I said that even
if they had seen ghosts, this was no proof at all; nobody believes
that there are red rats, though there is plenty of first-hand
evidence of men having seen them in delirium. Finally, I said I
would see ghosts myself, and continue to argue against their actual
existence. So I collected a handful of cigars and drank several
cups of very strong tea, and went without my dinner, and retired
into a room where there was dark oak and all the chairs were covered
with tapestry; and my brother went to bed bored with our argument,
and trying hard to dissuade me from making myself uncomfortable.
All the way up the old stairs as I stood at the bottom of them, and
as his candle went winding up and up, I heard him still trying to
persuade me to have supper and go to bed.
It was a windy winter, and outside the cedars were muttering I know
not what about; but I think that they were Tories of a school long
dead, and were troubled about something new. Within, a great damp
log upon the fireplace began to squeak and sing, and struck up a
whining tune, and a tall flame stood up over it and beat time, and
all the shadows crowded round and began to dance. In distant
corners old masses of darkness sat still like chaperones and never
moved. Over there, in the darkest part of the room, stood a door
that was always locked. It led into the hall, but no one ever used
it; near that door something had happened once of which the family
are not proud.
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