"I was sitting playing the guitar. The miller got up to leave, and
was followed by Mrs. Shchapoff. Hardly had she shut the door, when I
heard, as though from far off, a deep drawn wail. The voice seemed
familiar to me. Overcome with an unaccountable horror I rushed to the
door, and there in the passage I saw a literal pillar of fire, in the
middle of which, draped in flame, stood Mrs. Shchapoff. . . . I rushed
to put it out with my hands, but I found it burned them badly, as if
they were sticking to burning pitch. A sort of cracking noise came
from beneath the floor, which also shook and vibrated violently." Mr.
Portnoff and the miller "carried off the unconscious victim".
Mr. Shchapoff also saw a small pink hand, like a child's, spring from
the floor, and play with Mrs. Shchapoff's coverlet, in bed. These
things were too much; the Shchapoffs fled to a cottage, and took a new
country house. They had no more disturbances. Mrs. Shchapoff died in
child-bed, in 1878, "a healthy, religious, quiet, affectionate woman".
CHAPTER X
Modern Hauntings
The Shchapoff Story of a Peculiar Type.
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