The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1897-10-19
VENGEFUL IN DEATH.

On certain day / received a letter
from a private soldier named Gratmar,
attached to the garrison of San Fran
cisco. / had known him but slightly,
the acquaintance having come about
through his interest in some stories
which l had published and which he
had a way Of calling psychological
studies. He was dreamy, romantic,
fine grained lad, proud as a tiger lily
and sensitive as bluebell What mad
caprice led him to join the army never
knew, but / did know that there he was
wretchedly out Of place, and / foresaw
that his rude and repellent environ
ment would make Of him in time de-
serter or suicide or a murderer. The
letter at first seemed wild outpouring
Of despair, for it informed me that be-
fore it should reach me it's author would
be dead by his own hand. But when
had read further understood its spirit
and realized how coolly formed
scheme it disclosed and how terrible its
purport was intended to be- The worst
Of the contents was the information
that certain officer (whom he named)
had driven him to the deed, and that he
was committing suicide for the sole
purpose of gaining thereby the power
to revenge himself upon his enemy. l
learned afterward that the officer had
received a similar letter.
This was SO puzzling that 1 sat down
to reflect upon the young mans pecul-
iarities. He had always seemed some
what uncanny and had 1 proved more
sympathetic he doubtless would have
gone further and told me of certain
problems which he professed to have
solved concerning the life beyond this.
One thing that he had said came back
wildly, ''If could only overcome that
purely gross and animal love of life that
makes us all shun death, would kill
myself, for / know how far more pow
erful l could be in spirit than in flesh I"
The manner of the suicide was star
Ting, and that was what might have
been expected from this odd character.
Evidently scorning the dummery of fu-
nerals, he had gone into little canyon
near the military reservation and blown
himself into a million fragments with
! dynamite, SO that all of him that was
found was some minute particles of
flesh and bone.
! kept the letter a secret, for / de-
sired to observe the officer without rous-
ing his suspicion of my purpose. It
would be an admirable test of dead
mans power and deliberate intention to
haunt the living, for SO interpreted
the letter. The officer thus to be pun
ished was an oldish man, short, apo
plectic, overbearing and irascible. Gen
orally he was kind to most of the men
In way, but he was gross and mean,
and that explained sufficiently his harsh
treatment of young Gratmar, whom he
could not understand, and his efforts to
break that Tightly young mans spirit.
! Not very long after the suicide GER
tain notifications in the officers con-
duct became apparent to my watchful
oversight. His choler, though none the
less sporadic, developed quality which
had some of the characteristics of senil-
ity, and yet he was still in his prime
and passed for a sound man. He was a
bachelor and had lived always alone,
but presently he began to shirk solitude
at night and court it in daylight. His
brother officers chaffed him, and there
upon he would laugh in rather forced
and silly fashion quite different from
the ordinary way with him, and would
sometimes, ON these occasions, blush so
violently that his face would become
almost purple. His soldierly alertness
and sternness relaxed surprisingly at
times and at others were exaggerat-
ed into unnecessary acerbity, his con-
duct in this regard suggesting that of a
drunken man who knows that he is
drunk and who now and then makes a
brave effort to appear sober. All these
things and more, Indicating some mental
strain or some dreadful apprehension,
or perhaps something worse than either,
were observed partly by me and partly
by an intelligent officer whose watch
upon the man had been secured by me.
To be more particular, the afflicted
man was observed often to start sudden
ly and in alarm, look quickly round and
make some unintelligent monosyllabic
answer, seemingly to an inaudible ques-
ton that no visible person had asked.
He acquired the reputation, too, of hav-
ing taken lately to nightmares, for in
the middle of the night he would shrek
in the most dreadful fashion, alarming
his roommates prodigiously. After these
attacks he would sit up in bed, his rud-
dy face devoid of color, his eyes CLASSY
and shining, his breathing broken with
gasps and his body wet with cold per-
SEPARATION.
Knowledge of these developments and
transformations spread throughout the
garrison, but the few (mostly women)
who dared to express sympathy or sug-
gest tonic encountered so violent re-
bluffs that they blessed heaven for escap-
ing alive from his word volleys Even
the garrison surgeon, who had kindly
manner, and the commanding general,
} who was constructed on dignified and
impressive lines, received little thanks
for their solicitude Clearly the doughty
old officer, who had fought like bull
dog in two wars and hundred battles,
was suffering deeply from some undis-
coverable malady.
The next extraordinary thing which
he did was to visit one evening (not SO
clandestinely as to escape my watch) a
spirit medium-extraordin because
he always had scoffed at the idea Of
spirit communications saw him as he
was leaving the mediums rooms His
face was purple, his eyes were bullying
and terrified, and he tottered in his
walk A policeman, seeing his distress,
advanced to assist him, whereupon the
soldier hoarsely begged:
"Call hack +"
Into it he fell and asked to be driven
to his quarters. hastily assembled to
the mediums rooms and found her ly-
ing unconscious on the floor. Soon, with
my aid, she recalled her wits but her
conscious state was even more alarming
than the other. At first she regarded
me with terror and cried:
ut is horrible for you to hound him
SOP
I assured her that was bounding nc
one.
"Oh, thought you were the spir-l
mean-I-oh, but it was standing ex.
actly where you arep' she exclaimed.
ST suppose so, agreed, 'but you
can see that l am not the young mans
spirit However, am familiar with
this whole case, madam, and if l car
be of any service in the matter ! should
be glad if you will inform me. / am
aware that our friend is prosecuted by
: spirit, which visits him frequently,
and l am positive that through you il
has informed him that the end is moi
far away and that our elderly friends
death will assume some terrible form
Is there anything that can do to avert
the tragedy"
The woman stared at me in Mortified
silence. "How do you know these
things?" she gasped
"That is immaterial When will tht
fro oadv oco1rp Gan 7 nrevent it2''