"I knew it was," he replied, and added: "Man, you and I are fey."
"Will you tell Major Jackson of this, Sir?" I begged. "He knows I have seen Burker's ghost here before, and tells me it is a hallucination."
"I'll go and see him now." he replied. "He is an old friend of mine, and—he's a damned good doctor. Man—you and I are fey." He rode to where his trap, with its spirited cob, was awaiting him, dismounted and drove off.
As everybody knows, Mr. Blake of the Indian Civil Service, Sessions Judge of Duri, was thrown from his trap and killed. It happened five minutes after he had said to me, with a queer look in his eyes, and a queer note in his voice, "Man! you and I are fey"…. So it is no hallucination and I am haunted by Burker's ghost. Very good. I will fight Burker on his own ground.
My ghost shall haunt Burker's ghost—or I shall be at peace.
Though the religion of the Chaplain has failed me, the religion of my Mother, taught to me at her knee, has implanted in me an ineradicable belief in the ultimate justice of things, and the unquenchable hope of "somehow good".
I am about to go before my Maker or to obliteration and oblivion. If the former, I am prepared to say to Him: "You made me a man. I have played the man. I look to you for justice, and that is—compensation and not 'forgiveness'. Much less is it punishment. You have treated me ill and given me no help. You have bestowed free-will without free-dom. Compensate me or know Yourself unjust."
To a servant or child who spoke so to me and with equal reason, I would reply:—
"Compensation is due to you and not 'forgiveness'—much less punishment," and I would act accordingly…. Why should I cringe to God—and why should He love a cringer more than I do?
God help Men and Women—and such Children as are doomed to grow up to be
Men and Women.