,
+in this campaign he became one of my bitterest opponents. I attributed
+it to the influence of a son of his, named Absalom, who had gone off
+from the county during the war when he was only a youth, and had stayed
+away for many years without anything being known of him, and had now
+returned unexpectedly. He threw himself into the fight. He claimed to
+have been in the army, and he appeared to have a deep-seated animosity
+against the whites, particularly against all those whom he had known
+in boyhood. He was a vicious-looking fellow, broad-shouldered and
+bow-legged, with a swagger in his gait. He had an ugly scar on the side
+of his throat, evidently made by a knife, though he told the negroes, I
+understood, that he had got it in the war, and was ready to fight again
+if he but got the chance. He had not been back long before he was in
+several rows, and as he was of brutal strength, he began to be much
+feared by the negroes. Whenever I heard of him it was in connection
+with some fight among his own people, or some effort to excite race
+animosity. When the canvass began he flung himself into it with fury,
+and I must say with marked effect.
+
+“His hostility appeared to be particularly directed against myself, and
+I heard of him in all parts of the district declaiming against me. The
+negroes who, for one or two elections, had appeared to have quieted
+down and become indifferent as to politics were suddenly revivified. It
+looked as if the old scenes of the Reconstruction period, when the
+two sides were like hostile armies, might be witnessed again. Night
+meetings, or 'camp-fires,' were held all through the district, and
+from many of them came the report of Absalom Turnell's violent speeches
+stirring up the blacks and arraying them against the whites. Our side
+was equally aroused and the whole section was in a ferment. Our effort
+was to prevent any outbreak and tide over the crisis.
+
+“Among my friends was a farmer named John Halloway, one of the best men
+in my county, and a neighbor and friend of mine from my boyhood. His
+farm, a snug little homestead of fifty or sixty acres, adjoined our
+plantation on one side; and on the other, that of the Eatons, to whom
+Joel Turnell and his son Absalom had belonged, and I remember that as a
+boy it was my greatest privilege and reward to go over on a Saturday and
+be allowed by John Halloway to help him plough, or cut his hay. He was
+a big, ruddy-faced, jolly boy, and even then used to tell me about being
+in love with Fanny Peel, who was the daughter of another farmer in the
+neighborhood, and a Sunday-school scholar of my mother's. I thought him
+the greatest man in the world. He had a fight once with Absalom Turnell
+when they were both youngsters, and, though Turnell was rather older and
+much the heavier, whipped him completely. Halloway was a good soldier
+and a good son, and when he came back from the war and won his wife, who
+was a belle among the young farmers, and settled down with her on
+his little place, which he proceeded to make a bower of roses and
+fruit-trees, there was not a man in the neighborhood who did not rejoice
+in his prosperity and wish him well. The Halloways had no children and,
+as is often the case in such instances, they appeared to be more to each
+other than are most husbands and wives. He always spoke of his wife
+as if the sun rose and set in her. No matter where he might be in the
+county, when night came he always rode home, saying that his wife would
+be expecting him. 'Don't keer whether she 's asleep or not,' he used to
+say to those who bantered him, 'she knows I 'm a-comin', and she always
+hears my click on the gate-latch, and is waitin' for me.'
+
+“It came to be well understood throughout the county.
+
+“'I believe you are hen-pecked,' said a man to him one night.
+
+“'I believe I am, George,' laughed Hallo-way, 'and by Jings! I like it,
+too.'
+
+“It was impossible to take offence at him, he was so good-natured. He
+would get out of his bed in the middle of the night, hitch up his horse
+and pull his bitterest enemy out of the mud. He had on an occasion
+ridden all night through a blizzard to get a doctor for the wife of
+a negro neighbor in a cabin near by who was suddenly taken ill. When
+someone expressed admiration for it, especially as it was known that the
+man had not long before been abusing Halloway to the provost-marshal,
+who at that time was in supreme command, he said:
+
+“'Well, what 's that got to do with it? Wa 'n 't the man 's wife sick?
+I don't deserve no credit, though; if I had n't gone, my wife would n'
+'a' let me come in her house.'
+
+“He was an outspoken man, too, not afraid of the devil, and when he
+believed a thing he spoke it, no matter whom it hit. In this way John
+had been in trouble several times while we were under 'gun-rule';
+and this, together with his personal character, had given him great
+influence in the county, and made him a power. He was one of my most
+ardent friends and supporters, and to him, perhaps, more than to any
+other two men in the county, I owed my position.
+
+“Absalom Turnell's rancorous speeches had stirred all the county, and
+the apprehension of the outbreak his violence was in danger of
+bringing might have caused trouble but for John Halloway's coolness and
+level-headedness. John offered to go around and follow Absalom up at his
+meetings. He could 'spike his guns,' he said.
+
+“Some of his friends wanted to go with him. 'You 'd better not try
+that,' they argued. That fellow, Ab. Turnell 's got it in for you.' But
+he said no. The only condition on which he would go was that he should
+go alone.
+
+“'They ain't any of 'em going to trouble me. I know 'em all and I git
+along with 'em first rate. I don't know as I know this fellow Ab.; he 's
+sort o' grown out o' my recollection; but I want to see. He knows me, I
+know. I got my hand on him once when he was a boy--about my age, and he
+ain't forgot that, I know. He was a blusterer; but he did n 't have real
+grit. He won't say nothin' to my face. But I must go alone. You all are
+too flighty.'
+
+“So Halloway went alone and followed Ab. up at his 'camp-fires,' and if
+report was true his mere presence served to curb Ab.'s fury, and take
+the fire out of his harangues. Even the negroes got to laughing and
+talking about it 'Ab. was jest like a dog when a man faced him,' they
+said; 'he could n' look him in the eye.'
+
+“The night before the election there was a meeting at one of the worst
+places in the county, a country store at a point known as Burley's Fork,
+and Halloway went there, alone--and for the first time in the canvass
+thought it necessary to interfere. Absalom, stung by the taunts of
+some of his friends, and having stimulated himself with mean whiskey,
+launched out in a furious tirade against the whites generally, and me
+in particular; and called on the negroes to go to the polls next day
+prepared to 'wade in blood to their lips.' For himself, he said, he had
+'drunk blood' before, both of white men and women, and he meant to drink
+it again. He whipped out and flourished a pistol in one hand and a knife
+in the other.
+
+“His language exceeded belief, and the negroes, excited by his violence,
+were showing the effect on their emotions of his wild declamation, and
+were beginning to respond with shouts and cries when Halloway rose and
+walked forward. Absalom turned and started to meet him, yelling his fury
+and threats, and the audience were rising to their feet when they were
+stopped. It was described to me afterward.
+
+“Halloway was in the midst of a powder magazine, absolutely alone,
+a single spark would have blown him to atoms and might have caused a
+catastrophe which would have brought untold evil. But he was as calm as
+a May morning. He walked through them, the man who told me said, as if
+he did not know there was a soul in a hundred miles of him, and as if
+Absalom were only something to be swept aside.
+
+“'He wa' n't exac'ly laughin', or even smilin', said my informant, 'but
+he jest looked easy in his mine.'
+
+“They were all waiting, he said, expecting Absalom to tear him to pieces
+on the spot; but as Halloway advanced, Absalom faltered and stopped. He
+could not stand his calm eye.
+
+“'It was jest like a dog givin' way before a man who ain't afraid of
+him,' my man said. 'He breshed Absalom aside as if he had been a fly,
+and began to talk to us, and I never heard such a speech.'
+
+“I got there just after it happened; for some report of what Absalom
+intended to do had reached me that night and I rode over hastily,
+fearing that I might arrive too late. When, however, I arrived at the
+place everything was quiet, Absalom had disappeared. Unable to face
+his downfall, he had gone off, taking old Joel with him. The tide of
+excitement had changed and the negroes, relieved at the relaxing of the
+tension, were laughing among themselves at their champion's defeat and
+disavowing any sympathy with his violence. They were all friendly with
+Halloway.
+
+“'Dat man wa' n' nothin' but a' outside nigger, nohow,' they said. 'And
+he always was more mouth then anything else,' etc.
+
+“'Good L--d! He say he want to drink blood!' declared one man to
+another, evidently for us to hear, as we mounted our horses.
+
+“'Drink _whiskey!_' replied the other, dryly, and there was a laugh of
+derision.
+
+“I rode home with Halloway.
+
+“I shall never forget his serenity. As we passed along, the negroes were
+lining the roads on their way homeward, and were shouting and laughing
+among themselves; and the greetings they gave us as we passed were
+as civil and good-humored as if no unpleasantness had ever existed. A
+little after we set out, one man, who had been walking very fast just
+ahead of us, and had been keeping in advance all the time, came close
+to Halloway's stirrup and said something to him in an undertone. All I
+caught was, layin' up something against him.'
+
+“'That 's all right, Dick; let him lay it up, and keep it laid up,'
+Halloway laughed.
+
+“'Dat 's a bad feller!' the negro insisted, uneasily, his voice kept in
+an undertone. 'You got to watch him. I'se knowed him from a boy.'
+
+“He added something else in a whisper which I did not catch.
+
+“'All right; certainly not! Much obliged to you, Dick. I 'll keep my
+eyes open. Goodnight.'
+
+“'Good-night, gent'men'; and the negro fell back and began to talk with
+the nearest of his companions effusively.
+
+“'Who is that?' I asked, for the man had kept his hat over his eyes.
+
+“'That 's Dick Winchester. You remember that old fellow 't used to
+belong to old Mr. Eaton--lived down in the pines back o' me, on the
+creek 't runs near my place. His wife died the year of the big snow.'
+
+“It was not necessary for him to explain further. I remembered the negro
+for whom Hal-loway had ridden through the storm that night.
+
+“I asked Halloway somewhat irrelevantly, if he carried a pistol. He said
+no, he had never done so.
+
+“'Fact is, I 'm afraid of killin' somebody. And I don't want to do that,
+I know. Never could bear to shoot my gun even durin' o' the war, though
+I shot her 'bout as often as any of 'em, I reckon--always used to shut
+my eyes right tight whenever I pulled the trigger. I reckon I was a
+mighty pore soldier,' he laughed. I had heard that he was one of the
+best in the army.
+
+“'Besides, I always feel sort o' cowardly if I 've got a pistol on.
+Looks like I was afraid of somebody--an' I ain't. I 've noticed if two
+fellows have pistols on and git to fightin', mighty apt to one git hurt,
+maybe both. Sort o' like two dogs growling--long as don't but one of 'em
+growl it's all right. If don't but one have a pistol, t' other feller
+always has the advantage and sort o' comes out top, while the man with
+the pistol looks mean.'
+
+“I remember how he looked in the dim moonlight as he drawled his quaint
+philosophy.
+
+“'I 'm a man o' peace, Mr. Johnny, and I learnt that from your mother--I
+learnt a heap o' things from her,' he added, presently, after a little
+period of reflection. 'She was the lady as used always to have a kind
+word for me when I was a boy. That 's a heap to a boy. I used to think
+she was an angel. You think it 's _you_ I'm a fightin' for in this
+canvass? 'T ain't. I like you well enough, but I ain't never forgot
+your mother, and her kindness to my old people durin' the war when I
+was away. She give me this handkerchief for a weddin' present when I
+was married after the war--said 't was all she had to give, and my wife
+thinks the world and all of it; won't let me have it 'cept as a favor;
+but this mornin' she told me to take it--said 'twould bring me luck.' He
+took a big bandana out of his pocket and held it up in the moonlight. I
+remembered it as one of my father's.
+
+“'She 'll make me give it up to-morrow night when I git home,' he
+chuckled.
+
+“We had turned into a road through the plantations, and had just come to
+the fork where Halloway's road turned off toward his place.
+
+“'I lays a heap to your mother's door--purty much all this, I reckon.'
+His eye swept the moon-bathed scene before him. 'But for her I might n't
+'a got _her_. And ain't a' man in the world got a happier home, or as
+good a wife.' He waved his hand toward the little homestead that was
+sleeping in the moonlight on the slope the other side of the stream, a
+picture of peace.
+
+“His path went down a little slope, and mine kept along the side of the
+hill until it entered the woods. A great sycamore tree grew right in
+the fork, with its long, hoary arms extending over both roads, making a
+broad mass of shadow in the white moonlight.
+
+“The next day was the day of election. Hal-loway was at one poll and I
+was at another; so I did not see him that day. But he sent me word that
+evening that he had carried his poll, and I rode home knowing that we
+should have peace.
+
+“I was awakened next morning by the news that both Halloway and his
+wife had been murdered the night before. I at once galloped over to his
+place, and was one of the first to get there. It was a horrible sight.
+Halloway had evidently been waylaid and killed by a blow of an axe just
+as he was entering his yard gate, and then the door of the house had
+been broken open and his wife had been killed, after which Halloway 's
+body had been dragged into the house, and the house had been fired with
+the intention of making it appear that the house had burned by accident.
+But by one of those inscrutable fatalities, the fire, after burning half
+of two walls, had gone out.
+
+“It was a terrible sight, and the room looked like a shambles. Halloway
+had plainly been caught unawares while leaning over his gate. The back
+of his head had been crushed in with the eye of an axe, and he had
+died instantly. The pleasant thought which was in his mind at the
+instant--perhaps, of the greeting that always awaited him on the click
+of his latch; perhaps, of his success that day; perhaps, of my mother's
+kindness to him when he was a boy--was yet on his face, stamped there
+indelibly by the blow that killed him. There he lay, face upward, as the
+murderer had thrown him after bringing him in, stretched out his full
+length on the floor, with his quiet face upturned! looking in that
+throng of excited, awe-stricken men, just what he had said he was: a
+man of peace. His wife, on the other hand, wore a terrified look on her
+face. There had been a terrible struggle. She had lived to taste the
+bitterness of death, before it took her.”
+
+Stokeman, with a little shiver, put his hand over his eyes as though to
+shut out the vision that recurred to him. After a long breath he began
+again.
+
+“In a short time there was a great crowd there, white and black. The
+general mind flew at once to Absalom Turnell. The negroes present were
+as earnest in their denunciation as the whites; perhaps, more so, for
+the whites were past threatening. I knew from the grim-ness that trouble
+was brewing, and I felt that if Absalom were caught and any evidence
+were found on him, no power on earth could save him. A party rode off
+in search of him, and went to old Joel's house. Neither Absalom nor Joel
+were there; they had not been home since the election, one of the women
+said.
+
+“As a law officer of the county I was to a certain extent in charge at
+Halloway's and in looking around for all the clews to be found, I came
+on a splinter of 'light-wood' not as large or as long as one's little
+finger, stuck in a crack in the floor near the bed: a piece of a stick
+of 'fat-pine,' such as negroes often carry about, and use as tapers. One
+end had been burned; but the other end was clean and was jagged just as
+it had been broken off. There was a small scorched place on the planks
+on either side, and it was evident that this was one of the splinters
+that had been used in firing the house. I called a couple of the
+coolest, most level-headed men present and quietly showed them the spot,
+and they took the splinter out and I put it in my pocket.
+
+“By one of those fortuitous chances which so often happen in every
+lawyer's experience, and appear inexplicable, Old Joel Turnell walked
+up to the house just as we came out. He was as sympathetic as possible,
+appeared outraged at the crime, professed the highest regard for
+Halloway, and the deepest sorrow at his death. The sentiment of the
+crowd was rather one of sympathy with him, that he should have such a
+son as Absalom.
+
+“I took the old man aside to have a talk with him, to find out where his
+son was and where he had been the night before. He was equally vehement
+in his declarations of his son's innocence, and of professions of regard
+for Halloway. And suddenly to my astonishment he declared that his son
+had spent the night with him and had gone away after sunrise.
+
+“Then happened one of those fatuous things that have led to the
+detection of so many negroes and can almost be counted on in their
+prosecution. Joel took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his
+face, and as he did so I recognized the very handkerchief Halloway had
+shown me the night before. With the handkerchief, Joel drew out several
+splinters of light-wood, one of which had been broken off from a longer
+piece. I picked it up and it fitted exactly into the piece that had been
+stuck in the crack in the floor. At first, I could scarcely believe
+my own senses. Of course, it became my duty to have Joel arrested
+immediately. But I was afraid to have it done there, the crowd was
+so deeply incensed. So I called the two men to whom I had shown the
+light-wood splinter, told them the story, and they promised to get him
+away and arrest him quietly and take him safely to jail, which they did.
+
+“Even then we did not exactly believe that the old man had any active
+complicity in the crime, and I was blamed for arresting the innocent old
+father and letting the guilty son escape. The son, however, was arrested
+shortly afterward.
+
+“The circumstances from which the crime arose gave the case something
+of a political aspect, and the prisoners had the best counsel to be
+procured, both at our local bar and in the capital. The evidence was
+almost entirely circumstantial, and when I came to work it up I found,
+as often occurs, that although the case was plain enough on the outside,
+there were many difficulties in the way of fitting all the circumstances
+to prove the guilt of the accused and to make out every link in the
+chain. Particularly was this so in the prosecution of the young man,
+who was supposed to be the chief criminal, and in whose case there was a
+strong effort to prove an alibi.
+
+“As I worked, I found to my surprise that the guilt of the old man,
+though based wholly on circumstantial evidence, was established more
+clearly than that of his son--not indeed, as to the murders, but as to
+the arson, which served just as well to convict on. The handkerchief,
+which Joel had not been able to resist the temptation to steal, and the
+splinter of light-wood in his pocket, which fitted exactly into that
+found in the house, together with other circumstances, proved his guilt
+conclusively. But although there was an equal moral certainty of the
+guilt of the young man, it was not so easy to establish it by law.
+
+“Old Dick Winchester was found dead one morning and the alibi was almost
+completely proved, and only failed by the incredibility of the witnesses
+for the defence. Old Joel persistently declared that Absalom was
+innocent, and but for a confession by Absalom of certain facts intended
+to shift the suspicion from himself to his father, I do not know how his
+case might have turned out.
+
+“I believed him to be the instigator as well as the perpetrator of the
+crime.
+
+“I threw myself into the contest, and prosecuted with all the vigor I
+was capable of. And I finally secured the conviction of both men. But
+it was after a hard fight. They were the only instances in which,
+representing the Commonwealth, I was ever conscious of strong personal
+feeling, and of a sense of personal triumph. The memory of my last ride
+with Hal-loway, and of the things he had said to me; the circumstances
+under which he and his wife were killed; the knowledge that in some sort
+it was on my account; and the bitter attacks made on me personally;(for
+in some quarters I was depicted as a bloodthirsty ruffian, and it
+was charged that I was for political reasons prosecuting men whom I
+personally knew to be innocent), all combined to spur me to my utmost
+effort. And when the verdicts were rendered, I was conscious of a sense
+of personal triumph so fierce as to shock me.
+
+“Not that I did not absolutely believe in the guilt of both prisoners;
+for I considered that I had demonstrated it, and so did the jurors who
+tried them.
+
+“The day of execution was set. An appeal was at once taken in both cases
+and a stay was granted, and I had to sustain the verdicts in the upper
+court. The fact that the evidence was entirely circumstantial had
+aroused great interest, and every lawyer in the State had his theory.
+The upper court affirmed in both cases and appeals were taken to the
+highest court, and again stay of execution was granted.
+
+“The prisoners' counsel had moved to have the prisoners transferred to
+another county, which I opposed. I was sure that the people of my county
+would observe the law. They had resisted the first fierce impulse,
+and were now waiting patiently for justice to take its course. Months
+passed, and the stay of execution had to be renewed. The road to
+Halloway's grew up and I understood that the house had fallen in,
+though I never went that way again. Still the court hung fire as to its
+conclusion.
+
+“The day set for the execution approached for the third time without the
+court having rendered its decision.
+
+“On the day before that set for the execution, the court gave its
+decision. It refused to interfere in the case of old Joel, but reversed
+and set aside the verdict in that of the younger man. Of a series
+of over one hundred bills of exception taken by his counsel as a
+'drag-net,' one held; and owing to the admission of a single question
+by a juror, the judgment was set aside in Absalom's case and a new trial
+was ordered.
+
+“Being anxious lest the excitement might increase, I felt it my duty to
+stay at the county-seat that night, and as I could not sleep I spent the
+time going over the records of the two cases; which, like most causes,
+developed new points every time they were read.
+
+“Everything was perfectly quiet all night, though the village was
+filling up with people from the country to see the execution, which at
+that time was still public. I determined next morning to go to my home
+in the country and get a good rest, of which I began to feel the need.
+I was detained, however, and it was well along in the forenoon before I
+mounted my horse and rode slowly out of town through a back street. The
+lane kept away from the main road except at one point just outside of
+town, where it crossed it at right angles.
+
+“It was a beautiful spring day--a day in which it is a pleasure merely
+to live, and as I rode along through the quiet lane under the leafy
+trees I could not help my mind wandering and dwelling on the things
+that were happening. I am not sure, indeed, that I was not dozing; for I
+reached the highway without knowing just where I was.
+
+“I was recalled to myself by a rush of boys up the street before
+me, with a crowd streaming along behind them. It was the head of the
+procession. The sheriff and his men were riding, with set faces, in
+front and on both sides of a slowly moving vehicle; a common horse-cart
+in which in the midst of his guards, and dressed in his Sunday clothes,
+with a clean white shirt on, seated on his pine coffin, was old Joel. I
+unconsciously gazed at him, and at the instant he looked up and saw me.
+Our eyes met as naturally as if he had expected to find me there, and
+he gave me as natural and as friendly a bow--not a particle reproachful;
+but a little timid, as though he did not quite know whether I would
+speak to him.
+
+“It gave me a tremendous shock. I had a sudden sinking of the heart, and
+nearly fell from my horse.
+
+“I turned and rode away; but I could not shake off the feeling. I tried
+to reassure myself with the reflection that he had committed a terrible
+crime. It did not compose me. What insisted on coming to my mind was the
+eagerness with which I had prosecuted him and the joy I had felt at my
+success.
+
+“Of course, I know now it was simply that I was overworked and needed
+rest; but at that time the trouble was serious.
+
+“It haunted me all day, and that night I could not sleep. For many days
+afterwards, it clung to me, and I found myself unable to forget it, or
+to sleep as I had been used to do.
+
+“The new trial of Absalom came on in time, and the fight was had all
+over again. It was longer than before, as every man in our county had an
+opinion, and a jury had to be brought from another county. But again the
+verdict was the same. And again an appeal was taken; was refused by
+the next higher court; and allowed by the highest; this time because a
+talesman had said he had expressed an opinion, but had not formed one.
+In time the appeal was heard once more, and after much delay, due to
+the number of cases on the docket and the immense labor of studying
+carefully so huge a record, it was decided. It was again reversed, on
+the technicality mentioned, and a new trial was ordered.
+
+“That same day the court adjourned for the term.
+
+“Having a bed-room adjoining my office, I spent that night in town. I
+did not go to sleep until late, and had not been asleep long when I was
+awakened by the continual repetition of a monotonous sound. At first I
+thought I was dreaming, but as I aroused it came to me distinctly: the
+sound of blows in the distance struck regularly. I awaked fully. The
+noise was in the direction of the jail. I dressed hastily and went down
+on the street. I stepped into the arms of a half-dozen masked men who
+quietly laid me on my back, blindfolded me and bound me so that I could
+not move. I threatened and struggled; but to no purpose, and finally
+gave it up and tried expostulation. They told me that they intended no
+harm to me; but that I was their prisoner and they meant to keep me.
+They had come for their man, they said, and they meant to have him. They
+were perfectly quiet and acted with the precision of old soldiers.
+
+“All the time I could hear the blows at the jail as the mob pounded the
+iron door with sledges, and now and then a shout or cry from within.
+
+“The blows were on the inner door, for the mob had quickly gained access
+to the outer corridor. They had come prepared and, stout as the door
+was, it could not resist long. Then one great roar went up and the blows
+ceased suddenly, and then one cry.
+
+“In a little while I heard the regular tramp of men, and in a few
+minutes the column came up the street, marching like soldiers. There
+must have been five hundred of them. The prisoner was in the midst,
+bare-headed and walking between two mounted men, and was moaning and
+pleading and cursing by turns.
+
+“I asked my captors if I might speak, and they gave me ten minutes. I
+stood up on the top step of the house, and for a few minutes I made what
+I consider to have been the best speech I ever made or shall make. I
+told them in closing that I should use all my powers to find out who
+they were, and if I could do so I should prosecute them, everyone, and
+try and have them hanged for murder.
+
+“They heard me patiently, but without a word, and when I was through,
+one of the leaders made a short reply. They agreed with me about the
+law; but they felt that the way it was being used was such as to cause
+a failure of justice. They had waited patiently, and were apparently no
+nearer seeing justice executed than in the beginning. So they proposed
+to take the law into their own hands. The remedy was, to do away with
+all but proper defences and execute the law without unreasonable delay.
+
+“It was the first mob I had ever seen, and I experienced a sensation
+of utter powerlessness and insignificance; just as in a storm at sea,
+a hurricane, or a conflagration. The individual disappeared before the
+irresistible force.
+
+“An order was given and the column moved on silently.
+
+“A question arose among my guards as to what should be done with me.
+
+“They wished to pledge me to return to my rooms and take no steps until
+morning, but I would give no pledges. So they took me along with them.
+
+“From the time they started there was not a word except the orders
+of the leader and his lieutenants and the occasional outcry of the
+prisoner, who prayed and cursed by turns.
+
+“They passed out of the village and turned in at Halloway's place.
+
+“Here the prisoner made his last struggle. The idea of being taken to
+Halloway's place appeared to terrify him to desperation. He might as
+well have struggled against the powers of the Infinite. He said he would
+confess everything if they would not take him there. They said they did
+not want his confession. He gave up, and from this time was quiet; and
+he soon began to croon a sort of hymn.
+
+“The procession stopped at the big sycamore under which I had last
+parted from Halloway.
+
+“I asked leave to speak again; but they said no. They asked the prisoner
+if he wanted to say anything. He said he wanted something to eat. The
+leader said he should have it; that it should never be said that any
+man--even he--had asked in vain for food in that county.
+
+“Out of a haversack food was produced in plenty, and while the crowd
+waited, amidst profound silence the prisoner squatted down and ate up
+the entire plateful.
+
+“Then the leader said he had just five minutes more to live and he had
+better pray.
+
+“He began a sort of wild incoherent ramble; confessed that he had
+murdered Halloway and his wife, but laid the chief blame on his father,
+and begged them to tell his friends to meet him in heaven.
+
+“I asked leave to go, and it was given me on condition that I would not
+return for twenty minutes. This I agreed to.
+
+“I went to my home and aroused someone, and we returned. It was not much
+more than a half-hour since I had left, but the place was deserted. It
+was all as silent as the grave. There was no living creature there.
+Only under the great sycamore, from one of its long, pale branches that
+stretched across the road, hung that dead thing with the toes turned a
+little in, just out of our reach, turning and swaying a little in the
+night wind.
+
+“We had to climb to the limb to cut the body down.
+
+“The outside newspapers made a good deal of the affair. I was charged
+with indifference, with cowardice, with venality. Some journals even
+declared that I had instigated the lynching and participated in it, and
+said that I ought to be hanged.
+
+“I did not mind this much. It buoyed me up, and I went on with my work
+without stopping for a rest, as I had intended to do.
+
+“I kept my word and ransacked the county for evidence against the
+lynchers. Many knew nothing about the matter; others pleaded their
+privilege and refused to testify on the ground of self-crimination.
+
+“The election came on again, and almost before I knew it I was in the
+midst of the canvass.
+
+“I held that election would be an indorsement of me, and defeat would be
+a censure. After all, it is the indorsement of those about our own home
+that we desire.
+
+“The night before the election I spoke to a crowd at Burley's Fork. The
+place had changed since Halloway checked Absalom Turnell there. A large
+crowd was in attendance. I paid Halloway my personal tribute that night,
+and it met with a deep response. I denounced the lynching. There was a
+dead silence. I was sure that in my audience were many of the men who
+had been in the mob that night.
+
+“When I rode home quite a company started with me.
+
+“The moon, which was on the wane, was, I remember, just rising as we set
+ont It was a soft night, rather cloudy, but not dark, for the sad moon
+shone a little now and then, looking wasted and red. The other men
+dropped off from time to time as we came to the several roads that led
+to their homes and at last I was riding alone. I was dead tired and
+after I was left by my companions sat loungingly on my horse. My mind
+ran on the last canvass and the strange tragedy that had ended it, with
+its train of consequences. I was not aware when my horse turned off from
+the main road into the by-lane that led through the Halloway place to
+my own home. My horse was the same I had ridden that night. I awaked
+suddenly to a realization of where I was, and regretted for a second
+that I had come by that road. The next moment I put the thought away
+as a piece of cowardice and rode on, my mind perfectly easy. My horse
+presently broke into a canter and I took a train of thought distinctly
+pleasant. I mention this to account for my inability to explain what
+followed. I was thinking of old times and of a holiday I had once spent
+at Halloway 's when old Joel came through on his way to his wife's
+house. It was the first time I remembered ever seeing Joel. I was
+suddenly conscious of something white moving on the road before me. At
+the same second my horse suddenly wheeled with such violence as to break
+my stirrup-leather and almost throw me over his neck. I pulled him up
+and turned him back, and there before me, coming along the unused road
+up the hill from Hallo way's, was old Joel, sitting in a cart, looking
+at me, and bowing to me politely just as he had done that morning on his
+way to the gallows; while dangling from the white limb of the sycamore,
+swaying softly in the wind, hung the corpse of Absalom. At first I
+thought it was an illusion and I rubbed my eyes. But there they were.
+Then I thought it was a delusion; and I reined in my horse and reasoned
+about it. But it was not; for I saw both men as plainly as I saw my
+stirrup-leather lying there in the middle of the road, and in the same
+way. My horse saw them too, and was so terrified that I could not keep
+him headed to them. Again and again I pulled him around and looked at
+the men and tried to reason about them; but every time I looked there
+they were, and my horse snorted and wheeled in terror. I could see the
+clothes they wore: the clean, white shirt and neat Sunday suit old Joel
+had on, and the striped, hickory shirt, torn on the shoulders, and the
+gray trousers that the lynched man wore--I could see the white rope
+wrapped around the limb and hanging down, and the knot at his throat; I
+remembered them perfectly. I could not get near the cart, for the road
+down to Halloway's, on which it moved steadily without ever approaching,
+was stopped up. But I rode right under the limb on which the other man
+hung, and there he was just above my head. I reasoned with myself, but
+in vain. There he still hung silent and limp, swinging gently in the
+night wind and turning a little back and forth at the end of the white
+rope.
+
+“In sheer determination to fight it through I got off my horse and
+picked up my stirrup. He was trembling like a leaf. I remounted and rode
+back to the spot and looked again, confident that the spectres would now
+have disappeared. But there they were, old Joel, sitting in his cart,
+bowing to me civilly with timid, sad, friendly eyes, as much alive as I
+was, and the dead man, with his limp head and arms and his toes turned
+in, hanging in mid-air.
+
+“I rode up under the dangling body and cut at it with my switch. At the
+motion my horse bolted. He ran fully a mile before I could pursue him
+in.
+
+“The next morning I went to my stable to get my horse to ride to the
+polls. The man a the stable said:
+
+“'He ain't fit to take out, sir. You must 'a gi'n him a mighty hard ride
+last night--he won't tetch a moufful; he 's been in a cold sweats all
+night.'
+
+“Sure enough, he looked it.
+
+“I took another horse and rode out by Halloway's to see the place by
+daylight.
+
+“It was quiet enough now. The sycamore shaded the grass-grown track, and
+a branch, twisted and broken by some storm, hung by a strip of bark from
+the big bough that stretched across the road above my head, swaying,
+with limp leaves, a little in the wind; a dense dogwood bush in full
+bloom among the young pines, filled a fence-corner down the disused road
+where old Joel had bowed to me from his phantom cart the night before.
+But it was hard to believe that these were the things which had created
+such impressions on my mind--as hard to believe as that the quiet
+cottage peering out from amid the mass of peach-bloom on the other slope
+was one hour the home of such happiness, and the next the scene of such
+a tragedy.” Once more he put his hand suddenly before his face as though
+to shut out something from his vision. “Yes, I have seen apparitions,”
+ he said, thoughtfully, “but I have seen what was worse.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Spectre In The Cart, by Thomas Nelson Page
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