Hearing secret harmonies Read Online Free PDF

archaeological opinion accepts the place as a neolithic grave. There have been dissentient theories – boundary stones in the Dark Ages, and so on. They don’t amount to much. Local patriotism naturally makes one want the place to be as ancient as possible. The lintel probably went for building purposes in one of the farms round about. The uprights may have been too hard to extract. In any case there’s usually a superstition that you can’t draw such stones from the earth. Even if you do, they walk back again.’
    ‘Why the name?’
    ‘One Midsummer night, long ago, a girl and her lover were lying naked on the grass. The sight of the girl’s body tempted the Devil. He put out his hand towards her. Owing to the night also being the Vigil of St John, the couple invoked the Saint, and just managed to escape. When the Devil tried to withdraw his hand, two of his fingers got caught in the outcrop of rock you find in these quarrying areas. There they remain in a petrified condition.’
    Murtlock was silent. He seemed suddenly excited.
    ‘Any other legends about the place?’
    ‘The couple are sometimes seen dancing there. They were saved from the Devil, but purge their sin by eternal association with its scene.’
    ‘They dance naked?’
    ‘I presume.’
    ‘On Midsummer Night?’
    ‘I don’t know whether only on the anniversary, or all the year round. In rather another spirit, rickety children used to be passed between the Stones to effect a cure.’
    That was one of Mr Gauntlett’s stories.
    ‘Is the stag-mask dance known to have been performed there?’
    ‘I’ve never heard that. In fact I’ve never heard of the stag-mask dance.’
    Murtlock was certainly well up in these things.
    ‘Do the Stones bleed if a dagger is thrust in them at the Solstices?’
    ‘I’ve never heard that either. There’s the usual tale that at certain times – when the cock crows at midnight, I think the Stones go down to the brook below to drink.’
    Murtlock made no comment.
    ‘Covetous people have sometimes taken that opportunity for seeking treasure in the empty sockets, and been crushed on the unexpected return of the Stones. The Stones’ drinking habits are threatened. They will have to remain thirsty, unless the efforts of various people are successful. One of the quarries is trying to extend in that direction. They want to fill up the stream. Local opposition is being rallied. Where else will the Stones be able to quench their thirst? That was what the old farmer who talked to us was referring to.’
    This time Murtiock showed no interest. The threat to The Devil’s Fingers might have been judged something to shock anyone who had spoken of the sanctity of another prehistoric site, but he seemed altogether unmoved. At least he enquired no further as to the conservation problem as presented to him. He did, however, ask how the place could be reached, showing close attention when Isobel explained. He discarded all his elaborately mystical façade while listening to instructions of that sort.
    ‘Is it a secluded spot?’
    ‘About half-a-dozen fields from the road.’
    ‘On high ground?’
    ‘I’d guess about five or six hundred feet.’
    ‘Surrounded by grass?’
    ‘Plough, when we were last there, but the farmer may have gone back to grass.’
    ‘Trees?’
    ‘The Stones stand in an elder thicket on the top of a ridge. It’s one of those characteristic settings. The land the other side slopes down to the stream.’
    Murtlock thought for a moment or two. His face was pallid now. He seemed quite agitated at what he had been told. This physical reaction on his part suggested in him something more than the mere calculating ambition implied by Hugo’s story. Forces perhaps stronger than himself dominating him, made it possible for him also to dominate by the strength of his own feelings. He turned abruptly on the others, standing passively by while his interrogation was taking place.
    ‘Tomorrow we’ll go first to The