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Creeping Flesh trouble with the carvings. This time it’s death that takes physical form, with the cowl moving backwards to expose a skull. Next the archdeacon is followed around the cloisters after dark by mystery footsteps. The verger thinks someone (Canon Arnold?) was with him, and swears to seeing a second figure following. But Haynes insists there was no-one there. “No-one!” The poor fellow is going downhill rapidly: he has nightmares of the stump of the hanging oak and of Death itself playing “tag” with his shoulder. 1932. “It seems his firmness was giving out,” surmises Dr Black. Although the doctor sees a supernatural element, the librarian can only see a man driving himself mentally ill. 1877. By now, Haynes’ entries consist of a scrawl repeating “I must be firm”. Then on Feb 215 it all goes pear-shaped. Finally unable to resist seeing who or what is making the scratching, banging, whispering noises, the doomed archdeacon makes the mistake of going to the top of the stairs in the darkness. In this case, Death, with big sharp claws… 1932. Dr Black agrees with the librarian not to publish Haynes’ papers. Of course, our dear doctor is a most curious fellow, and visits the aforementioned stalls. The carvings have been removed. Black decides to bother the curator of the town museum. He reveals that one of the carvings — though it’s never said which one6 or why they were removed — broke open, revealing a letter inside from John Austin:
The Stalls of Barchester
When I grew in the Wood I was water’d w(ith) Blood Now in the Church I stand Who that touches me with his Hand If a bloody hand he bear I councell him to be ware Lest he be fetcht away Whether by night or day,
But chiefly when the wind blows high In a night of February. This I drempt, 26 Febr. Ao 1699. JOHN AUSTIN.
Asking the curator what happened to the broken carving, Black finds that the old man who gave the letter to the museum had burnt it. “Because it frightened his children so much.” Wandering off, more bemused than before, Dr Black is wary of a large cat that sits on the local green…
Critique The Stalls of Barchester is a textbook case of “Starting how you mean to go on”. Clark for one should be congratulated on his adaptation, which sticks pretty rigidly to the original story, but not so rigidly as to stop him from providing us with visual treats. Sly uses of editing to provide us with sick sight gags, such as the wickedly evil cut from Pulteney’s fatal fractured skull to a big close-up of Haynes’ breakfast egg being caved in with a spoon. Or of Black’s absent minded leaning gag in the museum. He leans on something before he looks at it, looks down, big skull in a glass case glares up at him. Fantastically creepy is the scene where Hardy thinks his manservant John has come to his bedroom door to pick up a letter. There is a scratching of oak followed by a reverbed whispering of “Can I come in?” Haynes says yes, but after a tentative creaking of the door, there’s no one actually there. Some lovely uses of sound, but without the more fanciful Radiophonic Workshop noodling of say The Signalman.7 Also, some clever Clark touches with the use of repeated, identically timed scenes. These being the old archdeacon’s birthday celebrations (which cleverly have less old blokes hanging around as they go along), Haynes’ morning walks with his sister past Pulteney’s house and