The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

Something of the general character of Stoneground and its people has been indicated by stray allusions in the previous narratives. We must here add that of its present population only a small part is native, the remainder having been attracted during the recent prosperous days of brickmaking, from the nearer parts of East Anglia and the Midlands. The visitor to Stoneground now finds little more than the signs of an unlovely industry, and of the hasty and inadequate housing of the people it has drawn together. Nothing in the place pleases him more than the excellent train-service which makes it easy to get away. He seldom desires a long acquaintance either with Stoneground or its people.

The impression so made upon the average visitor is, however, unjust, as first impressions often are. The few who have made further acquaintance with Stoneground have soon learned to distinguish between the permanent and the accidental features of the place, and have been astonished by nothing so much as by the unexpected evidence of French influence. Amongst the household treasures of the old inhabitants are invariably found French knick-knacks: there are pieces of French furniture in what is called “the room” of many houses. A certain ten-acre field is called the “Frenchman’s meadow.” Upon the voters’ lists hanging at the church door are to be found French names, often corrupted; and boys who run about the streets can be heard shrieking to each other such names as Bunnum, Dangibow, Planchey, and so on.

Mr Batchel himself is possessed of many curious little articles of French handiwork – boxes deftly covered with split straws, arranged ingeniously in patterns; models of the guillotine, built of carved meat-bones, and various other pieces of handiwork, amongst them an accurate road-map of the country between Stoneground and Yarmouth, drawn upon a fly-leaf torn from some book, and bearing upon the other side the name of Jules Richepin. The latter had been picked up, according to a pencilled-note written across one corner, by a shepherd, in the year 1811.

The explanation of this French influence is simple enough. Within five miles of Stoneground a large barracks had been erected for the custody of French prisoners during the war with Bonaparte. Many thousands were confined there during the years 1808–14. The prisoners were allowed to sell what articles they could make in the barracks; and many of them, upon their release, settled in the neighbourhood, where their descendants remain. There is little curiosity amongst these descendants about their origin. The events of a century ago seem to them as remote as the Deluge, and as immaterial. To Thomas Richpin, a weakly man who blew the organ in church, Mr Batchel shewed the map. Richpin, with a broad, black-haired skull and a narrow chin which grew a little pointed beard, had always a foreign look about him: Mr Batchel thought it more than possible that he might be descended from the owner of the book, and told him as much upon shewing him the fly-leaf. Thomas, however, was content to observe that “his name hadn’t got no E,” and shewed no further interest in the matter. His interest in it, before we have done with him, will have become very large.

For the growing boys of Stoneground, with whom he was on generally friendly terms, Mr Batchel formed certain clubs to provide them with occupation on winter evenings; and in these clubs, in the interests of peace and good-order, he spent a great deal of time. Sitting one December evening, in a large circle of boys who preferred the warmth of the fire to the more temperate atmosphere of the tables, he found Thomas Richpin the sole topic of conversation.

“We seen Mr Richpin in Frenchman’s Meadow last night,” said one.

“What time?” said Mr Batchel, whose function it was to act as a sort of fly-wheel, and to carry the conversation over dead points. He had received the information with some little surprise, because Frenchman’s Meadow was an unusual place for Richpin to have been in, but his question had no further object than to encourage talk.

“Half-past nine,” was the reply.

This made the question much more interesting. Mr Batchel, on the preceding evening, had taken advantage of a warmed church to practise upon the organ. He had played it from nine o’clock until ten, and Richpin had been all that time at the bellows.

“Are you sure it was half-past nine?” he asked.

“Yes,” (we reproduce the answer exactly), “we come out o’ night-school at quarter-past, and we was all goin’ to the Wash to look if it was friz.”

“And you saw Mr Richpin in Frenchman’s Meadow?” said Mr Batchel.

“Yes. He was looking for something on the ground,” added another boy.

“And his trousers was tore,” said a third.

The story was clearly destined to stand in no need of corroboration.

“Did Mr Richpin speak to you?” enquired Mr Batchel.

“No, we run away afore he come to us,” was the answer.

“Why?”

“Because we was frit.”

“What frightened you?”