The Spectral Book of Horror Stories (13 page)

And therein she tolde how she met a man in black in the woods and did reverence to him as being the Lorde of this Worlde, and did kisse his excrements as a token thereof. And he in returne did give her five familiar spirits or imps, to wit: a boare-hounde with a calve’s head named
Cutbushe
, a ram withoute any leggs at all called
Farte-of-my-Arse
, and three very small pigges, the size of ratts, named
Hickitt, Hackitt
and
Hockitt
. But whether, even in the very extremity of her agonies, she mocked her tormentors, I dare not say.

And she said nothing of me, but the day she was to be brought before the assize she sent for me. And I did go, out of fear that if I did not she might betray me and say I had entered a pacte of Satann with her. I founde her in a most noisome cell, yet it was no fouler than her own cabin in the woods, and she was crouched like a stricken beaste on a pile of filthy straw in the corner. And her eyes burned in their dark sockets and she seemed much stricken with terror and rage against all the world.

Bidding the gaoler go, saying that I would hear her penitence in private, I then asked her why she had summoned me. She asked me if I had the booke and I told her that I had, yet I had not yet removed it from the organ loft where it lay concealed. She told me that I should take the booke to a secret place under the starres and there consult it, for she said, it must surelie containe her meanes of deliverence, but how she would not say, and I doubt that she knew. I told her that I was to do as she asked but on strict condition that she was to say not a worde of me or of our doings with the booke. To this she did consent most readily.

There is a tower at St Paul’s church upon which on certain nights I and the Reverend Mr. Bowles, the Rector of that church would sometimes come to contemplate the stars. He was my only friend, the only man in Morchester to match my wit and know my genius, a man of rare understanding far above the common herd. Yet even he proved unworthy in the end.

One evening I stole out of the cathedrall with the booke under my gowne, makyng my way to St Paul’s. There I told Mr. Bowles that I would have an hour of contemplation to myself, so taking a lantern and mounted the steps of the tower. The night was beauteous cleare and a full moon was out so that I could all but read the booke without the aid of a lampe. Below me lay the city like a foule midden that teamed with little life. Up from below came the paltry cries of small lives as of a cloud of mayflies in an evening haze, small follies, and the little sinnes of fooles. Then to the East stood the great monstrous sentinel of St Anselme’s cathedrall looking down on us all below but blindly as doth the church.

Then did I open the booke which is called THE BOKE OF THE DIVILL and looked within it. At first I was much amazed for the first few pages seemed to be black, as black as night, and they were soft to the touch as if it were made from the hide of some beaste, like a mole, but vast for there were no sewings together of small peltes. And, as I looked, there were stirrings within the darknesse, but, not caring to see further I pressed on and found many pages on which were written strange devices, and some words which were in the Latin tongue, and some in Greek and Hebrew, and some in what I took to be the Moorish script of the Heathen Mahometans, and some in a language I knew not but took to be, from some indicacions, to be the Saxon tongue of those in Britain before the coming of the Norman Kings into our island.

I will not say further what I read, for it is forbidden, but this I will say: that should any man or woman look in this booke, let them beware, for they will see as ‘twere in a glass, but darkly, the image of themselves, their desires and their fears, their longings and their hatreds. And I say this booke is forbidden, as the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was to our first parents Adam and Eve, for to know Good and Evil is to know one’s self truly, and no man nor woman will bear that much reality except he or she be pure of heart, and then, even then, at greate paine. But I was a man set aside from the Common Herd and I endured the blast of that booke. A man may finde great profit in this work, yet let him not wish too hard, for all that is wished for may be granted and therein lies immortall danger.

I believe that at the first much was saved me for I sought the means of deliverence not for myselfe but for Mother Durden, for I had pledged to bring about her rescue from the
profanum vulgus
, and I feared her retribution even from beyond the grave. And so I looked in these pages for some help to this end, and I came across this passage which was in Latin, or some other tongue of which I yet knew its meaning, and I read as here set downe:

To make SOLOMON’S RING by which ye may passe unseen through crowdes and make your way unharmed to any place. Take unto you two ounces of pure gold and an ounce of silver and make thee a seal ring, and on the bezel thereof let there be engraved this signe or sigil.

And thereopon that very signe was inscribed in the booke.

And on taking this ring, let the wearer speake the wordes:
Abrax Abraxas,
and he shall pass safely on his way
.

Then I removed the booke from the tower and concealed it in the church of St Paul’s without Mr Bowles’s knowing, for I dare not put it in my lodging, knowing the mistress of my lodging house to be a prod-nose, a busy-legges and a most arrant prattler and teller of tales. In the morning I took me to a jeweller, Master Gotobed in the towne whom I knew to be most discreet and greedy withall, so that I might stop his mouth with gold. And I had him make the ring according to my instructions.

Now the time for the assizes when Mother Durden was to be tried approached whereopon she did send for me once more. And I went unto her very secretly passing money to the gaoler to let me in unseen. And she lay in her cell on the foul straw and groaned, for she greatly feared the paines that awaited her in this life, and, I doubt not, the next. And when she saw me she crawled to me and grasped my gowne and asked me when was the hour of her deliverence. I told her a little of what had passed and said it would be soon, but yet I did not tell her by what contrivance it might be done.

The next day she was brought before Sir Digby Fell in the assizes and I crepte into the assizes and saw her stricken face as she stood accused by that clamorous array of vermin that were her accusers. And ever and anon I saw her eyes, red with rage and distress, search among the crowd, doubtless for me her supposed deliverer. And I stole away so as not to be seene by her. So I went to Master Gotobed and he said he had made the ring and would know what it signified. I said that as I had paid him a fair price what was it to him what it signified? But he said that there was much talk abroad of the Devill being loose in the land and of Mother Durden and her cursed imps, and he would not be seduced to being a party to some act of damned witchcraft in making the said ring. Then I said,
what would you?
And he asked for further recompense for endangering his immortall soule. Then I cursed him for a damned canting hypocrite, a whited sepulchre and a pharisaicall turde. And I picked up a moulding iron from his array of instruments and struck him over the mazzard that he fell down dead. Then, though I was seized with great terrour at what I had done, yet I still kepte my witts. So I fastened his house and took his body privily to feed it in pieces to the furnace in his cellar of work. And this business did take most of the night, so that when all was done and his body consumed it was the dawne of another day and I must creepe forth. There were already several folk about and one that I knew, Goodwife Samson, the mother of one of my choir boyes, a fat-guts, a prating lard-barrel, yet not without cunning. I saw her look up in amaze at Master Gotobed’s chimney which doubtless still belched most foule smoke, the dark and oily remnants of his unshriven body and soul.

Then I was once more afeared, so I did put on the ring and saying the words
Abrax Abraxas
, I went forth boldly, albeit from the back doore of Master Gotobed’s shoppe. And when I came into the streete Goodwife Samson did for a moment look upon me but yet she did not call out nor seem to heed my presence and so I passed away safely. But when I came to the market square I was greatly amazed, for I did see a vast pile of faggots amassed in its middle and within that mountain of wood a single stake upright and alone. Then I asked one standing by what might this signify, but he paid no heed to me, as if I truly were not there. So I removed my ring and asked him againe. And he said to me: “Did not you know? Mother Durden was very swiftly condemned at the assize yester eve, and Sir Digby was most eager that this damned slave of Satann be burned out of this world and into perdition with all haste, lest she foul the air with her curses and her wickednesse pollute us further.”

At that my heart seemed to fall within me and I knew I was as damned as she. Then began my descent to where I stand now, at the doorway of darkness, from which only the infinite Mercy of Christ may yet redeem me. At that moment I heard a murmuring sound and saw a great crowd begin to gather about the pyre. Then I saw Mother Durden being brought to the fire amid the howling of the common people and I saw in her eyes what I hope never to see either on this or on t’other side of the grave, a black despair, all hope abandoned. At that look everie mouth should have fallen silent but they roared and threw up their sweaty caps and rejoiced at their own cruel folly. And two strong men brought her to the post to bind her to it, but as they did so her eyes sought and found me and she began to struggle and cry out in a rage, so that the men, powerful as they were, had much ado to bind her.

I thought then that all the world would turn to look at me for I knew it was at me she stared, but they did not. The common folk gathered there only thought this was some devilry of the old woman and laughed and rejoiced the more to see her agony redoubled by rage. I cowered into obscurity behind a butcher and his boy, for I had no more to do and Mother Durden was beyond rescue. I saw the faggots lit and the smoke rise and Mother Durden’s screams above the crowd whose hooting had now sunk to a low murmur. Now at last even these clods had been subdued by the prospect of a fellow human being in her death agony. I saw her skin turn black and erupt in blisters and pustules as in one last mute appeal she stretched her hand towards me over the flames. Then I could bear no more and left the scene. I went to the cathedrall to pray for Mother Durden’s soul, but though words came from me, my thoughts remained below, as black as sin itself.

For some days my spirit remained prostrate within me while to the outward eye I continued to conduct myself as before. I did not neglect my duties with the choir and in making sacred musick. Then one night as I returned home to my lodgings I chanced to see two of my colleagues walking in the town. One of them, Canon Costard, an idle fellow, but stiff and precise, a religious caterpillar, and it was he who had told malicious tales of me to the Dean. He said he had seen me in a low ale-house. I saw him, then, but he and his companion had yet to see me. I shrank into a doorway and my hand felt in my purse for the ring which Master Gotobed had made for me at such cost, Solomon’s ring. In the next instant I had it placed on the finger and uttered the words
Abrax Abraxas
. The two men passed me by as I stood in the doorway and though Canon Costard’s companion, the Verger Master Cantwell, turned to look towards me, he did not seem to know my features, though I knew him.

When they had passed me I resolved to follow them and presently I saw them enter an ale house, such a one as that canting shit-breeches Costard had said I frequented. I did not follow them in but straightway went to my lodgings to secure me a stout cudgel that I kept among my effects. Returning to the ale house I assured myself they were still there and waited till they came out whereupon I struck them both down with my cudgel and ground their faces into the mud of the street, and left them for dead taking their purses with me.

The next day, I found that Masters Costard and Cantwell had lived but were sadly battered and disgraced for their pains. The Dean asked me if I knew aught of what had brought them to this pass but I made a great show of innocence, though restraining any indignation I might have felt at these disgraced topers. Indeed I was much commended for my forbearance towards these fooles.

For all the shock and shame of what had gone before I began to feel rising within me a new spirit, as befitting a man who had at his command the powers of earth and air. Once more I went in secret to St Paul’s church where I had concealed my book behinde a panel in the belfry. There, avoiding the curiosity of my friend Mr Bowles, I removed it and lighting a candle began to read.

I must not say much of what I saw, but I must observe that the booke did not appeare to be the one which I had first looked at. The pages made of some dark, softe substance like the skin of a mole had increased in number but what most astonished me was the sighte of myself. It was a portrait in miniature, most exquisitely done in the manner of Master Hilliard, prince of limners, painted in an oval upon a sheet of vellum in the booke. It showed me in my clerke’s gowne, head and shoulders, but standing against a sheet of burning flame as some lovers are now depicted by these limners. The eyes were marvellously executed and, though the picture was but some three inches wide, they stared out at me as if they were living and I were looking upon myself in a glasse. I wondered greatly at this and was filled with a fear which has not left me, and yet I cannot fully divine its root.

I turned the page and encountered these words.