Category: Historical Novels

The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector The Works of William Carleton, Volume One

In a certain part of Ireland, inside the borders of the county of Waterford, lived two respectable families, named Lindsay and Goodwin, the former being of Scotch descent. Their respective residences were not more than three miles distant; and the intimacy that subsisted betwe...

Chapters

11. CHAPTER XI. A Conjurer's Levee.

We cannot form at this distance of time any adequate notion of the influence which a conjurer of those days exercised over the minds and feelings of the ignorant. It was necessa...

7. CHAPTER VII. A Council of Two

Woodward now amused himself by walking and riding about the country and viewing its scenery, most of which he had forgotten during his long absence from home. It was not at all...

2. CHAPTER II. A Murderer's Wake and the Arrival of a Stranger

It is the month of June, and the sun has gone down amidst a mass of those red and angry clouds which prognosticate a night of storm and tempest. The air is felt to be oppressive...

4. CHAPTER IV.

Woodward rode slowly, as he indulged in those disagreeable reflections to which we alluded, until he reached a second crossroads, where he found himself somewhat at a loss wheth...

6. CHAPTER VI. Shawn-na-Middogue

The next evening was calm and mild; the sun shone with a serene and mellow light from the evening sky; the trees were green, and still; but the music of the blackbird and the th...

9. CHAPTER IX. Chase of the White Hare.

The next morning our friend Harry appeared at the breakfast table rather paler than usual, and in one of his most abstracted moods; for it may be said here that the frequent occ...

23. CHAPTER XXIII. Greatrakes at Work--Denouement

Greatrakes was on his way from Birch Grove to Rathnllan House the next day when he was met by Barney Casey, who had been on the lookout for him. Barney, who knew not his person,...

13. CHAPTER XIII. Woodward is Discarded from Mr. Goodwin's Family

The reader sees that Harry Woodward, having ascertained the mutual affection which subsisted between his brother and Alice, resorted to such measures as were likely to place obs...

5. CHAPTER V. The Bonfire--The Prodigy.

Andy Davoren's prognostic, so far as the appearance of the weather went, seemed, at a first glance, to be literally built on ashes. A calm, mild, and glorious serenity lay upon...

12. CHAPTER XII. Fortune-telling

Ever since the night of the bonfire Woodward's character became involved more or less in a mystery that was peculiar to the time and the superstitions of the period. That he pos...

10. CHAPTER X. True Love Defeated.

Mr. and Mrs. Goodwin, in the absence of their daughter, held a very agreeable conversation on the subject of Mrs. Lindsay's visit. Neither Goodwin nor his wife was in the slight...

16. CHAPTER XVI. A House of Sorrow.

The deep sorrow and desolation of spirit introduced by the profligate destroyer into the humble abode of peace and innocence is an awful thing to contemplate. In our chapter hea...

19. CHAPTER XIX. Plans and Negotiations.

We have already said that Woodward was a man of personal courage, and without fear of anything either living or dead, yet, notwithstanding all this, he felt a terror of _Shawn-n...

8. CHAPTER VIII. A Healing of the Breach.

On that evening, when the family were assembled at supper, Mrs. Lindsay, who had had a previous consultation with her son Harry, thought proper to introduce the subject of the p...

21. CHAPTER XXI. The Dinner at Ballyspellan

The Thursday appointed for the dinner at length arrived. The little village was all alive with stir and bustle, inasmuch as for several months no such important event had taken...

18. CHAPTER XVIII. The Toir, or Tory Hunt.

Harry Woodward now began to apprehend that, as the reader sees, either his star or that of _Shawn-na-Middogue_ must be in the ascendant. He accordingly set to work with all his...

14. CHAPTER XIV. Shawn-na-Middogue Stabs Charles Lindsay

Shawn-na-Middogue, though uneducated, was a young man of no common intellect. That he had been selected to head the outlaws, or rapparees, of that day, was a sufficient proof of...

22. CHAPTER XXII.

Woodward returned to the public room, where he was soon followed by Father Mulrenin and Greatrakes, who were shortly joined by Mr. Goodwin; Mrs. Goodwin having remained at home...

3. CHAPTER III. Breakfast next morning.

The next morning he joined the family in the breakfast parlor, where he was received with much kindness and attention. The stranger was a young man, probably about twenty-seven,...

15. CHAPTER XV. The Banshee.--Disappearance of Grace Davoren.

In the meantime it was certainly an unquestionable fact that Grace Davoren had disappeared, and not even a trace of her could be found. The unfortunate girl, alarmed at the trag...

17. CHAPTER XVII. Description of the Original Tory

We have introduced an Irish outlaw, or tory, in the person of Shawn-na-Middoque, and, as it may be necessary to afford the reader a clearer insight into this subject, we shall g...

20. CHAPTER XX. Woodward's Visit to Ballyspellan.

After a consultation with his mother our worthy hero prepared for his journey to this once celebrated Spa, which possessed even then a certain local celebrity, that subsequently...

1. CHAPTER I. Short and Preliminary.

In a certain part of Ireland, inside the borders of the county of Waterford, lived two respectable families, named Lindsay and Goodwin, the former being of Scotch descent. Their...