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Title: An Evening's Entertainment
Author: James, Montague Rhodes (1862-1936)
Date of first publication: 1925
   [included in James' fourth ghost story collection,
   A Warning to the Curious]
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   "The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James"
   (New York: Longmans, Green;
   London: Edward Arnold, 1931)
   [first edition]
Date first posted: 29 April 2013
Date last updated: 29 April 2013
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1068

This ebook was produced by:
Delphine Lettau, Mary Meehan, Mark Akrigg
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net






                      AN EVENING'S ENTERTAINMENT

                            By M. R. JAMES




Nothing is more common form in old-fashioned books than the description
of the winter fireside, where the aged grandam narrates to the circle of
children that hangs on her lips story after story of ghosts and fairies,
and inspires her audience with a pleasing terror. But we are never
allowed to know what the stories were. We hear, indeed, of sheeted
spectres with saucer eyes, and--still more intriguing--of "Rawhead and
Bloody Bones" (an expression which the Oxford Dictionary traces back to
1550), but the context of these striking images eludes us.

Here, then, is a problem which has long obsessed me; but I see no means
of solving it finally. The aged grandams are gone, and the collectors of
folklore began their work in England too late to save most of the actual
stories which the grandams told. Yet such things do not easily die quite
out, and imagination, working on scattered hints, may be able to devise
a picture of an evening's entertainment, such an one as Mrs. Marcet's
_Evening Conversations_, Mr. Joyce's _Dialogues on Chemistry_, and
somebody else's _Philosophy in Sport made Science in Earnest_, aimed at
extinguishing by substituting for Error and Superstition the light of
Utility and Truth; in some such terms as these:

_Charles_: I think, papa, that I now understand the properties of the
lever, which you so kindly explained to me on Saturday; but I have been
very much puzzled since then in thinking about the pendulum, and have
wondered why it is that, when you stop it, the clock does not go on any
more.

_Papa_: (You young sinner, have you been meddling with the clock in the
hall? Come here to me! _No, this must be a gloss that has somehow crept
into the text._) Well, my boy, though I do not wholly approve of your
conducting without my supervision experiments which may possibly impair
the usefulness of a valuable scientific instrument, I will do my best to
explain the principles of the pendulum to you. Fetch me a piece of stout
whipcord from the drawer in my study, and ask cook to be so good as to
lend you one of the weights which she uses in her kitchen.

And so we are off.

How different the scene in a household to which the beams 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 Fanny, 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 such-like 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: to-morrow 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 to-day.

_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 Fanny_: 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 to-night--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
night-time," 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 hill-side; 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 was his man he meant) and me are together there, it seems
to bring back the old times so plain." And my father said, "Well," he
said, "it may suit _you_, but _I_ shouldn't like a lonely place like
that in the middle of the night." And Mr. Davis smiled, and the young
man, who'd been listening, said, "Oh, we don't want for company at such
times," and my father said he couldn't help thinking Mr. Davis made some
kind of sign, and the young man went on quick, as if to mend his words,
and said, "That's to say, Mr. Davis and me's company enough for each
other, ain't we, master? and then there's a beautiful air there of a
summer night, and you can see all the country round under the moon, and
it looks so different, seemingly, to what it do in the daytime. Why, all
them barrows on the down----"

And then Mr. Davis cut in, seeming to be out of temper with the lad, and
said, "Ah yes, they're old-fashioned places, ain't they, sir? Now, what
would you think was the purpose of them?" And my father said (now, dear
me, it seems funny, doesn't it, that I should recollect all this: but it
took my fancy at the time, and though it's dull perhaps for you, I can't
help finishing it out now), well, he said, "Why, I've heard, Mr. Davis,
that they're all graves, and I know, when I've had occasion to plough up
one, there's always been some old bones and pots turned up. But whose
graves they are, I don't know: people say the ancient Romans were all
about this country at one time, but whether they buried their people
like that I can't tell." And Mr. Davis shook his head, thinking, and
said, "Ah, to be sure: well they look to me to be older-like than the
ancient Romans, and dressed different--that's to say, according to the
pictures the Romans was in armour, and you didn't never find no armour,
did you, sir, by what you said?" And my father was rather surprised and
said, "I don't know that I mentioned anything about armour, but it's
true I don't remember to have found any. But you talk as if you'd seen
'em, Mr. Davis," and they both of them laughed, Mr. Davis and the young
man, and Mr. Davis said, "Seen 'em, sir? that would be a difficult
matter after all these years. Not but what I should like well enough to
know more about them old times and people, and what they worshipped and
all." And my father said, "Worshipped? Well, I dare say they worshipped
the old man on the hill." "Ah, indeed!" Mr. Davis said, "well, I
shouldn't wonder," and my father went on and told them what he'd heard
and read about the heathens and their sacrifices: what you'll learn some
day for yourself, Charles, when you go to school and begin your Latin.
And they seemed to be very much interested, both of them; but my father
said he couldn't help thinking the most of what he was saying was no
news to them. That was the only time he ever had much talk with Mr.
Davis, and it stuck in his mind, particularly, he said, the young man's
word about _not wanting for company_: because in those days there was a
lot of talk in the villages round about--why, but for my father
interfering, the people here would have ducked an old lady for a witch.

_Charles_: What does that mean, granny, ducked an old lady for a witch?
Are there witches here now?

_Grandmother_: No, no, dear! why, what ever made me stray off like that?
No, no, that's quite another affair. What I was going to say was that
the people in other places round about believed that some sort of
meetings went on at night-time on that hill where the man is, and that
those who went there were up to no good. But don't you interrupt me now,
for it's getting late. Well, I suppose it was a matter of three years
that Mr. Davis and this young man went on living together: and then all
of a sudden, a dreadful thing happened. I don't know if I ought to tell
you. (_Outcries of_ "Oh yes! yes, granny, you must," etc.). Well, then,
you must promise not to get frightened and go screaming out in the
middle of the night. ("No, no, we won't, of course not!") One morning
very early towards the turn of the year, I think it was in September,
one of the woodmen had to go up to his work at the top of the long
covert just as it was getting light; and just where there were some few
big oaks in a sort of clearing deep in the wood he saw at a distance a
white thing that looked like a man through the mist, and he was in two
minds about going on, but go on he did, and made out as he came near
that it _was_ a man, and more than that, it was Mr. Davis's young man:
dressed in a sort of white gown he was, and hanging by his neck to the
limb of the biggest oak, quite, quite dead: and near his feet there lay
on the ground a hatchet all in a gore of blood. Well, what a terrible
sight that was for anyone to come upon in that lonely place! This poor
man was nearly out of his wits: he dropped everything he was carrying
and ran as hard as ever he could straight down to the Parsonage, and
woke them up and told what he'd seen. And old Mr. White, who was the
parson then, sent him off to get two or three of the best men, the
blacksmith and the church-wardens and what not, while he dressed
himself, and all of them went up to this dreadful place with a horse to
lay the poor body on and take it to the house. When they got there,
everything was just as the woodman had said: but it was a terrible shock
to them all to see how the corpse was dressed, specially to old Mr.
White, for it seemed to him to be like a mockery of the church surplice
that was on it, only, he told my father, not the same in the fashion of
it. And when they came to take down the body from the oak tree they
found there was a chain of some metal round the neck and a little
ornament like a wheel hanging to it on the front, and it was very old
looking, they said. Now in the meantime they had sent off a boy to run
to Mr. Davis's house and see whether he was at home; for of course they
couldn't but have their suspicions. And Mr. White said they must send
too to the constable of the next parish, and get a message to another
magistrate (he was a magistrate himself), and so there was running
hither and thither. But my father as it happened was away from home that
night, otherwise they would have fetched him first. So then they laid
the body across the horse, and they say it was all they could manage to
keep the beast from bolting away from the time they were in sight of the
tree, for it seemed to be mad with fright. However, they managed to bind
the eyes and lead it down through the wood and back into the village
street; and there, just by the big tree where the stocks are, they found
a lot of the women gathered together, and this boy whom they'd sent to
Mr. Davis's house lying in the middle, as white as paper, and not a word
could they get out of him, good or bad. So they saw there was something
worse yet to come, and they made the best of their way up the lane to
Mr. Davis's house. And when they got near that, the horse they were
leading seemed to go mad again with fear, and reared up and screamed,
and struck out with its fore-feet and the man that was leading it was
as near as possible being killed, and the dead body fell off its back.
So Mr. White bid them get the horse away as quick as might be, and they
carried the body straight into the living-room, for the door stood open.
And then they saw what it was that had given the poor boy such a fright,
and they guessed why the horse went mad, for you know horses can't bear
the smell of dead blood.

There was a long table in the room, more than the length of a man, and
on it there lay the body of Mr. Davis. The eyes were bound over with a
linen band and the arms were tied across the back, and the feet were
bound together with another band. But the fearful thing was that the
breast being quite bare, the bone of it was split through from the top
downwards with an axe! Oh, it was a terrible sight; not one there but
turned faint and ill with it, and had to go out into the fresh air. Even
Mr. White, who was what you might call a hard nature of a man, was quite
overcome and said a prayer for strength in the garden.

At last they laid out the other body as best they could in the room, and
searched about to see if they could find out how such a frightful thing
had come to pass. And in the cupboards they found a quantity of herbs
and jars with liquors, and it came out, when people that understood such
matters had looked into it, that some of these liquors were drinks to
put a person asleep. And they had little doubt that that wicked young
man had put some of this into Mr. Davis's drink, and then used him as
he did, and, after that, the sense of his sin had come upon him and he
had cast himself away.

Well now, you couldn't understand all the law business that had to be
done by the coroner and the magistrates; but there was a great coming
and going of people over it for the next day or two, and then the people
of the parish got together and agreed that they couldn't bear the
thought of those two being buried in the churchyard alongside of
Christian people; for I must tell you there were papers and writings
found in the drawers and cupboards that Mr. White and some other
clergymen looked into; and they put their names to a paper that said
these men were guilty, by their own allowing, of the dreadful sin of
idolatry; and they feared there were some in the neighbouring places
that were not free from that wickedness, and called upon them to repent,
lest the same fearful thing that was come to these men should befall
them also; and then they burnt those writings. So then, Mr. White was of
the same mind as the parishioners, and late one evening twelve men that
were chosen went with him to that evil house, and with them they took
two biers made very roughly for the purpose and two pieces of black
cloth, and down at the cross-road, where you take the turn for Bascombe
and Wilcombe, there were other men waiting with torches, and a pit dug,
and a great crowd of people gathered together from all round about. And
the men that went to the cottage went in with their hats on their
heads, and four of them took the two bodies and laid them on the biers
and covered them over with the black cloths, and no one said a word, but
they bore them down the lane, and they were cast into the pit and
covered over with stones and earth, and then Mr. White spoke to the
people that were gathered together. My father was there, for he had come
back when he heard the news, and he said he never should forget the
strangeness of the sight, with the torches burning and those two black
things huddled together in the pit, and not a sound from any of the
people, except it might be a child or a woman whimpering with the
fright. And so, when Mr. White had finished speaking, they all turned
away and left them lying there.

They say horses don't like the spot even now, and I've heard there was
something of a mist or a light hung about for a long time after, but I
don't know the truth of that. But this I do know, that next day my
father's business took him past the opening of the lane, and he saw
three or four little knots of people standing at different places along
it, seemingly in a state of mind about something; and he rode up to
them, and asked what was the matter. And they ran up to him and said,
"Oh, Squire, it's the blood! Look at the blood!" and kept on like that.
So he got off his horse and they showed him, and there, in four places,
I think it was, he saw great patches in the road, of blood: but he could
hardly see it was blood, for almost every spot of it was covered with
great black flies, that never changed their place or moved. And that
blood was what had fallen out of Mr. Davis's body as they bore it down
the lane. Well, my father couldn't bear to do more than just take in the
nasty sight so as to be sure of it, and then he said to one of those men
that was there, "Do you make haste and fetch a basket or a barrow full
of clean earth out of the churchyard and spread it over these places,
and I'll wait here till you come back." And very soon he came back, and
the old man that was sexton with him, with a shovel and the earth in a
hand-barrow: and they set it down at the first of the places and made
ready to cast the earth upon it; and as soon as ever they did that, what
do you think? the flies that were on it rose up in the air in a kind of
a solid cloud and moved off up the lane towards the house, and the
sexton (he was parish clerk as well) stopped and looked at them and said
to my father, "Lord of flies, sir," and no more would he say. And just
the same it was at the other places, every one of them.

_Charles_: But what did he mean, granny?

_Grandmother_: Well, dear, you remember to ask Mr. Lucas when you go to
him for your lesson to-morrow. I can't stop now to talk about it: it's
long past bed-time for you already. The next thing was, my father made
up his mind no one was going to live in that cottage again, or yet use
any of the things that were in it: so, though it was one of the best in
the place, he sent round word to the people that it was to be done away
with, and anyone that wished could bring a faggot to the burning of it;
and that's what was done. They built a pile of wood in the living-room
and loosened the thatch so as the fire could take good hold, and then
set it alight; and as there was no brick, only the chimney-stack and the
oven, it wasn't long before it was all gone. I seem to remember seeing
the chimney when I was a little girl, but that fell down of itself at
last.

Now this that I've got to is the last bit of all. You may be sure that
for a long time the people said Mr. Davis and that young man were seen
about, the one of them in the wood and both of them where the house had
been, or passing together down the lane, particularly in the spring of
the year and at autumn-time. I can't speak to that, though if we were
sure there are such things as ghosts, it would seem likely that people
like that wouldn't rest quiet. But I can tell you this, that one evening
in the month of March, just before your grandfather and I were married,
we'd been taking a long walk in the woods together and picking flowers
and talking as young people will that are courting; and so much taken up
with each other that we never took any particular notice where we were
going. And on a sudden I cried out, and your grandfather asked what was
the matter. The matter was that I'd felt a sharp prick on the back of my
hand, and I snatched it to me and saw a black thing on it, and struck it
with the other hand and killed it. And I showed it him, and he was a man
who took notice of all such things, and he said, "Well, I've never seen
ought like that fly before," and though to my own eye it didn't seem
very much out of the common, I've no doubt he was right.

And then we looked about us, and lo and behold if we weren't in the very
lane, just in front of the place where that house had stood, and, as
they told me after, just where the men set down the biers a minute when
they bore them out of the garden gate. You may be sure we made haste
away from there; at least, I made your grandfather come away quick, for
I was wholly upset at finding myself there; but he would have lingered
about out of curiosity if I'd have let him. Whether there was anything
about there more than we could see I shall never be sure: perhaps it was
partly the venom of that horrid fly's bite that was working in me that
made me feel so strange; for, dear me, how that poor arm and hand of
mine did swell up, to be sure! I'm afraid to tell you how large it was
round! and the pain of it, too! Nothing my mother could put on it had
any power over it at all, and it wasn't till she was persuaded by our
old nurse to get the wise man over at Bascombe to come and look at it,
that I got any peace at all. But he seemed to know all about it, and
said I wasn't the first that had been taken that way. "When the sun's
gathering his strength," he said, "and when he's in the height of it,
and when he's beginning to lose his hold, and when he's in his weakness,
them that haunts about that lane had best to take heed to themselves."
But what it was he bound on my arm and what he said over it, he wouldn't
tell us. After that I soon got well again, but since then I've heard
often enough of people suffering much the same as I did; only of late
years it doesn't seem to happen but very seldom: and maybe things like
that do die out in the course of time.

But that's the reason, Charles, why I say to you that I won't have you
gathering me blackberries, no, nor eating them either, in that lane; and
now you know all about it, I don't fancy you'll want to yourself. There!
Off to bed you go this minute. What's that, Fanny? A light in your room?
The idea of such a thing! You get yourself undressed at once and say
your prayers, and perhaps if your father doesn't want me when he wakes
up, I'll come and say good night to you. And you, Charles, if I hear
anything of you frightening your little sister on the way up to your
bed, I shall tell your father that very moment, and you know what
happened to you the last time.

The door closes, and granny, after listening intently for a minute or
two, resumes her knitting. The Squire still slumbers.




[End of An Evening's Entertainment, by M. R. James]
