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‘I hardly know how to say it, Father,’ said Bridget, ‘but a strange and evil thing has befallen us; there is something come to our house, and we know not what it is – but it brings a fear with it.’ A sudden paleness came over her face, and she stopped, and the three exchanged a glance in which terror was visibly written. Master Grimston looked over his shoulder swiftly, and made as though to speak, yet only swallowed in his throat; but Henry said suddenly, in a loud and woeful voice, ‘It is an evil beast out of the sea.’ And then there followed a dreadful silence, while Father Thomas felt a sudden fear leap up in his heart, at the contagion of fear that he saw written on the faces round him. But he said with all the cheerfulness he could muster, ‘Come, friends, let us not begin to talk of sea-beasts; we must have the whole tale. Mistress Grimston, I must hear the story – be content – nothing can touch us here.’ The three seemed to draw a faint content from his words, and Bridget began:
‘It was the day of the wreck, Father. John was up betimes before the dawn; he walked out early to the sands, and Henry with him – and they were the first to see the wreck – was not that it?’ At these words the father and son seemed to exchange a very swift and secret look, and both grew pale. ‘John told me there was a wreck ashore, and they went presently and roused the rest of the village; and all that day they were out, saving what could be saved. Two sailors were found, both dead and pitifully battered by the sea, and they were buried, as you know, Father, in the churchyard next day; John came back about dusk and Henry with him, and we sate down to our supper. John was telling me about the wreck, as we sate beside the fire, when Henry, who was sitting apart, rose up and cried out suddenly, “What is that?”’
She paused for a moment, and Henry, who sate with face blanched, staring at his mother, said, ‘Ay, did I – it ran past me suddenly.’ ‘Yes, but what was it?’ said Father Thomas trying to smile; ‘a dog or cat, methinks?’ ‘It was a beast,’ said Henry slowly, in a trembling voice – ‘a beast about the bigness of a goat. I never saw the like – yet I did not see it clear; I but felt the air blow, and caught a whiff of it – it was salt like the sea, but with a kind of dead smell behind.’ ‘Was that all you saw?’ said Father Thomas; ‘Belike you were tired and faint, and the air swam round you suddenly – I have known the like myself when weary.’ ‘Nay, nay,’ said Henry, ‘this was not like that – it was a beast, sure enough.’ ‘Ay, and we have seen it since,’ said Bridget. ‘At least I have not seen it clearly yet, but I have smelt its odour, and it turns me sick – but John and Henry have seen it often – sometimes it lies and seems to sleep, but it watches us; and again it is merry, and will leap in a corner – and John saw it skip upon the sands near the wreck – did you not, John?’ At these words the two men again exchanged a glance, and then old Master Grimston, with a dreadful look in his face, in which great anger seemed to strive with fear, said ‘Nay, silly woman, it was not near the wreck, it was out to the east.’ ‘It matters little,’ said Father Thomas, who saw well enough this was no light matter. ‘I never heard the like of it. I will myself come down to your house with a holy book, and see if the thing will meet me. I know not what this is,’ he went on, ‘whether it is a vain terror that hath hold of you; but there be spirits of evil in the world, though much fettered by Christ and his Saints – we read of such in Holy Writ – and the sea, too, doubtless hath its monsters; and it may be that one hath wandered out of the waves, like a dog that hath strayed from his home. I dare not say, till I have met it face to face. But God gives no power to such things to hurt those who have a fair conscience.’ – And here he made a stop and looked at the three; Bridget sate regarding him with hope in her face; but the other two sate peering upon the ground; and the priest divined in some secret way that all was not well with them. ‘But I will come at once,’ he said, rising, ‘and I will see if I can cast out or bind the thing, whatever it be – for I am in this place as a soldier of the Lord, to fight with works of darkness.’ He took a clasped book from a table, and lifted up his hat, saying, ‘Let us set forth.’ Then he said as they left the room, ‘Hath it appeared today?’ ‘Yes, indeed,’ said Henry, ‘and it was ill content. It followed us as though it were angered.’ ‘Come,’ said Father Thomas, turning upon him, ‘you speak thus of a thing, as you might speak of a dog – what is it like?’ ‘Nay,’ said Henry, ‘I know not; I can never see it clearly; it is like a speck in the eye – it is never there when you look upon it – it glides away very secretly; it is most like a goat, I think. It seems to be horned, and hairy; but I have seen its eyes, and they were yellow, like a flame.’
As he said these words Master Grimston went in haste to the door, and pulled it open as though to breathe the air. The others followed him and went out; but Master Grimston drew the priest aside, and said like a man in a mortal fear, ‘Look you, Father, all this is true – the thing is a devil – and why it abides with us I know not; but I cannot live so; and unless it be cast out it will slay me – but if money be of avail, I have it in abundance.’ ‘Nay,’ said Father Thomas, ‘let there be no talk of money – perchance if I can aid you, you may give of your gratitude to God.’ ‘Ay, ay,’ said the old man hurriedly, ‘that was what I meant – there is money in abundance for God, if he will but set me free.’
So they walked very sadly together through the street. There were few folk about; the men and the children were all abroad – a woman or two came to the house doors, and wondered a little to see them pass so solemnly, as though they followed a body to the grave.
Master Grimston’s house was the largest in the place. It had a walled garden before it, with a strong door set in the wall. The house stood back from the road, a dark front of brick with gables; behind it the garden sloped nearly to the sands, with wooden barns and warehouses. Master Grimston unlocked the door, and then it seemed that his terrors came over him, for he would have the priest enter first. Father Thomas, with a certain apprehension of which he was ashamed, walked quickly in, and looked about him. The herbage of the garden had mostly died down in the winter, and a tangle of sodden stalks lay over the beds. A flagged path edged with box led up to the house, which seemed to stare at them out of its dark windows with a sort of steady gaze. Master Grimston fastened the door behind them, and they went all together, keeping close one to another, up to the house, the door of which opened upon a big parlour or kitchen, sparely furnished, but very clean and comfortable. Some vessels of metal glittered on a rack. There were chairs, ranged round the open fireplace. There was no sound except that the wind buffeted in the chimney. It looked a quiet and homely place, and Father Thomas grew ashamed of his fears. ‘Now,’ said he in his firm voice, ‘though I am your guest here, I will appoint what shall be done. We will sit here together, and talk as cheerfully as we may, till we have dined. Then, if nothing appears to us,’ – and he crossed himself – ‘I will go round the house, into every room, and see if we can track the thing to its lair; then I will abide with you till evensong; and then I will soon return, and sleep here tonight. Even if the thing be wary, and dares not to meet the power of the Church in the daytime, perhaps it will venture out at night; and I will even try a fall with it. So come, good people, and be comforted.’
So they sate together; and Father Thomas talked of many things, and told some old legends of saints; and they dined, though without much cheer; and still nothing appeared. Then, after dinner, Father Thomas would view the house. So he took his book up, and they went from room to room. On the ground floor there were several chambers not used, which they entered in turn, but saw nothing; on the upper floor was a large room where Master Grimston and his wife slept; and a further room for Henry, and a guest-chamber in which the priest was to sleep if need was; and a room where a servant-maid slept. And now the day began to darken and to turn to evening, and Father Thomas felt a shadow grow in his mind. There came into his head a verse of Scripture about a spirit who found a house ‘empty, swept and garnished’, and called his fellows to enter in.
At the end of the passage was a locked door; and Father Thomas said, ‘This is the last room – let us enter.’ ‘Nay, there is no need to do that,’ said Master Grimston in a kind of haste; ‘it leads nowhither – it is but a room of stores.’ ‘It were a pity to leave it unvisited,’ said the Father – and as he said the word, there came a kind of stirring from within. ‘A rat, doubtless,’ said the Father, striving with a sudden sense of fear; but the pale faces round him told another tale. ‘Come, Master Grimston, let us be done with this,’ said Father Thomas decisively; ‘the hour of vespers draws nigh.’ So Master Grimston slowly drew out a key and unlocked the door, and Father Thomas marched in. It was a simple place enough. There were shelves on which various household matters lay, boxes and jars, with twine and cordage. On the ground stood chests. There were some clothes hanging on pegs, and in a corner was a heap of garments, piled up. On one of the chests stood a box of rough deal, and from the corner of it dripped water, which lay in a little pool on the floor. Master Grimston went hurriedly to the box and pushed it further to the wall. As he did so, a kind of sound came from Henry’s lips. Father Thomas turned and looked at him; he stood pale and strengthless, his eyes fixed on the corner – at the same moment something dark and shapeless seemed to slip past the group, and there came to the nostrils of Father Thomas a strange sharp smell, as of the sea, only that there was a taint within it, like the smell of corruption.
They all turned and looked at Father Thomas together, as though seeking a comfort from his presence. He, hardly knowing what he did, and in the grasp of a terrible fear, fumbled with his book; and opening it, read the first words that his eye fell upon, which was the place where the Blessed Lord, beset with enemies, said that if He did but pray to His Father, He should send Him forthwith legions of angels to encompass Him. And the verse seemed to the priest so like a message sent instantly from heaven that he was not a little comforted.
But the thing, whatever the reason was, appeared to them no more at that time. Yet the thought of it lay very heavy on Father Thomas’s heart. In truth he had not in the bottom of his mind believed that he would see it, but had trusted in his honest life and his sacred calling to protect him. He could hardly speak for some minutes, – moreover the horror of the thing was very great – and seeing him so grave, their terrors were increased, though there was a kind of miserable joy in their minds that some one, and he a man of high repute, should suffer with them.
Then Father Thomas, after a pause – they were now in the parlour – said, speaking very slowly, that they were in a sore affliction of Satan, and that they must withstand him with a good courage – ‘And look you,’ he added, turning with a great sternness to the three, ‘if there be any mortal sin upon your hearts, see that you confess it and be shriven speedily – for while such a thing lies upon the heart, so long hath Satan power to hurt – otherwise have no fear at all.’
Then Father Thomas slipped out to the garden, and hearing the bell pulled for vespers, he went to the church, and the three would go with him, because they would not be left alone. So they went together; by this time the street was fuller, and the servant-maid had told tales, so that there was much talk in the place about what was going forward. None spoke with them as they went, but at every corner you might see one check another in talk, a silence fall upon a group, so that they knew that their terrors were on every tongue. There was but a handful of worshippers in the church, which was dark, save for the light on Father Thomas’s book. He read the holy service swiftly and courageously, but his face was very pale and grave in the light of the candle. When the vespers were over, and he had put off his robe, he said that he would go back to his house, and gather what he needed for the night, and that they should wait for him at the churchyard gate. So he strode off to his vicarage. But as he shut to the door, he saw a dark figure come running up the garden; he waited with a fear in his mind, but in a moment he saw that it was Henry, who came up breathless, and said that he must speak with the Father alone. Father Thomas knew that somewhat dark was to be told him. So he led Henry into the parlour and seated himself, and said, ‘Now, my son, speak boldly.’ So there was an instant’s silence, and Henry slipped on to his knees.
Then in a moment Henry with a sob began to tell his tale. He said that on the day of the wreck his father had roused him very early in the dawn, and had told him to put on his clothes and come silently, for he thought there was a wreck ashore. His father carried a spade in his hand, he knew not then why. They went down to the tide, which was moving out very fast, and left but an inch or two of water on the sands. There was but a little light, but, when they had walked a little, they saw the black hull of a ship before them, on the edge of the deeper water, the waves driving over it; and then all at once they came upon the body of a man lying on his face on the sand. There was no sign of life in him, but he clasped a bag in his hand that was heavy, and the pocket of his coat was full to bulging; and there lay, moreover, some glittering things about him that seemed to be coins. They lifted the body up, and his father stripped the coat off from the man, and then bade Henry dig a hole in the sand, which he presently did, though the sand and water oozed fast into it. Then his father, who had been stooping down, gathering somewhat up from the sand, raised the body up, and laid it in the hole, and bade Henry cover it. And so he did till it was nearly hidden. Then came a horrible thing; the sand in the hole began to move and stir, and presently a hand was put out with clutching fingers; and Henry had dropped the spade, and said, ‘There is life in him,’ but his father seized the spade, and shovelled the sand into the hole with a kind of silent fury, and trampled it over and smoothed it down – and then he gathered up the coat and the bag, and handed Henry the spade. By this time the town was astir, and they saw, very faintly, a man run along the shore eastward; so, making a long circuit to the west, they returned; his father had put the spade away and taken the coat upstairs; and then he went out with Henry, and told all he could find that there was a wreck ashore.
The priest heard the story with a fierce shame and anger, and turning to Henry he said, ‘But why did you not resist your father, and save the poor sailor?’ ‘I dared not,’ said Henry shuddering, ‘though I would have done so if I could; but my father has a power over me, and I am used to obey him.’ Then said the priest, ‘This is a dark matter. But you have told the story bravely, and now will I shrive you, my son.’ So he gave him shrift. Then he said to Henry, ‘And have you seen aught that would connect the beast that visits you with this thing?’ ‘Ay, that I have,’ said Henry, ‘for I watched it with my father skip and leap in the water over the place where the man lies buried.’ Then the priest said, ‘Your father must tell me the tale too, and he must make submission to the law.’ ‘He will not,’ said Henry. ‘Then I will compel him,’ said the priest. ‘Not out of my mouth,’ said Henry, ‘or he will slay me too.’ And then the priest said that he was in a strait place for he could not use the words of confession of one man to convict another of his sin. So he gathered his things in haste, and walked back to the church; but Henry went another way, saying, ‘I made excuse to come away, and said I went elsewhere; but I fear my father much – he sees very deep; and I would not have him suspect me of having made confession.’
Then the Father met the other two at the church gate; and they went down to the house in silence, the Father pondering heavily; and at the door Henry joined them, and it seemed to the Father that old Master Grimston regarded him not. So they entered the house in silence, and ate in silence, listening earnestly for any sound. And the Father looked oft on Master Grimston, who ate and drank and said nothing, never raising his eyes. But once the Father saw him laugh secretly to himself, so that the blood came cold in the Father’s veins, and he could hardly contain himself from accusing him. Then the Father had them to prayers, and prayed earnestly against the evil, and that they should open their hearts to God, if he would show them why this misery came upon them.
Then they went to bed; and Henry asked that he might lie in the priest’s room, which he willingly granted. And so the house was dark, and they made as though they would sleep; but the Father could not sleep, and he heard Henry weeping silently to himself like a little child.
But at last the Father slept – how long he knew not – and suddenly brake out of his sleep with a horror of darkness all about him, and knew that there was some evil thing abroad. He looked upon the room. He heard Henry mutter heavily in his sleep as though there was a dark terror upon him; and then, in the light of the dying embers, the Father saw a thing rise upon the hearth, as though it had slept there, and woken to stretch itself. And then in the half-light it seemed softly to gambol and play; but whereas when an innocent beast does this it seems a fond and pretty sight, the Father thought he had never seen so ugly a sight as the beast gambolling all by itself, as if it could not contain its own dreadful joy; it looked viler and more wicked every moment; then, too, there spread in the room the sharp scent of the sea, with the foul smell underneath it, that gave the Father a deadly sickness; he tried to pray, but no words would come, and he felt indeed that the evil was too strong for him. Presently the beast desisted from its play, and looking wickedly about it, came near to the Father’s bed, and seemed to put up its hairy forelegs upon it; he could see its narrow and obscene eyes, which burned with a dull yellow light, and were fixed upon him. And now the Father thought that his end was near, for he could stir neither hand nor foot, and the sweat rained down his brow; but he made a mighty effort, and in a voice which shocked himself, so dry and husky and withal of so loud and screaming a tone it was, he said three holy words. The beast gave a great quiver of rage, but it dropped down on the floor, and in a moment was gone. Then Henry woke, and raising himself on his arm, said somewhat; but there broke out in the house a great outcry and the stamping of feet, which seemed very fearful in the silence of the night. The priest leapt out of his bed all dizzy, and made a light, and ran to the door, and went out, crying whatever words came to his head. The door of Master Grimston’s room was open, and a strange and strangling sound came forth; the Father made his way in, and found Master Grimston lying upon the floor, his wife bending over him; he lay still, breathing pitifully, and every now and then a shudder ran through him. In the room there seemed a strange and shadowy tumult going forward; but the Father saw that no time could be lost, and kneeling down beside Master Grimston, he prayed with all his might.
Presently Master Grimston ceased to struggle and lay still, like a man who had come out of a sore conflict. Then he opened his eyes, and the Father stopped his prayers, and looking very hard at him he said, ‘My son, the time is very short – give God the glory.’ Then Master Grimston, rolling his haggard eyes upon the group, twice strove to speak and could not; but the third time the Father, bending down his head, heard him say in a thin voice, that seemed to float from a long way off, ‘I slew him … my sin.’ Then the Father swiftly gave him shrift, and as he said the last word, Master Grimston’s head fell over on the side, and the Father said, ‘He is gone.’ And Bridget broke out into a terrible cry, and fell upon Henry’s neck, who had entered unseen.
Then the Father bade him lead her away, and put the poor body on the bed; as he did so he noticed that the face of the dead man was strangely bruised and battered, as though it had been stamped upon by the hoofs of some beast. Then Father Thomas knelt, and prayed until the light came filtering in through the shutters and the cocks crowed in the village, and presently it was day. But that night the Father learnt strange secrets, and something of the dark purpose of God was revealed to him.
In the morning there came one to find the priest, and told him that another body had been thrown up on the shore, which was strangely smeared with sand, as though it had been rolled over and over in it; and the Father took order for its burial.
Then the priest had long talk with Bridget and Henry. He found them sitting together, and she held her son’s hand and smoothed his hair, as though he had been a little child; and Henry sobbed and wept, but Bridget was very calm. ‘He hath told me all,’ she said, ‘and we have decided that he shall do whatever you bid him; must he be given to justice?’ and she looked at the priest very pitifully. ‘Nay, nay,’ said the priest. ‘I hold not Henry to account for the death of the man; it was his father’s sin, who hath made heavy atonement – the secret shall be buried in our hearts.’
Then Bridget told him how she had waked suddenly out of her sleep, and heard her husband cry out; and that then followed a dreadful kind of struggling, with the scent of the sea over all; and then he had all at once fallen to the ground and she had gone to him – and that then the priest had come.
Then Father Thomas said with tears that God had shown them deep things and visited them very strangely; and they would henceforth live humbly in His sight, showing mercy.
Then lastly he went with Henry to the store-room; and there, in the box that had dripped with water, lay the coat of the dead man, full of money, and the bag of money too; and Henry would have cast it back into the sea, but the priest said that this might not be, but that it should be bestowed plentifully upon shipwrecked mariners unless the heirs should be found. But the ship appeared to be a foreign ship, and no search ever revealed whence the money had come, save that it seemed to have been violently come by.
Master Grimston was found to have left much wealth. But Bridget sold the house and the land, and it mostly went to rebuild the church to God’s glory. Then Bridget and Henry moved to the vicarage and served Father Thomas faithfully, and they guarded their secret. And beside the nave is a little high turret built, where burns a lamp in a lantern at the top, to give light to those at sea.
Now the beast troubled those of whom I write no more; but it is easier to raise up evil than to lay it; and there are those that say that to this day that a man or a woman with an evil thought in their hearts may see on a certain evening in November, at the ebb of the tide, a goatlike thing wade in the water, snuffing at the sand, as though it sought but found not. But of this I know nothing.
MR PERCIVAL’S TALE (#ub7144a74-5945-5c9d-b42e-54d02844188e)
R.H. Benson
When I came in from Mass into the refectory one morning, I found a layman breakfasting there with the Father Rector. We were introduced to one another, and I learned that Mr Percival was a barrister who had arrived from England that morning on a holiday and was to stay at S. Filippo for a fortnight.
I yield to none in my respect for the clergy; at the same time a layman feels occasionally something of a pariah among them: I suppose this is bound to be so; so I was pleased then to find another dog of my breed with whom I might consort, and even howl, if I so desired. I was pleased, too, with his appearance. He had that trim academic air that is characteristic of the Bar, in spite of his twenty-two hours journey; and was dressed in an excellently made grey suit. He was very slightly bald on his forehead, and had those sharp-cut mask-like features that mark a man as either lawyer, priest, or actor; he had besides delightful manners and even, white teeth. I do not think I could have suggested any improvements in person, behaviour, or costume.
By the time that my coffee had arrived, the Father Rector had run dry of conversation and I could see that he was relieved when I joined in.
In a few minutes I was telling Mr Percival about the symposium we had formed for the relating of preternatural adventures; and I presently asked him whether he had ever had any experience of the kind.
He shook his head.
‘I have not,’ he said in his virile voice; ‘my business takes my time.’
‘I wish you had been with us earlier,’ put in the Rector. ‘I think you would have been interested.’
‘I am sure of it,’ he said. ‘I remember once – but you know, Father, frankly I am something of a sceptic.’
‘You remember—?’ I suggested.
He smiled very pleasantly with eyes and mouth.
‘Yes, Mr Benson; I was once next door to such a story. A friend of mine saw something; but I was not with him at the moment.’
‘Well; we thought we had finished last night,’ I said, ‘but do you think you would be too tired to entertain us this evening?’
‘I shall be delighted to tell the story,’ he said easily. ‘But indeed I am a sceptic in this matter; I cannot dress it up.’
‘We want the naked fact,’ I said.
I went sight-seeing with him that day; and found him extremely intelligent and at the same time accurate. The two virtues do not run often together; and I felt confident that whatever he chose to tell us would be salient and true. I felt, too, that he would need few questions to draw him out; he would say what there was to be said unaided.
When we had taken our places that night, he began by again apologising for his attitude of mind.
‘I do not know, Reverend Fathers,’ he said, ‘what are your own theories in this matter; but it appears to me that if what seems to be preternatural can possibly be brought within the range of the natural, one is bound scientifically to treat it in that way. Now in this story of mine – for I will give you a few words of explanation first in order to prejudice your minds as much as possible – in this story the whole matter might be accounted for by the imagination. My friend who saw what he saw was under rather theatrical circumstances, and he is an Irishman. Besides that, he knew the history of the place in which he was; and he was quite alone. On the other hand, he has never had an experience of the kind before or since; he is perfectly truthful, and he saw what he saw in moderate daylight. I give you these facts first, and I think you would be perfectly justified in thinking they account for everything. As for my own theory, which is not quite that, I have no idea whether you will agree or disagree with it. I do not say that my judgment is the only sensible one, or anything offensive like that. I merely state what I feel I am bound to accept for the present.’
There was a murmur of assent. Then he crossed his legs, leaned back and began:
‘In my first summer after I was called to the Bar I went down South Wales for a holiday with another man who had been with me at Oxford. His name was Murphy: he is a J.P. now, in Ireland, I think. I cannot think why we went to South Wales; but there it is: we did.
‘We took the train to Cardiff; sent on our luggage up the Taff Valley to an inn of which I cannot remember the name; but it was close to where Lord Bute has a vineyard. Then we walked up to Llandaff, saw St Tylo’s tomb; and went on again to this village.
‘Next morning we thought we would look about us before going on; and we went out for a stroll. It was one of the most glorious mornings I ever remember, quite cloudless and very hot; and we went up through woods to get a breeze at the top of the hill.
‘We found that the whole place was full of iron mines, disused now, as the iron is richer further up the country; but I can tell you that they enormously improved the interest of the place. We found shaft after shaft, some protected and some not, but mostly overgrown with bushes, so we had to walk carefully. We had passed half-a-dozen, I should think, before the thought of going down one of them occurred to Murphy.
‘Well, we got down one at last; though I rather wished for a rope once or twice; and I think it was one of the most extraordinary sights I have ever seen. You know perhaps what the cave of a demon-king is like, in the first act of a pantomime. Well, it was like that. There was a kind of blue light that poured down the shafts, refracted from surface to surface; so that the sky was invisible. On all sides passages ran into total darkness; huge reddish rocks stood out fantastically everywhere in the pale light; there was a sound of water falling into a pool from a great height and presently, striking matches as we went, we came upon a couple of lakes of marvellously clear blue water through which we could see the heads of ladders emerging from other black holes of unknown depth below.
‘We found our way out after a while into what appeared to be the central hall of the mine. Here we saw plain daylight again, for there was an immense round opening at the top, from the edges of which curved away the sides of the shaft, forming a huge circular chamber.
‘Imagine the Albert Hall roofless; or better still, imagine Saint Peter’s with the top half of the dome removed. Of course it was far smaller; but it gave an impression of great size; and it could not have been less than two hundred feet from the edge, over which we saw the trees against the sky, to the tumbled dusty rocky floor where we stood.
‘I can only describe it as being like a great, burnt-out hell in the Inferno. Red dust lay everywhere, escape seemed impossible; and vast crags and galleries, with the mouths of passages showing high up, marked by iron bars and chains, jutted out here and there.
‘We amused ourselves here for some time, by climbing up the sides, calling to one another, for the whole place was full of echoes, rolling down stones from some of the upper ledges: but I nearly ended my days there.
‘I was standing on a path, about seventy feet up, leaning against the wall. It was a path along which feet must have gone a thousand times when the mine was in working order; and I was watching Murphy who was just emerging on to a platform opposite me, on the other side of the gulf.
‘I put my hand behind me to steady myself; and the next instant very nearly fell forward over the edge at the violent shock to my nerves given by a wood-pigeon who burst out of a hole, brushing my hand as he passed. I gripped on, however, and watched the bird soar out across space, and then up and out at the opening; and then I became aware that my knees were beginning to shake. So I stumbled along, and threw myself down on the little platform on to which the passage led.
‘I suppose I had been more startled than I knew; for I tripped as I went forward; and knocked my knee rather sharply on a stone. I felt for an instant quite sick with the pain on the top of jangling nerves; and lay there saying what I am afraid I ought not to have said.
‘Then Murphy came up when I called; and we made our way together through one of the sloping shafts; and came out on to the hillside among the trees.’
Mr Percival paused; his lips twitched a moment with amusement.
‘I am afraid I must recall my promise,’ he said. ‘I told you all this because I was anxious to give a reason for the feeling I had about the mine, and which I am bound to mention. I felt I never wanted to see the place again – yet in spite of what followed, I do not necessarily attribute my feelings to anything but the shock and the pain that I had had. You understand that?’
His bright eyes ran round our faces.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Monsignor sharply, ‘go on please, Mr Percival.’
‘Well then!’
The lawyer uncrossed his legs and replaced them the other way.
‘During lunch we told the landlady where we had been; and she begged us not to go there again. I told her that she might rest easy: my knee was beginning to swell. It was a wretched beginning to a walking tour.
‘It was not that, she said; but there had been a bad accident there. Four men had been killed there twenty years before by a fall of rock. That had been the last straw on the top of ill-success; and the mine had been abandoned.
‘We inquired as to the details; and it seemed that the accident had taken place in the central chamber locally called “The Cathedral”; and after a few more questions I understood.
‘“That was where you were, my friend,” I said to Murphy, “it was where you were when the bird flew out.”
‘He agreed with me; and presently when the woman was gone announced that he was going to the mine again to see the place. Well; I had no business to keep him dangling about. I couldn’t walk anywhere myself: so I advised him not to go on to that platform again; and presently he took a couple of candles from the sticks and went off. He promised to be back by four o’clock; and I settled down rather drearily to a pipe and some old magazines.
‘Naturally I fell sound asleep; it was a hot, drowsy afternoon and the magazines were dull. I awoke once or twice, and then slept again deeply.
‘I was awakened by the woman coming in to ask whether I would have tea; it was already five o’clock. I told her Yes. I was not in the least anxious about Murphy; he was a good climber, and therefore neither a coward nor a fool.
‘As tea came in I looked out of the window again, and saw him walking up to the path, covered with iron-dust, and a moment later I heard his step in the passage; and he came in.
‘Mrs What’s-her-name had gone out.
‘“Have you had a good time?” I asked.
‘He looked at me very oddly; and paused before he answered.
‘“Oh, yes,” he said; and put his cap and stick in a corner.
‘I knew Murphy.
‘“Well, why not?” I asked him, beginning to pour out tea.
‘He looked round at the door; then he sat down without noticing the cup I pushed across to him.
‘“My dear fellow,” he said. “I think I am going mad.”
‘Well; I forget what I said: but I understood that he was very much upset about something; and I suppose I said the proper kind of thing about his not being a qualified fool.
‘Then he told me his story.’
Mr Percival looked round at us again, still with that slight twitching of the lips that seemed to signify amusement.
‘Please remember—’ he began; and then broke off. ‘No – I won’t—
‘Well.
‘He had gone down the same shaft that we went down in the morning; and had spent a couple of hours exploring the passages. He had found an engine-room with tanks and rotten beams in it, and rusty chains. He had found some more lakes too, full of that extraordinary electric-blue water; he had disturbed a quantity of bats somewhere else. Then he had come out again into the central hall; and on looking at his watch had found it after four o’clock; so he thought he would climb up by the way we had come in the morning and go straight home.
‘It was as he climbed that his odd sensations began. As he went up, clinging with his hands, he became perfectly certain that he was being watched. He couldn’t turn round very well; but he looked up as he went to the opening overhead; but there was nothing there but the dead blue sky, and the trees very green against it, and the red rocks curving away on every side. It was extraordinarily quiet, he said, the pigeons had not come home from feeding, and he was out of hearing of the dripping water that I told you of.
‘Then he reached the platform and the opening of the path where I had had my fright in the morning; and turned round to look.
‘At first he saw nothing peculiar. The rocks up which he had come fell away at his feet down to the floor of the “Cathedral” and to the nettles with which he had stung his hands a minute or two before. He looked around at the galleries overhead and opposite; but there was nothing there.
‘Then he looked across at the platform where he had been in the morning and where the accident had taken place.
‘Let me tell you what this was like. It was about twenty yards in breadth, and ten deep; but lay irregular, and filled with tumbled rocks. It was a little below the level of his eyes, right across the gulf; and, in a straight line, would be about fifty or sixty yards away. It lay under the roof, rather retired, so that no light from the sky fell directly on to it; it would have been in complete twilight if it hadn’t been for a smaller shaft above it, which shot down a funnel of bluish light, exactly like a stage-effect. You see, Reverend Fathers, it was very theatrical altogether. That might account no doubt—’
Mr Percival broke off again, smiling.
‘I am always forgetting,’ he said. ‘Well, we must go back to Murphy. At first he saw nothing but the rocks, and the thick red dust, and the broken wall behind it. He was very honest, and told me that as he looked at it, he remembered distinctly what the landlady had told us at lunch. It was on that little stage that the tragedy had happened.
‘Then he became aware that something was moving among the rocks, and he became perfectly certain that people were looking at him; but it was too dusky to see very clearly at first. Whatever it was, was in the shadows at the back. He fixed his eyes on what was moving. Then this happened.’
The lawyer stopped again.
‘I will tell you the rest,’ he said, ‘in his own words, so far as I remember them.
‘“I was looking at this moving thing,” he said, “which seemed exactly of the red colour of the rocks, when it suddenly came out under the funnel of light; and I saw it was a man. He was in a rough suit, all iron-stained; with a rusty cap; and he had some kind of pick in his hand. He stopped first in the centre of the light, with his back turned to me, and stood there, looking. I cannot say that I was consciously frightened; I honestly do not know what I thought he was. I think that my whole mind was taken up in watching him.
‘“Then he turned round slowly, and I saw his face. Then I became aware that if he looked at me I should go into hysterics or something of the sort; and I crouched down as low as I could. But he didn’t look at me; he was attending to something else; and I could see his face quite clearly. He had a beard and moustache, rather ragged and rusty; he was rather pale, but not particularly: I judged him to be about thirty-five.” Of course,’ went on the lawyer, ‘Murphy didn’t tell it me quite as I am telling it to you. He stopped a good deal, he drank a sip of tea once or twice, and changed his feet about.
‘Well; he had seen this man’s face very clearly; and described it very clearly.
