The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Spectre In The Cart, by Thomas Nelson Page

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Spectre In The Cart
1908

Author: Thomas Nelson Page

Release Date: November 16, 2007 [EBook #23515]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPECTRE IN THE CART ***

Produced by David Widger

THE SPECTRE IN THE CART

By Thomas Nelson Page

Charles Scribner's Sons New York, 1908

Copyright, 1891, 1904, 1906

I had not seen my friend Stokeman since we were at college together,
and now naturally we fell to talking of old times. I remembered him as
a hard-headed man without a particle of superstition, if such a thing
be possible in a land where we are brought up on superstition, from the
bottle. He was at that time full of life and of enjoyment of whatever it
brought. I found now that his wild and almost reckless spirits had been
tempered by the years which had passed as I should not have believed
possible, and that gravity had taken place of the gaiety for which he
was then noted.

He used to maintain, I remember, that there was no apparition or
supernatural manifestation, or series of circumstances pointing to such
a manifestation, however strongly substantiated they appeared to be,
that could not be explained on purely natural grounds.

During our stay at college a somewhat notable instance of what was by
many supposed to be a supernatural manifestation occurred in a deserted
house on a remote plantation in an adjoining county.

It baffled all investigation, and got into the newspapers, recalling the
Cock Lane ghost, and many more less celebrated apparitions. Parties were
organized to investigate it, but were baffled. Stokeman, on a bet of a
box of cigars, volunteered to go out alone and explode the fraud; and
did so, not only putting the restless spirit to flight, but capturing it
and dragging it into town as the physical and indisputable witness both
of the truth of his theory and of his personal courage. The exploit gave
him immense notoriety in our little world.

I was, therefore, no little surprised to hear him say seriously now that
he had come to understand how people saw appa