Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to you, My Lad

by M.R. James

M. R. James was a prolific and hugely successful author, now credited with having redefined the ghost story for the 20th century by abandoning many of the formal Gothic clichés of his predecessors and using more realistic contemporary settings. Originally published in 1904, 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to you, My Lad' ranks amongst his best and most underrated tales. Many of the earliest ghost stories and tales of hauntings, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Classics, Fiction, Gothic, Audiobook, Ghosts

29 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1904

About the author

Montague Rhodes James, who used the publication name M.R. James, was a noted English mediaeval scholar & provost of King's College, Cambridge (1905–18) & of Eton College (1918–36). He's best remembered for his ghost stories which are widely regarded as among the finest in English literature. One of James' most important achievements was to redefine the ghost story for the new century by dispensing with many of the formal Gothic trappings of his predecessors, replacing them with more realistic contemporary settings.

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

M.R.^James

Reviews

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 4 out of 5]

”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.”


Illustration by James McBryde

I’m sure everyone has woken in the middle of the night and had a fright from something that in uncertain light and various shades of shadows looked like a creature or person was in the room with you. I remember waking up during those most uncertain hours between midnight and 2AM, and I saw a man, rather large, striding across the room towards me. I was caught in that crucial, but nebulous moment of fight or flight, which left me paralyzed. My mouth dropped open to scream, but nothing came out except a squeak, which was far from the roar that my brain had sent scurrying down my nervous system to deploy. Lightning flashed, and it was only then that I noticed it was a shirt swaying on a hanger on the back of my bedroom door.

I was living in Tucson at the time and frequently left windows open at night to take advantage of the cool breezes that would come off the desert. It was the beginning of monsoon season, and a storm had come in with a stiffer breeze than normal that gave the shirt life. Despite alerting all the various parts of my body that we were not in mortal danger anymore, it took several long seconds for my muscles to let go. When I could move, I shut the window and hung that shirt in the closet, where it damn well belonged.

The lingering embarrassment of being so fooled kept me company for a few days.

Professor Parkins of St. James College in Cambridge doesn’t believe in ghosts or anything else associated with the supernatural. He is a serious man of biology, and though he is leaving for a short break on the coast at Burnstow to sharpen up his golf game, he has also brought along a pile of books to continue his studies in the evenings, hopefully uninterrupted. Then, one of the other professors jests that he would come along and stay with him for a couple of days later in the week. ” 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.”

Of course, Parkins does not want the company, but he is also offended at the mention of ghosts. They don’t exist after all, so there is no need for any consideration to be given to them. Professor Disney asks him if he could step off the size of a potential dig site of the Templar ruins of interest to the department near the Globe Inn where he will be staying. Parkins begrudgingly agrees to help. He plays golf and bridge once in Burnstow, but it is easy to see that those are the things he does an obligation to being on vacation, when if the truth were known, he’d just rather be locked up alone with his books.

He does take some time to go scout this Templar ruin, mainly because he had a bad day of golf and needed to clear his head. In the course of his wandering about the site, he finds a bronze whistle. He takes it back to his room and cleans all the caked mud out of the stem. There are Latin inscriptions on the side. "Quis est iste, qui venit?" which Parkins translates as "Who is it that comes?".

The second inscription meaning eludes him.

Of course, once a man cleans out a whistle he has...to...blow...it.

”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.”

Little did he know he was summoning something he doesn’t believe can exist.

This is my first M. R. James and certainly will not be my last. This is a gothic, atmospheric piece, so the plot is moving at a slow burn pace, but as Parkins starts to access and process the odd things that are happening around him, he begins to understand that the real world might extend into realms he is unwilling to believe in. I was fooled by movement in uncertain light, but Parkins is in for something rather more alarming.

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[Bill Kerwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad” is a classic, a must-read for all lovers of the English ghost story. (“But you always say that about M.R. James’ stories.” “Well, yes . . . at least for the stories in the first two collections, I do.)

I don’t want to spoil its thrills by saying much about it, but I’ll say this: if you have ever been disturbed, in the growing dark, by the shape of crumpled bed clothes, then this is the tale for you.

Three other things: 1) Our protagonist Perkins’ area of specialization (Ontography) is ironic, for “ontagraphy is defined as “that division of geography which is concerned with the responses of organic beings to their physiographic surroundings or environment,” and Perkins own “responses” to his “physiographic surroundings” nearly get him killed, 2) the character of Colonel Wilson is artfully used for comic relief, and 3) Fritz Leiber took the basic idea of this story, altered it slightly (books not bedclothes), and exploited it to great effect in the climax of Our Lady of Darkness.

If you haven’t read it before, I envy you. You’ve got a treat coming!

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

WELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!

this explanation/intro will be posted before each day’s short story. scroll down to get to the story-review.

this is the FOURTH year of me doing a short story advent calendar as my december project. for those of you new to me or this endeavor, here’s the skinny: every day in december, i will be reading a short story that is 1) available free somewhere on internet, and 2) listed on goodreads as its own discrete entity. there will be links provided for those of you who like to read (or listen to) short stories for free, and also for those of you who have wildly overestimated how many books you can read in a year and are freaking out about not meeting your 2019 reading-challenge goals. i have been gathering links all year when tasty little tales have popped into my feed, but i will also accept additional suggestions, as long as they meet my aforementioned 1), 2) standards.

if you scroll to the end of the reviews linked here, you will find links to all the previous years’ stories, which means NINETY-THREE FREEBIES FOR YOU!

2016: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
2017: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
2018: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

reviews of these will vary in length/quality depending on my available time/brain power.

so, let’s begin

DECEMBER 18

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.

this was a pleasant surprise! even though this author wrote The Diary of Mr Poynter; the 'haunted curtains*' story that i read and enjoyed last year whilst making my way through seth's excellent "ghost stories for christmas" series (of which three more were published this year and will be reviewed here anon), i didn't have the highest hopes going into this one.

here's the funny thing—i just reread my review for the haunted curtains** story, and this is one of the things i said:

...it is a whole lot better than i thought it was going to be. i’d always kind of lumped m.r. james in with algernon blackwood in my mind as “contemporaneous english writers of dry and boring ghost stories that do not scare me one bit.”

and all of that holds up except for the “boring” part. this story was funny and pretty modern, not at all the stuffy atmospheric "mayyyyyybe it’s a ghost but maybe it’s maaaaadnessss” kind of thing i was expecting.

that is what i thought A YEAR AGO, and apparently i forgot all about what i learned from reading that story, because that is what i felt THIS MORNING, as i sat down to read this story, and was AGAIN struck by the modernity of the tone and the humor and the playfulness. not scary, because i am as brave as i am forgetful, but a great story, and if seth ever starts repeating authors in that series, i hope he chooses this one.



read it for yourself here:

https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/j/jame...


* HAUNTED. CURTAINS.

**HAUNTED CURTAINS!!!!!!

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DECEMBER 14 GOODREADS ERASED THIS STORY AND MY REVIEW FROM THE SITE, SO IF YOU REALLY WANT TO READ IT, IT IS HERE. THANKS.
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come to my blog!

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 4* of five

Reading it was most amusing as I was, only yesterday, watching the 1968 BBC adaptation of the story. I am deficient as a human being, somehow, as James's "creepiness" whizzes past me and leaves no trace on my creeper. The story is, as a story, delightful and James is, as a writer, mannered yet quite readable.

The adaptation is delightful but again leaves me utterly uncreeped. It is a moral failing on my part, I'm sure, and the legions of James fans are superior souls who see something invisible to my grosser senses. That does not keep me from recommending both story and film to you in the heartfelt certainty that you are very likely to enjoy them. I certainly did. Most especially relatable was the moment when the insufferable bore Professor Parkin is unpacking his suitcase and out comes a stack of books before anything else. That charmed me to the bone.

[Elizabeth (Plant Based Bride) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short story really pleasantly surprised me. Not only was it atmospheric and eerie, with a fantastic buildup of tension to the genuinely frightening climax, but it was full of unexpected humour and great characters, which were well-developed despite this story's short length.

This was my first foray into M.R. James' work, and it certainly won't be my last!


Watch the Halloween reading vlog here: https://youtu.be/0vphkBXq6zs


Trigger/Content Warnings: n/a


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[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short is perhaps the best known of M R James stories certainly for Christmas. Certainly someone has blown a whistle in the UK as winds are high and this added to the atmosphere. Unlike many James stories this doesn’t have the sense of uncertainty or ambiguity. It’s a good old fashioned ghost story. I also listened to the audio book with David Suchet. A slow start but give it time. As I travel for work this had the sense of domestic horror. I’ll never have two beds in my hotel room again.

[Quirkyreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was classic M.R. James. It made my hair stand on end.

[LA · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short and creepy classic with rare instance of the narration crossing the boundary to speak with the reader. I may sweat through my bedsheets tonight! Fun stuff. 🎃

[Chantel · Rating 2 out of 5]

The fiend of fear grovels for a feast in every quaint story & smooth rabbit’s foot. There are too few members of the literary world who understand what it means to induce fear. The raving lunacy behind bars, & the craven despair of the ghoulish soul neither incite torment nor do they gnaw the ribcage with sufficient terror on their own. Within the world of stories, fantasies, & fiction lives the human being who wanders alongside case studies of individuals whose personal haunts inspire the doomed plots others purchase in those unsuspecting local bookshops.

I often feel myself wading into waters of redundancy. Though I proclaim myself an admirer of the Horror genre, I seem to find myself stuck in a vortex of twilights, each one identical to the next, reading stories that neither incite fear into my heart nor riddle me with appreciation for the time spent writing, such gruesomely boring material. However, many times, I must write my beliefs as prayers to Goliath, I am tired of the familiar foe that imagines themselves better than what they are.

Here again, a story came to my attention that boasted great praise from the reading community. One evening, much like many others, I scrolled the r/HorrorLit subreddit & consumed the eager words of strangers, sharing their most beloved scary story.

It is not that I do not believe that other readers cannot gauge good writing or that they have no brain to comprehend exquisite storytelling. It is rather that I am tired of boosting egos, pretending that a shallow tale is one worth commemorating.

I scrolled the thread, meeting names of authors I have engaged with before & chuckling at the whims of fancy that plagued the lives of readers who were easy to please. A few such anonymous folks upvoted M.R. James.

Here, I must make special note that the name of the author seemed familiar to me. I cannot recall having read any of his stories before, nor can I pinpoint who might have spoken his name so that it tickled my cerebrum that evening. Perhaps, like a classically devilish ghost, James came to me via the online forum of crass liars & honest make-believers so that I might sit in haunted glory & write this review for you.

In essence, this is a story about a man who goes on vacation, finds an old whistle on the beach at night, & summons a ghost that takes the shape of his linens. The main character, the Professor, needed time away & so he booked himself a stay at a small hotel near the beach. He golfs every day, he eats well-prepared meals, & he reads until he falls asleep. Yet for some odd, & unknown reason, his behaviour does a total 180 after he wanders the beach to the ruins, where his neighbourhood friend told him he would find a worthy study of antiquity.

Although my introduction spoke of my general disquiet regarding highly praised Horror, I was not altogether disappointed by James’ work. There is evidence in this tale that he was influenced by the cultures of other communities & by his century. Having published this story in the early twentieth century, I can imagine that James wanted his readers to understand how easy it would be for them to become haunted by the casual & unsuspecting normalcy that surrounds them every day. I am left wondering if his early readers agreed with this take.

Whereas I went into this story with the best of intentions—to have my socks spooked off my feet—I was not met with the pleasure of a terror’s tremor. I read this story in the night, right before I went to sleep, to give the story the scenic boost I suspected it might benefit from. In the stillness of my home, I wandered over the pages, kindly uploaded to Project Gutenberg & over the course of 30 minutes, I grew weary & ready for sleep.

There are aspects of this story that I appreciated, such as the stupidity of the Professor to gather an artifact hidden deep in the sandy confines of the ruins, & blow into the whistle as though whistling at night were a normal, intelligent thing to do. I laughed heartily as he whistled a second time & as he wandered into his motel room, pondering his dusty old find.

The reader is not given many details about the Professor. James introduces his main character through the narrator’s recollections. This tertiary person does not feature in the Professor’s story at all & one is left suspecting that the Professor must have transmitted him this story some years later in the hopes of ridding himself of the memory.

Because the reader is not given many details about the mysterious man who does not believe in ghosts, their investment in the occurrences that take place might be minimal.

I found myself humorously enjoying the Professor’s near-idiotic reactions to what was happening & yet I had no leg in the race; nothing that took place required my mental investment. The story had already unravelled & the narrator was aware of what was to take place, so the reader is sure that an end is in sight.

However, the details the narrator chooses to share often feel overwhelmingly dull. Does the reader require the introductory conversation between the Professor & his friends to understand the man himself? Did the reader require the golfing sequence to appreciate the ghost waving in the window?

In neither case does the scene add to the intrigue that is meant to be mounting. In fact, the ghost itself hardly factors into the plot & is written as though a second thought, rather than the main antagonist; the whole reason why this story is being told at all.

I was left perplexed by James’ approach. When the Professor first sees the ghost as a man-like figure wandering on the beach behind him, the story adopts a gloomy & uncomfortable tone, which is well-suited for what the story promises to deliver.

My favourite sequence takes place at the breakfast table when the Professor is told that the second bed in his room shows signs of being slept in. I deeply wish James had paced himself when writing what came next, for he had gathered enough clawing mystery that his story could have been spooky indeed.

Unfortunately, the remainder of the story stalls. The recounting of every little interaction, of every little thought & action that the Professor takes, only to have the conniving ghost be a figure in linen drapes felt utterly disappointing. There is no pay-off wherein the reader might feel that the sequences that take place are pieced together.

Who is the phantom? Why was he able to adopt the figure of a man when waving to the boy & while on the beach but remained hidden in bedsheets when appearing to the Professor at night? What was the significance of the whistle that the Professor blew into? Why did everyone else believe in ghosts except for the Professor? What part of this society allowed for belief in the paranormal to be so normalized?

I have so many questions that remain unanswered. Any hope I held that this story would be a great feat of fear was dashed the moment the Professor described his villain as a bedsheet-wearing blind figure who couldn’t even see the Professor.

Why was this ghost sleeping in the Professor’s room? Why was he waiting for the Professor to get out of bed on the third night to make himself known? Why hadn’t the ghost wandered to the Professor’s bed on the second night? What was the ghost there to achieve?

Of course, one may read this story & not require any further explanation. Suffice it to know that a paranormal figure was sleeping in the same room as the non-believer, for readers to tremble with fear. This is not enough for me, as is evidenced by this long & frustrating review.

I feel disappointed because the author carved out room for a story that was unsuspecting & yet, at the last moment, when it counted to be furious with malevolence, he backed away & changed course, leaving the Professor unscathed & the haunted horror to devilishly haunt the bedroom of someone else, some other night.

Ultimately, I feel tired of meeting this kind of story, yet I know that tomorrow, I will seek them out again. I remain ever the more hopeful that there will come an old ghost story so tragic & forlorn that I shan’t ever be able to escape the pages on which it is written. I anticipate that day with gentle longing.

As the narrator concludes his tale, the reader will snuggle into their bed next to the invisible poltergeist whose name once rang the familiar & sympathetic tune of a dead young soul, seeking out the living creature who would befriend him.

Perhaps this reader will shudder & coyly turn away for Casper to wander onward, draped & drooping in the exiled middle ground of longing. Yet, perhaps still, he may wander to my own home where he will be met with others like him, whose love of the kinder, gentle, softness of life will make him feel warm, as though he were wrapped in a blanket, safe & sound.

If you would like to read this story, please visit this •LINK•

[Sunnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short tale of ancient civilization and what it leaves for those from future generations . . . Oh! Why am I clutching this blanket so tightly?

[Shannon M (Canada) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another ebook free to download to your phone or iPad, this time courtesy of Project Gutenberg Canada. OH, WHISTLE, AND I’LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD is a ghost story first published in 1904. The language is formal, a bit pompous, as the author, M. R. James was an British academic, and not a full-time writer. The story takes place in the fictional town of Burnstow—a setting James has identified as largely based on Felixstowe, a medieval seaside town in Suffolk.

I don’t think that I liked this one quite as much as “Train For Flushing”, primarily because of the pedantic language, but it is still interesting historically. It isn’t scary, but rather a carefully constructed rendering of a mysterious set of occurrences.

[Katerina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Отличная готика, только, увы, мои жаждущие ужасов студенты ее еще не потянут, отложу до следующего года.

[Maliha Tabassum (back from hiatus) Tisha · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this as part of the Classic Tales of Horror - 500+ Stories. It was very entertaining 2023

[Dee · Rating 2 out of 5]

A slight horror style regarding a ghost. I like the idea of the story but it lacked that grip sadly.

[Janete on hiatus due health issues · Rating 4 out of 5]

Text + audio.

SYNOSPSIS: "Parkins, the protagonist, is a young Cambridge University professor on holiday in the town of Burnstow (a fictionalized version of Felixstowe, Suffolk), on the southeast coast of England. He resides at The Globe Inn for the duration of his stay, and has promised to investigate the grounds of a nearby preceptory for a colleague during his stay, with view to his colleague further exploring the site the following summer.

While investigating a cavity within what he believes to be the base of a ruined Templar platform or altar for his colleague, Parkins finds an ancient bronze whistle. Parkins pockets his find and returns to the inn, noting as he walks along the desolate beach that a "shape of indistinct personage" appears to be making great efforts to catch up with him in the distance, to no avail."

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best MR James story that I have read so far. I had already seen the BBC television version starring John Hurt, but the story is even better. Bedsheets have never been this scary!

[Furciferous Quaintrelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

What the actual feck?

That was like having the world's most boring conversationalist, trying, desperately politely, to engage you in a tale that you neither care about nor have prompted them to share, in a style much like I am belabouring with this twatwaffle of a sentence, so as to render everyone in earshot both bored and tempted to slap the storyteller in the throat, with a view to preventing them from ever being able to utter any other syllables in the presence of any owner of ears, ever again.

Yes, this story sounded just like that previous sentence.

Not long enough to share much information that would make the reader care about anyone or anything involved, this was less a story, more a painfully recollected anecdote. I have no idea why anyone would say that this was scary. It was boring. Dull. Impossible to engage with and culminating with a finale so anticlimactic, I almost slapped myself to make me feel something. Anything.

I don't know who recommended this. Can't even remember why I happened upon it, but if I do remember who was responsible for getting me to read this, I will pelt them with tuna fish and curse all of their bloodline.

Just awful. Best part of it was the fact that it was short.

I will have forgotten about this by next week.

Hopefully that gives me sufficient time to recall who pointed this out to me and fling the aforementioned tuna fish at them.

I will of course take it out of the tin first.

But only because I really want the fishy brine to get all over them and make them smell vile until they go strip, shower and put fresh clothes on.

I'm not violent enough to throw a can of tuna at them.

Are you still reading this?

Why?

I'm creating a more engaging review than the goddamn nonsense-mongering mess of a short-story I'm talking about.

Okay I'm boring myself even more now.

Meh.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

An essay in Michael Chabon's Maps and Legends titled 'The Other James' refers to this M.R. James ghost story as "one of the finest short stories ever written," high praise that couldn't help but prompt me to read it. And I did enjoy it, although I wouldn't say it was among my favorite short stories, let alone the finest ever written. It reminded me a great deal of William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki, The Ghost Finder.

[Veronique · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5*

Having just finished King’s Later, I couldn’t resist revisiting one of my favourite ghost stories. Yes, it is old fashioned, but it works. David Suchet’s rendition is of course stellar and makes the whole experience that much better.

[GoldGato · Rating 4 out of 5]

M.R. James sets up another supernatural short story using nature as a stepping stone. On a desolate beach by the dim and murmuring sea, a vacationing professor accidentally stumbles upon an old Templar site, where he finds a strangely carved whistle. As usual with James, there are bitterly cold winds blowing, so the Professor takes his strange discovery back with him to his room at the seaside inn. As he walks, he can see something trying to catch up with him, although it never seems to make up any distance.

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

After he finishes dining, the Professor takes another look at the whistle. There is lettering on one side, which states, QUIS EST ISTE QUI VENIT. This translates to, Who is this who is coming. The other side of the whistle also has lettering, FLA FUR BIS FLE, which is a bit stranger. The Professor then does what he shouldn’t do, which is to blow the whistle. This leads to more gusts of wind, moaning and rushing, and with such a terrible noise as to be ghost-story scary.

As I was reading this, I was whispering to the Professor, “Do NOT blow the whistle”. Alas, he does. For the second inscription on the ancient whistle really translates to thief, if you blow, you will weep, something the Professor doesn’t know. You can never outrun evil spirits.

Even though I anticipated where this story was going, I was still surprised to be taking short breaths and that’s because M.R. James knew how to write scary stories. I will certainly not be taking solitary walks at Felixstowe any time soon.

Book Season = Autumn (beware of bedclothes)

[Cole W · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story drew me in right away with its quiet tension and understated eeriness. It’s the kind of narrative that invites you to read slowly and pay attention, not just to what’s happening, but to what’s not being said. The way it handles the boundaries of reason, detachment, and the unspoken weight of the unknown felt especially compelling to me. There’s something deeply unsettling about how the protagonist moves through the world, confident in his own framework yet strangely vulnerable in ways that seem to slip past his awareness.

What resonated most were the subtle cues about isolation and the cracks that form when someone leans too heavily on logic while ignoring the emotional and existential undercurrents around them. The story doesn’t scream its themes. It lets them linger just beneath the surface. That kind of restraint takes skill, and I appreciated how it left space for the reader to reflect and interpret.

Still, it didn’t fully land. The pacing, while intentional, felt like it held back a little too much. The buildup is rich, but the resolution never quite delivers the depth it seems to promise. I kept wanting just a little more. More clarity, more weight, more consequence. It’s a thoughtful and atmospheric piece, one that clearly understands the terrain it touches, but for me it stopped just short of leaving a lasting impression.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a nice classic creepy story. What would you do if you were staying in a hotel or some place that had maid service who asked why 1 person slept in both beds? What would you do if you only slept in one and didn't know who was using the other bed while you slept? Good concept and story.

[Benjamin Stahl · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of James's more famous stories, and for good reason. Not only is it very atmospheric and creepy, particularly in the former half, but he also infuses a surprising amount of humour into it as well. Just the professors bantering with each other at campus in the beginning is immediately engaging. But then James takes you into his usual, magnificent realm of classic, understated, British ghostliness. The imagery he evokes as the protagonist makes his way home along and the beach, and eventually notices some strange figure in the distance lumbering after him, made this story specifically stay in my head for a while. I felt the ending went a little over the top, achieving a somewhat Goosebumps-level horror ending, but all things considered, this is a very good story to give fans of this genre the creeps.

[K. Anna Kraft · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have arranged my thoughts into a haiku:

"Something to be learned:
Items one finds in the dirt
Don't go in one's mouth."

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

I watched the 1968 television film of this story (which has the slightly different title "Whistle and I'll Come to You") and I wondered how close it was to the original story. I did not read the story in the book pictured here on Goodreads; it is available online.

The story is, in fact, significantly different from that film based on it. Parkins, an aging professor in the film version (played wonderfully by Michael Hordern) is a much younger man in the story. This undoubtedly accounts in part for the somewhat more cheerful ending of the original story.

But that original story is surprisingly jocular throughout, which I did not expect from a famous horror tale. There are comic interjections in the story, asides to the basic narrative which I found to have a peculiar distancing effect. The story has a narrator, who at times is clearly present at some incident but who much more often seems to be an omniscient observer. The following are some examples:


"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.

************************************

It was, as you might expect, a person of antiquarian pursuits who said this, but, since he merely appears in this prologue, there is no need to give his entitlements.

************************************

In repeating the above dialogue I have tried to give the impression that it made on me, that Parkins was something of an old woman - rather hen-like, perhaps, in his little ways, totally destitute, alas! of the sense of humour...

************************************

"But it's your drive" (or whatever it might have been: the golfing reader will have to imagine appropriate digressions at the proper intervals).

************************************

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...


The final paragraph of the story also seems to me to be meant to be comic rather than horrific.

I am hopeful that the rabid anti-Catholicism expressed by the otherwise admirable Colonel Wilson is intended to be so appalling that it becomes humorous. I found it at best unnecessary to the story.

Many of the comments that I have read about this story emphasize how terrifying it is. At no point did I feel the traditional "cold grue" of horror that others remark upon. The only part of the story that approached that for me is Parkins's kind of vision of a man running, fleeing in horror from an unknown pursuer.

A problem that I had with the story that other readers might not share is a number of words or phrases with which I was unfamiliar: ontography, groyne, preceptory, cleek (as a golfing term), bourdon ("some great bourdon in a minster tower"), objurgation, ferae naturae, experto crede. (Yes, I could - and did - look these up; I was just surprised to find so many such terms in such a short story.)

I found this to be an enjoyable story rather than a frightening one - but "enjoyable" is by no means a bad thing.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Professor Parkins, a scholar on holiday, while poking around old Templar ruins at the seaside, finds an ancient metal whistle. On an impulse he blows it, and the wind rises. He also seems to see a vision of a man chased by something pale and horrible across the beaches. Back at his hotel he has the distressing experience of encountering what his whistle had evoked; a frighteningly malevolent cloth being with a face of crumpled linen.

[Mahrufa Mery · Rating 2 out of 5]

ভাল লাগেনি। প্লট ভাল, কিন্তু গল্পটা বোরিং

[Perrilyn Pringle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty spooky poltergeist.

[Kate Bystrova · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short story came very well recommended by a gentleman (there was no other way to describe him, really) of many winters as well as a girl in her mid-twenties. Well, I thought, if a text spans a gap like that and comes out on top, surely it's worth a look.

The first thing that struck me about the story is that it is very well written and very classically crafted - and so made me feel immediately impatient. The opening few pages take the form of a pretty stilted conversation between the protagonist, Professor Parkin, and his peers at a university dinner (banquet) table. The scene definitely manages to establish Parkin's personality (which is satisfyingly rather unlikable, at first), but it does read stiffly and unnaturally, having the unfortunate effect of coming across as quite Literary. But this is the only thing that I found even a little tedious about the story.

The rest of the narrative is very atmospheric and engaging, drawing you in in the way a good ghost story should. The, shall we say, "vision" sequence that is described when Parkin closes his eyes one night is one of the best and most eerie scenes I have ever read - the description came to life in my mind instantly and I absolutely relished it, seeing it as a moving painting or spine-tingling zoetrope (specifically, it put me in mind of the type of fast-moving, unsettling and almost stop-motion filming style that was used in the old King Arthur film - although I forget what the method and film are actually called).

Lets just say that I had to be accompanied around the house for the rest of the evening.

Without going into spoiler territory, let me just say that if you like a good horror story, read this one - it isn't very long, but it's oh so very good. And it will, deliciously, haunt you.