Introduction

Climbing the five-bar wooden gate, I stopped for a moment with both feet resting on the third bar to listen. It was four thirty in the morning and there was not a sound to break the silence, except the gentle, rippling flow of the River Ouse a short distance away.

A sound broke the silence. I looked as best I could to its source through the growing mist. I listened and watched. There it was again, a distant howl - a sound of evil. It was the sound which had terrified my granddad - the sound of the Devil Jack. The early mist now lifted, leaving behind dim shadows which darted from one place to another. Fear began to grip my body.

“’Tis time for me to make a move.”

I felt the anguish of twisting this way and that as I moved through the damp grass. Left side, right side, moving slowly forward. I was by now a few feet from the water’s edge. I must lie quiet.

My granddad had stirred me to be here. “Yes, Matty,” he had said, “the beast was there, I knows that.” His face twisted as he nodded his head. “Yes, It was there, beside the riverbank. I could hear a ‘gnarling’ sound. I knew it was his teeth. He were gnawing - sharpening he were. It were standing beside its master, the evil Devil Jack. It’s not like me to be frightened, lad, but I were frightened that day, I can say.” He clutched my wrist. “Be careful, Matty, be careful.”