A Warning to the Curious, and Other Ghost StoriesJames, M. R. (Montague Rhodes)
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A Warning to the Curious, and Other Ghost Stories
James, M. R. (Montague Rhodes)
English fiction -- 20th century; Ghost stories, English; Short stories, English
“No, sir, you wouldn’t see no village of Brockstone. There ain’t only
the Court and the Chapel at Brockstone.”
“Chapel? Oh, yes, that’s marked here, too. The Chapel; close by the
Court, it seems to be. Does it belong to the Court?”
“Yes, sir, that’s close up to the Court, only a step. Yes, that belong
to the Court. My daughter, you see, sir, she’s the keeper’s wife now,
and she live at the Court and look after things now the family’s away.”
“No one living there now, then?”
“No, sir, not for a number of years. The old gentleman, he lived there
when I was a lad; and the lady, she lived on after him to very near
upon ninety years of age. And then she died, and them that have it
now, they’ve got this other place, in Warwickshire I believe it is, and
they don’t do nothin’ about lettin’ the Court out; but Colonel Wildman,
he have the shooting, and young Mr Clark, he’s the agent, he come over
once in so many weeks to see to things, and my daughter’s husband, he’s
the keeper.”
“And who uses the Chapel? just the people round about, I suppose.”
“Oh, no, no one don’t use the Chapel. Why, there ain’t no one to go.
All the people about, they go to Stanford St Thomas Church; but my
son-in-law, he go to Kingsbourne Church now, because the gentleman at
Stanford, he have this Gregory singin’, and my son-in-law, he don’t
like that; he say he can hear the old donkey brayin’ any day of the
week, and he like something a little cheerful on the Sunday.” The
old man drew his hand across his mouth and laughed. “That’s what my
son-in-law say; he say he can hear the old donkey,” etc., _da capo_.
Mr Davidson also laughed as honestly as he could, thinking meanwhile
that Brockstone Court and Chapel would probably be worth including
in his walk; for the map showed that from Brockstone he could
strike the Tent Valley quite as easily as by following the main
Kingsbourne-Longbridge road. So, when the mirth excited by the
remembrance of the son-in-law’s _bon mot_ had died down, he returned to
the charge, and ascertained that both the Court and the Chapel were of
the class known as “old-fashioned places,” and that the old man would
be very willing to take him thither, and his daughter would be happy to
show him whatever she could.
“But that ain’t a lot, sir, not as if the family was livin’ there; all
the lookin’-glasses is covered up, and the paintin’s, and the curtains
and carpets folded away; not but what I dare say she could show you
a pair just to look at, because she go over them to see as the morth
shouldn’t get into ’em.”
“I shan’t mind about that, thank you; if she can show me the inside of
the Chapel, that’s what I’d like best to see.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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