The M.R. James Megapack Read Online Free PDF Page A

subject. Two incidents that occurred about this time made an impression upon Stephen’s mind.
    The first was after an unusually uneasy and oppressed night that he had passed—though he could not recall any particular dream that he had had.
    The following evening Mrs Bunch was occupying herself in mending his nightgown.
    “Gracious me, Master Stephen!” she broke forth rather irritably, “how do you manage to tear your nightdress all to flinders this way? Look here, sir, what trouble you do give to poor servants that have to darn and mend after you!”
    There was indeed a most destructive and apparently wanton series of slits or scorings in the garment, which would undoubtedly require a skilful needle to make good. They were confined to the left side of the chest—long, parallel slits about six inches in length, some of them not quite piercing the texture of the linen. Stephen could only express his entire ignorance of their origin: he was sure they were not there the night before.
    “But,” he said, “Mrs Bunch, they are just the same as the scratches on the outside of my bedroom door: and I’m sure I never had anything to do with making them .”
    Mrs Bunch gazed at him open-mouthed, then snatched up a candle, departed hastily from the room, and was heard making her way upstairs. In a few minutes she came down.
    “Well,” she said, “Master Stephen, it’s a funny thing to me how them marks and scratches can ’a’ come there—too high up for any cat or dog to ’ave made ’em, much less a rat: for all the world like a Chinaman’s finger-nails, as my uncle in the tea-trade used to tell us of when we was girls together. I wouldn’t say nothing to master, not if I was you, Master Stephen, my dear; and just turn the key of the door when you go to your bed.”
    “I always do, Mrs Bunch, as soon as I’ve said my prayers.”
    “Ah, that’s a good child: always say your prayers, and then no one can’t hurt you.”
    Herewith Mrs Bunch addressed herself to mending the injured nightgown, with intervals of meditation, until bed-time. This was on a Friday night in March, 1812.
    On the following evening the usual duet of Stephen and Mrs Bunch was augmented by the sudden arrival of Mr Parkes, the butler, who as a rule kept himself rather to himself in his own pantry. He did not see that Stephen was there: he was, moreover, flustered and less slow of speech than was his wont.
    “Master may get up his own wine, if he likes, of an evening,” was his first remark. “Either I do it in the daytime or not at all, Mrs Bunch. I don’t know what it may be: very like it’s the rats, or the wind got into the cellars; but I’m not so young as I was, and I can’t go through with it as I have done.”
    “Well, Mr Parkes, you know it is a surprising place for the rats, is the Hall.”
    “I’m not denying that, Mrs Bunch; and, to be sure, many a time I’ve heard the tale from the men in the shipyards about the rat that could speak. I never laid no confidence in that before; but tonight, if I’d demeaned myself to lay my ear to the door of the further bin, I could pretty much have heard what they was saying.”
    “Oh, there, Mr Parkes, I’ve no patience with your fancies! Rats talking in the wine-cellar indeed!”
    “Well, Mrs Bunch, I’ve no wish to argue with you: all I say is, if you choose to go to the far bin, and lay your ear to the door, you may prove my words this minute.”
    “What nonsense you do talk, Mr Parkes—not fit for children to listen to! Why, you’ll be frightening Master Stephen there out of his wits.”
    “What! Master Stephen?” said Parkes, awaking to the consciousness of the boy’s presence. “Master Stephen knows well enough when I’m a-playing a joke with you, Mrs Bunch.”
    In fact, Master Stephen knew much too well to suppose that Mr Parkes had in the first instance intended a joke. He was interested, not altogether pleasantly, in the situation; but all his questions were