Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
James, M. R. (Montague Rhodes), 1862-1936
English
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M. R. JAMES
GHOST STORIES OF AN ANTIQUARY
* * * * *
_These stories are dedicated to all those who at various times have
listened to them._
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CONTENTS
PART 1: GHOST STORIES OF AN ANTIQUARY
Canon Alberic's Scrap-book
Lost Hearts
The Mezzotint
The Ash-tree
Number 13
Count Magnus
'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'
The Treasure of Abbot Thomas
PART 2: MORE GHOST STORIES
A School Story
The Rose Garden
The Tractate Middoth
Casting the Runes
The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral
Martin's Close
Mr Humphreys and his Inheritance
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PART 1: GHOST STORIES OF AN ANTIQUARY
* * * * *
If anyone is curious about my local settings, let it be recorded that St
Bertrand de Comminges and Viborg are real places: that in 'Oh, Whistle,
and I'll Come to You' I had Felixstowe in mind. As for the fragments of
ostensible erudition which are scattered about my pages, hardly anything
in them is not pure invention; there never was, naturally, any such book
as that which I quote in 'The Treasure of Abbot Thomas'. 'Canon Alberic's
Scrap-book' was written in 1894 and printed soon after in the _National
Review_, 'Lost Hearts' appeared in the _Pall Mall Magazine_; of the next
five stories, most of which were read to friends at Christmas-time at
King's College, Cambridge, I only recollect that I wrote 'Number 13' in
1899, while 'The Treasure of Abbot Thomas' was composed in the summer of
1904.
M. R. JAMES
* * * * *
CANON ALBERIC'S SCRAP-BOOK
St Bertrand de Comminges is a decayed town on the spurs of the Pyrenees,
not very far from Toulouse, and still nearer to Bagneres-de-Luchon. It
was the site of a bishopric until the Revolution, and has a cathedral
which is visited by a certain number of tourists. In the spring of 1883
an Englishman arrived at this old-world place--I can hardly dignify it
with the name of city, for there are not a thousand inhabitants. He was a
Cambridge man, who had come specially from Toulouse to see St Bertrand's
Church, and had left two friends, who were less keen archaeologists than
himself, in their hotel at Toulouse, under promise to join him on the
following morning. Half an hour at the church would satisfy _them_, and
all three could then pursue their journey in the direction of Auch. But
our Englishman had come early on the day in question, and proposed to
himself to fill a note-book and to use several dozens of plates in the
process of describing and photographing every corner of the wonderful
church that dominates the little hill of Comminges. In order to carry out
this design satisfactorily, it was necessary to monopolize the verger of
the church for the day. The verger or sacristan (I prefer the latter
appellation, inaccurate as it may be) was accordingly sent for by the
somewhat brusque lady who keeps the inn of the Chapeau Rouge; and when he
came, the Englishman found him an unexpectedly interesting object of
study. It was not in the personal appearance of the little, dry, wizened
old man that the interest lay, for he was precisely like dozens of other
church-guardians in France, but in a curious furtive or rather hunted and
oppressed air which he had. He was perpetually half glancing behind him;
the muscles of his back and shoulders seemed to be hunched in a continual
nervous contraction, as if he were expecting every moment to find himself
in the clutch of an enemy. The Englishman hardly knew whether to put him
down as a man haunted by a fixed delusion, or as one oppressed by a
guilty conscience, or as an unbearably henpecked husband. The
probabilities, when reckoned up, certainly pointed to the last idea; but,
still, the impression conveyed was that of a more formidable persecutor
even than a termagant wife.
However, the Englishman (let us call him Dennistoun) was soon too deep in
his note-book and too busy with his camera to give more than an
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