Ghost Stories of an Antiquary

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary

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Title: Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
Author: Montague Rhodes James
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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.
* * * * *
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

* * * * *
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
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