Curious Warnings - The Great Ghost Stories Of M.R. James Read Online Free
Author: M.R. James
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Horror, Short Stories, Genre Fiction, Ghosts, Occult, Single Author, Single Authors
something was pulling at his clothes. Rather startled at this, he hastily got up and looked around him.
Above him the moon was shining, through the windows of the tower, and the bells stood out sharply and clearly against it. Beyond the churchyard he could see hills and woods, and in the valley below him a broad still mere on which the moon was shining.
So after admiring the view for some minutes he was just composing himself to sleep again, when the moonlight caught an object nearer to him—almost at his feet in fact.
Nothing less than two glassy eyes belonging to a form that crouched there in the long grass. It was covered with what looked like a stained andtattered shroud, and he could dimly discern its long skinny-clawed hands, eager, as it seemed, to grasp something.
Further particulars did not possess sufficient interest to detain him. The terms “walked,” “ran,” or even “proceeded” are scarcely adequate to express the pace at which he put distance between himself and the churchyard.
Suffice it to say he left.
I began this paper with the intention of recounting in it several narratives of a thrilling nature, but space forbids. I can only apologize for the deceptive title and incoherent contents of what I have written, and make an end
quam celerrime
.
Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book
S T . B ERTRAND DE C OMMINGES is a decayed town on the spurs of the Pyrenees, not very far from Toulouse, and still nearer to Bagnères-de-Luchon. It was the site of a bishopric until the Revolution, and has a cathedral which is visited by a certain number of tourists.
In the spring of 1883 an Englishman arrived at this old-world place—I can hardly dignify it with the name of city, for there are not a thousand inhabitants. He was a Cambridge man, who had come specially from Toulouse to see St. Bertrand’s Church, and had left two friends, who were less keen archaeologists than himself, in their hotel at Toulouse, under promise to join him on the following morning. Half-an-hour at the church would satisfy
them
, and all three could then pursue their journey in the direction of Auch.
But our Englishman had come early on the day in question, and proposed to himself to fill a 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 Comminges.
In order to carry out this design satisfactorily, it was necessary to monopolize the verger of the church for the day. The verger or sacristan (I prefer the latter appellation, inaccurate as it may be) was accordingly sent for by the somewhat brusque lady who keeps the inn of the Chapeau Rouge. And when he came, the Englishman found him an unexpectedly interesting object of study.
It was not in the personal appearance of the little, dry, wizened old man that the interest lay, for he was precisely like dozens of other church-guardiansin France, but in a curious furtive, or rather hunted and oppressed, air which he had. He was perpetually half-glancing behind him; the muscles of his back and shoulders seemed to be hunched in a continual nervous contraction, as if he were expecting every moment to find himself in the clutch of an enemy.
The Englishman hardly knew whether to put him down as a man haunted by a fixed delusion, or as one oppressed by a guilty conscience, or as an unbearably henpecked husband.
The probabilities, when reckoned up, certainly pointed to the last idea. But, still, the impression conveyed was that of a more formidable persecutor even than a termagant wife.
However, the Englishman (let us call him Dennistoun) was soon too deep in his 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.
Dennistoun became rather fidgety after a time. Mingled suspicions that he was
Above him the moon was shining, through the windows of the tower, and the bells stood out sharply and clearly against it. Beyond the churchyard he could see hills and woods, and in the valley below him a broad still mere on which the moon was shining.
So after admiring the view for some minutes he was just composing himself to sleep again, when the moonlight caught an object nearer to him—almost at his feet in fact.
Nothing less than two glassy eyes belonging to a form that crouched there in the long grass. It was covered with what looked like a stained andtattered shroud, and he could dimly discern its long skinny-clawed hands, eager, as it seemed, to grasp something.
Further particulars did not possess sufficient interest to detain him. The terms “walked,” “ran,” or even “proceeded” are scarcely adequate to express the pace at which he put distance between himself and the churchyard.
Suffice it to say he left.
I began this paper with the intention of recounting in it several narratives of a thrilling nature, but space forbids. I can only apologize for the deceptive title and incoherent contents of what I have written, and make an end
quam celerrime
.
Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book
S T . B ERTRAND DE C OMMINGES is a decayed town on the spurs of the Pyrenees, not very far from Toulouse, and still nearer to Bagnères-de-Luchon. It was the site of a bishopric until the Revolution, and has a cathedral which is visited by a certain number of tourists.
In the spring of 1883 an Englishman arrived at this old-world place—I can hardly dignify it with the name of city, for there are not a thousand inhabitants. He was a Cambridge man, who had come specially from Toulouse to see St. Bertrand’s Church, and had left two friends, who were less keen archaeologists than himself, in their hotel at Toulouse, under promise to join him on the following morning. Half-an-hour at the church would satisfy
them
, and all three could then pursue their journey in the direction of Auch.
But our Englishman had come early on the day in question, and proposed to himself to fill a 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 Comminges.
In order to carry out this design satisfactorily, it was necessary to monopolize the verger of the church for the day. The verger or sacristan (I prefer the latter appellation, inaccurate as it may be) was accordingly sent for by the somewhat brusque lady who keeps the inn of the Chapeau Rouge. And when he came, the Englishman found him an unexpectedly interesting object of study.
It was not in the personal appearance of the little, dry, wizened old man that the interest lay, for he was precisely like dozens of other church-guardiansin France, but in a curious furtive, or rather hunted and oppressed, air which he had. He was perpetually half-glancing behind him; the muscles of his back and shoulders seemed to be hunched in a continual nervous contraction, as if he were expecting every moment to find himself in the clutch of an enemy.
The Englishman hardly knew whether to put him down as a man haunted by a fixed delusion, or as one oppressed by a guilty conscience, or as an unbearably henpecked husband.
The probabilities, when reckoned up, certainly pointed to the last idea. But, still, the impression conveyed was that of a more formidable persecutor even than a termagant wife.
However, the Englishman (let us call him Dennistoun) was soon too deep in his 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.
Dennistoun became rather fidgety after a time. Mingled suspicions that he was
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