The Dark Boatman: Tales of Horror and the Cthulhu Mythos by John Glasby Page B
Authors: John Glasby
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a series of such events which sent me running through the wind-scoured, storm-ridden night along the cliff tops with the stinging rain lashing my face and the pounding waves of the Atlantic lit by vivid flashes of lightning that tore the berserk heavens apart.
For three months, I had lain seriously ill in a hospital in north London, recovering from a major operation, and this was followed by a similar length of time convalescing at my home in Chelsea. That summer, in London, had been exceptionally hot and oppressive, and Doctor Forsyth, my physician, had seen that my recovery was hampered rather than accelerated by the heat; and when the beginning of September had brought no alleviation, had suggested that a change of air and scenery would prove beneficial. Sea air, he maintained, was all I needed to regain my health and strength, and a holiday in Devon had been his suggestion, one I had readily fallen in with since I had grown to hate and detest the dusty streets of London during the long, drought-filled summer with the parks full of trees burned and ugly brown, the usual green grass patchy for want of moisture.
My letter of enquiry to an estate agent in Bude had been answered almost by return with information that an old manor house was available at a modest rent on the shore between Bude and Morwenstow. It occupied a somewhat isolated position on the cliffs, but I did not let this fact deter me. From the news given in the letter it seemed the ideal place for me. I had always been of a solitary disposition, preferring to keep my own company, shunning crowds; and even at the end of September there was the possibility of holiday-makers flooding into the Devon and Cornish coastal towns.
It was early afternoon when I was admitted to the offices of Swatheley & Corrie, Estate Agents. Arnold Swatheley proved to be a short, balding affable man in his early fifties who readily agreed to drive me out to Faxted Manor once I had affirmed my desire to rent it for an indefinite period.
As we made our way along the narrow, winding road which skirted the top of the cliffs most of the way, only occasionally moving inland so far that it was out of sight of the sea, he explained that the manor had been occupied only intermittently during the past century. It was now almost forty years since the last owner had packed up and left for South Africa. There had been talk of a personal tragedy, which had struck the Harcroft family, something unspeakable, that had been all but forgotten now down the intervening years. All attempts to reach the survivors of the family had met with no success, as had attempts to find a buyer for the property once the courts had presumed them dead.
So Faxted Manor remained untenanted throughout the whole of the forty years. A platoon of soldiers had been billeted there for three weeks during the World War, sometime in the winter of 1917, but after three men had unaccountably disappeared, gone over the cliffs one wild night according to the information Swatheley had, the platoon had left and the manor brooded alone among the white cliffs, with only the wild seabirds to keep it company and the rollers beating their heads on the rocks below. Not that its existence had gone unnoticed during all of those years. Students of the mediaeval history of this part of the country had come to examine its structure. The architecture was quaint, a combination of several styles, Gothic towers had been built onto a far earlier base, though now little remained of this older structure. Extensive renovations had been carried out in the time of the Harcroft tenancy, obliterating much of the earlier work.
My first sight of Faxted Manor evoked little emotion in me. We rounded a sharp bend in the narrow road, and there it lay before us, sunken a little beneath the towering, grey-white cliffs that rose on all sides of it as if somehow trying to hide it from view. It stood within fifty yards of the cliff edge, where the rocky walls plunged
For three months, I had lain seriously ill in a hospital in north London, recovering from a major operation, and this was followed by a similar length of time convalescing at my home in Chelsea. That summer, in London, had been exceptionally hot and oppressive, and Doctor Forsyth, my physician, had seen that my recovery was hampered rather than accelerated by the heat; and when the beginning of September had brought no alleviation, had suggested that a change of air and scenery would prove beneficial. Sea air, he maintained, was all I needed to regain my health and strength, and a holiday in Devon had been his suggestion, one I had readily fallen in with since I had grown to hate and detest the dusty streets of London during the long, drought-filled summer with the parks full of trees burned and ugly brown, the usual green grass patchy for want of moisture.
My letter of enquiry to an estate agent in Bude had been answered almost by return with information that an old manor house was available at a modest rent on the shore between Bude and Morwenstow. It occupied a somewhat isolated position on the cliffs, but I did not let this fact deter me. From the news given in the letter it seemed the ideal place for me. I had always been of a solitary disposition, preferring to keep my own company, shunning crowds; and even at the end of September there was the possibility of holiday-makers flooding into the Devon and Cornish coastal towns.
It was early afternoon when I was admitted to the offices of Swatheley & Corrie, Estate Agents. Arnold Swatheley proved to be a short, balding affable man in his early fifties who readily agreed to drive me out to Faxted Manor once I had affirmed my desire to rent it for an indefinite period.
As we made our way along the narrow, winding road which skirted the top of the cliffs most of the way, only occasionally moving inland so far that it was out of sight of the sea, he explained that the manor had been occupied only intermittently during the past century. It was now almost forty years since the last owner had packed up and left for South Africa. There had been talk of a personal tragedy, which had struck the Harcroft family, something unspeakable, that had been all but forgotten now down the intervening years. All attempts to reach the survivors of the family had met with no success, as had attempts to find a buyer for the property once the courts had presumed them dead.
So Faxted Manor remained untenanted throughout the whole of the forty years. A platoon of soldiers had been billeted there for three weeks during the World War, sometime in the winter of 1917, but after three men had unaccountably disappeared, gone over the cliffs one wild night according to the information Swatheley had, the platoon had left and the manor brooded alone among the white cliffs, with only the wild seabirds to keep it company and the rollers beating their heads on the rocks below. Not that its existence had gone unnoticed during all of those years. Students of the mediaeval history of this part of the country had come to examine its structure. The architecture was quaint, a combination of several styles, Gothic towers had been built onto a far earlier base, though now little remained of this older structure. Extensive renovations had been carried out in the time of the Harcroft tenancy, obliterating much of the earlier work.
My first sight of Faxted Manor evoked little emotion in me. We rounded a sharp bend in the narrow road, and there it lay before us, sunken a little beneath the towering, grey-white cliffs that rose on all sides of it as if somehow trying to hide it from view. It stood within fifty yards of the cliff edge, where the rocky walls plunged
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