Speaker 1: Fed up with a shoveling snow, can't shake that cold
Speaker 1: of yours. Wonder what the world's coming to?
Speaker 2: We offer you Escape.
Speaker 1: You are alone in a remote village on the Welsh border,
Speaker 1: surrounded by silent townspeople who were watching and waiting for
Speaker 1: you to decide to lose your soul.
Speaker 2: Escape produced and directed by William N. Robeson, and carefully
Speaker 2: contrived to free you from the four walls of today
Speaker 2: for a half hour of high adventure.
Speaker 1: To night, we escape to a remote section of whales
Speaker 1: and a strange village between two worlds. As Algernon Blackwood
Speaker 1: described it in his eerie story Ancient Sorceries.
Speaker 3: I had spent a week's vacation in Wales and was
Speaker 3: returning to London by train when it all began. It
Speaker 3: was late afternoon. We'd left the Welsh mountains and crossed
Speaker 3: the border into western England, passing through a countryside which
Speaker 3: appeared singularly empty, deserted of life. Over the soft hills
Speaker 3: and the valleys between hung a faintly perceptible haze given
Speaker 3: to the whole landscape of feeling of enchantment and unreality.
Speaker 3: The train at length slowed down to a stop at
Speaker 3: a tiny wayside station. As it did so, a sudden
Speaker 3: thought occurred to me, Hm, why not leave the crowded
Speaker 3: train with its irritating noise and spend the night in
Speaker 3: this peaceful spot, then take a slower and emptier train
Speaker 3: in the morning. On the impulse, I rose from my
Speaker 3: seat and the man sitting opposite to me said.
Speaker 4: Why, say, sir, we only stop here for a minute
Speaker 4: or two if you're thinking all walking.
Speaker 3: About a bit? No. As a matter of fact, I'm
Speaker 3: getting off here. I thought you were going to London.
Speaker 3: I'll go on in the morning. I'm going to stay
Speaker 3: here for the night. I strongly advise you not to.
Speaker 3: I beg your pardon. This is the village off Marton Moulton.
Speaker 3: I've never heard of it. Few people have outside.
Speaker 4: But if you place any value on your soul, you'll
Speaker 4: not spend the night here.
Speaker 3: My dear sir, what are you talking about? Why not?
Speaker 4: Because of the sleep and because of the cats.
Speaker 3: That's all I can tell you. You're insane. I'll take
Speaker 3: my bag if you don't mind.
Speaker 4: You're making a terrible mistake. You may not even have
Speaker 4: the chance to regret it. Don't leave this train. I
Speaker 4: know what I'm talking about, snodot a nonsense.
Speaker 3: Don't don't I tell you good bye. I stood there
Speaker 3: on the embankment as the train pulled away. Why what
Speaker 3: in the world was the matter with the man? Anyway?
Speaker 3: Cats sleep? His words made no sense. I picked up
Speaker 3: my bag and started walking up the long hill toward
Speaker 3: the village, and suddenly, for no reason at all, I
Speaker 3: shivered Hello. Hello, is anybody here?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Oh oh, I didn't see you at first.
Speaker 5: Is there's something I can do for you?
Speaker 6: Sir?
Speaker 7: Why?
Speaker 3: Yes? I saw your sign outside the inn of the
Speaker 3: Golden Bar. I should like to get a room please.
Speaker 5: You're planning to stay here?
Speaker 3: Why? Why? Yes?
Speaker 6: H very well. You may sign the register here.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I'm going to catch another train and go
Speaker 3: on in the morning.
Speaker 5: Yes, of course there Arthur Llewellyn, Llewellyn, Yes, from London,
Speaker 5: Authur Llewellyn. You've been a long time coming back.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 5: But now that you're here, you'll find there are some
Speaker 5: things that never change.
Speaker 3: Madam. I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about,
Speaker 3: you rang, madam? Where did you come from?
Speaker 7: Done?
Speaker 5: Really? The gentleman would like a room for the night,
Speaker 5: His name is Arthur Llewellyn.
Speaker 3: Hie, so it is welcome back to Morton, sir, Huh?
Speaker 3: Why I knew I'd never been here before? What was
Speaker 3: it all about? Thus the men on the train, and
Speaker 3: now these people. Were they crazy or was I? I
Speaker 3: left the inn and walked along narrow, cobbled streets beneath
Speaker 3: quaint gables, leaning out from the silent shuttered houses through
Speaker 3: dappled pools of light and shadow. It gradually dawned upon
Speaker 3: me that the village of Malton was centuries old, older
Speaker 3: than any town in England ought to be. And the people,
Speaker 3: the people I passed now and then, were dressed in
Speaker 3: the fashion of another day. They paid no attention to me,
Speaker 3: went silently about their own business. Yes, that was it,
Speaker 3: That's what I'd been noticing. Silently they came and went,
Speaker 3: with only soft padding sounds to mark their passing, as
Speaker 3: though they walked in shoes with sod of velvet. When
Speaker 3: I stopped, there was no sound. Silence was unbroken. I
Speaker 3: hurried on through the streets and came at last to
Speaker 3: the far side of the village, to a place where
Speaker 3: the hill broke away sharply from a low, flat wall
Speaker 3: of stone, perhaps a ramp at Once I sat down
Speaker 3: upon it, in the dreamy, laziest sundolence of the place
Speaker 3: stole over me presently, I don't know how much later,
Speaker 3: I became aware of the sound of weird music rising
Speaker 3: out of the veil below me. I looked down from
Speaker 3: the rampart, the sunken plane at the bottom melted away
Speaker 3: into a sea of gathering shadow, blurred in a swirl
Speaker 3: of thickening mist. I thought of dead trees swept by
Speaker 3: the night wind, of animals with half human voices singing
Speaker 3: to a white moon, of the wailings of cats on
Speaker 3: the roof tiles at night, of unearthly creatures far off
Speaker 3: in the sky calling to one another in chorus. I
Speaker 3: felt my heart beat faster and faster, felt the vague
Speaker 3: stirrings of some urge inside of me, trying to answer
Speaker 3: the awful call of that music. I fought against the feeling,
Speaker 3: fought against myself, and even as I did, I found
Speaker 3: I was staring down into that valley, peering desperately into
Speaker 3: the darkness, trying to see I don't know what. And
Speaker 3: then suddenly the music ended. I stood on the ramput alone,
Speaker 3: dusk fallen around me, and the early night wind moaned
Speaker 3: with a chill breath. Quick terror rose up in me.
Speaker 3: I turned and ran through the darkened street, ran with
Speaker 3: my heart pounding, dodging its shadows, through one dim alley
Speaker 3: after another, and arrived at last, panting, almost breathless, at
Speaker 3: the door of the golden Bar.
Speaker 5: It's been a long time, returning, mister Llewellen. It's past
Speaker 5: seven h.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, I I guess I walked farther than I
Speaker 3: meantor I didn't realize it was so light.
Speaker 5: You heard the music, didn't.
Speaker 3: You, Yes, strangest music I've ever heard. How did you
Speaker 3: know who? Please it?
Speaker 7: Anyway?
Speaker 5: Then you didn't remember it?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 3: Why should I? The thing was becoming irritating, this quiet
Speaker 3: insistence that I was someone else. I went into my
Speaker 3: lonely dinner ate as quickly as possible, then, taking the
Speaker 3: candle down Dreary gave me, I crossed the lobby, climbed
Speaker 3: the stairs behind the desk, and walked past silent doors,
Speaker 3: down the long empty hall that led to my room
Speaker 3: at the end. I was half way to my door
Speaker 3: when suddenly the flame of my candle went out. I
Speaker 3: stood stuck still in the pitch blackness, fumbling from etch.
Speaker 3: At that moment I knew that some one or something
Speaker 3: was there with me in the darkness. Held my breath
Speaker 3: and listened. There was no sound, no movement. I reached
Speaker 3: out and felt the wall and moved along it, feeling
Speaker 3: my way in the inky blackness. It was then I
Speaker 3: touched it near my face, another soft, warm, yielding and life.
Speaker 3: Who what is it? It is? I? Ill? Sir? Who? Who? Ill? Sir?
Speaker 3: Don't you remember me? Arthur? Ah ah?
Speaker 6: But wouldn't you like to remember me? Don't you want
Speaker 6: to see me again? To look at me now? I
Speaker 6: I don't know, But not to night either. The heats
Speaker 6: to morrow, to morrow.
Speaker 3: I stumbled blindly through the door of my room and
Speaker 3: shut it behind me. I lit the candle and flung
Speaker 3: myself across the bed. The room was small, with one
Speaker 3: shuttered window, and the light of the flame flickered on
Speaker 3: the walls and ceiling. I stared at the hand that
Speaker 3: had touched her out there in the dark hall. I
Speaker 3: lifted it up to my face and smelled of the
Speaker 3: barbaric sent still clung to my fingers. It was evil. Madly,
Speaker 3: the candle sputtered and burned and the melted minutes dripped away?
Speaker 3: Who was I? Who were these people? Who was il Sir?
Speaker 3: I fell asleep finally and dreamed of soft moving creatures
Speaker 3: and the silence of life in a dim muffled world,
Speaker 3: devoid of all feeling but ecstasy. And I dreamed too,
Speaker 3: of cats. You slept quite late this morning, mister LewAllen
Speaker 3: erh oh morning, Dundreary. I I felt as if I
Speaker 3: had been drugged. The night air here in Morton is
Speaker 3: very conducive to sleep. I'd meant to catch the morning
Speaker 3: train for London. Now it's too late. What a terrible shame. Oh,
Speaker 3: by the way, Dundrelly, Yes, mister rowan Er, do you
Speaker 3: I mean? Well? I was wondering if if you'd know
Speaker 3: anyone by the name of Il Sir.
Speaker 5: Ilsir happens to be my daughter.
Speaker 3: Mister Llewellen, H I didn't hear you come in.
Speaker 5: I hope you were able to sleep well without any
Speaker 5: unpleasant dreams.
Speaker 3: I guess so.
Speaker 6: I'm so happy to hear it.
Speaker 5: Perhaps then you may decide to stay with us for
Speaker 5: a long time.
Speaker 3: That it's very kind of your It is in kindness.
Speaker 5: Mister Llewellen, but all of us are hoping that you
Speaker 5: may decide.
Speaker 3: Soon, decide, decide what It was no use none of
Speaker 3: them would answer my questions. They seem to think I
Speaker 3: should know already. I left the inn as soon as
Speaker 3: I'd eaten, walked around the streets of the village, and
Speaker 3: I began to notice that I was never completely alone.
Speaker 3: If I turned down an empty street, some one always
Speaker 3: stepped from a doorway or entered from the opposite end
Speaker 3: wherever I went. Within five minutes, a dozen people were
Speaker 3: strolling near me, and I realized these people were watching
Speaker 3: me tensely, as a cat watches a mouse or another cato.
Speaker 3: It's quite fortunate you came back early, mister de wharen
Speaker 3: your dinner this evening? Is there other special? One special?
Speaker 3: What do you mean by that? You are to have
Speaker 3: a guest?
Speaker 7: Uh?
Speaker 3: Who?
Speaker 7: He?
Speaker 3: An old friend? She's coming now. The girl who came
Speaker 3: toward taught us across the room was blithe and slim,
Speaker 3: and she moved with the sinuous grace of a young panther.
Speaker 3: She was lovely, exotic and terrifyingly beautiful. I present, mister
Speaker 3: darthur Lewell and Masilta. He's been with us for two days.
Speaker 6: Yes, I know, my mother told me. May I sit down,
Speaker 6: mister Llewellyn.
Speaker 3: Oh, oh, yes, please do here, permit me.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Messirre.
Speaker 3: Thank you Masilsa, then your il sir.
Speaker 6: Yes, don't you remember Missa.
Speaker 3: From last night? It was you? What last night, wasn't it? Yes?
Speaker 6: And other knights? Can't you remember all the other knights?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 6: No, then we shall have to try that much. It's
Speaker 6: been such a very long time.
Speaker 3: Please else, what is it all of you talk about?
Speaker 3: I don't understand any of it.
Speaker 6: You will other unless you leave, of course. Weren't you
Speaker 6: planning to take a train to London in the morning?
Speaker 3: Yes? It No, No, I have changed my mind. I'm
Speaker 3: glad you did.
Speaker 6: We'll try to make you happy here, my mother and I,
Speaker 6: and then perhaps you'll stay a long long time.
Speaker 3: No, I must live for sure in a day or two.
Speaker 6: Suppose we wait and see. And meanwhile, if there's anything
Speaker 6: you want, all you have to do is ask me.
Speaker 3: All right, why don't you tell me about Yes, Arthur,
Speaker 3: about what? No? No, I don't want to know. I
Speaker 3: I don't want you to tell me. Suddenly I realized
Speaker 3: I was afraid to know, afraid I should leave now,
Speaker 3: but I couldn't leave. It was ill, sir. She attracted, repelled, fascinated,
Speaker 3: and and horrified me, all in single flashes of blasting emotion.
Speaker 3: I felt the presence of a great gray curtain, ready
Speaker 3: to roll back at any moment and leave me on
Speaker 3: the brink of an awful adventure. I knew. The village
Speaker 3: yelled its breath, watched and waited, and then on the
Speaker 3: evening of the fifth day, the whole ghastly secret exploded
Speaker 3: into hideous life. After dinner, Ilsa had asked me to
Speaker 3: walk with her. It was the first time I'd been
Speaker 3: outside the inn after dark. We walked through the village
Speaker 3: in the moonlight, saying little, and came finally to the
Speaker 3: stone rampart above the sunken plain. We were quite alone.
Speaker 6: Look, Arthur, it's a full moon to night. Do you
Speaker 6: know what that means?
Speaker 3: Yes, it means I can see more clearly how beautiful
Speaker 3: you are.
Speaker 6: Do you really believe there? Do you think I'm beautiful?
Speaker 3: Like a soft, sleek leopard in a warm jungle of shadows?
Speaker 3: But wait out, I'll see you even better in a moment. Ah,
Speaker 3: what are you doing? These dry leaves by the wall?
Speaker 3: They'll make an excellent bonfire. Eh, eh, you.
Speaker 6: See, no, no, the fire, no other put it out.
Speaker 3: All right, il sir, Eh, don't worry. It's all right,
Speaker 3: and I had a chance to get started. He there,
Speaker 3: you see it's all ot. Yes, I see you'll, sir?
Speaker 3: Why did it bother you so much? Don't you remember?
Speaker 3: Don't you remember? The fire?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 3: What fire?
Speaker 6: Oh no, don't talk of it. Look at me instead,
Speaker 6: look at me, Arthur.
Speaker 3: Yes, Sila, father, do you love me? Yes? Yes, Silsa,
Speaker 3: I love you. I love you and I want you.
Speaker 3: I'm glad that means you'll come back to us. Then
Speaker 3: I don't know what you mean, Elsa.
Speaker 6: You can know everything to night if you want to.
Speaker 3: Yes, I do, I do.
Speaker 6: You must know a part of it already down inside.
Speaker 6: You must remember some of.
Speaker 3: It, don't you. Yes, It's like something buried for centuries
Speaker 3: inside of me, and now it's beginning to come alive.
Speaker 6: Let it come alive. Don't fight again instead. You belong
Speaker 6: to us once long ago, and you still belong.
Speaker 3: Yes. I seem to know that.
Speaker 6: That's why you came back. You heard them calling, you
Speaker 6: heard me calling, and you came seeking the old life again.
Speaker 3: Yes, but he'll, sir, You'll say, I'm afraid. Are you
Speaker 3: afraid of me? Look at me? Will sir kiss me?
Speaker 3: M I'll sir.
Speaker 6: Will you live the old life again with me tonight?
Speaker 7: Yes?
Speaker 6: Yes, I've known that you would, because I own you, Arthur,
Speaker 6: who belong to me, and I want you, and I
Speaker 6: shall never let you escape from me again.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 6: Yes, go back to the inn, then wait for me, Arthur.
Speaker 6: I shall come for you tonight.
Speaker 3: Back at the and I paced the floor of my room,
Speaker 3: a tense, uncontrollable excitement driving me along in a nervous frenzy.
Speaker 3: The dry crypt of memory broke open, and all the
Speaker 3: things I'd hidden away for centuries poured into my consciousness.
Speaker 3: I knew now why I'd come here, I knew what
Speaker 3: I was going to do, and I knew that I
Speaker 3: was lost. I sensed the rising stir of movement throughout
Speaker 3: the inn and outside in the courtyard below my window.
Speaker 3: I knew what to expect when I threw open the shutter.
Speaker 3: From every window of the Inn and from those of
Speaker 3: the houses about the court, were leaping great monstrous beasts
Speaker 3: with soft, dark fur and eyes that gleamed with eerie phosphorescence.
Speaker 3: Cats cats of human size. This, then, was the secret
Speaker 3: of molten lycanthropy, the witchcraft of centuries long dead and buried.
Speaker 3: Their half human cries flooded up to me, and the
Speaker 3: moon cast their dark shadows on the ground as they
Speaker 3: padded across the courtyard and vanished through the narrow streets
Speaker 3: of the village, heading for a hideous run of This
Speaker 3: is what i'd been, This is what I want it
Speaker 3: to be. Now, I scarcely heard the door of my
Speaker 3: room open behind me.
Speaker 6: Shall we join them? El sir, here Arthur, the sacred
Speaker 6: bomb made of a vein and mistletoe and blind things
Speaker 6: out of the sea.
Speaker 3: Remember, yes, yes, I remember, take it, use it.
Speaker 6: We'll change now transform, leap from the window and join them.
Speaker 6: Lead us again, Arthur.
Speaker 3: Yes, but not here, Elsa, not yet. Wait until we
Speaker 3: get there. Then we'll change if.
Speaker 6: You wish, Come then, Arthur, to the stone wall above
Speaker 6: the grove. That's where we'll change. On the stone rampart.
Speaker 3: On the sunken plane beneath the wall, insane shadows rithed
Speaker 3: in the moonlight and postured in the luminous mist. A
Speaker 3: thousand of the Devil's owne were dancing in the unearthly
Speaker 3: music borne from the harmony of the black sacrifice, crying
Speaker 3: out in delirious abandoned, calling to the thing that now
Speaker 3: lived inside of me, and struggled screaming in my skull,
Speaker 3: trying to answer them back. I fought against them, fought
Speaker 3: against Ilsa, pleading and clinging with her soft arms about
Speaker 3: my neck.
Speaker 6: Now, now, Arthur, come with me, now, if you love me.
Speaker 3: I love you, but I can't do it. I can't
Speaker 3: do it, not again.
Speaker 6: Yes, my love? On an instant, a change, and then
Speaker 6: we'll live forever?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 3: Living without a soul?
Speaker 6: Outs matter? When I'm here?
Speaker 3: No once before I escape, but I can never escape
Speaker 3: again this time? There be no turning back.
Speaker 6: Am I not worth it?
Speaker 3: Look at me?
Speaker 6: Look at me, my love.
Speaker 3: I clung to the very edge of my sanity, thought
Speaker 3: that I would not be lost and damned forever. And
Speaker 3: at this moment, at this moment, I knew, knew what
Speaker 3: I could do.
Speaker 6: Arthur, Wait, what are you doing?
Speaker 3: I found a matchine my pocket, struck and dropped it
Speaker 3: into the dry leaves that lay bank across the whole
Speaker 3: length of the stone wall. No, no other doubt. I
Speaker 3: can't come to you through the fire. You're driving away? Yes,
Speaker 3: go go else to go into the valley. Goodbye, hell sir,
Speaker 3: good bye. He follow you. I turned from the wall
Speaker 3: of flame that for a few minutes would shut me
Speaker 3: off from the valley, ran through the moonlight streets, not
Speaker 3: back toward the Inn of the Golden Bar, but down
Speaker 3: the long road that led away from that cursed village
Speaker 3: of Malton, where mister Llewellen.
Speaker 1: I find this one of the most interesting cases of
Speaker 1: hallucination I've encountered since I began the practice of psychiatry.
Speaker 3: I tell you what really happened, doctor.
Speaker 1: And having investigated your story a bit during the past week,
Speaker 1: I'm in a position now to answer most of the
Speaker 1: questions that have been worrying you since you came back
Speaker 1: to London.
Speaker 3: What do you mean investigated?
Speaker 1: I went up to Herford and looked over some of
Speaker 1: the old records there. Then I motored over to Marlton
Speaker 1: for a couple of hours.
Speaker 3: Well, then you know it's all true. You saw it.
Speaker 3: You know I was there.
Speaker 1: Oh, there's no question, But what you were there, mister Llewellen.
Speaker 1: The lady who runs the inn showed me your name
Speaker 1: in the register, said you left suddenly without taking your
Speaker 1: luggage or paying your bill.
Speaker 3: She was really quite put out. I see, well, well,
Speaker 3: what of the records, doctor, the ones you spoke of.
Speaker 1: I think they really explained the whole thing.
Speaker 3: Mister Llewellyn.
Speaker 1: It seems that during the fourteenth century the village of
Speaker 1: Marton became a kind of headquarters in that part of
Speaker 1: the country for the practice of witchcraft.
Speaker 3: He's gone.
Speaker 1: Numerous trials were held there in the late thirteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: and a great many men and women were convicted of
Speaker 1: sorcery and burned to death. In the records of a
Speaker 1: trial in thirteen seventy two, I found the name of
Speaker 1: an Arthur Llewellen, and of Ilsa and her mother.
Speaker 3: That proves it.
Speaker 1: Then, it proves a clear case of hallucination. You knew
Speaker 1: that story before you went there, not consciously but somewhere
Speaker 1: deep in your latent memory.
Speaker 3: I knew nothing about it before.
Speaker 1: That man was an ancestor of yours. The story must
Speaker 1: be known in your family when you arrived in Malton. Accidentally,
Speaker 1: the association of the name just pulled the trigger and
Speaker 1: your imagination did the rest.
Speaker 3: Yes, But doctor, my parents died when I was four,
Speaker 3: Ah I've never been around any of my family.
Speaker 1: Ever, No matter you see, a childhood memory is a
Speaker 1: singly persistent at times.
Speaker 8: Yes, yes, I suppose it is. I knew then what
Speaker 8: I had to do, the only.
Speaker 3: Thing I could do. There'd be no use in talking
Speaker 3: further with the doctor. He'd find some phrase of science
Speaker 3: to cover everything. He'd even tried to explain away the
Speaker 3: mark I still carried across my shoulder, where he also
Speaker 3: had thrown her arm about me in those last mad
Speaker 3: minutes on the rampart, a mark that was covered with
Speaker 3: soft gray fur, like the fur of a cat. I
Speaker 3: knew now what had to be done, and what must
Speaker 3: be done while I still retain my sanity. One last act,
Speaker 3: final and irravicable, an act that begins by walking into
Speaker 3: the railway station and charing cross.
Speaker 2: Good evening, Sir, May I help you?
Speaker 3: M Yes, yes, I I'd like a ticket to Malton.
Speaker 3: Pleas Malton. I don't believe I a little village on
Speaker 3: the Swansea line the border of Wales. Oh, yes, yes,
Speaker 3: here it is. I don't believe I've ever sold a
Speaker 3: ticket to Malton before. I don't doubt it.
Speaker 4: Let's see four and six single fare first class.
Speaker 3: Did you wish a return treads or one way.
Speaker 7: Er?
Speaker 3: Well? What did you say? Hum? Hm oh oh, I'm sorry, make.
Speaker 7: It one way.
Speaker 2: Escape is produced and directed by William N. Robeson and
Speaker 2: Tonight Brought You Ancient Sorceries by Algernon Blackwood, adapted for
Speaker 2: radio by Less Crutchfield, with Paul Freese as Arthur Llewellyn,
Speaker 2: Kate Brinker as Ilsa and Morrison as Madam, and William
Speaker 2: Conrad is the Doctor. Music is conceived and conducted by Cyphure.
Speaker 1: Next week, after you've had a hard day at the
Speaker 1: office or bending over a hot stove. Next week, at
Speaker 1: this time, when your problems seemed too much for you,
Speaker 1: we offer you.
Speaker 7: Escape.
Speaker 2: Next week, we bring you another exciting story of high adventure.
Speaker 2: Good Night, then until the same time next week, when
Speaker 2: once again we offer you escape. This is CBS, the
Speaker 2: Columbia Broadcasting System.