Pseudopod 313: The Dead Sextonby J. Sheridan Le FanuThis story previously appeared in
ACROSS THE BRIDGE the Christmas Annual of 1871 in the magazine “Once a Week”. It is set in Le Fanu’s invented Lake District town of Golden Friars. It can be read online
here.
J. Sheridan Le Fanu was an Irish writer of Gothic tales and mystery novels. He was the leading ghost-story writer of the nineteenth century and was central to the development of the genre in the Victorian era. Three of his best known works are
UNCLE SILAS, CARMILLA and
THE HOUSE BY THE CHURCHYARD. He studied law at Trinity College in Dublin, was called to the bar in 1839, but he never practiced and soon abandoned law for journalism. In 1838 he began contributing stories to the
Dublin University Magazine, including his first ghost story, entitled “
The Ghost and the Bone-Setter” (1838). Le Fanu worked in many genres but remains best known for his mystery and horror fiction. He was a meticulous craftsman and frequently reworked plots and ideas from his earlier writing in subsequent pieces. Many of his novels, for example, are expansions and refinements of earlier short stories. He specialized in tone and effect rather than “shock horror”, and liked to leave important details unexplained and mysterious. He had enormous influence on the 20th century’s most important ghost story writer, M. R. James, and although his work fell out of favor in the early part of the 20th century, towards the end of the century interest in his work increased and remains comparatively strong.
CARMILLA, in particular, is a prescient and much-adapted work, as it prefigures the romantic and lesbian vampire figures.
Your reader this week is
Ian Stuart - Voice over artist, writer, dog walker, dialect wrestler and father of famous hosts.
“But he was a tall, sinewy figure. He wore a cape or short mantle, a cocked hat, and a pair of jack-boots, such as held their ground in some primitive corners of England almost to the close of the last century.
‘Take him, lad,’ said he to old Scales. ‘You need not walk or wisp him–he never sweats or tires. Give him his oats, and let him take his own time to eat them. House!’ cried the stranger–in the old-fashioned form of summons which still lingered, at that time, in out-of-the-way places–in a deep and piercing voice.
As Tom Scales led the horse away to the stables it turned its head towards its master with a short, shill neigh.
‘About your business, old gentleman–we must not go too fast,’ the stranger cried back again to his horse, with a laugh as harsh and piercing; and he strode into the house.
The hostler led this horse into the inn yard. In passing, it sidled up to the coach-house gate, within which lay the dead sexton–snorted, pawed and lowered its head suddenly, with ear close to the plank, as if listening for a sound from within; then uttered again the same short, piercing neigh.
The hostler was chilled at this mysterious coquetry with the dead. He liked the brute less and less every minute.
In the meantime, its master had proceeded.
‘I’ll go to the inn kitchen,’ he said, in his startling bass, to the drawer who met him in the passage.
And on he went, as if he had known the place all his days: not seeming to hurry himself–stepping leisurely, the servant thought–but gliding on at such a rate, nevertheless, that he had passed his guide and was in the kitchen of the George before the drawer had got much more than half-way to it.
A roaring fire of dry wood, peat and coal lighted up this snug but spacious apartment–flashing on pots and pans, and dressers high-piled with pewter plates and dishes; and making the uncertain shadows of the long ‘hanks’ of onions and many a flitch and ham, depending from the ceiling, dance on its glowing surface.
The doctor and the attorney, even Sir Geoffrey Mardykes, did not disdain on this occasion to take chairs and smoke their pipes by the kitchen fire, where they were in the thick of the gossip and discussion excited by the terrible event.
The tall stranger entered uninvited.”
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