M R James Part Three

As we run up to Halloween, here are some more stories from M R James Collected Ghost Stories.

Count Magnus
This is another unusual story for James, but I couldn't say how without a spoiler, so no more on that.
Mr Wraxall is a writer of a book of travels and was in Sweden to gather material for such a book. He stays in a house originally owned by a family called de la Gardie, and he learns from papers of one of the family, Magnus de la Gardie, who suppressed an uprising of his time with severe punishment. A portrait of Magnus shows him to be 'almost phenomenally ugly'.
He finds out more and more about Magnus, including the fact that he had been on the 'Black Pilgrimage'.
As he passes the mausoleum containing the Count's body after a day of learning about him, he says aloud:
'"Count Magnus, there you are. I should dearly like to see you."
"Like many solitary men" he writes, "I have a habit of talking to myself aloud; and, unlike some of the Greek and Latin particles, I do not expect an answer. Certainly, and perhaps fortunately in this case, there was neither voice nor any that regarded: only the woman who, I suppose, was cleaning up the church, dropped some metallic object on the floor, whose clang startled me. Count Magnus, I think, sleeps sound enough."'
Most will guess that Count Magnus does not sleep as soundly as he should in the remainder of this very tense story. '"What is it that I have done?"' asks poor Wraxall, as he leaves Sweden pursued.

"Oh whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad."
Parkins is a Professor with firm views on the supernatural.
'"-I hold that any semblance, and appearance of concession to the view that such things exist is equivalent to a renunciation of all that I hold sacred.'"
Well, obviously he is just asking for it!
On a holiday he looks at some archaeological ruins for a colleague and discovers a small metal tube with some markings on it. He makes out that the markings are Latin:
'"The long one is simple enough. It ought to mean, 'who is this who is coming?' Well the best way to find out is evidently to whistle for him."
He blew tentatively and stopped suddenly, startled and yet pleased at the note he had elicited. It had a quality of infinite distance in it, and, soft as it was, he somehow felt it must be audible for miles around. It was a sound, too, that seemed to have the power (which many scents possess) of forming pictures in the brain.'
The blowing of the whistle begins the trouble, which centres around the wind that almost immediately starts to blow quite ferociously. More and more strange things occur, dreams, scared hotel staff, all building up to something terrible that Parkins has to face.
This is an excellent story, another one the BBC has televised. It is especially good because, as well as the scientific but naive Parkins' experience, there is the bluff Colonel Wilson, Parkins' rather short-tempered golf partner, whom Parkins turns to for help when the strange occurrences begin. The Colonel is a good man, full of common sense, but a man who is prepared to accept the supernatural. He believes that Parkins is 'little better than a Sadducee' for his views. The contrast between the two men as they face what comes at Parkins' whistle is very effective.

The Treasure of Abbot Thomas
This begins with a long paragraph in Latin, which is obligingly translated by an antiquary, Mr Somerton; the Latin describes a treasure supposed to have been hidden by the 16th century Abbot Thomas at Steinfeld, who would tell people: 'Job, John, and Zechariah will tell either you or your successors' when asked where it is.
Mr Somerton decides to attempt to solve this centuries-old riddle and takes a trip to Steinfeld.
Next we are with Mr Gregory, a rector and friend of Someton, who receives an urgent message from Somerton's servant to come to help his very ill master. Gregory travels to Steinfeld and hears how Somerton solved the riddle of Abbot Thomas but with terrible consequences.
This is a nice story, slightly reminiscent of The Gold Bug by Edgar Allen Poe, another story of treasure hunting and code breaking, but James' story has terrible supernatural consequences.