October 28, 2021 • 56 mins
Dim the lights and join Josh and Chuck for their annual spooky Halloween story reading.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the Spooktacular, the Spooky
spoek Tacular of the Spooktaculars of All Time Tacular. This
(00:24):
is stuff you should know, the Spooktacular the as tradition dictates,
add free spook Tacular m It's in our contract, it is.
We fight for it. Everyone, do not put ads and
ruin our bad readings of Halloween stories, which we try
very hard to select from the increasingly small pantheon of
(00:47):
public domain horror short fiction. I found a few this year,
so I got a couple in my hip pocket. Oh good,
I'm glad. I'm glad. I gotta say, uh, nice work.
I think both of these that we dug up are
really really good stories, agreed, m R James and hl
Mankin right. I thought it was Mr James. That's what
he likes, call me Mr James. He but you're a doctor,
(01:10):
so what. Yeah. The one I picked this year is
Lost Hearts by m R James. And I'm pretty psyched
about this one because it is good. Agreed. It's a corker,
you can figure it out, but it's still it's it's entertaining.
How about that it's entertaining, it's fun. Uh. There are
a couple of spooky uh dates in this did you
(01:32):
notice that we'll talk about that? I didn't know. I
can't wait to hear it. And um, you know, I
don't think we need a content warning. It's it's spooky. Um.
But you know with kids, and there's always a chance
if you have kids, they may not want to listen.
It's not over the top because it was written in
in the nineteenth century, right, yeah, and being written in
(01:55):
the nineteenth century that we should probably point out there's
a couple of um, yes, touchy, semi racist, uh, just
terms that will explain. Yeah, I mean, should we go
ahead and say now, oh sure, go ahead? Yeah? I
mean we did a podcast on the Roma people, and
UH made took great pains to tell people that using
(02:16):
the word gypsy is no longer something you should do.
We're saying jipped off, which is something that I learned
while doing that podcast. And they use the word gypsy
in here a couple of times. They also use chinaman
in here, but they're actually talking about something specific, so
we'll explain later, okay, Right, And there's a general with
this one lady um sort of xenophobic bent thank people
(02:38):
from other countries. She's a yeah exactly, She's an archetypal
rural died in the wool salt of the earth woman.
So all that is to say, the opinions expressed there
and do not represent those of the hostess. Very nice,
here with forthwith guarantee void in Tennessee. Alright, Uh, everyone,
(03:00):
turned the lights down. I've got my lights dimmed. Yeah,
let's do that. I'm going the first time we're not
in the same room holding hands. I know, I'm a
little scared. A little scared too. I can't see the
paper as well with that light off, So I'm gonna
turn it back on. Okay, Uh, turn the lights down
to get to pour yourself a spooky drink and gather kids.
(03:22):
And here we go for the spook tacular. And this
is Lost Hearts by Mr Mr James. I'll start, Okay,
sure it was, as far as I can ascertain, in
(03:46):
September of the year eighteen eleven. Is that a spooky date?
Chuck Bill, Well, it's coming, Okay, that a post chaise.
I think that's a kind of coach drew up before
the door of Aswarby Hall in the heart of Lincolnshire.
The little boy who jumped out as soon as it
had stopped, looked about him with the keenest curiosity. During
the short interval that elapsed between the ringing of the
(04:08):
bell and the opening of the hall door, he saw
a tall, square, red brick house built in the rain
of an A stone pillared porch had been added in
the purest classical style of seventeen ninety. The windows of
the house were many, tall and narrow, with small panes
and thick white woodwork. A pediment pierced with round window
crowned the front. There were wings to the left and
(04:30):
the right, connected by curious glazed galleries supported by colonnades
with the central block. These wings plainly contained the stables
and offices of the house. Each was surmounted by an
ornamental cupola with a gilded vein cupola. You know, I
always said coupola, and then every single person on the
Inspiration four crew called that thing on the dragon capsule
(04:52):
of the cupola, So I'm just going with that now.
An evening light shone on the building, making the window
panes glow like so many fires, so many away from
the hall in front stretched a flat park studded with
oaks and fringed with furs, which stood out against the sky.
The clock in the church tower buried in trees on
(05:13):
the edge of the park, only its golden weathercock catching
the light was striking six, and the sound came gently
beating down the wind. It was an altogether pleasant impression,
though tinged with the sort of melancholy appropriate to an
evening in early autumn, that was conveyed to the mind
of the boy who was standing in the porch waiting
for the door to open to him. The post chaise
(05:34):
had brought him from Warwickshire, where six months before he
had been left in orphan. Now, owing to the generous
offer of his elderly cousin, Mr Abney, he had come
to live at as Worthy. The offer was unexpected, because
all who knew anything of Mr Abney looked upon him
as a somewhat austere recluse into whose steady going household
(05:55):
the advent of a small boy would import a new
and it seemed incongruous lament. The truth is that very
little was known of Mr Abney's pursuits or temper. The
professor of Greek at Cambridge had been heard to say
that no one knew more of the religious beliefs of
the later Pagans than did the owner of Aswarby. Certainly
his library contained all the then available books bearing on
(06:17):
the mysteries, the orphic poems, the worship of Mithras, and
the neo Platonists. In the marble paved hall stood a
fine figure of Mythrust slaying a bull, which had been
imported from the Levant at great expense by the owner.
He had contributed a description of it to the Gentleman's Magazine.
I think not that kind Gentleman's magazine, and he had
(06:38):
written a remarkable series of articles in the Critical Museum
on the superstitions of the Romans of the Lower Empire.
It was published in Hustler House. Let me tell you
about my Mythress laying a bull statue. He was looked
upon in fine as a man wrapped up in his books.
And it was a matter of great surprise among his
neighbors that he should even have heard of his cousin
(06:59):
Stephen Elliott, much more that he should have volunteered to
make him an inmate of Aswarbie Hall. All right, so
this orphan boy showed up at this house to live
with his relative, who seems like a decent guy. It's
a little dark, yeah, but it was a surprise because
he was, like, you know, wrapped up in his books,
(07:21):
a bachelor, not really interested in having a kid around.
All right, shall I whatever may have been expected by
his neighbors, It is certain that Mr Abney, that's all
the thin. The austere seemed inclined to give his young
cousin a kindly reception. The moment the front door was opened,
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he darted out of his study, rubbing his hands with delight.
How are you, my boy? How are you? How old
are you? Said he? That is, you are not too
much tired? I hope by your journey to eat your supper? Now,
thank you, sir, said Mr Elliott. I'm pretty well. Oh
(08:02):
that's a good that, that's a good lad, said Mr Abney.
And how old are you, my boy? It seemed a
little odd that he should have asked the question twice
in the first two minutes of their acquaintance. I'm twelve
years old. Dick's birthday, sir, said Stephen. And when is
your birthday, my dear boy? Eleventh of September a spooky
(08:25):
date I think he predicted the whole thing. I got you, okay,
Mr James did eleventh of September. A. That's well, that's
very well, nearly a year. Hence, isn't it. I like,
ha ha, I like to get these things down in
my book. Sure it's twelve certain, Yes quite, yer, sir, well,
(08:46):
well take him to Mrs Bunch's room, Parks and let
him have his tea, supper whatever it is. Yes, sir,
answered the state Mr Parks, and conducted Stephen to the
lower regions. Mrs Bunch was the most comfortable and human
person whom Stephen had as yet met in as Warby.
She made him completely at home. They were great friends
(09:08):
in a quarter of an hour, and great friends they remained.
Mrs Bunch had been born in the neighborhood some fifty
five years before the date of Stephen's arrival, and her
residence at the hall was of twenty years standing. Consequently,
if anyone knew the ins and outs of the house
and the district, Mrs Bunch knew them, and she was
by no means disinclined to communicate her information. So we
(09:34):
got a nice lady that lives there, who knows everything
that's going on. Very nice person, seemingly nice. Aside from
the xenophobia, as we will see, certainly, there were plenty
of things about the hall and the hall gardens which Stephen,
who was of an adventurous and inquiring turn, was anxious
to have explained to him. Who built the temple at
(09:55):
the end of the Laura Walk, Who was the old
man whose picture hung on the staircase sitting at a
table with a skull under his hand. These and many
similar points were cleared up by the resources of Mrs
Bunch's powerful intellect. There were others, however, of which the
explanations furnished were less satisfactory. One November evening, Stephen was
(10:15):
sitting by the fire in the housekeeper's room, reflecting on
the surroundings. It's best having a good man, and will
you go to heaven? He suddenly asked, with a peculiar
confidence with which children possess in the ability of their
elders to settle these questions, the decision of which is
believed to be reserved for other tribunals. Can't wait to
(10:37):
hear this one. I don't really haven't even worked out
how I'm gonna do it. Let's try this. Good bless
the child, said Mrs Bunch. Masters as kind a soul
as I ever see, didn't I she's like my age,
she's fifty. Yeah, but old timey nineteenth century way different,
(11:02):
did didn't? I never tell you the little boy as
he took in out of the street, as you may
say this seven years back, and the little girl two
years after I first come here. Now, do tell me
all about them, Mrs Bunch, Now this minute easy. Sorry,
I added that, so this guy took in a couple
(11:24):
of other kids. Huh, all right, well, said missus much.
The little girl I don't seem to recollect so much
about I know. Master brought her back with him from
his walk one day and give orders to Mrs Ellis,
as was housekeeper then as she should be, took every
care with and the poor child had no one belonging
to her. She told me so her own self. And
(11:46):
here she lived with us a matter of three weeks,
it might be, and then whether she were somethink of
a gypsy at her blood or whatnot, But one morning
she out of her bed, for any of us had
open an eye, and neither trek nor yet trace of
her have I set eyes on sense. Master was wonderful
(12:07):
put about and had all the ponds dragged. But it's
my belief she was had away by them gypsies, for
there was singing round the house for as much as
an hour the night she went. And Parkes, he declares
he heard them a colin in the woods all that afternoon. Dear, Dear,
a odd child, said odd. I think she's saying odd
(12:29):
in the old timing way with an okay, an odd child.
She was so silent it always and all, but I
was wonderful taken up with her, so domesticated, she was surprising.
And what about the little boy, said Stephen, Oh, that
poor boy, sighed Mrs Bunch. He was a foreigner, jeviny,
(12:53):
he called himself. And he come a tweaking his hurdy
gurdie round about. He was tweaking, speaking his hurdie gurdie.
He wasn't working at least, uh tweaking his hurdy gurdie
rounded about the drive. When went to day and Master
Adam in that minute and asked all about where he
(13:13):
came from, how old he was, how he made his way,
and where was his relatives, and all his kind heart
could wish but it with the same way with him.
They're an unruly lot, them foreign nations, I do suppose.
And he was off one fine morning, just the same
as the girl. Why he went and what he done
was our question for as much as a year after.
(13:36):
But he never took his urdie gurdie And there it
lays on the shelf. What is urdie gurdie, Hurdy gurdie.
It's like a kind of like a musical instrument. I think, um,
like a squeeze box. Maybe. So a little boy named
Jovanni showed up squeezing his squeezebox on their driveway and
(13:56):
and Mr Mr Abney it is Abney, right, I think so.
Mr Abney brought him in the house and was asking
him a bunch of questions and then took him under
his wing. Yeah, like every kid he finds. He's like,
how old are you? Win your birthday? Come inside your mind?
So I think you guys can all see what we
were talking about with Mrs Bunched, right, Yeah, I think so.
(14:18):
I think so. The remainder of the evening was spent
by Stephen and miscellaneous cross examination of Mrs bunch and
in efforts to extract a tune from the hurdy gurdy.
That night he had a curious stream. At the end
of the passage. At the top of the house in
which his bedroom was situated, there was an old, disused bathroom.
(14:39):
It was kept locked, but the upper half of the
door was glazed, and since the Muslim curtains which used
to hang there had long been gone, you could look
in and see the lead line bath affixed to the
wall on the right hand, with its head towards the window.
On the night of which I am speaking, Steven Elliott
found himself, as he thought, looking through the glazed door.
(15:00):
That means there was a window in it. The moon
was shining through the window see, and he was gazing
at a figure which lay in the bath. His description
of what he saw reminds me of what I once
beheld myself in the famous vaults of Saint McCann's Church
in Dublin, which possesses the horrid property of preserving corpses
from decay for centuries. A figure inexpressibly thin and pathetic,
(15:24):
of a dusty leaden color, enveloped in a shroud like garment,
the thin lips crooked into a faint and dreadful smile.
The hands pressed tightly over the region of the heart.
As he looked upon it, a distant, almost inaudible moan
seemed to issue from its lips, and the arms began
to stir. The terror of the site forced Stephen backwards,
(15:45):
and he awoke to the fact that he was indeed
standing on the cold boarded floor of the passage in
the full light of the moon, with a courage which
I do not think can be common among boys of
his age. He went to the door of the bathroom
to ascertain if the figure year of his dream were
really there. It was not, and he went back to band,
(16:08):
keep going, yeah, look, this is getting creepy. I know,
that's what I'm saying. It's a good one. He saw
a straight up scary, decaying ghost in the bathtub. M
Mrs Bunch was much impressed next morning by his story,
and went so far as to replace the muslin curtain
over the glazed door of the bathroom ak the window.
(16:30):
Mr Abney moreover, to whom he confided his experiences at breakfast,
was greatly interested and made notes of the matter and
what he called his book. The Spring Equinox was approaching,
as Mr Abney frequently reminded his cousin, adding that this
had been always considered by the agents to be a
critical time for the young, that Stephen would do well
(16:51):
to take care of himself and shut his bedroom window
at night, and that the sense or innus had some
valuable remarks on the subject. Two inside that occurred about
this time made an impression upon Stephen's mind. Chuck will
share those two incidents with us now. The first was
after an unusually uneasy and oppressed night that he had passed,
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though he could not recall any particular dream that he
had had. The following evening, Mrs Bunch was occupying herself
and mending his nightgown. Grace is me, master Stephen, She
broke forth, rather irritably. How do you manage to tear
your night dress all to flinders this way? Look here, sir,
what trouble you do give to poor servants that have
(17:35):
to darn and mend after you. It was indeed a
most destructive and apparently wanton series of slits or scorings
in the garment, which would undoubtedly require a skillful needle
to make good. They were confined to the left side
of his chest, long parallel slits about six inches in length,
some of them not quite piercing the texture of the linen.
(17:57):
Stephen could only express his entire ignorance of their origin.
He was sure that they were not there the night before,
but he said, Mrs Bunch stays just the same as
the scratches on the outside of my bedroom door, and
I'm sure I'd never had anything to do with making them.
I think it gets it across. They think I've nailed
(18:18):
young Stephen. I think you're nailing it. He's moving closer
and closer to cockney as we go. That's the one
I can do. That's the one anybody who can only
do one can do. Mrs Bunch gazed at him open mouth,
then snatched up a candle, departed hastily from the room,
and was heard making her way upstairs. In a few
(18:40):
minutes she came down. Well, she said, Master Stephen. It's
a funny thing to me how them marks and scratches
can have come. They're too high up for any cat
or dog to have made him much less a rat
for all the world, like a chinaman's fingernails. As my
uncle and the tea trade used to tell us of
when we was girls together, I wouldn't say nothing to master,
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not if I was you, Master Stephen, my dear, and
just turned the key of your door when you go
to your bed, so I should probably say like she,
I was like, what is this daft, old middle agist
woman talking about? And it turns out she's referring to
apparently there was a trend among the nobility and the
(19:25):
courtisans of China at this time in the early nineteenth
century I think before, of wearing their fingernails very long
and pointy. She's saying, these scratches look kind of like
claw marks, and she kind of likened it to something
that had long and pointing fingernails like that. So okay,
not that that excuses everything, but you know, I got you.
(19:46):
There's a little background to it. I think we all
learned something here. Mrs Bunch is not totally out of
her mind, all right, So she yells at Stephen to
go to bed, and he says, I always stay, Mrs
Bunch as soon as I've said, my prey, oh that's
a good child. Always say your prayers and then no
one can't hurt you. Here with Mrs Bunch addressed herself
(20:09):
to mending the injured nightgown with intervals of meditation until bedtime.
Interesting this was on a Friday night in March eighteen twelve.
On the following evening, the usual duet of Stephen and
Mrs Bunch was augmented by the sudden arrival of Mr Parkes,
the butler, who as a rule kept himself rather to
himself in the pantry. He did not see that Stephen
(20:32):
was there. He was moreover flustered and less slow a
speech than was his. Wont master may get up his
own wine if he likes of an evening was his
first remark. Either I do it in the daytime or
not at all. Mrs Bunch, I don't know what it
may be, very like it's the rats or the wind
got into the cellars. But I'm not as young as
I was, and I can't go through with it as
(20:54):
I have done. Well. Mr Parks you know it is
a surprising place for the rats, is the hall. I'm
not the nying that to Mrs Bunchen. To be sure,
many a time I've heard the tale from the men
in the shipyards about the rats that could speak. I
never laid no confidence in that before, but tonight, if
I demeaned myself today my ear to the door of
the further bin. I could pretty much have heard what
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they was saying. Oh man, you're crushing it. Oh damn,
Mr Parks, I had no patience with your fancies rats
talking in the wide cellar aded well, Mrs Munch, I've
no wish saw ague with you. All I can say is,
if you choose to go to the far bin and
lead your ear to the door, you may prove my
words this minute. What nonsense you do talk? Mr Parkes
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not fit for children to listen to. Why you'll be
frightening Master Stephen. They're out of his wits. What Master
Stephen said, Parks awakening to the consciousness of the boy's presence.
Master Stephen knows well enough that I'm playing a joke
with you, Mrs Bunch. In fact, Stephen knew too well
to suppose that Mr Park's head, in the first instance
(22:00):
intended a joke. He was interested, not altogether pleasantly in
the situation, but all his questions were unsuccessful in inducing
the butler to give any more detailed account of his
experiences in the wine cellar. And we have now arrived
at March eighteen twelve. Spooky nope, okay. It was a
(22:24):
day of curious experiences for Stephen, a windy, noisy day
which filled the house in the gardens with a restless impression.
As Stephen stood by the fence of the grounds and
looked out into the park, he felt as if an
endless procession of unseen people were sweeping past him on
the wind, borne on restlessly and aimlessly, vainly striving to
(22:44):
stop themselves, to catch at something that might arrest their
flight and bring them once again into contact with the
living world of which they had formed a part. After
luncheon that day, Mr Abney said, you're Mr Abney. I'm Emney.
Yeah you are. Remember you asked him what his age was,
and that's right, that's right. We should probably leave that
(23:06):
in there. Stephen, my boy, do you think you could
manage to come to me tonight? I don't know if
this is the same accent. It sounds like Mrs Mrs
a Bunch is transforming into Mr Abney. Do you think
you could manage to come to me tonight? As late
as eleven o'clock in my study, She'll be busy until
that time, and I wish to show you something connected
(23:27):
with your future life, which it is most important that
you should know. You are not to mention this matter
to Mrs Bunch, nor to anyone else in the house,
and you had better go to your room at the
usual time. Here was a new excitement added to life.
Stephen eagerly grasped at the opportunity of sitting up till
eleven o'clock. He looked in at the library door on
(23:48):
his way upstairs night evening, and he saw a brazier
right which he had often noticed in the corner of
the room. It's like a little girl, I think, so
moved out before the fire. An old silver gilt cup
stood on the table filled with red wine, and some
written sheets of paper lay near it. Mr Abney was
sprinkling some incense on the brazier. I'm pretty sure that's
(24:11):
it from a round silver boxes. Stephen passed, but did
not seem to notice his step. All right, So what's
going on here is he's he's doing some some right,
some ritual looks like he told Stephen like this is
important for him to be a part of right. Yes,
and so now it's the night that he's told Stephen
(24:31):
to come down to his study at eleven, all right,
go ahead. The wind had fallen, and there was a
still night in a full moon. At about ten o'clock,
Stephen was standing at the open window of his bedroom,
looking out over the country. Still as the night was,
the mysterious population of the distant moonlit woods was not
(24:53):
yet lulled to rest. From time to time, strange cries
as of lost and despairing wander sounded from across the mirror.
I think that's a weird way to say meadow. They
might be the notes of owls or water birds. Yet
they did not quite resemble either sound. Were they not
coming nearer? Now? They sounded from the nearer side of
(25:14):
the water, and in a few moments they seemed to
be floating about among the shrubberies. Then they ceased. But
just as Stephen was thinking of shutting the window and
resuming his reading of Robinson crusoe Great Book, he caught
sight of two figures standing on the gravel terrace that
ran along the garden side of the hall, the figures
of a boy and a girl. As it seemed, they
(25:36):
stood side by side, looking up at the windows. Something
in the form of the girl recalled irresistibly his dream
of the figure in the bath, the boy inspired him
with more acute Whilst the girl stood still, half smiling,
with her hands clasped over her heart, The boy, a
thin shape with black hair and ragged clothing, raised his
(25:57):
arms in the air with an appearance of menace and
of unappeasable hunger. Longing. The moon shone upon his almost
transparent hands, and Stephen saw that the nails were fearfully long,
and that the light shone through them. As he stood
with his arms thus raised, he disclosed a terrifying spectacle.
(26:18):
On the left side of his chest. There opened up
black and gaping rent, and there fell upon Stephen's brain,
rather than upon his ear, the impression of one of
those hungry and desolate cries that he had heard resounding
over the woods at Aswarby all that evening. In another moment,
this dreadful pair had moved swiftly and noiselessly over the
dry grass, and he saw them no more. Wow, I
(26:45):
know this, poor Stephen. He's like, what the h is
going on around here? So this ghost skin he has
like no heart? Right, he's turned into John Travolta. Oh boy,
all right, this is getting good. You want me to
pick it up? Just please all right. Inexpressibly frightened as
he was, he determined to take his candle and go
(27:07):
down to mister Abney's study, for the hour appointed for
their meeting was near in hand. The study or library
opened out of the front hall on one side, and Stephen,
urged on by his terrors, did not take long in
getting there. To effect an entrance was not so easy.
The door was not locked, he felt sure, for the
key was on the outside of it. As usual, his
(27:28):
repeated knox produced no answer. Mister Abney was engaged. He
was speaking what Why did he try to cry out?
And why was the cry choked in his throat? Had
he too seen the mysterious children? But now everything was quiet,
and the door yielded to Stephen's terrified and frantic pushing
on the table. In mister Abney's study, certain papers were
(27:51):
found which explained the situation to Stephen Elliott when he
was of an age to understand them. The most important
sentences were as follows. It was a belief very strongly
and generally held by the ancients, of whose wisdom in
these matters I've had such experiences as induces me to
place confidence in their assertations. The wordy that by enacting
(28:15):
certain processes which to us moderns have something of a
barbaric complexion, a very remarkable enlightenment of the spiritual faculties
in man may be attained. That, for example, by absorbing
the personalities of a certain number of his fellow creatures,
an individual may gain a complete ascendency over those orders
(28:37):
of spiritual beings which control the elemental forces of our universe. Wow,
what is like possessing these people? Something like that? Keep reading,
Keep reading. It is recorded of Simon Magus that he
(28:59):
was able to fly on the air, to become invisible,
or to assume any form he pleased, by the agency
of the soul of a boy whom, to use the
libelous phrase employed by the author of the Clementine recognitions,
he had murdered. I find it set down moreover with
considerable detail in the writings of Hermes Trismegistus, that similar
(29:21):
happy results may be produced by the absorption of the
hearts of not less than three human beings below the
age of twenty one years. Ah, that's why he's got
another ages. Huh. To the testing of the truth of
this receipt, I have devoted the greater part of the
last twenty years, selecting as the corpora vilia of my
(29:43):
experiment such persons as could conveniently be removed without occasioning
a sensible gap in society. The first step I affected
by the removal of one Phoebe Stanley, a girl of
gypsy extraction, on March fo not creepy. The second by
the removal of a wandering Italian lad named Giovanni Paoli
(30:08):
on the night of March twenty three five, not spooky.
The final victim to employ a word repugnant in the
highest degree to my feelings must be my cousin Steven Elliott.
His day must be this March twenty four, eighteen twelve.
It's a creepy date. Any of those dates in they're creepy.
(30:29):
I don't think creepy. The best means of affecting the
required absorption is to remove the heart from the living subject,
to reduce it to ashes, and to mingle them with
about a pint of red wine, preferably port. That's a
lot of port, A lot of port. The remains of
the first two subjects, at least will be well to
conceal a disused bathroom or wine cellar will be found
(30:53):
convenient for such a purpose. Some annoyance may be experienced
from the psychic portion of the subjects, which popular language
which dignifies with the name of ghosts. But the man
of philosophic temperament, to whom alone the experiment is appropriate,
will be little prone to attach importance to the feeble
efforts of these beings to wreak their vengeance on him.
(31:14):
I contemplate with the liveliest satisfaction, the enlarged and emancipated
existence which the experiment, if successful, will confer on me,
not only placing me beyond the reach of human justice
so called, but eliminating to a great extent the prospect
of death itself. Wow. So he's basically saying like, I
(31:42):
can't even be haunted, and this may make me live forever. Yeah, Like,
I'm going to rip the hearts out of two, now
three little children and it'll be worth it because I'm
going to be immortal and an amazing dude. Wow, Alright,
we're gonna be I'm gonna be like Bradley Cooper and limitless.
That's his goal on what failing at the box office.
So this last paragraph is pretty important. Everybody hanging there
(32:04):
with us. And remember Stephen heard a cry in the
office and then later found these papers that Chuck just
read right right. Mr Abney was found in his chair,
his head thrown back, his face stamped with an expression
of rage, fright, immortal pain. In his left side was
a terrible lacerated wound, exposing the heart. There was no
(32:29):
blood on his hands, and a long knife that lay
on the table was perfectly clean. A savage wildcat might
have inflicted the injuries. The window of the study was open,
and it was the opinion of the coroner that Mr
Abney had met his death by the agency of some
wild creature. But Stephen Elliott study of the papers Chuck
just quoted, led him to a very different conclusion. Wow,
(32:58):
so little Stephen Abney Cockney boy at large owes his
took us to the little boy and girl who saved
his life. Yeah, they killed him. Murderous ghosts killed a
very bad man. I love it. Good stuff, good voice work.
That was great, Chuck. I guess now we should put
some ads in here, right. Oh wait, there's no need
(33:20):
for us, because this is our ad free Halloween version.
This spooky story brought to you by stamps dot com. Wow,
that was great, So it's time for yours, right, that's right?
Oh boy, who wrote this? Arthur Mock And I believe
that's right m A. C. H. E. N who was
(33:41):
a Welsh writer. And I think the deal with the
Great God Pan, which is what we're going to read,
is that it was a I think this is the
first chapter that originally stood on its own as a
short story published in a a literary journal or something,
or a magazine, the Gentleman's magazine. That's right. And then
(34:04):
he later I guess what's like he and this is
not too bad and expanded it into a novella linked thing.
But uh yeah, we're gonna stick to the first chapter.
It's one of those ones that, like, if you ask
any horror writer with the greatest horror story of all
time is probably the majority of them will say the
Great God Pan. Oh really interesting? All right? So nice, fine,
(34:25):
I guess is what I'm trying to say. Here we go. Then,
I'm glad you came, Clark, very glad. Indeed, I was
not sure you could spare the time. Wait a minute,
that's Abney and the Old Lady. Yeah, that was that
was a lot all right, this is gonna I'm gonna
(34:47):
have to workshop this as we go. Folks, Okay, I
know you're locked in the punch. That's it, all right,
So he's glad, Clark came, Yeah, Clark with any Yes,
I was able to make arrangements for a few days.
Things are not very live just now, but you have
no misgivings, Raymond, Is it absolutely safe? The two men
were slowly pacing the terrace in front of Dr Raymond's house.
(35:09):
The sun still hung above the western mountain line, but
it shone with a dull red glow that cast no shadows,
and all the air was quiet. A sweet breath came
from the great wood on the hillside above, and with it,
at intervals, the soft murmuring call of the wild doves
below in the long, lovely valley, The river wound in
and out between the lonely hills, and as the sun
(35:30):
hovered and vanished into the west, a faint mist, pure
white began to rise from the hills. Doctor Raymond turned
sharply to his friend. Safe. Of course it is in itself.
The operation is a perfectly simple one. Any surgeon could
do it, and there's no danger at any other things. None,
(35:51):
absolutely no physical damage whatsoever. I give you my word.
You are always timid, Clark, always with an E. But
you know my history. I have devoted myself to transcendental medicine.
For the last twenty years. I have heard myself called
quack and charlatan, an impostor. But all the while I
knew I was on the right path. Five years ago
(36:12):
I reached the goal, and since then every day has
been a preparation for what we shall do tonight. I
should like to believe it at all true. Clark knit
his brows and looked doubtfully at Dr Raymond. Are you
perfectly sure, Raymond, that your theory is not a fantasmagoria,
A splendid vision, certainly, but a mirror vision? After all,
(36:34):
speak up? This is as much as I could speak.
It's the Eco are weak of chest and breath and
very timid. All right, we made all that up here
we go. Maybe we should just riff on this whole thing. Uh.
Dr Raymond stopped in his walk and turned sharply. He
was a middle aged man, gaunt and thin, of a
(36:55):
pale yellow complexion. But as he answered Clark and faced him,
that was a flush on his cheek mhm. Look about you, Clark,
do you see? Look about you, Clark. You see the
mountain and hill following after hill, as wave on wave.
You see the woods and orchard, the fields of ripe corn,
(37:17):
and the meadows reaching to the reed beds by the river.
You see me standing here beside you, and hear my
voice as pleasant as it is. But I tell you
that all these things, yes, from that star that has
just shown out of the sky, to the solid ground
beneath our feet. I say that all these are but
dreams and shadows, the shadows that hide the real world
(37:39):
from our eyes. This is a real world, but it
is beyond the glamour and this vision, beyond these chases
and aras dreams in a career, beyond the mall, is
beyond a veil. Do you even know what I'm talking about?
I just realized who you're doing, and it's Truman Campody,
Truman cap I do not know whether any human being
(38:02):
has ever lifted that veil, but I do know, Clark,
that you and I shall see it lifted this very
night from before another's eyes. You may think this all
strange nonsense. It may be strange, but it is true
and The ancients knew what lifting the veil means. They
called it seeing the god pan nice Clark shivered. The
(38:28):
white mist gathering over the river was chilly. It is wonderful. Indeed,
he said, we are standing on the brink of a
strange world. Raymond, if what you say is true, I
suppose the knife is absolutely necessary. Yes, a slight lesion
in the gray matter, that is all, A trifling rearrangement
of certain cells, a microscopical alteration that would escape the
(38:50):
attention of brain specialists out of a hundred. I don't
want to bother you with shop Clark. I guess he
means shop talk. Ye. I'm give you a mass of
technical detail which would sound very imposing and would leave
you as enlightened as you are now. But I suppose
you have read, casually and out of the way corners
of your paper that immense strides have been made recently
(39:12):
in the physiology of the brain. I saw a paragraph
the other day about Digby's theory and brown Fabers discoveries,
theories and discoveries. Where they are standing now? I stood
fifteen years ago, and I need not tell you that
I have not been standing still for the last fifteen years.
It would be enough if I say that five years
ago I made the discovery that I alluded to when
(39:33):
I said that ten years ago I reached the goal.
It's very confusing. I feel like I'm driving people literally
away from this. No, I think, I think you. It's
very luring in a weird way. Okay. After years of labor,
After years of toiling and groping in the dark, after
days and nights of disappointments and sometimes of despair in
(39:54):
which I used now and then to tremble and grow
cold with the thought that perhaps there were others seeking
for it, I saw it at last, after so long.
A pang of sudden joy thrilled my soul, and I
knew the long journey was at an end by what
seemed then and still seems a chance. The suggestions of
a moment's idle thought followed up upon familiar lines and
(40:14):
paths that I attract a hundred times already, the great
truth burst upon me, and I saw, mapped out in
lines of sight, a whole world, a sphere unknown continents
and islands and great oceans in which no ship has sailed,
to my belief, since a man first lifted up his eyes,
and beheld the sun and the stars of heaven, and
the quiet earth beneath yep keep going, Oh, good Lord,
(40:39):
you will think this all high flown language, Clark, But
it is hard to be literal. And yet I do
not know whether what I am hinting at cannot be
set forth in plain and lonely terms. For instance, this
world of ours is pretty well girded now with telegraph
wires and cables fought with something less than the speed
of thought, flashes from sunrise sunset, from north to south,
(41:01):
across the floods and the desert places. Suppose that an
electrician of today were suddenly to perceive that he and
his friends have merely been playing with pebbles and mistaking
them for the foundations of the world. Suppose that's such
a man saw uttermost space lie open before the current,
and words of men flashed forth to the sun and
beyond the sun, into the systems beyond, and the voice
(41:24):
of articulate speaking men echo, and the waiste void that
bounds our thought. What do you think about that analogy, sir?
As analogies go, that is a pretty good analogy of
what I've done. You can understand now a little of
what I felt as I stood here one evening. It
was a summer evening, and the valley looked much as
it does now. I stood here and saw before me
(41:47):
the inutterable, the unthinkable gulf that yawns profound between two worlds,
the world of matter and the world of spirit. I
saw the great, empty, deep stretch dim before me, and
in that instant of ridge of light leapt from the
earth to the unknown shore, and the abyss was spanned.
You may look in brown Favor's book if you like,
and you will find that to the present day men
(42:10):
of science are unable to account for the presence or
to specify the functions of certain group of nerve cells
in the brain. Last one. I'm sorry, everybody. That group is,
as it were, land to yet a mere waste place
for fanciful theories. I am not in the position of
brown Favor and the specialist. I am perfectly instructed as
(42:30):
to the possible functions of those nerve centers in the
scheme of things. With a touch, I can bring them
into play. With a touch, I say, I can set
free the current. With a touch, I can complete the
communication between this world of sense, and we shall be
able to finish the sentence later on. Yes, the knife
is necessary, but think what that knife will affect. It
(42:51):
will level utterly the solid wall of sense, and probably
for the first time since man was made, a spirit
will gaze on a spirit world. Clark, Mary, we'll see
the God pan. Very nice, Chuck, Wow, I feel like
(43:12):
we need to recap that. So he's doing these brain
experiments basically where he says he can connect I mean
he really just needed that last paragraph where he can
connect people to the spirit world, right, Yeah, that basically
with the with the scrambling of a few neurons that
only he knows the true purpose of, he can basically
(43:33):
he can take you to a new different dimensions. You
can see God. Yeah, God pan at ly sure. Uh So,
now we're picking up with Clark with an e speaking again.
You're ready, I'm ready. But you remember what you wrote
to me. I thought it would be requisite that she
he whispered the rest of the doctor's ear. You don't
(43:55):
be a virgin, not at all. That at all, That
is nonsense, I assure you. Indeed, it is better as
it is. I'm quite certain of that. Consider the matter well, Raymond,
it is a great responsibility. Something might go wrong, you
would be a miserable man for the rest of your days. No,
I think that even if the worst happened, As you know,
I rescued Mary from the gutter and from almost certain
(44:18):
starvation when she was a child, I think her life
is mine to use as I see fit. Come, it's
getting late. We had better go in. No being canceled
as we speak. So he's saying, like, you know, he
found this, this poor homeless girl, and now that he
raised her and gave her a life, he can do
(44:39):
whatever he wants with her life. So now poor Mary
is going to be the first test subject for seeing
the Great God Pan And I'll take up take up
some slack from you, please do. Dr Raymond led the
way into the house, through the hall and down a
long dark passage. He took a key from his pocket
(45:01):
and opened a heavy door and motioned Clark with any
into his flab recording. It had once been a billiard
room and was lighted by a glass dome in the
center of the ceiling. Whence there still shown a sad
gray light on the figure of the doctor as he
lit a lamp with a heavy shade and placed it
on a table in the middle of the room. Clark
looked about him. Scarcely a foot of wall remained bare.
(45:23):
There were shelves all around, laden with bottles and files
of all shapes and colors. And at one end stood
a little Chippendale bookcase with its shirt off and oiled
and baby oil. Raymond pointed to this. You see that
parchment Oswald Crolius. He was one of the first to
show me the way, though I don't think he ever
found it himself. That is a strange saying of his.
(45:46):
In every grain of wheat, there lies hidden the soul
of a star. I guess it makes sense in a
weird way. Sure. There was not much furniture in the laboratory.
The table in the center, a stone slab with a
rain in one corner, the two arm chairs on which
Raymond and Clark were sitting. That was all except an
odd looking chair at the furtherest end of the room.
(46:09):
Clark looked at it and raised his eyebrows. Yes, that
is the chair, said Raymond. We may as well place
it in position. He got up and wheeled the chair
to the light, and began raising and lowering and letting
down the seat, setting the back at various angles and
adjusting the foot rest. It looked comfortable enough, and Clark
passed his hand over the soft green velvet as the
doctor manipulated the levers. Now, Clark could make yourself quite comfortable.
(46:34):
I had a couple of hours worked before me. I
was obliged to leave certain matters to the last. Raymond
went to the stone slab, and Clark watched him drearily
as he bent over a row of files and lit
the flame under the crucible. The doctor had a small
hand lamp shaded as the larger one on a ledge
above his apparatus, and Clark, who sat in the shadows,
(46:55):
looked down at the great shadowy room, wondering at the
bizarre effects of brilliant light and undefined darkness contrasting with
one another. Soon he became conscious of an odd odor,
at first the merest suggestion of an odor in the room,
and as it grew more he decided he felt surprised
that he was not reminded of the chemist's shop or
(47:16):
the surgery. Laver smelted doubt it. Clark found himself ugly,
endeavoring to analyze the sensation, and half conscious, he began
to think of a day fifteen years ago that he
had spent roaming through the woods and meadows near his
own home. It was a burning day at the beginning
of August. The heat had dimmed the outlines of all
(47:37):
things and all distances with a faint mist, and people
who observed the thermometer spoke of an abnormal register of
a temperature that was almost tropical. Strangely, that wonderful hot
day of the fifties rose up again in Clark's imagination,
the sense of dazzling all pervading sunlight, seeming to blot
out the shadows and the lights of the laboratory, and
(47:57):
he felt again the heated air beating gusts about his face,
saw the shimmer rising from the turf, and heard the
myriad murmur of the summer. I hope the smell doesn't
annoy you, Clark. There's nothing unwholesome about it. It may
make you a bit sleepy, that's all. Clark her the
words quite distinctly, and knew that Raymond was speaking to him.
(48:20):
But for the life of him, he could not rouse
himself from his lethargy. He could only think of the
lonely walk he had taken fifteen years ago. It was
his last look at the fields and woods he had
known since he was a child, and now it all
stood out in brilliant light as a picture before him.
Above all, there came to his nostrils the scent of summer,
the smell of flowers mingled, and the odor of the woods,
(48:43):
of cool shaded places deep in the green depths drawn
forth by the sun's heat, And the scent of the
good earth lying as it were, with arms stretched forth
and smiling lips overpowered all his fancies made him wander
as he had wandered long ago, from the fields into
the wood, tracking a little path between the shining undergrowth
of beech trees and the trickle of water dropping from
(49:05):
the limestone rock. Sounded as clear as a melody in
the dream. All right, so he's experiencing, dude, his trip
and sleep induced drug induced feel goods. Yeah, I mean
it sounds like a pretty great picture. I'll have what
he's having. You want me? Keep going? Yeah, keep going.
(49:26):
Now it gets a little weird. Thoughts began to go
astray and to mingle with other thoughts. The beach alley
was transformed to a path between elix trees, and here
and there a vine climbed from bow to bow and
sent up waving tendrils, and drooped with purple grapes, and
the sparse, gray green leaves of a wild olive tree
(49:48):
stood out against the dark shadows of the eyelex Clark,
in the deep folds of the dream, was conscious that
the path from his father's house had led him into
an undiscovered country, and he was wondering at the strangeness
of it all, when suddenly, in place of the harm
and murmur of the summer, an infinite silence seemed to
fall on all things, and the wood was hushed, and
(50:12):
for a moment in time he stood face to face
there with a presence that was neither man nor beast,
neither the living nor the dead, but all things mingled,
the form of all things, but devoid of all form.
And in that moment the sacrament of body and soul
was dissolved, and a voice seemed to cry, let us go. Hence,
(50:33):
and then the darkness of darkness beyond the stars, the
darkness of everlasting. Whoa, He went deep, he really did,
he went. Hence is how you'd put how the kids
would put it? Uh? Should I pick up? Yeah? Okay,
(50:54):
is your throat? Okay, it's fine. When Clark woke up
with a start, he saw Raymond pouring a few drops
of some oily fluid into a green file, which he
stopped her tightly. You've been dozing. The journey must have
tired you out. It is done. Now I'm going to
(51:15):
fetch Mary. I'll be back in ten minutes. Clark lay
back in his chair and wondered. It seemed as if
he had but passed from one dream into another. He
half expected to see the walls of the laboratory melt
and disappear, and to awaken London, shuddering at his own
sleeping fancies. But at last the door opened and the
doctor returned, and behind him came a girl about seventeen,
(51:38):
dressed all in white. She was so beautiful that Clark
did not wonder at what the doctor had written to him.
She was blushing now over face and neck and arms.
But Raymond seemed unmoved. Mary, the time has come. You
are quite free. Are you willing to trust me entirely? Yes? Dear,
(52:00):
do you hear that? Clark? You are my witness. Here
is the chair, Mary, It is quite easy. Just sit
in it and lean back Are you ready, Yes, dear,
quite ready. Give me a kiss before you begin. The
doctor stooped and kissed her mouth kindly enough. Now shut
(52:21):
your eyes, he said. The girl closed her eyelids as
if she were tired and longed for sleep, and Raymond
placed the green file to her nostrils. Her face grew white,
whiter than her dress. She struggled faintly, and then, with
a feeling of submission strong within her, crossed her arms
upon her breast as a little child about to say
(52:42):
her prayers. The bright light of the lamp fell full
upon her, and Clark watched changes fleeting over her face
as the changes of the hills when the summer clouds
flowed across the sun. And then she lay all white
and still, and the doctor turned up one of her eyelids.
She was quite unconscious. Raymond pressed hard in one of
(53:03):
the levers in the chair instantly sank back. Clark saw
him cutting away a circle like a tauns sheer from
her hair, and the lamp was moved nearer. Raymond took
a small glittering instrument from a little case, and Clark
turned away shudderingly. When he looked again, the doctor was
binding up the wound he had made. Clark is so
timid she will awaken. Five minutes, Raymond was still perfectly cool.
(53:27):
There is nothing more to be done. We can only wait.
The minutes passed slowly. They could hear a slow, heavy ticking.
There's an old clock in the passage. Clark felt sick
and faint. His knees shook beneath him. He could hardly stand.
(53:48):
And suddenly, as they watched, they heard a long, drawn sigh,
And suddenly did the color that had vanished returned to
the girl's cheeks, and suddenly her eyes opened. Clark quailed
before them. They shone with an awful light, looking far away,
and a great wonder fell upon her face, and her
hands stretched out as if to touch what was invisible.
(54:11):
But in an instant the wonder faded and gave place
to the most awful terror. The muscles of her face
were hideously convulsed. She shook from head to foot. The
soul seemed struggling and shuddering within the house of flesh.
It was a horrible sight, and Clark rushed forward, and
she fell, shrieking to the floor. Three days later, Raymond
(54:45):
took Clark to Mary's bedside, she was lying wide awake,
rolling her head from side to side and grinning vacantly. Yes,
the doctor said, still quite cool. It is a great pity.
She is a hopeless it it however, it could not
be helped, and after all she has seen the Great
(55:07):
God Pan very nice. Wow wow we wow wow. Definitely
not a doctor feel good. No, a doctor I feel bad,
(55:28):
I guess is the best way to put in. I think,
so doctor make bad. That was really great, Chuck. This
is truly the most spooky spook caacular spook time. Yes,
and we appreciate everyone who listens to these every Halloween.
It's one of our favorites to do because we get
to just have a little bit of fun and beat goofy.
What do you mean? Like? That was a straight read?
(55:54):
But everyone, you know, Halloween looks like it's probably on
for the most part this year, So be careful out
there still and stay safe and enjoy yourselves. Yes, follow
c d C guidelines for trick or treating or FELCI
will get you and you will sleep happy Halloween. Everybody.
(56:25):
Stuff You Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Radio app. Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the Spooktacular, the Spooky
spoek Tacular of the Spooktaculars of All Time Tacular. This
(00:24):
is stuff you should know, the Spooktacular the as tradition dictates,
add free spook Tacular m It's in our contract, it is.
We fight for it. Everyone, do not put ads and
ruin our bad readings of Halloween stories, which we try
very hard to select from the increasingly small pantheon of
(00:47):
public domain horror short fiction. I found a few this year,
so I got a couple in my hip pocket. Oh good,
I'm glad. I'm glad. I gotta say, uh, nice work.
I think both of these that we dug up are
really really good stories, agreed, m R James and hl
Mankin right. I thought it was Mr James. That's what
he likes, call me Mr James. He but you're a doctor,
(01:10):
so what. Yeah. The one I picked this year is
Lost Hearts by m R James. And I'm pretty psyched
about this one because it is good. Agreed. It's a corker,
you can figure it out, but it's still it's it's entertaining.
How about that it's entertaining, it's fun. Uh. There are
a couple of spooky uh dates in this did you
(01:32):
notice that we'll talk about that? I didn't know. I
can't wait to hear it. And um, you know, I
don't think we need a content warning. It's it's spooky. Um.
But you know with kids, and there's always a chance
if you have kids, they may not want to listen.
It's not over the top because it was written in
in the nineteenth century, right, yeah, and being written in
(01:55):
the nineteenth century that we should probably point out there's
a couple of um, yes, touchy, semi racist, uh, just
terms that will explain. Yeah, I mean, should we go
ahead and say now, oh sure, go ahead? Yeah? I
mean we did a podcast on the Roma people, and
UH made took great pains to tell people that using
(02:16):
the word gypsy is no longer something you should do.
We're saying jipped off, which is something that I learned
while doing that podcast. And they use the word gypsy
in here a couple of times. They also use chinaman
in here, but they're actually talking about something specific, so
we'll explain later, okay, Right, And there's a general with
this one lady um sort of xenophobic bent thank people
(02:38):
from other countries. She's a yeah exactly, She's an archetypal
rural died in the wool salt of the earth woman.
So all that is to say, the opinions expressed there
and do not represent those of the hostess. Very nice,
here with forthwith guarantee void in Tennessee. Alright, Uh, everyone,
(03:00):
turned the lights down. I've got my lights dimmed. Yeah,
let's do that. I'm going the first time we're not
in the same room holding hands. I know, I'm a
little scared. A little scared too. I can't see the
paper as well with that light off, So I'm gonna
turn it back on. Okay, Uh, turn the lights down
to get to pour yourself a spooky drink and gather kids.
(03:22):
And here we go for the spook tacular. And this
is Lost Hearts by Mr Mr James. I'll start, Okay,
sure it was, as far as I can ascertain, in
(03:46):
September of the year eighteen eleven. Is that a spooky date?
Chuck Bill, Well, it's coming, Okay, that a post chaise.
I think that's a kind of coach drew up before
the door of Aswarby Hall in the heart of Lincolnshire.
The little boy who jumped out as soon as it
had stopped, looked about him with the keenest curiosity. During
the short interval that elapsed between the ringing of the
(04:08):
bell and the opening of the hall door, he saw
a tall, square, red brick house built in the rain
of an A stone pillared porch had been added in
the purest classical style of seventeen ninety. The windows of
the house were many, tall and narrow, with small panes
and thick white woodwork. A pediment pierced with round window
crowned the front. There were wings to the left and
(04:30):
the right, connected by curious glazed galleries supported by colonnades
with the central block. These wings plainly contained the stables
and offices of the house. Each was surmounted by an
ornamental cupola with a gilded vein cupola. You know, I
always said coupola, and then every single person on the
Inspiration four crew called that thing on the dragon capsule
(04:52):
of the cupola, So I'm just going with that now.
An evening light shone on the building, making the window
panes glow like so many fires, so many away from
the hall in front stretched a flat park studded with
oaks and fringed with furs, which stood out against the sky.
The clock in the church tower buried in trees on
(05:13):
the edge of the park, only its golden weathercock catching
the light was striking six, and the sound came gently
beating down the wind. It was an altogether pleasant impression,
though tinged with the sort of melancholy appropriate to an
evening in early autumn, that was conveyed to the mind
of the boy who was standing in the porch waiting
for the door to open to him. The post chaise
(05:34):
had brought him from Warwickshire, where six months before he
had been left in orphan. Now, owing to the generous
offer of his elderly cousin, Mr Abney, he had come
to live at as Worthy. The offer was unexpected, because
all who knew anything of Mr Abney looked upon him
as a somewhat austere recluse into whose steady going household
(05:55):
the advent of a small boy would import a new
and it seemed incongruous lament. The truth is that very
little was known of Mr Abney's pursuits or temper. The
professor of Greek at Cambridge had been heard to say
that no one knew more of the religious beliefs of
the later Pagans than did the owner of Aswarby. Certainly
his library contained all the then available books bearing on
(06:17):
the mysteries, the orphic poems, the worship of Mithras, and
the neo Platonists. In the marble paved hall stood a
fine figure of Mythrust slaying a bull, which had been
imported from the Levant at great expense by the owner.
He had contributed a description of it to the Gentleman's Magazine.
I think not that kind Gentleman's magazine, and he had
(06:38):
written a remarkable series of articles in the Critical Museum
on the superstitions of the Romans of the Lower Empire.
It was published in Hustler House. Let me tell you
about my Mythress laying a bull statue. He was looked
upon in fine as a man wrapped up in his books.
And it was a matter of great surprise among his
neighbors that he should even have heard of his cousin
(06:59):
Stephen Elliott, much more that he should have volunteered to
make him an inmate of Aswarbie Hall. All right, so
this orphan boy showed up at this house to live
with his relative, who seems like a decent guy. It's
a little dark, yeah, but it was a surprise because
he was, like, you know, wrapped up in his books,
(07:21):
a bachelor, not really interested in having a kid around.
All right, shall I whatever may have been expected by
his neighbors, It is certain that Mr Abney, that's all
the thin. The austere seemed inclined to give his young
cousin a kindly reception. The moment the front door was opened,
(07:41):
he darted out of his study, rubbing his hands with delight.
How are you, my boy? How are you? How old
are you? Said he? That is, you are not too
much tired? I hope by your journey to eat your supper? Now,
thank you, sir, said Mr Elliott. I'm pretty well. Oh
(08:02):
that's a good that, that's a good lad, said Mr Abney.
And how old are you, my boy? It seemed a
little odd that he should have asked the question twice
in the first two minutes of their acquaintance. I'm twelve
years old. Dick's birthday, sir, said Stephen. And when is
your birthday, my dear boy? Eleventh of September a spooky
(08:25):
date I think he predicted the whole thing. I got you, okay,
Mr James did eleventh of September. A. That's well, that's
very well, nearly a year. Hence, isn't it. I like,
ha ha, I like to get these things down in
my book. Sure it's twelve certain, Yes quite, yer, sir, well,
(08:46):
well take him to Mrs Bunch's room, Parks and let
him have his tea, supper whatever it is. Yes, sir,
answered the state Mr Parks, and conducted Stephen to the
lower regions. Mrs Bunch was the most comfortable and human
person whom Stephen had as yet met in as Warby.
She made him completely at home. They were great friends
(09:08):
in a quarter of an hour, and great friends they remained.
Mrs Bunch had been born in the neighborhood some fifty
five years before the date of Stephen's arrival, and her
residence at the hall was of twenty years standing. Consequently,
if anyone knew the ins and outs of the house
and the district, Mrs Bunch knew them, and she was
by no means disinclined to communicate her information. So we
(09:34):
got a nice lady that lives there, who knows everything
that's going on. Very nice person, seemingly nice. Aside from
the xenophobia, as we will see, certainly, there were plenty
of things about the hall and the hall gardens which Stephen,
who was of an adventurous and inquiring turn, was anxious
to have explained to him. Who built the temple at
(09:55):
the end of the Laura Walk, Who was the old
man whose picture hung on the staircase sitting at a
table with a skull under his hand. These and many
similar points were cleared up by the resources of Mrs
Bunch's powerful intellect. There were others, however, of which the
explanations furnished were less satisfactory. One November evening, Stephen was
(10:15):
sitting by the fire in the housekeeper's room, reflecting on
the surroundings. It's best having a good man, and will
you go to heaven? He suddenly asked, with a peculiar
confidence with which children possess in the ability of their
elders to settle these questions, the decision of which is
believed to be reserved for other tribunals. Can't wait to
(10:37):
hear this one. I don't really haven't even worked out
how I'm gonna do it. Let's try this. Good bless
the child, said Mrs Bunch. Masters as kind a soul
as I ever see, didn't I she's like my age,
she's fifty. Yeah, but old timey nineteenth century way different,
(11:02):
did didn't? I never tell you the little boy as
he took in out of the street, as you may
say this seven years back, and the little girl two
years after I first come here. Now, do tell me
all about them, Mrs Bunch, Now this minute easy. Sorry,
I added that, so this guy took in a couple
(11:24):
of other kids. Huh, all right, well, said missus much.
The little girl I don't seem to recollect so much
about I know. Master brought her back with him from
his walk one day and give orders to Mrs Ellis,
as was housekeeper then as she should be, took every
care with and the poor child had no one belonging
to her. She told me so her own self. And
(11:46):
here she lived with us a matter of three weeks,
it might be, and then whether she were somethink of
a gypsy at her blood or whatnot, But one morning
she out of her bed, for any of us had
open an eye, and neither trek nor yet trace of
her have I set eyes on sense. Master was wonderful
(12:07):
put about and had all the ponds dragged. But it's
my belief she was had away by them gypsies, for
there was singing round the house for as much as
an hour the night she went. And Parkes, he declares
he heard them a colin in the woods all that afternoon. Dear, Dear,
a odd child, said odd. I think she's saying odd
(12:29):
in the old timing way with an okay, an odd child.
She was so silent it always and all, but I
was wonderful taken up with her, so domesticated, she was surprising.
And what about the little boy, said Stephen, Oh, that
poor boy, sighed Mrs Bunch. He was a foreigner, jeviny,
(12:53):
he called himself. And he come a tweaking his hurdy
gurdie round about. He was tweaking, speaking his hurdie gurdie.
He wasn't working at least, uh tweaking his hurdy gurdie
rounded about the drive. When went to day and Master
Adam in that minute and asked all about where he
(13:13):
came from, how old he was, how he made his way,
and where was his relatives, and all his kind heart
could wish but it with the same way with him.
They're an unruly lot, them foreign nations, I do suppose.
And he was off one fine morning, just the same
as the girl. Why he went and what he done
was our question for as much as a year after.
(13:36):
But he never took his urdie gurdie And there it
lays on the shelf. What is urdie gurdie, Hurdy gurdie.
It's like a kind of like a musical instrument. I think, um,
like a squeeze box. Maybe. So a little boy named
Jovanni showed up squeezing his squeezebox on their driveway and
(13:56):
and Mr Mr Abney it is Abney, right, I think so.
Mr Abney brought him in the house and was asking
him a bunch of questions and then took him under
his wing. Yeah, like every kid he finds. He's like,
how old are you? Win your birthday? Come inside your mind?
So I think you guys can all see what we
were talking about with Mrs Bunched, right, Yeah, I think so.
(14:18):
I think so. The remainder of the evening was spent
by Stephen and miscellaneous cross examination of Mrs bunch and
in efforts to extract a tune from the hurdy gurdy.
That night he had a curious stream. At the end
of the passage. At the top of the house in
which his bedroom was situated, there was an old, disused bathroom.
(14:39):
It was kept locked, but the upper half of the
door was glazed, and since the Muslim curtains which used
to hang there had long been gone, you could look
in and see the lead line bath affixed to the
wall on the right hand, with its head towards the window.
On the night of which I am speaking, Steven Elliott
found himself, as he thought, looking through the glazed door.
(15:00):
That means there was a window in it. The moon
was shining through the window see, and he was gazing
at a figure which lay in the bath. His description
of what he saw reminds me of what I once
beheld myself in the famous vaults of Saint McCann's Church
in Dublin, which possesses the horrid property of preserving corpses
from decay for centuries. A figure inexpressibly thin and pathetic,
(15:24):
of a dusty leaden color, enveloped in a shroud like garment,
the thin lips crooked into a faint and dreadful smile.
The hands pressed tightly over the region of the heart.
As he looked upon it, a distant, almost inaudible moan
seemed to issue from its lips, and the arms began
to stir. The terror of the site forced Stephen backwards,
(15:45):
and he awoke to the fact that he was indeed
standing on the cold boarded floor of the passage in
the full light of the moon, with a courage which
I do not think can be common among boys of
his age. He went to the door of the bathroom
to ascertain if the figure year of his dream were
really there. It was not, and he went back to band,
(16:08):
keep going, yeah, look, this is getting creepy. I know,
that's what I'm saying. It's a good one. He saw
a straight up scary, decaying ghost in the bathtub. M
Mrs Bunch was much impressed next morning by his story,
and went so far as to replace the muslin curtain
over the glazed door of the bathroom ak the window.
(16:30):
Mr Abney moreover, to whom he confided his experiences at breakfast,
was greatly interested and made notes of the matter and
what he called his book. The Spring Equinox was approaching,
as Mr Abney frequently reminded his cousin, adding that this
had been always considered by the agents to be a
critical time for the young, that Stephen would do well
(16:51):
to take care of himself and shut his bedroom window
at night, and that the sense or innus had some
valuable remarks on the subject. Two inside that occurred about
this time made an impression upon Stephen's mind. Chuck will
share those two incidents with us now. The first was
after an unusually uneasy and oppressed night that he had passed,
(17:14):
though he could not recall any particular dream that he
had had. The following evening, Mrs Bunch was occupying herself
and mending his nightgown. Grace is me, master Stephen, She
broke forth, rather irritably. How do you manage to tear
your night dress all to flinders this way? Look here, sir,
what trouble you do give to poor servants that have
(17:35):
to darn and mend after you. It was indeed a
most destructive and apparently wanton series of slits or scorings
in the garment, which would undoubtedly require a skillful needle
to make good. They were confined to the left side
of his chest, long parallel slits about six inches in length,
some of them not quite piercing the texture of the linen.
(17:57):
Stephen could only express his entire ignorance of their origin.
He was sure that they were not there the night before,
but he said, Mrs Bunch stays just the same as
the scratches on the outside of my bedroom door, and
I'm sure I'd never had anything to do with making them.
I think it gets it across. They think I've nailed
(18:18):
young Stephen. I think you're nailing it. He's moving closer
and closer to cockney as we go. That's the one
I can do. That's the one anybody who can only
do one can do. Mrs Bunch gazed at him open mouth,
then snatched up a candle, departed hastily from the room,
and was heard making her way upstairs. In a few
(18:40):
minutes she came down. Well, she said, Master Stephen. It's
a funny thing to me how them marks and scratches
can have come. They're too high up for any cat
or dog to have made him much less a rat
for all the world, like a chinaman's fingernails. As my
uncle and the tea trade used to tell us of
when we was girls together, I wouldn't say nothing to master,
(19:02):
not if I was you, Master Stephen, my dear, and
just turned the key of your door when you go
to your bed, so I should probably say like she,
I was like, what is this daft, old middle agist
woman talking about? And it turns out she's referring to
apparently there was a trend among the nobility and the
(19:25):
courtisans of China at this time in the early nineteenth
century I think before, of wearing their fingernails very long
and pointy. She's saying, these scratches look kind of like
claw marks, and she kind of likened it to something
that had long and pointing fingernails like that. So okay,
not that that excuses everything, but you know, I got you.
(19:46):
There's a little background to it. I think we all
learned something here. Mrs Bunch is not totally out of
her mind, all right, So she yells at Stephen to
go to bed, and he says, I always stay, Mrs
Bunch as soon as I've said, my prey, oh that's
a good child. Always say your prayers and then no
one can't hurt you. Here with Mrs Bunch addressed herself
(20:09):
to mending the injured nightgown with intervals of meditation until bedtime.
Interesting this was on a Friday night in March eighteen twelve.
On the following evening, the usual duet of Stephen and
Mrs Bunch was augmented by the sudden arrival of Mr Parkes,
the butler, who as a rule kept himself rather to
himself in the pantry. He did not see that Stephen
(20:32):
was there. He was moreover flustered and less slow a
speech than was his. Wont master may get up his
own wine if he likes of an evening was his
first remark. Either I do it in the daytime or
not at all. Mrs Bunch, I don't know what it
may be, very like it's the rats or the wind
got into the cellars. But I'm not as young as
I was, and I can't go through with it as
(20:54):
I have done. Well. Mr Parks you know it is
a surprising place for the rats, is the hall. I'm
not the nying that to Mrs Bunchen. To be sure,
many a time I've heard the tale from the men
in the shipyards about the rats that could speak. I
never laid no confidence in that before, but tonight, if
I demeaned myself today my ear to the door of
the further bin. I could pretty much have heard what
(21:15):
they was saying. Oh man, you're crushing it. Oh damn,
Mr Parks, I had no patience with your fancies rats
talking in the wide cellar aded well, Mrs Munch, I've
no wish saw ague with you. All I can say is,
if you choose to go to the far bin and
lead your ear to the door, you may prove my
words this minute. What nonsense you do talk? Mr Parkes
(21:39):
not fit for children to listen to. Why you'll be
frightening Master Stephen. They're out of his wits. What Master
Stephen said, Parks awakening to the consciousness of the boy's presence.
Master Stephen knows well enough that I'm playing a joke
with you, Mrs Bunch. In fact, Stephen knew too well
to suppose that Mr Park's head, in the first instance
(22:00):
intended a joke. He was interested, not altogether pleasantly in
the situation, but all his questions were unsuccessful in inducing
the butler to give any more detailed account of his
experiences in the wine cellar. And we have now arrived
at March eighteen twelve. Spooky nope, okay. It was a
(22:24):
day of curious experiences for Stephen, a windy, noisy day
which filled the house in the gardens with a restless impression.
As Stephen stood by the fence of the grounds and
looked out into the park, he felt as if an
endless procession of unseen people were sweeping past him on
the wind, borne on restlessly and aimlessly, vainly striving to
(22:44):
stop themselves, to catch at something that might arrest their
flight and bring them once again into contact with the
living world of which they had formed a part. After
luncheon that day, Mr Abney said, you're Mr Abney. I'm Emney.
Yeah you are. Remember you asked him what his age was,
and that's right, that's right. We should probably leave that
(23:06):
in there. Stephen, my boy, do you think you could
manage to come to me tonight? I don't know if
this is the same accent. It sounds like Mrs Mrs
a Bunch is transforming into Mr Abney. Do you think
you could manage to come to me tonight? As late
as eleven o'clock in my study, She'll be busy until
that time, and I wish to show you something connected
(23:27):
with your future life, which it is most important that
you should know. You are not to mention this matter
to Mrs Bunch, nor to anyone else in the house,
and you had better go to your room at the
usual time. Here was a new excitement added to life.
Stephen eagerly grasped at the opportunity of sitting up till
eleven o'clock. He looked in at the library door on
(23:48):
his way upstairs night evening, and he saw a brazier
right which he had often noticed in the corner of
the room. It's like a little girl, I think, so
moved out before the fire. An old silver gilt cup
stood on the table filled with red wine, and some
written sheets of paper lay near it. Mr Abney was
sprinkling some incense on the brazier. I'm pretty sure that's
(24:11):
it from a round silver boxes. Stephen passed, but did
not seem to notice his step. All right, So what's
going on here is he's he's doing some some right,
some ritual looks like he told Stephen like this is
important for him to be a part of right. Yes,
and so now it's the night that he's told Stephen
(24:31):
to come down to his study at eleven, all right,
go ahead. The wind had fallen, and there was a
still night in a full moon. At about ten o'clock,
Stephen was standing at the open window of his bedroom,
looking out over the country. Still as the night was,
the mysterious population of the distant moonlit woods was not
(24:53):
yet lulled to rest. From time to time, strange cries
as of lost and despairing wander sounded from across the mirror.
I think that's a weird way to say meadow. They
might be the notes of owls or water birds. Yet
they did not quite resemble either sound. Were they not
coming nearer? Now? They sounded from the nearer side of
(25:14):
the water, and in a few moments they seemed to
be floating about among the shrubberies. Then they ceased. But
just as Stephen was thinking of shutting the window and
resuming his reading of Robinson crusoe Great Book, he caught
sight of two figures standing on the gravel terrace that
ran along the garden side of the hall, the figures
of a boy and a girl. As it seemed, they
(25:36):
stood side by side, looking up at the windows. Something
in the form of the girl recalled irresistibly his dream
of the figure in the bath, the boy inspired him
with more acute Whilst the girl stood still, half smiling,
with her hands clasped over her heart, The boy, a
thin shape with black hair and ragged clothing, raised his
(25:57):
arms in the air with an appearance of menace and
of unappeasable hunger. Longing. The moon shone upon his almost
transparent hands, and Stephen saw that the nails were fearfully long,
and that the light shone through them. As he stood
with his arms thus raised, he disclosed a terrifying spectacle.
(26:18):
On the left side of his chest. There opened up
black and gaping rent, and there fell upon Stephen's brain,
rather than upon his ear, the impression of one of
those hungry and desolate cries that he had heard resounding
over the woods at Aswarby all that evening. In another moment,
this dreadful pair had moved swiftly and noiselessly over the
dry grass, and he saw them no more. Wow, I
(26:45):
know this, poor Stephen. He's like, what the h is
going on around here? So this ghost skin he has
like no heart? Right, he's turned into John Travolta. Oh boy,
all right, this is getting good. You want me to
pick it up? Just please all right. Inexpressibly frightened as
he was, he determined to take his candle and go
(27:07):
down to mister Abney's study, for the hour appointed for
their meeting was near in hand. The study or library
opened out of the front hall on one side, and Stephen,
urged on by his terrors, did not take long in
getting there. To effect an entrance was not so easy.
The door was not locked, he felt sure, for the
key was on the outside of it. As usual, his
(27:28):
repeated knox produced no answer. Mister Abney was engaged. He
was speaking what Why did he try to cry out?
And why was the cry choked in his throat? Had
he too seen the mysterious children? But now everything was quiet,
and the door yielded to Stephen's terrified and frantic pushing
on the table. In mister Abney's study, certain papers were
(27:51):
found which explained the situation to Stephen Elliott when he
was of an age to understand them. The most important
sentences were as follows. It was a belief very strongly
and generally held by the ancients, of whose wisdom in
these matters I've had such experiences as induces me to
place confidence in their assertations. The wordy that by enacting
(28:15):
certain processes which to us moderns have something of a
barbaric complexion, a very remarkable enlightenment of the spiritual faculties
in man may be attained. That, for example, by absorbing
the personalities of a certain number of his fellow creatures,
an individual may gain a complete ascendency over those orders
(28:37):
of spiritual beings which control the elemental forces of our universe. Wow,
what is like possessing these people? Something like that? Keep reading,
Keep reading. It is recorded of Simon Magus that he
(28:59):
was able to fly on the air, to become invisible,
or to assume any form he pleased, by the agency
of the soul of a boy whom, to use the
libelous phrase employed by the author of the Clementine recognitions,
he had murdered. I find it set down moreover with
considerable detail in the writings of Hermes Trismegistus, that similar
(29:21):
happy results may be produced by the absorption of the
hearts of not less than three human beings below the
age of twenty one years. Ah, that's why he's got
another ages. Huh. To the testing of the truth of
this receipt, I have devoted the greater part of the
last twenty years, selecting as the corpora vilia of my
(29:43):
experiment such persons as could conveniently be removed without occasioning
a sensible gap in society. The first step I affected
by the removal of one Phoebe Stanley, a girl of
gypsy extraction, on March fo not creepy. The second by
the removal of a wandering Italian lad named Giovanni Paoli
(30:08):
on the night of March twenty three five, not spooky.
The final victim to employ a word repugnant in the
highest degree to my feelings must be my cousin Steven Elliott.
His day must be this March twenty four, eighteen twelve.
It's a creepy date. Any of those dates in they're creepy.
(30:29):
I don't think creepy. The best means of affecting the
required absorption is to remove the heart from the living subject,
to reduce it to ashes, and to mingle them with
about a pint of red wine, preferably port. That's a
lot of port, A lot of port. The remains of
the first two subjects, at least will be well to
conceal a disused bathroom or wine cellar will be found
(30:53):
convenient for such a purpose. Some annoyance may be experienced
from the psychic portion of the subjects, which popular language
which dignifies with the name of ghosts. But the man
of philosophic temperament, to whom alone the experiment is appropriate,
will be little prone to attach importance to the feeble
efforts of these beings to wreak their vengeance on him.
(31:14):
I contemplate with the liveliest satisfaction, the enlarged and emancipated
existence which the experiment, if successful, will confer on me,
not only placing me beyond the reach of human justice
so called, but eliminating to a great extent the prospect
of death itself. Wow. So he's basically saying like, I
(31:42):
can't even be haunted, and this may make me live forever. Yeah, Like,
I'm going to rip the hearts out of two, now
three little children and it'll be worth it because I'm
going to be immortal and an amazing dude. Wow, Alright,
we're gonna be I'm gonna be like Bradley Cooper and limitless.
That's his goal on what failing at the box office.
So this last paragraph is pretty important. Everybody hanging there
(32:04):
with us. And remember Stephen heard a cry in the
office and then later found these papers that Chuck just
read right right. Mr Abney was found in his chair,
his head thrown back, his face stamped with an expression
of rage, fright, immortal pain. In his left side was
a terrible lacerated wound, exposing the heart. There was no
(32:29):
blood on his hands, and a long knife that lay
on the table was perfectly clean. A savage wildcat might
have inflicted the injuries. The window of the study was open,
and it was the opinion of the coroner that Mr
Abney had met his death by the agency of some
wild creature. But Stephen Elliott study of the papers Chuck
just quoted, led him to a very different conclusion. Wow,
(32:58):
so little Stephen Abney Cockney boy at large owes his
took us to the little boy and girl who saved
his life. Yeah, they killed him. Murderous ghosts killed a
very bad man. I love it. Good stuff, good voice work.
That was great, Chuck. I guess now we should put
some ads in here, right. Oh wait, there's no need
(33:20):
for us, because this is our ad free Halloween version.
This spooky story brought to you by stamps dot com. Wow,
that was great, So it's time for yours, right, that's right?
Oh boy, who wrote this? Arthur Mock And I believe
that's right m A. C. H. E. N who was
(33:41):
a Welsh writer. And I think the deal with the
Great God Pan, which is what we're going to read,
is that it was a I think this is the
first chapter that originally stood on its own as a
short story published in a a literary journal or something,
or a magazine, the Gentleman's magazine. That's right. And then
(34:04):
he later I guess what's like he and this is
not too bad and expanded it into a novella linked thing.
But uh yeah, we're gonna stick to the first chapter.
It's one of those ones that, like, if you ask
any horror writer with the greatest horror story of all
time is probably the majority of them will say the
Great God Pan. Oh really interesting? All right? So nice, fine,
(34:25):
I guess is what I'm trying to say. Here we go. Then,
I'm glad you came, Clark, very glad. Indeed, I was
not sure you could spare the time. Wait a minute,
that's Abney and the Old Lady. Yeah, that was that
was a lot all right, this is gonna I'm gonna
(34:47):
have to workshop this as we go. Folks, Okay, I
know you're locked in the punch. That's it, all right,
So he's glad, Clark came, Yeah, Clark with any Yes,
I was able to make arrangements for a few days.
Things are not very live just now, but you have
no misgivings, Raymond, Is it absolutely safe? The two men
were slowly pacing the terrace in front of Dr Raymond's house.
(35:09):
The sun still hung above the western mountain line, but
it shone with a dull red glow that cast no shadows,
and all the air was quiet. A sweet breath came
from the great wood on the hillside above, and with it,
at intervals, the soft murmuring call of the wild doves
below in the long, lovely valley, The river wound in
and out between the lonely hills, and as the sun
(35:30):
hovered and vanished into the west, a faint mist, pure
white began to rise from the hills. Doctor Raymond turned
sharply to his friend. Safe. Of course it is in itself.
The operation is a perfectly simple one. Any surgeon could
do it, and there's no danger at any other things. None,
(35:51):
absolutely no physical damage whatsoever. I give you my word.
You are always timid, Clark, always with an E. But
you know my history. I have devoted myself to transcendental medicine.
For the last twenty years. I have heard myself called
quack and charlatan, an impostor. But all the while I
knew I was on the right path. Five years ago
(36:12):
I reached the goal, and since then every day has
been a preparation for what we shall do tonight. I
should like to believe it at all true. Clark knit
his brows and looked doubtfully at Dr Raymond. Are you
perfectly sure, Raymond, that your theory is not a fantasmagoria,
A splendid vision, certainly, but a mirror vision? After all,
(36:34):
speak up? This is as much as I could speak.
It's the Eco are weak of chest and breath and
very timid. All right, we made all that up here
we go. Maybe we should just riff on this whole thing. Uh.
Dr Raymond stopped in his walk and turned sharply. He
was a middle aged man, gaunt and thin, of a
(36:55):
pale yellow complexion. But as he answered Clark and faced him,
that was a flush on his cheek mhm. Look about you, Clark,
do you see? Look about you, Clark. You see the
mountain and hill following after hill, as wave on wave.
You see the woods and orchard, the fields of ripe corn,
(37:17):
and the meadows reaching to the reed beds by the river.
You see me standing here beside you, and hear my
voice as pleasant as it is. But I tell you
that all these things, yes, from that star that has
just shown out of the sky, to the solid ground
beneath our feet. I say that all these are but
dreams and shadows, the shadows that hide the real world
(37:39):
from our eyes. This is a real world, but it
is beyond the glamour and this vision, beyond these chases
and aras dreams in a career, beyond the mall, is
beyond a veil. Do you even know what I'm talking about?
I just realized who you're doing, and it's Truman Campody,
Truman cap I do not know whether any human being
(38:02):
has ever lifted that veil, but I do know, Clark,
that you and I shall see it lifted this very
night from before another's eyes. You may think this all
strange nonsense. It may be strange, but it is true
and The ancients knew what lifting the veil means. They
called it seeing the god pan nice Clark shivered. The
(38:28):
white mist gathering over the river was chilly. It is wonderful. Indeed,
he said, we are standing on the brink of a
strange world. Raymond, if what you say is true, I
suppose the knife is absolutely necessary. Yes, a slight lesion
in the gray matter, that is all, A trifling rearrangement
of certain cells, a microscopical alteration that would escape the
(38:50):
attention of brain specialists out of a hundred. I don't
want to bother you with shop Clark. I guess he
means shop talk. Ye. I'm give you a mass of
technical detail which would sound very imposing and would leave
you as enlightened as you are now. But I suppose
you have read, casually and out of the way corners
of your paper that immense strides have been made recently
(39:12):
in the physiology of the brain. I saw a paragraph
the other day about Digby's theory and brown Fabers discoveries,
theories and discoveries. Where they are standing now? I stood
fifteen years ago, and I need not tell you that
I have not been standing still for the last fifteen years.
It would be enough if I say that five years
ago I made the discovery that I alluded to when
(39:33):
I said that ten years ago I reached the goal.
It's very confusing. I feel like I'm driving people literally
away from this. No, I think, I think you. It's
very luring in a weird way. Okay. After years of labor,
After years of toiling and groping in the dark, after
days and nights of disappointments and sometimes of despair in
(39:54):
which I used now and then to tremble and grow
cold with the thought that perhaps there were others seeking
for it, I saw it at last, after so long.
A pang of sudden joy thrilled my soul, and I
knew the long journey was at an end by what
seemed then and still seems a chance. The suggestions of
a moment's idle thought followed up upon familiar lines and
(40:14):
paths that I attract a hundred times already, the great
truth burst upon me, and I saw, mapped out in
lines of sight, a whole world, a sphere unknown continents
and islands and great oceans in which no ship has sailed,
to my belief, since a man first lifted up his eyes,
and beheld the sun and the stars of heaven, and
the quiet earth beneath yep keep going, Oh, good Lord,
(40:39):
you will think this all high flown language, Clark, But
it is hard to be literal. And yet I do
not know whether what I am hinting at cannot be
set forth in plain and lonely terms. For instance, this
world of ours is pretty well girded now with telegraph
wires and cables fought with something less than the speed
of thought, flashes from sunrise sunset, from north to south,
(41:01):
across the floods and the desert places. Suppose that an
electrician of today were suddenly to perceive that he and
his friends have merely been playing with pebbles and mistaking
them for the foundations of the world. Suppose that's such
a man saw uttermost space lie open before the current,
and words of men flashed forth to the sun and
beyond the sun, into the systems beyond, and the voice
(41:24):
of articulate speaking men echo, and the waiste void that
bounds our thought. What do you think about that analogy, sir?
As analogies go, that is a pretty good analogy of
what I've done. You can understand now a little of
what I felt as I stood here one evening. It
was a summer evening, and the valley looked much as
it does now. I stood here and saw before me
(41:47):
the inutterable, the unthinkable gulf that yawns profound between two worlds,
the world of matter and the world of spirit. I
saw the great, empty, deep stretch dim before me, and
in that instant of ridge of light leapt from the
earth to the unknown shore, and the abyss was spanned.
You may look in brown Favor's book if you like,
and you will find that to the present day men
(42:10):
of science are unable to account for the presence or
to specify the functions of certain group of nerve cells
in the brain. Last one. I'm sorry, everybody. That group is,
as it were, land to yet a mere waste place
for fanciful theories. I am not in the position of
brown Favor and the specialist. I am perfectly instructed as
(42:30):
to the possible functions of those nerve centers in the
scheme of things. With a touch, I can bring them
into play. With a touch, I say, I can set
free the current. With a touch, I can complete the
communication between this world of sense, and we shall be
able to finish the sentence later on. Yes, the knife
is necessary, but think what that knife will affect. It
(42:51):
will level utterly the solid wall of sense, and probably
for the first time since man was made, a spirit
will gaze on a spirit world. Clark, Mary, we'll see
the God pan. Very nice, Chuck, Wow, I feel like
(43:12):
we need to recap that. So he's doing these brain
experiments basically where he says he can connect I mean
he really just needed that last paragraph where he can
connect people to the spirit world, right, Yeah, that basically
with the with the scrambling of a few neurons that
only he knows the true purpose of, he can basically
(43:33):
he can take you to a new different dimensions. You
can see God. Yeah, God pan at ly sure. Uh So,
now we're picking up with Clark with an e speaking again.
You're ready, I'm ready. But you remember what you wrote
to me. I thought it would be requisite that she
he whispered the rest of the doctor's ear. You don't
(43:55):
be a virgin, not at all. That at all, That
is nonsense, I assure you. Indeed, it is better as
it is. I'm quite certain of that. Consider the matter well, Raymond,
it is a great responsibility. Something might go wrong, you
would be a miserable man for the rest of your days. No,
I think that even if the worst happened, As you know,
I rescued Mary from the gutter and from almost certain
(44:18):
starvation when she was a child, I think her life
is mine to use as I see fit. Come, it's
getting late. We had better go in. No being canceled
as we speak. So he's saying, like, you know, he
found this, this poor homeless girl, and now that he
raised her and gave her a life, he can do
(44:39):
whatever he wants with her life. So now poor Mary
is going to be the first test subject for seeing
the Great God Pan And I'll take up take up
some slack from you, please do. Dr Raymond led the
way into the house, through the hall and down a
long dark passage. He took a key from his pocket
(45:01):
and opened a heavy door and motioned Clark with any
into his flab recording. It had once been a billiard
room and was lighted by a glass dome in the
center of the ceiling. Whence there still shown a sad
gray light on the figure of the doctor as he
lit a lamp with a heavy shade and placed it
on a table in the middle of the room. Clark
looked about him. Scarcely a foot of wall remained bare.
(45:23):
There were shelves all around, laden with bottles and files
of all shapes and colors. And at one end stood
a little Chippendale bookcase with its shirt off and oiled
and baby oil. Raymond pointed to this. You see that
parchment Oswald Crolius. He was one of the first to
show me the way, though I don't think he ever
found it himself. That is a strange saying of his.
(45:46):
In every grain of wheat, there lies hidden the soul
of a star. I guess it makes sense in a
weird way. Sure. There was not much furniture in the laboratory.
The table in the center, a stone slab with a
rain in one corner, the two arm chairs on which
Raymond and Clark were sitting. That was all except an
odd looking chair at the furtherest end of the room.
(46:09):
Clark looked at it and raised his eyebrows. Yes, that
is the chair, said Raymond. We may as well place
it in position. He got up and wheeled the chair
to the light, and began raising and lowering and letting
down the seat, setting the back at various angles and
adjusting the foot rest. It looked comfortable enough, and Clark
passed his hand over the soft green velvet as the
doctor manipulated the levers. Now, Clark could make yourself quite comfortable.
(46:34):
I had a couple of hours worked before me. I
was obliged to leave certain matters to the last. Raymond
went to the stone slab, and Clark watched him drearily
as he bent over a row of files and lit
the flame under the crucible. The doctor had a small
hand lamp shaded as the larger one on a ledge
above his apparatus, and Clark, who sat in the shadows,
(46:55):
looked down at the great shadowy room, wondering at the
bizarre effects of brilliant light and undefined darkness contrasting with
one another. Soon he became conscious of an odd odor,
at first the merest suggestion of an odor in the room,
and as it grew more he decided he felt surprised
that he was not reminded of the chemist's shop or
(47:16):
the surgery. Laver smelted doubt it. Clark found himself ugly,
endeavoring to analyze the sensation, and half conscious, he began
to think of a day fifteen years ago that he
had spent roaming through the woods and meadows near his
own home. It was a burning day at the beginning
of August. The heat had dimmed the outlines of all
(47:37):
things and all distances with a faint mist, and people
who observed the thermometer spoke of an abnormal register of
a temperature that was almost tropical. Strangely, that wonderful hot
day of the fifties rose up again in Clark's imagination,
the sense of dazzling all pervading sunlight, seeming to blot
out the shadows and the lights of the laboratory, and
(47:57):
he felt again the heated air beating gusts about his face,
saw the shimmer rising from the turf, and heard the
myriad murmur of the summer. I hope the smell doesn't
annoy you, Clark. There's nothing unwholesome about it. It may
make you a bit sleepy, that's all. Clark her the
words quite distinctly, and knew that Raymond was speaking to him.
(48:20):
But for the life of him, he could not rouse
himself from his lethargy. He could only think of the
lonely walk he had taken fifteen years ago. It was
his last look at the fields and woods he had
known since he was a child, and now it all
stood out in brilliant light as a picture before him.
Above all, there came to his nostrils the scent of summer,
the smell of flowers mingled, and the odor of the woods,
(48:43):
of cool shaded places deep in the green depths drawn
forth by the sun's heat, And the scent of the
good earth lying as it were, with arms stretched forth
and smiling lips overpowered all his fancies made him wander
as he had wandered long ago, from the fields into
the wood, tracking a little path between the shining undergrowth
of beech trees and the trickle of water dropping from
(49:05):
the limestone rock. Sounded as clear as a melody in
the dream. All right, so he's experiencing, dude, his trip
and sleep induced drug induced feel goods. Yeah, I mean
it sounds like a pretty great picture. I'll have what
he's having. You want me? Keep going? Yeah, keep going.
(49:26):
Now it gets a little weird. Thoughts began to go
astray and to mingle with other thoughts. The beach alley
was transformed to a path between elix trees, and here
and there a vine climbed from bow to bow and
sent up waving tendrils, and drooped with purple grapes, and
the sparse, gray green leaves of a wild olive tree
(49:48):
stood out against the dark shadows of the eyelex Clark,
in the deep folds of the dream, was conscious that
the path from his father's house had led him into
an undiscovered country, and he was wondering at the strangeness
of it all, when suddenly, in place of the harm
and murmur of the summer, an infinite silence seemed to
fall on all things, and the wood was hushed, and
(50:12):
for a moment in time he stood face to face
there with a presence that was neither man nor beast,
neither the living nor the dead, but all things mingled,
the form of all things, but devoid of all form.
And in that moment the sacrament of body and soul
was dissolved, and a voice seemed to cry, let us go. Hence,
(50:33):
and then the darkness of darkness beyond the stars, the
darkness of everlasting. Whoa, He went deep, he really did,
he went. Hence is how you'd put how the kids
would put it? Uh? Should I pick up? Yeah? Okay,
(50:54):
is your throat? Okay, it's fine. When Clark woke up
with a start, he saw Raymond pouring a few drops
of some oily fluid into a green file, which he
stopped her tightly. You've been dozing. The journey must have
tired you out. It is done. Now I'm going to
(51:15):
fetch Mary. I'll be back in ten minutes. Clark lay
back in his chair and wondered. It seemed as if
he had but passed from one dream into another. He
half expected to see the walls of the laboratory melt
and disappear, and to awaken London, shuddering at his own
sleeping fancies. But at last the door opened and the
doctor returned, and behind him came a girl about seventeen,
(51:38):
dressed all in white. She was so beautiful that Clark
did not wonder at what the doctor had written to him.
She was blushing now over face and neck and arms.
But Raymond seemed unmoved. Mary, the time has come. You
are quite free. Are you willing to trust me entirely? Yes? Dear,
(52:00):
do you hear that? Clark? You are my witness. Here
is the chair, Mary, It is quite easy. Just sit
in it and lean back Are you ready, Yes, dear,
quite ready. Give me a kiss before you begin. The
doctor stooped and kissed her mouth kindly enough. Now shut
(52:21):
your eyes, he said. The girl closed her eyelids as
if she were tired and longed for sleep, and Raymond
placed the green file to her nostrils. Her face grew white,
whiter than her dress. She struggled faintly, and then, with
a feeling of submission strong within her, crossed her arms
upon her breast as a little child about to say
(52:42):
her prayers. The bright light of the lamp fell full
upon her, and Clark watched changes fleeting over her face
as the changes of the hills when the summer clouds
flowed across the sun. And then she lay all white
and still, and the doctor turned up one of her eyelids.
She was quite unconscious. Raymond pressed hard in one of
(53:03):
the levers in the chair instantly sank back. Clark saw
him cutting away a circle like a tauns sheer from
her hair, and the lamp was moved nearer. Raymond took
a small glittering instrument from a little case, and Clark
turned away shudderingly. When he looked again, the doctor was
binding up the wound he had made. Clark is so
timid she will awaken. Five minutes, Raymond was still perfectly cool.
(53:27):
There is nothing more to be done. We can only wait.
The minutes passed slowly. They could hear a slow, heavy ticking.
There's an old clock in the passage. Clark felt sick
and faint. His knees shook beneath him. He could hardly stand.
(53:48):
And suddenly, as they watched, they heard a long, drawn sigh,
And suddenly did the color that had vanished returned to
the girl's cheeks, and suddenly her eyes opened. Clark quailed
before them. They shone with an awful light, looking far away,
and a great wonder fell upon her face, and her
hands stretched out as if to touch what was invisible.
(54:11):
But in an instant the wonder faded and gave place
to the most awful terror. The muscles of her face
were hideously convulsed. She shook from head to foot. The
soul seemed struggling and shuddering within the house of flesh.
It was a horrible sight, and Clark rushed forward, and
she fell, shrieking to the floor. Three days later, Raymond
(54:45):
took Clark to Mary's bedside, she was lying wide awake,
rolling her head from side to side and grinning vacantly. Yes,
the doctor said, still quite cool. It is a great pity.
She is a hopeless it it however, it could not
be helped, and after all she has seen the Great
(55:07):
God Pan very nice. Wow wow we wow wow. Definitely
not a doctor feel good. No, a doctor I feel bad,
(55:28):
I guess is the best way to put in. I think,
so doctor make bad. That was really great, Chuck. This
is truly the most spooky spook caacular spook time. Yes,
and we appreciate everyone who listens to these every Halloween.
It's one of our favorites to do because we get
to just have a little bit of fun and beat goofy.
What do you mean? Like? That was a straight read?
(55:54):
But everyone, you know, Halloween looks like it's probably on
for the most part this year, So be careful out
there still and stay safe and enjoy yourselves. Yes, follow
c d C guidelines for trick or treating or FELCI
will get you and you will sleep happy Halloween. Everybody.
(56:25):
Stuff You Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio.
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Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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