13 - At a Winters Fire by Bernard Capes

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.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section thirteen 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 Nima. At a Winter's Fire by Bernard Capes.

(00:26):
The Black Reaper proem Heaven's Nursery, Sinner, Sinner? Whence do
you come from the bitter earth that called my home? Sinner? Sinner?
Why do you wait? I fear to knock at the
golden gate. My crimes were heavy, My doom is sure,

(00:48):
and I dread the anguish I must endure. Had you
ever a child down there? One but it died, and
I learnt despair. Here you will find it behind the
gate God forbid for it. Felt my hate shrunk in
the frost of my cruel teas more than the judges.

(01:11):
I fear. Its eyes hissed at the keyhole. Place your ear, Sinner.
What is the sound you hear? Is it ten thousand
babes at play? Heaven's Nursery lies that way through it
to judgment? All must fare. It was God's pity placed

(01:32):
it there. The gate swung open, The Sinner passed, Little
hands caught and held him fast while you wait the
call of the nameless one. There's time for a game
at touch and run. He played with them there in
that shining place, with the hot tears scorching his furrowed face,

(01:54):
played till the voice rang dread and clear, Where is
the sinner? I wait him here? And shouting with laughter,
one and all, they pushed him on to the judgment
hall stood by him, swarmed to the diest steps, a
jumble of gleeful eyes and lips. The judge leaned stern

(02:16):
from his judgment throne. I gave thee where is thy
little one? Wildly the culprit caught his breath. Lord, I
have sinned. My doom be death. He hung his head
with a broken sob. There sprang a child from the
rosy mob. Daddy cried with a joyful shriek, leapt to

(02:41):
his arms and kissed his cheek. But he put it
from him with bursting sighs, and looked on The judge
with swimming eyes, stood abashed in his bitter shame, waiting
the sentence that never came from the throne. Spoke out
the thundered word, this be thy doom no more? He

(03:03):
heard for a chime of laughter from baby throats took
up those crashing organ notes, mixed with silenced them, made
them void, and the children's laughter was unalloyed. This be
thy doom. Came a little squeak to play with us
here at hide and seek. Thrice did the judge essay

(03:27):
to frown. Thrice did the children laugh him down, till
at the last he caught and kissed the maddest of all,
and the merriest turned to the sinner with smiling face.
These render futile the judgment place sonniest rascals, imp and
elf who think they can better the judge himself, sinner.

(03:52):
Whatever thy sins may be, theirs is a sentence, go
from me the Black Reaper. Taken from the CUE Register
of Local Events, as compiled from authentic narratives. One now
I am to tell you of a thing that befell

(04:14):
in the year sixteen sixty five of the Great plague,
when the hearts of certain amongst men, grown callous in wickedness,
upon that rebound from an inhuman austerity, were opened to
the vision of a terror that moved and spoke not
in the silent places of the fields. Forasmuch as However,

(04:37):
in the recovery from delirium, a patient may marvel over
the incredulity of neighbors who refuse to give credence to
the presentiments that have been ibs factor to him. So
the nation being sound again and its constitution, hail, I
expect little but a laugh from my piety, and relating

(04:59):
of the foll oowing incident, which nevertheless is as essential
true as that he who shall look through the not
hole and the plank of a coffin shall acquire the
evil eye. For indeed, in those days of a wild
fear and confusion, when every condition that maketh for reason

(05:21):
was set wandering by a devious path, and all men
sitting as in a theater of death, looked to see
the curtain rise upon God knows what horrors it was
vouchsafed to many to witness sights and sounds beyond the
compass of nature. And that as if the devil and
his minions had profited by the anarchy, to slip unobserved

(05:45):
into the world. And I know that this is so
for all the insolence of a recovered skepticism. And as
to the unseen, we are like one that traverseth the
dark with a lanthorn, himself the skipper of a little
moving blot of light, but a positive mark for any

(06:05):
secret foe without the circumference of its radiance. Be that
as it may. And whether it was our particular ill fortune, or,
as some asserted, our particular wickedness that made of our
village an inviting back door of entrance to the prince
of darkness, I know not. But so it is that

(06:28):
disease and contagion are ever inclined to penetrate by way
of flaws or humors where the veil the flesh is
already perforated, as a kite circleth round its quarry, looking
for the weak place to strike. And without doubt, in
that land of corruption, we were a very foul blot. Indeed,

(06:51):
how this came about it were idle to speculate. Yet
no man shall have the hardihood to affirm that it
was otherwise, Nor do I seek to extenuate myself, who was,
in truth no better than my neighbors in mosts. That
made us a community of drunkards and forest swears, both
lewde and abominable. For in that village of depravity, that

(07:16):
was like madness had come to possess the heads of
the people, and no man durst take his stand on
honesty or even common decency, for fear he should be
set upon by his comrades and drummed out of his
government on a pint pot. Yet for myself, I will say,
was one only redeeming quality, and that was the pure

(07:38):
love I bore to my solitary, orphaned child, the little
Margery now our vicar, a patient and god fearing man,
for all his predial tithes were appropriated by his lord,
that was an absentee, and a sheriff in London did
little distem that current of life, lewdness that had set

(08:01):
in strong with the restoration. And this was from no
lack of virtue in himself, but rather from a natural invertebracy,
as one may say, and an order of mind, that,
yet being no order, is made the sport of any
sophister with a wit for paragram. Thus it always is

(08:23):
that mere example is of little avail without precept, of which, however,
it is an important condition. And that the successful directors
of men be not those who go to the van
and lead unconscious of the gibes and mockery in their rear,
but such rather as drive the mob before them with

(08:44):
a smiting hand and no infirmity of purpose. So if
a certain affection for our pastor dwelt in our hearts,
no title of respect was there to love in it
and justify his high office before him that consigned the trust.
And ever deeper and deeper we sank in the slough

(09:05):
of corruption, until was brought about this pass, that not
but some scourging depotism of the church should acquit us
of the fate of sodom. That such at the eleventh
hour was vouchsafed us God's mercy. It is my purpose
to show, and doubtless this offering of a loophole was

(09:28):
to account by reason of the devil's having debarked his reserves,
as it were in our port, and so quartering upon
us a soldiery that we were it no invitation of
our own to maintain stood us a certain extenuation. It
was late in the order of things before in our village,

(09:50):
so much as a rumor of the plague reached us.
Newspapers were not in those days, and reports, being by
word of mouth, traveled slowly and were often spent bullets
by the time they fell amongst us. Yet by May
some gossip there was of the distemper having gotten a
hold in certain quarters of London and increasing, and this

(10:13):
alarmed our people, though it made no abatement of their profligacy.
But presently the reports coming thicker, with confirmation of the
terror and panic that was enlarging on all sides. We
must take measures for our safety. Though into June and July,
when the pestilence was raging, none infected had come our way,

(10:35):
and that from our remote and isolated position. Yet it
needs but fear for the crown, to that wickedness that
is self indulgent. And forasmuch as their fear fattens like
a toadstool on the decomposition it springs from, it grew
with us to the proportions that we were set to

(10:55):
kill or destroy any that should approach us from the
stricken districts. And then suddenly there appeared in our midst
he that was appointed to be our scourge and oar cottery.
Whence he came or how no man of us could say.
Only one day we were a community of roisterers and scoffers,

(11:19):
impious and abominable, and the next he was amongst us,
smiting and thundering. Some would have it that he was
an old collegiate of our vicars, but at last one
of those wandering dissenters that found never is now the
times opportune to their teachings, a theory to which our

(11:40):
minister's treatment of the stranger gave color, For from the
moment of his appearance he took the reins of government
as it were, appropriating the pulpit and launching his bolts
therefrom with a full consent and encouragement of the other.
There were those again who were resolved that his commission
was from a high place, whither news of our infamy

(12:03):
had reached, and that we had best give him a
respectful hearing, lest we should run a chance of having
our hearing stopped. Altogether, a few were convinced he was
no man at all, but rather a fiend sent to
thrush us with the scourge of our own, contriving that
we might be tender like steak for the cooking. And

(12:24):
yet other few regarded him with terror, as an actual
figure or embodiment of the distemper. But generally, after the
first surprise, the feeling of resentment at his intrusion, woke
and gained ground. We are much put about that he
should have thus assumed the pastorship without invitation, quartering with

(12:49):
our vicar, who kept himself aloof and was little seen,
and seeking to drive us by terror and amazement and
a great menace of retribution. For in truth, this was
not the method to which we were wont, and of
both angered and disturbed us. This feeling would have enlarged

(13:11):
the sooner, perhaps, were it not for a certain restraining
influence possessed of the newcomer, which neighbored him with darkness
and mystery. For he was above the common, tall, and
ever appeared in public with a slouched hat that concealed
all the upper part of his face, and showed little otherwise,

(13:31):
but the dense black beard that dropped upon his breast
like a shadow. Now with August came a fresh burst
of paddock. How the desolation increased, and the land was
overrun with swarms of infected persons seeking an asylum from
the city. And our anger rose high against the stranger,

(13:53):
who yet dwelt with us and encouraged the distemper of
our minds by furious denounceations of our guilt. Thus far,
for all the corruption of our hearts, we had maintained
the practice of church going, thinking maybe poor fools to
hoodwink the Almighty with a show of reverence. But now,

(14:15):
as by a common consent, we neglected the observances and
loitered of a sabbath in the fields. And thither at
the last the strange man pursued us and ended the matter.
For so it fell that at the time of the
Harris's ripening, a goodish body of us males was gathered

(14:36):
one Sunday for coolness about the neighborhood of the dripping well,
whose waters were a tradition, for they had long gone dry.
This well was situated in a sort of cave or
deep scoop, at the foot of a cliff of limestone,
to which the cultivated ground that led up to it
fell somewhat high above the cliff broke away into a

(14:58):
wide stretch of pasts land. But the face of the
rock itself was all patched with bramble and little starved
birch trees clutching for foothold, And in like manner the
excavation beneath was half stifled and gloomed over with undergrowth,
so that it looked a place very dismal and uninviting,

(15:19):
save in the ardure of the dog days. Within where
it had been the basin was a great shattered hole
going down to unknown depths, And this no man had
thought to explore, for a mystery held about the spot
that was doubtless the faster child of ignorance. But to
the front of the well and of the cliff stretched

(15:41):
a noble field of corn. And this field was of
an uncommon shape, being roughly a vast circle and a
little one, joined by a neck, and in suggestion, not
unlike an hour glass. And into the crop thereof which
was of goodly waiting condition, were the first sickles to
be put on the morrow. Now, as we stood or

(16:04):
lay around idly discussing of the news and congratulating ourselves
that we were featly quit of our incubus, to us
along the meadow path, his shadow, jumping on the corn,
came the very subject of our gossip. He strode up,
looking neither to right nor left, and with the first

(16:25):
word that fell low and damnatory from his lips, we
knew that the moment had come when whether for good
or evil. He intended to cast us from him and
acquit himself of further responsibility in our direction. Behold, he cried,
pausing over against us, I go from among ye. Behold

(16:48):
ye that have not obeyed nor inclined your ear, but
have walked. Every one in the imagination of his evil heart,
saith the Lord. I will bring evil upon them, which
they shall not be able to escape. And though they
shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them.

(17:10):
His voice rang out, and a dark silence fell among us.
It was pregnant, but with little of humility. We had
had enough of this interloper and his abuse. Then, like Jeremiah,
he went to prophecy. I read, ye men of Anathoth,

(17:30):
and the murder in your hearts, ye that of worship
the shameful thing, and burned and sensed de ball. Shall
I cringe that ye devise against me? Or not, rather
pray to the Lord of Host, let me see thy
vengeance on them, and he answereth. I will bring evil
upon the men of Anathoth, even the year of their visitation. Now,

(17:56):
though I was no participator in that direful thing that followed,
I stood by nor interfered, and so must share the blame.
For there were men risen all about, in their faces lowering,
and it seemed that it would go hard with the stranger,
were he not more particular. But he moved forward with

(18:16):
a stately and commanding gesture, and stood with his back
to the well scoop, and threatened us and spoke lo.
He shrieked, your hours upon you, Ye shall be mowed
down like ripe corn, and the shadow of your name
shall be swept from the earth. The glass of your

(18:37):
iniquity is turned, and when its sand is run through,
not a man of ye shall be. He raised his
arm aloft, and in a moment he was overborne. Even then,
as I'll say, none got sight of his face. But
he fought with lowered head, and his black beard flapped

(18:59):
like a wounded crow. But suddenly a boy child ran
forward of the bystanders, crying and screaming, hurt him, not
they are hurting him, Oh me, oh me. And from
the sweat and struggle came his voice, gasping, I spare

(19:20):
the little children. Then only I know of the surge
and the crash towards the well mouth of an instant
cessation of motion, and immediately of men toiling hither and thither,
of bowlers and huge blocks, which they piled over the rent,
and so sealed it with a chrumlech of stone. Two,

(19:47):
that in the heat of rage and of terror, we
had gone farther than we had at first designed. Our
gloom and our silence. On the morrow tested, true, we
were quit of our incubus, but on such terms as
not even the severity of the times could excuse. For
the man had but chastised us to our improvement. And

(20:11):
to destroy the scourge is not to condone the offense.
For myself, as I bore up the little margery to
my shoulder on my way to the reaping, I felt
the burden of guilt so great as that I found
myself muttering of an apology to the Lord, that I
durst put myself into touch with innocence. But the walk

(20:33):
would fatigue her otherwise, I murmured. And when we were
come to the field, I took and carried her into
the upper little meadow, out of reach of the scythes,
and placed her to sleep amongst the corn, and so
left her with a groan. But when I was come
anew to my comrades, who stood at the lower extremity

(20:53):
of the field, and this was the bottom of the hourglass,
so to speak. I was aware of a stir amongst them,
and advancing closer, that they were all intent upon the
neighborhood of the field I had left, staring like the
straught creatures, and holding well together as if in a panic. Therefore,

(21:14):
following the direction of their eyes, and of one that
pointed with rigid finger, I turned me about and looked
whence I had come, And my heart went with a somersault,
And in a moment I was all sick and dazed,
for I saw at the upper curve of the meadow,

(21:34):
where the well lay in gloom, that a man had
sprung out of the earth, as it seemed, and was
started reaping. And the face of this man was all
in shadow, from which his beard ran out and down
like a stream of gall He reaped swiftly and steadily,
swinging like a pendulum. But though the sheaves fell to

(21:57):
him right and left wish of the scythe came to us,
nor any sound but the beating of our own hearts. Now,
from the first moment of my looking, no doubt was
in my lost soul, but that this was him we
had destroyed, come back to verify his prophecy in ministering

(22:19):
to the vengeance of the Lord of Host. And at
the thought, a deep groan rent my bosom and was
echoed by those about me. But scarcely was it issued
when a second terror smote me, as that I near
reeled Marjorie, my babe, put to sleep there in the

(22:39):
path of the black reaper. At that, though they called
to me, I sprang forward like a madman, and running
along the meadow through the neck of the glass, reached
the little thing, and stooped and snatched her into my arms.
She was sound and unfrightened, as I felt with a

(23:00):
burst of thankfulness. But looking about me as I turned
again to fly, I had near dropped my tracks for
the sickness and horror I experienced in the nearer neighborhood
of the apparition. For though it never raised its head
or changed the steady swing of its shoulders, I knew

(23:20):
that it was aware of and was reaping at me.
Now I tell you it was ten yards away, Yet
the point of the scythe came gliding upon me silently,
like a snake through the stalks, and at that I
screamed out and ran for my life. I escaped, sweating
with terror. But when I was sped back to the men,

(23:42):
there was all the village collected, and our vicar to
the front, praying from a throat that rattled like a
dead leaf in a draft. I know not what he said,
for the low cries of the women filled the air,
but his face was white as a smock, and his
fingers writhed in one another like a knot of worms.

(24:03):
The plague is upon us, they wailed, We shall be
mowed down like ripe corn. And even as they shrieked,
the black reaper paused, and, putting away his scythe stooped
and gathered up a sheaf in his arms, and stood
it on end, And with the very act a man,

(24:25):
one that had been forward in yesterday's business, fell down
amongst us, yelling and foaming, and he rent his breast
in his frenzy, revealing the purple blot thereon, and he passed, blaspheming,
and the reapers stooped and stooped again, and with every
sheaf he gathered together, one of us fell stricken and

(24:47):
rolled in his agony, while the rest stood by palsied.
But when at length all that was cut was accounted for,
and a dozen of us were gone, each to his judge,
and he had taken up his scythe to reap anew
a wild fury woke in the breast of some of
the more abandoned and reckless among us. It is not

(25:10):
to be tolerated, they cried, Let us at once fire
the corn and burn this sorcerer. And with that some
fire or six of them, emboldened by despair, ran up
into the little field, and separating, had out each his
flint and fired the crop in his own place, and

(25:30):
retreated to the narrow part for safety. Now the reaper
rested on his side, as if unexpectedly acquitted of a
part of his labor. But the corn flamed up in
these five or six directions, and was consumed in each
to the compass of a single sheaf whereat. The fire
died away, and with its dying the faces of those

(25:54):
that adventure went black as coal, and they flung up
their arms, screaming, and fell prone where they stood and
were hidden from our view. Then, indeed, despair seized upon
all of us that survived, and we made no doubt
but that we were to be exterminated and wiped from
the earth for our sins, as were the men of Anathos.

(26:18):
And for an hour the black Reaper mowed in trust
till he had cut all from the little upper field,
and was approached to the neck of juncture with the
lower and larger, and before us that remained, and who
were drawn back amongst the trees, weeping and praying. A
fifth of our comrades lay foul and dead and swelter,

(26:39):
and all blotched over with a dreadful mark of the pestilence. Now,
as I say, the reaper was nearing the neck of juncture,
and so we knew that if he should once pass
into the great field towards us and continue his mowing,
not one of us should be left to give earnest
of our repentance. Then, as it seemed, our vicar came

(27:04):
to a resolution, moving forward with a face all wrapped
and entranced, and he strode up the meadow path and
approached the apparition, and stretched out his arms to it, entreating,
And we saw the other pause awaiting him, And as
he came near, put forth his hand and so gently

(27:26):
on the good old head. But as we looked, catching
at our breaths with a little pathos of hope, the
priestly face was thrown back radiant, and the figure of
him that would give his life for us sank amongst
the yet standing corn, and disappeared from our sight. So
at last we yielded ourselves fully to our despair, For

(27:50):
if our pastor should find no mercy, what possibility of
it could be for us. It was in this moment
of an most grief and horror, when each stood apart
from his neighbor, fearing the contamination of his presence, that
there was vouchsafe to me of God's pity. A wild

(28:11):
and sudden inspiration, still to my neck fastened the little margery,
not frightened, it seemed, but mazed, and other babes that
were in plenty, that clung to their mother's skirts and
peeped out, wondering at the strange show. I ran to
the front and shrieked the children, that children he will

(28:33):
not touch, the little children, bring them and set them
in his path. And so crying, I sped to the
neck of meadow and loosened the soft arms from my throat,
and put the little one down within the corn. Now
at once the women saw what I would be at,
and full a score of them snatched up their babes

(28:53):
and followed me. And here we were reckless for ourselves,
but we knelt the innocence in one clothes sliine across
the neck of land, so that the black reaper should
not find space between any of them to swing his side.
And having done this, we fell back, with our hearts
bubbling in our breast, and we stood panting and watched.

(29:15):
He had paused over that one full sheaf of his reaping,
But now with the sound of the women's running, he
seized his weapon again and set two upon the narrow
belt of corn that yet separated him from the children.
But presently coming out upon the tender array, his scythe

(29:35):
stopped and trailed in his hand, and for a full
minute he stood like a figure of stone. Then thrice
he walked slowly backwards and forwards along the line, seeking
for an interval whereby he might pass, And the children
laughed at him like silver bells, showing no fear, and

(29:56):
perchance meeting that of love in his eyes that was
hidden from us. Then of a sudden he came to
before the midmost of the line, and while we drew
our breath, like dying souls, stooped and snapped his blade
across his knee, and holding the two parts in his hand,

(30:17):
turned and strode back into the shadow of the dripping well.
There arrived he paused once more, and twisting him about,
waved his hand once to us, and vanished into the blackness.
But there were those who affirmed that in that instant
of his turning, his face was revealed, and that it

(30:38):
was a face radiant and beautiful as an angel's. Such
is the history of the wild judgment that befell us,
and by grace of the little children, was foregone. And
such was the stranger whose name no man ever heard tell,
but whom many sins sought to identify with that spear

(31:00):
of the pestilence that entered into men's hearts and confounded them,
so that they saw visions and were afterwards confused in
their memories. But this I may say, that, when at
last our courage would fetch us to that little field
of death, we found it to be all blackened and blasted,
so as nothing would take root there then or ever since.

(31:25):
And it was as if after all the golden sand
of the hourglass was run away, and the lives of
the most impious with it. The destroyer saw fit to
stay his hand for sake of the babes that he
had pronounced innocent, and for such as were spared to
witness to his judgment. And this I do hear with

(31:47):
a heart as contrite, as if it were the morrow
of the visitation the which with me it ever has remained,
end of the black rep eye