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531 pages

English

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Sheridan Le Fanu's historical mystery novel The House by the Churchyard was written in 1863. A skull unearthed in a churchyard show signs of violent blows to the head and, even more disturbingly, the small hole caused by trepanning. One hundred years before, a coffin is buried secretly, "R.D." the only identification on its brass plague. The House by the Churchyard was a major source of inspiration for James Joyce's Finnegans Wake.

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 juin 2009
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775415305
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0164€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE HOUSE BY THE CHURCHYARD
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SHERIDAN LE FANU

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The House by the Churchyard First published in 1863.
ISBN 978-1-775415-30-5
© 2009 THE FLOATING PRESS.
While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike.
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Contents
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A Prologue—Being a Dish of Village Chat Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI Chapter XII Chapter XIII Chapter XIV Chapter XV Chapter XVI Chapter XVII Chapter XVIII Chapter XIX Chapter XX Chapter XXI Chapter XXII Chapter XXIII Chapter XXIV Chapter XXV Chapter XXVI Chapter XXVII Chapter XXVIII Chapter XXIX Chapter XXX Chapter XXXI Chapter XXXII Chapter XXXIII Chapter XXXIV Chapter XXXV Chapter XXXVI Chapter XXXVII Chapter XXXVIII Chapter XXXIX Chapter XL Chapter XLI Chapter XLII Chapter XLIII Chapter XLIV Chapter XLV Chapter XLVI Chapter XLVII Chapter XLVIII Chapter XLIX Chapter L Chapter LI Chapter LII Chapter LIII Chapter LIV Chapter LV Chapter LVI Chapter LVII Chapter LVIII Chapter LIX Chapter LX Chapter LXI Chapter LXII Chapter LXIII Chapter LXIV Chapter LXV Chapter LXVI Chapter LXVII Chapter LXVIII Chapter LXIX Chapter LXX Chapter LXXI Chapter LXXII Chapter LXXIII Chapter LXXIV Chapter LXXV Chapter LXXVI Chapter LXXVII Chapter LXXVIII Chapter LXXIX Chapter LXXX Chapter LXXXI Chapter LXXXII Chapter LXXXIII Chapter LXXXIV Chapter LXXXV Chapter LXXXVI Chapter LXXXVII Chapter LXXXVIII Chapter LXXXIX Chapter XC Chapter XCI Chapter XCII Chapter XCIII Chapter XCIV Chapter XCV Chapter XCVI Chapter XCVII Chapter XCVIII Chapter XCIX Endnotes
A Prologue—Being a Dish of Village Chat
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We are going to talk, if you please, in the ensuing chapters, of whatwas going on in Chapelizod about a hundred years ago. A hundred years,to be sure, is a good while; but though fashions have changed, some oldphrases dropped out, and new ones come in; and snuff and hair-powder,and sacques and solitaires quite passed away—yet men and women were menand women all the same—as elderly fellows, like your humble servant,who have seen and talked with rearward stragglers of thatgeneration—now all and long marched off—can testify, if they will.
In those days Chapelizod was about the gayest and prettiest of theoutpost villages in which old Dublin took a complacent pride. Thepoplars which stood, in military rows, here and there, just showed aglimpse of formality among the orchards and old timber that lined thebanks of the river and the valley of the Liffey, with a lively sort ofrichness. The broad old street looked hospitable and merry, with steeproofs and many coloured hall-doors. The jolly old inn, just beyond theturnpike at the sweep of the road, leading over the buttressed bridge bythe mill, was first to welcome the excursionist from Dublin, under thesign of the Phoenix. There, in the grand wainscoted back-parlour, with'the great and good King William,' in his robe, garter, periwig, andsceptre presiding in the panel over the chimneypiece, and confrontingthe large projecting window, through which the river, and the daffodils,and the summer foliage looked so bright and quiet, the Aldermen ofSkinner's Alley—a club of the 'true blue' dye, as old as the Jacobitewars of the previous century—the corporation of shoemakers, or oftailors, or the freemasons, or the musical clubs, loved to dine at thestately hour of five, and deliver their jokes, sentiments, songs, andwisdom, on a pleasant summer's evening. Alas! the inn is as clean goneas the guests—a dream of the shadow of smoke.
Lately, too, came down the old 'Salmon House'—so called from theblazonry of that noble fish upon its painted sign-board—at the otherend of the town, that, with a couple more, wheeled out at right anglesfrom the line of the broad street, and directly confronting thepassenger from Dublin, gave to it something of the character of asquare, and just left room for the high road and Martin's Row to slipbetween its flank and the orchard that overtopped the river wall. Well!it is gone. I blame nobody. I suppose it was quite rotten, and that therats would soon have thrown up their lease of it; and that it was takendown, in short, chiefly, as one of the players said of 'Old Drury,' toprevent the inconvenience of its coming down of itself. Still a peevishbut harmless old fellow—who hates change, and would wish things to stayas they were just a little, till his own great change comes; who hauntsthe places where his childhood was passed, and reverences the homeliestrelics of by-gone generations—may be allowed to grumble a little at theimpertinences of improving proprietors with a taste for accurateparallelograms and pale new brick.
Then there was the village church, with its tower dark and rustling frombase to summit, with thick piled, bowering ivy. The royal arms cut inbold relief in the broad stone over the porch—where, pray, is thatstone now, the memento of its old viceregal dignity? Where is theelevated pew, where many a lord lieutenant, in point, and gold lace, andthunder-cloud periwig, sate in awful isolation, and listened to orthodoxand loyal sermons, and took French rappee; whence too, he stepped forthbetween the files of the guard of honour of the Royal Irish Artilleryfrom the barrack over the way, in their courtly uniform, white, scarlet,and blue, cocked hats, and cues, and ruffles, presenting arms—into hisemblazoned coach and six, with hanging footmen, as wonderful asCinderella's, and out-riders out-blazing the liveries of the troops, androlling grandly away in sunshine and dust.
The 'Ecclesiastical Commissioners' have done their office here. Thetower, indeed, remains, with half its antique growth of ivy gone; butthe body of the church is new, and I, and perhaps an elderly fellow ortwo more, miss the old-fashioned square pews, distributed by atraditional tenure among the families and dignitaries of the town andvicinage (who are they now?), and sigh for the queer, old, clumsyreading-desk and pulpit, grown dearer from the long and hopelessseparation; and wonder where the tables of the Ten Commandments, in longgold letters of Queen Anne's date, upon a vivid blue ground, archedabove, and flanking the communion-table, with its tall thin rails, andfifty other things that appeared to me in my nonage, as stable as theearth, and as sacred as the heavens, are gone to.
As for the barrack of the Royal Irish Artillery, the great gate leadinginto the parade ground, by the river side, and all that, I believe theearth, or rather that grim giant factory, which is now the grand featureand centre of Chapelizod, throbbing all over with steam, and whizzingwith wheels, and vomiting pitchy smoke, has swallowed them up.
A line of houses fronting this—old familiar faces—still look blank andregretfully forth, through their glassy eyes, upon the changed scene.How different the company they kept some ninety or a hundred years ago!
Where is the mill, too, standing fast by the bridge, the manorialappendage of the town, which I loved in my boyhood for its gaunt andcrazy aspect and dim interior, whence the clapper kept time mysteriouslyto the drone of the mill-sluice? I think it is gone. Surely that confounded thing can't be my venerable old friend in masquerade!
But I can't expect you, my reader—polite and patient as you manifestlyare—to potter about with me, all the summer day, through thismelancholy and mangled old town, with a canopy of factory soot betweenyour head and the pleasant sky. One glance, however, before you go, youwill vouchsafe at the village tree—that stalworth elm. It has not grownan inch these hundred years. It does not look a day older than it didfifty years ago, I can tell you. There he stands the same; and yet astranger in the place of his birth, in a new order of things, joyless,busy, transformed Chapelizod, listening, as it seems to me, always tothe unchanged song and prattle of the river, with his reveries andaffections far away among by-gone times and a buried race. Thou hast astory, too, to tell, thou slighted and solitary sage, if only the windswould steal it musically forth, like the secret of Mildas from themoaning reeds.
The palmy days of Chapelizod were just about a hundred years ago, andthose days—though I am jealous of their pleasant and kindly fame, andspecially for the preservation of the few memorials they have leftbehind, were yet, I may say, in your ear, with all their colour andadventure—perhaps, on the whole, more pleasant to read about, and dreamof, than they were to live in. Still their violence, follies, andhospitalities, softened by distance, and illuminated with a sort ofbarbaric splendour, have long presented to my fancy the glowing andever-shifting combinations upon which, as on the red embers, in awinter's gloaming, I love to gaze, propping my white head upon my hand,in a lazy luxury of reverie, from my own arm-chair, while they drop,ever and anon, into new shapes, and silently tell their 'winter'stales.'
When your humble servant, Charles de Cresseron, the compiler of thisnarrative, was a boy some fourteen years old—how long ago preciselythat was, is nothing to the purpose, 'tis enough to say he rememberswhat he then saw and heard a good deal better than what happened a weekago—it came to pass that he was spending a pleasant week of hisholidays with his benign uncle and godfather, the curate of Chapelizod.On the second day of his, or rather my sojourn (I take leave to returnto the first person), there was a notable funeral of an old lady. Hername was Darby, and her j