A ghost story called AT OLD MAN ECKERT's

Philip Eckert lived for lots of years in an old, weather-stained timber home about three miles from the little town of Marion, in Vermont. There must be quite a number of persons living who remember him, not unkindly, I trust, and know something of the narrative that I am about to declare. "Old Man Eckert," as he was at all times called, was not of a cheerful disposition and lived alone.

As he was never known to speak of his own affairs no one thereabout knew anything of his past, nor of his connections if he had any. Without being particularly ungracious or repellent in manner or language, he managed somehow to be immune to impertinent curiosity, yet exempt from the evil repute with which it commonly revenges itself when perplexed; so far as I know, Mr. Eckert's renown as a reformed assassin or a retired pirate of the Spanish Main had not reached any ear in Marion. He got his livelihood cultivating a small and not very fertile farm. One day of the week he disappeared and a prolonged search by his neighbors unsuccessful to turn him up or throw any light upon his whereabouts or whyabouts.

Nothing indicated preparation to leave: all was as he might have left it to go to the spring for a bucket of water. For a small number of weeks little else was talked of in that region; then "old man Eckert" became a village tale for the ear of the stranger. I do not know what was done on the subject of his residence--the correct legal thing, doubtless. The house was standing, still empty and conspicuously unfit, when I last heard of it, some twenty years later.

Of course it came to be flagged as "haunted," and the customary tales were told of moving lights, weird noises and surprising apparitions. At one time, about five years after the disappearance, these stories of the supernatural became so rife, or through some attesting circumstances seemed so important, that some of Marion's most severe citizens deemed it well to inspect, and to that end arranged for a night session on the premises. The get togethers to this undertaking were John Holcomb, an apothecary; Wilson Merle, a lawyer, and Andrus C. Palmer, the teacher of the public school, all men of significance and character.

They were to meet at Holcomb's house at eight o'clock in the evening of the agreed day and go together to the scene of their vigil, where certain arrangements for their comfort, a provision of fuel and the like, for the season was winter, had been already made. Palmer did not keep the engagement, and after waiting a half-hour for him the others went to the Eckert dwelling without him. They established themselves in the principal area, before a gleaming fire, and without other light than it gave, anticipated events. It had been agreed to speak as little as possible: they did not even renew the exchange of views on the subject of the defection of Palmer, which had occupied their minds on the way.

Probably an hour had gone by without happening when they heard (not without emotion, doubtless) the sound of an opening door in the back of the dwelling, followed by footsteps in the room adjoining that in which they sat. The watchers rose to their feet, but stood hard, prepared for whatever might ensue. A long calm followed--how long neither would afterward undertake to say.

Then the door sandwiched between the two rooms opened and a male entered. It was Palmer. He was pale, as if from thrill--as pale as the others felt themselves to be. His manner, to boot, was singularly distrait: he neither responded to their salutations nor so much as looked at them, but walked little by little across the room in the brightness of the failing fire and opening the front door proceded out into the dark. It seems to have been the first deliberation of both men that Palmer was suffering from dread--that something watched, heard or imagined in the back room had deprived him of his senses. Acting on the same friendly impulse both ran after him through the open door. But neither they nor anybody ever again saw or heard of Andrus Palmer! This much was ascertained the next daybreak.

During the session of Messrs. Holcomb and Merle at the "haunted house" a new snow had fallen to a depth of a number of inches upon the old. In this snow Palmer's trail from his lodging in the village to the back door of the Eckert house was striking. But there it ended: from the front door nothing led away but the tracks of the two men who swore that he preceded them. Palmer's fading was as complete as that of "old man Eckert" himself--whom, certainly, the editor of the local paper somewhat graphically accused of having "reached out and pulled him in."

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