The Best Ghost Stories Ever Told by Stephen Brennan

Author:Stephen Brennan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

ROUND THE FIRE

CATHERINE CROWE

‘My story will be a very short one,’ said Mrs M.; ‘for I must tell you that though, like everybody else, I have heard a great many ghost stories, and have met people who assured me they had seen such things, I cannot, for my own part, bring myself to believe in them; but a circumstance occurred when I was abroad that you may perhaps consider of a ghostly nature, though I cannot.

‘I was travelling through Germany, with no one but my maid - it was before the time of railways, and on my road from Leipsic to Dresden I stopped at an inn that appeared to have been long ago part of an aristocratic residence - a castle, in short; for there was a stone wall and battlements, and a tower at one side; while the other was a prosaic-looking square building that had evidently been added in modern times. The inn stood at one end of a small village, in which some of the houses looked so antique that they might, I thought, be coeval with the castle itself. There were a good many travellers, but the host said he could accommodate me; and when I asked to see my room, he led me up to the towers, and showed me a tolerably comfortable one. There were only two apartments on each floor; so I asked him if I could have the other for my maid, and he said yes, if no other traveller arrived. None came, and she slept there.

‘I supped at the table d’hote, and retired to bed early, as I had an excursion to make on the following day; and I was sufficiently tired with my journey to fall asleep directly.

‘I don’t know how long I had slept - but I think some hours, when I awoke quite suddenly, almost with a start, and beheld near the foot of the bed the most hideous, dreadful-looking old woman, in an antique dress, that imagination can conceive. She seemed to be approaching me - not as if walking, but gliding, with her left arm and hand extended towards me.

‘“Merciful God, deliver me!” I exclaimed under my first impulse of amazement; and as I said the words she disappeared.’

‘Then, though you don’t believe in ghosts, you thought it was one when you saw it,’ said I.

‘I don’t know what I thought - I admit I was a good deal frightened, and it was a long time before I fell asleep again.

‘In the morning,’ continued Mrs M., ‘my maid knocked, and I told her to come in; but the door was locked, and I had to get out of bed to admit her - I thought I might have forgotten to fasten it. As soon as I was up I examined every part of the room, but I could find nothing to account for this intrusion. There was neither trap nor moving panel, nor door that I could see, except the one I had locked. However,

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