Out of the Deep_And Other Supernatural Tales by Walter de la Mare

Author:Walter de la Mare [Mare, Walter de la]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gothic, sinister, ghost story, hallucination, supernatural, haunting
Publisher: British Library Publishing
Published: 2017-04-09T22:00:00+00:00

He turned about; his expression changed, as if at the coming of a light. ‘Why, then, sir, let us be gone at once. You are with me, sir: that was all I hoped and asked. And now there’s no time to waste.’

He tilted his head to listen a moment – with that large, flat, shell-like ear of his which age alone seems to produce. ‘Matches and candle, sir,’ he had lowered his voice to a whisper, ‘but – though we mustn’t lose each other; you and me, I mean – not, I think, a naked light. What I would suggest, if you have no objection, is your kindly grasping my gown. There is a kind of streamer here, you see – as if made for the purpose. There will be a good deal of up-and-downing, but I know the building blindfold and as you might say inch by inch. And now that the bell-ringers have given up ringing it is more in my charge than ever.’

He stood back and looked at me with folded hands, a whimsical childlike smile on his aged face. ‘I sometimes think to myself I’m like the sentry, sir, in that play by William Shakespeare. I saw it, sir, years ago, on my only visit to London – when I was a boy. If ever there were a villain for all his fine talk and all, commend me to that ghost. I see him yet.’

Whisper though it was, a sort of chirrup had come into his voice, like that of a cricket in a baker’s shop. I took tight hold of the velveted tag of his gown. He opened the door, pressed the box of safety matches into my hand, himself grasped the candlestick and then blew out the light. We were instantly marooned in an impenetrable darkness. ‘Now, sir, if you would kindly remove your walking shoes,’ he muttered close in my ear, ‘we should proceed with less noise. I shan’t hurry you. And please to tug at the streamer if you need attention. In a few minutes the blackness will be less intense.’

As I stooped down to loose my shoe-laces I heard my heart thumping merrily away. It had been listening to our conversation apparently! I slung my shoes round my neck – as I had often done as a boy when going paddling – and we set out on our expedition.

I have endured too often the nightmare of being lost and abandoned in the stony bowels of some strange and prodigious building to take such an adventure lightly. I clung, I confess, desperately tight to my lifeline and we groped steadily onward – my guide ever and again turning back to mutter warning or encouragement in my ear.

Now I found myself steadily ascending; and then in a while, feeling my way down flights of hollowly worn stone steps, and anon brushing along a gallery or corkscrewing up a newel staircase so narrow that my shoulders all but touched the walls on either side.

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