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.