“Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad” (1904)

Three commas for the title: M.R. James has a nice way of letting his stories unfold, almost conversationally, but with subtly strange structures and digressions along with the twists and turns. I like how golf gets involved with this one and that the third-person narrator is a little put off by it, taking pride in being ignorant of the game. Our main guy, Professor Parkins, is taking some time off to stay in the country, work on some kind of writing or research project, and “improve his game” (that’s the golf). An acquaintance asks him to look into a nearby site while he is there that may have the ruins of a “Templars preceptory.” I had to look up both terms—the Templars were deadly serious knights of the Crusades, and a preceptory was more or less a school for them. Professor Parkins, after playing a round of golf, does look into the site and does find evidence of buried ruins there. He pokes around a little and finds a strange cylindrical object. Can you guess what it is? That’s right, it’s a whistle, and when he gets done scraping away the dirt he sees that it has strange markings on it. Of course we see the danger coming. Don’t blow on that whistle, we really want to tell this guy. But of course he does and then the trouble starts. I like the way James describes the whistle’s tone. “It had a quality of infinite distance in it, and, soft as it was, [Parkins] somehow felt it must be audible for miles round.” The wind comes up suddenly and it’s difficult to close the window. The wind blows all night, and he has strange dreams. The next day, when he walks by himself, he has the feeling he is being followed. But when he turns around he sees only a strange figure in the distance that never gains on him. No problems with the golf—in fact, he plays better the second day. Children report that, while he was out, they saw someone in his room waving to them from the window. On his return to the room he sees someone has been using an extra bed there. I should also mention that Parkins is a rationalist who holds no truck with ghosts or the supernatural. His objections are cerebral and almost comic in the circumstances, but he staunchly insists on them. Among other things he is having his mind opened in this story. The ghost—ultimately there is a confrontation in the room—appears to be draped with a sheet (it has a “linen face”). You see the sheet thing a lot in cartoons and TV shows, but not actually so much in ghost stories, where they are usually more like mist if they are visible at all. But there’s an animated sheet here. The illustration above (by James McBryde) was used for a 2005 Penguin collection and is a reasonable approximation of the harassment Parkins endures. Fortunately, a believer is on hand to shepherd Parkins through and play golf with. This guy takes it upon himself to throw the whistle into a deep part of the sea. Problem solved. Or is it?

M.R. James, Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories
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