Short Fiction, M. R. James [best classic books of all time TXT] 📗

of Science have not yet penetrated! The Squire, exhausted by a long day after the partridges, and replete with food and drink, is snoring on one side of the fireplace. His old mother sits opposite to him knitting, and the children (Charles and Lucy, not Harry and Lucy: they would never have stood it) are gathered about her knee.

Grandmother: Now, my dears, you must be very good and quiet, or you’ll wake your father, and you know what’ll happen then.

Charles: Yes, I know: he’ll be woundy cross-tempered and send us off to bed.

Grandmother (Stops knitting and speaks with severity.): What’s that? Fie upon you, Charles! that’s not a way to speak. Now I was going to have told you a story, but if you use suchlike words, I shan’t. (Suppressed outcry: “Oh, granny!”) Hush! hush! Now I believe you have woke your father!

Squire (Thickly.): Look here, mother, if you can’t keep them brats quiet⁠—

Grandmother: Yes, John, yes! it’s too bad. I’ve been telling them if it happens again, off to bed they shall go.

Squire relapses.

Grandmother: There, now, you see, children, what did I tell you? you must be good and sit still. And I’ll tell you what: tomorrow you shall go a-blackberrying, and if you bring home a nice basketful, I’ll make you some jam.

Charles: Oh yes, granny, do! and I know where the best blackberries are: I saw ’em today.

Grandmother: And where’s that, Charles?

Charles: Why, in the little lane that goes up past Collins’s cottage.

Grandmother (Laying down her knitting.): Charles! whatever you do, don’t you dare to pick one single blackberry in that lane. Don’t you know⁠—but there, how should you⁠—what was I thinking of? Well, anyway, you mind what I say⁠—

Charles and Lucy: But why, granny? Why shouldn’t we pick ’em there?

Grandmother: Hush! hush! Very well then, I’ll tell you all about it, only you mustn’t interrupt. Now let me see. When I was quite a little girl that lane had a bad name, though it seems people don’t remember about it now. And one day⁠—dear me, just as it might be tonight⁠—I told my poor mother when I came home to my supper⁠—a summer evening it was⁠—I told her where I’d been for my walk, and how I’d come back down that lane, and I asked her how it was that there were currant and gooseberry bushes growing in a little patch at the top of the lane. And oh, dear me, such a taking as she was in! She shook me and she slapped me, and says she, “You naughty, naughty child, haven’t I forbid you twenty times over to set foot in that lane? and here you go dawdling down it at nighttime,” and so forth, and when she’d finished I was almost too much taken aback to say anything: but I did make her believe that was the first I’d ever heard of it; and that was no more than the truth. And then, to be sure, she was sorry she’d been so short with me, and to make up she told me the whole story after my supper. And since then I’ve often heard the same from the old people in the place, and had my own reasons besides for thinking there was something in it.

Now, up at the far end of that lane⁠—let me see, is it on the right- or the left-hand side as you go up?⁠—the left-hand side⁠—you’ll find a little patch of bushes and rough ground in the field, and something like a broken old hedge round about, and you’ll notice there’s some old gooseberry and currant bushes growing among it⁠—or there used to be, for it’s years now since I’ve been up that way. Well, that means there was a cottage stood there, of course; and in that cottage, before I was born or thought of, there lived a man named Davis. I’ve heard that he wasn’t born in the parish, and it’s true there’s nobody of that name been living about here since I’ve known the place. But however that may be, this Mr. Davis lived very much to himself and very seldom went to the public-house, and he didn’t work for any of the farmers, having as it seemed enough money of his own to get along. But he’d go to the town on market-days and take up his letters at the post-house where the mails called. And one day he came back from market, and brought a young man with him; and this young man and he lived together for some long time, and went about together, and whether he just did the work of the house for Mr. Davis, or whether Mr. Davis was his teacher in some way, nobody seemed to know. I’ve heard he was a pale, ugly young fellow and hadn’t much to say for himself. Well, now, what did those two men do with themselves? Of course I can’t tell you half the foolish things that the people got into their heads, and we know, don’t we, that you mustn’t speak evil when you aren’t sure it’s true, even when people are dead and gone. But as I said, those two were always about together, late and early, up on the downland and below in the woods; and there was one walk in particular that they’d take regularly once a month, to the place where you’ve seen that old figure cut out in the hillside; and it was noticed that in the summertime when they took that walk, they’d camp out all night, either there or somewhere near by. I remember once my father⁠—that’s your great-grandfather⁠—told me he had spoken to Mr. Davis about it (for it’s his land he lived on) and asked him why he was so fond of going there, but he only said: “Oh, it’s a wonderful old place, sir, and I’ve always been fond of the old-fashioned things, and when him (that