“Oh, it’s not that,” repudiated Aitchison, “it’s the legend that fixes it in my mind. I ought to have told you. It comes from Bede. You remember he tells us St. Cuthbert used to go from Lindisfarne into solitary retreat over on the Farne. There, with the sea to shut him off from the rest of the world, he spent his time in prayer and fasting. He was so engaged at the last period of his life, and when his monks came—fearing for his life—to look after him, they found the good man dying. All he had by him were five onions—or at least four, and a fifth which looked to be partly eaten.”
“So, so,” said Drury with mild enthusiasm, “and now my photo here just fails to tally with the tale by making the five complete. Are you sure it wasn’t always the same, and this bit of detail from Bede has put a twist on your memory? It’s no great matter anyhow.”
Aitchison was rummaging in a receptacle at his desk. Presently he handed to his friend another photo, old and discolored but accurate enough in detail.
“There,” he said, “I took that myself when I was there. Now compare it with yours.”
Certainly there was a difference. It was as Aitchison had said: the recent likeness showed five scallions, plump and alike, the old one showed four complete and one quite mutilated and apparently hollow and dank at the lower end.
“Very queer,” admitted Drury, “how could it come about?”
“Broken fossils do not heal themselves,” declared the serious Aitchison. “That’s not a natural thing.”
“By the look of you, one would think it boded something supernatural,” teased Drury gaily.
Aitchison turned sharply on him then.
“That’s what I mean exactly,” he said with smart decisiveness.
“You surprise me, Aitchison,” replied the friend, somewhat askance.
“I know. You’re still a skeptic about such things. So was I, and should be still but for a nasty experience. And, indeed, the whole thing hangs round this stone, and a certain man called Calladine.”
“You’d better tell me about this,” said Drury quite animated now.
“I will,” said Aitchison, “if you’ll first poke that fire.”
It was in the Christmas vacation of 1886 that I came across Calladine. I had long promised myself a thorough survey of the castle at Bamburgh and the better to do so I was staying in the village at—the “Penda” I think it was called then—a little inn kept by old Colin Gray and his wife. I was scarcely more than an undergraduate in those days, and it was a real pleasure to me when I found another guest there capable of providing some good company and conversation. I was at first puzzled to think why a young doctor—he would be in his early thirties—was secreting himself in such an outlandish place as the Northumberland coast, which as you know is uncommonly bleak and melancholy in the winter months. He told me at first he was “spying out the land” with a view to setting up a country practice in those parts, having had to leave London through a nervous breakdown. As I afterwards learned, he was there for a double reason: on the advice of a criminal psychologist he was seeking both to recuperate his health and to avoid public attention. (You may have heard of the Crewe-Delton case which gave the police such trouble but ended in a complete acquittal for Delton in the trial. Well, “Calladine” was none other than Delton, but he shall always be Calladine for me, poor devil.)
We got on well, the short time I was there. He was a man of cultured interests, especially in your line of Natural Philosophy, as we used to call it. Our talks together when we strolled on the seashore were often interrupted by little excursions on his part into the field of marine botany and zoology. He was also an uncommonly fine photographer, and I well remember how proud he was to have designed his own camera, which had a remarkable flashlight device for use in semi-darkness. This, together with his own skill, he most generously put at my service for making records of various architectural features at the castle. Indeed, it was one afternoon at the end of such operations that I first noticed something queer about him.
I had turned back to fetch my pipe, which I suddenly remembered was on the ledge of one of the upper windows, and I left Calladine down in the inner bailey waiting for me. Now it so happened that as I picked up the pipe I caught a glimpse of him through the window. He was gazing out to sea and I should have thought that natural enough but for an open-mouthed attitude of fascination that seemed to have taken hold of him. Whatever he was looking at, I could not from my position see, but as I watched I suddenly saw him shudder as if something revolting had been enacted before his eyes. When I rejoined him he looked pale and said nothing. Somewhat inquisitive, I made excuse to look out seawards myself but detected nothing unusual.
“There is something haunting about the twilight on the coast, isn’t there?” I observed.
“How do you mean?” asked Calladine eagerly, then added, “I suppose if you’re of a poetic turn you can imagine some fantastic things at times.”
There is a sense of restraint which prevents a man from making pointed intrusions into another’s thoughts on certain occasions, and my curiosity had to go unsatisfied. I felt that if Calladine had some sort of secret fear it was probably due to his illness, and the best motto for a friend in such a case seemed to be Quieta non movere.
You will understand this the more when I tell you Calladine could, on occasion, be very violent and scornful, especially about matters of superstition. An instance will show what I mean. Gray, like most fisherfolk, had quite a mental museum (as I should call it) of local tales and beliefs. One evening in the bar his talk had been running on these lines when I came in. The topic, whatever it was, had evidently ended and I was only in time to catch something about “sea blood.” Pricking up my ears, I asked what the mystery was about. Gray, to satisfy me, was going to take up the thread again when Calladine, who had been sitting pensively in the corner, sprang up with an oath and broke the whole gathering up with a stormy tirade against “such credulous nonsense.” After this he flung out of the room and I followed him in some anxiety, for it was obvious that the poor fellow’s nerves were playing the devil with him again.
Actually, however, he seemed to come round very cheerfully out of these fits. For days he was serenity itself, rambling along the shore in the mornings with his camera and often meeting me at the castle later.
Only once was this harmony broken. It was in November when we were looking forward to some duck-shooting. The weather had been very hard, and Gray—who was an expert in such matters—thought we might expect a flight or two of inland birds coming seawards from the frozen ponds. Now in this sport, as you know, a good deal depends upon your getting well hidden from sight, usually in a shelter pit dug in the sands. And so we found ourselves with spades “howking a hole,” as Colin called it, in readiness for the flights. The old man was choosing for himself a strategic point some yards away while Calladine and I got to work with our shoveling. We had been at it silently for a time, and a goodish oblong cavity was beginning to take shape, when Calladine drew in his breath with a gasp and suddenly stopped work.
I had my back to him at the time, but turning round I saw him staring into the sand and trembling from head to foot.
“Did you see that?” he said, pointing down. But I could see nothing remarkable.
“It’s gone now, of course,” he added, with relief, “but it gave me a queer turn.”
“Why, what did you see?” I asked in some bewilderment.
“Oh, I know,” said he, despairingly. “It’s my crazy nerves again. I suppose you think I’m mad.”
And there he sat with his handkerchief to his brow looking very sick and tired, I thought, while Gray came up and looked silently on. We rallied him a bit but he had no more appetite for sport that evening, so we got him back home and into a warm bed.