Curious Warnings - The Great Ghost Stories Of M.R. James (29 page)

I shall show you, gentlemen, that Ann Clark’s body was found in the month of June, in a pond of water, with the throat cut; that a knife belonging to the prisoner was found in the same water; that he made efforts to recover the said knife from the water; that the coroner’s quest brought in a verdict against the prisoner at the bar, and that therefore he should by course have been tried at Exeter.

But that, suit being made on his behalf, on account that an impartial jury could not be found to try him in his own country, he hath had that singular favor shown him that he should he tried here in London.

And so we will proceed to call our evidence.

* * *

Then the facts of the acquaintance between the prisoner and Ann Clark were proved, and also the coroner’s inquest. I pass over this portion of the trial, for it offers nothing of special interest.

Sarah Arscott was next called and sworn.

Att-Gen.
: What is your occupation?

S.
: I keep the New Inn at—

Att-Gen.
: Do you know the prisoner at the bar?

S.
: Yes: he was often at our house since he come first at Christmas of last year.

Att-Gen.
: Did you know Ann Clark?

S.
: Yes, very well.

Att-Gen.
: Pray, what manner of person was she in her appearance?

S.
: She was a very short thick-made woman: I do not know what else you would have me say.

Att-Gen.
: Was she comely?

S.
: No, not by no manner of means: she was very uncomely, poor child! She had a great face and hanging chops and a very bad color like a toad.

L.C.J.
: What is that, mistress? What say you she was like?

S.
: My lord, I ask pardon. I heard Esquire Martin say she looked like a toad in the face; and so she did.

L.C.J.
: Did you that? Can you interpret her, Mr. Attorney? Att-Gen.: My lord, I apprehend it is the country word for a toad.

L.C.J.
: Oh, a hop-toad! Ay, go on.

Att-Gen.
: Will you give an account to the jury of what passed between you and the prisoner at the bar in May last?

S.
: Sir, it was this. It was about nine o’clock the evening after that Ann did not come home, and I was about my work in the house. There was no company there only Thomas Snell, and it was foul weather.

Esquire Martin came in and called for some drink, and I, by way of pleasantry, I said to him, “Squire, have you been looking after your sweetheart?” and he flew out at me in a passion and desired I would not use such expressions. I was amazed at that, because we were accustomed to joke with him about her.

L.C.J.
: Who, her?

S.
: Ann Clark, my lord. And we had not heard the news of his being contracted to a young gentlewoman elsewhere, or I am sure I should have used better manners.

So I said nothing, but being I was a little put out, I begun singing, to myself as it were, the song they danced to the first time they met, for I thought it would prick him: It was the same that he was used to sing when he came down the street. I have heard it very often: “
Madam, will you walk, will you talk with me?
” And it fell out that I needed something that was in the kitchen.

So I went out to get it, and all the time I went on singing, something louder and more hold-like. And as I was there all of a sudden I thought I heard someone answering outside the house, but I could not be sure because of the wind blowing so high.

So then I stopped singing, and now I heard it plain, saying, “
Yes, sir, I will walk, I will talk with you
,” and I knew the voice for Ann Clark’s voice.

Att-Gen.
: How did you know it to be her voice?

S.
: It was impossible I could be mistaken. She had a dreadful voice, a kind of a squalling voice, in particular if she tried to sing. And there was nobody in the village that could counterfeit it, for they often tried.

So, hearing that, I was glad, because we were all in anxiety to know what was gone with her: for though she was a natural, she had a good disposition and was very tractable. And says I to myself, “What, child! Are you returned, then?” and I ran into the front room, and said
to Squire Martin as I passed by, “Squire, here is your sweetheart back again: shall I call her in?” and with that I went to open the door.

But Squire Martin he caught hold of me, and it seemed to me he was out of his wits, or near upon. “Hold, woman,” says he, “in God’s name!” and I know not what else. He was all of a-shake.

Then I was angry, and said I, “What! Are you not glad that poor child is found?” And I called to Thomas Snell and said, “If the Squire will not let me, do you open the door and call her in.”

So Thomas Snell went and opened the door, and the wind setting that way blew in and overset the two candles that was all we had lighted. And Esquire Martin fell away from holding me. I think he fell down on the floor, but we were wholly in the dark, and it was a minute or two before I got a light again.

And while I was feeling for the fire-box, I am not certain but I heard someone step ’cross the floor, and I am sure I heard the door of the great cupboard that stands in the room open and shut to.

Then, when I had a light again, I see Esquire Martin on the settle, all white and sweaty as if he had swooned away, and his arms hanging down. And I was going to help him; but just then it caught my eye that there was something like a bit of a dress shut into the cupboard door, and it came to my mind I had heard that door shut. So I thought it might be some person had run in when the light was quenched, and was hiding in the cupboard.

So I went up closer and looked: and there was a bit of a black stuff cloak, and just below it an edge of a brown stuff dress, both sticking out of the shut of the door. And both of them was low down, as if the person that had them on might be crouched down inside.

Att-Gen.
: What did you take it to be?

S.
: I took it to be a woman’s dress.

Att-Gen.
: Could you make any guess whom it belonged to? Did you know anyone who wore such a dress?

S.
: It was a common stuff, by what I could see. I have seen many women wearing such a stuff in our parish.

Att-Gen.
: Was it like Ann Clark’s dress?

S.
: She used to wear just such a dress: but I could not say on my oath it was hers.

Att-Gen.
: Did you observe anything else about it?

S.
: I did notice that it looked very wet: but it was foul weather outside.

L.C.J.
: Did you feel of it, mistress?

S.
: No, my lord, I did not like to touch it.

L.C.J.
: Not like? Why that? Are you so nice that you scruple to feel of a wet dress?

S.
: Indeed, my lord, I cannot very well tell why: only it had a nasty ugly look about it.

L.C.J.
: Well, go on.

S.
: Then I called again to Thomas Snell, and bid him come to me and catch anyone that come out when I should open the cupboard door. “For,” says I, “there is someone hiding within, and I would know what she wants.”

And with that Squire Martin gave a sort of a cry or a shout and ran out of the house into the dark, and I felt the cupboard door pushed out against me while I held it, and Thomas Snell helped me: but for all we pressed to keep it shut as hard as we could, it was forced out against us, and we had to fall back.

L.C.J.
: And pray what came out—a mouse?

S.
: No, my lord, it was greater than a mouse, but I could not see what it was: it fleeted very swift over the floor and out at the door.

L.C.J.
: But come; what did it look like? Was it a person?

S.
: My lord, I cannot tell what it was, but it ran very low, and it was of a dark color. We were both daunted by
it, Thomas Snell and I, but we made all the haste we could after it to the door that stood open. And we looked out, but it was dark and we could see nothing.

L.C.J.
: Was there no tracks of it on the floor? What floor have you there?

S.
: It is a flagged floor and sanded, my lord, and there was an appearance of a wet track on the floor, but we could make nothing of it, neither Thomas Snell nor me, and besides, as I said, it was a foul night.

L.C.J.
: Well, for my part, I see not—though to be sure it is an odd tale she tells—what you would do with this evidence.

Att-Gen.
: My lord, we bring it to show the suspicious carriage of the prisoner immediately after the disappearance of the murdered person: and we ask the jury’s consideration of that; and also to the matter of the voice heard without the house.

Then the prisoner asked some questions not very material, and Thomas Snell was next called, who gave evidence to the same effect as Mrs. Arscott, and added the following:

Att-Gen.
: Did anything pass between you and the prisoner during the time Mrs. Arscott was out of the room?

Th.
: I had a piece of twist in my pocket.

Att-Gen.
: Twist of what?

Th.
: Twist of tobacco, sir, and I felt a disposition to take a pipe of tobacco. So I found a pipe on the chimney-piece, and being it was twist, and in regard of me having by an oversight left my knife at my house, and me not having over many teeth to pluck at it, as your lordship or anyone else may have a view by their own eyesight—

L.C.J.
: What is the man talking about? Come to the matter, fellow! Do you think we sit here to look at your teeth?

Th.
: No, my lord, nor I would not you should do, God forbid! I know your honors have better employment, and better teeth, I would not wonder.

L.C.J.
: Good God, what a man is this! Yes, I have better teeth, and that you shall find if you keep not to the purpose.

Th.
: I humbly ask pardon, my lord, but so it was. And I took upon me, thinking no harm, to ask Squire Martin to lend me his knife to cut my tobacco.

And he felt first of one pocket and then of another and it was not there at all. And says I, “What! Have you lost your knife, Squire?” And up he gets and feels again and he sat down, and such a groan as he gave. “Good God!” he says, “I must have left it there.” “But,” says I, “Squire, by all appearance it is not there. Did you set a value on it,” says I, “you might have it cried.”

But he sat there and put his head between his hands and seemed to take no notice to what I said. And then it was Mistress Arscott come tracking back out of the kitchen place.

Asked if he heard the voice singing outside the house, he said “No,” but the door into the kitchen was shut, and there was a high wind: but says that no one could mistake Ann Clark’s voice.

Then a boy, William Reddaway, about thirteen years of age, was called, and by the usual questions, put by the Lord Chief Justice, it was ascertained that he knew the nature of an oath. And so he was sworn. His evidence referred to a time about a week later.

Att-Gen.
: Now, child, don’t be frighted: there is no one here will hurt you if you speak the truth.

L.C.J.
: Ay, if he speak the truth. But remember, child,
thou art in the presence of the great God of Heaven and Earth, that hath the keys of Hell, and of us that are the king’s officers, and have the keys of Newgate; and remember, too, there is a man’s life in question. And if thou tellest a lie, and by that means he comes to an ill end, thou art no better than his murderer. And so speak the truth.

Att-Gen.
: Tell the jury what you know, and speak out. Where were you on the evening of the 23rd of May last?

L.C.J.
: Why, what does such a boy as this know of days. Can you mark the day, boy?

W.
: Yes, my lord, it was the day before our feast, and I was to spend sixpence there, and that falls a month before Midsummer Day.

One of the Jury
: My lord, we cannot hear what he says.

L.C.J.
: He says he remembers the day because it was the day before the feast they had there, and he had sixpence to lay out. Set him upon the table there. Well, child, and where wast thou then?

W.
: Keeping cows on the moor, my lord.

But, the boy using the country speech, my lord could not well apprehend him, and so asked if there was anyone that could interpret him, and it was answered the parson of the parish was there, and he was accordingly sworn and so the evidence given. The boy said:

“I was on the moor about six o’clock, and sitting behind a bush of furze near a pond of water: and the prisoner came very cautiously and looking about him, having something like a long pole in his hand, and stopped a good while as if he would be listening, and then began to feel in the water with the pole: and I being very near the water—not above five yards—heard as if the pole struck up against something that made a wallowing sound, and the prisoner dropped the pole and threw himself on the
ground, and rolled himself about very strangely with his hands to his ears, and so after a while got up and went creeping away.”

Asked if he had had any communication with the prisoner: “Yes, a day or two before, the prisoner, hearing I was used to be on the moor, he asked me if I had seen a knife laying about, and said he would give sixpence to find it. And I said I had not seen any such thing, but I would ask about. Then he said he would give me sixpence to say nothing, and so he did.”

L.C.J.
: And was that the sixpence you were to lay out at the feast?

W.
: Yes, if you please, my lord.

Asked if he had observed anything particular as to the pond of water, he said, “No, except that it begun to have a very ill smell and the cows would not drink of it for some days before.”