A Stable for Nightmares or Weird Tales   By: Charles L. (Charles Lawrence) Young (1839-1887)

[Illustration: A STABLE FOR NIGHTMARES]

A STABLE FOR NIGHTMARES

OR

WEIRD TALES

BY

J. SHERIDAN LE FANU AUTHOR OF "UNCLE SILAS," "HOUSE BY THE CHURCHYARD,"

SIR CHARLES YOUNG, BART.

AND OTHERS

Illustrated

NEW YORK NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY 156 FIFTH AVENUE 1896

Copyright, 1896, by NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

DICKON THE DEVIL, 9

A DEBT OF HONOR, 27

DEVEREUX'S DREAM, 59

CATHERINE'S QUEST, 89

HAUNTED, 115

PICHON AND SONS, OF THE CROIX ROUSSE, 135

THE PHANTOM FOURTH, 163

THE SPIRIT'S WHISPER, 185

DR. FEVERSHAM'S STORY, 209

THE SECRET OF THE TWO PLASTER CASTS, 229

WHAT WAS IT? 241

DICKON THE DEVIL.

About thirty years ago I was selected by two rich old maids to visit a property in that part of Lancashire which lies near the famous forest of Pendle, with which Mr. Ainsworth's "Lancashire Witches" has made us so pleasantly familiar. My business was to make partition of a small property, including a house and demesne to which they had, a long time before, succeeded as coheiresses.

The last forty miles of my journey I was obliged to post, chiefly by cross roads, little known, and less frequented, and presenting scenery often extremely interesting and pretty. The picturesqueness of the landscape was enhanced by the season, the beginning of September, at which I was travelling.

I had never been in this part of the world before; I am told it is now a great deal less wild, and, consequently, less beautiful.

At the inn where I had stopped for a relay of horses and some dinner for it was then past five o'clock I found the host, a hale old fellow of five and sixty, as he told me, a man of easy and garrulous benevolence, willing to accommodate his guests with any amount of talk, which the slightest tap sufficed to set flowing, on any subject you pleased.

I was curious to learn something about Barwyke, which was the name of the demesne and house I was going to. As there was no inn within some miles of it, I had written to the steward to put me up there, the best way he could, for a night.

The host of the "Three Nuns," which was the sign under which he entertained wayfarers, had not a great deal to tell. It was twenty years, or more, since old Squire Bowes died, and no one had lived in the Hall ever since, except the gardener and his wife.

"Tom Wyndsour will be as old a man as myself; but he's a bit taller, and not so much in flesh, quite," said the fat innkeeper.

"But there were stories about the house," I repeated, "that, they said, prevented tenants from coming into it?"

"Old wives' tales; many years ago, that will be, sir; I forget 'em; I forget 'em all. Oh yes, there always will be, when a house is left so; foolish folk will always be talkin'; but I han't heard a word about it this twenty year."

It was vain trying to pump him; the old landlord of the "Three Nuns," for some reason, did not choose to tell tales of Barwyke Hall, if he really did, as I suspected, remember them.

I paid my reckoning, and resumed my journey, well pleased with the good cheer of that old world inn, but a little disappointed.

We had been driving for more than an hour, when we began to cross a wild common; and I knew that, this passed, a quarter of an hour would bring me to the door of Barwyke Hall.