Ghost Stories 1993

  For a long time the Red Death was everywhere in the land. There never was a plague* that killed as many, and there never was a death as terrible. First, you felt burning pains in your stomach. Then everything began to turn round and round inside your head. Then blood began to come out through your skin — yes, you began to bleed all over your body — but most of all through your face. And of course when people saw this they left you immedi- ately. Nobody wanted to help you — your horrible red face told everyone that it was too late. Yes, the Red Death was a very short ‘illness’ — only about half an hour, from its beginning to your end. But Prince Prospero was a brave and happy and wise prince. When half of the people in his land were dead, he chose a thousand healthy and happy friends and took them away from the city. He took them over the hills and far away, to his favourite house, in the middle of a forest. It

24 July. Whitby. —Lucy met me at the station, looking sweeter and lovelier than ever, and we drove up to the house at the Crescent in which they have rooms. This is a lovely place. The little river, the Esk, runs through a deep valley, which broadens out as it comes near the harbour. A great viaduct runs across, with high piers, through which the view seems somehow further away than it really is. The valley is beautifully green, and it is so steep that when you are on the high land on either side you look right across it, unless you are near enough to see down. The houses of the old town—the side away from us—are all red- roofed, and seem piled up one over the other anyhow, like the pictures we see of Nuremberg. Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and which is the scene of part of “Marmion,” where the girl was built up in the wall. It is a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full