The Daily News (Perth, WA : 1882 - 1950), Monday 6 July 1908, page 5

with flaming eyes glaring in at her. She

TALE OF A VAiv1HI.it. rushed back to the bed, but -the crea

ture continued^ to scratch/ scratch,
? ? scratch upon the window. She felt a
of .in
sort mental comfort the know-,
Captain Fisher told us to-day a really ledge that the window was securely
Extraordinary .story connected with his fastened on the inside.
own family. It seems that they own a Then the scratching sound ceased,
?pleasantly-situated; house . in Cumber and a kind of pecking sound took its

land named Croglln Grange, but which place. In her agony she became aware
it
they never occupy, letting for a term that the creature was unpicking the
of years. It taken at time by
was one lead. The noise continued, and a pane
two brothers and a sister, pleasant, of glass fell into the room. Then a long
'

well-to-do folk. night in summer, One bony finger of the creature came in and
after the party had occupied It for seve turned the handle of the window, and
ral months, the sister, who had not the window opened, and the creature
closed the shutters In her room all the came in; and it came across the room,
rooms were on the ground floor gra- and her terror was so great that she
dually became aware, as she had not could not scream, and it
came up to
:fallen asleep, the night being very hot, the bed and it twisted its long,bony
of two lights, which flickered In and it
fingers into her hair, and dragged her
out of a belt of trees which it
separated bead over the side of tho bed, and
the 'house from the village churchyard. bit her violently in the throat,
As she looked she saw the lights As it bit her, her voice was released,

emerge, fixed In & dark substance, a and she csreamed with all her might
definite, ghastly something, which and. main. Her brothers rushed out of
seemed moment to become the.
every their rooms, but door was locked
nearer, increasing in size and' substance on tho inside. A moment was lost while
it and
as approached. Every now then they got a poker and broke it open.
it'
was iost for a .moment in the long But the creature .had already escaped
'

shadows which stretched across the through the window, and the Bister,

lawn from the trees, and thon'it emerg bleeding1 violently from a wound' in the
ed larger than ever, and still
coming on throat, was lying unconscious over the
As. she watched It,.
on. the most un side of the bed.
?

controllable ..-
horror seized her. She One brother pursued tho creature,
longed' to1 s*t: away, -but the door was which ,lled before him the
through
?locked on ,the Inside, and while she was' gigantic strides,
moonlight with and
it
unlocking she must be for an instant eventually seemed to disappear over the
to it. to scream;
nearer She longed but wall into the churchyard. Then he re

?her Voice seemed paralysed, her tongue joined his brother sister's bed
by the
glued to the roof of her mouth. side.
She was dreadfully hurt, and her
Suddenly, she never could explain wound was a very definite one; but she
why afterwards, the terrible object .was of strong disposition, not given
seemed to turn to one side, seemed to either to romance superstition, and
or
bo tn*e not to be
going round house, when she came to herself she said,
coming to her at all, and immediately is most
''What has happened extraordi
she jumped out of bed and rushed to the I am hurt. It will
nary, and very much
it,
door, but as she was unlocking she out that lunatic has
turn a escaped
heard scratch, scratch, scratch upon the from some asylum and found his way
saw a hldeotfs' brown face here.'
with flaming eyes glaring in at her. She

National Library of Australia http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article76524320

 room
The wound healed, and she appeared
front door. The creature was- already
to get well. However, the doctor who
?scudding away across the lawn. One
was sent for would not believe that she it
of the brothers fired and hit in the
could bear so terrible a shock so easily,
leg. but still with the other leg it
con
and insisted that she must have change,
tinued to make way, scrambled over the
mental and physical; so her brothers.,
wall into the churohyryd, and seemed
to' Switzerland.
took her
to' disappear Into a vrult which be
sensible girl, when she went
Being a
longed to a family l\ng extinct.
abroad, she threw herself at once into
Tho next day the brothers summoned
the interests of the country she was In. all the neighbors, and in their presence
She dried plants, she made sketches, ?

the vault wa.s opened.

she went, up mountains, and, as autumn itself.
A horrible scene revealed The
came on, she was the person who urged
vault was full of coffins; they had been
that they should return to Croglin their
broken open, and contents horrj
Grange. ,??.'.?-
.

bly mangled and distorted, were scat

., 'We have taken it,' she said, 'for
tered owr the floor.
seven years, and we have only been1
coffin alone remained intact. Of
.One
there one; and we shall always find It
difficult to let a house which is only
that the lid ';

had been, lifted, but still

one storey-, high, so we had. better re

lay loose upon the coffin,
turn there; lunatics- do. not it,*
escape, They' raised and there, brown,
every day.' 'shrivelled, but
withered, ?

mummified,
It,
As she urged her brothers wished
quite entire, was the same hideous
nothing bettor, and the family return i

?figure which had looked in at the win-

ed to Cumberland. Prom- there being j

dows of Croglin Grange, with tho marks

It was o'f
-no upstairs in the house, Impos j

a recent pistol-shot in the leg; and

sible to make any great change in theh they did the only. thing that can lay a
?

arrangements. The alster occupied the vampire they burnt it. From
'
'The i

sameroom, but unnecessary it is to J. C.

Story of My Life,' by Augustus
say she always closed her shutters,
Hare.
-which; however, as in many old houses,
always left one top pane of the win
dow uncovered. The brothers moved,
and occupied a room together exactly
opposite that of their sister, and' they
pistols in their
always kept loaded
room.'

The winter passed peacefully and

happily. In the following March the
sister' was suddenly awakened by a

sound she remembered only too well

scratch, scratch, scratch upon the win
dow, and, looking up, she saw climbed

up to the topmost pane of the window,'

tho same hideous, brown, shrivelled
face, with glaring eyes, looking in at
her;

This time she screamed as loud as

.she could. Her brothers rushed out of

their room with pistols, arid out of the