But the College had by no means done with brother John. On the evening after his burial, as the Master and Fellows were leaving the Chapel, their steps were suddenly arrested as they heard the familiar Wassail stave raised in a thin tuneless voice. It came from the open window of the deceased brother, and unquestionably the voice was not Aspelon’s. In consternation they listened till it died ineffectually away in an attempted chorus strain. After brief deliberation they resolved to visit the ‘loft’ in a body—Master, Fellows, ‘disciples’ and servants—and see what this thing might mean. They found the place as blank and silent as it remained when the deceased had been taken out to his burial. But before they reached the stair-foot in their descent the thin piping strain fell on their ears again, and this time none were bold enough to go back. After that, at all times of night and day, the interminable ditty was fitfully renewed, and panic held the College. At night the ‘disciples’ huddled in one room, and the Fellows lay two in a bed.
Unfortunately for Dr Eccleston, he was condemned to the solitude of the lodge, deserted even by his famulus, the sizar who attended him. He sat up all night and studied works of divinity, in the hope that theology, if it did not put the songster to rout, would at least distract his own thoughts from the devilish roundelay in the garret above his head. On the second night he began to congratulate himself on the success of his experiment, for the singer relapsed into silence. In his exhaustion he might have slept, but that the door of his study had a gusty habit of flying open unexpectedly and closing with a bang. He had actually begun to drowse over his folio when a sharp pressure on his right shoulder aroused him. Hastily turning his head he saw the papery countenance of the dead brother gazing at him with all the affection that one eye could testify, the chin planted on the Master’s shoulder, and the mouth slewed into a simulation of innocent mirth. Dr Eccleston read no more divinity that night.
Early next morning a College meeting was summoned by the Master. It was resolved by the unanimous voice of the society that brother John’s remains should be exhumed and re-interred in the middle of the chancel aisle, in accordance with the stipulation of the deceased: and there was no delay in carrying the resolution into effect. The Master also insisted that the whole society should help in the purgation of his lodge and the loft above it, in accordance with the ritual of the Church in that case applying: and this too was incontinently done, as I have already described. The consideration of the performance of the rest of the contract entered into by the Master with the late brother was deferred until it should be ascertained how far the deceased was satisfied with the measures already adopted.
Whether John Baldwin acquiesced in this somewhat lame execution of his wishes, or whether his perturbed spirit was laid to rest by the rites of exorcism it is impossible to say. It is quite certain that he troubled the College no more.
But in the afternoon following his re-interment an incident happened which possibly had some connection with the placation of his shade. Bartholomew Aspelon had not attended brother John’s funeral in the churchyard. In truth, he was filled with a moral resentment at his late friend’s lack of feeling and good taste which was only equalled by that of the society of Jesus: and the motive was the same. On opening the treasure chest bequeathed to him he had found it filled with bricks and straw, just like the other. If the Fellows were indignant Bartholomew was more so: for, from private sources of information which he possessed as a member of the dissolved Hospital, he was assured that brother John had prospered in its service to the extent of £200, at the least, and he was profoundly convinced that the whole sum had gone into the treasury of Jesus College. Under the straw he had found a morsel of paper, which was, indeed, too fragmentary to give any connected clue to its drift, but which, nevertheless, rather plainly indicated on the part of the deceased an intention of bequeathing to the College a certain treasure, the whereabouts of which, owing to the imperfection of the document, were not stated. He was confirmed in his interpretation of the manuscript by the honourable interment given to brother John’s remains in the Chapel.
Filled with resentment at the ingratitude of the patient whom he had so tenderly nursed and at the duplicity of the ‘dons’ who had robbed him of the reward of his devoted service, Bartholomew sought the Master’s lodge. He used no language of studied courtesy in representing to Dr Eccleston the nature of his grievance: and the Master, whose temper was severely tried by want of sleep and the disagreeable nature of the interment ceremony in which he had just unwillingly participated, replied with equal vehemence.
‘Ye are robbers all,’ cried Bartholomew: ‘you cheated him in his weakness into signing his property away from the friend who smoothed his pillow in his dying hours.’
‘Thou naughty knave,’ retorted the Master, ‘talk not to me of bricks and straw. It was gold that was contained in thy box, and the devil knows by what scurvy arts thou didst cozen us of our promised reward. His own paper convicts thee of the fraudulent attempt to get him to will his goods to thee. See what he left in the bottom of our box.’ And the Master threw the scrap above-transcribed upon the table. ‘Take it and never let me see thy rogue’s face again.’
Brother Bartholomew leaped in his skin as he grabbed the document. He made no ceremony of leave-taking, but bolted down the stairs. When he got into the cloister outside he took from his pouch a dingy scrap of paper, which was the fellow of that which the Master had thrown to him. What he read on it was this:
Sciant omnes presentes et futuri quod
er Hospitalis Divi Johannis apud Canteb
doctori Ecclyston et sociis Collegii Jes
one equaliter inter se dividendum aut
ri meo in antedicto Hospitali ea racio
it totum thesaurum meum ita ut extat cl
dam lapidem iacentem in septentrionali
eiusdem cuius istud signum extat a dea
Then brother Bartholomew put the two pieces together, and it was thus that he translated the continuous lines:
Know all men present and to come that I, | John Baldwin, late a broth
er of the Hospital of Saint John at Camb | ridge, give, grant and bequeath to master
doctor Eccleston and the fellows of the College of Jes | u for my relief during sick
ness, equally to be divided among them, or | to master Bartholomew Aspelon, a brother
of mine in the aforesaid Hospital, provid | ed that he shall have it who is first fin
der, all my treasure as it now lies pri | vily buried in a tomb under a cert
ain stone lying on the northern side | of the choir in the chapel of the Hospital
aforesaid, of which this is the sign, a dea | th’s head.
Of what further pertains to brother John Baldwin and his bequest I have no more to say than that his name is not included in the Form for the Commemoration of Benefactors of Jesus College. Also that for twenty years after the events here recorded a cheerful individual, in a lay habit, might be seen, seated of custom on the ale-bench at the Sarazin’s Head. He drank of the best, paid in cash and never lacked for money. He could tell a good tale and he sang a good song. His Wassail song was always in request at the Sarazin’s Head.
‘COME FOLLOW!’
Sheila Hodgson
A frequent contributor to BBC Radio, Sheila Hodgson has written many plays as well as a number of non-fiction items for programmes such as Woman’s Hour. In 1976 and 1977 she wrote a series of four plays based on the plot ideas described by M. R. James in ‘Stories I have Tried to Write’ (Collected Ghost Stories). She then adapted two of these into short story format for Blackwood’s Magazine (March and July 1978), and encouraged by their success she went on to produce a third tale, which had not previously been a play. Blackwood’s sad demise meant that ‘Come Follow!’, inspired by James’s evil clergyman theme, never appeared there. It finally saw print in Ghosts and Scholars 4 in 1982.