Short Fiction - M. R. James (mobile ebook reader .txt) 📗

“Could you now?” said the Squire. “Say on.”

“Why, Gallows Hill,” was the answer.

“How did you guess that?”

“Well, if you don’t want it guessed, you shouldn’t put up a dummy gibbet and a man hanging on it.”

“What’s that?” said the Squire abruptly. “There’s nothing on that hill but wood.”

“On the contrary,” said Fanshawe, “there’s a largish expanse of grass on the top and your dummy gibbet in the middle; and I thought there was something on it when I looked first. But I see there’s nothing⁠—or is there? I can’t be sure.”

“Nonsense, nonsense, Fanshawe, there’s no such thing as a dummy gibbet, or any other sort, on that hill. And it’s thick wood⁠—a fairly young plantation. I was in it myself not a year ago. Hand me the glasses, though I don’t suppose I can see anything.” After a pause: “No, I thought not: they won’t show a thing.”

Meanwhile Fanshawe was scanning the hill⁠—it might be only two or three miles away. “Well, it’s very odd,” he said, “it does look exactly like a wood without the glass.” He took it again. “That is one of the oddest effects. The gibbet is perfectly plain, and the grass field, and there even seem to be people on it, and carts, or a cart, with men in it. And yet when I take the glass away, there’s nothing. It must be something in the way this afternoon light falls: I shall come up earlier in the day when the sun’s full on it.”

“Did you say you saw people and a cart on that hill?” said the Squire incredulously. “What should they be doing there at this time of day, even if the trees have been felled? Do talk sense⁠—look again.”

“Well, I certainly thought I saw them. Yes, I should say there were a few, just clearing off. And now⁠—by Jove, it does look like something hanging on the gibbet. But these glasses are so beastly heavy I can’t hold them steady for long. Anyhow, you can take it from me there’s no wood. And if you’ll show me the road on the map, I’ll go there tomorrow.”

The Squire remained brooding for some little time. At last he rose and said, “Well, I suppose that will be the best way to settle it. And now we’d better be getting back. Bath and dinner is my idea.” And on the way back he was not very communicative.

They returned through the garden, and went into the great hall to leave sticks, etc., in their due place. And here they found the aged butler Patten evidently in a state of some anxiety. “Beg pardon, Master Henry,” he began at once, “but someone’s been up to mischief here, I’m much afraid.” He pointed to the open box which had contained the glasses.

“Nothing worse than that, Patten?” said the Squire. “Mayn’t I take out my own glasses and lend them to a friend? Bought with my own money, you recollect? At old Baxter’s sale, eh?”

Patten bowed, unconvinced. “Oh, very well, Master Henry, as long as you know who it was. Only I thought proper to name it, for I didn’t think that box’d been off its shelf since you first put it there; and, if you’ll excuse me, after what happened.⁠ ⁠…” The voice was lowered, and the rest was not audible to Fanshawe. The Squire replied with a few words and a gruff laugh, and called on Fanshawe to come and be shown his room. And I do not think that anything else happened that night which bears on my story.

Except, perhaps, the sensation which invaded Fanshawe in the small hours that something had been let out which ought not to have been let out. It came into his dreams. He was walking in a garden which he seemed half to know, and stopped in front of a rockery made of old wrought stones, pieces of window tracery from a church, and even bits of figures. One of these moved his curiosity: it seemed to be a sculptured capital with scenes carved on it. He felt he must pull it out, and worked away, and, with an ease that surprised him, moved the stones that obscured it aside, and pulled out the block. As he did so, a tin label fell down by his feet with a little clatter. He picked it up and read on it: “On no account move this stone. Yours sincerely, J. Patten.” As often happens in dreams, he felt that this injunction was of extreme importance; and with an anxiety that amounted to anguish he looked to see if the stone had really been shifted. Indeed it had; in fact he could not see it anywhere. The removal had disclosed the mouth of a burrow, and he bent down to look into it. Something stirred in the blackness, and then, to his intense horror, a hand emerged⁠—a clean right hand in a neat cuff and coatsleeve, just in the attitude of a hand that means to shake yours. He wondered whether it would not be rude to let it alone. But, as he looked at it, it began to grow hairy and dirty and thin, and also to change its pose and stretch out as if to take hold of his leg. At that he dropped all thought of politeness, decided to run, screamed and woke himself up.

This was the dream he remembered; but it seemed to him (as, again, it often does) that there had been others of the same import before, but not so insistent. He lay awake for some little time, fixing the details of the last dream in his mind, and wondering in particular what the figures had been which he had seen or half seen on the carved capital. Something quite incongruous, he felt sure; but that was the most he could recall.

Whether because of the dream, or because it was the first day of his holiday, he did not get up