Oh, Whistle, And I’ll Come To You, My Lad
by M.R. JamesGenre: Ghost Story
Setting:
Format of Original Source: Short Story
Recommended Adaptation Length:
Candidate for Adaptation? Not Reviewed
EXCERPT:
his voice boomed out over the flats, as certain also of our own minor poets have said, ‘like some great bourdon in a minster tower’.
‘Extraordinary wind, that, we had last night,’ he said. ‘In my old home we should have said someone had been whistling for it.’
‘Should you, indeed!’ said Perkins. ‘Is there a superstition of that kind still current in your part of the country?’
‘I don’t know about superstition,’ said the Colonel. ‘They believe in it all over Denmark and Norway, as well as on the Yorkshire coast; and my experience is, mind you, that there’s generally something at the bottom of what these country-folk hold to, and have held to for generations. But it’s your drive’ (or whatever it might have been: the golfing reader will have to imagine appropriate digressions at the proper intervals).
When conversation was resumed, Parkins said, with a slight hesitancy:
‘A propos of what you were saying just now, Colonel, I think I ought to tell you that my own views on such subjects are very strong. I am, in fact, a convinced disbeliever in what is called the “supernatural”.’
‘What!’ said the Colonel,’do you mean to tell me you don’t believe in second-sight, or ghosts, or anything of that kind?’
‘In nothing whatever of that kind,’ returned Parkins firmly.
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