The Story of Sorry Samuel

A campfire tale I created during a camping trip to Cramond Island, a tidle isle close to Edinburgh, Scotland

The Story of Sorry Samuel

The story of Sorry Samuel takes place between the time of the union between Scotland and England and that of trains, motor-cars and aeroplanes.

Before the invention of the telegram, telephone and television, when the world was a more mysterious place, there lived a charming and dashing English preacher named John Smith who travelled to Scotland to teach its people the ways of Christianity. It was in the coastal village of Cramond that he met and married a beautiful local girl named Miriam.

John the preacher, who became the pastor of the village, and Miriam felt blessed to be with one another and when they became pregnant with their first child they were sure that he would be born to be as perfect as they believed themselves to be.

Nine long months they awaited the birth of their child, but what should have been the most joyous of occasions became a disaster.

The baby was born hideously deformed. He had a hunch upon his back, webbed fingers and toes and a face so hideously deformed that many of those who attended the birth could not bear to look upon him. But worst of all, the baby was so large that Miriam died giving birth to him.

When the woman whom John and Miriam Smith had hired to be the mid-wife and Nanny to the child presented the baby to the heartbroken pastor he turned away in disgust and immediately ordered her to care for him in a dark, secluded room at the very top of the church.

The pastor vowed there and then that the child who killed his wife would never leave the confines of the room unless it was to be rid of him forever. He told the villagers of Cramond that his son had died along with his wife and made the nanny swear an oath to keep the child a secret.

The Nanny, a pagan woman whose name was Audrey named the boy Samuel and raised him as if he were her own child. She fed, clothed, cleaned and taught him alone during the first years of his life, without ever revealing his existence to anyone. Samuel grew bigger and stronger by the day in the small room at the top of the church until eventually he could almost see through the small slit of a window set high in the wall above his straw mattress of a bed.

Pastor John knew that Samuel was much bigger than a normal child and decided to do something to prevent him from revealing his whereabouts to passers by. Once Samuel reached the age of four and was as big as a ten year old the pastor arranged to visit the room once a month. He told Nanny Audrey that it was to oversee his child’s education, but in truth he wanted to make sure that Samuel was kept a secret from the other villagers of Cramond.

Pastor John introduced himself as Samuel’s father and was quite surprised to note how clever and inquisitive the oversized boy was. However he was enraged to see that the room was filled with herbs and plants that the nanny had used to teach the boy the ways of nature and that the boy had been told tales of woodland folk and other mystical creatures that the church did not approve of.

The pastor scolded the pagan woman harshly and removed the plants and herbs from the room before instructing her to teach Samuel only that which was written in the Holy Bible. To make sure that Samuel was afraid to look out of the window he continually told the boy that a vengeful God was waiting for him to show himself so that he could strike him down dead.

One year later the five year old Samuel asked of his father,

‘Why can I not run and play in the sun as other children do? Why is God so angry with me?’

To this the pastor replied,

‘Because you are not like those other children and you must stay hidden in this room at all times. You were an accident of birth and God told me that you must be kept away from His more beautiful creations. You are so grotesque that your mother died from pain and shame at the sight of you and for that you must be very sorry Samuel.’

‘I am very sorry for what I have done father,’ the sorrowful boy wept and in that moment learned to hate himself.

Samuel read the Bible every day after that in the hope of finding forgiveness and when he was seven he asked his father,

‘Why did God make me so hideously ugly?’

To which the pastor replied,

‘Do you remember how the son of God, Jesus Christ was made to carry his cross to his own crucifixion?’

‘Yes father’

‘Well, it pains me to say this, my son, but the shame of your existence is the cross that the Lord sent me to bear and for that you must be very sorry Samuel.’

‘I am sorry to be a burden to you father,’ the boy cried and despised his soul so much that he never again asked a question of his father.

Instead he read the Bible over and over again and prayed to God for forgiveness every night and every day as instructed by his father.  Meanwhile his Nanny Audrey cared for him with as much love and tenderness as any true mother could as the, days, months and years passed by.

It was during Samuel’s thirteenth year that he was awoken to excitable shouting and laughing coming from outside. Already taller than an adult man he peered cautiously through the narrow window to see who had disturbed his sleep and saw that four older boys were loitering in the church grounds.

Samuel watched with great interest as the four talked and joked about things he had no knowledge of, but became so distracted that he did not notice that one of the boys had turned and seen him until he waved and yelled,

‘Hello there Samuel!’

Samuel ducked down low in fear and confusion.

How did this stranger know his name?

 Apart from his nanny and father he had never spoken to another soul, so when the boy yelled his name a second time it was with a mixture of curiosity and uncertainty that he looked through the window again to reply,

‘Hello friend. It is a pleasure to meet you, but I am sorry to say that I do not know your name as you do mine.’

‘My name is Scott and these are my mates Hamish, Aiden and Travis,’ the boy replied.

Upon introduction Hamish, Aiden and Travis also turned and waved at Samuel- their faces red with happiness and laughter.

‘Hello Scott, Hamish, Aiden and Travis! I am very happy to meet such pleasant fellows as yourselves, but may I ask how you know who I am?’

As his three companions were still very much in the hold of their joking it was once again Scott who spoke,

‘Everyone knows who you are Samuel- you’re quite famous. You’re the boy that never leaves his room to run and play in the sun as other children do.’

Samuel was complimented to learn of his apparent fame, but when asked, ‘Why don’t you come and play with us?’ by the laughing and smiling Hamish he could only reply,

‘I am not like other children. I am an accident of creation who murdered his mother and burdened his father with shame and so cannot leave this room lest God strike me down dead I am sorry to say.’

‘There is no need to be so sorry Samuel,’ Scott replied with a wide eyed smile, before Travis added,

‘We know of a way how you can make up for your sins to God and also make your father proud, not ashamed.’

Samuel doubted this but asked how anyway.

‘If you come with us we can show you!’ Aiden said by way of invitation.

‘I am locked in this room for the rest of my days, my friends, so I cannot join you. I am sorry,’ Samuel confessed, but the boys only scoffed at his words.

‘Have you not yet tried to open the door Samuel?’ Scott asked once his laughter subsided.

Samuel looked at the boys with confusion.

‘Why would anyone try to open a door that they knew to be locked?’ he thought to himself.

‘It is common knowledge that the door to your room is not locked Samuel and that you only stay there because you are so sorry for bringing pain and shame to your parents,’ Scott told him before Aiden continued to say,

‘There is a saying made about you that goes, ‘there is no jail stronger than the open room which Sorry Samuel believes he cannot leave.’

Could it be true?

Samuel wasted no time finding out and lurched across the room to the doorway and for the first time in his life turned the iron handle in his gargantuan hand.

His gnarled mouth opened with surprise and awe as the latch clicked open and the door swung inwards. There in front of him were the stone steps which he had never seen, but had heard his nanny climb every day to attend his needs.

Samuel lumbered back to the window and shouted to his new friends,

‘What you say is true- the door has been open all this time! I am sorry that I doubted you.’

‘We told you so Samuel! Come join us and make God and your father proud!’ Scott replied.

Samuel felt overjoyed to see how his friends fell about with laughter and eagerly descended the winding stairs to join the fun. Following his cumbersome downward journey, he was too big to fit comfortably in the narrow staircase, he eventually came to a second door, but barely paused before opening it the same way he had the first.

This time the door swung outwards and for the first time in his life Samuel felt the gentle breeze upon his face and the tender grass beneath his feet as he found the courage to walk toward the four older boys who had freed him.

God did not strike him down and soon the five walked together through the village of Cramond, toward the place where Samuel would make his father proud and gain God’s forgiveness. Many of the villagers looked at Samuel with disgust and fear as he passed them by while some shouted their mockery of his deformed appearance.

Samuel wept and hid his face beneath his hands each time he passed such a person, but his four new friends would yell at them,

‘Do not laugh at our friend ‘Sorry Samuel’- he is going to make God and his father proud!’

Samuel was delighted that Scott, Hamish, Aiden and Travis would defend him so and decided that he could trust them completely.

Presently they came to a farmhouse on the inland edge of Cramond Village and Scott told Samuel,

‘This is the place where you can make your father proud and be granted absolution from God.’

‘What must I do?’ asked Samuel eagerly.

‘You must go into the farmhouse and fill a bag with meat, bread, milk and eggs and then take it back to your room for your father. When your father see’s what you have brought home he will be so pleased that he will allow you to leave your room and play with us whenever you like.’

Now Samuel knew only too well that stealing was a sin in the eyes of God and told the boys this.

‘It is not stealing to take back what was stolen from your father, Samuel,’ Scott replied, before Hamish continued,

‘The man who owns this farmhouse has stolen the food from your father, but as your father is a man of God he cannot act to take it back.’

Samuel understood that the teachings of Christianity said that a person should turn the other cheek to aggression and so decided it was right a proper to act on his father’s behalf.

Once inside the farmhouse Samuel found a hemp sack which he filled with meat, bread, milk and eggs before leaving to return to his friends. He was shocked to find that Scott, Hamish, Aiden and Travis were not outside as he expected and began to search for them around the farm while shouting their names.

Samuel was sad that they did not reply, but heartened slightly to see a man his father’s age approach him with a large hammer in his hands.

‘Hello friend…’ Samuel began to say, but fell silent as the man hit him across the head with the hammer.

When Samuel awoke again he was locked in a cage in a place his keepers called ‘Jail’ for the crime of theft. The two guards who watched over the prisoners in the jail laughed almost as much as the four friends who abandoned him- apparently amused that Samuel had taken the food from the farmhouse of a person they called ‘The English Judge’.

Samuel knew of only of one judge, almighty God and so was pleased to see that ‘The English Judge’ in the courthouse was merely a man, if the same man who had bludgeoned him with a hammer.

Samuel was given the opportunity to speak in his defence and explained that four boys had told him to take the food in order to make his father proud as those in the courthouse mocked and spat on him from the public gallery above. The judge then called his son and three friends to the stand as witnesses to the crime. Samuel was whipped by the guards for yelling out a happy greeting to the judges’ son Scott and his companions Hamish, Aiden and Travis.

It was only when the four told the court how they had befriended Sorry Samuel in the church grounds and then unsuccessfully tried to stop their new friend from stealing from the judges farmhouse that Samuel realised he had been tricked and betrayed.

The jury of villagers found Samuel guilty of the crime of theft and the English judge sentenced him to hang in the village square three days later.

Samuel was thrown back into jail to await his execution. Only his Nanny Audrey visited him and on the first night he said to her,

‘I am sorry for my crimes Nanny. I shall miss you when I am dead,’ to which she replied,

‘You have committed no crime Samuel. The crime has been upon you your whole life. You have no need to be sorry and I will not let you die.’

On the second night he said to her,

‘If I have committed no crime, then why does God in heaven despise me so?’

To this Nanny Audrey replied in pagan rhyme,

‘God is the earth at your feet and the sun in the sky,

The wind on your face and the turn of the tides

God does not despise you nor did bid you to hide.

You are neither travesty nor tragedy in nature’s loving eyes.

You are the child crucified by men of cloth

 Who claim that God, that never truly was,

Imparts truth and knowledge to them from high

While He hides to spy upon your every deed and thought and act

When he is not real at all

In fact

The creator is created by those who would deceive us,

Control console, demean us as we beg God to receive us.

But there is not a heaven or hell, beyond that in which you choose to dwell.

The choice is yours- ‘tis not defined, by fate nor hate nor love besides.

So I will free you from this cell in which the God of men has made you dwell.

Prepare for me the morrow and I shall free thee from thy Hellish sorrow.’

Samuel was shocked at the Nanny’s heathen words, but as he did not wish to die for a crime he was tricked into committing agreed to await her arrival and asked,

‘I am not permitted visitors the night before my execution so how will you gain entry to the jail in order to free me nanny?’

Nanny Audrey simply smiled and said,

‘There is always a way in nature Samuel.’

On the third night a young and beautiful woman appeared at the door to the jail and persuaded the guards to allow her to speak with Samuel. The woman gave the two enchanted men each a flagon of ale as a reward and once the cage was opened she sat by Samuel on the filthy floor of the cell.

‘I am sorry that you have visited me in such a terrible place fair maiden,’ Samuel said to her,

‘And I am sorrier still that I do not know you, nor will have the time to know you more for I am to die at dawn.’

‘But you do know me Samuel,’ said she and Samuel gasped to see that his Nanny Audrey was sat beside him and not the young beautiful woman she had first appeared to be.

‘This is witchcraft!’ Samuel protested for fear of his fathers’ religious teachings of divine retribution for such practices.

‘That it is,’ agreed the nanny without shame, ‘Witchcraft, as some call it, is the nature magic that evil men deny to be real lest they lose their power over the good in you. Do not fear it Samuel, for it will free your mind, your body and your soul from any cage you may be placed within.’

‘But how shall I be free now nanny? How will we escape the attention of the guards?’

In answer to this Nanny Audrey gestured that Samuel look to where the two guards were sleeping soundly; drugged from the potion she had put in the brew.

Nanny Audrey then covered Samuel in a hooded cloak before the pair walked from the jail and made their way to the edge of the village where the ocean lay in wait. Samuel was escorted to a boat in which he and his Nanny travelled to a small tidal isle that lay less than a mile from shore.

The isle was known then as it still is today in the age of computers and space travel; Cramond Island.

Upon arrival Nanny Audrey led Samuel to a shack that she had built within the ruins of an old stone dwelling at the dead centre of the island and told him that this was his new home. The shack was filled with herbs and potions that could cure many ailments and books and scrolls that instructed the reader how to make use of nature and its magic.

‘This is where I practice the art of nature magic Samuel. It must be kept secret or else I will be burned as a witch by those who claim to represent God.’

Samuel thought of the pain and suffering he had endured at the hands of Christians and realised that the only person who had ever cared for him was a pagan who had risked everything to keep him safe throughout his life.

‘How shall I survive here nanny?’ he asked, ‘I do not know the ways of nature and would surely perish before I learned sufficiently.’

‘I shall return to you each night with supplies of food and teach you how to care for yourself in my absence,’ she assured him.

But this promise proved to be false for when it was discovered that Samuel missing the following morning the English Judge and Pastor, who were the very best of friends, ordered her arrested for witchcraft and treason.

Nanny Audrey was taken from her church side home to the dungeons and tortured as confessions to practicing the dark arts and harbouring a fugitive were sought.

She was stretched on the rack and doused upside down in deep water, but she refused to speak. She was whipped and branded, but still would not betray Samuel. She was stripped naked and placed in public stocks to be pelted with rotten vegetables and stones, hobbled so she could not walk, had her teeth pulled and her hair shorn, but not once did she utter the mildest hint as to Samuel’s whereabouts.

Soldiers and villagers alike searched everywhere for the deformed boy, but could not find even the slightest clue to help them.

Meanwhile Samuel, believing himself to be abandoned, grieved the loss of the only person who had ever loved him, but soon began to read the books in his new home to learn how best to survive. He learned which plants were edible and which could be used as remedies to illness. He learned how to hunt and how to make fires to cook his kill. He learned to take only that which he needed and how to listen to nature. He came to understand the language of the tree’s and the habits, traits and cycles of the animals and insects that told him when the weather would change and what he must do to survive.

His senses became so finely tuned to his surroundings that he knew when visitors were approaching the island long before sight told him so. Samuel learned the magic that disguised the shack and made it appear as part of the overgrowth of nature that had beset the ancient ruins. No one could see him, but he could still observe them- casual visitors to the island and those who searched for him there alike.

Back on the mainland Pastor John and his friend the Judge realised that the pagan witch would never confess and so formulated a second plan to finally be rid of the wretched child. They released her from jail and waited for her to recover from the injuries their guards had inflicted.

They knew it would not be long before she led them to Samuel.

Sure enough, as soon as Nanny Audrey was able she took to her boat and travelled back to Cramond Island- desperate to know if boy she loved as if he were her own was alive and well. It had been almost a year since she had freed him from jail and she was worried that he had not survived the desolate winter during which she had recovered from her many wounds.

When she finally made it to the shack she was delighted to see that Samuel was safely inside- alive and well and equally delighted to see her.

They embraced as if mother and son, but Audrey barely had time to explain what had happened to her before the door of the shack was kicked open and in stepped the Pastor, the Judge, Scott, Hamish, Aiden and Travis.

‘We are very grateful to you for leading us here witch! Now God’s justice will be served!’ the Pastor declared.

Audrey stood in front of the cowering Samuel and said,

‘Stay away from the child you God-fearing fools. He has done you no wrong- it is you that have scorned and betrayed he and I will not permit it any longer!’

The nanny began to mutter an incantation to ward off the six men, but was cut short when Pastor John struck her down with a large iron crucifix he had hitherto concealed within his black robes.

Samuel screamed in fury as he saw his Nanny fall to the ground. He dropped to her side and rocked the beloved woman in his arms while praying that she would live. Before Samuel even had chance to accept that she was dead the door to the shack was closed and blocked from the outside.

Samuel wept over the corpse of Nanny Audrey as his father, the judge and the four boys who had pretended to be his friends set the shack alight with him locked inside.

Pastor John and the Judge made their way to the boat in which they had travelled while Scott, Hamish, Aiden and Travis stayed behind to watch the shack burn with the deformed boy and the dead witch trapped inside. They laughed heartily as Samuel cried woefully at the loss of his nanny then cheered as Samuel screamed at the agony of his flesh being burned. It was only once Samuel became silent and the shack collapsed that they began to make their way back through the thick woods toward the grasslands that led down to the beach and their boat.

Even on a clear night such as it was it was treacherous stoney walk underfoot made more so by the emerging bramble vines and nettles that sprouted wildly from late spring; so when the night sky suddenly clouded over and an unseasonably cold gust of wind swept by them, dousing the flame from their torches the four young men began to panic. They could not see in any direction and had no way of reigniting the flame, so carried on the way they were headed with Scott at the fore of the group.

Bringing up the rear was Travis who complained loudly when he felt a twine of bramble become entangled around his ankles and legs, but his complaints turned to screams of terror as he was suddenly enveloped from head to toe and dragged off into the woodland.

‘Travis?’ yelled the petrified Aiden who had been stood slightly ahead of his friend,

‘Hey lads, Travis has disappeared into…’

Aidens’ words ended in a scream of his own as the branches of the surrounding trees looped themselves around his arms, shoulders, head and neck and pulled him in several directions into the canopy.

When Scott and Hamish felt Aiden’s hot blood rain down upon them in the pitch blackness they began to run in a panicked frenzy in opposite directions. They prayed loudly to their God for salvation, but to no avail.

Hamish was fleeing wildly into the overgrowth when he was tripped by either plant or animal, (he neither knew nor cared which), and sent hurtling headlong into a clump of nettles. The nettles then proceeded to wrap themselves around him and force their way into his mouth, eyes and ears, until he could yell no more and the earth opened below him to pull him into his final resting place; an unmarked grave in the midst of nature.

Scott yelled for his father, the judge to come and save him as plant, animal and insect alike attacked him from all angles; biting, scratching and stinging wherever they could. With bats and birds swooping from above and badgers, foxes and wolves attacking from below it was not long before he too was felled and became a meal for the carnivorous creatures of Cramond Island.

On hearing his son’s pleas from the rocky shore on which he and the Pastor waited, the judge began to make his way back inland. He had barely held his torch aloft to guide him up the grassy incline when he saw that a large rock was falling toward him and gathering pace all the time. The Judge did not have time to avoid the crashing stone and was crushed before the Pastor’s eyes.

Horrified and unable to comprehend what was happening to the island Pastor John whispered a quiet prayer for his friend and leapt into the boat to make his escape. He rowed for his life as he wondered what evil had befallen his five companions, but soon realised that his efforts were futile. No matter how hard he rowed a strange tide forced the boat back toward the island. Eventually he had no strength left to him and climbed back onto dry land forced to face whatever fate awaited him there.

Without warning the sky above the island cleared again and bright moonlight illuminated the beach on which he had disembarked. He followed the silver trail of light that led to the grassy embankment and back into the woodland where he had found Sorry Samuel.

 As Pastor John walked back to the shack the supernatural light revealed to him the grisly ends that the some of boys had come to.

First he passed by Scott who was being devoured by snarling wolves, foxes and badgers then he had to endure the sight of the dismembered Aiden whose body parts hung from the tree tops like macabre wind chimes. Finally, as he came to the clearing near to the old ruins he saw that Travis was strapped to the stone wall in the manner of a crucifixion. His body was held aloft, his arms out at the sides by thick tendrils of ivy and bramble while the crown of thorns upon his head was made of hawthorn and wild rose. His eyes had been plucked from their sockets and his gaping tongue-less mouth revealed the pain and fear of his final moments as a living being. The pastor wept as he walked the final steps of his journey and arrived back to the place where he had killed the pagan woman and ordered the burning of his son.

When the pastor saw that the shack was again intact he fell to his knees and began to pray for deliverance from the wrath of Satan, but he fell into fearful silence as the door to the shack creaked open.

‘Bless me father, for I have paid for your sins.’

Pastor John knew the voice to be Samuel’s, but did not recognise the tall handsome young man who had spoken in the boy’s voice.

‘Sorry Samuel,’ his frightened father whispered, realising that this pleasant looking person was indeed his son.

‘I am no longer Sorry Samuel father, I am free of your torment- you and your God can’t hurt me any more,’ Samuel said happily.

‘Please forgive me my son,’ begged the pastor as Samuel approached.

Samuel smiled kindly at his father and placed his hands on either side of the pastor’s head.

‘I do forgive you father- and what is more I will purge you of your own sins.’

The pastor began to scream then as fire ignited along his robes. He tried to stand and run but was held fast in Samuel’s grip as the flames bit into his flesh and transformed him.

A hunch grew upon his back, skin melded to connect his fingers and toes and his face became hideously disfigured. When the fire had subsided Samuel looked to his deformed and disfigured father and said,

‘You are free to return to your faithful flock now father.’

Pastor John looked to his webbed hands and felt the hunch on his back. He needed no looking glass to know that his features were as distorted as Samuel’s had once been.

‘How can I return looking like this?’ he asked pleadingly.

‘You can choose to not return also.’

The second voice belonged to Nanny Audrey who appeared at the doorway to the shack; alive once again through the magic of nature.

Pastor John was too afraid to speak as the pagan woman bade his son to come inside by saying,

‘Now that his true self has been revealed let him decide his own fate Samuel. You owe him and his God nothing.’

The Pastor wept as Samuel nodded his goodbye, returned to the shack and Audrey closed the door behind them. The shack then disappeared beneath vines and tendrils that quickly grew across it, leaving the preacher alone in the darkness of Cramond Island.

It took the Pastor until dawn to find his way out of the thickets and thorns that tore off his clothing and ripped deep into his flesh. By the time he had staggered his way to the cliff top facing the mainland he understood that he could never return.

Pastor John paid homage to the wonderful ocean stretched out before him, blessed the earth beneath his webbed feet and praised the life giving glow of the sun upon his disfigured face. He then took one last breath of natures’ glorious breeze, before throwing himself to the rocks below.

As the Pastor’s life ended, Samuel and his nanny looked across to the mainland from where he had decided to not return.

‘Now that your true self has been revealed do you wish to return and start a new life Samuel?’ the pagan woman asked the handsome young man at her side.

Samuel smiled and placed an arm around her shoulders.

‘No Nanny- I want to stay here with you and be part of nature,’ he said and the pair watched as the sun rose to herald a brand new day.

Legend has it that Sorry Samuel and his pagan nanny remain on the island to this very day, still hidden in the shack built within the ruins and hidden by magic. It is also said that they will protect any visitors who respect the true magic of nature, but those who abuse it or suppress its magic with talk of creators and creation will come to a very nasty end.

Christians especially should probably beware.

for Chloe x 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

This story was made up as I told it and I later wrote it in it's current form. At the time of writing the tale is five days old. I will include a photo of the actual Island once I've uploaded them from my camera.