At Old Man Eckerts by Ambrose Bierce. Philip Eckert lived for many years in
an old, weather stained wooden house 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 story I am
about to tell. Old Man Eckert, as he was called, was not
of a sociable disposition and lived alone. As he was never known to speak
of his own affairs. Nobody thereabout knew anything of his past, nor of
his relatives, if he had any. Without being particularly ungracious or repellent in
manner of speech, he managed somehow to be immune to impertinent curiosity, yet
exempt from the evil reputation with which it commonly revenges itself when baffled. So
far as I know, mister Eckerts, renowned as a reformed assassin or a
retired pirate of the Spanish main, had not reached any ear in Marion.
He got his living cultivating a small, not very fertile farm. One day
he disappeared, and a prolonged search by his neighbors failed 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 few weeks, little else was talked of
in that region. Then old man Eckert became a village tale for the ears
of strangers. I do not know what was done regarding his property, the
correct legal thing, doubtless, the house was standing still vacant and conspicuously unfit
when I last heard of it twenty years afterwards. Of course, it came
to be considered haunted, and the customary tales were told of moving lights,
dolorous sounds, and startling apparitions. At one time, about five years after
the disappearance, these stories of the supernatural became so rife, or, through
some attesting circumstance, seemed so important, that some of Marion's most serious citizens
deemed it well to investigate, and to that end are arranged for a night's
session on the premises. The parties to this undertaking were John Holcombe, an
apothecary, Wilson Merle, a lawyer, and Andrews C. Palmer, the
teacher of the public school, all men of consequence and repute. They were
to meet at Holcombe's house at eight o'clock in the evening of the appointed day,
and go together to the scene of their vigil, where certain arrangements for
their comfort a provision of fuel in the like where the season was winter had
been already made. Palmer did not keep the engagement, and after waiting half
an hour for him, the others went to the Eckert house without him.
They established themselves in the principal room, before a glowing fire, and without
other light than it gave a waiting events he it had been agreed to speak
as little as possible. They did not even renew or exchange views regarding the
defection of Palmer, which had occupied their minds on the way. Probably an
hour had passed without incident, when they heard, not without emotion, doubtless,
the sound of an opening door in the rear of the house, followed
by footfalls in the room adjoining that in which they sat. The watchers rose
to their feet, but stood firm, prepared for whatever might ensue. A
long silence followed. How long neither would afterward undertake to say. Then the
door between the two rooms opened and a man entered. It was Palmer.
He was pale, as if from excitement, as pale as the others felt
themselves to be. His manner, too, was singularly distraught. He neither
responded to their salutations, nor so much as looked at them, but walked
slowly across the room in the light of the failing fire, and, opening
the front door, passed out into the darkness. It seems to have been
the first thought of both men that Palmer was suffering from fright, that something
seen or 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 anyone ever again saw or heard of Andres Palmer.
This much was ascertained the next morning, during the session of Messrs Holcombe
and Merle at the Haunted House, a new snow had fallen to a depth
of several inches upon the old. In this snow, Palmer's trail from his
lodging in the village to the back door of the eckered house was conspicuous,
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 disappearance was as
complete as that of Old Man Eckered himself, whom, indeed, the editor
of the local paper somewhat graphically accused of having reached out and pulled him in
the end of at Old Man Eats by Ambrose Bierce,