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The one whom she thought she had seen existed no longer, never had existed. It was a spectre seen in the limbo of another world, in the darkness of a half light. And she continued to walk, retaining of this ill-defined meeting an impression of coldness, of vague embarrassment, and of pain in the heart.
"I see you in the fire," said the haunted man; "I hear you in music, in the wind, in the dead stillness of the night." The Phantom moved its head, assenting. "Why do you come, to haunt me thus?" "I come as I am called," replied the Ghost. "No. Unbidden," exclaimed the Chemist. "Unbidden be it," said the Spectre. "It is enough. I am here."
If the dead live no more, what would memory be to us but a spectre and a sting? Should we not then seek to repress those tender recollections, to close our eyes to those pale, sad visions of departed love? Should we not invoke the glare and tumult of the world to distract or absorb our thoughts?
Throughout that summer Chad fought his fight, daily swaying this way and that fought it in secret until the phantom of neutrality faded and gave place to the grim spectre of war until with each hand Kentucky drew a sword and made ready to plunge both into her own stout heart. When Sumter fell, she shook her head resolutely to both North and South.
A spectre may indeed here and there still be seen, of an old grey-headed and grey-bearded Highlander, with war-worn features, but bent double by age; dressed in an old fashioned cocked-hat, bound with white tape instead of silver lace; and in coat, waistcoat, and breeches, of a muddy-coloured red, bearing in his withered hand an ancient weapon, called a Lochaber-axe; a long pole, namely, with an axe at the extremity, and a hook at the back of the hatchet.*
Pride, contempt, defiance, stubbornness, submission, lamentation, succeeded one another; so did varieties of sunken cheek, cadaverous colour, emaciated hands and figures. But the face was in the main one face, and every head was prematurely white. A hundred times the dozing passenger inquired of this spectre: "Buried how long?" The answer was always the same: "Almost eighteen years."
As he conceived the spectre had been jesting with him, he gave way to the natural hardihood of his temper, and, determining to see the adventure to an end, resumed the road to the fire, from which, unopposed by the demon, he brought off in the same manner a blazing piece of charcoal, but still without being able to succeed in lighting his fire.
The traveller shuddered; in a voice of terror he exclaimed: "The blast of death rises in its fury the whirlwind carries me on Lord! Thou art then deaf to my prayer?" "The spectre! oh, the spectre! it is again here! its green face twitching with convulsive spasms its red eyes rolling in their orbits. Begone! begone! its hand, oh! its icy hand has again laid hold of mine. Have mercy, heaven!"
"I yes most assuredly that is, I did not, strictly speaking, keep my ground; but the town-clerk and I retreated retreated, Colonel, and without confusion or dishonour, and took post behind worthy Master Holdenough, who, with the spirit of a lion, threw himself in the way of the supposed spectre, and attacked it with such a siserary of Latin as might have scared the devil himself, and thereby plainly discovered that it was no devil at all, nor white woman, neither woman of any colour, but worshipful Master Bletson, a member of the House of Commons, and one of the commissioners sent hither upon this unhappy sequestration of the Wood, Chase, and Lodge of Woodstock."
And Julia! even then she might have been whirling in the capricious movements of the dance with my happy rival she as happy unconscious of him who glided like some angry spectre beneath her windows, and almost within hearing of her thoughtless voice. Such were my gloomy thoughts such the dark and dismal subjects of my lonely meditations. I did the poor girl wrong.
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