Heathen

AD 1865

It was late morn­ing when Arthur Keane arrived at the brow of the hill and saw the  farm­house. Aside from the smoke that drift­ed from its chim­ney, there were no oth­er signs of life. The wild ter­rain of the moor stretched out behind it, bar­ren, open land beneath slate-grey skies. He was a long way from London.

Pulling up the col­lar of his wool jack­et as pro­tec­tion against the cold wind, Keane con­tin­ued along the trail that led to the farm. As he got clos­er, he could make out crum­bling stone walls that had been built to fence in sheep and cat­tle, though he could see no live­stock. The build­ing itself was less than he had hoped for, it looked neglect­ed with an old rag slate roof, cov­ered in moss and sag­ging slight­ly on one side.

Keane could not afford to pick and choose his work, a man of low­ly birth was for­tu­nate to be cho­sen for the posi­tion with the geo­log­i­cal soci­ety at all. Only his ser­vice record with the roy­al engi­neers had placed Keane above the oth­er can­di­dates. He took com­fort in know­ing this project, map­ping moor­land bound­aries, would take only a few days before he would be able to return home.

Low­er­ing his heavy pack to the ground, he knocked on the door. Keane’s gaze was drawn to a fad­ed sym­bol, carved deep in the weath­ered wood – a grim face with hair like twist­ing roots. He began to peer clos­er before the door swung back, reveal­ing a tall man with hard fea­tures and an unruly beard.

“Mr Gwyn?” Keane asked, man­ag­ing a smile.

His enquiry was met with a grunt of acknowl­edge­ment. The eyes that met his own were with­out warmth and looked him over in a way that made him uncomfortable.

“You must be the fel­low from Lon­don. ‘Mr Keane.’ I expect­ed you earlier.”

 “Yes, it was a longer jour­ney than I had thought. You real­ly are iso­lat­ed out here.”

Gwyn lin­gered in the door­way, as the silence grew between them.

 “You have the mon­ey?” Gwyn asked.

“Oh yes. Eight shillings, as agreed in my letter.”

Keane reached into his jack­et and pulled out his purse, before count­ing out the coins under Gwyn’s watch­ful gaze. Seem­ing­ly sat­is­fied, Gwyn took a stiff step back­ward and waved Keane inside.

 The room he entered was sparse­ly fur­nished, with a fad­ed car­pet and scant nat­ur­al light. The place smelt of wood smoke and damp.

 “Keane. That’s an Irish name, ain’t it?”

The old man stud­ied him with fresh inter­est, as he limped back toward the fire­place. His right leg appeared lame, and he was care­ful not to put his weight upon it.

“My father was Irish.”

 The reply was met by a grunt. Keane couldn’t tell if his Irish descent made his sta­tus any less in Gwyn’s eyes, as it often did in London.

“You’ll be want­i­ng to make a start, I s’pose?”

“Yes, I had thought to make the most of the daylight.”

“Well, you can put yer things in the room, just over there. It’s not much, but it’ll do you. My daugh­ter, Elowyn will show you up onto the moor after yer settled.”

Keane paused in sur­prise. “Your daugh­ter? I was under the impres­sion it would be your­self, or a son.”

“I have no sons, Mr Keane. But I know I can trust my daugh­ter with a gen­tle­man such as yer­self.” He turned away to shout, “Elowyn!”

A thin girl appeared from the hall­way. She was per­haps fif­teen or six­teen years old, with brown curls that part­ly obscured her pale face.

“Elowyn, this is Mr Keane.”

The girl remained still and sullen, not meet­ing his eyes.

“Elowyn’s able and knows the land here as well as any­one. She won’t slow you down any.”

“Well… then I sup­pose she will do.”

Gwyn leant against the fire­place and motioned to Elowyn. “Show the gen­tle­man his lodg­ings, Elowyn.”

The room was small and sim­ple, noth­ing more than a bed and a table set beneath a nar­row win­dow, but it would serve his pur­pose for a few days. He had doubts about using a young girl as a guide, but the old man was clear­ly lame, leav­ing him with lit­tle choice. He had a feel­ing that Gwyn had mis­led him in their let­ters for the promise of his coins.

Keane unpacked a few items in his new room and shared a mug of tea, before head­ing out onto the moor with the satchel con­tain­ing his equipment.

#

Wrapped in a ragged sheep­skin cloak, Elowyn silent­ly led the way along a dirt track that cut deep­er onto the moor. The moor­land had its own dis­tinct beau­ty, a bleak windswept place of rolling hills and rugged rock. The land was among the last of the true Eng­lish wild country.

A fig­ure herd­ing a dozen sheep approached them from fur­ther down the trail and Elowyn stepped aside to let them pass. The sheep filed past them ner­vous­ly, fol­lowed by their owner.

“Good morn­ing to you.” Keane raised his voice above the sound of the animals. 

The large, round-shoul­dered man, garbed in a ragged tunic and black cap didn’t even look in their direc­tion, but paused and spat into the mud, before mak­ing some nois­es and urg­ing the sheep onward. The two of them watched as the man walked down the track, back the way they came.

“Your neigh­bours are not par­tic­u­lar­ly friendly.”

“The oth­er farm­ers don’t want ‘city folk,’ com­ing here telling them what is their land, and tax­ing them for the priv­i­lege of using it.”

It was the longest that he had heard Elowyn speak. She met his gaze for a moment, before car­ry­ing on walk­ing. He won­dered at the hard life she must have endured out here.

“Elowyn, why did your father agree to assist me?”

“My father is crip­pled, we sold the good land and live­stock long ago. Now, we do what we can.” She replied with­out turn­ing back.

Keane length­ened his stride to catch up.

#

With Elowyn’s assis­tance, they locat­ed the hill that he had pre­vi­ous­ly marked on his map. The view from here would allow him to sur­vey the land for some miles. He had unpacked his equip­ment and began fill­ing his pipe with tobac­co, as he looked out on a land of autumn colours that stretched to the horizon.

“What’s that?” Elowyn’s voice inter­rupt­ed his thoughts.

The girl was leant against a rocky out­crop, arms fold­ed beneath her sheep­skins, watch­ing him. She jut­ted her chin toward the brass sex­tant he had set up on its tripod.

Keane smiled at the ques­tion. “It is called a Col­by Sex­tant. It can be used to mea­sure the angle between land­marks and cal­cu­late distance.”

He was aware of her wan­der­ing clos­er, peer­ing over his shoul­der while he pen­cilled num­bers in his note­book. As she leant for­ward, he noticed a neck­lace dan­gling from her throat, a curi­ous thing of pol­ished wood.

“That is an unusu­al neck­lace you wear.”

She stepped back, tuck­ing it beneath her shirt and looked up toward the heavy clouds gath­er­ing overhead.

“We should­n’t linger long, the weath­er changes quick­ly up here.”

Keane fin­ished his mea­sure­ments of a low bound­ary wall, that curved around the base of the hill and began pack­ing his equip­ment, before paus­ing to admire the view. The few walls that criss-crossed the hills were crum­bling and old, adding to the bleak­ness of the place.

He sud­den­ly realised aside from a hand­ful of graz­ing ponies and a scat­ter­ing of sheep he had seen no signs of efforts to cul­ti­vate the land at all. No crops, not even a field of vegetables.

“Why do none of the farm­ers grow crops here, Elowyn?”

“No crop can grow on the moor Mr Keane, the land is too wild. He does not per­mit it.”

“Who does not per­mit it?”

A gust of wind, rip­pled through the long grass, tug­ging at their clothes and hair. The wind brought a fine rain, and Elowyn hid with­in the hood of her cloak. Keane hur­ried­ly slipped his satchel beneath his jack­et to bet­ter keep his notes dry and fol­lowed Elowyn back down the hill before the weath­er wors­ened further.

They did not share any con­ver­sa­tion as they descend­ed, fol­low­ing the curve of the hill back toward the dis­tant farm­house. As they walked, Keane noticed a val­ley a mile to the west, where a tan­gle of dark trees grew. The few stark trees he had seen pre­vi­ous­ly were iso­lat­ed and scat­tered across the moor, bent over and shaped by the wind. Per­haps the shel­ter of the val­ley pro­vid­ed more fer­tile ground. He resolved to ask Gwyn about it upon their return.

#

They reached the farm­house as a rum­ble of thun­der cas­cad­ed across the lead­en skies. Elowyn pushed open the heavy door and led him inside.

Gwyn was sat in a chair by the fire, with a ragged blan­ket across his shoul­ders. The old man cast a sour frown in their direc­tion at the cold breeze as they entered. Keane latched the door and set his satchel down on the farm­house table as Gwyn ges­tured for him to take the chair oppo­site him. After an after­noon spent in the cold of the moor, the warmth of the fire was wel­come. A pleas­ant smell of stew came from the stove in the corner.

“You got what you came for?”

“I have made a start, Mr Gwyn. The process will require a few days, of course.”

His reply was met by a grunt as Gwyn leant for­ward to prod at the flames with an iron pok­er. Keane refilled his pipe with tobac­co and offered some to Gwyn, who accept­ed with some­thing approach­ing a smile of appre­ci­a­tion. Elowyn lit an oil lamp and set it on the table, dri­ving back the gloom as the two men smoked. Keane’s gaze wan­dered across the room, sweep­ing over the dat­ed furnishings.

His eyes came to rest on a row of hand-carved wood­en fig­urines set upon the man­tel­piece. They had the like­ness of rur­al peo­ple, clothed in cloaks and tunics. Keane rose to his feet and picked one up to bet­ter admire the craftsmanship.

“These are charm­ing. They are work of your own?”

The lit­tle fig­ure had the resem­blance of a young girl, sim­i­lar to Elowyn.

The fig­urine was snatched from his hand, and he turned in sur­prise to see Gwyn had risen to his feet beside him, using the iron pok­er as a sup­port. The old­er man care­ful­ly replaced the fig­ure upon the mantelpiece.

“Mr Keane will take his din­ner in his room, Elowyn.” The words were spo­ken cold­ly, and in a tone that was not open for debate.

“I am sor­ry, I meant no offence.” Keane found Gwyn’s hard stare uncom­fort­able in the heavy silence. “Well, I do have work to com­plete, per­haps that is a good suggestion.”

Keane retrieved his satchel and under the gaze of Gwyn, with­drew to his room. The small cham­ber had a musty, unused smell but it was at least clean.

Keane spent the evening absorbed in his notes, as he care­ful­ly marked the bound­ary details on his ord­nance map. Most of the land­marks had been mapped by his pre­de­ces­sor some years past and he had been tasked with updat­ing it. As he got to the part of the map that detailed the west val­ley he paused, con­fused – the wood he had seen was not marked there at all. Check­ing the last dat­ed work on the exist­ing map, Keane found that it was marked as twelve years ago. Cer­tain­ly not long enough for the lit­tle wood to grow from noth­ing. He won­dered why his pre­de­ces­sor, Mr Gray­don had over­looked it.

He returned to fill­ing in the notes he had made dur­ing his after­noon on the moor.

Lat­er, Elowyn brought his sup­per and left him to his pri­va­cy. He worked by can­dle­light until his eyes became weary and he final­ly retired for the night.

#

Keane was wok­en by the sound of the out­er door. He tried to return to sleep, but the noise of mut­ed voic­es car­ried to him through the thin walls. Both voic­es were deep and male and the hour was late for guests. Keane sat up and placed his ear against the wall. One of the voic­es was that of Gwyn, the sec­ond he did not recognise.

“…This is unwise Gwyn.”

“He stays only a cou­ple more days – ”

“He should not be ere at all.” The voice sound­ed angry.

“We had no trou­ble from Gray­don. This one will be no different.”

“Gray­don was a local man, we all had an understanding.”

“Tell the oth­ers there wont be any trou­ble. Elowyn will keep im away from Wistman’s Wood, there is no rea­son for im to go down there.”

“See that she does.”

He heard the sound of the door again and then noth­ing more. Keane found him­self wide awake and breath­ing heav­i­ly. These peo­ple were hid­ing secrets from him, or more like­ly from the author­i­ties, and he won­dered why, as he lis­tened to the rain drum upon the slates above him.

In these remote loca­tions tales of smug­gling and con­ceal­ing prop­er­ty from the land tax were com­mon. As a car­tog­ra­ph­er he had no inter­est in such illic­it activ­i­ties, but it would explain their cau­tion toward him and the geo­log­i­cal soci­ety he rep­re­sent­ed. While the argu­ment made sense, he couldn’t let go of his feel­ing of unease and the remain­der of his night was a rest­less one.

#

Keane rose and dressed ear­ly, still unset­tled by his inter­rupt­ed night. He was deter­mined to make good progress in his work. His pres­ence was clear­ly unwel­come here, the soon­er he was fin­ished, the soon­er he would be able to take the train back to London.

Break­fast was a sim­ple offer­ing of boiled oats, flavoured with warm milk. The three of them ate togeth­er, in a sullen silence across the broad, worn table. Noth­ing was said of the vis­i­tor in the night.

After break­fast he head­ed out onto the moor with Elowyn. The morn­ing air was fresh, car­ry­ing with it the lin­ger­ing mois­ture from the night’s rain. It felt good to be out­side again and stretch his legs. Elowyn whis­tled as they walked, a sound that was swal­lowed by the mist that seemed to cling to the hol­lows of the moor.

At mid-morn­ing they reached a long dry-stone wall marked on his map as ‘White Tor wall.’  A mud­dy ani­mal track ran along­side it, where small clumps of wool were tan­gled among the dry brack­en. Many of these walls had been in use for almost a hun­dred years, to fence in live­stock and mark the lim­its of each farmer’s land.

With Elowyn’s assis­tance, Keane began tak­ing mea­sure­ments, pac­ing out the yards and writ­ing the details in his note­book. She proved as help­ful as Gwyn said she would be, and he made bet­ter progress than he had expected.

After noon they paused for a mea­gre lunch on a flat sur­face of rock that looked out across the west­ern moor – a great wilder­ness of hills and dra­mat­ic gran­ite tors. A broad stream cut through the val­ley below, its banks swollen by the rain from the pre­vi­ous night. When it flood­ed, the low ground became sod­den like a marsh.

Keane’s gaze strayed to the wood­ed val­ley he had seen the day before, which was a mile dis­tant, grow­ing along­side the riv­er. The wood was formed from a dense group of dark, stunt­ed trees.

“Who owns the small wood down there?”

He noticed Elowyn’s demeanour change instant­ly, stiff­en­ing in response to the question.

“No one. We don’t go in there, it is an old place.”

The ner­vous­ness in her tone made him frown in con­fu­sion. “Why, Elowyn? What is so sig­nif­i­cant about it?”

“It is forbidden.”

Her hand rose to her throat, and he could see the ten­sion in her. Puz­zled, Keane decid­ed not to dis­turb the girl further.

“I was mere­ly curi­ous. We have anoth­er cou­ple miles of wall to mea­sure, shall we make a start?”

After a last look down toward the wood, Keane shoul­dered his satchel and lead them back up to the brow of the hill to begin the sur­vey of its east­ern side. The remain­ing work took the rest of the day, as togeth­er they mea­sured the walls and Keane record­ed the fig­ures in his notes. Keane paused to stare out at the sun that had begun to sink low­er, paint­ing the west­er­ly sky with rib­bons of crim­son and bronze.

“We should head back, before we lose the light.”

He turned at Elowyn’s voice to see her stand­ing expec­tant­ly, clutch­ing her sheep­skins tight­ly against the chill.

“I have a few things to fin­ish up here. It will be a cold night, leave me the lantern and head back, I will join you shortly.”

As Keane began to pack up his equip­ment, he could feel Elowyn watch­ing him. 

“No… it isn’t always safe here after dark, Mr Keane. The moors are a wild place.”

“I am capa­ble of find­ing my way back, now run along girl.”

He locked eyes with her, until she reluc­tant­ly turned away and set off along the old dirt trail lead­ing toward the farm­house. He wait­ed until she was out of sight and then began his own descent, toward the tan­gle of trees that grew at the bot­tom of the valley.

A mist had begun to sweep in over the low­er ground, and Keane paused to light his lantern as he approached the small wood. The place had a dark, fore­bod­ing look about it, that made him uneasy. He stooped beneath the low branch­es as he entered, hold­ing the lantern out­stretched before him. The trees here were stunt­ed and twist­ed. They grew among an accu­mu­la­tion of rocks and rub­ble, cov­ered in green moss and mould. Over the years their roots had nes­tled among them, anchor­ing between the stones. Sharp branch­es, thick with moss and spi­der webs, plucked at his jack­et and hair as he ducked beneath them, forg­ing his way for­ward. The fad­ing light bare­ly pen­e­trat­ed the canopy of twist­ed branch­es, forc­ing him to rely upon the lantern he car­ried, which cast shift­ing shad­ows in the gloom.

A dan­gling object among the branch­es caught his atten­tion and he paused to untan­gle it from the branch it was sus­pend­ed from. Brush­ing aside the tan­gle of webs that encased it, he could see it was a small wood­en neck­lace, carved in the like­ness of a fig­urine. In the glow of lantern light, it appeared old and weath­er-worn, in the like­ness of the one he had seen Elowyn wear. 

Wind swept through the trees, caus­ing branch­es to creak and move. In places he could see oth­er small, wood­en fig­ures sway­ing in the breeze. Dozens of them, dan­gling from old string and leather cords.

A sud­den flur­ry of wings and caw­ing of crows star­tled him, as they surged past him, flee­ing the wood toward the open sky. Keane stum­bled back in sur­prise and some­thing crunched beneath his foot, caus­ing him to trip among the rocks and the lantern to spill from his grip, plung­ing him into dark­ness. Grop­ing with his hands, he final­ly found it at the base of the tree next to him, the glass had been bro­ken and the light extinguished.

As his eyes adjust­ed to the twi­light, he realised it was not a rock he had tripped upon, but a human ribcage. In grow­ing hor­ror, he noticed the remains of oth­er old bones, skulls and femurs strewn among the rocks, some dis­coloured with years and part­ly over­grown with moss. Gen­er­a­tions of bod­ies had been left here to rot, exposed to the elements.

A move­ment drew his gaze to the trees, from where the birds had emerged. Some­thing watched him from the dark. It was so still, he almost con­vinced him­self it was just a shad­ow, but deep down he knew it wasn’t. A chill ran down his spine, as it detached from the shad­ows, mov­ing toward him on stiff hoofed legs.

The crea­ture loomed over Keane, its foetid breath hang­ing vis­i­bly in night the air.

It’s pres­ence exud­ed a wild, sav­age nature that was pal­pa­ble. From beneath its antlers, dark hate­ful eyes bore into him.

Keane had served as an engi­neer in the British army for almost a decade, he was a dis­ci­plined man, accus­tomed to fear, but this was dif­fer­ent: a pri­mal ter­ror gripped him, mak­ing his chest tight­en and his legs go weak.

He turned and fled, stum­bling into the branch­es that clawed at his face and clothes. 

Keane tore him­self from the tan­gle of trees and fled across the moor, his breath com­ing in ragged gasps. Glanc­ing back behind him in fear, he could feel the dark­ness pur­su­ing him.

Here, at the bot­tom of the val­ley in the dark­ness and mist, he could bare­ly see more than a few yards ahead. The ground was bog­gy, and each hur­ried foot­step sank, shin deep into the marsh. He fell and rose again, strug­gling for­ward blind­ly, des­per­ate to get away. He cried out in pan­ic as his next stride plunged him waist deep into a mud­dy bog.

His limbs could find no lever­age and he tried to forge his way for­ward but could make lit­tle progress. The mud held him fast. Keane tried to swing his head around and catch sight of the crea­ture that pur­sued him but could see noth­ing but mist and mud.

He shout­ed for help, until his voice broke, and he slumped exhaust­ed in the embrace of the bog.

#

Keane’s body trem­bled with the chill that seeped into his bones. He heard his teeth rat­tling and could no longer feel his legs. Painful­ly he opened his eyes to see he was shoul­der deep in thick dark mud, his breath was vis­i­ble in the morn­ing air. Despite his fear, he must have lost con­scious­ness some­time in the night.

He tried shout­ing again, but his throat felt raw, and his body shook from the effort. He was scared and did not wish to die in this god­for­sak­en place. Even­tu­al­ly, he thought he could hear voic­es up the slope from him and he gath­ered his strength, shout­ing as loud­ly as he could. 

“Over here! Help!”

He saw a group of fig­ures, hold­ing lanterns emerg­ing through the morn­ing mist, drawn by his cries. They had the appear­ance of old farm­ers, in sim­ple clothes with unruly beards. He began to feel a surge of relief but there was some­thing wrong in their unhur­ried approach.

“We’ve been out lookin’ for you. Elowyn sus­pect­ed you’d be down ‘ere some­where, pokin’ around.” The voice was Gwyn’s.

He saw the old man limp for­ward using a shep­herd crook as sup­port but stopped short of the bog­gy ground. None of the oth­ers rushed for­ward either. All of them stared at him with mild expres­sions, as if there was no cri­sis at all. Keane’s head twist­ed around as he stared at them in wild-eyed disbelief.

“Oh, I am afraid we can’t inter­vene, Mr Keane.”

 “You must help me! In God’s name, man!”

As he strug­gled and shout­ed fur­ther, he felt the bog drag him down deeper.

“Ah, your god. He can­not help you ‘ere, Mr Keane.”

Behind Gwyn he saw the fig­ure of Elowyn, watch­ing dis­pas­sion­ate­ly. Gwyn rest­ed a hand on her shoulder.

“There were gods ‘ere in these lands long before Chris­tian­i­ty. They nev­er left us, Mr Keane. You edu­cat­ed men moved away, built yer cities and in doing so, you for­got yer roots.” 

The old farmer filled his pipe with tobac­co, before stiffly crouch­ing down, to bet­ter see him.

“There’s a rea­son peo­ple dis­ap­pear on the moors. It’s blamed on the treach­er­ous bogs, but that is not entire­ly the truth… the truth is the Old God, ‘Croak­ern’ requires sac­ri­fice, from time to time. He demands his due…”

The ragged group of grim-faced farm­ers, one by one, began to turn away, walk­ing off qui­et­ly into the lin­ger­ing mist. Gwyn was the last to go, before leav­ing Keane alone. 

Keane’s screams echoed across the moor, until the hun­gry mud swal­lowed him.