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suit of clothes somewhere,- not new,-and appeared quite respectable. He even got something to do, and was put on one of the many committees having a hand in the entertainment arrangements. I never saw a greater change in any one. It looked as if there was hope for him yet. He stopped me on the street a day or two before the unveiling and told me he had a piece of good news: the remnant of his old company was to be here; he had got hold of the last one, there were nine of them left,- and he had his old jacket that he had worn in the war, and he was going to wear it on the march. "It's worn, of course," he said, "but my mother put some patches over the holes, and except for the stain on it it 's in good order. I believe I am the only one of the boys that has his jacket still; I have never got so hard up as to part with it. I'm all right now. I mean to be buried in it."

I had never remarked before what a refined face he had; his enthusiasm made him look younger than I had ever seen him. I saw him on the day before the eve of the unveiling; he was as busy as a bee, and looked almost handsome. "The boys are coming in by every train," he said. "Look here"; he pulled me aside, and unbuttoned his vest. A piece of faded gray cloth was disclosed. He had the old gray jacket on under his other coat. "I know the boys will like to see it," he said. "I'm going down to the train now to meet one- Binford Terrell. I don't know whether I shall know him. Binford and I used to be much of a size. We did not use to speak at one time; had a falling out about which one should hold the horses; I made him do it, but I reckon he won't remember it now. I don't. I have not touched a drop. Good-by." He went off.

The next night about bedtime I got a message that a man wanted to see me at the jail immediately. It was urgent. Would I come down there at once? I had a foreboding, and I went down. It was as I suspected. "No. 4" was there behind the bars. "Drunk again," said the turnkey, laconically, as he let me in. He let me see him. He wanted me to see the judge and get him out. He besought me. He wept. "It was all an accident"; he had "found some of the old boys, and they had got to talking over old times, and just for old times' sake," et. He was too drunk to stand up; but the terror of being locked up next day had sobered him, and his mind was perfectly clear. He implored me to see the judge and to get him to let him out. "Tell him I will come back here and stay a year if he will let me out to-morrow," he said brokenly. He showed me the gray jacket under his vest, and was speechless. Even then he did not ask release on the ground that he was a veteran. I never knew him to urge

this reason. Even the officials who must have seen him there fifty times were sympathetic; and they told me to see the justice, and they believed he would let him out for next day. I applied to him as they suggested. He said, "Come down to court to-morrow morning." I did so. "No. 4" was present, pale and trembling. As he stood there he made a better defense than any one else could have made for him. He admitted his guilt, and said he had nothing to say in extenuation except that it was the "old story," he "had not intended it "; he deserved it all, but would like to get off that day; had a special reason for it, and would, if necessary, go back to jail that evening and stay there a year, or all his life. As he stood awaiting sentence, he looked like a damned soul. His coat was unbuttoned, and his old, faded gray jacket showed under it. The justice, to his honor, let him off. "No. 4" shook hands with him, unable to speak, and turned away. Then he had a strange turn. We had hard work to get him to go into the procession. He positively refused; said he was not fit to go or to live, began to cry, and took off his jacket. He would go back to jail, he said. We finally got him straight, accepted from him a solemn promise not to touch a drop till the celebration was over, so help him God, and sent him off to join his old command at the tobacco warehouse on the slip where the cavalry rendezvoused. I had some apprehension that he would not turn up in the procession; but I was mistaken. He was there with the old cavalry veterans, as sober as a judge, and looking every inch a soldier.

It was a strange scene, and an impressive one even to those whose hearts were not in sympathy with it in any respect. Many who had been the hardest fighters against the South were in sympathy with much of it, if not with all. But to those who were of the South, even with hearts then fixed upon the Union, it was sublime. It passed beyond mere enthusiasm, however exalted, and rested in the profoundest and most sacred deeps of their being. There were many cheers, but more tears; not tears of regret or mortification (for the flag of the Union that we now love floated everywhere, placed by hands that once fought against it), but tears of sympathy and hallowed memory. The gaily decorated streets, in all the bravery of fluttering ensigns and bunting; the martial music of many bands; the constant tramp of marching troops; the thronged sidewalks, verandas, and roofs; the gleam of polished arms and glittering uniforms; the flutter of gay garments, and the smiles of beautiful women sweet with sympathy; the long line of old soldiers, faded and broken and gray, yet each self-sustained, and inspired by the life of the South that flowed in

their veins, marching under the old Confederate flags that they had borne so often in victory and in defeat-all contributed to make the outward pageant a scene never to be forgotten. But this was merely the outward image; the real fact was the spirit. It was the South. It was the spirit of the South, Confederate and Union; not of the new South, nor yet merely of the old South, but the spirit of the great South. When the young troops from every Southern State marched by in their fresh uniforms, with well-drilled battalions, there were huzzas, much applause and enthusiasm; when the old soldiers came there was a tempest, wild cheers choking with sobs and tears, the wellknown, once-heard-never-forgotten cry of the South, known in history as "the rebel yell." Men and women and children joined in it. It began at the first sight of the regular column, swelled up the crowded streets, rose to the thronged housetops, ran along them for squares, and then came rolling back in volume only to rise and swell again greater than before. Men wept; women sobbed aloud. What was it? Only a thousand or two of old or aging men riding or tramping along through the dust of the street, under some old flags, dirty and ragged and stained. But they represented the spirit of the South; they represented the spirit which when honor was in question never counted the cost; the spirit that had stood up for the South against overwhelming odds for four years, and until the South had crumbled and perished under the forces of war; the spirit that is the strongest guaranty to us to-day that the Union is and is to be; the spirit that, glorious in victory, had displayed a fortitude yet greater in defeat. Devoted to the Union, filled with enthusiasm for her, they saw in every stain on those tattered standards the blood of their noblest, bravest, and best; in every rent a proof of their glorious courage and sacrifice. They saw in those gray and careworn faces, in those old clothes interspersed now and then with a faded gray uniform, the men who in the ardor of their youth had, for the South, faced death undaunted on a hundred fields, and had never even thought it great; men who had looked immortality in the eyes, yet had been thrown down and trampled underfoot, and who were greater in their overthrow than when glory poured her light upon their upturned faces. Not one of them all but was self-sustaining, sustained by the South, or had ever even for one moment thought in his direst extremity that he would have what was undone.

The crowd was immense; the people on the fashionable street up which the procession passed were fortunate; they had the advantage of their yards and porticos, and they threw them open to the public. Still the throng on the side

walks was tremendous, and just before the old veterans came along the crush increased. As it resettled itself I became conscious that a little old woman in a rusty black dress whom I had seen patiently standing alone in the front line on the street corner for an hour had lost her position, and had been pushed back against the railing, and had an anxious, disappointed look on her face. She had a little faded knot of Confederate colors fastened in her old dress, and, almost hidden by the crowd, she was looking up and down in some distress to see if she could not again get a place from which she could see. Finally she seemed to give it up, and stood quite still, tiptoeing now and then to try to catch a glimpse. I was about to go to help her when, from a gay and crowded portico above her, a young and beautiful girl in a white dress, whom I had been observing for some time as the life of a gay party, as she sat in her loveliness, a queen on her throne with her courtiers around her, suddenly rose and ran down into the street. There was a short colloquy. The young beauty was offering something which the old lady was declining; but it ended in the young girl leading the older woman gently up on to her veranda and giving her the chair of state. She was hardly seated when the old soldiers began to pass.

As the last mounted veterans came by, I remembered that I had not seen "No. 4"; but as I looked up, he was just coming along. In his hand, with staff resting on his toe, he carried an old standard so torn and tattered and stained that it was scarce recognizable as a flag. I did not for a moment take in that it was he, for he was not in the gray jacket that I had expected to see. He was busy looking down at the throng on the sidewalk, evidently searching for some one whom he expected to find there. He was in some perplexity, and pulled in his horse, which began to prance. Suddenly the applause from the portico above arrested his attention, and he looked toward it and bowed. As he did so his eye caught that of the old lady seated there. His face lighted up, and, wheeling his prancing horse half around, he dipped the tattered standard, and gave the royal salute as though saluting a queen. The old lady pressed her wrinkled hand over the knot of faded ribbon on her breast, and made a gesture to him, and he rode on. He had suddenly grown handsome. I looked at her again; her eyes were closed, her hands were clasped, and her lips were moving. I saw the likeness; she was his mother. As he passed me I caught his eye. He saw my perplexity about the jacket, glanced up. at the torn colors, and pointed to a figure just beyond him dressed in a short faded jacket. "No. 4" had been selected, as the highest honor, to carry the old colors which he had

once saved; and not to bear off all the honors from his friend, he had with true comradeship made Binford Terrell wear his cherished jacket. He made a brave figure as he rode away, and my cheer died on my lips as I thought of the sad old mother in her faded knot, and of the dashing young soldier who had saved the colors in that unnamed fight.

After that we got him a place, and he did well for several months. He seemed to be cured. New life and strength appeared to come back to him. But his mother died, and one night shortly afterward he disappeared, and remained lost for several days. When we found him he had been brought to jail, and I was sent for to see about him. He was worse than I had ever known him. He was halfnaked and little better than a madman. I went to a doctor about him, an old army surgeon, who saw him, and shook his head. "Mania a potu. Very bad; only a question of time," he said. This was true. "No. 4" was beyond hope. Body and brain were both gone. It got to be only a question of days, if not of hours. Some of his other friends and I determined that he should not die in jail; so we took him out and carried him to a cool, pleasant room looking out on an old garden with trees in it. There in the dreadful terror of raving delirium he passed that night. I with several others sat up with him. I could not have stood many more like it. All night long he raved and tore. His oaths were blood-curdling. He covered every past section of his life. His army life was mainly in his mind. He fought the whole war over. Sometimes he prayed fervently; prayed against his infirmity; prayed that his chains might be broken. Then he would grow calm for a while. One thing recurred constantly: he had sold his honor, betrayed his cause. This was the order again and again, and each time the paroxysm of frightful fury came on, and it took all of us to hold him. He was covered with snakes: they were chains on his

wrists and around his body. He tried to pull them from around him. At last, toward morning, came one of these fearful spells worse than any that had gone before. It passed, and he suddenly seemed to collapse. He sank, and the stimulant administered failed to revive him.

"He is going," said the doctor, quietly, across the bed. Whether his dull ear caught the word or not, I cannot say; but he suddenly roused up, tossed one arm, and said: "Binford, take the horses. I'm going to old Joe," and sank back.

"He's gone," said the doctor, opening his shirt and placing his ear over his heart. As he rose up I saw two curious scars on "No. 4's" emaciated breast. They looked almost like small crosses, about the size of the decorations the European veterans wear. The old doctor bent over and examined them.

"Hello! Bayonet-wounds," he said briefly. A little later I went out to get a breath of fresh morning air to quiet my nerves, which were somewhat unstrung. As I passed by a little second-hand clothing-store of the meanest kind, in a poor, back street, I saw hanging up outside an old gray jacket. I stopped to examine it. It was stained behind with mud, and in front with a darker color. An old patch hid a part of the front; but a close examination showed two holes over the breast. It was "No. 4's" lost jacket. I asked the shopman about it. He had bought it, he said, of a pawnbroker who had got it from some drunkard, who had probably stolen it last year from some old soldier. He readily sold it, and I took it back with me; and the others being gone, an old woman and I cut the patch off it and put "No. 4's" stiffening arms into the sleeves. Word was sent to us during the day to say that the city would bury him in the poorhouse grounds. But we told them that arrangements had been made; that he would have a soldier's burial. And he had it.

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"And I from a dog," said Clayborne. "And you, Vincent?"

"I do not know," he returned. "I cannot imagine anything which would make me visibly show fear. I think I am more afraid of what Anne would think of me than of any earthly object of dread. I can conceive as possible what North mentioned. We must have somewhere a nerve-organ or -organs which feel what we call fear. Now, to have these so diseased as to originate a sensation of causeless, overwhelming terror, uncontrollable by will, must be of possible human torture the worst. And you have seen it?"

"Yes. A man says, 'I am afraid.' You say, 'Of what?' He cannot tell you. 'Of nothing. I am afraid.""

"Two things I fear," cried St. Clair, who had come in silently behind us" pain and a ghost."

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So glad to see you," cried Mrs. Vincent. "Sit down. We are discussing fear, cowardice, courage."

"Pain I fear most," he said, "yet hardly know it. And a ghost! Well, I know that. I have seen one."

"What? When? Where?" they cried.
"Ask North," he replied.

"Yes, it is true; but first, before I come in with skeptical comments, let us hear your story. You are the only one here who has seen a ghost."

"I was in my studio six months ago at dusk. I was thinking, as I stood, of how well my statue of Saul looked, the light being dim, as it would have been in his tent. I remembered then having seen the statues of the Louvre on a moonlight night, when, with the curator, I lingered along the hall of the great Venus. Some of the fine lines of Sill's poem came back to me, and, turning, I moved toward the front room to get the book. At that moment I became aware of a black figure on my left side. It was literally shrouded from head to foot; even the face and the extremities were hidden. At first I was surprised, and then by degrees a deadly fear possessed me. I was motionless, and it did not stir. I turned to face it, but, as I did so, it moved so as to keep relatively to me the same position. The whole act, if I may call it that, lasted, I should say, a minute. Then an agitation seized the form, as if it were convulsed under its black cloak, and a faint glow, like phosphorescence, ran along the lines of the drapery, and it was gone."

When he finished there was a moment of silence. Then Mrs. Vincent exclaimed, "Was that all?"

"A ghost in daytime," said Clayborne. "And the comment, North."

"As he lost it," said I," he felt a violent pain

over his left eye, and this was one of his usual attacks of neuralgic headaches. He has seen this phantom twice since. It was merely the substitution of a figure of a cloaked man for the lines of zigzag light which usually precede his headaches, and are not very rare. One man sees stars falling, one a catharinewheel; but the appearance of distinct human or other forms in their place is a recent observation. I have known a woman to see her dead sister, until, after many returns of the phantom, she ceased to be impressed by it."

"How disappointing!" exclaimed Mrs. Vin

cent.

"And do you think these facts," said Vincent, "explain some ghost-tales?"

"Yes, some. I have seen cases where the headache did not follow the catharine-wheel, or the lines of light, or the specter, or was very trifling. And in some of these the ghost was duly honored as a true article until subsequent and violent neuralgias explained it as a rare symptom of a common disorder."

"Is the disease itself understood?" said Clayborne.

"No disease is understood. We trace back the threads a little way, and find a tangle none can unravel."

"Then the disease is as bad as a ghost-a real ghost," cried Mrs. Vincent.

"I disbelieve in ghosts, and do not try at spiritual explanations. The material for study of nature is with us always. We cannot experiment on ghosts. I know of at least but one hint in that direction."

"And that?" said Clayborne.

"Well, if the ghost be a real thing outside. of us, you will on theory double it if with a finger you press one eye out of line, thus, and will then be able to say, like the mousquetaire in the 'Ingoldsby Legends,' 'Mon Dieu! Vla deux."

"Which shows," said Mrs. Vincent, gaily, "how easily one may become the cause of duplicity in others. It is a lesson in morals."

"Imagine Hamlet squinting at his papa!" said St. Clair. "I tried it on my ghost, but it failed. North says he was only a monocularly projected phantom."

"That sounds reasonably explanatory," growled Clayborne, grimly.

"But what does your phrase really mean?" asked Mrs. Vincent of me.

It means that the phantom is present only to one eye in these cases. To be able to double it, it must be seen by both eyes and be really external. If it be only in the brain, and due to brain disorder, we should not be able to squint it into doubleness.”

"But," said Vincent, "it ought, in the latter

case, to be present also when the eyes are shut. How is that?”

"I am not sure as to that, for I have been told by one person that her waking visions were seen with either eye, and with both, and that they could not be doubled by squinting, and were lost when the eyes were closed."

"And how do you explain that?”

"I do not yet. The patient was a remarkably intelligent woman, but hysterical, and the very suspicion of this puts one on guard, because these people delight to be considered peculiar, and their testimony must always be carefully studied, and tested by that of others."

"Tell us what she saw," said Mrs. Vincent. "It is interesting, but I must cut it short. At eleven daily a gigantic black man entered the room with a huge bass viol, set it in a corner, and went out. Presently a second brought in an open coffin in which lay the patient herself. A little later a host of tiny men, all in red medieval dresses, swarmed out of the cracks of the viol, ran to the coffin, planted ladders against it, sat in hordes on its upper edges, and, lowering on the outside tiny buckets, brought them up full of tinted sand. This they threw into the coffin until it reached the face of the figure within. At this moment the patient began to breathe with difficulty, and then of a sudden the pygmies emptied the coffin as quickly as they had filled it, and scuttled away into the viol, while the two blacks returned and took it away with the coffin."

"What an extraordinary story!" said St. Clair. "Can you explain it all?"

"Yes, in a measure; but it is hardly worth while. And as for ghosts, the honest old-fashioned ghosts, does any one believe in them?" "I do," said our hostess.

"And I do not," returned Clayborne. "But do you believe anything?" cried St. Clair.

"Yes," said Clayborne; "I believe there was a past, is a present, will be a future. And as to the rest-"

"Granted the past. As to the future," said St. Clair, "you cannot prove that it will be. But there is no present, because that implies rest of a moving world, swinging round with a moving solar system. It is a mere word." "What! what! what!" cried Clayborne, suddenly contemplative.

"And, after all," said Mrs. Vincent, "we have had no really curdling ghost-story. Only nineteenth-century explanations."

"It is dangerous to tell a ghost-story nowadays," I returned. "A friend of mine once told one in print out of his wicked head, just for the fun of it. It was about a little dead child who rang up a doctor one night, and took him to see her dying mother. Since then he

has been the prey of collectors of such marvels. Psychical societies write to him; anxious believers and disbelievers in the supernatural assail him with letters. He has written some fifty to lay this ghost. How could he predict a day when he would be taken seriously?"

"I am very sleepy," said Mrs. Vincent, "and it is near to twelve. You have not had the smoke you are all hungering after."

"Clearly the character doctor must wait," said I.

"That may," she replied; "but not one of you can have a cigar until I hear a real ghoststory."

"Well," I said, "come close to me, all of you, and I will ransom the party." "Oh, this is too delightful!" exclaimed Mrs. Vincent.

"It is serious, Clayborne," I said; "you might take notes."

"Preposterous!" he cried. "Might I not have even a cigarette at the window?" "Not a whiff," said she; "I have heard that smoke acts on ghosts most injuriously." "A ghost-smudge!" cried Vincent. "That is good."

"Suppose we get through with this thing," groaned the historian.

"It is brief," I returned.

"One morning, last autumn, I found on my breakfast-table a card, 'Alexander Gavin MacAllister, M. D., Edinburgh.' I know the man well. An able, sturdy Scot, given to usquebaugh. He had a large practice among the mechanic classes, and frequently consulted me. If a friend desired to annoy him, he had but to address him as Gavin. Gawin I was creesened, and that 's my name.' He would have fought on this, or for the honor of Scotland, or any man who thought Burns a lesser poet than Shakspere. My servant said he had been waiting two hours. I said, 'Show him in.'

"Ah, MacAllister,' I said, 'sit down. I did not want you to wait. Talk away while I eat my breakfast; or, will you have some?'

"Nae bite, sir,' and after I had sent the servant away, 'I 'm in vara deep waters. I hae killed a mon last night, and I hae done it of knowleedge.'

"I looked at him curiously. Eyes, hair, beard, skin, were all of various tints of red. All burned a burning flame together.' Also he was wet with the sweat of terror.

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