Bones!

There are more things hidden in Stately Homes than are on show to the public...

 

I well remember Sir Gordon Fitch

As much for his wealth as his plain language,

A spade was a 'bloody shovel' to him,

In truth, he was an arrogant man.

 

The Seventh Earl in a Stately Home,

But ruined then, half falling down

Though what remained was a grand old pile

It sat in the woods by Barkly Stile.

 

Three living rooms and a massive hall,

And fifteen rooms if I do recall,

The house had seventeen chimneys there

Soot-caked and brooding, beyond repair.

 

Three of the fires were boarded in,

The rooms so cold with the house snowed in,

We shivered and sat with our coats still on,

Scarves and gloves in the morning room.

 

When questioned, Gordon would shrug and say,

'Don't know, old man, it was just that way!

My Gramps did anything he saw fit,

A hundred years since that fire was lit.'

 

'My father told me to leave it there

The chimney smoked, and it choked the air,

There was no heat from the fire when lit -

You'll just have to make the best of it!'

 

My bedroom, too, like an old ice chest,

I couldn't sleep, I could get no rest,

I made my way to the library

Where a fire burned, and the books were free.

 

Old manuscripts ran along one wall,

Family papers, brittle and old,

Some volumes of ancient erotica

Under the name 'Biologica'.

 

Early prints of Victorian Dames

With not a stitch, and of course, no names,

I spent too long in there, I'll avow,

Comparing the women of then, with now.

 

I soon got restless and turned to walls

Of papers dealing with Barkly Hall,

Dry old screeds of entail and law

Way back to the old Crimean War.

 

One such cutting that caught my eye

Had told of the village of Barkly Stile,

A lad, just seven, had slipped away,

The villagers searched for him, night and day.

 

They searched the woods, they scoured the wold,

The ancient bell in the steeple tolled,

They set the hounds in the fields round there

But nothing was seen of Benjamin Clare.

 

Benjamin Clare had been and gone

Like a rainbow after a summer storm,

His mother did nothing at all but weep,

His father, he was the chimney sweep.

 

They left the village of Barkly Stile,

Came up in the world, so ran the tale,

They bought a house that was grand, complete,

A little bit rich for a chimney sweep.

 

I mulled on it, went back to my room,

Shivered and shook in the marble tomb,

Took the poker and found release

By prising the boards from the mantelpiece.

 

They fell away, piled up on the floor,

I walked to the passage and locked the door

Then peered on up through the chimney space

But all was dark in that soot-caked place.

 

I found in a cupboard a curtain rod

Which I poked up there, and began to prod,

When down with a rattle and caked with soot

There clattered the bones of a tiny foot.

 

And then some movement began up there

As weight was shifted, a tuft of hair,

Some ragged pants and a dirty shirt

And bones crashed down in the dust and dirt.

 

The skull fell out on the parquetry,

And lay there, looking on up at me,

My breath came out like a mist in there,

I'd solved the puzzle of Benjamin Clare!

 

He seemed to be grinning all over his face

Finally free from that dreadful place,

He'd long been stuck in that foetid air

Since the day that his father sent him there.

 

They'd paid him off, that I could see,

A house for his silence - Infamy!

Lord Gordon wasn't amused at all,

'The peasants will love it in Barkly Stile!'

 

'Why did you have to interfere?

You should have just left the blighter there,

He couldn't get out when it mattered most

And you can't light a fire, under a ghost!'

 

Two more bodies were found, at least

In the downstairs fireplace chimney-piece,

Another was buried just under the stair,

Suffocated, like Benjamin Clare.

 

I'm never invited to Stately Homes

Since the word passed round that I'd found old bones,

Their secrets are safe in the family plots

If I'm kept from their soot-caked chimneypots.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[C.T. Bailey]

Solid poetic drama...the story just comes together so nicely. I enjoyed the description and subsequent unvieling of the the boy's bones. I love the way you draw the reader in to the visual image of the skeleton...one bone at a time and then the crescendo of the crash and the skull. So vivid...I learned a lot. I love your stuff. I wish I could have been one of your students.

[Silent Kim aka mizmetap..]

As with your style very entertaining with your flare of rhyms and story telling. You have a head full of interesting stories to be told.

[raining]

Very good. I really enjoy reading your poems. They are so unique. It was like reading EA Poe. A similar style. How long have you been writing to have achieved this ability? yrs...raining

[Rain]

This is a great piece of writing. Not exactly my style, or what I would read, but it has such strong character. I love the way the story unfolds. Excellent work, David..

[Valentine]

David..this ended totally different than I expected and as always I love when you catch me unawares..I love your writing and I am glad to see you back on here..Have you given up your nightly job..I pray so..love and God bless you both..Tell the wife hello for me..Valentine

[Aspiring Angel]

Wonderful read. As always your writes are quite suspensful and very well written. Enjoyed.

Blessings,
Lesa

[Lena M. P.]

Well written. Reminds me of Poe. Dramatic and poetic. The reader gets sucked in, one line at a time.