I let go my hold as I saw my host enter the room. The creature dropped on all fours at my feet; my host gave a sharp word of command; and the horrible thing, that once had been a man, sidled slowly out. My host, without a word, followed it.
I am not ashamed to say that I was in a state of complete collapse. I was a strong well-built youngster of twenty-two, and all I had had to do was to repulse a weak and decrepit creature, feeble alike in body and mind. Yet, somehow, I felt that I had been struggling with something so unwholesome that I myself had been in danger of corruption. Perhaps people in the middle ages felt like that about contact with a leper. I do not know.
As I gradually became myself again, I decided there was only one course to take. I had had enough of Balfother. I put my things into my pack and, creeping out of the room, felt my way about until I had discovered the stairway. I stole quietly down, found the door, drew back the wooden bars, and literally ran out into the night. It was still dark, but the mist had cleared. Again I struck south by compass, this time not caring whether I sprained an ankle or not. And, to my surprise, I had been walking for barely a quarter of an hour when I reached Loch Rannoch. There I stayed until dawn, resting my back against a tree, pondering over my strange adventure and regaining peace of mind.
My walk was over, save for the few miles to Rannoch Station. I caught a train there, changed at Crianlarich, and journeyed slowly, across country, back to St Andrews.
A week or so after my return, I received a note from John Barnet, my professor of Greek, inviting me to his house for tea. Term had not yet started, and the only other guest at tea was Duncan Mackinnon, the senior lecturer in History. I had told Barnet of my intention to walk from North Queensferry to the Ross of Mull, and naturally his first question was to ask me how I had fared. You can easily understand that my immediate response was to tell the whole story of my night at Balfother. But I was not prepared for what followed.
‘Balfother?’ interrupted Mackinnon, when I told of my arrival at the house.
‘Robert Norrie?’ he asked, excitedly, a little later.
But he let me finish.
‘You know something about all this?’ queried Barnet, turning to Mackinnon, when my tale had ended.
‘Wait!’ he answered. ‘I’ll slip over to my house and bring back a document which goes some way towards an explanation — though even then the whole thing is incredible.’
Mackinnon went out, leaving us to await his return impatiently — wondering what his document could be, and what explanation it could possibly give.
About ten minutes later he was back.
‘As you know,’ he began, taking a folded paper from his pocket, ‘I have been working on the Fortingall Pipers in the Scottish Record Office. And as soon as Petrie mentioned Balfother I remembered a queer letter under the Privy Seal which I found in the Fortingall Papers and which intrigued me so much that I transcribed it in full.’
He unfolded his sheet of paper, and although I cannot give you the exact words — though I still have a copy of the document at home — what he read out to us ran roughly like this:
A letter made to William Fowler of Balfother, his heirs and assigns, making mention that for the good, true and thankful service done and to be done by the said William, his heirs and assigns, in the keeping and maintaining of Robert Norrie, the man to whom the French leech Damian gave the quintessence in the time of our sovereign Lord’s predecessor King James IV, whom God assoil, and the said Robert Norrie being still on life, therefore our sovereign Lord grants to the said William, his heirs and assigns, an annual rent of five hundred shillings to be uptaken yearly of the lands of Dall and Finnart. Providing always that the said William Fowler, his heirs and assigns, shall keep the said Robert Norrie close from all other persons whatsomever that he may be scatheless and harmless in his body, and that our sovereign Lord and, if God wills, our sovereign Lord’s successors, may know to what age the said Robert shall live.
‘Now you can understand my excitement,’ continued Mackinnon. ‘The date of that letter is 3rd April 1622. James IV died at Flodden in 1513. So already Robert Norrie had lived to at least the age of 109, and probably several years more — for the quintessence would hardly be given to him in his infancy. That had aroused my interest when I first read the extract; but, if Petrie saw the same Robert Norrie at Balfother, as he seems to have done, the man must now be more than 400 years old.’
For a minute or so we digested this in silence.
‘He was centuries old,’ I said. ‘I felt it at the time.’
‘And what’s all this about the French leech Damian, and the quintessence?’ asked Barnet.
‘Oh, that part is straightforward enough,’ answered Mackinnon. ‘We know that James IV encouraged the experiments of a certain Damian who believed he could distil the “quintessence” — not only to turn base metals into gold but also to yield an elixir that would prolong man’s life indefinitely. James IV even made him abbot of Tongland; and, if you are interested, you can find the materials which he used in his experiments, and for which the King paid, in the Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer from about 1501 to 1513. My extract proves conclusively that Robert Norrie, who had been given the “quintessence”, lived to be at least 109. Is he still alive? At 400? What’s more, when Petrie knocked at the door of Balfother he was told that no stranger could be admitted, and that the King’s writ said so. Doesn’t that mean that the same Robert Norrie is still being kept “close”?’
‘We’ll go to Balfother ourselves,’ cried Barnet. ‘And we’ll ask James Waters to come with us. He takes so much interest in his anatomical reconstructions from the skulls and bones of men who have been dead for centuries that he’s sure to be interested in the anatomy of a man who is still alive at the age of at least 400. All that puzzles me is how the affair has been kept secret for so long. Food — and even tallow candles — must be bought; and people are always curious about any queer goings-on in their neighbourhood. Surely the good folk of Kilchonan must know of the strange “creature” kept in Balfother. However, we’ll see. I propose we ring up Waters and, if he’s free, we’ll drive to Kilchonan tomorrow.’
Waters was free. And Barnet was a good driver. We arrived at Kilchonan about noon and, after a picnic lunch by the loch-side, the four of us retraced my steps up the high ground to the west of the stream that runs from Loch Ericht into Loch Rannoch. But we found no tower-house. Reaching the point where I thought I had turned back, we spread out, far wider than beaters on a grouse-moor, and walked southwards again. We met on the road by the Loch, and again we had failed to find Balfother.
‘Are you sure you didn’t fall asleep and dream it all?’ asked Barnet, turning to me with a twinkle in his eye.
‘I’m certain I didn’t,’ I replied, firmly.
‘It can’t have been a dream,’ confirmed Mackinnon. ‘Petrie had never heard of Balfother and Robert Norrie. He knew nothing of a letter under the Privy Seal — a “king’s writ — which banned the entry of strangers.’
‘Well,’ said the practical Waters, ‘I suggest we inquire at Kilchonan. Perhaps we should have done so first of all.’
We inquired. But no one in Kilchonan had heard of a house called Balfother. One encouragement, however, did emerge from our inquiries. It was suggested that we should call on a Mr Alastair MacGregor, in Aberfeldy, who, we were told, was writing a local history, and who, of all people, was the most likely to be of help to us.
We drove to Aberfeldy, and we found Mr MacGregor.
‘Balfother?’ he repeated. ‘Yes, there was certainly a tower-house of that name. It belonged to the Fowlers; but it was destroyed long ago. A grim and tragic affair. Come in, and I’ll tell you about it.’
Alastair MacGregor did not live long enough to see his book in print. I can give you no reference to volume and page. But I am not likely to forget his account.
It appears that in 1649 there was a veritable epidemic of witch-huntings, witch-trials and witch-burnings throughou
t all Scotland from one end of the country to the other. And, in the August of that year, someone denounced William Fowler of Balfother, and Bessie Wilson, his wife, of keeping a ‘familiar’. The ‘familiar’ had been seen. It was in the form of an old and naked man, who could not be clothed, and who ran about on all fours like a dog.
A body of men, headed by a minister, went out to Balfother. Apparently they had difficulty in gaining an entrance, but when, at last, they had broken down the door, had entered the house, and had secured Fowler and his wife, they began a search for the ‘familiar’. And, according to the story, they found it — an old and decrepit man, stark naked, who babbled the words of some devilish incantation which put them all in terror until the minister cried out: ‘Get thee behind me, Satan,’ when they rushed at it and bound it with strong cords.
William Fowler and Bessie Wilson were burned as agents of the devil, and, with them, was burned their ‘familiar’. It is said that William Fowler produced something which he called ‘the king’s writ’, and which he offered in his defence. But the court refused to look at it, let alone accept it.
As for the house itself, after the burnings, the minister had preached a powerful sermon on the text, ‘We will destroy this place . . . and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it.’ Whereupon all the people had marched out to Balfother and, with crowbars and irons, had pulled down the house, stone by stone, scattering the stones over the land. And yet, apparently, the sight of good cut freestone was too much for the people of a later time. According to MacGregor, many of the stones of Balfother were still to be seen in some of the walls in Kilchonan.
We left the knowledgeable MacGregor and we drove from Aberfeldy in silence.
‘What a horrible story,’ said Barnet, at last.
‘Yes,’ agreed Mackinnon. ‘One of far too many. Horrible. And yet,’ he continued with his historian’s eye for dates, ‘Robert Norrie must have lived to at least the age of 136. Is that possible, Waters?’
‘Certainly it’s possible,’ replied Waters, crisply. ‘All the same, I’m glad that modern medicine has not yet discovered the prescription for Damian’s quintessence. Old age is already a social problem, without further complications from an elixir of life.’
‘But,’I cried, impatiently, ‘can any of you explain how I came to the House of Balfother when the house was no longer there, and how Robert Norrie came to visit me when Robert Norrie had long been dead.’
No one answered me. And I know that no one ever will.
HIS OWN NUMBER
‘WHAT DO YOU GAIN by putting a man into space?’ asked Johnson, somewhat aggressively. ‘Instruments are far more efficient.’
‘But,’ protested Hamilton, our Professor of Mathematical Physics, ‘an astronaut can make use of instruments which don’t respond to remote control. Also, he can bring the right instruments into work at exactly the right time in flight.’
‘Maybe so,’ returned Johnson. ‘But what if he gets excited? The advantage of the instrument is that it never gets excited. It has no emotions. Its response is purely automatic.’
‘Can you be sure of that?’ asked Munro, from his chair by the fire. And, by the way he spoke, we could sense that there was something behind his question.
‘If it is in perfect order, why not?’ persisted Johnson.
‘I don’t know,’ Munro replied, slowly. ‘But I can tell you a tale of an electronic computer that was in perfect order and yet three times gave the same answer to an unfortunate technician!
‘Something like a wrist-watch which is affected by the pulse-beat of the wearer?’ suggested Hayles.
‘Something more than that,’ said Munro. ‘A great deal more. But what that “something” was, I simply don’t know. Or can an instrument have “second sight”, or respond to forces that are beyond our reckoning? I wish I knew the answer to that. However, I’ll tell you my tale, and then each of you can try to explain it to his own satisfaction.’
As you probably know, when I first came here I came to a Research Fellowship in the Department of Mathematics. And, as it happened, one of the problems upon which I was engaged necessitated the use of an electronic computer. There were several in the Department, but the one which I normally used was quite a simple instrument: little more than an advanced calculator. I could ‘programme’ a number of calculations, feed them into it, and, in less than a minute, out would come the answer which it would have taken me perhaps a month to work out by myself. Just that, and no more. And I wish I could say it was always: ‘Just that, and no more.’ For here comes my tale.
One afternoon, being somewhat rushed — for I had been invited to a sherry party in the Senate Room — I asked one of the technicians if he’d feed my calculations into the computer, and leave the result on my desk. By pure chance the man I asked to do the job for me was called Murdoch Finlayson: a Highlander from somewhere up in Wester Ross. He was a good fellow in every way, and as honest and conscientious as they make them. I say ‘by pure chance’; but perhaps it was all foreordained that I should pick on Finlayson. Certainly it seemed so, in the end. But, at the time, all I wanted to do was to get away to a sherry party; Finlayson happened to be near at hand; and I knew that I could trust him.
I thought, when I asked him to do the job, and when I indicated the computer I wanted him to use, that he looked strangely hesitant, and even backed away a bit. I remember wondering if he had been wanting to leave early, and here was I keeping him tied to his work. But, just when I was about to say that there was no real hurry, and that I’d attend to it myself in the morning, he seemed to pull himself together, reached out for my calculations, and, with an odd look in his eyes, murmured something that sounded like ‘the third time’.
I was a little puzzled by his reaction to what I thought was a simple request, and even more puzzled by that murmured remark about ‘the third time’; but, being in a hurry, gave the matter no second thought and dashed off.
My sherry party lasted somewhat longer than I had expected and, when I returned to the Department, I found it deserted. Everyone had gone home. I walked over to my desk, and then stood there, dumbfounded. Instead of the somewhat complex formula I had expected, I saw one of the computer’s sheets bearing a simple number. A simple line of six digits. I won’t give you the exact number on that sheet, but it was something like
585244
and underneath the number was a short note:
It’s come for the third time.
I recognized Finlayson’s handwriting. But what did he mean by that cryptic statement? First of all, he had murmured something about ‘the third time’; and now he had left a message saying: ‘It’s come for the third time.’ And what was that simple line of digits, anyway? If it was supposed to be the answer to my series of calculations, it was no answer at all.
At first I felt slightly angry. What was Finlayson playing at? Then a vague feeling of uneasiness supervened. Finlayson was too sound and solid to be playing tricks with me. I remembered his hesitancy, and a new thought struck me: had it perhaps been fear? What could that number mean? As a line of digits, a six-figure number, I could see nothing unusual about it. It was a simple number, and nothing more. Then, for a time, I played with it. I cubed it; but I was no wiser. I added up the digits and cubed the total; I multiplied by three and tried again; and so forth and so on till I admitted that I was simply wasting my time. I could make nothing of it.
Unfortunately I didn’t know where Finlayson lived, so perforce I had to contain my curiosity until the next morning. Also I had to contain that vague feeling of uneasiness which still persisted. But the next morning, as soon as I had entered the Department, I sought him out.
‘This is an extraordinary result, Finlayson,’ I said, holding out the computer sheet which he had left on my desk.
‘Aye, sir.’
‘But surely the computer must have gone completely haywire.’
‘The computer’s all right, sir. But yon’s the result it gave me, and I’m no liking it at
all.’
‘The computer can’t be right,’ I persisted. ‘And your note seems to say that this is the third time you’ve received this result from it. Do you really mean that on three separate occasions, whatever the calculations you have put into this computer, it has each time returned this same number — 585244?
‘It has that, sir. And it’s unchancy. I’m no liking a machine that gives me yon same number three times. I’m thinking that maybe it’s my own number. And now I’m afeared o’ it. I’m for handing in my papers and leaving, sir. I’ll away to my brother’s to help with the sheep. ’Tis safer feeding a flock of ewes than tending a machine that aye gives you a queer number.’
‘Nonsense,’ I retorted. ‘There’s something wrong with the computer, or with the way in which you set it and fed in the calculations.’
‘Maybe aye and maybe no, sir. But maybe I’ve been given my own number, and I’m no liking it at all. I’m wanting to leave.’
I realized that I was up against some form of Highland superstition. Finlayson had been given a simple number three times, and that was enough for him. Maybe it was ‘his own number’ — whatever that might mean. I realized, too, that he had made up his mind to go, and that nothing I could say would dissuade him. Sheep were safer than electronic computers.
‘All right,’ I said to him, ‘I’ll speak to the Dean. And if it is any comfort to you, I won’t ask you to operate that computer again.’
He thanked me for what he called my ‘consideration’, and went back to his work. I, in turn, went straight to the Dean.
Dark Encounters: Ghost Stories Page 13