Ghost Stories of an Antiquary

Stories of an Antiquary, by Montague Rhodes James

Project Gutenberg's Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, by Montague Rhodes James #2 in our series by Montague Rhodes James
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
Title: Ghost Stories of an Antiquary Part 2: More Ghost Stories
Author: Montague Rhodes James
Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9629] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on October 11, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GHOST STORIES OF AN ANTIQUARY ***

Produced by Suzanne Shell, Thomas Berger, and PG Distributed Proofreaders

PART 2: More Ghost Stories
M.R. JAMES
GHOST STORIES OF AN ANTIQUARY

These stories are dedicated to all those who at various times have listened to them.

CONTENTS

PART I: 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
* * * * *
The first six of the seven tales were Christmas productions, the very first ('A School Story') having been made up for the benefit of King's College Choir School. 'The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral' was printed in Contemporary Review; 'Mr Humphreys and his Inheritance' was written to fill up the volume. In 'A School Story' I had Temple Grove, East Sheen in mind; in 'The Tractate Middoth', Cambridge University Library; in 'Martin's Close', Sampford Courtenay in Devon. The Cathedral of Barchester is a blend of Canterbury, Salisbury, and Hereford.
M.R. JAMES
* * * * *
A SCHOOL STORY
Two men in a smoking-room were talking of their private-school days. 'At our school,' said A., 'we had a ghost's footmark on the staircase. What was it like? Oh, very unconvincing. Just the shape of a shoe, with a square toe, if I remember right. The staircase was a stone one. I never heard any story about the thing. That seems odd, when you come to think of it. Why didn't somebody invent one, I wonder?'
'You never can tell with little boys. They have a mythology of their own. There's a subject for you, by the way--"The Folklore of Private Schools".'
'Yes; the crop is rather scanty, though. I imagine, if you were to investigate the cycle of ghost stories, for instance, which the boys at private schools tell each other, they would all turn out to be highly-compressed versions of stories out of books.'
'Nowadays the Strand and Pearson's, and so on, would be extensively drawn upon.'
'No doubt: they weren't born or thought of in my time. Let's see. I wonder if I can remember the staple ones that I was told. First, there was the house with a room in which a series of people insisted on passing a night; and each of them in the morning was found kneeling in a corner, and had just time to say, "I've seen it," and died.'
'Wasn't that the house in Berkeley Square?'
'I dare say it was. Then there was the man who heard a noise in the passage at night, opened his door, and saw someone crawling towards him on all fours with his eye hanging out on his cheek. There was besides, let me think--Yes! the room where a man was found dead in bed with a horseshoe mark on his forehead, and the floor under the bed was covered with marks of horseshoes also; I don't know why. Also there was the lady who, on locking her bedroom door in a strange house, heard a thin voice among the bed-curtains say, "Now we're shut in for the night." None of those had any explanation or sequel. I wonder if they go on still, those stories.'
'Oh, likely enough--with additions from the magazines, as I said. You never heard, did you, of a real ghost at a private school? I thought not; nobody has that ever I came across.'
'From the way in which you said that, I