Urith: A Tale of DartmoorBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
General
Urith: A Tale of Dartmoor
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Dartmoor (England) -- Fiction
"There's not much more to be said," continued the yeoman. "One or two
more arms came on, and granfer said there was a sight o' difference in
their ways: some was pushing like, and forward; and others rayther hung
back, and seemed to consider small bones of themselves. Now it was a
fact that all those he saw and named belonged to folks as died within
the year, and in the very order in which they came on and presented
themselves before him. What puzzled him most to name was two
baby-arms--purty little things they was--and he had to count over all
the young children in the parish before he could tell which they was. At
last, up came a long, lean, old, dry arm, tossing its hand in a short,
quick, touchy fashion, and went up on grandfer's knee without so much as
a 'By your leave.' And there it sat, and poked its hand about, wi'all
the fingers joined together like a pointed serpent's head. It moved in a
queer, irritable, jerky manner, that was familiar, somehow, to my
grandfather. After a bit he put his head down to look at the elbow,
where he fancied he saw a mole, when--crack! the hand hit him on his
cheek such a blow that he tumbled over, and lay sprawling on the
pavement; and he knew, by the feel of the hand as it caught him, that it
was--my grandmother's. When he had picked himself up, he saw nothing
more, so he went home. You may be very sure of those two things,
gentlemen--[Thank you, Mr. Gibbs. I'll trouble you to fill my glass.
Talking has made me terrible dry]--he never told his missus that Madam
Cake's arm had sat on his knee, nor that he had seen and recognized her
_own_ arm and hand."
"I wouldn't go on this night to the church porch, not for a king's
crown," said one of the miners. "Did not your grandfather suffer for his
visit?"
"Well," answered the yeoman, "I reckon he did ever after feel a sort o'
cramp in his knees--particularly in wet weather, where the arms had
sat--but what was that to the relief? My grandmother died that same
year."
"I wouldn't go there for any relief you might name," said the miner
again, who was greatly impressed by the story. "I've heard the pixies
hammering down in the mines, but I think naught of them. As for the
Lyke-Way, what goes over that is but shadows."
"Some folks are afraid of shadows," said Fox, "and don't think
themselves safe unless they have at least a woman with them for
protection."
"You are again levelling at me!" exclaimed Anthony Cleverdon. "I have no
fear either of shadows or substances. If you choose to come out and try
with me, you will see that I am not afraid of your arm, and that I can
chastise your tongue."
"Oh! my arm!" laughed Crymes. "I never supposed for a moment you dreaded
that. But it is the arms without bodies, moving like worms in the
churchyard at Peter Tavy, on this St. Mark's Eve, you are more likely to
dread."
"I am not afraid of them," retorted Cleverdon.
"So you say; but I do not think you seem inclined to show you are not."
"Do you dare me to it?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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