GUARDIAN DEMON
"'Startled as I was, I looked round after him, and saw him stand for a
minute at the top and then walk away a few yards. Then I heard him call
softly, "All right, sir," and went on pulling out the great bag, in
complete darkness. It hung for an instant on the edge of the hole, then
slipped forward on to my chest, and put its arms round my neck.'"
"'My dear Gregory, I am telling you the exact truth. I believe I am now
acquainted with the extremity of terror and repulsion which a man can
endure without losing his mind. I can only just manage to tell you now
the bare outline of the experience. I was conscious of a most horrible
smell of mould, and of a cold kind of face pressed against my own, and
moving slowly over it, and of several--I don't know how many--legs or
arms or tentacles or something clinging to my body. I screamed out, Brown
says, like a beast, and fell away backward from the step on which I
stood, and the creature slipped downwards, I suppose, on to that same
step. Providentially the band round me held firm.'"
M.R. James, The Treasure Of Abbot Thomas
How Christmas-ey!
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