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The Best Ghost Stories by Various
page 49 of 285 (17%)
to remain in the house. Indeed, since her death, which was sudden, and
the coroner's inquest, which gave it a notoriety in the neighborhood,
I 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 retired 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
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