Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 June 1885 — AN EDITR'S GHOST STORY. [ARTICLE]

AN EDITR'S GHOST STORY.

BY EDGAR FAWCETT.

I had always thought our papera mere venture at best. True, Verity was a populous town, and there was no reason why a weekly journal, if once definitely started, should not succeed there. But on the other hand, an important consideration must be taken into account. Did Verity, with its few paltry thousands of inhabitants, really want a weekly journal at all ? Could it support one ? Had it faith enough in its own intellectual claims to maintain the dignity of a real literary “organ ?” Pettigrew thought yes. If he had not thought so very decidedly, I am sure that he would not have advanced the solid capital toward the enterprise which he did advance, by this means making it a matter of positive realization and achievement. Pettigrew was a man of considerable property, of much education, and of strong ambition to shine in letters. He was a widower, with two or three grown-up children; he had worked hard for his money, and had made it only after the flower of his youth had faded. But he had found time to read and think; I suppose he is what is called a self-taught man. When he selected myself, then aged 24, to be his acting editor, I felt thrilled by the preference. He was the leading citizen of Verity, and, I< Amos Langley, had just been graduated from a Western college with the keen perception-that I must promptly set to work and “do something,” as the phrase goes, or starve. I knew very well that I should not like what John Pettigrew put into the paper. And I knew very well that he meant to monopolize at least a page of it every week. He had ideas, theories, views, on all subjects. He wrote a ponderous, Johnsonian style, whose syntax was not seldom precarious, and whose adjectives were piled one upon another in polysyllabic abundance. The tariff question, the civil service question, the woman’s rights question, the Mormon question—these and a hundred others were equally inviting to him. His pen itched to treat them all. The paper might be a .financial failure for two or three years without dying, for it would still give Mr. Pettigrew a chance, of exploiting himself. Other men, after accumulating a certain pile of wealth, buy pictures, keep fast horses, own a yacht. Pettigrew w ould stand as the power behind an editorial throne.

“You can have full swing, Langley,” he told me, with the most conciliating twinkle in his small hazel eyes and a very amiable look on his lean, closeshaven, impressive face. “I shant pull you up in anything. I knew your dead father well, my boy, and loved him like a brother. I’ve watched you closely, and I see you’ve got all his brains, with a good deal more grit Grit is what he wanted. You deserve a start and you shall have one. (Only I shall ask you to print my stuff—always. Perhaps you won’t always like; it I dare say you’ll think some of it rubbish. But I shall expect it to go in all the samp.” This was clear, and at the same tfme decisive. I had dark forebodings, but never once permitted them to transpire. They were verified in the course of time, for when the Folio was once launched into public notice I began to feel that it could never be a worthy exponent of my own pronounced editorial creeds, while Pettigrew’s rolling periods and sententious, hazardous rhetoric must forever occupy its initial page. . Still, to quarrel with this feature of the journal?was do fly in the face of my own destiny. Pettigrew wrote with a truly massive industry; he had his flatterers who professed to read his effusions with delight, and who declared 'to him unblushingly that they “made the paper.” Meanwhile, with secret and inaudible groans, I printed them. But I was careful in every other par-

ticular to follow my own wishes and beliefs. I have, through subsequent years, become a veryS successful editor in a city much larger thanj.. Verity, and I think there is ho foolish vanity in my stating that I? was actuated from the beginning of my career by impulses born of a distinct talent for the work in which I had engaged. I never once permitted the man to supersede the editor. Before our pa per was six months old I had made twice that number of mortal enemies. Miss Aurblia Sim?, the reigning;poetess of the town, never forgave me for declining with thanks her Ode to the Evening Star. Mrs. Hathaway Wren, who had written “gossipy” letters for years to several sheets of local if not general note, and whose pseudonym of “Carrie Careless” was held in high esteem at many Verity firesides, considered herself bitterly wronged because I resisted the signal honor of her service. Mr. Lemuel Trotter, who sometimes dashes off - a lucid tale or crime and passion in the relaxation from his duties as an apothecary, thought me an arrogant and self-sufti-cient young person because I would not print his “Hildegarde; or, The Shadows of a Father’s Sin.” And so it went on. But I was inflexible. Though I sowed a new crop of dragon’s teeth every week, still would I maintain and cherish a definite ideal. I would print only what I held to be worth printing —ruat coelum. Every tea table in Verity might be forbidden me—well and good; I would drink my tea alone, with a clean editorial conscience. I was a, very quick reader of the manuscripts sent me, and no doubt at times an unduly severe one. But it is certain that I received reams of trash. A great deal of this, I would merely glance at before reaching a decision as to its wholly worthless quality. One day I glanced at a sheet of foolscap which had arrived with about ten others in a small packet that same day. and uttered a sudden cry of astonishment. It was so refreshing to come unexpectedly upon work which yas not that of a tyro. The contribution was the first tour chapters of a Story, and it was accompanied by a modest note. The author trusted that I w'ould

kindly examine these opening chapters, which he had written some months ago. Bad health had prevented him from continuing the story, but in case of anything like encouraging criticism he would be glad to resume it. The letter wtfs signed “Hector Laughton,”' and the writer’s address given underneath it. I found this address to indicate a kind of forlorn settlement about six miles from Verity. I had scarcely believed that D contained a person who could read or write. And yet here was the beginning of a story so simple yet so exquisitely fresh and pure in its style that the author of it gave not only evidence of having read fine classic models but of being able to write w.th a tender and genial originality quite his own. 1 bad found just what I wanted for the Folio. This tale of Hector Laughton’s must at once be secured as a serial. Here was enough for two numbers. This I would pay for immediately, provided the author would_visit me ana sign the contract to supply me with other installments as early as possible. This same day I wrote to him in D , and on the following morning he appeared. He was perhaps 30 years of age—surely, I should say, not older. His figure was very slender, and possibly the ill-fitting clothes that he wore made more apparent than it woulcLothwise have been » hollowness of the chest and a slight stoop there. The instant you looked into his face you saw the ravages of sickness. But it was A face that made me think of Keats’ portraits; the large, melting dark eyes told not merely of mental force, but of something which in a novelist or poet often surpasses it—temperament, personality, soul.

“You look tired, Mr. Laughton,” I said to him, as soon as he had made his name known. Somehow- my heart had warmed with an instantaneous pity to- ■ ward him. “Pray take this other chair; it is more comfortable. So you walked from D ?” “Yes," he said, breathing with some difficulty. “I’m not used to any but short walks of late—since my illness.” “Have you been ill long 1” “It came on about six months ago.” (I heard now what I had expected to hear, a dry, hacking cough-) “I have been a good deal better through August, however. I dread the cold weather a little, for my chest and throat are still a trifle weak. However. we should at least have twp full months of sunshine and mildness yet, and before they have passed I hope to be thoroughly well.” Thoroughly well 1 There was a glitter in those beautiful poetic eyes, a hectic tint on these sunken cheeks, which made his words bear piercing pathos ! Still, there might be hope of his living for some time yet. Thqre might even be hope of his recovery. He had spoken of himself in the most unreserved way, though about all that he said there was a delicate, winsome shyness, a reluctance to dwell upon his own concerns, which made his individuality all the more subtly attractive. He. had passed most of his early manhdood in one of the Eastern cities; his father had been a wealthy merchant who had suddenly lost everything in an

imprudent speculation. Hector had come to the West with commercial schemes and purposes, but the breaking down of his health had renderedthem null He shared my opinion of D —, but his sojourn there had been one of necessity and not choice. “I was op my way to St. Louis,” he explained, “when the attack of pneumonia, that has left my lungs so weak ever since, first seized me. That was in Macrh, I’ve been an invalid there from that time till about a month ago. It was when I felt myself likely to recover that the thought of writing that story occurred to me; so I did those chapters. I have had the plah in my Head for three or four years. They used to tell me in college that I could write if I chose. Your letter, Mr. Langley, cheered me wonderfully. It was very kind.** ■“ . ‘ “Do not call it kind,” I said. “Call it just. I am delighted with your story.” fl The’smile that broke from his lips now struck me as irresistible in its

candid aw<y)neßß. But it was like sunlight play/ £ over a wr.eck. It showed mb" only plainly than before how death had doomed him. “I—l am very glad,” he faltered, as if f joy, and that alone, made his speech hesitant. “D-s is an uncivilized place, as you say, but I have found some good friends there. And I want mohey dreadfully. Mine gave but weeks ago, and 1 have literally been living on charity. Pardon me, but if you could let me have something in advance to-day I will promise most faithfully that the remaining chapters of the story shall be seht ycu as soon as I can possibly furnish them. I know that this mode of emolutaent may be contrary to your rules, but—” “Our rule shall he waived in your case,” I interrupted. This was quite a magnificent mode of treatment for the Verity “Folio.” But I was only too gratified in adopting it toward my gentle, Courteous yound visitor, whose enfeebled condition made his brilliant talents seem all the more noteworthy and rare. I not only paid him rather handsomely for that portion of the story already written, but I insisted on sending him back to D in a conveyance hired at a near livery stable. He thanked me with a warmth and earnestness that told of the confidence I w’as reposing in him had touched him beyond expression. Just before leaving me, he called my attention to the similarity between our respective handwritings. “Two or three people to whom I showed your letter yesterday,” he said, “remarked this resemblance.” “It undoubtedly exists,” I replied. “But it is a resemblance which stops at the formation of the letters alone. I only wish it did not. I would give a great deal to write your free, happy, graceful style, and to dray; human character with your fidelity, humor, wisdom, and surety of touch.” I published the first two chapters of the story in the next number of the paper. It made an immediate success. Its pqularity amazed me, excellent as I know the Work to be. The circulation of the paper shot up several thousand copips in a week. Congratulatory letters were sent in from twenty or thirty different sources. A score of influential newspapers flatteringly mentioned the striking originality of Mr, Laughton’s work. I forwarded all the encomiums to D , and received a reply full of mingled surprise and gratification from the stimulated author. Four new chapters accompanied this reply. These were, if possible, better than those which had preceded them. Through the autumn the story ’ was in this way regularly continued. Then there came a pause. No more “copy” was sent to me, and I would soon need njore. The tale had evidently reached its final stage. But the conclusion was still unforseen. I could not, lor my life, tell how matters were to end, and I have no doubt that the perfect natur-” alness and vigor of the narrative, mingled with this same element of suspense, were instrtimental in holding up the circulation of “The Folio” steadily to that point which it had previously reached.

I wrote to Laughton and received no answer. I wrote again, and with similar results. There had been a sharp chagne in the weather, of late; a hot, dry autumn had given place to chill, raw r winds. A sudden ominous foreboding took possession of me. On the day before that which- should see the next installment sent in to the printers, I drove to D with my dreary presentment gaining strength at every new mile of the way. “I had guessed rightly. Hector Laughton could write no more. I found him lying Th one of the up-stairs rooms of a small, ugly frame house, attended by a very ignorant elderly woman with a kindly face, and, I am sure, a kindly heart as well. Four days ago' he had caught a sadden prostrating cold, which had been followed, a few hours before my arrival, by a violent hemorhage. The moment I looked upon his ghastly face I knew that death must soon do its work. He tried to

speak to me as I stood at his bedside, but could only press my hand. His eyes, burning *in their darkness, were full of a sweet, unearthly peace. I felt that a genius was passing away from earth. And I know, as well as human intelligence can ever be certain of such results, that if Hector Laughton had lived he would have left a shining name through many future generations. “Before returning that evening to Verity (where duties now imperatively claimed my presence) I made sure that the village doctor could be summoned for the dying man at the slightest warning, and that his least want would receive thorough attention. It was past midnight when, seated in my office, I drew forth the last printed installment of the unfinished story. “Could I "finish it ?” I asked myself. Had not those dark, tender eyes wanted to convey to me this very question? There had been peace in his gaze—the peace of a spirit ''Which resigns itself fearlessly and a little wearily to death —but had there not been a vague, yearning trouble as well ? No; I could never finish the story. The touch of that dying hand was inimitable. To think of the grumbling dissatisfaction of the subscribers at such a time as this was like a sacrilege. How much better to leave the story as it was! “The unfinished window in Aladdin’s tower unfinished must remain.” '

I quoted Longfellow’s lovely words aloud to myself as I rose from my desk. I ,had drawn forth a quire or so of blank paper some time ago, and had placed my pen beside it. The inkstand stood at a short distance from both, waiting. But it was of ho use. I could not write a line. I had ho idea what Laughton had meant the iend to be. One sad little paragraph must explain everything now to the readers of teh Folio.' There was a lounge in my office, and I sank dejectedly upon it I have no recollection of feeling in the least drowsy, and yet I now felt my head softly impelled to touch the pillow. Just as it did sq the clock above my empty desk chair struck nfife. 1 heard the nine clear strokes and counted them. I could have sworn to this then—l can swear teriti stilb Whether n sleep or a trance now came upon me, it came in so imphreep-

tible a way that I had absolutely no consciousness of its approach. All that I did know was that I awoke from a sort Of protracted unconsciousness, and glanced with a shiver at what had seemed but a few seconds ago to be my pleasantly cracking wood-fire. Only a 1 few red, dreamy embers remained where the logs had forriirerly flashed. Tlieclbckwasstriking agaiff.'T looked up at its face. The hands were both at 12. , I had a slight sense of awe, but none of actual fear, as I approached my desk. In place of the blank pages I had left there, there lay at least twenty that w-ere covered with handwriting which I instantly recognizee!. On one ol these was the woi ; d “f inis,” and that and several sentences besides showed tire ink which had formed them still to be wet. At 9 o’clock that same evening, seven miles away in Hector 1 a ugh ton had breathed his last. The story was ended, clearly, powerfully, satisfactorily, as only he could* have ended it! * * * When I told hl r. Pettigrew my story he laughed in my face. Among the many decided “views” of this gentleman, was a supreme disdain for anything that resembled the least manifestation ;of so-called supernatural I thought him lamentably obstinate when he at length conceded that I had ended the story in a state of somnambulism. Such things had been known before. Unconscious cerebration was admitted by science as a possibility. “And the handwriting, Langley,” he delared, “is as much like yo'urs as it is like the dead man’s. ” “But we wrote almost precisely alike.” “Of course you did,” said Mr. Pettigrew, with his shrewd hazel eyes twinkling. “There’s the unfortunate part of it. Is you had written not alike, the preposterous explanation which I now hear regarding the ending of that story would at once be proved erroneous.” But Mr. Pettigrew’s incredulity, after awhile, failed to strike ihe as so very obstinate. Everybody else to whom I have narrated my strange experience (or n early e verybody),doubt3itjusfras he did. And yet my own certainty has not for an instant been shaken. ’Years have passed since the events which I have just faithfully recorded. But I am still, at the present hour, a firm believer that poor Hector Laughton kept his promise with me that night, and in some mysterious way came back to end his story for “The Folio.” Let others think as they please; I know. —