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    Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories
    Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories
    Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories
    Ebook93 pages1 hour

    Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories

    By Ambrose Bierce

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    Present at a Hanging isn't one of Bierce's most well known stories, but it should be. A peddler stops by the house of old man Baker one day in Lebanon, Iowa. Making arrangements to stay at the Baker home that night, the peddler is never seen again. Neighbours believe it's a case of murder, but is it something more sinister? The answer unfolds seven years later with the appearance of an apparition on the bridge near the Baker farm. The only thing more mysterious than the fate of the peddler in Present at a Hanging is Bierce's own disappearance in real life. He was serving as an observer with Pancho Villa's army in 1913/14 when he disappeared, his fate unknown to this day.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEndymion Press
    Release dateApr 23, 2017
    ISBN9781537825380
    Author

    Ambrose Bierce

    Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) was an American novelist and short story writer. Born in Meigs County, Ohio, Bierce was raised Indiana in a poor family who treasured literature and extolled the value of education. Despite this, he left school at 15 to work as a printer’s apprentice, otherwise known as a “devil”, for the Northern Indianan, an abolitionist newspaper. At the outbreak of the American Civil War, he enlisted in the Union infantry and was present at some of the conflict’s most harrowing events, including the Battle of Shiloh in 1862. During the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in 1864, Bierce—by then a lieutenant—suffered a serious brain injury and was discharged the following year. After a brief re-enlistment, he resigned from the Army and settled in San Francisco, where he worked for years as a newspaper editor and crime reporter. In addition to his career in journalism, Bierce wrote a series of realist stories including “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” and “Chickamauga,” which depict the brutalities of warfare while emphasizing the psychological implications of violence. In 1906, he published The Devil’s Dictionary, a satirical dictionary compiled from numerous installments written over several decades for newspapers and magazines. In 1913, he accompanied Pancho Villa’s army as an observer of the Mexican Revolution and disappeared without a trace at the age of 71.

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      Book preview

      Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories - Ambrose Bierce

      PRESENT AT A HANGING AND OTHER GHOST STORIES

      Ambrose Bierce

      ENDYMION PRESS

      Thank you for reading. If you enjoy this book, please leave a review.

      All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.

      Copyright © 2017 by Ambrose Bierce

      Published by Endymion Press

      Interior design by Pronoun

      Distribution by Pronoun

      ISBN: 9781537825380

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      THE WAYS OF GHOSTS

      PRESENT AT A HANGING

      A COLD GREETING

      A WIRELESS MESSAGE

      AN ARREST

      SOLDIER-FOLK

      A MAN WITH TWO LIVES

      THREE AND ONE ARE ONE

      A BAFFLED AMBUSCADE

      TWO MILITARY EXECUTIONS

      SOME HAUNTED HOUSES

      THE ISLE OF PINES

      A FRUITLESS ASSIGNMENT

      A VINE ON A HOUSE

      AT OLD MAN ECKERT’S

      THE SPOOK HOUSE

      THE OTHER LODGERS

      THE THING AT NOLAN

      MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCES

      THE DIFFICULTY OF CROSSING A FIELD

      AN UNFINISHED RACE

      CHARLES ASHMORE’S TRAIL

      SCIENCE TO THE FRONT

      THE WAYS OF GHOSTS

      ~

      MY PECULIAR RELATION TO THE writer of the following narratives is such that I must ask the reader to overlook the absence of explanation as to how they came into my possession. Withal, my knowledge of him is so meager that I should rather not undertake to say if he were himself persuaded of the truth of what he relates; certainly such inquiries as I have thought it worth while to set about have not in every instance tended to confirmation of the statements made. Yet his style, for the most part devoid alike of artifice and art, almost baldly simple and direct, seems hardly compatible with the disingenuousness of a merely literary intention; one would call it the manner of one more concerned for the fruits of research than for the flowers of expression. In transcribing his notes and fortifying their claim to attention by giving them something of an orderly arrangement, I have conscientiously refrained from embellishing them with such small ornaments of diction as I may have felt myself able to bestow, which would not only have been impertinent, even if pleasing, but would have given me a somewhat closer relation to the work than I should care to have and to avow. - A. B.

      PRESENT AT A HANGING

      ~

      AN OLD MAN NAMED DANIEL Baker, living near Lebanon, Iowa, was suspected by his neighbors of having murdered a peddler who had obtained permission to pass the night at his house. This was in 1853, when peddling was more common in the Western country than it is now, and was attended with considerable danger. The peddler with his pack traversed the country by all manner of lonely roads, and was compelled to rely upon the country people for hospitality. This brought him into relation with queer characters, some of whom were not altogether scrupulous in their methods of making a living, murder being an acceptable means to that end. It occasionally occurred that a peddler with diminished pack and swollen purse would be traced to the lonely dwelling of some rough character and never could be traced beyond. This was so in the case of old man Baker, as he was always called. (Such names are given in the western settlements only to elderly persons who are not esteemed; to the general disrepute of social unworth is affixed the special reproach of age.) A peddler came to his house and none went away - that is all that anybody knew.

      Seven years later the Rev. Mr. Cummings, a Baptist minister well known in that part of the country, was driving by Baker’s farm one night. It was not very dark: there was a bit of moon somewhere above the light veil of mist that lay along the earth. Mr. Cummings, who was at all times a cheerful person, was whistling a tune, which he would occasionally interrupt to speak a word of friendly encouragement to his horse. As he came to a little bridge across a dry ravine he saw the figure of a man standing upon it, clearly outlined against the gray background of a misty forest. The man had something strapped on his back and carried a heavy stick - obviously an itinerant peddler. His attitude had in it a suggestion of abstraction, like that of a sleepwalker. Mr. Cummings reined in his horse when he arrived in front of him, gave him a pleasant salutation and invited him to a seat in the vehicle - if you are going my way, he added. The man raised his head, looked him full in the face, but neither answered nor made any further movement. The minister, with good-natured persistence, repeated his invitation. At this the man threw his right hand forward from his side and pointed downward as he stood on the extreme edge of the bridge. Mr. Cummings looked past him, over into the ravine, saw nothing unusual and withdrew his eyes to address the man again. He had disappeared. The horse, which all this time had been uncommonly restless, gave at the same moment a snort of terror and started

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