Ebenezer's Tale
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Where might this strange passage lead? There wasn’t much future in standing still, they thought, and decided to find out.
The distant sound of water tumbling some way ahead drew them on. It grew louder, faded and ceased. Intrigued, the two friends continued round a sharpish curve. There was surely another torrent hidden somewhere and more dramatic still, but where was it? On went this curiously dry and twisting water tunnel, changing colour all the time, just arching over the boys’ heads and continuing to corkscrew its mysterious downward way. At every turn, the sound of rushing, plunging, sometimes jingling water; at every turn you heard it, you heard it not! Very occasionally, a globule of water flung itself off, darted like spilt mercury across the floor, finally splintering into a brilliant crystal-burst. Earlier warmth was giving way to dank, damp chill. This watery hide-and-seek was beginning to create a rather unfunny sense of being drawn into danger.
The friends went on. At a final twist in their spiralling journey, there burst upon them an ear-splitting shriek. All at once they were in a wide, roughly circular chamber. It wasn’t very lofty, although actual height was hard to judge through the clouds of dense, steamy, green mist that hung about. As this swirled, flinging out icy, stinging water droplets, every now and again it cleared to reveal, stabbing and glinting from every wall of the ghastly dungeon, vivid half-blinding light from crimson crystal-pointed quartz; lit mysteriously from within. There was no warmth. Water whipped and thundered, rising up like a water-spout from a gash in the stony floor to feed the whirling waterway which had conducted Alec and Ben thus far. An alarming, strange, aquatic creature with large, all-seeing eyes sat in the midst, perfectly dry; water repelled by its scaly, slimy form.
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About the Book
EBENEZER’S TALE: a light, fictional narrative about two lively young Yorkshire lads rambling into the Dales and into the totally unexpected, in the spectacular caved and pot-holed countryside. Truly wild animals, which roamed widely before continents divided, appear, as do Romans, Vikings and Roundheads, also monks journeying to Fountains Abbey; all part of Yorkshire’s earlier times. At one point, the boys find themselves talking to one of the builders of the great Ribbleshead Viaduct. More local characters find their way into the story. An exchange with some Lancashire witches and a visit to the Lakes soon after the lads set out, start them guessing. Finally returning home on their unusual transport, they are presented with a real poser. And the epilogue has a mysterious conclusion.
About the Author
The author spent his important growing-up years in the Yorkshire Dales. After service with the Royal Navy, he began a professional career: at
The spirit of the Dales took firm hold very early on – its topography, character, history over the aeons and certainly its remarkable weather in all its wide variety and caprice.
Life took the author, who has lived in Hertfordshire, now, for a number of years, away from the North, but affinity has never varied. Frequent holidays in the Dales with his wife and three children – now grown up, with families of their own – were essential. Travelling there will always remain very much a ‘going home’.