Pool of St. Branok

by Philippa Carr

“You always say such wonderful things. Do you mean them?”

  “Not always. But on this occasion, yes.”

  “If you don’t mean them, why do you say them?”

  He paused for a moment and laughed at me. “Well, it makes people feel good. They like you for it, and it is wise to have people liking you. Never make enemies if you can help it … even in the smallest way. You never know when the most trivial thing can be turned against you. It is what you call keeping the wheels well oiled.”

  “Even though it is false?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s harmless. It makes people feel happy. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing, I suppose, only I like things to be true.”

  “You are asking too much.”

  We had come to open country and I started to gallop. He was beside me.

  “We’re almost on the moor,” I shouted.

  I pulled up. There it was—miles of moorland with its boulders and little rippling streams and here and there the flowering gorse.

  “There’s something strange about it,” I said. “Do you feel it? I mean strange in a certain way. Uncanny.”

  “Out of this world.”

  “Yes.”

  “You might have strayed onto another planet.”

  “That’s it. Strange things happen here. When I am here I can believe the stories one hears of the piskies and the knackers and the rest.”

  We walked our horses for a while.

  He said: “We could tie our horses to that bush and sit here for a while. I’d like to, would you?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  So we tethered the horses and sat with our backs against a boulder inhaling the fresh air. There was a faint wind which whistled through the grass making a soft moaning noise which was like a human voice.

  I was glad he was aware of the spirit of the moors.

  “The mine is not far from here.”

  “Oh yes. It belongs to the Pencarrons, I believe.”

  “Yes. We’ll ride over there one day. They’d like to meet you.”

  “Profitable concern, the mine, I take it.”

  “Yes, I think so. It’s a great boon to the Poldoreys. Quite a number of the men work there. The population seems to be made up of fishermen and miners … apart from the farmers and people who work on the land. They are safe.”

  “Safe?” he asked.

  “They are not in danger. Fishermen and miners always look out for disasters. With the miners it’s black dogs and white hares which appear now and then to announce some disaster … and disaster in the mine or at sea can be terrible. Then there are those knackers who have to be placated all the time. The miners have to leave them bits of their lunch when, poor things, they are hungry and could do with it all themselves. Then the fishermen … they never know when some mermaid is going to appear to give some dreadful warning or they are going to meet a ghost ship. Apart from all that there is the weather. So you see those who work on the land have rather a peaceful time.”

  “Why do they not all want to work on the land?”

  “If they get a good catch they earn a lot of money. And the miners? Well, I suppose they earn more than the farm laborers, because their jobs are so dangerous.”

  “Logical reasoning,” he said. “Yes, up here one could believe in some of those stories.”

  “These stones for instance could come suddenly to life. Look at that one. It is rather like a woman’s shape. It’s the one they call the Stone Novice. She was turned out of her convent because she disobeyed the laws of the Church.”

  “I wonder what law?”

  “She had a lover. They say that at certain times if you come up here alone, you can hear her weeping.”

  “I expect it is only the wind.”

  “It could easily be mistaken for weeping.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “There is the story about the mine.”

  “Pencarron’s.”

  “No. No. There are lots of mines in Cornwall. This was somewhere else. It is supposed to have happened years ago. It’s an old Scat Bal now.”

  “I thought Pencarron was that.”

  “Oh no. That is not a Scat Bal. It’s used just as a term of affection. I do hope the knackers understand that. They might be annoyed if they didn’t. This one I am telling you about is a very different matter.”

  “I’m longing to hear more.”

  “It was a tin mine. There was a terrible accident there. Several men were killed. After the accident a lot of people remembered seeing black dogs and white hares hanging around. It was a complete disaster. They said that was the end of Cradley Mine. Those who escaped lost their jobs; there was a great deal of hardship in the neighborhood. People used to say the mine was haunted. They heard strange knockings there at night. There were two men … brothers … miners who had lost their work and lived in great poverty. One night they decided to go into the old mine and see what the knocking meant. This was dangerous for the mine had collapsed once and could do so again. However, one dark night they went in. They crawled along in the direction from which came the knocking, expecting at any moment that the earth would collapse on top of them. They saw a light. They went towards it and there were twenty little men all digging away with tiny shovels. They had tiny pails and these were full of gold. They were knackers.”

  “And gold … in a tin mine?”

  “That’s the story. The two were terrified, and then they lost their fear for the knackers were so small … just the size of a sixpenny doll, they said. The knackers were not angry with the men, because they had been brave to come there in the dead of night. The men just marveled at the sight of the gold they could see in the earth. They said that if they brought proper implements in one night they could mine twenty times as much gold as the knackers were doing in that time. They came to an arrangement with the little men. They would mine the gold and sell it and for every ounce they sold ten per cent should go back to the knackers. This was agreed and every night those two men went to work. In a short time they were very rich. They bought a beautiful house and they lived like gentry and everyone was in awe of them because of their sudden fortune which they said had been left to them by a relation from overseas.”

  “I hope they remembered to surrender the ten per cent.”

  “Oh yes, they did. They never forgot. As soon as a transaction was made the knackers received their due. Well, the men married. They each had a son, and when the boys were old enough they told them the secret of their wealth, and they brought them into the mine so that when they were dead their sons could go on mining gold. So they did and in time the two men died and there were only the sons.”

  “I can guess what’s coming.”

  “What?”

  “They didn’t pay their dues.”

  “That’s right. They said: ‘Why should we? We do the work.’ They never saw the knackers. They just had to take the commission and leave it there. But it was always gone on their next visit. They made up their minds that it was a fantastic story and their fathers must have been mad to throw away so large a proportion of the profits. They did not work hard as their fathers had; they gambled and drank too much and they went only to the mine when they needed to replenish their coffers. And then one night they went to the mine and all the gold was gone. There was nothing there. It had returned to being an old Scat Bal.”

  “Well, it served them right, didn’t it? They should have kept to the bargain … particularly when dealing with people who can produce gold out of a tin mine and cut off supplies when they are being cheated!”

  “You are very skeptical, I think.”

  “Never mind, I liked the story. There are two morals in this one. Don’t be afraid for if you are bold you will prosper. That is shown by the two men investigating the knocking; and then: Don’t cheat … especially if your victim is more powerful than you are.”

  I laughed at him.

  I said: “If Uncle Peter buys an estate and you manage it,
I wonder where it will be.”

  “I have to make up my mind,” he said. “There are so many possibilities. What I shall do I think is look for some obliging knackers and ask them to find me a gold mine.”

  “You are never really serious, are you?”

  “Yes, sometimes, very serious.”

  We were silent for a while. I inhaled the strong moorland air and was happy.

  When I look back at that day, I think it was the end of my happiness.

  In spite of my imaginings about Grace Gilmore she returned to Cador as she had arranged. I saw her in the sewing room on the morning after she came back. I had a dress which I rather liked and I thought it was too short. I wondered if it were possible to let it down without spoiling it.

  I felt then that there was a restrained excitement about her, and I wondered what had happened when she visited her aunt.

  I asked her if she had had a pleasant visit. For a moment she looked startled. Surely she could not have forgotten.

  She said: “Oh yes … thank you, Miss Angelet. Very pleasant.”

  “I suppose your aunt was very interested to hear you had come to Cador.”

  “She seemed pleased that I had found a place.”

  “Mama was very pleased with the alpaca.”

  “I am very happy about that.”

  “Is your aunt a dressmaker, too?”

  “Oh no, no.”

  “I thought perhaps it ran in the family. Miss Semple who used to do dressmaking here had a mother who was a dressmaker … and so was her grandmother, I believe.”

  She said: “I am sure I can make a good job of this hem, Miss Angelet.”

  I had the impression that she thought I was prying and my mother had told me as well as the servants that that was forbidden. She knew how interested I was in people and how I could not rest until I had discovered what I wanted to know about them.

  I said: “Thanks, Miss Gilmore. I’ll leave the dress with you.”

  I left then but I continued to think about her.

  The very next day we heard about the escaped convict.

  I had been riding with Ben and we had gone out as far as the Pencarron Mine. He seemed to have become interested in mines since I had told him the story of the knackers’ gold.

  When we came back we rode down to the harbor. He wanted to look at the sea.

  As we came through the town we saw a little knot of people gathered together staring at something fixed to the wall. We went close. It was a poster.

  I saw Jim Mullens, one of the fishermen whom I knew well, and I called to him: “What’s all the fuss about, Jim?”

  “Oh, Miss Angel, there be a terrible to-do. It’s this here convict who has got out of Bodmin Jail. Real dangerous they say he be.”

  I dismounted and led my horse forward. Ben did the same.

  We saw the rather crude drawing of a man. He had strongly marked brows under a pair of wild-looking dark eyes and thick dark curly hair.

  “This man is Dangerous” said the big black words on the poster.

  I read on. He was one Mervyn Duncarry and he had been about to go on trial for murder when he had escaped from Bodmin Jail.

  Mrs. Fenny was there having left her cottage to be closer to the excitement.

  “This be a shocking thing,” she said. “We could all be murdered in our beds.”

  The Misses Poldrew stood by. I heard the whispered words. “He assaulted the poor young thing before he strangled her. He deserves to hang twice over … and here he is … He could be in Poldorey this minute …”

  The Misses Poldrew would have to make a double check under their beds this evening, I thought.

  There was a little about this dangerous man. He had broken out of jail during the night and could be anywhere in the Duchy. Ports were being watched. The public should keep a look out. If they thought they saw him they should not attempt to approach him, but report it at once.

  We mounted our horses and rode through the town.

  “He’ll soon be found,” said Ben. “He can’t get far with everyone on the alert for him.”

  At luncheon we talked about him.

  “He’ll hang for this,” said my father. “It is sad for he is apparently quite a well-educated young man. He was a tutor.”

  “Looking after children!” cried my mother. “How terrible.”

  “He suddenly seemed to go mad. It was some girl in the village. A child of about ten …”

  My mother avoided looking at me. She was about my age … this poor girl who had been assaulted and murdered.

  My mother said fiercely: “I hope they catch him … soon. He deserves everything he gets … and more. Why do people do such things?”

  “It’s a madness,” said my father. “He must have become suddenly insane.”

  “Perhaps he could be cured,” I suggested.

  “Perhaps, and perhaps not,” said Ben. “And who would ever know that he was cured? It might break out again and someone else be murdered.”

  “Yes,” agreed my mother. “It seems that eliminating such people is the only way. He won’t get far,” she added. “No fear of that.”

  When luncheon was over Ben said to me: “What about a ride this afternoon?”

  “I’d like that,” I replied eagerly.

  “You said you were going to show me that pool.”

  “Oh yes. Branok.”

  “The bottomless pool where the bells are heard when some disaster is about to occur.”

  “Yes,” I giggled. “It’s one of those places … like the moor. You can laugh but you can feel it when you are there.”

  “Right. In half an hour?”

  When I went down to the stables Ben was already there, mounted.

  He said: “I’ve just had a command from John Polstark. He wants me to go out with him and look at one of the cottages.”

  I was disappointed. “So you can’t come.”

  “It won’t take very long. Are you ready to go? I believe the cottage is somewhere near the pool. You go on. Wait for me there.”

  I brightened. “I’ll do that.”

  And so innocently happy I rode out to the pool, not realizing that life was never going to be the same again.

  It was a warm day with just a light coolish breeze. I reached the pool. How silent it was! There was no one about. There rarely was here. I listened intently. I almost felt I could hear the tinkle of bells. It was easy to fancy such things in such a place.

  I felt a desire to touch the water. It shimmered in the sunshine. It was still though; there was not a ripple on the surface. I halted my horse and, slipping off her back, looked round for somewhere to tether her. She was docile enough, but I did not want her to wander.

  I patted her and said: “Just for a while. Ben will be here soon.”

  I went down to the pool and trailed my hand in the water. I half wished that I could hear the bells; and yet I should have been terrified if they had begun to peal. How would they sound under water? Muffled, I supposed. I should be rather frightened but only because I was alone.

  My horse whinnied.

  I stood still without turning round. “It’s all right, Glory,” I said. “He’ll soon be here … then you’ll be free … though he might want to walk for a while.”

  I heard a footstep.

  “Ben,” I called. I looked round, but it was not Ben.

  “Good afternoon,” he said. He was a youngish man in his early twenties, I imagined. He smiled pleasantly. “I’ve lost my way. Perhaps you could direct me.”

  “I expect so. I live round here.”

  “Not at that magnificent house I passed?”

  “Was it on a cliff?”

  “Yes. Like a castle.”

  He had come closer and was looking at me intently. He had thick eyebrows and dark curly hair.

  “That’s Cador,” I told him. “It’s my home.”

  “Congratulations. It must be wonderful to live in such a place. It is certainly very fine.”


  “It’s very old, of course.”

  “I guessed so.”

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “Is there a good inn?”

  “There is the Fisherman’s Rest. It’s very small. There was the King’s Arms. That was an old coaching inn … but there was no business after the railways came, and it closed down. There is only really the Fisherman’s Rest.”

  “You’re a nice little girl,” he said and he came closer to me.

  It was then that I felt the first twinge of fear. He seemed to change suddenly. I had thought that he was a student … exploring the countryside. Now I was not so sure.

  “Thank you,” I said as coolly as I could and started to walk past him, but he caught my arm.

  “You’re frightened,” he said. “Why?”

  “No … no,” I stammered. “I … I just have to go.”

  “Why?” he cried shaking me.

  A terrible thought came into my mind. I remembered the poster. I looked at his face. His eyes now looked wild; they seemed to bore right into me. I thought: It’s the escaped prisoner … and I’m here … alone with him. I wanted to cry out but my mouth was dry and no sound came. My heart was beating so fast that I thought I should suffocate.

  I heard myself say shrilly: “Who are you?”

  He did not answer. I moved backwards. I was very close to the water.

  He advanced too. He had changed. He was no longer the pleasant student. There was a dreadful light in his eyes. His pupils seemed to be distended.

  He said: “I like little girls.” And he laughed horribly. “I like them when they are nice to me.”

  “Yes … yes,” I said, trying to sound normal and wondering if I could slip past him and run … and run.

  He gripped my arm. I tried to wrench it free, but he laughed again in that frightening way. Then he put a hand out and touched my throat.

  “No, no,” I screamed. “Go away. Let me alone.”

  It was the wrong thing to have done. As I tried to dodge past him he caught me by the shoulder.

  “Let me go,” I sobbed. “Let me go.”

  Panic had seized me. I could not think. I was only aware of his closeness … his motives, which I only half understood but which I knew ended in death.

  I was young; I was agile; but he was a grown man and stronger than I. I knew that if he caught me I was doomed.