D. L. Radway

“ In another moment, strange as it may seem, I swear that I heard a sigh of human breath close to my head—so strong that in a flash the candle on the small table by my bed’s lead was extinguished, and I was left holding my very breath in the semi-darkness, with only the flickering lights and shadows from the old logs crackling and spitting in the vast old fireplace. ”

“ Round the big fire of logs in the hall we gathered cosily, the more content to be ensconced warmly indoors for hearing the war of the elements without.
My hostess expressed herself as only too pleased to be able to give me a night in the company of the family ghosts,
who had, happily, always confined themselves strictly to the room in the tower. The conversation drifted to the weird and the supernatural, and we all started to recount ghost stories that had come within our knowledge or that of our immediate friends. ”

“ The room in this square tower was very large. Never had I seen anything like the fireplace; so enormous was the chimney that one could almost stand upright within it, the hearth of bricks being on a level with the floor of the room. As my kind hostess had insisted on a large fire being lit on this wintry night, it was piled up with huge logs, and the room was lit up by the weird and flickering lights that come from burning wood. ”