Produced by Suzanne Shell, Thomas Berger, and PG Distributed
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These stories are dedicated to all those who at various times havelistened to them.
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
A School Story
The Rose Garden
The Tractate Middoth
Casting the Runes
The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral
Martin's Close
Mr Humphreys and his Inheritance
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The first six of the seven tales were Christmas productions, the veryfirst ('A School Story') having been made up for the benefit of King'sCollege Choir School. 'The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral' was printed inContemporary Review; 'Mr Humphreys and his Inheritance' was written tofill up the volume. In 'A School Story' I had Temple Grove, East Sheen inmind; in 'The Tractate Middoth', Cambridge University Library; in'Martin's Close', Sampford Courtenay in Devon. The Cathedral ofBarchester is a blend of Canterbury, Salisbury, and Hereford.
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Two men in a smoking-room were talking of their private-school days. 'Atour school,' said A., 'we had a ghost's footmark on the staircase. Whatwas it like? Oh, very unconvincing. Just the shape of a shoe, with asquare toe, if I remember right. The staircase was a stone one. I neverheard any story about the thing. That seems odd, when you come to thinkof it. Why didn't somebody invent one, I wonder?'
'You never can tell with little boys. They have a mythology of their own.
There's a subject for you, by the way—"The Folklore of Private
Schools".'
'Yes; the crop is rather scanty, though. I imagine, if you were toinvestigate the cycle of ghost stories, for instance, which the boys atprivate schools tell each other, they would all turn out to behighly-compressed versions of stories out of books.'
'Nowadays the Strand and Pearson's, and so on, would be extensivelydrawn upon.'
'No doubt: they weren't born or thought of in my time. Let's see. Iwonder if I can remember the staple ones that I was told. First, therewas the house with a room in which a series of people insisted on passinga night; and each of them in the morning was found kneeling in a corner,and had just time to say, "I've seen it," and died.'
'Wasn't that the house in Berkeley Square?'
'I dare say it was. Then there was the man who heard a noise in thepassage at night, opened his door, and saw someone crawling towards himon all fours with his eye hanging out on his cheek. There was besides,let me think—Yes! the room where a man was found dead in bed with ahorseshoe mark on his forehead, and the floor under the bed was coveredwith marks of horseshoes also; I don't know why. Also there was the ladywho, on locking her bedroom door in a strange house, heard a thin voiceamong the bed-curtains say, "Now we're shut in for the night." None ofthose had any explanation or