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05 - Thin Ghost And Others by M. R. James · Thin Ghost And Others

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Speaker 1: Story five of a Thin Ghost and Others by Montague
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Speaker 1: Rhodes James. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
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Speaker 1: Story five, two Doctors. It is a very common thing
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Speaker 1: in my experience to find papers shut up in old books,
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Speaker 1: but one of the rarest things to come across any
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Speaker 1: such that are at all interesting. Still it does happen,
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Speaker 1: and one should never destroy them unlooked at now. It
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Speaker 1: was a practice of mine before the war occasionally to
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Speaker 1: buy old ledgers, of which the paper was good, and
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Speaker 1: which possessed a good many blank leaves, and to extract
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Speaker 1: these and use them for my own notes and writings.
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Speaker 1: One such I purchase for a small sum in nineteen eleven.
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Speaker 1: It was tightly clasped, and its boards were warped by
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Speaker 1: having for years been obliged to embrace a number of
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Speaker 1: extraneous sheets. Three quarters of this inserted matter had lost
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Speaker 1: all vestige of importance for any living human being. One
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Speaker 1: bundle had not. That it belonged to a lawyer is certain,
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Speaker 1: for it is endorsed the strangest case I have yet met,
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Speaker 1: and bear's initials and an address in Gray's inn. It
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Speaker 1: is only materials for a case, and consists of statements
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Speaker 1: by possible witnesses. The man who would have been the
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Speaker 1: defendant or prisoner seems never to have appeared. The dossier
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Speaker 1: is not complete, but such as it is, it furnishes
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Speaker 1: a riddle in which the supernatural appears to play a part.
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Speaker 1: You must see what you can make of it. The
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Speaker 1: following is the setting and the tail. As I elicited,
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Speaker 1: doctor Abel was walking in his garden one afternoon, waiting
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Speaker 1: for his horse to be brought round that he might
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Speaker 1: set out on his visits for the day. As the
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Speaker 1: place was Islington, the month June and the year seventeen eighteen,
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Speaker 1: we conceived the surroundings as being countrified and pleasant. To him,
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Speaker 1: entered his confidential servant, Luke Jennet, who had been with
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Speaker 1: him twenty years. I said, I wish to speak to him,
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Speaker 1: and what I had to say might take some quarter
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Speaker 1: of an hour. He accordingly bade me go into his study,
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Speaker 1: which was a room opening on the terrace path where
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Speaker 1: he was walking, and came in himself and sat down.
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Speaker 1: I told him that, much against my will, I must
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Speaker 1: look out for another place. He inquired, what was my reason?
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Speaker 1: In consideration I had been so long with him. I
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Speaker 1: said if he would excuse me, he would do me
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Speaker 1: a great kindness, because this appears to have been common
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Speaker 1: form even in seventeen eighteen. I was one that I
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Speaker 1: always liked to have everything pleasant about me, as well
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Speaker 1: as I can remember. He said that was his case likewise,
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Speaker 1: but he would wish to know why I should change
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Speaker 1: my mind after so many years, and says he, you
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Speaker 1: know there can be no talk of a remembrance of
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Speaker 1: you in my will if you leave my service. Now,
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Speaker 1: I said I had made my reckoning of that. Then
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Speaker 1: says he, you must have some complaint to me, and
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Speaker 1: if I could, I would willingly set it right. And
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Speaker 1: at that I told him, not seeing how I could
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Speaker 1: keep it back, the matter of my former affidavit and
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Speaker 1: of the bed staff in the dispensing room, and said
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Speaker 1: that a house where such things happened was no place
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Speaker 1: for me, at which he, looking very black upon me,
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Speaker 1: said no more, but called me fool, and said he
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Speaker 1: would pay what was owing me in the morning. And
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Speaker 1: so his horse, being waiting, went out. So for that
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Speaker 1: night I lodged with my sister's husband near Battlebridge, and
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Speaker 1: came early next morning to my late master, who then
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Speaker 1: made a great matter that I had not lain in
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Speaker 1: his house and stopped a crown out of my wages.
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Speaker 1: Owing after that, I took service here and there not
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Speaker 1: for long at a time, and saw no more of
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Speaker 1: him till I came to be doctor Quinn's man at
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Speaker 1: Dodds Hall in Islington. There is one very obscure part
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Speaker 1: in this statement, namely the reference to the former affidavit
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Speaker 1: and the matter of the bedstaff. The former affidavit is
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Speaker 1: not in the bundle of papers. It is to be
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Speaker 1: feared that it was taken out to be read because
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Speaker 1: of its special oddity, and not put back. Of what
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Speaker 1: nature the story was may be guessed later, but as
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Speaker 1: yet no clue has been put into our hands. The
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Speaker 1: Rector of Islington, Jonathan Pratt, is the next to step forward.
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Speaker 1: He furnishes particulars of the standing and reputation of doctor
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Speaker 1: Abel and doctor Quinn, both of whom lived and practiced
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Speaker 1: in his parish. It is not to be supposed he
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Speaker 1: says that a physician should be a regular attendant at
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Speaker 1: morning and evening prayers or at the Wednesday lectures. But
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Speaker 1: within the measure of their ability, I would say that
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Speaker 1: both these persons fulfill their obligations as loyal members of
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Speaker 1: the Church of England. At the same time as you
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Speaker 1: desire my private mind, I must say, in the language
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Speaker 1: of the schools distinguial Doctor A was to me a
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Speaker 1: source of perplexity. Doctor Q, to my eye, a plane
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Speaker 1: honest believer, not inquiring over closely into points of belief,
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Speaker 1: but squaring his practice to what lights he had. The
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Speaker 1: other interested himself in questions to which providence, as I hold,
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Speaker 1: designs no answer to be given us in this state.
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Speaker 1: He would ask me, for example, what place I believed
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Speaker 1: those beings now to hold in the scheme of creation,
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Speaker 1: which by some are thought neither to have stood fast
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Speaker 1: when the rebel angels fell, nor to have joined with
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Speaker 1: them to the full pitch of their transgression, as was suitable.
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Speaker 1: My first answer to him was a question what warrant
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Speaker 1: he had for supposing any so such things to exist?
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Speaker 1: For that there was none in scripture. I took it
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Speaker 1: he was aware it appeared, for as I am on
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Speaker 1: the subject, the whole tale may be given that he
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Speaker 1: grounded himself on such passages as that of the Satyr,
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Speaker 1: which Jerome tells us conversed with Antony, But thought too
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Speaker 1: that some parts of Scripture might be cited in support.
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Speaker 1: And besides, said he you not tis the universal belief
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Speaker 1: among those that spend their days and nights abroad. And
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Speaker 1: I would add that if your calling took you so
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Speaker 1: continuously as it does me about the country lanes by night,
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Speaker 1: you might not be so surprised as I see you
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Speaker 1: to be by my suggestion. You are, then of John
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Speaker 1: Milton's mind, I said, and hold that millions of spiritual
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Speaker 1: creatures walk the earth unseen, both when we wake and
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Speaker 1: when we sleep. I do not know, he said, why
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Speaker 1: Milton should take upon himself to say unsern though to
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Speaker 1: be sure he was blind when he wrote that. But
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Speaker 1: for the rest, why, yes, I think he was in
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Speaker 1: the right. Well, I said, though not so often as you.
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Speaker 1: I am not seldom called abroad pretty late. But I
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Speaker 1: have no mind of meeting a satyr in our Islington
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Speaker 1: lanes in all the years I have been here. And
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Speaker 1: if you have had the better luck, I am sure
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Speaker 1: the Royal Society would be glad to know of it.
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Speaker 1: I am reminded of these trifling expressions because Doctor A
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Speaker 1: took them so ill, stamping out of the room in
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Speaker 1: a huff with some such word as that these high
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Speaker 1: and dry parsons had no eyes but for a prayer
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Speaker 1: book or a pint of wine. But this was not
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Speaker 1: the only time that our conversation took a remarkable turn.
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Speaker 1: There was an evening when he came in, at first
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Speaker 1: seeming gay in good spirits, but afterwards, as he sat
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Speaker 1: and smoked by the fire, falling into a musing out
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Speaker 1: of which to rouse him, I said pleasantly that I
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Speaker 1: suppose he had had no meetings of late with his
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Speaker 1: odd friends, a question which did effectually arouse him, for
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Speaker 1: he looked most wildly and as if scared, upon me,
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Speaker 1: and said, you were never there. I did not see you,
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Speaker 1: who brought you? And then, in a more collected tone,
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Speaker 1: what was this about a meeting? I believe I must
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Speaker 1: have been in a doze, to which I answered that
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Speaker 1: I was thinking of fawns and centaurs in the Dark Lane,
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Speaker 1: and not of witches sabbath. But it seemed he took
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Speaker 1: it differently well, said he. I can plead guilty to neither,
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Speaker 1: but I find you very much more of a skeptic
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Speaker 1: than becomes your cloth. If you care to know about
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Speaker 1: the Dark Lane, you might do worse than ask my
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Speaker 1: housekeeper that lived at the other end of it when
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Speaker 1: she was a child. Yes, said I, and the old
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Speaker 1: women in the almshouse, and the cheildren in the kennel.
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Speaker 1: If I were you, I would send to your brother
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Speaker 1: Quinn for a bolus to clear your brain. Damn Quinn
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Speaker 1: says he talk no more of him. He has embezzled
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Speaker 1: four of my best patients this month. I believe it
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Speaker 1: is that cursed man of his Jenet that used to
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Speaker 1: be with me. His tongue is never still it should
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Speaker 1: be nailed to the pillory if he had his deserts. This,
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Speaker 1: I may say, was the only time of his showing
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Speaker 1: me that he had any grudge against either Doctor Gwen
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Speaker 1: or Janet, And as was my business, I did my
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Speaker 1: best to persuade him he was mistaken in them. Yet
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Speaker 1: it could not be denied that some respectable families in
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Speaker 1: the parish had given him the cold shoulder, and for
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Speaker 1: no reason that they were willing to allege. The end
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Speaker 1: was that he said he had not done so ill
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Speaker 1: at Islington, but that he could afford to live at
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Speaker 1: ease elsewhere when he chose, And anyhow he bore doctor
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Speaker 1: Quinn no mauage. I think I now remember what observation
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Speaker 1: of mine drew him into the train of thought which
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Speaker 1: he next pursued. It was, I believe, my mentioning some
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Speaker 1: juggling tricks which my brother in the East Indies had
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Speaker 1: seen at the court of the Rajah of my Sore.
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Speaker 1: A convenient thing enough, said doctor Abel to me, if
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Speaker 1: by some arrangement a man could get the power of
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Speaker 1: communicating motion and energy to inanimate objects, as if the
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Speaker 1: axe should move itself against him that lifts it. Something
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Speaker 1: of that kind, well, I don't know that that was
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Speaker 1: in my mind so much. But if you could summon
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Speaker 1: such a volume from your shelf, or even order it
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Speaker 1: to open at the right page. He was sitting by
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Speaker 1: the fire it was a cold evening, and stretched out
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Speaker 1: his hand that way, and just then the firearms, or
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Speaker 1: at least the poker, fell over towards him with a
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Speaker 1: great clatter. And I did not hear what else he said,
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Speaker 1: But I told him that I could not easily conceive
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Speaker 1: of an arrangement, as he called it, of such a
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Speaker 1: kind that would not include as one of its conditions
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Speaker 1: a heavier payment than any Christian would care to make,
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Speaker 1: to which he assented. But he said, I have no
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Speaker 1: doubt these bargains can be made, very tempting, very persuasive.
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Speaker 1: Still you would not favor them a doctor, No, I
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Speaker 1: suppose not. This is as much as I know of
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Speaker 1: Doctor Abel's mind and the feeling between these men. Doctor Quinn,
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Speaker 1: as I said, was a plain, honest creature, and a
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Speaker 1: man to whom I would have gone. Indeed, I have
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Speaker 1: before now gone to him for advice on matters of business.
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Speaker 1: He was, however, every now and again, and particularly of late,
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Speaker 1: not exempt from troublesome fancies. There was certainly a time
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Speaker 1: when he was so much harassed by his dreams that
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Speaker 1: he could not keep them to himself, but would tell
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Speaker 1: them to his acquaintquaintances, and among them to me. I
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Speaker 1: was at supper at his house, and he was not
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Speaker 1: inclined to let me leave him at my usual time.
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Speaker 1: If you go, he said, there will be nothing for it.
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Speaker 1: But I must go to bed and dream of the chrysalis.
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Speaker 1: You might be worse off, said I. I do not
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Speaker 1: think it, he said, and he shook himself like a
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Speaker 1: man who is displeased with the complexion of his thoughts.
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Speaker 1: I only meant, said I, that a chrysalis is an
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Speaker 1: innocent thing. This one is not, he said, and I
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Speaker 1: do not care to think of it. However, sooner than
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Speaker 1: lose my company, he was fain to tell me, for
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Speaker 1: I pressed him that this was a dream which had
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Speaker 1: come to him several times of late, and even more
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Speaker 1: than once in a night. It was to this effect
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Speaker 1: that he seemed to himself to wake under an extreme
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Speaker 1: compulsion to rise and go out of doors. So he
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Speaker 1: would dress himself and go down to his garden door.
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Speaker 1: By the door there stood a spade which he must
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Speaker 1: take and go out into the garden, and at a
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Speaker 1: particular place in the shrubbery, somewhat clear and upon which
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Speaker 1: the moon shone, for there was always in his dream
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Speaker 1: a full moon, he would feel himself forced to dig,
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Speaker 1: and after some time the spade would uncover something light colored,
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Speaker 1: which he would perceive to be as stuff, linen or woolen,
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Speaker 1: and this he must clear with his hands. It was
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Speaker 1: always the same, of the size of a man, and
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Speaker 1: shaped like the chrysalis of a moth, with the folds
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Speaker 1: showing a promise of an opening at one end. He
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Speaker 1: could not describe how gladly he would have left all
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Speaker 1: at this stage and run to the house, but he
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Speaker 1: must not escape so easily. So, with many groans, and
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Speaker 1: knowing only too well what to expect, he parted these
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Speaker 1: folds of stuff, or as it sometimes seemed to be membrane,
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Speaker 1: and disclosed a head covered with a smooth pink skin, which,
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Speaker 1: breaking as the creature stirred, showed him his own face
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Speaker 1: in a state of death. The telling of this so
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Speaker 1: much disturbed him that I was forced, out of mere compassion,
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Speaker 1: to sit with him the greater part of the night
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Speaker 1: and talk with him upon indifferent subjects. He said that
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Speaker 1: upon every occurrence of this dream, he woke and found himself,
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Speaker 1: as it were, fighting for his breath. Another extract from
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Speaker 1: Luke Jennet's long continuous statement comes in at this point.
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Speaker 1: I never told tales of my master Doctor Abel to
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Speaker 1: anybody in the neighborhood. When I was in another service,
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Speaker 1: I remember to have spoken to my fellow servants about
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Speaker 1: the matter of the bedstaff, but I am sure I
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Speaker 1: never said either I or he were the person's concern,
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Speaker 1: and it met with so little credit that I was
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Speaker 1: affronted and thought best to keep it to myself. And
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Speaker 1: when I came back to Islington and found doctor Abel
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Speaker 1: still there, who I was told had left the parish.
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Speaker 1: I was clear that it behooved me to use great discretion,
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Speaker 1: for indeed I was afraid of the man, and it
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Speaker 1: is certain that I was no party to spreading any
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Speaker 1: ill report of him. My master, doctor Quinn, was a
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Speaker 1: very just, honest man, and no maker of mischief. I
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Speaker 1: am sure he never stirred a finger, nor said a
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Speaker 1: word by way of inducement to a soul to make
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Speaker 1: them leave going to doctor Abel and come to him. Nay,
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Speaker 1: he would hardly be persuaded to attend them that came,
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Speaker 1: until he was convinced that if he did not, they
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Speaker 1: would send into the town for a physician, rather than
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Speaker 1: do as they had hitherto done. I believe it may
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Speaker 1: be proved that doctor Abel came into my master's house
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Speaker 1: more than once. We had a new chamber maid out
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Speaker 1: of Hertfordshire, and she asked me who was the gentleman
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Speaker 1: that was looking after the master, that is, doctor Quinn
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Speaker 1: when he was out, and seemed so disappointed that he
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Speaker 1: was out. She said, whoever it was, he knew the
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Speaker 1: way of the house well, running at once into the
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Speaker 1: study and then into the dispensing room, and at last
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Speaker 1: into the bed chamber. I made her tell me what
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Speaker 1: he was like, and what she said was suitable enough
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Speaker 1: to doctor Abel. But besides, she told me she saw
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Speaker 1: the same man at church, and some one told her
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Speaker 1: that was the doctor. It was just after this that
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Speaker 1: my master began to have his bad nights, and complained
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Speaker 1: to me and other persons, and in particular what discomfort
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Speaker 1: he suffered from his pillow and bedclothes. He said he
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Speaker 1: must buy some to suit him, and should do his
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Speaker 1: own marketing, and accordingly brought home a parcel which he
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Speaker 1: said was of the right quality. But where he bought
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Speaker 1: it we had then no knowledge. Only they were marked
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Speaker 1: in thread with a coronet and a bird. The women
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Speaker 1: said they were of a sort not commonly met with,
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Speaker 1: and very fine, and my master said they were the
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Speaker 1: comfortablest he'd ever used, and he slept now, both soft
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Speaker 1: and deep. Also, the feather pillows were the best sorted,
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Speaker 1: and his head would sink into them as if they
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Speaker 1: were a cloud, which I have myself remarked several times
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Speaker 1: when I came to wake him of a morning, his
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Speaker 1: face being almost hid by the pillows closing over it.
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Speaker 1: I had never any communication with doctor Abel. After I
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Speaker 1: came back to Islington, But one day when he passed
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Speaker 1: me in the street and asked me whether I was
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Speaker 1: not looking for another service, to which I answered, I
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Speaker 1: was very well suited where I was. But he said
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Speaker 1: I was a tickle minded fellow, and he doubted not
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Speaker 1: he should soon hear I was on the world again,
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Speaker 1: which indeed proved true. Doctor Pratt is next taken up
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Speaker 1: where he left off On the sixteenth. I was called
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Speaker 1: up out of my bed soon after it was light,
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Speaker 1: that is about five, with the message that doctor Quinn
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Speaker 1: was dead or dying. Making my way to his house,
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Speaker 1: I found there was no doubt which was the truth.
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Speaker 1: All the persons in the house except the one that
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Speaker 1: let me in, were already in his chamber and standing
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Speaker 1: about his bed, but none touching him. He was stretched
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Speaker 1: in the midst of the bed on his back, without
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Speaker 1: any disorder, and indeed had the appearance of one ready
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Speaker 1: laid out for burial. His hands, I think, were even
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Speaker 1: crossed on his breast. The only thing not usual was
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Speaker 1: that nothing was to be seen of his face, the
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Speaker 1: two ends of the pillow or bolster appearing to be
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Speaker 1: closed quite over it. These I immediately pulled apart at
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Speaker 1: the same time rebuking those present, and especially the man,
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Speaker 1: for not at once coming to the assistance of his master. He, however,
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Speaker 1: only looked at me and shook his head, having aidently
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Speaker 1: no more hope than myself that there was anything but
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Speaker 1: a corpse before us. Indeed, it was plain to anyone
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Speaker 1: possessed of the least experience that he was not only dead,
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Speaker 1: but had died of suffocation. Nor could it be conceived
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Speaker 1: that his death was accidentally caused by the mere folding
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Speaker 1: of the pillow over his head. How could he, not,
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Speaker 1: feeling the oppression, have lifted his hands to put it away,
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Speaker 1: whereas not a fold of the sheet, which was closely
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Speaker 1: gathered about him, as I now observed, was disordered. The
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Speaker 1: next thing was to procure a physician. I had bethought
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Speaker 1: me of this on leaving my house, and sent on
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Speaker 1: the messenger who had come to me to doctor Abel.
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Speaker 1: But I now heard that he was away from home,
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Speaker 1: and the nearest surgeon was God, who, however, could tell
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Speaker 1: no more at least without opening the body, than we
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Speaker 1: already knew as to any person entering the room with
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Speaker 1: evil purpose, Which was the next point to be cleared.
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Speaker 1: It was visible that the bolts of the door were
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Speaker 1: burst from their stanchions, and the stanchions broken away from
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Speaker 1: the door post by main force, and there was a
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Speaker 1: sufficient body of witness, the smith among them, to testify
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Speaker 1: that this had been done. But a few minutes before
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Speaker 1: I came the chamber. Being moreover at the top of
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Speaker 1: the house, the window was neither easy of access, nor
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Speaker 1: did it show any sign of an exit made that way,
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Speaker 1: either by marks upon the sill or footprints below upon
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Speaker 1: the soft mold. The surgeon's evidence forms, of course, part
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Speaker 1: of the report of the inquest, but since it has
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Speaker 1: nothing but remarks about the healthy state of the larger
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Speaker 1: organs and the coagulation of blood at various parts of
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Speaker 1: the body, it need not be reproduced. The verdict was
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Speaker 1: a death by the visitation of God. A next to
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Speaker 1: the other papers is one which I was at first
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Speaker 1: inclined to suppose had made its way among ung them
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Speaker 1: by mistake. Upon further consideration, I think I can divine
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Speaker 1: a reason for its presence. It relates to the rifling
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Speaker 1: of a mausoleum in Middlesex, which stood in a park
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Speaker 1: now broken up the property of a noble family, which
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Speaker 1: I will not name. The outrage was not that of
21:20
Speaker 1: an ordinary resurrection man. The object, it seemed likely, was theft.
21:25
Speaker 1: The account is blunt and terrible. I shall not quote it.
21:30
Speaker 1: A dealer in the north of London suffered heavy penalties
21:33
Speaker 1: as a receiver of stolen goods in connection with the affair.
21:39
Speaker 1: End a story five, End of a Thin Ghost and
21:42
Speaker 1: others by Montague Rhodes, James