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  MEDUSA

  A STORY

  of

  mystery, and ecstasy,

  and strange horror

  Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards The Ford

  MILTON

  TO

  J ANDERSON SMITH

  Literary appreciation is not mere sense. It is an essential of character, exerting great power. It may be said to cast light that can be felt.

  I always found my visits to you, though brief and principally concerned with other matters, particularly stimulating to literary endeavour. That integral value for literature which you inspired was reviving and invigorating at times when desire failed, and I had almost abandoned my efforts to decipher the script, restore the sequence, and bridge the lacuna of William Harvell’s MS.: which could be done only by projecting the imagination into the atmosphere of those remote regions whence (as I believe) it came not my hands.

  E.H.V.

  August 1929

  

  THE INTRODUCTION

  PART ONE

  The Author’s Childhood

  The Author Brings About his Grandfather's Death

  He goes to school: The Lamentable Sequel

  His acquaintance with Mr. Huxtable

  Strange Mysterious Adventures Before Embarking

  PART TWO

  The Voyage Commenced

  The Ghost Scare

  Mr Falconer Provides Obadiah

  Some Remarkable Adventures: The Author Arrives at in Pernambuc

  Violent Strange Behaviour of Obadiah: Pernambuc Described

  The Author Ashore at Pernambuc

  Departure From Pernambuc

  Mr Huxtable’s Sorrow

  Astonishing Mystery of the Pirate Ship

  Mysterious Writing of the Little Mute Man and Discovery of a Monster

  Obadiah’s Narrative

  Obadiah’s Narrative Continued

  Quest for the Rock Pillar: Appearances of Lights in the Sea

  Mr Huxtable’s Philosophy

  The Inexpressible Light

  Gorgonian Terror

  Mr Huxtable’s Consummation

  Afterword

  Bonus short story - Medusan Madness

  Bibliography

  Notes

  THE INTRODUCTION

  Book writing is a notorious toil; but the love of fame drives some men to scour the world for matter, that can find little in their own minds - as those miserable Israelites were forced to make bricks without straw. They are hurried into it (as it should seem) by an impetuous, rushing wind, which is but vanity.

  I was never sedulous to enter a house of bondage; and, if I had been mindful to my own glory, had long since written this narrative, not deferred it until old age. And, although it be pleasant in the evening of life to live over again the morn, to enact again past scenes on recollection’s lively stage, it were too toilsome an adventure to write ‘em out, unless one should be a sort of Moses of authorship, whose eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.

  It is not vanity, therefore, that moves me to indite (by the help of some notes of writing that I kept) the story of my adventures; and as to diverting my old age, it is sufficiently regaled already with the mere contemplation of those extraordinary, those unimaginable happenings, passing man’s knowledge (which may admonish some to read no further, having no propensity for marvels); but that I would not willingly leave it to perish with me in the grave.

  WILL HARVELL

  Portishead

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER I -

  The Author’s Childhood

  I was born and had my earliest childhood upon the sea, my father being captain of a small barque plying between Bristol and the island of Jamaica in the West Indies, and my mother going along with him in his voyages.

  My recollections of my father, which (as I shall relate) were soon abridged, accord with what I could learn from my grandmother: that he was a man of a gentle and kindly heart and pensive complexion, rather given to melancholiness. He early discovered a liking for the sea in beholding the ships passing by Portishead, where his home was. My grandmother bought him, in this time, a handsome large play-boat, little thinking (as she told me) that thereby she was but nursing the desire that grew up with him; so that nothing could content him while he was yet scarcely older than a boy, but going to sea. The poor woman endeavoured to have persuaded him from following this design; but my grandfather not only gave it his countenance, but apprenticed my father, as soon as he was old enough, to a master mariner of Bristol; with whom he sailed on a voyage to New Holland.

  What reasons moved my grandfather in encouraging my father to go to sea, whether good or ill, I know not, and will not take it upon myself to build a judgement on what he was become, all harsh and crabbed, at the period when (having lost both father and mother) I came to dwell in his house at Portishead. I did hear my father named but once in discourse between my grandfather and grandmother, which was in a reproaching comment she made on his sending him to sea, and his answer :

  “What” (cried my grandfather), “do you take upon yourself to lift your wicked complaining against the sea? Did you never read those words of the Psalmist: They that go down to then in sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. Hold your peace, woman, and cease to meddle with things that are too high for you!”

  But not everyone that doth quote Scripture is truly religious; and I shall leave my readers to judge in my next chapter whether my grandfather was.

  My recollections of my mother are enshrined in that sweet age of childhood, life’s short Paradise; and her untimely death cast a sadness over my tender years, and made empty my heart with a pining for affection such as my grandmother, for all her kindness to me, could not appease.

  I principally relate this early period of my life, however, by reason of an experience which befell in my third or fourth year, being my earliest recollection. It is such a surprising apparent harbinger of those lights that I saw in the sea in my voyage with Mr Huxtable , as I shall relate.

  The first scenes of our life are obscure, like the beginnings of the Creation; it was some strange enchanting light that open-end the eyes of my perception in the world. By night it happened, during one of my father’s voyages (but the situation I know not); whenas, being carried from my bed to the port in the cabin (I suppose, by my mother), with some vehement exhortations to look, I beheld in the water great glistening lights, as bright as the sun, but soft as the moon, and glancing blue and green as a pearl-shell’s lustre.

  When I was eight years old, my father’s ship was in a tempest cast away on the coast of Spain, both my father and mother and all hands perishing in the waves; but I, as by a miracle preserved in the wild sea, was floated safe ashore.

  This was in the middle of a dark night; and my recollection of it is not like real occurrences, but as a confused scene, or as a dream, full of darkness and great roarings and wild alarms and stamping of feet and holloing voices, with sudden claps like thunder and terrible violent flaws of wind, in a dull and stunning sound; and of hurrying to and fro, and my mother’s voice sometimes wailing and lamenting, and sometimes attempting to have comforted me while I cried continually. Next, of my lying on the shore in thick darkness, and of the sudden bright shining of a lantern that cast a beam upon the wet sand, and of an austere, kindly countenance of a man bent over me, being dressed all in black, and having a strange, wide-brimmed hat upon his head; and of his lifting me in his arms and bearing me some way through the darkness; thereafter, of my dwelling with him in a fair, large house that stood shining white in a garden, wherein there were trees bearing fruits that hung like golden globes on the branches, others having great massy red glowing blossoms; and therewithal, a soft cooing of dove
s for ever sounding in the sunny warm air.

  The Spanish priest (for such he was) treated me kindly all the time I abode with him; and, when I wept for my mother, as I did often, he lifted me on his knee and spoke kindly to me with gentle accents that soothed my tears and solaced my sense like music, though I understood not a word.

  There was also an ancient woman lived there, that (I suppose) kept house for him, who cared for me. She wore a pair of horn spectacles, and about the girdle of her black dress a string of beads, with a silver cross, that was called (as I learned afterwards) a rosary. The skin on her face was withered and wrinkled like old parchment, and her hair, that was grey and yellow in patches, was drawn stiffly up in a top-knot upon her head. Sometimes she took me into a church; whereof my recollection is all gaudy and confused, and full of delight, with enchanted bright colours and pealing music and fragrant smoky air; with the priests in their stately gay vestments, and chanting choir-boys, and starry coloured lamps and painted images, and tall candles set up solemn and lofty upon the altar in their candlesticks.

  While he entertained me in his house, my kind preserver issued inquiries concerning me. How, or by what means, he learned that I had a grandfather dwelt in Portishead, I know not; but, as soon as he ascertained it (being after I had abode with him some months), he took me to Coruna, bearing me (as I remember) jogging at his back on a mule, and left me aboard a ship which was ready to sail to Bristol, entrusting me in care of the Captain, a worthy man he was acquainted with. He directed him how to convey me to my grandfather's house; wither, after a voyage that I remember but in glimpses, I came safe, and where I was installed, but with a custodian much unlike the gentle priest.

  CHAPTER II -

  The Author Brings About his Grandfather's Death

  My grandparents dwelt in a fair, large, elegant house in the Nore Road, Portishead (or Possett, as we are accustomed to speak it). My grandfather was a scrivener, but retired from his occupation; and day after day, and pretty well all day long, he sate in his elbow-chair by the window of the parlour, his feet (being much swollen with the gout) propped on a high stool.

  He held still lest he should enrage his gout, puffing slowly at his pipe, or charging it anew; whereupon he did put a camomile blossom upon his tobacco from a plate that stood near an old worn Bible, with his big lead tobacco box, on a table by his side. At each several twinge of gout, he did curse vehemently, raging in clouds of tobacco smoke. Between his cursing and his raging, he read his Bible, or prayed bitterly for someone that he saw passing in the street.

  The air was thick with his tobacco smoke mingled with the sweet fumes of the chamomile blossoms, and very warm too; for he always had his fire burning, even in hot summer. The wooden walls of the parlour were painted blue, and the pictures were solemn engravings of battles in the history of Israel. The bookcase was heavy laden with theological volumes, but I never saw him read in any of them, only the Bible. Ribbons of withered black seaweed hung curled and crinkled from the mantelboard for a decoration. The brass clock on the chimney clicked with a harsh sound.

  ‘Twas all dark and gloomy; yet not to me, for childhood is of purer eyes than to behold gloom; beholding dark places in a sort of suffused colour, by the same enchantment, which, in that sweet age, makes bright things to appear more dilated and radiant, shining clear - yea, and more solid too! it being a fallacy, commonly received, that things, or bodies, ethereally seen appear vague and diffuse; no, but all the more definite and materially compacted. Some local recollections of that time especially of various flowers and fruits in my grandfather's garden - honey-sweet fragrant sunflowers, and those little berries on bushes with blue dark bloom upon them like grapes - do come wafted over my thoughts, and steal upon my sense, with such delight as cannot be told. Even my memories of my grandfather are void of gloom, though full of dread.

  He, indeed was wont to relate to me, with lively zest, the terrors of the lake burning everlasting, with brimstone and with fire; and, when this fell after nightfall, as commonly it did, I went to rest (at least, to bed) all harrowed with fear, with my thoughts working tumultuously in dreadful imaginations.

  On one occasion, being on a dismal evening in the month of November, in the midst of his ravings, my grandfather was become really like a fiend. His meagre face contracted, and his high narrow brow appeared to jut and warp in the candlelight. His eyes, peering narrowly at me, shrunk up steely hard and cold in his head. He cast his pipe breaking upon the hearth, and his voice came cracked and shrill. But, when I stood perfectly terrified at his aspect, and at his words (which I forbear to set down), my grandmother interposed.

  “How can you speak such things?” cried she, setting her cap and screwing her eye up, as her habit was when she was agitated. "I would take shame to do it. I would -"

  “Hold your tongue, woman!” cried he, cutting her short, yet somewhat shamefaced too. “You’ld spoil and ruin the boy! I do but speak to his good!”

  "The Lord never .meant us - ‘The Lord is loving and of great mercy,’”.said she, misquoting plaintively. But he abridged her again.

  "Peace!" cried he harshly. "Have I read in my Bible for three-score years, and must I go to school to you to learn what the Lord means? to be admonished by a woman? to to be instructed by the inferior vessel? Down, presumption! Perversity, down! Will, bring me my Bible and another pipe! "

  I went all on a tremor to the cupboard where he kept his pipes, although I knew that the box was empty, since he had sent me to the inn that very day with his old foul pipes to have them burned white, having delayed until but one remained, and that one lay broken in pieces on the hearth. I pretended to look in the cupboard while I screwed my courage to tell him that none was left. When I told him, he reviled me after a dreadful manner for not having acquainted him before; and, howling as his gout pronged him, he laid hold on his tobacco-box and cast it crash against the wooden wall.

  There was laid up in my mind in this time, a pretty large store of Scriptural texts; for I had a very good memory, and beside my reading to my grandfather out of the Bible (in manner as I shall tell you), he used to commence the morning prayers by opening his Bible at a venture, and, after looking up and down the page, with a sharp eye and a bitter visage, did read aloud some few words that he elected in this narrow compass (for he never turned the leaf), whether or no he found such an one as would sort with his extempore prayer; which he uttered after a slow weighty manner, kneeling with his elbows resting on the seat of his chair; my grandmother and I following suit, she kneeling stiffly upon a red hassock that she kept for the purpose.

  But this part of my grandfather’s religion was pleasant to me (and very pleasant it is in my recollection) for the state of expectant relish I was in (with a child’s pure appetite) for my breakfast, having in my nostrils the delectable savour of the cooking fare.

  My grandfather’s discourse during breakfast did much belie the earnest accents of his expressions of thanksgiving; for usually ’twas little else but finding fault with the cook - or rather, with my poor grandmother, who carried herself before him with a demeanour of forbearance, ruffled by a sort of querulous aggravation, the most unwisely that she possibly could; which blew the flames of his choler. She knew not how to be perfectly still, not yet, the other way, to raise such an astonishing great wind as had made him fearful to provoke it more; which I saw actually done on one occasion, and that by a woman - and this a small sickly woman to boot - being my great-aunt, my grandmother’s sister, when she was affronted by my grandfather in a visit to his house. She was perfectly unafraid of him, and, indeed, had never any cause to fear him after.

  My intercourse with my grandfather was mostly in the tasks he set me, and in doing his errands across country to neighbouring villages. The tasks were most in reading, and that in the Bible. When I could read proficiently, which was not before my twelfth year, my writing and ciphering went by the board; and for two hours before dinner, and one late afternoon (if there were no errands), I read to him w
hilst he sat smoking his pipe, muttering to himself, or complaining at twinges of the gout. If I stumbled or but halted over a word, he immediately began to fret (which made my reading worse), exasperating his gout and working himself into a frenzy of rage and pain, ending, as often as not, by snatching the Bible from my hands and dinging it at my head.

  His errands, therefore, were the more welcome to me to let me be away from him. Yet had I an exceeding fear of meeting with an highwayman. Also, I did abhor to be sent to the apothecary in the High Street, being an ancient big burly man, having a high, red, smiling, satirical countenance, and fierce tiger eyes, that affected me with an unspeakable dread.

  My grandfather chastised my offences which were commonly by misadventure (for I had never on purpose dared to do anything to affront him) with canings at the hand of his man. In the meantime, while his man caned me, he read a fit lesson from the Bible with slow and solemn emphasis. When he ceased, so did the caning also; but if he was in an angry temper, both reading and caning were protracted.

  But my grandmother was always kind to me, and sometimes interceded for me; which did but make my punishment the worse; so that I besought her, at last, after such an occasion, not to intercede for me any more. However, when my next castigation was about to fall, after having me into the kitchen, she fortified my breeches with a piece of tarpaulin; which served me well at first. But when my grandfather, looking for the evidences of pain, beheld but a blank physiognomy - when the tarpaulin was proof even against a more vigorous dealing - when, finally, that expedient was perceived, I protest I thought that my very bones had broke under the blows that did ensue. Also, my grandfather having learnt (I know not how) that I dreaded to fall in with an highwayman, he contrived to delay my errands as late as he might, to the end that I should return though the open country after nightfall. One of the old school he called himself, and I am content. My grandmother loved him; my coming to dwell with him was after his heart was warped with some corroding bitterness, of which the effects, working through me, did make me the instrument of his death.