1934
11
YEARS
THE ABANDONED COTTAGE
“A friend had relatives near Cambridge,
and he chanced to tell me…”
“...that he had visited an abandoned cottage…”
“The story went that a man had commited suicide there…”
“by jumping down the well in the garden,
[and] leaving for his wife an enigmatic note…”
‘I am going to seek for the truth…’
“His wife had lost her reason,
and it was said that the empty cottage rang
with her wails…”
“…while from time to time
the sounds of unexplained gasping and gulping
issued from the garden well…”
“We cycled over…
one beautiful and still
summer’s day…”
“The sun beat down on us
as we sped past Royston Heath…”
“...and into Cambridgeshire…”
“We entered the cottage
through an empty window-frame
at the back of the house…”
“...wide-eyed
and with hearts thumping,
we explored every room…”
“It seemed unusually quiet,
particularly in the little bedroom...
at the top of the stairway…”
The cottage had been empty of human beings
for a long time,
and was now the home of bats…
“...which I remember thinking… might well be
responsible for the…sounds...heard in the garden…”
“We found the well
covered with a massive stone
for safety…”
“...easing this a little to one side
we peered into the ominous dark hole
and…”
“...dropped a pebble,
waiting for what seemed an interminable time
for the tiny splash…”
“...which seemed to echo somewhat strangely…”
“We sat on the well for a few moments…
…and began to be aware of a strange air of expectancy
in that isolated and forsaken place…”
“There was not another human habitation within sight,
and we neither saw nor heard a single person or a bird
in the vicinity…”
“As we turned to go,
we both heard a kind of groan or heavy sigh
that stopped us in our tracks…”
“...but the sound was not repeated…”
“Years afterwards
I tried to find the cottage again…
but could find no trace of it.”
“The only spot I could pinpoint as its site…”
“...was an odd little plot of waste land
...that nobody seemed to care about…”
“...and I noticed that no birds sang
at that forsaken place…”
No Common Task
pp.30-31
