What first suggested the story of the Evil Eye to me was this: A man
named Case, who lives within a distance of about three or four hundred
yards of my residence, keeps a large dairy; he is the possessor of five
or six and twenty of the finest cows I ever saw, and he told me that
a man who was an enemy of his killed three of them by his overlooking
them,--that is to say, by the influence of the Evil Eye.

The opinion in Ireland of the Evil Eye is this: that a man or woman
possessing it may hold it harmless, unless there is some selfish design
or some spirit of vengeance to call it into operation. I was aware of
this, and I accordingly constructed my story upon that principle. I have
nothing further to add: the story itself will detail the rest.




CHAPTER I. Short and Preliminary.


In a certain part of Ireland, inside the borders of the county of
Waterford, lived two respectable families, named Lindsay and Goodwin,
the former being of Scotch descent. Their respective residences were not
more than three miles distant; and the intimacy that subsisted between
them was founded, for many years, upon mutual good-will and esteem,
with two exceptions only in one of the families, which the reader will
understand in the course of our narrative. Each ranked in the class
known as that of the middle gentry. These two neighbors--one of whom,
Mr. Lindsay, was a magistrate--were contented with their lot in life,
which was sufficiently respectable and independent to secure to them
that true happiness which is most frequently annexed to the middle