said, “Ah yes, they’re old-fashioned places, ain’t they, sir? Now, what
would you think was the purpose of them?” And my father said (now, dear
me, it seems funny doesn’t it, that I should recollect all this: but
it took my fancy at the time, and though it’s dull perhaps for you, I
can’t help finishing it out now), well, he said, “Why, I’ve heard, Mr
Davis, that they’re all graves, and I know, when I’ve had occasion to
plough up one, there’s always been some old bones and pots turned up.
But whose graves they are, I don’t know: people say the ancient Romans
were all about this country at one time, but whether they buried their
people like that I can’t tell.” And Mr Davis shook his head, thinking,
and said, “Ah, to be sure: well they look to me to be older-like than
the ancient Romans, and dressed different--that’s to say, according
to the pictures the Romans was in armour, and you didn’t never find
no armour, did you, sir, by what you said?” And my father was rather
surprised and said, “I don’t know that I mentioned anything about
armour, but it’s true I don’t remember to have found any. But you talk
as if you’d seen ’em, Mr Davis,” and they both of them laughed, Mr
Davis and the young man, and Mr Davis said, “Seen ’em, sir? that would
be a difficult matter after all these years. Not but what I should like
well enough to know more about them old times and people, and what
they worshipped and all.” And my father said, “Worshipped? Well, I dare
say they worshipped the old man on the hill.” “Ah, indeed!” Mr Davis
said, “well, I shouldn’t wonder,” and my father went on and told them
what he’d heard and read about the heathens and their sacrifices: what
you’ll learn some day for yourself, Charles, when you go to school and
begin your Latin. And they seemed to be very much interested, both of
them; but my father said he couldn’t help thinking the most of what he
was saying was no news to them. That was the only time he ever had much
talk with Mr Davis, and it stuck in his mind, particularly, he said,
the young man’s word about _not wanting for company_: because in those
days there was a lot of talk in the villages round about--why, but for
my father interfering, the people here would have ducked an old lady
for a witch.
_Charles_: What does that mean, granny, ducked an old lady for a witch?
Are there witches here now?
_Grandmother_: No, no, dear! why, what ever made me stray off like
that? No, no, that’s quite another affair. What I was going to say was
that the people in other places round about believed that some sort
of meetings went on at night-time on that hill where the man is, and
that those who went there were up to no good. But don’t you interrupt
me now, for it’s getting late. Well, I suppose it was a matter of
three years that Mr Davis and this young man went on living together:
and then all of a sudden, a dreadful thing happened. I don’t know if
I ought to tell you. (_Outcries of_ “Oh yes! yes, granny, you must,”
etc.), Well, then, you must promise not to get frightened and go
screaming out in the middle of the night. (“No, no, we won’t, of course
not!”) One morning very early towards the turn of the year, I think it
was in September, one of the woodmen had to go up to his work at the
top of the long covert just as it was getting light; and just where
there were some few big oaks in a sort of clearing deep in the wood
he saw at a distance a white thing that looked like a man through the
mist, and he was in two minds about going on, but go on he did, and
made out as he came near that it _was_ a man, and more than that, it
was Mr Davis’s young man: dressed in a sort of white gown he was, and
hanging by his neck to the limb of the biggest oak, quite, quite dead:
and near his feet there lay on the ground a hatchet all in a gore of
blood. Well, what a terrible sight that was for anyone to come upon in
that lonely place! This poor man was nearly out of his wits: he dropped
everything he was carrying and ran as hard as ever he could straight
down to the Parsonage, and woke them up and told what he’d seen. And
old Mr White, who was the parson then, sent him off to get two or three
of the best men, the blacksmith and the churchwardens and what not,
while he dressed himself, and all of them went up to this dreadful
place with a horse to lay the poor body on and take it to the house.
When they got there, everything was just as the woodman had said: but
it was a terrible shock to them all to see how the corpse was dressed,
specially to old Mr White, for it seemed to him to be like a mockery of
the church surplice that was on it, only, he told my father, not the
same in the fashion of it. And when they came to take down the body
from the oak-tree they found there was a chain of some metal round the
neck and a little ornament like a wheel hanging to it on the front,
and it was very old looking, they said. Now in the meantime they had
sent off a boy to run to Mr Davis’s house and see whether he was at
home; for of course they couldn’t but have their suspicions. And Mr
White said they must send too to the constable of the next parish, and
get a message to another magistrate (he was a magistrate himself), and
so there was running hither and thither. But my father as it happened
was away from home that night, otherwise they would have fetched him
first. So then they laid the body across the horse, and they say it was
all they could manage to keep the beast from bolting away from the time
they were in sight of the tree, for it seemed to be mad with fright.
However, they managed to bind the eyes and lead it down through the
wood and back into the village street; and there, just by the big tree
where the stocks are, they found a lot of the women gathered together,
and this boy whom they’d sent to Mr Davis’s house lying in the middle,
as white as paper, and not a word could they get out of him, good or
bad. So they saw there was something worse yet to come, and they made
the best of their way up the lane to Mr Davis’s house. And when they
got near that, the horse they were leading seemed to go mad again with
fear, and reared up and screamed, and struck out with its forefeet and
the man that was leading it was as near as possible being killed, and
the dead body fell off its back. So Mr White bid them get the horse
away as quick as might be, and they carried the body straight into the
living-room, for the door stood open. And then they saw what it was
that had given the poor boy such a fright, and they guessed why the
horse went mad, for you know horses can’t bear the smell of dead blood.
There was a long table in the room, more than the length of a man, and
on it there lay the body of Mr Davis. The eyes were bound over with a
linen band and the arms were tied across the back, and the feet were
bound together with another band. But the fearful thing was that the
breast being quite bare, the bone of it was split through from the top
downwards with an axe! Oh, it was a terrible sight; not one there but
turned faint and ill with it, and had to go out into the fresh air.
Even Mr White, who was what you might call a hard nature of a man, was
quite overcome and said a prayer for strength in the garden.
At last they laid out the other body as best they could in the room,
and searched about to see if they could find out how such a frightful
thing had come to pass. And in the cupboards they found a quantity
of herbs and jars with liquors, and it came out, when people that
understood such matters had looked into it, that some of these liquors
were drinks to put a person asleep. And they had little doubt that that
wicked young man had put some of this into Mr Davis’s drink, and then
used him as he did, and, after that, the sense of his sin had come upon
him and he had cast himself away.
Well now, you couldn’t understand all the law business that had to be
done by the coroner and the magistrates; but there was a great coming
and going of people over it for the next day or two, and then the
people of the parish got together and agreed that they couldn’t bear
the thought of these two being buried in the churchyard alongside of
Christian people; for I must tell you there were papers and writings
found in the drawers and cupboards that Mr White and some other
clergymen looked into; and they put their names to a paper that said
these men were guilty, by their own allowing, of the dreadful sin of
idolatry; and they feared there were some in the neighbouring places
that were not free from that wickedness, and called upon them to
repent, lest the same fearful thing that was come to these men should
befall them also; and then they burnt those writings. So then, Mr White
was of the same mind as the parishioners, and late one evening twelve
men that were chosen went with him to that evil house, and with them
they took two biers made very roughly for the purpose and two pieces of
black cloth, and down at the cross-road, where you take the turn for
Bascombe and Wilcombe, there were other men waiting with torches, and a
pit dug, and a great crowd of people gathered together from all round
about. And the men that went to the cottage went in with their hats
on their heads, and four of them took the two bodies and laid them on
the biers and covered them over with the black cloths, and no one said
a word, but they bore them down the lane, and they were cast into the
pit and covered over with stones and earth, and then Mr White spoke to
the people that were gathered together. My father was there, for he had
come back when he heard the news, and he said he never should forget
the strangeness of the sight, with the torches burning and those two
black things huddled together in the pit, and not a sound from any of
the people, except it might be a child or a woman whimpering with the
fright. And so, when Mr White had finished speaking, they all turned
away and left them lying there.
They say horses don’t like the spot even now, and I’ve heard there
was something of a mist or a light hung about for a long time after,
but I don’t know the truth of that. But this I do know, that next day
my father’s business took him past the opening of the lane, and he saw
three or four little knots of people standing at different places along
it, seemingly in a state of mind about something; and he rode up to
them, and asked what was the matter. And they ran up to him and said,
“Oh, Squire, it’s the blood! Look at the blood!” and kept on like that.
So he got off his horse and they showed him, and there, in four places,
I think it was, he saw great patches in the road, of blood: but he
could hardly see it was blood, for almost every spot of it was covered
with great black flies, that never changed their place or moved. And
that blood was what had fallen out of Mr Davis’s body as they bore it
down the lane. Well, my father couldn’t bear to do more than just take
in the nasty sight so as to be sure of it, and then he said to one of
those men that was there, “Do you make haste and fetch a basket or a
barrow full of clean earth out of the churchyard and spread it over
these places, and I’ll wait here till you come back.” And very soon he
came back, and the old man that was sexton with him, with a shovel and
the earth in a hand-barrow: and they set it down at the first of the
places and made ready to cast the earth upon it; and as soon as ever
they did that, what do you think? the flies that were on it rose up in
the air in a kind of a solid cloud and moved off up the lane towards
the house, and the sexton (he was parish clerk as well) stopped and
looked at them and said to my father, “Lord of flies, sir,” and no more
would he say. And just the same it was at the other places, every one
of them.
_Charles_: But what did he mean, granny?
_Grandmother_: Well, dear, you remember to ask Mr Lucas when you go to
him for your lesson to-morrow. I can’t stop now to talk about it: it’s
long past bed-time for you already. The next thing was, my father made
up his mind no one was going to live in that cottage again, or yet use
any of the things that were in it: so, though it was one of the best in
the place, he sent round word to the people that it was to be done away
with, and anyone that wished could bring a faggot to the burning of it;
and that’s what was done. They built a pile of wood in the living-room
and loosened the thatch so as the fire could take good hold, and then
set it alight; and as there was no brick, only the chimney-stack and
the oven, it wasn’t long before it was all gone. I seem to remember
seeing the chimney when I was a little girl, but that fell down of
itself at last.
Now this that I’ve got to is the last bit of all. You may be sure that
for a long time the people said Mr Davis and that young man were seen
about, the one of them in the wood and both of them where the house had
been, or passing together down the lane, particularly in the spring of
the year and at autumn-time. I can’t speak to that, though if we were
sure there are such things as ghosts, it would seem likely that people
like that wouldn’t rest quiet. But I can tell you this, that one
evening in the month of March, just before your grandfather and I were
married, we’d been taking a long walk in the woods together and picking
flowers and talking as young people will that are courting; and so
much taken up with each other that we never took any particular notice
where we were going. And on a sudden I cried out, and your grandfather
asked what was the matter. The matter was that I’d felt a sharp prick
on the back of my hand, and I snatched it to me and saw a black thing
on it, and struck it with the other hand and killed it. And I showed it
him, and he was a man who took notice of all such things, and he said,
“Well, I’ve never seen ought like that fly before,” and though to my
own eye it didn’t seem very much out of the common, I’ve no doubt he
was right.
And then we looked about us and lo and behold if we weren’t in the
very lane, just in front of the place where that house had stood, and,
as they told me after, just where the men set down the biers a minute
when they bore them out of the garden gate. You may be sure we made
haste away from there; at least, I made your grandfather come away
quick, for I was wholly upset at finding myself there; but he would
have lingered about out of curiosity if I’d have let him. Whether
there was anything about there more than we could see I shall never be
sure: perhaps it was partly the venom of that horrid fly’s bite that
was working in me that made me feel so strange; for, dear me, how that
poor arm and hand of mine did swell up, to be sure! I’m afraid to tell
you how large it was round! and the pain of it, too! Nothing my mother
could put on it had any power over it at all, and it wasn’t till she
was persuaded by our old nurse to get the wise man over at Bascombe to
come and look at it, that I got any peace at all. But he seemed to know
all about it, and said I wasn’t the first that had been taken that way.
“When the sun’s gathering his strength,” he said, “and when he’s in the
height of it, and when he’s beginning to lose his hold, and when he’s
in his weakness, them that haunts about that lane had best to take heed
to themselves.” But what it was he bound on my arm and what he said
over it, he wouldn’t tell us. After that I soon got well again, but
since then I’ve heard often enough of people suffering much the same as
I did; only of late years it doesn’t seem to happen but very seldom:
and maybe things like that do die out in the course of time.
But that’s the reason, Charles, why I say to you that I won’t have you
gathering me blackberries, no, nor eating them either, in that lane;
and now you know all about it, I don’t fancy you’ll want to yourself.
There! Off to bed you go this minute. What’s that, Lucy? A light in
your room? The idea of such a thing! You get yourself undressed at once
and say your prayers, and perhaps if your father doesn’t want me when
he wakes up, I’ll come and say good-night to you. And you, Charles, if
I hear anything of you frightening your little sister on the way up to
your bed, I shall tell your father that very moment, and you know what
happened to you the last time.
The door closes, and granny, after listening intently for a minute or
two, resumes her knitting. The Squire still slumbers.
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE EDINBURGH PRESS, 9 AND 11 YOUNG STREET,
EDINBURGH
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
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Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.