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DOMINOES Series Editors: Bill Bowler and Sue Parminter The Faithful Ghost and Other Tall Tales Retold by Bill Bowler Illustrated by Zdenko Basic Ghost stories and tall tales have always interested Bill Bowler. This collection contains stories by two of the finest tellers of ghostly tales in English - Washington Irving and M. R. James. Also included are three excellent ghost stories by writers who are perhaps more famous for other types of tale - J. K. Jerome, Rudyard Kipling, and E. Nesbit. You will find exciting, sad, strange, and amusing stories in this book. But if you are easily frightened, be sure to read them in the light of day - not late at night, alone. OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS \Iw n l the A n lb o n Washington Irving (1783-1859) was born - the youngest of I I children in New York, the United States. He studied law, but worked for only a short time. He lived in Europe for many years, and was the first world famous American writer He is best known as the writer of Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, also available as a Dominoes reader. Edith Nesbit (1858-1924) was born in London, England. She went to school in France and Germany where she was very unhappy. In 1871 she moved back to England and started writing. Edith married and had children, but also wrote. She is best remembered today for her children’s stories, of which one of the most famous is The Railway Children (1906). Jerome Klapka Jerome (1859-1927) was born in Staffordshire in central England. His childhood was difficult as his parents were poor and died when he was I 3. He took jobs working for the railways, as a journalist, a teacher and an actor He wrote stories all this time but he only became famous with Three Men in a Boat (1889), an amusing story of a boat journey on the river Thames. ,( Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936) was born in Kent, England. He was a brilliant student at Cambridge University and later taught there. M. R. James also wrote some of the greatest ghost stories in English, He started writing them to amuse friends, and every Christmas Eve read a new story aloud to them. He published five books of ghost stories. Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was born in Bombay (now Mumbai) in India to English parents. He loved listening to Indian rhymes and stories as a child. When he was six he went to school in England. In 1881 he returned to live in India and started work as a journalist. He travelled widely as a journalist and a fiction writer; and lived in both the USA and England. His most famous book is The Jungle Book (1894). C o n U n ti The Faithful Ghost Meeting Mrs Dumoise The Ghostly Bridegroom Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 The Haunted Doll’s House Part 1 Part 2 Man-size in Marble Part 1 Part 2 Project A Project B BEFORE READING 1 You often find these things in ghost stories. Match the words with the pictures Use a dictionary to help you. a a grave b a candle c a churchyard d a coffin e a tomb f poison g a chapel h a cross 2 Match the titles of the stories on the Contents page with these summaries. a Some dolls show the owner of an old doll’s house a terrible story, b The ghost of a man’s dead wife comes to warn him about something, c A young couple move to a country village. As Halloween gets near, they hear a terrible story about two knights whose marble tombs are in the church nearby, d A handsome young man is on his way to get married when he is killed. Later people see his ghost meet his future bride, e An old ghost haunts the house where his love once lived. The people who live there plan to make him leave. 3 Do you know any ghost stories? Tell a partner. I he faithful abort In) IK . Jv rmi I was little more than a boy when 1 first met Johnson. I was home from school for the Christmas holidays and, because it . J moan a low was the night before Christmas my parents let me stay up very sad sound that someone makes; late. When f went to my room that night and opened the door, to make a low sad 1 found myself face to face with Johnson, who was coming out. I le passed through me and, giving a long low moan of great sadness, he disappeared out of the window by the stairs. I'or a moment I was very surprised. I was only a schoolboy at the time, I'd never seen a ghost before, and so I Iclt a little afraid about going to bed. But, thinking about it, I remembered ghosts could hm I only bad people, so f got under the bed covers and went to sleep. i In I he morning, I told my father about what I’d seen. ‘Oh, yes, Iluil was old Johnson,’ he answered. ‘Don’t be frightened of him; lie lives here.’ And then he told me the poor thing’s life story. It seemed that Johnson, when he was alive and young, had loved the daughter of a man who'd once owned our house. She was a beautiful young woman and her first name was Emily. Father didn’t know her other name. Johnson was too poor to marry her, so he kissed her goodbye, and said, ‘I'll soon be back.’ Then he left for Australia to make his fortune. But Australia wasn’t then what it became later. In those days there weren’t many people who travelled across the wide open country there that you could rob and kill. Because of this, it took Johnson nearly twenty years to get all the money he wanted. But at last the job he’d given himself was done. Escaping from the police and leaving Australia, he returned with his fortune to England - full of great happiness and hope - to ask Emily to marry him. When he reached the house, he found it silent and empty. None of the neighbours could tell him much. They said that, soon after he himself had left England, the family had ■ I disappeared quietly one cold, wet night, and that nobody had ever seen or heard anything of them since then although the landlord and many of the owners of nearby shops had tried very hard to find them. fortune money, houses and Poor Johnson, crazy with grief, had gone to look for his lost valuable things that make you a love all over the world. He never found her, and after years of rich person unsuccessful searching, he returned to end his lonely life in the landlord a man who gets money same house where, in happy earlier days, he and his dearest from renting out a Emily had spent so many wonderful hours together. house He’d lived there all alone, walking about crying and calling to grief great sadness that you his Emily to come back to him. And when the poor old thing feel after someone that you love dies had died, his ghost had gone on with the same business. 2 ‘And so,’ Father said, ‘when I moved into this house, the rent the money that you give landlord took ten pounds off the rent for me.’ every month for After that, I often met Johnson around the place at all hours a place to live; to give money every of the night, and so did everybody. At first we used to walk month for a place to live round him or stand to one side to let him pass. But when we faithful true to became more comfortable with him, it didn’t seem necessary your husband or wife and not lo be so polite, and we used to walk straight through him. You having other couldn’t say he was ever very much in our way. lovers; true to your friends or He was a gentle old ghost who wouldn’t hurt a fly, and we people that you work for and not all felt very sorry for him. For a while, indeed, he was a real forgetting them favourite with the women of the house. He was so faithful to annoy to make bis dear Emily, and their hearts were touched by it. you feel a little angry But as time went on, he started to become a little boring. sigh to blow air You sec, he was full of sadness. There was nothing amusing from your mouth with a sad or tired 01 pleasant about him. You felt sorry for him, but he annoyed sound; air that you blow from your you. lie used to sit on the stairs and cry for hours at a time. mouth with a sad And when we woke up in the middle of the night, we were sure or tired sound 10 hear him moving up and down the stairs and in and out drawing room a living room in a el the different rooms, moaning and sighing. It really wasn’t large house easy to go back to sleep again. And when we had a party, he depressing making you feel used to come and sit outside the drawing room door and very unhappy crv bitterly all the time. He didn’t really do anything to hurt grave a hole in the ground where any body, but he made everything a little depressing. you put a dead 'I'm getting tired of that stupid old ghost,’ said my father body haunt to spend one evening after Johnson had been even more annoying than lots of time in a usual, lie was sitting up the chimney, moaning, and had made place (often used of ghosts) 11 Impossible for us to think straight while we were playing a game of cards. ‘We’ll have to get rid of him, one way or auiilher. I wish I knew how to do it.’ 'Well,' said my mother. ‘You can be sure we’ll never see the buck of him until he’s found Emily’s grave. That’s what he’s looking for. Find Emily’s grave and let him know where it is, mu! lie'll go and haunt that. It’s the only thing to do.’ The idea seemed reasonable, but the difficulty was that none of us knew where Emily's grave was. Father said that we should find some other Emily’s grave and pretend it was the real thing, but, unluckily for us, no Emily of any kind was buried anywhere for miles around. I’ve never seen a place so terribly empty of dead Emilies. bury to put a dead person I thought for a while, and then I said, ‘Couldn’t we just under the ground make a grave for Emily in our garden? He doesn’t seem to be believe to think the cleverest of ghosts. He might believe it’s the retd thing. that something is true At least we can try.’