Can Such Things Be?

MP3 Audio CD. Can Such Things Be?

THE DEATH OF HALPIN FRAYSER



I

For by death is wrought greater change than hath been shown. Whereas
in general the spirit that removed cometh back upon occasion, and is
sometimes seen of those in flesh (appearing in the form of the body
it bore) yet it hath happened that the veritable body without the
spirit hath walked. And it is attested of those encountering who
have lived to speak thereon that a lich so raised up hath no natural
affection, nor remembrance thereof, but only hate. Also, it is known
that some spirits which in life were benign become by death evil
altogether.--Hali.


One dark night in midsummer a man waking from a dreamless sleep in a
forest lifted his head from the earth, and staring a few moments into
the blackness, said: "Catherine Larue." He said nothing more; no
reason was known to him why he should have said so much.

The man was Halpin Frayser. He lived in St. Helena, but where he
lives now is uncertain, for he is dead. One who practices sleeping
in the woods with nothing under him but the dry leaves and the damp
earth, and nothing over him but the branches from which the leaves
have fallen and the sky from which the earth has fallen, cannot hope
for great longevity, and Frayser had already attained the age of
thirty-two. There are persons in this world, millions of persons,
and far and away the best persons, who regard that as a very advanced
age. They are the children. To those who view the voyage of life
from the port of departure the bark that has accomplished any
considerable distance appears already in close approach to the
farther shore. However, it is not certain that Halpin Frayser came
to his death by exposure.

He had been all day in the hills west of the Napa Valley,