One is the famous Radiant Boy. He
has been evicted by turning his tapestried chamber into the smoking-
room. For many years not one ghost has been seen except the lady with
the candle, viewed by myself, but, being ignorant of the story, I
thought she was one of the maids. Perhaps she was, but she went into
an empty set of rooms, and did not come out again. Footsteps are apt
to approach the doors of these rooms in mirk midnight, the door handle
turns, and that is all.
So much for supposed hauntings by spirits of the dead.
At the opposite pole are hauntings by agencies whom nobody supposes to
be ghosts of inmates of the house. The following is an extreme
example, as the haunter proceeded to arson. This is not so very
unusual, and, if managed by an impostor, shows insane malevolence.
{202}
THE DANCING DEVIL
On 16th November, 1870, Mr. Shchapoff, a Russian squire, the narrator,
came home from a visit to a country town, Iletski, and found his
family in some disarray. There lived with him his mother and his
wife's mother, ladies of about sixty-nine, his wife, aged twenty, and
his baby daughter.
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