Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Three Courses and a Dessert: Comprising Three Sets of Tales, West Country, Irish, and Legal and a Melange; With Fifty Illustrations
Sir Mathew frequently declared, that nearly all the supersti tions of the people, relating to charms and tokens, were, as he knew by experience, founded in truth. He had, at one time, been a staunch believer in the power of the dead man's candle to prevent those, who are sleeping in the house where it is lighted, from waking until it is burned out, or extinguished hut latterly Sir Mathew thought proper to intimate that his belief in the efficacy of the charm had been, in some degree, staggered. A malicious wag, in the neighbourhood, propagated a tale, which, if true, accounts naturally enough for the change in Sir Mathew's opinion upon this point. Whenever an eminent burglar happened to be imprisoned in either of the neighbouring gaols, it was the Baronet's custom, for a number of years past, as the story went, to consult the criminal, as a high authority, on the virtue of the mystic light in house-breaking. The result of his inquiries ih duced him to repose so much faith in the charm, that, in order to set the question beyond a doubt, he determined on making a midnight entry into the house of a dear friend; who, he knew, neither kept fire-arms, nor would, for a moment, suspect him, even if discovered and taken in the fact, of being actuated by burglarious motives. With the assistance of a lecturer on anatomy, who lived in a neighbouring town, and a cleverjourneyman-tallow chandler, Sir Mathew made a dead man's candle, secundum artem armed with which, he penetrated into his friend's pantry, regaled himself very heartily on some cold beef, and a bottle of stout ale, and finding that his proceedings had not caused the least alarm, he daringly made a great deal of unnecessary noise. His friend and the servants were at length roused in his hurry to get ofi'undetected, Sir Mathew's candle was extinguished and during the darkness, his dear friend, and J acob, his dear friend's butler, thrashed him so unmercifully, that, although his fears endowed him with sufficient agility to effect a retreat, he could scarcely crawl home; and was confined to his bed, by a very mysterious mdisposition, for more than a week.
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