by M. R. James
‘Well,’ I said, doubtfully enough, ‘I like to hear you very much: but, you know, some people think a lot of the thrushes and nightingales and so on; you must have heard of that, haven’t you? And then, perhaps—of course I don’t know—perhaps your style of singing isn’t exactly what they think suitable to accompany their dancing, eh?’
‘I should kindly ’ope not,’ said the owl, drawing itself up. ‘Our family’s never give in to dancing, nor never won’t neither. Why, what ever are you thinkin’ of !’ it went on with rising temper. ‘A pretty thing it would be for me to set there hiccuppin’ at them’—it stopped and looked cautiously all round it and up and down and then continued in a louder voice—‘them little ladies and gentlemen. If it ain’t sootable for them, I’m very sure it ain’t sootable for me. And’ (temper rising again) ‘if they expect me never to say a word just because they’re dancin’ and carryin’ on with their foolishness, they’re very much mistook, and so I tell ’em.’
From what had passed before I was afraid this was an imprudent line to take, and I was right. Hardly had the owl given its last emphatic nod when four small slim forms dropped from a bough above, and in a twinkling some sort of grass rope was thrown round the body of the unhappy bird, and it was borne off through the air, loudly protesting, in the direction of Fellows’ Pond.* Splashes and gurgles and shrieks of unfeeling laughter were heard as I hurried up. Something darted away over my head, and as I stood peering over the bank of the pond, which was all in commotion, a very angry and dishevelled owl scrambled heavily up the bank, and stopping near my feet shook itself and flapped and hissed for several minutes without saying anything I should care to repeat.
Glaring at me, it eventually said—and the grim suppressed rage in its voice was such that I hastily drew back a step or two—‘’Ear that? Said they was very sorry, but they’d mistook me for a duck. Oh, if it ain’t enough to make anyone go reg’lar distracted in their mind and tear everything to flinders for miles round.’ So carried away was it by passion, that it began the process at once by rooting up a large beakful of grass, which alas! got into its throat; and the choking that resulted made me really afraid that it would break a vessel. But the paroxysm was mastered, and the owl sat up, winking and breathless but intact.
Some expression of sympathy seemed to be required; yet I was chary of offering it, for in its present state of mind I felt that the bird might interpret the best-meant phrase as a fresh insult. So we stood looking at each other without speech for a very awkward minute, and then came a diversion. First the thin voice of the pavilion clock, then the deeper sound from the Castle quadrangle, then Lupton’s Tower, drowning the Curfew Tower* by its nearness.
‘What’s that?’ said the owl, suddenly and hoarsely. ‘Midnight, I should think,’ said I, and had recourse to my watch. ‘Midnight?’ cried the owl, evidently much startled, ‘and me too wet to fly a yard! Here, you pick me up and put me in the tree; don’t, I’ll climb up your leg, and you won’t ask me to do that twice. Quick now!’ I obeyed. ‘Which tree do you want?’ ‘Why, my tree, to be sure! Over there!’ It nodded towards the Wall. ‘All right. Bad-calx* tree do you mean?’ I said, beginning to run in that direction. ‘’Ow should I know what silly names you call it? The one what ’as like a door in it. Go faster! They’ll be coming in another minute.’ ‘Who? What’s the matter?’ I asked as I ran, clutching the wet creature, and much afraid of stumbling and coming over with it in the long grass. ‘You’ll see fast enough,’ said this selfish bird. ‘You just let me git on the tree, I shall be all right.’
And I suppose it was, for it scrabbled very quickly up the trunk with its wings spread and disappeared in a hollow without a word of thanks. I looked round, not very comfortably. The Curfew Tower was still playing St. David’s tune* and the little chime that follows, for the third and last time, but the other bells had finished what they had to say, and now there was silence, and again the ‘restless changing weir’* was the only thing that broke—no, that emphasized it.
Why had the owl been so anxious to get into hiding? That of course was what now exercised me. Whatever and whoever was coming, I was sure that this was no time for me to cross the open field: I should do best to dissemble my presence by staying on the darker side of the tree. And that is what I did.
* * * * *
All this took place some years ago, before summertime came in.* I do sometimes go into the Playing Fields at night still, but I come in before true midnight. And I find I do not like a crowd after dark—for example at the Fourth of June fireworks.* You see—no, you do not, but I see—such curious faces: and the people to whom they belong flit about so oddly, often at your elbow when you least expect it, and looking close into your face, as if they were searching for someone—who may be thankful, I think, if they do not find him. ‘Where do they come from?’ Why, some, I think, out of the water, and some out of the ground. They look like that. But I am sure it is best to take no notice of them, and not to touch them.
Yes, I certainly prefer the daylight population of the Playing Fields to that which comes there after dark.
WAILING WELL
IN the year 19—there were two members of the Troop of Scouts attached to a famous school, named respectively Arthur Wilcox and Stanley Judkins. They were the same age, boarded in the same house, were in the same division, and naturally were members of the same patrol. They were so much alike in appearance as to cause anxiety and trouble, and even irritation, to the masters who came in contact with them. But oh how different were they in their inward man, or boy!
It was to Arthur Wilcox that the Head Master said, looking up with a smile as the boy entered chambers, ‘Why, Wilcox, there will be a deficit in the prize fund if you stay here much longer! Here, take this handsomely bound copy of the Life and Works of Bishop Ken,* and with it my hearty congratulations to yourself and your excellent parents.’ It was Wilcox again, whom the Provost noticed as he passed through the playing fields, and, pausing for a moment, observed to the Vice-Provost,* ‘That lad has a remarkable brow!’ ‘Indeed, yes,’ said the Vice-Provost. ‘It denotes either genius or water on the brain.’
As a Scout, Wilcox secured every badge and distinction for which he competed. The Cookery Badge, the Map-making Badge, the Life-saving Badge, the Badge for picking up bits of newspaper, the Badge for not slamming the door when leaving pupil-room, and many others. Of the Life-saving Badge I may have a word to say when we come to treat of Stanley Judkins.
You cannot be surprised to hear that Mr. Hope Jones* added a special verse to each of his songs, in commendation of Arthur Wilcox, or that the Lower Master burst into tears when handing him the Good Conduct Medal in its handsome claret-coloured case: the medal which had been unanimously voted to him by the whole of Third Form. Unanimously, did I say? I am wrong. There was one dissentient, Judkins mi.,* who said that he had excellent reasons for acting as he did. He shared, it seems, a room with his major. You cannot, again, wonder that in after years Arthur Wilcox was the first, and so far the only boy, to become Captain of both the School and of the Oppidans,* or that the strain of carrying out the duties of both positions, coupled with the ordinary work of the school, was so severe that a complete rest for six months, followed by a voyage round the world, was pronounced an absolute necessity by the family doctor.
It would be a pleasant task to trace the steps by which he attained the giddy eminence he now occupies; but for the moment enough of Arthur Wilcox. Time presses, and we must turn to a very different matter: the career of Stanley Judkins—Judkins ma.
Stanley Judkins, like Arthur Wilcox, attracted the attention of the authorities; but in quite another fashion. It was to him that the Lower Master* said, with no cheerful smile, ‘What, again, Judkins? A very little persistence in this course of conduct, my boy, and you will have cause to regret that you ever entered this academy. There, take that, and that, and think yourself very lucky you don’t get that and that!’ It was Judkins, again, whom the Provost had cause to notice a
s he passed through the playing fields, when a cricket ball struck him with considerable force on the ankle, and a voice from a short way off cried, ‘Thank you, cut-over!’ ‘I think,’ said the Provost, pausing for a moment to rub his ankle, ‘that that boy had better fetch his cricket ball for himself !’ ‘Indeed, yes,’ said the Vice-Provost, ‘and if he comes within reach, I will do my best to fetch him something else.’
As a Scout, Stanley Judkins secured no badge save those which he was able to abstract from members of other patrols. In the cookery competition he was detected trying to introduce squibs into the Dutch oven of the next-door competitors. In the tailoring competition he succeeded in sewing two boys together very firmly, with disastrous effect when they tried to get up. For the Tidiness Badge he was disqualified, because, in the Midsummer schooltime, which chanced to be hot, he could not be dissuaded from sitting with his fingers in the ink: as he said, for coolness’ sake. For one piece of paper which he picked up, he must have dropped at least six banana skins or orange peels. Aged women seeing him approaching would beg him with tears in their eyes not to carry their pails of water across the road. They knew too well what the result would inevitably be. But it was in the life-saving competition that Stanley Judkins’s conduct was most blameable and had the most far-reaching effects. The practice, as you know, was to throw a selected lower boy, of suitable dimensions, fully dressed, with his hands and feet tied together, into the deepest part of Cuckoo Weir,* and to time the Scout whose turn it was to rescue him. On every occasion when he was entered for this competition Stanley Judkins was seized, at the critical moment, with a severe fit of cramp, which caused him to roll on the ground and utter alarming cries. This naturally distracted the attention of those present from the boy in the water, and had it not been for the presence of Arthur Wilcox the death-roll would have been a heavy one. As it was, the Lower Master found it necessary to take a firm line and say that the competition must be discontinued. It was in vain that Mr. Beasley Robinson* represented to him that in five competitions only four lower boys had actually succumbed. The Lower Master said that he would be the last to interfere in any way with the work of the Scouts; but that three of these boys had been valued members of his choir, and both he and Dr. Ley* felt that the inconvenience caused by the losses outweighed the advantages of the competitions. Besides, the correspondence with the parents of these boys had become annoying, and even distressing: they were no longer satisfied with the printed form which he was in the habit of sending out, and more than one of them had actually visited Eton and taken up much of his valuable time with complaints. So the life-saving competition is now a thing of the past.
In short, Stanley Judkins was no credit to the Scouts, and there was talk on more than one occasion of informing him that his services were no longer required. This course was strongly advocated by Mr. Lambart:* but in the end milder counsels prevailed, and it was decided to give him another chance.
So it is that we find him at the beginning of the Midsummer Holidays of 19—at the Scouts’ camp in the beautiful district of W (or X) in the country of D (or Y).*
It was a lovely morning, and Stanley Judkins and one or two of his friends—for he still had friends—lay basking on the top of the down. Stanley was lying on his stomach with his chin propped on his hands, staring into the distance.
‘I wonder what that place is,’ he said.
‘Which place?’ said one of the others.
‘That sort of clump in the middle of the field down there.’
‘Oh, ah! How should I know what it is?’
‘What do you want to know for?’ said another.
‘I don’t know: I like the look of it. What’s it called? Nobody got a map?’ said Stanley. ‘Call yourselves Scouts!’
‘Here’s a map all right,’ said Wilfred Pipsqueak, ever resourceful, ‘and there’s the place marked on it. But it’s inside the red ring. We can’t go there.’
‘Who cares about a red ring?’ said Stanley. ‘But it’s got no name on your silly map.’
‘Well, you can ask this old chap what it’s called if you’re so keen to find out.’ ‘This old chap’ was an old shepherd who had come up and was standing behind them.
‘Good morning, young gents,’ he said, ‘you’ve got a fine day for your doin’s, ain’t you?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ said Algernon de Montmorency, with native politeness. ‘Can you tell us what that clump over there’s called? And what’s that thing inside it?’
‘Course I can tell you,’ said the shepherd. ‘That’s Wailin’ Well, that is. But you ain’t got no call to worry about that.’
‘Is it a well in there?’ said Algernon. ‘Who uses it?’
The shepherd laughed. ‘Bless you,’ he said, ‘there ain’t from a man to a sheep in these parts uses Wailin’ Well, nor haven’t done all the years I’ve lived here.’
‘Well, there’ll be a record broken to-day, then,’ said Stanley Judkins, ‘because I shall go and get some water out of it for tea!’
‘Sakes alive, young gentleman!’ said the shepherd in a startled voice, ‘don’t you get to talkin’ that way! Why, ain’t your masters give you notice not to go by there? They’d ought to have done.’
‘Yes, they have,’ said Wilfred Pipsqueak.
‘Shut up, you ass!’ said Stanley Judkins. ‘What’s the matter with it? Isn’t the water good? Anyhow, if it was boiled, it would be all right.’
‘I don’t know as there’s anything much wrong with the water,’ said the shepherd. ‘All I know is, my old dog wouldn’t go through that field, let alone me or anyone else that’s got a morsel of brains in their heads.’
‘More fool them,’ said Stanley Judkins, at once rudely and ungrammatically. ‘Who ever took any harm going there?’ he added.
‘Three women and a man,’ said the shepherd gravely. ‘Now just you listen to me. I know these ’ere parts and you don’t, and I can tell you this much: for these ten years last past there ain’t been a sheep fed in that field, nor a crop raised off of it—and it’s good land, too. You can pretty well see from here what a state it’s got into with brambles and suckers and trash of all kinds. You’ve got a glass, young gentleman,’ he said to Wilfred Pipsqueak, ‘you can tell with that anyway.’
‘Yes,’ said Wilfred, ‘but I see there’s tracks in it. Someone must go through it sometimes.’
‘Tracks!’ said the shepherd. ‘I believe you! Four tracks: three women and a man.’
‘What d’you mean, three women and a man?’ said Stanley, turning over for the first time and looking at the shepherd (he had been talking with his back to him till this moment: he was an ill-mannered boy).
‘Mean? Why, what I says: three women and a man.’
‘Who are they?’ asked Algernon. ‘Why do they go there?’
‘There’s some p’r’aps could tell you who they was,’ said the shepherd, ‘but it was afore my time they come by their end. And why they goes there still is more than the children of men can tell: except I’ve heard they was all bad ’uns when they was alive.’
‘By George, what a rum thing!’ Algernon and Wilfred muttered: but Stanley was scornful and bitter.
‘Why, you don’t mean they’re deaders? What rot! You must be a lot of fools to believe that. Who’s ever seen them, I’d like to know?’
‘I’ve seen ’em, young gentleman!’ said the shepherd, ‘seen ’em from near by on that bit of down: and my old dog, if he could speak, he’d tell you he’ve seen ’em, same time. About four o’clock of the day it was, much such a day as this. I see ’em, each one of ’em, come peerin’ out of the bushes and stand up, and work their way slow by them tracks towards the trees in the middle where the well is.’
‘And what were they like? Do tell us!’ said Algernon and Wilfred eagerly.
‘Rags and bones, young gentlemen: all four of ’em: flutterin’ rags and whity bones. It seemed to me as if I could hear ’em clackin’ as they got along. Very slow they went, and lookin’ from sid
e to side.’
‘What were their faces like? Could you see?’
‘They hadn’t much to call faces,’ said the shepherd, ‘but I could seem to see as they had teeth.’
‘Lor’!’ said Wilfred, ‘and what did they do when they got to the trees?’
‘I can’t tell you that, sir,’ said the shepherd. ‘I wasn’t for stayin’ in that place, and if I had been, I was bound to look to my old dog: he’d gone! Such a thing he never done before as leave me; but gone he had, and when I came up with him in the end, he was in that state he didn’t know me, and was fit to fly at my throat. But I kep’ talkin’ to him, and after a bit he remembered my voice and came creepin’ up like a child askin’ pardon. I never want to see him like that again, nor yet no other dog.’
The dog, who had come up and was making friends all round, looked up at his master, and expressed agreement with what he was saying very fully.
The boys pondered for some moments on what they had heard: after which Wilfred said: ‘And why’s it called Wailing Well?’
‘If you was round here at dusk of a winter’s evening, you wouldn’t want to ask why,’ was all the shepherd said.
‘Well, I don’t believe a word of it,’ said Stanley Judkins, ‘and I’ll go there next chance I get: blowed if I don’t!’
‘Then you won’t be ruled by me?’ said the shepherd. ‘Nor yet by your masters as warned you off? Come now, young gentleman, you don’t want for sense, I should say. What should I want tellin’ you a pack of lies? It ain’t sixpence to me anyone goin’ in that field: but I wouldn’t like to see a young chap snuffed out like in his prime.’
‘I expect it’s a lot more than sixpence to you,’ said Stanley. ‘I expect you’ve got a whisky still or something in there, and want to keep other people away. Rot I call it. Come on back, you boys.’
