Curious Warnings - The Great Ghost Stories Of M.R. James (82 page)

These imputations Daniel indignantly repudiated, but there seemed some ground for them in as much as one of the curious breed of lions, which
the two Daniels keep, had just made an ugly rush at King Darius, and this had so frightened the angel in the next window, who is carrying Habakkuk by the hair, that he let that unhappy seer fall right into the den, where the promptest action on the part of Daniel was required to avert destruction.

Besides the lion and the dog, Mrs. Tobit had another awkward neighbor in the shape of Jonah’s whale, which (I heard her saying) was always flapping about the place, and splashing one’s silk dress when one went out to tea with any lady, and “what a blessing it would be if some people as give themselves airs about being prophets could keep themselves to themselves a trifle more.” An innuendo which so moved Jonah that he said, with some asperity, that he had yet to learn that a prophet, even though he might have only five chapters, wasn’t a cut above an old woman out of the Apocrypha with half a dozen verses to bless herself with. Besides, wasn’t it a trifle mean to complain of a harmless animal like that whale, which after all was very likely only an allegory? To which Mrs. Tobit, together with much other matter, retorted that if it was a whale it couldn’t be an allegory. She hoped she’d learned her geography better than that when she was a girl, and allegories didn’t live at Ninevah but Egypt.

I saw and heard much more that night, but these were some of the more noteworthy incidents and, in selecting even these, I fear I have detained you too long.

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After this there was an interval of silence broken only by the quiet fall of the manna onto the top of the stalls—and I was able to look around and notice some of the changes that had taken place in the disposition of the windows since night had come on. Reuben was sitting on the edge of the well, peering curiously into its depths, and I heard him muttering. “Well for three hundred years I’ve been put up here to look at this old hole and blowed if I won’t find out whether there’s something in it after all.” So saying he craned over further and further, till at last there came a sudden splash, and several shouts which roused the keenest interest in the other Old Testament characters, who rushed to the edge of their windows, though the New Testament ones succeeded pretty well in preserving the calm composure on which they prided themselves. Presently Reuben crawled out, very wet and draggled, into the
middle light occupied by the messengers, who both protested loudly but vainly against the intrusion. Reuben not only refused to quit the usurped position but insisted on borrowing the messenger’s cloak and scroll to dry himself with, remarking at the same time in sulky tones, “Well, it says distinctly in Genesis that there was no water in the pit, and of course that was in summer, but they must mind and alter it in the Revised Version.” With which emendation he wrapped the cloak around the head of the shivering messenger, and retired to his place.

N
ICHOLAS HARDMAN
and Stephen Ashe were two Fellows of the King’s College in Cambridge: they had come like all their contemporaries from the sister College at Eton where they had spent their lives from about the age of six to that of sixteen, and at the time when we encounter them, they were both men of about thirty years old. Hardman was the son of a Lincolnshire parson, living at Thorganby-on-the-Wolds, while Ashe’s father was a yeoman-farmer of Ospringe in Kent.

Hardman was black, dour and saturnine with a rasping voice and a strong Lincolnshire accent which cannot be reproduced here. Ashe had the sturdy and somewhat slow intelligence of his Kentish ancestors; the phrase “a good friend and a bad enemy” represents the opinion which the men of his year held of him. Both were in priests’ orders, and each, we might suppose, looked forward in the fullness of time to occupying College livings, marrying and bringing up a son or two: one most likely to reproduce his father’s career; another, perhaps, to go on the land and become a reputable farmer in a small way.

I say we might suppose their aspirations to have been of this nature: for such was the program of a majority of Fellows of Colleges at that time. But there is an entry in the book called Harwood’s
Alumni
which shows that they entertained ideas of a very different sort; and it has occurred to me that it may be worthwhile to tell the story of what they adventured and what came of it.

I have alluded more than once to “their times” but I have not yet told you when they lived. Anne was filling the throne of England, Scotland, Ireland and France, and Dr. James Roderick was Provost of the College, having been elected by the Fellows in preference to Sir Isaac Newton, whom the Prince of Orange, King William the Third of blessed memory, would have intruded into that pasture. The Fellows of King’s had vindicated their right of election and the Lower Master of Eton occupied the Lodge—he was known as one of the “four Smoaking Heads”—while Sir Isaac lived in the Observatory over Trinity Great Gate, and, according to popular legends, gently remonstrated with his dog Diamond, or cut holes in his door to admit his cat and kitten. The University was a happy, sleepy place in those days, one is apt to think; but after all, what with the Church in danger and the excitement of depriving Dr. Richard Bentley, then Master of Trinity, of his degrees, there was probably no lack of sport to be had within the precincts. And certainly just outside them there was more than there is now. Snipe were shot on Parker’s Piece, and the dreary expanse of undrained fen was the haunt of many a strange fowl, not to speak of other inhabitants of whom I may one day find an occasion to tell.

But it is time to leave generalities. The two sheep to whom we must return—and I am afraid they were black ones—were very close friends; but few men in the University, or indeed in the King’s College itself, could boast of more than a speaking acquaintance with either. They occupied one room in the Old School of King’s, north of the Chapel, which room was always locked when they were out. And these were not days when Fellows, nor still less Scholars, were in the habit of dropping into each other’s abodes to partake of casual hospitality in the way of tobacco or whiskey and water. The common life, such as it was, was confined to Chapel, Hall and the Fellows’ Parlor.

All that was known of Hardman and Ashe’s way of employing “their leisure” was that they went for long walks together and smoked apparently very bad tobacco when they came back.

It was a fine afternoon in October when these events began, or to speak more truly, came to a head, which served to show what manner of men were Nicholas Hardman and Stephen Ashe. Chapel service, we may be sure, was at three, and both of our friends were there, staring at each other from
opposite stalls. The reedy and pedalless organ helped the rather infirm and jaded choir through a new verse anthem by Dr. Blow during which the snoring of Provost Roderick was not doubtfully heard. At near four, Dr. Tudway, the organist, played out the scant congregation with a march of his own composition. The choirmen hurried off to go through a similar performance at Trinity. The boys rushed off to whatever haunts in the town they had emerged from. The Provost strolled to his Lodge, then at the eastern end of the Chapel, and the Fellows and Scholars made their way across the strip of ground on the north side, holding on their caps—for a strong west wind was blowing the yellow leaves about—and so into the Old Court, and to dine in Hall. A coarse meal, I expect it was, and a silent one. The Vice Provost and three or four Seniors occupied one table on the dais; the Masters of Arts—among whom were Hardman and Ashe—filled a second along with the Fellow-Commoners; and the Bachelors and Undergraduate Fellows and Scholars, two more. There may have been fifty people in the room. Not much passed at dinner, which lasted about forty minutes; but afterward the Fellows returned to the parlor and the Scholars to their rooms. With these last we are not concerned, but we may as well follow the Seniors. They are sitting at a large table, cloth-less, with some decanters of wine (I don’t know whether port or claret: much depends upon the date of Lord Methuen’s treaty with Portugal), and something like conversation has broken out.

“Where did ye ride today, Mr. Bates?” said Mr. Glynne.

“Only so far as Fenstanton.”

“Fenstanton. Ah—is that where the witch was ducked last week? Lord Blandford was riding by at the time” (this was the Duke of Marlboro’s son and heir who died shortly afterward and was now a Fellow-Commoner), “and his Lordship made some hot-headed show at rescuing the old creature. Has there been any stir made? Dodgson of Magdalene has this living, but I doubt, if he hath not moved, no one will. ’Tis a lost place, Fenstanton, for all it be on the Huntingdon road.” Thus far Mr. Glynne, who had rather a knack of monopolizing conversation.

“Well, to tell truth,” says Bates, “I had not heard of the matter, but the bell was tolling for a burying as I rode through, and I happened to meet Dodgson coming from his beer and pipe, as I judge, to the churchyard. He did let fall something which could fit with what you say. Pray, did you hear
the name, Glynne, Galpin or Gibson; some word with a ‘G’ in it?”

“Gibson! Mother Gibson! That was the name for a guinea! So that ducking has finished the poor creature,” said good-natured Glynne. “These fen-rustics are little but brutes. I vow the coroner should have sat, and there should have been a dozen strung up at the Assizes, and in any but Dodgson’s parish there would have been. But Lord! the man thinks of nothing but his tithes and his beer.”

“Matthews had the parsonage before Dodgson,” said Bates, “and in his time there were four attempts at swimming that old woman. Not a boy nor man in the parish, he told me, but was ready to swear she had signed herself away. But Matthews threatened to call in the sheriff, and he would have done it too, so they kept mum in his time.”

“For all that,” said Glynne, “I remember his saying in this parlor that when he looked at her he was half in a mind to believe the tale. He pointed her out to me one day, and it is sure that she might have sat for a portrait of the Enemy as far as her eyes were concerned: they were as red as blood and the pupils like a goat’s.” With which Mr. Glynne was silent and shuddered slightly.

“Did they bury her in the churchyard, Bates?” said Dr. Morell, the Vice Provost.

“Yes, Mr. Vice Provost. I noticed a grave dug on the north side, which I take it was for her.”

“All this talk about burying witches puts me in mind of William of Malmesbury’s tale, that Dr. Gale printed not so long back.” This was from a new contributor to the conversation, Mr. Newborough, afterward Head Master of Eton, who was more bookishly inclined than many of his compeers. “Do you know it, Mr. Glynne? You should look at Malmesbury”: and he proceeded to tell the story which Southey has put into rhyme under the name of the “Old Woman of Berkeley.” After that came a short discussion of the Witch of Endor; then the conversation drifted to Dr. Hody’s book on the Versions of the Bible, then by a not uncommon fate to Dr. Bentley’s last enormities, and thence back to the familiar question of College livings and probable vacancies.

In the midst of this, Hardman and Ashe made their bow to the Vice Provost and went out. They had neither of them made any remark since
dinner but Dr. Morell, an observant man, noticed that they had taken a very considerable interest in the early part of the conversation.

“Two dull dogs gone,” said Dr. Glynne, when the door closed behind them: “I pity their wives if ever they marry and their parishes if ever they take ’em.”

“Quiet enough if they are dull,” said Newborough.

“I don’t know that, Newborough,” said Morell. “The man that has chambers under theirs doesn’t always sleep best. What can keep those two men treading about the whole night, as I am told they do, and what have they on their minds that makes them sigh and moan like two sick owls, as Burton says? You know everyone in College, Glynne; tell us, pray, were you ever in Hardman’s and Ashe’s chambers?”

“Not I,” said Glynne. “I knocked at their door one day, I recollect, last year. Such a clatter as they made before they opened it, I vow I never heard, but all I can tell of the matter is that Hardman was as pale as a ghost when he opened to me, and that the place smelt as sweet as a bonfire of old rags and bones. Hardman made shift to ask my business, and then shut the door in my face!”