'I lost something up top,.' said Matthew. 'My grandfather's telescope. I was hoping to find it before my mother finds out.'
'Aye?' said the old man with a tone of scepticism that Matthew did not like. Who was he to question where a person did and did not walk? 'Well, I wish you luck then, young Mattie. He was a great fellow your grandfather. You must miss him.'
'Of course I do,.' said Matthew more defensively than he had intended. 'I must be getting on. Goodbye, Mr Beckett.'
'Aye,.' said the old man with a nod. 'You sure everything's all right, son?'
But Matthew was already walking away, heading towards the main path that snaked up towards the tarn and to the high drover's track that led to town. As he got to a sharp bend in the path, above the rows of the weavers' cottages, he took a smaller track - a barely perceptible sheep track - that ran by a massive stone barn and up the side of the fell, under the crags, rejoining the main path at the Black Tarn.
This was his path. He had walked it since he was old enough to walk anywhere without his brothers or parents, and though the track was clearly used by sheep and deer, he had never seen another person use it and felt it to be the only piece of this world that was his and his alone. There could really be no other route by which to leave it all behind.
He looked down at the weavers' cottages and smiled, imagining the conversation old Beckett and his father would have, but his smile quickly faded. He wished now that he had found the courage to tell the truth: that he was leaving this valley, these fells, this life; that he was following in his grandfather's footsteps and running away to sea. Unlike his grandfather, though, he would not be coming back.
He began to walk the narrow track, carefully tracing its path through the loose scree. It arced away up the fellside, its thin line so faintly impressed upon the landscape it was scarcely visible.
Matthew walked in the slow, evenly paced way of hill people. He could walk for hours with barely a pause for breath, keeping his feet to a rhythm that he dictated and not the ever-changing terrain. He was in no hurry.
A buzzard mewed as it quartered the hillside. Matthew could see smoke rising from the chimneys in the valley, but he would be on the tops before anyone realised he was gone. Even if they wanted to stop him, he would be beyond their reach.
The path grew steeper as it rose towards the crags and Matthew regretted not bringing a staff with him. He was forced to scrabble up the last part as it squeezed itself through a cleft in the rocks, heaving himself up and over with his hands, the rock face icy to the touch.
Finally, he climbed up on to the crag and sat with his feet dangling over the edge, looking out over the valley. The sun was up over the pass now and sheep were bleating, calling to their lambs.
From where he sat he could see two lakes: one shining in the sunlight, the other, to the west, dark and brooding, grey from the reflected crags above it. Both were still as paintings, their surfaces like polished steel.
Matthew opened his pack and took out a hunk of bread and some ham he had taken from the pantry and ate it mechanically as if it were fuel and nothing more. The temperature suddenly dropped and the valley below darkened. He looked towards the east and saw clouds building, obscuring the sun. He pulled his collar up and held it close to his throat. He would be warm enough once he was on the move.
It was then that something caught his eye, way down below at the small outcrop of rock where the sheep track split off from the main path. Someone was following him! Matthew peered at the tiny form below him, frowning with incredulity and with an irritation born of possessiveness. This was his path, his alone!
It suddenly occurred to him that maybe his note had been spotted earlier than he had hoped and that this was one of his brothers sent to fetch him back. Even as he thought this, he knew it was not so. He had seen his brothers out on the hillsides a hundred times; he knew their shape and the way they carried themselves.
Besides, there was something strange about the way this figure moved, frantically clambering up the path. It was hard to see from that distance, but it almost seemed as though he - Matthew was sure that the person must be male - were running away from something.
Matthew could see that one of the stranger's arms hung at his side and flapped uselessly about like a rag doll's arm every time he scrabbled over a rock. The sight of it set Matthew's teeth on edge.
Worse still were the odd glimpses Matthew kept getting of the stranger's face. Mostly, the figure climbed with his head bowed, looking at the ground and Matthew could only see the top of his head, the hair seemingly wet and glinting dimly in the sunlight.
Occasionally, though, the stranger would look up, as if to check his route, and Matthew gained the impression that the fellow was wearing some sort of mask, or partial mask, as if he were a carnival figure. This, added to the stranger's bizarre movements, caused Matthew to shake his head in confusion.
He resolved to let the fellow catch up and pass him, deciding that the bother of having to exchange greetings with someone so odd was more palatable than having them dogging his footsteps. Then he remembered his grandfather's telescope.
Intrigued by the thought of getting a better look at the peculiar stranger below him, Matthew rummaged about in the bottom of his pack and took out the instrument. He put it to his eye and scanned the path, unable at first to find his target. He lowered it and when he had fixed the fellow's position, he put the telescope back to his eye and focused, the stranger disappearing momentarily behind a rock as he did so. As he reappeared and looked up towards Matthew, Matthew gave a cry and almost dropped the telescope over the edge. It was some time before he forced himself to look again.
The stranger was moving even faster than Matthew had imagined from a distance. He was indeed running and scrabbling upwards at a phenomenal rate. His motion was crazed and the eccentric movements of his body were now clearly explained.
His left arm was obviously broken - in more than one place, Matthew guessed. The left hand was scarcely recognisable as such, and looked as if a blacksmith had been hammering it. His left leg, too, was clearly smashed and flailed and juddered sickeningly as he moved. His clothes were ripped and sodden with blood.
The hair he had thought to be merely wet was clotted with gore and he looked as though he had been scalped by one of the American savages Matthew's grandfather had told him about. But it was the fellow's face that had caused Mathew to gasp in horror.
The features were utterly ruined and looked like something glimpsed in an abattoir or a nightmare. One side of the face was a hideous mass of gristle and torn flesh, like a sheep carcass after the rooks have worked it. An unblinking eye looked out from the other side.
Matthew immediately thought that the stranger must have been the victim of some terrible assault - but by whom, or what? He had passed that way himself only half an hour earlier and had seen no one save old Mr Beckett. Besides, this fellow looked as though he had been mauled by a lion.
Why did he not cry out for help, thought Matthew, and how, when he was so badly injured, could he move like that? Matthew could not run up that track if the devil himself was behind him, and he was fully fit. He looked through the telescope once more, and once more he almost dropped it.
The stranger was not looking behind him as a terrified person might do, and neither was he looking up, as Matthew had previously thought, to check his path. As Matthew looked through the telescope the stranger looked up, not at the path, but at Matthew himself, and with an expression that managed to force itself through the ruined face - an expression of fanatical intent. He was not running away from someone. He was running towards Matthew.
Matthew scrabbled to his feet and stuffed the telescope into his pack. As he walked away from the crag's edge a scattering of snowflakes began to fall, but his thoughts were completely focused on the ghoul that was pursuing him. He had been on the fells in snow many times before. He knew these paths as well as anyone.
But within seconds the scattering of flakes had become a blizzard. He had never seen anything like it in his life. He had to narrow his eyes to slits to see at all; the view ahead was a blur of whirling snow.
The wind was so intense that he was forced on more than one occasion to turn his back on it and shield his face, and the wind seemed to be grabbing him and shaking him and trying to turn him about. Then he saw the shadowy image of the thing that was following him and he turned and ran.
He had some vague notion of trying to double back on himself and head for the path that might lead him back down to the safety of the valley and to his home. He would gladly take any punishment his father might hand out or suffer the scorn of his brothers, if only he might escape this hideous creature.
But as soon as Matthew began to run, he realised that he no longer had any idea in which direction the path lay, or in fact which direction anything lay. The snow was like a huge shroud winding about him until he could see no landmark at all, familiar or otherwise.
Still he ran, however blindly. The horror of the creature overtook any other fear he might have had. The snow stung his face, ice against burning flesh. Only once did he turn round, and there he saw the thing only yards behind him. He cried out weakly as a child might and then skidded to a halt, the toes of his boots hanging over the edge of a crag. As he turned, the ghoul walked slowly forward.
Matthew looked right and left, but there was no escape except through the creature that now loomed out of the swirling snow. Matthew began to sob and then yelled in despair.
'What are you? What do you want with me?'
The creature shuffled forward until he was only a foot or so from Matthew. The full horror of the injuries was now all too apparent, as was the fact that the clothes the creature wore were identical to Matthew's - so too was the pack that hung across his crippled shoulder. This realisation hit Matthew as he stared into the creature's one good eye, grey like his own.
'No!' he screamed, and the creature screamed with him, a cruel, distorted mirror of his own fear, and then Matthew fell, staggering backwards and plummeting from the crag on to the teeth of the scree below.
Mr Beckett was the first to find him. He was an old man and had fought as a soldier in his youth, though unlike Matthew's grandfather he never spoke of it; but still he had never seen the like of it. The boy's left arm and leg were smashed and lay at a sickeningly impossible angle to his torso - and the face . . .
Beckett only recognised Matthew by the clothes he was wearing. He turned away, his mouth dry and bitter with the taste of bile, threw his coat across the body without looking back and set off to tell Matthew's parents the grim news.
Uncle Montague smiled from the shadows at the look of horror I no doubt wore, and handed me the telescope. I almost had a mind to put it to my eye, but I was suddenly struck by a dread of what I might see - as if Matthew's horrible vision might still be clinging to the eyepiece. I grinned sheepishly at my own foolishness.
'Does something amuse you?' asked Uncle Montague.
'I was merely reminding myself, Uncle, that I am getting too old to be so easily frightened by stories.'
'Really?' said Uncle Montague with a worrying degree of doubt in his voice. 'You think there is an age at which you might become immune to fear?'
'Well,.' I said, a little concerned that I had once again offended his abilities as a storyteller. 'That is not to say that the stories you tell are not jolly frightening, Uncle.'
'Quite,.' said Uncle Montague, though with a strange intonation.
'Have you ever thought of having them published, sir?'
'No, Edgar,.' he said. 'That would not be appropriate. After all, they are not my stories, as I have intimated to you.'
'But I do not understand, Uncle,.' I said. 'If they are not your stories, then whose are they?'
'They belong to those involved, Edgar,.' he replied. 'I am merely the storyteller.'
'But how can that -'
'But I am afraid you really must go now, Edgar,. ' interrupted Uncle Montague, getting to his feet, his face suddenly serious. 'You would not like it here after dark.'
I failed to see what difference it would make as the house was in perpetual darkness anyway, but my uncle was already at the study door and as the fire seemed suddenly to have died away I was eager to follow him.
'Keep to the path, Edgar,.' he said at the front door, with the touching concern he always showed me as I left his house. 'And do not tarry in the woods.'
'Thank you, Uncle . . .' I began, but the door was already shutting and I could hear a succession of bolts and locks being rammed home. I smiled to myself at my uncle's awkwardness at our parting. For such a worldly man, he could be charmingly shy at times.
But I did wonder if he had spent too many hours in his own company. His curious insistence that he was not the author of these tales struck me as most peculiar. It was obvious to one even as young I was then, that - as I had begun to explain to my uncle - in most cases, the principal characters in the story were dead by the end, or in such a tormented state that it would be hard to imagine how they would have the wit or the inclination to write or even dictate their tale.
But I did not think the worse of my uncle for this fabrication. I simply took it as a sign of his eccentricity. After a quick backwards glance at the house, I set off home.
I was never in any way tempted to stray from the path and, though I was sure that the woods were perfectly safe, nor was I inclined to dawdle. My uncle's concern was entirely misplaced. I would not have tarried in those woods for all the tea in China.
I had never before left it this late to return home and I was struck by how the darkness seemed to descend like a curtain, so that while it had seemed merely dusk when I left my uncle's door, night had truly enveloped me by the time I reached the wood.
As I did so I heard what I took to be my uncle's dog howling and resolved again to ask him about the animal, for I had never seen it in the grounds, nor had my uncle ever mentioned it. I was fond of animals.
Walking between the trees, I fancied that I saw shapes congealing out of the surrounding blackness and I became suddenly colder. I felt compelled to stop and peer into the dark to satisfy myself that I was troubled by my boyish imaginings and nothing more.
But quite the opposite effect was produced. Now that my eyes had become accustomed to the gloom, and now that I really concentrated my gaze, I could see that I was clearly not alone.
'Hello!' I called with a confidence I did not feel.
'Who's there?'
I saw by the silhouettes that the figures surrounding me were children. It was a group of the village lads, rather a large group. As usual, they said nothing - simply stood among the trees . . . silently . . . malevolently.
I prepared myself for a beating; I could never have reached the safety of my house before they caught me. But I am English and have spent my life at one of the finest schools in the country. I could take a beating.
The crowd of boys moved closer. I could make out none of their features as they seemed to bring their own shadows with them. I tried to look as contemptuous as possible, while steeling myself against the punches and kicks I felt sure were about to rain down on me.
But strange to say, instead of blows, tentative fingers stretched out towards me, as if the children - and I could now see by their silhouettes that there were girls as well as boys in the gang - were both afraid and eager to touch me.
'Enough!' said a voice behind me.
The children sprang back and I turned, startled, to see my uncle carrying a lantern. I was relieved to see him, of course, but I still had enough pride to be a little embarrassed at being rescued by my elderly relative.
'Joseph, Matthew,.' he said crossly. 'Leave him be.'
'You know these boys?' I asked, astonished that he knew their names and recognised them in such poor light.
'Yes, Edgar,.' he said in a curious tone. 'I know these children well.'
'I don't understand, sir,.' I said.
Uncle Edgar looked at me and smiled wearily.
'You asked me for one more story, Edgar,.' he said. 'Very well, then. You shall have one more story: my own . . .'
'I was once a teacher, Edgar,.' said Uncle Montague, stretching the muscles of his neck as if he was suddenly very tired. 'Did you know that?'
'No, sir,.' I said. My uncle had never previously seen fit to tell me anything of consequence about his life.
Uncle Montague looked grim.
'Yes, Edgar,.' he answered. There was an almost imperceptible movement among the surrounding children - as if they had all flinched at the same time. 'My house was a school then, and I was its headmaster: a cruel and wicked headmaster, Edgar.'
'Surely not, Uncle,.' I said. The children seemed to have taken a step nearer, though they were still beyond the range of Uncle Montague's lantern.
'I am afraid so,.' he said, casting a glance at the surrounding figures. 'I had begun my teaching life eager to impart the wonders of the world to my little flock of pupils, but over time, something happened to me, Edgar. I cannot say exactly what it was, but it was a kind of death; or rather something worse than death - a death of the soul.'
I moved to interrupt, but Uncle Montague continued.
'I wish that I could say my cruelty was of the ordinary sort - that I beat my children or forced them to stand for hours on a chair. I wish I could tell you that I humiliated them in front of their fellows. But no, Edgar - my cruelty was of a darker shade altogether.
'I wore the outward mask of a good and caring teacher, but unbeknown to those poor children, who looked up to me and worked so hard to win my praise, I was unworthy of their respect.'
Uncle Montague said these words with a heartrending mixture of bitterness and regret and closed his eyes as if in prayer. The children around us bristled and inched closer. I gave a disapproving look to the child nearest to me.
'I do not understand, Uncle,.' I said.
'I developed an addiction to games of chance, Edgar,.' he said with a sigh. 'Finally settling on cards as my principal form of gambling. I was a good player, but even the greatest must lose, and lose I did. Gradually all my savings were eaten away and I was forced to look for another source of money to take to the table.'
'Uncle?' I asked, seeing the strange look that played across his face.
'I began to . . . steal from the boys, Edgar,.' he said, looking away.
'Steal, sir?' I said, not quite able to take in the enormity of this crime - that a grown man, and a teacher at that, would steal from a child.
'You are right to be shocked, Edgar,.' he said quietly. 'It was a terrible betrayal of trust. But it is one for which I have paid a very heavy price.' Again the children shifted noiselessly.
'I intercepted letters from the children,.' my uncle continued, 'forging their handwriting and adding postscripts begging for money - money I intercepted as it came to the school. It did not stop at money. Presents sent to the boys by their doting mothers, I took for myself. I ate their birthday treats in my office and amused myself by offering the odd morsel to the boy for whom it had been intended. I had become utterly wretched, Edgar, and wallowed in my wretchedness as a hog revels in its own filth.'
I found it hard to meet my uncle's eyes and only the dread of seeing the shadowy figures grouped ever more closely about us persuaded me to look him in the face.
'Of course, these thefts were bound to come to light,.' he resumed. 'And sure enough, I began to receive complaints from parents, as well as from some of the braver boys. I put them off for as long as I could, but eventually I was forced to act. I could, even then, have simply owned up to my crime and taken the resulting disgrace. How attractive that disgrace seems now, Edgar. I would embrace it now like a long-lost brother. But I was far too weak and odious to confess.
'Instead, another course of action occurred to me. There was a boy at the school. His name was William Collins. He was an orphan. His fees were paid through a firm of lawyers in the City. He was not popular with the other boys, for he was aloof and awkward.
'The curious thing was that it was this very aloofness that, even in the depths of my wretchedness, endeared him to me. It had been years since I had felt anything other than loathing and contempt towards the children, but I liked William. He reminded me of myself at his age.' Uncle smiled at the memory.
'But what has William to do with the thefts, sir?'