A Thin Ghost and OthersJames, M. R. (Montague Rhodes)
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A Thin Ghost and Others
James, M. R. (Montague Rhodes)
Ghost stories, English; Horror tales, English; Short stories, English
It was about this time, Worby thought, that his little dog began to
wear an anxious expression when the hour for it to be put into the
shed in the back yard approached. (For his mother had ordained that it
must not sleep in the house.) One evening, he said, when he was just
going to pick it up and carry it out, it looked at him "like a
Christian, and waved its 'and, I was going to say--well, you know 'ow
they do carry on sometimes, and the end of it was I put it under my
coat, and 'uddled it upstairs--and I'm afraid I as good as deceived my
poor mother on the subject. After that the dog acted very artful with
'iding itself under the bed for half-an-hour or more before bed-time
came, and we worked it so as my mother never found out what we'd
done." Of course Worby was glad of its company anyhow, but more
particularly when the nuisance that is still remembered in
Southminster as "the crying" set in.
"Night after night," said Worby, "that dog seemed to know it was
coming; he'd creep out, he would, and snuggle into the bed and cuddle
right up to me shivering, and when the crying come he'd be like a wild
thing, shoving his head under my arm, and I was fully near as bad. Six
or seven times we'd hear it, not more, and when he'd dror out his 'ed
again I'd know it was over for that night. What was it like, sir?
Well, I never heard but one thing that seemed to hit it off. I
happened to be playing about in the Close, and there was two of the
Canons met and said 'Good morning' one to another. 'Sleep well last
night?' says one--it was Mr. Henslow that one, and Mr. Lyall was the
other--'Can't say I did,' says Mr. Lyall, 'rather too much of Isaiah
34. 14 for me.' '34. 14,' says Mr. Henslow, 'what's that?' 'You call
yourself a Bible reader!' says Mr. Lyall. (Mr. Henslow, you must know,
he was one of what used to be termed Simeon's lot--pretty much what we
should call the Evangelical party.) 'You go and look it up.' I wanted
to know what he was getting at myself, and so off I ran home and got
out my own Bible, and there it was: 'the satyr shall cry to his
fellow.' Well, I thought, is that what we've been listening to these
past nights? and I tell you it made me look over my shoulder a time or
two. Of course I'd asked my father and mother about what it could be
before that, but they both said it was most likely cats: but they
spoke very short, and I could see they was troubled. My word! that was
a noise--'ungry-like, as if it was calling after some one that
wouldn't come. If ever you felt you wanted company, it would be when
you was waiting for it to begin again. I believe two or three nights
there was men put on to watch in different parts of the Close; but
they all used to get together in one corner, the nearest they could to
the High Street, and nothing came of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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