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Ghost Stories of an Antiquary

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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

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*** 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 

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