'oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad'

Scary Books: Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary
: Montague Rhodes James

'I suppose you will be getting away pretty soon, now Full Term is over,

Professor,' said a person not in the story to the Professor of

Ontography, soon after they had sat down next to each other at a feast in

the hospitable hall of St James's College.



The Professor was young, neat, and precise in speech.



'Yes,' he said; 'my friends have been making me take up golf this term,

and I mean to go to the East Coast--in point of fact to Burnstow--(I dare

say you know it) for a week or ten days, to improve my game. I hope to

get off tomorrow.'



'Oh, Parkins,' said his neighbour on the other side, 'if you are going to

Burnstow, I wish you would look at the site of the Templars' preceptory,

and let me know if you think it would be any good to have a dig there in

the summer.'



It was, as you might suppose, a person of antiquarian pursuits who said

this, but, since he merely appears in this prologue, there is no need to

give his entitlements.



'Certainly,' said Parkins, the Professor: 'if you will describe to me

whereabouts the site is, I will do my best to give you an idea of the lie

of the land when I get back; or I could write to you about it, if you

would tell me where you are likely to be.'



'Don't trouble to do that, thanks. It's only that I'm thinking of taking

my family in that direction in the Long, and it occurred to me that, as

very few of the English preceptories have ever been properly planned, I

might have an opportunity of doing something useful on off-days.'



The Professor rather sniffed at the idea that planning out a preceptory

could be described as useful. His neighbour continued:



'The site--I doubt if there is anything showing above ground--must be

down quite close to the beach now. The sea has encroached tremendously,

as you know, all along that bit of coast. I should think, from the map,

that it must be about three-quarters of a mile from the Globe Inn, at the

north end of the town. Where are you going to stay?'



'Well, _at_ the Globe Inn, as a matter of fact,' said Parkins; 'I have

engaged a room there. I couldn't get in anywhere else; most of the

lodging-houses are shut up in winter, it seems; and, as it is, they tell

me that the only room of any size I can have is really a double-bedded

one, and that they haven't a corner in which to store the other bed, and

so on. But I must have a fairly large room, for I am taking some books

down, and mean to do a bit of work; and though I don't quite fancy having

an empty bed--not to speak of two--in what I may call for the time being

my study, I suppose I can manage to rough it for the short time I shall

be there.'



'Do you call having an extra bed in your room roughing it, Parkins?' said

a bluff person opposite. 'Look here, I shall come down and occupy it for

a bit; it'll be company for you.'



The Professor quivered, but managed to laugh in a courteous manner.



'By all means, Rogers; there's nothing I should like better. But I'm

afraid you would find it rather dull; you don't play golf, do you?'



'No, thank Heaven!' said rude Mr Rogers.



'Well, you see, when I'm not writing I shall most likely be out on the

links, and that, as I say, would be rather dull for you, I'm afraid.'



'Oh, I don't know! There's certain to be somebody I know in the place;

but, of course, if you don't want me, speak the word, Parkins; I shan't

be offended. Truth, as you always tell us, is never offensive.'



Parkins was, indeed, scrupulously polite and strictly truthful. It is to

be feared that Mr Rogers sometimes practised upon his knowledge of these

characteristics. In Parkins's breast there was a conflict now raging,

which for a moment or two did not allow him to answer. That interval

being over, he said:



'Well, if you want the exact truth, Rogers, I was considering whether the

room I speak of would really be large enough to accommodate us both

comfortably; and also whether (mind, I shouldn't have said this if you

hadn't pressed me) you would not constitute something in the nature of a

hindrance to my work.'



Rogers laughed loudly.



'Well done, Parkins!' he said. 'It's all right. I promise not to

interrupt your work; don't you disturb yourself about that. No, I won't

come if you don't want me; but I thought I should do so nicely to keep

the ghosts off.' Here he might have been seen to wink and to nudge his

next neighbour. Parkins might also have been seen to become pink. 'I beg

pardon, Parkins,' Rogers continued; 'I oughtn't to have said that. I

forgot you didn't like levity on these topics.'



'Well,' Parkins said, 'as you have mentioned the matter, I freely own

that I do _not_ like careless talk about what you call ghosts. A man in

my position,' he went on, raising his voice a little, 'cannot, I find, be

too careful about appearing to sanction the current beliefs on such

subjects. As you know, Rogers, or as you ought to know; for I think I

have never concealed my views--'



'No, you certainly have not, old man,' put in Rogers _sotto voce._



'--I hold that any semblance, any appearance of concession to the view

that such things might exist is equivalent to a renunciation of all that

I hold most sacred. But I'm afraid I have not succeeded in securing your

attention.'



'Your _undivided_ attention, was what Dr Blimber actually _said_,'[4]

Rogers interrupted, with every appearance of an earnest desire for

accuracy. 'But I beg your pardon, Parkins: I'm stopping you.'



[4] Mr Rogers was wrong, _vide Dombey and Son_, chapter xii.



'No, not at all,' said Parkins. 'I don't remember Blimber; perhaps he was

before my time. But I needn't go on. I'm sure you know what I mean.'



'Yes, yes,' said Rogers, rather hastily--'just so. We'll go into it fully

at Burnstow, or somewhere.'



In repeating the above dialogue I have tried to give the impression which

it made on me, that Parkins was something of an old woman--rather

henlike, perhaps, in his little ways; totally destitute, alas! of the

sense of humour, but at the same time dauntless and sincere in his

convictions, and a man deserving of the greatest respect. Whether or not

the reader has gathered so much, that was the character which Parkins

had.



On the following day Parkins did, as he had hoped, succeed in getting

away from his college, and in arriving at Burnstow. He was made welcome

at the Globe Inn, was safely installed in the large double-bedded room of

which we have heard, and was able before retiring to rest to arrange his

materials for work in apple-pie order upon a commodious table which

occupied the outer end of the room, and was surrounded on three sides by

windows looking out seaward; that is to say, the central window looked

straight out to sea, and those on the left and right commanded prospects

along the shore to the north and south respectively. On the south you saw

the village of Burnstow. On the north no houses were to be seen, but only

the beach and the low cliff backing it. Immediately in front was a

strip--not considerable--of rough grass, dotted with old anchors,

capstans, and so forth; then a broad path; then the beach. Whatever may

have been the original distance between the Globe Inn and the sea, not

more than sixty yards now separated them.



The rest of the population of the inn was, of course, a golfing one, and

included few elements that call for a special description. The most

conspicuous figure was, perhaps, that of an _ancien militaire_, secretary

of a London club, and possessed of a voice of incredible strength, and of

views of a pronouncedly Protestant type. These were apt to find utterance

after his attendance upon the ministrations of the Vicar, an estimable

man with inclinations towards a picturesque ritual, which he gallantly

kept down as far as he could out of deference to East Anglian tradition.



Professor Parkins, one of whose principal characteristics was pluck,

spent the greater part of the day following his arrival at Burnstow in

what he had called improving his game, in company with this Colonel

Wilson: and during the afternoon--whether the process of improvement were

to blame or not, I am not sure--the Colonel's demeanour assumed a

colouring so lurid that even Parkins jibbed at the thought of walking

home with him from the links. He determined, after a short and furtive

look at that bristling moustache and those incarnadined features, that it

would be wiser to allow the influences of tea and tobacco to do what they

could with the Colonel before the dinner-hour should render a meeting

inevitable.



'I might walk home tonight along the beach,' he reflected--'yes, and take

a look--there will be light enough for that--at the ruins of which Disney

was talking. I don't exactly know where they are, by the way; but I

expect I can hardly help stumbling on them.'



This he accomplished, I may say, in the most literal sense, for in

picking his way from the links to the shingle beach his foot caught,

partly in a gorse-root and partly in a biggish stone, and over he went.

When he got up and surveyed his surroundings, he found himself in a patch

of somewhat broken ground covered with small depressions and mounds.

These latter, when he came to examine them, proved to be simply masses of

flints embedded in mortar and grown over with turf. He must, he quite

rightly concluded, be on the site of the preceptory he had promised to

look at. It seemed not unlikely to reward the spade of the explorer;

enough of the foundations was probably left at no great depth to throw a

good deal of light on the general plan. He remembered vaguely that the

Templars, to whom this site had belonged, were in the habit of building

round churches, and he thought a particular series of the humps or mounds

near him did appear to be arranged in something of a circular form. Few

people can resist the temptation to try a little amateur research in a

department quite outside their own, if only for the satisfaction of

showing how successful they would have been had they only taken it up

seriously. Our Professor, however, if he felt something of this mean

desire, was also truly anxious to oblige Mr Disney. So he paced with care

the circular area he had noticed, and wrote down its rough dimensions in

his pocket-book. Then he proceeded to examine an oblong eminence which

lay east of the centre of the circle, and seemed to his thinking likely

to be the base of a platform or altar. At one end of it, the northern, a

patch of the turf was gone--removed by some boy or other creature _ferae

naturae_. It might, he thought, be as well to probe the soil here for

evidences of masonry, and he took out his knife and began scraping away

the earth. And now followed another little discovery: a portion of soil

fell inward as he scraped, and disclosed a small cavity. He lighted one

match after another to help him to see of what nature the hole was, but

the wind was too strong for them all. By tapping and scratching the sides

with his knife, however, he was able to make out that it must be an

artificial hole in masonry. It was rectangular, and the sides, top, and

bottom, if not actually plastered, were smooth and regular. Of course it

was empty. No! As he withdrew the knife he heard a metallic clink, and

when he introduced his hand it met with a cylindrical object lying on the

floor of the hole. Naturally enough, he picked it up, and when he brought

it into the light, now fast fading, he could see that it, too, was of

man's making--a metal tube about four inches long, and evidently of some

considerable age.



By the time Parkins had made sure that there was nothing else in this odd

receptacle, it was too late and too dark for him to think of undertaking

any further search. What he had done had proved so unexpectedly

interesting that he determined to sacrifice a little more of the daylight

on the morrow to archaeology. The object which he now had safe in his

pocket was bound to be of some slight value at least, he felt sure.



Bleak and solemn was the view on which he took a last look before

starting homeward. A faint yellow light in the west showed the links, on

which a few figures moving towards the club-house were still visible, the

squat martello tower, the lights of Aldsey village, the pale ribbon of

sands intersected at intervals by black wooden groynings, the dim and

murmuring sea. The wind was bitter from the north, but was at his back

when he set out for the Globe. He quickly rattled and clashed through the

shingle and gained the sand, upon which, but for the groynings which had

to be got over every few yards, the going was both good and quiet. One

last look behind, to measure the distance he had made since leaving the

ruined Templars' church, showed him a prospect of company on his walk, in

the shape of a rather indistinct personage, who seemed to be making great

efforts to catch up with him, but made little, if any, progress. I mean

that there was an appearance of running about his movements, but that the

distance between him and Parkins did not seem materially to lessen. So,

at least, Parkins thought, and decided that he almost certainly did not

know him, and that it would be absurd to wait until he came up. For all

that, company, he began to think, would really be very welcome on that

lonely shore, if only you could choose your companion. In his

unenlightened days he had read of meetings in such places which even now

would hardly bear thinking of. He went on thinking of them, however,

until he reached home, and particularly of one which catches most

people's fancy at some time of their childhood.' Now I saw in my dream

that Christian had gone but a very little way when he saw a foul fiend

coming over the field to meet him.' 'What should I do now,' he thought,

'if I looked back and caught sight of a black figure sharply defined

against the yellow sky, and saw that it had horns and wings? I wonder

whether I should stand or run for it. Luckily, the gentleman behind is

not of that kind, and he seems to be about as far off now as when I saw

him first. Well, at this rate, he won't get his dinner as soon as I

shall; and, dear me! it's within a quarter of an hour of the time now. I

must run!'



Parkins had, in fact, very little time for dressing. When he met the

Colonel at dinner, Peace--or as much of her as that gentleman could

manage--reigned once more in the military bosom; nor was she put to

flight in the hours of bridge that followed dinner, for Parkins was a

more than respectable player. When, therefore, he retired towards twelve

o'clock, he felt that he had spent his evening in quite a satisfactory

way, and that, even for so long as a fortnight or three weeks, life at

the Globe would be supportable under similar conditions--'especially,'

thought he, 'if I go on improving my game.'



As he went along the passages he met the boots of the Globe, who stopped

and said:



'Beg your pardon, sir, but as I was abrushing your coat just now there

was something fell out of the pocket. I put it on your chest of drawers,

sir, in your room, sir--a piece of a pipe or somethink of that, sir.

Thank you, sir. You'll find it on your chest of drawers, sir--yes, sir.

Good night, sir.'



The speech served to remind Parkins of his little discovery of that

afternoon. It was with some considerable curiosity that he turned it over

by the light of his candles. It was of bronze, he now saw, and was shaped

very much after the manner of the modern dog-whistle; in fact it

was--yes, certainly it was--actually no more nor less than a whistle. He

put it to his lips, but it was quite full of a fine, caked-up sand or

earth, which would not yield to knocking, but must be loosened with a

knife. Tidy as ever in his habits, Parkins cleared out the earth on to a

piece of paper, and took the latter to the window to empty it out. The

night was clear and bright, as he saw when he had opened the casement,

and he stopped for an instant to look at the sea and note a belated

wanderer stationed on the shore in front of the inn. Then he shut the

window, a little surprised at the late hours people kept at Burnstow, and

took his whistle to the light again. Why, surely there were marks on it,

and not merely marks, but letters! A very little rubbing rendered the

deeply-cut inscription quite legible, but the Professor had to confess,

after some earnest thought, that the meaning of it was as obscure to him

as the writing on the wall to Belshazzar. There were legends both on the

front and on the back of the whistle. The one read thus:



fla

fut bis

fle



The other:



QUIS EST ISTE QUI venit



'I ought to be able to make it out,' he thought; 'but I suppose I am a

little rusty in my Latin. When I come to think of it, I don't believe I

even know the word for a whistle. The long one does seem 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 round. It

was a sound, too, that seemed to have the power (which many scents

possess) of forming pictures in the brain. He saw quite clearly for a

moment a vision of a wide, dark expanse at night, with a fresh wind

blowing, and in the midst a lonely figure--how employed, he could not

tell. Perhaps he would have seen more had not the picture been broken by

the sudden surge of a gust of wind against his casement, so sudden that

it made him look up, just in time to see the white glint of a seabird's

wing somewhere outside the dark panes.



The sound of the whistle had so fascinated him that he could not help

trying it once more, this time more boldly. The note was little, if at

all, louder than before, and repetition broke the illusion--no picture

followed, as he had half hoped it might. "But what is this? Goodness!

what force the wind can get up in a few minutes! What a tremendous gust!

There! I knew that window-fastening was no use! Ah! I thought so--both

candles out. It is enough to tear the room to pieces."



The first thing was to get the window shut. While you might count twenty

Parkins was struggling with the small casement, and felt almost as if he

were pushing back a sturdy burglar, so strong was the pressure. It

slackened all at once, and the window banged to and latched itself. Now

to relight the candles and see what damage, if any, had been done. No,

nothing seemed amiss; no glass even was broken in the casement. But the

noise had evidently roused at least one member of the household: the

Colonel was to be heard stumping in his stockinged feet on the floor

above, and growling. Quickly as it had risen, the wind did not fall at

once. On it went, moaning and rushing past the house, at times rising to

a cry so desolate that, as Parkins disinterestedly said, it might have

made fanciful people feel quite uncomfortable; even the unimaginative, he

thought after a quarter of an hour, might be happier without it.



Whether it was the wind, or the excitement of golf, or of the researches

in the preceptory that kept Parkins awake, he was not sure. Awake he

remained, in any case, long enough to fancy (as I am afraid I often do

myself under such conditions) that he was the victim of all manner of

fatal disorders: he would lie counting the beats of his heart, convinced

that it was going to stop work every moment, and would entertain grave

suspicions of his lungs, brain, liver, etc.--suspicions which he was sure

would be dispelled by the return of daylight, but which until then

refused to be put aside. He found a little vicarious comfort in the idea

that someone else was in the same boat. A near neighbour (in the darkness

it was not easy to tell his direction) was tossing and rustling in his

bed, too.



The next stage was that Parkins shut his eyes and determined to give

sleep every chance. Here again over-excitement asserted itself in another

form--that of making pictures. _Experto crede_, pictures do come to the

closed eyes of one trying to sleep, and are often so little to his taste

that he must open his eyes and disperse them.



Parkins's experience on this occasion was a very distressing one. He

found that the picture which presented itself to him was continuous. When

he opened his eyes, of course, it went; but when he shut them once more

it framed itself afresh, and acted itself out again, neither quicker nor

slower than before. What he saw was this:



A long stretch of shore--shingle edged by sand, and intersected at short

intervals with black groynes running down to the water--a scene, in fact,

so like that of his afternoon's walk that, in the absence of any

landmark, it could not be distinguished therefrom. The light was obscure,

conveying an impression of gathering storm, late winter evening, and

slight cold rain. On this bleak stage at first no actor was visible.

Then, in the distance, a bobbing black object appeared; a moment more,

and it was a man running, jumping, clambering over the groynes, and every

few seconds looking eagerly back. The nearer he came the more obvious it

was that he was not only anxious, but even terribly frightened, though

his face was not to be distinguished. He was, moreover, almost at the end

of his strength. On he came; each successive obstacle seemed to cause him

more difficulty than the last. 'Will he get over this next one?' thought

Parkins; 'it seems a little higher than the others.' Yes; half climbing,

half throwing himself, he did get over, and fell all in a heap on the

other side (the side nearest to the spectator). There, as if really

unable to get up again, he remained crouching under the groyne, looking

up in an attitude of painful anxiety.



So far no cause whatever for the fear of the runner had been shown; but

now there began to be seen, far up the shore, a little flicker of

something light-coloured moving to and fro with great swiftness and

irregularity. Rapidly growing larger, it, too, declared itself as a

figure in pale, fluttering draperies, ill-defined. There was something

about its motion which made Parkins very unwilling to see it at close

quarters. It would stop, raise arms, bow itself towards the sand, then

run stooping across the beach to the water-edge and back again; and then,

rising upright, once more continue its course forward at a speed that was

startling and terrifying. The moment came when the pursuer was hovering

about from left to right only a few yards beyond the groyne where the

runner lay in hiding. After two or three ineffectual castings hither and

thither it came to a stop, stood upright, with arms raised high, and then

darted straight forward towards the groyne.



It was at this point that Parkins always failed in his resolution to keep

his eyes shut. With many misgivings as to incipient failure of eyesight,

overworked brain, excessive smoking, and so on, he finally resigned

himself to light his candle, get out a book, and pass the night waking,

rather than be tormented by this persistent panorama, which he saw

clearly enough could only be a morbid reflection of his walk and his

thoughts on that very day.



The scraping of match on box and the glare of light must have startled

some creatures of the night--rats or what not--which he heard scurry

across the floor from the side of his bed with much rustling. Dear, dear!

the match is out! Fool that it is! But the second one burnt better, and a

candle and book were duly procured, over which Parkins pored till sleep

of a wholesome kind came upon him, and that in no long space. For about

the first time in his orderly and prudent life he forgot to blow out the

candle, and when he was called next morning at eight there was still a

flicker in the socket and a sad mess of guttered grease on the top of the

little table.



After breakfast he was in his room, putting the finishing touches to his

golfing costume--fortune had again allotted the Colonel to him for a

partner--when one of the maids came in.



'Oh, if you please,' she said, 'would you like any extra blankets on your

bed, sir?'



'Ah! thank you,' said Parkins. 'Yes, I think I should like one. It seems

likely to turn rather colder.'



In a very short time the maid was back with the blanket.



'Which bed should I put it on, sir?' she asked.



'What? Why, that one--the one I slept in last night,' he said, pointing

to it.



'Oh yes! I beg your pardon, sir, but you seemed to have tried both of

'em; leastways, we had to make 'em both up this morning.'



'Really? How very absurd!' said Parkins. 'I certainly never touched the

other, except to lay some things on it. Did it actually seem to have been

slept in?'



'Oh yes, sir!' said the maid. 'Why, all the things was crumpled and

throwed about all ways, if you'll excuse me, sir--quite as if anyone

'adn't passed but a very poor night, sir.'



'Dear me,' said Parkins. 'Well, I may have disordered it more than I

thought when I unpacked my things. I'm very sorry to have given you the

extra trouble, I'm sure. I expect a friend of mine soon, by the way--a

gentleman from Cambridge--to come and occupy it for a night or two. That

will be all right, I suppose, won't it?'



'Oh yes, to be sure, sir. Thank you, sir. It's no trouble, I'm sure,'

said the maid, and departed to giggle with her colleagues.



Parkins set forth, with a stern determination to improve his game.



I am glad to be able to report that he succeeded so far in this

enterprise that the Colonel, who had been rather repining at the prospect

of a second day's play in his company, became quite chatty as the morning

advanced; and his voice boomed out over the flats, as certain also of our

own minor poets have said, 'like some great bourdon in a minster tower'.



'Extraordinary wind, that, we had last night,' he said. 'In my old home

we should have said someone had been whistling for it.'



'Should you, indeed!' said Perkins. 'Is there a superstition of that kind

still current in your part of the country?'



'I don't know about superstition,' said the Colonel. 'They believe in it

all over Denmark and Norway, as well as on the Yorkshire coast; and my

experience is, mind you, that there's generally something at the bottom

of what these country-folk hold to, and have held to for generations. But

it's your drive' (or whatever it might have been: the golfing reader will

have to imagine appropriate digressions at the proper intervals).



When conversation was resumed, Parkins said, with a slight hesitancy:



'A propos of what you were saying just now, Colonel, I think I ought to

tell you that my own views on such subjects are very strong. I am, in

fact, a convinced disbeliever in what is called the "supernatural".'



'What!' said the Colonel,'do you mean to tell me you don't believe in

second-sight, or ghosts, or anything of that kind?'



'In nothing whatever of that kind,' returned Parkins firmly.



'Well,' said the Colonel, 'but it appears to me at that rate, sir, that

you must be little better than a Sadducee.'



Parkins was on the point of answering that, in his opinion, the Sadducees

were the most sensible persons he had ever read of in the Old Testament;

but feeling some doubt as to whether much mention of them was to be found

in that work, he preferred to laugh the accusation off.



'Perhaps I am,' he said; 'but--Here, give me my cleek, boy!--Excuse me

one moment, Colonel.' A short interval. 'Now, as to whistling for the

wind, let me give you my theory about it. The laws which govern winds are

really not at all perfectly known--to fisherfolk and such, of course, not

known at all. A man or woman of eccentric habits, perhaps, or a stranger,

is seen repeatedly on the beach at some unusual hour, and is heard

whistling. Soon afterwards a violent wind rises; a man who could read the

sky perfectly or who possessed a barometer could have foretold that it

would. The simple people of a fishing-village have no barometers, and

only a few rough rules for prophesying weather. What more natural than

that the eccentric personage I postulated should be regarded as having

raised the wind, or that he or she should clutch eagerly at the

reputation of being able to do so? Now, take last night's wind: as it

happens, I myself was whistling. I blew a whistle twice, and the wind

seemed to come absolutely in answer to my call. If anyone had seen me--'



The audience had been a little restive under this harangue, and Parkins

had, I fear, fallen somewhat into the tone of a lecturer; but at the last

sentence the Colonel stopped.



'Whistling, were you?' he said. 'And what sort of whistle did you use?

Play this stroke first.' Interval.



'About that whistle you were asking, Colonel. It's rather a curious one.

I have it in my--No; I see I've left it in my room. As a matter of fact,

I found it yesterday.'



And then Parkins narrated the manner of his discovery of the whistle,

upon hearing which the Colonel grunted, and opined that, in Parkins's

place, he should himself be careful about using a thing that had belonged

to a set of Papists, of whom, speaking generally, it might be affirmed

that you never knew what they might not have been up to. From this topic

he diverged to the enormities of the Vicar, who had given notice on the

previous Sunday that Friday would be the Feast of St Thomas the Apostle,

and that there would be service at eleven o'clock in the church. This and

other similar proceedings constituted in the Colonel's view a strong

presumption that the Vicar was a concealed Papist, if not a Jesuit; and

Parkins, who could not very readily follow the Colonel in this region,

did not disagree with him. In fact, they got on so well together in the

morning that there was not talk on either side of their separating after

lunch.



Both continued to play well during the afternoon, or at least, well

enough to make them forget everything else until the light began to fail

them. Not until then did Parkins remember that he had meant to do some

more investigating at the preceptory; but it was of no great importance,

he reflected. One day was as good as another; he might as well go home

with the Colonel.



As they turned the corner of the house, the Colonel was almost knocked

down by a boy who rushed into him at the very top of his speed, and then,

instead of running away, remained hanging on to him and panting. The

first words of the warrior were naturally those of reproof and

objurgation, but he very quickly discerned that the boy was almost

speechless with fright. Inquiries were useless at first. When the boy got

his breath he began to howl, and still clung to the Colonel's legs. He

was at last detached, but continued to howl.



'What in the world is the matter with you? What have you been up to? What

have you seen?' said the two men.



'Ow, I seen it wive at me out of the winder,' wailed the boy, 'and I

don't like it.'



'What window?' said the irritated Colonel. 'Come pull yourself together,

my boy.'



'The front winder it was, at the 'otel,' said the boy.



At this point Parkins was in favour of sending the boy home, but the

Colonel refused; he wanted to get to the bottom of it, he said; it was

most dangerous to give a boy such a fright as this one had had, and if it

turned out that people had been playing jokes, they should suffer for it

in some way. And by a series of questions he made out this story: The boy

had been playing about on the grass in front of the Globe with some

others; then they had gone home to their teas, and he was just going,

when he happened to look up at the front winder and see it a-wiving at

him. _It_ seemed to be a figure of some sort, in white as far as he

knew--couldn't see its face; but it wived at him, and it warn't a right

thing--not to say not a right person. Was there a light in the room? No,

he didn't think to look if there was a light. Which was the window? Was

it the top one or the second one? The seckind one it was--the big winder

what got two little uns at the sides.



'Very well, my boy,' said the Colonel, after a few more questions. 'You

run away home now. I expect it was some person trying to give you a

start. Another time, like a brave English boy, you just throw a

stone--well, no, not that exactly, but you go and speak to the waiter, or

to Mr Simpson, the landlord, and--yes--and say that I advised you to do

so.'



The boy's face expressed some of the doubt he felt as to the likelihood

of Mr Simpson's lending a favourable ear to his complaint, but the

Colonel did not appear to perceive this, and went on:



'And here's a sixpence--no, I see it's a shilling--and you be off home,

and don't think any more about it.'



The youth hurried off with agitated thanks, and the Colonel and Parkins

went round to the front of the Globe and reconnoitred. There was only one

window answering to the description they had been hearing.



'Well, that's curious,' said Parkins; 'it's evidently my window the lad

was talking about. Will you come up for a moment, Colonel Wilson? We

ought to be able to see if anyone has been taking liberties in my room.'



They were soon in the passage, and Parkins made as if to open the door.

Then he stopped and felt in his pockets.



'This is more serious than I thought,' was his next remark. 'I remember

now that before I started this morning I locked the door. It is locked

now, and, what is more, here is the key.' And he held it up. 'Now,' he

went on, 'if the servants are in the habit of going into one's room

during the day when one is away, I can only say that--well, that I don't

approve of it at all.' Conscious of a somewhat weak climax, he busied

himself in opening the door (which was indeed locked) and in lighting

candles. 'No,' he said, 'nothing seems disturbed.'



'Except your bed,' put in the Colonel.



'Excuse me, that isn't my bed,' said Parkins. 'I don't use that one. But

it does look as if someone had been playing tricks with it.'



It certainly did: the clothes were bundled up and twisted together in a

most tortuous confusion. Parkins pondered.



'That must be it,' he said at last. 'I disordered the clothes last night

in unpacking, and they haven't made it since. Perhaps they came in to

make it, and that boy saw them through the window; and then they were

called away and locked the door after them. Yes, I think that must be

it.'



'Well, ring and ask,' said the Colonel, and this appealed to Parkins as

practical.



The maid appeared, and, to make a long story short, deposed that she had

made the bed in the morning when the gentleman was in the room, and

hadn't been there since. No, she hadn't no other key. Mr Simpson, he kep'

the keys; he'd be able to tell the gentleman if anyone had been up.



This was a puzzle. Investigation showed that nothing of value had been

taken, and Parkins remembered the disposition of the small objects on

tables and so forth well enough to be pretty sure that no pranks had been

played with them. Mr and Mrs Simpson furthermore agreed that neither of

them had given the duplicate key of the room to any person whatever

during the day. Nor could Parkins, fair-minded man as he was, detect

anything in the demeanour of master, mistress, or maid that indicated

guilt. He was much more inclined to think that the boy had been imposing

on the Colonel.



The latter was unwontedly silent and pensive at dinner and throughout the

evening. When he bade goodnight to Parkins, he murmured in a gruff

undertone:



'You know where I am if you want me during the night.'



'Why, yes, thank you, Colonel Wilson, I think I do; but there isn't much

prospect of my disturbing you, I hope. By the way,' he added, 'did I show

you that old whistle I spoke of? I think not. Well, here it is.'



The Colonel turned it over gingerly in the light of the candle.



'Can you make anything of the inscription?' asked Parkins, as he took it

back.



'No, not in this light. What do you mean to do with it?'



'Oh, well, when I get back to Cambridge I shall submit it to some of the

archaeologists there, and see what they think of it; and very likely, if

they consider it worth having, I may present it to one of the museums.'



'M!' said the Colonel. 'Well, you may be right. All I know is that, if it

were mine, I should chuck it straight into the sea. It's no use talking,

I'm well aware, but I expect that with you it's a case of live and learn.

I hope so, I'm sure, and I wish you a good night.'



He turned away, leaving Parkins in act to speak at the bottom of the

stair, and soon each was in his own bedroom.



By some unfortunate accident, there were neither blinds nor curtains to

the windows of the Professor's room. The previous night he had thought

little of this, but tonight there seemed every prospect of a bright moon

rising to shine directly on his bed, and probably wake him later on. When

he noticed this he was a good deal annoyed, but, with an ingenuity which

I can only envy, he succeeded in rigging up, with the help of a

railway-rug, some safety-pins, and a stick and umbrella, a screen which,

if it only held together, would completely keep the moonlight off his

bed. And shortly afterwards he was comfortably in that bed. When he had

read a somewhat solid work long enough to produce a decided wish to

sleep, he cast a drowsy glance round the room, blew out the candle, and

fell back upon the pillow.



He must have slept soundly for an hour or more, when a sudden clatter

shook him up in a most unwelcome manner. In a moment he realized what had

happened: his carefully-constructed screen had given way, and a very

bright frosty moon was shining directly on his face. This was highly

annoying. Could he possibly get up and reconstruct the screen? or could

he manage to sleep if he did not?



For some minutes he lay and pondered over all the possibilities; then he

turned over sharply, and with his eyes open lay breathlessly listening.

There had been a movement, he was sure, in the empty bed on the opposite

side of the room. Tomorrow he would have it moved, for there must be rats

or something playing about in it. It was quiet now. No! the commotion

began again. There was a rustling and shaking: surely more than any rat

could cause.



I can figure to myself something of the Professor's bewilderment and

horror, for I have in a dream thirty years back seen the same thing

happen; but the reader will hardly, perhaps, imagine how dreadful it was

to him to see a figure suddenly sit up in what he had known was an empty

bed. He was out of his own bed in one bound, and made a dash towards the

window, where lay his only weapon, the stick with which he had propped

his screen. This was, as it turned out, the worst thing he could have

done, because the personage in the empty bed, with a sudden smooth

motion, slipped from the bed and took up a position, with outspread arms,

between the two beds, and in front of the door. Parkins watched it in a

horrid perplexity. Somehow, the idea of getting past it and escaping

through the door was intolerable to him; he could not have borne--he

didn't know why--to touch it; and as for its touching him, he would

sooner dash himself through the window than have that happen. It stood

for the moment in a band of dark shadow, and he had not seen what its

face was like. Now it began to move, in a stooping posture, and all at

once the spectator realized, with some horror and some relief, that it

must be blind, for it seemed to feel about it with its muffled arms in a

groping and random fashion. Turning half away from him, it became

suddenly conscious of the bed he had just left, and darted towards it,

and bent and felt over the pillows in a way which made Parkins shudder as

he had never in his life thought it possible. In a very few moments it

seemed to know that the bed was empty, and then, moving forward into the

area of light and facing the window, it showed for the first time what

manner of thing it was.



Parkins, who very much dislikes being questioned about it, did once

describe something of it in my hearing, and I gathered that what he

chiefly remembers about it is a horrible, an intensely horrible, face _of

crumpled linen._ What expression he read upon it he could not or would

not tell, but that the fear of it went nigh to maddening him is certain.



But he was not at leisure to watch it for long. With formidable quickness

it moved into the middle of the room, and, as it groped and waved, one

corner of its draperies swept across Parkins's face. He could not, though

he knew how perilous a sound was--he could not keep back a cry of

disgust, and this gave the searcher an instant clue. It leapt towards him

upon the instant, and the next moment he was half-way through the window

backwards, uttering cry upon cry at the utmost pitch of his voice, and

the linen face was thrust close into his own. At this, almost the last

possible second, deliverance came, as you will have guessed: the Colonel

burst the door open, and was just in time to see the dreadful group at

the window. When he reached the figures only one was left. Parkins sank

forward into the room in a faint, and before him on the floor lay a

tumbled heap of bed-clothes.



Colonel Wilson asked no questions, but busied himself in keeping everyone

else out of the room and in getting Parkins back to his bed; and himself,

wrapped in a rug, occupied the other bed, for the rest of the night.

Early on the next day Rogers arrived, more welcome than he would have

been a day before, and the three of them held a very long consultation in

the Professor's room. At the end of it the Colonel left the hotel door

carrying a small object between his finger and thumb, which he cast as

far into the sea as a very brawny arm could send it. Later on the smoke

of a burning ascended from the back premises of the Globe.



Exactly what explanation was patched up for the staff and visitors at the

hotel I must confess I do not recollect. The Professor was somehow

cleared of the ready suspicion of delirium tremens, and the hotel of the

reputation of a troubled house.



There is not much question as to what would have happened to Parkins if

the Colonel had not intervened when he did. He would either have fallen

out of the window or else lost his wits. But it is not so evident what

more the creature that came in answer to the whistle could have done than

frighten. There seemed to be absolutely nothing material about it save

the bedclothes of which it had made itself a body. The Colonel, who

remembered a not very dissimilar occurrence in India, was of the opinion

that if Parkins had closed with it it could really have done very little,

and that its one power was that of frightening. The whole thing, he said,

served to confirm his opinion of the Church of Rome.



There is really nothing more to tell, but, as you may imagine, the

Professor's views on certain points are less clear cut than they used to

be. His nerves, too, have suffered: he cannot even now see a surplice

hanging on a door quite unmoved, and the spectacle of a scarecrow in a

field late on a winter afternoon has cost him more than one sleepless

night.