Short Stories 1895-1926

by Walter De la Mare

  ‘When you come to such a pass as this, you lose count of time. I had become an automaton – little better than a beetle obeying the secret dictates of what I believe they call the Life-Urge; and how precisely I contrived to face and to circumnavigate that last bit of precipice, I cannot recall. But this once done, in a few minutes I was in comparative safety. I found myself sluggishly creeping again along a path which had presently widened enough to allow me to turn my face outwards from the rock, and even to rest. And even though the precipice beneath me was hardly less abrupt and enormous, and the cliff-face above actually overhung my niche, for the time being I was out of physical danger. I was, as they say, my own man again; had come back.

  ‘It was high time. My skull seemed to have turned to ice; I was wet through; my finger-nails were split; my hands covered with blood; and my clothes would have disgraced a tramp.

  ‘But all trace of fear had left me, and what now swept my very wits away in this almost unendurable reaction was the sheer beauty of the scene that hung before my eyes. Half reclining, not daring yet to stir, my outstretched hands clasping two knobs of rocks, my eyeballs gently moving to and fro, I sat there and feasted on the amazing panorama spread out before me; realizing none the less that I was in the presence of something – how can I express it? – of something a little different from, stranger and less human than – well, our old friend Nature.

  ‘The whole face of this precipice was alight with colour – dazzling green and orange, drifts of snow and purple – campion, sea-pink, may-weed, samphire, camomile, lichen, stonecrop, with fleshy and aromatic plants that I knew not even the names of, sweeping down drift beyond drift into a narrow rock-bound tranquil bay of the darkest emerald and azure, and then sweeping up once more drift beyond drift into the vault of the sky, its blue fretted over as if by some master architect with silvery interlacings, a scattered feather-like fleece of vapour.

  ‘The steady cry too, possibly amplified by echo, of the incoming tide reached me here once more; a whisper and yet not toneless. And on and on into the distance swept the gigantic coast line, crowned summit to base with its emerald springtide woods.

  ‘Still slightly intoxicated as I was by the terror and danger in which I had been, and which were now for the moment past and gone, I gave myself ample opportunity to rest and to drink in this prodigious spectacle. And yet, as I lay there, still at a dizzy altitude, midway between sea and sky but in perfect safety, the odd conviction persisted, that though safe, I was not yet secure. It was as if I were still facing some peril of the mind, and absurd and irrational though it may sound there was a vague disquieting hint within me of disappointment – as if I had lost without realizing it a unique opportunity. And yet, all this medley of hints and intuitions was wholly subsidiary to the conviction that from some one point in all this vacancy around me a steady devouring gaze was fixed on me – that I was being watched.’

  Once more our hard-headed friend fidgeted uneasily on his stool.

  ‘It sounds absurd, I agree,’ the schoolmaster caught him up. ‘Simply because, apart from the seabirds and the clouds, I had been and was still the only moving object within view. The sudden apparition of me crawling around that huge nose of rock must have been as conspicuous as it was absurd. Besides, myriads of concealed eyes in the dense forest towering conically up on the other side of the narrow bay beneath me, and looming ever more mistily from headland to headland towards the north and west, could have watched my every movement. A thousand arrows from unseen archers concealed on the opposing heights might at any instant have transfixed me where I lay. One becomes conscious, too, of the sort of empty settled stare which fixes an intruder into such solitudes. It is at the same time vacant, enormous and hostile.

  ‘But I don’t mean that. I still mean something far more definite – and more dangerous, too, than that; and I keep to it even if this precise memory may have been affected by what came after. For I was soon to learn that in actual fact I was being watched; and by as acute and unhuman a pair of eyes as I have ever seen in mortal head.

  ‘With infinite caution I rose to my feet again at last, and continued my journey. The path grew steadily easier; soil succeeded to bare rock, and this must not very long before, I discovered, have been trodden by other human feet than mine. There were marks of hobnails between its tussocks of grass and moss and thrift.

  ‘It presently descended a little, and then in a while, from out of the glare of the evening, I found myself entering a broader and heavily-shaded track leading straight onwards and tunnelling inland into the woods. It was, to my amazement, close on eight o’clock, and too late to dream of turning back, even if I could have persuaded myself to face again the experience of the last half-hour. Yet whatever curiosity might say for itself, I felt a peculiar disinclination to forge ahead. The bait had ceased to be enticing.

  ‘I paused once more under the dismal funnel of greenery in which I found myself staring at the face of my watch, and then had another look at the map. A minute or two’s scrutiny assured me that straight ahead was my only possible course. And why not? There was company ahead. In this damp soil the impressions of the hob-nailed shoes showed more clearly. Quite recently those shoes must have come and gone along this path on three separate occasions at least. Mine had been a rather acutely solitary excursion, and yet for the life of me I had not the smallest desire to meet the maker of those footprints.

  ‘In less than half an hour, however, I came to a standstill beneath “the old, ancient building, like” that had once been marked on my map. And an uncompanionable sight it was. Its walls lay a little back from the green track in what appeared to be a natural clearing, or amphitheatre, though at a few yards’ distance huge pines, in shallow rising semi-circles, hemmed it in. In shape it was all but circular; and must once no doubt have been a wayside hermitage or cell. It was of stone and was surmounted by a conical roof of thick and heavy slabs, at the south side of which rose a minute bell-cote, and towards the east a stunted stone cross, with one of its arms broken away.

  ‘The round arched door – its chevron edging all but defaced – refused to open. Nothing was to be seen in the gloom beyond its gaping keyhole. There was but one narrow slit of window, and this was beyond my reach. I could not even guess the age of this forbidding yet beautiful thing, and the gentleman – as I found afterwards – who had compiled the local guidebook had omitted to mention it altogether. Here and there in its fabric decay had begun to show itself, but clumsy efforts had been made at repair.

  ‘In that deep dark verdurous silence, unbroken even by drone or twitter, the effect of those walls in their cold minute simplicity was peculiarly impressive. They seemed to strike a solemn chill into the air around them – those rain-stained senseless stones. And what looked like a kind of derelict burial-ground to the south side of it only intensified its sinister aspect. No place surely for when the slow dark hours begin.

  ‘The graves were very few in number, and only one name was decipherable on any of the uncouth and half-buried headstones. Two were mere mounds in the nibbled turf. I had drawn back to survey once more from this new aspect the walls beyond, when – from one instant to the next, so to speak – I became aware of the presence of Mr Kempe. He was standing a few paces distant, his gaze in my direction – as unexpected an apparition as that of Banquo in Macbeth. Not even a robin could have appeared with less disturbance of its surroundings. Not a twig had snapped, not a leaf had rustled.

  ‘He looked to be a man of about sixty or more, in his old greenish-black half-clerical garb, his trousers lapping concertina-like over immense ungainly boots. An antiquated black straw hat was on his head. From beneath it grey hair flowed out a little on either side the long colourless face with its straggling beard. His eyes were clear as water – the lids unusually wide apart – and they had the peculiarity, perceptible even at this distance, of not appearing to focus what their attention was fixed upon. That attention was fixed upon me as a matter of fact, and, standing as I was, wi
th head turned in his direction, we so remained, closely regarding one another for what seemed to be a matter of hours rather than of moments.

  ‘It was I who broke the silence with some affectedly-casual remark about the weather and the interestingness of the relic that stood, something like a huge mushroom of stone, nearby. The voice that sounded in answer was even more astonishing than Mr Kempe himself. It seemed to proceed from a throat rusty from want of use, and carried a kind of vibrant glassy note in it, like the clash of fine glass slightly cracked. At first I could not understand what he said. The sound of it reminds me now of Alexander Selkirk when his rescuers found him in Juan Fernandez. They said he spoke his words by halves, you’ll remember. So did Mr Kempe. They sounded like relics of a tongue as ancient as the unknown hermit’s chapel beside which we had met.

  ‘Still, I was myself as nervous as a cat. With all his oddities – those wide, colourless eyes, those gestures, that over-loud voice, there was nothing hostile, nothing even discourteous in his manner, and he did not appear to be warning me off as a trespasser. Indeed the finger wagging at me in the air was clearly beckoning me on. Not that I had any keen inclination to follow. I preferred to go on watching him, and attempted to mark time by once more referring to the age and architecture of the chapel – asked him at last pointblank if it were now too late to beg the courtesy of a glance inside.

  ‘The evening light momentarily brightened above the dark spreading tops of the pines and struck down full on this queer shape with its engrossed yet vacant face. His eyes never faltered, their pin-prick pupils fixed in their almost hueless irises. Reflected thus, I seemed to be an object of an extremely limited significance – a mere speck floating in their intense inane. The eyes of the larger cats and the hawk tribe have a similar effect; and yet one could hardly assert that their prey has no significance for them!

  ‘He made no attempt to answer my questions, but appeared to be enquiring, in turn, how I had contrived to invade his solitude; what I wanted, in short. I was convinced none the less that he was deceiving me. He knew well how I had come: for, of course, meeting as we had, only one way had been possible – that from the sea.

  ‘It might be impolitic to press the matter. I merely suggested that my journey had not been “roses all the way”, that I must get back to the world above before nightfall; and once more gave him to understand my innocent purpose – the desire to examine this curious relic. His gaze wandered off to the stone hermitage, returned, and then as if in stealth, rested an instant intently on my hands. Otherwise he remained perfectly motionless: his long knotted fingers hanging down out of the sleeves of a jacket too short for his gaunt body – and those ineffable clumsy, rusty boots.

  ‘The air in this green niche of the bay was stagnant with the scent of foliage and flowers; and so magically dark and clear it was as though you were in the presence of a dream. Or of a dreamer indeed – responsible not only for its beauty, but also for its menacing influence on the mind. All this, however, only convinced me the more of the necessity to keep my attention steadily fixed on the figure beside me. There was a something, an aura, about him difficult to describe. It was as if he himself were a long way off from his body – though that’s pure nonsense, of course. As the phrase goes – he was not all there. Once more his eyes met mine, and the next thing that occurred to me was that I had never seen a human countenance that betrayed so desperate a hunger. But for what? It was impossible to tell.

  ‘He was pressing me to follow him. I caught the word “key”; and he at once led the way. With a prolonged reluctant look behind me – that antiquated cell of stone; those gigantic pines; the few sinking mounds clad in their fresh green turf – I turned in my tracks; and the glance he cast at me over his shoulder was intended, I gathered, as a smile of encouragement.

  ‘The straggling gabled house to which he conducted me, with its low tower and smokeless chimneys now touched with the last cold red of sunset, was almost more windows than wall. The dark glass of their casements showed like water in its discoloured sides. Beyond it the ravine ascended ever more narrowly, and the house rested here in this green gap like a mummy long since deserted by its ghost.

  ‘We crossed a cobbled courtyard, and Mr Kempe preceded me up a wooden flight of stairs into a low-ceiled room with one all but ivy-blinded window, and, oddly enough, a stone floor. Except for the space where hung the faded portrait of what appeared to be a youngish woman, her hair dressed in ringlets, bookshelves covered the walls. Books lay hugger-mugger everywhere, indeed: on the table, on the chairs, on the floor, and even piled into the chimney of the rusty grate. The place was fusty with their leather bindings, and with damp.

  ‘They had evidently been both well used and neglected. There was little opportunity to get the general range of their titles – though a complete row of them I noticed were in Latin – because some vague intuition compelled me to keep my attention fixed upon my host. He had motioned me to a chair, and had seated himself on another that was already topped with two or three folios. It must have been even at midday a gloomy room; and owing to its situation it was a dark house. The door having admitted us, stood open; beyond it yawned the silent staircase.’

  At this the schoolmaster paused; the landlady of the Blue Boar had once more emerged, and, like one man, we shamefacedly pushed our three glasses across the counter.

  ‘And what happened then?’ I enquired.

  At this the man in leggings slightly turned his tortoise-like head in my direction, as if its usual resort was beneath a shell.

  The schoolmaster watched the shape of the landlady till it had vanished into the dusk beyond. ‘Mr Kempe began talking to me,’ he said. ‘Rapidly and almost incoherently at first, but gradually slowing down till I could understand more or less what he was saying. He was explaining, a little unnecessarily as I fancied, that he was a recluse; that the chapel was not intended for public worship; that he had few visitors; that he was a scholar and therefore was in need of little company but his books. He swept his long arm towards these companions of his leisure. The little light that silted through the window struck down across his tousled head, just touching his brow and cheekbones as he talked. And then in the midst of this harangue he suddenly came to an end, and asked me if I had been sent there. I assured him that I had come of my own free will, and would he oblige me before we returned to the chapel, with a glass of water. He hesitated.

  ‘“Water?” he repeated. “Oh, water?” And then with a peculiar gesture he crossed the room and shut the door after him. His boots beat as hollowly on the stairs as sticks on a tom-tom. I heard the creaking of a pump-handle, and in a moment he reappeared carrying a blue-lined cup without a handle. With a glance at the portrait over my head, I drank its ice-cold contents at a gulp, and pushed the cup in between two dogs-eared books.

  ‘“I want to get back to the road up above,” I explained.

  ‘This seemed to reassure him. He shut his mouth and sat gazing at me. “Ah! The road up above!”

  ‘Then, “Why?” he suddenly almost bawled at me, as if I were sitting a long way off. His great hands were clasped on his angled knees, his body bolt upright.

  ‘“Why what?”

  ‘“Why have you come here? What is there to spy out? This is private property. What do you do – for a living? What’s the use of it all?” ‘It was an unusual catechism – from stranger to stranger. But I had just escaped an unpleasant death, and could afford to be indulgent. Besides, he was years and years older than I. I told him that I was a schoolmaster, on vacation, not thinking it necessary to add that owing to a small legacy I was out of a job at the time. I said I was merely enjoying myself.

  ‘“Enjoying yourself! And you teach!” he cried with a snap of his jaw. “And what do you teach? Silly, suffocating lies, I suppose; or facts, as you prefer to call them.” He drew his hand down his long colourless face, and I stole a glance towards the door. “If human beings are mere machines, well and good,” he went on. “But supposing, my yo
ung friend, they are not mere machines? Supposing they have souls in their bodies; what then? Supposing you have a soul in your body: what then? Ay, and the proof; the proof!”’

  The schoolmaster’s face puckered up once more into a genial smile.

  ‘I won’t attempt,’ he went on, ‘to repeat word for word the talk I had that evening. I can give only the gist of it. But I had stumbled pretty abruptly, you’ll notice, on Mr Kempe’s King Charles’s head. And he presented me with it on a charger. He was possessed, I gathered, by one single aim, thought and desire. All these years of his “retirement” had apparently been spent in this one quest – to prove man’s possession of a “Soul”. Certain doubts in my mind sprang up a little later in the evening, but it was clear from the beginning that in pursuit of this he had spared neither himself nor the wife that was gone. It was no less clear that he was entirely incapable of what better brains, no doubt, would have considered a scientific treatment of his theme.

  ‘He thrust into my hand a few chapters of a foolscap manuscript that lay on the table – a fly-blown murky pile of paper at least eighteen inches high. Never have I seen anything to which the term “reading-matter” seemed more appropriate. The ink was faded on the top page; it was stained as if with tea. This work was entitled briefly, “The Soul” – though the sub-title that followed it would not have disgraced the author of the “Anatomy”.

  ‘I could follow no more than a line or two at a time of the crazy handwriting. The pages were heavily interscored, annotated and revised, not only in pencil but in violet and in red ink. A good part of it appeared to be in Latin and Hebrew, and other inactive tongues. But turning them over at haphazard I caught such page-headings as “Contemplation”; “Dreams”; “Flagellation”; “Cadaver”; “Infancy”. I replaced the sheets a little gingerly on the table, though one mustn’t, of course, judge of the merits of a work by the appearance of it in MS.