death? For we know that in this merciful shape
death sometimes comes to the sufferer.

Fessenden's afterwards said that he had "one of his fits." He was
subject to such. When men reviled and denied him, then came the
angels,--or he imagined they came. They walked by his side, and talked
with him; and often, all a summer's afternoon, he could be heard
conversing in the fields, as with familiar friends, when only himself
was visible, and his voice alone was heard in the silence. This was, in
fact, one of those idiosyncrasies which had earned him his shameful
name.

In the trance of that night, lying cold upon the ground, he beheld his
ghostly visitors. They came and stood around him, a shining company, and
looked upon him with countenances of fair women and good men. Their
apparel was not unlike that of mortals. And he heard them questioning
among themselves how they should help him. And one of them, as it
seemed, brought human assistance; though the boy, who could see plenty
of ghosts, could not, for some reason, see the only actually visible and
substantial person then on the spot besides himself. He felt, however,
sensibly enough, the concussion of a stout pair of mortal legs that
presently went stumbling over him in the dark. The shock roused him. The
whole shadowy company vanished instantly; and in their place he saw, by
the glimmer from the Judge's windows, a dark sprawling figure getting up
out of the mud and water.

"Don't be scared, it's me," said Fessenden's; for he guessed the fellow
was frightened.

"Excuse me, Sir! I really didn't know it was you, Sir!" said the man,
with agitated politeness. "And who might you be, Sir? if I may be so
bold as to inquire." And regaining his balance, his umbrella, and his
self-possession, he drew near, and squatted cautiously before the
prostrate beggar, who, had his eyesight been half as keen for the living
as it was for the dead, would have discovered that the face bending over
him was black.

"Never mind me," said Fessenden's. "Did it hurt ye?"

"Well, Sir,--no, Sir,--only my knee went pretty seriously into something
wet. And I believe I've turned my umbrella wrong side out. I say, Sir,
what was you doing, lying here, Sir? You don't think of remaining here
all night, I trust, Sir?"

"I've nowhere else to go," said the boy, trying to rise.

The black man helped him up.

"But this never'll do, you know! such an inclement night as this
is!--you'd die before morning