The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories
by Algernon Blackwood

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Title: The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories

Author: Algernon Blackwood

Release Date: December 26, 2004 [EBook #14471]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE EMPTY HOUSE

AND OTHER GHOST STORIES

BY

ALGERNON BLACKWOOD

AUTHOR OF

"JOHN SILENCE" "THE LOST VALLEY" ETC.

LONDON
EVELEIGH NASH COMPANY
LIMITED

1916

First Printed 1906
Uniform Edition 1915
Reprinted 1916

CONTENTS

THE EMPTY HOUSE

A HAUNTED ISLAND

A CASE OF EAVESDROPPING

KEEPING HIS PROMISE

WITH INTENT TO STEAL

THE WOOD OF THE DEAD

SMITH: AN EPISODE IN A LODGING-HOUSE

A SUSPICIOUS GIFT

THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PRIVATE SECRETARY IN NEW YORK

SKELETON LAKE: AN EPISODE IN CAMP

THE EMPTY HOUSE

Certain houses, like certain persons, manage somehow to proclaim at once
their character for evil. In the case of the latter, no particular
feature need betray them; they may boast an open countenance and an
ingenuous smile; and yet a little of their company leaves the
unalterable conviction that there is something radically amiss with
their being: that they are evil. Willy nilly, they seem to communicate
an atmosphere of secret and wicked thoughts which makes those in their
immediate neighbourhood shrink from them as from a thing diseased.

And, perhaps, with houses the same principle is operative, and it is the
aroma of evil deeds committed under a particular roof, long after the
actual doers have passed away, that makes the gooseflesh come and the
hair rise. Something of the original passion of the evil-doer, and of
the horror felt by his victim, enters the heart of the innocent watcher,
and he becomes suddenly conscious of tingling nerves, creeping skin,
and a chilling of the blood. He is terror-stricken without apparent
cause.

There was manifestly nothing in the external appearance of this
particular house to bear out the tales