Negotium Perambulans

Negotium Perambulans is a short story by British writer E. F. Benson.
==Plot==
The story details the tale of a man, who, as a child, comes to an isolated fisher village in West Cornwall and is enchanted with it. He stays at his uncles house during this entire time, hearing his uncle (who is a vicar) give sermons that are especially terrifying, mostly when referring to a couple of painted panels, on which is detailed the horrible death of a sacrilegious person at the hands of of a horrible creature. The panel bears the following biblical text:
"Negotium perambulans in tenebris," mistakenly translated as "the pestilence that walketh in darkness" and coming from the ninety first psalm.
When he grows up he eventually moves to London and only when his education is complete, he returns, intending never to leave again.
As he learns from his widowed aunt, the person, who possessed the house, on whose grounds the murder described in the church panel.
The man had died, after one night loosing the light with whose possession he became obsessed and was found dead, as a sack of skin and bones, with all blood drenched from him.
The young man then meets an old acquaintance of his, an artist, who now lives in the cursed house. Everything on him and his drawings repel and also attract the young man and thusly, he visits his home. A short while after, he is found by the young man in darkness, cornered by the horrible thing. The young man tries to fight it of, but he cannot harm it and he cannot prevent it from reducing the artist to but skin and bones.
The young man leaves, resolute never to see his beloved village again.
==Setting==
A number of the locations mentioned in the story are real. Both Penzance and Newlyn are towns on the western tip of Cornwall. A road named "The Coombe" (referring to a valley, sometimes steep and narrow, usually without a watercourse) runs through Newlyn, which might have inspired the combe wherein Polearn lies. Southward along the coast from Newlyn is the Penlee Quarry.
Polearn itself doesn't exist. Mousehole lies two miles along the coast road from Penzance, and Mousehole Lane appears to run through a shallow valley, which may be the combe referred to.
Category:Lovecraft's Inspirations (works)
Category:E. F. Benson works