The Watcher, and other weird stories Read online

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  AS IT PASSED HIM HE THOUGHT HE HEARD IT SAY IN A FURIOUS WHISPER, "STILL ALIVE!"--Page 25. [_Frontispiece._]

 

  The Watcher And Other Weird Stories

  by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

  With Twenty-one Illustrations by Brinsley Sheridan Le Fanu

 

  LONDON DOWNEY & CO. 12, York Street, Covent Garden

  LONDON: PRINTED BY GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LD., ST. JOHN'S HOUSE, CLERKENWELL, E.C.

  PREFACE.

  Most of the tales in this volume were written prior to the publicationof "Uncle Silas," which is, perhaps, the novel by which my father isbest known. All the stories, with the exception of "The Watcher," wereincluded in "The Purcell Papers," edited by Mr. Alfred Perceval Gravesafter my father's death, and published by Messrs. Bentley.

  It may be of interest to point out that the central idea in the storyentitled "Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess" isembodied in "Uncle Silas."

  When "The Purcell Papers" were appearing in _The Dublin UniversityMagazine_ my father supplied the following note, which was reproduced byMr. Graves in his edition of the book:--

  "The residuary legatee of the late Francis Purcell, who has the honour of selecting such of his lamented old friend's manuscripts as may appear fit for publication, in order that the lore which they contain may reach the world before scepticism and utility have robbed our species of the precious gift of credulity, and scornfully kicked before them, or trampled into annihilation those harmless fragments of picturesque superstition which it is our object to preserve, has been subjected to the charge of dealing too largely in the marvellous; and it has been half insinuated that such is his love for _diablerie_, that he is content to wander a mile out of his way in order to meet a fiend or a goblin, and thus to sacrifice all regard for truth and accuracy to the idle hope of affrighting the imagination, and thus pandering to the bad taste of his reader. He begs leave, then, to take this opportunity of asserting his perfect innocence of all the crimes laid to his charge, and to assure his reader that he never pandered to his bad taste, nor went one inch out of his way to introduce witch, fairy, devil, ghost, or any other of the grim fraternity of the redoubted Raw-head-and-bloody-bones. His province touching these tales has been attended with no difficulty and little responsibility; indeed, he is accountable for nothing more than an alteration in the names of persons mentioned therein, when such a step seemed necessary, and for an occasional note, whenever he conceived it possible innocently to edge in a word. These tales have been _written down_ by the Rev. Francis Purcell, P.P., of Drumcoolagh; and in all the instances, which are many, in which the present writer has had an opportunity of comparing the manuscript of his departed friend with the actual traditions current amongst the families whose fortunes they pretend to illustrate, he has uniformly found that whatever of supernatural occurred in the story, so far from being exaggerated by him, had been rather softened down, and, wherever it could be attempted, accounted for."

  BRINSLEY LE FANU.

  _London, November, 1894._