Publisher's Synopsis
The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remarkthat it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, Iremember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he hadmet in which such a visitation had fallen on a child. The case, I may mention, was that of anapparition in just such an old house as had gathered us for the occasion-an appearance, of adreadful kind, to a little boy sleeping in the room with his mother and waking her up in the terrorof it; waking her not to dissipate his dread and soothe him to sleep again, but to encounter also, herself, before she had succeeded in doing so, the same sight that had shaken him. It was thisobservation that drew from Douglas-not immediately, but later in the evening-a reply that hadthe interesting consequence to which I call attention. Someone else told a story not particularlyeffective, which I saw he was not following. This I took for a sign that he had himself somethingto produce and that we should only have to wait. We waited in fact till two nights later; but thatsame evening, before we scattered, he brought out what was in his mind."I quite agree-in regard to Griffin's ghost, or whatever it was-that its appearing first to thelittle boy, at so tender an age, adds a particular touch. But it's not the first occurrence of itscharming kind that I know to have involved a child. If the child gives the effect another turn ofthe screw, what do you say to two children-?""We say, of course," somebody exclaimed, "that they give two turns! Also that we want tohear about them."I can see Douglas there before the fire, to which he had got up to present his back, lookingdown at his interlocutor with his hands in his pockets. "Nobody but me, till now, has ever heard.It's quite too horrible." This, naturally, was declared by several voices to give the thing theutmost price, and our friend, with quiet art, prepared his triumph by turning his eyes over the restof us and going on: "It's beyond everything. Nothing at all that I know touches it.""For sheer terror?" I remember asking
