Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sjaani and PG Distributed Proofreaders
THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND
William Hope Hodgson
_From the Manuscript discovered in 1877 by Messrs. Tonnison andBerreggnog in the Ruins that lie to the South of the Village ofKraighten, in the West of Ireland. Set out here, with Notes_.
TO MY FATHER_(Whose feet tread the lost aeons)_
Open the door, And listen!Only the wind's muffled roar, And the glistenOf tears 'round the moon. And, in fancy, the treadOf vanishing shoon-- Out in the night with the Dead.
"Hush! And hark To the sorrowful cryOf the wind in the dark. Hush and hark, without murmur or sigh, To shoon that tread the lost aeons: To the sound that bids you to die.Hush and hark! Hush and Hark!" _Shoon of the Dead_
AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION TO THE MANUSCRIPT
Many are the hours in which I have pondered upon the story that is setforth in the following pages. I trust that my instincts are not awrywhen they prompt me to leave the account, in simplicity, as it washanded to me.
And the MS. itself--You must picture me, when first it was given into mycare, turning it over, curiously, and making a swift, jerky examination.A small book it is; but thick, and all, save the last few pages, filledwith a quaint but legible handwriting, and writ very close. I have thequeer, faint, pit-water smell of it in my nostrils now as I write, andmy fingers have subconscious memories of the soft, "cloggy" feel of thelong-damp pages.
I read, and, in reading, lifted the Curtains of the Impossible thatblind the mind, and looked out into the unknown. Amid stiff, abruptsentences I wandered; and, presently, I had no fault to charge againsttheir abrupt tellings; for, better far than my own ambitious phrasing,is this mutilated story capable of bringing home all that the oldRecluse, of the vanished house, had striven to tell.
Of the simple, stiffly given account of weird and extraordinary matters,I will say little. It lies before you. The inner story must be uncovered,personally, by each reader, according to ability and desire. And evenshould any fail to see, as now I see, the shadowed picture and conceptionof that to which one may well give the accepted titles of Heaven and Hell;yet can I promise certain thrills, merely taking the story as a story.
WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON December 17, 1907
_I_
THE FINDING OF THE MANUSCRIPT
Right away in the west of Ireland lies a tiny hamlet called Kraighten.It is situated, alone, at the base of a low hill. Far around therespreads a waste of bleak and totally inhospitable country; where, hereand there at great intervals, one may come upon the ruins of some longdesolate cottage--unthatched and stark. The whole land is bare andunpeopled, the very earth scarcely covering the rock that lies beneathit, and with which the country abounds, in places rising out of the soilin wave-shaped ridges.
Yet, in spite of its desolation, my friend Tonnison and I had elected tospend our vacation there. He had stumbled on the place by mere chancethe year previously, during the course of a long walking tour, anddiscovered the possibilities for the angler in a small and unnamed riverthat runs past the outskirts of the little village.
I have said that the river is without name; I may add that no map that Ihave hitherto consulted has shown either village or stream. They seemto have entirely escaped observation: indeed, they might never exist forall that the average guide tells one. Possibly this can be partlyaccounted for by the fact that the nearest railway station (Ardrahan) issome forty miles distant.
It was early one warm evening when my friend and I arrived in Kraighten.We had reached Ardrahan the previous night, sleeping there in roomshired at the village post office, and leaving in good time on thefollowing morning, clinging insecurely to one of the typicaljaunting cars.
It had taken us all day to accomplish our journey over some of theroughest tracks imaginable, with the result that we were thoroughlytired and somewhat bad tempered. However, the tent had to be erected andour goods stowed away before we could think of food or rest. And so weset to work, with the aid of our driver, and soon had the tent up upon asmall patch of ground just outside the little village, and quite near tothe river.
Then, having stored all our belongings, we dismissed the driver, as hehad to make his way back as speedily as possible, and told him to comeacross to us at the end of a fortnight. We had brought sufficientprovisions to last us for that space of time, and water we could getfrom the stream. Fuel we did not need, as we had included a smalloil-stove among our outfit, and the weather was fine and warm.
It was Tonnison's idea to camp out instead of getting lodgings in one ofthe cottages. As he put it, there was no joke in sleeping in a room witha numerous family of healthy Irish in one corner and the pigsty in theother, while overhead a ragged colony of roosting fowls distributedtheir blessings impartially, and the whole place so full of peat smokethat it made a fellow sneeze his head off just to put it insidethe doorway.
Tonnison had got the stove lit now and was busy cutting slices of baconinto the frying pan; so I took the kettle and walked down to the riverfor water. On the way, I had to pass close to a little group of thevillage people, who eyed me curiously, but not in any unfriendly manner,though none of them ventured a word.
As I returned with my kettle filled, I went up to them and, after afriendly nod, to which they replied in like manner, I asked themcasually about the fishing; but, instead of answering, they just shooktheir heads silently, and stared at me. I repeated the question,addressing more particularly a great, gaunt fellow at my elbow; yetagain I received no answer. Then the man turned to a comrade and saidsomething rapidly in a language that I did not understand; and, at once,the whole crowd of them fell to jabbering in what, after a few moments,I guessed to be pure Irish. At the same time they cast many glances inmy direction. For a minute, perhaps, they spoke among themselves thus;then the man I had addressed faced 'round at me and said something. Bythe expression of his face I guessed that he, in turn, was questioningme; but now I had to shake my head, and indicate that I did notcomprehend what it was they wanted to know; and so we stood looking atone another, until I heard Tonnison calling to me to hurry up with thekettle. Then, with a smile and a nod, I left them, and all in the littlecrowd smiled and nodded in return, though their faces still betrayedtheir puzzlement.
It was evident, I reflected as I went toward the tent, that theinhabitants of these few huts in the wilderness did not know a word ofEnglish; and when I told Tonnison, he remarked that he was aware of thefact, and, more, that it was not at all uncommon in that part of thecountry, where the people often lived and died in their isolated hamletswithout ever coming in contact with the outside world.
"I wish we had got the driver to interpret for us before he left," Iremarked, as we sat down to our meal. "It seems so strange for thepeople of this place not even to know what we've come for."
Tonnison grunted an assent, and thereafter was silent for a while.
Later, having satisfied our appetites somewhat, we began to talk, layingour plans for the morrow; then, after a smoke, we closed the flap of thetent, and prepared to turn in.
"I suppose there's no chance of those fellows outside taking anything?"I asked, as we rolled ourselves in our blankets.
Tonnison said that he did not think so, at least while we were about;and, as he went on to explain, we could lock up everything, except thetent, in the big chest that we had brought to hold our provisions. Iagreed to this, and soon we were both asleep.
Next morning, early, we rose and went for a swim in the river; afterwhich we dressed and had breakfast. Then we roused out our fishingtackle and overhauled it, by which time, our breakfasts having settledsomewhat, we made all secure within the tent and strode
off in thedirection my friend had explored on his previous visit.
During the day we fished happily, working steadily upstream, and byevening we had one of the prettiest creels of fish that I had seen for along while. Returning to the village, we made a good feed off our day'sspoil, after which, having selected a few of the finer fish for ourbreakfast, we presented the remainder to the group of villagers who hadassembled at a respectful distance to watch our doings. They seemedwonderfully grateful, and heaped mountains of what I presumed to beIrish blessings upon our heads.
Thus we spent several days, having splendid sport, and first-rateappetites to do justice upon our prey. We were pleased to find howfriendly the villagers were inclined to be, and that there was noevidence of their having ventured to meddle with our belongings duringour absences.
It was on a Tuesday that we arrived in Kraighten, and it would be on theSunday following that we made a great discovery. Hitherto we had alwaysgone up-stream; on that day, however, we laid aside our rods, and,taking some provisions, set off for a long ramble in the oppositedirection. The day was warm, and we trudged along leisurely enough,stopping about mid-day to eat our lunch upon a great flat rock near theriverbank. Afterward we sat and smoked awhile, resuming our walk onlywhen we were tired of inaction.
For perhaps another hour we wandered onward, chatting quietly andcomfortably on this and that matter, and on several occasions stoppingwhile my companion--who is something of an artist--made rough sketchesof striking bits of the wild scenery.
And then, without any warning whatsoever, the river we had followed soconfidently, came to an abrupt end--vanishing into the earth.
"Good Lord!" I said, "who ever would have thought of this?"
And I stared in amazement; then I turned to Tonnison. He was looking,with a blank expression upon his face, at the place where the riverdisappeared.
In a moment he spoke.
"Let us go on a bit; it may reappear again--anyhow, it is worthinvestigating."
I agreed, and we went forward once more, though rather aimlessly; for wewere not at all certain in which direction to prosecute our search. Forperhaps a mile we moved onward; then Tonnison, who had been gazing aboutcuriously, stopped and shaded his eyes.
"See!" he said, after a moment, "isn't that mist or something, overthere to the right--away in a line with that great piece of rock?" Andhe indicated with his hand.
I stared, and, after a minute, seemed to see something, but could not becertain, and said so.
"Anyway," my friend replied, "we'll just go across and have a glance."And he started off in the direction he had suggested, I following.Presently, we came among bushes, and, after a time, out upon the top ofa high, boulder-strewn bank, from which we looked down into a wildernessof bushes and trees.
"Seems as though we had come upon an oasis in this desert of stone,"muttered Tonnison, as he gazed interestedly. Then he was silent, hiseyes fixed; and I looked also; for up from somewhere about the center ofthe wooded lowland there rose high into the quiet air a great column ofhazelike spray, upon which the sun shone, causing innumerable rainbows.
"How beautiful!" I exclaimed.
"Yes," answered Tonnison, thoughtfully. "There must be a waterfall, orsomething, over there. Perhaps it's our river come to light again. Let'sgo and see."
Down the sloping bank we made our way, and entered among the trees andshrubberies. The bushes were matted, and the trees overhung us, so thatthe place was disagreeably gloomy; though not dark enough to hide fromme the fact that many of the trees were fruit trees, and that, here andthere, one could trace indistinctly, signs of a long departedcultivation. Thus it came to me that we were making our way through theriot of a great and ancient garden. I said as much to Tonnison, and heagreed that there certainly seemed reasonable grounds for my belief.
What a wild place it was, so dismal and somber! Somehow, as we wentforward, a sense of the silent loneliness and desertion of the oldgarden grew upon me, and I felt shivery. One could imagine thingslurking among the tangled bushes; while, in the very air of the place,there seemed something uncanny. I think Tonnison was conscious of thisalso, though he said nothing.
Suddenly, we came to a halt. Through the trees there had grown upon ourears a distant sound. Tonnison bent forward, listening. I could hear itmore plainly now; it was continuous and harsh--a sort of droning roar,seeming to come from far away. I experienced a queer, indescribable,little feeling of nervousness. What sort of place was it into which wehad got? I looked at my companion, to see what he thought of the matter;and noted that there was only puzzlement in his face; and then, as Iwatched his features, an expression of comprehension crept over them,and he nodded his head.
"That's a waterfall," he exclaimed, with conviction. "I know the soundnow." And he began to push vigorously through the bushes, in thedirection of the noise.
As we went forward, the sound became plainer continually, showing thatwe were heading straight toward it. Steadily, the roaring grew louderand nearer, until it appeared, as I remarked to Tonnison, almost to comefrom under our feet--and still we were surrounded by the treesand shrubs.
"Take care!" Tonnison called to me. "Look where you're going." And then,suddenly, we came out from among the trees, on to a great open space,where, not six paces in front of us, yawned the mouth of a tremendouschasm, from the depths of which the noise appeared to rise, along withthe continuous, mistlike spray that we had witnessed from the top of thedistant bank.
For quite a minute we stood in silence, staring in bewilderment at thesight; then my friend went forward cautiously to the edge of the abyss.I followed, and, together, we looked down through a boil of spray at amonster cataract of frothing water that burst, spouting, from the sideof the chasm, nearly a hundred feet below.
"Good Lord!" said Tonnison.
I was silent, and rather awed. The sight was so unexpectedly grand andeerie; though this latter quality came more upon me later.
Presently, I looked up and across to the further side of the chasm.There, I saw something towering up among the spray: it looked like afragment of a great ruin, and I touched Tonnison on the shoulder. Heglanced 'round, with a start, and I pointed toward the thing. His gazefollowed my finger, and his eyes lighted up with a sudden flash ofexcitement, as the object came within his field of view.
"Come along," he shouted above the uproar. "We'll have a look at it.There's something queer about this place; I feel it in my bones." And hestarted off, 'round the edge of the craterlike abyss. As we neared thisnew thing, I saw that I had not been mistaken in my first impression. Itwas undoubtedly a portion of some ruined building; yet now I made outthat it was not built upon the edge of the chasm itself, as I had atfirst supposed; but perched almost at the extreme end of a huge spur ofrock that jutted out some fifty or sixty feet over the abyss. In fact,the jagged mass of ruin was literally suspended in midair.
Arriving opposite it, we walked out on to the projecting arm of rock,and I must confess to having felt an intolerable sense of terror as Ilooked down from that dizzy perch into the unknown depths below us--intothe deeps from which there rose ever the thunder of the falling waterand the shroud of rising spray.
Reaching the ruin, we clambered 'round it cautiously, and, on thefurther side, came upon a mass of fallen stones and rubble. The ruinitself seemed to me, as I proceeded now to examine it minutely, to be aportion of the outer wall of some prodigious structure, it was so thickand substantially built; yet what it was doing in such a position Icould by no means conjecture. Where was the rest of the house, orcastle, or whatever there had been?
I went back to the outer side of the wall, and thence to the edge of thechasm, leaving Tonnison rooting systematically among the heap of stonesand rubbish on the outer side. Then I commenced to examine the surfaceof the ground, near the edge of the abyss, to see whether there were notleft other remnants of the building to which the fragment of ruinevidently belonged. But though I scrutinized the earth with the greatestcare, I could see no signs of anyth
ing to show that there had ever beena building erected on the spot, and I grew more puzzled than ever.
Then, I heard a cry from Tonnison; he was shouting my name, excitedly,and without delay I hurried along the rocky promontory to the ruin. Iwondered whether he had hurt himself, and then the thought came, thatperhaps he had found something.
I reached the crumbled wall and climbed 'round. There I found Tonnisonstanding within a small excavation that he had made among the _debris_:he was brushing the dirt from something that looked like a book, muchcrumpled and dilapidated; and opening his mouth, every second or two, tobellow my name. As soon as he saw that I had come, he handed his prizeto me, telling me to put it into my satchel so as to protect it from thedamp, while he continued his explorations. This I did, first, however,running the pages through my fingers, and noting that they were closelyfilled with neat, old-fashioned writing which was quite legible, save inone portion, where many of the pages were almost destroyed, beingmuddied and crumpled, as though the book had been doubled back at thatpart. This, I found out from Tonnison, was actually as he had discoveredit, and the damage was due, probably, to the fall of masonry upon theopened part. Curiously enough, the book was fairly dry, which Iattributed to its having been so securely buried among the ruins.
Having put the volume away safely, I turned-to and gave Tonnison a handwith his self-imposed task of excavating; yet, though we put in over anhour's hard work, turning over the whole of the upheaped stones andrubbish, we came upon nothing more than some fragments of broken wood,that might have been parts of a desk or table; and so we gave upsearching, and went back along the rock, once more to the safety ofthe land.
The next thing we did was to make a complete tour of the tremendouschasm, which we were able to observe was in the form of an almostperfect circle, save for where the ruin-crowned spur of rock jutted out,spoiling its symmetry.
The abyss was, as Tonnison put it, like nothing so much as a giganticwell or pit going sheer down into the bowels of the earth.
For some time longer, we continued to stare about us, and then, noticingthat there was a clear space away to the north of the chasm, we bent oursteps in that direction.
Here, distant from the mouth of the mighty pit by some hundreds ofyards, we came upon a great lake of silent water--silent, that is, savein one place where there was a continuous bubbling and gurgling.
Now, being away from the noise of the spouting cataract, we were able tohear one another speak, without having to shout at the tops of ourvoices, and I asked Tonnison what he thought of the place--I told himthat I didn't like it, and that the sooner we were out of it the betterI should be pleased.
He nodded in reply, and glanced at the woods behind furtively. I askedhim if he had seen or heard anything. He made no answer; but stoodsilent, as though listening, and I kept quiet also.
Suddenly, he spoke.
"Hark!" he said, sharply. I looked at him, and then away among the treesand bushes, holding my breath involuntarily. A minute came and went instrained silence; yet I could hear nothing, and I turned to Tonnison tosay as much; and then, even as I opened my lips to speak, there came astrange wailing noise out of the wood on our left.... It appeared tofloat through the trees, and there was a rustle of stirring leaves, andthen silence.
All at once, Tonnison spoke, and put his hand on my shoulder. "Let usget out of here," he said, and began to move slowly toward where thesurrounding trees and bushes seemed thinnest. As I followed him, it cameto me suddenly that the sun was low, and that there was a raw sense ofchilliness in the air.
Tonnison said nothing further, but kept on steadily. We were among thetrees now, and I glanced around, nervously; but saw nothing, save thequiet branches and trunks and the tangled bushes. Onward we went, and nosound broke the silence, except the occasional snapping of a twig underour feet, as we moved forward. Yet, in spite of the quietness, I had ahorrible feeling that we were not alone; and I kept so close to Tonnisonthat twice I kicked his heels clumsily, though he said nothing. Aminute, and then another, and we reached the confines of the wood comingout at last upon the bare rockiness of the countryside. Only then was Iable to shake off the haunting dread that had followed me amongthe trees.
Once, as we moved away, there seemed to come again a distant sound ofwailing, and I said to myself that it was the wind--yet the evening wasbreathless.
Presently, Tonnison began to talk.
"Look you," he said with decision, "I would not spend the night in_that_ place for all the wealth that the world holds. There is somethingunholy--diabolical--about it. It came to me all in a moment, just afteryou spoke. It seemed to me that the woods were full of vilethings--you know!"
"Yes," I answered, and looked back toward the place; but it was hiddenfrom us by a rise in the ground.
"There's the book," I said, and I put my hand into the satchel.
"You've got it safely?" he questioned, with a sudden access of anxiety.
"Yes," I replied.
"Perhaps," he continued, "we shall learn something from it when we getback to the tent. We had better hurry, too; we're a long way off still,and I don't fancy, now, being caught out here in the dark."
It was two hours later when we reached the tent; and, without delay, weset to work to prepare a meal; for we had eaten nothing since our lunchat midday.
Supper over, we cleared the things out of the way, and lit our pipes.Then Tonnison asked me to get the manuscript out of my satchel. This Idid, and then, as we could not both read from it at the same time, hesuggested that I should read the thing out loud. "And mind," hecautioned, knowing my propensities, "don't go skipping half the book."
Yet, had he but known what it contained, he would have realized howneedless such advice was, for once at least. And there seated in theopening of our little tent, I began the strange tale of _The House onthe Borderland_ (for such was the title of the MS.); this is told in thefollowing pages.