Tom loved his old country inn and he loved halloween stories. He would sit in the old storytelling chair by the fire, his pale blue eyes glinting in the light from the flickering candles on the tables all around. Chuckles would drift from lips that were weather beaten like the old oak beams above his head.
Contentedly, he shifted comfortably in the oak chair that had heard thousands of stories over hundreds of years, including many for halloween, in this small West of England Inn that nestled between the dark hills of Exmoor, Great Britain.
People came to see Tom and this inn from all around the world. How they heard about him nobody knew but the inn had welcomed travellers for as long as anyone could remember.
To find him, visitors had to follow miles of twisting leafy lanes. But as they came over the top of the hill to descend into the deep valley, they were well rewarded. Low slung thatched roofs snuggled between the hills. A rusting water pump and a broken mill wheel was covered in red and white roses in the summer. Low ceilinged beams were made of oak and there was always good food on the stove. On a warm summers evening, the sweetness of fuscia mingled with the pungent scent of damp undergrowth in the tall surrounding earth hedges.
In winter, there were fewer visitors but the village’s community would draw close around the wood fire as it roared its way up the stone chimney, the smoke would rise above the thatch to the moorland beyond - and the stories would go on.
“Who’s up for a halloween story tonight,” Tom would grin.
The drinkers at the bar and the diners at the tables would try to avoid his gimlet eye.
But, the legends of storytelling in this isolated stone-built pub, with its blue wisteria that hung around the low entrance porch, its white inner walls and its worn stone floor, told that there’d always been someone willing to tell their tale.
Sometimes, a youth would accept the challenge and, with his portable telephone and lap top in it’s case by his side, he would tell about office conquests and challenges.
Occasionally, the soft voice of a local lass would relate stories of the countryside and haunting folk legends.
At other times, Tom would take the lead and reach into his vast store of memories that spanned more than 80 years. With his eyes flashing with fire, he would draw word pictures so strange that the smallest spit of a log on the fire would startle the rapt audience.
But, tonight, the small group of locals sat drinking around the fire and at the bar refused Tom’s call. Their moods, like the weather outside, were heavy as the moorland mist that was closing in from the hills and combes around this small inn. Wind eerily howled through the eves of the pub. Several drinkers in the bar just sat silently, staring into their mugs of beer or cider.
Crash! The old wooden door of the inn blew open.
A tall man wearing heavy black waterproof clothing and a black hat with fishing flies around it’s rim pushed through the gathered drinkers to stand in front of Tom.
“I will tell ‘ee a story,” he growled, menacingly.
His brow was as dark as his clothing and he wore waders that were wet to the knee.
Tom’s face registered a look of concern.
“This is a friendly hostelry sir,” he stated quietly. “We are peace loving people, believing there is good in the trees and valleys around.”
“Aye, you might say as that. Nevertheless, you asked for a story and you may have one from me. As of traditional right, I, Silas, demand the storytelling chair.”
Pools of water were now gathering on the stone floor where he stood. The drinkers in the pub sensed Tom knew something they didn’t. There was also an emotion they were not used to seeing in the old man and it looked like fear.
“It was always said you’d come one day. We’ve been telling stories here for many years. ‘Tis true yours needs to be told. Perhaps good will come of it. We can try … ”
The old man moved slowly away from the storytelling chair. Silas sat down, removed his leather hat, and placed it on a log by the fire. Wet black matted hair cascaded about his shoulders. His face looked pitted and mean.
“The river that runs by this pub comes from the hills up above the valley,” Silas began gruffly. “The source of the river is high in the hills and it runs rapidly through deep dark combes that carve their way through ravines surrounded by forest.”
“My story is about this river and about my family who’ve lived in the hills for centuries and fished the upper valleys of this river for food.”
Tom interrupted Silas, quietly.
“Nobody fishes the upper parts of this river. The banks are too steep. The rapids are too fast. It is a dismal part of this fair countryside. Few have even walked there and those that do return saying little.”
“Silence! This is my story and I will tell it as I may,” growled Silas. “Say naught, storyteller Tom.”
“Easy, now,” said a young man in a dark business suit, with short fair hair and freckled complexion. “There’s no need for that.”
“I will continue,” said Silas, ignoring him, “and I will not be interrupted.”
The inn keeper brought a flagon of mulled wine, as was the tradition around Halloween in these parts, and placed it on a log. It filled the area around the fire and the storyteller’s chair with a pungent aroma of spices but the man called Silas ignored it as he continued.
“Tis true that the river is savage in the hills above this inn but, for my family, the river has always been a friend. I learned my fishing craft from my father. He learned from his. He would take me down the steep banks and through the undergrowth to special places. Together, we would sit for hours just watching the dark water flow by.”
“There was the constant roar of the river, the whistle of the wind through the oak and willow trees. The air would be strong with the smell of bracken and rotten leaves. The nettles would sting my bare legs and the brambles would tear at my arms but I was blissfully happy. We would find a small bank from which to fish just wide enough to sit and flick our hooked flies on the end of long poles to the quiet pools where there were fish to feed our family.”
“Occasionally, when we spotted a large trout near to the bank, we would lie down, reach into the water with our hands and tickle it’s underneath. My father told me it created a bond between the fish and the fishermen.”
“I’ve heard you can catch fish like that,” suddenly cried a young woman, crossing and uncrossing her long legs with excitement and flicking fair hair across bare shoulders and low cut dress. “It’s in the tourism guide that’s just been brought out.” She reached over to the shelf and produced the guide, left there for the benefit of tourists and tossed it on the table by the fire.
Silas eyed the book angrily.
“Aye, and if ye do, ye’ll break the pact and misery will come,” he snarled savagely. “Tis why I’m ‘ere and why I tell ‘ee my story.”
The pretty girl shuffled in her seat uncomfortably and cast her eyes down to the flagstones, afraid of the violence in his voice.
“As I was saying,” continued Silas, “we’d tickle the trout as a thankyou for the bountiful meals for generations provided to our family by the fish of this river. It was a tradition. Easily, we could’ve whipped our ‘ands out of the water and left the fish to expire on the bank but I was taught by my father, as ‘e was ‘is, that to cast out a tickled trout was a breach of faith and no good would come. The legend was that anyone who threw out a tickled trout threw out their soul to the river and the river would take it for eternity.”
As Silas spoke, there was the sound of a storm arriving outside. Rain began to lash against the old wood windows and strong winds that had swept up through the long valley now gusted violently against the inn walls.
An old woman, gaunt faced and wearing an old grey pullover and a green skirt, wrinkled her brow as if trying to remember.
“But didn’t you have a brother,” she queried, “about the same age as you and went to the local school?”
Silas spat out his reply.
“‘e went to the Grammar School. ‘e was chosen to be educated by those who are supposed to know. And what a lot of good it did ‘im.”
He fell silent, gazing into the hot red embers of the old log fire, lost in memories. A tear trickled down his weatherbeaten cheek. Dashing it from his face, he resumed the story with a deep sigh.
“Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Lord knows what else ‘e learned in the big posh school and what good did it do? ‘e questioned everything. ‘e would argue with me dad none stop. Nothing was good enough for ‘im, only the books that ‘e brought ‘ome and read and read.”
“My dad ‘ad taught ‘im to tickle trout like me but for many years as ‘e went through school, ‘e wouldn’t join us when we went down to the river. Nevertheless, ‘e ate the trout for dinner, and even then complained they ‘ad too many bones.”
“Then one beautiful sunny day when the birds were singing in the trees and the wind was gentle on the gorse and heather of the moorland, ‘e announced ‘e was going to challenge the legend. ‘e was going to tickle the trout but whip it out and then it would be the best trout ‘ed ever eaten. I begged ‘im not to but ‘e just laughed arrogantly and called me old fashioned and superstitious. Me mum was asleep in ‘er favourite chair in the lounge and I didn’t want to worry ‘er but I went off to tell my dad, who was cutting wood in the meadow, ‘cos I was afraid. But by the time I’d returned, my brother was gone.”
“My dad went berserk. ‘e told me to stay by the ‘ouse and mind me mother. ‘e ran down through the forest to the river, yelling like a thousand ‘ounds in full hunt.”
“I waited and waited ’til I could wait no more. Then I followed my father down to the river. It seemed my brother ‘ad easily tickled ‘is trout because there was a huge one lying on the bank just where my father has fished and tickled trout for years. But my father and brother were gone.”
“I didn’t know what to do. The weather’d changed and mist had drawn in from the hills and a steady rain was slanting through the trees. I returned the trout to the water but it was dead and just floated away down the rapids.”
“I pushed my way up the side of the valley, through the gorse and bracken and as I returned ‘ome, the weather got worse and worse. Thunder was crashing against the hills and lighting breaking the clouds into pieces. Suddenly, there was one huge crash and I saw smoke rising up between the oak trees. I ran and ran and then I saw me ‘ome was in flames.”
“There was an old stream running by the ‘ouse and I filled bucket after bucket but the ‘ouse was made of wood and my mother never answered my cries.”
Silas choked briefly, overcome with grief, but continued.
“I found my dad and my brother together, washed up by the weir. My dad ‘ad his arms wrapped around my brother and the expressions on their faces couldn’t and shouldn’t be described. I never found my mum. The ‘ouse ‘ad gone up like tinder. I reckon she joined the wind amongst the hills and perhaps that’s how she’d prefer to be.”
Silas reached over and grabbed the tourism guide, ripped it in two and hurled it violently into the fire.
“Them that wrote this are fools,” he snarled. “There’s enough lost souls in the river for eternity.”
The fire roared up the huge stone chimney as it consumed the tourism guide. There was a crash of thunder and everyones eyes were drawn to the window which glowed bright, like the fire, with a blinding incandescent flash of lightening.
When they looked again for Silas, he was gone.
Tom slowly moved over to the storytelling chair and placed it reverentially in the far corner.
“I reckon we’d best leave the stories for now,” he said, quietly. “Perhaps someone can contact the tourism authorities and get the entry about trout tickling removed. Best thing really.”
“Corr! You didn’t believe all that claptrap did you?” sneered a young man. He was called Jeremy and was a recent college graduate, soon to be leaving the area for a new job with a London firm of accountants.”
The small body of drinkers tittered and reached again for their glasses.
“Believe it? I dunno,” said old Tom shaking his head. “I dunno if I believe it. I’d rather believe in the primroses and the sunshine.”
He turned and faced the young man.
“But before you go off to your new job in the city, you should go up to the church and see the grave stones.”
“You mean the graves of Silas’s dad and brother? What’s the point of that?”
“No,” said Tom. “I mean the grave marked ‘Silas’ and dated fifty three years ago.”
The End
I hope you enjoyed this Halloween story.
All best
Rob
Copyright Rob Hopcott 1999 - 2007, all rights are reserved. All characters are fictitious in this story and no reference is intended to any organization or person living or otherwise.
(Rob Hopcott - free online fiction writer)
