Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Ghost Stories of an AntiquaryThe Project Gutenberg eBook of Ghost Stories of an Antiquary This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: Ghost Stories of an Antiquary Author: M. R. James Release date: July 1, 2005 [eBook #8486] Most recently updated: August 8, 2021 Language: English Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8486 Credits: Suzanne Shell, Thomas Berger, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GHOST STORIES OF AN ANTIQUARY *** [Illustration] Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M. R. James _These stories are dedicated to all those who at various times have listened to them._ Contents 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 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 Bagnères-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 occasional glance to the sacristan. Whenever he did look at him, he found him at no great distance, either huddling himself back against the wall or crouching in one of the gorgeous stalls. Dennistoun became rather fidgety after a time. Mingled suspicions that he was keeping the old man from his _déjeuner_, that he was regarded as likely to make away with St Bertrand's ivory crozier, or with the dusty stuffed crocodile that hangs over the font, began to torment him. "Won't you go home?" he said at last; "I'm quite well able to finish my notes alone; you can lock me in if you like. I shall want at least two hours more here, and it must be cold for you, isn't it?" "Good heavens!" said the little man, whom the suggestion seemed to throw into a state of unaccountable terror, "such a thing cannot be thought of for a moment. Leave monsieur alone in the church? No, no; two hours, three hours, all will be the same to me. I have breakfasted, I am not at all cold, with many thanks to monsieur." "Very well, my little man," quoth Dennistoun to himself: "you have been warned, and you must take the consequences." Before the expiration of the two hours, the stalls, the enormous dilapidated organ, the choir-screen of Bishop John de Mauléon, the remnants of glass and tapestry, and the objects in the treasure-chamber, had been well and truly examined; the sacristan still keeping at Dennistoun's heels, and every now and then whipping round as if he had been stung, when one or other of the strange noises that trouble a large empty building fell on his ear. Curious noises they were sometimes. "Once," Dennistoun said to me, "I could have sworn I heard a thin metallic voice laughing high up in the tower. I darted an inquiring glance at my sacristan. He was white to the lips. 'It is he-that is-it is no one; the door is locked,' was all he said, and we looked at each other for a full minute." Another little incident puzzled Dennistoun a good deal. He was examining a large dark picture that hangs behind the altar, one of a series illustrating the miracles of St Bertrand. The composition of the picture is well-nigh indecipherable, but there is a Latin legend below, which runs thus: _Qualiter S. Bertrandus liberavit hominem quem diabolus diu volebat strangulare_. (How St Bertrand delivered a man whom the Devil long sought to strangle.) Dennistoun was turning to the sacristan with a smile and a jocular remark of some sort on his lips, but he was confounded to see the old man on his knees, gazing at the picture with |