A Cautionary Tale
Tuesday December 12, 2006 in m.r. james | ghost stories
Next to Charles Dickens, the other master of the classic ghost story is M.R.James. Like Dickens, James enjoyed reading his stories aloud and his tales are best enjoyed with this in mind. Imagine the open fire, a room full of attentive and eager students and James holding court. In The Treasure of Abbot Thomas, he delivers another of his warnings to the curious:
I believe I am now acquainted with the extremity of terror and repulsion which a man can endure without losing his mind. I can only just manage to tell you now the bare outline of the experience. I was conscious of a most horrible smell of mould, and of a cold kind of face pressed against my own, and moving slowly over it, and of several – I don’t know how many – legs or arms or tentacles or something clinging to my body.
This is the story of Mr Somerton, who cleverly deciphers the riddle set by the Abbot, although unwisely chooses to follow it through. I can imagine James reading the more disturbing passages with relish, as well as reading out the different character parts, such as Somerton’s servant Brown:
So I looked up, and I see someone’s ‘ead looking’ over at us. I s’pose I must ha’ said somethink, and I ‘eld the light up and run up the steps, and my light shone right on the face. That was a bad un, sir, if I ever I see one! A holdish man, and the face very much fell in, and larfin’, as I thought.
Whether you’re an antiquary, an archaeologist, a humble servant or just generally curious minded, watch out for James. He’ll haunt you, for in his world some things are best left untouched.