have so despaired of finding any person to take charge of the house,
much more a tenant, that I would willingly let it rent free for a year
to any one who would pay its rates and taxes."

"How long is it since the house acquired this sinister character?"

"That I can scarcely tell you, but very many years since. The old
woman I spoke of, said it was haunted when she rented it between
thirty and forty years ago. The fact is, that my life has been spent
in the East Indies, and in the civil service of the Company. I
returned to England last year, on inheriting the fortune of an uncle,
among whose possessions was the house in question. I found it shut up
and uninhabited. I was told that it was haunted, that no one would
inhabit it. I smiled at what seemed to me so idle a story. I spent
some money in repairing it, added to its old-fashioned furniture a few
modern articles,--advertised it, and obtained a lodger for a year. He
was a colonel on half-pay. He came in with his family, a son and a
daughter, and four or five servants: they all left the house the next
day; and, although each of them declared that he had seen something
different from that which had scared the others, a something still was
equally terrible to all. I really could not in conscience sue, nor
even blame, the colonel for breach of agreement. Then I put in the old
woman I have spoken of, and she was empowered to let the house in
apartments. I never had one lodger who stayed more than three days. I
do not tell you their stories,--to no two lodgers have there been
exactly the same phenomena repeated. It is better that you should
judge for yourself, than enter the house with an imagination
influenced by previous narratives; only be prepared to see and to hear
something or other, and take whatever precautions you yourself
please."