The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Five Jars, by Montague Rhodes James

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Title: The Five Jars

Author: Montague Rhodes James

Release Date: December 31, 2007 [EBook #24089]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE FIVE JARS

by

M. R. JAMES.

Author of "Ghost Stories of an Antiquary"

New York. Longmans, Green & Co.

London. Edward Arnold & Co.

1922

All Rights Reserved

_Printed in Great Britain by_

UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, LONDON AND WOKING

CONTENTS

PAGE

I. THE DISCOVERY 11

II. THE FIRST JAR 31

III. THE SECOND JAR 43

IV. THE SMALL PEOPLE 59

V. DANGER TO THE JARS 83

VI. THE CAT, WAG, SLIM AND OTHERS 109

VII. THE BAT-BALL 135

VIII. WAG AT HOME 155

I

THE DISCOVERY

My Dear Jane,

You remember that you were puzzled when I told you I had heard something
from the owls--or if not puzzled (for I know you have some experience of
these things), you were at any rate anxious to know exactly how it
happened. Perhaps the time has now come for you to be told.

It was really luck, and not any skill of mine, that put me in the way of
it; luck, and also being ready to believe more than I could see. I have
promised not to put down on paper the name of the wood where it
happened: that can keep till we meet; but all the rest I can tell
exactly as it came about.

It is a wood with a stream at the edge of it; the water is brown and
clear. On the other side of it are flat meadows, and beyond these a
hillside quite covered with an oak wood. The stream has alder-trees
along it,