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51 pages

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pubOne.info present you this new edition. Two of these stories, the third and fourth, have appeared in print in the Cambridge Review, and I wish to thank the proprietor for permitting me to republish them here.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	06 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819940265
Langue	English

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A THIN GHOST
AND OTHERS
A THIN GHOST
AND OTHERS
BY
MONTAGUE RHODES JAMES, Litt.D.
PROVOST OF ETON COLLEGE
PREFACE
Two of these stories, the third and fourth, haveappeared in print in the Cambridge Review , and I wish tothank the proprietor for permitting me to republish them here.
I have had my doubts about the wisdom of publishinga third set of tales; sequels are, not only proverbially butactually, very hazardous things. However, the tales make nopretence but to amuse, and my friends have not seldom asked for thepublication. So not a great deal is risked, perhaps, and perhapsalso some one's Christmas may be the cheerfuller for a storybookwhich, I think, only once mentions the war.
A Thin Ghost and Others
THE RESIDENCE AT WHITMINSTER
Dr. Ashton— Thomas Ashton, Doctor of Divinity— satin his study, habited in a dressing-gown, and with a silk cap onhis shaven head— his wig being for the time taken off and placed onits block on a side table. He was a man of some fifty-five years,strongly made, of a sanguine complexion, an angry eye, and a longupper lip. Face and eye were lighted up at the moment when Ipicture him by the level ray of an afternoon sun that shone in uponhim through a tall sash window, giving on the west. The room intowhich it shone was also tall, lined with book-cases, and, where thewall showed between them, panelled. On the table near the doctor'selbow was a green cloth, and upon it what he would have called asilver standish— a tray with inkstands— quill pens, a calf-boundbook or two, some papers, a churchwarden pipe and brasstobacco-box, a flask cased in plaited straw, and a liqueur glass.The year was 1730, the month December, the hour somewhat past threein the afternoon.
I have described in these lines pretty much all thata superficial observer would have noted when he looked into theroom. What met Dr. Ashton's eye when he looked out of it, sittingin his leather arm-chair? Little more than the tops of the shrubsand fruit-trees of his garden could be seen from that point, butthe red brick wall of it was visible in almost all the length ofits western side. In the middle of that was a gate— a double gateof rather elaborate iron scroll-work, which allowed something of aview beyond. Through it he could see that the ground sloped awayalmost at once to a bottom, along which a stream must run, and rosesteeply from it on the other side, up to a field that was park-likein character, and thickly studded with oaks, now, of course,leafless. They did not stand so thick together but that someglimpse of sky and horizon could be seen between their stems. Thesky was now golden and the horizon, a horizon of distant woods, itseemed, was purple.
But all that Dr. Ashton could find to say, aftercontemplating this prospect for many minutes, was: “Abominable!”
A listener would have been aware, immediately uponthis, of the sound of footsteps coming somewhat hurriedly in thedirection of the study: by the resonance he could have told thatthey were traversing a much larger room. Dr. Ashton turned round inhis chair as the door opened, and looked expectant. The incomer wasa lady— a stout lady in the dress of the time: though I have madesome attempt at indicating the doctor's costume, I will notenterprise that of his wife— for it was Mrs. Ashton who nowentered. She had an anxious, even a sorely distracted, look, and itwas in a very disturbed voice that she almost whispered to Dr.Ashton, putting her head close to his, “He's in a very sad way,love, worse, I'm afraid. ” “Tt— tt, is he really? ” and he leanedback and looked in her face. She nodded. Two solemn bells, high up,and not far away, rang out the half-hour at this moment. Mrs.Ashton started. “Oh, do you think you can give order that theminster clock be stopped chiming to-night? 'Tis just over hischamber, and will keep him from sleeping, and to sleep is the onlychance for him, that's certain. ” “Why, to be sure, if there wereneed, real need, it could be done, but not upon any light occasion.This Frank, now, do you assure me that his recovery stands upon it?” said Dr. Ashton: his voice was loud and rather hard. “I do verilybelieve it, ” said his wife. “Then, if it must be, bid Molly runacross to Simpkins and say on my authority that he is to stop theclock chimes at sunset: and— yes— she is after that to say to mylord Saul that I wish to see him presently in this room. ” Mrs.Ashton hurried off.
Before any other visitor enters, it will be well toexplain the situation.
Dr. Ashton was the holder, among other preferments,of a prebend in the rich collegiate church of Whitminster, one ofthe foundations which, though not a cathedral, survived dissolutionand reformation, and retained its constitution and endowments for ahundred years after the time of which I write. The great church,the residences of the dean and the two prebendaries, the choir andits appurtenances, were all intact and in working order. A dean whoflourished soon after 1500 had been a great builder, and haderected a spacious quadrangle of red brick adjoining the church forthe residence of the officials. Some of these persons were nolonger required: their offices had dwindled down to mere titles,borne by clergy or lawyers in the town and neighbourhood; and sothe houses that had been meant to accommodate eight or ten peoplewere now shared among three, the dean and the two prebendaries. Dr.Ashton's included what had been the common parlour and thedining-hall of the whole body. It occupied a whole side of thecourt, and at one end had a private door into the minster. Theother end, as we have seen, looked out over the country.
So much for the house. As for the inmates, Dr.Ashton was a wealthy man and childless, and he had adopted, orrather undertaken to bring up, the orphan son of his wife's sister.Frank Sydall was the lad's name: he had been a good many months inthe house. Then one day came a letter from an Irish peer, the Earlof Kildonan (who had known Dr. Ashton at college), putting it tothe doctor whether he would consider taking into his family theViscount Saul, the Earl's heir, and acting in some sort as histutor. Lord Kildonan was shortly to take up a post in the LisbonEmbassy, and the boy was unfit to make the voyage: “not that he issickly, ” the Earl wrote, “though you'll find him whimsical, or oflate I've thought him so, and to confirm this, 'twas only to-dayhis old nurse came expressly to tell me he was possess'd: but letthat pass; I'll warrant you can find a spell to make all straight.Your arm was stout enough in old days, and I give you plenaryauthority to use it as you see fit. The truth is, he has here noboys of his age or quality to consort with, and is given to mopingabout in our raths and graveyards: and he brings home romances thatfright my servants out of their wits. So there are you and yourlady forewarned. ” It was perhaps with half an eye open to thepossibility of an Irish bishopric (at which another sentence in theEarl's letter seemed to hint) that Dr. Ashton accepted the chargeof my Lord Viscount Saul and of the 200 guineas a year that were tocome with him.
So he came, one night in September. When he got outof the chaise that brought him, he went first and spoke to thepostboy and gave him some money, and patted the neck of his horse.Whether he made some movement that scared it or not, there was verynearly a nasty accident, for the beast started violently, and thepostilion being unready was thrown and lost his fee, as he foundafterwards, and the chaise lost some paint on the gateposts, andthe wheel went over the man's foot who was taking out the baggage.When Lord Saul came up the steps into the light of the lamp in theporch to be greeted by Dr. Ashton, he was seen to be a thin youthof, say, sixteen years old, with straight black hair and the palecolouring that is common to such a figure. He took the accident andcommotion calmly enough, and expressed a proper anxiety for thepeople who had been, or might have been, hurt: his voice was smoothand pleasant, and without any trace, curiously, of an Irishbrogue.
Frank Sydall was a younger boy, perhaps of eleven ortwelve, but Lord Saul did not for that reject his company. Frankwas able to teach him various games he had not known in Ireland,and he was apt at learning them; apt, too, at his books, though hehad had little or no regular teaching at home. It was not longbefore he was making a shift to puzzle out the inscriptions on thetombs in the minster, and he would often put a question to thedoctor about the old books in the library that required somethought to answer. It is to be supposed that he made himself veryagreeable to the servants, for within ten days of his coming theywere almost falling over each other in their efforts to oblige him.At the same time, Mrs. Ashton was rather put to it to find newmaidservants; for there were several changes, and some of thefamilies in the town from which she had been accustomed to drawseemed to have no one available. She was forced to go furtherafield than was usual.
These generalities I gather from the doctor's notesin his diary and from letters. They are generalities, and we shouldlike, in view of what has to be told, something sharper and moredetailed. We get it in entries which begin late in the year, and, Ithink, were posted up all together after the final incident; butthey cover so few days in all that there is no need to doubt thatthe writer could remember the course of things accurately.
On a Friday morning it was that a fox, or perhaps acat, made away with Mrs. Ashton's most prized black cockerel, abird without a single white feather on its body. Her husband hadtold her often enough that it would make a suitable sacrifice toÆsculapius; that had discomfited her much, and now she would hardlybe consoled. The boys looked everywhere for traces of it: Lord Saulbrought in a few feathers, which seemed to have been partiallyburnt on the garden rubbish-heap. It was on the same day that D