Collected Ghost Stories

by M. R. James

  So they turned away. The two others said, ‘Good evening’ and ‘Thank you’ to the shepherd, but Stanley said nothing. The shepherd shrugged his shoulders and stood where he was, looking after them rather sadly.

  On the way back to the camp there was great argument about it all, and Stanley was told as plainly as he could be told all the sorts of fools he would be if he went to the Wailing Well.

  That evening, among other notices, Mr. Beasley Robinson asked if all maps had got the red ring marked on them. ‘Be particular,’ he said, ‘not to trespass inside it.’

  Several voices—among them the sulky one of Stanley Judkins—said, ‘Why not, sir?’

  ‘Because not,’ said Mr. Beasley Robinson, ‘and if that isn’t enough for you, I can’t help it.’ He turned and spoke to Mr. Lambart in a low voice, and then said, ‘I’ll tell you this much: we’ve been asked to warn Scouts off that field. It’s very good of the people to let us camp here at all, and the least we can do is to oblige them—I’m sure you’ll agree to that.’

  Everybody said, ‘Yes, sir!’ except Stanley Judkins, who was heard to mutter, ‘Oblige them be blowed!’

  Early in the afternoon of the next day, the following dialogue was heard. ‘Wilcox, is all your tent there?’

  ‘No, sir, Judkins isn’t!’

  ‘That boy is the most infernal nuisance ever invented! Where do you suppose he is?’

  ‘I haven’t an idea, sir.’

  ‘Does anybody else know?’

  ‘Sir, I shouldn’t wonder if he’d gone to the Wailing Well.’

  ‘Who’s that? Pipsqueak? What’s the Wailing Well?’

  ‘Sir, it’s that place in the field by—well, sir, it’s in a clump of trees in a rough field.’

  ‘D’you mean inside the red ring? Good heavens! What makes you think he’s gone there?’

  ‘Why, he was terribly keen to know about it yesterday, and we were talking to a shepherd man, and he told us a lot about it and advised us not to go there: but Judkins didn’t believe him, and said he meant to go.’

  ‘Young ass!’ said Mr. Hope Jones, ‘did he take anything with him?’

  ‘Yes, I think he took some rope and a can. We did tell him he’d be a fool to go.’

  ‘Little brute! What the deuce does he mean by pinching stores like that! Well, come along, you three, we must see after him. Why can’t people keep the simplest orders? What was it the man told you? No, don’t wait, let’s have it as we go along.’

  And off they started—Algernon and Wilfred talking rapidly and the other two listening with growing concern. At last they reached that spur of down overlooking the field of which the shepherd had spoken the day before. It commanded the place completely; the well inside the clump of bent and gnarled Scotch firs was plainly visible, and so were the four tracks winding about among the thorns and rough growth.

  It was a wonderful day of shimmering heat. The sea looked like a floor of metal. There was no breath of wind. They were all exhausted when they got to the top, and flung themselves down on the hot grass.

  ‘Nothing to be seen of him yet,’ said Mr. Hope Jones, ‘but we must stop here a bit. You’re done up—not to speak of me. Keep a sharp look-out,’ he went on after a moment, ‘I thought I saw the bushes stir.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Wilcox, ‘so did I. Look … no, that can’t be him. It’s somebody though, putting their head up, isn’t it?’

  ‘I thought it was, but I’m not sure.’

  Silence for a moment. Then:

  ‘That’s him, sure enough,’ said Wilcox, ‘getting over the hedge on the far side. Don’t you see? With a shiny thing. That’s the can you said he had.’

  ‘Yes, it’s him, and he’s making straight for the trees,’ said Wilfred.

  At this moment Algernon, who had been staring with all his might, broke into a scream.

  ‘What’s that on the track? On all fours—O, it’s the woman. O, don’t let me look at her! Don’t let it happen!’ And he rolled over, clutching at the grass and trying to bury his head in it.

  ‘Stop that!’ said Mr. Hope Jones loudly—but it was no use. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I must go down there. You stop here, Wilfred, and look after that boy. Wilcox, you run as hard as you can to the camp and get some help.’

  They ran off, both of them. Wilfred was left alone with Algernon, and did his best to calm him, but indeed he was not much happier himself. From time to time he glanced down the hill and into the field. He saw Mr. Hope Jones drawing nearer at a swift pace, and then, to his great surprise, he saw him stop, look up and round about him, and turn quickly off at an angle! What could be the reason? He looked at the field, and there he saw a terrible figure—something in ragged black—with whitish patches breaking out of it: the head, perched on a long thin neck, half hidden by a shapeless sort of blackened sun-bonnet. The creature was waving thin arms in the direction of the rescuer who was approaching, as if to ward him off: and between the two figures the air seemed to shake and shimmer as he had never seen it: and as he looked, he began himself to feel something of a waviness and confusion in his brain, which made him guess what might be the effect on someone within closer range of the influence. He looked away hastily, to see Stanley Judkins making his way pretty quickly towards the clump, and in proper Scout fashion; evidently picking his steps with care to avoid treading on snapping sticks or being caught by arms of brambles. Evidently, though he saw nothing, he suspected some sort of ambush, and was trying to go noiselessly. Wilfred saw all that, and he saw more, too. With a sudden and dreadful sinking at the heart, he caught sight of someone among the trees, waiting: and again of someone—another of the hideous black figures—working slowly along the track from another side of the field, looking from side to side, as the shepherd had described it. Worst of all, he saw a fourth—unmistakably a man this time—rising out of the bushes a few yards behind the wretched Stanley, and painfully, as it seemed, crawling into the track. On all sides the miserable victim was cut off.

  Wilfred was at his wits’ end. He rushed at Algernon and shook him. ‘Get up,’ he said. ‘Yell! Yell as loud as you can. Oh, if we’d got a whistle!’

  Algernon pulled himself together. ‘There’s one,’ he said, ‘Wilcox’s: he must have dropped it.’

  So one whistled, the other screamed. In the still air the sound carried. Stanley heard: he stopped: he turned round: and then indeed a cry was heard more piercing and dreadful than any that the boys on the hill could raise. It was too late. The crouched figure behind Stanley sprang at him and caught him about the waist. The dreadful one that was standing waving her arms waved them again, but in exultation. The one that was lurking among the trees shuffled forward, and she too stretched out her arms as if to clutch at something coming her way; and the other, farthest off, quickened her pace and came on, nodding gleefully. The boys took it all in in an instant of terrible silence, and hardly could they breathe as they watched the horrid struggle between the man and his victim. Stanley struck with his can, the only weapon he had. The rim of a broken black hat fell off the creature’s head and showed a white skull with stains that might be wisps of hair. By this time one of the women had reached the pair, and was pulling at the rope that was coiled about Stanley’s neck. Between them they overpowered him in a moment: the awful screaming ceased, and then the three passed within the circle of the clump of firs.

  Yet for a moment it seemed as if rescue might come. Mr. Hope Jones, striding quickly along, suddenly stopped, turned, seemed to rub his eyes, and then started running towards the field. More: the boys glanced behind them, and saw not only a troop of figures from the camp coming over the top of the next down, but the shepherd running up the slope of their own hill. They beckoned, they shouted, they ran a few yards towards him and then back again. He mended his pace.

  Once more the boys looked towards the field. There was nothing. Or, was there something among the trees? Why was there a mist about the trees? Mr. Hope Jones had scrambled over the hedge, and was plunging throu
gh the bushes.

  The shepherd stood beside them, panting. They ran to him and clung to his arms. ‘They’ve got him! In the trees!’ was as much as they could say, over and over again.

  ‘What? Do you tell me he’ve gone in there after all I said to him yesterday? Poor young thing! Poor young thing!’ He would have said more, but other voices broke in. The rescuers from the camp had arrived. A few hasty words, and all were dashing down the hill.

  They had just entered the field when they met Mr. Hope Jones. Over his shoulder hung the corpse of Stanley Judkins. He had cut it from the branch to which he found it hanging, waving to and fro. There was not a drop of blood in the body.

  On the following day Mr. Hope Jones sallied forth with an axe and with the expressed intention of cutting down every tree in the clump, and of burning every bush in the field. He returned with a nasty cut in his leg and a broken axe-helve.* Not a spark of fire could he light, and on no single tree could he make the least impression.

  I have heard that the present population of the Wailing Well field consists of three women, a man, and a boy.

  The shock experienced by Algernon de Montmorency and Wilfred Pipsqueak was severe. Both of them left the camp at once; and the occurrence undoubtedly cast a gloom—if but a passing one—on those who remained. One of the first to recover his spirits was Judkins mi.

  Such, gentlemen, is the story of the career of Stanley Judkins, and of a portion of the career of Arthur Wilcox. It has, I believe, never been told before. If it has a moral, that moral is, I trust, ovbious: if it has none, I do not well know how to help it.

  THE EXPERIMENT

  A NEW YEAR’S EVE GHOST STORY

  (Full Directions will be found at the End)

  THE Reverend Dr. Hall was in his study making up the entries for the year in the parish register: it being his custom to note baptisms, weddings and burials in a paper book as they occurred, and in the last days of December to write them out fairly in the vellum book that was kept in the parish chest.

  To him entered his housekeeper, in evident agitation. ‘Oh, sir,’ said she, ‘whatever do you think? The poor Squire’s gone!’

  ‘The Squire? Squire Bowles? What are you talking about, woman? Why, only yesterday——.’

  ‘Yes, I know, sir, but it’s the truth. Wickem, the clerk, just left word on his way down to toll the bell—you’ll hear it yourself in a minute. There now, just listen.’

  Sure enough the sound broke on the still night—not loud, for the Rectory did not immediately adjoin the churchyard. Dr. Hall rose hastily.

  ‘Terrible, terrible,’ he said. ‘I must see them at the Hall at once. He seemed so greatly better yesterday.’ He paused. ‘Did you hear any word of the sickness having come this way at all? There was nothing said in Norwich. It seems so sudden.’

  ‘No, indeed, sir, no such thing. Just caught away with a choking in his throat, Wickem says. It do make one feel—well, I’m sure I had to set down as much as a minute or more, I come over that queer when I heard the words—and by what I could understand they’ll be asking for the burial very quick. There’s some can’t bear the thought of the cold corpse laying in the house, and——.’

  ‘Yes: well, I must find out from Madam Bowles herself or Mr. Joseph. Get me my cloak, will you? Ah, and could you let Wickem know that I desire to see him when the tolling is over?’ He hurried off.

  *

  ‘In an hour’s time he was back and found Wickem waiting for him. ‘There is work for you, Wickem,’ he said, as he threw off his cloak, ‘and not overmuch time to do it in.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Wickem, ‘the vault to be opened to be sure——.’

  ‘No, no, that’s not the message I have. The poor Squire, they tell me, charged them before now not to lay him in the chancel. It was to be an earth grave in the yard, on the north side.’ He stopped at an inarticulate exclamation from the clerk. ‘Well?’ he said.

  ‘I ask pardon, sir,’ said Wickem in a shocked voice, ‘but did I understand you right? No vault, you say, and on the north side? Tt-tt-! Why the poor gentleman must a been wandering.’

  ‘Yes, it does seem strange to me, too,’ said Dr. Hall, ‘but no, Mr. Joseph tells me it was his father’s—I should say stepfather’s—clear wish, expressed more than once, and when he was in good health. Clean earth and open air. You know, of course, the poor Squire had his fancies, though he never spoke of this one to me. And there’s another thing. Wickem. No coffin.’

  ‘Oh dear, dear, sir,’ said Wickem, yet more shocked. ‘Oh, but that’ll make sad talk, that will, and what a disappointment for Wright, too! I know he’d looked out some beautiful wood for the Squire, and had it by him years past.’

  ‘Well, well, perhaps the family will make it up to Wright in some way,’ said the Rector, rather impatiently, ‘but what you have to do is to get the grave dug and all things in a readiness—torches from Wright you must not forget—by ten o’clock to-morrow night. I don’t doubt but there will be somewhat coming to you for your pains and hurry.’

  ‘Very well, sir, if those be the orders, I must do my best to carry them out. And should I call in on my way down and send the women up to the Hall to lay out the body, sir?’

  ‘No: that, I think—I am sure—was not spoken of. Mr. Joseph will send, no doubt, if they are needed. No, you have enough without that. Good-night, Wickem. I was making up the registers when this doleful news came. Little had I thought to add such an entry to them as I must now.’

  All things had been done in decent order. The torchlighted cortège had passed from the Hall through the park, up the lime avenue to the top of the knoll on which the church stood. All the village had been there, and such neighbours as could be warned in the few hours available. There was no great surprise at the hurry.

  Formalities of law there were none then, and no one blamed the stricken widow for hastening to lay her dead to rest. Nor did anyone look to see her following in the funeral train. Her son Joseph—only issue of her first marriage with a Calvert of Yorkshire—was the chief mourner.

  There were, indeed, no kinsfolk on Squire Bowles’s side who could have been bidden. The will, executed at the time of the Squire’s second marriage, left everything to the widow.

  And what was ‘everything’? Land, house, furniture, pictures, plate were all obvious. But there should have been accumulations in coin, and beyond a few hundreds in the hands of agents—honest men and no embezzlers—cash there was none. Yet Francis Bowles had for years received good rents and paid little out. Nor was he a reputed miser; he kept a good table, and money was always forthcoming for the moderate spendings of his wife and stepson. Joseph Calvert had been maintained ungrudgingly at school and college.

  What, then, had he done with it all? No ransacking of the house brought any secret hoard to light; no servant, old or young, had any tale to tell of meeting the Squire in unexpected places at strange hours. No, Madam Bowles and her son were fairly non-plussed. As they sat one evening in the parlour discussing the problem for the twentieth time:

  ‘You have been at his books and papers, Joseph, again today, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, mother, and no forwarder.’

  ‘What was it he would be writing at, and why was he always sending letters to Mr. Fowler at Gloucester?’

  ‘Why, you know he had a maggot about the Middle State of the Soul. ’Twas over that he and that other were always busy. The last thing he wrote would be a letter that he never finished. I’ll fetch it…. Yes, the same song over again.

  ‘“Honoured friend,—I make some slow advance in our studies, but I know not well how far to trust our authors. Here is one lately come my way who will have it that for a time after death the soul is under control of certain spirits as Raphael, and another whom I doubtfully read as Nares,* but still so near to this state of life that on prayer to them he may be free to come and disclose matters to the living. Come, indeed, he must, if he be rightly called, the manner of which is set forth in an experiment. But
having come, and once opened his mouth, it may chance that his summoner shall see and hear more than of the hid treasure which it is likely he bargained for; since the experiment puts this in the forefront of things to be enquired. But the eftest* way is to send you the whole, which herewith I do; copied from a book of recipes which I had of good Bishop Moore.”’*

  Here Joseph stopped, and made no comment, gazing on the paper. For more than a minute nothing was said, then Madam Bowles, drawing her needle through her work and looking at it, coughed and said, ‘There was no more written?’

  ‘No, nothing, mother.’

  ‘No? Well, it is strange stuff. Did ever you meet this Mr. Fowler?’

  ‘Yes, it might be once or twice, in Oxford, a civil gentleman enough.’

  ‘Now I think of it,’ said she, ‘it would be but right to acquaint him with—with what has happened: they were close friends. Yes, Joseph, you should do that: you will know what should be said. And the letter is his, after all.’

  ‘You are in the right, mother, and I’ll not delay it.’ And forthwith he sat down to write.

  From Norfolk to Gloucester was no quick transit. But a letter went, and a larger packet came in answer; and there were more evening talks in the panelled parlour at the Hall. At the close of one, these words were said: ‘To-night, then, if you are certain of yourself, go round by the field path. Ay, and here is a cloth will serve.’

  ‘What cloth is that, mother? A napkin?’

  ‘Yes, of a kind: what matter?’ So he went out by the way of the garden, and she stood in the door, musing, with her hand on her mouth. Then the hand dropped and she said half aloud: ‘If only I had not been so hurried! But it was the face cloth, sure enough.’

  It was a very dark night, and the spring wind blew loud over the black fields: loud enough to drown all sounds of shouting or calling. If calling there was, there was no voice, nor any that answered, nor any that regarded—yet.