no more sin, nor danger, nor sorrow.

Thus ends a brief tale, whose prominent incidents many will recognize
as having marked the history of a distinguished family, and though
it refers to a somewhat distant date, we shall be found not to have
taken, upon that account, any liberties with the facts, but in our
statement of all the incidents, to have rigorously and faithfully
adhered to the truth.

[Footnote A: I have carefully altered the names as they appear in the
original MSS., for the reader will see that some of the circumstances
recorded are not of a kind to reflect honour upon those involved
in them; and, as many are still living, in every way honoured and
honourable, who stand in close relation to the principal actors in
this drama, the reader will see the necessity of the course which we
have adopted.]

[Footnote B: The residuary legatee of the late Francis Purcell,
who has the honour of selecting such of his lamented old friend's
manuscripts as may appear fit for publication, in order that the lore
which they contain may reach the world before scepticism and utility
have robbed our species of the precious gift of credulity, and
scornfully kicked before them, or trampled into annihilation, those
harmless fragments of picturesque superstition, which it is our object
to preserve, has been subjected to the charge of dealing too largely
in the marvellous; and it has been half insinuated that such is his
love for _diablerie_, that he is content to wander a mile out of his
way, in order to meet a fiend or a goblin, and thus to sacrifice all
regard for truth and accuracy to the idle hope of affrighting the
imagination, and thus pandering to the bad taste of his reader. He