# Tom Scales — Short Fiction character guide

> Tom Scales in Short Fiction by J. Sheridan Le Fanu.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Tom, old Scales

**First appearance:** 0012-the-quare-gander

## Snapshot

A weathered old retainer with a store of uncanny tales, whose ghostly gander story unsettles listeners long after the telling.

## Who they are

Tom Scales belongs to the fading generation of servants and neighbours who remember the old Squire's roaring days at Gylingden Hall, and he carries their stories forward in his own rough voice. His tale of a ghostly gander is the kind of thing he tells to while away an evening, yet it lingers with a weight that suggests he has seen more than he lets on. As a keeper of local memory, he gives the reader a foothold in the haunted past that presses on the living.

## In the story

### [The Dead Sexton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_31_se/chapters/the-dead-sexton)

The hostler who discovered the corpse and reported the stranger's sinister interest in it.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_31_se/characters/tom_scales
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_31_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_31_se/characters