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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/23515-0.txt b/23515-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..892860f --- /dev/null +++ b/23515-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1177 @@ +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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPECTRE IN THE CART *** + +***** This file should be named 23515-0.txt or 23515-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/5/1/23515/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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 + + + + + +</pre> + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + THE SPECTRE IN THE CART + </h1> + <h2> + By Thomas Nelson Page <br /> <br /> Charles Scribner's Sons New York, 1908 + <br /><br /> Copyright, 1891, 1904, 1906 + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + I was, therefore, no little surprised to hear him say seriously now that + he had come to understand how people saw apparitions. + </p> + <p> + “I have seen them myself,” he added, gravely. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “Of course, it was an hallucination. Tell me; I can explain it.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + It was a fair hit. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.' + </p> + <p> + “It came to be well understood throughout the county. + </p> + <p> + “'I believe you are hen-pecked,' said a man to him one night. + </p> + <p> + “'I believe I am, George,' laughed Hallo-way, 'and by Jings! I like it, + too.' + </p> + <p> + “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: + </p> + <p> + “'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.' + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “'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.' + </p> + <p> + “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.' + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “'He wa' n't exac'ly laughin', or even smilin', said my informant, 'but he + jest looked easy in his mine.' + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “'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.' + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “'Dat man wa' n' nothin' but a' outside nigger, nohow,' they said. 'And he + always was more mouth then anything else,' etc. + </p> + <p> + “'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. + </p> + <p> + “'Drink <i>whiskey!</i>' replied the other, dryly, and there was a laugh + of derision. + </p> + <p> + “I rode home with Halloway. + </p> + <p> + “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.' + </p> + <p> + “'That 's all right, Dick; let him lay it up, and keep it laid up,' + Halloway laughed. + </p> + <p> + “'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.' + </p> + <p> + “He added something else in a whisper which I did not catch. + </p> + <p> + “'All right; certainly not! Much obliged to you, Dick. I 'll keep my eyes + open. Goodnight.' + </p> + <p> + “'Good-night, gent'men'; and the negro fell back and began to talk with + the nearest of his companions effusively. + </p> + <p> + “'Who is that?' I asked, for the man had kept his hat over his eyes. + </p> + <p> + “'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.' + </p> + <p> + “It was not necessary for him to explain further. I remembered the negro + for whom Hal-loway had ridden through the storm that night. + </p> + <p> + “I asked Halloway somewhat irrelevantly, if he carried a pistol. He said + no, he had never done so. + </p> + <p> + “'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. + </p> + <p> + “'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.' + </p> + <p> + “I remember how he looked in the dim moonlight as he drawled his quaint + philosophy. + </p> + <p> + “'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 <i>you</i> 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. + </p> + <p> + “'She 'll make me give it up to-morrow night when I git home,' he + chuckled. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “'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 <i>her</i>. 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “I believed him to be the instigator as well as the perpetrator of the + crime. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “The day set for the execution approached for the third time without the + court having rendered its decision. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “It gave me a tremendous shock. I had a sudden sinking of the heart, and + nearly fell from my horse. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “Of course, I know now it was simply that I was overworked and needed + rest; but at that time the trouble was serious. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “That same day the court adjourned for the term. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “An order was given and the column moved on silently. + </p> + <p> + “A question arose among my guards as to what should be done with me. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “They passed out of the village and turned in at Halloway's place. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “The procession stopped at the big sycamore under which I had last parted + from Halloway. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “Then the leader said he had just five minutes more to live and he had + better pray. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “I asked leave to go, and it was given me on condition that I would not + return for twenty minutes. This I agreed to. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “We had to climb to the limb to cut the body down. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “The election came on again, and almost before I knew it I was in the + midst of the canvass. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “When I rode home quite a company started with me. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “The next morning I went to my stable to get my horse to ride to the + polls. The man a the stable said: + </p> + <p> + “'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.' + </p> + <p> + “Sure enough, he looked it. + </p> + <p> + “I took another horse and rode out by Halloway's to see the place by + daylight. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Spectre In The Cart, by Thomas Nelson Page + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPECTRE IN THE CART *** + +***** This file should be named 23515-h.htm or 23515-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/5/1/23515/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** 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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPECTRE IN THE CART *** + +***** This file should be named 23515.txt or 23515.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/5/1/23515/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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