On the 9th of November, 1867, the old man died; at least his dead body was discovered on the 10th, and physicians testified that death had occurred about twenty-four hours previously—­precisely how, they were unable to say; for the post-mortem examination showed every organ to be absolutely healthy, with no indication of disorder or violence.  According to them, death must have taken place about noonday, yet the body was found in bed.  The verdict of the coroner’s jury was that he “came to his death by a visitation of God.”  The body was buried and the public administrator took charge of the estate.

A rigorous search disclosed nothing more than was already known about the dead man, and much patient excavation here and there about the premises by thoughtful and thrifty neighbors went unrewarded.  The administrator locked up the house against the time when the property, real and personal, should be sold by law with a view to defraying, partly, the expenses of the sale.

The night of November 20 was boisterous.  A furious gale stormed across the country, scourging it with desolating drifts of sleet.  Great trees were torn from the earth and hurled across the roads.  So wild a night had never been known in all that region, but toward morning the storm had blown itself out of breath and day dawned bright and clear.  At about eight o’clock that morning the Rev. Henry Galbraith, a well-known and highly esteemed Lutheran minister, arrived on foot at his house, a mile and a half from the Deluse place.  Mr. Galbraith had been for a month in Cincinnati.  He had come up the river in a steamboat, and landing at Gallipolis the previous evening had immediately obtained a horse and buggy and set out for home.  The violence of the storm had delayed him over night, and in the morning the fallen trees had compelled him to abandon his conveyance and continue his journey afoot.

“But where did you pass the night?” inquired his wife, after he had briefly related his adventure.

“With old Deluse at the ‘Isle of Pines,’” {1} was the laughing reply; “and a glum enough time I had of it.  He made no objection to my remaining, but not a word could I get out of him.”

Fortunately for the interests of truth there was present at this conversation Mr. Robert Mosely Maren, a lawyer and litterateur of Columbus, the same who wrote the delightful “Mellowcraft Papers.”  Noting, but apparently not sharing, the astonishment caused by Mr. Galbraith’s answer this ready-witted person checked by a gesture the exclamations that would naturally have followed, and tranquilly inquired:  “How came you to go in there?”

This is Mr. Maren’s version of Mr. Galbraith’s reply: