Have you ever faced one of those savage biting winds that try to hurl men from perilous heights? Have you sailed into the teeth of a vicious 90 m.p.h. gale and wondered whether there was some strange power behind the wind? An evil power? A dark power?
Release date:
December 17, 2015
Publisher:
Orion Publishing Group
Print pages:
320
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“There was a legend about the broken sails—if they ever turned again disaster would follow.”
PROFESSOR JULIAN OAKLEY drew up by the side of the road, and stepped briskly from his high-powered saloon. He carried a pair of binoculars, and a camera was slung around his shoulders.
An ancient rustic leaned against a gate.
“Arter noon,” said the rustic. The professor smiled,
“Good afternoon, my friend.”
“What, you come to take a pitcher of the mill, then?”
“Among other things—yes.” Julian Oakley was a sociable, friendly individual, in whom there was not a trace of snobbishness or class distinction. The yokel looked at the big, powerful saloon. It was practically new. It, and the binoculars, plus the smart leather case of the camera, seemed to speak of affluence. There might be a chance of a small gratuity, thought the yokel:
“You’re interested in mills, and that, sir?”
“Yes, very! It’s one of my hobbies. I’m writing a thesis on the history of windmills….”
“That’s a kind of book, I suppose?”
“Kind of,” agreed the professor, jovially, “I suppose you’ve got a lot of mills around this way?”
“Aye. We got a lot o’ them in the Fens, thass right enough, sir.” The yokel produced his tobacco pouch and looked at it ruefully, “Dang it! I’m right out o’ bacca!”
“Try some of mine,” said Oakley, and produced a tin of an expensive London brand. The yokel produced a pipe of frightening proportions, and began filling it eagerly. Julian Oakley smiled inwardly….
“What do they call this particular mill?” he asked, “I haven’t seen it catalogued.”
“I don’t know if that’s the right name, sir,” said the yokel, applying a match to almost quarter of an ounce of Oakley’s tobacco, “I don’t know if that’s the right name,” he repeated, sucking heavily on his fearsome incinerator. “But round here we calls it Black Marsh Mill, account o’ Black Marsh run away to the back of it.”
“Oh, I see,” replied the professor.
The yokel withdrew his pipe from his mouth and pointed with the stem to the ancient mill. It was a tall, gaunt structure, with broken sails jammed at a crazy angle against the brickwork at the top.
“I don’t know whether you’re interested in legends that go with mills, but I could tell you a tale about this one, partner!”
“Please go on—my time is my own. I’m on holiday. I’ve time to indulge my hobby, mills and anything connected with them are all both of interest and use to me.”
“Well, then,” said his informant, “it’s like this here—it seems like that many, many years ago, there was a miller round this part, used to run the Black Marsh—mind you, this was long afore my great-grandfather’s time—afore the railway come!” Again the professor smiled inwardly. The local method of historical dating, he thought, was hardly to be recommended….
“It appears that this here miller was known as Jan o’ the Sail, and as far as accounts do tell—though it’s a long while ago—he was a funna piece o’ work, he wuz a great red-headed giant of a man, and they say that he wuz as cruel and as ruthless as he wuz big. They do also say that he wuz an unpleasant customer for some o’ the young women hereabouts! Fact is one or two wuz found drowned not very far from the mill, and although nobody could prove nothin’, it was always said that Jan o’ the Sails had suffin to do wi’ it.”
The legend of Hugo Baskerville came to the professor’s mind. There was an odd similarity—a faint parallel, he thought.
“You know what they allus say——”
“What do they always say?” smiled the professor.
“They say as ‘murder will out’,” said the rustic grimly, sucking furiously at his pipe, which gurgled as though in rhythm with the distant bog, “They say ‘murder will out’,” he repeated slowly and deliberately, “and they say thass what happened wi’ this here Jan. I believe he wuz supposed to be o’ Ditch descent or suffin—come over to show some o’ the English folk how to do their millin’—I ain’t got the story to rights—but I’ll gi’ ye the essential parts.”
Again the date confusion caused Oakley to smile quietly to himself.
“It seems there wuz a young woman aroun’ these parts—an outstandingly lovely gal, so they reckon; why, they still talk o’ her to this day—so she must ha’ bin a beauty fer them to remember her fer so long! They also said her mother wuz a witch—you know how these things were, long ago. You’d just got to mention that somebody wuz a witch, an’ they’d be in the duckin’ stool—or burnt alive! An’ this Jan o’ the Sail, maybe because he wuz such a horrible character hisself, he wuz one of the leadin’ witch-hunters. I think he explained one or two of his own dirty deeds by sayin’ that wuz suffin to do wi’ the Black Magic lot! If anybody wuz found drowned the old miller would blame that on to the witches, sure enough! He’d say they’d bin put under a spell—or suffin o’ that nature. I don’t know much about it, but thass what they reckon. You know, when they get in the pub o’ nights, the same old tale get told, an’ some o’ the ol’ boys they know all the details an’ they go over ’em, you know, an’ I heard it several times—but that never seems to be told twice in the same way—’cept in the essential points! Howsumever, I’m afraid I’m wastin’ your time….”
“Not at all, not at all,” said the professor, who was as interested in folklore as he was in his thesis on mills.
“Now this ’ere gal got talkin’ along o’ Jan, and he musta made a very unpleasant deal wi’ her, to the effect that unless she come along to the mill to keep him company, he’d accuse her mother o’ being a witch. And her same way—’cept in the essential poins! Howsumever, I’m told the gal went along fer a day or two, but he treated her so mortal bad, and so savagely cruel, that she decided nothin’ wuz worth it, and one night she ran screaming from the mill—out there, across the marsh because she didn’t know the path through the marsh, not like Jan o’ the Sail did, and he came arter her! Gainin ’on her wi’ every yard. An’ when she sees she couldn’t escape she deliberately plunged into the bog, from a little bit o’ high ground she wuz standin’ on. Time he reached her, there was nuthin’—just the flat black marsh. Not even a cry fer help, not so much as a hand. Nothin’ to be seen above that black mud. I’ve lived here man an’ boy, for over forty year,” said the yokel proudly, “an’ I still don’t like that marsh. Mind you, thass been drained many a time, and I don’t suppose there’s many places here now that could suck a man down, like it used to in the old days. But before that wuz drained, oh, that wuz the devil’s own bit o’ ground. That wuz a evil, fearful place—oh, you mus’ excuse me sir, I do keep a-gettin’ off the track….”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said the professor, “I think we’re all inclined to do that sometimes.”
“Well, then,” went on the countryman, “the gal’s mother got to hear what had happened. An’ out o’ a nasty bit o’ spite Jan o’ the Sail decided he’d do what he’d threatened, even though it wouldn’t do him no good now. An’ the very next day, he denounced her as a witch. An’ said that she’d driven her own daughter into the marsh. The village folk got together an’ went to her cottage—wi’ Jan o’ the Sail in the lead, carrying a great reapin’ hook, he wuz, as though they wuz goin’ out to attack a party o’ king’s men or suffin. Or drive the Normans back again, like Hereward did—now he wuz another great Fenland hero—I’ll tell you about him later.”
The professor smiled, “I know a little about him,” he said, for he had ‘majored’ in history many years before, and judging from the man’s re-telling of the village narrative, his telling of “Hereward the Wake” would be picturesque rather than interesting …
“O’ll get back to this ’ere story—they arrived at the mother’s cottage and it seemed like she wuz expectin’ them—waitin’ fer them—for the second Jan o’ the Sail kicked open the door, she sprayed him with a great handful o’ some foul-smellin’ concoction, what the witches used to know about, and she began screamin’ a spell at him, and she said at the finish of it, in English what he could understand—“And as the sails break, so shall ye break. And shall they ever turn again, disaster fall upon the village and all who pass nearby!” And wi’ those words she died. Now Jan o’ the Sail went back to the mill, little thinkin’ there was any power in the witch’s spell—for although he had been the leader in the prosecution, it wuzn’t acorse he believed in witchcraft—or had any reason to fear it! As far as he wuz concerned it wuz an excuse to torture and kill, fer he wuz that kind o’ man. So, he gets back to his mill, and he hears a strange creakin’ sound, like a human voice cryin’ out from the sails, way up above him, ‘Jan, Jan o’ the Sail—come up here, I want to talk to you’, and he stood there, scarce able to believe his eyes and ears, and he hears this voice cryin’ out again, ‘Jan come up here’. Whatever else he wuz, he wuz no coward, so he climbed up—wi’ a knife between his teeth, strong as an ox, and as ugly, an’ twice as dangerous. The voice wuz eerie, and thin—more like a woman’s voice—more like the voice of the girl who had gone into the bog, or like the voice of the old woman who had died with a curse for him in her throat.” Despite the warmth of the afternoon, Professor Julian Oakley felt a cold trickle of fear running down his spine.
“Please go on,” he urged gently.
The old man took another draw at the pipe.
“Well—I’m not rightly sure what happened next, all I do know is what they found the next mornin’—and when they found what they found, they recollected the curse.”
“And what did they find?”
“They found Jan o’ the Sail draped over the sail arm, fer all the world like a butterfly crushed on a twig. Hanging there with his back broken and his ribs caved in. . .
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