THE WATCHER BY THE THRESHOLD by John Buchan

Author:John Buchan [Buchan, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror
ISBN: 9781553102144
Publisher: Christopher Roden/Ash-Tree Press
Published: 2012-02-19T23:00:00+00:00

The Knees of the Gods

THIS STORY WAS TOLD TO ME BY A FRIEND whom I shall call Smith, a man of limited imagination and unswerving veracity. He prefaced his narrative by declaring that never in his life had he dreamed before, or at any rate remembered the details in the morning, and that in any other case and to any other man he would have been ashamed to repeat the nonsense. From which I argued that my friend had been more than a little scared.

It seemed that Smith had gone to Chamonix in the end of May for a rest. He had had no thought of climbing, for at that season it is only by the merest chance that serious ascents are possible. As it fell out, however, the chance was given him. A fortnight of uninterrupted sunshine stripped the snow from the Aiguilles, and Smith, forgetful of the work he was writing on ‘The Metaphysics of the Impossible’, was tempted and fell. He began with the Charmoz; he then did the Blaitière by the northern ridge; and, fired now with intolerable pride, attempted and achieved the Grépon. It was on the night following this last ascent that he dreamed the dream I am about to relate. As I have said, his pride had become overweening, and he had gone to bed with his head full of presumptuous plans. He would do the Dent du Requin; then he might have a try at the Aiguille de la République; after that, perhaps, at the virgin Capuchin. He would return to England with a record of achievements, done out of due season, which would make his mountaineering friends blaspheme.

The slumbers of a climber are usually dreamless. No sooner has tattered cheek been laid to cool pillow than there comes that hammering of the infamous boots on the door which announces three o’clock and time to get up. But on this night Smith had scarcely closed his eyes when he began to dream.

He found himself, he said, in what seemed to be the smoking-room of an hotel. It was winter time, for a large fire was burning on the hearth, and on closer inspection he noticed that the fuel was peat. Clearly this was not Switzerland. And then something about the room struck him as familiar. He went to the window, drew up the blind a little, and looked out. Snow lay deep on the ground, and a moon in a patch of open sky showed a line of jagged white hills. The sight brought him at once to his bearings. The ancient barn-like shape had been changed. The well-worn sofa had gone; gone, too, the moth-eaten deer’s horn above the fireplace, the rickety writing-tables, the few well-thumbed books. There were some good Della Robbia imitations on the mantelpiece. A Chippendale bureau stood in a corner, and some pretty Turcoman rugs lay on the floor. The place was furnished like a sitting-room at the Ritz, but it was none the less the smoking-room of the Sligachan Inn.

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