SOURCE: "The Mezzotint" by M. R. James  (1904)

DESCRIPTION: "...The picture lay face upwards on the table where the last man who looked at it had put it, and it caught his eye as he turned the lamp down. What he saw made him very nearly drop the candle on the floor, and he declares now that if he had been left in the dark at that moment he would have had a fit. But, as that did not happen he was able to put down the light on the table and take a good look at the picture. It was indubitable--rankly impossible, no doubt, but absolutely certain. In the middle of the lawn in front of the unknown house there was a figure where no figure had been at five o'clock that afternoon. It was crawling on all-fours towards the house, and it was muffled in a strange black garment with a white cross on the back." ("The Mezzotint" by M. R. James)

NOTES: Mr. Brithnell gets a surprise when he purchases a mezzotint (old form of lithograph) which has figures that move and change in it. A terrible figure crawls toward the house, steals a child and crawls out. Brithnell finds out the place in the picure is Anningley Hall in Essex and that a terrible tragedy took place there. A poacher had stolen and murdered a child. The picture records the man's guilt.

HISTORY: James would write pretty much the same story again for "The Haunted Doll's House". This story is a classic of haunted picture stories though evil paintings are found in much earlier tales.