Curious Warnings: The Great Ghost Stories of M.R. James

by M. R. James

  Also the story of two students of King’s College, in the 16th century (who were, in fact, expelled thence for magical practices), and their nocturnal expedition to a witch at Fenstanton, and of how, at the turning to Lolworth, on the Huntingson road, they met a company leading an unwilling figure whom they seemed to know. And of how, on arriving at Fenstanton, they learned of the witch’s death, and of what they saw seated upon her newly-dug grave.

  These were some of the tales which got as far as the stage of being written down, at least in part. There were others that flitted across the mind from time to time, but never really took shape.

  The man, for instance (naturally a man with something on his mind), who, sitting in his study one evening, was startled by a slight sound, turned hastily, and saw a certain dead face looking out from between the window curtains: a dead face, but with living eyes. He made a dash at the curtains and tore them apart. A pasteboard mask fell to the floor. But there was no one there, and the eyes of the mask were but eye-holes. What was to be done about that?

  There is the touch on the shoulder that comes when you are walking quickly homewards in the dark hours, full of anticipation of the warm room and bright fire, and when you pull up, startled, what face or no-face do you see?

  Similarly, when Mr. Badman had decided to settle the hash of Mr. Goodman and had picked out just the right thicket by the roadside from which to fire at him, how came it exactly that when Mr. Goodman and his unexpected friend actually did pass, they found Mr. Badman weltering in the road? He was able to tell them something of what he found waiting for him—even beckoning to him—in the thicket: enough to prevent them from looking into it themselves. There were possibilities here, but the labor of constructing the proper setting has been beyond me.

  There were possibilities, too, in the Christmas cracker, if the right people pull it, and if the motto which they find inside has the right message on it. They will probably leave the party early, pleading indisposition; but very likely a previous engagement of long standing would be the more truthful excuse.

  In parenthesis, many common objects may be made the vehicles of retribution, and where retribution is not called for, of malice. Be careful how you handle the packet you pick up in the carriage-drive, particularly if it contains nail parings and hair. Do not, in any case, bring it into the house. It may not be alone … (Dots are believed by many writers of our day to be a good substitute for effective writing. They are certainly an easy one. Let us have a few more … …)

  Late on Monday night a toad came into my study. And, though nothing has so far seemed to link itself with this appearance, I feel that it may not be quite prudent to brood over topics which may open the interior eye to the presence of more formidable visitants.

  Enough said.

  A Night in King’s College Chapel

  “IT IS CURIOUS how few people ever notice the painted glass in our Chapel—comparatively few, that is. One has heard enthusiastic worshippers sometimes remark on the extreme excellence of the West window. But these are generally the ones who would like to see some handsome gas standards in place of all those guttering candles, and would like the service brightened up a little by some hearty congregational singing—‘Hark, hark my soul’ or ‘Dare to be a Daniel.’ No, our windows are a sealed book to most visitors; and did anyone say all residents? People complain that they are so hard to make anything of, and there is a certain amount of truth in this statement. Indeed the object of this paper is to throw some little light on the erudition of these masterpieces of medieval art. I must remind you that in the year 1754 …”

  I had written so much of an article on the windows intended for the Cambridge Review, sitting in one of the stalls of the chapel after an afternoon service, and at that point I stopped for a little and, gradually succumbing to the associations of my place, fell into a doze. You will guess the next sentence and I will not therefore pain you with the repetition of it. I was awaked by the south door banging to, and discovered that I was locked in. Under the circumstances there is no chance of making yourself heard except by ringing the bell, and for the moment I was too surprised and lazy to do anything at all. There I sat. The moon was shining and I could see some of the figures in the windows, which pleased me, and I fixed my attention on that which represents Reuben looking at the empty well where he expected to find Joseph. To my horror I saw him, distinctly, lower his arms (which had been raised over his head in surprise), retire to the edge of the well, and sit down on it. Then he yawned—I heard him—and began feeling about in his drapery. Then he began to say something in a somewhat metallic tone which became more natural as he went on.

  “Well, I suppose that feller Joseph ’as took and gorn off on one of his larks. I thought he worn’t in that pit. And now for a pipe.”

  Yes—he said “a pipe.” You may imagine my feelings when, apparently from the bosom of his red shirt, he produced an extraordinarily murky clay, filled it, struck a match on the stonework of the well and lit up, so that soon an odor as of the worst variety of shag stole over the sacred edifice. But Reuben was not destined to enjoy his evening smoke altogether undisturbed. Just opposite to him is a representation of the Manna falling—in the shape of large halfcrowns—and I was suddenly brought to a recollection of this by hearing a sharp rattling sound, and seeing Reuben start, draw up his leg and begin rubbing his shin, muttering execrations. Suddenly he put down his pipe on the edge of the well and advanced to the foreground in a sad state of anger.

  “Moses,” he said, “I’ve spoke about this time and again. If you can’t keep them Children of Israel in better order I shall speak to the Guvnor to ’ave you took out of that and put in one of the broke windows. You knows right well it’ll be done too. I will not ’ave them throwin’ of their Manner at me and, to my thinking, you want all the Manners you can git yourself. You ’aven’t got none to spare. I may be only a Type, but I ain’t goin’ to be put upon.”

  There was a dead silence at this, followed by a whispering in the Manna window. Then Moses (as well as I could make out for he was on the same side as I) stepped forward and apologized, saying that his attention had been diverted for the moment, and promising that the offense should not be repeated. This explanation, which seemed to satisfy Reuben, was followed by a smart application of Moses’ rod to the backs and shoulders of some of Reuben’s descendants—he even sent across one of the “Messengers” who occupy the middle lights to borrow the rod belonging to his double in the scene with the Golden Calf.

  But you must not suppose that these were the only windows which assumed so new an aspect. There was a perfect buzz of conversation on all sides; voices male, female and animal. I noticed that all the New Testament lights remained dark and inanimate while the Types and Messengers and Pontius Pilate seemed to be lighted up from some internal source.

  “Do get up,” said Naomi from her position at the East end, to her deceased husband. “Who do you suppose is a going to set and cry over you all night as well as all day?” And Elimelech got up in a submissive manner and muttered something about going across to see Job.

  Job’s wife (who, you will remember, is scolding him, usually assisted by a hideous demon) was rather inclined to continue the process now, as I judged from her opening words: “… setting there as naked as Adam on that nasty filthy dunghill—in a perfect coat of dirt. You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” etc., etc. But here even the demon interposed and said he wasn’t going to stand by and see the gentleman put upon. If Mr. Job didn’t choose to stand up for himself, and a more affable gent he never see, then it was time his friends stood up for him. And as to sitting on dunghills and having no clothes to wear, well, all he should like to know was, who brought him to it?

  A new element was here introduced into the discussion by the arrival of Eve, who had unfortunately overheard the remarks made by Mrs. Job on Adam’s scanty attire, and now came rapidly up accompanied by the serpent, to inquire precisely what was meant to be conveyed by those words. Here wer
e the materials for a very pretty quarrel, which in fact lasted a considerable time. But I was glad to notice that Job and Elimelech were able to slip off and join Adam in the Garden of Eden where, I concluded, they were having a quiet cigar.

  The gentlemen who occupy the center lights and hold long scrolls seemed to be forming themselves into a kind of servants’ club in the West window, which, as being modern glass, had entirely disappeared. Some of them left their scrolls behind, but most took them with them, and left them about on the ground of the window. They were dreadfully mixed next day in some cases. One or two, I noticed, tied them around their necks in a bow, and these, from having been treated in this way persistently for three centuries, are almost entirely illegible now. The only ones who would not join the party were the four exactly similar figures of St. Luke, which hurried off at once to the broken windows at the West end and dragged out Enoch, who, between the fact that he is being translated and that he is also very much mutilated, is in no condition to be roughly handled. However, the St. Lukes were not inclined to think much of that.

  “Come out,” they said. “We’ll have you right tonight, old man. You shall be thoroughly set to rights. Just drink off this electuary and we’ll have you to pieces.”

  “No, not the electuary yet,” said the second. “The purge—you forget the purge. Galen saith, ‘let a purge precede every incision.’”

  “Purge quotha?” said the third. “Galen? Drink your own filthy purge. His salt humors must be dispersed or we shall have trouble anon. Exhibit a solution of the dust from the altar, and frankincense and a fat chapel spider.”

  Enoch groaned. “I hate spiders,” he said, “and the dust you gave me last night nearly made me burst, because it’s a week-day and I can only cough when the organ’s playing loud.”

  Nobody paid any attention. The fourth St. Luke, who had said nothing, but had been slowly dancing around and around to himself, as it were, and trying the edge of his penknife on his thumb, now advanced, and said slowly, “There’s only a little ink on it. Come here. You’ve got a rush of blood to the head” (though as a fact, few people could have been paler than Enoch at this moment), “and what you want is a good blood-letting: and by Theophilus you shall have it.” They closed in upon him and I heard a faint scream. I have since thought that every day I look at Enoch in his place, he seems more hopelessly confused, and should he be treated in this way for a much longer time, I fear he will be too far gone for the College ever to mend him.

  Others of these distinguished personages had their troubles. Tobias’ mother, a respectable old lady enough, was anxious to get over to the Shunammite to have a chat, but had several difficulties to contend with. First there was her own son’s dog, a vicious little creature which kept barking and howling at her, to her extreme terror. Then she wasn’t sure if “that young man with the lions,” (meaning presumably Daniel), “was to be trusted”: had he got the animals quite under his control, because she had heard of so many unfortunate accidents occurring in menageries and that, “not but what he didn’t keep no menagerie, far from it.”

  These imputations Daniel indignantly repudiated, but there seemed some ground for them in as much as one of the curious breed of lions, which the two Daniels keep, had just made an ugly rush at King Darius, and this had so frightened the angel in the next window, who is carrying Habakkuk by the hair, that he let that unhappy seer fall right into the den, where the promptest action on the part of Daniel was required to avert destruction.

  Besides the lion and the dog, Mrs. Tobit had another awkward neighbor in the shape of Jonah’s whale, which (I heard her saying) was always flapping about the place, and splashing one’s silk dress when one went out to tea with any lady, and “what a blessing it would be if some people as give themselves airs about being prophets could keep themselves to themselves a trifle more.” An innuendo which so moved Jonah that he said, with some asperity, that he had yet to learn that a prophet, even though he might have only five chapters, wasn’t a cut above an old woman out of the Apocrypha with half a dozen verses to bless herself with. Besides, wasn’t it a trifle mean to complain of a harmless animal like that whale, which after all was very likely only an allegory? To which Mrs. Tobit, together with much other matter, retorted that if it was a whale it couldn’t be an allegory. She hoped she’d learned her geography better than that when she was a girl, and allegories didn’t live at Ninevah but Egypt.

  I saw and heard much more that night, but these were some of the more noteworthy incidents and, in selecting even these, I fear I have detained you too long.

  [Earlier Fragment]

  After this there was an interval of silence broken only by the quiet fall of the manna onto the top of the stalls—and I was able to look around and notice some of the changes that had taken place in the disposition of the windows since night had come on. Reuben was sitting on the edge of the well, peering curiously into its depths, and I heard him muttering. “Well for three hundred years I’ve been put up here to look at this old hole and blowed if I won’t find out whether there’s something in it after all.” So saying he craned over further and further, till at last there came a sudden splash, and several shouts which roused the keenest interest in the other Old Testament characters, who rushed to the edge of their windows, though the New Testament ones succeeded pretty well in preserving the calm composure on which they prided themselves. Presently Reuben crawled out, very wet and draggled, into the middle light occupied by the messengers, who both protested loudly but vainly against the intrusion. Reuben not only refused to quit the usurped position but insisted on borrowing the messenger’s cloak and scroll to dry himself with, remarking at the same time in sulky tones, “Well, it says distinctly in Genesis that there was no water in the pit, and of course that was in summer, but they must mind and alter it in the Revised Version.” With which emendation he wrapped the cloak around the head of the shivering messenger, and retired to his place.

  The Fenstanton Witch

  I

  NICHOLAS HARDMAN and Stephen Ashe were two Fellows of the King’s College in Cambridge: they had come like all their contemporaries from the sister College at Eton where they had spent their lives from about the age of six to that of sixteen, and at the time when we encounter them, they were both men of about thirty years old. Hardman was the son of a Lincolnshire parson, living at Thorganby-on-the-Wolds, while Ashe’s father was a yeoman-farmer of Ospringe in Kent.

  Hardman was black, dour and saturnine with a rasping voice and a strong Lincolnshire accent which cannot be reproduced here. Ashe had the sturdy and somewhat slow intelligence of his Kentish ancestors; the phrase “a good friend and a bad enemy” represents the opinion which the men of his year held of him. Both were in priests’ orders, and each, we might suppose, looked forward in the fullness of time to occupying College livings, marrying and bringing up a son or two: one most likely to reproduce his father’s career; another, perhaps, to go on the land and become a reputable farmer in a small way.

  I say we might suppose their aspirations to have been of this nature: for such was the program of a majority of Fellows of Colleges at that time. But there is an entry in the book called Harwood’s Alumni which shows that they entertained ideas of a very different sort; and it has occurred to me that it may be worthwhile to tell the story of what they adventured and what came of it.

  I have alluded more than once to “their times” but I have not yet told you when they lived. Anne was filling the throne of England, Scotland, Ireland and France, and Dr. James Roderick was Provost of the College, having been elected by the Fellows in preference to Sir Isaac Newton, whom the Prince of Orange, King William the Third of blessed memory, would have intruded into that pasture. The Fellows of King’s had vindicated their right of election and the Lower Master of Eton occupied the Lodge—he was known as one of the “four Smoaking Heads”—while Sir Isaac lived in the Observatory over Trinity Great Gate, and, according to popular legends, gently remonstrated with his dog Diam
ond, or cut holes in his door to admit his cat and kitten. The University was a happy, sleepy place in those days, one is apt to think; but after all, what with the Church in danger and the excitement of depriving Dr. Richard Bentley, then Master of Trinity, of his degrees, there was probably no lack of sport to be had within the precincts. And certainly just outside them there was more than there is now. Snipe were shot on Parker’s Piece, and the dreary expanse of undrained fen was the haunt of many a strange fowl, not to speak of other inhabitants of whom I may one day find an occasion to tell.

  But it is time to leave generalities. The two sheep to whom we must return—and I am afraid they were black ones—were very close friends; but few men in the University, or indeed in the King’s College itself, could boast of more than a speaking acquaintance with either. They occupied one room in the Old School of King’s, north of the Chapel, which room was always locked when they were out. And these were not days when Fellows, nor still less Scholars, were in the habit of dropping into each other’s abodes to partake of casual hospitality in the way of tobacco or whiskey and water. The common life, such as it was, was confined to Chapel, Hall and the Fellows’ Parlor.

  All that was known of Hardman and Ashe’s way of employing “their leisure” was that they went for long walks together and smoked apparently very bad tobacco when they came back.

  It was a fine afternoon in October when these events began, or to speak more truly, came to a head, which served to show what manner of men were Nicholas Hardman and Stephen Ashe. Chapel service, we may be sure, was at three, and both of our friends were there, staring at each other from opposite stalls. The reedy and pedalless organ helped the rather infirm and jaded choir through a new verse anthem by Dr. Blow during which the snoring of Provost Roderick was not doubtfully heard. At near four, Dr. Tudway, the organist, played out the scant congregation with a march of his own composition. The choirmen hurried off to go through a similar performance at Trinity. The boys rushed off to whatever haunts in the town they had emerged from. The Provost strolled to his Lodge, then at the eastern end of the Chapel, and the Fellows and Scholars made their way across the strip of ground on the north side, holding on their caps—for a strong west wind was blowing the yellow leaves about—and so into the Old Court, and to dine in Hall. A coarse meal, I expect it was, and a silent one. The Vice Provost and three or four Seniors occupied one table on the dais; the Masters of Arts—among whom were Hardman and Ashe—filled a second along with the Fellow-Commoners; and the Bachelors and Undergraduate Fellows and Scholars, two more. There may have been fifty people in the room. Not much passed at dinner, which lasted about forty minutes; but afterward the Fellows returned to the parlor and the Scholars to their rooms. With these last we are not concerned, but we may as well follow the Seniors. They are sitting at a large table, cloth-less, with some decanters of wine (I don’t know whether port or claret: much depends upon the date of Lord Methuen’s treaty with Portugal), and something like conversation has broken out.