At Old Man Eckert's
Categories:
SOME HAUNTED HOUSES
Scary Books:
Present At A Hanging
:
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 that I am about
to tell.
"Old Man Eckert," as he was always called, was not of a sociable
disposition and lived alone. As he was never known to speak
f 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 or speech, he managed somehow to be immune to
impertinent curiosity, yet exempt from the evil repute with which it
commonly revenges itself when baffled; 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 living
cultivating a small and 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 ear of the stranger. 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, some twenty years afterward.
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 circumstances seemed so important, that some of Marion's
most serious citizens deemed it well to investigate, and to that end
arranged for a night session on the premises. The parties 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 consequence and repute. They were to meet at Holcomb'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 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 house without him. They
established themselves in the principal room, before a glowing fire,
and without other light than it gave, awaited events. It had been
agreed to speak as little as possible: they did not even renew the
exchange of 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
distrait: 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, 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 Andrus Palmer!
This much was ascertained the next morning. During the session of
Messrs. Holcomb 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 Eckert 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 Eckert" himself--whom, indeed, the editor of the
local paper somewhat graphically accused of having "reached out and
pulled him in."