The Judge's House

A student is looking for a quiet place to study, and comes across the house of a former judge. He is happy with the quiet place, even if it has rats. But he begins to change his mind when he discovers a peculiar rat unlike the others. Evil exists, but that discovery comes too late. This short story is quite atmospheric and eerie. Readers will want to tell the student to leave before it’s too late, but like those silly teenagers who go down into the basement when they hear funny noises, he just stays. Stoker has a masterful way of scaring you, drawing out the tension before the sudden ending. Horrific fun.

I've listened to this before, in a book of short stories. Weighing in at ~ 45 minutes, it has enough heft to develop its characters and themes. A young man decides to get away from it all and go to a distant village, taking a deserted house with a bad reputation. While he is working at night, he hears rats scurrying in the house walls. They and him get used to each other, but there's this one big rat that is different. According to the local lady who comes in to do for him, it is the devil, and so we can look at that as the cause of what happens next. What the student sees, or thinks he sees does nothing to dispel the house's bad reputation. It's inventive, but I;d not want to read it at night...

It's good! for the times. What scares a little British boy in the 18th century isn't what works on me!

Devil Rat, how can you not love that. I got the creepy's from it without a doubt

La Casa del Juez es uno de los relatos de fantasmas más impresionantes del período victoriano y uno de los menos conocidos dentro de la obra de Bram Stoker. Tal vez opacados por su obra cumbre, Drácula, el resto de los relatos de este autor quedaron destinados a lecturas menos masivas. Sin embargo, La Casa del Juez, como otras varias, es una historia escalofriante y un logradísimo exponente del género.