The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson: The Dream Of X & Other Fantastic Visions (26 page)

But though I am forced to stay here in the inn until my work is done, and my report prepared for the authorities, yet I am taking such care as I can in this way and that, and never do I venture a yard outside the inn without a brace of great flintlocks hidden under my coat.

Now, I have said I proved Jalbrok, the landlord of this inn of the Black Crow, a rascal. And so have I in two things; for this morning I caught him and his tapman netting the little Dowe-Fleet, and a great haul he had of fish, some that were three pounds weight and a hundred that were not more than fingerlings, and should never have left water.

I was so angry to see this spoiling of good, honest sport that I loosed out at Jalbrok with my tongue, as any fisherman might; but he told me to shut my mouth, and this I had to do, though with difficulty, and only by remembering that a man that suffers from a shortness of wind has no excuse to fight. So I made a virtue of the matter, and sat down suddenly on the bank, and panted pretty hard and spit a bit, and then lay on my side, as if I had a seizure. And a very good acting I made of it, I flattered myself, and glad that I had held my temper in, and so made them all see that I was a truly sick man.

Now, there the landlord left me, lying on my side, when he went away with all that great haul of good trout. And this was the second thing to prove the man a rascal, and liefer to be rid of me than to keep me, else he had not left me there, a sick man as he supposed. And I say and maintain that any man that will net a stream that may be fished with a feathered hook, and will also leave a sick man to recover or to die alone, all as may be, is a true rascal—and so I shall prove him yet.

July 2nd (Night).—I have thought that the landlord has something new on his mind lately, and the thing concerns me; for twice and again yesterday evening I caught him staring at me in a very queer fashion, so that I have taken more care than ever to be sure that no one can come at me during the night.

After dinner this evening I went down and sat a bit in the empty taproom, where I smoked my pipe and warmed my feet at the big log fire. The night had been coldish, in spite of the time of the year, for there is a desolate wind blowing over the great moorlands, and I could hear the big Erskine creek lapping on the taproom side of the house, for the inn is built quite near to the creek.

While I was smoking and staring into the fire, a big creekman came into the taproom and shouted for Jalbrok, the landlord, who came out of the back room in his slow, surly way.

“I’m clean out o’ guzzle,” the creekman said, in a dialect that was no more Cornish than mine. “I’ll swop a good yaller angel for some o’ that yaller sperrit o’ yourn, Jal. An’ that are a bad exchange wi’out robb’ry. He, he! Us that likes good likker likes it fresh from the sea, like a young cod. He, he!”

There is one of those farm-kitchen wind-screens, with a settle along it, that comes on one side the fireplace in the taproom, and neither Jalbrok nor the big creekman could see me where I sat, because the oak-screen hid me, though I could look round it with the trouble of bending my neck,

Their talk interested me greatly, as may be thought, for it was plain that the man, whoever he might be, had punned on the gold angel, which is worth near half a guinea of honest English money; and what should a creekman be doing with such a coin, or to treat it so lightly, as if it were no more than a common groat? And afterwards to speak of liking the good liquor that comes fresh from the sea! It was plain enough what he meant.

I heard Jalbrok, the landlord, ringing the coin on the counter. And then I heard him saving it was thin gold; and that set the creekman angry.

“Gglag you for a scrape-bone!” he roared out, using a strange expression that was new to me. “Gglag you! You would sweat the oil off a topmast, you would! If you ain’t easy, there’s more nor one as ha’ a knife into you ower your scrape-bone ways; and, maybe, us shall make you pay a good tune for French brandy one o’ these days, gglag you!”

“Stow that!” said the landlord’s voice. “That’s no talk for this place wi’ strangers round. I—”

He stopped, and there followed, maybe, thirty seconds of absolute silence. Then I heard someone tiptoeing a few steps over the floor, and I closed my eyes and let my pipe droop in my mouth, as if I were dosing. I heard the steps cease, and there was a sudden little letting out of a man’s breath, and I knew that the landlord had found I was in the taproom with them.

The next thing I knew he had me by the shoulder, and shook me, so that my pipe, dropped out of my mouth on to the stone floor.

“Here!” he roared out. “Wot you doin’ in here!”

“Let go of my shoulder, confound your insolence,” I said; and ripped my shoulder free from his fist with perhaps a little more strength than I should have shown him, seeing that I am a sick man to all in this part.

“Confound you!” I said again, for I was angry; but now I had my wits more about me. “Confound your putting your dirty hands on me. First you net the river and spoil my trout fishing, and now you must spoil the best nap I have had for three months.”

As I made an end of this, I was aware that the big creekman was also staring round the oak wind-screen at me. And therewith it seemed a good thing to me to fall a-coughing and “howking,” as we say in the North; and a better country I never want!

“Let un be, Jal. Let un be!” I heard the big creekman saying. “He ain’t but a broken-winded man. There’s none that need ha’ fear o’ that sort. He’ll be growin’ good grass before the winter. Come you, gglag you, an’ gi’e me some guzzle, an’ let me be goin’.”

The landlord looked at me for nearly a minute without a word; then he turned and followed the creekman to the drinking counter. I heard a little further grumbled talk and argument about the angel being thin gold, but evidently they arranged it between them, for Jalbrok measured out some liquor, that was good French brandy by the smell of it, if ever I’ve smelt French brandy, and a little later the creekman left.

July 5th.—Maybe I have kissed the inn wench a little heartily on occasions, but she made no sound objections, and it pleased me, I fear, a little to hear Llan, the lanky, knock-kneed tapman and general help, rousting at the wench for allowing it. The lout has opinions of himself, I do venture to swear; for a more ungainly, water-eyed, shambling rascal never helped his master net a good trout stream before or since. And as on that occasion he showed a great pleasure, and roared in his high pitched crow at the way I lay on the bank and groaned and coughed, I take an equal great pleasure to kiss the maid, which I could think she is, whenever I chance to see him near.

And to see the oaf glare at me, and yet fear to attack even a sick man, makes me laugh to burst my buttons; but I make no error, for it is that kind of a bloodless animal that will put a knife between a man’s shoulders when the chance offers.

July 7th.—Now a good kiss, once in a way, may be a good thing all round, and this I discovered it to be, for the wench has taken a fancy to better my food, for which I am thankful; also, last night, she went further, for she whispered in my ear, as she served me my dinner, to keep my bedroom door barred o’ nights; but when I would know why, she smiled, putting her finger to her lip, and gave me an old countryside proverb to the effect that a barred door let no corn out and no rats in. Which was a good enough hint for any man, and I repaid the wench in a way that seemed to please her well, nor did she say no to a half-guinea piece which I slipped into her broad fist.

Now, the room I sleep in is large, being about thirty feet long and, maybe, twenty wide, and has a good deal of old and bulky furniture in it, that makes it over-full of shadows at night for my liking.

The door of my room is of oak, very heavy and substantial, and without panels. There is a wooden snick-latch on it to enter by, and the door is made fast with a wooden bolt set in oak sockets, and pretty strong. There are two windows to the room, but these are barred, for which I have been glad many a time.

There are in the bedroom two great, heavy, oaken clothes-cupboards, two settees, a big table, two great wood beds, three lumbersome old chairs, and three linen-presses of ancient and blackened oak, in which the wench keeps not linen, but such various oddments as the autumn pickings of good hazel nuts, charcoal for the upstairs brazier, and in the third an oddment of spare feather pillows and some good down in a sack; and besides these, two gallon puggs—as they name the small kegs here—of French brandy, which I doubt not she has “nigged” from the cellars of mine host, and intends for a very welcome gift to some favoured swain, or, indeed, for all I know, to her own father, if she have one. And simple she must be some ways, for she has never bothered to lock the press.

Well do I know all these matters by now, for I have a bothersome pilgrimage each night, first to open the great cupboards and look in, and then to shut and snick the big brass locks. And after that I look in the linen-chests, and smile at the two puggs of brandy, for the wench has found something of a warm place in my heart because of her honest friendliness to me. Then I peer under the two settees and the two beds; and so I am sure at last that the room holds nothing that might trouble me in my sleep.

The beds are simple, rustic, heavy-made affairs, cloddish and without canopies or even posts for the same, which makes them seem very rude and ugly to the eye. However, they please me well, for I have read in my time—and once I saw the like—of bedsteads that had the canopy very great and solid and made to let down, like a press, upon the sleeper, to smother him in his sleep; and a devilish contrivance is such in those of our inns that are on the by-roads; and many a lone traveller has met a dreadful death, as I have proved in my business of a secret agent for the king. But there are few such tricks that I cannot discover in a moment, because of my training in all matters that deal with the ways of law-breakers, of which I am a loyal and sworn enemy.

But for me, at the Inn of the Black Crow, I have no great fear of any odd contrivance of death; nor of poison or drugging if I should be discovered, for there is a skill needed in such matters, and, moreover, the wench prepares my food and is my good friend; for it is always my way to have the women folk upon my side, and a good half of the battles of life are won if a man does this always. But what I have good cause to fear is lest the landlord, or any of the brute oafs of this lonesome moor, should wish to come at me in my sleep, and, maybe, hide in one of the great presses or the great cupboards to this end; and there you have my reasons for my nightly search of the room.

On this last night I paid a greater attention to all my precautions, and searched the big room very carefully, even to testing the wall behind the pictures, but found it of good moorland stone, like the four walls of the room.

The door, however, I made more secure by pushing one of the three linen-presses up against it, and so I feel pretty safe for the night.

Now, I had certainly a strong feeling that something might be in the wind, as the sailor-men say, against me; and a vague uneasiness kept me from undressing for a time, so that, after I had finished making all secure for the night, I sat a good while in one of the chairs by the table and wrote up my report.

After a time I had a curious feeling that someone was looking in at me through the barred window to my left, and at last I got up and loosed the heavy curtains down over both it and the far one, for it was quite possible for anyone to have placed one of the short farm-ladders against the wall and come up to have a look in at me. Yet in my heart I did not really think this was so, and I tell of my action merely because it shows the way that I felt.

At last I said to myself that I had grown to fancying things because of the friendly warning that the wench had given me over my dinner; but even as I said it, and glanced about the heavy, shadowy room, I could not shake free from my feelings. I took my candle and slipped off my shoes, so that my steps should not be heard below; then I went again through my pilgrimage of the room. I opened the cupboards and presses, each in turn, and finally once more I looked under the beds and even under the table, but there was nothing, nor could there have been to my common-sense reasoning.

I determined to undress and go to bed, assuring myself that a good sleep would soon cure me, but at first I went to my trunk and unlocked it. I took from it my brace of pistols and my big knife, also my lantern, which had a cunning little cap over the face and a metal cowl above the chimney, so that, by means of the cap and the cowl, I can make the lantern dark and yet have a good light burning within ready for an instant use.

Then I drew out the wads from my pistols, and screwed out the bullets and the second wads, and poured out the powder. I tried the flints, and found them spark very bright and clean, and afterwards I reloaded the pistols with fresh powder, using a heavier charge, and putting into each twelve large buckshot as big as peas, and a wad on the top to hold them in.

When I had primed the two pistols, I reached down into my boot and drew out a small weapon that I am never without; and a finely made pistol it is, by Chamel, the gunsmith, near the Tower. I paid him six guineas for that one weapon, and well it has repaid me, for I have killed eleven men with it in four years that would otherwise have sent me early out of this life; and a better pistol no man ever had, nor, for the length of the barrel, a truer. I reloaded this likewise, but with a single bullet in the place of the buckshot slugs I had put into my heavier pistols.

I carried a chair close to the bedside, and on this chair I laid my three pistols and my knife. Then I lit my lantern, and shut the cap over the glass; after which I stood it with my weapons on the seat of the chair.