the man had gone just as a figure goes out of a dream, causing no
surprise and leaving me as part and parcel of the same dream without
breaking of continuity. But, as soon as I had paid my bill and thus
resumed in very practical fashion the thread of my normal consciousness,
I turned to the girl and asked her if she knew the old man who had been
sitting in the window seat, and what he had meant by the Wood of the
Dead.
The maiden started visibly, glancing quickly round the empty room, but
answering simply that she had seen no one. I described him in great
detail, and then, as the description grew clearer, she turned a little
pale under her pretty sunburn and said very gravely that it must have
been the ghost.
"Ghost! What ghost?"
"Oh, the village ghost," she said quietly, coming closer to my chair
with a little nervous movement of genuine alarm, and adding in a lower
voice, "He comes before a death, they say!"
It was not difficult to induce the girl to talk, and the story she told
me, shorn of the superstition that had obviously gathered with the years
round the memory of a strangely picturesque figure, was an interesting
and peculiar one.
The inn, she said, was originally a farmhouse, occupied by a yeoman
farmer, evidently of a superior, if rather eccentric, character, who had
been very poor until he reached old age, when a son died suddenly in
the Colonies and left him an unexpected amount of money, almost a
fortune.
The old man thereupon altered no whit his simple manner of living, but
devoted his income entirely to the improvement of the village and to the
assistance of its inhabitants; he did this quite regardless of his
personal likes and dislikes, as if one and all were absolutely alike to
him, objects of a genuine and impersonal benevolence. People had always
been a little afraid of the man, not understanding his eccentricities,
but the simple force of this love for humanity changed all that in a
very short space of time; and before he died he came to be known as the
Father of the Village and was held in great love and veneration by all.
A short time before his end, however, he began to act queerly. He spent
his money just as usefully and wisely, but the shock of sudden wealth
after a life of poverty, people said, had unsettled his mind. He claimed
to see things that others did not see, to hear voices, and to have
visions. Evidently, he was not of the harmless, foolish, visionary
order, but a man of character and of great personal force, for the
people became divided in their opinions, and the vicar, good man,
regarded and treated him as a "special case." For many, his name and
atmosphere became charged almost with a spiritual influence that was
not of the best. People quoted texts about him; kept when possible out
of his way, and avoided his house after dark. None understood him, but
though the majority loved him, an element of dread and mystery became
associated with his name, chiefly owing to the ignorant gossip of the
few.
A grove of pine trees behind the farm--the girl pointed them out to me
on the slope of the hill--he said was the Wood of the Dead, because just
before anyone died in the village he saw them walk into that wood,
singing. None who went in ever came out again. He often mentioned the
names to his wife, who usually published them to all the inhabitants
within an hour of her husband's confidence; and it was found that the
people he had seen enter the wood--died. On warm summer nights he would
sometimes take an old stick and wander out, hatless, under the pines,
for he loved this wood, and used to say he met all his old friends
there, and would one day walk in there never to return. His wife tried
to break him gently off this habit, but he always had his own way; and
once, when she followed and found him standing under a great pine in the
thickest portion of the grove, talking earnestly to someone she could
not see, he turned and rebuked her very gently, but in such a way that
she never repeated the experiment, saying--
"You should never interrupt me, Mary, when I am talking with the others;
for they teach me, remember, wonderful things, and I must learn all I
can before I go to join them."
This story went like wild-fire through the village, increasing with
every repetition, until at length everyone was able to give an accurate
description of the great veiled figures the woman declared she had seen
moving among the trees where her husband stood. The innocent pine-grove
now became positively haunted, and the title of "Wood of the Dead" clung
naturally as if it had been applied to it in the ordinary course of
events by the compilers of the Ordnance Survey.
On the evening of his ninetieth birthday the old man went up to his wife
and kissed her. His manner was loving, and very gentle, and there was
something about him besides, she declared afterwards, that made her
slightly in awe of him and feel that he was almost more of a spirit than
a man.
He kissed her tenderly on both cheeks, but his eyes seemed to look
right through her as he spoke.
"Dearest wife," he said, "I am saying good-bye to you, for I am now
going into the Wood of the Dead, and I shall not return. Do not follow
me, or send to search, but be ready soon to come upon the same journey
yourself."
The good woman burst into tears and tried to hold him, but he easily
slipped from her hands, and she was afraid to follow him. Slowly she saw
him cross the field in the sunshine, and then enter the cool shadows of
the grove, where he disappeared from her sight.
That same night, much later, she woke to find him lying peacefully by
her side in bed, with one arm stretched out towards her, _dead_. Her
story was half believed, half doubted at the time, but in a very few
years afterwards it evidently came to be accepted by all the
countryside. A funeral service was held to which the people flocked in
great numbers, and everyone approved of the sentiment which led the
widow to add the words, "The Father of the Village," after the usual
texts which appeared upon the stone over his grave.
This, then, was the story I pieced together of the village ghost as the
little inn-keeper's daughter told it to me that afternoon in the
parlour of the inn.
"But you're not the first to say you've seen him," the girl concluded;
"and your description is just what we've always heard, and that window,
they say, was just where he used to sit and think, and think, when he
was alive, and sometimes, they say, to cry for hours together."
"And would you feel afraid if you had seen him?" I asked, for the girl
seemed strangely moved and interested in the whole story.
"I think so," she answered timidly. "Surely, if he spoke to me. He did
speak to _you_, didn't he, sir?" she asked after a slight pause.
"He said he had come for someone."
"Come for someone," she repeated. "Did he say--" she went on
falteringly.
"No, he did not say for whom," I said quickly, noticing the sudden
shadow on her face and the tremulous voice.
"Are you really sure, sir?"
"Oh, quite sure," I answered cheerfully. "I did not even ask him." The
girl looked at me steadily for nearly a whole minute as though there
were many things she wished to tell me or to ask. But she said nothing,
and presently picked up her tray from the table and walked slowly out
of the room.
Instead of keeping to my original purpose and pushing on to the next
village over the hills, I ordered a room to be prepared for me at the
inn, and that afternoon I spent wandering about the fields and lying
under the fruit trees, watching the white clouds sailing out over the
sea. The Wood of the Dead I surveyed from a distance, but in the village
I visited the stone erected to the memory of the "Father of the
Village"--who was thus, evidently, no mythical personage--and saw also
the monuments of his fine unselfish spirit: the schoolhouse he built,
the library, the home for the aged poor, and the tiny hospital.
That night, as the clock in the church tower was striking half-past
eleven, I stealthily left the inn and crept through the dark orchard and
over the hayfield in the direction of the hill whose southern slope was
clothed with the Wood of the Dead. A genuine interest impelled me to the
adventure, but I also was obliged to confess to a certain sinking in my
heart as I stumbled along over the field in the darkness, for I was
approaching what might prove to be the birth-place of a real country
myth, and a spot already lifted by the imaginative thoughts of a
considerable number of people into the region of the haunted and
ill-omened.
The inn lay below me, and all round it the village clustered in a soft
black shadow unrelieved by a single light. The night was moonless, yet
distinctly luminous, for the stars crowded the sky. The silence of deep
slumber was everywhere; so still, indeed, that every time my foot kicked
against a stone I thought the sound must be heard below in the village
and waken the sleepers.
I climbed the hill slowly, thinking chiefly of the strange story of the
noble old man who had seized the opportunity to do good to his fellows
the moment it came his way, and wondering why the causes that operate
ceaselessly behind human life did not always select such admirable
instruments. Once or twice a night-bird circled swiftly over my head,
but the bats had long since gone to rest, and there was no other sign of
life stirring.
Then, suddenly, with a singular thrill of emotion, I saw the first trees
of the Wood of the Dead rise in front of me in a high black wall. Their
crests stood up like giant spears against the starry sky; and though
there was no perceptible movement of the air on my cheek I heard a
faint, rushing sound among their branches as the night breeze passed to
and fro over their countless little needles. A remote, hushed murmur
rose overhead and died away again almost immediately; for in these trees
the wind seems to be never absolutely at rest, and on the calmest day
there is always a sort of whispering music among their branches.
For a moment I hesitated on the edge of this dark wood, and listened
intently. Delicate perfumes of earth and bark stole out to meet me.
Impenetrable darkness faced me. Only the consciousness that I was
obeying an order, strangely given, and including a mighty privilege,
enabled me to find the courage to go forward and step in boldly under
the trees.
Instantly the shadows closed in upon me and "something" came forward to
meet me from the centre of the darkness. It would be easy enough to meet
my imagination half-way with fact, and say that a cold hand grasped my
own and led me by invisible paths into the unknown depths of the grove;
but at any rate, without stumbling, and always with the positive
knowledge that I was going straight towards the desired object, I
pressed on confidently and securely into the wood. So dark was it that,
at first, not a single star-beam pierced the roof of branches overhead;
and, as we moved forward side by side, the trees shifted silently past
us in long lines, row upon row, squadron upon squadron, like the units
of a vast, soundless army.
And, at length, we came to a comparatively open space where the trees
halted upon us for a while, and, looking up, I saw the white river of
the sky beginning to yield to the influence of a new light that now
seemed spreading swiftly across the heavens.
"It is the dawn coming," said the voice at my side that I certainly
recognised, but which seemed almost like a whispering from the trees,
"and we are now in the heart of the Wood of the Dead."
We seated ourselves on a moss-covered boulder and waited the coming of
the sun. With marvellous swiftness, it seemed to me, the light in the
east passed into the radiance of early morning, and when the wind awoke
and began to whisper in the tree tops, the first rays of the risen sun
fell between the trunks and rested in a circle of gold at our feet.
"Now, come with me," whispered my companion in the same deep voice, "for
time has no existence here, and that which I would show you is already
_there_!"
We trod gently and silently over the soft pine needles. Already the sun
was high over our heads, and the shadows of the trees coiled closely
about their feet. The wood became denser again, but occasionally we
passed through little open bits where we could smell the hot sunshine
and the dry, baked pine needles. Then, presently, we came to the edge of
the grove, and I saw a hayfield lying in the blaze of day, and two
horses basking lazily with switching tails in the shafts of a laden
hay-waggon.
So complete and vivid was the sense of reality, that I remember the
grateful realisation of the cool shade where we sat and looked out upon
the hot world beyond.
The last pitchfork had tossed up its fragrant burden, and the great
horses were already straining in the shafts after the driver, as he
walked slowly in front with one hand upon their bridles. He was a
stalwart fellow, with sunburned neck and hands. Then, for the first
time, I noticed, perched aloft upon the trembling throne of hay, the
figure of a slim young girl. I could not see her face, but her brown
hair escaped in disorder from a white sun-bonnet, and her still browner
hands held a well-worn hay rake. She was laughing and talking with the
driver, and he, from time to time, cast up at her ardent glances of
admiration--glances that won instant smiles and soft blushes in
response.
The cart presently turned into the roadway that skirted the edge of the
wood where we were sitting. I watched the scene with intense interest
and became so much absorbed in it that I quite forgot the manifold,
strange steps by which I was permitted to become a spectator.
"Come down and walk with me," cried the young fellow, stopping a moment
in front of the horses and opening wide his arms. "Jump! and I'll catch
you!"
"Oh, oh," she laughed, and her voice sounded to me as the happiest,
merriest laughter I had ever heard from a girl's throat. "Oh, oh! that's
all very well. But remember I'm Queen of the Hay, and I must ride!"
"Then I must come and ride beside you," he cried, and began at once to
climb up by way of the driver's seat. But, with a peal of silvery
laughter, she slipped down easily over the back of the hay to escape
him, and ran a little way along the road. I could see her quite clearly,
and noticed the charming, natural grace of her movements, and the
loving expression in her eyes as she looked over her shoulder to make
sure he was following. Evidently, she did not wish to escape for long,
certainly not for ever.
In two strides the big, brown swain was after her, leaving the horses to
do as they pleased. Another second and his arms would have caught the
slender waist and pressed the little body to his heart. But, just at
that instant, the old man beside me uttered a peculiar cry. It was low
and thrilling, and it went through me like a sharp sword.
HE had called her by her own name--and she had heard.
For a second she halted, glancing back with frightened eyes. Then, with
a brief cry of despair, the girl swerved aside and dived in swiftly
among the shadows of the trees.
But the young man saw the sudden movement and cried out to her
passionately--
"Not that way, my love! Not that way! It's the Wood of the Dead!"
She threw a laughing glance over her shoulder at him, and the wind
caught her hair and drew it out in a brown cloud under the sun. But the
next minute she was close beside me, lying on the breast of my
companion, and I was certain I heard the words repeatedly uttered with
many sighs: "Father, you called, and I have come. And I come willingly,
for I am very, very tired."
At any rate, so the words sounded to me, and mingled with them I seemed
to catch the answer in that deep, thrilling whisper I already knew: "And
you shall sleep, my child, sleep for a long, long time, until it is time
for you to begin the journey again."
In that brief second of time I had recognised the face and voice of the
inn-keeper's daughter, but the next minute a dreadful wail broke from
the lips of the young man, and the sky grew suddenly as dark as night,
the wind rose and began to toss the branches about us, and the whole
scene was swallowed up in a wave of utter blackness.
Again the chill fingers seemed to seize my hand, and I was guided by the
way I had come to the edge of the wood, and crossing the hayfield still
slumbering in the starlight, I crept back to the inn and went to bed.
A year later I happened to be in the same part of the country, and the
memory of the strange summer vision returned to me with the added
softness of distance. I went to the old village and had tea under the
same orchard trees at the same inn.
But the little maid of the inn did not show her face, and I took
occasion to enquire of her father as to her welfare and her whereabouts.
"Married, no doubt," I laughed, but with a strange feeling that clutched
at my heart.
"No, sir," replied the inn-keeper sadly, "not married--though she was
just going to be--but dead. She got a sunstroke in the hayfields, just a
few days after you were here, if I remember rightly, and she was gone
from us in less than a week."
SMITH: AN EPISODE IN A LODGING-HOUSE
"When I was a medical student," began the doctor, half turning towards
his circle of listeners in the firelight, "I came across one or two very
curious human beings; but there was one fellow I remember particularly,
for he caused me the most vivid, and I think the most uncomfortable,
emotions I have ever known.
"For many months I knew Smith only by name as the occupant of the floor
above me. Obviously his name meant nothing to me. Moreover I was busy
with lectures, reading, cliniques and the like, and had little leisure
to devise plans for scraping acquaintance with any of the other lodgers
in the house. Then chance brought us curiously together, and this fellow
Smith left a deep impression upon me as the result of our first meeting.
At the time the strength of this first impression seemed quite
inexplicable to me, but looking back at the episode now from a
stand-point of greater knowledge I judge the fact to have been that he
stirred my curiosity to an unusual degree, and at the same time awakened
my sense of horror--whatever that may be in a medical student--about as
deeply and permanently as these two emotions were capable of being
stirred at all in the particular system and set of nerves called ME.
"How he knew that I was interested in the study of languages was
something I could never explain, but one day, quite unannounced, he came
quietly into my room in the evening and asked me point-blank if I knew
enough Hebrew to help him in the pronunciation of certain words.
"He caught me along the line of least resistance, and I was greatly
flattered to be able to give him the desired information; but it was
only when he had thanked me and was gone that I realised I had been in
the presence of an unusual individuality. For the life of me I could not
quite seize and label the peculiarities of what I felt to be a very
striking personality, but it was borne in upon me that he was a man
apart from his fellows, a mind that followed a line leading away from
ordinary human intercourse and human interests, and into regions that
left in his atmosphere something remote, rarefied, chilling.
"The moment he was gone I became conscious of two things--an intense
curiosity to know more about this man and what his real interests were,
and secondly, the fact that my skin was crawling and that my hair had a
tendency to rise."
The doctor paused a moment here to puff hard at his pipe, which,
however, had gone out beyond recall without the assistance of a match;
and in the deep silence, which testified to the genuine interest of his
listeners, someone poked the fire up into a little blaze, and one or two
others glanced over their shoulders into the dark distances of the big
hall.
"On looking back," he went on, watching the momentary flames in the
grate, "I see a short, thick-set man of perhaps forty-five, with immense
shoulders and small, slender hands. The contrast was noticeable, for I
remember thinking that such a giant frame and such slim finger bones
hardly belonged together. His head, too, was large and very long, the
head of an idealist beyond all question, yet with an unusually strong
development of the jaw and chin. Here again was a singular
contradiction, though I am better able now to appreciate its full
meaning, with a greater experience in judging the values of
physiognomy. For this meant, of course, an enthusiastic idealism
balanced and kept in check by will and judgment--elements usually
deficient in dreamers and visionaries.
"At any rate, here was a being with probably a very wide range of
possibilities, a machine with a pendulum that most likely had an unusual
length of swing.
"The man's hair was exceedingly fine, and the lines about his nose and
mouth were cut as with a delicate steel instrument in wax. His eyes I
have left to the last. They were large and quite changeable, not in
colour only, but in character, size, and shape. Occasionally they seemed
the eyes of someone else, if you can understand what I mean, and at the
same time, in their shifting shades of blue, green, and a nameless sort
of dark grey, there was a sinister light in them that lent to the whole
face an aspect almost alarming. Moreover, they were the most luminous
optics I think I have ever seen in any human being.
"There, then, at the risk of a wearisome description, is Smith as I saw
him for the first time that winter's evening in my shabby student's
rooms in Edinburgh. And yet the real part of him, of course, I have
left untouched, for it is both indescribable and un-get-atable. I have
spoken already of an atmosphere of warning and aloofness he carried
about with him. It is impossible further to analyse the series of little
shocks his presence always communicated to my being; but there was that
about him which made me instantly on the _qui vive_ in his presence,
every nerve alert, every sense strained and on the watch. I do not mean
that he deliberately suggested danger, but rather that he brought forces
in his wake which automatically warned the nervous centres of my system
to be on their guard and alert.
"Since the days of my first acquaintance with this man I have lived
through other experiences and have seen much I cannot pretend to explain
or understand; but, so far in my life, I have only once come across a
human being who suggested a disagreeable familiarity with unholy things,
and who made me feel uncanny and 'creepy' in his presence; and that
unenviable individual was Mr. Smith.
"What his occupation was during the day I never knew. I think he slept
until the sun set. No one ever saw him on the stairs, or heard him move
in his room during the day. He was a creature of the shadows, who
apparently preferred darkness to light. Our landlady either knew
nothing, or would say nothing. At any rate she found no fault, and I
have since wondered often by what magic this fellow was able to convert
a common landlady of a common lodging-house into a discreet and
uncommunicative person. This alone was a sign of genius of some sort.
"'He's been here with me for years--long before you come, an' I don't
interfere or ask no questions of what doesn't concern me, as long as
people pays their rent,' was the only remark on the subject that I ever
succeeded in winning from that quarter, and it certainly told me nothing
nor gave me any encouragement to ask for further information.
"Examinations, however, and the general excitement of a medical
student's life for a time put Mr. Smith completely out of my head. For a
long period he did not call upon me again, and for my part, I felt no
courage to return his unsolicited visit.
"Just then, however, there came a change in the fortunes of those who
controlled my very limited income, and I was obliged to give up my
ground-floor and move aloft to more modest chambers on the top of the
house. Here I was directly over Smith, and had to pass his door to
reach my own.
"It so happened that about this time I was frequently called out at all
hours of the night for the maternity cases which a fourth-year student
takes at a certain period of his studies, and on returning from one of
these visits at about two o'clock in the morning I was surprised to hear
the sound of voices as I passed his door. A peculiar sweet odour, too,
not unlike the smell of incense, penetrated into the passage.