Classic Audiobook Collection - Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Volume One by M. R. James ~ Full Audiobook [horror]

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Volume One by M. R. James audiobook. Genre: horror In Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Volume One, M. R. James turns the quiet pleasures of scholarship into a doorway for dread. These classic tales follow learned men - antiquaries, librarians, professors, and curious travelers - who prize old manuscripts, church monuments, and forgotten collections. Their confidence in reason and routine begins to fray when a casual bit of research uncovers something that was meant to stay buried: a cryptic Latin note, a curious whistle, a picture with an unsettling history, a relic taken too lightly, or a document copied once too often. James builds his horrors from meticulous, believable detail: dusty catalogues, candlelit corridors, seaside inns, and ancient chapels where the past feels close enough to breathe. The supernatural arrives not with spectacle, but with a steady tightening of atmosphere, as each protagonist realizes that knowledge can summon attention - and attention can follow you home. Elegant, chilling, and darkly witty, this collection is a masterclass in slow-burn terror, where the most frightening discoveries are the ones made by people who thought they were simply doing their jobs. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:34:36) Chapter 2 (01:01:45) Chapter 3 (01:32:45) Chapter 4 (02:07:53) Chapter 5 (02:48:06) Chapter 6 (03:25:04) Chapter 7 (04:14:57) Chapter 8 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, Volume 1, by M.R. James. Author's Preface If anyone is curious about my local settings, let it be recorded that St. Bertrand de Comange and Viborg are real places, that in, O Whistle and I'll Come to you, I had Felix Doe in mind. As for the fragments of ostens of a st. iridition 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 Abbott Thomas. Canon Albrecht's scrapbook was written in 1894 and printed soon after in the National Review.

Lost Hearts appeared in the Palmel 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 1890, while the treasure of Abbott Thomas was composed in the summer of 1904, M. R. James Canon Albrecht's Scrap Book Saint-Betron de Comange is a decayed town on the spirit, of the Pyrenees, not very far from Toulouse, and still nearer to Banyard de Luchamp.

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 the city, for there are not a thousand inhabitants. He was a Cambridge man, who had come specially from Toulouse to see Saint-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 Oakh. But our Englishman had come early on the day in question, and proposed to himself to fill a notebook, 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 Comanche. In order to carry out this design satisfactorily, it was necessary to monopolise the verger of the church for the day. The verger, or sacristan, I prefer the latter appellation. 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 Dennis Dunn, was soon too deep in his notebook, 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. Deniston became rather fidgety after a time, mingled suspicions that he was keeping the old man from his de Janeiro, that he was regarded as likely to make away with Saint-Mor. Betrins' ivory crozier, or with the dusty, stuffed crocodile that hangs over the font, began to torment him.

"'Would 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 stool-cold, with many thanks to Monsieur. Very well, my little man, quoth Deniston 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 quothed. wire screen of Bishop Jean de Mollion, the remnants of glass and tapestry, and the objects in the treasure-chamber, had been well and truly examined, the sacristan still keeping at Deniston'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, Deniston 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 that he said, and we looked at each other for a full minute. Another little incident puzzled Deniston a good deal. He was examining a large dark.

picture that hangs behind the altar, one of a series illustrating the miracles of Saint-Betron. The composition of the picture is well-nigh indecipherable, but there is a Latin legend below which runs thus. Qualitur es Bertrandus liberavit hominem, quem diabolos, du volibat strangulari. How Saint-Betron delivered a man whom the devil long sought to strangle. Deniston was turning to the Sir Kristen 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 the eye of a suppliant in agony,

his hands tightly clasped, and a rain of tears on his cheeks. Deniston naturally pretended to have noticed nothing, but the question would not go away from him. Why should a daub of this kind affect anyone's so strongly. He seemed to himself to be getting some sort of clue to the reason of the strange look that had been puzzling him all day. The man must be a monomaniac. But what was his monomania? It was nearly five o'clock. The short day was drawing in, and the church began to fill with shadows, while the curious noises, the muffled footfalls and distant talking voices that had been perceptuals,

all day, seemed, no doubt, because of the fading light and the consequently quickened sense of hearing, to become more frequent and insistent. The sacristan began for the first time to show signs of hurry and impatience. He heaved a sigh of relief when camera and notebook were finally packed up and stowed away, and hurriedly beckoned Deniston to the western door of the church under the tower. It was time to ring the Angelus. A few pulls at the reluctant rope, and the great Belle Bertrand, high in the tower, began to speak, and swung her voice up among the pines and down to the valleys loud with mountain streams,

calling the dwellers on those lonely hills to remember and repeats the salutation of the angel, to her whom he called blessed among women. With that, a profound quiet seemed to fall for the first time that day upon the little town, and Denisoon and the Sir Christen went out of the church. On the doorstep they fell into conversation. Monsieur seemed to interest himself in the old choir-books in the Sacristi. Undoubtedly, I was going to ask you if there were a library in the town. No, monsieur.

Perhaps there used to be one belonging to the chapter, but it is now such a small place. Here came a strange pause of irresolution, as it seemed. Then with a sort of plunge he went on, but if Monsieur is amateur de vie l' livres, I have at home something that might interest him. It is not a hundred yards. At once, all Denniston's cherished dreams of finding priceless manuscripts in untrodden corners of France flashed up. To die down again the next moment, it was probably a stupid missile of plantain's printing, about fifteen eighty. Where was the likelihood that a place so near

to lose would not have been ransacked long ago by collectors? However, it would be foolish not to go, he would reproach himself forever after if he refused. So they set off. On the way, The curious irresolution and sudden determination of the sacristan recurred to Denestim, and he wondered in a shamefaced way whether he was being decoyed into some purlier to be made away with, as a supposed rich Englishman. He contrived, therefore, to begin talking with his guide, and to drag in in a rather clumsy fashion, the fact that he expected two friends to join him early the next morning.

To his surprise the announcement seemed to relieve the sacristan at once of some of the anxiety that oppressed him. That is well, he said quite brightly, that is very well. Monsieur will travel in company with his friends. They will always be near him. It is a good thing to travel thus in company, sometimes. The last word appeared to be added as an afterthought, and to bring with it a relapse into gloom for the poor little man. They were sooner to the house, which was one rather larger than its neighbours, stone-built, with a shield carved over the door, the shield of Albrecht de Moulogne, a collateral descendant, Deniston tells me, of Bishop Jean de Moulogne. This alberic was a canon of Comanche from 1680 to 1701.

The upper windows of the mansion were boarded up, and the whole place bore, as does the rest of the aspect of decaying age. Arrived on his doorstep, the sacristan paused a moment. Perhaps, he said, perhaps after all, Mr. Youre has not the time. Not at all, lots of time. Nothing to do till tomorrow. Let us see what it is you have got. The door was opened at this point, and a face looked out,

a face far younger than the Sir Christens, but bearing something of the same distressing look. Only here it seemed to be the mark not so much of fear for personal safety as of acute anxiety on behalf of another. Plainly the owner of the face was the sacristan's daughter, and, but for the expression I have described, she was a handsome girl enough. She brightened up considerably on seeing her father accompanied by an able-bodied stranger. A few remarks passed between father and daughter, of which Denniston only called the words, said by the sacristan, He was laughing in the church, words which were answered only by a look of terror from the girl. But in another minute they were in the sitting-room of the house, a small, high chamber with a stone floor,

full of moving shadows cast by a wood-fire that flickered on a great hearth. Something of the character of an oratory was imparted to it by a tall crucifix, which reached almost to the ceiling on one side. The figure was painted of the next. natural colours, the cross was black. Under this stood a chest of some age and solidity, and when a lamp had been brought and chairs set, the Sir Christen went to this chest and produced therefrom, with growing excitement and nervousness, as Denis Toon thought, a large book, wrapped in a white cloth, on which cloth a cross was rudely emblazoned in red thread.

Even before the wrapping had been removed, Deniston began to be interested by the size and shape of the volume. Too large for a missile, he thought, and not the shape of an antiphonar. Perhaps it may be something good after all. The next moment the book was open, and Deniston felt that he had at last lit upon something better than good. Before him lay a large folio, bound perhaps. late in the 17th century, with the arms of Canon Albrecht de Molion stamped in gold on the sides. There may have been 150 leaves of paper in the book, and on almost every one of them was fastened a leaf from an illuminated manuscript. Such a collection Deniston had hardly dreamed of in his wildest moments. Here were ten leaves from a copy of Genesis.

illustrated with pictures which could not be later than AD 700. Further on was a complete set of pictures from a Psalter of English execution of the very finest kind that the 13th century could produce. And, perhaps best of all, there were twenty leaves of unseal writing in Latin, which, as a few words seen here and there told him at once, must belong to some very early unknown patristic treatise. Could it possibly be a fragment of the copy of Papias on the words of our Lord, which was known to have existed as late as the twelfth century at Neme?

Footnote. We now know that these leaves did contain a considerable fragment of that work, if not of that actual copy of it, returned to the text. In any case his mind was made up. That book must return to Cambridge with him. if he had to draw the whole of his balance from the bank and stay at Saint-Bertrante till the money came. He glanced up at the sacristan to see if his face yielded any hint that the book was for sale. The sacristan was pale, and his lips were working. If Monsieur

will turn on to the end, he said. So Monsieur turned on, meeting new treasures at every rise of a leaf, and at the end of the book he came upon two sheets of paper of much more recent date than anything he had seen yet, which puzzled him considerably. They must be contemporary, he decided, with the unprincipled canon Albrecht, who had doubtless plundered the chapter library of Saint-Bertrand to form this priceless scrap-book. On the first of the paper-sheets was a plan carefully drawn and instantly recognisable by a person who knew the ground, of the south isle and cloisters of Saint-Betrons. There were curious signs looking like planetary symbols, and a few Hebrew words in the corners,

and in the north-west angle of the cloister was a cross drawn in gold paint. Below the plan were some lines of writing in Latin, which ran thus. Response, duodecum, 10,000, 64. Interrogatum is Inveniamne? Response is Inveniase. Fiamne divest? Fiees. Vivamne, invidens, vivest.

Moriarn in lectum, Eo, ita. Answers of the 12th of December, 1694, it was asked, Shall I find it? Answer, thou shalt. Shall I become rich? Thou wilt. Shall I live an object of envy? Thou wilt. Shall I die in my bed?

Thou wilt. A good specimen of the treasure-hunter's record quite reminds one of Mr. Minor Canaan and Quatermain in Old St. Paul's, was Deniston's comment, and he turns the leaf. What he then saw impressed him, as he has often told me, more than he could have conceived any drawing or picture capable of impressing him. And though the drawing he saw is no longer in existence, there is a photograph of it, which I possess, which fully bears out that statement. The picture in question was a sepia drawing at the end of the 17th century, representing, one would say at first sight, a biblical scene. For the architecture, the picture represented an interior, and the figures had that semi-classical flavor about them,

which the artists of 200 years ago thought appropriate to illustrations of the Bible. On the right was a king on his throne. throne elevated on twelve steps, a canopy overhead, soldiers on either side, evidently King Solomon. He was bending forward with outstretched sceptre in attitude of command. His face expressed horror and disgust. Yet there was in it also the mark of imperious command and confident power. The left half of the picture was the strangest, however. The interest plainly centred there, On the pavement before the throne were grouped four soldiers surrounding a crouching figure, which must be described in a moment.

A fifth soldier lay dead on the pavement, his neck distorted, and his eyeballs starting from his head. The four surrounding guards were looking at the king. In their faces the sentiment of horror was intensified. They seemed, in fact, only restrained from flight by their implicitly. trust in their master. All this terror was plainly excited by the being that crouched in their midst. I entirely despair of conveying by any words the impression which this figure makes upon anyone who looks at it. I recollect once showing the photograph of the drawing to a lecturer on

morphology. A person of, I was going to say, abnormally sane and unimaginative habits of mind. mind. He absolutely refused to be alone for the rest of that evening, and he told me afterwards that for many nights he had not dared to put out his light before going to sleep. However, the main trays of the figure I can at least indicate. At first you saw only a mass of coarse matted black hair. Presently it was seen that this covered a body of fearful thinness. almost a skeleton, but with the muscles standing out like wires. The hands were of a dusky pallor, covered like the body with long coarse hairs and hideously taloned. The eyes, touched in with a burning yellow, had intensely black pupils, and were

fixed upon the throned king with a look of beast-like hate. Imagine one of the awful bird-catching spiders of South America translated into human form, and endowed with intelligence just less than human, and you will have some faint conception of the terror inspired by the appalling effigy. One remark is universally made by those to whom I have shown the picture. It was drawn from the life. As soon as the first shock of his irresistible fright had subsided, Deniston stole a look at his hosts. The sacristan's hands were pressed upon his eyes.

His daughter, looking up at the cross on the wall, was telling her beads feverishly. At last the question was asked, Is this book for sale? There was the same hesitation, the same plunge of determination that he had noticed before, and then came the welcome answer. If Monsieur pleases, How much do you ask for it? I will take—I will take two hundred and fifty thrift.

This was confounding. Even a collector's conscience is sometimes stirred, and Deniston's conscience was tenderer than a collector's. My good man, he said again and again. Your book is worth far more than two hundred and fifty franc. I assure you far more. But the answer did not vary. I will take two hundred and fifty franc, not more.

There was really no possibility of refusing such a chance. The money was paid, the receipt signed, a glass of wine drunk over the transaction, and then the Sir Christen seemed to become a new man. He stood upright, he ceased to throw those suspicious glances behind him. He actually laughed, or tried to laugh. Deniston rose to go. I shall have the honour of accompanying Monsieur to his hotel, said the Sir Christen. Oh, no thanks.

It isn't a hundred yards. I know the way perfectly. and there is a moon. The offer was pressed three or four times, and refused as often. So, Monsieur will summon me if he finds occasion. He will keep the middle of the road, the sides are so rough. Certainly, certainly, said Dennis soon, who was impatient to examine his prize by himself,

and he stepped out into the passage with his book under his arm. Here he was met by the daughter. She, it appeared, was anxious to do a little business, on her own account, perhaps like Gahazi, to take somewhat from the foreigner whom her father had spared. A silver crucifix and chain for the neck? M.Sieu would perhaps be good enough to accept it? Well, really, Deniston hadn't much use for these things. What did Mamsal want for it? Nothing, nothing in the world. Monsieur is more than welcome to it. The tone in which this and much more was said was unmistakably genuine, so that Denniston was reduced to profuse thanks, and submitted to have the chain put around his neck. It really seemed as if he had rendered the father and daughter some service which they hardly knew how to repay it.

As he set off with his book they stood at the door looking after him, and they were still looking when he waved them a last good-night from the steps of the chapeau rouge. dinner was over and deniston was in his bedroom shut up alone with his acquisition the landlady had manifested a particular interest in him since he had told her that he had paid a visit to the sacristan and bought an old book from him he thought too that he had heard a hurried dialogue between her and the said sacristan in the passage outside the salamanger some words to the effect that pierre and betr would be sleeping in the house had closed the conversation. All this time a growing feeling of discomfort had been creeping over him, nervous reaction perhaps after the delight of his discovery. Whatever it was, it resulted in a conviction that there was someone behind him, and that he was far more comfortable with his back to the wall.

All of this, of course, weighed light in the balance as against the obvious value of the collection he had acquired, and now, as I said, he was alone in his own. his bedroom, taking stock of Canon Albrecht's treasures, in which every moment revealed something more charming. "'Bless Canon Albrecht,' said Deniston, who had an inveterate habit of talking to himself. "'I wonder where he is now. "'Dear me, I wish that landlady would learn to laugh in a more cheering manner.

"'It makes one feel as if there was someone dead in the house. "'Half a pipe more, did you say? "'I think perhaps you're right. I wonder what that crucifix is that the young woman insisted on giving me. Last century, I suppose. Yes, probably. It is rather a nuisance of a thing to have round one's neck, just too heavy. Most likely her father has been wearing it for years.

I think I might give it a clean up before I put it away. He had taken the crucifix off and laid it on the table, when his attention was caught by an object lying on the red cloth, just by his left elbow, Two or three ideas of what it might be flitted through his brain with their own incalculable quickness. A penwiper? No. No such thing in the house. A rat?

No. Two black. A large spider. I trust the goodness not... No. Good God. A hand! Like the hand in that picture.

In another infinitesimal flash he had taken it in. Pale, dusky skin, covering nothing but bones and tendons of appalling strength. Coarse black hairs, longer than ever grew on a human hand. Nails, rising from the ends of the fingers and curling sharply down and forward, grey, horny and wrinkled. He flew out of his chair with deadly, inconceivable terror clutching at his heart, The shape, whose left hand rested on the table, was rising to a standing posture behind his seat, its right hand crooked above his scalp.

There was black and tattered drapery about it. The coarse hair covered it as in the drawing. The lower jaw was thin. What can I call it shallow, like a beast's teeth showed behind the black lips. There was no nose, the eyes of a fiery yellow, against which the pupils showed black and intense. and the exulting hate and thirst to destroy life which shone there were the most horrifying features in the whole vision. There was intelligence of a kind in them, intelligence beyond that of a beast, below that

of a man. The feelings which this horror stirred in Deniston were the intensest physical fear and the most profound mental loathing. What did he do? What could he do? He has never been quite certain what words he said, but he knows. knows that he spoke, that he grasped blindly at the silver crucifix, that he was conscious of a movement towards him on the part of the demon, and that he screamed with the voice of an

animal in hideous pain. Pierre and Bertrand, the two sturdy little serving-men who rushed in, saw nothing, but felt themselves thrust aside by something that passed out between them, and found Deniston in a swoon. They set up with him that night, and his two friends, were at Saint-Bertrán by nine o'clock next morning. He himself, though still shaken and nervous, was almost himself by that time, and his story found credence with them, though not until they had seen the drawing, and talked with the sacristan. Almost at dawn the little man had come to the inn on some pretense, and had listened with the deepest interest to the story retailed by the landlady. He showed no surprise. It is he.

it is he i have seen him myself was his only comment and to all questionings but one reply was vouchsafed two foe i've l'est he would tell them nothing of the provenance of the book nor any details of his experiences i shall soon sleep and my rest will be sweet why should you trouble me he said footnote he died that summer His daughter married, and settled at Saint-Papou. She never understood the circumstances of her father's obsession. Return to text. We shall never know what he or Canon Albrec de Molion suffered. At the back of that fateful drawing were some lines of writing which may be supposed to throw light on the situation. Contradict Salomonis com demonio nocturno.

albericus domoleone delineavit vi deus in adiotorium pias qui habitet sancty betrondi demoni of effugator indecide preome iudi niu dee dii o'decius deo dee sixgente nine centi four oebobo mox ultimum peccarii and pasiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Sos sum, Plura adhook passurus, 10209, Mille Septuaginti Unum, i.e. the dispute of Solomon with a demon of the night, drawn by Albrec de Molion, Versical, O Lord, make haste to help me, Psalm, whoso dwelleth, 91. Sam Bertrand, who putest devils to flight, pray for me most unhappy, I saw it first on the night of December the 12th, 1694. Soon I shall see it for the last time. I have sinned and suffered, and have more to suffer yet.

December the 29th, 1701. The Gallia Christiana gives the date of the canon's death as December 31, 1701, in bed of a sudden seizure. Details of this kind are not common in the great work of the Samarthine. I have never quite understood what was Deniston's view of the events I have narrated. He quoted to me once a text from Ecclesiasticus, Some spirits there be that are created for vengeance, and in their fury lay on sore strokes. On another occasion he said, Isaiah was a very sensible man. Doesn't he say something about night monsters living in the ruins of Babylon?

These things are rather beyond us at present. confidence of his impressed me rather, and I sympathised with it. We had been, last year, to Comanche to see Cannon Albrecht's tomb. It is a great marble erection with an effigy of the canon in a large wig and sutain, and an elaborate eulogy of his learning below. I saw Deniston talking for some time with the vicar of Saint-Bertranz, and as we drove away he said to me, I hope it isn't wrong. You know I am a Presbyterian, but I believe there will be saying of mass and singing of dirges, for Albrecht de Molion's rest. Then he added, with a touch of the Northern British in his tone,

I had no notion they came so dear. The book is in the Wentworth Collection at Cambridge. The drawing was photographed, and then burned by Deniston on the day when he left Comages on the occasion of his first visit. End of Canon Albrecht's scrapbook in M.R. James's Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, Volume 1. There's something else here now. Something new. From, exclusively on Paramount Plus, it's the series Stephen King calls Scarious Hell. Everything here is impossible, but it's also real.

Sci-fi vision calls it the best show streaming right now. We're running out of time and we still don't know the rules. Don't miss what the movie blog calls something you need to watch. Saving those children is how we all go home. From Binge All Episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to find out how to volunteer,

please contact Libravox.org. Recorded by Peter Yearsley. Ghost Stories of an Antiquary Volume 1 by M.R. James Lost Hearts It was, as far as I can ascertain, in September of the year 1811,

that a post-chaise drew up before the door of Azabee Hall in the heart of Lincolnshire. The little boy who was the only passenger in the chaise and who jumped out as soon as it had stopped, looked about him with the keenest curiosity during the short interval that elapsed between the ringing of the bell and the opening of the hall door. He saw a tall, square, red brick house built in the reign of Anne. A stone-pillered porch had been added in the purer classical style of 1790. The windows of the house were many, tall and narrow, with small panes, and thick,

white woodwork. A pediment pierced with a round window crowned the front. There were wings to the right and left connected by curious glazed galleries supported by colonnades with the central block. These wings plainly contained the stables and offices of the house. Each was surmounted by an ornamental cupola with a gilded vein. An evening light shone on the building, but making the window panes glow like so many fires. Away from the hall in front stretched a flat park, studded with oaks and fringed with furs, which stood out against the sky.

The clock in the church tower, buried in trees on the edge of the park, only its golden weathercock catching the light, was striking six, and the sound came gently beating down the wind. It was altogether a pleasant impression, though tinged with the sort of melancholy appropriate to an evening in early autumn, that was conveyed to the mind of the boy who was standing in the porch, waiting for the door to open to him. The post-chaise had brought him from Warwickshire, where, some six months before, he had been left an orphan. Now, owing to the generous offer of his elderly cousin, Mr. Abney, he had come to live at Aswabee.

The offer was unexpected, because all who knew anything of Mr. Abney looked upon him as a somewhat austere recluse, into whose steady-going household the advent of a small boy would import a new and it seemed incongruous element. The truth is that very little was known of Mr. Abney's pursuits or temper. The professor of Greek at Cambridge had been heard to say that no one knew more of the religious beliefs of the later pagans than did the owner of Azabe. Certainly his library contained all the then available books bearing on the mysteries, the Orphic poems, the worship of Mithras and the Neoplatonists. In the marble paved hall stood a fine group of Mithras slaying a bull, which had been imported from the Levant at great expense by the owner. He had contributed a description of it to the gentleman's magazine, and he had written a remarkable series of articles in the Critical Museum on the superstitions of the Romans of the Lower Empire. He was looked upon, in fine, as a man wrapped up in his books, and it was a matter of great surprise among his neighbours that he should ever have heard of his

the orphan cousin Stephen Elliott, much more than he should have volunteered to make him an inmate of Azabe Hall. Whatever may have been expected by his neighbours, it is certain that Mr. Abney, the tall, the thin, the austere, seemed inclined to give his young cousin a kindly reception. The moment the front door was opened he darted out of his study rubbing his hands with delight. "'How are you, my boy? How are you? How old are you?' said he. "'That is—you're not too much tired, I hope, are your journey to eat your supper.' "'No, thank you, sir,' said Master Elliot.

"'I am pretty well.' "'That's a good lad,' said Mr. Abney. "'And how old are you, my boy?' It seemed a little odd that he should have asked the question twice in the first two minutes of their acquaintance. "'I'm twelve years old, next birthday, sir,' said Stephen. "'And when is your birthday, my dear boy? "'Eleventh of September, eh?' "'That's well, that's very well.

"'Nearly a year hence, isn't it? "'I like—ha! "'I like to get these things down in my book.' "'Sure it's twelve? "'Certain?' "'Yes, quite sure, sir.' "'Well, well, take him to Mrs. Bunch's room, parks, and let him have his tea-suffer whatever it is.

Yes, sir, answered the staid Mr. Parks, and conducted Stephen to the lower regions. Mrs. Bunch was the most comfortable and human person whom Stephen had as yet met at Azabee. She made him completely at home. They were great friends in a quarter of an hour, and great friends they remained. Mrs. Bunch had been born in the neighbourhood

some fifty-five years before the date of Stephen's arrival, and her residence at the hall was of twenty years standing. Consequently, if anyone knew the ins and outs of the house and the district, Mrs. Bunch knew them, and she was by no means disinclined to communicate her information. Certainly, there were plenty of things about the hall and the hall gardens which Stephen, who was of an adventurous and inquiring turn, was anxious to have explained to him. Who built the temple at the end of the laurel walk? Who was the old man whose picture hung on the staircase, sitting at a table with a skull under his hand? These and many similar points were cleared up by the resources of Mrs. Bunch's powerful intellect.

There were others, however, of which the explanations furnished were less satisfactory. One November evening Stephen was sitting by the fire in the housekeeper's room, reflecting on his surroundings. Is Mr. Abney a good man, and will he go to heaven? He suddenly asked, with the peculiar confidence which children possess, in the ability of their elders to settle these questions, the decision of which is believed to be reserved for other tribunals. "'Good, bless the child,' said Mrs. Bunyan. "'Master's as kind a soul as ever I see.

"'Didn't I never tell you of the little boy as he took in out of the street, "'as you may say, this seven years back, and the little girl? "'Two years after I first come here.' "'No, do tell me all about the Mrs. Bunch. "'Now, this minute.' "'Well,' said Mrs. Bunch, "'the little girl I don't seem to recollect so much about. "'I know Master brought her back with him from his walk one day

and give orders to Mrs Ellis, as was housekeeper then, as she should be took every care with. And the poor child had no one belonging to her. She told me so her own self, and here she lived with us a matter of three weeks, it might be, and then, whether she was something of a gypsy in her blood or whatnot, but one morning she out of her bed afore any of us had opened an eye, and neither track nor yet trace of her, have I set eyes on since?

Master was wonderful put about And had all the ponds dragged But it's my belief He was had away by them gypsies For they were singing around the house For as much as an hour the nights she went And parks He declared as he heard them a calling in the woods

All that afternoon Dear, dear A hod child she was So silent in her ways and all But I was wonderful taken up with her So domesticated she was Surprising and what about the little boy said Stephen

ah that poor boy sighed Mrs. Punch He were a foreigner Jeveny he called himself and he come a-tweak in his erdy-gurdy round and about the drive one winter day and master had him in that minute and asked all about where he came from and how old he was and how he made his way

and where was his relatives and all as kind as heart could wish but it went the same way with him there are unruly lot then foreign nations I do suppose and he was off one fine morning just the same as the girl why he went

and what he done was our question for as much as a year after for he never took his Erdy-Gurdy and there it lays on the shelf the remainder of the evening was spent by Stephen in miscellaneous cross-examination

of Mrs Bunch and in efforts to extract the tune from the hurdy-gurdy That night he had a curious dream. At the end of the passage, at the top of the house, in which his bedroom was situated, there was an old, disused bathroom. It was kept locked, but the upper half of the door was glazed, and since the muslin curtains which used to hang there had long been gone,

you could look in and see the lead-lined bath affixed to the wall on the right hand, with its head towards the window. On the night of which I am speaking, Stephen Elliott found himself, as he thought, looking through the glazed door. The moon was shining through the window, and he was glazing at a figure which lay in the bath. His description of what he saw

reminds me of what I once beheld myself in the famous vaults of St. Michan's Church in Dublin, which possesses the horrid property of preserving corpses from decay, for centuries. A figure inexpressibly thin and pathetic of a dusty leaden colour enveloped in a shroud-like garment, the thin lips crooked into a faint and dreadful smile, the hands pressed tightly over the region of the heart. As he looked upon it, a distant, almost inaudible moan seemed to to issue from its lips, and the arms began to stir.

The terror of the sight forced Stephen backwards, and he awoke to the fact that he was indeed standing on the cold, boarded floor of the passage, in the full light of the moon. With a courage which I do not think can be common among boys of his age, he went to the door of the bathroom to ascertain if the figure of his dreams were really there. It was not, and he went back to bed. Mrs. Bunch was much impressed next morning by his story, and went so far as to replace the muslin curtain over the glazed door of the bathroom. Mr. Abney, moreover, to whom he confided his experiences at breakfast, was greatly interested,

and made notes of the matter in what he called his book. The spring equinox was approaching, as Mr. Abney frequently reminded his cousin, adding that this had been always considered by the ancients to be a critical time for the young, that Stephen would do well to take care of himself and to shut his bedroom window at night, and that Kensorinas had some valuable remarks on the subject. Two incidents that occurred about this time made an impression upon Stephen's mind. The first was after an unusually uneasy and oppressed night, that he had passed, though he could not recall any particular dream that he had.

The following evening Mrs. Bunch was occupying herself in mending his nightgown. "'Gracious me, Master Stephen,' she broke forth rather irritably. "'How do you manage to tear your night-dress all to Flinders this way? Look here, sir! What trouble you do give to poor servants that have to darn and mend after you?' There was, indeed, a most destructive and apparently wanton series of slits or scorings in the garment, which would undoubtedly require a skilful needle to make good. They were confined to the left side of the chest, long, parallel slits about six inches in length, some of them not quite piercing the texture of the linen.

Stephen could only express his entire ignorance of their origin. You were sure they were not there the night before. But, he said, Mrs. Bunch, they're just the same as the scratches on the outside of my bedroom door, and I'm sure I never had anything to do with making them. Mrs. Bunch gazed at him, open-mouthed, then snatched up a candle, departed hastily from the room, and was heard making her way upstairs. In a few minutes she came down. Well, she said, Master Stephen, it's a funny thing.

to me how then marks and scratches can I come there, too high up for any cat or a dog to have made them, much less a rat. For all the world, like a Chinaman's fingernails, as my uncle in the tea trade used to tell us of when we used girls together. I wouldn't say nothing to master, not if I was you, Master Stephen, my dear, and just turn the key of the door when you go up to your bed. I always do, Mrs. Bunch, as soon as I've said my prayers. Ah, that's a good child. Always say your prayers, and then no one can't hurt you." Herewith Mrs. Bunch addressed herself to mending the injured nightgown, with intervals of meditation, until bedtime.

This was on a Friday night in March, 1812. On the following evening the usual duet of Stephen and Mrs. Bunch was augmented by the sudden arrival of Mr. Parks, the butler, who as a rule kept himself rather to himself in the in his own pantry. He did not see that Stephen was there. He was more ever, flustered, and less slow of speech than was his wont. Master may get up his own wine if he likes of an evening, was his first remark. Either I do it in the daytime, or not at all, Mrs. Bunch. I don't know what it may be, very like it's the rats, or the wind got into the cellars, but I'm not so young as I was, and I can't go through with it as I have done. Well, Mr. Parks, you know,

know it is a surprising place, so the rats is the whole. I am not denying that, Mrs. Bunch. And to be sure, many a time I have heard the tale from the men in the shipyards about the rat that could speak. I never laid no confidence in that before, but to-night, if I had demeaned myself to lay my ear on the door of the further bin, I could pretty much have heard what they were saying. Oh, there, Mr. Park, I have no patience with your fancies, rats talking in the wine-cellar indeed.

Well, Mrs. Bunch, I've no wish to argue with you. All I say is, if you choose to go to the far bin and lay your ear to the door, you may prove my words this minute. What nonsense you did talk, Mr. Parks, not fit for children to listen to. Why, you'll be frightening Master Stephen there out of his wits. What? Master Stephen, said Parks, awaking to the consciousness of the boy's presence. Master Stephen knows well enough when I am playing a joke with you, Mrs. Bunch. In fact, Master Stephen knew much too well to suppose that Mr. Parks had in the first instance

intended a joke. He was interested not altogether pleasantly in the situation, but all his questions were unsuccessful in inducing the butler to give any more detailed account of his experiences in the wine-cellar. We have now arrived at March the 24th, 1812. It was a day of curious experiences for Stephen, a windy, noisy day which filled the house and the gardens with a restless impression. As Stephen stood by the fence of the grounds and looked out into the park, he felt as if an endless procession of unseen people were sweeping past him on the wind, borne on resistlessly

and aimlessly, vainly striving to stop themselves, to catch at something that might a rest their flight, and bring them once again into contact with the living world of which they had formed a part. After luncheon that day, Mr. Avney said, Stephen, my boy, do you think you could manage to come to me tonight, as late as eleven o'clock in my study? I shall be busy until that time, and I wish to show you something connected with your future life, which it is most important that you should know. You are not to mention this matter to Mrs. Bunch, nor to anyone else in the house. and you had better go to your room at the usual time.

Here was a new excitement added to life. Stephen eagerly grasped at the opportunity of sitting up till eleven o'clock. He looked in at the library door on his way upstairs that evening, and saw a brazier which he had often noticed in the corner of the room, moved out before the fire. An old silver-gilt cup stood on the table, filled with red wine, and some written sheets of paper lay near it. Mr. Abney was sprinkling some incense on the brazier from a round silver box as Stephen passed,

but did not seem to notice his step. The wind had fallen, and there was a still night and a full moon. At about ten o'clock, Stephen was standing at the open window of his bedroom, looking out over the country. Still as the night was, the mysterious population of the distant moonlit woods was not yet lulled to rest. From time to time, strange cries, as of lost and despairing wanderers, sounded from across the mere. They might be the notes of owls or water-birds, yet they did not quite resemble either sound. Were they not coming nearer? Now they sounded from the nearer side of the water, and in a few moments they seemed to be floating about among the shrubberies.

Then they ceased. But just as Stephen was thinking of shutting the window and resuming his reading of Robinson Crusoe, he caught sight of two figures standing on the graveled terrace that ran along the garden side of the hall, the figures of a boy and girl, as it seemed. They stood side by side, looking up at the windows. Something in the form of the girl recalled irresistibly his dream. of the figure in the bath. The boy inspired him with more acute fear.

Whilst the girl stood still, half smiling, with her hands clasped over her heart, the boy, a thin shape with black hair and ragged clothing, raised his arms in the air with an appearance of menace and of unappeasable hunger and longing. The moon shone upon his almost transparent hands, and Stephen saw that the nails were fearfully long, and that the light shone through them. As he stood with his arms thus raised, he disclosed a terrifying spectacle. On the left side of his chest there opened a black and gaping rent, and there fell upon Stephen's brain rather than upon his ear the impression of one of those hungry and

and desolate cries that he had heard resounding over the woods of Azabe all that evening. In another moment this dreadful pair had moved swiftly and noiselessly over the dry gravel, and he saw them no more. Inexpressibly frightened as he was, he determined to take his candle and go down to Mr. Abney's study, for the hour appointed for their meeting was near at hand. The study, or library, opened out of the front hall on one side. And Stephen, urged on by his terrors, did not take long in getting there. To effect an entrance was not so easy. It was not locked. He felt sure, for the key was on the outside of the door as usual. His repeated knocks produced no answer.

Mr. Abney was engaged. He was speaking. What? Why did he try to cry out? And why was the cry choked in his throat? Had he too seen the mysterious children? But now everything was quiet, and the door yielded to Stephen's terrified and frantic pushing. On the table in Mr. Abney's study, certain papers were found, which explained the situation to Stephen Elliott when he was of an age to understand them. The most important sentences were as follows. It was a belief very strongly, and generally held by the ancients, of whose wisdom in these matters I have had such experience as induces me to place confidence in their assertions, that by enacting certain processes,

which, to us moderns, have something of a barbaric complexion, a very remarkable enlightenment of the spiritual faculties in man may be attained, that, for example, by absorbing the personalities of a certain number of his fellow creatures, an individual, may gain a complete ascendancy over those orders of spiritual beings which control the elemental forces of our universe. It is recorded of Simon Magus that he was able to fly in the air, to become invisible, or to assume any form he pleased, by the agency of the soul of a boy whom, to use the libelous phrase employed by the author of the Clementine recognitions, he had murdered. I find it set down.

moreover with considerable detail in the writings of Hermes Trismegistus, that similar happy results may be produced by the absorption of the hearts of not less than three human beings below the age of twenty-one years. To the testing of the truth of this recipe I have devoted the greater part of the last twenty years, selecting as the corpora of my experiment, such persons as could conveniently be removed without occasioning a sensible gap in society. The first step I affected by the removal of one Phoebe Stanley, a girl of gypsy extraction, on March the 22nd, 1792, the second by the removal of a wandering Italian lad named Giovanni

Paoli on the night of March the 23rd, 1805. The final victim, to employ a word repugnant in the highest degree to my feelings, must be my cousin, Stephen Elliott. His day must be this March 24th, 1812. The best means of effecting the required absorption is to remove the heart from the living subject, to reduce it to ashes, and to mingle them with about a pint of some red wine, preferably port. The remains of the first two subjects at least it will be well to conceal.

A disused bathroom or wine cellar will be found convenient for such a purpose. Some annoyance may be experienced from the psychic portion of the subjects, which popular language dignifies with the name of ghosts, but the man of philosophic temperament, to whom alone the experiment is appropriate, will be little prone to attach importance to the feeble efforts of these beings to wreak their vengeance on him. I contemplate with the liveliest satisfaction the enlarged and emancipated existence which the experiment, if successful, will confer on me, not only placing me beyond the reach of human justice, so called, but eliminating, to a great extent, the prospect of death itself.

Mr. Abney was found in his chair, his head thrown back, his face stamped with an expression of rage, fright, and mortal pain in his left side was a terrible lacerated wound exposing the heart. There was no blood on his hands, and a long knife that lay on the table was perfectly clean. A savage wildcat might have inflicted the injuries. The window of the study was open, and it was the opinion of the coroner that Mr. Abney had met his death by the agency of some wild creature. But Stephen Elliott's study of the papers I have quoted led him to a very different conclusion.

End of Lost Hearts in M.R. James's ghost stories of an antiquary, Volume 1. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please contact Librevox.org. Recorded by Peter Yearsley Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M.R. James

The Metzo Tint Some time ago, I believe I had the pleasure of telling you the story of an adventure which happened to a friend of mine by the name of Deniston, during his pursuit of objects of art for the museum at Cambridge. He did not publish his experiences very widely upon his return to England, but they could not fail to become known to a good many of his friends, and among others, to the gentleman who at that time presided over an art museum at another university. It was to be expected that the story should make a considerable impression on the mind of a man whose vocation lay in lines similar to Deniston's, and that he was to the

He should be eager to catch at any explanation of the matter, which tended to make it seem improbable, that he should ever be called upon to deal with so agitating an emergency. It was indeed somewhat consoling to him to reflect that he was not expected to acquire ancient manuscripts for his institution. That was the business of the Shelburnean Library. The authorities of that institution might, if they pleased, ransacked. obscure corners of the continent for such matters. He was glad, to be obliged at the moment, to confine his attention to enlarging the already

unsurpassed collection of English topographical drawings and engravings possessed by his museum. Yet, as it turned out, even a department so homely and familiar as this may have its dark corners. And to one of these, Mr. Williams was unexpectedly introduced. Those who have taken even the most limited interest in the acquisition of topographical pictures are aware that there is one London dealer whose aid is indispensable to their researches. Mr. J. W. Brittnell publishes at short intervals very admirable catalogs of a large and constantly changing stock of engravings, plans, and old sketches, of mansions, churches and towns in England and Wales. These catalogues were, of course, the ABC of his subject to Mr. Williams, but, as his

museum already contained an enormous accumulation of topographical pictures, he was a regular, rather than a copious buyer, and he rather looked to Mr. Brittle to fill up gaps in the rank and file of his collection than to supply him with rarities. Now, in February of last year, there appeared upon Mr. Williams' desk at the museum, a catalogue from Mr. Brittle's Emporium, and accompanying it was a typewritten communication from the dealer himself. This letter ran as follows. Yes, sir, we beg to call your attention to number 978. in our accompanying catalogue, which we shall be glad to send on approval, yours faithfully, J.W. Britnell.

To turn to number 978 in the accompanying catalogue was, with Mr. Williams, as he observed to himself, the work of a moment, and in the place indicated he found the following entry, 978. Ununknown Interesting metzo-tint View of a manor-house Early part of the century 15 by 10 inches Black frame

Two pounds, two shillings It was not especially exciting And the price seemed high However, as Mr. Brittle who knew his business and his customer seemed to set store by it Mr Williams wrote a postcard asking for the article to be sent on approval, along with some other engravings and sketches, which appeared in

the same catalogue. And so he passed without much excitement of anticipation to the ordinary labours of the day. A parcel of any kind always arrives a day later than you expect it, and that of Mr. Brittle proved, as I believe the right phrase goes, no exception to the rule. It was delivered at the museum by the afternoon post of Saturday, after Mr. Williams had left his work, and it was accordingly brought round to his rooms in college by the attendant, in order that he might not have to wait over Sunday before looking through it, and returning such of the contents as he did not propose to keep. And here he found it when he came in to tea with a friend.

The only item with which I am concerned was the wrong. rather large, black-framed metzer tent, of which I have already quoted the short description given in Mr. Brittle's catalogue. Some more details of it will have to be given, though I cannot hope to put before you the look of the picture, as clearly as it is present to my own eye. Very nearly the exact duplicate of it may be seen in a good many old inn parlours, or in the passages of undisturbed country mansions at the present moment. It was a rather indifferent mezzotint, and an indifferent mezzotint is perhaps the worst form of engraving known. It presented a full-faced view of a not-very-large manor-house of the last century,

with three rows of plain, sashed windows with rusticated masonry about them, a parapet with balls or vases at the angles, and a small, portico in the centre. On either side were trees, and in front a considerable expanse of lawn. The legend, A. W. F. Sculpset, was engraved on the narrow margin, and there was no further inscription. The whole thing gave the impression that it was the work of an amateur. What in the world Mr. Brittle could mean by affixing the price of two guineas to such an object, was more than Mr. Williams could imagine. He turned it over with a good deal of contempt.

Upon the back was a paper label, the left-hand half of which had been torn off. All that remained were the ends of two lines of writing. The first had the letters N-G-L-E-Y-H-A-W-L, the second S-S-E-X. It would perhaps be just worthwhile to identify the place represented, which he could easily do with the help of a gazetteer, and then he would send it back to Mr. Brittle, with some remarks reflecting upon the judgment of that gentleman. He lighted the candles, for it was now dark, made the tea, and supplied the friend with whom he had been playing golf, for I believe the authorities of the university I write of, indulge in their own. pursuit by way of relaxation. And T was taken to the accompaniment of a discussion which golfing persons can imagine for themselves, but which the conscientious writer has no right to inflict upon

any non-golfing persons. The conclusion arrived at was that certain strokes might have been better, and that in certain emergencies neither player had experienced that amount of luck which a human being has a right to expect. It was now that the friend, let us call him Professor Binks, took up the framed engraving, and said, What's this place, Williams? Just what I was going to try to find out, said Williams, going to the shelf for a gazetteer. Look at the back. Somethingly Hall, either in Sussex or Essex. Half the name's gone, you see. You don't happen to know it, I suppose. "'It's from that man Britannel, I suppose, isn't it?' said Binks. "'Is it for the museum?'

"'Well, I think I should buy it if the price was five shillings,' said Williams. "'But for some unearthly reason he wants two guineas for it. I can't conceive why. It's a wretched engraving, and there aren't even any figures to give it life.' "'It's not worth two guineas, I should think,' said Binks. but I don't think it's so badly done. The moonlight seems rather good to me, and I should have thought that there were figures, or at least a figure, just on the edge in front.

Let's look, said Williams. Well, it's true the light is rather cleverly given. Where's your figure? Oh, yes, just the head in the very front of the picture. And indeed there was, hardly more than a black blot on the extreme edge of the engraving, The head of a man or woman, a good deal muffled up, the back turned to the spectator, and looking towards the house.

Williams had not noticed it before. Still, he said, though it's a cleverer thing than I thought, I can't spend two guineas of museum money on a picture of a place I don't know. Professor Binks had his work to do, and soon went, and very nearly up to hall time, Williams was engaged in a very very very very engaged in a attempt to identify the subject of his picture. If the vowel before the enne had only been left, it would have been easy enough, he thought. But as it is, the name may be anything from guestingly to Langley, and there are many more

names ending like this than I thought, and this rotten book has no index of terminations. Hall in Mr. Williams's college was at seven. it need not be dwelt upon, the less so as he met their colleagues who had been playing golf during the afternoon, and words with which we have no concern were freely banded across the table, merely golfing words I would hasten to explain. I suppose an hour or more to have been spent in what is called common room after dinner. Later in the evening some few retired to Williams's rooms, and I have little doubt that whist was played and tobacco smoked. During a lull in these operations, Williams picked up the mezzo tint from the table without

looking at it, and handed it to a person mildly interested in art, telling him where it had come from, and the other particulars which we already know. The gentleman took it carelessly, looked at it. then said, in a tone of some interest, "'It's really a very good piece of work, Williams. "'It has quite a feeling of the romantic period. "'The light is admirably managed, it seems to me, "'and the figure, though it's rather too grotesque,

"'is somehow very impressive.' "'Yes, isn't it?' said Williams, "'who was just then busy giving whiskey and soda to others of the company, "'and was unable to come across the room to look at the view again. It was, by this time, rather late in the evening, and the visitors were on the move. After they went, Williams was obliged to write a letter or two, and clear up some odd bits of work. At last, some time passed midnight. He was disposed to turn in, and he put out his lamp after lighting his bedroom candle. The picture lay face

upwards on the table where the last man who looked at it had put it, and it caught his eye as he turned the lamp down. What he saw made him very nearly drop the candle on the floor, and he declares now, if he had been left in the dark at that moment, he would have had a fit, but as that did not happen, he was able to put down the light on the table and to take a good look at the picture. It was indubitably, rankly impossible. no doubt, but absolutely certain. In the middle of the lawn in front of the unknown house, there was a figure where no figure had been at five o'clock that afternoon. It was crawling on all fours towards the house, and it was muffled in a strange black garment, with a white

cross on the back. I do not know what is the ideal course to pursue in a situation of this kind. I can only tell you what Mr. Williams did. He took the picture by one corner and carried it across the passage to a second set of rooms which he possessed. There he locked it up in a drawer, sported the doors of both rooms, and retired to bed. But first he wrote out and signed an account of the extraordinary change which the picture had undergone since it had come into his possession. Sleep visited him rather late, but it was consoling to reflect that the behaviour of the picture did not depend upon his own unsupported testimony. Evidently the man who had looked at it the night before had seen something of the same kind as he had, otherwise he

might have been tempted to think that something gravely wrong was happening, either to his eyes or his mind. This possibility being fortunately precluded. Two matters awaited him on the morrow. He must take stock of the picture very carefully, and call in a witness for the purpose, and he must make a determined effort to ascertain what house it was that was represented.

He would therefore ask his neighbour Nisbet to breakfast with him, and he would subsequently spend a morning over the gazette Here. Nisbet was disengaged, and arrived about 9.20. His host was not quite dressed, I'm sorry to say, even at this late hour. During breakfast nothing was said about the mezzo tint by Williams, save that he had a picture on which he wished for Nisbet's opinion. But those who are familiar with university life can picture for themselves the wide and delightful

range of subjects over which the conversation of two fellows of Canterbury College is likely to extend during a Sunday morning breakfast. Hardly a topic was left unchallenged from golf to lawn tennis. Yet, I am bound to say that Williams was rather distraught, for his interest, naturally centred in that very strange picture, which was now reposing face downwards in the drawer, in the room opposite. The morning pipe was at last lighted, and the moment had arrived for which he looked. With very considerable, almost tremulous excitement,

he ran across, unlocked the drawer, and, extracting the picture, still face downwards, ran back and put it into Nisbet's hands. Now, he said, Nisbet, I want you to tell me exactly what you see in that picture. Describe it, if you don't. don't mind, rather minutely. I'll tell you why afterwards." "'Well,' said Nisbet, "'I have here a view of a country house—'

English, I presume, by moonlight.' "'Moonlight? You're sure of that?' "'Certainly. The moon appears to be on the wane, if you wish for details, and there are clouds in the sky.' "'All right. Go on. I'll swear,' added Williams in and aside. and there was no moon when I saw it first. Well, there's not much more to be said, Nisbitt continued. The house has one, two, three rows of windows, five in each row, except at the bottom,

where there's a porch instead of the middle one, and—' "'But what about figures?' said Williams, with marked interest. "'There aren't any,' said Nisbitt. "'But what? No figure on the grass in front?' "'Not a thing.' "'You'll swear to that. "'Certainly I will, but there's just one other thing.' "'What?'

"'Why, one of the windows on the ground floor, left of the door, is open.' "'Is it really so? "'My goodness! He must have got in,' said Williams with great excitement, and he hurried to the back of the sofa on which Nisbit was sitting, and catching the picture from him, verified the matter for himself. It was quite true. There was no figure, and there was the open window. Williams, after a moment of speechless surprise, went to the writing-table and scribbled for a short time.

Then he bought two papers to Nisbet, and asked him first to sign one. It was his own description of the picture, which you have just heard, and then to read the other, which was William's statement written the night before. What can it all mean? said Inisbet. Exactly, said Williams. Well, one thing I must do, or three things now I think of it, I must find out from Garwood,

this was his last night's visitor, what he saw. And then I must get the thing photographed before it goes further. And then I must find out what the place is. I can do the photographing myself, said Elizabeth, and I will. But, you know, it looks very much as if if we were assisting at the working out of a tragedy somewhere. The question is, has it happened already, or is it going to come off?

You must find out what the place is. Yes, he said looking at the picture again. I expect you're right. He has got in. And if I don't mistake, there'll be the devil to pay in one of the rooms upstairs. I'll tell you what, said Williams. I'll take the picture across to Old Green. This was the senior fellow of the college, who had been Bursa for many years.

It's quite likely he'll know it. We have property in Essex and Sussex, and he must have been over the two counties a lot in his time. Quite likely he will, said in his bit, but just let me take my photograph first. But look here. I rather think Green isn't up today. He wasn't in hall last night, and I think I heard him say he was going down for the Sunday. That's true, too. said Williams. I know he's gone to Brighton. Well, if you'll photograph it now, I'll go across to Garwood and get his statement. And you keep an eye on it while I'm gone. I'm beginning to think

two guineas is not a very exorbitant price for it now. In a short time he had returned, and brought Mr. Garwood with him. Garwood's statement was to the effect that the figure, when he had seen it, was clear of the edge of the picture, but had not got far across the lawn. He remembered a white mark on the back of its drapery, but could not have been sure it was a cross. A document to this effect was then drawn up and signed, and Nisbet proceeded to photograph the picture. "'Now what do you want to do?' he said. "'Are you going to sit and watch it all day?' "'Well, no, I think not,' said Williams.

"'I rather imagine we're meant to see the whole thing. You see, between the time I saw it last night and this morning, there was time for lots of things to happen, but the creature only got into the house. It could easily have got through its business in the time and gone to its own place again, but the fact of the window being open, I think, must mean that it's in there now. So I feel quite easy about leaving it. And besides, I have a kind of idea that it wouldn't change much, if at all, in the daytime. We might go out for a walk this afternoon, and come into tea, or whenever it gets dark. I shall leave it out on the table here, and sport the door. My skip can get in, but no one else.

The three agreed that this would be a good plan, and further that if they spent the afternoon together they would be less likely to talk about the business to other people. For any rumour of such a transaction as was going on would bring the whole of the phasmatologic society about their ears. We may give them a respite until five o'clock. At or near that hour, the three were entering Williams's staircase. They were at first slightly annoyed to see that the door of his rooms was unsported, but in a moment it was remembered that on Sunday the skips came for orders an hour or so earlier

than on weekdays. However, a surprise was awaiting them. The first thing they saw was the picture, leaning up against a pile of books on the table, as it had been left. And the next thing was Williams's skip, seated on a chair opposite, gazing at it, with undisguised horror. How was this? Mr. Filcher, the name is not my own invention, was a servant of considerable standing,

and set the standards of etiquette to all his own college and to several neighbouring ones, and nothing could be more alien to his practice than to be found sitting on his master's chair or appearing to take any particular notice of his master's furniture or pictures indeed he seemed to feel this himself he started violently when the three men were in the room and got up with a marked effort then he said i ask your pardon sir for taking such a freedom as to set down not at all robert interposed mr williams i was meaning to ask you some time what you thought of that picture Well, sir, of course I don't set up my opinion against yours, but it ain't the picture I should hang where my little girl could see it, sir. Wouldn't you, Robert? Why not? No, sir. Why, the poor child, I recollect once she sees a door Bible with pictures not off what that is, and we had to set up with her three or four nights afterwards, if you'll believe me, and if she was to catch a sight of this Skellington here, or whatever it is, carrying off the poor bed,

baby, she would be in a taking. You know how it is with children, how nervous they get, with a little thing and all. But what I should say, it don't seem a right picture to be laying about, sir, not where anyone that's liable to be startled could come on it. Should you be wanting anything this evening, sir? Thank you, sir. With these words, the excellent man went to continue the round of his masters, and you may be sure the gentleman whom he left lost no time in gathering round the engraving. There was the house, as before, under the waning moon and the drifting clouds.

The window that had been open was shut, and the figure was once more on the lawn, but not this time crawling cautiously on hands and knees. Now it was erect, and stepping swiftly with long strides towards the front of the picture. The moon was behind it, and the black drapery hung down over its face, so that only hints of that could be seen.

And what was visible made the spectators profoundly thankful that they could see no more than a white, dome-like forehead, and a few straggling hairs. The head was bent down, and the arms were tightly clasped over an object which could be dimly seen and identified as a child, whether dead or living it was not possible to say. the legs of the appearance alone could be plainly discerned, and they were horribly thin. From five to seven the three companions sat and watched the picture by turns, but it never changed. They agreed at last that it would be safe to leave it, and that they would return after hall and await further developments. When they assembled again, at the earliest possible moment, the engraving was there, but the figure

was gone, and the house was quiet under the moonbeams. There was nothing for it, but to spend the evening over gazetteers and guide-books. Williams was the lucky one at last, and perhaps he deserved it. At 11.30 p.m., he read from Murray's Guide to Essex, the following lines. 16 and one-half miles, Anningley. The church has been an interesting building of Norman Date, but was extensively classicised in the last century. It contains the tomb of the family of Francis, whose mansion Anningley Hall, a solid Queen Anne

House, stands immediately beyond the churchyard in a park of about 80 acres. The family is now extinct, the last heir having disappeared mysteriously in infancy in the year 1802. The father, Mr. Arthur Francis, was locally known as a talented amateur engraver in Metzotint. After his son's disappearance he lived in complete retirement at the hall and was found dead in his studio on the third anniversary of the disaster, having just completed an engraving of the house, impressions of which are a considerable rarity. This looked like business, and indeed Mr. Green on his return at once identified the

house as Anningley Hall. Is there any kind of explanation of the figure, Green, was the question which Williams naturally asked. I don't know, I'm sure, Williams. What used to be said in the place when I first knew it, which was before I came up here, just this. Old Francis was always very much down on these poaching fellows, and whenever he got a chance he used to get a man whom he suspected of it turned off the estate, and by degrees he got rid of them all but one. Squires could do a lot of things then that they daren't think

of now. Well, this man that was left was what you find pretty often in that country. The last remains of a very old family. I believe there were lawyering. of the manor at one time. I recollect just the same thing in my own parish. What? Like the man in Tessa the Derbevilles?" Williams put in. Yes, I dare say, it's not a book I could ever read myself, but this fellow could show a row of tombs in the church there that belonged to his ancestors, and all that went to sour him a bit. But Francis, they said, could never get at him. He always kept just on the right side of the law. Until one night the keeper's found him at it in a wood right at the end of

the estate. I could show you the place now. It marches with some land that used to belong to an uncle of mine. And you can imagine there was a row. And this man, Gordy, that was the name, to be sure. Gordy! I thought I should get it. Gordy! He was unlucky enough, poor chap, to shoot a keeper. Well, that was what Francis wanted. And grand jury! Juries, you know what they would have been then. And poor Gordy was strung up in double-quick time. And I've been showed the place he was buried in, on the north side of the church. You know the way in that part of the world. Anyone that's been hanged or made away with themselves, they bury them that side. And the idea was that some friend of Gordy's, not a relation, because he had none,

poor devil. He was the last of his line. Kind of spess ultimagentis must have planned to get hold of Francis's boy and put an end to his line, too. I don't know. It's rather an out-of-the-way thing for an Essex portrait to think of, but, you know, I should say now it looks more as if old Gordy had managed the job himself. Ugh, I hate to think of it. Have some whiskey Williams. The facts were communicated by Williams to Deniston, and by him to a mixed company of which I was one, and the seducine professor of opheology another. I am sorry to say that the latter, when asked what he thought of it, only remarked, Oh, those Bridgeford people will say anything, a sentiment which met with the reception it deserved.

I have only to add that the picture is now in the Ashlian Museum, that it has been treated with a view to discovering whether sympathetic ink has been used in it. but without effect, that Mr. Britnell knew nothing of it, save that he was sure it was uncommon, and that, though carefully watched, it has never been known to change again. End of the Metzo Tint. From Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M.R. James. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain.

For more information, or to vote. volunteer, please contact Librevox.org, recorded by Peter Yearsley. Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M.R. James The Ash Tree Everyone who has travelled over Eastern England knows the smaller country houses with which it is studied. The rather dank little buildings, usually in the Italian style, surrounded with parts of of some 80 to 100 acres.

For me, they have always had a very strong attraction, with the grey paling of split oak, the noble trees, the mears with their reed beds, and the line of distant woods. Then I like the pillared portico, perhaps stuck on to a red brick Queen Anne house, which has been faced with Stucco to bring it into line with the Grecian taste of the end of the 18th century.

the hall inside going up to the roof which hall ought always to be provided with a gallery and a small organ i like the library too where you may find anything from a salter of the thirteenth century to a shakespeare I like the pictures, of course, and, perhaps most of all, I like fancying what life in such a house was when it was first built, and in the piping times of landlord's prosperity, and not least now, when, if money is not so plentiful, taste is more varied, and life quite as interesting. I wish to have one of these houses, and enough money to keep it together, and entertain my friends in it. it modestly. But this is a digression. I have to tell you of a curious series of events which happened in such a house as I have tried to describe. It is Castringham Hall in Suffolk. I think a good deal has been done to the building since the period of my story, but the essential features I have sketched are still there. Italian portico, square block of White House, older inside than out, park with fringe of woods, and mere. The one feature that marked out the house from a score

of others is gone. As you looked at it from the park, you saw on the right a great old ash-tree, growing within half a dozen yards of the wall, and almost or quite touching the building with its branches. I suppose it had stood there ever since Castringham ceased to be a fortified place, and since the moat was filled in and the Elizabethan dwelling-house built. At any rate, it had well nigh attained its full dimensions in the year 1690. In that year the district in which the hall is situated was the scene of a number of which trials. It will be long, I think, before we arrive at a just estimate of the amount of solid reason,

if there was any, which lay at the root of the universal fear of witches in old times. Whether the persons accused of this offence really did imagine that they were possessed of unusual power of any kind, or whether they had the will, at least, if not the power, of doing mischief to their neighbours, or whether all the confessions, of which there are so many, were extorted by the cruelty of the witch-finders. These are questions which are not, I fancy, yet solved. And the present narrative gives me pause.

I cannot altogether sweep it away as mere invention. The reader must judge for himself. Castringham contributed a victim to the Otto Duffet. Mrs. Mother-Soul was her name, and she differed from the ordinary run of village witches only in being rather better off, and in a more influential position. Efforts were made to save her by several reputable farmers of the parish. They did their best to testify to her character, and showed considerable anxiety as to the verdict of the jury.

But what seems to have been fatal to the woman was the evidence of the then proprietor of Castringham Hall, Sir Matthew fell. He deposed to having watched her on three different occasions from his window at the full of the moon, gathering sprigs From the ash tree near my house She had climbed into the branches, Clad only in her shift, and was cutting off small twigs With a peculiarly curved knife,

And as she did so, She seemed to be talking to herself. On each occasion, Sir Matthew had done his best To capture the woman, But she had always taken alarm at some accidental noise he had made, And all he could see when he got down to the garden, was a hare running across the path in the direction of the village. On the third night he had been at pains to follow at his best speed,

and had gone straight to Mrs. Mother's house, but he had had to wait a quarter of an hour battering at her door, and then he had come out very cross, and apparently very sleepy, as if just out of bed, and he had no good explanation to offer of his visit. Mainly on this evidence, though there was much more of a less striking and unusual kind from other parishioners, Mrs. Mother's soul was found guilty and condemned to die. She was hanged a week after the trial, with five or six more unhappy creatures at Bury St. Edmunds.

Sir Matthew Fell, then Deputy Sheriff, was present at the execution. It was a damp, drizzly March morning, when the cart made its way up the rough grass hill outside Northgate, where the gallows stood. The other victims were apathetic, or broken down with misery. But Mrs. Mother's soul was, as in life so in death, of a very different temper. Her poisonous rage, as a reporter of the time put it, did so work upon the bystanders, yea, even upon the hangman, that it was constantly affirmed of all that saw her that she presented the living aspect of a mad divil, yet she offered no resistance to the officers of the law. Only she looked upon those that laid hands upon her with so direful and venomous an aspect

that, as one of them afterwards assured me, the mere thought of it preyed inwardly upon his mind for six months after. However, all that she is reported to have said were the seemingly meaningless words, There will be guests at the hall, which she repeated more than once in an undertone. Sir Matthew Fell was not unimpressed by the bearing of the woman. He had some talk upon the matter with the vicar of his parish, with whom he travelled home after the Assize business was over. His evidence at the trial had not been very much.

willingly given. He was not specially infected with the witch-finding mania, but he declared, then and afterwards, that he could not give any other account of the matter than that he had given, and that he could not possibly have been mistaken as to what he saw. The whole transaction had been repugnant to him, for he was a man who liked to be on pleasant terms with those about him, but he saw a duty to be done in this business, and he had done it. That seems to have been in the gist of his sentiments, and the vicar applauded it, as any reasonable man must have done. A few weeks after, when the moon of May was at the full, vicar and squire met again in the park, and walked to the hall together. Lady fell with her mother, who was dangerously

ill, and Sir Matthew was alone at home. So the vicar, Mr. Crom, was easily persuaded to take a late supper at the hall. Sir Matthew was not very good company this evening. The talk ran chiefly on family and parish matters, and as luck would have it, Sir Matthew made a memorandum in writing of certain wishes or intentions of his regarding his estates, which afterwards proved exceedingly useful. When Mr. Cromes thought of starting for home, about half-past nine o'clock, Sir Matthew and he took a preliminary turn on the gravelled walk at the back of the house. The only incident that struck Mr. Crombe was this. They were in sight of the ash-tree which I described as growing near the windows of the building. When Sir Matthew stopped and said,

What is that that runs up and down the stem of the ash? It is never a squirrel. They will all be in their nests by now. The vicar looked and saw the moving creature, but he could make nothing of its colour in the moonlight. The sharp outline had a sharp outline, seen for an instant, was imprinted on his brain, and he could have sworn, he said, though it sounded foolish, that, squirrel or not, it had more than four legs. Still, not much was to be made of the momentary vision, and the two men parted. They may have met since then, but it was not for a score of years. Next day Sir Matthew fell was not downstairs at six in the morning, as was his custom, nor at seven, nor yet at eight. Hereupon the servants went and knocked at his chamber door.

I need not prolong the description of their anxious listenings and renewed batterings on the panels. The door was opened at last from the outside, and they found their master, dead and black. So much, you have guessed, that there were any marks of violence did not at the moment appear, but the window was open. One of the men went to fetch the parson, and then by his directions rode on to give notice to the coroner. Mr. Crome himself went as quick as he might to the hall, and was shown to the room where the dead man lay.

He has left some notes among his papers, which show how genuine a respect and sorrow was felt for Sir Matthew, and there is also this passage, which I transcribe for the sake of the light it throws upon the, course of events, and also upon the common beliefs of the time. There was not any the least trace of an entrance having been forced to the chamber, but the casement stood open, as my poor friend would always have it in this season. He had his evening drink of small ale in a silver vessel of about a pint measure, and to-night

had not drunk it out. This drink was examined by the physician from Berry, a Mr. Hodgkins, who was examined by the physician, who could not, however, as he afterwards declared upon his oath before the coroner's quest, discover that any matter of a venomous kind was present in it, for as was natural in the great swelling and blackness of the corpse there was talk made among the neighbours of poison. The body was very much disordered as it lay in the bed, being twisted after so extreme a sort as gave too probable conjecture that my worthy friend and patron had expired in great pain and agony. And what is as yet unexplained, and to myself the argument of some horrible and

artful design in the perpetrators of this barbarous murder, was this that the women which were entrusted with the laying out of the corpse and washing it, being both sad persons and very well respected in their mournful profession, came to me in a great pain and distress, both of mind and body, saying, what was indeed confirmed upon the first view, that they had no sooner touched the breast of the corpse with their naked hands, than they were sensible of a more than ordinary violent, smart, and aching in their palms, which with their whole forearms in no long time swelled so immoderately, the pain still continuing, that, as afterwards proved during many weeks, they were forced to lay by the exercise of their calling, and yet,

no mark seen on the skin. Upon hearing this I sent for the physician, who was still in the house, and we made, as careful a proof as we were able by the help of a small magnifying lens of crystal, of the condition of the skin in this part of the body, but could not detect with the instrument we had any matter of importance, beyond a couple of small punctures or pricks, which we then concluded were the spots by which the poison might be introduced, remembering that ring of Pope Borgia, with other known specimens of the horrible art of the Italian poisoners of the last age. So much is to be said of the symptoms seen on the corpse. As to what I am to add, it is merely my own

experiment, and to be left to posterity to judge whether there be anything of value therein. There was, on the table by the bedside, a Bible of the small size, in which my friend, punctual as in the matters of less moment, so in this more weighty one, used nightly, and upon his first rising, to read a set portion, and I, taking it up, not without a tear duly paid to him which from the study of this poorer adumbration, was now passed to the contemplation of its great original. It came into my thoughts, as at such moments of helplessness we are prone to catch at any the least glimmer that makes promise of light, to make trial of that old, and by many accounted superstitious practice, of drawing the sortes, of which a principal instance,

in the case of his late sacred majesty the Blessed Martyr King Charles, and my Lord Falkland, was now much talked of. I must, needs admit, that by my trial not much assistance was afforded me. Yet, as the cause and origin of these dreadful events may hereafter be searched out, I set down the results, in the case it may be found that they pointed the true quarter of the mischief to a quicker intelligence than my own. I made then three trials, opening the book, and placing my finger upon certain words, which gave in the first these words, from Luke 13, verse 7. Cut it down in the second, Isaiah 13, verse 20. It shall never be inhabited. And upon the third experiment, Job 39, verse 30, her young ones also suck up blood. This is all that need be quoted

from Mr. Cromes' papers. Sir Matthew Fell was duly coffined and laid into the earth, and his funeral sermon, preached by Mr. Crome on the following Sunday, has been printed under the title of The Unsearchable Way, or England's Danger and the Malicious Dealings of Antichrist. It, being the vicar's view, as well as that most commonly held in the neighbourhood, that the squire was a victim of a recrudescence of the popish plot. His son, Sir Matthew II, succeeded to the title and estates, and so ends the first act of the Castringham tragedy. It is to be mentioned, though the fact is not surprising, that the new baronet did not occupy the room in which his father had died, nor indeed was it slept in by anyone but an occasional visitor during the whole of his occupation. He died in 1735.

and I do not find as anything particular marked his reign, save a curiously constant mortality among his cattle and livestock in general, which showed a tendency to increase slightly, as time went on. Those who are interested in the details will find a statistical account in a letter to the Gentleman's magazine of 1772, which draws the facts from the Baronet's own papers. He put an end to it at last by a very simple expedient, that of shutting up all his beasts in sheds at night, and keeping no sheep in his park, for he had noticed that nothing was ever attacked that spent the night indoors. After that the disorder confined itself to wild birds and beasts of chase. But, as we have no good account of the symptoms, and as all night watching was quite unproductive of any clue, I do not dwell on what the Suffolk farmers called the Castringham sickness. The second Sir Matthew died in 1735, as I said, and was duly succeeded by his son, Sir Richard. It was in his time that the great family pew was built out on the north side of the parish church.

So large were the squire's ideas that several of the graves on that unhallowed side of the building to be disturbed to satisfy his requirements. Among them was that of Mrs. Mother's Soul, the position of which was accurately known, thanks to a note on a plan of the church and yard, both made by Mr. Crom. A certain amount of interest was excited in the village, when it was known that the famous witch, who was still remembered by a few, was to be exhumed, and the feeling of surprise and, indeed, disquiet, was very strong when it was found that, though her coffin was fairly sound and unbroken, there was no trace whatever inside it of body, bones, or dust. Indeed, it is a curious phenomenon, for at the time of her burying no such things were

dreamt of as resurrection men, and it is difficult to conceive any rational motive for stealing a body otherwise than for the uses of the dissecting room. The incident revived for a time all the stories of witch trials and of the exploits of the witches, dormant for forty years, and Sir Richard's orders that the coffin should be burnt were thought by a good many to be rather foolhardy, though they were duly carried out. Sir Richard was a pestilent innovator, it is certain. Before his time, the hall had been a fine block of the mellowest red brick. But Sir Richard had travelled in Italy and became infected with the Italian taste, and having more money than his predecessors, he determined to leave an Italian

palace, where he had found an English house. So Stucco and Ashlar masked the brick. Some indifferent Roman marbles were planted about in the entrance hall and gardens, a reproduction of the Sibyl's temple at Tivoli. was erected on the opposite bank of the mere, and Castringham took on an entirely new and, I must say, a less engaging aspect. But it was much admired, and served as a model to a good many of the neighbouring gentry in after years. One morning, it was in seventeen fifty-four, Sir Richard woke after a night of discomfort. It had been windy, and his chimney had smoked persistently, and yet it was so cold that he must keep up a fire.

Also, something had so rattled about the window that no man could get a moment's peace. Further, there was the prospect of several guests of position arriving in the course of the day, who would expect sport of some kind, and the inroads of the distemper, which continued among his game, had been lately so serious that he was afraid for his reputation as a game preserver. but what really touched him most nearly was the other matter of his sleepless night. He could certainly not sleep in that room again. That was the chief subject of his meditations at breakfast, and after it he began a systematic examination of the rooms

to see which would suit his notions best. It was long before he found one. This had a window with an eastern aspect, and that to the northern, this door the servants would always be passing, and he did not like the bedstead in that. No, he must have a room with a western lookout, so that the sun could not wake him early,

and it must be out of the way of the business of the house. The housekeeper was at the end of her resources. Well, Sir Richard, she said, you know that there is but the one room like that in the house. Which may that be, said Sir Richard, and that is Sir Matthews, the West Chamber. Well, put me in there, for there are light and I. night," said her master.

"'Which way is it? Here, to be sure.' And he hurried off. "'Oh, Sir Richard! But no one has slept there these forty years! The air has hardly been changed since Sir Matthew died there.' Thus she spoke, and rustled after him. "'Come, open the door, Mrs. Churuk. I'll see the chamber at least.' So it was opened. And, indeed, the smell was very close and earthy.

Sir Richard crossed to the window, and impatiently as was his wont, threw the shutters back, and flung open the casement. For this end of the house was one which the alterations had barely touched, grown up as it was with the great ash-tree, and being otherwise concealed from view. Ere it, Mrs. Cheddock, all to-day, and move my bed-furniture in, in the afternoon. Put the Bishop of Kilmore in my old room. "'Pray, Sir Richard,' said a new voice, breaking in on this speech, "'might I have the favour of a moment's interview?' Sir Richard turned round, and saw a man in black in the doorway, who bowed.

I must ask your indulgence for this intrusion, Sir Richard. You will perhaps hardly remember me. My name is William Cron, and my grandfather was vicar in your grandfather's time. Well, sir, said Sir Richard, the name of Cromwellme is always a passport to Gostringham. I'm glad to renew a friendship of two generations standing. In what can I serve you? For your hour of calling, and, if I do not mistake you, your bearing, show you to be in some haste. That is no more than the truth, sir.

I am riding from Norwich to bury St. Edmunds, with what haste I can make, and I have called in on my way to leave you with some papers, which we have but just come upon in looking over what my grandfather left at his death. It is thought you may find some matters of family interest in them. You are mighty obliging, Mr. Crom, and if you will be so good as to follow me to the parlour, and drink a glass of wine, we will take a first look at these papers together. And you, Mrs. Chitter, as I said, be about hearing this chamber. Yes, it is here, my grandfather died.

Yes, the tree perhaps does make the place a little dampish. No, I do not wish to listen to any more. Make no difficulties, I beg. You have your orders. Go. Will you follow me, sir? They went to the study. The packet which young Mr. Crom had brought, he was then just to become a fellow of Clear

Hall in Cambridge, I may say, and subsequently brought out a respectable addition to the of Polyenas. Contain, among other things, the notes which the old vicar had made upon the occasion of Sir Matthew Fell's death. And for the first time Sir Richard was confronted with the enigmatical Sortis Bibliqui, which you have heard. They amused him a good deal. Well, he said, my grandfather's Bible gave one prudent piece of advice, cut it down.

If that stands for the astry, he may rest assured. I shall not neglect it. Such a nest of catars and agues was never seen. The parlour contained the family books, which pending the arrival of a collection which Sir Richard had made in Italy, and the building of a proper room to receive them, were not many in number. Sir Richard looked up from the paper to the bookcase. "'I wonder,' says he, "'whether the old prophet is there yet. I fancy I see him.' Crossing the room, he took out a dumpy Bible, which, sure enough, bore on the fly-leaf the inscription, To Matthew Fell from his loving godmother, Anne Aldous, 2nd of September 1659.

It would be no bad plan to test him again, Mr. Crom. I will wager we get a couple of names in the chronicles. Oh, what have we here? Thou shalt seek me in the morning, and I shall not be, Well, well, your grandfather would have made a fine omen of that, eh? No more profits for me, they are all in a tale. And now, Mr. Croma, I am infinitely obliged to you for your packet. You will, I fear, be impatient to get on. Pray allow me, another glass. So with offers of hospitality which were genuinely meant, for Sir Richard thought well of

the young man's address and manner, they parted. In the afternoon came the guests, the Bishop of Kilmore, Lady Mary Hervey, Sir William Kentfield, etc. Dinner at five, wine, cards, supper, and dispersal to bed. Next morning Sir Richard is disinclined to take his gun with the rest. He talks with the Bishop of Kilmore. This prelate, unlike a good many of the Irish bishops of his day, had visited his sea, and indeed resided there for some considerable time. This morning, as the two were walking along the terrace, and talking over the alterations and improvements in the house, the bishop said, pointing to the window of the west room,

You could never get one of my Irish flock to occupy that room, Sir Richard. Why is that, my lord? It is in fact my own. Well, our Irish peasantry will always have it, that it brings the worst of luck to sleep near an ash-tree, and you have a fine growth of ash, not two yards from your chamber window. "'Perhaps,' the bishop went on with a smile, "'it has given you a touch of its quality already, for you do not seem, if I may say it, so much the fresher for your night's rest as your friends would like to see you. That, or something else, it is true, cost me my sleep from twelve to four, my lord,

but the tree is to come down to-morrow, so I shall not hear much more from it.' "'I applaud your determination. It can hardly be wholesome to have the air you breathe strained, as it were, through all that leafage. Your lordship is right there, I think. But I had not my window open last night. It was rather the noise that went on, no doubt from the twigs sweeping the glass that kept me open-eyed. "'I think that can hardly be, Sir Richard. Here, you can see it from this point. None of these nearest branches even can touch your casement unless there were a gale, and there was none of that last night. They missed the pains by a foot.'

"'No, sir, true. What then will it be, I wonder, that scratch. and rustled so, I had covered the dust on my sill with lines and marks. At last they agreed that the rats must have come up through the ivy. That was the bishop's idea, and Sir Richard jumped at it. So the day passed quietly, and night came, and the party dispersed to their rooms, and wished Sir Richard a better night. And now we are in his bedroom, with the light out. and the squire in bed.

The room is over the kitchen, and the night outside, still and warm, so the window stands open. There is very little light about the bedstead, but there is a strange movement there. It seems as if Sir Richard were moving his head rapidly to and fro, with only the slightest possible sound.

And now you would guess, so deceptive is the half-darkness, that he had several heads, round and brownish, which move back and forward, even as low as his chest. It is a horrible illusion. Is it nothing more? There, something drops off the bed with a soft plump like a kitten, and is out of the window in a flash, another, four, and after that there is quiet again. Thou shall seek me in the morning, and I shall not be. As we, with Sir Matthew, so with Sir Richard, dead and black in his bed. A pale and silent party of guests and servants gathered under the window when the news was known.

Italian poisoners, popish emissaries, infected air, all these and more guesses were hazarded, and the Bishop of Kilmore looked at the tree, in the fork of whose lower boughs a white tomcat was crouching, looking down the hollow which years had gnawed in the trunk. It was watching something inside the tree with great interest. Suddenly it got up and craned over the hole, then a bit of the edge on which it stood gave way, and it went slithering in. Everyone looked up at the noise of the fall.

It is known to most of us that a cat can cry. But few of us have heard, I hope, such a yell as came out of the trunk of the great ash, two or three screams there were the witnesses are not sure which and then a slight and muffled noise of some commotion or struggling was all that came but lady mary hervey fainted outright and the housekeeper stopped her ears and fled till she fell on the terrace the bishop of kilmore and sir william kentfield stayed yet even they were daunted though it was only at the cry of a cat and sir william swallowed once or twice before he could say There is something more than we know of in that tree, my lord. I am for an instant search, and this was agreed upon. A ladder was brought, and one of the gardeners went up, and, looking down the hollow,

could detect nothing but a few dim indications of something moving. They got a lantern, and let it down by rope. We must get at the bottom of this. My life upon it, my lord, that the secret of these terrible deaths is there. Up went the gardener again with the lantern, and let it down the hole cautiously. They saw the yellow light upon his face as he bent over, and saw his face struck with an incredulous terror and loathing, before he cried out in a dreadful voice and fell back from the ladder, where happily he was caught by two of the men, letting the lantern fall inside the tree. He was in a dead faint, and it was some time before any word could be got from

him. By then they had something else to look at. The lantern must have broken at the bottom, and the light in it caught upon dry leaves and rubbish that lay there, for in a few minutes a dense smoke began to come up, and then flame, and, to be short, the tree was in a blaze. The bystanders made a ring at some yards distance, and Sir William and the bishop sent men to get what weapons and tools they could, for clearly whatever might be using the tree as its lair would be forced out by the fire. So it was. First, at the fork, they saw a round body covered with fire, the size of a man's head, appear very suddenly, then seemed to collapse and fall back. This, five or six times, then a similar ball leapt into the air and fell on the grass,

where, after a moment, it lay still. The bishop went as near as he dared to it, and saw what but the remains of an enormous spider, vainous and seared. And as the fire burned lower down, more terrible bodies like this began to break out from the trunk, and it was seen that these were covered with greyish hair. All that day the ash burned,

and until it fell to pieces, the men stood about it, and from time to time killed the brutes as they darted out. At last there was a long interval when none appeared, and they cautiously closed in and examined the roots of the tree. They found, said the Bishop of Kilmore, below it, a rounded hollow place in the earth, wherein were two or three bodies of these creatures that had plainly been smothered by the smoke,

and, what is to me more curious, At the side of this den, against the wall, was crouching the anatomy or skeleton of a human being, with the skin dried upon the bones, having some remains of black hair, which was pronounced by those that examined it, to be undoubtedly the body of a woman, and clearly dead for a period of 50 years. the end of the ash tree from ghost stories of an antiquary by M.R. James RBC Training Ground has discovered potential in over 20,000 Canadian athletes and counting. Your story could be next.

If you've got the drive, they'll help you find your path to the Olympics. Let's see what you've got. Sign up for free at rbc trainingground.ca. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to find out how to volunteer, please contact Librivox.org Recorded by Peter Yearsly Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M.R. James Number 13

Among the towns of Jutland, Vibor justly holds a high place. It is the seat of a bishopric. It has a handsome but almost entirely new cathedral, a charming garden, a lake of great beauty, and many stalks. Near it is Hal, accounted one of the prettiest things in Denmark, and hard by is Finderup, where Mearsk Stieg murdered King Eir-Kleping on St. Cecilia's day in the year 1286. 56 blows of square-headed iron maces were traced on Erks' skull when his tomb was opened in the 17th century. But I'm not writing a guidebook.

There are good hotels in Vibor. Priclers and the Phoenix are all that can be desired. But my cousin, whose experiences I have to tell you now, went to the golden lion, the first time that he visited Viborg. He has not been there since, and the following pages will perhaps explain the reason of his abstention. The Golden Lion is one of the very few houses in the town that were not destroyed in the great fire of 1726, which practically demolished the cathedral, the Sauten-Kirge, the Raus, and so much else that was old and interesting.

It is a great red brick house, that is, the front of it is of brick, with corby steps on the gables and a text over the door, but the courtyard into which the omnibus drives is of black and white wood and plaster. The sun was declining in the heavens when my cousin walked up to the door, and the light smote full upon the imposing facade of the house. He was delighted with the old-fashioned aspect of the place. and promised himself a thoroughly satisfactory and amusing stay in an inn so typical of old Jutland. It was not business in the ordinary sense of the word that had brought Mr. Anderson to Viburg. He was engaged upon some researches into the Church history of Denmark, and it had come to his knowledge that in the Rai-Sacu of Vibor there were papers saved from the fire relating to the last days of Roman Catholicism in the country.

he proposed therefore to spend a considerable time perhaps as much as a fortnight or three weeks in examining and copying these and he hoped that the golden lion would be able to give him a room of sufficient size to serve alike as a bedroom and a study his wishes were explained to the landlord and after a certain amount of thought the latter suggested that perhaps it might be the best way for the gentleman to look at one or two of the larger rooms and pick one for himself It seemed a good idea. The top floor was soon rejected, as entailing too much getting upstairs after the day's work. The second floor contained no room of exactly the dimensions required, but on the first floor there was a choice of two or three rooms, which would, so far as the size went, suit admirably. The landlord was strongly in favour of number seventeen, but Mr. Anderson pointed out that its windows commanded only the blank wall of the next house, and that it would be very dark in the afternoon.

Either No. 12 or No. 14 would be better, for both of them looked on the street, and the bright evening light, and the pretty view, would more than compensate him for the additional amount of noise. Eventually No. 12 was selected. Like its neighbours, it had three windows, all on one side of the room. It was fairly high and unusually long. There was, of course, no fireplace, but the stove was handsome and rather old, a cast-iron erection, on the side of which was a representation of Abraham sacrificing Isaac, and the inscription, Ebo Moza Capita, to, or two, above. Nothing else in the room was remarkable. The only interesting picture was an old coloured print of the town, date about 1820.

Supper time was approaching, but when Anderson, refreshed by the ordinary ablutions, descended the staircase, there was still a few minutes before the bell rang. He devoted them to examining the list of his fellow lodgers. As is usual in Denmark, their names were displayed on a large blackboard, divided into columns and lines, the numbers of the rooms being painted in at the beginning of each line. The list was not exciting. There was an advocate, or sa fur, a German, and some bagmen from Copenhagen. The one and only point which suggested any food for thought was the absence of any number 13 from the tale of the rooms, and even this was a thing which Anderson had already noticed half a dozen times in his experience of Danish hotels. He could not help

wondering whether the objection to that particular number, common as it is, was a was so widespread and so strong, as to make it difficult to let a room so ticketed, and he resolved to ask the landlord if he and his colleagues in the profession had actually met with many clients who refused to be accommodated in the 13th room. He had nothing to tell me, I am giving the story as I heard it from him, about what passed at supper, and the evening, which was spent in unpacking and arranging his clothes, books, and papers, was not more eventful. Towards eleven o'clock he resolved to go to bed, but with him, as with a good many other people nowadays, an almost necessary preliminary to bed, if he meant

to sleep, was the reading of a few pages of print, and he now remembered that the particular book which he had been reading in the train, and which alone would satisfy him at that present moment, was in the pocket of his great-coat, then hanging on a peg outside the dining-room. To run down and secure it was the work of a moment, and as the passages were by no means dark, it was not difficult for him to find his way back to his own door. So, at least he thought. But when he arrived there, and turned the handle, the door entirely refused to open, and he caught the sound of a hasty movement towards it from within.

He had tried the wrong door, of course. Was his own room to the right or to the left? He glanced at the number. It was thirteen. His room would be on the left, and so it was. And not before he had been in bed for some minutes, had read his wonted three or four pages of his book, blown out his light, and turned over to go to sleep. Did it occur to him that, whereas on the blackboard of the hotel there had been no number

there was undoubtedly a room numbered thirteen in the hotel. He felt rather sorry he had not chosen it for his own. Perhaps he might have done the landlord a little service by occupying it, and given him the chance of saying that a well-born English gentleman had lived in it for three weeks and liked it very much. But probably it was used as a servant's room, or something of the kind. After all, it was most likely not so large or so good a room as his own. And he looked drowsily about the room, which was fairly perceptible in the half-light

from the street-lamp. It was a curious effect, he thought. Rooms usually look larger in a dim light than a full one. But this seemed to have contracted in length, and grown proportionately higher. Oh well. Sleep was more important than these vague ruminations, and to sleep he went. On the day after his arrival, Anderson attacked the Rai Saku of Fibor. He was, as one might expect in Denmark, kindly received, and access to all that he wished

to see was made as easy for him as possible. The documents laid before him were far more numerous and interesting than he had at all anticipated. Besides official papers, there was a large bundle of correspondence related to the same. to Bishop Yorg and Freyze, the last Roman Catholic who held the sea, and in these there cropped up many amusing and what are called intimate details of private life, and individual character. There was much talk of a house owned by the bishop, but not inhabited by him, in the town. Its tenant was apparently somewhat of a scandal, and a stumbling block to the reforming party. He was a disgrace.

they wrote, to the city. He practiced secret and wicked arts, and had sold his soul to the enemy. It was of a peace with the gross corruption and superstition of the Babylonist Church, that such a viper and blood-sucking trawlmund should be patronised and harboured by the bishop. The bishop met these reproaches boldly. He protested his own abhorrence of all such things as secret arts, and required his antagonists to bring the matter before the proper court, of course the spiritual court, and sift it to the bottom. No one could be more ready and willing than himself to condemn Marc Nicholas Franken if the evidence showed him

to have been guilty of any of the crimes informally alleged against him. Anderson had not time to do more than glance at the next letter of the Protestant leader, Rasmus Nielsen, before the record office was closed for the day. But he gathered its general tenor, which was to the effect that Christian men were now no longer bound by the decisions of bishops of Rome, and that the bishop's court was not,

and could not be, a fit or competent tribunal, so grave and weighty a cause. On leaving the office, Mr. Anderson was accompanied by the old gentleman who presided over it, and as they walked, the conversation very naturally turned to the papers of which I have just been speaking. Herr Scavenius, the archivist of Vibor,

though very well informed as to the general run of the documents under his charge, was not a specialist in those of the Reformation period. He was much interested in what Anderson had to tell him about them. He looked forward with great pleasure, he said, to seeing the publication in which Mr. Anderson spoke of embodying their contents. This house of the Bishop Freyce, he added, It is a great puzzle to me where it could have stood. I have studied carefully the topography of Old Viborg,

But it is most unlucky of the old terrier of the bishop's property Which was made in 1560, And of which we have the greater part in the Arqueue, Just the piece which had the list of the town property is missing. Never mind. Perhaps I shall some day succeed. to find him. After taking some exercise, I forget exactly how or where, Anderson went back to the Golden Lion, his supper, his game of patience, and his bed. On the way to his room,

it occurred to him that he had forgotten to talk to the landlord about the omission of No.13 from the Hotel Board, and also that he might as well make sure that No. 13 did actually exist before he made any reference to the matter. The decision was not difficult to arrive at. There was the door, with its number, as plain as could be, and work of some kind was evidently going on inside it, for as he neared the door he could hear footsteps and voices, or a voice, within. During the few seconds in which he halted to make sure of the number, the footsteps ceased,

seemingly very near the door, and he was a little startled at hearing a quick hissing breathing, as of a person in strong excitement. He went on to his own room, and again he was surprised to find how much smaller it seemed now than it had when he selected it. It was a slight disappointment, but only slight. If he found it really not large enough, he could very easily shift to another. In the meantime he wanted something. as far as I can remember it was a pocket-handkerchief, out of his portmanteau, which had been

placed by the porter on a very inadequate trestle or stool against the wall at the farthest end of the room from his bed. Here was a very curious thing. The portmanteau was not to be seen. It had been moved by officious servants, doubtless the contents had been put in the wardrobe. No, none of them were there. This was vexatious. The idea of a theft he dismissed at once. Such things rarely happen in Denmark, but some piece of stupidity had certainly been performed,

which is not so uncommon, and the steward-peer must be severely spoken to. Whatever it was that he wanted, it was not so necessary to his comfort that he could not wait until the morning for it, and he therefore settled not to ring the bell and to disturb the servants. He went to the window, the right-hand window it was, and looked out on the quiet street. There was a tall building opposite, with large spaces of dead wall,

no passers-by, a dark night, and very little to be seen of any kind. The light was behind him, and he could see his own shadow clearly cast on the wall opposite, also the shadow of the bearded man in number eleven on the left, who passed to and fro in shirt-sleeves once or twice, and was seen first brushing his hair, and later on in a nightgown. Also the shadow of the occupant of number thirteen on the right. This might be more interesting. Number thirteen was, like himself, leaning on his elbows on the windowsill, looking out into the street.

He seemed to be a tall, thin man, or was it by any chance of woman, at least it was he It was someone who covered his or her head with some kind of drapery before going to bed, and, he thought, must be possessed of a red lamp-shade, and the lamp must be flickering very much. There was a distinct playing up and down of a dull red light on the opposite wall. He craned out a little to see if he could make any more of the figure, but beyond a foal of some light, perhaps white material on the windowsill, he could see nothing. Now came a distant step in the street, and its approach seemed to recall number thirteen, to a sense of his exposed position, for very swiftly and suddenly he swept aside from the window,

and his red light went out. Anderson, who had been smoking a cigarette, laid the end of it on the windowsill, and went to bed. Next morning he was woken by the sewer pier with hot water, etc. He roused himself, and after thinking out the correct Danish words, said as distinctly as he could, You must not move my portmanteau. Where is it? As is not uncommon, the maid laughed,

and went away without making any distinct answer. Anderson, rather irritated, sat up in bed, intending to call her back, but he remained sitting up, staring straight in front of him. There was his portmanteau on its trestle, exactly where he had seen the porter put it when he first arrived. This was a rude shock for a man who prided himself on his accuracy of observation. How it could possibly have escaped him the night before, he did not pretend to understand.

At any rate, there it was now. The daylight showed more than the portmanteau, It let the true proportions of the room with its three windows appear, and satisfied its tenant that his choice, after all, had not been a bad one. When he was almost dressed, he walked to the middle one of the three windows to look out at the weather. Another shock awaited him. Strangely unobservant he must have been last night, he could have sworn ten times over that he had been smoking at the right-hand window the last thing before he went to bed. and here was his cigarette end, on the sill of the middle window. He started to go down to breakfast.

Rather late, but No. 13 was later. Here were his boots still outside his door. A gentleman's boots. So then No. 13 was a man, not a woman. Just then he caught sight of the number on the door. It was 14. He thought he must have passed No. 13 without noticing it. Three stupid mistakes in two.

12 hours were too much for a methodical, accurate-minded man, so he turned back to make sure. The next number to 14 was number 12, his own room. There was no number 13 at all. After some minutes devoted to a careful consideration of everything he had had to eat and drink during the last 24 hours, Anderson decided to give the question up. If his eyes or his brain were giving way, he would have plenty of opportunities for ascertaining that fact. If not, then he was evidently being treated to a very interesting experience. In either case, the development of events would certainly be worth watching. During the day, he continued his examination of the Episcopal correspondence which I have already summarized. To his disappointment, it was incomplete.

one other letter could be found which referred to the affair of M. Nicholas Franken. It was from the Bishop Jorgon Freyce to Rasmus Nielsen, he said, Although we are not in the least degree inclined to assent to your judgment concerning our court, and shall be prepared, if need be, to withstand you to the uttermost in that behalf, Yet, for as much as our trusty and well-beloved, Machinichelos Franken, against whom you have dared to allege certain false and malicious charges, hath been suddenly removed from among us, it is apparent that the question for this time falls. But for as much as you further allege that the apostle and evangelist, since John, in his heavenly apocalypse, describes the Holy Roman Church under the guise and symbol, of the scarlet woman be it known to you etc search as he might anderson could find no sequel to this letter nor any clue to the cause or manner of the removal of the cassus belly He could only suppose that Francon had died suddenly, and as there were only two days between the date of Nielsen's last letter, when Franken was evidently still in being, and that of the bishop's letter, the death must have been completely unexpected. In the afternoon he paid a short visit to Hull and took his tea at Bekulun, nor could he notice,

though he was in a somewhat nervous frame of mind, that there was any indication of such a failure of eye or brain as his experiences of the morning had led him to fear. At supper he found himself next to the landlord. What, he asked him after some indifferent conversation, is the reason. reason why in most of the hotels one visits in this country the number 13 is left out of the list of rooms. I see you have none here." The landlord seemed amused.

To think that you should have noticed a thing like that. I've thought about it once or twice myself to tell the truth. An educated man, I've said, has no business with these superstitious notions. I was brought up myself here in the high school of Viburg, and our old master was was always a man to set his face against anything of that kind. He's been dead now this many years, a fine upstanding man he was, and ready with his hands as well as his head. I recollect us boys one snowy day. Here he plunged into reminiscence. Then you don't think there is any particular objection to having a number thirteen, said Anderson. Ah, to be sure. Well, you understand,

I was brought up to the business by my poor old father. He kept an hotel, in the in Orhus first, and then when we were born he moved to Vibor here, which was his native place, and had the phoenix here until he died. That was in 1876. Then I started business in Syracavur, and only the year before last I moved into this house. Then followed more details as to the state of the house and business, when first taken over. And when you came here, was there a number thirteen? No, no, I was going to tell you about that.

You see, in a place like this, the commercial class, the travellers, are what we have to provide for in general, and put them in number 13? Why, they'd as soon sleep in the street, or sooner. As far as I'm concerned myself, it wouldn't make a penny difference to me what the number of my room was, and so I've often said to them, but they stick to it that it brings them bad luck. Quantities of stories they have among them of men that have slept in a number thirteen and never been the same again, or lost their best customers, or one thing and another, said the landlord, after searching for a more graphic phrase.

Then what do you use your number thirteen for, said Anderson, conscious, as he said the words, of a curious anxiety quite disproportionate to the importance of the question. number thirteen? Why don't I tell you that there is such a thing in the house? I thought you might have noticed that. If there was, it would be next door to your own room. Well, yes, only I happened to think—that is, I fancied last night that I had seen a door numbered thirteen in that passage, and really I'm almost certain I must have been right, for I saw it the night before as well. Of course, Herr Christensen laughed this notion to scorn, as Anderson had expected, and

emphasised with much iteration the fact that no number thirteen existed or had existed before him in that hotel. Anderson was in some ways relieved by his certainty, but still puzzled, and he began to think that the best way to make sure whether he had indeed been subject to an illusion or not, was to invite the landlord to his room to smoke a cigar later on in the evening. Some photographs of English towns which he had with him formed a sufficiently good excuse. Herr Christensen was flattered by the invitation, and most willingly accepted it. At about ten o'clock he was to make his appearance.

But before that, Anderson had some letters to write, and retired for the purpose of writing them. He almost blushed to himself at confessing it, but he could not deny that it was the fact that he was becoming quite nervous about the question of the existence of number 13, so much so that he approached his room by way of number 11, in order that he might not be obliged to pass the door, or the place where the door ought to be. He looked quickly and suspiciously about the room when he entered it, but there was nothing that indefinable air of being smaller than usual, to warrant any misgivings. There was no question of the presence or absence of his portmanteau to-night. He had himself,

emptied it of its contents, and lodged it under his bed. With a certain effort, he dismissed the thought of No. 13 from his mind, and sat down to his writing. His neighbours were quiet enough. Occasionally a door banged in the passage, and a pair of boots was thrown out, or a bagman walked past humming to himself, and outside from time to time a cart thundered over the atrocious cobblestones, or a quick step hurried along the flags. Anderson finished his letters, ordered in whiskey and soda, and then went to the window, and studied the dead wall opposite, and the shadows upon it. As far as he could remember, number fourteen had been occupied by the lawyer, a staid man who said little at meals, being generally engaged in studying a small bundle of papers

beside his plate. Apparently, however, he was in the habit of giving vent to his animal spirits when alone. Why else should he be dancing? The shadow from the next room evidently showed that he was. Again and again, his thin, form crossed the window, his arms waved and a gaunt leg was kicked up with surprising agility. He seemed to be barefooted, and the floor must be well laid, for no sound betrayed his movements. Saffir Herr Anders Jensen, dancing at ten o'clock at night in a hotel bedroom, seemed a fitting subject for a historical painting in the grand style, and Anderson's thoughts, like those of Emily in the Mysteries of Udolfo, began to arrange it.

themselves in the following lines. When I return to my hotel at ten o'clock p.m., the waiters think I am unwell. I do not care for them, but when I've locked my chamber door and put my boots outside, I dance all night upon the floor. And even if my neighbours swore I'd go on dancing all the more, for I'm acquainted with the law and in, despite of all their jaw, their protests I deride. Had not the landlord at this moment knocked at the door, it is probable quite a long poem might have been laid before the reader.

To judge from his look of surprise when he found himself in the room, Herr Christensen was struck, as Anderson had been, by something unusual in its aspect, but he made no remark. Anderson's photographs interested him mightily, and formed the text of many autobiographical discourses, nor is it quite clear how the conversation could have been diverted into the desired channel of number 13, had not the lawyer at this moment begun to sing, and to sing in a manner which could leave no doubt in anyone's mind that he was either exceedingly drunk or raving mad. It was a high, thin voice that they heard, and it seemed dry, as if he was a high, thin voice that they heard, and it seemed dry, as if from long disuse.

Of words or tune there was no question. It went sailing up to a surprising height, and was carried down with a despairing moan, as of a winter wind in a hollow chimney, or an organ whose wind fails suddenly. It was a really horrible sound, and Anderson felt that, if he had been alone,

he must have fled for refuge in society, to some neighbour bagman's room. The landlord sat open-mouthed. I don't understand it, he said at last, wiping his forehead. It is dreadful. I've heard it once before, but I made sure it was a cat. Is he mad? said Anderson. He must be.

And what a sad thing! Such a good customer, too! So successful in his business, by what I hear, and a young family to bring up. Just then came in a little family to bring up. impatient knock at the door, and the knocker entered without waiting to be asked. It was the lawyer in De Sabeye, and very rough-haired, and very angry, he looked. "'I beg pardon, sir,' he said, "'Well, I should be much obliged if you would kindly desist.' Here he stopped, for it was evident that neither of the persons before him was responsible

for the disturbance, and after a moment's lulled forth again, more wildly than before. "'But what in the name of heaven does it mean?' broke out the lawyer. "'Where is it? Who is it? Am I going out of my mind?' "'Surely, Herr Jensen, it comes from your room next door. Isn't there a cat or something stuck in the chimney?' This was the best that occurred to Anderson to say, and he realized its futility as he spoke, but anything was better than to stand and listen to that horrible voice, and look at the broad white face of the landlord, all perspiring and quivering as he clutched the arms of his chair.

"'Impossible!' said the lawyer. "'Impossible! There is no chimney! I came here because I was convinced the noise was going on here. It was certainly in the next room to mine.' "'Was there no door between yours and mine?' said Anderson eagerly. "'No, sir,' said Herr Jensen, rather sharply. "'At least not this morning.'

"'Ah,' said Anderson. nor to-night. I'm not sure, said the lawyer with some hesitation. Suddenly, the crying or singing voice in the next room died away, and the singer was heard seemingly to laugh to himself in a crooning manner. The three men actually shivered at the sound, then there was a silence. Come, said the lawyer, What have you to say, here, Christensen?

What does this mean? Good heaven, said Christensen. How should I do? tell. I know no more than you, gentlemen. I pray I may never hear such a noise again. So do I, said Herr Jensen, and he added something under his breath. Anderson thought it sounded like the last words of the Psalter. Omnis Spiritus, Lord it, Dominum. But he could not be sure. But we must do something, said Anderson, the three of us. Shall we go and investigate in the next room? But that is Herr Jensen's room, welled the landlord.

It is no use. He has come from there himself.' "'I am not so sure,' said Jensen. "'I think this gentleman is right. We must go and see.' The only weapons of defence that could be mustered on the spot were a stick and umbrella. The expedition went out into the passage, not without quakings. There was a deadly quiet outside, but a light shone from under the next door. Anderson and Jensen approached it. The latter turned to the handle, and gave it.

a sudden vigorous push. No use. The door stood fast. "'Here cry, Sensen,' said Jensen. "'Will you go and fetch the strongest servant you have in the place? We must see this through.' The landlord nodded and hurried off, glad to be away from the scene of action. Jensen and Anderson remained outside, looking at the door. "'It is number thirteen, you see,' said the latter. "'Yes. There is your door, and there is mine.' said Jensen. My room has three windows in the daytime, said Anderson with a difficulty, suppressing a nervous laugh.

"'My George, so is mine,' said the lawyer, turning and looking at Anderson. His back was now to the door. In that moment the door opened, and an arm came out and clawed at his shoulder. It was clad in ragged, yellowish linen, and the bare skin, where it could be seen, had long grey hair upon it. Anderson was just in time to pull Jensen out of its reach, with a crotch of a crotch of a of disgust and fright when the door shut again, and a low laugh was heard. Jensen had seen nothing, but when Anderson hurriedly told him what a risk he had run,

he fell into a great state of agitation, and suggested that they should retire from the enterprise and lock themselves up in one or other of their rooms. However, while he was developing this plan, the landlord and two able-bodied men arrived on the scene, all looking rather serious and alarmed. Ensign met them with a torrent of description and explanation, which did not at all tend to encourage them for the fray. The men dropped the crowbars they had brought, and said flatly that they were not going to risk their throats in that devil's den.

The landlord was miserably nervous and undecided, conscious that, if the danger were not faced, his hotel was ruined, and very loath to face it himself. Luckily, Anderson hit upon a way of rallying the demoralized force. "'Is this?' he said, the Danish courage I've heard so much of. It isn't a German in there, and if it was we are five to one.' The two servants and Jensen were stung into action by this, and made a dash at the door. "'Stop,' said Anderson. "'Don't lose your heads.

You stay out here with the light, landlord, and one of you two men break in the door, and don't go in when it gives way.' The men nodded, and the younger stepped forward, raised his crowbar, and dealt a tremendous blow on the upper panel. The result was not in the least what any of them anticipated. There was no cracking or rending of wood, only a dull sound, as if the solid wall had been struck. The man dropped his tool with a shout, and began rubbing his elbow.

His cry drew their eyes upon him for a moment, then Anderson looked at the door again. It was gone. The plaster wall of the passage stared him in the face, with a considerable gash in it where the crowbar had struck it. Number thirteen had passed out of existence. For a brief space they stood perfectly still, gazing at the blank wall. An early cock in the yard beneath was heard to crow, and as Anderson glanced in the direction of the sound, he saw through the window at the end of the line.

long passage, that the eastern sky was paling to the dawn. Perhaps, said the landlord with hesitation, you gentlemen would like another room for tonight. A double-bedded one? Neither Jensen nor Anderson was averse to the suggestion. They felt inclined to hunt in couples after their late experience. It was found convenient when each of them went to his room to collect the articles he wanted for the night, that the other should go with him and hold the candle. they noticed that both number twelve and number fourteen had three windows next morning the same party reassembled in number twelve

the landlord was naturally anxious to avoid engaging outside help and yet it was imperative that the mystery attaching to that part of the house should be cleared up accordingly the two servants had been induced to take upon them the function of carpenters the furniture was cleared away and at the cost of a good many irretrievably damaged planks that portion of the floor was taken up which lay nearest to number fourteen you will naturally suppose that a skeleton say that of march nicholas franken was discovered that was not so what they did find lying between the beams which supported the flooring was a small copper box In it was a neatly folded vellum document, with about twenty lines of writing. Both Anderson and Jensen, who proved to be something of a paleographer, were much excited by this discovery, which promised to afford the key to these extraordinary phenomena. I possess a copy of an astrological work which I have never read. It has, by way of frontispiece, a woodcut by Hans Seveld Baham,

representing a number of sages seated round a table. This detail may enable connoisseurs to identify the book. I cannot myself recollect its title, and it is not at this moment within reach. But the fly-leaves of it are covered with writing, and during the ten years in which I have owned the volume I have not been able to determine which way up this writing ought to be read, much less in what language it is. Not dissimilar was the position of Anderson and Jensen after the protracted examination to which they submitted the document in the copper box. After two days' contemplation of it, Jensen, who was the bolder spirit of the two, hazarded the conjecture that the language was either Latin or Old Danish. Anderson ventured upon no surmises,

and was very willing to surrender the box into the parchment to the Historical Society of Vibor to be placed in their museum. whole story from him a few months later, as we sat in a wood near Uppsala, after a visit to the library there. Where we, or rather I, had laughed over the contract by which Daniel Salthenius, in later life professor of Hebrew at Koenigsburg, sold himself to Satan. Anderson was not really amused. Young idiot, he said, meaning Salthenius, who was only an undergraduate when he committed

that indiscretion. How did he know what company? he was courting. And when I suggested the usual considerations, he only grunted. That same afternoon, he told me what you have read. But he refused to draw any inferences from it, and to assent to any that I drew for him. End of Number 13, from Ghost Stories of An Antiquary by M.R. James. This is a Librevox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to find out how to volunteer, please contact Librivox.org.

Recording by Peter Yearsley Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M.R. James Count Magnus By what means the papers out of which I have made a connected story came into my hands is the last point which the reader will learn from these pages, but it is necessary to prefix to my extracts from them, a statement of the form in which I possess them. They consist, then, partly of a series of collections

for a book of travels, such a volume as was a common product of the 40s and 50s. Horace Marriott's, Journal of a Residence in Jutland and the Danish Isles, is a fair specimen of the class to which I allude. These books usually treated of some unknown district on the continent. They were illustrated with woodcuts or steel plates. They gave details of hotel accommodation and of means of communication, such as we now expect to find in any well-regulated guidebook, and they dealt largely in reported conversations with intelligent foreigners, racy innkeepers, and garrulous peasants.

In a word, they were chatty. Begun with the idea of furnishing material for such a book, my papers as they progressed assumed the character of a record of one single personal experience, and this record was continued up to the very eve almost of its termination. The writer was a Mr. Raxall. For my knowledge of him, I have to depend entirely on the evidence his writings afford, and from these I deduced that he was a man past middle age, possessed of some private means, and very much alone in the world. He had, it seems, no settled abode in England, but was a denizen of hotels and boarding-houses. It is probable that he entertained the idea of settling down at some future time which never came.

and i think it also likely that the pentechnican fire in the early seventies must have destroyed a great deal that would have thrown light on his antecedents for he refers once or twice to property of his that was warehoused at that establishment it is further apparent that mr raxall had published a book and that it is treated of a holiday he had once taken in brittany more than this i cannot say about his work because a diligent service in bibliographical works, has convinced me that it must have appeared either anonymously or under a pseudonym. As to his character, it is not difficult to form some superficial opinion. He must have been an intelligent and cultivated man. It seems that he was near being a fellow of his college at Oxford, praise knows, as I, judge from the calendar.

His besetting fault was pretty clearly that of over-inquisitiveness. possibly a good fault in a traveller, certainly a fault for which this traveller paid dearly enough in the end. On what proved to be his last expedition, he was plotting another book. Scandinavia, a region not widely known to Englishmen 40 years ago, had struck him as an interesting field. He must have alighted on some old books of Swedish history or memoirs. and the idea had struck him that there was room for a book descriptive of travel in Sweden, interspersed with episodes from the history of some of the great Swedish families. He procured letters of introduction, therefore, to some persons of quality in Sweden,

and set out thither in the early summer of 1863. Of his travels in the north there is no need to speak, nor of his residence of some weeks in Stockholm. I need only mention that some Savant resident there put him on the track of an important collection of family papers, belonging to the proprietors of an ancient manor-house in Vestegutland, and obtained for him permission to examine them. The manor-house, or Hergad, in question, is to be called R-A-B-A-E-C-K, pronounced something like Robeck, though that is not its name. It is one of the best buildings of its kind in all the country, and the picture of it in Darlenburg's Suecia Antiqua et Moderna, engraved in 1694, shows it very much as the tourists may see it today. It was built soon after 1600, and is, roughly speaking, very

much like an English house of that period in respect of material, red brick, with stone facings, and style. The man who built it was a sion of the great house of de la Gardi, and his descendants possess it still. Delagardy is the name by which I will designate them, when mention of them becomes necessary. They received Mr. Raxel with great kindness and courtesy, and pressed him to stay in the house as long as his research is lasted, but preferring to be independent, and mistrusting his powers of conversing in Swedish, he settled himself at the village inn, which turned out quite sufficiently comfortable, at any rate, during the summer months.

This arrangement would entail a short walk daily to and from the manor house of something under a mile. The house itself stood in a park, and was protected, we should say, grown up, with large old timber. Near it you found the walled garden, and then entered a close wood, fringing, one of the small lakes, with which the whole country is pitted. Then came the wall of the demean, and you climbed a steep knoll, a knob of rock lightly covered with soil, and on the top of this stood the church, fenced in with tall, dark trees. It was a curious building to English eyes. The nave and aisles were low, and filled with pews and galleries. In the Western gallery stood the handsome old organ, gaily painted and with silver.

silver pipes. The ceiling was flat, and had been adorned by a 17th-century artist, with a strange and hideous, last judgment, full of lurid flames, falling cities, burning ships, crying souls, and brown and smiling demons. Handsome brass coronet hung from the roof. The pulpit was like a doll's house, covered with little painted wooden cherubs and saints. A stand with three hour-glasses was hinged to the preacher's desk. Such sights as these may be seen in many a church in Sweden now, but what distinguished this one was an addition to the original building. At the eastern end of the North Isle, the builder of the manor-house had erected a mausoleum

for himself and his family. It was a large-ish, eight-sided building, lighted by a series of oval windows. and it had a domed roof topped by a kind of pumpkin-shaped object rising into a spire, a form in which Swedish architects greatly delighted. The roof was of copper externally and was painted black, while the walls, in common with those of the church, were staringly white. To this mausoleum there was no access from the church. It had a portal and steps of its own, on the northern side.

Past the churchyard, the path to the village goes, and not more than three or four minutes bring you to the inn door. On the first day of his stay at Rabeck, Mr. Raxall found the church door open, and made these notes of the interior which I have epitomised. Into the mausoleum, however, he could not make his way. He could, by looking through the keyhole, just describe that there were fine marble effigies and sarcophagy of copper, and a wealth of of armorial ornament, which made him very anxious to spend some time in investigation. The papers he had come to examine at the manor-house proved to be of just the kind he wanted for his book. There were family correspondence, journals, and account-books of the earliest owners

of the estate, very carefully kept and clearly written, full of amusing and picturesque detail. The first de la Garde appeared in them as a strong and capable man. Shortly after the building of the mansion, there had been a period of distress in the district, and the peasants had risen, and attacked several chateau and done some damage. The owner of Robeck took a leading part in suppressing trouble, and there was reference to executions of ringleaders, and severe punishments inflicted with no sparing hand. The portrait of this Magnus de la Garde was one of the best

in the house, and Mr. Axel studied it with no little interest after his day's work. He gives no detailed description of it, but I gather that the face impressed him rather by its power than by its beauty or goodness. In fact, he writes that Count Magnus was an almost phenomenally ugly man. On this day, Mr. Raxall took his supper with the family, and walked back in the late but still bright evening. I must remember, he writes, to ask the sexton if he can let me into the morselaerium at the church. He evidently has access to it himself, for I saw him to-night standing on the steps,

and, as I thought, locking or unlocking the door. I find that early on the following day Mr. Raxall had some conversation with his landlord. His setting it down at such length as he does surprised me at first. but I soon realized that the papers I was reading were, at least in their beginning, the materials for the book he was meditating, and that it was to have been one of those quasi-journalistic productions which admit of the introduction of an admixture of conversational matter. His object, he says, was to find out whether any traditions of Count Magnus de la Guardi lingered on in the scenes of that gentleman's activity, and whether the popular estimate of him

were favourable or not. He found that the Count was decidedly not a favourite. If his tenants came late to their work on the days which they owed to him as Lord of the Manor, they were set on the wooden horse, or flogged and branded in the manor-house yard. One or two cases there were of men who had occupied lands which encroached on the Lord's domain, and whose houses had been mysteriously burnt on a winter's night, with the whole family inside. But what seemed to dwell on the innkeeper's mind most, for he returned to the subject

more than once, was that the Count had been on the Black pilgrimage, and had brought something or someone back with him. You will naturally inquire, as Mr. Raxall did, what the Black pilgrimage may have been. But your curiosity on the point must remain unsatisfied for the time being, just as his did. The landlord was evidently unwilling to give a full answer, or indeed any answer on the point, and being called out for a moment, trotted out with obvious alacrity, only putting his head in at the door a few minutes afterwards to say that he was called away to Scara, and should not be back till evening. So Mr. Raxall had to go unsatisfied to his

day's work at the manor house. The papers, on which he was just then engaged, soon put his thoughts into another channel, for he had to occupy himself, with glancing over the correspondence between Sophia Albertina in Stockholm, and her married cousin Ulrika Leonora at Rabeck in the years 1705 to 1710. The letters were of exceptional interest from the light they threw upon the culture of that period in Sweden, as anyone can testify who has read the full edition of them in the publications of the Swedish Historical Manuscripts Commission. In the afternoon he had done with these, and after returning the boxes in which they were kept to their places on the shelf, he proceeded, very naturally, to take down some of the volumes nearest to them, in order

to determine which of them had best be his principal subject of investigation next day. The shelf he had hit upon was occupied mostly by a collection of account-books in the writing of the First Count Magnus. But one among them was not an account-book, but a book of alchemical and other tracts in another the 16th century hand. Not being very familiar with alchemical literature, Mr. Raxall spends much space which he might have spared in setting out the names and beginnings of the various treatises. The Book of the Phoenix.

Book of the Thirty Words. Book of the Toad. Book of Miriam, Turbaphaphorum, and so forth. And then he announces with a good deal of circumstance his delight at first. finding, on a leaf originally left blank near the middle of the book, some writing of Count Magnus himself headed Liber Nigre peregrinations. It is true that only a few lines were written, but there was quite enough to show that the landlord had that morning been referring to a belief, at least as old as the time of

Count Magnus, and probably shared by him. This is the English of what was written. If any man desires to obtain a long life, if he would obtain a faithful messenger and see the blood of his enemies, it is necessary that he should first go into the city of Charazin, and there salute the prince. Here there was an erasure of one word, not very thoroughly done, so that Mr. Raxel felt pretty sure that he was right in reading it as Ayrus of the heir. but there was no more of the text copied, only a line in Latin, "'Qaeri reliqua hujus materi inter secretiora, "'let is, see the rest of this matter among the more private things. "'It could not be denied that this threw a rather lurid light "'upon the tastes and beliefs of the Count,

"'but to Mr. Axel, separated from him by nearly three centuries, The thought that he might have added to his general forcefulness, alchemy, and to alchemy, something like magic, only made him a more picturesque figure. And when, after a rather prolonged contemplation of his picture in the hall, Mr. Raxall set out on his homeward way, his mind was full of the thought of Count Magnus. He had no eyes for his surroundings, no perception of the evening sense of the woods, or the evening light on the lake. And when all of a sudden he pulled up short,

he was astonished to find himself already at the gate of the churchyard, and within a few minutes of his dinner. His eyes fell on the mausoleum. Ah, he said, Count Magnus, there you are, I should dearly like to see you. Like many solitary men, he writes, I have a habit of talking to myself aloud,

and unlike some of the Greek and, Latin particles. I do not expect an answer. Certainly, and perhaps fortunately in this case, there was neither voice nor any that regarded. Only the woman, who, I suppose, was cleaning up the church, dropped some metallic object on the floor, whose clang startled me. Count Magnus, I think, sleeps sound enough. That same evening, the landlord of the inn, who had heard Mr. Raxall say that he wished to see the clerk or deacon, as he would be called in Sweden, of the parish, introduced him to that official in the inn parlour. A visit to the de la Garde tombhouse was soon arranged for the next day, and a little general conversation ensued. Mr.

Raxall, remembering that one function of Scandinavian deacons is to teach candidates for confirmation, thought he would refresh his own memory on a biblical point. "'Can you tell me?' he said, anything about Chirazin.' The deacon seemed startled, but readily reminded him how that village had once been denounced. "'To be sure,' said Mr. Raxel, "'it is, I suppose, quite a ruin now.' "'So I expect,' replied the deacon, "'I have heard some of our old priests say that Antichrist is to be born there, and there are tales.'

"'Ah, what tales are those?' Mr. Raxall put in. Tales, I was going to say, which I have forgotten, said the deacon, and soon after that, he said good-night. The landlord was now alone, and at Mr. Raxall's mercy, and that inquirer was not inclined to spare him. Here Nielsen, he said, I have found out something about the Black Pilgrimage. You may as well tell me what you know.

What did the Count bring back with him? Swedes are habitually slow, perhaps, in answering, or perhaps the landlord was an exception. I'm not sure, but Mr. Raxel notes that the landlord spent at least one minute in looking at him, before he said anything at all. Then he came close up to his guest, and with a good deal of effort he spoke. Mr. Raxel, I can tell you this one little tale, and no more, not any more. You must not ask anything when I have done. In my grandfather's time, that is 92 years ago, there were two men who said,

The Count is dead, we do not care for him. We will go to-night and have a free hunt in his wood, the long wood on the hill that you have seen behind the Robeck. Well, those that heard them say this, they said, No, do not go. We are sure you will meet with persons' walk. walking, who should not be walking. They should be resting, not walking. These men laughed. There were no forestmen to keep the wood, because no one wished to live there. The family were not here at the house. These men could do what they wished. Very well. They go to the wood that night. My grandfather was sitting here in this room. It was the summer, and a light night.

With the window open he could see out to the wood and hear. So he sat there, and two or three men with him, and they listened. At first they hear nothing at all. Then they hear someone, you know how far away it is, they hear someone scream, just as if the most inside part of his soul was twisted out of him. All of them in the room caught hold of each other, and they sat so for three-quarters of an hour. Then they hear someone else, only about three hundred ls off. They hear him laugh out loud.

It was not one of those two men that laughed, and indeed they have all of them said that it was not any man at all. After that they hear a great door shut. When it was just light with the sun, they all went to the priest. They said to him, Father, put on your gown and your rough, and come to bury these men, Anders Bjornson, and Hans Thorbjorn. You understand that they were sure that these men were dead. So they went to the wood.

My grandfather never forgot this. He said they were all like so many dead men themselves. The priest, too, he was in a white fear. He said, when they came to him, I heard one cry in the night, and I heard one laugh afterwards. If I cannot forget that, I shall not be able to sleep again. So they went to the wood, and they found these men on the edge of the wood. Hans Thorbjorn was standing with his back against a tree,

and all the time he was pushing with his hands, pushing something away from him which was not there. So he was not dead. And they led him away, and took him to the house at Nickyoping. And he died before the winter, but he went on pushing with his hands. Also, Anders Bjornson was there, but he was dead.

And I tell you this about Anders Bionson, that he was once a beautiful man, but now his face was not there, because the flesh of it was sucked away off the bones. You understand that? My grandfather did not forget that. And they laid him on the beer which they brought, and they put a cloth over his head,

and the priest walked before, and they began to sing the psalm for the dead as well as they could. So as they were singing the end of the first verse, One fell down, who was carrying the head of the beer, And the others looked back, And they saw that the cloth had fallen off, And the eyes of Anders Bjornsen were looking up, Because there was nothing to close over them,

And this they could not bear. Therefore the priest laid the cloth upon him, And sent for a spade, and they buried him in that place. The next day, Mr. Raxall records that the deacon called for him soon after his breakfast, and took him to the church and morselaim. He noticed that the key of the latter was hung on a nail just by the pulpit, and it occurred to him that, as the church door seemed to be left unlocked as a rule, it would not be difficult for him to pay a second and more private visit to the monuments

if there proved to be more of interest among them, than could be digested at first. The building, when he entered it, he found not unimposing. The monuments, mostly large erections of the 17th and 18th centuries, were dignified, if luxuriant, and the epitaphs and heraldry were copious. The central space of the domed room was occupied by three copper sarcophagi, covered with finely engraved ornament. Two of them had, as is commonly the case in Denmark and Sweden, a large metal crucifix on the lid.

The third, that of Count Magnus, as it appeared, had instead of that a full-length effigy engraved upon it, and round the edge were several bands of similar ornament representing various scenes. One was a battle with cannon belching out smoke, and walls towns and troops of pikemen. Another showed an execution. In a third, among trees,

was a man running at full speed with flying hair and outstretched hands. After him followed a strange form. It would be hard to say whether the artist had intended it for a man, and was unable to give the requisite similitude, or whether it was intentionally made as monstrous as it looked. In view of the skill with which the rest of the drawing was done, Mr. Raxall felt inclined to adopt the latter idea. The figure was unduly short, and was, for the most part, muffled in a hooded garment which swept the ground. The only part of the form which projected from that shelter was not shaped like any hand or arm.

Mr. Raxall compares it to the tentacle of a devil-fish, and continues, On seeing this, I said to myself, This, then, which is evidently an allegorical representation of some kind, a fiend pursuing a hunted soul, may be the origin of the story of Count Magnus and his mysterious companion. Let us see how the huntsman is pictured, doubtless it will be a demon blowing his horn. But, as it turned out,

there was no such sensational figure, only the semblance of a cloaked man on a hillock. who stood leaning on a stick, and watching the hunt with an interest which the engraver had tried to express in his attitude. Mr. Raxle noted the finely-worked and massive steel padlocks, three in number, which secured the sarcophagus. One of them he saw was detached, and lay on the pavement, and then unwilling to delay the deacon longer, or to waste his own working time, he made his way onward to the manor-house. It is curious, he notes, how on retracing a familiar path one's thoughts engrossed one to the absolute exclusion of surrounding objects.

Tonight, for the second time, I had entirely failed to notice where I was going. I had planned a private visit to the tomb-house to copy the epitaphs. When I suddenly, as it were, awoke to consciousness and found myself, as before, turning in at the church, Gurchyard Gate. And, I believe, singing or chanting, some such words as, Are you awake, Count Magnus? Are you asleep, Count Magnus? And then, something more which I have failed to recollect. It seemed to me that I must have been behaving in this nonsensical way for some time. He found the key of the mausoleum, where he had expected to find it, and copied the greater part of what he wanted. In fact, he stayed until the light began to fail him.

him. I must have been wrong, he writes, in saying that one of the padlocks of my counts sarcophagus was unfastened. I see to-night that two are loose. I picked both up and laid them carefully on the window-ledge, after trying unsuccessfully to close them. The remaining one is still firm, and though I take it to be a spring-lock I cannot guess how it is opened.

Had I succeeded in undoing it, I am almost afraid I should have taken the liberty of opening the It is strange the interest I feel in the personality of this, I fear, somewhat ferocious and grim old noble. The day following was, as it turned out, the last of Mr. Raxall's stay at Raupec. He received letters connected with certain investments which made it desirable that he should return to England. His work among the papers was practically done, and travelling was slow. He decided, therefore, make his farewells, put some finishing touches to his notes, and be off. These finishing touches and farewells, as it turned out, took more time than he had expected. The hospitable family insisted on his staying to dine with them, they dined at three, and

it was verging on half-past six before he was outside the iron gates of Rabeck. He dwelt on every step of his walk by the lake, determined to saturate himself. now that he trod it for the last time, in the sentiment of the place and hour. And when he reached the summit of the churchyard knoll, he lingered for many minutes, gazing at the limitless prospect of woods, near and distant, all dark beneath the sky of liquid green. When at last he turned to go, the thought struck him that, surely he must bid farewell to Count Magnus, as well as the rest of the Delagardis. The church was but twenty yards away, and he knew where the key of the mausoleum hung.

It was not long before he was standing over the great copper coffin, and, as usual, talking to himself aloud. You may have been a bit of a rascal in your time, Magnus, he was saying. But for all that I should like to see you, or rather— Just at that instant, he says, I felt a blow on my foot. Hastily enough I drew it back, and something fell on the pavement with a clash. It was the third, the last, of the three padlocks, which had fastened the sarcophagus. I stooped to pick it up, and heaven is my witness that I am writing only the bare truth.

Before I had raised myself there was a sound of metal hinges creaking, and I distinctly saw the lid shifting upwards. I may have behaved like a coward, but I could not for my life stay for one moment. I was outside that dreadful building in less time than I can write almost as quickly as I could have said the words. And what frightens me yet more, I could not turn the key and the lock. As I sit here in my room noting these facts, I asked myself, it was not 20 minutes ago, whether that noise of creaking metal continued. And I cannot tell whether it did or not.

I only know that there was something more than I have written that alarmed me. But whether it was sound or sight, I am not able to remember. What is this that I have done? Poor Mr. Raxall. He set out on his journey to England on the next day, as he had planned, and he reached England in safety. And yet, as I gather from his changed hand and inconsequent jottings, a broken man, One of the several small notebooks that have come to me with his papers gives not a key to but a kind of inkling of his experiences. Much of his journey was made by canal boat, and I find not less than six painful attempts to enumerate and describe his fellow passengers.

The entries are of this kind. Twenty-four. Pastor of Village in Skain. usual black coat and soft black hat. 25. Commercial traveller from Stockholm, going to troll-heighton. Black cloak, brown hat. 26.

Man in long black cloak, broad-leafed hat, very old-fashioned. This entry is lined out, and a note adding, Perhaps identical with number 13, have not yet seen his face. On referring to number 13, I find that he is a Roman priest in a cassock. The net result of the reckoning is always the same. Twenty-eight people appear in the enumeration, one being always a man in a long black cloak and broad hat, and another a short figure in dark cloak and hood. On the other hand, it is always noted that only twenty-six passengers appear at meals, and that the man in the cloak is perhaps absent, and the short figure

is certainly absent. On reaching England, it appears that Mr. Raxall landed at Harwich, and that he resolved at once to put himself out of the reach of some person or persons, whom he never specifies, but whom he had evidently come to regard as his pursuers. Accordingly, he took a vehicle, it was a closed fly, not trusting the railway, and drove across country to the village of Belchamp St. Paul. It was about nine o'clock on a moonlit August night when he neared the place. He was sitting forward and looking out of the window at the fields and thickets. There was little else to be seen, racing past him.

Suddenly he came to a crossroad, at the corner. Two figures were standing motionless. Both were in dark cloaks. The taller one wore a hat. The shorter a hood. He had no time to see their faces, nor did they make any motion that he could discern. Yet the horse shied violently and broke into a gallop, and Mr. Raxall sank back into his seat in something like desperation. He had seen them before.

Arrived at Belchamps and Paul, he was fortunate enough to find a decent furnished lodging, and for the next twenty-four hours he lived, comparatively speaking, in peace. His last notes were written on this day. They are too disjointed and ejaculatory to be given here in full, but the substance of them is clear enough. He is expecting a visit from his pursuers. How or when he knows not, and his constant cry is, What has he done? And is there no hope?

Doctors he knows would call him mad. Policeman would laugh at him. The parson is away. What can he do, but lock his door and cry to God? People still remember last year at Belchamp St. Paul, how a strange gentleman came one evening in August, years back, and how the next morning but one he was found dead, and there was an inquest, and the jury that viewed the body fainted, seven of them did, and none of them wouldn't speak to what they see, and the verdict was visitation of God, and how the people as kept the house moved out that same week,

and went away from that part. But they do not, I think, know that any glimmer of light has ever been thrown, or could be thrown on the mystery. It so happened that last year the little house came into my hands as part of a legacy. It had stood empty since 1863, and there seemed no prospect of letting it, so I had it pulled down, and the papers of which I have given you an abstract were found in a forgotten cupboard under the window in the best bedroom. The End of Count Magnus from Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M.R. James.

This is a Librevox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to find out how to volunteer, please contact Libravox.org, recorded by Peter Yearsley. Ghost Stories of An Antiquary by M.R. James. Oh, whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad. I suppose you'll be getting away pretty soon. Now full term is over, Professor, said a person, not in the story, to the professor of ontography, soon after they had sat down next to each other, at a feast in the hospitable hall of St. James's College.

The professor was young, neat, and precise in speech. Yes, he said, my friends have been making me take up golf this term, and I mean to go to the East Coast, in point of fact, to Bernstow, I dare say you know it, for a week or ten days to improve my game. I hope to get off tomorrow. Oh, Parkins, said his neighbour on the other side, if you're going to Bernstow, I wish you would look at the sight of the Templar's preceptory, and let me know if you think it would be any good to have a dig there in the summer. It was, as you might suppose, a person of antiquarian pursuits who said this,

but since he merely appears in this prologue, there is no need to give his entitlements. Certainly, said Parkins the professor, if you'll describe to me whereabouts the sight is, I will do my best to give you an eye, idea of the lie of the land when I get back, or I could write to you about it if you would tell me where you are likely to be. Don't trouble to do that, thanks. It's only that I'm thinking of taking my family in that direction in the long, and it occurred to me that, as very few of the English preceptories have ever been properly planned, I might

have an opportunity of doing something useful on off days. The professor rather sniffed at the idea that planning out a preceptory could be described as useful. His neighbour continued. The site, I doubt if there's anything showing above ground, must be down quite close to the beach now. The sea has encroached tremendously, as you know, all along that bit of coast. I should think, from the map, that it must be about three-quarters a mile from the Globe Inn at the north end of town. Where are you going to stay? Well, at the Globe Inn, as a matter of fact, said Parkins. I have engaged a room there. I couldn't get in anywhere else. Most of the lodging-houses are shut up in winter, it seems. And as it is, they

tell me that the only room of any size I can have is really a double-bedded one, and that they haven't a corner in which to store the other bed, and so on. But I must have a fairly large room, for I am taking some books down, and mean to do a bit of work. And though I don't quite fancy having an empty bed, not to speak of two, in what I may call for the time being my study, I suppose I can manage to rough it for the short time I shall be there. Do you call having an extra bed in your room roughing it, Parkins? said a bluff person opposite. Look here. I shall come down and occupy it for a bit. It'll be company for you.

The professor quivered, but managed to laugh in a courteous manner. By all means, Rogers. There's nothing I should like better, but I'm afraid you would find it rather dull. You don't play golf, do you? "'No, thank Heaven,' said rude Mr. Rogers. "'Well, you see, when I'm not writing, I shall most likely be out on the links, and that, as I say, would be rather dull for you, I'm afraid.' "'Oh, I don't know. There's certain be somebody I know in the place. But, of course, if you don't want me, speak the word, Parkins.

I shan't be offended. Truth, as you always tell us, is never offensive.' Parkins was indeed scrupulously polite and strictly truthful. It is to be feared that Mr. Rogers sometimes practiced upon his knowledge of these characteristics. In Parkinson's breast there was a conflict now raging, which for a moment or two did not allow him to answer. That interval being over, he said, Well, if you want the exact truth, Rogers, I was considering whether the room I speak of would really be large enough to accommodate us both comfortably, and also whether—mind you, I shouldn't have said

this if you hadn't pressed me, you would not constitute something in the nature of a hindrance to my work. Rogers laughed loudly. Well done, Parkins, he said. It's all right. I promise not to interrupt your work. Don't you disturb yourself about that. No, I won't come if you don't want me, but I thought I should do so nicely to keep the ghosts off. Here he might have been seen to wink. and to nudge his next neighbor. Parkins might also have been seen to become pink. I beg pardon, Parkinson, Rogers continued. I oughtn't to have said that.

I forgot you didn't like levity on these topics. Well, Parkins said, as you have mentioned the matter, I freely own that I do not like careless talk about what you call ghosts. A man in my position, he went on, Raising his voice a little, cannot, I find, be too careful about appearing to sanction the current beliefs on such subjects. As you know, Rogers, or as you ought to know, for I think I have never concealed my views. No, you certainly have not, old man, put in Rogers, Sotovucci.

I hold that any semblance, any appearance of concession to the view that such things might exist is equivalent to a renunciation of all that I hold most sacred, but I'm afraid I have not succeeded in securing your attention. Your undivided attention was what Dr. Blimber actually said, Rogers interrupted with every appearance of an earnest desire for accuracy. Footnote, Mr. Rogers was wrong. Videy Dombey and Son, Chapter 12, returned to text. But I beg your pardon, Perkins, I'm stopping you.

No, not at all. said Parkins. I don't remember, Blimber. Perhaps he was before my time. But I needn't go on. I'm sure you know what I mean. Yes, yes, said Rogers, rather hastily. Just so.

We'll go into it fully at Bernstow or somewhere. In repeating the above dialogue, I have tried to give the impression which it made on me, that Parkins was something of an old woman, rather hen-like, perhaps, in his little ways. Totally destitute, alas! of the sense of humour, but, at the same time dauntless and sincere in his convictions, and a man deserving of the greatest respect. Whether or not the reader has gathered so much, that was the

character which Parkins had. On the following day, Parkins did, as he had hoped, succeed in getting away from his college and in arriving at Bernstone. He was made welcome at the Globe Inn, was safely installed in the large double-bedded room of which we have heard, and was able before retiring to rest, to arrange his materials for work, in apple-pie order upon a commodious table, which occupied the outer end of the room, and was surrounded on three sides by windows looking out seaward. That is to say, the central window looked straight out to sea,

and those on the left and right commanded prospects along the coast to the north and south, respectively. On the south you saw the village of Bernstow. On the north, no houses were to be seen, but only the beach and the low cliff backing it. Immediately in front was a strip, not considerable of rough grass, dotted with old anchors, capstones and so forth, then a broad path, then the beach. Whatever may have been the original distance between the globe inn and the sea, not more than sixty yards now separated them. The rest of the population of the inn was, of course, a golfing one, and included few elements that call for a special description. The most conspicuous figure was perhaps that of an Ancien Militaire, secretary of a London

club, and possessed of a voice of incredible strength, and of views of a pronouncedly Protestant type. These were apt to find utterance after his attendance upon the ministrations of the vicar, an estimable man with inclinations towards a picturesque ritual, which he gallantly kept down, as far as he could, out of deference to East Anglian tradition. Professor Parkins, one of whose principal characteristics was Pluck, spent the greater part of the day following his arrival at Bernstow in what he had called improving his game, company with this Colonel Wilson. And during the afternoon, whether the process of improvement were to blame or not, I'm not sure, the Colonel's demeanour assumed a colouring so lurid that

even Parkinson jibbed at the thought of walking home with him from the Lynx. He determined after a short and furtive look at that bristling moustache and those incarnadine features, that it would be wiser to allow the influences of tea and tobacco to do what they could with the Colonel, before the dinner-hour should render a meeting inevitable. I might walk home to-night along the beach, he reflected. Yes, and take a look. There will be light enough for that, at the ruins of which Disney was talking. I don't exactly know where they are, by the way, but I expect I can hardly help stumbling

on them. This he accomplished, I may say, in the most literal sense, for in picking his way from the links to the shingle beach, his foot caught, partly in a gorse-root, and partly in a bigish stone, and over he went. When he got up and surveyed his surroundings, he found himself in a patch of somewhat broken ground, covered with small depressions and mounds. These latter, when he came to examine them, proved to be simply masses of flints embedded in mortar, and grown over. with turf.

He must, he quite rightly concluded, be on the site of the preceptory he had promised to look at. It seemed not unlikely to reward the spade of the explorer. Enough of the foundations was probably left at no great depth to throw a good deal of light on the general plan. He remembered vaguely that the Templars, to whom this site had belonged, were in the habit of building round churches. And he thought a particular series of the humps or mounds near him did appear to be arranged

in something of a circular form. Few people can resist the temptation to try a little amateur research in a department quite outside their own, if only for the satisfaction of showing how successful they would have been had they only taken it up seriously. Our professor, however, if he felt something of this mean desire, was also truly anxious to oblige Mr. Disney, so he paced with care the circular area he had noticed, and wrote down its rough dimensions in his pocket-book. Then he proceeded to examine an oblong eminence which lay east of the centre of the circle, and seemed to his thinking likely to be the base of

a platform or altar. At one end of it, the northern, a patch of the turf was gone, removed by some boy or other creature. Ferre naturae. It might, he thought, be as well, to probe the soil here for evidences of masonry, and he took out his knife and began scraping away the earth. And now followed another little discovery. A portion of soil fell inward as he scraped, and disclosed a small cavity. He lighted one match after another to help him to see of what nature the whole was, but the wind was too strong for them all.

By tapping and scratching the sides with his knife, however, he was able to make out that it must be an artificial hole in masonry. It was rectangular, and the sides, top and bottom, if not actually plastered, were smooth and regular. Of course it was empty. No, as he withdrew the knife he heard a metallic clink, and when he introduced his hand, it met with a cylindrical object lying on the floor of the hole.

Naturally enough, he picked it up, and when he brought it into the light, now fast fading, he could see that it too was of man's making, a metal tube about four inches long, and evidently of some considerable age. By the time Parkins had made sure that there was nothing else in this odd receptacle, it was too late and too dark for him to think of undertaking any further search. What he had done had proved so unexpectedly interesting that he determined to sacrifice a little more of the daylight on the morrow to archaeology. The object which he now had safe in his pocket was bound to be of some slight value at least, he felt sure. Bleak and solemn was the view on which he took a last look before starting homeward.

A faint yellow light in the west showed the links, on which a few figures moving towards the clubhouse were still visible. The squat Martello Tower, the lights of Alzzi village, the pale ribbon of sands, intersected at intervals by black wooden groinings, the dim and murmuring sea. The wind was bitter from the north, but was at his back when he set out for the globe. He quickly rattled and clashed through the shingle. and gained the sand, upon which, but for the groinings which had to be got over every few yards, the going was both good and quiet. One last look behind, to measure the distance he had made since leaving the ruined Templar's church, showed him a prospect of company on his walk,

in the shape of a rather indistinct personage who seemed to be making great efforts to catch up with him, but made little, if any, progress. I mean, that there was an appearance of a very appearance of a personage, who seemed to be making great efforts to catch up with him, but made little, that there was an appearance of running about his movements but that the distance between him and parkins did not seem materially to lessen so at least parkins thought and decided that he almost certainly did not know him and that it would be absurd to wait until he came up for all that company he began to think would really be very welcome on that lonely shore if only you could choose your companion in his unenlightened days He had read of meetings in such places which even now would hardly bear thinking of. He went on thinking of them, however, until he reached home, and particularly of one which catches most people's fancy at some time of their childhood.

Now I saw in my dream that Christian had gone but a very little way when he saw a foul fiend coming over the field to meet him. What should I do now, he thought, if I looked back and caught sight of a black figure sharply defined against the yellow sky, and saw that it had horns and wings. I wonder whether I should stand or run for it. Luckily the gentleman behind is not of that kind, and he seems to be about as far off now as when I saw him first. Well, at this rate he won't get his dinner as soon as I shall, and—oh, dear me, it's within

a quarter of an hour of the time now. I must run. Parkins had in fact very little time for dressing. When he met the Colonel at dinner, peace, or as much of her as that gentleman could manage, reigned once more in the military bosom. Nor was she put to flight in the hours of bridge that followed dinner, for Parkins was a more than respectable player. When, therefore, he retired towards twelve o'clock,

he felt that he had spent his evening in quite a satisfactory, way, and that, even for so long as a fortnight or three weeks, life at the globe would be supportable under similar conditions. Especially, thought he, if I go on improving my game. As he went along the passages, he met the boots of the globe, who stopped and said, "'Pake your pardon, sir, but as I was brushing your coat just now, there was something fill out of the pocket. I put it on your chest of drawers, sir, in your room, sir.

a piece of a pipe or something of that, sir. Thank you, sir. You find it on your chest to draw, sir. Yes, sir. Good night, sir. The speech served to remind Parkins of his little discovery of that afternoon. It was with some considerable curiosity that he turned it over by the light of his candles. It was of bronze, he now saw,

and was shaped very much after the manner of the modern dog-wistle. In fact it was. Yes, certainly it was. no more nor less than a whistle. He put it to his lips, but it was quite full of a fine, caked-up sand or earth, which would not yield to knocking, but must be loosened with a knife. Tidy, as ever in his habits, Parkins cleared out the earth onto a piece of paper, and took the latter to the window to empty it out. The night was clear and bright, as he saw when he had opened the casement, and he stopped for an instant to look at the sea, and note, and note,

a belated wanderer, stationed on the shore in front of the inn. Then he shut the window a little surprised at the late hours people kept at Bernstow, and took his whistle to the light again. Why? Surely there were marks on it, and not merely marks, but letters. A very little rubbing rendered the deeply cut inscription quite legible, but the professor had to confess after some earnest thought that the meaning of it was as obscure to him as the writing on the wall to Belchazhar. There were legends both on the front and on the back of the whistle. The one read thus.

Reader's note, there were four groups of three letters in a diamond pattern. To the left, F-U-R, then one above the other, F-L-A and F-L-E, and to the right, B-I-S. End of Reader's note. The other, Quiz Este cuvenate. I ought to be able to make it out, he thought, but I suppose I am a little rusty in my Latin. When I come to think of it, I don't believe I even know the word. for a whistle. The long one does seem simple enough. It ought to mean, who is this, who is coming. Well, the best way to find out is evidently to whistle for him.

He blew tentatively, and stopped suddenly, startled and yet pleased at the note he had elicited. It had a quality of infinite distance in it, and soft as it was, he somehow felt it must be audible for miles round. It was a sound, too, that seemed to have the power, which many sense possess, of forming pictures in the brain. He saw quite clearly for a moment a vision of a wide, dark expanse at night, with a fresh wind blowing, and in the midst a lonely figure. How employed he could not tell, perhaps he would have seen more, had not the picture been broken by the sudden surrogue, of a gust of wind against his casement, so sudden that it made him look up, just in time to see the white glint of a sea-bird's wing somewhere outside the dark panes.

The sound of the whistle had so fascinated him that he could not help trying it once more, this time more boldly. The note was little, if at all, louder than before, and repetition broke the illusion. No picture followed, as he had half hoped it might. But what is this? Goodness, what force the wind can get up in a few minutes. What a tremendous gust! There! I knew that window-fastening was no use. Ah! I thought so. Both candles out. It is enough to tear the room to pieces. The first thing was to get the window shut. While you might count twenty, Perkins was struggling with the small casement, and felt almost

as if you were pushing back a sturdy burglar, so strong was the pressure. It slackened all at once, and the window banged to and latched itself. Now to relight the candles and see what damage, if any, had been done. No. Nothing seemed amiss. No glass even was broken in the casement. But the noise had evidently roused at least one member of the household. The Colonel was to be heard, stumping in his stocking feet on the floor above, and growling.

As it had risen, the wind did not fall at once. On it went, moaning and rushing past the house, at times rising to a cry so desolate that, as Parkins disinterestedly said, it might have made fanciful people feel quite uncomfortable. Even the unimaginative, he thought, after a quarter of an hour, might be happier without it. Whether it was the wind or the excitement of of golf, or the researches in the preceptory that kept Parkins awake, he was not sure. Awake he remained, in any case, long enough to fancy, as I am afraid I often do myself under such conditions, that he was the victim of all manner of fatal disorders. He would lie counting the beats of his heart, convinced that it was going to stop work every

moment, and would entertain grave suspicions of his lungs. brain, liver, etc., suspicions which he was sure would be dispelled by the return of daylight, but which, until then, refused to be put aside. He found a little vicarious comfort in the idea that someone else was in the same boat. A near neighbour, in the darkness, it was not easy to tell his direction, was tossing and rustling in his bed, too. The next stage was that Parkins shut his eyes, and determined to give sleep every chance. Here again, over-excitement asserted itself, in another form, that of making pictures. Experto credi, pictures do come to the closed eyes of one trying to sleep, and are often so little to his taste that he must open his

eyes and disperse them. Parkinson's experience on this occasion was a very distressing one. He found that the picture which presented itself to him was continuous. When he opened his eyes, of course, it went, but when he shut them once more, it framed itself afresh, and acted itself out again, neither quicker nor slower than before. What he saw was this. A long stretch of shore, shingle-edged by sand, and intersected at short intervals with black groins running down to the same.

the water, a scene, in fact, so like that of his afternoon's walk that, in the absence of any landmark, it could not be distinguished therefrom. The light was obscure, conveying an impression of gathering storm, late winter evening, and slight cold rain. On this bleak stage, at first no actor was visible. Then, in the distance, a bobbing black object appeared, a moment of the moment of more and it was a man, running, jumping, clambering over the groins, and every few seconds looking eagerly back. The nearer he came, and the more obvious it was that he was not only anxious, but even terribly frightened, though his face was not to be distinguished. He was, more ever, almost at the end of his strength. On he came. Each successive obstacle seemed to cause him more

difficulty than the last. Will he get over this next one? thought Parkins. It seems a little higher than the others. Yes, half-climbing, half-throwing himself, he did get over, and fell all in a heap on the other side, the side nearest to the spectator. There, as if really unable to get up again, he remained crouching under the groin, looking up in an attitude of painful anxiety. So far, no cause whatever for the fear of the runner had been shown, but now there began to be seen far up the shore, A little flicker of something light-coloured, moving to and fro with great swiftness and irregularity.

Rapidly growing larger, it too declared itself as a figure in pale, fluttering draperies, ill-defined. There was something about its motion which made Parkins very unwilling to see it at close quarters. It would stop, raise arms, bow itself towards the sand, then run stooping across the beach to the water-edge and back again, and then, rising upright, once more, continue its course forward, at a speed that was startling and terrifying. The moment came when the pursuer was hovering about from left to right only a few yards beyond the groin, where the runner lay in hiding. After two or three ineffectual castings hither and thither, it came to a stop, stood upright,

with arms raised high, and then darted straight forward towards the groin. It was at this point that Parkins always failed in his resolution to keep his eyes shut. With many misgivings as to incipient failure of eyesight, overworked brain, excessive smoking and so on, he finally resigned himself to light his candle, get out a book, and pass the night, waking rather than be tormented by this persistent panorama, which he saw clearly enough could only be a morbid reflection of his walk and his thoughts on that very day. The scraping of match-on-box and the glare of light

must have startled some creatures of the night, rats, or what not, which he heard scurry across the floor from the side of his bed, with much rustling. Dear, dear, the match is out, fool that it is! That's the second one burnt better, and a candle and book were duly procured, over which Parkins poured till sleep of a wholesome kind, came upon him, and that in no long space. For about the first time in his orderly and prudent life he forgot to blow out the candle, and when he was called next morning at eight, there

was still a flicker in the socket, and a sad mess of guttered grease on the top of the little table. After breakfast he was in his room, putting on the finishing touches to his golfing costume. Fortune had again allotted the Colonel to him for a partner. When one of the maids came in. "'Oh, if you please,' she said, "'would you like any extra blankets on your bed, sir?' "'Ah, thank you,' said Parkins. "'Yes, I think I should like one. It seems likely to turn rather colder.'

In a very short time the maid was back with the blanket. "'Which bed should I put it on, sir?' she asked. "'What? Why, that one? "'The one I slept in last night,' he said, pointing to it. "'Oh, yes, I beg your pardon, sir, but you seem to have tried both of them. "'Least ways we had to make them both up this morning.' "'Really?' "'How very absurd,' said Parkins.

"'I certainly never touched the other, except to lay some things on it. "'That it actually seemed to have been slept in.' "'Oh, yes, sir,' said the maid. "'Why, all the things was crumpled and thrown about always, if you'll excuse me, sir. "'Quite as if anyone hadn't passed but a very poor night, sir.' "'Dear me,' said Parkinson's. Well, I may have disordered it more than I thought when I unpacked my things. I'm very sorry to have given you the extra trouble, I'm sure.

I expect a friend of mine soon, by the way, a gentleman from Cambridge, to come and occupy it for a night or two. That'll be all right, I suppose, weren't it? Oh, yes, to be sure, sir. Thank you, sir. It's no trouble, I'm sure, said the maid, and departed to giggle with her colleagues. Parkins set forth with a stern determination to improve his game. I am glad to be able to report that he succeeded so far in this enterprise that the colonel, who had been rather repining at the prospect of a second day's play in his company, became

quite chatty as the morning advanced, and his voice boomed out over the flats, as certain also of our own minor poets have said, like some great bourdon in a Minster Tower. "'Extraudinary wind of that we had last night?' he said. "'In my old home we should have said someone had been whistling for it.' "'Should you indeed?' said Perkins. "'Is there a superstition of that kind still current in your part of the country?' "'I don't know about superstition,' said the Colonel. "'They believe in it, all over Denmark and Norway as well as on the Yorkshire coast.

And my experience is, mind you, that there's generally something at the bottom of what these country folk hold to, and have hells to, for generations, but it's your drive, or whatever it might have been. The golfing reader will have to imagine appropriate digressions at the proper intervals. When conversation was resumed, Parkins said with a slight hesitancy, "'Apropos of what you are saying just now, Colonel, I think I ought to tell you that my own views on such subjects are very strong. I am, in fact, a convinced disbeliever in what is called the supernatural. What? said the Colonel.

Do you mean to tell me you don't believe in second sight? Or ghosts, or anything of that kind? In nothing whatever of that kind, returned Parkins firmly. Well, said the Colonel, but it appears to me at that rate, sir, that you must be little better than a sadducee. Parkins was on the point of answering that, in his opinion, the Sadducees were the most sensible persons he had ever read of in the Old Testament. But, feeling some doubt as to whether much mention of them was to be found in that work, he preferred to laugh the accusation off.

Perhaps I am, he said, but here give me my clique, boy. Excuse me one moment, Colonel. A short interval. Now, as to whistling for the wind, let me give you my theory about it. The laws which govern winds are really not at all perfectly known. To fisher folk and such, of course, not known at all. A man or woman of eccentric habits, perhaps, or a stranger, is seen repeatedly on the beach at some unusual hour and is heard whistling. Soon afterwards, a violent wind rises. A man who could read the sky perfectly or who possessed a barometer

could have foretold that it would. The simple people of a fishing village have no barometers. and only a few rough rules for prophesying weather. What more natural than that the eccentric personage I postulated should be regarded as having raised the wind, or that he or she should clutch eagerly at the reputation of being able to do so. Now take last night's wind, as it happens I myself was whistling.

I blew a whistle twice, and the wind seemed to come absolutely in answer to my call, if anyone had seen me. The audience had been a little restive under this harangue, and Parkins had, I fear, fallen somewhat into the tone of a lecturer. But at the last sentence the Colonel stopped. Whistling, were you? he said. And what sort of whistle did you use?

Play this stroke first. Interval. About that whistle you were asking, Colonel. It's rather a curious one. I have it in my—no, I see I've left it in my room. As a matter of fact, I found it yesterday. And then Parkins narrated the manner of his discovery of the whistle. Upon hearing which the Colonel grunted, and opined that in Parkinson's place he should

himself be careful about using a thing that had belonged to a set of papists, of whom, speaking generally it might be affirmed that you never knew what they might not have been up to. From this topic he diverged to the enormities of the vicar, who had given notice on the previous Sunday that Friday would be the Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle, and that there would be service at eleven o'clock in the church. This and other similar proceedings constituted in the Colonel's view a strong presumption that the vicar was a concealed Papist, if not a Jesuit, and Parkins, who could not very readily follow the Colonel in this region, did not disagree with him. In fact, they got on so well together in the morning that there was not talk on

either side of their separating after lunch. Both continued to play well during the afternoon, or at least well enough to make them forget everything else, until the light began to fail them. Not until then did Parkins remember that he had meant to do some more investigating at the preceptory, but it was of no great importance, he reflected. One day was as good as another. He might as well go home with the Colonel. As they turned the corner of the house, the colonel was almost knocked down by a boy who rushed into him at the very top of his speed, and then, instead of running away, remained hanging on to him and panting.

The first words of the warrior were naturally those of reproof and objugation, but he very quickly discerned that the boy was almost speechless with fright. Inquiries were useless at first. When the boy got his breath, he began to howl, and still clung to the colonel's legs. He was at last detached, but continued to howl. "'What in the world is the matter with you? What have you been up to? What have you seen?' said the two men. "'Oh, I've seen it whive at me at the window,' wailed the boy, "'and I don't like it.'

"'What window?' said the irritated Colonel. "'Come pull yourself together, my boy.' "'The front window it was at the hotel,' said the boy. At this point, Parkins was in favour of sending the boy home, but the Colonel refused. He wanted to get to the bottom of it, he said. It was most dangerous to give a boy such a fright as this one had had, and if it turned out that people had been playing jokes, they should suffer for it in some way. And by a series of questions he made out this story. The boy had been playing about on the grass in front of the globe with some others.

Then they had gone home to their teas, and he was just going, when he happened to look up at the front window and see it awiving at him. It seemed to be a figure of some sort, in white as far as he knew. Couldn't see it face, but it wived at him, and it won a right thing. Not to say a right person. Was there a light in the room? No, he didn't think to look if there was a light. Which was the window? Was it the top one or the second one?

The second one it was. The big window what got two littleans at the sides. Very well, my boy, said the Colonel, after a few more questions. You run away home now. I expect it was some person trying to give you a start. Another time, like a brave English boy, you just throw a stone, well, no, not that exactly, but you go and speak to the waiter or to Mr. Simpson, the landlord, and yes, and say that I advised you to do so.

The boy's face expressed some of the doubt he felt, as to the likelihood of Mr. Simpson's lending a favourable ear to his complaint. But the Colonel did not appear to perceive this, and went on, And here's a six-month—no, I see, it's a shilling! And you be off home, and don't think any more about it. The youth hurried off with agitated thanks, and the Colonel and Parkins went round to the front of the globe and reconnoitred. There was only one window answering to the description they had been hearing.

Well, that's curious, said Parkinson. It's evidently my window the lad was talking about. Will you come up for a moment, Colonel Wilson? We ought to be able to see if anyone has been taking liberties in my room. They were soon in the passage, and Parkins made as if to open the door. Then he stopped and felt in his pockets. "'This is more serious than I thought,' was his next remark. I remember now that before I started this morning I locked the door.

It is locked now. And what is more? Here is the key. and he held it up. Now, he went on, if the servants are in the habit of going into one's room during the day when one is away, I can only say, well, that I don't approve of it at all. Conscious of a somewhat weak climax,

he busied himself in opening the door, which was indeed locked, and in lighting candles. No, he said, nothing seems disturbed. Except your bed, put in the colonel. Excuse me, that isn't my bed. said Parkins. I don't use that one, but it does look as if someone had been playing tricks with it. It certainly did.

The clothes were bundled up and twisted together in a most tortuous confusion. Parkins pondered. That must be it, he said at last. I disordered the clothes last night in unpacking, and they haven't made it since. Perhaps they came in to make it, and that boy saw them through the window, and then they were called away and locked the door after them. Yes, I think that must be it. "'Well, ring and ask,' said the Colonel,

"'and this appealed to Parkins as practical. "'The maid appeared, and, to make a long story short, "'deposed that she had made the bed in the morning "'when the gentleman was in the room, "'and hadn't been there since. "'No, she hadn't no other key. "'Mr Simpson, he kept the keys. "'He'd be able to tell the gentleman if anything had been up.

"'This was a puzzle. "'Investigation showed that nothing of value had been taken, and Parkins remembered the disposition of the small objects on tables and so forth well enough to be pretty sure that no pranks had been played with them. Mr. and Mrs. Simpson furthermore agreed that neither of them had given the duplicate key of the room to any person whatever during the day. Nor could Parkins, a fair-minded man as he was, detect anything in the demeanour of master, mistress, or maid that indicated guilt. He was much more inclined to think that the boy had been imposing on the Colonel. The latter was unwontedly silent and pensive

at dinner, and throughout the evening, when he bade good night to Barkins, he murmured in a gruff undertone. "'You know where I am if you want me during the night?' "'Why, yes, thank you, Colonel Wilson. I think I do. But there isn't much prospect of my disturbing you, I hope. "'By the way,' he added, "'did I show you that old whistle I spoke of? I think not. Well, here it is.' The Colonel turned it over gingerly in the light of the candle. "'Can you make anything of the inscription?' asked Parkins, as he took it back. "'No, not in this light. What do you mean to do with it?'

"'Oh, well, when I get back to Cambridge I shall submit it to some of the archaeologists there and see what they think of it. And very likely, if they consider it worth having, I may present it to one of the museums.' "'M,' said the Colonel, "'well, you may be right. All I know is that if it were mine I should chuck it straight into the sea. It's no use talking, I am well aware, but I expect that with you it's a case of live and learn. I hope so, I'm sure, and I wish you a good night. He turned away, leaving Parkins in act to speak at the bottom of the stair, and soon each was in his own bedroom.

By some unfortunate accident there were neither blinds nor curtains to the windows of the professor's room. The previous night he had thought little of this, but to-night there seemed every prospect of a bright moon rising to shine directly on his bed, and probably wake him later on. When he noticed this, he was a good deal annoyed, but with an ingenuity which I can only envy, he succeeded in rigging up, with the help of a railway rug, some safety-pins and a stick-and-ambrella, a screen which, if he'd only held together, would completely keep the moonlight off his bed, and shortly afterwards he was comfortably in that bed. When he had read a somewhat solid work, long enough to producer decided wish to sleep,

he cast a drowsy glance round the room, blew out the candle, and fell back upon the pillow. He must have slept soundly for an hour or more, when a sudden clatter shook him up, in a most unwelcome manner. In a moment he realized what a moment he realized what a hour. had happened, his carefully constructed screen had given way, and a very bright frosty moon was shining directly on his face. This was highly annoying. Could he possibly get up and reconstruct the screen? Or could he manage to sleep if he did not? For some minutes he lay and pondered over all the possibilities. Then he turned over sharply, and with his eyes open lay breathlessly

listening. There had been a movement, he was sure, in the empty bed on the opposite side of the room. Tomorrow he would have it moved, for there must be rats or something playing about in it. It was quiet now. No. The commotion began again. There was a rustling and shaking. Surely more than any rat could cause. I can figure to myself, something of the professor's bewilderment and horror, for I having a dream thirty years back seen the same thing happen. But the reader will hardly perhaps imagine how dreadful it was to him to see a figure suddenly sit up in what he had known was an empty bed. He was out of his own bed in one bound, and made a dash towards the window where lay his only weapon, the stick with which he had propped his screen. This was, as it turned out, the worst thing he could have done, because the personage in the empty bed, with a sudden smooth motion slipped from the bed,

and took up a position with outspread arms between the two beds, and in front of the door. Parkins watched it, in a horrid perplexity. Somehow the idea of getting past it and escaping through the door was intolerable to him. He could not have borne—he didn't know why, to touch it. And as for it's touching him, he would sooner dash himself through the window than have that happen. It stood, for the moment, in a band of dark shadow, and he had not seen what he had not seen what its face was like. Now it began to move in a stooping posture, and all at once the spectator realised with some horror and some relief that it must be blind, for it seemed to feel about it

with its muffled arms in a groping and random fashion. Turning half away from him, it became suddenly conscious of the bed he had just left, and started towards it, and bent and felt over the pillows in a way which made Parkins shudder, as he had never in his life thought it possible. In a very few moments it seemed to know that the bed was empty, and then, moving forward into the area of light and facing the window, it showed for the first time what manner of thing it was. Parkins, who very much dislikes being questioned about it, did once describe something of it in my hearing.

And I gathered that what he chiefly remembers about it is a horrible, an intensely horrible, face of crumpled linen. What expression he read upon it he could not or would not tell, but that the fear of it went nigh to maddening him is certain. But he was not at leisure to watch it for long, with formidable quickness it moved into the middle of the room, and as it groped and waved one corner of its draperies swept across Parkins' face. He could not, though he knew how perilous a sound was, he could not keep back a cry of disgust. And this gave the searcher an instant clue. It leapt towards him upon the

instant, and the next moment he was halfway through the window backwards, uttering cry upon cry at the utmost pitch of his voice, and the linen face was thrust close into his own. At this, almost the last possible second, deliverance came, as you will have guessed. The colonel He all burst the door open, and was just in time to see the dreadful group at the window. When he reached the figures, only one was left. Parkins sank forward into the room in a faint, and before him, on the floor, lay a tumbled heap of bedclothes. Colonel Wilson asked no questions, but busied himself in keeping everyone else out of the room,

and in getting Parkins back to his bed, and himself, wrapped in a rug, occupied the other bed. for the rest of the night. Early on the next day, Rogers arrived, more welcome than he would have been a day before, and the three of them held a very long consultation in the professor's room. At the end of it, the colonel left the hotel door, carrying a small object between his finger and thumb, which he cast as far into the sea as a very brawny arm could send it. Later on the smoke of a burning ascended from the back premises. of the globe.

Exactly what explanation was patched up for the staff and visitors at the hotel, I must confess I do not recollect. The professor was somehow cleared of the ready suspicion of delirium treemence, and the hotel of the reputation of a troubled house. There is not much question as to what would have happened to Parkins if the colonel had not intervened when he did. He would either have fallen out of the window, or else. lost his wits. But it is not so evident what more the creature that came in answer to the

whistle could have done than frighten. There seemed to be absolutely nothing material about it, save the bedclothes of which it had made itself a body. The Colonel, who remembered a not very dissimilar occurrence in India, was of the opinion that if Parkins had closed with it, it could really have done very little, and that its one power was that of frightening. The whole thing, he said, served to confirm his opinion of the Church of Rome. There is really nothing more to tell, but as you may imagine, the professor's views on certain points are less clear-cut than they used to be. His nerves, too, have suffered. He cannot, even now, see a surplus hanging on a door quite unmoved, and the spectacle of a scarecrow in a field, late on a winter

afternoon has cost him more than one sleepless night. The end of O Whistle and I'll Come to You, my lad, from Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M.R. James. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please contactlibrovox.org. recorded by Peter Yearsley Ghost Stories of an antiquary

by M. R. James The treasure of Abbott Thomas Chapter 1 Verum usque in presentem Diem, multigariant interse canonici de abscondito quodem Istis abatis Tome Cisoro. Quem saipae,

quenquam adhuc incassum, which siverrond Steinfeldensse. Ipsom enum adhuc Florida in aeite existentem, ingentum aurimassam CURca, monastery defodice, perhibent. Dequem elto tis interrogat, whom Rissue, respondere solitus errat, Job, Johannes, and Zacharias, or vobos, or posterior, intagabond.

Ande, also, alicane, if inventures minima in visorum, interalier Huyus Abatis opura. This memory praecipue deignum, indico, what, fenestrum magnam in oriental, partial,

australis, in ecclesia's sua immiginibus opthimely in vitru-deepictus implevert, id quod, and ipsius effigies and insignia ibidem posita demonstraint, Domom, quoque, abatialem ferre, totem restoravit, puteo in atriot ipsios ifos and lepidibos mammorias, pulcary cailatis, exornautus, decasetetetetet oetem, it autumn, morty alequantulum subitania pecculsus, aetis, suet, anoceptuaginta duo, incarnations vero domenici, mille quincenti viginti novem. I suppose I shall have to translate this, said the antiquary to himself, as he finished

copying the above lines from that rather rare and exceedingly diffuse book, the certum Steinfeldensi Norbertenham. Well, it may as well be done first as last. Footnote. The Certum Steinfeldense Norbertinum is an account of the Premonstratensian Abbey of Steinfeld in the Eiffel, with Lives of the Abbotts,

published at Cologne in 1712 by Christian Albert Earhart, a resident in the district. The epithet Norbertinum is due to the fact that St. Norbert was founder of the Premembert, monstratensian order. Return to text.

And accordingly, the following rendering was very quickly produced. Up to the present day, there is much gossip among the canons about a certain hidden treasure of this abbot Thomas, for which those of Steinfeld have often made search, though hitherto in vain. The story is that Thomas, while yet in the vigour of life, concealed a very large quantity of gold somewhere in the monastery. He was often asked where it was, and always answered with a laugh. Job, John, and Zechariah will tell either you or your successors. He sometimes added that he should feel no grudge against those who might find it. Among other works carried

out by this abbot, I may specially mention his filling the great window at the east end of the south aisle of the church, with figures admirably painted on glass, as his effigy and arms in the window attest. He also restored almost the whole of the abbot's lodging, and dug a well in the court of it, which he adorned with beautiful carvings in marble. He died rather suddenly in the 72nd year of his age, AD 1529. The object which the antiquary had before him at the moment was that of tracing the whereabouts of the painted windows of the Abbey Church at Steinfeld. Shortly after the revolution, a very large quantity of the of painted glass made its way from the dissolved abbeys of Germany and Belgium to this country,

and may now be seen adorning various of our parish churches, cathedrals, and private chapels. Steinfeld Abbey was among the most considerable of these involuntary contributors to our artistic possession. I'm quoting the somewhat ponderous preamble of the book which the antiquary wrote, and the greater part of the glass from that institution can be identified. without much difficulty by the help, either of the numerous inscriptions in which the place is mentioned, or of the subjects of the windows, in which several well-defined cycles or narratives were represented. The passage, with which I began my story, had set the antiquary on the track

of another identification. In a private chapel, no matter where, he had seen three large figures, each occupying a whole light in a window, and evidently the work of one artist. Their style made it plain that that artist had been a German of the 16th century, but hitherto the more exact localising of them had been a puzzle. They represented, will you be surprised to hear it? Job Patriarcha, Johannes Evangelista, Zacharias Prophetta, and each of them held a book or scroll inscribed with a sentence from his writings.

These, as a matter of course, the antiquary had noted, and had been struck by the curious way in which they differed from any text of the Vulgate that he had been able to examine. Thus the scroll in Job's hand was inscribed Auro est locusin quo absconditor for conflator. Footnote, translation. There is a place for gold where it is hidden. Return to text.

On the book of John was, Habent Investimentis Suis scripturum Quam Nemo know it. For Investimento scriptum, the following words being taken from another verse. Footnote. Translation. They have on their raiment

a writing which no man knoweth. returned to text. And Zacharias had Super lapidem Unum Septum Ocili Sunt,

which alone of the three represents an unaltered text. Footnote Translation Upon one stone are seven eyes returned to text. A sad

perplexity it had been to our investigator, to think why these three personages should have been placed together in one window. There was no bond of connection between them, either historic, symbolic, or doctrinal, and he could only suppose that they must have formed part of a very large series of prophets and apostles, which might have fulfilled, say, all the clerestry windows of some capacious church. But the passage from the Sertum had altered the situation by showing that the names of the actual personages represented in the glass now in Lord D.'s Chapel, had been constantly on the lips of Abbott Thomas von Eschenhausen of Steinfeld, and that this abbot had put up a painted window, probably about the year 1520, in the south aisle of his Abbey Church. It was no very wild conjecture that the three figures might have formed part of Abbott Thomas's offering. It was one which, moreover, could probably be confirmed or set aside by another careful examination of the glass. And as Mr. Somerton

was a man of leisure, he set out on pilgrimage to the private chapel, with very little delay. His conjecture was confirmed to the full. Not only did the style and technique of the glass suit perfectly with the date and place required, but in another window of the chapel he found some glass known to have been brought along with the figures, which contained the arms of abbot Thomas von Eschenhausen. At intervals during his researches, Mr. Somerton had been haunted by the recollection of the gossip about the hidden treasure, and as he thought the matter over, it became more and more obvious to him that if the abbot meant anything by the enigmatic The grammatical answer which he gave to his questioners, he must have meant that the secret was to be found somewhere in the window he had placed in the Abbey Church.

It was undeniable, furthermore, that the first of the curiously selected texts on the scrolls in the window might be taken to have a reference to hidden treasure. note, the first text was, There is a place for gold where it is hidden. Returned text. Every feature, therefore, or mark which could possibly assist in elucidating the riddle, which he felt sure the abbot had set to posterity, he noted with scrupulous care, and returning to his Berkshire Manor House, consumed many a pint of the midnight oil over his tracings and sketches. After two or three weeks, a day came when Mr. Somerton announced to his man that he must

pack his own and his master's things for a short journey abroad. Whither, for the moment, we will not follow him. Chapter 2. Mr. Gregory, the rector of Paspory, had strolled out before breakfast, it being a fine autumn morning, as far as the gate of his courage drive, with intention. to meet the postman and sniff the cool air, nor was he disappointed of either purpose. Before he had time to answer more than ten or eleven of the miscellaneous questions propounded to him in the lightness of their hearts by his young offspring, who had accompanied him.

The postman was seen approaching, and among the morning's budget was one letter bearing a foreign postmark and stamp, which became at once the object of an eager competition among the youthful Gregorys, and addressed in an uneducated but plainly an English hand. When the rector opened it, and turned to the signature, he realised that it came from the confidential valet of his friend and squire, Mr. Somerton. Thus it ran. Honoured, sir, as I am in a great anxiety about Master, I write at his wish to beg you, sir, if you could be so good as step over.

Master has had a nasty shock and keeps his bed. I never have known him like this, but no wonder, and nothing will serve but you, sir. Master says, would I mention the short way here is drive to Cablintz and take a trap, hoping I have made all plain, but am much confused in myself what with anxiety and weakfulness at night? If I might be so bold, sir, it will be a pleasure to see a honest, bridge face amongst all these forig ones. I am, sir, your obedient servant, William Brown.

P.S. The village for town I will not term it, is named Steenfeld. The reader must be left to picture to himself in detail the surprise, confusion and hurry of preparation into which the receipt of such letter would be likely to plunge a quiet Berkshire parsonage in the year of Grace, 1859. It is enough for me to say that a train to town was caught in the course of the day, and that Mr. Gregory was able to secure a cabin in the Antwerp boat, and a place in the Koblenz train,

nor was it difficult to manage the transit from that centre to Steinfeld. I labour under a grave disadvantage as narrator of this story, in that I have never visited Steinfeld myself, and that neither of the principal actors in the episode, from whom I derive my information, was able to give me anything but a vague and rather dismal idea of its appearance. I gather that it is a small place, with a large church, dispoiled of its ancient fittings. A number of rather ruinous great buildings, mostly of the 17th century, surround this church, for the Abbey, in common with most of those on the continent, was rebuilt in a luxurious fashion by its inhabitants at that period. It has not seemed to me worthwhile to lavish money on a visit

to the place, for though it is probably far more attractive than either Mr. Somerton or Mr. Gregory thought it, there is evidently little, if anything, of first-rate interest to be seen, except perhaps one thing which I should not care to see. see. The inn, where the English gentleman and his servant were lodged, is, or was, the only possible one in the village. Mr. Gregory was taken to it at once by his driver, and found Mr. Brown waiting at the door. Mr. Brown, a model, when in his Berkshire home, of the impassive, whiskered race who are known as confidential valets, was now egregiously out of his element, in a light tweed suit, anxious, almost irritable, and plainly anything but master of the situation.

His relief at the sight of the honest British face of his rector was unmeasured, but words to describe it were denied him. He could only say, "'Well, I am pleased, I'm sure, sir, to see you, and so I'm sure so will master.' "'How is your master, Brown?' Mr. Gregory eagerly put in. I think he's better, sir, thank you, but he's had a dreadful time of it. I hope he's getting some sleep now, but what has been the matter? I couldn't make out from your letter. Was it an accident of any kind?

Well, sir, I hardly know whether I'd better speak about it. Master was very particular. He should be the one to tell you, but there's no bones broke. That's one thing I'm sure we ought to be thankful. What does the doctor say? asked Mr. Gregory. They were by this time outside Mr. Somerton's bedroom door, and speaking in low tones. Mr. Gregory, who happened to be in front, was feeling for the handle, and chanced to run his fingers over the panels. Before Brown could answer there was a terrible cry from within the room.

"'In God's name! Who is that?' were the first words they heard. "'Brown, is it?' "'Yes, sir. Me, sir. And Mr. Gregory,' Brown hastened to answer, and there was an audible groan of relief. in reply. They entered the room, which was darkened against the afternoon sun, and Mr. Gregory saw, with a shock of pity, how drawn, how damp with drops of fear was the usually calm face of his friend, who, sitting up in the curtained bed, stretched out a shaking hand to welcome him. "'Better for seeing you, my dear Gregory,' was the reply to the rector's first question, and it was palpably true.

After five minutes of conversation, Mr. Somerton was more his own man, Brown afterwards reported, than he had been for days. He was able to eat a more than respectable dinner, and talked confidently of being fit to stand a journey to Koblenz within 24 hours. But there's one thing, with a return of agitation which Mr. Gregory did not like to see, which I must beg you to do for me, my dear Gregory. Don't—he went on, laying. his hand on Gregory's to forestall any interruption. Don't ask me what it is, or why I want it done. I'm not up to explaining it yet. It would throw me back, and do all the good you have done

me by coming. The only word I will say about it is that you run no risk whatever by doing it, and that Brown can and will show you tomorrow what it is. It's merely to put back, to keep something, no, I can't speak of it yet. Do you mind calling Brown? Well, Somerton, said Mr. Gregory as he crossed the room to the door. I won't ask for any explanations till you see fit to give them. And if this bit of business is as easy as you represent it to be, I will very gladly undertake it for you, the first thing in the morning. Ah, I was sure that you would, my dear Gregory.

I was certain I could rely on you. I shall owe you more thanks than I can tell. Now here is Brown. Brown, one word with you. Shall I go? Interjected Mr. Gregory. Not at all. Dear me, no. Brown, the first thing tomorrow morning—you don't mind early hours, I know, Gregory.

You must take the rector to—there, you know, a nod from Brown, who looked grave and anxious, and he and you will put that back. You needn't be in the least alarmed. It's perfectly safe in the daytime. You know what I mean. It lies on the step, you know, where we put it. Brown swallowed dryly once or twice, and failing to speak, bowed. And, yes, that's all. Only this one other word, my dear Gregory, if you can manage to keep from questioning Brown about this matter, I shall be still more bound to you. Tomorrow evening, at latest, if all goes well, I shall be able, I believe, to tell you the whole story from start to finish. And now I'll wish you good night. Brown will be with me. He sleeps here. And if I were you,

I should lock my door. Yes, be particular to do that. They like it, the people here, and it's better. Good night, good night. They parted upon this, and if Mr. Gregory woke once or twice in the small hours, and fancied he heard a fumbling about the lower part of his locked door, it was perhaps no more than what a quiet man suddenly plunged into a strange bed, and the heart of a mystery might reasonably expect. Certainly he thought to the end of his days that he had heard such a sound twice or three times between midnight and dawn. He was up with the sun, and out in company with Brown soon after. Perplexing, as was the service he had been asked to perform for Mr. Somerton,

it was not a difficult or an alarming one, and within half an hour from his leaving the inn it was over. What it was, I shall not as yet divulge. Later in the morning, Mr. Somerton, now almost himself again, was able to make a start from Steinfeld, and that same evening, whether at Gublentz or at some intermediate stage on the journey I am not certain, he settled down to the promised explanation. Brown was present, but how much of the matter was ever really made plain to his comprehension he would never say, and I am unable to conjecture. Chapter 3

This was Mr. Somerton's story You know roughly both of you that this expedition of mine was undertaken with the object of tracing something in connection with some old painted glass in Lord D's Private's Chapel. Well, the starting point of the whole matter lies in this passage from an old printed book, to which I will ask your attention. And at this point Mr. Somerton went carefully over some ground, with which we are already familiar.

On my second visit to the chapel, he went on, my purpose was to take every note I could of figures, lettering, diamond-scratchings on the glass, and even apparently accidental markings. The first point which I tackled was that of the inscribed scrolls. I could not doubt that the first of these, that of Job, there is a place for the gold where it is hidden, with its intentional alteration, must refer to the treasure. So I applied myself with some confidence to the next, that of St. John, they have on their vestures a writing which no man knoweth. The natural question will have occurred to you. Was there an inscription on the robes of the figures? I could see none. Each of the three had a broad black border

to his mantle, which made a conspicuous and rather ugly feature in the window. I was nonplussed, I will own, and, but for a curious bit of luck, I think I should have left the search where the cannons of Steinfeld had left it before me. But it so happened that there was a good deal of dust on the surface of the glass, and Lord Dee, happening to come in, noticed my blackened hands, and kindly insisted on sending for a Turk's-head-brum to clean down the window. There must, I suppose, have been a rough piece in the broom, anyhow, as it passed over the border of one of the mantles, I noticed that it left a long scratch, and that some

yellow stain instantly showed up. I asked the man to stop his work for a moment, and ran up the ladder to examine the place. The yellow stain was there, sure enough, and what had come away with a thick black pigment, which had evidently been laid on with the brush after the glass had been burnt. and could therefore be easily scraped off without doing any harm. I scraped accordingly, and you will hardly believe— No, I do you an injustice! You will have guessed already, that I found under this black pigment two or three clearly

formed capital letters in yellow stain on a clear ground. Of course I could hardly contain my delight. I told Lord Dee that I had detected an inscription which I thought might be very interesting, and begged to be allowed to uncover the whole of it. He made no difficulty about it whatever, told me to do exactly as I pleased, and then having an engagement was obliged, rather to my relief, I must say, to leave me. I set to work at once, and found the task a fairly easy one. The pigment, disintegrated, of course, by time, came off almost at a touch, and I don't think

that it took me a couple of hours, all told, to clean the whole of the blackboarders in all three lights. Each of the figures had, as the inscription said, a writing on their vestures which nobody knew. This discovery, of course, made it absolutely certain to my mind that I was on the right track. And now, what was the inscription? While I was cleaning the glass, I almost took pains not to read the lettering, saving up the treat until I had got to the whole thing clear. And when that was done, my dear Gregory, I assure you, I could almost have cried from sheer disappointment. What I read was only the most hopeless jumble of letters that was ever shaken up in a hat. Here it is. Job. D-R-E-V-I-C-I-O-P-E-D, M-O-O-O-O-M, SMV, I-V-L-I-S-L-L-L-S-L-L-C-A-V,

I-B-A-S-B-A-T-A-O-V-T St John R-D-I-I-E-A-M-R-L-E-S-I-I-P-E-P-O-D-S-E-E-E-E-E-R-S-E-G-A-V-N-N-N-R Zechariah F-T-E-E-A-I-L-N-Q-D-P-V-A-I-V-M-T-L-E-E-A, T-T-O-H-I-H-I-O-H-C-A-T-A-E-D. Blank as I felt and must have looked for the first few minutes, my disappointment didn't last long. I realized almost at once that I was dealing with a cipher or cryptogram, and I reflected that it was likely to be of a pretty simple kind, considering its early date, so I copied the letters with the most anxious care. Another little point, I may tell you,

turned up in the process which confirmed my belief in the cipher. After copying the letters on Job's robe, I counted them to make sure that I had them right. There were 38, and just as I finished going through them, my eye fell on a scratching made with a sharp point on the edge of the border. It was simply the number 38 in Roman numerals. To cut the matter short, there was a similar note, as I may call it, in each of the other lights, and that made it plain to me that the glass painter had had very strict orders from Abbot Thomas about the inscription, and had taken pains to get it to correct. Well, after that discovery, you may imagine how my new I went over the whole surface of the glass in search of further light.

Of course I did not neglect the inscription on the scroll of Zachariah, upon one stone are seven eyes, but I very quickly concluded that this must refer to some mark on a stone which could only be found in situ where the treasure was concealed. To be short, I made all possible notes and sketches and tracings, and then came back to Parsbury to work out the cipher at leisure. Oh, the agonies I went through! I thought myself very clever at first, for I made sure that the key would be found in some of the old books on secret writing, the Stegonagraphia of Joachim Triethymius, who was an earlier

contemporary of Abbott Thomas seemed particularly promising, so I got that, and Selenius' cryptographia, and Bacon's de augmented sciontarium, and some more. But I could hit upon nothing. Then I tried the principle of the most frequent letter, taking first Latin and then German as a basis. That didn't help either. Whether it ought to have done so I'm not clear. And then I came back to the window itself, and read over my notes, hoping, almost against hope, that the abbot might himself have somewhere supplied the key I wanted.

I could make nothing out of the colour or pattern of the robes. There were no landscape for backgrounds with subsidiary objects. There was nothing in the canopies. The only resource possible seemed to be in the attitudes of the figures. Job, I read, scroll in left hand, four finger of right hand extended upwards. John holds inscribed book in left hand, with right hand blesses, with two fingers. Zechariah scroll in left hand, right hand's hand. extended upwards as Job, but with three fingers pointing up. In other words, I reflected,

Job has one finger extended, John has two, Zachariah has three. May not there be a numerical key concealed in that? My dear Gregory, said Somerton, laying his hand on his friend's knee, that was the key. I didn't get it to fit at first, but after two or three trials I saw what was meant. After the first letter of the inscription, you skip one letter. After the next, you skip two. And after that, skip three. Now, look at the result I got. I've underlined the letters which form words. Reader's note. Letters are underlined in the inscription as described above, and the resultant message is described in the following words from Somerton. End of reader's note.

Do you see it? Dekem, millia, aori, reposita, sunt imputeo, in at. Footnote. Translation. Ten thousand pieces of gold are laid up in a well in return to text. Followed by an incomplete word beginning,

A. T. So far, so good. I tried the same plan with the remaining letters, but it wouldn't work, and I fancied that perhaps the placing of dots after the last three letters might indicate some difference of procedure. Then I thought to myself, wasn't there some allusion to a well in the account of Abbott Thomas, in that book the Certum? Yes, there was. He built a puteus in atrio, A well in the court. There, of course, was my word atrio. The next step was to copy out the remaining letters of the inscription, omitting those I had already used.

That gave what you will see on this slip. R-V-I-I-O-P-D-O-O-S-M-V-V-V-I-S-B-T-A-O-B-B-T-A-O-T-D-I-E, A-M-L-L-E. S-I-V-S-P-D-E-E-E-R-E-T-A-E-A-E-G-I-N-R-F-E-E-E-A-L-Q-D, V-A-M-L-E-A-T-T-H-O-O-V-O-M-C-A-H-O-O-V-M-C-A-H-T-E. Now, I knew what the first three letters I wanted were, namely R-I-O, to complete the word at trio. And as you will see, these are all to be found in the first. five letters. I was a little confused at first by the occurrence of two eyes, but very soon I saw that every alternate letter must be taken in the remainder of the inscription. You can work it out for yourself. The result, continuing where the first round left off, thus,

Rio Domus, Abatialis, de Steinfeld, A me Toma, who posse custodem superea Eya, Gar, Aki, Latush. So the whole secret was out. Ten thousand pieces of gold are laid up in the well in the court of the Abbot's house of Steinfeld by me, Thomas, who have set a guardian over them. Gar, Aki, Latush. The last words I ought to say are a device which Abbott Thomas had adopted.

I found it with his arms in another piece of glass at Lord Dees. And he drafted it bodily into his cipher, though it doesn't quite fit in point of grammar. Well, what would any human being have been tempted to do, my dear Gregory, in my place? Could he have helped setting off, as I did, to Steinfeld, and tracing the secret literally to the fountain-head? I don't believe he could. Anyhow, I couldn't, and as I needn't tell you, I found myself at Steinfeld as soon as the resources of civilization. could put me there, and installed myself in the inn you saw. I must tell you that I was not altogether free from forebodings, on one hand of disappointment, on the other hand of danger. There was always the possibility that Abbot Thomas's well might have been wholly obliterated,

or else that someone ignorant of cryptograms, and guided only by luck, might have stumbled on the treasure before me. And then there was a very perceptible shaking of the voice here. I was not entirely easy. I need not mind confessing, as to the meaning of the words about the guardian of the treasure. But if you don't mind, I'll say no more about that until it becomes necessary. At the first possible opportunity, Brown and I began exploring the place. I had naturally represented myself as being interested in the remains of the Abbey, and we could not avoid paying a visit to the church, impatient as I was to be elsewhere. Still it did interest me to see the windows where the glass had been, and especially that at the east end of the

South Isle. In the tracery lights of that I was startled to see some fragments and coats of arms remaining, Abbott Thomas's shield was there, and a small figure with a scroll inscribed Oculus habent, It non-vidibunt. Footnote. Translation, They have eyes, and shall not see,

returned to text. Which I take it was a hit of the abbot at his cannons. But of course, the principal object was to find the abbot's house. There is no prescribed place for this, as far as I know, in the plan of a monastery. You can't predict of it,

as you can of the chapter house, that it will be on the eastern side of the cloister. or, as of the dormitory, that it will communicate with a transept of the church. I felt that if I asked many questions, I might awaken lingering memories of the treasure, and I thought it best to try first to discover it for myself. It was not a very long or difficult search. That three-sided court south-east of the church, with deserted piles of building round it, and grass-grown pavement, which you saw this morning was the place,

and glad enough I was to see that it was put to no use, and was neither very far from our inn, nor overlooked by any inhabited building. There were only orchards and paddocks on the slopes east of the church. I can tell you that fine stone glowed wonderfully in the rather watery yellow sunset that we had on the Tuesday afternoon. Next, what about the well? There was not much doubt about that, as you can testify. It is really a very remarkable thing. That curb is, I think, of Italian marble, and the carving I thought must be Italian also. There were reliefs, you will perhaps remember, of Eliza and Rebecca, and of Jacob opening the well for Rachel, and similar subjects. But by way of disarming suspicion, I suppose, the abbot had carefully abstained from any of his cynical and elusive inscriptions.

I examined the whole structure with the keenest interest, of course, a square well-head with an opening in one side, an arch over it, with a wheel for the rope to pass over, evidently in very good condition still, for it had been used within sixty years, or perhaps even later, though not quite recently. Then there was the question of depth, and access to the interior. I suppose the depth was about sixty to seventy feet, and as to the other point, it really seemed as if the abbot had wished to lead searches up to the very door of his treasure-house, for as you tested for yourself, there were big blocks of stone bonded into the masonry,

and leading down in a regular staircase round and round the inside of the well. It seemed almost too good to be true. I wondered if there was a trap, if the stones were so contrived as to tip over when a weight was placed on them, but I tried a good many with my own weight and with my stick, and all seemed and actually were perfectly firm. Of course, I resolved that Brown and I would make an experiment that very night. I was well prepared. Knowing the sort of place I should have to explore, I had brought a sufficiency of good rope and bands of webbing to surround my body, and cross-bars to hold to,

as well as lanterns and candles and crow-bars, all of which would go into a single carpet-bag, and excite no suspicion. I satisfied myself that my rope would be long enough, and that the wheel for the bucket was in good working all. order, and then we went home to dinner. I had a little cautious conversation with the landlord, and made out that he would not be overmuch surprised if I went out for a stroll with my man, about nine o'clock, to make, Heaven forgive me, a sketch of the Abbey by Moonlight. I asked no questions about the well, and I am not likely to do so now. I fancy I know as much about it as anyone in Steinfeld, at least with a

strong shudder. I don't want to know any more. Now we come to the crisis, and though I hate to think of it, I feel sure, Gregory, that it will be better for me in all ways to recall it, just as it happened. We started Brown and I at about nine with our bag, and attracted no attention, for we managed to slip out at the hinder end of the inn-yard, which brought us quite to the edge of the village. In five minutes we were at the well, and for some Some little time we sat on the edge of the wellhead to make sure that no one was stirring or spying on us. All we heard was some horses cropping grass out of sight further down the eastern slope. We were perfectly unobserved, and had plenty of light from the gorgeous full moon, to allow

us to get the rope properly fitted over the wheel. Then I secured the band round my body beneath the arms. We attached to the end of the rope very securely to a ring in the stonework. took the lighted lantern and followed me. I had a crowbar. And so we began to descend cautiously, peeling every step before we set foot on it, and scanning the walls in search of any marked stone. Half aloud I counted the steps as we went down, and we got as far as the thirty-eighth, before I noticed anything at all irregular in the surface of the masonry. Even here there was no mark, and I began to feel very blank, and to wonder if the Abbott's

cryptogram could possibly be an elaborate hoax. At the forty-ninth step the staircase ceased. It was with a very sinking heart that I began retracing my steps, and when I was back on the thirty-eighth, Brown with the lantern being a step or two above me, I scrutinized the little bit of irregularity in the stonework with all of my might, but there was no vestige of a mark. Then it struck me that the texture of the surface looked just a little smoother than the rest, or at least in some way different. It might possibly be cement, and not stone. I gave it a good blow with my iron bar. There was a decidedly hollow sound, though that might be the result of our being

in a well. But there was more. A great flake of cement dropped onto my feet, and I saw marks on the stone underneath. I had tracked the abbot down, my dear Gregory. Even now I think of it with a certain pride. It took but a very few more taps to clear the whole of the cement away, and I saw a slab of stone about two feet square, upon which was engraven a cross. Disappointment again, but only for a moment. It was you, Brown, who reassured me by a casual remark. You said, if I remember right—it's a funny cross. It looks like a lot of eyes. I snatched the lantern out of your hand and saw with inexpressible pleasure that the cross was composed of seven eyes, four in a vertical line, three horizontal. The last of the scrolls in the window was explained, in the way I had anticipated. Here was my stone with the seven eyes.

So far the abbot's data had been exact, and as I thought of this, the anxiety about the guardian returned upon me with increased force. Still, I wasn't going to retreat now. Without giving myself time to think, I knocked away the cement all round the marked stone, and then gave it a prize on the right side with my crowbar. It moved at once, and I saw that it was but a thin light slab, such as I could easily lift out myself, and that it stopped the entrance to a cavity. I did lift it out unbroken, and set it on the step, for it might be very important to us to be able to replace it.

and I waited for several minutes on the step just above. I don't know why, but I think to see if any dreadful thing would rush out. Nothing happened. Next. I lit a candle, and very cautiously I placed it inside the cavity, with some idea of seeing whether there were foul air, and of getting a glimpse of what was inside. There was some foulness of air which very nearly extinguished the flame, but in no long time it burned quite steadily. The hole went some little way back, and also on the right and left of the

entrance, and I could see some rounded light-coloured objects within, which might be bags. There was no use in waiting. I faced the cavity and looked in. There was nothing immediately in the front of the hole. I put my arm and felt to the right very gingerly. Just give me a glass of cognac brown. I'll go on in a moment, Gregory. Well, I felt to the right, and my fingers touched something curved that felt, yes, more or less like leather, dampish it was, and evidently part of a heavy, full thing. There was nothing, I must say, to alarm one. I grew bolder, and, putting both hands in as well as I could, I pulled it to me, and it came.

It was heavy, but moved more easily than I had expected. As I pulled it towards the entrance, my left elbow knocked over, and I was very, and I was heavy, and extinguished the candle. I got to the thing fairly in front of the mouth and began drawing it out. Just then, Brown gave a sharp ejaculation, and ran quickly up the steps with the lantern. He'll tell you why in a moment. Stattled as I was. I looked round after him, and saw him stand for a minute at the top, and then walk away a few yards. Then I heard him called softly, all right, sir, and went on pulling out the great bag in complete darkness. It hung for an instant on the edge of the hole, then slipped forward onto my chest,

and put its arms round my neck. My dear Gregory, I am telling you the exact truth. I believe I am now acquainted with the extremity of terror and repulsion which a man can endure without losing his mind. I can only just manage to tell you now the bare and the bare, outline of the experience. I was conscious of a most horrible smell of mould, and of a cold kind of face pressed against my own, and moving slowly over it, and of several—I don't know how many legs or arms or tentacles or something clinging to my body. I screamed out, Brown, says,

like a beast, and fell away backwards from the step on which I stood, and the creature slipped downwards, I suppose, onto that same step. Providentially the band round me held firm. Brown did not lose his head and was strong enough to pull me up to the top, and get me over the edge quite promptly. How he managed it exactly I don't know, and I think he would find it hard to tell you. I believe he contrived to hide our implements in the deserted building nearby, and with very great difficulty he got me back to the inn.

I was in no state to make explanations, and Brown knows no German. But next morning I told the people some tale of having had a bad fall in the Abbey Ruins, which I suppose they believed. And now, before I go further, I should just like you to hear what Brown's experiences during those few minutes were. Tell the rector Brown what you told me. "'Well, sir,' said Brown, speaking low and nervously. It was just this way.

Master was busy down in front of the hole, and I was old in the lantern, and looking on. When I heard something dropping the water from the top, as I thought. So I looked up, and I see someone's head looking over at us. I suppose I must have said something, and I held the light up and ran up the steps, and my light shone right on the face. That was a bad answer if ever I see one. A holdish man, and the face very much fell in and laughing, as I thought. And I got up the steps as quick pretty nigh as I'm telling you,

when I was out on the ground, there weren't a sign of any person. There hadn't been a time for anyone to get away, let alone a whole. old chap, and I made sure he weren't crouching down by the well nor nothing. Next thing, I hear Master cry out, something horrible, and all I see was him hanging out by the rope, and as Master says, however I got him up I couldn't tell you." "'You hear that, Gregory?' said Mr. Somerton. "'Now, does any explanation of that incident strike you?' The whole thing is so ghastly and abnormal that I must own it puts me quite off my balance.

But the thought did occur to me that possibly the, well, the person who set the trap might have come to see the success of his plan. Just so, Gregory, just so. I can think of nothing else, so likely, I should say, if such a word had a place anywhere in my story. I think it must have been the abbot. Well, I haven't got much more to tell you. I spent a miserable night, Brown sitting up with me.

Next day I was no better, unable to get up. No doctor to be had, and if one had been available, I doubt if he could have done much for me. I made Brown right off to you, and spent a second terrible night. And Gregory, of this I am sure, and I think it affected me more than the first shock, for it lasted longer. There was someone or something on the watch outside my door the whole night. I almost fancy there were two. It wasn't only the faint noises I heard from time to time all through the dark out.

But there was the smell, the hideous smell of mould. Every rag I had on me on that first evening I had stripped off and made Brown take it away. I believe he stuffed the things into the stove in his room. And yet the smell was there, as intense as it had been in the well, and what is more it came from outside the door. But with the first glimmer of dawn it faded out, and the sounds ceased too. And that convinced me that the thing or things were creatures of darkness, and could not stand the daylight.

And so I was sure that if anyone could put back the stone, it or they would be powerless, until someone else took it away again. I had to wait until you came to get that done. Of course I couldn't send Brown to it by himself, and still less could I tell anyone who belonged to the place. Well, there is my story, and if you don't believe it, I can't help it. But I think you do. "'Indeed,' said Mr. Gregory,

"'I can find no alternative. "'I must believe it. "'I saw the well and the stone myself, "'and had a glimpse I thought of the bags "'or something else in the hole. "'And to be playing with you, Somerton, "'I believe my door was watched last night, too.' "'I dare say it was, Gregory.

"'But thank goodness that is over. "'Have you, by the way, anything to tell "'about your visit to that dreadful place?' "'Very little,' was the answer. Brown and I managed easily enough to get the slab into its place, and he fixed it very firmly with the irons and wedges you had desired him to get, and we contrived to smear the surface with mud, so that it looks just like the rest of the wall.

One thing I did notice in the carving on the wellhead, which I think must have escaped you, it was a horrid, grotesque shape, perhaps more like a toad than anything else, and there was a label by it inscribed with the two words, Depositum Custody Footnote Translation

Keep that which is committed to thee Return to text End of The Treasure of Abbott Thomas The last story in volume one of ghost stories of an antiquary

by M.R. James