[Illustration] Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M. R. James _These stories are dedicated to all those who at various times have listened to them._ Contents Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book Lost Hearts The Mezzotint The Ash-tree Number 13 Count Magnus “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” The Treasure of Abbot Thomas If anyone is curious about my local settings, let it be recorded that St Bertrand de Comminges and Viborg are real places: that in “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You” I had Felixstowe in mind. As for the fragments of ostensible erudition which are scattered about my pages, hardly anything in them is not pure invention; there never was, naturally, any such book as that which I quote in “The Treasure of Abbot Thomas”. “Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book” was written in 1894 and printed soon after in the _National Review_, “Lost Hearts” appeared in the _Pall Mall Magazine_; of the next five stories, most of which were read to friends at Christmas-time at King’s College, Cambridge, I only recollect that I wrote “Number 13” in 1899, while “The Treasure of Abbot Thomas” was composed in the summer of 1904. M. R. JAMES CANON ALBERIC’S SCRAP-BOOK St Bertrand de Comminges is a decayed town on the spurs of the Pyrenees, not very far from Toulouse, and still nearer to Bagnères-de-Luchon. It was the site of a bishopric until the Revolution, and has a cathedral which is visited by a certain number of tourists. In the spring of 1883 an Englishman arrived at this old-world place—I can hardly dignify it with the name of city, for there are not a thousand inhabitants. He was a Cambridge man, who had come specially from Toulouse to see St Bertrand’s Church, and had left two friends, who were less keen archaeologists than himself, in their hotel at Toulouse, under promise to join him on the following morning. Half an hour at the church would satisfy _them_, and all three could then pursue their journey in the direction of Auch. But our Englishman had come early on the day in question, and proposed to himself to fill a note-book and to use several dozens of plates in the process of describing and photographing every corner of the wonderful church that dominates the little hill of Comminges. In order to carry out this design satisfactorily, it was necessary to monopolize the verger of the church for the day. The verger or sacristan (I prefer the latter appellation, inaccurate as it may be) was accordingly sent for by the somewhat brusque lady who keeps the inn of the Chapeau Rouge; and when he came, the Englishman found him an unexpectedly interesting object of study. It was not in the personal appearance of the little, dry, wizened old man that the interest lay, for he was precisely like dozens of other church-guardians in France, but in a curious furtive, or rather hunted and oppressed, air which he had. He was perpetually half glancing behind him; the muscles of his back and shoulders seemed to be