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'No!' he screamed, and the creature screamed with him, a cruel, distorted mirror of his own fear, and then Matthew fell, staggering backwards and plummeting from the crag on to the teeth of the scree below.

* * *

Mr Beckett was the first to find him. He was an old man and had fought as a soldier in his youth, though unlike Matthew's grandfather he never spoke of it; but still he had never seen the like of it. The boy's left arm and leg were smashed and lay at a sickeningly impossible angle to his torso - and the face . . .

Beckett only recognised Matthew by the clothes he was wearing. He turned away, his mouth dry and bitter with the taste of bile, threw his coat across the body without looking back and set off to tell Matthew's parents the grim news.

Uncle Montague smiled from the shadows at the look of horror I no doubt wore, and handed me the telescope. I almost had a mind to put it to my eye, but I was suddenly struck by a dread of what I might see - as if Matthew's horrible vision might still be clinging to the eyepiece. I grinned sheepishly at my own foolishness.

'Does something amuse you?' asked Uncle Montague.

'I was merely reminding myself, Uncle, that I am getting too old to be so easily frightened by stories.'

'Really?' said Uncle Montague with a worrying degree of doubt in his voice. 'You think there is an age at which you might become immune to fear?'

'Well,.' I said, a little concerned that I had once again offended his abilities as a storyteller. 'That is not to say that the stories you tell are not jolly frightening, Uncle.'

'Quite,.' said Uncle Montague, though with a strange intonation.

'Have you ever thought of having them published, sir?'

'No, Edgar,.' he said. 'That would not be appropriate. After all, they are not my stories, as I have intimated to you.'

'But I do not understand, Uncle,.' I said. 'If they are not your stories, then whose are they?'

'They belong to those involved, Edgar,.' he replied. 'I am merely the storyteller.'

'But how can that -'

'But I am afraid you really must go now, Edgar,. ' interrupted Uncle Montague, getting to his feet, his face suddenly serious. 'You would not like it here after dark.'

I failed to see what difference it would make as the house was in perpetual darkness anyway, but my uncle was already at the study door and as the fire seemed suddenly to have died away I was eager to follow him.

'Keep to the path, Edgar,.' he said at the front door, with the touching concern he always showed me as I left his house. 'And do not tarry in the woods.'

'Thank you, Uncle . . .' I began, but the door was already shutting and I could hear a succession of bolts and locks being rammed home. I smiled to myself at my uncle's awkwardness at our parting. For such a worldly man, he could be charmingly shy at times.

But I did wonder if he had spent too many hours in his own company. His curious insistence that he was not the author of these tales struck me as most peculiar. It was obvious to one even as young I was then, that - as I had begun to explain to my uncle - in most cases, the principal characters in the story were dead by the end, or in such a tormented state that it would be hard to imagine how they would have the wit or the inclination to write or even dictate their tale.

But I did not think the worse of my uncle for this fabrication. I simply took it as a sign of his eccentricity. After a quick backwards glance at the house, I set off home.

I was never in any way tempted to stray from the path and, though I was sure that the woods were perfectly safe, nor was I inclined to dawdle. My uncle's concern was entirely misplaced. I would not have tarried in those woods for all the tea in China.

I had never before left it this late to return home and I was struck by how the darkness seemed to descend like a curtain, so that while it had seemed merely dusk when I left my uncle's door, night had truly enveloped me by the time I reached the wood.

As I did so I heard what I took to be