Curious Warnings - The Great Ghost Stories Of M.R. James (16 page)

Parkins might also have been seen to become pink.

“I beg pardon, Parkins,” Rogers continued; “I oughtn’t to have said that. I forgot you didn’t like levity on these topics.”

“Well,” Parkins said, “as you have mentioned the matter, I freely own that I do
not
like careless talk about what you call ghosts. A man in my position,” he went on, raising his voice a little, “cannot, I find, be too careful about appearing to sanction the current beliefs on such subjects.

“As you know, Rogers—or as you ought to know—for I think I have never concealed my views—”

“No, you certainly have not, old man,” put in Rogers
sotto voce
.

“—I hold that any semblance, any appearance of concession to the view that such things might exist is equivalent to a renunciation of all that I hold most sacred. But I’m afraid I have not succeeded in securing your attention.”

“Your
undivided
attention, was what Dr. Blimber actually
said
,”
^†
Rogers interrupted, with every appearance of an earnest desire for accuracy. “But I beg your pardon, Parkins: I’m stopping you.”

“No, not at all,” said Parkins. “I don’t remember Blimber; perhaps he was before my time. But I needn’t go on. I’m sure you know what I mean.”

“Yes, yes,” said Rogers, rather hastily, “just so. We’ll go into it fully at Burnstow, or somewhere.”

In repeating the above dialogue I have tried to give the impression which it made on me, that Parkins was something of an old woman—rather hen-like, perhaps, in his little ways; totally destitute—alas!—of the sense of humor, but at the same time dauntless and sincere in his convictions, and a man deserving of the greatest respect.

Whether or not the reader has gathered so much, that was the character which Parkins had.

On the following day Parkins did, as he had hoped, succeed in getting away from his college, and in arriving at Burnstow.

He was made welcome at the Globe Inn, was safely installed in the large double-bedded room of which we have heard, and was able before retiring to rest to arrange his materials for work in apple-pie order upon a commodious table which occupied the outer end of the room, and was surrounded on three sides by windows looking out seaward. That is to say, the central window looked straight out to sea, and those on the left and right commanded prospects along the shore to the north and south respectively.

On the south you saw the village of Burnstow. On the north no houses were to be seen, but only the beach and the low cliff backing it. Immediately in front was a strip—not considerable—of rough grass, dotted with old anchors, capstans, and so forth; then a broad path; then the beach.

Whatever may have been the original distance between the Globe Inn and the sea, not more than sixty yards now separated them.

The rest of the population of the inn was, of course, a golfing one, and included few elements that call for a special description. The most conspicuous figure was, perhaps, that of an
ancien militaire
, secretary of a London club, and possessed of a voice of incredible strength, and of views of a pronouncedly Protestant type.

These were apt to find utterance after his attendance upon the ministrations of the Vicar, an estimable man with inclinations toward a picturesque ritual, which he gallantly kept down as far as he could out of deference to East Anglian tradition.

Professor Parkins, one of whose principal characteristics was pluck, spent the greater part of the day following his arrival at Burnstow in what he had called improving his game, in company with this Colonel Wilson.
And during the afternoon—whether the process of improvement were to blame or not, I am not sure—the Colonel’s demeanor assumed a coloring so lurid that even Parkins jibbed at the thought of walking home with him from the links.

He determined, after a short and furtive look at that bristling mustache and those incarnadined, features, that it would be wiser to allow the influences of tea and tobacco to do what they could with the Colonel before the dinner-hour should render a meeting inevitable.

“I might walk home tonight along the beach,” he reflected. “Yes, and take a look—there will be light enough for that—at the ruins of which Disney was talking. I don’t exactly know where they are, by the way; but I expect I can hardly help stumbling on them.”

This he accomplished, I may say, in the most literal sense, for in picking his way from the links to the shingle beach his foot caught, partly in a gorse-root and partly in a biggish stone, and over he went.

When he got up and surveyed his surroundings, he found himself in a patch of somewhat broken ground covered with small depressions and mounds. These latter, when he came to examine them, proved to be simply masses of flints embedded in mortar and grown over with turf. He must, he quite rightly concluded, be on the site of the preceptory he had promised to look at.

It seemed not unlikely to reward the spade of the explorer: enough of the foundations was probably left at no great depth to throw a good deal of light on the general plan. He remembered vaguely that the Templars, to whom this site had belonged, were in the habit of building round churches, and he thought a particular series of the humps or mounds near him did appear to be arranged in something of a circular form.

Few people can resist the temptation to try a little amateur research in a department quite outside their own, if only for the satisfaction of showing how successful they would have been had they only taken it up seriously.

Our Professor, however, if he felt something of this mean desire, was also truly anxious to oblige Mr. Disney. So he paced with care the circular area he had noticed, and wrote down its rough dimensions in his pocket-book. Then he proceeded to examine an oblong eminence which lay east of the center of the circle, and seemed to his thinking likely to be the base of a platform or altar.

At one end of it, the northern, a patch of the turf was gone—removed by some boy or other creature
feræ naturæ
. It might, he thought, be as well to probe the soil here for evidences of masonry, and he took out his knife and began scraping away the earth.

And now followed another little discovery: a portion of soil fell inward as he scraped, and disclosed a small cavity. He lighted one match after another to help him to see of what nature the hole was, but the wind was too strong for them all.

By tapping and scratching the sides with his knife, however, he was able to make out that it must be an artificial hole in masonry. It was rectangular, and the sides, top, and bottom, if not actually plastered, were smooth and regular. Of course it was empty.

No! As he withdrew the knife he heard a metallic clink, and when he introduced his hand it met with a cylindrical object lying on the floor of the hole. Naturally enough, he picked it up, and when he brought it into the light, now fast fading, he could see that it, too, was of man’s making—a metal tube about four inches long, and evidently of some considerable age.

By the time Parkins had made sure that there was nothing else in this odd receptacle, it was too late and too dark for him to think of undertaking any further search. What he had done had proved so unexpectedly interesting that he determined to sacrifice a little more of the daylight on the morrow to archeology. The object which he now had safe in his pocket was bound to be of some slight value at least, he felt sure.

Bleak and solemn was the view on which he took a last look before starting homeward. A faint yellow light in the west showed the links, on which a few figures moving toward the club-house were still visible, the squat Martello tower, the lights of Aldsey village, the pale ribbon of sands intersected at intervals by black wooden groins, the dim and murmuring sea. The wind was bitter from the north, but was at his back when he set out for the Globe.

He quickly rattled and clashed through the shingle and gained the sand, upon which, but for the groins which had to be got over every few yards, the going was both good and quiet. One last look behind, to measure the distance he had made since leaving the ruined Templars’ church, showed him a prospect of company on his walk, in the shape of a rather indistinct
personage, who seemed to be making great efforts to catch up with him, but made little, if any, progress.

I mean that there was an appearance of running about his movements, but that the distance between him and Parkins did not seem materially to lessen. So, at least, Parkins thought, and decided that he almost certainly did not know him, and that it would be absurd to wait until he came up.

For all that, company, he began to think, would really be very welcome on that lonely shore, if only you could choose your companion. In his unenlightened days he had read of meetings in such places which even now would hardly bear thinking of.

He went on thinking of them, however, until he reached home, and particularly of one which catches most people’s fancy at some time during their childhood. “Now I saw in my dream that Christian had gone but a very little way when he saw a foul fiend coming over the field to meet him.”

“What should I do now,” he thought, “if I looked back and caught sight of a black figure sharply defined against the yellow sky, and saw that it had horns and wings? I wonder whether I should stand or run for it. Luckily, the gentleman behind is not of that kind, and he seems to be about as far off now as when I saw him first.

“Well, at this rate he won’t get his dinner as soon as I shall; and, dear me! it’s within a quarter of an hour of the time now. I must run!”

Parkins had, in fact, very little time for dressing.

When he met the Colonel at dinner, Peace—or as much of her as that gentleman could manage—reigned once more in the military bosom. Nor was she put to flight in the hours of bridge that followed dinner, for Parkins was a more than respectable player.

When, therefore, he retired toward twelve o’clock, he felt that he had spent his evening in quite a satisfactory way, and that, even for so long as a fortnight or three weeks, life at the Globe would be supportable under similar conditions—“especially,” thought he, “if I go on improving my game.”

As he went along the passages he met the boots of the Globe, who stopped and said:

“Beg your pardon, sir, but as I was a-brushing your coat just now there was somethink fell out of the pocket. I put it on your chest of drawers, sir in your room, sir—a piece of a pipe or somethink of that, sir. Thank you, sir.

“You’ll find it on your chest of drawers, sir—yes, sir. Good night, sir.”

The speech served to remind Parkins of his little discovery of that afternoon.

It was with some considerable curiosity that he turned it over by the light of his candles. It was of bronze, he now saw, and was shaped very much after the manner of the modern dog-whistle. In fact it was—yes, certainly it was—actually no more nor less than a whistle.

He put it to his lips, but it was quite full of a fine, caked-up sand or earth, which would not yield to knocking, but must be loosened with a knife. Tidy as ever in his habits, Parkins cleared out the earth on to a piece of paper, and took the latter to the window to empty it out.

The night was clear and bright, as he saw when he had opened the casement, and he stopped for an instant to look at the sea and note a belated wanderer stationed on the shore in front of the inn.

Then he shut the window, a little surprised at the late hours people kept at Burnstow, and took his whistle to the light again.

Why, surely there were marks on it, not merely marks, but letters! A very little rubbing rendered the deeply-cut inscription quite legible, but the Professor had to confess, after some earnest thought, that the meaning of it was as obscure to him as the writing on the wall to Belshazzar.

There were legends both on the front and on the back of the whistle. The one read thus:

The other:

QUIS EST ISTE QUI UENIT