Ghost Short Stories
Grayling; or, Murder Will Out
(1842)
William Gilmore Simms
THE revolutionary war had but a little while been concluded. The British had left the country; but peace did not imply repose. The community was still in that state of ferment which was natural enough to passions, not yet at rest, which had been brought into exercise and action during the protracted seven years' struggle through which the nation had just passed. The state was overrun by idlers, adventurers, profligates, and criminals. Disbanded soldiers, half-starved and reckless, occupied the highways, - outlaws, emerging from their hiding places, skulked about the settlements with an equal sentiment of hate and fear in their hearts; - patriots were clamoring for justice upon the Tories, and sometimes anticipating its course by judgments of their own; while the Tories, those against whom the proofs were too strong for denial or evasion, buckled on their armor for a renewal of the struggle. Such being the condition of the country, it may easily be supposed that life and property lacked many of their necessary securities. Men generally traveled with weapons, which were displayed on the smallest provocation; and few who could provide themselves with an escort ventured to travel any distance without one.
There was, about this time, and while such was the condition of the country, a family of the name of Grayling, that lived somewhere upon the skirts of "Ninety-six" district. Old Grayling, the head of the family, was dead. He was killed in Buford's massacre. His wife was a fine woman, not so very old, who had an only son named James, and a little girl, only five years of age, named Lucy. James was but fourteen when his father was killed, and that event made a man of him. He went out with his rifle in company with Joel Sparkman, who was his mother's brother, and joined himself to Pickens' Brigade.
Well, when the over, Joel Sparkman, who lived with his sister Grayling, persuaded her that it would be better to move down into the low country, and so, one sunny morning in April, their wagon started for the city. It was driven by a negro fellow named Clytus, and carried Mrs. Grayling and Lucy. James and his uncle loved the saddle too well to shut themselves up in such a vehicle; and both of them were mounted on fine horses which they had won from the enemy. The roads at that season were excessively bad, for the rains of March had been frequent and heavy, the track was very much cut up, and the red-clay gullies of the hills of "Ninety-six" were so washed that it required all shoulders, twenty times a day, to get the wagon wheels out of the bog. This made them travel very slowly, - perhaps not more than fifteen miles a day. Another cause for slow traveling was the necessity of great caution, and a constant lookout for enemies both up and down the road. James and his uncle took it by turns to ride ahead, precisely as they did when scouting in war, but one of them always kept along with the wagon. They had gone on this way for two days, and saw nothing to trouble and alarm them. But just as they were about to camp the evening of the second day, while they were splitting light wood, and getting out the kettles and the frying pan, a person rode up and joined them without much ceremony. He was a short, thick-set man, somewhere between forty and fifty; had on very coarse and common garments, though he rode a fine black horse of remarkable strength and vigor. He was very civil of speech, though he had but little to say, and that little showed him to be a person without much education and with no refinement. He begged permission to make one of the encampment, and his manner was very respectful and even humble; but there was something dark and sullen in his face. Mrs. Grayling did not like this man's looks, and whispered her dislike to her son; but James, who felt himself equal to any man, said promptly:
"What of that, mother? We can't turn the stranger off and say 'No'; and if he means any mischief, there's two of us, you know."
The man had no weapons - none, at least, which were then visible, and deported himself in so humble a manner that the prejudice which the party had formed against him when he first appeared, if it was not dissipated while he remained, at least failed to gain any increase. He was very quiet, did not mention an unnecessary word, and seldom permitted his eyes to rest upon those of any of the party, the females not excepted. This, perhaps, was the only circumstance that, in the mind of Mrs. Grayling, tended to confirm the hostile impression which his coming had originally occasioned. In a little while the temporary encampment was put in a state equally social and warlike. The wagon was wheeled a little way into the woods, and off the road; the horses fastened behind it in such a manner that any attempt to steal them would be difficult of success, even were the watch neglectful, which was yet to be maintained upon them. Extra guns, concealed in the straw at the bottom of the wagon, were kept well loaded. In the foreground, and between the wagon and the highway, a fire was soon blazing with a wild but cheerful gleam; and the worthy dame, Mrs. Grayling, assisted by the little girl Lucy, lost no time in setting on the frying pan, and cutting into slices the haunch of bacon which they had provided at leaving home. James Grayling patrolled the woods meanwhile for a mile or two round the encampment, while his uncle, Joel Sparkman, foot to foot with the stranger, seemed - if the absence of all care constitutes the supreme of human felicity - to realize the most perfect conception of mortal happiness. But Joel was very far from being the careless person that he seemed. Like an old soldier, he simply hung out false colors, and concealed his real timidity by an extra show of confidence and courage. He did not relish the stranger from the first, any more than his sister; and having subjected him to a searching examination, such as was considered, in those days of peril and suspicion, by no means inconsistent with becoming courtesy, he came rapidly to the conclusion that he was no better than he should be.
"You are a Scotchman, stranger?" said Joel. The answer was given with evident hesitation, but it was affirmative.
"Well, now, 'tis mighty strange that you should ha' fou't with us and not agin us," responded Joel Sparkman.
"There was a precious few of the Scotch - and none that I knows on, saving yourself, perhaps - that didn't go dead agin us, and for the Tories, through thick and thin. That 'Cross Creek settlement' was a mighty ugly thorn in the sides of us Whigs. It turned out a real bad stock of varmints. I hope - I reckon, stranger - you ain't from that part?"
"No," said the other; "oh no! I'm from over the other quarter. I'm from the Duncan settlement above."
"I've hearn tell of that other settlement, but I never know'd as any of the men fou't with us. What gineral did you fight under? What Carolina gineral?"
"I was at Gum Swamp when General Gates was defeated," was the still hesitating reply of the other.
"Well, I thank God I warn't there, though I reckon things wouldn't ha' turned out quite so bad if there had been a leetle sprinkling of Sumter's, or Pickens', or Marion's men among them two-legged critters that run that day. They did tell that some of the regiments went off without ever once emptying their rifles. Now, stranger, I hope you warn't among them fellows?"
"I was not," said the other, with something more of promptness.
"I don't blame a chap for dodging a bullet if he can, or being too quick for a bagnet, because, I'm thinking, a live man is always a better man than a dead one, or he can become so; but to run without taking a single crack at the inimy is downright cowardice. There's no two ways about it, stranger.
"But you ain't said," he continued, "who was your Carolina gineral. Gates was from Virginny, and he stayed a mighty short time when he come. You didn't run far at Camden, I reckon, and you joined the army agin, and come in with Greene? Was that the how?"
To this the stranger assented, though with evident disinclination.
"Then, mou't be, we sometimes went into the same scratch together? I was at Cowpens and Ninety-six,' and seen sarvice at other odds and eends, where there was more fighting than fun. I reckon you must have been at 'Ninety-six' - perhaps at Cowpens, too, if you went with Morgan?"
The unwillingness of the stranger to respond to these questions appeared to increase. He admitted, however, that he had been at "Ninety-six," though, as Sparkman afterwards remembered, in this case, as in that of the defeat of Gates at Gum Swamp, he had not said on which side he had fought.
"And what mou't be your name, stranger?" "Macnab," was the ready response - "Sandy Macnab." "Well, Mr. Macnab, I see that my sister's got supper ready for us; so we mou't as well fall to upon the hoecake and bacon."
Sparkman rose while speaking, and led the way to the spot, near the wagon, where Mrs. Grayling had spread the feast. "We're pretty nigh on to the main road here, but I reckon there's no great danger now. Besides, Jim Grayling keeps watch for us, and he's got two as good eyes in his head as any scout in the country, and a rifle that, after you once know how it shoots, 'twould do your heart good to hear its crack, if so be that twa'n't your heart that he drawed sight on. He's a perdigious fine shot, and as ready to shoot and fight as if he had a nateral calling that way."
"Shall we wait for him before we eat?" demanded Macnab, anxiously.
"By no sort o' reason, stranger," answered Sparkman. "He'll watch for us while we're eating, and after that I'll change shoes with him. So fall to, and don't mind what's a coming."
Sparkman had just broken the hoecake when a distant whistle was heard.
"Ha! That's the lad now!" he exclaimed, rising to his feet. "He's on trail. He's got sight of an inimy's fire, I reckon. 'Twon't be onreasonable, friend Macnab, to get our we'pons in readiness;" and, so speaking, Sparkman bade his sister get into the wagon, where the little Lucy had already placed herself, while he threw open the pan of his rifle, and turned the priming over with his finger. Macnab, meanwhile, had taken from his holsters, which he had before been sitting upon, a pair of horseman's pistols, richly mounted with figures in silver. These were large and long, and had evidently seen service. Unlike his companion, his proceedings occasioned no comment. What he did seemed a matter of habit, of which he himself was scarcely conscious. Having looked at his priming, he laid the instruments beside him without a word, and resumed the bit of hoecake which he had just before received from Sparkman. Meanwhile, the signal whistle, supposed to come from James Grayling, was repeated. Silence ensued then for a brief space, which Sparkman employed in perambulating the grounds immediately contiguous. At length, just as he had returned to the fire, the sound of a horse's feet was heard, and a sharp, quick halloo from Grayling informed his uncle that all was right. The youth made his appearance a moment after, accompanied by a stranger on horseback - a tall, fine-looking young man, with a keen flashing eye, and a voice whose lively clear tones, as he was heard approaching, sounded cheerily like those of a trumpet after victory.
James Grayling kept along on foot beside the newcomer, and his hearty laugh and free, glib, garrulous tones betrayed to his uncle, long ere he drew nigh enough to declare the fact, that he had met unexpectedly with a friend, or, at least, an old acquaintance.
"Why, who have you got there, James?" was the demand of Sparkman, as he dropped the butt of his rifle upon the ground.
"Why, who do you think, uncle? Who but Major Spencer - our own major."
"You don't say so! - what! - well! Li'nel Spencer, for sartin! Lord bless you, major, who'd ha' thought to see you in these parts; and jest mounted, too, for all natur, as if the war was to be fou't over agin. Well, I'm raal glad to see you. I am, that's sartin!"
"And I'm very glad to see you, Sparkman," said the other, as he alighted from his steed, and yielded his hand to the cordial grasp of the other.
"Well, I knows that, major, without you saying it. But you've jest come in the right time. The bacon's frying, and here's the bread; - let's down upon our haunches, in right good airnest, camp fashion, and make the most of what God gives us in the way of blessings. I reckon you don't mean to ride any farther to-night, major?"
"No," said the person addressed, "not if you'll let me lay my heels at your fire. But who's in your wagon? My old friend, Mrs. Grayling, I suppose?"
"That's a true word, major," said the lady herself, making her way out of the vehicle with good-humored agility, and coming forward with extended hand.
"Really, Mrs. Grayling, I'm very glad to see you." Their greetings once over, Major Spencer readily joined the group about the fire, while James Grayling - though with some reluctance - disappeared to resume his toils of the scout while the supper proceeded.
"And who have you here?" demanded Spencer, as his eye rested on the dark, hard features of the Scotchman. Sparkman told him all that he himself had learned of the name and character of the stranger, in a brief whisper, and, in a moment after, formally introduced the parties.
Major Spencer scrutinized the Scotchman keenly. He put a few questions to him on the subject of the war, and some of the actions in which he had allowed himself to be concerned; but his evident reluctance to unfold himself - a reluctance so unnatural to the brave soldier who has gone through his toils honorably - had the nature effect of discouraging the young officer, whose sense of delicacy delicacy had not been materially impaired amid the rude jostlings of military life. But, though he forbore to propose any other questions to Macnab, his eyes continued to survey the features of his sullen countenance with curiosity and a strangely increasing interest. This he subsequently explained to Sparkman, when, at the close of supper, James Grayling came in, and the former assumed the duties of the scout.
"I have seen that Scotchman's face somewhere, Sparkman, and I'm convinced at some interesting moment; but where, when, or how, I cannot call to mind. The sight of it is even associated in my mind with something painful and unpleasant; where could I have seen him?"
"I don't somehow like his looks myself," said Sparkman, "and I mislists he's been rether more of a Tory than a Whig; but that's nothing to the purpose now; and he's at our fire, and we've broken hoecake together; so we cannot rake up the old ashes to make a dust with."
"No, surely not," was the reply of Spencer. "Even though we knew him to be a Tory, that cause of former quarrel should occasion none now. But it should produce watchfulness and caution. I'm glad to see that you have not forgot your old business of scouting in the swamp."
"Kin I forget it, major?" demanded Sparkman, in tones which, though whispered, were full of emphasis, as he laid his ear to the earth to listen.
"James has finished supper, major, - that's his whistle to tell me so; and I'll jest step back to make it cl'ar to him how we're to keep up the watch to-night."
"Count me in your arrangements, Sparkman, as I am one of you for the night," said the major.
"By no sort of means," was the reply. "The night must be shared between James and myself. Ef so be you wants to keep company with one or t'other of us, why, that's another thing, and, of course, you can do as you please."
The arrangements of the party were soon made. Spencer renewed his offer at the fire to take his part in the watch; and the Scotchman, Macnab, volunteered his services also; but the offer of the latter was another reason why that of the former should be declined. Sparkman was resolute to have everything his own way; and while James Grayling went out upon his lonely rounds, he busied himself in cutting bushes and making a sort of tent for the use of his late commander. Mrs. Grayling and Lucy slept in a wagon. The Scotchman stretched himself with little effort before the fire; while Joel Sparkman, wrapping himself up in his cloak, crouched under the wagon body, with his back resting partly against one of the wheels. From time to time he rose and thrust additional brands into the fire, looked up at the night, and round upon the little encampment, then sank back to his perch and stole a few moments, at intervals, of uneasy sleep. The first two hours of the watch were over, and James Grayling was relieved. The youth, however, felt in no mood for sleep, and taking his seat by the fire he drew from his pocket a little volume of Easy Reading Lessons, and by the fitful flame of the resinous light wood he prepared, in this rude manner, to make up for the precious time which his youth had lost of its legitimate employment, in the stirring events of the preceding seven years consumed in war. He was surprised at this employment by his late commander, who, himself sleepless, now emerged from the bushes and joined Grayling at the fire. They sat by the fire and talked of old times and told old stories with the hearty glee and good nature of the young. Their mutual inquiries led to the revelation of their several objects in pursuing the present journey. Those of James Grayling were scarcely, indeed, to be considered his They were plans and purposes of his uncle, and it does not concern this narrative that we should know more of their nature than has already been revealed. But, whatever they were, they were as freely unfolded to his hearer as if the parties had been brothers, and Spencer was quite as frank in his revelations as his companion. He, too, was on his way to Charleston, from whence he was to take passage for England.
"I am rather in a hurry to reach town," he said, "as I learn that the Falmouth packet is preparing to sail for England in a few days, and I must go in her."
"For England, major!" exclaimed the youth with unaffected astonishment. "Yes, James, for England. But why - what astonishes you?"
"Why, Lord!" exclaimed the simple youth, "if they only knew there, as I do, what a cutting and slashing you did use to make among their redcoats, I reckon they'd hang you to the first hickory."
"Oh, no! scarcely," said the other, with a smile. "But I reckon you'll change your name, major?" continued the youth.
"No," responded Spencer; "if I did that, I should lose the object of my voyage. You must know, James, that an old relative has left me a good deal of money in England, and I can only get it by proving that I am Lionel Spencer; so you see I must carry my own name, whatever may be the risk."
"Well, major, you know best. But I don't see what occasion you have to be going cl'ar away to England for money, when you've got a sight of your own already."
"Not so much as you think for," replied the major, giving an involuntary and uneasy glance at the Scotchman, who was seemingly sound asleep on the opposite side of the fire. "There is, you know, but little money in the country at any time, and I must get what I want for my expenses when I reach Charleston. I have just enough to carry me there."
"Well, now, major, that's mighty strange. I always thought that you was about the best off of any man in our parts; but if you're strained so close, I'm thinking, major, - if so be you wouldn't think me too presumptuous, - you'd better let me lend you a guinea or so that I've got to spare, and you can pay me back when you get the English money."
And the youth fumbled in his bosom for a little cotton wallet, which, with its limited contents, was displayed in another instant to the eyes of the officer.
"No, no, James," said the other, putting back the generous tribute; "I have quite enough to carry me to Charleston, and when there I can easily get a supply from the merchants. But I thank you, my good fellow, for your offer. You are a good fellow, James, and I will remember you."
The night passed away without any alarms, and at dawn of the next day the whole party was engaged in making preparation for a start. Mrs. Grayling was soon busy in getting breakfast in readiness. Major Spencer consented to remain with them until it was over; but the Scotchman, after returning thanks very civilly for his accommodation of the night, at once resumed his journey. His course seemed, like their own, to lie below; but he neither declared his route nor betrayed the least desire to know that of Spencer. When he was fairly out of sight, Spencer said to Sparkman:
"Had I liked that fellow's looks, nay, had I not positively disliked them, I should have gone with him. As it is, I will remain and share your breakfast."
The repast being over, all parties set forward; but Spencer, after keeping along with them for a mile, took his leave also. The slow wagon pace at which the family traveled did not suit the high-spirited cavalier; and it was necessary, as he assured them, that he should reach the city in two nights more. James Grayling never felt the tedium of wagon traveling to be so severe as throughout the whole of that day when he separated from his favorite captain. But he was too stout-hearted a lad to make any complaint; and his satisfaction only showed itself in his unwonted silence and an overanxiety, which his steed seemed to feel in common with himself, to go rapidly ahead. Thus the day passed, and the wayfarers at its close had made a progress of some twenty miles from sun to sun. The same precautions marked their encampment this night as the last, and they rose in better spirits with the next morning, the dawn of which was very bright and pleasant and encouraging. A similar journey of twenty miles brought them to the place of bivouac as the sun went down; and they prepared as usual for their security and supper. Their wagon was wheeled into an area on a gently rising ground in front. Here the horses were taken out, and James Grayling prepared to kindle up a fire; but, looking for his ax, it was unaccountably missing, and after a fruitless search of half an hour the party came to the conclusion that it had been left on the spot where they had slept last night. This was a disaster, and while they meditated in what manner to repair it, a negro boy appeared in sight, passing along the road at their feet, and driving before him a small herd of cattle. From him they learned that they were only a mile or two from a farmstead, where an ax might be borrowed; and James, leaping on his horse, rode forward in the hope to obtain one. He found no difficulty in his quest; and, having obtained it from the farmer, who was also a tavern keeper, he casually asked if Major Spencer had not stayed with him the night before. He was somewhat surprised when told that he had not.
"There was one man stayed with me last night," said the farmer, "but he didn't call himself a major, and didn't much look like one."
"He rode a fine sorrel horse, - tall, bright color, with white forefoot, didn't he?" asked James.
"No, that he didn't! He rode a powerful black, coal black, and not a bit of white about him."
"That was the Scotchman! But I wonder the major didn't stop with you. He must have rode on. Isn't there another house near you, below?"
"Not one. There's ne'er a house either above or below for a matter of fifteen miles. I'm the only man in all that distance that's living on this road; and I don't think your friend could have gone below, as I should have seen him pass."
Somewhat wondering that the major should have turned aside from the track, though without attaching to it any importance at that particular moment, James Grayling took up the borrowed ax and hurried back to the encampment, where the toil of cutting an extra supply of light wood to meet the exigencies of the ensuing night sufficiently exercised his mind as well as his body to prevent him from meditating upon the seeming strangeness of the circumstance. But when he sat down to his supper over the fire that he had kindled, his fancies crowded thickly upon him, and he felt a confused doubt and suspicion that something was to happen, he knew not what. His conjectures and apprehensions were without form, though not altogether void; and he felt a strange sickness and a sinking at the heart which was very unusual with him. Joel Sparkman was in the best of humors, and his mother was so cheery and happy that, when the thoughtful boy went off into the woods to watch, he could hear her at every moment breaking out into little catches of a country ditty, which the gloomy events of the late war had not yet obliterated from her memory.
"It's very strange!" soliloquized the youth, as he wandered along the edges of the dense bay or swamp bottom, which we have passingly referred to, - "it's very strange what troubles me so! I feel almost frightened, and yet I know I'm not to be frightened easily, and I don't see anything in the woods to frighten me. It's strange the major didn't come along this road! Maybe he took another higher up that leads by a different settlement. I wish I had asked the man at the house if there's such another road. I reckon there must be, however, for where could the major have gone?"
He proceeded to traverse the margin of the bay, until he came to its junction with, and termination at, the highroad.
The youth turned into this, and, involuntarily departing from it a moment after, soon found himself on the opposite side of the bay thicket. He wandered on and on, as he himself described it, without any power to constrain himself. He knew not how far he went; but, instead of maintaining his watch for two hours only, he was gone more than four; and, at length, a sense of weariness, which overpowered him all of sudden, caused him to seat himself at the foot of a tree, and snatch a few moments of rest. He denied that he slept in this time. He insisted to the last moment of his life that sleep never visited his eyelids that night, - that he was conscious of fatigue and exhaustion, but not drowsiness, - and that this fatigue was so numbing as to be painful, and effectually kept him from any sleep. While he sat thus beneath the tree, with a body weak and nerveless, but a mind excited, he knew not how or why, to the most acute degree of expectation and attention, he heard his name called by the well-known voice of his friend, Major Spencer. The voice called him three times, - "James Grayling! - James! - James Grayling!" before he could muster strength enough to answer. It was not courage he wanted, of that he was positive, for he felt sure, as he said, that something had gone wrong, and he was never more ready to fight in his life than at that moment, could he have commanded the physical capacity; but his throat seemed dry to suffocation, his lips effectually sealed up as if with wax, and when he did answer, the sounds seemed as fine and soft as the whisper of some child just born.
"Oh, major! is it you?"
Such, he thinks, were the very words he made use of in reply; and the answer that he received was instantaneous, though the voice came from some little distance in the bay, and his own voice he did not hear. He only knows what he meant to say. The answer was to this effect.
"It is, James! It is your own friend, Lionel Spencer, that speaks to you; do not be alarmed when you see me! I have been shockingly murdered!"
James asserts that he tried to tell him that he would not be frightened, but his own voice was still a whisper which he himself could scarcely hear. A moment after he had spoken, he heard something like a sudden breeze that rustled through the bay bushes at his feet, and his eyes were closed without his effort, and indeed in spite of himself. When he opened them, he saw Major Spencer standing at the edge of the bay about twenty steps from him. Though he stood in the shade of a thicket, and there was no light in the heavens save that of the stars, he was yet enabled to distinguish perfectly, and with great ease, every lineament of his friend's face.
He looked very pale, and his garments were covered with blood; and James said that he strove very much to rise from the place where he sat and approach him; — "for, in truth," said the lad, "so far from feeling any fear, I felt nothing but fury in my heart; but I could not move a limb. My feet were fastened to the ground; my hands to my sides; and I could only bend forward and gasp. I felt as if I should have died with vexation that I could not rise; but a power which I could not resist made me motionless and almost speechless. I could only say, 'Murdered!' - and that one word I believe I must have repeated a dozen times.
""Yes, murdered! - murdered by the Scotchman who slept with us at your fire the night before last. you to have the murderer brought to justice! hear me, James?'
James, I look to
James! - do you
"These," said James, "I think were the very words, or near about the very words, that I heard; and I tried to ask the major to tell me how it was, and how I could do what he required; but I didn't hear myself speak, though it would appear that he did, for almost immediately after I had tried to speak what I wished to say, he answered me just as if I had said it. He told me that the Scotchman had waylaid, killed, and hidden him in that very bay; that his murderer had gone to Charleston; and that if I made haste to town, I would find him in the Falmouth packet, which was then lying in the harbor and ready to sail for England. He further said that everything depended on my making haste, - that I must reach town by to-morrow night if I wanted to be in season, and go right on board the vessel and charge the criminal with the deed. 'Do not be afraid,' said he, when he had finished; 'be afraid of nothing, James, for God will help and strengthen you to the end.' When I heard all I burst into a flood of tears, and then I felt strong. I felt that I could talk, or fight, or do almost anything; and I jumped up to my feet, and was just about to run down to where the major stood, but, with the first step which I made forward, he was gone. I stopped and looked all around me, but I could see nothing; and the bay was just as black as midnight. But
then I went down to it, and tried to press in where I thought the major had been standing; but I couldn't get far, the brush and bay bushes were so close and thick. I was now bold and strong enough, and I called out, loud enough to be heard half a mile. I didn't exactly know what I called for, or what I wanted to learn, or I have forgotten. But I heard nothing more. I remembered the camp, and began to fear that something might have happened to mother and uncle, for I now felt, what I had not thought of before, that I had gone too far round the bay to be of much assistance, or, indeed, to be in time for any, had they been suddenly attacked. Besides, I could not think how long I had been gone; but it now seemed very late. Well, I bethought me of my course, for I was a little bewildered and doubtful where I was; but, after a little thinking, I took the back track, and soon got a glimpse of the camp fire, which was nearly burnt down; and by this I reckoned I was gone considerably longer than my two hours. When I got back into the camp, I looked under the wagon, and found uncle in a sweet sleep, and though my heart was full almost to bursting with what I had heard, and the cruel sight I had seen, yet I wouldn't waken him; and I beat about and mended the fire, and watched, and waited, until near daylight, when mother called to me out of the wagon, and asked who it was. This wakened my uncle, and then I up and told all that had happened; for if it had been to save my life, I couldn't have kept it in much longer. But though mother said it was very strange, Uncle Sparkman considered that I had been only dreaming; but he couldn't persuade me of it; and when I told him I intended to be off at daylight, just as the major had told me to do, and ride my best all the way to Charleston, he laughed, and said I was a fool. But I felt that I was no fool, and I was solemn certain that I hadn't been dreaming; and though both mother and he tried their hardest to make me put off going, yet I made up my mind to it, and they had to give up. Soon as the peep of day, I was on horseback. I rode as briskly as I could get on without hurting my nag. I had a smart ride of more than forty miles before me, and the road was very heavy. But it was a good two hours from sunset when I got into town, and the first question I asked of the people I met was, to show me where the ships were kept. When I got to the wharf, they showed me the Falmouth packet, where she lay in the stream, ready to sail as soon as the wind should favor."
James Grayling, with the same eager impatience which he has been suffered to describe in his own language, had already hired a boat to go on board the British packet, when he remembered that he had neglected all those means, legal and otherwise, by which alone his purpose might be properly effected. He did not know much about legal process, but he had common sense enough to know that some such process was necessary. This conviction produced another difficulty: he knew not in which quarter to turn for counsel and assistance; but here the boatman, who saw his bewilderment, came to his relief, and from him he got directions where to find the merchants with whom his uncle, Sparkman, had done business in former years. To them he went, and, without circumlocution, told the whole story of his ghostly visitation. Even as a dream, which these gentlemen at once conjectured it to be, the story of James Grayling was equally clear and curious; and his intense warmth and the entire absorption, which the subject had effected, of his mind and soul, was such that they judged it not improper, at least, to carry out the search of the vessel which he contemplated. It would certainly, they thought, be a curious coincidence - believing James to be a veracious youth - if the Scotchman should be found on board.
"At least," remarked the gentlemen, "it can do no harm to look into the business. We can procure a warrant for searching the vessel after this man Macnab; and should he be found on board the packet, it will be a sufficient circumstance to justify the magistrates in detaining him until we can ascertain where Major Spencer really is."
The measure was accordingly adopted, and it was nearly sunset before the warrant was procured, and the proper officer in readiness. The impatience of a spirit so eager and so devoted as James Grayling, under these delays, may be imagined; and when in the boat, and on his way to the packet where the criminal was to be sought, his blood became so excited that it was with much ado he could be kept in his seat. His quick, eager action continually disturbed the trim of the boat, and one of his mercantile friends, who had accompanied him, with that interest in the affair which curiosity alone inspired, was under constant apprehension lest he would plunge overboard in his impatient desire to shorten the space which lay between them. The same impatience enabled the youth, though never on shipboard before, to grasp the rope which had been flung, at their approach, and to mount her sides with catlike agility. Without waiting to declare himself or his purpose, he ran from one side of the deck to the other, greedily staring, to the surprise of officers, passengers, and seamen, in the faces of all of them, and surveying them with an almost offensive scrutiny. He turned away from the search with disappointment. There was no face like that of the suspected man among them. By this time his friend, the merchant, with the sheriff's officer, had entered the vessel, and were in conference with the captain. Grayling drew nigh in time to hear the latter affirm that there was no man of the name of Macnab, as stated in the warrant, among his passengers or crew.
"He is he must be!" exclaimed the impetuous youth. "The major never lied in his life, and couldn't lie after he was dead. Macnab is here - he is a Scotchman"
The captain interrupted him.
"We have, young gentleman, several Scotchmen on board, and one of them is named Macleod."
"Let me see him - which is he?" demanded the youth. "Where is Mr. Macleod?"
"He is gone below - he's sick!" replied one of the passengers. "That's he! That must be the man!" exclaimed the youth. "I'll lay my life that's no other than Macnab. He's only taken a false name."
It was now remembered by one of the passengers, and remarked, that Macleod had expressed himself as unwell but a few moments before, and had gone below even while the boat was rapidly approaching the vessel. At this statement the captain led the way into the cabin, closely followed by James Grayling and the rest.
"Mr. Macleod," he said, with a voice somewhat elevated, as he approached the berth of that person, "you are wanted on deck for a few moments."
"I am really too unwell, captain," replied a feeble voice from behind the curtain of the berth.
"It will be necessary," was the reply of the captain. "There is a warrant from the authorities of the town to look after a fugitive from justice."
Macleod had already begun a second speech declaring his feebleness, when the fearless youth, Grayling, bounded before the captain and tore away, with a single grasp of his hand, the curtain which concealed the suspected man from their sight.
"It is he!" was the instant exclamation of the youth as he beheld him. "It is he, - Macnab, the Scotchman, - the man that murdered Major Spencer!"
Macnab - for it was he - was deadly pale. He trembled like an aspen. His eyes were dilated with more than mortal apprehension, and his lips were perfectly livid. Still, he found strength to speak and to deny the accusation. He knew nothing of the youth before him, - nothing of Major Spencer, — his name was Macleod, and he had never called himself by any other. He denied, but with great incoherence, everything which was urged against him.
"You must get up, Mr. Macleod," said the captain; "the circumstances are very much against you. You must go with the officer!"
"Will you give me up to my enemies?" demanded the culprit. "You are a countryman - a Briton. I have fought for the king, our master, against these rebels, and for this they seek my life. Do not deliver me into their bloody hands!"
"Liar!" exclaimed James Grayling. "Didn't you tell us at our own camp fire that you were with us? that you were at Gates' defeat and 'Ninety-six'?"
"But I didn't tell you," said the Scotchman, with a grin, "which side I was on!"
"Ha! remember that!" said the sheriff's officer. "He denied, just a moment ago, that he knew this young man at all; now he confesses that he did see and camp with him."
The Scotchman was aghast at the strong point which, in his inadvertence, he had made against himself; and his efforts to excuse himself, stammering and contradictory, served only to involve him more deeply in the meshes of his difficulty. Still he continued his urgent appeals to the captain of the vessel. One or two of the passengers, indeed, joined with him in entreating the captain to set the accusers adrift and make sail at once; but the stout Englishman who was in command rejected instantly the unworthy counsel. Besides, he was better aware of the dangers which would follow any such rash proceeding. Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island, had been already refitted and prepared for an enemy; and he was lying at that moment under the formidable range of grinning teeth, which would have opened upon him, at the first movement, from the jaws of Castle Pinckney.
"No, gentlemen," said he, "you mistake your man. God forbid that I should give shelter to a murderer, even in my own parish."
“But I am no murderer,” said the Scottsman.
“You look cursedly like one, however,” was the reply of the captain. “Sheriff, take your prisoner. Steward," he cried, "bring up this man's luggage."
He was obeyed. The luggage was brought up from the cabin and delivered to the sheriff's officer, by whom it was examined in the presence of all, and an inventory made of its contents. It consisted of a small new trunk, which, it afterwards appeared, he had bought in Charleston, soon after his arrival. This contained a few changes of raiment, twenty-six guineas in money, a gold watch, not in repair, and the two pistols which he had shown while at Joel Sparkman's camp fire; but, with this difference, that the stock of one was broken off short just above the grasp, and the butt was entirely gone. It was not found among his chattels. A careful examination of the articles in his trunk did not result in anything calculated to strengthen the charge of his criminality; but there was not a single person present who did not feel as morally certain of his guilt as if the jury had already declared the fact. That night he slept - if he slept at all - in the common jail of the city.
His accuser, the warm-hearted and resolute James Grayling, did not sleep, and with the dawn he was again up and stirring, with his mind still full of the awful business in which he had been engaged. We do not care to pursue his course in the ordinary walks of the city, nor account for his employments during the few days which ensued. Macnab or Macleod, and it is possible that both names were fictitious, - as soon as he recovered from his first terrors, sought the aid of an attorney -one of those acute, small, chopping lawyers to be found in almost every community, who are willing to serve with equal zeal the sinner and the saint, provided that they can pay with equal liberality. The prisoner was brought before the court under habeas corpus, and several grounds submitted by his counsel with the view to obtaining his discharge. It became necessary to ascertain, among the first duties of the state, whether Major Spencer, the alleged victim, was really dead. Until it could be established that a man should be imprisoned, tried, and punished for a crime, it was first necessary to show that a crime had been committed; and the attorney made himself exceedingly merry with the ghost story of young Grayling. In those days, however, the ancient Superstition was not so feeble as she has subsequently become.
The judge - who it must be understood was a real existence, and who had no small reputation in his day in the south - proceeded to establish the correctness of his opinions by authorities and argument, with all of which, doubtlessly, the bar were exceedingly delighted; but to provide them in this place would only be to interfere with our own progress. James Grayling, however, was not satisfied to wait the slow processes which were suggested for coming at the truth. Even the wisdom of the judge was lost upon him, possibly for the simple reason that he did not comprehend it. But the ridicule of the culprit's lawyer stung him to the quick, and he muttered to himself, more than once, a determination "to lick the life out of that impudent chap's leather." But this was not his only resolve. There was one which he proceeded to put into instant execution, and that was to seek the body of his murdered friend in the spot where he fancied it might be found - namely, the dark and dismal bay where the specter had made its appearance to his eyes.
The suggestion was approved - though he did not need this to prompt his resolution by his mother and uncle, Sparkman. The latter determined to be his companion, and he was further accompanied by the sheriff's officer who had arrested the suspected felon. Before daylight, on the morning after the examination before the judge had taken place, and when Macleod had been remanded to prison, James Grayling started on his journey. His fiery zeal received additional force at every added moment of delay, and his eager spurring brought him at an early hour after noon to the neighborhood of the spot through which his search was to be made. He led them round it, taking the very course which he had pursued the night when the revelation was made him; he showed them the very tree at whose foot he had sunk when the supernatural torpor - as he himself esteemed it - began to fall upon him; he then pointed out the spot, some twenty steps distant, at which the specter made its appearance. To this spot they then proceeded in a body, and essayed an entrance, but were so discouraged by the difficulties at the outset that all, James not excepted, concluded that neither the murderer nor his victim could possibly have found entrance there.
But lo, a marvel! Such it seemed, at the first blush, to all the party. While they stood confounded and indecisive, undetermined in which way to move, a sudden flight of wings was heard, even from the center of the bay, at a little distance above the spot where they had striven for entrance. They looked up, and beheld about fifty buzzards - those notorious domestic vultures of the south - ascending from the interior of the bay, and perching along upon the branches of the loftier trees by which it was overhung. Even were the character of these birds less known, the particular business in which they had just then been engaged was betrayed by huge gobbets of flesh which some of them had borne aloft in their flight, and still continued to rend with beak and bill, as they tottered upon the branches where they stood. A piercing scream issued from the lips of James Grayling as he beheld this sight, and strove to scare the offensive birds from their repast.
"The poor major! the poor major!" was the involuntary and agonized exclamation of the youth. "Did I ever think he would come to this!"
The search, thus guided and encouraged, was pressed with renewed diligence and spirit; and, at length, an opening was found through which it was evident that a body of considerable size had but recently gone. They followed this path, and, as is the case commonly with waste tracts of this description, the density of the growth diminished sensibly at every step they took, till they reached a little pond, which, though circumscribed in area, and full of cypresses, yet proved to be singularly deep. Here, on the edge of the pond, they discovered the object which had drawn the keen-sighted vultures to their feast, in the body of a horse, which James Grayling at once identified as that of Major Spencer's. The carcass of the animal was already very much torn and lacerated. The eyes were plucked out, and the animal completely disemboweled. Yet, on examination, it was not difficult to discover the manner of his death. Two bullets had passed through his skull, just above the eyes, either of which must have been fatal. The murderer had led the horse to the spot, and committed the cruel deed where his body was found. The search was now continued for that of the owner, but for some time it proved ineffectual. At length the keen eyes of James Grayling detected, amidst a heap of moss and green sedge that rested beside an overthrown tree, whose branches jutted into the pond, a whitish, but discolored, object that did not seem native to the place. Bestriding the fallen tree, he was enabled to reach this object, which, with a burst of grief, he announced to the distant party was the hand and arm of his unfortunate friend, the wristband of the shirt being the conspicuous object which had first caught his eye. Grasping this, he drew the corse, which had been thrust beneath the branches of the tree, to the surface; and, with the assistance of his uncle, it was finally brought to the dry land. The head was very much disfigured; the skull was fractured in several places by repeated blows of some hard instrument, inflicted chiefly from behind. A closer inspection revealed a bullet hole in the abdomen, the first wound, in all probability, which the unfortunate gentleman received, and by which he was, perhaps, tumbled from his horse. The blows on the head would seem to have been unnecessary, unless the murderer - whose proceedings appeared to have been singularly deliberate - was resolved upon making "assurance doubly sure." But, as if the watchful Providence had meant that nothing should be left doubtful which might tend to the complete conviction of the criminal, the constable stumbled upon the butt of the broken pistol which had been found in Macleod's trunk. This he picked up on the edge of the pond in which the corse had been discovered, and while James Grayling and his uncle, Sparkman, were engaged in drawing it from the water. The place where the fragment was discovered at once denoted the pistol as the instrument by which the final blows were inflicted.
The jury, it may be scarcely necessary to add, brought in a verdict of "Guilty," without leaving the panel; and Macnab, alias Macleod, was hanged at White Point, Charleston, somewhere about the year 178--.
#MurderWillOut #SimmsGhostStory #BestGhostStories #BestGhostShortStories
