Collected Ghost Stories

by M. R. James

  Meanwhile the pulpit had been done away with. In fact, the sounding-board (part of which still exists as a table in a summer-house in the palace garden) was taken down within an hour or two of Dr. Ayloff’s protest. The removal of the base—not effected without considerable trouble—disclosed to view, greatly to the exultation of the restoring party, an altar-tomb—the tomb, of course, to which Worby had attracted Lake’s attention that same evening. Much fruitless research was expended in attempts to identify the occupant; from that day to this he has never had a name put to him. The structure had been most carefully boxed in under the pulpit-base, so that such slight ornament as it possessed was not defaced; only on the north side of it there was what looked like an injury; a gap between two of the slabs composing the side. It might be two or three inches across. Palmer, the mason, was directed to fill it up in a week’s time, when he came to do some other small jobs near that part of the choir.

  The season was undoubtedly a very trying one. Whether the church was built on a site that had once been a marsh, as was suggested, or for whatever reason, the residents in its immediate neighbourhood had, many of them, but little enjoyment of the exquisite sunny days and the calm nights of August and September. To several of the older people—Dr. Ayloff, among others, as we have seen—the summer proved downright fatal, but even among the younger, few escaped either a sojourn in bed for a matter of weeks, or at the least, a brooding sense of oppression, accompanied by hateful nightmares. Gradually there formulated itself a suspicion—which grew into a conviction—that the alterations in the Cathedral had something to say in the matter. The widow of a former old verger, a pensioner of the Chapter of Southminster, was visited by dreams, which she retailed to her friends, of a shape that slipped out of the little door of the south transept as the dark fell in, and flitted—taking a fresh direction every night—about the Close, disappearing for a while in house after house, and finally emerging again when the night sky was paling. She could see nothing of it, she said, but that it was a moving form: only she had an impression that when it returned to the church, as it seemed to do in the end of the dream, it turned its head: and then, she could not tell why, but she thought it had red eyes. Worby remembered hearing the old lady tell this dream at a tea-party in the house of the chapter clerk. Its recurrence might, perhaps, he said, be taken as a symptom of approaching illness; at any rate before the end of September the old lady was in her grave.

  The interest excited by the restoration of this great church was not confined to its own county. One day that summer an F.S.A.,* of some celebrity, visited the place. His business was to write an account of the discoveries that had been made, for the Society of Antiquaries, and his wife, who accompanied him, was to make a series of illustrative drawings for his report. In the morning she employed herself in making a general sketch of the choir; in the afternoon she devoted herself to details. She first drew the newly-exposed altar-tomb, and when that was finished, she called her husband’s attention to a beautiful piece of diaper-ornament* on the screen just behind it, which had, like the tomb itself, been completely concealed by the pulpit. Of course, he said, an illustration of that must be made; so she seated herself on the tomb and began a careful drawing which occupied her till dusk.

  Her husband had by this time finished his work of measuring and description, and they agreed that it was time to be getting back to their hotel. ‘You may as well brush my skirt, Frank,’ said the lady, ‘it must have got covered with dust, I’m sure.’ He obeyed dutifully; but, after a moment, he said, ‘I don’t know whether you value this dress particularly, my dear, but I’m inclined to think it’s seen its best days. There’s a great bit of it gone.’ ‘Gone? Where?’ said she. ‘I don’t know where it’s gone, but it’s off at the bottom edge behind here.’ She pulled it hastily into sight, and was horrified to find a jagged tear extending some way into the substance of the stuff; very much, she said, as if a dog had rent it away. The dress was, in any case, hopelessly spoilt, to her great vexation, and though they looked everywhere, the missing piece could not be found. There were many ways, they concluded, in which the injury might have come about, for the choir was full of old bits of woodwork with nails sticking out of them. Finally, they could only suppose that one of these had caused the mischief, and that the workmen, who had been about all day, had carried off the particular piece with the fragment of dress still attached to it.

  It was about this time, Worby thought, that his little dog began to wear an anxious expression when the hour for it to be put into the shed in the back yard approached. (For his mother had ordained that it must not sleep in the house.) One evening, he said, when he was just going to pick it up and carry it out, it looked at him ‘like a Christian, and waved its’and, I was going to say—well, you know ’ow they do carry on sometimes, and the end of it was I put it under my coat, and ’uddled it upstairs—and I’m afraid I as good as deceived my poor mother on the subject. After that the dog acted very artful with ’iding itself under the bed for half an hour or more before bed-time came, and we worked it so as my mother never found out what we’d done.’ Of course Worby was glad of its company anyhow, but more particularly when the nuisance that is still remembered in Southminster as ‘the crying’ set in.

  ‘Night after night,’ said Worby, ‘that dog seemed to know it was coming; he’d creep out, he would, and snuggle into the bed and cuddle right up to me shivering, and when the crying come he’d be like a wild thing, shoving his head under my arm, and I was fully near as bad. Six or seven times we’d hear it, not more, and when he’d dror out his ’ed again I’d know it was over for that night. What was it like, sir? Well, I never heard but one thing that seemed to hit it off. I happened to be playing about in the Close, and there was two of the Canons met and said “Good morning” one to another. “Sleep well last night?” says one—it was Mr. Henslow that one, and Mr. Lyall was the other. “Can’t say I did,” says Mr. Lyall, “rather too much of Isaiah xxxiv. 14* for me.” “xxxiv. 14,” says Mr. Henslow, “what’s that?” “You call yourself a Bible reader!” says Mr. Lyall. (Mr. Henslow, you must know, he was one of what used to be termed Simeon’s lot—pretty much what we should call the Evangelical party.)* “You go and look it up.” I wanted to know what he was getting at myself, and so off I ran home and got out my own Bible, and there it was: “the satyr shall cry to his fellow.” Well, I thought, is that what we’ve been listening to these past nights? and I tell you it made me look over my shoulder a time or two. Of course I’d asked my father and mother about what it could be before that, but they both said it was most likely cats: but they spoke very short, and I could see they was troubled. My word! that was a noise—’ungry-like, as if it was calling after someone that wouldn’t come. If ever you felt you wanted company, it would be when you was waiting for it to begin again. I believe two or three nights there was men put on to watch in different parts of the Close; but they all used to get together in one corner, the nearest they could to the High Street, and nothing came of it.

  ‘Well, the next thing was this. Me and another of the boys—he’s in business in the city now as a grocer, like his father before him—we’d gone up in the choir after morning service was over, and we heard old Palmer the mason bellowing to some of his men. So we went up nearer, because we knew he was a rusty old chap and there might be some fun going. It appears Palmer’d told this man to stop up the chink in that old tomb. Well, there was this man keeping on saying he’d done it the best he could, and there was Palmer carrying on like all possessed about it. “Call that making a job of it?” he says. “If you had your rights you’d get the sack for this. What do you suppose I pay you your wages for? What do you suppose I’m going to say to the Dean and Chapter when they come round, as come they may do any time, and see where you’ve been bungling about covering the ’ole place with mess and plaster and Lord knows what?” “Well, master, I done the best I could,” says the man; “I don’t know no more than what you do ’ow it come to fall out this w
ay. I tamped it right in the ’ole,” he says, “and now it’s fell out,” he says, “I never see.”

  ‘“Fell out?” says old Palmer, “why it’s nowhere near the place. Blowed out, you mean”; and he picked up a bit of plaster, and so did I, that was laying up against the screen, three or four feet off, and not dry yet; and old Palmer he looked at it curious-like, and then he turned round on me and he says, “Now then, you boys, have you been up to some of your games here?” “No,” I says, “I haven’t, Mr. Palmer; there’s none of us been about here till just this minute”; and while I was talking the other boy, Evans, he got looking in through the chink, and I heard him draw in his breath, and he came away sharp and up to us, and says he, “I believe there’s something in there. I saw something shiny.” “What! I dare say!” says old Palmer; “well, I ain’t got time to stop about there. You, William, you go off and get some more stuff and make a job of it this time; if not, there’ll be trouble in my yard,” he says.

  ‘So the man he went off, and Palmer too, and us boys stopped behind, and I says to Evans, “Did you really see anything in there?” “Yes,” he says, “I did indeed.” So then I says, “Let’s shove something in and stir it up.” And we tried several of the bits of wood that was laying about, but they were all too big. Then Evans he had a sheet of music he’d brought with him, an anthem or a service, I forget which it was now, and he rolled it up small and shoved it in the chink; two or three times he did it, and nothing happened. “Give it me, boy,” I said, and I had a try. No, nothing happened. Then, I don’t know why I thought of it, I’m sure, but I stooped down just opposite the chink and put my two fingers in my mouth and whistled—you know the way—and at that I seemed to think I heard something stirring, and I says to Evans, “Come away,” I says; “I don’t like this.” “Oh, rot,” he says, “give me that roll,” and he took it and shoved it in. And I don’t think ever I see anyone go so pale as he did. “I say, Worby,” he says, “it’s caught, or else someone’s got hold of it.” “Pull it out or leave it,” I says. “Come and let’s get off.” So he gave a good pull, and it came away. Leastways most of it did, but the end was gone. Torn off it was, and Evans looked at it for a second and then he gave a sort of a croak and let it drop, and we both made off out of there as quick as ever we could. When we got outside Evans says to me, “Did you see the end of that paper?” “No,” I says, “only it was torn.” “Yes, it was,” he says, “but it was wet too, and black!” Well, partly because of the fright we had, and partly because that music was wanted in a day or two, and we knew there’d be a set-out about it with the organist, we didn’t say nothing to anyone else, and I suppose the workmen they swept up the bit that was left along with the rest of the rubbish. But Evans, if you were to ask him this very day about it, he’d stick to it he saw that paper wet and black at the end where it was torn.’

  After that the boys gave the choir a wide berth, so that Worby was not sure what was the result of the mason’s renewed mending of the tomb. Only he made out from fragments of conversation dropped by the workmen passing through the choir that some difficulty had been met with, and that the governor—Mr. Palmer to wit—had tried his own hand at the job. A little later, he happened to see Mr. Palmer himself knocking at the door of the Deanery and being admitted by the butler. A day or so after that, he gathered from a remark his father let fall at breakfast that something a little out of the common was to be done in the Cathedral after morning service on the morrow. ‘And I’d just as soon it was to-day,’ his father added; ‘I don’t see the use of running risks.’ ‘“Father,” I says, “what are you going to do in the Cathedral to-morrow?” And he turned on me as savage as I ever see him—he was a wonderful good-tempered man as a general thing, my poor father was. “My lad,” he says, “I’ll trouble you not to go picking up your elders’ and betters’ talk: it’s not manners and it’s not straight. What I’m going to do or not going to do in the Cathedral to-morrow is none of your business: and if I catch sight of you hanging about the place to-morrow after your work’s done, I’ll send you home with a flea in your ear. Now you mind that.” Of course I said I was very sorry and that, and equally of course I went off and laid my plans with Evans. We knew there was a stair up in the corner of the transept which you can get up to the triforium, and in them days the door to it was pretty well always open, and even if it wasn’t we knew the key usually laid under a bit of matting hard by. So we made up our minds we’d be putting away music and that, next morning while the rest of the boys was clearing off, and then slip up the stairs and watch from the triforium if there was any signs of work going on.

  ‘Well, that same night I dropped off asleep as sound as a boy does, and all of a sudden the dog woke me up, coming into the bed, and thought I, now we’re going to get it sharp, for he seemed more frightened than usual. After about five minutes sure enough came this cry. I can’t give you no idea what it was like; and so near too—nearer than I’d heard it yet—and a funny thing, Mr. Lake, you know what a place this Close is for an echo, and particular if you stand this side of it. Well, this crying never made no sign of an echo at all. But, as I said, it was dreadful near this night; and on the top of the start I got with hearing it, I got another fright; for I heard something rustling outside in the passage. Now to be sure I thought I was done; but I noticed the dog seemed to perk up a bit, and next there was someone whispered outside the door, and I very near laughed out loud, for I knew it was my father and mother that had got out of bed with the noise. “Whatever is it?” says my mother. “Hush! I don’t know,” says my father, excited-like, “don’t disturb the boy. I hope he didn’t hear nothing.”

  ‘So, me knowing they were just outside, it made me bolder, and I slipped out of bed across to my little window—giving on the Close—but the dog he bored right down to the bottom of the bed—and I looked out. First go off I couldn’t see anything. Then right down in the shadow under a buttress I made out what I shall always say was two spots of red—a dull red it was—nothing like a lamp or a fire, but just so as you could pick ’em out of the black shadow. I hadn’t but just sighted ’em when it seemed we wasn’t the only people that had been disturbed, because I see a window in a house on the left-hand side become lighted up, and the light moving. I just turned my head to make sure of it, and then looked back into the shadow for those two red things, and they were gone, and for all I peered about and started, there was not a sign more of them. Then come my last fright that night—something come against my bare leg—but that was all right: that was my little dog had come out of bed, and prancing about making a great to-do, only holding his tongue, and me seeing he was quite in spirits again, I took him back to bed and we slept the night out!

  ‘Next morning I made out to tell my mother I’d had the dog in my room, and I was surprised, after all she’d said about it before, how quiet she took it. “Did you?” she says. “Well, by good rights you ought to go without your breakfast for doing such a thing behind my back: but I don’t know as there’s any great harm done, only another time you ask my permission, do you hear?” A bit after that I said something to my father about having heard the cats again. “Cats?” he says; and he looked over at my poor mother, and she coughed and he says, “Oh! ah! yes, cats. I believe I heard ’em myself.”

  ‘That was a funny morning altogether: nothing seemed to go right. The organist he stopped in bed, and the minor Canon he forgot it was the 19th day and waited for the Venite;* and after a bit the deputy he set off playing the chant for evensong, which was a minor; and then the Decani boys were laughing so much they couldn’t sing, and when it came to the anthem the solo boy he got took with the giggles, and made out his nose was bleeding, and shoved the book at me what hadn’t practised the verse and wasn’t much of a singer if I had known it. Well, things was rougher, you see, fifty years ago, and I got a nip from the counter-tenor behind me that I remembered.

  ‘So we got through somehow, and neither the men nor the boys weren’t by way of waiting to see whether
the Canon in residence—Mr. Henslow it was—would come to the vestries and fine ’em, but I don’t believe he did: for one thing I fancy he’d read the wrong lesson for the first time in his life, and knew it. Anyhow, Evans and me didn’t find no difficulty in slipping up the stairs as I told you, and when we got up we laid ourselves down flat on our stomachs where we could just stretch our heads out over the old tomb, and we hadn’t but just done so when we heard the verger that was then, first shutting the iron porch-gates and locking the south-west door, and then the transept door, so we knew there was something up, and they meant to keep the public out for a bit.