The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector: The Works of William Carleton, Volume OneCarleton, William
General
The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector: The Works of William Carleton, Volume One
Carleton, William
Ireland -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
She hurried to bed at night
with a hope that sleep might exclude the frightful vision which followed
her; but, alas! even sleep was no security to her against its terrors.
It was now that in her distempered dreams imagination ran riot. She fled
from him, or attempted to fly, but feared that she had not strength for
the effort; he followed her, she thought, and when she covered her face
with her hands in order to avoid the sight of him, she felt him seizing
her by the wrists, and removing her arms in order that he might pour the
malignant influence of that terrible eye into her very heart. From these
scenes she generally awoke with a shriek, when her maid, Sarah Sullivan,
who of late slept in the same room with her, was obliged to come to her
assistance, and soothe and sustain her as well as she could. She then
lay for hours in such a state of terror and agitation as cannot be
described, until near morning, WHen she generally fell into something
like sound sleep. In fact, her waking moments were easy when compared
with the persecution which the spirit of that man inflicted on her
during her broken and restless slumbers. The dreadful eye, as it rested
upon her, seemed as if its powerful but killing expression proceeded
from the heart and spirit of some demon who sought to wither her by
slow degrees out of life; and she felt that he was succeeding in his
murderous and merciless object. It is not to be wondered at, then,
that she dreaded the state of sleep more than any other condition of
existence in which she could find herself. As night, and the hour of
retiring to what ought to have been a refreshing rest returned, her
alarms also returned with tenfold terror; and such was her apprehension
of those fiend-like and nocturnal visits, that she entreated Sarah
Sullivan to sleep with and awaken her the moment she heard her groan or
shriek. Our readers may perceive that the innocent girl's tenure of life
could not be a long one under such strange and unexampled sufferings.
The state of her health now occasioned her parents to feel the most
serious alarm. She herself disclosed to them the fearful intelligence
which had been communicated to her in such a friendly spirit by Caterine
Collins, to wit, that Harry Woodward possessed the terrible power of the
Evil Eye, and that she felt he was attempting to kill her by it; adding,
that from the state of her mind and health she feared he had succeeded,
and that certainly, if he were permitted to continue his visits, she
knew that she could not long survive.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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