A Thin Ghost and Others
James M. R. (Montague Rhodes) 1862-1936
English
We will print you a perfectly bound paperback of your selected title and send it to you at your nominated address
Below is a summary of A Thin Ghost and Others
A THIN GHOST AND OTHERS
by
MONTAGUE RHODES JAMES, LITT.D.
Provost Of Eton College
Author of "Ghost Stories of an Antiquary," "More Ghost Stories," etc.
Third Impression
New York
Longmans, Green & Co.
London: Edward Arnold
1920
(All rights reserved)
PREFACE
Two of these stories, the third and fourth, have appeared in print in
the _Cambridge Review_, and I wish to thank the proprietor for
permitting me to republish them here.
I have had my doubts about the wisdom of publishing a third set of
tales; sequels are, not only proverbially but actually, very hazardous
things. However, the tales make no pretence but to amuse, and my
friends have not seldom asked for the publication. So not a great deal
is risked, perhaps, and perhaps also some one's Christmas may be the
cheerfuller for a storybook which, I think, only once mentions the
war.
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE RESIDENCE AT WHITMINSTER 1
THE DIARY OF MR. POYNTER 49
AN EPISODE OF CATHEDRAL HISTORY 73
THE STORY OF A DISAPPEARANCE AND AN APPEARANCE 107
TWO DOCTORS 135
THE RESIDENCE AT WHITMINSTER
A Thin Ghost and Others
THE RESIDENCE AT WHITMINSTER
Dr. Ashton--Thomas Ashton, Doctor of Divinity--sat in his study,
habited in a dressing-gown, and with a silk cap on his shaven
head--his wig being for the time taken off and placed on its block on
a side table. He was a man of some fifty-five years, strongly made, of
a sanguine complexion, an angry eye, and a long upper lip. Face and
eye were lighted up at the moment when I picture him by the level ray
of an afternoon sun that shone in upon him through a tall sash window,
giving on the west. The room into which it shone was also tall, lined
with book-cases, and, where the wall showed between them, panelled. On
the table near the doctor's elbow was a green cloth, and upon it what
he would have called a silver standish--a tray with inkstands--quill
pens, a calf-bound book or two, some papers, a churchwarden pipe and
brass tobacco-box, a flask cased in plaited straw, and a liqueur
glass. The year was 1730, the month December, the hour somewhat past
three in the afternoon.
I have described in these lines pretty much all that a superficial
observer would have noted when he looked into the room. What met Dr.
Ashton's eye when he looked out of it, sitting in his leather
arm-chair? Little more than the tops of the shrubs and fruit-trees of
his garden could be seen from that point, but the red brick wall of it
was visible in almost all the length of its western side. In the
middle of that was a gate--a double gate of rather elaborate iron
scroll-work, which allowed something of a view beyond. Through it he
Back