Short Stories - Volume III

Classic from the year 2009 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature language: English abstract: The Haunted House CHAPTER I - THE MORTALS IN THE HOUSE Under none of the accredited ghostly circumstances and environed by none of the conventional ghostly surroundings did I first make acquaintance with the house which is the subject of this Christmas piece. I saw it in the daylight with the sun upon it. There was no wind no rain no lightning no thunder no awful or unwonted circumstance of any kind to heighten its effect. More than that: I had come to it direct from a railway station: it was not more than a mile distant from the railway station; and as I stood outside the house looking back upon the way I had come I could see the goods train running smoothly along the embankment in the valley. I will not say that everything was utterly commonplace because I doubt if anything can be that except to utterly commonplace people- -and there my vanity steps in; but I will take it on myself to say that anybody might see the house as I saw it any fine autumn morning.[...] *** Holiday Romance PART I - INTRODUCTORY ROMANCE PROM THE PEN OF WILLIAM TINKLING ESQ. (Aged eight.) THIS beginning-part is not made out of anybody's head you know. It's real. You must believe this beginning-part more than what comes after else you won't understand how what comes after came to be written. You must believe it all; but you must believe this most please. I am the editor of it. Bob Redforth (he's my cousin and shaking the table on purpose) wanted to be the editor of it; but I said he shouldn't because he couldn't. HE has no idea of being an editor.[...] *** The Holly-Tree First Branch-Myself I have kept one secret in the course of my life. I am a bashful man. Nobody would suppose it nobody ever does suppose it nobody ever did suppose it but I am naturally a bashful man. This is the secret which I have never breathed until now. I m