Can Such Things Be? · Chapter
Present at a Hanging explained
In 1853, an old man named Daniel Baker is suspected of murdering a peddler who stayed at his house.
What happens
In 1853, an old man named Daniel Baker is suspected of murdering a peddler who stayed at his house. Seven years later, the Rev. Mr. Cummings encounters a ghostly peddler on a bridge, who points downward before vanishing. The next morning, Baker is found hanged from the same bridge, and the peddler's bones are discovered beneath. The inquest rules Baker's death a suicide and the peddler's murder unsolved.
Themes in this chapter
Guilt and Retribution
Baker's suicide and the ghostly apparition suggest a supernatural reckoning for the peddler's murder.
The Uncanny and the Grotesque
The ghostly peddler's silent pointing and disappearance, along with the discovery of bones, evoke a disturbing supernatural presence.
Characters to notice
- Rev. Mr. Cummings
A Baptist minister who encounters the ghostly peddler on the bridge and later discovers Baker's body.
- Daniel Baker
An old man suspected of murdering a peddler; found hanged from the bridge.
Key passages
“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.”
Daniel Baker, an elderly resident near Lebanon, Iowa, was believed by his neighbors to have killed a peddler who stayed overnight at his home.
Sets up the central mystery of the chapter.
“The man raised his head, looked him full in the face, but neither answered nor made any further movement.”
The figure lifted his head and stared directly at Mr. Cummings, but remained silent and still.
Highlights the eerie, unresponsive nature of the apparition.
“They found the body of old man Baker hanging by the neck from one of the beams of the bridge, immediately beneath the spot where the apparition had stood.”
Baker's body was discovered hanging from a beam directly below where the ghost had been seen.
Connects the supernatural vision to Baker's death.