Collected Ghost Stories (84 page)

Mrs. Marcet … Utility and Truth
: these are all explanatory scientific works. Jane Haldimand Marcet (1769–1858) wrote a series of
Conversations
on science and political economy; given the context, MRJ would seem to be referring here to
Conversations on Chemistry, Intended More Especially for the Female Sex
(1805). The others are
Dialogues in Chemistry, Intended for the Instruction and Entertainment of Young People
(1809) by the Unitarian minister Jeremiah Joyce (1763–1816); and
Philosophy in Sport Made Science in Earnest: Being an Attempt to Illustrate the First Principles on Natural Philosophy by the Aid of Popular Toys and Sports
(1827), by John Ayrton Paris (
c
.1785–1856).

359
woundy
: extremely, excessively.

361
that old figure cut out in the hill-side
: probably the Cerne Abbas Giant, an enormous, priapic figure cut into the chalk hillside at Cerne Abbas, Dorset, and generally taken to be a pagan fertility god. In
Abbeys
, MRJ wrote: ‘That [Cerne Abbey] is really old I have little doubt; I have always supposed that it was set up here as a counterblast to the worship of the wicked old giant who is portrayed on the side of Trendle Hill just beyond the Abbey. He is surely of very great antiquity, and is perhaps the most striking monument of the early paganism of the country. Whether he is British or Saxon, who shall say? Some have thought that he represents
what Caesar describes—a wicker figure in which troops of victims were enclosed and then burnt to death. On this hypothesis the figure would have been marked out by a palisade of wattles on the ground, and the victims, bound, crowded into the enclosure. In any case, here must have been an important heathen sanctuary, and a fit place consequently for champions of the new religion to set their standard’ (
p. 149
).

363
a little ornament like a wheel
: the pagan ‘sun wheel’, a symbol of the cycle of the year, and thus of fertility, invoked at the end of the story by the Wise Man of Bascombe: ‘When the sun’s gathering his strength … and when he’s in the height of it, and when he’s beginning to lose his hold, and when he’s in his weakness, them that haunts about that lane had best take heed to themselves.’

365
Bascombe and Wilcombe
: both fictitious.

366
Lord of flies
: Beelzebub (more properly Beelzebul), often taken as a translation from the Hebrew for ‘Lord of the Flies’, refers variously to the Devil himself, or to a prince of hell. ‘Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron’, a Philistine deity, appears in 2 Kings 1: 2–6. Beelzebub is ‘the prince of devils’ in Matthew 12: 24 and Mark 3: 22, and ‘the chief of the devils’ in Luke 11: 15.

First published in the Eton magazine
Snapdragon
(6 December 1924), 4–5; reprinted in
CGS
. MS not located.

368
Mamilius: The Winter’s Tale
, II.i.25–31. Mamilius is the son of Leontes and Hermione, and starts a story which begins ‘There was a man dwelt by a churchyard’, only to be interrupted when Leontes breaks in with guards and imprisons Hermione on suspicion of infidelity. Mamilius dies shortly afterwards, of a broken heart. It is this passage which gives the play its title, when Mamilius says, ‘A sad tale’s best for winter. I have one of sprites and goblins.’ In his introduction to
Ghosts and Marvels
, ed. V. H. Collins (London: Oxford University Press, 1924), MRJ writes that this passage ‘justifies all ghost stories, and puts them in their proper place’.

Midsummer Eve and All Hallows
: Midsummer Eve (23 June) and All Hallows, or Halloween (31 October), are both amongst the dates associated with the Witches’ Sabbath.

First published in the Eton magazine
At Random
(23 March 1929), 12–14; reprinted in Lady Cynthia Asquith’s anthology
Shudders
(1929), and
CGS
. MS not located.

371
‘And if … rats under’em’
: from Charles Dickens, ‘Tom Tiddler’s Ground’, a Christmas story published in
All the Year Round
(1861).

372
Orlando Whistlecraft
: 1810–93; meteorologist; author of
The Climate of England
(1840),
The Magnificent and Notably Hot Summer of 1846
(1847),
The Weather Record of 1856
(1857), and
Whistlecraft’s Weather Almanac
(annually, 1856–84). Like MRJ, a native of Suffolk.

Thetford Heath
: Norfolk; ‘of Thetford I will not treat now, only pausing to note that not far from the Bury road, on the west side, you may catch sight of a block of stone on the heath which I have always taken to be a gibbet: certainly the locality would have suited highwaymen’ (
S&N
, 65–6).

First published in the Eton magazine
College Days
(28 June 1924), 311–12, 314; reprinted in
CGS
. MS not located.

377
Sheeps’ Bridge
: the whole story is set in Eton, and relies heavily on a specific knowledge of the school’s geography. Sheep’s Bridge goes over the Jordan on the Playing Fields. There are a number of weirs nearby.

378
‘The clamorous owl … spirits’ … ‘Come not near our fairy queen’
: both quotations are from
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
: II.ii.6–7, 12.

Fellows’ Pond
: on the Playing Fields, near Sheep’s Bridge.

379
Castle quadrangle … Lupton’s Tower … Curfew Tower
: Lupton’s Tower is the central feature of Lupton’s Range in the Eton School Yard, built by Henry Redman in 1520, and named after Roger Lupton, provost of Eton from 1503 to 1535. The Quadrangle and the Curfew Tower are both features of nearby Windsor Castle.

Bad-calx
: a reference to the Eton Wall Game, a ball game whose rules were drawn up in 1849. The game is traditionally played on College Field, between two goals known as ‘Good Calx’—a doorway at one end of the field—and ‘Bad Calx’—an ancient elm tree near Fellows’ Pond, whose stump was removed in 1994.

St. David’s tune
: ‘St David’s’ is #140 in the
Eton College Hymn Book
(3rd edn., 1995), which notes ‘Present form of melody in T. Ravenscroft’s
Psalter
, 1621’. The hymn is sung to words by James Montgomery (1771–1854), which open ‘Lift up your heads, ye gates of brass’.

380
‘restless changing weir’
: William Morris, ‘The Earthly Paradise’:

The sheep-bells and the restless changing weir,
All little sounds made musical and clear
Beneath a sky that burning August gives;
While yet the thought of glorious summer lives.

before summer-time came in
: before 1916, when daylight saving time was adopted: see note to
p. 316
.

Fourth of June fireworks
: the ‘Fourth of June’ is Eton’s foremost celebration day, in honour of its greatest patron, King George III, who was
born on this day in 1738 (actually 24 May according to the Julian Calendar still in operation in Britain until 1752). The celebration is no longer held on 4 June, but on the Wednesday before the first week in June.

First read at a camp of Eton Boy Scouts in Warbarrow Bay, Dorset, 27 July 1927. MRJ’s obituary in the
Eton College Chronicle
(18 June 1936) records that, after hearing the story, ‘several boys had a somewhat disturbed night, as the scene of the story was quite close to Camp’ (Cox I, 208). First published as a self-standing story (Mill House Press, 1928; a print run of 157 copies); reprinted in
CGS
. MS not located.

381
Bishop Ken
: Thomas Ken (1637–1711), bishop of Bath and Wells; one of seven nonjuring bishops tried for seditious libel when they refused to take an oath of allegiance to William and Mary in 1688; removed from his bishopric in 1691.

Head Master … Provost … Vice-Provost
: given that the story names actual members of the Eton staff of 1927, then the headmaster would be Cyril Alington, the provost MRJ himself, and the vice-provost Hugh Macnaghten. As Alington wrote, MRJ and Macnaghten did not get on: ‘Both wrote books about Eton, and neither could endure to read the other’s work, for Hugh thought Monty frivolous and Monty knew Hugh to be sentimental. The one [MRJ] went to bed very late and rose as late as decency permitted: the other retired soon after dusk, and was up with the lark, and I need hardly say that it was the early riser who was the most uncharitable in his judgement of his colleague’s idiosyncracies’ (Cox I, 214). This may account for the slightly cruel portrait of the vice-provost here.

Mr. Hope Jones
: William Hope-Jones, housemaster at Eton, known as ‘Ho Jo’, and author of the scouting song ‘The Woad Ode’.

Judkins mi
.
: ‘Judkins minor’, Judkins the younger; as opposed to his older brother
‘Judkins ma.’
: ‘Judkins major’.

382
Oppidans
: non-scholarship pupils at Eton, who board in the town rather than in the school itself.

Lower Master
: Sir Clarence Henry Kennett Marten (1872–1948), lower master, 1925; vice-provost, 1929; provost, 1945; knighted on the steps of the College Chapel, 1945.

Cuckoo Weir
: Cuckoo Weir Stream, where Eton swimming tests took place until the 1950s. There are a number of weirs around Eton’s grounds: see note to
p. 377
.

383
Mr. Beasley Robinson
: A. C. Beasley Robinson, Eton master.

Dr. Ley
: Henry George Ley (1887–1962), organist and composer; precentor (music master) at Eton, 1926.

Mr. Lambart
. Julian Lambart, Eton master.
the beautiful district of W (or X) in the county of D (or Y)
: Worbarrow Bay, Dorset.

390
axe-helve
: axe-handle.

First published in the
Morning Post
, 31 December 1931. MS not located.

393
Raphael … Nares
: ‘Raphael (Hebrew: “God heals”), noted in the apocryphal book of Tobit as God’s envoy, the healer of Tobit’s blindness, and conqueror of the demon Asmodeus, is called in the apocryphal
First Book of Enoch
(20:17) “the angel of the spirits of men”’ (
EB
). Nares is Latin for ‘nostrils’. Steve Duffy, ‘Nares’,
Ghosts and Scholars
, 31 (2000), 50, suggests that Nares is a demon who steals the breath (and thus the soul) from the dying body.

394
eftest
: readiest, most convenient. The source is Shakespeare’s
Much Ado About Nothing
, IV.ii.38: ‘Yea, marry, that’s the eftest way.’

Bishop Moore
: John Moore (1646–1714), bishop of Ely. Possessor of a vast library of some 30,000 books and manuscripts, donated in 1715 to Cambridge University Library by King George I, who had acquired it after Moore’s death for £6,450. This collection is now known as the Royal Library.

First published in the Eton magazine
The Masquerade
(June 1932). MS in ‘private hands’ (Cox II, 335).

397
Squire Korbes
: MRJ here recounts the Grimms’ fairytale, ‘Squire Korbes’.

400
G
EO
. W. F
ECI
: ‘George Wilkins made this’.

First published posthumously in the
London Mercury
, 35 (November 1936), 18–22. The story is prefaced by the following passage, by the editor, R. A. Scott James:

‘A Vignette’ is undoubtedly the last ghost story written by the late Dr. M. R. James, provost of Eton, and probably his last piece of continuous writing intended for the Press. It came into being in this way. Mr. Owen Hugh Smith was good enough to ask Dr. James to try to recapture the mood in which he wrote
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
, and to let me have something in a similar vein for the Christmas number of
The London Mercury
(1935). The answer was that he would do his best. On December 12th of that year he sent off to me the manuscript, written in pencil, from The Lodge, Eton College, with the following letter:

I am ill satisfied with what I enclose. It comes late and is short and ill written. There have been a good many events conspiring to keep it back, besides a growing inability. So pray don’t use it unless it has some quality I do not see in it.