Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror - Chris Priestley [6]
Reluctantly Joseph climbed down, trying to retrace his route, vowing to return the following Thursday to continue the climb. He jumped the last few feet, landing with a soft thud on the ground.
As he landed he had the strangest impression that there was a muffled echo of his landing, that something beneath the earth had flinched or flexed. The hole at the tree's base seemed darker and more impenetrable than ever. He took two tentative steps forward, leaning to peer in, but found that he could not make himself go closer.
He walked back across the pasture with a carefree gait that was completely feigned. In reality he was resisting an impulse to run. He was almost at the door in the wall, when he turned round quickly, half expecting to see something - he did not know what - standing behind him. But there was nothing there but the tree.
The following Thursday his mother had invited some of the ladies from her watercolour class for coffee and Joseph had to say hello to them all and smile and be cooed at before he could make his escape. The day was dull and overcast, but the feathery grey clouds were high and would not bring rain. Joseph was the only thing moving as he strode purposefully across the open pasture towards the tree.
Joseph edged past the hole without looking in, and began his climb. He was surprised at how easy he found it this time as he quickly scaled the height he had reached the previous week.
When he reached the branch that marked the highest point of his earlier climb, he straddled it and sat feeling content and looking about him for signs of where he might find footholds for the next stage. He looked at his watch. It was only eleven o'clock. He had plenty of time.
It was then that he caught sight of the writing.
There, scratched into the trunk of the tree, where the branch he was sitting on sprung away from it, were the words, CLIMB NOT. They had been scratched into the bark in exactly the same way as the ones at the base of the tree. But these appeared to be freshly made.
Joseph stared at them and, suddenly feeling as if he were being watched, he looked about him, out across the pasture. There was no one there.
Mr Farlow must have done this, Joseph was sure of it. The old man had warned him off climbing the tree after all. But could he really have climbed the tree at his age, however easy Joseph had found it?
Joseph suddenly laughed to himself. Of course! The old man did not need to climb. He had a ladder. Joseph had seen him at the top of a ladder the week before, pruning a climbing vine on the garden wall.
Then Joseph became angry. How dare that old man tell him what he could and could not do? What concern was it of his? He did not own this land - Joseph did. Or at least his parents did, and that amounted to the same thing after all. Instead of the words on the tree putting Joseph off, they became a spur for him to renew his struggles with even greater effort.
Joseph looked at the lettering of the words and smiled smugly. Why, the old fool could barely write; Joseph could have made a better job of that when he was four years old. And what had he used to make the letters anyway? Joseph had seen and admired the old man's knife that he kept in a sheath on his belt, but these words seemed to have been scratched with a nail or a hook rather than cut with a blade, as they were rough and jagged. Joseph felt the letters with his fingers. Whatever he had used it was certainly sharp, for the scratches were deep and the wood was as hard as stone.
Joseph saw that if he could crouch on the branch he was sitting on, he might be able to reach a branch that would then support him enough to stand and continue the climb. It was a precarious manoeuvre and, had he slipped, a broken arm would be the least he might expect in the resulting fall to the ground far below.
But Joseph managed to ease himself up on to the branch and, sure enough, he could reach out and grab a smaller branch above and pull himself up safely to a standing position.
From here the route suddenly seemed straightforward