vampire story

Vampire story

I Found this tale in one of the books in my collection,

 that you may have heard of, or not.

It comes from C. G. Harper's Haunted Houses book.

He quotes it as taken from  Augustus Hare's "Story of My Life" (1900)

 so this is a fairly old one. Harper wrote his book in 1907..

It refers to an event told to Augustus Hare, so it's already second hand, 

But as I don't tell vampire tales a lot, here it is...

This is about a place called Coglin Grange, 

which a family called Fisher had outgrown.

They let the grange to two brothers, and a sister, and

moved nearer to Guildford. The tenants  spent

 their first winter contentedly, and were liked in the neighbourhood.

Summer came, and on one very hot day,

and, although the brothers tried to study, it was too hot to work,

 so they dined early, and retired. The night was still hot, and

unable to sleep, the sister went and stood by her window,

looking out over a churchyard.

She began to notice flickering lights moving about in the belt of trees, 

separating the house from the churchyard.

 A figure slowly began to emerge. It increased in substance as

it drew closer, intermittently disappearing "Every now and then

 it was lost in the long shadows, which stretched across the lawn.

   from the trees, and then it emerged larger than ever 

and still coming on - on, and as she watched it,

 the most uncontrollable horror seized her........

to be continued.......