The logs burned brightly on the hearth; every object in the room could be seen more or less distinctly. Nothing was out of its place, nothing disturbed, yet the rafters almost shook under the roll of an invisible drum, beaten by invisible hands!
The sleepers tossed restlessly, and a deep groan, as if in semi-dream, came from the man. Utterly confounded as I was, my sensations were not those of terror. Each moment I doubted my senses, and each moment the terrific sound convinced me anew.
I do not know how long I sat thus in sheer, stupid amazement. It may have been one minute, or fifteen, before the drum, passing over my head, through the boards again, commenced a slow march around the shanty. When it had finished the first, and was about commencing the second round, I shook off my stupor and determined to probe the mystery.
Opening the door, I advanced in an opposite direction to meet it. Again the sound passed close beside my head, but I could see nothing, touch nothing. Again it entered the shanty, and I followed. I stirred up the fire, casting a strong illumination into the darkest corners. I thrust my hand into the very heart of the sound, I struck through it in all directions with a stick—and still I saw nothing, touched nothing.
Of course, I do not expect to be believed by half my readers, nor can I blame them for their incredulity. So astounding is the circumstance, even yet, to myself, that I should doubt its reality were it not therefore necessary, for the same reason, to doubt every event of my life.
At length the sound moved away in the direction whence it came, becoming gradually fainter and fainter until it died in the distance. But immediately afterwards, from the same quarter, came a thin, sharp blast of wind, or what seemed to be such. If one could imagine a swift, intense stream of air, no thicker than a telegraph-wire, producing a keen, whistling rush in its passage, he would understand the impression made upon my mind. This wind, or sound, or whatever it was, seemed to strike an invisible target in the center of the room, and thereupon ensued a new and worse confusion. Sounds as of huge planks lifted at one end and then allowed to fall, slamming upon the floor hard—wooden claps, crashes, and noises of splitting and snapping, filled the shanty. The rough boards of the floor jarred and trembled, and the table and chairs were jolted off their feet. Instinctively, I jerked away my legs whenever the invisible planks fell too near them.
It never came into my mind to charge the family with being the authors of these phenomena: their fear and distress were too evident. There was certainly no other human being but myself in or near the shanty. My senses of sight and touch availed me nothing, and I confined my attention, at last, to simply noting the manifestations, without attempting to explain them. I began to experience a feeling, not of terror, but of disturbing uncertainty. The solid ground was taken from beneath my feet.
Still the man and his wife groaned and muttered, as if in a nightmare sleep, and the boy tossed restlessly on his low bed. I would not disturb them, since, by their own confession, they were accustomed to the visitation. Besides, it would not assist me, and, so long as there was no danger of personal injury, I preferred to watch alone. I recalled, however, the woman’s remarks, remembering the mysterious blame she had thrown upon her husband, and felt certain that she had adopted some explanation of the noises at his expense.
As the confusion continued, with more or less violence, sometimes pausing for a few minutes, to begin again with renewed force, I felt an increasing impression of somebody else being present. Outside the shanty this feeling ceased, but every time I opened the door I fully expected to see someone standing in the center of the room. Yet, looking through the little windows, when the noises were at their loudest, I could discover nothing.
Two hours had passed away since I first heard the drum-beat, and I found myself at last completely wearied with my fruitless exertions and the unusual excitement. By this time the disturbances had become faint, with more frequent pauses. All at once, I heard a long, weary sigh, so near me that it could not have proceeded from the sleepers. A weak moan, expressive of utter wretchedness, followed, and then came the words, in a woman’s voice—I know not whence, for they seemed to be uttered close beside me, and yet far, far away—“How great is my trouble! How long shall I suffer? I was married, in the sight of God, to Eber Nicholson. Have mercy, O Lord, and give him to me, or release me from him!”
These were the words, not spoken, but rather moaned forth in a slow, monotonous wail of utter helplessness and broken-heartedness. I have heard human grief expressed in many forms, but I never heard or imagined anything so desolate, so surcharged with the despair of an eternal woe. It was, indeed, too hopeless for sympathy. It was the utterance of a sorrow which removed its possessor into some dark, lonely world girdled with iron walls, against which every throb of a helping or consoling heart would beat in vain for admittance. So far from being moved or softened, the words left upon me an impression of stolid apathy. When they had ceased, I heard another sigh and some time afterwards, far-off, retreating forlornly through the eastern darkness, the wailing repetition “I was married, in the sight of God, to Eber Nicholson. Have mercy, O Lord!”
This was the last of those midnight marvels. Nothing further disturbed the night except the steady sound of the wind. The more I thought of what I had heard, the more I was convinced that the phenomena were connected, in some way, with the history of my host. I had heard his wife call him “Ebe,” and did not doubt that he was the Eber Nicholson who, for some mysterious crime, was haunted by the reproachful ghost. Could murder, or worse than murder, lurk behind these visitations? It was useless to conjecture; yet, before giving myself up to sleep, I determined to know everything that could be known before leaving the shanty.
My rest was disturbed; my hip-bones pressed unpleasantly on the hard bench; and every now and then I awoke with a start, hearing the same despairing voice in my dreams. The place was always quiet, nevertheless, the disturbances having ceased, as nearly as I could judge, about one o’clock in the morning. Finally, from sheer weariness, I fell into a deep slumber, which lasted until daylight.
The sound of pans and kettles roused me. The woman, in her lank blue gown, was bending over the fire; the man and boy had already gone out. As I rose, rubbing my eyes and shaking myself, to find out exactly where and who I was, the woman straightened herself and looked at me with a keen, questioning gaze, but said nothing.
“I must have been very sound asleep,” said I.
“There’s no sound sleepin’ here. Don’t tell me that.”
“Well,” I answered, “your shanty is rather noisy; but, as I am neither scared nor hurt, there’s no harm done. But have you never found out what occasions the noise?”
Her reply was a toss of the head and a peculiar snorting interjection, “Hngh!” (impossible to be represented by letters,) “it’s all her doin’.”
“But who is she?”
“You’d better ask him.”
Seeing there was nothing to be got out of her, I went down to the stream, washed my face, dried it with my pocket-handkerchief, and then looked after Peck. He gave a shrill whinny of recognition, and, I thought, seemed to be a little restless. A fresh feed of corn was in the old basket, and presently the man came into the stable with a bunch of hay, and commenced rubbing off the marks of Peck’s oozy couch which were left on his flanks. As we went back to the shanty, I noticed that he eyed me furtively, without daring to look me full in the face. As I was apparently none the worse for the night’s experiences, he rallied at last and ventured to talk at—as well as to—me.
By this time, breakfast, which was a repetition of supper, was ready, and we sat down to the table. During the meal, it occurred to me to make an experimental remark. Turning suddenly to the man, I asked, “Is your name Eber Nicholson?”
“There!” exclaimed the woman, “I knowed he’d heerd it!”
He, however, flushing a moment, and then becoming more sallow than ever, nodded first, and then as if that were not sufficient added, “Yes, that’s my name.”
“Where did you move from?” I continued, falling back on the first plan I had formed in my mind.
“The Western Reserve, not fur from Hudson.”
I turned the conversation on the comparative advantages of Ohio and Illinois, on farming, the price of land, etc., carefully avoiding the dangerous subject, and by the time breakfast was over had arranged, that, for a consideration, he should accompany me as far as the Bloomington road, some five miles distant.
While he went out to catch an old horse ranging loose in the creek-bottom, I saddled Peck, strapped on my valise, and made myself ready for the journey. The feeling of two silver half-dollars in her hard palm melted down the woman’s aggressive mood, and she said, with a voice the edge whereof was mightily blunted:
“Thankee! It’s too much for sich as you had.”
“It’s the best you can give,” I replied.
“That’s so!” said she, jerking my hand up and down with a pumping movement, as I took leave.
* * * *
I felt a sense of relief when we had climbed the rise and had the open prairie again before us. The sky was overcast and the wind strong, but some rain had fallen during the night, and the clouds had lifted themselves again. The air was fresh and damp, but not chill. We rode slowly, of necessity, for the mud was deeper than ever.
I deliberated what course I should take, in order to draw from my guide the explanation of the nightly noises. His evident shrinking, whenever his wife referred to the subject, convinced me that a gradual approach would render him shy and uneasy; and, on the whole, it seemed best to surprise him by a sudden assault. Let me strike to the heart of the secret at once, I thought, and the details will come of themselves.
While I was thus reflecting, he rode quietly by my side. Half turning in the saddle, I looked steadily at his face, and said, in an earnest voice:
“Eber Nicholson, who was it to whom you were married in the sight of God?”
He started as if struck, looked at me imploringly, turned away his eyes, then looked back, became very pale, and finally said, in a broken, hesitating voice, as if the words were forced from him against his will:
“Her name is Rachel Emmons.”
“Why did you murder her?” I asked, in a still sterner tone.
In an instant his face burned scarlet. He reined up his horse with a violent pull, straightened his shoulders so that he appeared six inches taller, looked steadily at me with a strange, mixed expression of anger and astonishment, and cried out:
“Murder her? Why, she’s living now!”
My surprise at the answer was scarcely less great than his at the question.
“You don’t mean to say she’s not dead?” I asked.
“Why, no!” said he, recovering from his sudden excitement, “she’s not dead, or she wouldn’t keep on troublin’ me. She’s been livin’ in Toledo, these ten year.”
“I beg your pardon, my friend,” said I; “but I don’t know what to think of what I heard last night, and I suppose I have the old notion in my head that all ghosts are of persons who have been murdered.”
“Oh, if I had killed her,” he groaned, “I’d ’a’ been hung long ago, an’ there’d ’a’ been an end of it.”
“Tell me the whole story,” said I. “It’s hardly likely that I can help you, but I can understand how you must be troubled, and I’m sure I pity you from my heart.”
I think he felt relieved at my proposal—glad, perhaps, after long silence, to confide to another man the secret of his lonely, wretched life.
“After what you’ve heerd,” said he, “there’s nothin’ that I don’t care to tell. I’ve been sinful, no doubt, but, God knows, there never was a man worse punished.
“I told you,” he continued, after a pause, “that I come from the Western Reserve. My father was a middlin’ well-to-do farmer, not rich, nor yit exactly poor. He’s dead now. He was always a savin’ man, looked after money a leetle too sharp, I’ve often thought sence; hows’ever, ’tisn’t my place to judge him. Well, I was brought up on the farm, to hard work, like the other boys. Rachel Emmons, she’s the same woman that haunts me, you understand, she was the girl o’ one of our neighbors, an’ poor enough he was. His wife was always sickly-like, an’ you know it takes a woman as well as a man to git rich farmin’. So they were always scrimped, but that didn’t hinder Rachel from bein’ one o’ the likeliest gals round. We went to the same school in the winter, her an’ me, (’tisn’t much schoolin’ I ever got, though,) an’ I had a sort o’ nateral hankerin’ after her, as fur back as I can remember. She was different lookin’ then from what she is now, an’ me, too, for that matter.
“Well, you know how boys an’ gals somehow git to likin’ each other afore they know it. Me an’ Rachel was more an’ more together, the more we growed up, only more secret-like; so by the time I was twenty an’ she was nineteen, we was promised to one another as true as could be. I didn’t keep company with her, though leastways, not reg’lar: I was afeard my father’d find it out, an’ I knowed what he’d say to it. He kep’ givin’ me hints about Mary Ann Jones—that was my wife’s maiden name. Her father had two hundred acres an’ money out at interest, an’ only three children. He’d had ten, but seven of ’em died. I had nothin’ agin Mary Ann, but I never thought of her that way, like I did towards Rachel.
“Well, things kep’ runnin’ on; I was a good deal worried about it, but a young feller, you know, don’t look fur ahead, an’ so I got along. One night, howsever, ’twas just about as dark as last night was. I’d been to the store at the Corners, for a jug o’ molasses. Rachel was there, gittin’ a quarter of a pound o’ tea, I think it was, an’ some sewin’-thread. I went out a little while after her, an’ fullered as fast as I could, for we had the same road nigh to home.
“It weren’t long afore I overtook her. ’Twas mighty dark, as I was sayin’, an’ so I hooked her arm into mine, an’ we went on comfortable together, talkin’ about how we just suited each other, like we was cut out o’ purpose, an’ how long we’d have to wait, an’ what folks’d say. O Lord! Don’t I remember every word o’ that night? Well, we got quite tender-like when we come t’ Old Emmons’s gate, an’ I up an’ giv’ her a hug and a lot o’ kisses, to make up for lost time. Then she went into the house, an’ I turned for home; but I hadn’t gone ten steps afore I come agin’ somebody stan’in’ in the middle o’ the road. ‘Hullo!’ says I. The next thing he had aholt o’ my coat-collar an’ shuck me like a terrier-dog shakes a rat. I knowed who it was afore he spoke; an’ I couldn’t ’a’ been more skeered, if the life had all gone out o’ me. He’d been down to the tavern to see a drover, an’ comin home he’d fullered behind us all the way, hearin’ every word we said.
“I don’t like to think o’ the words he used that night. He was a professin’ member, an’ yit he swore the awfullest I ever heerd.” Here the man involuntarily raised his hands to his ears, as if to stop them against even the memory of his father’s curses. “I expected every minute he’d ’a’ struck me down. I’ve wished, sence, he had: I don’t think I could ’a’ stood that. Howsever, he dragged me home, never lettin’ go my collar, till we got into the room where mother was settin’ up for us. Then he told her, only makin’ it ten times harder ’n it really was. Mother always kind o’ liked Rachel, ’cause she was mighty handy at sewin’ an’ quiltin’, but she’d no more dared stan’ up agin’ father than a sheep agin’ a bulldog. She looked at me pityin’-like, I must say, an’ just begun to cry, an’ I couldn’t help cryin’ nuther, when I saw how it hurt her.
“Well, after that, ’twa’n’t no use thinkin’ o’ Rachel any more. I had to go t’ Old Jones’s, whether I wanted to or no. I felt mighty mean when I thought o’ Rachel, an’ was afeard no good’d come of it; but father just managed things this way, an’ I couldn’t help myself. Old Jones had nothin’ agin’ me, for I was a steady, hard-workin’ feller as there was round, an’ Mary Ann was always as pleasant as could be, then; well, I oughtn’t to
say nothin’ agin’ her now; she’s had a hard life of it, ’longside o’ me. Afore long we were bespoke, an’ the day set. Father hurried things, when it got that fur. I don’t think Rachel knowed anything about it till the day afore the weddin’, or mebby the very day. Old Mr. Larrabee was the minister, an’ there was only the two families at the house, an’ Miss Plankerton her that sewed for Mary Ann. I never felt so uneasy in my life, though I tried hard not to show it.
“Well, ’twas all just over, an’ the kissin’ about to begin, when I heerd the house-door bu’st open, suddent. I felt my heart give one jump right up to the root o’ my tongue, an’ then fell back ag’in, sick an’ dead-like.
“The parlor-door flew open right away, an’ in come Rachel without a bonnet, an’ her hair all frozed by the wind. She was as white as a sheet, an’ her eyes like two burnin’ coals. She walked straight through ’em all an’ stood right afore me. They was all so taken aback that they never thought o’ stoppin’ her. Then she kind o’ screeched out, ‘Eber Nicholson, what are you doin’?’ Her voice was strange an’ unnatural-like, an’ I’d never ’a’ knowed it to be hers, if I hadn’t ’a’ seen her. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her, an’ I couldn’t speak : I just stood there. Then she said ag’in, ‘Eber Nicholson, what are you doin’? You are married to me, in the sight of God. You belong to me an’ I to you, forever an’ forever!” Then they begun cryin’ out ‘Go ’way!’ ‘Take her away!’ ‘What d’s she mean?’ an’ old Mr. Larrabee ketched hold of her arm. She begun to jerk an’ trimble all over; she drawed in her breath in a sort o’ groanin’ way, awful to hear, an’ then dropped down on the floor in a fit. I bu’st out in a terrible spell o’ cryin’; I couldn’t ’a’ helped it, to save my life.”
The Occult Detective Megapack Page 6
