The Unquiet Grave – Short Stories

M. James

Peter Hawkins

Oxford Bookworms LibraryLevel 4

A level 4 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Peter Hawkins.

If you find a locked room in a lonely inn, don't try to open it, even on a bright sunny day. If you find a strange whistle hidden among the stones of an old church, don't blow it. If a mysterious man gives you a piece of paper with strange writing on it, give it back to him at once. And if you call a dead man from his grave, don't expect to sleep peacefully ever again.

M.R. JAMES

THE UNQUIET GRAVE SHORT STORIES

THE UNQUIET GRAVE

SHORT STORIES

The dead do not always lie quietly in their graves. Sometimes they have unfinished business with the living world, and want revenge for a wrong done to them. Perhaps in life they did wrong themselves and even in death can find no peace, so they must come back to bring trouble and fear to the living.

In these five stories the dead can come at any time, in any place, and in the strangest of ways – to an Oxford College, where Mr Williams is looking with interest at an old picture; or in bright sunshine to an inn where young Mr Thomson is spending his holiday. When the lights go out in Mr Edward Dunning’s room and he reaches out to find the matches, what is it that his fingers touch in the dark? The wife and stepson of Squire Bowles have a question to ask, but only the Squire knows the answer, and how can you ask a question of a man who lies dead in his grave?

And when Professor Parkins blows an old whistle he has found, is it only the wind that answers, or something more? Something unseen, unheard, but more horrible than you could ever imagine …

OXFORD

UNIVERSITY PRESS

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford

It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in

Oxford New York

Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto

With offices in

Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam

OXFORD and OXFORD ENGLISH are registered trade marks of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries

This simplified edition В© Oxford University Press 2008

Database right Oxford University Press (maker)

First published in Oxford Bookworms 1996

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

No unauthorized photocopying

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the ELT Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above

You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer

Any websites referred to in this publication are in the public domain and their addresses are provided by Oxford University Press for information only

Oxford University Press disclaims any responsibility for the content

ISBN 978 0 19 479191 5

Typeset by Wyvern Typesetting Ltd, Bristol

Printed in Hong Kong

e-Book ISBN 978 0 19 463030 6

e-Book first published 2015

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Illustrated by: Paul Fisher Johnson

Word count (main text): 15,860 words

For more information on the Oxford Bookworms Library, visit www.oup.com/elt/bookwormswww.oup.com/elt/bookworms (http://www.oup.com/elt/bookworms)

The Picture

For several years Mr Williams worked for the museum at the Universit