Ralph Tyler lit an acrid cigarette and leant forward intently. The young sculptor visibly recoiled. He put one hand to his chin.
‘And then the sounds began. Voices, murmured, a droning, muffled thudding, sudden sparks of sound which seemed to sweep in and out of the heavy wafts of air. As soon as this strange cloud of noises descended on me—and it happened three times—I just turned and ran back to the cottage. And it got so I dare not go out. I just stayed in and got on with my work. If I needed anything, I dashed out to my old wreck of a car and drove off pretty hastily to town or wherever it might be. Then I got back inside equally swiftly on my return.’
Ralph sank back in his armchair, puffing pensively at his cigarette.
‘What are you working on?’
Robin Palmer blinked. ‘Ah—mmm. A new departure, really, for me anyway. Using natural materials to enliven abstract shapes. Leaves, berries, twigs and so on. It has worked quite well.’
Ralph nodded. The young man waited a moment and then went on.
‘Well, trying to avoid the road was no good. It made me feel a prisoner anyway, and I began to think I was being too sensitive about the happenings so I started to go for short walks again.
‘At first nothing happened. And then, one evening, as I stopped to watch the last of the sunset sink down beyond the far end of the lane, I had a dream—or it might be a vision, I don’t really know. And it was very vivid, very actual, not hazy at all; and also very simple. I thought I was trying to walk out through the end of the lane, through the crossroads, but before I could get there, a huge dark snake reared up and prevented me. It was a highly gleaming black, like mourning jewellery of jet, and its eyes blazing with intelligence and purpose—it almost seemed to be grinning. It just writhed there, erect, and when I made a move to pass by, it matched my movement and flickered its forked tongue as if daring me to try.
‘So I turned on my heels and pounded down the road, as if to make for the other exit, where the lane joins an equally nameless track at a horseshoe bend; and again just as I seemed to be about to reach my goal, up starts another dark snake, a carbon copy of the first, which wavers and lunges and watches me from glistening, greedy eyes.
‘And then I seemed to dash wildly from one to the other, devoid of reason, as the dark closed in and I could no longer see for sure where they were, but only sense some soft, silent swaying in the gloom, or catch a spark from their shining eyes. How long this game went on I could not say: at last I just sank down on the grassy bank by the side of the road and covered my head with my arms.
‘I lay there some time and they did not seem to advance from behind or in front and everything seemed to stay very still, and so at last I cautiously looked up, and they were quite gone. So I bolted back into the house at once and forced myself to stay calm and just think as hard as I could about what was going on.
‘Everybody expects artists, you know, to have a “temperament”, but I thought I was quite level-headed.’
He stopped here, as if aware that his fingers were tightly clutched together, and deliberately unlocking them, laid his hands flat on his lap.
Ralph gazed at him through half opened eyes, his head halfway down the cushion at the back of his battered armchair, in his usual slumped position.
‘So you can think of nothing whatever which might have induced the experiences?’ he asked, abruptly.
The sculptor shook his head, slowly.
‘It’s completely beyond me,’ he said, with deep conviction.
‘Anything else?’
‘Yes. This is what made me decide to get some help. You see, when I decided to go out one more time, to try to face down whatever it was, I knew at once that there was still a presence out there. It must have been early. I hadn’t slept much after seeing those wretched serpents, as you can imagine. I suppose it was just after dawn, the ground was still damp and there was a faint mist. I went to the gate and looked up and down the lane. It was very quiet—quieter even than usual, it seemed to me. As if the mist was a sort of visual silence sucking in any sound. I was just staring about me, wondering whether to venture out a bit further, when I thought I saw a glint of gold some way in the distance on a stretch of the road to the right. And then again, another glint. And of course, I knew something was coming. I just knew. I tore myself away from the gate and sort of stumbled back to the cottage, but my legs were nearly giving way, I can tell you.
‘And I couldn’t help but stop and look. I had to. But what with the mist and the radiance I don’t quite know for sure what I saw. It was a figure, yes, a tall figure, but sheathed in some sort of glow, so you couldn’t really see details; but I do know this, there was something very powerful about the presence, a blazing-out of a hard force of some kind. And one thing else I noticed, could not help but see.’
Our visitor halted, and looked at each of us with a mute appeal on his white face.
‘This thing, whatever it was, looming out of the mist: it walked as we do; but it seemed as if it had horns.’
**
There was a clinging drizzle as Ralph Tyler paced from one end of the lane to the other. It seemed unremarkable enough. On one side was a bedraggled verge, a slight ditch and a thick hedge bordering fallow fields. On the other, where the Hermit’s House stood, was open moorland. The road itself was rutted and sunken in many places.
Lighting an oval shaped cigarette, a new Greek brand he was trying, Ralph rejoined us.
‘Now let me see round the house,’ he requested.
Robin Palmer led us through a dank wooden gate, and was about to take us inside the low cottage, with its dark brow of rough-hewn slate, when Ralph paused.
‘Where do you do your work?’ he enquired.
‘In an old barn at the end of the back garden,’ Robin replied.
‘There first please.’ The tall, tumbledown timber structure was reached through a stubborn door. Inside, a makeshift shelf held a display of maquettes, while tools were neatly arranged on a row of hooks. The middle of the barn was occupied by a cone of old stones, much like a mountain cairn, into which the young sculptor had contrived several niches. They were empty.
‘This was the work I told you about,’ Robin explained. ‘The idea is to place natural things in the hollows—twigs, leaves, berries and so on.’
Ralph shrugged and, crouching, inspected the work more closely.
‘Where did you get the stone?’
‘Mmm? Oh—nothing mysterious there. At the top of the lane was an old broken wall and they were just lying around. I’ve had to shape them a bit, but it was surprising how easily they fitted together into this form. Why, do you think . . . ?’
‘What gave you the idea?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. It just sort of came to me. Rather different to what I’ve done before though.’
Ralph nodded absently and pushed through the reluctant door back into the damp air.
‘Is that just another shed?’—he pointed to another, smaller, outhouse.
‘Yes. A wood shed. I’ll get some logs in actually. We’ll need a fire in this weather.’
He strode ahead of us and began to pile fuel into a sack. Ralph pushed inside and stared moodily around. Idly he picked up a shabby black-bound book lying askew on the grimy floor. He turned a few brittle, mottled pages.
‘Where did you get this?’ he asked, diffidently.
Robin Palmer looked up from his labours. ‘Uh? Oh, there was a pile in here. Somebody before me must have used them as tinder—they were just scattered in with the sticks and newspapers. Mostly religious stuff. I haven’t burnt any myself—I just put them aside. Is that one interesting?’
‘Possibly. I’ve heard of the author. Constance Naden. Philosopher and poet. Last century. Not very well known really: odd that it should be here.’
‘Well, take it if you want.’
‘Thanks. I’ll borrow it if I may.’
In the rather Spartan parlour, we drew our chairs closer to the fire and Ralph Tyler summarised
the results of the researches he had carried out the day before, while Robin Palmer had stopped with me.
‘What appears to be this house is marked on the first series Ordnance Survey map around the middle of the last century, but it is not named. Whellan’s directory of the county—1848—which is notoriously unreliable—doesn’t list anyone here. Your deeds only go back about sixty years, but that’s not unusual. In these, it is always called the Hermit’s House. As far as I can tell, the occupants have been temporary farm labourers, or the owners have lived elsewhere, and been absentees.’
Our client nodded: ‘When I bought it, I was told it had just been used as a holiday home.’
‘It may be that you are the first person for years to stay here for any appreciable length of time. That is why you are able to bear witness to a whole sequence of incidents.’
‘You think these things are for my benefit?’ There was a silence. A half burnt log shifted in the grate.
‘Not quite for your benefit, perhaps.’ replied Ralph, drily. ‘No, I would say that there is something reacting specifically to your presence. And although you have been troubled by so many disturbing experiences, it’s my belief that whatever is at work here has also affected you in ways you hardly know.’
Robin Palmer stared at my friend, then sighed and turned away. ‘But what can we do?’
‘I should like some time on my own to get all the evidence clear in my head, and perhaps to seek for inspiration. But if my surmise is correct, I rather think we must perform a sacrifice,’ replied Ralph Tyler, equably.
**
For the next forty minutes or so we followed Ralph Tyler, baffled, as he assembled a miscellany of items from around the house: a dish of honey, some wine, flowers, fruit, seeds, salt, candles. We carried them solemnly to the wooden outhouse which Robin Palmer used as a studio: a slow dusk was falling as we helped Ralph to arrange them on and around the cone of old stones which the sculptor had created.
‘In ancient times,’ Ralph explained, ‘a sacrifice was the giving of any thing to the gods, not necessarily the lives of animals. In fact, the greatest pagan sages—Orpheus, Empedocles, Apollonius —all decried the spilling of blood. They said that such things as we have gathered were just as pleasing to the gods. . . .’
‘But, Ralph,’ interjected his client, ‘What has all this got to do with what I experienced?’
‘I think all the signs point in a certain direction,’ replied my friend, ‘and I suspect they have been getting stronger day by day: so that a presence invoked once in this house is seeking again its proper acknowledgement. If the pattern of events you have experienced so far is any guide, we may expect another visitation very soon. This time we must be prepared.’
‘What do you want us to do?’ I asked. All too often in the past my friend’s yearning for the dramatic, or his doubt about his hypothesis, had led him to leave his client and me dangerously unprepared.
‘Concentrate on the offerings. Imagine giving them freely to some highly honoured guest of the house. Behave with respect.’
‘Huh,’ I riposted. ‘Easier said than done. If you think I’m going to linger gracefully while a great horned figure advances on me out of the mist, you can . . .’
‘Not horns, I think,’ interrupted Ralph softly, just as I was warming to my theme. ‘Are you sure that is what you saw, Robin?’
Our client made as if to give a ready confirmation, then closed his lips and frowned.
‘Well—it seemed like that. I mean, there was such a hard shining light it was difficult to look directly. But definitely there was something there, on the sides of the head. . . . What else could it be?’
Ralph shook his head and paced around the studio silently, leaving the question in mid-air, unanswered. It had grown more fully dark as we talked, and the high, narrow, thick-glassed windows gleamed like polished jet. The only illumination was from the few candles placed upon the impromptu shrine we had made of Robin’s natural sculpture.
Our faces flickered in and out of the wan glow as we moved nervously around.
After we had waited and wandered restlessly for some while in the gloom, there was a sudden surge of rustling outside as if the rising wind had gathered up a war-band of detritus to throw against our creaking shelter. It lunged in bulging gusts several more times, then settled to a low roar. Inside, the darkness seemed to intensify dizzyingly.
Then it seemed as if the flagstones beneath my feet rocked as I tried to feel my way cautiously around, as if they had been thrown into odd angles to trip me up, force me to the floor. At first I thought it was my confusion and clumsiness due to the unaccustomed denseness of the dark, and cursed myself inwardly. But then I began to feel there was a sly, subtle purpose in the movement beneath my soles. I called out to the others, lamely—
‘What’s happening?’
Ralph held up his hand for silence, and I saw it lit fleetingly in the feeble glimmer of the candles. Then there was a soft, fitful scrabbling at the high black windows.
I glanced up and thought I saw shards of darkness clustering there, which peeled away from the panes quickly, vanished, then plunged back again, soaring jagged stars of gleaming black. These shapes, the droning wind, the lunging floor slabs and the oppressive sense of a brittle, active descent of night, all harried my consciousness. I had the overwhelming impression that the whole place had become a vessel of living darkness, which moved, swayed to unseen currents of force. It was as if we were swept up in some vast ethereal procession of night, surging to some distant destination beyond, while we were unpityingly harried by the storm, betrayed by the very ground beneath our feet, and implacably guardianed by the fragments of black battering at the windows. And around us I caught tantalising echoes of companions in the vortex: other forms, molten faces, dissolving figures, smeared shadows.
As I tried to anchor my thoughts and hold desperately onto where I knew I was, I craned my attention outwards with a clenched effort and heard Ralph’s voice hoarsely urging, through the assault—
‘Concentrate! Look at the altar! Offer! Offer!’
I tried to do as he demanded, focusing my eyes on the simple things dimly seen in the sputtering candleglow, the pools of light glancing from the fruit’s sheen, the wineglass’s glint, the pale glimmer of the flowers, and imagining with grave solemnity that I kneeled and rendered these up to some high, honoured visitor.
For what seemed like a great space of time we all regarded the stone altar intently, warring with our thoughts to keep them attentive to the offering we were making to whatever was master of the living, seething darkness around us. Within the great train of night that seemed to have taken possession of our refuge, I began to hear Ralph declaiming solemnly a chant of brief, clarion-like exhortations as he moved around the makeshift altar, his hand appearing like eerie amber lit from within, as he touched each offering. I watched him intently and it seemed as if my own lips moved somehow in accord with his recitations, though I had no idea what words they were framing.
With a vast sudden sinking, the sounds, the fleeting shapes, the utter depth of darkness and most of all the sensed presence of strange companions, seemed to recede, to be replaced by a bright silence, crystalline, tingling, rarefied. Ralph stood thoughtfully, hands by his side, still eagerly contemplating the stone monument. Then he stepped backwards from it, slowly and ceremoniously, and ushered us towards him. We strode swiftly out of the creaking doors into the coolness of a star-sown night, breathing quickly and gazing keenly around us to let our eyes feast on the ordinariness, the stillness of the scene. One lone shape glided swiftly overhead, a dark spasm against the blue brilliance of the sky.
We bundled into Robin Palmer’s cottage and he busied himself with fixed determination in stoking up a good glowing log fire, while I made black coffee and Ralph paced around thoughtfully. When we were all gathered in armchairs around the hearth and had contemplated the prancing golden flames for a while, Ralph spoke up.
‘Step by step, Robin,
you have experienced emanations from a being I think must once have been worshipped here, or at very least to have been fervently and intensely evoked. I have only a glimmer of a notion as to why such allegiance was manifested here, but I am quite certain what form it takes.’
He slumped back in the armchair and gazed thoughtfully at the fire.
‘Think of it. First wafts of something like incense, then distantly heard sounds like chanting and perhaps something percussive. A ritual, clearly, dimly reconveyed to you. But of what? Next, when you do not respond to these signs, there is a far more direct demand upon your attention—the dark snakes at each end of the lane, strangely alert and invested with intelligence. Still, this yields no response from you, except numbing fear. What are these? Some familiars, some outer expression of a being, a force that once was attended by rituals and now has none. Then, at last, the highly numinous, powerful presence you experienced, the great figure advancing from the mist, aureoled: the figure I believe was not horned, as you thought, but . . . well, winged. Wearing a winged helmet, in fact.’
The young sculptor shot a sudden glare at him, recognition jolting into place.
‘Yes,’ Ralph resumed. ‘Quite so. Mercury. Hermes. The twin serpents made it seem a possibility: you recall his sacred thyrsus. And he was the god of roads, where he would sometimes appear to travellers in a flowing radiance. Your house, I think, must originally have been called “Hermes’ House”.
‘After many years, this provenance was forgotten and the very isolation of it made “Hermit’s House” the more natural rendering. So it became. But, long before then, somebody here was the god’s devotee, so passionately preoccupied with the ancient Greek deity that the force of their allegiance has stayed here. There have been adherents of Hermes amongst writers even in our own ultra-modern century: Santayana, Forrest Reid, Thomas Mann. My surmise is that no-one since the original Hermes-worshipper has stayed in this house long enough—or had the necessary sensitivity—to feel the presence as you have. And I think one thing in particular may have prompted that. . . .’
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