Read Online The Dark Boatman: Tales of Horror and the Cthulhu Mythos by John Glasby - Free Book Online
Authors: John Glasby
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almost vertically for two hundred feet into the frothing water that spumed and foamed on to the needle-shaped rocks, and I saw that the road led directly to the front of the house and no further.
As we drew closer to the manor, however, I felt a sudden stir of anticipation, after the way of a man who had somehow discovered something he had never dreamed of, and there was a faint ruffling of the small hairs on the back of my neck as if a chill wind had blown from the direction of the house. As we got out of the car, I had the unshakeable feeling that Swatheley was affected in the same manner, possibly even more so than myself. He appeared oddly hesitant to enter the place, opening the door with a key that grated in the lock, standing back so that I might go in first.
The current of air that came from inside the building at the opening of that door was a sudden noxious rush of decay as at the opening of a tomb. We did not pause long in the doorway but went inside, into a long hall, panelled and hung with pictures half-hidden in dust and filmy cobwebs. Very little daylight filtered in through the grimed windows. The dust on the floor the hall was a thick grey carpet. The rest of the house was composed of vast and dismal chambers; some of them with torn, mildewed hangings which all but covered the walls, dark passages, and high ceilings, arched and carved, most of the carvings hideous in the extreme, possessing a curiously unearthly quality that sent a little shiver along my nerves. There was an air of dampness about the place, too, but I knew that a few roaring fires in the wide hearths would soon rid the room of this and I felt suddenly calm and content there.
I could see that Swatheley was surprised by my attitude, that he had expected me to turn and flee the instant I saw the manor. Whether he considered I was mad or not it was difficult to say, but his gaze was curious when I finally told him that I would take the place for the coming winter and asked whether it would be possible to obtain servants to live in, since the autumn and winter coming, the storms which arranged along the strip of coast of a terrible violence would prevent anyone from getting there and back each day.
Swatheley agreed to do his best for me, but made it clear that he would have to go further afield than Bude, or anywhere in the near vicinity, since the people around of those parts would have nothing whatever to do with the place, having an almost unbelievable aversion and hatred of the manor and all associated with it. As if to emphasise the difficulty of getting anyone, and pointing out that it would be almost impossible for me to remain there long, he suggested I should put up at the hotel in Bude until he had made the necessary arrangements which he assured me would be only a matter of a few days.
What made me fall in so readily with this plan was my desire to learn more of the history of the manor, and since I understood that one of the scholars who had been studying the place for almost three years was living in Bude, it would afford me an excellent opportunity for discussing it with him.
During the week I stayed in Bude, I met George Carrington on several occasions. He was a reticent, raw-boned individual, a product of Oxford, who seemed a trifle out of place outside the cloisters of the University. He was only too willing to express his own opinions and tell me some of the tales which circulated in the district concerning Faxted Manor, initially, perhaps hoping to dissuade me from staying there, an act which he considered to be the height of folly. When he saw that I was determined to go through with my plans, he ceased his attempts to make me change my mind. I gained the impression he was only too pleased to find someone willing to listen to him; that his original intention had been to publish his findings in one of the journals devoted to such outworldly tales, but that he had eventually been forced to the conclusion that these stories
As we drew closer to the manor, however, I felt a sudden stir of anticipation, after the way of a man who had somehow discovered something he had never dreamed of, and there was a faint ruffling of the small hairs on the back of my neck as if a chill wind had blown from the direction of the house. As we got out of the car, I had the unshakeable feeling that Swatheley was affected in the same manner, possibly even more so than myself. He appeared oddly hesitant to enter the place, opening the door with a key that grated in the lock, standing back so that I might go in first.
The current of air that came from inside the building at the opening of that door was a sudden noxious rush of decay as at the opening of a tomb. We did not pause long in the doorway but went inside, into a long hall, panelled and hung with pictures half-hidden in dust and filmy cobwebs. Very little daylight filtered in through the grimed windows. The dust on the floor the hall was a thick grey carpet. The rest of the house was composed of vast and dismal chambers; some of them with torn, mildewed hangings which all but covered the walls, dark passages, and high ceilings, arched and carved, most of the carvings hideous in the extreme, possessing a curiously unearthly quality that sent a little shiver along my nerves. There was an air of dampness about the place, too, but I knew that a few roaring fires in the wide hearths would soon rid the room of this and I felt suddenly calm and content there.
I could see that Swatheley was surprised by my attitude, that he had expected me to turn and flee the instant I saw the manor. Whether he considered I was mad or not it was difficult to say, but his gaze was curious when I finally told him that I would take the place for the coming winter and asked whether it would be possible to obtain servants to live in, since the autumn and winter coming, the storms which arranged along the strip of coast of a terrible violence would prevent anyone from getting there and back each day.
Swatheley agreed to do his best for me, but made it clear that he would have to go further afield than Bude, or anywhere in the near vicinity, since the people around of those parts would have nothing whatever to do with the place, having an almost unbelievable aversion and hatred of the manor and all associated with it. As if to emphasise the difficulty of getting anyone, and pointing out that it would be almost impossible for me to remain there long, he suggested I should put up at the hotel in Bude until he had made the necessary arrangements which he assured me would be only a matter of a few days.
What made me fall in so readily with this plan was my desire to learn more of the history of the manor, and since I understood that one of the scholars who had been studying the place for almost three years was living in Bude, it would afford me an excellent opportunity for discussing it with him.
During the week I stayed in Bude, I met George Carrington on several occasions. He was a reticent, raw-boned individual, a product of Oxford, who seemed a trifle out of place outside the cloisters of the University. He was only too willing to express his own opinions and tell me some of the tales which circulated in the district concerning Faxted Manor, initially, perhaps hoping to dissuade me from staying there, an act which he considered to be the height of folly. When he saw that I was determined to go through with my plans, he ceased his attempts to make me change my mind. I gained the impression he was only too pleased to find someone willing to listen to him; that his original intention had been to publish his findings in one of the journals devoted to such outworldly tales, but that he had eventually been forced to the conclusion that these stories
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