Original subtitles

Everybody dies, Dan Bakk.

Let's only go back then.

Isn't that so?

You've tried to get into the lock truck today, didn't you?

How do they come back?

What's the secret?

This episode was kindly sponsored by Hayley Smith.

So thank you Hayley for enabling me to do this story for the benefit of everybody.

This story is the residence at Whitmanster by M.R. James.

Dr. Ashden, Thomas Ashden, Dr. of Divinity, sat in his study habitated in the dressing gown

and with a silk cap on his shape and head, his wig, you being for the time taking off and placed on its block on the side table.

It was a man of some 55 years, strongly made and of a sanguine complexion, an angry eye and a long-up a lip.

Faced and eye were lighted up at the moment when I picked you him by the level ray of an afternoon sun

that shone in upon him through a tall sash window, giving on the west.

The room into which it shone was also tall, lined with bookcases,

and whether wool showed between them, pangled.

On the table near the Dr. Selba was a green cloth and upon it what he would have called a silver-standish tray with ink stands,

quill pens, a calf bound book or two, some papers, a church-wordened pipe and brass to back a box, a flask,

a cake-caste-in-platted straw and a lecure glass. The year was 1730, the month December,

the hours, somewhat past 3 in the afternoon.

I have described in these little lines pretty much all that a superficial observer would have noted when he looked into the room.

What met Dr. Ashden's eye when he looked out of it, sitting in his leather armchair.

Little more than the tops of the shrubs and fruit trees of his garden could be seen from that point,

but the red brick wall of it was visible in almost all the length of its west and side.

In the middle of that was a gate, a double gate of rather elaborate iron scrollwork, which allowed something of a view beyond.

Through it he could see that the grounds sloped away almost at once to a bottom, a long-witch, a stream must run,

and rose steeply from it on the other side, up to a field that was park-like in character,

and thickly studied with oak's now, of course, leafless.

They did not stand so thick together, but that some glimpse of sky and horizon could be seen between their stems.

The sky was now golden and horizon, a horizon of distant words it seemed was purple.

But all the Dr. Ashden could find to say after contemplating this prospect for many minutes was abominable.

A listener would have been aware immediately upon this of the sound of footsteps, coming somewhat hurriedly in the direction of the study.

By the resonance he could have told that they were traversing a much larger room.

Dr. Ashden turned round in his chairs, a door opened and looked expectant.

The income I was a lady, a stout lady, in the dress of the time, though I have made some attempted indicating the doctor's costume I will not enter price,

that of his wife for it was Mrs. Ashden, who now entered.

She had anxious, but even a sorely distracted look.

And it was in a very disturbed voice that she almost whispered to Dr. Ashden, putting her head close to his.

He is in a very sad way love, worse I am afraid.

He is really, and he leaned back and looked in her face. She nodded.

Two solemn bells higher but not far away rang out the half hour at this moment.

Mrs. Ashden started, oh, do you think you can give the order that the men's clock would be stopping to chime in tonight?

She just took her to his chamber and was keeping from sleeping and to sleep is the only chance for him.

Why to be sure if there were need, but not upon any light occasion.

This frank now, do assure me that his recovery stands upon it.

So Dr. Ashden, his voice was loud and rather hard, I do very little believe it, said his wife.

Then if it must be, bid molly, ran across the simkins and say on my authority, that he is to stop the clock chance at sunset.

And yes, she is after that to say to my Lord Saul, that I wish to see him presently in this room.

Mrs. Ashden hurried off.

Before any other visitor enters, it will be well to explain the situation.

Dr. Ashden was the holder among other performance of a preband in the rich collegiate church of Quittaminster, one of the foundations which, though not a cathedral, survived dissolution and reformation and retained its constitution and endowments for a hundred years after the time of which I write.

The great church, the residences of the dean, the two prebandries, the choir and its pertinent, says, were all intact and in working order.

A dean who flourished soon after 1500 had been a great builder and had erected the spacious quadrangle of bread brick adjoining the church for the residents of the officials.

Some of these persons were no longer required, their offices had dwindled down to mere titles born by clergy or lawyers in the town and neighborhood.

And so the houses that had been meant to accommodate eight or ten people were now shared among three, the dean and the two prebandries.

Dr. Ashden's included what had been the common parlor and the dining hall of the whole body, it occupied a whole side of the court and had one end had a private door into the Minster.

The other end, as we've seen, looked out of the country.

So much for the house.

As for the inmates, Dr. Ashden was a wealthy man and child-class and he had adopted or rather undertaken to bring up the orphaned son of his wife's sister.

Frank Siddl was the lads name. He had been a good many months in a house.

Then one day came a letter from an Irish peer the Earl of killed Donan, who known Dr. Ashden at college.

Putting it to the doctor, whether he would consider taking into his family the vikownt saw the Earl's heir, acting in some sort as his tutor.

Lord killed Donan, was shortly to take up a post and the Lisbon embassy and the boy was unfit to make the voyage.

Not that he's sickly, the Earl wrote, though you'll find him whimsical or of late-eye thought him so.

And to confirm this, it was only today his old nurse came expressly to tell me that he was possessed.

But let that pass.

I'll warrant you can find a spell to make it all straight.

Your arm was stout enough in old days and I give you plenary authority to use it as you see fit.

To this, he has here no boys of his age or quality to consult with and is given to moping about in our raths and graveyard.

And it brings home remences to fright my servants out of their wits.

So there are you and your lady for warned.

It was perhaps with half an eye open to the possibility of an Irish bishopric, at which another sentence in the Earl's letter seemed to hint.

The doctor asked and accepted the charge of my lord Vykaut's sword and of the 200 Guinness Year that would come with him.

So he came, on 19 September.

When he got out of the shares of the problem he went first and spoke to the postboy and gave him some money and patded the neck of his horse.

Whether he made some movement that scared it or not, it was very nearly an nasty accident.

While the beasts started violently and the pustilian being unready was thrown in lost his fee as he found afterwards and the shares lost some paint on the gate posts.

And the wheel went over the man's foot was taking out the baggage.

When Lord Saul came up the steps into the light of the lamp and the porch to be greeted by Dr. Aston,

he was seen to be a thin youth, oh say 16 years old with straight black hair,

and the pale colouring that is common to such a figure.

He took the accident in commercial calmly enough and expressed the proper anxiety for the people who would be,

or might have been hurt. His voice was smooth and pleasant and without any trace curiously if an Irish broke.

Frank Siddler was a younger boy, perhaps 11 or 12, but Lord Saul did not for that reject his company.

Frank was able to teach him various games he had not known in Ireland, and he was apt at learning them.

Apped to it, his books, though he had little or no regular teaching at home.

It was no long before he was able to make a shift to puzzle out the inscriptions on the tombs in the minster.

And he would often put a question to the doctor about the old books in the library that required some thought to answer.

It is to be supposed that he made himself very griable to the servants for within ten days of his coming.

They were almost falling over each other and their efforts to oblige him.

At the same time Mrs. Ashden was rather put to it to find new made servants,

for there were several changes, and some of the families in the town from which she had been accustomed to draw

seemed to have no one available. She was forced to go further afield than was usual.

These generalities, I gather from the doctors notes in his diary and from letters.

They are generalities, and we should like in view of what has been told something sharper and more detail.

We get it in the entries which begin late in the year and I think were posted up altogether after the final incident.

But they have a so few days in all that there is no need to doubt that the writer could remember the course of things accurately.

On a Friday morning it was that a fox will perhaps a cat, made away with Mrs. Ashden's most prized black cockerel,

a bird without a single white feather on its body.

Her husband had told her often enough that it would make a suitable sacrifice to escalate peers.

That had discomforted her much and now she would hardly be consoled.

The boys looked everywhere for traces of it.

Lord Saul brought in a few feathers which seemed to have been partially burnt on the garden rubbish heap.

It was on the same day that Dr. Ashden, looking out of an upper window, saw the two boys playing in the corner of the garden at a game he did not understand.

Frank was looking earnestly at something in the palm of his hand.

Soles stood behind him and seemed to be listening.

After some minutes he very gently laid his hand on Frank's head and almost instantly there upon Frank suddenly dropped whatever it was that he was holding,

clapped his hands these eyes and sank down on the grass.

Saul, whose face expressed great anger, hastily picked the object up of which it could only be seen that it was glittering.

Put it in his pocket and turn away, leaving Frank huddled up on the grass.

Dr. Ashden wrapped on the window to attract their attention and Saul looked up as if in a alarm and then springing to Frank pulled him up by the arm and let him away.

When they came into dinner, Saul explained that they had been acting part of the tragedy of rather mistress in which the head of wind reads the future fate of her father's kingdom by means of a glass ball held in a hand and is overcome by the terrible events as she has seen.

During this explanation Frank said nothing only looked rather bewilderedly at Saul.

He must, Mrs. Ashden thought, have contracted the chill from the wet of the grass, for that evening he was certainly feverish and disordered.

And the disorder was of the mind as well as the body.

For he seemed to have something he wished to say to Mrs. Ashden, a only oppressive household of affairs prevented her from paying attention to him,

and when she went to according to her habit to see that the light in the voice chamber had been taken away and bid them good night, he seemed to be sleeping.

That his face was naturally flushed to her thinking.

Lord Saul, however, was pale and quiet and smiling in his slumber.

Next morning it happened that Dr. Ashden was occupied in church and other business and unable to take the voice lessons.

He therefore said them tasks to be written and brought to him.

Three times, if not oftener, Frank knocked the study door in each time the doctor chanced to be engaged with some visitor and sent the boy for other roughly, which he later regretted.

Two clergymen were at dinner this day and both remarked, being fathers of families the lad seemed sickening for a fever, in which there were two near the truth,

and it had been better if it had been put the bed forth with for a couple of hours later in the afternoon.

He came running into the house crying out in the way that was really terrifying and rushing to Mrs. Ashden,

clung about her, begging her to protect him and saying, keep them off, keep them off without intermission.

And it was now evident that some sickness had taken strong hold of him.

He was therefore got to bed in another chamber from that in which he commonly lay and the physician brought to him,

who pronounced the disorder to be grave at affecting the lad's brain and prognosticated a fatal into it as strict quiet were not observed.

And those sedative remedies used, which he should prescribe.

We are now come by another way to the point where it reached before.

The minster clock has been stopped from striking and Lord Saul is on the threshold of the study.

Well, a count can you give of this poor lad's state, was Dr. Ashden's first question?

But why, sir, little more than you know already, I fancy. I must blame myself though for giving him a fright yesterday,

when we were acting that foolish play you saw, I fear I may take it more to heart than I meant.

Also, well, by telling him foolish tales, I'd pick up an island for what we call it second sight.

Second sight, but can you sight my dad, P. Why you know our ignorant people pretend that some are able to foresee what is to come, sometimes in a glass or in the air maybe,

it killed Conan, we had an old woman that pretended to such a power and I'd say I colored them at her,

more highly than I should, but I never dreamed Franco take it so near as he did.

You were wrong my Lord, very wrong in meddling such superstitious matters at all,

and you should have considered who's house seren and how little becoming such actions are to my character and personal to your own.

But try how came it that you acting as you say a play, should fall upon anything that could so alarm Frank, but that is what I can hardly tell, sir.

He passed all in a moment from rant about battles and lovers and clear door and and Tignies, it's just something I couldn't follow at all, and then drop down as you saw.

Yes, was that of the moment when you laid your hand on the top of his head?

Lord Saul gave a quick look at his questioner, quick and spiteful, and for the first time seemed unready with an answer.

About that time it may have been, he said, I've tried to recollect myself, but I'm not sure.

There was at any rate, no significance in what I did then.

Ah, said, Dr. Aston, well my Lord, I should do wrong where I not to tell you that this fright of my poor nephew may have very ill consequences.

The doctor speaks very despondingly of his state.

Lord Saul pressed his hands together and looked earnestly upon Dr. Aston.

I'm willing to believe that you had no bad intention as assuredly you could have no reason to bear the poor boy malice, but I cannot wholly free you from blame in the affair.

As he spoke, the hurrying steps were heard again, and Mrs Aston came quickly into the room carrying a candle for the evening how by this time closed in.

She was greatly agitated. Oh come, she cried, come directly, I'm sure he's going,

going, Frankie, is it possible or already?

With some such incoherent words, the doctor called up a book of prayers from the table and ran out of these wife.

Lord Saul stopped for a moment where he was.

Molly, the maid, saw in bend over and put both hands in his face.

If it were the last words she had to speak she said afterwards, he was striving to keep back a fit of laughing.

Then he went out, softly, following the others.

Mrs Aston was sadly right in her forecast. I have no inclination to imagine the last scene in detail.

What Dr. Aston records is or may be taken to be important to the story, they asked Frank if he would like to see his companion Lord Saul once again.

The boy was quite collected, it appears in these moments.

No, he said, I do not want to see him, but you should tell him I'm afraid he will be very cold.

What do you mean, my dear?

Said Mrs Aston.

Only that said Frank, but sat in his eyes that I'm free of them now, but he should take care.

And I'm sorry about your black cockerel, aren't Aston, but he said we must use it so, if we were to see all it could be seen.

Not many minutes after he was gone.

Both the Aston's were grieved, she naturally most, but the doctor, though not an emotional man, felt the pain

of the pain of the early death, and besides there was a growing suspicion that all had not been told him by Saul,

and that there was something here which was out of his beaten track.

When he left the chamber of death, it was to walk across the quadrangle of the residents to the sextant's house.

A passing bell, the greatest of the minstabels must be rang, a grave must be dug in the minstae yard,

and there was now no need to silence the chiming of the minstaclock.

As he came, slowly back in the dark, he thought he must see Lord Saul again.

That matter of the black cockerel trifling as it might seem would have to be cleared up.

It might be merely a fancy of the sick boy, but if not, was there not a witch trial here dread, in which some grim little right of sacrifice it played a part?

Yes, he must see Saul.

I rather guess these thoughts of his rather than find written authority for them, that there was another interview,

a certain person also that Saul would, or as he said, could, throw no light to him Frank's words, though the message or some part of it appear to affect him horribly,

but there is no record of the talking detail.

It is only said that Saul sat all that evening in a study, and when he bid good night, which he did most reluctantly.

Asked for the doctors prayers.

The month of January was near its end when Lord Kildonan, in the embassy at Lisbon received a letter that, for once, gravely disturbed that vain man and neglectful father.

Saul was dead.

The scene at Frank's burial had been very distressing, that it was awful in blackness and wind, the bear is staggering blindly along under the flapping black paw,

found it a hard job when he emerged from the port of the minister to make their way to the grave.

Mrs. Ashton was in her room, women did not then go to their kids' folks' funerals.

But Saul was there, draped in the morning cloak of the time, and his face was white and fixed as that of one dead except, when.

As was noticed three or four times, he suddenly turned his head to the left and looked over his shoulder.

It was then alive, the terrible expression of listening fear.

No one saw him go away and no one could find him that evening.

All night the gale buffeted the high windows of the church and howled over the upland and roared through the woodland.

It was useless to search in the open, no voice of shouting or cry for help could possibly be heard.

All the doctor Ashton could do was to warn the people about the college and the town constables and to sit up on the alert for any news and this he did.

News came early next morning, brought by the sexton, whose business it was to open the church for early prayers at seven,

and to sent the may rushing upstairs with wild eyes and flying head to someone her master.

The two men dashed across to the south door of the minster there to find Lord Saul,

clinging desperately to the great ring of the door.

His head sunk between his shoulders, his stockings in rags, his shoes gone, his legs torn and bloody.

This was what had to be told to Lord killed Donan, and this really ends the first part of the story.

The tomb of Frank Siddl and of the Lord Vykount saw only child and heir to William Earl of Kildonan is one, a stone altar tomb in Whitman's the churchyard.

Dr Ashton lived on for over 30 years in his prevenital house, I do not know how quietly but without visible disturbance.

His successor preferred a house he already owned in the town and left out of the senior preven tree vacant.

Between them these two men saw the 18th century out and the 19th in.

For Mr. Hines, the successor of Ashton became prevengerid, 9 and 20 and died, 9 and 80.

That was not until 1823 or 1824 that anyone succeeded to the post to intend it to make the house his home.

The man who did was Dr Henry Oldis, who's named maybe an him to some of my readers as that of an author of a role volumes labeled Oldis' works,

which occupy a place that must be honored since it is so rarely touched upon the shells of many a substantial library.

Dr Oldis, his niece at his servants took some months to transfer furniture and books from his door search of pass andage to the quadrangle of Whitman's the,

and to get everything into place, but eventually the work was done, and the house which though untenneted,

that always been kept sound and weathertight, woke up and like Monte Christo's mansion at Otae lived, sang and bloomed once more.

On a certain morning in June it looked especially fair, as Dr Oldis strolled in his garden before breakfast and gazed over the red roof at the minster tower with its four gold veins,

backed by a very blue sky and very white little clouds.

Mary, he said, as he seated himself at the breakfast table and laid down something hard and shiny on the cloth,

here's a fine which the boy may just now, he'll be sharper than I if you can guess what it's meant for.

It was around and perfectly smooth tablet, as much as an inch thick of what seemed clear glass.

It's rather attractive at all events, Mary. She was a fair woman with light hair and large eyes, rather a devotee of literature.

Yes, so the runker, I thought you'd be pleased with it, I presume it came from the house, turned up in the rubbish heap in the corner.

I'm not sure then I do like it, after all, said Mary, some minutes later.

But why in the world not mind here?

I don't know I'm sure, perhaps it's only fancy.

Yes, only fancy in romance of course. What's that book now? The name of that book I mean, you're heading your head all yesterday.

The talisman uncle, oh, if this should turn out to be a talisman, how enchanting would be? Yes, talisman.

Oh, well, you're welcome to it, whatever it is. I must be off about my business.

Is all well in the house, so it's as it suits you and he complains from the servants hall.

No indeed, and I think it would be more charming, the only susong of the complaint besides the lock of the linen closet, which I told you,

is that of Mrs. Maple, so she can't get rid of the sore flies, and with that room you pass through the other end of the hall.

By the way, are you sure you like your bedroom? It's a long way off from anyone else you know?

Like it, be sure I do. The further off from you might it, the better.

There, don't think it necessary to beat me, except my apologies.

But what are sore flies? Will they eat my coats? If not, they may have the room to themselves, will I care?

We're not likely to be using it. No, of course not. Well, what does she call sore flies?

Are those reddish things like a daddy long legs, about smaller?

And there are a great many of them, perching about that room, certainly. I don't like them, but I don't fancy them, Mrs. Chavez.

There seem to be several things that you don't like this fine morning, set out uncle, as he closed the door.

Miss Odis remained in her chair looking at the tablet, which she was holding in the palm of her hand.

A smile that had been on her face faded slowly from it, and gave place to an expression of curiosity and almost strange attention.

A reverie was broken by the entrance of Mrs. Maple and her invariable opening.

Are Ms. Could I speak to you a minute?

A letter from Ms. Odis to an old friend in Lichfield began a day or two before, is the next source for this story.

It is not devoid of traces of the influences that leader of female thought in her day, Ms. Anna Seward, known to some as the swan of Lichfield.

My sweetest Emily will be rejoiced here that we are at length, my beloved uncle and myself, setle in the house at now called as Master.

She must and mistress, as in past ages it is called to many others.

Here we taste a mingling of modern elegance and hori antiquity, such as a never-earned now-graced life or either of us.

The town, small as it is, affords a some reflection pale indeed with veritable of the sweet of polite intercourse.

The adjacent country, numbers amid the occupants of its scattered mansions, some whose policies annually refreshed by contact with metropolitan splendor,

and others whose robust and homely geniality is at times, by way of contrast, not less cheering and acceptable.

Tied with the parlours and drawing rooms of our friends, we have ready to hand a refuge from the clash of wits, or the small talk of the day,

with the solemn beauties of our venerable minister, whose silver chimes daily no last of prayer.

And in the shady walks of whose tranquil graveyard we mues with softened heart, and ever and a non-with moistened eye upon the memorials of the young, the beautiful, the aged, the wise and the good.

Here there is an abrupt break both in the writing and in the style.

But my dear Estemely, I can no longer write with a care which you deserve and in which we both take pleasure.

What I had to tell you was only foreign to what I was going before.

This morning my uncle brought in to breakfast an object which he found in the garden.

It was a glass or crystal tablet of this shape, a little sketch, is given, which he handed to me,

and which after he left the room remained on the table by me, I gazed at his, I know not why, for some minutes, till called away by the day's duties.

You will smile incredulously when I say that I seem to myself to begin to describe reflected in it objects and scenes which were not in the room where I was.

You will not, however, be surprised that after such an experience, I took the first opportunity to seclude myself in my room with what I now have believed, be a talisman of Michael Might.

I was not disappointed.

I assure you, Emily, by that memory which is dearest to both of us, that what I went through this afternoon transcends the limits of what I had before deemed credible.

In brief, what I saw seated in my bedroom in the broad daylight of summer and looking into the crystal depth for that small rounded tablet was this.

First, a prospect estranged to me of an enclosure of rough and hillicky grass with a gray stone ruin in the midst and the wall of rough stones about it.

In this student-old and very ugly woman, in a red cloak and ragged skirt, talking to a boy dressed in the fashion of maybe a hundred years ago,

she put something which glitted into his hand and he, something into hers which I saw to be money for a single coin fell from her trembling hand into the grass.

The same past, I should have remarked by the way that on the rough walls of the enclosure I could distinguish bones and even a skull.

The eye, in a disorderly fashion.

Next, I was looking upon two boys, on the figure of the former vision, the other younger.

They were a plot of garden, walled round and this garden in spite of the difference in arrangement and the small size of the trees, I could clearly recognize as being that upon which I now look from my window.

The boys were engaging some curious play it seemed.

Something was smoldering on the ground. The elder placed his hands upon it and then raised the mineral I took to be an attitude of prayer, and I saw and started it seeing both his raised hands.

And as I did so, I was conscious that some moving objects were becoming visible over the top of the wall, where their heads or other parts of some animal or human forms I couldn't tell.

Upon the instant the elder boy turned sharply, seized the arm of the younger, who had all this time been pouring of water on the ground and both carried off.

I then saw blood upon the grass, a little pile of bricks and what I thought were black feathers scattered about.

That seemed closed, and the necks were so dark, and perhaps the full meaning of it escaped me.

But what I seemed to see was a form at first crouching lower among trees or bushes that were being thrashed by a violent wind.

Then running very swiftly and constantly turning a pale face to look behind him as if he feared a pusierer, and indeed pusierers were following hard after him.

Their shapes were but dimly seen their number three or four perhaps only guessed.

I suppose they were in the home on like dogs and anything else, but dogs such as we have seen it assuredly were not.

Could I have closed my eyes to this horror I would have done so at once?

But I was helpless.

The last I saw was the victim darting beneath an arch and clutching it some object to which he clung, and those that were pursuing him over took him,

and I seemed to hear the echo of a cry of despair.

It may be that I became unconscious certainly I had the sensation of a waking to the light of day after an interval of darkness, such in literal truth, Emily, was my vision.

I can call it by no other name of this afternoon. Tell me, have I not been the unwilling witness of some episode of a tragedy connected with this very house?

The letters continued the next day.

But the tale of yesterday was not completed when I laid down my pen.

I said nothing of my experiences to my uncle, who you know yourself, how little he's robust common sense would be prepared to allow of them.

And how in his eyes the specific remedy would be a black draft or a glass of port.

After a silent evening then silent not silent, I retired to rest.

Judge of my terror when, not yet in bed, I heard what I can only describe as a distant bellow,

and I knew it for my uncle's voice though never in my hearing so exerted before.

His sleeping room is at the further extremity of this large house, and to gain access to it, one must traverse and, and he calls him 80 feet long, and a lofty panel chainbar, two unoccupied bedrooms.

In the second of these a room almost devoid of furniture I found him in the dark.

His candle like smashed on the floor.

As I ran in bearing a light he clasped me in his arms that trembled for the first time since I've known him, thank God and hurried me out of the room.

He would say nothing of what had alarmed him.

Tomorrow, tomorrow was all I could get from him.

A bed was hastily improvised to him in the room next to my own.

I doubt if his night was more restful than mine.

I could only get to sleep in a small house when daylight was already strong, and then my dreams were of the grimest, particularly one which stamped itself on my brain, and which I must set down on the chance of dispersing the impression it is made.

It was that I came up to my room with a heavy foreboding of evil, a pressing me, and went with a hesitation and reluctance I couldn't explain to my chest of drawers.

I opened a top drawer in which was nothing but ribbons and hanker-cheaves, and then a second where there was as little to alarm and then,

O heavens, the third and last, and there was a massive linen neatly folded, upon which, as I looked with curiosity that began to be changed with horror, I perceived a movement in it,

and a pink hand was thrust out of the folds and began to grow up feebly in the air.

I could bury no more and rush from the room, clapping the door after me and strove with all my force to lock it, but the key wouldn't turn in the wards, and from within the room, came a sound of rustling, bumping,

to a nearer and nearer to the door.

Why I didn't flee down the stairs, I know not.

I continued grasping the handle, and mercifully, as the door was plucked from my hand with an irresistible force, I awoke.

You may not think this very alarming, but I assure you it was so to me.

At breakfast today my uncle was very uncommunicative, and I think ashamed of the fright it given us.

But afterwards he inquired of me whether Mr. Spearman was still in town.

Adding that he thought that was a young man who had some sense left in his head, I think you know my dear Emily that I'm not inclined to disagree with him there,

and also that it was not unlikely to be able to answer his question to Mr. Spearman, he accordingly went, and I have not seen him since.

I must send this strange budget of news to you now, or it may have to wait over more than one post.

The reader will not be far out of it if he guesses that Ms. Mary and Mr. Spearman made a match of it, not very long after this month of June.

Mr. Spearman was a young spark who had a good property in the neighborhood of Whitminster, and not unfrequently about this time.

spent a few days at the King's Head, ostensibly on business.

But he must have had some leisure for his diaries copious, especially for the days of which I'm telling the story.

This is probable to me that he wrote this episode as fully as he could at the bidding of Ms. Mary.

Uncle Oldies, how I hope I may have the right to call him so before long, called this morning, after throwing out a good many short remarks on in different topics,

he said, I wish Spearman you would listen to an odd story and keep a close tongue about it just for a bit to like a more light on it, to be sure, said I, you may count on me.

I don't know what to make of it, he said. You know my bedroom, it is well away from everyone else's, and I pass through the great hall and two or three other rooms to get to it.

Is it the end next to the minster then? I asked you, yes, it is. Well, now.

Yesterday morning my Mary told me that the room next before it was infested with some sort of flight that the housekeeper couldn't read of, that may be the explanation or it may not. What do you think?

Oh, I said, I, you've not yet told me what has to be explained.

True enough, I don't believe I have, but either by, what are these sore flies? What's the size of them?

I began to wonder if he was touched in ahead. What I call the sore fly, I said very patiently, is a red animal like a daddy long legs, we're not so big perhaps an inch long perhaps less.

It's very hard in the body and to me, I was going to say particularly offensive, but he broke in, come come an inch or less that won't do.

I can only tell you, I said, what I know. Well, it not be better if you told me from first to last what it is as puzzled you and then I may be able to give you some kind of opinion.

He gazed at me meditatively, perhaps it would, he said, I told Mary only today that I thought you had some vestiges of sense in your head.

I bowed my acknowledgements. The thing is, how and what kind of shyness about talking of it? Nothing of this sort has happened to me before. Well, about Leavenly clock last night or after.

I told my cantland set out for my room, I had a book, my other hand, I always read something for a few minutes before I drop off to sleep.

Dangerous habit, I don't recommend it, but I know how to manage my light and my bed curtains.

Now then, first, as I stepped out of my study into the great hall, it's next to it and shut the door, my cantland went out.

I suppose that I'd clapped at all behind me too quick and made a draft and I was annoyed for I'd no Tinder box nearer than my bedroom.

But I knew my well enough and so went on.

The next thing was that my book was struck out of my hand in a dark. If I said, twitched at my hand, it would better express this sensation. It fell on the floor.

I picked it up and went on more annoyed than before and a little started.

But as you know, that hall has many windows without curtains and in some anides like these, it's easy to see not only where the furniture is, but whether there's any one or anything moving and there was no one, nothing of the kind.

So, on our way through the hall and through the audit chamber next to it, which also has big windows and then into the bedrooms which lead to my own where the curtains were drawn and I had to go slower because of steps, even there.

It was in the second of these rooms that I nearly got my quietness.

The moment I opened the door of it, I felt there was something wrong.

I thought twice I could first, whether I shouldn't turn back and find another way, they used to my room rather than go through that one.

Then I was ashamed of myself and thought what people call better of it though I don't know about better in this case.

If I was to describe my experience exactly, I should say this.

There was a dry light rustling sound. All over the room as I went in.

And then you remember it was perfectly dark. Something seemed to rush it me and there was, I don't know how to put it there.

A sensation of long thin arms or legs or or a feelers or all over my face and neck and body.

Very little strength in them this seemed to be, but spare man.

I don't think I was ever more horrified or disgusted in all my life that I remember.

And it does take something to put me out.

I wrought out loud as I called it and flung away my candle at random and knowing I was near the window.

I tore the curtain and somehow let in enough light to be able to see something waving with it.

I knew it was an insect leg by the sheep of it but, Lord, what a size.

Why the beast must have been as tall as I am.

And now you tell me, soft lies are an inch long or less.

What you make of it, Spirman?

For goodness sake, finish your story first, I said. I never heard anything like it.

Oh, said it is no more to tell. Mary ran in with a light and there was nothing there.

I didn't tell her what was the matter. I changed my room for last night and I expect for good.

Have you searched this old room of yours? I said, what are you keeping it?

We don't use it. There's no press then and some little other furniture.

And in the press, so I don't know. I never saw it open but I do know that it's locked.

Well, I should have it looked into and if you had time, I owned having some curiosity to see the place myself.

I didn't exactly like to ask you but, has rather what I hoped you'd say.

Name your time and I'll take you there. No time like the present.

I said at once, for I saw he would never settle down to anything while this affair was in suspense.

He got up with great lacquerity and looked at me.

I am tempted to think with Mark the Proveal.

Come along, it was all he said, however.

He was pretty silent all the way to his house.

My Mary, as he calls her in public and I am private, was summoned and we proceeded to the room.

The doctor had gone so far as to tell her that he had something of a fright that last night of what nature had not yet divulged.

But now he pointed out and described very briefly the incidence of his progress.

When we were near the important spot, he pulled up and allowed me to pass on.

There's a room. He said, go in, Spirman, and tell us what you find.

Whatever I might have felt for midnight, noon to hell I was sure would keep back anything sinister and I'd flung the door open with an air and stepped in.

It was a well-lighted room with its large window and the right, though not I thought a very airy one.

The principal piece of furniture was the gauntlet press of dark wood.

There was two or four postbeds there, the mere skeleton which could hide nothing and there was a chest of drawers.

On the window of sail and floor near it with the dead bodies of many hundred sore flies, and on torpedo one which I had some satisfaction in killing.

I tried the door of the press but couldn't open it. The drawers too were locked.

Somewhere I was conscious there was a faint rustling sound but I couldn't locate it.

And when I made my report to those outside I said nothing of it.

But I said clearly the next thing was to see what was in these locked receptacles.

Uncle Old is turned to Mary. Mrs. Maple, he said, a Mary ran off.

No one, I'm sure, steps like her.

And soon came back to sober a pace with an elderly lady of discreet aspect.

Have you the keys of these things Mrs. Maple said Uncle Old is?

His simple words let loose a torrent, not violent but copious of speech.

Had she been a shader to hire in the social scale, Mrs. Maple might have stood as the model for Miss Bates.

Oh, Dr. Miss, and you too, sir? She said acknowledging my presence with a Benem case.

Who was there to get it come when we first took over things in his ass?

A gentleman in business it was and I gave him his lunch and a small pile of an account of us not having everything as we should like.

As we should like, see it in the large one, check in apple pie and a glass of a deer.

He said he was running on this Mary but I only mentioned it to bring back my recollection.

It comes. Gardener.

Just the same as it did last week with the RT Chokes and the text of the sermon.

Now, Mr. Gardener, every key a gop from him were labelled to itself and each and everyone was a key as some door will never in his ass.

Sometimes too and when I say door, my meaning is door for room, not like such a presses this.

Yes, Miss Mary, I'm now full well and I'm just making it clear to you, Rankon, you too, sir.

But now there was a box which is same gentleman, I mean he gave over to my charge and thinking who I am after he's gone to look a little bit.

Now in it was your uncle's property to rally and there's some both surprisingly deceived in that box there was keys.

But by what keys that doctor is now elsewhere but open the box? No, that I would not do.

I wondered that uncle oldest remained as quiet as he did under this address.

Mary, I knew, was amused by it and he probably had been taught by experience that it was used as the breaking upon it.

But any rate he did not but merely said at the end, have you that box handy Mrs. Maple, if so you may bring it here.

Mrs. Maple pointed a finger at him either in accusation or in gloomy triumph.

There she said, was I choose at the very words that your math doctor then would be the ones?

And if I've took it to my own review one half a dozen times it'd been near a 50.

Later way, I have in my bed, sat down in my chair, I have the same you and Miss Mary give me the day I was 20 year in your service and no person could desire a better.

Yes, Miss Mary, by is the truth.

And well we know who it is whenever different if you could.

All very well.

I system myself, but pray when the doctor calls you to account for that box, what are you gonna say?

No, doctor, if you were some masters I've heard over and over and over, some servants I could know,

I should have an easy task before me, but things being humanly speaking what they are.

The one course out in the me is just to say you that without Miss Mary comes to my room and helps me to my recollection, which are with May,

Manage, what's slipped beyond mine.

Now such boxes at small though it be will cross your eyes this many a day to come.

Why dear Mrs. Maple, why didn't you tell me before that you wanted me to help you find it?

Said my Mary, no never mind telling me why it was let us come at once and look for it.

The hair's not off together.

I could hear Mrs. Maple beginning an explanation which I doubt not lasted into the furthest recesses of the housekeepers department.

Uncle Old is now a left alone.

A valuable servant, he said, nodding towards the door, nothing goes wrong under her, the speeches are seldom over three minutes.

How will Miss Old is remainage to make her remember about the box I asked?

Mary, she'll make a sit down and ask her about her aunts last illness and who gave her the child a dog on a mantle piece, something quite off the point.

Then, as Maple says, one thing brings up another and the right one will come around soon and then you could suppose.

There, I believe I hear them coming back already.

It was indeed so and Miss is Maple was hurrying on a head of Mary with a box in her outstretched hand and a beaming face.

What was it she cried as she drew in it?

What was it as I said before I ever come out of the door, so she said to this place, not look at my door, so one of myself nor had need to be.

Safe, bind, safe, fine.

And every once in the place where I put it, what, two months back are they say?

She handed it to Uncle Oldus and he and I examined it as some interest, so that I ceased to pay attention to Miss and Maple for the moment.

Though I know that she went on to expand exactly where the box had been and in what way Mary had helped refresh her memory on a subject.

It was an oldish box, a tied with pink tape and sealed and on the lid was pasted a label in scribed in old ink.

The senior Prebendry's house, Whitminster.

On being opened it was found to contain two keys of moderate size and the paper on which in the same hand as the label was,

keys of the present box of drawers standing in this used chamber.

Also this, the effects in this present box are held by me and to be held by my successes in the residents, in trust,

the noble family of Kildon and if claim be made by any survivor of it.

I, having made all the inquiry possible to myself am of the opinion that the noble house is wholly extinct.

The last Earl, having been as his notorious cast away at sea and his only child and heir deceased in my house.

The papers as to which melancholy casualty were by me reposed in the same press in this year of our Lord 1753, 21 March.

I am further of opinion that unless grave discomfort arise such persons, not being of the family of Kildon and as shall become possessed of these keys,

will be well advised to leave matters as they are.

Which opinion I do not express without waiting and sufficient reason, and I am happy to have my judgment confirmed by the other members of this college and church who are conversant with the events referred to in this paper.

Thomas Aston, STP, Preb Senior, Will Blake, STP, DeCarnos, and Goodman, STP, Preb Junior.

Ah, said Uncle Lowe this grave discomfort so, he thought there might be something.

I suspect it was that young man he went on pointing with the key to the line about the only child in there, aay Mary.

The vice-count of Kildon and was saw, how do you know that, Uncle C. Mary? Oh, why not?

It's all in the bread, two little fat books.

But I meant the tomb by the line walk, he's there.

Huh, what's the story I wonder? Do you know it? Mrs. Maple?

And by the way, look at your sore flies by the window there.

Mrs. Maple thus confronted with two subject of once, was a little put to it to do justice to both.

It was no doubt rash, you know, got all this to give her the opportunity.

I could only guess that he had some slight hesitation about using the key, how did he sound?

I am flies, how bad there was Dr. Mrs. Friar four days and you too, sir. You won't guess?

None of you. And how they come to.

First, we took the room in hand, the shutters was up and had been out there say years,

but years and not of light had been seen. Then we got the shutter bars down,

and we've a dealer trouble and left itself for the day.

And next day, I sent Susan in with a broom to sweep about a not two minutes and pass her an

actually come into the old like a blind thing. And we had regular bit of offer.

Why a cap in her air, you couldn't see the colour of it, I do assure you,

and all clustering randomized too.

Fortunately enough, she's not going with fancy sales, if it had been me.

Why? Only the tickling of the nasty things would have drove me out of my wits.

Now, they're like so many dead things. Well, there was lovely enough on the Monday,

and now he is Thursdays on Friday.

I only come near the door and you'd either pet her in up against you,

once you'd open it, dash out your wood as if the ear.

I couldn't open it myself. If you was bats, where should we be this night?

Nor can you crash him, nor a usual kind of fly.

Well, there's something to be thankful for if we could but learn by it.

And then, oh, there's two, two.

She said, hastening onto her second point to a loot any chance of interruption.

Of him to poor young lads, a sight, poor, and yet when I recollect myself,

I was a two, with Mrs. Simkins, a sextons wife before you come doctor, Miss Mary,

and that's the family has been in this place. What?

Oh, there's 100 years in that very house, and could put their hand on any tomb,

or yet grave in all the young, give your name an age.

And these are counter that young man, Mr. Simkins, on the main to sight, oh well.

She compressed her lips and nodded several times.

Tell us that Mrs. Mabel said, Mary, go on,

said Uncle Oldess, what about him?

So that I never was such a thing seen in this place, not since going Mary's times,

and the pope and all said Mrs. Mabel, why?

Do you know he lived in this very house,

Eminem that was with him, and for all I can tell in this identical room,

she shifted her feet and easily on the floor.

With him, do you mean the people of the house,

said Uncle Oldess suspiciously, not the call people doctor, do you know?

Was the answer, more than what he brought with him from Ireland,

I believe it was, and how?

The people in the ass was the last ear,

anything of his gains on been a tan or family, but new,

how he stopped at night, and then that was with him.

Why?

There were sattas, would strip the skin from the child in his grave.

And a wivered art makes an ugly thing, ghost,

Mr. Simkins.

But they turned on him, at the last he says,

and there's the mark still to be seen on the minster door,

where they run him down, and that's no more than a truth,

for I got him to show it to myself, and that's what he said.

A lorry was with a Bible name of a wicked king,

or every godfather's could have been thinking of.

Saul was the name, so don't gloat his.

To be sure it was Saul, doctor, and thank you.

And now, isn't it King Saul that we read of raising up the dead ghost

that was slumbering in its tomb to lead his snubbed it?

And he's knit that strange thing,

this young lord to have such a name.

A Mr. Simkins is grandfathered a seamer,

and he's a window of a dark night going a bear from one grave

to another in the yard with a candle,

and the end it was with him following through the grass at his heels.

And one night him to come right up to old Mr. Simkins's window

that gives on the yard and press his face up against it.

To find out if there was anyone in the room that could see him,

and only just in time there was,

for old Mr. Simkins had dropped down a quiet,

just under the window, an old is breath,

not stir till the earth him stepping away again,

and he's rustling like in a grass after him as he went.

And then when he looked at his window in the morning,

there was treading in the grass,

and a dead man's bone,

he was a cruel child for certain,

but yet pain-yened and after,

after said uncle oldest with a frown,

how he is doctor?

Night after night in the old Mr. Simkins' time,

and his son, that's almost the Simkins' father.

Yes and our own Mr. Simkins too,

up against that same window,

particular whenever a fire of a chilly evening,

with his face right on the plains,

and his hands fluttering at,

and his mouth open and shut open a shut for a minute or more,

and then gone off in the dark yard.

But open the window at such times,

now that they did not do,

although they could find it there right,

they're pitting the poor thing,

the pinched up with a cold,

and seemingly faded away to nothing as a years past done,

well indeed, I believe it is no more than the truth,

while Mr. Simkins says on his own grandfather's word,

a withered art makes an ugly, thin gust.

I dare say, said uncle oldest suddenly,

so suddenly that Mrs. Mabel stopped short,

thank you, come away all of you,

why uncle said Mary,

aren't you going to open the press after all?

Uncle oldest blushered, actually blushered.

My dear, he said you are at liberty to call me a coward or,

applaud me as a prudent man, which I'll be pleased,

but I'm neither going to open that press nor that chest of drawers myself,

nor am I going to hand over the keys to you or to any other person.

Mrs. Mabel, will you kindly see about getting a man or two

to move those pieces of furniture into the garret?

And when they do it, Mrs. Mabel said Mary,

you seem to me, I did not then know why,

more relieved and disappointed by her uncle's decision.

I have something that I want to put with the rest,

only quite a small packet.

We left that curious room, not unwillingly, I think.

Uncle oldest is orders, we carried out that same day and so,

conclude, Mr. Simkins.

Whitmanster has a blue beard's chamber and I am rather inclined to suspect

a jack in the box, awaiting some future occupant of the residents

of the Sr. Preventory.

Footnotes, one, apparently the Ick-Newman fly,

off-y on obscure and not the true sore fly, is meant.

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That was the residence at Whitamins stuff by M.R. James and it was sponsored that I said by

Haley Smith

There are a couple of people's sponsor the stories and

If you want a sponsor a story as long as it's out of copyright and it's

Not too long. This is about an hour. That's fine

An hour or less. Let's say or just over but not like a not warm piece or a big long Victorian novel

But yeah, I'm I'm open to that

It's a nice little way of us working together

So the residence at Whitamins still was first published in 1919 and it's the opening story of his

Collection a thin ghost another. This is his third collection the great M.R. James

Pots by Andrew Edward Arnold

Unlike several of his stories it appears to have been written directly for the collection

Rather than placed in a periodical first the collection takes its title from a line in this very story

If you remember a withered heart makes an ugly thin ghost which tells you something about how James

Regarded it the lead story the title story the one that sets the tone for what he considered

He's grimmer more or steer work

In his preface, James wrote that the tales make no pretence but to amuse and then he

Helped it some read his Christmas might be the cheerfuler

That's a word for a story book which I think only mentions the war only once ran

Svensions the war remark that sits oddly next to he's next to the cold and rather pitillist tone of this story

It was later collected in 1931 in his collection collected ghost stories and most probably most readers of

Metidair so

thing you need to know about this story

You need to know many things about the story

but

James was a professional reader of ancient manuscripts not as a hobby or romantic pursuit he was

in that amateur that was his daily work not only that he was on the leading paleo

graphers of his generation cataloging interpreting damaged partial contradictory documents in libraries across

Europe

Text when the hand was difficult where pages were missing were two sources said different things

What had yet to work out what actually happened so the recovery of the past from incomplete evidence

was not a metaphor for him but it's his daily skill

It's like when I you know I

tell myself Tony never mind we've all done it

So witnesses built on exactly that foundation the story reaches you not as a continuous narrative but as a docere

So it's it's compiled of letters reports some of them are verbal so

it's slightly if you think of other

stories of this kind

this is the epistolary novel for example and it's most of them are quite

scrupulous in that they are only

documentary evidence I think

Miss Marple Miss Marple Mrs Maple she's a verbal isn't she so I'm not sure that every

report is scrupulously tied to a document I didn't get that impression anyway you may correct me

so but but it is made of

a dossier of documents so we have Astons warning note tucked in the press

Spirman's breezy diary written without full comprehensions of the events it records

Mary's letter to a friend in its careful period pastiche

Mrs Marple's keep saying that

Mrs Maple's garyless gossip that knows more than it understands

Simkins family law that she quotes decades after the fact that each document is partial

each narrator sees only part of what happened that's one of the great benefits of

epistolary novels each document is partial it shows a story from a particular viewpoint and

why this is important and powerful at times is because the art of storytelling is the art of

withholding information not too long and raising questions and not answering them so

the this is exactly what documents can do they can't be interrogated in the same way if you have a

character in the sense that Mrs Maple is in this but

strictly you could in your protagonist could interrogate them and get the information for the

reader stroke listener but when it's a document and I'm actually talking as I said I'm talking

about this strictly epistolary or documentary novel you can't interrogate them in some of

their dead facts which is really interesting but remember that he did this for a living

and and also I've got to say I'm going to come back to that but as I'm talking about Miss

Maple I want to say this is one of his familiar minor grotesques garyless forgetful socially

and discreet usually from a lower social order and a capable of presenting a fact and she's written

her speeches written slightly for comic effect so so what we've got here is a story which is actually

fairly bleak and cold and pitiless and she's a comic character she tells us more directly than

anybody else at the end all of the documents circle round what's going nobody says what's really

going on you know this is some kind of kid who's come from Ireland who's a demonologist or

yeah absolutely somebody who has stepped straight from a 16th century treaties on

demonology in witches I'll say a little bit more than a minute so this is this is a demonologist

that are a summoning awful things that are dreadful and remittingly dreadful and wicked

and you know take the shape of flies and follow him around although they're not flies are they

I mean you know but and the only one who says it for what it is is Miss Maple and yet she's a

comic character so she is a kind of rude mechanical if you're remembering in Miss Managed Dream

in the Shakespearean sense you have bottom who turns it has a donkey's head I want to

say he turns into a donkey and somebody commented that he doesn't turn into a donkey he merely gets a donkey

he said I'm slapped as you know yeah to me I don't know he's not a proper full donkey he's not

full on donkey but there we are anyway so but but like bottom bottom is taking part in this

and he never understands what's going on and maybe Miss Maple Miss is Maple

understands more of what's going on because she delivers the judgment on what what the truth was

but she still presented is not quite as erudite and educated as the great and the good around

it now I think this is when I was going through this it struck me it was quite interesting was

if you what was I reading I was reading some stories about the English Civil War so we

talk about the history books 1640 and one of the problems was that was with Parliament

the parliamentary side was powered by populism so it was the ordinary people and then the ordinary

people said we want land we want this we want that they had very radical views and then the

bourgeoisie if you're like the people who'd ridden on their coat tails to gain power

decided they wanted to shut them down because they were ignorant you see so they their views

couldn't be taken seriously because they were ignorant and this has been the classic view of

the ordinary you know rural and urban people that they were but something happened in the 19th

century and it didn't completely change the view of the upper classes of the lower classes but

they began to see and I think this is like Russo and the French do this as well don't they

whereby the ordinary people who are closer to nature can be seen not just ignorant but as

conduits of some kind of pure knowledge and so you get in the 19th century you get these collectors

going out people like Sabine Bearing Gold massively reactionary in lots of ways but he recorded

the folk songs of Devon and Cornwall with great respect for the people and then you got Cecil's

sharp and WI Evans went to a doing field work in lots of people then doing field work amongst

the travelling communities the peasant communities and treating what they say as being worth

listening to and in fact perhaps in some cases a true representative of an older world

that the learning with their books have forgotten so I think she represents that and I think James

does that James never casts doubt on what she says I mean she's a truth teller she's a comic one

but she's a truth teller and I just sort of saw that against this late Victorian

Edwardian but it's a Victorian phenomenon really or for the first time increasingly

talking about talking about the ordinary people as if they had something to say

this is of course against the context of people like George Barrow used to wander around these places

and talk to ordinary people and would bring nuggets of folksy wisdom and history back to the

respectable parlours of the middle class you know who would never go near these people in real

life and would wash their hands if they had anything to do with them but they you know they suddenly

became reputable sources and I think James is using it in this sense so that's just the cultural

thing so I'm talking more about when you talk about a story made from documents you mean

you think of Dracula so Dracula comes out you know 10 plus years before this story but it's

contemporary with with James's writing life I mean he's writing careers contemporary with

stokers you know in lots of ways the thing about Dracula which is the one of the classics

I mean Frankenstein does it as well but one of the classic novels that's written from the point

of view of documents and testimonies of phonographs in you know Dr. Stuart's case is Stoke is a

novelist first and foremost so his letters and journals and phonographs are novelist tools he

uses them to build pressure accelerate towards a climax climber's to create suspense they're always

pointing forward at something about a happen they are he's a writer writing now James is a writer too

but he's he's actually professionally a handler of documents and sources he's an academic

so academics look at sources in a very different way they present them honestly truthfully

but they assess them for their credibility and and they compile them very tentatively so they're

putting together a hypothesis from the documents that they've compiled that's a different thing

from Stoke or other I'm thinking whilst I'm so read house of leaves but I think there's bits

like that in that different it's a niche mash a congery of bits and bobs and you know

the novelist uses them a mentor of course great film for that point of view is similar sense not

do you see what I'm saying it's not documents but it is bits that are put together as a whole

but they're put together in a dramatic for to serve a dramatic purpose and you can argue that

James does this but he can't but help himself from his academic habit of

him compiling sources commenting on sources which he does I'm not sure that in Dracula we get the

Stoke coming in making a commentary about you know this one ends here this one starts and we have

this one this one you know where is James is commenting on his sources as an academic wood you know

he can't help it so I think that's really interesting and fun of course you know that James

rescued Sheridan Lafano the great ghost story writer of the previous generation he was

he'd been published anonymously in his own Dublin University magazine and scattered across

periodicals that nobody was reading and James found him by doing exactly what this story and

that's trolling obscure archives with forensic patients reading files and forgotten publications

on the off chance of something was there so this is his his vibes and it's his jam his

stick what he want to call it James can't help doing this is recovery of a story from sources

I thought it might be worthwhile saying something about term what is a prebundry so a prebundry had

us held a name stall in a cathedral or collegiate church this is an octetedral but it's an important

church and received income from lands historically attached to it in return he was expected to take

his turn at services and chapter business but by the 18th century these duties were often a light

and the prebundry become a comfortable reward for clergyman of good family or modest distinction

it was the church of England functioning as a patronage system which it largely was the prebundry

because you know families would try and get there one of their sons into the church not because

they were particularly religious but because it was a respectable nice at learner as they said

it was a something a gentleman could do so the prebundry prebundry houses if you'd say came with

a position of the prebund a substantial residence in the cathedral close that they're in close

prepping to high wall streets immediately surrounded the great church car cathedral cross is really

nice and we were at wells as well in the summer wells again you know there these are cool places

to live they're very nice places to live that in close to prepping to high wall streets said this

self-governing gated insulated from a town outside the close that it's own social world it's own

rhythms it's own assumption that the business of ordinary life happened in a respectable distance

so and in a sense this is the pre-condition of the story the closest

structurally cut off from the rest of the world and so we can it it concentrates the

wicked spirituality I mean you could have written it in the town but there's something about

creating the cathedral close that contains it in a sense it's it's already slightly othered

it's like the you know if you're a read I just finished reading the wicker man you know

James Fraser you talk about the tenon awesome and this is a sacred area within which sacred

things happen it's it's shut off it's cut out of the world around it so and that maybe

making too much of this to be honest but there we are you know and we look and then we look at the two

people so we have in the stoichiometry tale we have a aston and they're both an oldest at

entirely creatures of this system they are sons of gentry ashton takes in sons of gentry perfectly

normal arrangement nobody in the cath chapter will have thought twice about it this is a place for

noble people and you know they don't they're not actually working priests they they

they just live their lives who knows what they did a bit of admin they'll have a comfortable life

because of it anyway aston started all off he starts it without understanding it he writes the warning

note he begins to understand it he realizes it's something wicked this way comes great book by the way

and and it's a quote from Shakespeare but um great book by Bradbury not that I can read that

scene copyright and so I'm gonna read it myself which I do so bro so aston yeah he does it is

one he seals it off the boys are putting the tomb that's it he lives there for 38 years

he lives in that house for some reason the haunting doesn't bother him and then we have

the uh James makes it very clear there's a long period where it's unoccupied the preven

the datam doesn't need the house so it's kept in order but nobody lives in it and then as soon as

all this comes in it starts again all this he has a bit of a jab at him because all this is the kind

of it's the kind of world that creates somebody who produces a a a shelf of worthy books

that nobody really reads and I think this is what James is saying you know they're on everybody

I'm the nice families bookshelves but they're not actually touched so that's a bit of a jab at

all this I think this is James does this you know um he isn't above puncturing this these kind of people

now souls really interesting in lots of ways the wicked evil soul he's possessed his father says

and he wants wraths note that very Irish word is in island he comes from island but

and we talked about how you know in British tales island is often used as the other their the

fae fairy sing people not they're a bit weird and they're a bit this and so they're like the the

capaithian people or karendhia they are not the sort of people he didn't mean I'm not him there's a

great song isn't it man you don't mean every day um my mind just jumps around isn't it so but

anyways so he's he is from an other place but importantly this is not the Celtic revival

at the same time we've got yates and cinch and people like this particularly yates and um

all of those uh lady Gregory and they're writing they've they've unearthed all this Irish folklore

yates himself did um research into fairy tales amongst the Irish peasantry and but this isn't

this at all there's nothing of the you know it's nothing there's no triscals or the cool hul and

doesn't show his head and there's all of these it isn't it isn't this at all so you might have

imagined that James would have gone large on the Irish thing as I think most modern writers now

couldn't help themselves if they had a an Irish child an anglo I shall it

who who rummaged around ratch their own as we would say graviards um they we get there would be a Celtic

Doom thing in there there would be all sorts of Celtic spirits you know the morrigan would appear and

bannaven you know all these people who would be a big dose of that but James doesn't do this

who this is this is as I said before it's it's that you know 16th 17th century demonology

that's what it is so he doesn't bother with the yates uh Celtic revival which I think's interesting

this giant insect has a specific ancestor in in James's um personal history in 1879 with your boy

he came across book because he liked all books calling the plants his dictionary are arfar nell

19th century in cyclopidium demons as you would illustrated in gravings and he called it

an appalling book but he he notes that the plant's his entry for bials above depicts the demon

not as a humanoid figure but as a monstrous fly the lord of flies but literally a fly so when all

this encounters him it's leg is as tall as he is it's not a sore fly it's it's it's it's it's a lot of

the flies it's it's demon it's demon I called now interestingly um it cost of course he puts a very

subtle footnote at the end they call a sore fly but at the end he says this is this is this is a

one line note looks like just an academic comment it's not it's the iqnum on wasp is if you say

which what what they would call them in the day but it's as parasitic wasp that lays its

eggs inside the living bodies of other insects using them as a husk to breed in the fact that he

puts this footnote shows he's very well aware of that but one thing about James is he can be

relied on that times to be very subtle so those who know no and so you know in the sense this is exactly

what souls been doing using frank as a vessel and possibly using the bodies in the graves that he

wonders around his raw material treating other living and dead things as instruments of his own

practice he is a parasite so the infestation of the room is not a random it's his practice made visible

he uh consort with these demons who are parasitic worms because of course they possess by laying eggs

in you they possess you and that is kind of you know that in itself is horrific isn't it and we talked

about the gap between hauntings and it wakes up and what more do I say okay so the scrying glass

that Mary finds that was souls and she very wisely puts it with the press she can put the thing

down a walk away she has a capacity for restraint is what separates her from every male

figure in the story frank couldn't stop because I had no choice you could argue he was overpowered

Ashden didn't stop because he never started he missed a thing entirely but Mary picks it up looks

there it goes mmm on reflection I don't think I'll bother with this but but now we never see the

inside so at the end spearman our cheerful chap notes that with Mr Whitman's to now as a jack in

the box waiting for some future incumbent the story closes the whole second half has been building

towards a revelation you know in a in a in a story we were not there what was in there what is the

secret and again it would it for most writers the reflex would have been to provide a bow to

tie it all up with ah ah we now know that was the point ah and right readers like that

um we've opened the questions what's really going on it's all hinted we get broadly the picture

but a writer of a different kind in James would have been tempted to lay it out one of the things

about James is I really admire him for is he doesn't explain he's the David Lynch of ghost stories you

know uh Lynch famously asked to explain it he just wouldn't do it um he there's all sorts of

schools authority the text is is in itself the text um the the author once the author gives

birth to the text or the film or the painting then or authors of course somebody will point

out that authors don't paint somebody will point out in the notes or a promise you

but you get one of them saying um it is not there's any longer it is it kind of is a it's a creation

that the people will use so I've totally out just read this um biography of Kate Bush and

I don't know McCabe and never will probably and yet many of her songs during cost my life

have meant a lot to me but there've been my the been mine um she made them and then

all of us took them the same same with any it's a really name our James story same with this reading

I've done for you what you do how you respond to it is yours there you go um so yeah so it's not a

horror story because um in a horror story all this would have been killed wouldn't it something horrific

would have come out do it being a battle between the monstead would have gone I was again

so I think the key point is that James does not give you the pleasure of opening the jack in the

box of opening that lock drawer and you have you live with it and you think oh there's some something

horrific in that that some innocent is gonna come along in future years and oh I'm surprised

nobody's actually done a sequel you know a modern sequel where by somebody comes along in 1986 or

2020 six and opens it and goodness me out comes the fly again I'm not gonna write that um

there you go so and and usually James is protagonist and don't die they survive they go home

but they carry something back with them so we wonder how ashton and only the people Mary and Spirman

they get out but how how do you as a play calling could fill it the moment this is the big

sanity role you're never gonna be the same after this your sanity is gonna take a hit and now

did I want to say something before ending yeah I wanted to say something about genres and I'm

I read a while ago uh John Troobie's book on genres of story and he he's very um perceptive I think and

he talks about I'm just been doing crime story so he talks about how the detective story is different from the

crime stories different from the gangster story they all deal with certain things and he's different from the

thriller so in the detective story the classic Sherlock Holmes um the detective him or herself is never

re-miss map was rarely a personal risk uh whereas the thriller the noir that the detective becomes a

personal risk it's a different story and I'm only saying that because um the protagonist in this story

is not a physical he's not a physical risk I mean why didn't the thing kill him um it could have

done in in a different thriller story there would have been a real physical risk and it would have come

from and they would have to escape and they've had to thought thought it they would have had to fight it

it would it would have changed from a mere investigation into a thriller combat story you know

um and of course I'm writing a role-playing scenarios and I'm very interested in the

the investigation game such as Colkfield has combat and Dungeons & Dragons which is a combat game

that may have investigation but um anyway that's another whole different story so the final thing is to

say this is one of his is later works um he's he's at 25 years from Canada Upruchs scrapbook

dead from the mid-1990s to this one and he's been writing ghost stories and he's thinking about

what else the form can do so this this is a third collection the most self conscious of the three

more interesting instructions shock more comfortable leaving things genuinely unresolved than rather

resolving them with a final joke and there's no single monster here there's a tangle of phenomena

and of course in a classic in a modern story there would be a monster wouldn't it may have peripheral

submonsters it may have mini bosses but um it's gonna be that there's gonna be the big bad and

we what we find here there's a giant insectice saw flies

graved dogs a scrying glass a thin ghost at the window a hand that comes up through the linen

they may or may not be part of the same thing and he never tells you that and sort of sometimes

readers have come from his earlier stories where he's not as diffuse although I think he is still diffuse

um a bit frustrated so it's it's it's it's not finally a tell but a monster in a room the

monster in a house genre or even about the cult violence of soul it's about the point of which

interpretation becomes trespass mmm it gives us the materials of a case an investigation

testimony memory relic fragment inference so the kind of clues you can have are you can have

testimony talk somebody can have documentary you could have like an archaeological like a relic

which is a scrying glass isn't also potentially the the the coccle feathers the black coccle feathers

and then you can infer and you can assemble a coherent coerror from them but he doesn't

complete it whereas I think even Sherlock Holmes would have completed the story and told us exactly

what was going on so all this never opens the press he never goes into the locked drawer and

therefore neither do we and as I mentioned in passing this is the last the most uncertain

revelation of the story there are histories which may be understood only up to a point and then

that desire to know the rest is itself part of the danger just see that that key theme through

a warning to the curious come on key theme through James is curious to kill the cat

or it certainly made it mentally unwell and you know this is the danger this is ironic from

a guy who spent his life unearthing things but his warning is don't be too curious it through

lots and lots of his stories so and any actually enact this in this story it's like I am telling you

not to be too curious and I'm gonna enforce that rule because your curious to know what's in there but

I'm not gonna tell you it remains locked anyway final recommendation so Robert Lloyd Perry of

Nunkithiator who I usually see every year got nothing but respect for his fantastic go and see him

he made a film of this story in 2019 and if you can find it on YouTube somewhere else

it was filmed at Hemingford Gray Manor in a single candle it take it catches something the story

requires at the early pieces didn't quite demand in the same way unhury detention he's

created this a willingness to sit with accumulating uneas rather than wait for the moment of fright

he if he ever sit with him he will pause and not hurry forward and what he does fantastically well

these are sides you know we talked about how James will have his document and will comment on it

you know oh the writing breaks off here often kind of funny comments as well in some of the stories

you know uh roccolye Perry's great at doing that he'll have a if I have a laugh and look at you

and go a stuff like that anyway I'm gonna put a link to his um mj project in the show notes

because I admire him so much he's I'm hoping to see him he's up I've been in Glasgow at the

Conan Doyle Center no he's not is it the that's Edinburgh he's at the Theosophy Center in Glasgow

Gray building and I hope to see him there in November if I can make it all right perfecto

I hope you enjoyed that but and thank you again Hayley thanks Hayley as soon as you do a little

quiet run for applause to yourself for Hayley thank you bye

everybody dies damn it's only down there isn't that certain you try to get into the

trade in town do the ded com back home