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diff --git a/old/69955-0.txt b/old/69955-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index be0e4da..0000000 --- a/old/69955-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3576 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Was it a ghost? The murders in -Bussey's wood, by Anonymous - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Was it a ghost? The murders in Bussey's wood - An extraordinary narrative - -Author: Anonymous - -Release Date: February 4, 2023 [eBook #69955] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed Proofreading - Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from - images generously made available by The Internet - Archive/American Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WAS IT A GHOST? THE MURDERS -IN BUSSEY'S WOOD *** - - - - - - Transcriber’s Note - Italic text displayed as: _italic_ - - - - - WAS - IT A - GHOST? - - THE MURDERS - in - BUSSEY’S WOOD - - AN EXTRAORDINARY - NARRATIVE. - - LORING, Publisher. - - BOSTON - 1868. - - _PRICE, 75 CENTS._ - - - - - =Loring’s Publications.= - - - CHOICE FICTION. - - THE GAYWORTHYS. By the Author of ‘Faith Gartney’s - Girlhood.’ 8th Edition. $2.00 - INTO THE LIGHT: or, THE JEWESS. 1.75 - PIQUE: A Tale of the English Aristocracy. 15th Ed. 1.50 - SIMPLICITY AND FASCINATION: A Tale of the English - Gentry. 3d Ed. 1.50 - MAINSTONE’S HOUSEKEEPER: A Tale of the Manufacturing - Districts. 9th Ed. 1.50 - THE QUEEN OF THE COUNTY. 4th Ed. 1.50 - BROKEN TO HARNESS. By EDMUND YATES. 4th Ed. 1.50 - RUNNING THE GAUNTLET. ” ” 3d Ed. 1.50 - MIRAMICHI: A Story of the Methodist Blacksmith. 1.25 - MOODS. By LOUISA M. ALCOTT. 3d Ed. 1.25 - A LOST LOVE. By ASHFORD OWEN. 4th Ed. 1.25 - - - =For Young Ladies.= - - FAITH GARTNEY’S GIRLHOOD. 16th Ed. 1.75 - JUDGE NOT: or, HESTER POWERS’ GIRLHOOD. 2d Ed. 1.50 - MARGARET AND HER BRIDESMAIDS. 4th Ed. 1.50 - MILLY: or, THE HIDDEN CROSS, A Romance of School - Life. 3d Ed. 1.50 - HELEN FORD. A Romance of New York City Life. By - HORATIO ALGER, jr., 1.50 - COUNTESS KATE. By MISS YONGE. 3d Ed. 1.25 - - - =For Young Gentlemen.= - - MARK ROWLAND. A Romance of the Sea. By HAUSER - MARTINGALE. 1.50 - THE BOYS AT CHEQUASSET. By the Author of ‘Faith - Gartney’s Girlhood.’ 1.25 - FRANK’S CAMPAIGN. By HORATIO ALGER, jr. 1.25 - PAUL PRESCOTT’S CHARGE. ” ” 1.25 - CHARLIE CODMAN’S CRUISE. ” ” 1.25 - RAGGED DICK: A Story of New York Boot Blacks and - News Boys. (In Press.) - TIMOTHY CRUMP’S WARD—and What Came of It. 1.00 - THE LITTLE GENTLEMAN IN GREEN: A Fairy Story - for Boys and Girls. 75 - - - _Mrs. Warren’s Popular Home Manuals._ - - HOW I MANAGED MY HOUSE ON £200 A YEAR. 50 - COMFORT FOR SMALL INCOMES. 50 - HOW I MANAGED MY CHILDREN from Infancy to Marriage. 50 - HOW TO FURNISH A HOUSE WITH SMALL MEANS. 50 - -[Illustration: THE GHOST.] - - - - - WAS IT A GHOST? - - - THE MURDERS IN BUSSEY’S WOOD. - - - An Extraordinary Narrative. - - - LORING, Publisher, - 319 WASHINGTON STREET, - BOSTON. - - - - - Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by - A. K. LORING, - In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court for the District - of Massachusetts. - - - ROCKWELL & ROLLINS, STEREOTYPERS AND PRINTERS, - 122 Washington Street, Boston. - - - - -DEDICATION. - - -I dedicate this book to that philosophy which can argue without -anger, can have a disbelief without sustaining it by insolence; which -can pause on the brink of a chasm, and, because there happens to be -no bridge by which it can cross over, will not proclaim to all the -world that no bridge can be built; to the philosophy which sees as -much beauty in a doubt as in a solution, and has not ventured, or -mayhap will never venture, to affix a limit to human thought, or -define the prerogatives of our Lord and Creator. I do not dedicate it -to the Free Thinker, but to the Just Thinker. The highest reverence -exists oftener than otherwise in the humblest soul, and the night of -our ignorance is lit by stars to accustom us to the effulgence of the -dawn. The future is the poetry of our hope; the present our rest, -from which we extend the wings of memory for the longer and more -glorious flight toward the end. My work will be found to look faintly -but fondly to those things, if it is read aright; and so in all and -everything I humbly say that I have no higher ambition than to serve -my Master. - - - - -PREFACE. - - -I take advantage of this antique form of literature to make a -statement. - -The murders of which I shall have to speak in the following pages -have been misunderstood. There was only one species of crime in their -perpetration, and this I have from the highest authority. If I had -thought it advisable, I could have pointed out the progress by which -the assassin reached his determination, his peculiarity of character, -and his motives; but such a course would have detected justice to the -culprit, not the culprit to justice. Whenever he shall be discovered, -the evidence will be ample justification for my assertion with regard -to the character of the crime, and reveal the darkest, wickedest, and -most deliberate murders with which the history of humanity has been -cursed. - -I am indebted to my friend, THOMAS HILL, Esq., the eminent landscape -painter, for the singularly appropriate adaptation of weird figures -to letters on the cover of my book, and also for the very felicitous -representation of the “Ghost.” His magic pencil masters the alphabet -as well as the higher regions of art, and I feel assured that my -readers will be pleased that I had, in my need, so able an assistant -in helping me to make my humble effort acceptable. - - J. B. - - - - - CONTENTS. - - - PAGE - - Preliminary Remarks 9 - - I. The Roads 11 - - II. The Incidents 18 - - III. The Scene 22 - - IV. The Brook 25 - - V. The Dogs 30 - - VI. The Flat Bridge 34 - - VII. Suspected 41 - - VIII. The Murder-Rock 45 - - IX. Suspicion 49 - - X. Was it a Ghost? 57 - - XI. The Tests 67 - - XII. Tests 75 - - XIII. The Doctor’s Story 94 - - XIV. My Plan of Punishment 101 - - XV. The Children 110 - - XVI. Ghosts 113 - - XVII. Manifestations 123 - - - - -PRELIMINARY REMARKS. - - -The main circumstances that form, in part, the topic of my recital, -excited, at the time of their occurrence, a feeling of unprecedented -horror. They came upon the public sensibility with a force that -even the previous recital of the bloody events of the civil war -could not lessen. Habituation to horror had not deadened the public -susceptibility; for there was around the incidents a belt of mystery -and affright that defied the approach of justice, and baffled private -speculation. - -No necessity, even in the tortuous excuses of crime, was apparent -for the deed; for the victims had had no opportunities to establish, -individually of themselves, hostile relations with any one, and -their condition placed them beyond or beneath the chance of social -importance. They were claimants to no estate in litigation, stood -in no man’s way to advancement, could have produced no rivalry, had -inspired neither revenge, nor jealousy, nor love. They had, in fine, -none of those means that men and women have to incite to crime; for -they were children, and yet they were subjected to a fate that few, -if any, children, had confronted before. - -The commission of the deed was a barbarity; its motives, apparently, -a paradox. - -Everything, indeed, about the transaction was unusual. The hour, the -circumstances, and the locality, all contributed to inspire a greater -horror of the act; and yet, up to this moment, no man’s name, of -high or low, bears a blemish of continued suspicion. Justice seems -to rest, after the excitement of the instant search,—a search that, I -have every reason to know, was intricate and thorough; but, at the -same time, it is well to know that the intelligent Chief of the -police department has only seemed to pause. His eyes have never been -entirely withdrawn from the contemplation of the subject; and I feel -assured, from what I know, that his vigilant and nervous grasp will, -at the appointed time, be placed upon the shoulder of the atrocious -criminal. The murderer may have perhaps, ere this, caught glimpses, -from his abode of gloom in another world, of those two spirits whose -bodies he hacked so butcherly. If that be so, the Chief will have -naught to do; but if he be alive, wandering a desolate path through a -desolate world, it may be that justice will not have waited with an -energetic patience in vain. - - - - -THE NARRATIVE. - - - - -I. - -THE ROADS. - - -There are two roads direct by which the scene I am about to describe -can be reached from Boston. One is the steam-car road, passing -through Roxbury, and dropping way-passengers at Laurel Hill Station. -The other is the horse-car line, that, for some portion of the -route, runs parallel to the steam. The third, and more picturesque, -is another horse-car line, which passes through Jamaica Plain, and -drops the passengers some several hundred yards west, and farther -removed from the official terminus of the two other routes. It was by -the second of these routes, that, on the 12th day of June, 1865, two -children, Isabella and John Joyce, started from their home in Boston, -where they were temporarily boarding, to spend a few hours in May’s -wood, intending to return, according to the elder one’s promise, -in time for her brother to attend his afternoon school. Thus it is -established that the sister never intended to go farther than the -wood first proposed; and in this we have the first glimmering of the -series of mysterious circumstances in which the wretched affair is -enveloped from the beginning to the end. - -This girl was not sixteen years old. - -The boy was barely eight. - -Whatever happened after they took their seats in the car, and who -accompanied them, or joined them afterward, is a matter simply of -conjecture; and yet, as they sat there, these two young things, who, -of all the rest of the passengers that looked upon their fresh, -pleasure-anticipating faces, could have dreamed that, in a section -so civilized, a community so guarded, a population so abundant, in -the marginal outlines of a great city, that ere the sun went down, -within a few short hours, indeed, that girl and boy would be lying -stiff and stark, pierced,—the one, the girl, by twenty-eight poniard -stabs, and the boy by enough to have killed the captains of a full -regiment; the girl dead in the hollow of a rock within thirty feet -of a public road, the boy less than a quarter of a mile away, in the -dense shrubbery, by a tiny stream that flows through the shades of -Bussey’s wonderfully beautiful woods! - -Now, this wood of Bussey’s—at present in the possession of Mr. -Motley, one of the heirs by marriage—is a subject of frequent thought -to the writer of this narrative. It was so before it became the -witness to the murder of these two children; after that, while of -course losing in sentiment and by association some of its innate -and sympathetic loveliness, it ever wore the weird aspect of a -mystic realm; but now is added that terrible consciousness of a -fright, a terror, pervading all its recesses. The wood lies about -six or seven miles southward of the Boston State House, on a county -road, and its summits are lofty enough to afford a view of the city -and the rattlesnake infested Blue Hills back of the Mattapan, more -southwardly yet. - -The wood, as you approach down the road from Mr. Motley’s gate, -presents the aspect of a hill of pines, dark and massive; but, -crossing the fence that keeps it from the highway, you are almost at -once in the midst of a mingled growth of birch and beech and willows; -beneath these passes the brook, near to whose bank was found, farther -up, the body of the boy. Old Mr. Bussey, it would seem, was a man of -droll, yet picturesque fancies, mingled with a sturdy sense of the -useful; for no sooner are you free of the pasture land, and in among -the trees, than you discover traces of his handiwork. The path you -are upon is broad and well constructed, leading to a solid bridge -of masonry; and well may you pause here to take in the full effect -of the scenic entanglement. On your right is a fish-pond, fringed -with the swamp willow, and of sufficient capacity to contain fish -enough for a council of cardinals during the abstinent days of Lent; -and near by a spring of water, so cold that ice is never needed by -those frequent picnic parties that, up to the period of the murders, -sought these delicious retiracies for holiday festivals, or love’s -deeper and sweeter plans of recreation. Crossing this lower bridge, -and passing over a road with velvety grass borders, you turn to your -left, and if you have the time from sandwiches and other condiments, -or are not too absorbed in emotions that beat marches to the field of -matrimony, or much elaboration of flirtation, you will see the steep -ascent, bearded with huge pines, and covered with abutting rocks, -looking like the base of a minor incident of Alpine precipice. If -you choose, there is a wild pathway made among the zigzags, and this -you can pursue until the summit meets you, with the recompense of a -noble prospect, but with your muscles somewhat demoralized. Did those -children take this route? - -Along the ridge, a broad walk leads to the spot where the -wounded-to-death body of the unhappy girl was found. But, if you -think otherwise, in your humor of unsettled choice, you can turn to -your right, and, winding around the base of the hill, through dwarf -pines at first, and heavy timber afterward, stroll on until you -reach the scene of the primal tragedy. Did they go by this way? The -wildness, the solemnity, and total seclusion of the place, even in -the broad daylight, are oppressive to the imagination, if you happen -to be alone. Company in a graveyard, at midnight, destroys in some -measure the unpleasant sense of other than human propinquity; and -it is the same in a modified form, in this umbrageous condensity. -By all but hilarious picnic parties, the solitude and seriousness -of a wood is admitted; and this wood is one of the most unique I -have ever visited. But, since then, it is no simple congregation of -trees and rocks and mysterious paths,—no longer a sylvan asylum of -perfect repose, inviting to reverie, to pleasure, or the interviews -of love, sweetened by the security that shadows of leaves throw upon -the blushing hieroglyphic of the cheek, or the deeper and softer and -better understood language of the eyes. A gloom is here established -forever. It is a witness of that most terrible of tragedies to which -our human condition is liable. The knife of the murderer has gleamed -here,—the cry of the victim been uttered. It is haunted! Haunted -by what? Who can tell? By ghosts, or the idea of ghosts? It makes -no difference which. In such cases, where logic is shattered over -a catastrophe, imagination lifts up the fallen form of contracted -reason, and ministers to its inability. Man does not always demand -facts; or, rather, in the solving of the many difficult problems -that are suggested by special and eccentric occurrences, he does -not demand an iron-clad testimony,—a testimony not in accordance -with the fact under inquisition. The existence of a thing is to be -proved by evidence that can apply to the nature of its existence. -The intention of Byron’s brain cannot be proved by the same process -you would take to prove that the ocean over the Banks of Newfoundland -is not so deep as in its centre. If we waited for facts in proof of -what we cannot directly understand, we should starve mentally, or go -mad. Air is invisible, but it exists. It is here; it is yonder. It -is more keenly felt by animals whose skins are thin. The armadilla, -possibly, doubts its existence, unless he has the gift of seeing -it; but the hairless dog of China is no sceptic on the subject of -atmospheric changes and attacks. Man, exposed to the blast, feels -it more sensibly than the elephant placed in the same current. The -_opinion_ of the armadilla, or of the elephant, has nothing to do -with the fact of the air’s existence. The former animal recognizes a -tempest, not by what he feels, but what he sees; and if he sees wind, -then I give up my illustration, but not my argument. He sees a vision -of flying dust, broken branches, prostrate trees. Possibly he draws -his deductions from the theory of the sliding faculty of sand,—which -phenomenon he has, perhaps, suffered from; and he has seen trees -overturned by sand-slides, and, as the tempest beats unfelt upon his -adamantine scales, he thinks the sand-power is at work, and would -debate all day with any thin-skinned animal who would assert that it -was done by a tempest of air. “I never saw it, I never felt it,” -Signor Armadilla would perpetually growl forth; and, so far as he -was concerned, the air would be sand, and his neighbor a credulous, -half-crazy believer in a thing perfectly intangible. He never could -attribute the results of a tempest to any force which is not within -the range of his experience. He is where he was, but the oak is where -it was not. He stood upon a sound place, the oak upon a slide,—that’s -all. There was no hurricane. Thus it is that while a thing may exist, -it may not always be apparent, and if apparent, only to a few. -Men take views according to the texture of their mental cuticle, -mercurial or otherwise, thick or thin; and can decisions based upon -such capricious contingencies be accepted as a philosophic solution -of a doubt, or a truth? But I shall, farther on in my recital, have -to deal more practically with this topic, because I shall be drawn -to its revelation by the inevitable force of circumstances and -incidents. - - - - -II. - -THE INCIDENTS. - - -Two months previous to the murder of the Joyce children I had been -residing at the house of an acquaintance, a mile away from the -village of Jamaica Plain. The front of the house looked out upon the -road leading from Boston and passing through the village of Jamaica -Plain far away into the back country, and onward,—a pleasant drive -for those city dwellers who had only afternoon opportunities for -rural inhalation. The rear of the house gave view of a meadow watered -by a tiny rivulet and up to the woods of Bussey. This rivulet was -the one that went by the body of the boy, and where it was concealed -by its woods and weeds. The distance from our back porch to the spot -where the body of the boy was found, was about four hundred yards, -and to where the body of the girl was discovered, probably twice or -thrice that number; so I was rusticating near the footlights of the -theatre, little dreaming that, when the curtain rose, how terrible -would be the drama that would drip the stage with blood. - -I have long since made up my mind that the most extraordinary -events transpire from a condition of repose, else we would never -be startled. The first earthquake is the terror; the residue are -but affairs of mercantile and architectural speculation. Whatever -is striking is struck quick. The practice of the prize ring is -the theory of wonders. The shoulder of a man propels a complex -system of muscles, and a man in front has his countenance smashed. -The suddenness of the experiment accounts for the surprise at its -result. Preparations for great deeds are not always apparent. A coup -d’etat is such because it is a coup. The killing of Mr. Lincoln was -more astounding as a positive deed than the beheading of Charles -the First, or the razoring of Louis the Sixteenth and his Queen, -daughter of the Cæsars. In the case of the President, silence and -mystery kept pace with the public confidence in his personal safety; -in the case of Charles and Louis, the politics of a people had long -been disturbed and outraged with regard to the traditional sanctity -of kings, and there was preparation almost evidently looking to -the final result, and the prelude, from the very nature of those -governments, admitted of hardly any other epilogue; but with Mr. -Lincoln it was different. He sat in his box at the theatre, secure, -in a war brought to a result suitable to his designs, with pleasant -painted scenery before him, a comedy of brimming humor in course of -acting, altogether in the very last place he or any one expected -that the blow upon his life would fall; but it fell, and the world -was astonished. Thus,—with the meadow and its brook before me, with -the grand belt of woods bowing over the fence, with the soft air of -summer in the boughs, with the mowers in the grass, with the sunlight -blinking through flower-stems and vegetables of homely nomenclature, -but admirable qualities,—I sat in the porch of my summer dwelling; -and while I sat there, musing and idling, a deed was done, so wicked, -so ruthless, so hideously unessential, that even now, after the -lapse of so long a time, I feel the need of a new word,—a word with -the thunder and the lightning in it, with the curse of man and the -anathema of God in it, to express the sensation it produced. - -Those woods were to me a delight beyond all computation. To look -at them, to go into them, to sit underneath them, to watch by -the hour the veins of moss and the bark of the tree boles, to -follow the curvature of the limbs as they grasped at the white -clouds passing, to see the blue eyes of the sky peeping at me as I -stared at them, to listen to the nothings of sounds that all men -have heard in the sylvans, to forget in the balm of the scene the -bitterness of memories and knowledge,—furnished me a mighty feast -of harmless and negative enjoyment. With these feelings which I -have not exaggerated,—keeping in view this sanctity of nature, -for so many centuries uninvaded by any crime, save and except that -doubtful one, of lovers meeting there to love outside of domestic -parlors,—I perhaps more than anybody else was personally outraged -at the act which not only destroyed human life, but smote the peace -of the presence which Heaven had bestowed upon the scene, sublime -in its ministering to a waif out of the wreck of revolution. I -feel confident that to those persons who indulge in the faculty of -thought beyond counters and desks, I need make no excuses for these -digressions; for they will at once perceive that I am at least -exhibiting one phase of the prelude to those terrible atrocities. -The incident of my vicinity to the spot has great weight with me in -the writing of this narrative, as it would be to those persons, who, -though not being able to witness the actual battle, see the smoke of -the conflict and hear the reverberation of the dread artillery. - - - - -III. - -THE SCENE. - - -It was on Sunday evening, the 18th of June, that we had the first -intimation of what had been going on in those great shadows opposite -to our house. I was sitting on the eastward porch,—which I said -before gave a lookout toward the wood,—and had been sending up my -quota of cloud to mingle with the fraternity of vapor around the -setting sun (my pipe, my laboratory), when, as the shades grew -purplish down in the ravine by the brook, I heard repeated shouts. -When an ordinary stillness is violently broken, there follows a -shock to the nervous system, repeated upon it by sympathy with the -divinity of silence whose reign has been disturbed. Sometimes terror -commences at once her frantic flight over all the barriers of reason; -and again, anger beats back the blow with imprecation. But when the -long-continued hush of a great forest, the mystic sleep of rocks and -trees, of air itself pervading a radius of miles, is suddenly and -sharply interrupted by that peculiar intonation of human outcry, -which declares an event out of the ordinary train of circumstances, -and when those outcries reach us out of thick concealment, wonder -and dread assume control of our faculties, and make us pause almost -in our breathing, to catch some other cry of different character by -which we can determine the cause and nature of the first. I had heard -from the paths and shades of those woods, during the summer, various -kinds of human noises; but none of them ever reached the mad gamut -of the one which had smitten the air but a moment since. Those other -cries came from children, grown and ungrown, romping in happy energy -along the glades,—from picnic parties calling to each other and -replying as they separated after the feast of sandwiches,—and I had -got to understand them all; but here was a yell that had in it the -modulation of groan and spasm, uplifting of hands and straining of -eyes, relaxing of muscles and whitening of faces, with stops put upon -it by the fluttering pulses of the frightened heart; and imagining -nothing of anything terrible that could have happened under that so -pleasant roof of waving foliage, I sat paralyzed in the abruptness -and terror of the interruption. But I was not kept long in such -suspense. The news now came up from the dell that the body of the -missing boy was found. The search of police and citizens had been -conducted on the principle of an open fan with the handle held by the -chief at the house where the children had been living. Thus the whole -region on either side of the route known to have been taken by them -was thoroughly gone over and examined, until the pursuit, almost -despairing of success, reached the Bussey wood, expanded around the -base of the hill, leaving no clump of bushes unexplored, until, upon -that quiet Sabbath evening they found the poor boy lying dead in the -midst of a thick screen of alder-bushes. Soon afterward the girl was -discovered, but not, I believe, by parties actually engaged in the -search. Two men unsuspectingly, perhaps unknowing of anything about -the missing ones, strangers, it is to be supposed, and in the woods -for a Sunday’s stroll, came upon a group of rocks lying a little off -from the path at the southern terminus of the hill, and overlooking -the common road of the county that leads to Dedham. Here, stretched -in the rugged fissure of the rock, or rather in a basin at its base, -lay the stabbed corpse of the sister. Another alarm, and the second -part of the drama was concluded. - - - - -IV. - -THE BROOK. - - -So this much of the mystery was explained. - -These children had left their home a week before, purposing a little -trip, that was to last only a few hours, to May’s wood, midway or -thereabout between their starting-point and Bussey’s wood, where -they were subsequently found dead. During all that week of vigorous -and unwearied search by the police of Boston and Roxbury, joined -in by that of the rural localities; while the sun shone so bright -and peace seemed so perfect over and within that green glory, while -hundreds of people as usual, suspecting nothing, came into and went -out of old Bussey’s groves; these two dumb humanities lay,—the girl, -with her poor fright-marked face towards the sky, appealing to it -for testimony and redress, the brother prone to the earth by the -sly little running stream, both stabbed over and over again,—for -thirty-four times did that mad arm rise and fall,—their bodies rough -with the clotted gore of their hideous wounds. The public stood -awe-struck in the presence of this spectacle, and parents trembled -when they saw such evidence of duty neglected in allowing these -waifs to wander so far away from home. (Or were they accompanied, -and by whom, when they went away?) For a time the junior members of -families had to confine themselves to a more restricted sphere of -locomotion, and the thought of murder haunting them drove them like -curfew to their homes at dusk. The latitude heretofore extended to, -or wrenched by, Young America underwent a revision, and the juvenile -eagles and doves of the social roosts were forced to bend to the yoke -of a new dispensation, the justification of which was found in the -fate of those two hapless wanderers who had been found slaughtered -in the woods of Bussey. Seldom, in the annals of crime, was there -so great an excitement as was manifested, not only in Boston, but -throughout the entire country, when the fate of the lost children was -made known by the public press. In one week afterward the woods were -daily crowded by people from the city and the suburbs, with parties -from the distant towns, and I met one man, wandering about in a white -state of nervousness, who said he had come from Maine to look at the -localities. An artist of one of the New York illustrated papers, with -whom I went over the woods, in company also with a policeman who had -been detailed for the purpose of pointing out the spots to the man -of wood-cuts, told me that in New York the murder of these children -had caused a greater excitement than the killing of Mr. Lincoln. I -could well understand that,—for the one was in its chief features, a -political event, while the other appealed to the commonest sensations -of our nature, through the avenues of mystery. On one Sunday alone, I -was told by one of the rural officers, that more than twelve hundred -people, men, women, and children, had visited the blood-stained -places of the murders. - -One great misfortune was inevitable from this sudden and continued -irruption, and that was the total extinction of any foot-track of the -murderer, or any vestige of his garments which might have been torn -from him in the struggles with the stronger girl, or the conjectured -chase he made in pursuit of the fleeing boy; for strange it was, -that the bodies were found separated by several hundred yards of -distance, an interval of dense wood and shrubbery closing in in all -directions.[1] The one, as I said before, was killed on the summit -of the hill; the other, at its base. As strict an examination as it -was possible to effect was instituted, by the police authorities, -of all the paths leading to the two spots of deepest interest, of -every brake and shaded place; and very useless was it soon found -to be in the vicinity of the death-scene of the girl,—for there the -ground was dry and rocky; but where the boy was found the soil was -moist, and had not the paths been constantly travelled over during -that silent week and afterward, it was there that some clue might -have been found, the footsteps of the assassin evident, kept there -by that inscrutable and puzzling fatality that frequently attends on -such events. The party of discovery, however, not having the police -presence of mind at the moment when they came upon the desolate -object, obliterated, by an unconscious complicity with the assassin, -and demolished, in their eager rush, any marks he might have left; -for at least to that body no one had approached, and the footmarks -of the only living witness and actor must have kept company with the -bloody corpse throughout that interval. Thus everything tended to -shield the doer of the deed. The dry ground and flints around the -girl; the very solitude of the boy’s last asylum, to whose protection -he had fled with the breath of his pursuer hot upon him; the rain -that fell afterward, and that fatal week’s concealment,—gave him -ample time to perfect his plan of evasion; and well did the demon -use his opportunities; for, up to this moment, the public is in -possession of no clue by which he can be brought to the expiation, if -human expiation be possible, of his unparalleled offence. Whatever -may be known to the mysterious agent of legal vindication, the -keen-eyed chief, we cannot discover; possibly there is nothing to -discover, though I do not agree to that; he may be waiting for one -of those redressing incidents by which the chain of evidence is -united,—incidents simple of themselves and reaching forward out of -doubt and difficulty, and helping the law to a fulfilment of its -intentions. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] Since I finished writing my narrative, a friend has informed me, -that, visiting the wood sometime after the discovery of the bodies, -and while searching for the exact spot where Isabella Joyce was -discovered, he picked up a portion of an old green coat, or some -other habiliment, and carried it out in the road to his friend, who -was waiting in the carriage the issue of his search, to show her, in -joke, as a relic of the murderer’s dress. His friend instantly grew -serious over the matter, and to this day believes it to have been -worn by the man who did the murders. - - - - -V. - -THE DOGS. - - -And during all that week I had pursued my usual monotonies, happy -that they were such, tired to death of battles, and the bulletins -of newspapers, which had added such a tangle of falsehood to the -wickedness of slaughter; happy that I was where I could see the sun -rise and go down without touching with his ray, so far as my rustic -horizon was concerned, a soldier’s tent or a soldier’s grave; moping, -in the very licentiousness of laziness, with my seraphic pipe between -my teeth, over a thousand trifles, such as ingoing and outcoming -of shadows on the leaf-domes of the woods; enjoying the soothing -spasm with dinner of green peas, fresh pulled from vines that in my -airy fancy called back old travels through the low shrubbery of the -French vineyards; having now and then a townsman’s visit to cheer me -back, if cheerful it be, to a consciousness of taxes and municipal -street-sweepings, of city lamps lit up as regularly as the night -came down,—a visit that in its way was as pleasant to me as the old -trees or the gray rocks crowding around their base; a friend to sit -with me in the old back porch and look at the grand wooding of that -desecrated hill, to sip with me the test of hospitality, and smoke -the pipe of peace in the peaceful air that takes no offence at the -indulgence of any method by which honest men earn the recompense -of honest living; avoiding all topics of scandal, blessed in that -rural asylum in the absence of all objects of scandal; going into -the woods now and then and often, out of which, like Peter the Czar, -I had built my city and peopled it with my own people; and all the -time so ignorant of the two dead children who lay within easy range -of my vision. There they lay all that festering week, and here was I -so near to them, following out the idle purpose of a perhaps useless -life,—they perhaps of no greater use to all the world in their dead -slumbering than I in my grand philosophy of lethargy. - -My host was blessed with two dogs, and, very oddly, they bore the -same name, Jack. One was a bull-dog, but, strange to say for his -breed, of a sweet and even, more than common, Christian disposition, -inasmuch as I never knew him to turn from the person he had once -elevated to his friendship. In his firm, calm old face, there was -nothing of deceit. Making his protestations of love to you in his own -way of muscular revelation, you might be sure of his proffer, and -that he never would trick you out of your confidence. I have known -bipedical bull-dogs do otherwise; and they turned out afterwards -to be such arrant cowards that even my solemn Jack, could he but -have become acquainted with their behavior, would have swept them -out of the sphere of respectable personalities by the vigor of his -superhuman sincerity. The other dog was a fighting character, and -as such I had not much sympathy with him,—war on a larger and more -brutal scale had sufficed me,—and yet about him there was a geniality -and honesty and pluck, that forced you, while you recognized his -“belligerent rights,” to offer him your respect,—at least I did; -and so there were times when he was allowed to accompany my placid -Jack and myself in our woodway journeys. Friendly as they were -with me, there was another whom they loved with the fervor of -canine Abeilardism, and that person was their master, my host. I -mention this fact now because it bears upon an incident of a very -extraordinary nature, and which I will state in its proper place. - -At present I have but to add a few words about these dogs. Though -they bore the same name, they perfectly understood when they were -separately called; that is, they comprehended their own individuality -as we individualized them. I never knew them to make a mistake. -Thus it was, Jack the gentle was never addressed, or had his name -called, except in just such terms as we would use to a human being -gifted with his rare qualities. Jack the fighter, hard-biter, great -cat-worrier, knew when he was spoken to well enough; for the manner -of the family was such as they would use to a retired or active -member of the prize ring, a tone half of uncertainty and the other -half of admiration. They were, in fine, two distinct characters, -bearing the same name; but our voices being adapted to their peculiar -idiosyncrasies, they sensibly drew the line of distinction in sound, -and understood us. - -It would be worth any one’s while to get two such distinctly -different dogs in character, and try the experiment of similar names. -It might at least afford Mr. John Tyndall, LL.D., of England, some -hints to his theory of sound. - - - - -VI. - -THE FLAT BRIDGE. - - -So one week had passed since the committal of the murders and -the discovery of the bodies,—and the bodies lying in a wood so -frequently, indeed so constantly and largely visited. One would have -supposed that they would have been discovered half an hour after the -deeds were done; but, to understand why it was so long concealed, -you must visit the wood itself in the leafy month of June, and then -you will find out what a hiding-place it can be turned into. Now the -spot where the boy was found was a few feet from the little stream -frequently mentioned, and this stream was spanned by a flat bridge -just enough elevated from the surface of the water to allow it to -flow freely underneath. This bridge led over to a half-obliterated -path that you could with a little care follow until it brought you to -the regular path that led from the lower bridge, and which I before -observed conducted you to the rock where the girl was found, and -farther on to a spot which I am soon to speak of. This lower part -of the forest is composed of open spaces filled with low shrubbery, -small and close-growing pines, and by the brook-way with densely -thick alders. There is a wall running west from the brook, dividing -the property of my host from that of Mr. Motley. Mr. Motley’s -property, along the wall to the north-west, is composed of a wood of -great beauty. The path to which I have alluded connects with the main -county road that circles Bussey’s wood to the east, and it was by -this path that my host was in the habit of returning from his daily -city business, sometimes a little after sunset, but generally not -earlier than nine at night, and frequently later. Relative to this -circumstance I have hereafter something of an extraordinary character -to make mention of; so it may as well be remembered. - -The low, flat bridge was about fifty feet from the corner of the -dividing line, and less that distance from the scene of one of the -murders. Near to it ran the path my friend had to pursue on his -return at night. In my walks, before the murders, I had passed over -this bridge almost daily, and afterward, during the sealed week, -I had not interrupted my habit, though probably I did not go that -route as often as before, for the weather was getting intensely hot, -and kept me to the woods nearer the house. In these walks, however -frequent or seldom, I was accompanied by old Jack; and though the -body of the boy, at one part of the track, lay not more than ten or -fifteen feet away on our left, hidden in the shrubbery, the dog never -attempted to approach it. I remembered afterward, when everything -was revealed, that as soon as we got over the bridge, he would walk -quietly at my heels, keeping as close to me as possible; but when I -had advanced to the denser wood, that clothed the base of the hill, -he was all alive, plunging in every direction, and opening with a -courageous vigor upon the up-tree, defying squirrels. I blamed him -much for his reticence; for I felt assured that both he and his -namesake had, before that, perhaps on the very day of the deed, -gone into that dense mass and gazed upon the slain. Be it as it -might, his manner changed completely whenever we passed by that red -resting-place. - -On the morning of the murders—the 12th of June—I had prepared myself -for sketching (I have that gift, moderately to be sure, but yet -with wonderful kindness extended to me by a beneficent Providence), -intending to make a memorandum in oil colors of a group of rocks a -hundred yards or so beyond (eastward) the murder-rock, and to which I -have already referred. These gray rocks, that I intended to sketch, -can be seen from the road leading up to the hill, by which you reach, -from the direction of the railroad, the outer scarp of the ridge -behind which the girl was found. And this is the route by which the -children may have reached the wood. - -As the sun rose higher in the heavens the heat increased in -proportionate intensity, and when I was ready to start, say about -half-past ten o’clock, I was glad to second the persuasions of my -friends not to venture out in such seething weather. Probably it was -providential, or possibly a great error, that I did not accomplish -my original design. To reach my objective point—the picturesque -rocks which had so fascinated my sense of the beautiful—I would have -been obliged to follow the path, first over the low bridge, and -subsequently within six or seven feet of the spot where the body of -Isabella Joyce was first seen. Now, it is a well-ascertained fact, -that the children left their home by the cars sometime about eleven -o’clock on that morning. Their intention was simply to go to May’s -wood, nearer to Boston than Bussey’s. What induced them to change -their purpose, and advance as far as the latter, is _partially_ a -mystery; and though I have a well-digested theory upon that very -important—indeed, all-important—point, I must withhold it; for well -I know that if he is alive, one of the first persons to read this -narrative, on its publication, will be the murderer himself, and I -cannot afford to give him farther chance to plot explanations and -arrange evasion by any word of mine. Leaving home at about eleven, -in three-quarters of an hour, or less, they could reach Bussey’s -wood (for I take it for granted they did not tarry at May’s wood, -persuaded by _some one_ to go farther off from Boston), say, about -twelve o’clock. Give them time to gather leaves and wreathe them, as -they did,—a wreath being found around the boy’s hat, and portions -of wreaths about the murder-rock, where the girl had evidently been -employed in such amusement,—and we reach half-past twelve, or perhaps -a little later; and that is the time I have fixed as the epoch; for -after that, whatever of garlands were woven, were made by hands we -cannot see, but only hope to see. Now, had I not changed my intention -to sketch that forenoon, I would have passed by the path beyond -which, hidden by the woody screen, the girl was afterward sitting, -and also grazed the spot whither the boy had fled, or been thrown; -but it would have been before they had entered the wood; but I would -have been at work at the moment of the killing, or, mayhap, passing -within a few feet of the place where Isabella Joyce was murdered, or, -after being murdered, concealed. - -If, in passing at the moment when the deed was in the act of -accomplishment, and I had heard a cry ever so feeble, I would, -unquestionably, have proceeded to inquire into its cause; and had -I come upon the brute, and been at the instant in possession of as -much pluck as I had weapon,—an iron-clasped, well-seasoned, heavy -camp-stool,—he would have fared badly; for, once up, my arm is one -of very admirable development, and my temper not the best calculated -for easy martyrdom, and I might have saved her life at least, and in -doing which, an incident might have happened which the fiend would -not have had time to remember—in the flesh. Or, if I had not passed -at that exact exigency of time, but was engaged in my sketching, -I possibly might have been startled by her outcry for mercy from -him, or appeal to others, and by the manhood that is systematized, -for the defence of the weak and wronged, in this six-foot carcass -of mine, I would have gone with utter ferocity to the rescue; but -with what success crowning my enterprise, is only known to the Great -Inscrutable. However, had the murderer accomplished his bloody -purpose on the girl, and was following the boy, and I had passed -downward to the level bridge, I might have seen that supplemental -tragedy, or arrested it, and taken the culprit red-handed in his -course. I would, under any of these circumstances, have been more -happy in my life, had I been the means of saving two other lives, or -even one, though I question much if it would not have been at the -expense of another life as yet unclaimed by the gibbet. - -Barring all these contingencies, and taking it for granted that I -had passed in and out of the wood without detecting anything of -those terrible occurrences, it might have fared ill with me in the -subsequent phases of the affair, for there was a strict investigation -made as to who was in that wood during that day; and beyond a -question, as I would not have attempted to conceal the fact of my -presence, my friends of the police would have laid their justifiable -hands upon me, and placed me in the black category of the suspected. -In mentioning this idea since to my friend the logician of judicial -mystery, the tall chief of the force, he assured me that I would not -have been interfered with, as I did not come in the least within the -principles of his theory of the murder. But that did not exempt me, -as I shall proceed to state. - - - - -VII. - -SUSPECTED. - - -Keeping in view the fact of the week’s concealment, my reader will -readily understand that I had no inducement to change my usual -habits, so far as the woods were concerned, and I consequently kept -up my visitations; but as the heat was growing daily more severe, I -did not stroll far from the house, but confined myself in the main -to the wood that reaches from the brook to the westward road in our -front. I avoided thus pretty much my former walks, which included all -that space lying between the flat bridge and the old gray rocks it -had been my intention to make a memorandum of. Now and then, when the -heat of the day had subsided, I went as far down as the stream; for -exceedingly cool and pleasant was it there, and quiet, too, in the -shady evenings. Sometimes I took my sketching apparatus, but oftener -went without it; but it seems that, however I might go, I was not to -do so without creating a terrible suspicion. - -The search, prompted by public duty, or instigated by private -curiosity, had apparently worn itself out, when, upon a sweet -morning, some two weeks after the discovery of the bodies, I stepped -out of the front door, and saw, sitting under a shady tree in the -stable-yard, holding converse with my host’s father, a member of -the polician fraternity. Naturally enough, thought I, this vigilant -is wandering round to see what he can pick up of stray hints and -suggestions that may lead to the discovery of the criminal, and the -obtaining of the large rewards that had been tendered by public and -private liberality. I recognized the policeman at once, having often -rode in the car on Tremont Street which he conducted. Circumstances -then induced quite an acquaintance of great kindness between us. -He had been left for dead after one of the great battles in the -Chickahominy, slaughtered by four or five bullets of the Southern -rifles, but picked up and cured, and fated in after days to have the -high prerogative of being put upon my track as one of, if not the -bloody villain of all, concerned in the killing of the Joyce children. - -I went over to where the two were chatting under the -bee-laden lime-tree, and, after hand-shaking with the ex-dead -soldier-policeman, I helped to keep up the conversation, which flowed -naturally upon the subject of the universal curiosity. He smiled a -very peculiar smile when he saw me coming to him, and the farmer -smiled, too; but that passed in my mind for nothing more than the -fact of his meeting with an old friend. Ah! little did I think, -while I smoked my pipe and gossiped so sociably with that placid -friend of justice, that it was especially to find who the tall, dark -stranger was, who, with a bowie-knife in hand, and great firing of -his revolver, roved those haunted woods of Bussey. I did not know -until he had shaken hands and gone away; when the farmer told me that -the policeman had come to inquire who it was that was living with -the family, and what my habits were, and where I was on the day of -the murders, etc. My coming out of the house had interrupted this -diabolical inquisition, and, upon seeing me, they both had looked at -each other and exchanged a knowing smile, which, interpreted into -English, could be spelled out thus: “Oh, I know him!” on the part -of the policeman; and “You’re sold this time,” on the part of the -farmer. The fact was that a youth, with his head full of ghosts and -shrieking children, had seen me in the vicinage woods before and -after the murders, and, frightened at my pallette knife and my ball -practice, had hastened to the station at Jamaica Plains and made -report of the terrible bandit and assassin. My friend of the police -has often since laughed with me over the adventure, and I have almost -grown to look upon myself as a gentleman of rather a forbidding -and ferocious cut, and feel prepared to let myself out to some of -my friends at the Studio Building as a model for any species of -brigand, of Italy or Wall Street; or, if it be not treason to say -so, of State Street, Boston. There is something, after all, in being -remarkable. However, it so happened that in one way or another I -became a satellite to the sanguinary meteor that had swept over those -woods, and, had I allowed it, I would have grown into a morbid mass -of melodramatic idiosyncrasy. But the worst had not come yet. - - - - -VIII. - -THE MURDER-ROCK. - - -In the mean time, the inquest had been convened, and their verdict of -murder, with the words, “Done by some one unknown,” blazoned to the -world, and stating that twenty-eight stabs had been planted in the -body of the girl, and also announcing a grievously erroneous theory -of the deed. The wounds upon the girl were chiefly in the back, as if -the first assault had been made while she was stooping over her work, -her wreath, perhaps; but afterward, as she despairingly confronted -her assailant, the remaining stabs were given, while she could yet -see the rapid lifting and falling of his arm. It is not an assured -belief in the police theory of the deed, that she was killed upon -the spot where she was discovered; and what specific reasons they -have on that point, I cannot readily get hold of, unless it be based -upon the fact that, had she been attacked only a few paces from a -frequented road, her cries would have exposed the culprit to the risk -of detection, and of that he naturally would have considered; and in -that view the theory has some force, for it certainly was a better -place in which to conceal the body dead, than attack it living. All -around this spot, the trees, as I have previously described, grew -densely, and a new visitor could easily lose his way, so that the -deed may have been perpetrated in the wood, and the corpse drawn to -the concealing formation of the rocks, as they were away from the -path, and not very likely to be visited. However near the truth may -be the theory of the police, there was evidence discovered at the -time the body was revealed of a struggle, and a violent one, at that -very spot among the rocks. There was a sapling bent and broken at the -westward end of the rock, and its breaking was recent,—not done by -any strong current of air, for there had been none, and if there had -been, no wind would break that pliant stem and leave the vulnerable -trees untouched. Had nothing of importance happened at this very -spot, we would have to look for an explanation somewhere else, if -we deemed it of importance. It evidently had been broken within a -few days. Was it broken by some one who had visited the spot ere it -was invaded by the two strangers on that Sunday when the body was -discovered? That is hardly possible, for if it had been so, the body -would have been seen, and the fact disclosed at once of her murder. -Was it broken in the struggle that ensued between the murderer and -his victim? How could she break so tough a bough? Why should he? But -at all events, there it was, some four feet from her body. I saw it, -and testify to its being there, and to the fracture being of recent -date. It might have been broken by the man as he ascended from the -road to the rock, for it stood where he might grasp it in his ascent; -but that could hardly be; and there was no need to break it to give -passage to her body if it was drawn from the spot where she fell, -farther off. It was evidence of something that had happened, but a -testimony of nothing that could properly and naturally attach itself -to the murder. Cattle could not have done it, for they never were -permitted in these woods, though a lad, who guarded a drove down on -the pasture lands below the hill, was examined upon the idea that -a madman had committed the deed in his frenzy, and he happened to -be not of the sound order of brains. He was exempted from further -suspicion, as well he might be. - -The spot on which she lay was the convexity of an abrupt whale-backed -rock, running some fifteen feet east and west, and guarding any -object at its base from the sight of persons passing along the road. -Crumbled flints abounded thereabout, and a hard and cruel bed it was -for a sleeper, dead or alive. When I first visited it there were -no marks of so terrific a scene as must have been enacted in her -killing, save the doubtful sapling that lay broken and prostrate; but -above the spot where her piteous head had fallen, some pious visitor -had placed a cross, with a card affixed, that informed the public of -the name of the poor sufferer, and a prayer in her behalf. - -One week after the discovery of the body of the boy, the thick -coppice and bushes that had concealed him were stripped away as -memorials of the incident, and the ground about trampled by more than -a thousand people; while the slimy mud oozed up as if eager to suck -in more of the ghastly nutriment that had flown so freely in the -first and final struggle of his death. - - - - -IX. - -SUSPICION. - - -As a matter of course, several arrests were made after the delivery -of the verdict by the coroner, and rumor plied her busy trade with -an increased variety of tones. Our rural neighborhood rose at once -into the importance of a public spectacle; and full-orbed curiosity -roved the highways, questioning all kinds of people with all kinds of -interrogatories. - -There is always a plentiful supply of ready-made murderers in almost -every well and long-established settlement,—men who look cross and -act cross; who come home at mysterious hours and in mysterious -ways, with slouched hats and shabby shirt-collars; who are not -often if ever seen in church; suspicious fellows; just the sort of -fellows to be talked about whenever anything bad has happened; but, -perhaps, after all said and done, as good as their neighbors, indeed, -sometimes better than the gossips who prate so lavishly about them. -But they serve a purpose; and to that purpose some of them were -put at once; and they bore it, and will have to bear it again. It -is pretty much a matter of clothing. One day the whole thing was -out,—the murderer was known. A neighbor’s farm-hand had fallen in -with another neighbor’s farm-hand, steering his ox-cart upon some -errand of slothful industry, and from the ox-driver he had learned -that the said driver, on the noon of the murder-day, had met the boy -and girl (boy and girl described) on the road between Mr. Motley’s -house on the hill and the blood-stained rock, and soon afterward he -was overtaken by, or he met, a swarthy man with a black mustache, -heated and in haste, pursuing the same line of travel on which he -had met the children. Yes, he could identify that man. He looked -eager and fierce, with his dark skin and twisted moustache; and -those were the real children, and he their murderer. He had seen the -lambs, and he had looked upon the wolf. This story bore the semblance -of possibility; and we were all prepared to hear of an arrest and -identification. By night, however, the narrative had undergone some -modification, but not losing in the vigor and picturesqueness of the -original drawing,—rather otherwise. I immediately sought out the -author of the bulletin, intending, if there was any substance in it -after thorough investigation, to report the facts without delay to -the proper authority. - -True, the clodpoll had seen two children on that road; but it turned -out, on cross-examination, that he saw them on the day after the -murder; but the portrait of the eager and mysterious swarth, with his -curled mustache, had been inserted by the more imaginative brain of -the man who repeated the intelligence. So all that card-castle of -discovery fell to pieces. Then, again, a gallant and bullet-maimed -officer was put under the ban; and wonderful items grew into robust -legends, that would have delighted the immortal Sylvanus Cobb, -Senior. The bloody tunic of the man of Mars had been washed by the -terror-stricken nymph of soap-suds, and she was, inasmuch as she had -“talked” of that red evidence, forthwith discharged from the wash-tub -of the family. This belief in the guilt of the maimed officer took -such emphasis of accusation as to enforce from his friends a proof -that he was, on the day of the murder, far away in a Virginia city, -engaged, among other things, in writing his name in a lady’s album. -One evening, after the Sunday’s discovery,—it might have been ten -days,—as I was riding up the hill that led to Mr. Motley’s mansion -gateway, and when I had reached the summit, I came upon a young man -standing a little off the main road. He stood there but a moment; -but in that moment I saw that his eyes swept in that section of his -view which embraced the accursed trees of Bussey’s blood-dyed hill, -but with no look of white affright in them; and then, with his one -arm swinging,—the other maimed in some battle-field of the South,—he -went onward to the gate. That was the officer who had with one arm -committed those dual murders, even while he wrote his name in the -album of a lady in the old city down in the Southern country. - -From such things does the monster Gossip make up a verdict, driving -in shame the innocent to a defence, while giving to the one of guilt -the benefit of an arrested search, or a postponed accusation. Driven -from this stronghold of suspicion, away went greedy Accusation down -among the shanties of the Irish workmen, along the line of the -railroad; but nothing there was brought to light beyond the existence -of pigs, poverty, and all the other poetries of Hibernian habitations. - -In the midst of this confusion of assertion and contradiction, of -hope and disappointment, a luckless house-painter, of a religions -turn of mind, and a taste perhaps of fluidical enjoyment, fell into -the hands of the inquisitors, and, at the time, it must be confessed, -with some circumstances attendant on his movements and position -that gave color to the theory of his criminality. At his house the -boy and girl had boarded last; from his house they started on their -terrible adventure; and it was said that he was engaged on that day -to do some work at or about May’s wood; and so they linked him with -the two pools of blood out in the shades of the fearful woods. There -was a judicial examination; but naught came out of it to warrant -his detention, and so he was sent about his business rejoicing, -with a clear skirt, and a eulogistic letter from the clergyman -of his parish. The incident seemed rather to have worked to the -advantage of the window-sash artist; and, in the full enjoyment of -his acquittal, and the continued performance of his grave religious -duties, this history must leave him. - -And yet another. A young fellow was arrested, and lodged in the -county jail at Dedham, of whom there was not the slightest doubt of -his being the man. When arrested, it was proved that he had been -absent from work on the fatal day; that his hands were scratched, -and his clothes spotted with blood; and that he had been drunk on -that night, driven, it was religiously and philosophically construed, -into that beastly condition by the reproaches of his conscience. -Ah, he was the very man! He looked, in his dimness of drunk and -tatterdemalionism of garb, like a real Simon-pure unadulterated -murderer. The rope was ready, and the coming carpenter dreamed of -a gallows on which he was to swing. But the rope had not yet been -twisted, and the carpenter had only dreamed; for it was established -as follows of his biography: He had been absent from work because -he had no work to attend to; he had been drunk because he loved bad -whiskey and good company; he was scratched and blood-tinted because -his valor and his bottle had led him, at an ill-reputed tavern, -some two or three miles up the road, to attempt the vindication or -assertion of his philosophic, philanthropic, political, or religious -opinions and dogmas, by quotations from the library of his fists and -muscles. So he, too, got out of the clutches of the law, and stands, -or staggers, now, ready at any moment to be arrested upon the same -grounds for any similar offence, or other offence, that his neighbors -may think him fit for. - -There was one other case of suspicion, but no arrest; and as it -illustrates the uncertainty of circumstantial evidence somewhat, -and is a little singular, I will relate it. A young fellow of -variegated habits worked in a large rifle establishment near one of -the city limits, distant from the scene of the murders some four or -five miles. One of his habits was to rove into the suburbs, seeking -his recreation according to his fancy. This fact was a strong -circumstance against him; for at that time the theory of the twofold -character of the crime had not been relinquished. Up to the period -of the murders, this youth was the life of the establishment where -he was employed, full of tricks, and jokes, and happy, ceaseless -good-humor. On the morning of the 12th of June, he was absent at -roll-call; but at _one o’clock in the afternoon he was there and -answered to his name_. Whatever had happened, a great change had -come over him. He was no more the jubilant and frolicsome madcap of -the day before, but sullen to moroseness, and his face was strongly -sunburnt, and altogether his whole appearance and behavior indicated -a transformation as singular as it was sudden. When questioned, -he admitted that he had been in the woods somewhere, but would -speak no more upon the subject. In search of any, the slightest -clue to the discovery of the mystery, the police soon came into the -possession of these facts, and suspicion fell darkly around him. Upon -farther inquiry, it appeared that he had converted two files into -poniards,—one he had given to a friend, the other he had kept. The -day afterward, while the police were making these investigations, -and keeping him, as they thought, unconscious of the fact, he -disappeared, and has not been heard of from that day to this. One -of the dirks when applied to the wounds fitted exactly. I have seen -the one he had given to his comrade, now in the desk of the chief. A -long, ugly weapon it is, sharp at the point, and double-edged, equal -to a bowie-knife ere yet it has arrived at the point of complete -perfection of destruction. - -_But he was not the man._ Why he fled we may conjecture. Doubtless -he had heard of the advance of the authorities upon his steps, and -feeling that appearances were against him on the first blush of the -investigation, and not being logically disposed to examine into the -importance of minutes and hours wherein lay his absolute defence, he -fled affrighted at his dangerous position. He was innocent, because -he answered his name at _one o’clock_. Had he done those murders he -never could have reached his workshop at that hour unless he had -hired the magic of a necromancer, or been mounted on the fleetest -horse that ever won a race; for the murders were accomplished soon -after one o’clock. Had he not answered to his name at the hour -mentioned, he would have been arrested, though still he would not -have been guilty. _It was another man who did those deeds._ - - - - -X. - -WAS IT A GHOST? - - -And after that a heavy silence fell over the mysterious murders of -the Joyce children. The officers of justice, to whom I spoke during -that time, looked wise and watchful, and held to the belief that the -malefactor would yet be found. - -I come now to a portion of my story that I assure my reader is, -in every respect, true. I know that only one-eighth, or even a -lesser moiety of the world, will give me credence; not that they -will directly question my plighted word, but they will question -the philosophy of which my experience is a phase; but who knows -but that it may be an actual substantiation? So assured was I that -no deception was practised upon me, that it was only the other day -that I made a statement of it to Mr. Kurtz, the chief of police, to -whom I had occasion to speak of my design to write a narrative of my -knowledge and experience in relation to the unhappy incidents of the -murder, putting it to his discretion whether I should go on and give -my writing to the public. I had some misgiving as to the propriety of -saying anything of such importance while it remained in its present -apparent quiescence; and though it is not essential to my purpose to -repeat our conversation, I feel at liberty to say that he favored my -design most cordially. But with regard to my revelation to him of -what I shall soon put my reader in possession of, he did not evince -that unpleasant scepticism which so often borders upon the insolent, -and listened to my narration with the evidences of a respect that at -least bore the semblance of belief. I must confess, however, that he -somewhat startled me when, at the conclusion of my recital, he put to -me this practical question: “_Do you think you could recognize the -man?_” That question, the reader will perceive anon, was somewhat of -a staggerer; but I rallied under the belief that the head dealer in -the positive had not quite grasped the peculiar significance of my -revelation, and since then I have seen something—a something which he -has in his desk, and which may appear hereafter—that would, if I deem -it necessary to test my idea, perhaps enable me to say to him, “I -can.” - -It was quite three weeks after the blood of the unhappy Joyce -children had been mixed with the leaves and oozings of that -mysterious wood,—when everything was falling back, in our country -side, to the old order of simple occurrences,—that, upon a still and -clear night, I went out of the cottage where I still lived, and, -taking the two dogs with me, strolled down through the stable-yard, -and past the garden, until I came to the brow of the hill that -formed the apex of my friend’s grass-lands. The brow of the hill -was flat all about me, commencing its declension some hundred and -fifty feet eastwardly from where I stopped, and at the base running -off into a meadow, the opposite side of which was overlooked by the -Bussey wood; and, from where I stood, several pines rose out of the -even surface of the forest, marking, as with an uplifted hand spread -out, the place where the murder of the girl had been done. I have to -be particular in my description seemingly to tediousness, but the -singularity of what transpired leaves me no choice; for better, on -such a matter, not to speak at all than not to speak explicitly. I -resume. The grass was short on the brow of the hill, not over a few -inches in length, improving in quality as the descent reached the -valley. There was a tree near me; but that I left behind, putting it -in my rear some ten paces, when I stopped. On my left was Motley’s -wood,—so often mentioned,—drawing up with its intense shadows, close -to the dividing wall. From the wall to where I stood all was clear -and distinct, save where the shadows, or, more properly speaking, -the shade fell over the ground, though in that shade there was a -secondary light which artists and all thorough students of nature -will recognize. The wall and the wood on my left ran down to that -corner at the creek, which was only a short distance, about fifty -feet, from the spot where the boy had fallen. Some two hundred and -fifty yards away, and close to the corner just mentioned, was a -clump of trees, and then straight before me, without an intervening -object, the dark wood and the hand-like pines, that gloomed, in -deeper gloom than night itself imparts, with all her shadows, over -the gory rock of the girl’s death-bed. My purpose was simply to -take the cooler air from the winnowing trees; for the room where -I had been sitting with the family was oppressive with lamp-light -and the encased atmosphere. I had become so accustomed to the dread -localities, that habit had destroyed, with the first surprise and -horror, all the keen sensations of a mysterious and indescribable -neighborhoodism to the scene. Indeed, I had begun to look upon the -whole affair as a story that had been told to me by some such person -as the “Ancient Mariner.” Had it been otherwise, I never could have -been induced to stay another moment in that house. I beg to assure -everybody that when, at that hour of half-past eight o’clock, I left -the parlor to stroll to the brow of the meadow hill, I did not have -one thought in my head that connected itself with the murders. Other -affairs had turned up, in which I was personally interested, and -my mind, though not dwelling upon them at the moment, felt, if it -felt anything at all, the reverberations of mental discussions upon -the topics I have just spoken of as of personal interest. I think -now, remembering everything, that if I had any peculiar sensation, -it was not superior to that of the two dogs who kept close to my -heels,—for I was there to enjoy the sensuous and physical boon of -air; they, indeed, governed by a higher motive, the society of man. -I was, consequently, if I may say so with perfect self-respect, -in a complete condition of animal existence, and not prepared for -or expecting anything beyond the ordinary condition of animal -and vegetable life. I was, in fine, nearly upon a level with the -inanimate existences around and about me. I am unwillingly compelled -to remind the reader that it was the habit of my host, who did -business in the city, of leaving the train at Laurel Hill Station, -at nine o’clock, as a general thing, and keeping the main road until -he got to the bottom of the hill near to where the brook, so often -mentioned, crosses the road, entered the lowlands at the outskirts -of Bussey’s wood, and thence following the path which led by the -boy’s murder-place, and up the hill-side covered by the Motley wood, -keeping close to the wall until he reached that point of the wall -near which I was standing, passed over it, and was home. It must -also be borne in mind that the two dogs loved their master with a -steadfast affection; in the case of the serene Jack it was a very -jump-about, capering, stump-tail, demonstrative love. Whenever they -saw him in the distance nearing home, or knew by instinct that he was -approaching, though for the moment hidden by the intervening trees -or rocks, they would break away from my minor and only temporary -bonds, and rush to meet him exultingly, and then ensued a scene of -wild confusion and barbaric dog-taming. These two facts remembered, I -will advance with my narrative. - -[Illustration: MAP OF THE LOCALITIES. - - 1. Steam-Car Line. - G. Horse-Car Line. - 2. Motley-House. - 3. Gate leading into Pasture and Bussey Wood. - 4, 4, 4, 4. Returning route of my host. - 5. Bridge over public road. - 6. Spot where the Boy’s body was found. - 7. Arch Bridge. - 8. Flat Bridge. - 9. Where I stood. - 10. Where the Apparition stood. - 11. Where the Girl’s body was discovered. - 12. The Gate on Dedham Wood. - 13, 13. Public road to Dedham. - 14, 14, 14, 14, 14. Bussey’s Wood. - 15. Motley’s Wood. - 16. The Wall. - 17. Fence between Bussey’s Wood and the Howard property. - Arrow. The Creek. - - - - - - - My route at night to the Murder-Rock.] - -Knowing that my host was irregular as to his hours of return home at -night,—sometimes arriving by another than the nine-o’clock train,—I -was not surprised when I saw a figure lean over the wall for an -instant within about twenty feet of me, pause a moment, and then -cross over to the side on which I was. Seeing that he stopped, I -spoke aloud these words, and none other, thinking of none other: -“Hallo, Dan, is that you?”—for, though I could discover the figure -and recognize its movements, there was too great a shade thrown over -the wall to enable me to distinguish even the lineaments of a face so -familiar to me as were those of my friend. To my appeal there was no -reply, and then in an instant the impression came upon me that if it -really was my friend, he was making an essay upon my nerves. So up to -this moment I never had a thought apart from him. I did not notice -the conduct of the dogs, or even think of them, for if I had done -so, _I never would have inquired if it was “Dan;”_ for they would -have been away from me at the first footfall after he had passed -the vicinity of the low bridge down in the hollow of the hill; or, -having not done that, they would have been at the wall the moment -his face looked over it. Nor did I observe that they kept unusually -close to me. I did not even think that, if it was not him, it was -extraordinary that the dogs did not, without more ado, make their -assault; for as a vigilance committee they were extremely zealous in -the discharge of their duty, and woe betide the trespasser upon those -limits after dark if they once got scent of him! That sedate and -usually almost apathetic Jack was equal to a cherubim with a flaming -sword; and as to Jack the fighter, his mind was strictly judicial -with regard to trespass. It was not till afterward, when the climax -of this abrupt and singular apparition was reached, that my attention -was directed to the behavior of my two companions. While I stood -perfectly motionless, waiting for some recognition of my appeal, the -figure advanced slowly in a direct line from the wall, leaving the -shadow, and stopped before me, and not twenty feet away from me. I -saw at once that it was somebody I had never seen before. When in -the light, without even a weed to obstruct my vision, as soon as he -stopped, I called again: “Speak, or I will fire!” I am not naturally -of a blood-letting disposition, but somehow or other that threat came -from me without any power or will of my mind to arrest it. It was -an unmeaning and perhaps a cowardly speech, for he was alone, while -I was armed with two powerful dogs, either one of whom would have -vanquished him, had I but said the word. Nor had I a pistol to carry -out, had I been so rash as to intend it, my foolish demonstration. -It was at this period I observed especially the behavior of the -dogs. Up to this time they had been quiescent, lying upon the grass -in the full enjoyment of its freshness; but now they both got up, -and I felt on each side of me the pressure of their bodies. They -were evidently frightened, and, by the casual glance I gave them, -induced to do so by the sensation of their touch, I saw that they -were looking with every symptom of terror at the figure that stood so -near us without a motion. And the figure. It never once turned its -head directly toward me, but seemed to fix its look eastward over -where the pine-trees broke the clear horizon on the murder-hill. -This inert pose was preserved but for a moment; for, as quick as -the flash of gunpowder, it wheeled as upon a pivot, and, making one -movement, as of a man commencing to step out toward the wall, was -gone! To my vision it never crossed the space between where it had -stood and the outline of the shade thrown by the trees upon the -ground. One step after turning was all I saw, and then it vanished. -Can I describe this figure you will ask; and my reply is that I can, -but not exactly in such a way as to satisfy the chief’s business-like -interrogatory. Before I go any farther, I must say that, as I had -nothing to do in getting up this apparition, I do not see how any -one can poke fun at me simply because I was there to see it. A man -sees a star fall; he has no agency in the eccentric transaction, and -is he to be ridiculed because there happens to be a tack loose in -the celestial carpet whose dropping out he witnesses and tells of, -and happens not to be astronomer enough to explain? Here was a moral -and physical tack loose somewhere and somehow, and I had struck my -vision on its point. What I saw I relate exactly as it happened, and -nothing more, though I may be induced to meet the usual objections -to the possibility of its occurrence, in a later portion of this -narrative. I could, if I felt so inclined, stop my recital and talk -by the folio about this affair; but it was a very different matter at -the moment when that something, which would not reply to me, stood -in the night light, clear and distinct as a marble statue, and cast -one glance over toward the hill that held among its gray rocks a -stain that would last there forever. But I half promised to describe -this figure, this appearance, this apparition, and a few words will -answer. It looked like painted air to begin with. An artist, sitting -by my side and following my ideas, might render it to the life or -death; but he would have to blend his matter-of-fact pencil with the -vague vehicles of spiritualistic imagination. In the first place, -there was no elaborate toilet; indeed I could not make out the -fashion of the garment, taking it for granted that it was draped in -the usual costume, being too absorbed by the complex and somewhat -agitated train of thought which, commencing with the assumption -that it was my friend, and which was suddenly relinquished, leaving -me exposed to the rapid transitions of intellectual deductions so -singularly called into action and so totally at variance with my -habitual mental or nervous equanimity. I felt as a drowning man might -feel who, admitting the fact that the water has got the master of -him, lets that primary incident take care of itself, and looks only -to some object by whose aid he may relieve himself from the desperate -catastrophe. I was occupied more in the effort to recognize a human -being in the figure that was before me than in making a tailor’s -analysis of his apparel. One thing was evident,—he looked dark-gray -from head to foot. Body he had, and legs, and arms, and a head; but -the face I could not distinctly see, as he turned it from me; but -there was an outline such as can be traced in shadows thrown by a dim -lamp upon a rough-plastered wall,—and that is all I can say about -it. Of course it is unsatisfactory, but I had no means or time for a -fuller diagnosis. - - - - -XI. - -THE TESTS. - - -The effect left upon me when I found myself alone was not exactly -that of alarm, but rather a determination to test, if it might be -possible, this appearance or delusion, or whatever it might be; and, -instantly turning from the spot, I walked back to the house. The -presence of persons in the room, the light, the furniture itself, -had an influence to calm whatever of perturbation I was sensible of -from the strange interview through which I had so rapidly passed. -I debated now in my mind with regard to the test I should apply. -Was it a ghost? That was in part the question, but not the entire -inquiry; for I could not come all at once to the conclusion that it -was an undoubted visitant from the dead man’s realm. While pondering -over these doubts, an adventure of my youth came vividly back to my -recollection, and seemed to offer itself as a means by which I should -judge of my present experience; and, thinking it may amuse my reader, -I see no reason why I should not add it to my narrative. - -A goodly number of years ago, I was a student at a college in the -State of Maryland, not far from the town of Gettysburg. From the -plateau of the mountain, at the base of which the college was -situated, I have been told, the smoke as it actually poured from the -guns, not after it floated miles away, was seen during the progress -of the great and inexplicable battle that has made the town one of -historic importance. - -Upon a certain occasion, it being a holiday, I went over to the -neighboring village of ——, intending to have a free-and-easy time -with smuggled cigars,—smoking being a virtue unrecognized by the -dignitaries of the college, and forbidden under heavy pains and -penalties within the sacred and unfumigated precincts. I had other -objects, perhaps, justifiable to youth, and unnecessary to dilate -upon now. At all events, I was away from college, and away I -remained until the advancing evening warned me that I had somewhat -of a walk before I could get back. There were two ways by which I -could return,—one by the common county road, and a shorter but more -difficult route by a narrow path leading partially over and along the -mountain ridge. I chose the latter. So I bade adieu to the village -and its barber, who was our contraband chief in the cigar smuggle, -and at whose house I had enjoyed a comfortable but uncollegiate -dinner, and with whose pretty daughter (all girls are pretty to -college boys) I had taken a precious lesson in flirtation, almost -engaging myself to marry her after I had graduated and seen my way -clearly to parental acquiescence. Poor barber’s daughter! I wonder -how many other lads made innocent love to her and vaguely hinted -similar magnificent proposals? But away I went up the mountain, under -the trees, in and out with the path, by the rocks, by the torrent, -and ere I had advanced a mile, the moon (did you ever see a Middle -States’ moon?) had stolen into the skies. The wind rose gently with -the moon, as if it would make soft music for her, and the clouds -accompanied her in muslin toilets; and so with the moon and the wind -and the misty clouds I pursued my walk, smoking the last cigar of -that blissful holiday. - -My path led by the church, belonging to the college, half way up the -mountain, and afterward by the old graveyard, walled in,—a crumbling -and a neglected wall, over which you could step easily into the -silent city. Arrived at this graveyard, I stopped and looked down -upon the college. The lights were gleaming there; and, upon the fatal -theory that a pleasure enjoyed under ban is sweeter than pleasure -permitted, I resolved to finish my cigar before I made the final -descent. But where could I smoke so near the college and be free from -detection? Lingering on the path I might be detected and reported, -and that would be fatal. In the graveyard? Who ever ventured there -except the dead and the mourners, or a law-breaker? The very place I -thought; and so I crossed over the shattered wall, and, selecting -an entablature that was a sort of mortuary dining table supported -by four brick legs, I stretched myself and fell into that luxurious -enjoyment which only a true smoker can realize,—and of that class I -was then, and am now. - -The moon, by this time, was nearly above me, and so bright that a -woman could have threaded her needle by its wonderful effulgence. I -had not been many seconds on the table-like slab, before I heard a -sound that somewhat startled me; but, after a moment’s reflection, -I concluded it was the wind moaning round the old church that was -at the upper end of the cemetery. Quieting myself with this belief, -I pulled away at my cigar, now nearly at its last gasp, when I -heard a repetition of the sound; but this time it seemed to proceed -directly from underneath the slab! The affair was getting peculiar, -and my nervous system was undergoing that singular process so well -expressed by the phrase goose-fleshy; for if the sound did come -from under the slab it could not be the wind, for it was not like -anything the wind could do with such materials. But while I debated -the question, the utterance struck upon my ear again, and this time -it was an unmistakable groan, as if human or inhuman lips had given -it expression. The goose-flesh arrangement continued to develop -itself, but not to such an enormous wrinkle as to prevent my peeping -over the side of the stone to see if I could catch a sight of the -groan or the groaner. I feel convinced, though I did not test it, -that the extraordinary phenomena so often alluded to by novelists -did occur, and that my hair did stand on end, when I saw directly -under me, out in the moonlight, a battered, withered leg covered by -a dingy, mould-soiled piece of cloth, with a boot attached, but such -a boot that no human ingenuity of St. Crispinism could repair. The -boot looked like the skeleton of a boot, as the pantaloons looked -like a skeleton of pantaloons. They were to all intent and purposes -supernatural fractures. While I looked, the groaning was repeated, -and simultaneously another leg, another piece of mould-stained -cloth, another tattered boot was thrown out of the deep shadow and -softly placed crosswise over the other, following the example of -knight-errantry sculpture. I had stretched myself, supported by -my hands, to the edge of the slab, and could see distinctly these -movements and appearances; and my mind was so completely divided -between the physical results and the naturally suggestive idea of the -supernatural, as to leave me in a medium state of amused courage and -inherent superstition. - -But it was necessary for me to act, and so, without further -hesitation, I supported my body on my arms reversed, and made a -long leg of it, stretching myself entirely free, of course, from a -contact with the mouldy-looking arrangement that protruded into the -moonlight. Having established my position at a proper distance of -observation, I at first hesitated whether to go away or not,—a vague -and not unnatural fear suggesting the idea of flight; a positive but -artificial conviction determining me to remain and see the matter -out. One of the greatest and best lessons, and for which there should -be a professorship established in every college in the country, is -the lesson of self-command. Make it at the commencement of your life -a speciality, and it will serve you in after years as a guardian of -your honor, and sometimes of your life itself. It makes you well -behaved, careful of the feelings of others, tolerant and independent, -and is the safeguard of a woman’s virtue and the potent spear by -which truth may be distinguished from error. By a strong effort I -reached the point of self-command, and so my legs were as firmly -fixed to the spot, as those limbs of mystery peeping out from the -entablature of the tomb. My next act was to catch hold of the feet -and pull at them,—pull the whole affair into the light and determine -what it was. When I had drawn this moaning body forth, I lifted it -by a vigorous effort, and stood it against the tomb. The head fell -backward and the moon shone full upon the face. The face was swollen -with a livid kind of puffiness, and the eyes closed fast. I placed my -hand upon the forehead and felt the moisture, clammy and revolting. -The hands fell heavily by the sides, and a tremor ran over and -shook the figure as if with palsy, and groans and moans came quick, -and as they came I shook the thing by its shoulders; but there was -no awakening as yet of the closed orbs and apparently dead brain. I -worried myself no longer, but drew the loathsome figure away from the -grave-stone and commenced an advance toward the broken wall. It moved -heavily, but at last we reached the boundary, and with difficulty -got over it. The mass was passive; I was very positive. I went down -the mountain, passed the college, and, reaching a cottage, I rapped -upon the door. A woman opened it, and, giving my ghost a push, he -staggered or fell into her arms, or upon the floor, I know not which, -and this dingy spectre was no more nor less than the hard-drinking -husband of one of the college outside servants. Here, then, was the -test case which came back to me, with all its vivid incidents and -extraordinary suggestions, to help me out of my present dilemma? In -the adventure of my youth there was at first a large supply of the -ghostly element, and, had I fled the investigation, perhaps nothing -would have disabused my mind of its supernatural character. The -man would in all probability have been left until early morning in -undisturbed possession of his unique apartment, and, when restored to -his senses, would have been the very last to initiate a revelation. -It would have been a confession fraught with serious consequences,—in -the first place with regard to his situation under the college,—and -it would not have contributed largely to his domestic felicity. -To peach on me would have been to implicate himself, and, as -drunkenness is morally a worse crime than the smoking of a cigar, -he would have been the first to have suffered decapitation. It was -my self-possession alone that turned one of the most reliable ghost -incidents into a tale of beastly absurdity. If I was so near seeing -a ghost’s legs on that night, which turned out to be no ghost’s legs -at all, why might there not be some chance of my visitor on the brow -of the hill to-night turning out to be some vagrant more wildly drunk -than the drunken college-phantom? - - - - -XII. - -TESTS. - - -I again left the house, having tarried there not over ten minutes, -resolved to revisit the locality where the puzzle had presented -itself. After calling the dogs,—for I wished them to be with me to -make the test complete, and also to observe their conduct,—I searched -in every likely place to find out if my friend had not returned; -for I still had a vague suspicion running in my head, that after -all he might possibly have succeeded in some unaccountable way, in -enveloping me in the maze of a ghostly manifestation. But I searched -for him in vain; and, to settle all doubt relative to his agency in -the affair, I will state that he did not return home that night until -ten o’clock or after, driving by the road leading through Jamaica -Plain. - -I then went down the garden road, and stood upon the very spot I had -previously occupied. As I said before, I wished to see how the dogs -would act should the figure make its appearance; and even before I -reached my former position I was struck by the reluctant manner in -which they followed me,—but I managed to get them on, and so there we -three were; but where was that eccentric fourth? - -He was not there. Some people will say I had been controlled by the -solemn influences of the night and the ghastly associations blended -with the scene and all its gloomy neighborhood, and consequently -was in a very fit condition to receive a demonstration and accept -it as supernatural; but I will at all times maintain that when I -first went down that garden walk that night, and saw the form that -I took to be that of my friend, I was, as I have previously most -minutely and accurately explained, not in that spiritualistic, -sympathetic condition. But on the second visit I confess that I was -in a better temperament to receive the influences of night and scene -and associations, and to which you may add the incident which gives -such a weird aspect to my narrative. In the first, my condition was -natural and eminently composed, and yet I had the vision; in the -second, with all my nerves stretched in expectancy, I saw nothing. -Now, how was that? I stood still as a living man can stand, and fixed -my eyes upon the wall where the figure had first appeared; but all -was moveless and silent. The old wall and the shadows looked as they -did before. I turned quick as thought, and tried to surprise any -faint glimpse of anything that might have come to the spot where the -apparition had stopped in the interval of my withdrawn attention; -but there was nothing but the short grass backed by the dark wood -where the deeds of blood had been perpetrated. I even looked to see -if anything was lying down to avoid my scrutiny, walked over to the -spot, and then in a straight line to the wall, supposing it was -possible I might find some trace of a presence. I found nothing. - -I was therefore satisfied as far as this test was carried; but still -I was not content. A strange desire, which I possibly did not attempt -to check, had taken possession of me to carry my investigation -farther; but it was a wild, and, all things considered, a fearful -experiment; at least I so viewed it when it was first suggested to -my mind. It must be understood that I only submitted even to the -contemplation of this ultimate and extraordinary test after I had -determined that what I had seen was not a visual delusion or in fact -a human being. A sense of profound conviction seized me and impelled -me to admit that something had occurred to my experience beyond my -ability to reconcile by the ordinary rules of explanation. In fine, I -for the first time during the progress of these transactions suddenly -connected the mystery with the murders. I had given common sense and -resolute examination a fair chance to account for that abrupt whirl, -that sudden vanishing, that terror of the dogs, their failure to -recognize their master, or to attack the stranger,—either of which -they would have done under ordinary circumstances,—and now I had no -power to resist the conclusion that was so powerfully forced upon -me. I pretend to no peculiar bravery, though not entirely destitute -of that quality, shared with man by the rat-terrier and the rat -himself, having enough of it for all the needs and purposes of a -very good-natured and non-aggressive man; and the chief feature of -my courage is, my not having a fear of myself; that is, I am not -backward in entertaining myself with proposals to undertake matters -which, to some other men, of abler judgment, might appear a little -too venturesome; and here I was about to attempt a task that possibly -only an animal should engage in, knowing nothing of human mysteries, -or a pauper, for a reward; and even the pauper I think would have -debated longer than I did whether he would not rather steal the -recompense, or starve a little longer. It was no less a thing than to -visit the spot off in those gloomy woods where the body of the girl -was found lying among the rocks. - -This fancy was of a twofold character. One was, that since I was in -for testing, I would go over there and test my nerves; the other -was an idea that, since I had been launched into the regions of the -marvellous, possibly it might be made manifest to me there in those -deep seclusions, on that spot,—a revelation that would lift the veil -of mystery that enshrouded the fate of the two unfortunates, and also -unravel the difficult maze in which I had been involved. Perhaps -I would see that figure there,—that figure a parent, or relative -of the girl, who had come to me that night, impressing me to the -interview. I could not but think of the spiritualistic theory of the -sympathies between the living and the dead,—the theory indeed of all -Christian, and, for that matter, of all heathen sects, and there, and -nowhere else, I might have revealed to me the name of the man who had -done those hideous acts. Surely, I was in a singular predicament. I -had either seen a ghost, or I had not, and I felt unwilling to let -things remain in the condition of unsettled doubt, not caring for the -rest of my life to be the prosy relator of a ghost story, which my -listener could accuse me of having left unsettled and unfinished for -the want of nerve to examine to its climax. Determined upon putting -my duplex test into execution, I returned to the house to inform my -friends that I was going out for a stroll,—not an unusual thing with -me,—and to make some little arrangement that I thought personally -needful in case of untoward accidents; for, independent of the -peculiar intention I was about to fulfil, there were reasons why I -should not go unprepared for physical contingencies. - -The whole country, it will be remembered, was in a very disorganized -state,—many people thrown out of employment, and others returned from -scenes of strife and bloodshed, with an education habituated to deeds -of violence. So I armed myself with a companion charged to the lips -with a counteracting but defensive species of explosive violence,—a -thing that could speak seven times, and always with effect if the -delivery was good. - -On the theory of testing my nerves, in connection with the ghost -theory, I at once resolved to dispense with the dogs, for their -presence would have been companionship and a reliance apart from -my individuality. My pistol was not taken for the ghosts, but for -ghost-makers. Now that I reflect upon it all in my cooler moments, -I must frankly admit that, after what had happened, this trip had -something of the fearful in it, which my placid reader will not have -the heart to deny, and nothing would induce me to repeat it, unless -there were motives of a higher grade than those which ruled me then. -It was, in fact, an enterprise totally at variance with common sense -and common personal convenience and comfort. It was now about nine -o’clock. No change had occurred in the shape of the night,—that is, -no clouds had culminated in the skies, and yet no moon had been -conjured up by astronomy, or by lovers’ incantations. It was a lonely -walk down the hill, over the very spot where my silent visitor had so -lately stood to look at these very woods,—that very spot to which my -steps were now directed. Darker it was down in the valley, with the -hill to my back and the great mass of foliage apparently near enough -for me to touch; but on I went, giving no time for reconsideration, -on to the fence which I crossed, and then I was one of the black -things in the intense gloom of the forest. - -Not a sound but the crackling of dead branches under my feet in the -pathway,—sounds that I felt might send the notice of my approach -to whatever was waiting for me by the cross and the immortelle on -the murder-rock. Though the broken branches were sentinelling my -advent, I kept on, with a cold shiver now and then quivering all over -me, but never for a moment going deeper than the skin. Brain and -heart as yet were true to their purpose of folly, that seemed like -madness to me then. It did not take me long to reach the objective -point of my journey. I have described the spot in another part of -this narrative, and therefore will not repeat its topographical -characteristics; suffice to say that it was somewhat different in -sentiment than when I had looked upon it in the sunshine. Then I had -seen a visitor sitting quietly and unconcerned on the ridge of the -rock, looking down, with a cigar between his lips, at the spot—always -a thrilling sight—where the girl had fallen; and I had seen young -girls munching sandwiches around the scene, and jabbering of the -massacre of one of their mates; but now, with nothing there but the -night and the spirit of the event, the weird-looking trees with their -limbs reaching hither and thither in such a way as to make me feel -that I was beneath the dome of an iron-barred prison-room. I hold it -to be utterly impossible for any man, unless he is brutalized and of -a sympathetic nature no higher than a quadruped, to be alone in such -a place, with such a preface as it had been my fate to meet with, -and not experience an accelerated throb of his pulse. I do not say -that he is necessarily bound to be frightened, but something so near -akin to it that only our self-conceit prompts us to draw the line of -difference. - -I was there to submit myself to one test, and apply the other to -what I had previously seen. The one I was already undergoing; for it -may readily be believed that an immense amount of subtle pressure -was placed upon me. The accumulated proofs of a lifetime, as to the -existence of unearthly presences and imperfectly disproved legends -of ghostly visitations and adventures, bore down upon me with the -wizard night and spectral forms of trees. And when I placed myself -exactly on the blood-stained spot, I looked around with the certainty -of being confronted by the apparition whose existence I was there to -determine. Now, thought I, is the opportunity,—this the place for a -revelation. What other man will ever come again with so foolhardy a -brain and give the witnesses or the victim a chance so appropriate -and so melodramatic? If any one does venture upon the trial, to a -scene so fresh with gory associations, from my soul I pity him, and -would blame; but this species of curiosity is not generally diffused -throughout society. But I was there and awaited whatever issue might -transpire. I was doubtless in a sublimated condition of rapport, -as the mediumistic philosophers term it; a human instrument of a -thousand strings, that the feeblest ghost might play upon with ever -so withered a hand. But none came to inform or frighten me, and not -a sound other than the low clicking of the wood insects broke the -magic ring of silence that closed in with such profundity of pathos -this terrible situation. To attempt to go away, I found required more -nerve than to get there; for now I must turn my back and place myself -in the traditional position in which cowardice is said to place its -victims; but, with the cold creepings renewed with double energy, I -turned and walked with an excited composure away from the spot, down -the hill, through the gateway that opens eastward into the Dedham -road, and then, with half a dozen sighs of relief, straight home. - -“Can you recognize that man again?” from the chief, is always -sounding in my ear. What man? Did I not go to the place where he -should have met me, if he was in any way witness to that murder? -Sometimes I think it was the man himself, but not in the flesh. If in -the flesh, he never would have come so near the scene of his hideous -mischief; if in the spirit, then he had committed suicide, or died -of the disease of terror, and was wandering in the accomplishment -of a curse and an expiation. Who knows but what it may be so, and -who can say it is not so, any more than I can assert it is so? Or -was it the father, who, since I wrote the description above, I have -heard was no longer living? If it was the father’s spirit, then I -have something to say about that matter; and when I said that I -could recognize the man, I meant I might be able to do so if there -is a photograph of him that I could get at. Close and open your -eyes quickly while looking at a person passing by your window, and -you will have some idea of the view I had of the profile of this -vision. I have seen in official possession, filed away among the -other papers appertaining to this case, something that evinced that -this dead father was taking active interest in the search after the -murderer. I am not at liberty to recite the mode of that interest, -nor am I called upon by any logical process to affirm that he does -take an interest, or to deny that he does. I only know that there -are similar circumstances connected with this phase of the subject, -that a very large class of the community would attach importance to, -but all involved in such a labyrinth of mystery as to defy positive -recognition and the ordinary tests of evidence. - -Assume as a fact that a spirit, taking to itself the form of a man, -had appeared to me, there at once grows out of that admission this -other question: Why should so extraordinary a circumstance, such a -miracle, in fact, have been developed? For what purpose was that -spirit there? Denying, as I do, that it would have been a miracle, I -take up the question and attempt my reply. In the first place, I am -no sectarian; least of all am I a spiritualist; and if I am anything -of a creed man,—which the Lord grant I am!—I am of a church that -is founded on the system of marvels, as indeed, for that matter, -are all churches, Christian or Pagan. The Saviour of mankind, let -me with all reverence say, is admitted to have been duplex in -character,—mortal for our sympathies, divine for our worship. If -he suffered death,—which some doubt he did, but only the semblance -of death,—his spirit was no more existent after his execution than -before it, and consequently he had power to rise from the sepulchre -where they had laid him and appear to the soldiers and to the holy -women. That he did appear we have the evidence of the great apostles -and the contemporary legends of the Roman narrators. Indeed, it is -not only asserted that he was manifest after death, but that ghosts -walked the streets of Jerusalem, and when the veil of the temple -was rent, the graves gave up their dead. These were the phenomena -of a sublime epoch,—an epoch that in the death of a God was grander -and more inexplicable than the incident of the earth’s formation, -and that of the stars and skies that are over it. All events have -their purposes, and I can see the purpose here that should evoke -these wonders. His mission had reached the point where the spiritual -manifestations must overshadow the recollections of his corporeal -existence, and prove to the world, by tangible exhibition, that -beyond the grave there was a life. The Scriptures teem with the -legends of spirits,—of ghosts, if you like that word better,—and -men of all the known wisdom of those days believed in them, because -they seemed to have seen them. Why should they have been prevalent -then, and not now? Who can dare answer that question, or dare deny, -with proof to back the denial, that such things never did exist, -or, existing, appear to human vision? As well tell me that the same -vegetables did not have life then as now, the same qualities of sand -and superficial soil and rocks; and indeed have not certain plants, -that were for centuries lost to human cultivation, been revived? -Nothing is lost, nothing changes, though we call reproduction change, -and flatter ourselves that we have spoken a great philosophy. Why is -the world full of ghost-stories outside of the Scriptures? Because -ghost-stories have been veritable facts,—these lay ghost-stories -travelling alongside of the clerical ghost-stories of the Inspired -Book, and substantiating to the common appreciation of all mankind -the veritableness of the Bible. Who knows but that they are the -vehicles by which Supreme Wisdom conveys to the intelligence of -the unwise and the unlettered, the solemn truth of a hereafter? Who -so arrogant in his wisdom as to be able to rise to the proof that -it may not be so? The atrocity of self-conceit is more terrible -than the atrocity of ignorance; the one is an active crime, the -other a passive submission. The impossible means the possible. It -is a favorite dogma with the utilitarian doctors, that nothing is -impossible to the genius of man. Is there anything impossible to our -Creator, other than the impossibility of making a mistake? If man -invents a machine which defies all the previous laws, or theories -supposed to be laws because nothing had happened to prove that they -were not laws, are we to reject it on that account, and because it -happens to be beyond our uneducated and unprepared capacity? Is -the Creator of all to be limited and only his creature unlimited? -How often, in the midst of a great accident, has not some mind -suggested a redress totally at variance with the rules by which the -accident was produced, creating a surprise to usual circumstances, -and checking the catastrophe before it could recover its equanimity -and prearranged and understood mode of conduct! Cannot the Maker -interpose at his pleasure such surprises? But we will be told that he -never interrupts the harmonious action of his great rules. Where do -we find these rules so as to enable us to say when they are infringed -or deviated from? How long have we been in possession of the habits -of the beaver and the bee? and yet they were a part of his great -rules and system of order. Every day science is bringing new lights -to bear upon old ant-hills as well as upon old mountains, and the -shadow of a fern-leaf on a rock, the ghost of a fish-bone in a strata -are sufficient for a theory on the momentous and mysterious history -of our own illustrious race. If scattered bones of a mammoth, when -reunited by the wire-work of a naturalist, are evidences of Noah’s or -Deucalion’s flood, where are we to draw the line upon circumstantial -evidence and testimony in substantiation of other facts and -possibilities? - -There are more tangible proofs of the existence of ghosts than there -are of the existence of Noah’s ark. The hush of the night, the -solitude of forests, the loneliness of limitless prairies suggest, to -the most unimaginative mind something more than the physical sense of -desertion and isolation; and yet that is no proof that a mystic band -of weird spirits are with you in those dreary hours and wanderings; -but whatever is suggested proceeds from a thing that is able to -suggest, and whatever the mind grapples with of the material or the -immaterial exists in some form or other, intangible, but no less -existent. The opponents of the theory of the existence of ghosts, and -their power to appear, use one word that conveys all their logic, -and that word is the contemptuous vulgarism, Bosh! And then they -will advance with weaker argument the logic of bold contradiction, -as if they had just returned from a trip into the regions of the -future and an examination of the powers and rules and intents of the -Providence, with an exact catalogue of his attributes and short-hand -notes to be written out at their leisure, of all he has done, is -doing, and is going to do. Faraday could analyze vapor, but, with -all his retorts and crucibles and chemicals, he never could weigh a -scintilla of a human thought. Such men grasp vapor in their hand, -and will tell you of what it is composed; and they tell you truly, -and we, though consciously ignorant, have no foothold for a doubt. -The preacher rises in his pulpit, and, from his sectarian books, -and more sectarian training, interprets to you the sublimest dogmas -of the Apocalypse; and woe to the member of his flock who raises an -impious question against his dictatorial assertions. But if your -neighbor,—near whom you have been living all your life, whose word -stands pre-eminent in all matters of business, into whose care you -would place your wife or your daughter, and to whose honor you would -leave it to execute your last will and testament, in behalf of the -loved ones,—was to tell you that he had seen a ghost, and calmly -relate the incident with the proofs and the tests, you would be very -likely to laugh in his face, and tell the next person you met that -you were afraid neighbor so-and-so was a little weak in the upper -story, or was telling what was not true. - -The elegant dictators of theory speak of the belief in the existence -of ghosts as the “vulgar belief in ghosts and goblins,” and get rid -of it in that summary manner. But the very fact that it is vulgar, -as they term it, is a strong point against them. If we could get the -Scriptures pure and exempt from mixed and muddled interpretations, -free from the garbage of a host of foreign lingual transformations, -and in its original “Vulgate,” we should not have the world troubled -with more creeds than they can invent gods to preside over, or devils -to operate in. The word vulgar is not to be used always as inclusive -of the “low-born and the uneducated.” The vulgar in this country -believe in the imperialism of the ballot-box; in Russia and Prussia -and England, and elsewhere, of monarchies, in the divine right of -kings; and demagogues in all realms, like dogmatists of all creeds, -have no faith at all, but use the belief of the masses for their own -purposes. With the majority of mankind exists the supreme attribute -of common sense, and yet they all, more or less, believe in the -existence of ghosts. The hair-splitters of theology and other ethics, -for sake of discipline, would drive the old stage-coach where the -people would rush the locomotive; and as in the beginning, fishermen -and carpenters were the recipients of divine truths, or the media of -revelations, so now, while abstract and abstruse sciences occupy the -minds of the enlighteners, the plain truths of Christian doctrine are -held with other beliefs, relatively necessary to our nature, in the -legendary, gossiping, and enduring belief of the masses. - -It will be asked, For what purpose do your ghosts appear? To -accomplish what end that human intelligence cannot effect? I say, -again turn back to your Bible, and you will have your questions -answered. - -There are other needs now that did not then exist. Society is not the -same; the ordinary laws of justice, of health, of life itself, are -not the same. There are a thousand more appliances now, than there -were, by which human life can be destroyed or preserved,—gunpowder, -steam, machinery, with their countless adjuncts of power, on one -side, and chemistry, with ether, and other discoveries, on the other. -And as science becomes the assistant to the conveniences of mankind, -in the same ratio it becomes his slayer. Events transpire now that -were not dreamed of in former days, because of the increased forces -that act upon latent ideas. Sixty, fifty, forty years ago, though -Death had his ample harvest, he had not the immense scythes of -steamboats and railroads with which to do his work of destruction; -and now and then we have isolated facts published, with all the -details of authenticity, of dreams that warned a voyager from the -water or a traveller from the cars, when afterwards it has proved -that disaster befell both modes of travel. The remedy is to the need, -and who can say that there have not been innumerable warnings, by -visitations and dreams, of which the public never has any account, -owing to the seclusion of the parties, or their natural reticence and -unwillingness to have their stories made the subject of a paragraph -and a sneer? - -There are purposes in the Almighty wisdom which we cannot fathom, -and religion herself, speaking from the misty summits of theological -controversy, cries to her votaries to have faith where they -cannot have comprehension; or, in other words, to believe without -understanding. Do I, a ghost-seer, ask for more? - -You ask, for what purpose did this ghost—if ghost it was—cross your -path? I could retort, and ask why that man—if it was a man—crossed -my path? But I affirm that there was a purpose, and though I did not -see it then, I may see it soon. Who can tell but what this revival -of that mysterious horror may not lead to renewed activity in the -police department? Who knows but it may be read by the murderer, and, -awakening in his breast the smouldering embers of remorse, make him -do those eccentric things which lead vigilance to observe and assist -in the detection of the guilty? I never would have written this -narrative if that misty figure had not confronted me on that night, -and perhaps it may have been his intention to excite in me the idea -of writing out these transactions, and thus awakening the slumbering -or pausing authorities to a more active investigation. - -Why did he select me, if I was not appropriate to his purpose? And -I will say now, and with all truth, that, from that time to this -moment, I have been haunted with a vague urging to write this work, -and give it to the public; and now that I have done so, it may so -happen that I will see that thing once more coming to assure me, -in some way consistent with his condition, that his intention, so -far as I was concerned as an agent, is accomplished. I shall not be -surprised if it should occur. - - - - -XIII. - -THE DOCTOR’S STORY. - - -Let me relate, as briefly as I can, a very singular incident that -happened some years ago in Baltimore. The narrator was a man with -whom I had been brought up from youth to manhood. His father was my -father’s family physician, a doctor of high standing; and the son who -told and acted a part in the story was then a practising physician -in Washington, where he still practises. A party of us were together -at the house of his father, and the ghost subject was introduced. My -friend argued against their existence, as most doctors do; but in the -midst of our conversation he said that, notwithstanding his theory, -he must tell us of a remarkable occurrence that happened within his -own personal experience. - -Two years previously he had occupied the professor’s chair of -Practical Anatomy (I believe that is the phrase) in the Medical -College of Baltimore, though then not more than twenty-three or four -years of age. His remarkable skill, systematized by study in the -famous medical schools of Paris, had justified his selection for the -important post. During this period, or some time before my friend -accepted the professorship, the mob had broken into the medical -college, actuated by a sentiment of horror at the idea of the bodies -of their dead friends being stolen from the grave and placed under -the knife, and subjected the faculty and students to great personal -peril. The riot being quelled, it was determined to make such -arrangements as would entirely elude the suspicions of the people. - -For this purpose the upper portion of the building was converted into -a large dissecting-room, with the windows hermetically sealed, so -that no light could be perceived from the outside, and consequently -lead to a renewal of an attack. Thus at night the faculty was secure -from observation, and whatever of light was needed during the day -came through glass inserted in the roof. To add to the security, -a private stairway was arranged, so that if the mob did break in -by the only publicly known entrance, the students and professors -would be enabled to escape. The egress to this private stairway from -the lecture-room was by a door, the bolt of which, shooting into a -socket, was within the room, and could not be moved from without. -This private escape-door was at the other end of the dissecting-room. -And this is my friend’s story:— - -He had made arrangements with the janitor of the medical college, -who was also a sexton, to have the body of a female on the -dissecting-table on a certain night, as he wanted to make some -specific studies for his lecture of the next day. On the evening when -the body was to be ready for him, he had accepted an invitation to -a small party, at the house of one of the professors, and thither -he went, pre-arranging with one of the students to leave at eleven -o’clock, and go together to accomplish his examination. At the -appointed hour he made a sign to his companion, and they withdrew. -Arriving at the college, he entered by his pass-key, found a couple -of candles on the table in the lower hall, ascended the usual -stairway, and, arriving at the door of the lecture-room at the top of -the building, stopped for a moment to hang up their cloaks and hats. -Then he applied the key to the lock, and entered with the candles -lit, of course. A deep gloom pervaded the dissecting-room,—a gloom -that was increased by the feeble light of the two candles, and upon -the table lay, under the fearful cloth, the subject for the night’s -work. - -Without any other thought in their minds save the plain -matter-of-fact idea of work, they advanced to the -dissecting-board,—the doctor towards the head of the corpse, the -student passing round to the other side. As the latter was in the -act of turning, he lifted his candle and exclaimed, “Doctor, who is -that?” pointing at the same time toward the centre of the room. - -“I do not know,” replied the doctor, thinking the question applied to -the body before him; but no sooner had he raised his eyes than he -was struck by the attitude of his friend. He was holding the candle -above his head and looking away from the table, and the doctor, -following the direction of his gaze, discovered the figure of a man -standing some twelve or fifteen feet distant. My friend said that -his only impression was that they were in for a row; concluding that -the mob had found out the secret stairway, and got into the hall for -the purpose of breaking up the dissecting operations. With this idea -he turned round the table, and, as he advanced toward the figure, -exclaimed, “Who are you? What do you want here?” In his advance -movement he was joined by the student, neither for an instant having -the idea of a supernatural visitation in their minds. As quickly -as they pushed forward, as rapidly did the figure retreat until -it reached the door leading to the head of the stairway, when it -disappeared. Supposing that the man had passed out as he had come in, -they rushed to the door to follow, but they found the door fastened -and the bolt shot within the staple. With difficulty they forced it -back, for it had never been used since it was put on,—no occasion -requiring it,—and then they descended the steps to the outer doorway, -which they found closed, and from _within_. - -Puzzled by these mysteries, they reascended to the room, passed -through, and immediately descended to arouse the janitor, and see if -he could give any clue to the adventure. The janitor inquired of them -if they could describe the appearance. Yes; and they did so; for they -had had a full and accurate view of his face, of his dress, and of -his height. “Then,” said the janitor, “it was a ghost. That man was -the husband of the woman you had upon the table. I buried them both, -and knew them well, and he answers exactly to your description.” - -The doctor, when questioned by us, said the figure was that of a tall -man, dressed in ordinary clothes (I forget, now, whether he gave us -a full description or not, but rather think he did not), with a very -severe and stern face, and kept his eyes fixed upon the corpse, one -hand upraised and pointing to it, conveying the impression to his -mind of an order not to touch it,—a gesture of rebuke, or a motion to -forbid. - -The doctor and his friend went back to the vestibule of the -dissecting-room, resumed their outer-garments, and retired. The -janitor fulfilled the doctor’s order, which was to remove and rebury -the body, and find him the body of a woman whose husband would not -interfere with his professional occupations. - -Now, here is a true ghost story, if there ever was one. _Two persons_ -saw the apparition, and a third party verified it. The moral is plain -enough. The husband was there to prevent the disgusting mutilation -of his wife’s body, and his purpose was accomplished. - -The doctor said that nothing would have induced him to lay his -hands upon that woman’s form when he remembered the appealing look -of his extraordinary visitor. It was not personal fear or vulgar -superstition, but a higher motive; for inasmuch as no Christian -gentlemen would touch with unholy motive the form of a living wife -in the presence of a living husband, so he could not disturb the -sanctity of her spectral modesty before the face of her suppliant, -dead husband. To those who accept the story of the apparition, -the logic of the motive must be evident; and if so in this case, -why not in all others? Or it may be as it is in life. We meet our -acquaintances every day on the street; they pass us without seeing -us, or without our seeing them; and yet how absurd it would be to -deny their being on the street, walking straight on, absorbed beyond -recognition, simply because they did not stop and explain to us the -motive that brought them there! Ghosts, in like manner, may cross -the clown’s staring vision or the philosopher’s calmer sight, and, -because they do not pause and prattle of their object and tell them -the motive of their appearance, are we to conclude, as a logical -theory demonstrated, that that is a good reason to conclude they -were not there at all? Must all facts be denied until the motives -are discovered? Is a negative so powerful as to overwhelm an -affirmative? If so, the plea of not guilty offered by a criminal -should be enough to justify his discharge, despite of circumstantial -evidence strong enough to hang him or half a hundred like him. - -As I stood that night out there in the fatal wood, and thought over -the murder and the murderer, I conceived a plan of punishment by -which, alone, I thought he could appease the outraged sense of human -tenderness for things so young as he had slaughtered. - - - - -XIV. - -MY PLAN OF PUNISHMENT. - - -And this is my plan: - -Chain him to the rock on which he took her life,—one chain to each -wrist, one chain to each ankle, and an iron hoop locked around his -waist, and this, too, fastened to the rock. Lay him on the spot where -she was found. Then leave him to himself and to the scenery which -he has disfigured so fearfully; but watch that no demon out of the -Davenport or Eddy witchcraft or mancraft boxes help him to unloose -those shackles. Lay him with his face to the avenging skies, and -place food within his reach, but so arrange it that it rests only on -the spots over which the red current of her life had ebbed. Let him -alone with the night, and the night will give him such a tangled and -convulsed spasm of horror as will make his very soul shriek aloud -for two almost impossible things, yet awhile, death or the Lord’s -pardon. And there he should remain until every hair of his head had -become white, and every black spot of his soul livid. Perhaps the -spirit that confronted me in silence and in peace might come to him -and watch him,—watch him till the dawn broke and the eyes of the -bright heavens took its place to look at him. And after that let the -authorities handle him as they pleased. - -The reader will observe that in this project of mine I follow out the -classic ideas of the most elegant peoples and refined poets of the -world, who insisted before all things else that the dramatic unities -should be attended to. In that respect my plan would be without a -flaw. - -And now, if I am asked for my theory of the murders, my answer -would be, that it might not be politic to give it publicity. This -much, however, I will say, reserving the more probable theory for -future emergencies. There is a link wanting at this time that must -be found before any progress can be made to a conclusive judgment. -The children left their temporary home intending to return in time -for the boy to attend his afternoon school. Their objective point, -as I said before, was May’s wood. This question then arises: What -occurred to make the girl, the senior, change her mind and go -farther away from home,—to Bussey’s wood? Going there would change -her original programme, relative to the boy. Did some one meet them -as if by accident,—_some one whom they knew_,—and did that person -induce her to continue to Bussey’s wood? Were there any evidences -that they stopped at all at May’s wood? But what inducement could -he use to get her to Bussey’s wood? The mother might have been the -inducement. They knew she was employed at Quincy, nearer to Bussey’s -than to May’s wood. They might have been told that she would meet -them at the former, and it would be a pleasant surprise. Another -question presents itself: What could have been the motive to get her -to secluded, distant Bussey? I answer, self-defence. Self-defence -against two children? Yes. The girl was an intelligent, observant -girl, and she may have been cognizant of some crime, the revelation -of which would have brought ruin and punishment upon the perpetrator; -or the perpetrator might, in his consciousness of the possibility of -her having discovered him, come to the resolution to dispose forever -of any chance of her being a witness against him. They were poor -children, and had only money enough to go and come from May’s wood; -and yet that money was found upon the girl. Consequently, she had not -been at any expense in getting to Bussey’s wood by the cars. _The -murderer paid their fare!_ After reaching the thick shades around -the rock, and giving her time to become confident of his integrity -and friendship,—so much so as to be sufficiently at ease to commence -the weaving of leaf chaplets, waiting the promised interview with -her mother,—he sent the boy down to the brook for water, and where -he was subsequently found. Then he turned upon the girl; for if the -boy had been near by, his cries could not have failed to arouse -assistance, for there were men working within three hundred yards of -the place where her body was discovered. He must have brought about -a separation between the children, and at that spot; for he could not -have murdered them together, and there, in that broad sunlight, with -the swirl of the mower’s scythes down in the near meadow evident to -his ear, carried the body of the boy to the brook at the foot of the -hill, and thrown it among the alders. He killed the girl as soon as -the boy was out of sight, and then he followed the little fellow to -the place where he had sent him, and slaughtered him in the gloom of -those thick bushes. - -Now, who was that man whom she would have exposed? With whose acts -could she have by locality and association of daily life become -acquainted? Was he from Lynn, or its vicinity,—where she had been -living before she came to Boston? Or was the discovery, or the -imagined discovery, of a crime made in Boston, and of some one living -in Boston? The girl was simply murdered,—no duplex crime,—attacked -while she was sitting with leaves and wreaths in her lap, and the -first blows were delivered upon her back and sides, and after that -in front and in great confusion. The boy was killed, not because he -saw the murder done upon his sister, but because he could have told -who it was that accompanied them from Boston, or joined them at May’s -wood, where they were expected, or anywhere along the first part of -that terrible journey. There was no other motive for his death. If -the man had not been seen by the boy, and known personally to the -boy, he would have been alive now. Consequently it was some one who -was intimate with those children and who could not allow the boy to -live any more than he could allow the girl to live. It was a double -self-defence. - -Then who was that man? I think he lives; I think that he walks these -streets daily. I think that some of us at some time or other have -sat beside him in the cars going to and fro the city roads. I think -that now, as I sit here writing, he is sitting somewhere hereabouts -with his face dropped over upon his clenched hands, looking at that -dark rock out there in the woods and wondering if he will yet reach -the end of his life by the common methods of disease. I think that -he often passes by the police station, with a frightened look in his -eyes, and turns a corner quickly when one of the big police guards -stalks like a blue-coated and silver-plated Nemesis toward him. I -see him, in my mind’s eye, when he meets a girl and boy upon the -sidewalk,—how he stares at them with a fixed gaze, wondering how -those two whom he killed out yonder, in the old woods, are looking -now!—and, when this book is advertised, I can watch him wondering -what it is like; and then I trace him in his stealthy and frightened -step to the bookstore to buy it; and, when he turns these leaves and -comes to this sentence, I hear him curse me, and know that he would -like to have his hand upon my throat for recalling the memory of his -deed. But I tell him that he will not escape. He may pretend to pray -when others pray, to hide his wicked past in the garb of piety; he -may mutter his wrath on all of us who seek him for his punishment; -he may fly now the advancing steps of justice: but, as he flies, -the feet of justice may become inactive, while it sends over every -railroad and steamboat line of travel, by every wire that vibrates -to all the remotest places of retreat, the command of his arrest. -Wherever he is now, and wherever he may be then, he is doomed; and -at this instant he knows it and feels it so in every fibre of his -accursed carcass, even to those blood-stained hands beneath whose -nails there yet remains the red record of his crime. I have given one -theory, without in the least asserting it to be the correct one; but -it is as good a theory as the public can get hold of outside of that -mysterious room in the City Hall wherein the tall chief of police -weaves his webs. - -There being nothing else but murder in the girl’s death, we must -seek for some motive that could have driven that man to so terrible -a necessity. What other than the one I have suggested? Was it -monomania for human blood? That could have been gratified among a -denser population than he would be likely to find in Bussey’s wood. -And monomania of that kind is not common, nor is it of sudden growth, -striking and slaking but once. It seeks its victim anywhere, without -plot and without care of consequences, anywhere and everywhere. It -is a madness that has no fear and is destitute of prudence. But here -was deliberate, deep-plotted murder. It required skill to induce -the girl to go farther away from home and her pledged duty to her -brother. The filial sense was invoked as paramount to the fraternal. -It required skill to separate the children. It was done. Does all -that look as if the man was crazed for blood, or blind by drink? I -think there was neither here. I cannot give my other theory; for, -if it did not detect in this case, it might suggest an excellent -method of repeating just such another crime, should any such be in -contemplation. The enemy of society and law studies the tactics of -justice, and frequently the plan of detection, if penetrated by -the culprit, becomes his surest chart of escape. There may, after -all,—but I don’t think so,—have been two persons engaged in this -series of murders; and in that light read the short recital that -follows, and perhaps, when the mystery shall be resolved by judicial -precision, you may turn back to this singular incident and compare it -with the concluding scenes of the catastrophes I have been treating -of. If truth be stranger than fiction, then the marvels of the -veritable make larger drafts upon our credulity than the fabrications -of the imaginist, and there can be no harm done if we prepare -ourselves for revelations that in time may be made to us, and whose -mysticism, enlightened by the practical test of law, will stand -forever in the dry tomes of jurisprudence, subduing the impertinence -of our dogmatical self-conceit, and establishing the fact that truth -is a principle that can traverse the air, as well as walk arm in arm -with us in our daily habits. This is the incident. - -Dr. Binn relates in his book, published some years ago, the -following:— - -“A young and beautiful quadroon girl named Duncan, and residing in -Jamaica, West Indies, was murdered in a retired spot _a few paces -from the public highway_. [Such was the case in the murder of -Isabella Joyce.] Upon discovery of the deed, and investigation by the -coroner, a reward, amounting to a large sum of money [similar in the -Joyce case], was offered for the detection of the guilty party, but -without avail. A year passed over with no light from the judicial -lantern illumining the black mystery of the deed, and the case was -in process of lapsing into oblivion, when two negroes named Pendrill -and Chitty were arrested for some minor thefts and lodged in prison. -One was placed in the Kingston penitentiary and the other in Falmouth -jail. The distance between these two places was eighty miles. It must -be borne in mind that these two men were ignorant of their mutual -arrest and confinement, though as it turned out afterward were well -acquainted with each other. In the course of their imprisonment they -became restless and talked in their sleep, and then conversations -were addressed to a young girl who, it would seem, stood by and -upbraided them with her murder. They would then entreat her to go -away. This happened so frequently as to lead to inquiries which -resulted in the conviction of those two haunted men, of the murder -that had so long baffled the detection of justice. - - - - -XV. - -THE CHILDREN. - - -In a court of justice, if I was put upon my oath, I could not swear -that it was a ghost that I saw when I stood at the end of the garden -on that luminous night; nor would I swear that it was a man with his -vitality in force; but I would swear that I saw something that looked -like a man, but might have been a ghost. It acted as if it might have -been either,—but if a man, like a crazy one, and who had a charm to -subdue, upon the instant and without effort, the temper of two severe -watch-dogs, one a mastiff, the other a bull, and also to suspend for -more than a second my power of vision. - -After I had finished writing my narrative, and thought that I had -nothing further to do in this business besides giving my manuscript -into the hands of the printer, I became possessed of two photographs -kindly lent to my curiosity by the chief of police. They are the -portraits of Isabella and John Joyce. My first idea was to have them -multiplied and affixed somewhere in my pages, but then I thought of -the illustrated papers with their abominable attempts to illustrate -by the pencil every spasm to which human nature is incident, and was -stopped at once from that design. - -The face of the girl is bright, expressive, and, in a degree, pretty. -Had she lived to womanhood she might have grown into what is called -a _fine_ woman. The features are large and regular, the eyes full of -vivacity and good temper, the nose prominent and well shaped, the -mouth pleasant, and indicative of resolution. Altogether the girl had -a generous and loving kind of lookout, and not rare in the species at -her budding and buoyant age. She looks like a child beginning to see -the vague outline of the sea on which she must voyage with the rest, -and not at all having such quick destruction in her thoughts, as came -to her ere she heard the breakers of human experience sobbing on the -shore. She was not too young to die, but too young to be slaughtered. -The boy’s face is that of a child; but a bright and reflective little -fellow, with a large development of brain, and, by the extreme -innocence of his expression, casting a deeper shadow of crime upon -the wretch who took away his life. Taking the photograph as a test, -he seems to be about eight years old and no more, and with such a -face that it must have been a sad thing for those who found him, to -look upon with the mask of murder stamped upon it. - -I have also seen a bundle of papers, written over in large, -straggling chirography, and said to be communications of spirits, -through mediums, upon the topic of the murders. There is one-half -page written, so those say,—his wife, for instance,—who knew his -“hand of write,” by the dead father of the children. Their testimony, -whatever it may be, has as yet been of no special advantage in -directing investigation, at least as far as I know; probably on the -theory that if the souls of the departed undertook to interfere -in the proceedings of our courts, they might produce embarrassing -predicaments, being so far as we are instructed in such matters -incapable of appearing bodily on the witness-stand to testify to -facts within their knowledge; and, besides, it would be exceedingly -inconvenient for our judicial officials to serve a summons upon them, -as their places of special abode cannot, at present, be determined -upon with any exactness outside of a graveyard directory. Cases are, -however, upon the record wherein ghosts have pointed out such lines -of proceedings as finally led to the proper adjustment of contested -property and estates. Perhaps the day may reach us when not only the -spirit of the law, and the spirit of the past, but the spirits of -the dead, will have large control over the vexed condition of our -temporary existence here. - - - - -XVI. - -GHOSTS. - - -Will it be impertinent if I say that I am no advocate of the -spiritualistic doctrines? Will it be less out of place, if I add -that I am no direct opponent of that wonderful creed,—new creed, -some people call it; but, in fact, as long established as the -first death,—as old as man’s first doubt, or his first impulse to -worship the unseen, or investigate the first difficulty? I assume -no dictatorship of judgment, adhere to no prejudice or formula of -education, or habit of social or sectional condition, but place -myself in that grand philosophic pause of suspended opinion. There -have been good Turks, there are good Turks; there have been good -Jews, there are good Jews. One of the latter, leaving his old -traditions, rules now the destiny of a great so-called, and properly -so-called I believe, Christian Empire; but because in our youth -we have been led to think hard of bloody Mahomet, and the Jewish -unbelievers of the first Christian era, when mysteries assumed the -prerogative of logical religion, and faith was not as quick to -conceive as it has been since, we are not justified in believing that -the Turk and the Jew are beyond the pale of our sympathies, and, for -old deeds done under peculiar pressure, are to be anathematized from -our human charities. There are members known, of the spiritualist -belief, to be as pure and spotless as any equal number of any other -God-believing sect; and while we cannot but look with feelings akin -to pity at some of the phases of their peculiar practice, it behooves -no man, limited as we all are in our claim to exact knowledge, to -condemn the whole because some of their people do certain things, -that, in the performance, border upon the absurd. - -The mystery of life is more mysterious than the mystery of death. In -the first we would, if not governed by the subjection of judgment -to certain rules and discipline of faith, be led to believe in a -thousand things that appeal to us daily by the miraculous condition -of their nature. Science, while it reveals, establishes materiality; -and the farther it advances into the realms of air, the more it -fills that air with material substances. Dare it go higher yet, and -rob the firmament of all its poetry, its vague spirit of religious -spirituality, and, sweeping away the dreams of the tenderest -imaginations, build up the steps of the Eternal throne with granite -boulders, and form of the Almighty a statue of specific gravity, with -needs like our own, and humanly dependent on the vegetation and the -atmosphere of these terrestrial regions which astronomy with its -supernaturally endowed telescope has established as fact? - -It may be an objection, founded upon some basis of common sense, -that I have introduced what I call a veritable ghost into my work. -I cannot help that. In fact I never would have written my book if -I had not had that interview with what now, in all the sincerity -that is left to a man in these abominable days, I believe and assert -was a ghost; a real ghost,—no dramatic shade made up of an off-duty -carpenter with an actor to speak his part,—a ghost arranged for the -nonce with a screen between us, of vapory muslin; but a solemn, a -meaning, a power to move, but not a power to absolutely affright, -ghost. In fact I see no reason to be frightened by them. Grant that -they exist,—you never have heard of one that did harm to anybody. -They have, it is to be supposed, thrown off the passions of the -flesh, with the flesh,—the passion of anger, the passion of mischief, -and all the low and base adjunctives that adhere to us in our state -of usual visibility. They are not monsters, but symbols, or aerial -realities of our former friends. Even the ghost of Robespierre, -of Nero, or Jeffrey, would be harmless, bad as they were when -encompassed in their fibrous shells of flesh. Ghosts, as a general -rule of logic, cannot be as bad as those of earth with whom they have -their interviews. And it is not to be supposed that they always -have a sublime or important mission to accomplish. If the rule holds -good that Providence allows them to flit hitherward, the ghost of -a washerwoman has as much right to appear to her successor of the -soap-suds, as the ghost of Cæsar to his slayer before the battle that -settled the destiny of half a world. And the washerwoman’s ghost -could not do that, or would not even think of doing that, and yet she -might have her homely mission, as important to her friends, as ghosts -of a higher rank. But they all have their mission, the ghosts of -demi-gods as well as the ghosts of plebeians. They easily establish, -what otherwise could not be practically proved, the vexed question -of the immortality of the soul. A testimony of a dead man would be -as valuable to me, with regard to that matter, as the wire-drawn -assertions of a man paid a large salary to keep good, and say that we -turn into ghosts after all,—for they all say that. - -Now I most respectfully ask what harm does it do to believe in -ghosts? Is it weakness? Then St. Paul was weak to idiocy, for he was -the apostle of the supernatural, as the Bible will prove, if you -choose to consult his record. Was our Saviour weak? It was he,—that -supremely blessed, that uncontradictable authority, either in -assertion or suggestion—who took upon himself the spectral character, -and asked Thomas to test him, by placing his hands upon the image -of his wounds. Or, if he was not a ghost, but a substantial form -of flesh after his crucifixion, death then makes no difference -in our condition, and is but a process without a change. Had his -apostles and disciples disbelieved in his appearance after death, and -hooted at the story told of his ghost wandering toward them, where -would be the Christian church to-day, and where the theory of the -resurrection? We disbelieve now, and scoff at what the Saviour did, -and his apostles saw, unless he was an impostor, and they liars. -Do we in our churches, when we read the biblical narrative of the -innumerable appearances, sneer at the book that tells us its contents -are the result of divine inspiration, and every word is true? That -man or woman would not be a church-member long who dared to do a -thing so impious. - -If fault be found with me for writing a narrative with such a -spectral thread of ghastly tissue running through its woof, what -should they say of the king of the ink-plume, Shakespeare himself? -He fairly revels in ghosts. In the second part of “King Henry the -Sixth,” Bolingbroke, the conjurer, invokes a spirit. In “Julius -Cæsar,” Brutus has his celebrated interview with the ghost of Cæsar. -In “Macbeth,” the ghost of Banquo comes to the king’s table and nods -between the libations, frightening the king out of his royal wits; -and in the “witch scene” we have the bubbling caldron, the armed -head, a bloody child, a child crowned, with a tree in his hand, and -“eight kings,” who pass across the stage, the last with a glass in -his hand. What would the play of “Hamlet” be without the father’s -spirit wandering on the moonlit battlement, or the interview with -the queen-mother, known as the miniature scene? In “Richard the -Third,” crowds of ghosts stalk through the tent of the hunchback -king, and start him from his sleep; and Richmond, too, holds converse -with them. The ghosts of Prince Edward, Henry the Sixth, Clarence, -Rivers, Grey, Vaughan, Hastings, the two young Princes, Queen Ann, -and Buckingham, stalk before the tyrant’s vision, and curse him as -they pass. Otway makes use of ghosts in his “Venice Preserved,” and -Sir Walter Scott welded them in the machinery of his novels; and -the ponderous-brained Sam Johnson religiously believed in them. -The ghosts of Shakespeare were born of the poetic faculty, and the -legendary creed of the world’s experience. Place a rose, the sweetest -you can find, under a glass case, and you shut out the odor that -belongs to it. Is that odor dead and imperceptible because you have -raised a barrier between it and your senses? Does it not exist, even -more potently, within its crystal prison? Because you do not perceive -that sweetness, would you say it is not? Are our direct senses to -settle all points of doubt and difficulty? Or, let a man enter, then, -who had never seen a rose, and you were to tell him of the great -fragrance of the flower of which bards have sung and Scriptures made -similes,—would you not scoff him if he said such things were not -possible to a plant like that, that looked like painted paper? Then -how can you say anything about it who have never seen a ghost? To -your senses it may be as yet hidden by a barrier stronger than glass, -but yet as transparent to others. But I do not write to argue, but -only to suggest. I admit my own weakness and confess to doubts, and -cannot place myself with indisputable certainty on any solid basis -of logic, and therefore must allow great scope to others; but since -I have ventured to tell my story, I had a strong and natural desire -to stand, as well as it was possible upon the platform of rational -opinion, and felt that I had a right to attempt to place myself -there. If any man can prove that I did not see exactly what I say I -saw, let him do so, but let him not attempt to “pshaw” me out of the -evidences of my senses, and proclaim from his stolid pedestal, called -the “impossible,” that I am a dreamer, a madman, and all that sort -of adjectiveness which grows from ignorance of the noun substantives -of reason. When he can come to me and show me the authority, not -derived from his metaphysics or his sectarianism, or his prejudice, -by which he is empowered to deny the possibility or the probability -and actuality of ghosts, and settle then and forever that such things -cannot be, I will admit that I was crazy; bereft of reason; at one -moment gifted with eyesight, and the next deprived of it: things -which, by the way, would be more at variance with the “order of -Heaven,” and more extraordinary, in fact, than the assumed appearance -of that thing we call ghost; and which, after all said, and done, -and laughed, and sneered at, is that idea of the human hope baptized -in our dreams and our theology, by the name of “Immortality.” You -cannot prove to a drowning man that he is not surrounded by water. -You may tell him that he can swim; but he will tell you that, though -he can, he has the cramp. You may tell him that a ship without -volition can float where he is struggling; but he will tell you that -the ship has nothing to do with it. He believes in the things that -he feels and sees around him, but which you do not experience, and -he will not take your arguments and suggestions as the embodiment -of an infallible life-preserver. I saw what I saw; prove to me that -I did not see it,—for the question is with me and nobody else,—and -prove it without the usual insolence, if you can; remembering, in -your endeavor to convince, that insult is more of an offence than an -argument; indeed, it is only used when argument is exhausted. - -The composing of an epic poem is held to be the highest achievement -of the human mind. Ideality, or imagination, is the means used -in the performance of the work. Ideality is the inspiration of -religion, and without it religion would simply be a form of law, -to be broken like other laws, and to be vindicated by penalties and -processes similar to those imposed and employed in the vindication -and substantiation of any other law. The ecclesiastical synonym for -ideality is faith. - -If ideality be the source of the highest results of intellectual -effort, and of religious belief, who can venture to fabricate a chain -with which to bind and circumscribe its flights? If man in power, for -the supposed benefit of the man out of power, does so, it is merely -the result of policy, or passion, or human prejudice, or selfishness; -and no man that ever lived, from the Pope of Rome to the backwood -preacher, and from the preacher to the ethical moralist, has had that -right inherent in his particular nature, to tax as a royalty the -patent of the human mind to the grand prerogative of thought. - -Canute, the king, tried an experiment of mastery with the tide. -What other despot of school theory will make the same effort with -the tidings of the brain of man, hoping for better success than -the Danish fool? If there be such, so sure as the first known -madman of the Hamlet race was driven from the beech, will the -other be overwhelmed by the resistless force of that great wave of -intelligence which has already grappled with the lightning, and -taught it the babel language by which man expresses his endless -wants. Man, when he seizes upon the great faculties of electricity, -does not stultify himself by establishing a limit to its capacity. -At first it was a rod upon a chimney that drew a spark from the -thunder-storm; then the galvanic battery, to draw paralysis from -limbs; then the wire from city to city; and now it passes beneath -the throbbing bosom of the sea, and whispers the price of stocks or -the policy of cabinets into the ear of a man who sits at his table, -like a musician at his piano, taking out of the thunderbolts of Jove -a language and a spirit that ignorance would deny the possibility of -being there. And what more will be accomplished by electricity? We -stand upon the threshold of its domain, enlightened by flashes that -invite and illumine to farther experiments. - -Doubt is the genius of discovery, but, at present, with regard to -the supernatural, there is nothing proved except what we believe; -otherwise, the world would have but one creed. - - - - -XVII. - -MANIFESTATIONS. - - -As may be well imagined, a subject so conspicuous and mysterious -as the dark deeds done in Bussey’s wood, would not be allowed to -pass over without some professional attempts on the part of the -spiritualistic community to discover their hidden secret. “Seances” -were called, and the force of mediumistic power enlisted and put in -operation to extract the terrible revelation from some detective -spirit among the dead; with what result the police are best able to -judge, and the culprit, too; but it occurred to me that it might -possibly amuse my readers to read some of the communications relating -to the topics I have been treating of, from the spirit world, through -what is called trance mediums. The two or three that I shall take -occasion to abridge were sent to the police head-quarters, and -I have no doubt they were sent in good faith. The result of the -incantations is of little moment, but I have understood that it -was said somewhere by a presumed spirit, that they would tell all -about the murders, and expose the culprit, if a sum of money would -be raised competent to the support of the bereaved mother of the -children. The fact that there were large rewards offered—and I -believe they have not been withdrawn—should have satisfied them that -if, through their agency, the murderer was detected, they could make -over the amount to Mrs. Joyce. I do not vouch for the truth of the -rumor, but think it improbable, because it was an unnecessary demand -under the circumstances. The occasions when, actuated by a mixed -motive of curiosity and a desire to examine, I have witnessed the -proceedings at these sittings of the faithful, have not had a very -strong tendency to convince me that good spirits put their feet under -the mahogany. To be sure my experience has been limited, but it has -been definite up to this period. I have not attended the public or -professional seances; but there are many persons who are sceptics, -yet strongly mediumistic, and able to make the table move across the -room by the mere imposition of their hands. I have heard the alphabet -repeated at my own room, where only one gentleman was present beside -myself; and this gentleman, an involuntary and unprofessional medium, -was of considerable power, and used that power for the purposes of -investigation. Answers I have there witnessed to questions, that -astonished me,—direct, satisfactory, and going back into the far -and dim years of childhood, astonishing to my friend, as well as -to myself,—facts that my own mind had entirely lost in the lapse -of years, but which came up to my recollection as vivid as if of -yesterday’s happening. Sometimes my recollection has been corrected, -and in such a way as to convince me that my idea of the circumstance -had been erroneous. And then again, a something of intelligence would -move the table, in answer to the alphabet, and tell such self-evident -lies, with so enthusiastic a vivacity as to startle me into the -belief that he had been the writer of bulletins for some newspaper -during the late Southern conflict. And this assumed spirit would -pass himself off as a deceased member of my family, staggering me -with his knowledge, and from which bewilderment I confess I can find -no present means of rational escape. I have, however, come pretty -nearly to the conclusion that the spirit, or whatever it is, that I -have alluded to above, has been our only visitor; but the imagination -cannot conceive a scheme so subtle as his has been to deceive us -into the belief that those persons, whose character he pretended to -represent, were in fact the very individuals themselves; and under -ordinary circumstances few men could have been blamed had they been -credulous of his representations. - -I have frequently tried by the most determined exercise of will, -to force the responses into the channel I had mentally prepared -for them; but in no case, I must candidly confess, could I command -obedience. This fact shook my theory of sympathetic influence, and -settled in that small sphere of experiment the vexed question of -the power of mind to operate upon matter. My friend, who has the -mediumistic faculty, made similar attempts, and always with like -result. Let wiser heads than mine unravel and explain, by cogent and -irresistible logic, these eccentric incidents, for I must admit my -utter inability to explain them by any rules outside of those adopted -by the spiritualist. But though I may have been a witness of these -phenomena, it does not follow that I am a spiritualist, any more than -I am of the mythological faith of pagan Greece, because, forsooth, I -take delight in the statue of Minerva, go into raptures over that of -Venus, and read with unfeigned enjoyment the poems of that prince of -old idolaters, blind but immortal Homer. - -I have before me a package of manuscript purporting to have been -written by inhabitants of another world,—by hands that have felt the -pressure of the hand of death, and yet, it would seem, are able to -express thought with the intelligence usually attributed to life. One -of these communications purports to have been written by Isabella -Joyce, the murdered girl, and another by her father, Stephen Joyce. - -The manuscript of the girl strikes me as of a better order of -chirography than is usually to be found in that of children of her -age; while the father’s is large and roughly emphatic, and bears the -impress of a passionate desire to discover the murderer and avenge -the deaths of his children. Friends of Stephen Joyce assert that the -formation of the writing is unmistakably similar to his; but, as I -have not been able to compare the dead man’s penmanship with anything -done by him while on earth, I cannot pass judgment either of denial -or verification. - -It would appear that, speedily after the murders were discovered, -meetings were called of the spiritualists, in the hope that some -revelation would be made that might lead to the arrest of the party -or parties engaged in the atrocious deed. - -Not later than a month or two ago, I read in a spiritualistic paper, -of the city of Boston,—conducted, by the way, with great editorial -ability,—a communication from the boy murdered; but which contained -no clue that could direct detection safely and judicially to any -desired result. - -In the written communication, signed “Isabella Joyce,” to which -I have alluded, there are references to parties that had been -previously arrested or suspected. She, however, distinctly exonerates -the young man of the factory, whose flight is as yet unaccounted for; -but whose innocence is beyond all question. She speaks, also, of -that inebriated unfortunate to whom Dedham jail has become a matter -of practical and suggestive recollection. The name of that eminent -individual known to the police and the public by the euphonic -appellation of Scratch Gravel, makes no figure in her revelations; -though he confessed to many circumstances that would have led in -ordinary cases to his implication in the deed. His admissions were -tortured by over-zealous detectives into positive confession; but -after strict comparison of his statements, made under the pressure of -prison and terror, or rum reaction, with the exact incidents of his -maudlin staggerings and stutterings, he was given up as not worthy of -belief, though he madly made the attempt to get himself hanged. - -It is my intention to give merely the pith and essence of these -strange writings,—having placed the original papers in the hands of -my publisher,—where any person, curious in such matters, can examine -them. - -The girl commences by appealing to her mother, and declaring that -she cannot be happy until they have found that “terrible man.” -She cries frequently to her mother, as if under some great spasm -of alarm,—hints at certain persons,—exonerates others, who were -suspected, and in such manner as to remind us of the terrible ravings -and charges of the “afflicted children” who figured as the juvenile -fiends and denouncers of the Salem Witchcraft tragedies. - -In her outcries she speaks of a returned soldier, and checks her -mother’s suspicions, that appeared to have gone astray in the -wrong direction, and then directly charges the crime upon our poor -dilapidated young friend, whose greatest misfortune it was to have -been drunk on that fatal day, and been whipped or blackeyed in the -evening. - -The girl proceeds with repeated exclamations of Mother! Mother! and -emphasizes the sufferings through which she passed. Be it remembered -that she speaks only of murder throughout her disclosures, if -disclosures they can be called. - -Her second declaration is more minute and connected, but still it -is a jumbled and very unsatisfactory narrative, or rather child -gossip, of the circumstances and incidents as they occurred previous -and up to the instant of the catastrophe. She again speaks of a -soldier,—_the one whose hand was cut_; says she saw him in a garden -as they passed along,—the garden across the brook; that he followed -them into the woods. She now goes back to her trip out of Boston -toward the wood, and tells that they got out at Burroughs Street, -walked up the plain or plank (hard to decipher), till they came to a -juncture of the road where it crosses the track of the steam cars, -then to the right, and round a store or stone house to the left, over -the brook to the other side. She expressly and suddenly declares, at -this point of her recital, that _she does not remember him_. After -they climbed over the gate (supposed to be the gate very near where -she was found, and which opens from the Dedham road; there is another -gate between the murder spot and Mr. Motley’s house), they saw the -man. He followed, but up to that moment had not spoken to her. He now -seems to have turned back, but, changing his mind, returned quickly -and addressed her. At this she became alarmed and fled; he pursued. -There is much confusion here,—a scuffling and tussling of sentences -as if a mimic was giving to the life some quickly whirling scene of -trouble and irritation and surprise, wherein there was the essence of -a great danger. - -It is a confused statement of Johnny’s having spoken of the sheep -(Mr. Motley’s sheep down in the valley grazing at the time, watched -by a vagrant boy, afterward examined by the authorities, and found -to be no wiser than the flock he watched). She says she does not -remember exactly—speaks of a knife which she tried to get hold of—of -his cutting himself with it—of his throwing it into the wood. (If -he did, he must have gone back for it and rescued it, for no such -knife was found after a vigilant search over the whole locality.) She -exclaims, “He murdered me!”—that he was scratched on the face and -neck, and bears the marks “now,”—at the time of her manifestation at -the spiritual sitting. At this point the paper is filled with wild -and alarming cries to her mother. The idea presents itself again of -a mimic reacting a scene in which the soul is driven to the very -verge of madness by that dread fiend called Terror. The voice seems -to pierce the air in its shrill proclamation of intense and terrible -agony, and anon it subsides into stifled sobs and ejaculations of -how much she suffered while the black deed was done,—how “sick” she -was. After that outburst of mad appeal and piteous mourning she -resumes her narrative, and describes her murderer. He wore blue -clothes, and looked like a soldier; but not a soldier just from the -wars. (A soldier loafing after his laurels had withered in bar-room -atmosphere, I suppose.) She fixes his nationality distinctly,—an -Irishman. It was one o’clock, she says; but the writing here is -blurred and crossed, and very difficult, if not quite impossible, to -make out and determine whether it is one or two o’clock. Her brother, -she says, ran for help, and the man ran after him and killed him and -came back to her. This statement is signed “Isabella Joyce.” - -The other portions of the page of foolscap, on which her hand -appears, is covered with a lively display of all sorts of -penmanship,—the idle signatures of a small party of the other world’s -inhabitants, who, it would seem, were in Isabella’s company. - -Again she resumes control over the writing medium’s hand, and says,— - -“Johnny was dead, and the man went off after I died. He went down -the other way to Boston. He will be found.” - -We have nothing more from the spirit of the girl (I speak now -without entering into any question of the authenticity of these -communications, leaving my reader to dispose of that enigma, as may -best suit his temper and convenience), but the father makes his -appearance on the scene and endorses his daughter’s testimony; but -singularly neither witness offers to give the name of the designated -soldier. The spiritualistic theory is that they could not do so, -because he was a stranger to both of them, and consequently while -they could see his face and clothes, they could not tell his name. -The case is similar to our own daily experience in our transient -meeting with people on the street,—a passing and silent interview, in -which nothing is discovered save the recognition of a person and no -more. - -The revelation of the father is to the effect that he knows where the -man is, and will follow him to the end. - -One part of his statement I suppress, because it comes directly -within the province of the law officers, and might direct suspicion -upon a possibly innocent man. - -Three years ago, it is asserted by those who believe in this -extraordinary doctrine of the power of the dead to express themselves -through the living, this man, Stephen Joyce, declared that by the -fifth of the month of July, eighteen hundred and sixty-five, the -murderer would be in the hands of justice; and how many months have -come and gone since that spirit entered the mystic witness-box, and -foretold such sequence to the tragedy, and yet without fulfilment? I -am sorry that he was no true prophet,—no wiser in a ghostly form than -in the fleshly substance. He is not half so good a ghost as Hamlet’s -father was. The Dane went straight to the point, and told the truth -and nothing but the truth, while here we have the spirit of the girl -upon the stand, and she rambles in her talk without the aid of the -great legal screw of cross-questioning, designating nothing that is -tangible, indeed giving false clues to the murderer, and screaming, -“Mother! Mother!” as if she would pour into the listener’s ear some -faint echo of those dread cries that rang amid the gloomy woods when -the soul of her was stabbed out of her. - -The ghost of the murdered King of Denmark spoke the truth, as -other ghosts by judicial testimony have done; but they were the -old-fashioned ghosts, standing by themselves without the aid of -human machinery, without the table or the easily assimilated trance, -responsible for their coming and for what they told or what they -desired to be done by their informing. They came and made short work -of it, impressing belief by solemn utterances or majestic gestures. -In this case again, the man, who should have been interested more -than any other man, comes through the arm and fingers of a stranger, -a living being, and is assumed to have written out, at that solemn -investigation, a deposition,—not made upon the Holy Book, holier than -all books, but with lips sanctified by the kiss of death,—and vaguely -points to some unfortunate, and declares with all the potency of -his supernal condition that ere the fifth of the approaching month -the discovery would be made, and the hands of the law laid upon -the person of the murderer of his children; and the fifth of that -long-passed month lies strewn with the leaves of several autumns, -buried far back in the dead annals, and no revelation has confirmed -his prophecy. How is this? Or was it, as I have said before, left to -these pages to revive that miserable event, and glare it to those -eyes that have so often seen the vision of the dead; to awaken in -that drowsing conscience the phantoms that he had half lulled to -sleep, and force him to some act by which the law may be able to -read, without the farther aid of business mediums, the mark of Cain -that God has put upon his brow? - -Who knows, and who can tell as yet, the meaning of my ghost that came -to me upon the hill? - -It was not with any sinister design that the doctrine of -spiritualism, or its practices, has been introduced into my -narrative. It formed no portion of my original intention; but I -found it impossible to refrain from giving publicity to documents -that had been found of sufficient importance to attract the -attention of the authorities. The spiritualist is able to take care -of himself and his belief. Such communications might be used to a -fearful and fatal purpose. The criminals engaged in the perpetration -of a crime could, if such testimony was of any judicial weight, -arrange a circle, produce the manifestations, or the similitude of -manifestations, and direct attention to certain innocent parties, -when suspicion would give time for the real culprits to escape. Every -one knows how easy it is to work through the agency of a religious -sentiment, and a very large class of people, habituated to the -belief in spiritual revelations as inculcated by the spiritualists, -receiving impressions in that way, would be hard to believe otherwise -than as the spurious spirits asserted. Crime would thus become more -dramatic, and the consequences of such interference on the part of -a religious organization might lead to the overthrow of all the -purposes and powers of civil authority. Happily, I am confident no -such construction can be placed upon the operations and revelations -of the authorized spiritualistic media. I do not know exactly what -view they take of the knowledge presumed to be possessed by the -murdered regarding the murderer. To reveal simply the name of the -person, taking for granted that the power exists according to the -doctrine of spiritualism, would be of no use, unless a train of -circumstantial evidence could be intimated, by which the law could -develop a legal connection between the accused and the crime. There -have been several instances, in this country, in which testimonious -ghosts have enacted important parts. Some of these are upon the -public record; others in private circulation. There was a case some -fifty years ago in Virginia, when, if I recollect correctly, the -ghost of a Mr. Clapham met a man upon the path in the mountain, -nearly opposite to the famous Point of Rocks, on the Potomac, and -told him where his will could be found,—the absence of which had -involved his widow in vexatious and tedious litigation. The will -was found and the question of right established in her favor; and -I myself have partaken of the hospitality of that generous lady in -the years gone by, when peace and plenty abounded in those beautiful -valleys. As a matter of curiosity, I will give in brief, a singular -case that happened in Scotland, and which goes to establish my theory -of the injustice that may be perpetrated by the assertions of persons -using the simulated spiritualistic agency for the detection of crime. -The Scotch rebellion of 1745 compelled a larger amount of vigilance -in preventing its recurrence than it possibly had taken to subdue it -in the first instance. Troops were scattered among the highlands, -for the purpose of arresting all persons using arms, and enforcing -the orders of the British authorities against the wearing of the -clan tartans. Among these troops was Sergeant Arthur Davies, who is -described as a bold and reckless man, careless in exposing himself -openly in those wild and hostile glens, and among a people conquered -but not won. Davies was in command of a squad of four men, and was -stationed at Dubrach, near Braeman, then a desolate and dangerous -district. - -On the 28th of September, 1749, Davies left his barracks, with his -command, to meet the troops posted at Glenshee. The sergeant never -returned from that expedition; for, wandering off alone to hunt in -his usual careless and defiant mood, he was murdered. - -Two men Duncan Terig, alias Clerk, and Alexander Bain MacDonald were -suspected, but, for five years, owing to the disaffected temper of -the people toward the foreign troops, no steps were taken to arrest -these suspected men; but at length on the 3d of June, 1754, nearly -five years afterwards, Clerk and MacDonald were tried at Edinboro’ -for the murder of the sergeant. This singular evidence was adduced -upon the trial. - -Some time after the murder, Donald Farquharson, living in Glenshee, -had been informed by his neighbor Alexander MacPherson, that he -(MacPherson) had been visited frequently by an apparition. It was the -ghost of Sergeant Davies, who insisted upon having a burial of his -remains. This MacPherson had declined to have anything to do with. On -this the spectre had bidden him apply to Donald Farquharson. Together -they visited the spot where MacPherson said the remains were lying; -Donald giving as a reason for going his fear of being troubled by the -grave-seeking ghost of the slaughtered Saxon. - -The witness described the finding of what was left of the skeleton of -the unhappy warrior. They were satisfactorily recognized by certain -incontestable signs. - -MacPherson’s description of the ghost as it appeared to him was -this: A figure clad in blue. He appeared at night; he was in bed; he -rose and followed it to the door. “I am Sergeant Davies,” said the -spectre; and then he related the facts of the murder, and pointed out -the place where his body or his relics could be found. The witness -had asked the names of the murderers. The ghost declined, upon the -ground that he could not reply to a question, but would have told -if he had not been asked. The ghost had visited him again, but this -time totally denuded of clothing,—but always desiring to have his -body buried. The body was subsequently properly interred. Again the -ghost had come to him and had announced his murderers,—“Duncan Clerk -and Alexander MacDonald,”—the prisoners then at the bar. The witness -was asked by Mr. Macintosh, counsel for the prisoners, what language -the ghost spoke. “As good Gaelic as ever he heard in Lochaber,” -said MacPherson. “Pretty well,” commented McIntosh, “for the ghost -of an English sergeant.” The facts turned out to be that MacPherson -had been in the employment of Clerk, and a disagreement had arisen -between the two men. MacPherson had often charged Clerk with the -murder, and on this Clerk had promised to do everything for him if -he would only keep his suspicions secret. But stronger evidence was -produced against the prisoners. A man named Cameron had seen the -murder perpetrated. He saw Clerk and another man fire simultaneously -at the soldier, and he saw him fall; but he was deterred from -making these facts known to the authorities for fear of incurring -the animosity of the Highlanders, who thought it no great harm, but -perhaps a merit, to shoot down one of the hated invaders. - -Curious to relate, the prisoners were acquitted. The evidence against -MacDonald was not clear; but no doubt existed as to the guilt of -Clerk. MacPherson was prompted to the accusation against Clerk by -motives of personal malice, and, having become possessed of Clerk’s -secret, he was anxious to gratify his hatred. Fear of the popular -hatred, if he lodged a simple accusation against his victim, on -account of the abhorrence in which an informer was particularly -held at that time, and the more so if the information was directed -against a native in favor of the dominant race, he was obliged to -invent his ghost-story, and, thus appealing to popular belief in the -supernatural, effect his purpose. But the jury would not believe his -story, for it was known that he had discovered the sergeant’s remains -before he told of the ghostly visitations, which proved that the -marvel was an afterthought. - -Sir Walter Scott edited an account of the murder for the Bannatyne -Club, and Mr. Hill Burton has included the story in his narratives -of Criminal Trials in Scotland. Sir Walter, relating another trial -where a ghost attempted by a second party to affix his murder upon -a certain person, gives the following remark of the presiding judge -upon the responsibility of the ghost testimony: “Stop!” the Judge -interrupted, gravely; “this will not do. The evidence of the ghost -is very much to the purpose, no doubt, but we can’t receive it -second-hand. None can speak with a clearer knowledge of what befell -him during life. But he must of course be sworn in the usual way. -Call the ghost in open court, therefore, and, if he appears, the -jury and I will give all weight to his evidence; but in case he does -not come forward, I cannot allow of his being heard, as now proposed -through the medium of a third party.” Up to this date it is not known -whether the bailiff has made a return of the summons or not. We -presume not. - -But was it a ghost that confronted me? - -That question, now that time is progressively dimming the vividness -of the impression that I received when first I saw that something on -the brow of the hill, rises to the tribunal of my own investigation. -I am as anxious to have the mystery solved as my reader possibly -could be; indeed I am more anxious than any other person could be. -Dim as it sometimes appears to my mind’s eye at times, there are -occasions when it assumes all the exactness of an incident that -transpired but a second since. I see it cross the wall, advance out -of the shadow into the light, stand still, then whirl or wheel, make -one human-looking step, and vanish. Will I ever see it again? That -is another question that disturbs me some. I cannot do but wait; but -with what feelings, wait? You, in your fair room with gas a-lit, or -reading in the broad-falling down of sunlight on this page, cannot -conceive. Put out your light and let the room grow dark, and pause -and think, and then perhaps, despite the adamantive philosophy of -your unbelief, you may recognize the sentiments I have; or on some -still and luminous night, moonless, drive out to that old wood and by -yourself, even now, with such great washings of rains and cleansing -of snows and storms of wind, go to the rock where the girl was found -and see how your nerves will quiver, or how your heart will throb; -or, passing down the road, draw rein at the cottage where I stopped, -and, saying naught to any one, place yourself where I stood and wait. - -I myself would not willingly try that visit over again, not that -I dread anything of harm from such an act, but because I have -been there once before and have had enough. But if I never see -that strange visitor again, I will see the murderer. Of that I am -convinced. I have firm reliance in law when it is honestly employed -to detect crime or protect the wronged. I have faith in that subtle -sympathy, which connects us with the dead. I feel that without it, -love would be but a thread broken by the last breathing of our lungs, -and memory nothing but an intellectual frigidity, to be melted into -mist as we approach the haven of the hereafter. The dead appeal to us -by the mesmeric agency of their immortality; they throw out, through -every movement of the world’s circumstances and events, a suggestion -of their needs, their condition, and their destiny. They are like the -history of the past sublimated by the eloquence of immutable truth, -and are sanctified by a sleep that has eternal life within its closed -lids. They have, too, a sympathy in retort with us. As naught of the -material can suffer annihilation, so the soul, being indestructible, -permeates the air we breathe as do those revived plants of perfume -that last fall we might have fancied dead and beyond all chance of -life again. If that vision was a ghost, its purpose will be revealed; -for it is impossible to suppose that the Ruler of the Universe, who -says a sparrow shall not fall without his knowledge, would permit -so strange an occurrence to happen without having an intention. What -that intention was, I for one, if only one, shall wait patiently to -see. - - -THE END. - - - - - Transcriber’s Notes - - pg vii Changed VIII. The Murder Rock to: Murder-Rock - pg 10 Added word that after: instant search,—a search - pg 16 Removed comma after: changes and attacks. Man, exposed - pg 62 Changed My route at night to the Murder Rock to: Murder-Rock - pg 111 Changed She looks like a child begining to: beginning - pg 130 Changed trouble and irritation and susprise to: surprise - pg 141 Changed despite the adamantive philosphy to: philosophy - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WAS IT A GHOST? 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