Canon Alberic’s Scrap-Book

a horror author. In nineteen o four, James public among his best enduring collections ghost Stories of an Antiquary, that is, one who collects antiques. The book reads at times like a nonfiction document, citing real places and sworn testimony, blending details pulled from contemporary life with those of the unknown. The first story in this collection, originally written and printed soon after in the National Review, is titled Cannon Albericts

scrap Book. It takes place in the real village of Saint Bertrand Command, where an English tourist spends a full day surveying the relics of a dilapidated cathedral, with the sanctuaries caretaker ever looking over his shoulder, and those efforts pay off, so to speak, in the form of a scrap book. Cannon Alberts scrap Book by m R James. Saint Bertrand de Command is a decayed town on the spurs of the Pyrenees, not very far from Toulouse and

still nearer to Bannier de Luchon. It was the site of a bishopric until the Revolution, and has a cathedral which is visited by a certain number of tourists. In the spring of eighteen eighty three, an Englishman arrived at this old world place. I can hardly dignify it with the name of city, for there are not a thousand inhabitants.

He was a Cambridge man who would come specially from Toulouse to see Saint Bertrand's church, and had left two friends who were less keen archeologists than himself, and their hotel at to loose, under promise to join him on the following morning. Half an hour at the church was satisfied then, and all three could then pursue their journey

in the direction of Osh. But our Englishmen had come early on the day in question, and proposed to himself to fill a note book and to use several dozen plates in the process of describing and photographing every corner of the wonderful church that dominates the little hill of Command. In order to carry out this design satisfactorily, it was necessary to monopolize the verger of the church for the day.

The verger or sacristan I prefer the latter appellation, inaccurate as it may be, was accordingly sent for by the somewhat brusque lady who keeps the inn of the Chapeau Rouge, and when he came the Englishman found him an unexpectedly interesting object of study. It was not in the personal appearance of the little, dry, wizened old man that the interest lay. For he was precisely like dozens of other church guardians in France, but in a curious furtival rather

hunted an oppressed air which he had. He was perpetually half glancing behind him. The muscles of his back and shoulders seemed to be hunched in a continual nervous contraction, as if he were expecting every moment to find himself in the clutch of an enemy. The Englishman hardly knew whether to put him down as a man haunted by

a fixed delusion or as one oppressed by a guilty conscience. However, the Englishman, let us call him Dennis, too, was soon too deep in his notebook and too busy with his camera to give more than an occasional glance to the Sacristan. Whenever he did look at him, he found him at no great distance, either huddling himself back against the wall

or crouching in one of the gorgeous stools. Dennis Tomb became rather fidgety after a while, mingled suspicions that he was keeping the old man from his dejenny, that he was regarded as likely to make away with Saint Bertrand's ivory crosying or with the dusty stuffed crocodile that hangs over the font, began to torment him. When you go home, he said, at last, I'm quite well able to finish my notes alone. You can lock me in if you like. I shall want at least two hours more here, and

it must be cold for you, isn't it good? Heavens? Said the little man whom the suggestions seemed to throw into a state of unaccountable terror. Such a thing cannot be thought of for a moment. Leave monsieur alone in the church. No, No, two hours, three hours, All will be the same to me. I have breakfasted. I am not at all cold, with many thanks to Monsieur. Very well, my little man, quoth Dennis Stone to himself. You have been warned, and you must take the consequences. Before the

expiration of the two hours. The stalls, the enormous dilapidated organ, the choir screen of Bishop John Demoleon, the remnants of glass and tapestry, and the objects in the treasure chamber had been well and truly examined. The sacristan still keeping at Dennis Tune's heels, and every now and then whipping round as if he had been stung, when one or other of the strange noises that trouble a large empty building fell on his ear. Curious noises they were sometimes.

Once Denniston said to me, I could have sworn I heard a thin metallic voice laughing high up in the tower. I darted an inquiring glance at my sacristan. He was white to the lips. It is he that is it is no one. The door is locked, was all he said, and we looked at each other for a full minute. Another little incident puzzled Dennis Tune a good deal. He was examining a large, dark picture that hangs behind the altar, one of a series illustrating the miracles of Saint Bertrand.

The composition of the picture is well nigh indecipherable, but there is a Latin legend below which runs, thus, kalite s bertrandis the brevit hominem crime diabolus du volibat strangulaire How sat Bertram delivered a man whom the devil long

sought to strangle. Dennis June was turning to the sacristan with a smile and a jocular remark of some sort on his lips, but he was confounded to see the old man on his knees, gazing at the picture with the eye of a suppliant in agony, his hands tightly clasped, and a rain of tears on his cheeks. Denniston naturally pretended to have noticed nothing, but the question would not go away from him. Why should a daub of this

kind affect anyone so strongly? He seemed to himself to be getting some sort of clue to the reason of the strange look that had been puzzling him all the day. The man must be a monomaniac, but what was his mono mania? It was nearly five o'clock, The short day was drawing in, and the church began to fill with shadows, while the curious noises, the muffled footfalls and distant talking voices that had been perceptible all day seemed no doubt.

Because of the fading light and the consequently quickened sense of hearing to become more frequent and insistent, the sacristan began for the first time to show signs of hurry and impatience. He heaved a sigh of relief when camera and notebook were finally packed up and stowed away, and hurriedly beckoned Denniston to the western door of the church under the tower. It was time to ring the Angelus.

A few pulls at the reluctant rope, and the great bell Betrand high in the tower, began to speak and swung her voice up among the pines and down to the valleys, loud with mountain streams, calling the dwellers on those lonely hills to remember and repeat the salutation of the Angel to her, whom he called blessed among women. With that, the profound quiet seemed to fall for the fust time that day. Upon the little town. Dennis Tune and the sacristan went out of the church. On the doorstep,

they fell into conversation. Monsieur seemed to interest himself in the old choir books in the sacristy. Undoubtedly I was going to ask you if there were a library in the town. No, Monsieur. Perhaps there used to be one belonging to the chapter, but it is now such a small place. Here came a strange pause of irresolution, as it seemed. Then with a sort of plunge, he went on, But if Monsieur is amateur de voux, leave, I have at home something that might interest him. It is not

a hundred yards at once. All Dennis Tune's cherished dreams of finding priceless manuscripts in untrodden corners of France flashed up to die down again the next moment. It was probably a stupid missile of plantings printing about fifty Where was the likelihood that a place so near to lose would not have been ransacked long ago by collectors. However, it would be foolish not to go. He would reproach himsel elf forever after if he refused. So they set

off on the way. The curious irresolution and sudden determination of the Sacristan recurred to Dennis tune, and he wondered in a shamefaced way whether he was being decoyed into some purlieu to be made away with as a supposed rich englishman. He contrived, therefore, to begin talking with his guide, and to drag in in a rather clumsy fashion, the fact that he expected two friends to join him early

next morning. To his surprise, the announcement seemed to relieve the Sacristan at once of some of the anxiety that depressed him. That is well, that is very well. Monsieur will travel in company with his friends. They will be always near him. It is a good thing to travel thus in company. Sometimes the last word appeared to be added as an afterthought, and to bring with it a

relapse into gloom for the poor little man. They were soon at the house, which was one rather larger than its neighbors, stone built with a shield carved over the door. The shield of Alberic de molon To or descendant Dennis Tune tells me of Bishop John Demoleon. This Alberic was a canon of commands from sixteen eighty to seventeen o one. The upper windows of the mansion were boarded up, and the whole place bore, as does the rest of commands.

The aspect of decaying age arrived on his doorstep. The sacristan paused a moment. Perhaps, after all, the monsieur has not the time, not at all, lots of time, nothing to do till tomorrow. Let us see what it is you've got. The door was opened at this point, and a face looked out, a face far younger than the sacristan's, but bearing something of the same distressing look. Only here it seemed to be the mark not so much of fearful personal safety as of acute anxiety on behalf of another. Plainly,

the owner of the face was the Sacristan's daughter. She brightened up considerably on seeing her father accompanied by an able bodied stranger. A few remarks passed between father and daughter, of which Denniston only caught these words said by the sacristan he was laughing in the church, words which were answered only by a look of terror from the girl.

But in another minute they were in the sitting room of the house, a small high chamber with a stone floor, full of moving shadows, cast by a wood fire that flickered on a great hearth. Something of the character of an oratory was imparted to it by a tall crucifix, which reached almost to the ceiling. On one side. The figure was painted of the natural colors, the cross was black.

Under this stawod a chest of some age and solidity, And when a lamp had been brought and chairs set, the sacristan went to this chest and produced therefrom with growing excitement and nervousness, as Dennis Tone thought a large book wrapped in a white cloth, on which cloth a cross was rudely embroidered in red thread. Even before the wrapping had been removed, Dennis Tone began to be interested by the size and shape of the volume. Too large for a missile, he thought, and not the shape of

an antiphan phaps. It may be something good after all. The next moment the book was open, and Dennistone felt that he had at last lit upon something better than good. Before him lay a large folio bound perhaps late in the seventeenth century, with the arms of Cannon Albert Demoleon stamped in gold on the sides. There may have been a hundred and fifty leaves of paper in the book, and are almost every one of them was fastened a leaf from an illuminated manuscript. Such a collection Dennis Tune

had hardly dreamed of in his wildest moments. Here were ten leaves from a copy of Genesis, illustrated with pictures which could not be later than a d. Seven hundred. Further on was a complete set of pictures from a psalter of English execution of the very finest kind that

the thirteenth century could produce. And perhaps best of all, there were twenty leaves of unsealed writing in Latin, which, as a few words seen here and there told him at once, must belong to some very early unknown Patristic treatise. Could it possibly be a fragment of the copy of Pappius on the Words of Our Lord, which was known to have existed as late as the twelfth century at Memes. We now know that these leaves did contain a considerable fragment of that work, if not of that actual copy

of it. In any case, his mind was made up that book must return to Cambridge with him, even if he had to draw the whole of his balance from the bank and stay at St. Bertrand till the money came. He glanced up at the Sacristan to see if his face yielded any hint that the book was for sale.

The sacristan was pale, and his lips were working. If Monsieur will turn on to the end, so if Monsieur turned on, meeting new treasures at every rise of a leaf, and at the end of the book he came upon two sheets of paper of much more recent date than anything he had seen yet, which puzzled him considerably. They must be contemporary. He decided with the unprincipled canon Alberic, who had doubtless plundered the chapter library of Sat. Bertrand

to form this priceless scrap book. On the first of the pay apposheates was a plan carefully drawn and instantly recognizable by a person who knew the ground of the South Island cloisters of St. Bertrand's. There were curious signs looking like planetary symbols, and a few Hebrew words in the corners, and in the northwest angle of the cloister

was a cross drawn in gold paint. Below the plan were some lines of writing in Latin, which ran thus response to twelve me death six in terragatum est in veny amne response from est venies vamne divis vs. Vivamne invidendus vives marianne in lectomea eater Answers of the twelfth of December, It was asked, shall I find it? Answer thou shalt? Shall I become rich thou wilt? Shall I live an object of envy that wilt? Shall I die

in my bed thou wilt? A good specimen of the treasure hunter's record quite reminds one of Mr Minor Cannon catch remain in Old Saint Paul's was Dennis June's comment, and he turned the leaf. What he then saw impressed him, as he has often told me, more than he could have conceived any drawing or picture capable of impressing him. And though the drawing he saw is no longer in existence, there is a photograph of it which I possess, which

fully bears out that statement. The picture in question was a CPA drawing at the end of the seventeenth century, representing one would say at first the biblical scene. For the architecture the picture represented in interior, and the figures had that semi classical flavor about them which the artists of two hundred years ago frolled appropriate illustrations of the Bible. On the right was a king on his throne, the throne elevated on twelve steps, the canopy over head soldiers

on either side, evidently King Solomon. He was bending forward with outstretched scepter in attitude of command. His face expressed horror and disgust. Yet there was in it also the mark of imperious command and confident power. The left half of the picture was the strangest, however, the interest plainly centered There. On the pavement before the throne were grouped four soldiers surrounding a crouching figure, which must be described

in a moment. A fifth soldier lay dead on the pavement, his neck distorted and his eyeballs starting from his head. The four surrounding guards were looking at the king. In their faces, the sentiment of horror was intensified. They seemed, in fact, only restrained from flight by their implicit trust and their master. All this terror was plainly excited by the being that crouched in their midst. I entirely despair of conveying, by any words, the impression which this figer

makes upon anyone who looks at it, I recollect. Once showing the photograph of the drawing to a lecturer on morphology, a person of I was going to say, abnormally sane and unimaginative habits of mind. He absolutely refused to be alone for the rest of that evening, and he told me afterwards that for many nights he had not dared to put out his light before going to sleep. However, the main traits of the figure I can at least indicate. At first, you saw only a mass of course matted

black hair. Presently it was seen that this covered a body of fearful thinness, almost a skeleton, but with the muscles standing out like wires. The hands were of a dusky pallor, covered like the body, with long, coarse hairs and hideously talented. The eyes, touched in with a burning yellow, had intensely black pupils, and were fixed upon the throned

king with a look of beast like hate. Imagine one of the awful bird catching spiders of South America, translated into human form and endowed with intelligence just less than human, And you will have some faint conception of the terror inspired by the appalling effigy. One remark is universally made by those to whom I have showed the picture. It was drawn from the life. As soon as the first shock of his irresistible fright had subsided, Dennis Tune stole

a look at his hosts. The sacristan's hands were pressed upon his eyes. His daughter, looking up at the cross on the wall, was telling her beads feverishly. At last, the question was asked, is this book for sale? There was the same hesitation, the same plunge of determination that he had noticed before, and then came the welcome answer, If monsieur pleases, how much do you ask for it? I will take two hundred fifty francs. This was confounding.

Even a collector's conscience is sometimes stirred, and Dennis Tune's conscience was tenderer than a collector's. My good man, he said again and again, your book is worth far more than two hundred and fifty francs. I assure you far more. But The answer did not vary. I will take two hundred and fifty francs, not more. There was really no

possibility of refusing such a chance. The money was paid, the receipt signed, a glass of wine drunk over the transaction, and then the sacristans seemed to become a new man. He stood upright, He ceased to throw those suspicious glances behind him. He actually laughed, or tried to laugh. Dennis Tune rose to go, I shall have the honor of accompanying Monsieur to his hotel. Said the sacristan, Oh, no, thanks, it isn't a hundred yards. I know the way perfectly,

and there is a moon. The offer was pressed three or four times and refused as often. Then Monsieur will summ me if if he finds occasion, he will keep the middle of the road. The sides are so rough. Certainly, certainly, said Dennis Tune, who was impatient to examine his prize by himself, and he stepped out into the passage with his book under his arm. Here he was met by

the daughter. She, it appeared, was anxious to do a little business of her own account, perhaps like Ghazi, to take somewhat from the foreigner whom her father had spared a silver crucifix and chain for the neck. Monsieur would perhaps be good enough to accept it. Well, Really, Dennis Tune hadn't much use for these things. What did mademoiselle want for it? Nothing? Nothing in the world. Monsieur is

more than welcome to it. The tone in which this, and much more was said was unmistakably genuine, so that Dennis Tune was reduced to profuse thanks and submitted to have the chain put round his neck. It really seemed as if he had rendered the father and daughter some service which they hardly knew how to repay. As he set off with his book, they stood at the or looking after him, and they were still looking when he waived them a last good night from the steps of

the Chapeau Rouge. Dinner was over, and Dennis June was in his bedroom, shut up alone with his acquisition. The landlady had manifested a particular interest in him, since he had told her that he had paid a visit to the sacristan and brought an old book from him. He thought, too, that he had heard a hurried dialogue between her and the said sacristan in the passage outside of the Salamange. Some words to the effect that Pierre and Bertrand would

be sleeping in the house had closed the conversation. All this time, a growing feeling of discomfort had been creeping over him, nervous reaction perhaps after the delight of his discovery. Whatever it was, it resulted in a conviction that there was someone behind him, and that he was far more comfortable with his back to the wall. All this, of course, weighed light in the balance as against the obvious value

of the collection he had acquired. And now, as I said, he was alone in his bedroom taking stock of Canon Alberic's treasures, in which every moment revealed something more charming. Bless Cannon Albarek, said Denniston, who had an inveterate habit of talking to himself. I wonder where he is now, Dear me, I wish that landlady would learn to laugh in a more cheering manner. Makes one feel as if there was someone dead in the house. Half a pipe more,

did you say? I think? Perhaps you are right. I wonder what that crucifix is that the young woman insisted on giving me last century. I suppose, yes, probably it is rather a nuisance of a thing to have around one's neck, just too heavy. Most likely her father has been wearing it for years. I might give it a clean up before I put it away. He had taken the crucifix off and laid it on the table when his attention was caught by an object lying on the

red cloth just by his left elbow. Two or three ideas of what it might be flitted through his brain with their own incalculable quickness. Pen why her No, no such thing in the house, wrapped, no too black, A large spider, I trust to Goodness, not no good God.

A hand like the hand in that picture. In another infinitism or flash, he had taken it in pale, dusky skin, covering nothing but bones and tendons of appalling strength, coarse black hairs longer than ever grew on a human hand, nails rising from the ends of the fingers and curving sharply down and forward, gray, horny, and wrinkled. He flew out of his chair with deadly, inconceivable terror. Clutching at

his heart. The shape whose left hand rested on the table was rising to a standing posture behind his seat. It's right hand crooked above his scalp. There was black and tattered drapery about it. The coarse hair covered it as in the boring. The lower jaw was thin, what can I call it? Shallow like a beast's teeth showed behind the black lips there was no nose, the eyes of a fiery yellow against which the pupils showed black and intense, and the exalting hate, and first to destroy

life which shone. There were the most horrifying features in the whole vision. There was intelligence of a kind in them, intelligence beyond that of a beast, below that of a man. The feelings which this horror stirred in Dennis Tune were the intensest physical fear and the most profound mental loathing.

What did he do? What could he do? He has never been quite certain what words he said, but he knows that he spoke, that he grasped blindly at the silver crucifix, that he was conscious of a movement towards him, on the part of the demon, and that he screamed with the voice of an animal in hiding. Yes, pain Pierre and bertrand the two sturdy, little serving men who rushed in saw nothing but felt themselves thrust aside by something that passed out between them, and found Dennistone in

a swoon. They sat up with him that night, and his two friends were at St. Bertrand by nine o'clock the next morning. He himself, though still shaken and nervous, was almost himself by that time, and his story frowned credence with them, though not until they had seen the drawing and talked with the sacristan almost at dawn. The little man had come to the inn on some pretense and had listened with the deepest interest to the story

retailed by the landlady. He showed no surprise. It is he, it is he, I have seen him myself, was his only comment, and to all questionings but one reply was vouchsafed de foi mille foi jele santi. He would tell them nothing of the provenance of the book, nor any details of his experiences. I shall soon sleep and my rest will be sweet. Why should you trouble me? He died that summer. His daughter married and settled at San Papaul.

She never understood the circumstances of her father's obsession. We shall never know what he or canon Alberic Demoleon suffered. At the back of that fateful drawing were some lines of writing which may be supposed to throw light on

the situation. Contradictio salomonis come demonio nocturno Albericus Demolione delineavit vidus in auditorium, ps Key habitat sancte bertrand demoniorum effugato inter cedar promo misreno primum ordi nacte twelve me that's with debo marks or team um pecai it passes some plura adhuc passurus December one I e. The disputest Solomon with a demon of the night, drawn by Albert Demoleon. Versical, Oh Lord, make haste to help me. Psalm, who so dwelleth x c I si bertrand who put us devils

to flight, Pray for me most unhappy. I saw it first on the night of December the twelfth sixt Soon I shall see it for the last time. I have sinned and suffered, and have more to suffer yet December than one. The Garlio Christiana gives the date of the cannon's death as December thirty one, sevente in bed of a sudden caesar. Details of this kind are not common in the great work of the Sammathani. I have never quite understood what was Dennis Tune's view of the events

I have narrated. He groted to me once a text from Ecclesiasticus. Some spirits there be that are created for vengeance, and in their fury lay on sore strokes. On another occasion, he said, Isaiah was a very sensible man. Doesn't he say something about night monsters living in the ruins of Babylon. These things are rather beyond us at present. Another confidence of his impressed me rather, and I sympathized with it. We had been last year to command to see kind

of Alberic's tomb. It is a great marble erection, with an effigy of the cannon in the large wig and soutane, and an elaborate eulogy of his learning. Below. I saw a Dennis Tune talking for some time with the vicar of Saint Bertrand's, and as we drove away, he said to me, I hope it isn't wrong. You know, I am a Presbyterian, but I I believe there will be saying of mass and singing of dirges for Alberic Demoleon's rest.

Then he added, with a touch of Northern British in his tone, I had no notion they came so dear. The book is in the went With collection at Cambridge. The drawing was photographed and then burnt by Dennis Tune on the day when he left command, on the occasion of his first visit mmal Canon Alberic's Scrapbook by m R James, narrated by Alex Grass and adapted by Alexander Williams,

with producers Max Williams and Trevor Young. To learn more about this story, the author and the real town of Saint bertrand to come on, listen to our bonus episode inside Kennan Albrekts Scrapbook with Arthur Helen Grant, available now. It's almost close to meta fiction in the sense that the real and the fictional are so closely entwined in some of the stories that you can't really pick them apart.

Find more podcasts from my Heart Radio by visiting the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and learn more about this one at Ephemeral. That show of the Halloween