August 21, 2025 • 14 mins
Immerse yourself in the enchanting tales of Bernard Capes, crafted to captivate your imagination as you cozy up by the fireplace during the long, chilly days of winter. Let A. Gramour guide you through this collection of stories that promise to entertain and warm your spirit.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section five of At a Winter's Fire. This is a
LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Recording by jo Sela At a Winter's Fire by Bernard Capes,
dark dignum. I'd not go higher, sir, said my landlady's father.
(00:22):
I made out this warning through the shrill piping of
the wind, and stopped and took in the plunging seascape
from where I stood. The boom of the waves came
up from a vast distance beneath sky, and the horizon
of running water seemed hurrying upon us. Over the lip
of the rearing cliff. It crumbles, he cried, It crumbles
near the edge, like a frosted mortar. I've seen a
(00:42):
noble sheep, sir, eighty pounds of mutton browsing here one minute,
and seen it go down the next in a puff
of white dust. Hark to that, do you hear it?
Through the tumult of the wind in that high place
came a liquid, vibrant sound, like the muffled stroke of
an iron on an anvil. I thought it the gobble
of the water and clanging cave is deep down below.
It might be a bell, I said the old man
(01:04):
chuckled joyously. He was my ciceronn For the Notts had
come out of his chair by the ingle nook to
taste a little of the salt of life. The nor'easter
flashed in the white cataracts of his eyes and woke
a feeble activity in his scunnal limbs when the wind
blew loud. His daughter had told me he was always restless,
like an imprisoned seagull. He would be up and out.
(01:25):
He would rise and flap his old draggled pinions, as
if the great air fanned an expiring spark of flame.
It is a bell, he cried, the bell of old
Saint Dunstan's that was swallowed by the waters and the
dark times. Ah, I said, that is a legend hereabouts.
No legend, sir, no legend. Where be the tombstones of
drowned mariners to prove it such, not one to forty
(01:48):
that they had, and other sea bound parishes. For why
dunstan bell sounds its warnings, and not a craft will
put out there is the storm cone, I suggested. He
did not hear me. He was punching with a staff
and one of a number of little green mouths that
lay about us. I could tell you a story of these,
he said. Do you know where we stand, on the
side of the old churchyard? Aye, sir, though it still
(02:10):
bore the name of the new yard. My first memory
of it is that. So, and what is the story?
He dwelt a minute, dense with introspection. Suddenly he sat
himself down upon a mossy bulge in the turf, and
waved me imperiously to a place beside him. The old
order changeth, he said, The only lasting foundation of men's
works shall be godliness and Lawbiding long ago they builded
(02:33):
a new church here, high up on the cliffs, where
the waters could not reach. And lo, the waters rought
beneath and sapped the foundation, and the church fell into
the sea. So I understand, I said, The godless are fools,
he chattered knowingly. Look here at these bents, thirty of
'em maybe tombstones, Sir, perish like man his works, and
the decayed stumps of them coda with salt grass. He
(02:55):
pointed to the ragged edge of the cliff a score
paces away. They raised it out there, he said, And
further a temple of bonded stone. They thought to bribe
the Lord to a partnership in their corruption. And he
answered by casting down the fair mansion into the waves.
I said, who, who, my friend, they that builded the church?
He answered, well, I said, it seems a certain foolishness
(03:17):
to set the edifice so close to the margin. Again,
he chuckled. It was close, close as you say, yet
none so close as you might think nowadays. Time hath
gnawed here like a rat on a cheese. But the
foolishness appeared in the setting the brave mansion between the
winds and its own graveyard. Let the dead lie seawards
wanted thought, and the church inland where we stand, So
(03:38):
had the bell rung to this day, and only the
charnel bone's flaked piecemeal into the sea. Certainly to have
done so would show the better providence, sir, I said,
The foolishness appeared, But I tell you there was foresight
in the disposition in neighboring the building to the cliff path,
For so they could the easier enter unobserved and store
the kegs of Nanty's brandy in the belly of the organ.
(03:59):
They who were they? Why? Who? But two thirds of
all dunbur smugglers. It was a nest of him, traffickers
in the eternal fire a week days and on the sabbath.
Who's so sanctimonious? But honesty comes not from the washing
like a clean shirt. Nor can the piety of one
day percy evil as six They built their church a
nigh the margin, for as much as it was handy,
(04:21):
and that they thought, surely the Lord will not undermine
his own a rare community of bloshemer's. For the parson
that took his regular toll of the organ loft to
him that sounded the keys and pulled out the joyous stops,
as if they were so many spiggots. To what lay behind?
Of when do you speak? I speak of nigh a
century and a half ago. I speak of the time
of the Seven Years War, and of Exciseman Jones, that,
(04:43):
twenty year after he were buried, took his revenge on
the cliff side of the man that had done him
to death. And who was that? They called him? Dark
dignum sir, a great feat smuggler, and as wicked as
he was. Bold is your story? About him, Ay it is,
and of my grandfather that were a boy when they laid,
and was glad to lay the exciseman deep as they
could dig, for the sight of his sooty face and
(05:05):
his coffin was worse than a bad dream. Why was
that the old man edged closer to me and spoke
in a sibilant voice. He were murdered, sir, foully and
horribly for all they could never bring it home to
the culprit. Will you tell me about it? He was
nothing loth. The wind the place of his parish tombs,
of very wild blown locks of his withered apple John
were eerie accompaniments to the tale he piped in my
(05:27):
ear When my grandfather were a boy. He said, there
lighted in Dunver Exciseman Jones. Perhaps the village he had
gained an ill reputation. Perhaps Exciseman Jones's predecessor had failed
to secure the confidence of the executive. At any rate,
the new man was little to the fancy of the village.
He was a grim, sour looking, brass bound galute and incorruptible,
(05:48):
which was the worst The Kegabrandy left on his doorstep
in New Year's Eve had been better unspilled and run
into the gutter. For it led him somehow to the
identification of the innocent that had done it, and he
had him by the heels in a twinkling. The squire
snorted at the man, and the parson looked askance. But
Dark Dignam he swore he be even with him if
he swung for it. They was hurt and surprise. That
(06:09):
was the truth over the scrupulosity of certain people, and
feeling ran high against Exciseman Jones. At that time. Dark
Dignam was a young man with a reputation above his
years for profaneness and audacity, ugly things that were said
about him, and amongst many wicked he was feared for
his wickedness. Exciseman Jones had his eye on him, and
that was bad for Exciseman Jones. Now one murked December night,
(06:31):
Exciseman Jones staggered home with a bloody long slice down
his scalp, and the red dripped from its spotting the cobblestones.
Some it fell on him from a winder, said Dark Dignam.
A little later, as he were drinkin his cef horse
in the Black Boy, some it fell on him retributive
as you might call it. For would you believe it
the man had at that moment been threatening me? He did.
He said, I know damn well about you, Dignam, and
(06:54):
for all your damn ingenuity, I'll bring you with a
crack to the ground. Yet what had happened nobody knew, Sir,
But Exciseman Joan was in his bed for a fortnight,
and when he got to his legs again, it was
pretty evident that there was a hate between the two
men that only blood spilling could satisfy. So far as
is known, they never spoke to one another again. They
played their game of death and silence, the lawful, cold
(07:14):
and unfathomable, the unlawful, swagger on and cruel, And twenty
years separated the first move in the last This were
the first, Sir, as dark Dignam leaked it out long
after in his cups. This were the first, and it
brought Exciseman Jones to his grave on the cliff. Here
it were a deep, soft summer night, and the young
smuggler sat by hisself in the long room of the
Black Boy. Now I'll tell you he were a fox
(07:36):
ship intriguer. Grand I should call him in the aloneness
of his villainy, he would play his dark games out
of his own hand. And sure of all the wickedness
this game must have seemed the sum I say, he
sat by hisself, and I hear the listening ghost of him.
Call me a liar, For there were another body present,
though invisible to mortal. I and that second party were
Exciseman Jones, who was hidden up in the chimney. How
(07:58):
had he unveiled him? There? Ah, they've met and worried
that point out, since no one will ever know the
truth this side the grave. But reports come to be whispered,
and reports said as how Dignam had made an appointment
with a bodiless master of a smack has never floated
to meet him and the black boy and arrange for
a run a cargo as would never be shipped, And
that somehow he managed to acquiant Exciseman Jones of this
(08:19):
dissembling appointment and his securest presence and heidened to witnesses.
That's conjecture, for Dignam never let on so far. But
what is known for certain is that Exciseman Jones, who
were as daring and determined as his enemy, perhaps more
so for some reason was in the chimney on to
a grating in which he had managed to lower his
self from the roof, and that he could, if given time,
(08:41):
have scrambled up again with difficulty, but was debarred from
going lower and further. This is known that as Dignam
sat on, pretending to yawn and hug in his black
and tent, a little sut plopped down the chimney and
scattered on the coals of a laid fire beneath. At
that curse this waiting, said he. The room's as chilly
as a bell. And he got to his feet with
(09:01):
a secret grin, and strolled to the heart stone. I wonder,
said he, with a landlord, object if I venture upon
a glint of fire for comfort sake, And he pulled
out his flint and steel, struck a spark, and, with
no more feeling that he'd expressed in lighting a pipe,
sought the flame to the sticks. The trapped rat above
never stirred or give tongue. My God, what a man
such a nature could afford to bide and bide ay
(09:22):
for twenty year if need be, Dignam would have enjoyed
the sound of a cry. But he never got it.
He listened with a grin fixed on his face, and
of a sudden he heard a scrambling struggle, like as
a dog would collar jumping at a wall. And presently,
as the sticks blazed and the smoke rose denser, a
thick coffin as of a consumptive man under bedclothes. Still
no cry nor any appeal for mercy. No, not from
(09:44):
the time he lit the fire till a horrible rattle
came down, which is the last twitches of something that
choked and died in the sooty grate. And above, when
all was quiet, Dignam he knocks with his foot on
the floor and sits itself down before the hearth, with
a face like a pillow. For innocence, I were chilled
and lit, it, says he to the landlord. You don't mind,
mind who would have ventured to cross dark Dignam's fancies.
(10:05):
He gave a boisterous laugh and ordered it in a
double noggin of humming stuff. Here, he says, when it
comes as to the health of Exciseman Jones, that swore
to bring me to the ground, to the ground, muttered
a thick voice from the chimney. My god says the landlord.
There's something up there. Something there was and terrible look upon.
When they brought it to light. The creature's struggles had
(10:27):
ground the soot into its face, and his nails were
black below the quick Were those words a last of
his death row? Or an echo from beyond ah? We
may question, but they were heard by two men, Dignam
went free. What could they prove again him, not that
he knew there was aught in the chimney when he
lit the fire. The others would scarcely have acquent him
of his plans, and Exciseman Jones was hurried into his
(10:48):
grave alongside the church up here, and therein he lay
for twenty years. Despite that, not a twelvemonth after his coming,
the sacrilegious house itself sunk, roaring into the waters. For
the Lord would have none of it, and, biting his time,
struck through a fortnight of deluge and hurled church and
cliff into ruin. But the yard remained, and nias the
seaward edge of it. Exciseman Jones slept in his fearful
(11:10):
winding sheet and bided his time. It came when my
grandfather were a young man of thirty and mighty close
and confidential with Dark Dignam, God forgive him. Doubtless he
were led away by the old smuggler that had a
grace of villainy about him, Tis said, and used Lord
Chesterfield's printed letters for wadding to his bullets. By then
he was a ramping, roaring devil. But for all his
(11:30):
bold hands were stained with crime. The memory of Exciseman
Jones and his promise dwelt with him and darkened him
even more and more, and never left him. So those
that knew him said, Now, all these years the cliff
edge again in the graveyard where it was broke off,
was scabbing into the sea below. But still they used
this way of assent for their ungodly traffic, And over
the ruin of the cliff they had drove a new
(11:51):
path for to carry up their kegs. It was a
cloudy night in March, with scud and a fitful moon,
and there was a sloop in the offing, and under
the shore a loaded boat that had just pulled in
with muffled roe locks. Out of this Dark Dignam was
the first to sling himself a brace of rumblets, and
my grandfather fall with two more they made softly for
the cliff path began. The ascent was half way up. Whiz,
(12:14):
a stone of chalk went by them with a squirrel,
and slapped into the rubble below. Some more a saint
Dunstan gravel, cried Dignam, panting out of a reckless laugh
under his load, and on they went again. A wish,
A bigger lump came like a thunderbolt. The wind of
it took the bloody smuggler's hat and sent it swooping
into the darkness like a bird. Thunder, said Dignam, the
cliff's breaking away. The words was hardly out of his
(12:36):
mouth when there flew such a volley of chalk stones
as made my grandfather, though none had touched him, fall
upon the path where he stood, and began to gabble
out what he could call to mind of the prayers
for the dying. He was in the midst of it
when he heard a scream come from his companion. As
froze a very marrow in his bones, he looked up,
thinking his hour had come. My God, what a sight
he saw. The moon had shone out of a sudden
(12:58):
and the light of it struck down on Dignam's face,
and that was a color of dirty parchment. And he
looked higher and give a sort of a sob. For
there sticking out of the cliff side was half the
body of Exciseman Jones, with his arms stretched abroad, and
it was clawn on lumps of chalk and hurling them
down at Dignam. And even as he took this in
through his terror, a great ball of white came hurtling
and went full on the man's face with a splash,
(13:20):
and he were spun down in the deep night below,
a nameless thing. The old creature came to a stop,
his eyes glinting with a feeble excitement. And so I said,
Exciseman Jones was true to his word. The tension of
memory was giving the spring slowly uncoiling itself. Aye, he
said doubtfully. The cliff had flaked away by degrees to
his very grave. He found his skelington sticking out of
(13:42):
the chalk, his skeleton, said I, with the emphasis of disappointment.
The first, sir, the first, Ay, his was the first.
There have been many exposed since the work of decay
goes on, and the bones they fall unto the sea,
sometimes sailing off shore. You may see a shank or
an arm protrudent, like a pigeon's leg from a pie.
But the wind or the weather takes it and it goes.
There's more to follow. Yet look at em, Look at
(14:04):
those bents, every one a grave with a skelington in it.
The wear and tear from the edge will reach each
one in turn, and then the last of the ungodly
will have ceased from the earth. And what became of
your grandfather, my grandfather? There was something happened made him
renounce the devil. He died one of the elect His
youth were heedless and unregenerate. But TIS said after he
(14:25):
were turned thirty, he never smiled again. There was a
reason did I ever tell you The story of Dark
Dignam and Exciseman Jones, end of section five, recording by
Jove Sela
Section five of At a Winter's Fire. This is a
LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Recording by jo Sela At a Winter's Fire by Bernard Capes,
dark dignum. I'd not go higher, sir, said my landlady's father.
(00:22):
I made out this warning through the shrill piping of
the wind, and stopped and took in the plunging seascape
from where I stood. The boom of the waves came
up from a vast distance beneath sky, and the horizon
of running water seemed hurrying upon us. Over the lip
of the rearing cliff. It crumbles, he cried, It crumbles
near the edge, like a frosted mortar. I've seen a
(00:42):
noble sheep, sir, eighty pounds of mutton browsing here one minute,
and seen it go down the next in a puff
of white dust. Hark to that, do you hear it?
Through the tumult of the wind in that high place
came a liquid, vibrant sound, like the muffled stroke of
an iron on an anvil. I thought it the gobble
of the water and clanging cave is deep down below.
It might be a bell, I said the old man
(01:04):
chuckled joyously. He was my ciceronn For the Notts had
come out of his chair by the ingle nook to
taste a little of the salt of life. The nor'easter
flashed in the white cataracts of his eyes and woke
a feeble activity in his scunnal limbs when the wind
blew loud. His daughter had told me he was always restless,
like an imprisoned seagull. He would be up and out.
(01:25):
He would rise and flap his old draggled pinions, as
if the great air fanned an expiring spark of flame.
It is a bell, he cried, the bell of old
Saint Dunstan's that was swallowed by the waters and the
dark times. Ah, I said, that is a legend hereabouts.
No legend, sir, no legend. Where be the tombstones of
drowned mariners to prove it such, not one to forty
(01:48):
that they had, and other sea bound parishes. For why
dunstan bell sounds its warnings, and not a craft will
put out there is the storm cone, I suggested. He
did not hear me. He was punching with a staff
and one of a number of little green mouths that
lay about us. I could tell you a story of these,
he said. Do you know where we stand, on the
side of the old churchyard? Aye, sir, though it still
(02:10):
bore the name of the new yard. My first memory
of it is that. So, and what is the story?
He dwelt a minute, dense with introspection. Suddenly he sat
himself down upon a mossy bulge in the turf, and
waved me imperiously to a place beside him. The old
order changeth, he said, The only lasting foundation of men's
works shall be godliness and Lawbiding long ago they builded
(02:33):
a new church here, high up on the cliffs, where
the waters could not reach. And lo, the waters rought
beneath and sapped the foundation, and the church fell into
the sea. So I understand, I said, The godless are fools,
he chattered knowingly. Look here at these bents, thirty of
'em maybe tombstones, Sir, perish like man his works, and
the decayed stumps of them coda with salt grass. He
(02:55):
pointed to the ragged edge of the cliff a score
paces away. They raised it out there, he said, And
further a temple of bonded stone. They thought to bribe
the Lord to a partnership in their corruption. And he
answered by casting down the fair mansion into the waves.
I said, who, who, my friend, they that builded the church?
He answered, well, I said, it seems a certain foolishness
(03:17):
to set the edifice so close to the margin. Again,
he chuckled. It was close, close as you say, yet
none so close as you might think nowadays. Time hath
gnawed here like a rat on a cheese. But the
foolishness appeared in the setting the brave mansion between the
winds and its own graveyard. Let the dead lie seawards
wanted thought, and the church inland where we stand, So
(03:38):
had the bell rung to this day, and only the
charnel bone's flaked piecemeal into the sea. Certainly to have
done so would show the better providence, sir, I said,
The foolishness appeared, But I tell you there was foresight
in the disposition in neighboring the building to the cliff path,
For so they could the easier enter unobserved and store
the kegs of Nanty's brandy in the belly of the organ.
(03:59):
They who were they? Why? Who? But two thirds of
all dunbur smugglers. It was a nest of him, traffickers
in the eternal fire a week days and on the sabbath.
Who's so sanctimonious? But honesty comes not from the washing
like a clean shirt. Nor can the piety of one
day percy evil as six They built their church a
nigh the margin, for as much as it was handy,
(04:21):
and that they thought, surely the Lord will not undermine
his own a rare community of bloshemer's. For the parson
that took his regular toll of the organ loft to
him that sounded the keys and pulled out the joyous stops,
as if they were so many spiggots. To what lay behind?
Of when do you speak? I speak of nigh a
century and a half ago. I speak of the time
of the Seven Years War, and of Exciseman Jones, that,
(04:43):
twenty year after he were buried, took his revenge on
the cliff side of the man that had done him
to death. And who was that? They called him? Dark
dignum sir, a great feat smuggler, and as wicked as
he was. Bold is your story? About him, Ay it is,
and of my grandfather that were a boy when they laid,
and was glad to lay the exciseman deep as they
could dig, for the sight of his sooty face and
(05:05):
his coffin was worse than a bad dream. Why was
that the old man edged closer to me and spoke
in a sibilant voice. He were murdered, sir, foully and
horribly for all they could never bring it home to
the culprit. Will you tell me about it? He was
nothing loth. The wind the place of his parish tombs,
of very wild blown locks of his withered apple John
were eerie accompaniments to the tale he piped in my
(05:27):
ear When my grandfather were a boy. He said, there
lighted in Dunver Exciseman Jones. Perhaps the village he had
gained an ill reputation. Perhaps Exciseman Jones's predecessor had failed
to secure the confidence of the executive. At any rate,
the new man was little to the fancy of the village.
He was a grim, sour looking, brass bound galute and incorruptible,
(05:48):
which was the worst The Kegabrandy left on his doorstep
in New Year's Eve had been better unspilled and run
into the gutter. For it led him somehow to the
identification of the innocent that had done it, and he
had him by the heels in a twinkling. The squire
snorted at the man, and the parson looked askance. But
Dark Dignam he swore he be even with him if
he swung for it. They was hurt and surprise. That
(06:09):
was the truth over the scrupulosity of certain people, and
feeling ran high against Exciseman Jones. At that time. Dark
Dignam was a young man with a reputation above his
years for profaneness and audacity, ugly things that were said
about him, and amongst many wicked he was feared for
his wickedness. Exciseman Jones had his eye on him, and
that was bad for Exciseman Jones. Now one murked December night,
(06:31):
Exciseman Jones staggered home with a bloody long slice down
his scalp, and the red dripped from its spotting the cobblestones.
Some it fell on him from a winder, said Dark Dignam.
A little later, as he were drinkin his cef horse
in the Black Boy, some it fell on him retributive
as you might call it. For would you believe it
the man had at that moment been threatening me? He did.
He said, I know damn well about you, Dignam, and
(06:54):
for all your damn ingenuity, I'll bring you with a
crack to the ground. Yet what had happened nobody knew, Sir,
But Exciseman Joan was in his bed for a fortnight,
and when he got to his legs again, it was
pretty evident that there was a hate between the two
men that only blood spilling could satisfy. So far as
is known, they never spoke to one another again. They
played their game of death and silence, the lawful, cold
(07:14):
and unfathomable, the unlawful, swagger on and cruel, And twenty
years separated the first move in the last This were
the first, Sir, as dark Dignam leaked it out long
after in his cups. This were the first, and it
brought Exciseman Jones to his grave on the cliff. Here
it were a deep, soft summer night, and the young
smuggler sat by hisself in the long room of the
Black Boy. Now I'll tell you he were a fox
(07:36):
ship intriguer. Grand I should call him in the aloneness
of his villainy, he would play his dark games out
of his own hand. And sure of all the wickedness
this game must have seemed the sum I say, he
sat by hisself, and I hear the listening ghost of him.
Call me a liar, For there were another body present,
though invisible to mortal. I and that second party were
Exciseman Jones, who was hidden up in the chimney. How
(07:58):
had he unveiled him? There? Ah, they've met and worried
that point out, since no one will ever know the
truth this side the grave. But reports come to be whispered,
and reports said as how Dignam had made an appointment
with a bodiless master of a smack has never floated
to meet him and the black boy and arrange for
a run a cargo as would never be shipped, And
that somehow he managed to acquiant Exciseman Jones of this
(08:19):
dissembling appointment and his securest presence and heidened to witnesses.
That's conjecture, for Dignam never let on so far. But
what is known for certain is that Exciseman Jones, who
were as daring and determined as his enemy, perhaps more
so for some reason was in the chimney on to
a grating in which he had managed to lower his
self from the roof, and that he could, if given time,
(08:41):
have scrambled up again with difficulty, but was debarred from
going lower and further. This is known that as Dignam
sat on, pretending to yawn and hug in his black
and tent, a little sut plopped down the chimney and
scattered on the coals of a laid fire beneath. At
that curse this waiting, said he. The room's as chilly
as a bell. And he got to his feet with
(09:01):
a secret grin, and strolled to the heart stone. I wonder,
said he, with a landlord, object if I venture upon
a glint of fire for comfort sake, And he pulled
out his flint and steel, struck a spark, and, with
no more feeling that he'd expressed in lighting a pipe,
sought the flame to the sticks. The trapped rat above
never stirred or give tongue. My God, what a man
such a nature could afford to bide and bide ay
(09:22):
for twenty year if need be, Dignam would have enjoyed
the sound of a cry. But he never got it.
He listened with a grin fixed on his face, and
of a sudden he heard a scrambling struggle, like as
a dog would collar jumping at a wall. And presently,
as the sticks blazed and the smoke rose denser, a
thick coffin as of a consumptive man under bedclothes. Still
no cry nor any appeal for mercy. No, not from
(09:44):
the time he lit the fire till a horrible rattle
came down, which is the last twitches of something that
choked and died in the sooty grate. And above, when
all was quiet, Dignam he knocks with his foot on
the floor and sits itself down before the hearth, with
a face like a pillow. For innocence, I were chilled
and lit, it, says he to the landlord. You don't mind,
mind who would have ventured to cross dark Dignam's fancies.
(10:05):
He gave a boisterous laugh and ordered it in a
double noggin of humming stuff. Here, he says, when it
comes as to the health of Exciseman Jones, that swore
to bring me to the ground, to the ground, muttered
a thick voice from the chimney. My god says the landlord.
There's something up there. Something there was and terrible look upon.
When they brought it to light. The creature's struggles had
(10:27):
ground the soot into its face, and his nails were
black below the quick Were those words a last of
his death row? Or an echo from beyond ah? We
may question, but they were heard by two men, Dignam
went free. What could they prove again him, not that
he knew there was aught in the chimney when he
lit the fire. The others would scarcely have acquent him
of his plans, and Exciseman Jones was hurried into his
(10:48):
grave alongside the church up here, and therein he lay
for twenty years. Despite that, not a twelvemonth after his coming,
the sacrilegious house itself sunk, roaring into the waters. For
the Lord would have none of it, and, biting his time,
struck through a fortnight of deluge and hurled church and
cliff into ruin. But the yard remained, and nias the
seaward edge of it. Exciseman Jones slept in his fearful
(11:10):
winding sheet and bided his time. It came when my
grandfather were a young man of thirty and mighty close
and confidential with Dark Dignam, God forgive him. Doubtless he
were led away by the old smuggler that had a
grace of villainy about him, Tis said, and used Lord
Chesterfield's printed letters for wadding to his bullets. By then
he was a ramping, roaring devil. But for all his
(11:30):
bold hands were stained with crime. The memory of Exciseman
Jones and his promise dwelt with him and darkened him
even more and more, and never left him. So those
that knew him said, Now, all these years the cliff
edge again in the graveyard where it was broke off,
was scabbing into the sea below. But still they used
this way of assent for their ungodly traffic, And over
the ruin of the cliff they had drove a new
(11:51):
path for to carry up their kegs. It was a
cloudy night in March, with scud and a fitful moon,
and there was a sloop in the offing, and under
the shore a loaded boat that had just pulled in
with muffled roe locks. Out of this Dark Dignam was
the first to sling himself a brace of rumblets, and
my grandfather fall with two more they made softly for
the cliff path began. The ascent was half way up. Whiz,
(12:14):
a stone of chalk went by them with a squirrel,
and slapped into the rubble below. Some more a saint
Dunstan gravel, cried Dignam, panting out of a reckless laugh
under his load, and on they went again. A wish,
A bigger lump came like a thunderbolt. The wind of
it took the bloody smuggler's hat and sent it swooping
into the darkness like a bird. Thunder, said Dignam, the
cliff's breaking away. The words was hardly out of his
(12:36):
mouth when there flew such a volley of chalk stones
as made my grandfather, though none had touched him, fall
upon the path where he stood, and began to gabble
out what he could call to mind of the prayers
for the dying. He was in the midst of it
when he heard a scream come from his companion. As
froze a very marrow in his bones, he looked up,
thinking his hour had come. My God, what a sight
he saw. The moon had shone out of a sudden
(12:58):
and the light of it struck down on Dignam's face,
and that was a color of dirty parchment. And he
looked higher and give a sort of a sob. For
there sticking out of the cliff side was half the
body of Exciseman Jones, with his arms stretched abroad, and
it was clawn on lumps of chalk and hurling them
down at Dignam. And even as he took this in
through his terror, a great ball of white came hurtling
and went full on the man's face with a splash,
(13:20):
and he were spun down in the deep night below,
a nameless thing. The old creature came to a stop,
his eyes glinting with a feeble excitement. And so I said,
Exciseman Jones was true to his word. The tension of
memory was giving the spring slowly uncoiling itself. Aye, he
said doubtfully. The cliff had flaked away by degrees to
his very grave. He found his skelington sticking out of
(13:42):
the chalk, his skeleton, said I, with the emphasis of disappointment.
The first, sir, the first, Ay, his was the first.
There have been many exposed since the work of decay
goes on, and the bones they fall unto the sea,
sometimes sailing off shore. You may see a shank or
an arm protrudent, like a pigeon's leg from a pie.
But the wind or the weather takes it and it goes.
There's more to follow. Yet look at em, Look at
(14:04):
those bents, every one a grave with a skelington in it.
The wear and tear from the edge will reach each
one in turn, and then the last of the ungodly
will have ceased from the earth. And what became of
your grandfather, my grandfather? There was something happened made him
renounce the devil. He died one of the elect His
youth were heedless and unregenerate. But TIS said after he
(14:25):
were turned thirty, he never smiled again. There was a
reason did I ever tell you The story of Dark
Dignam and Exciseman Jones, end of section five, recording by
Jove Sela
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