“Squire Toby’s Will” was written by J. Sheridan Le Fanu and first appeared in Temple Bar (Jan. 1868). Le Fanu (1814-1873) was a noted Irish poet, novelist, and author of short horror stories. He wrote widely, but it is “Carmilla,” along with “Green Tea,” for which he is best-known. “Squire Toby’s Will” is a typically excellent effort by Le Fanu.

Along the old York and London road there was in the days of stagecoaches a mansion, Gylingden Hall. Now it is broken-down, needing repair and left to rot. Seventy years ago its master, Toby Marston, died. In his time he had been known for his “hounds, his hospitality and his vices.” But he was profligate with his money, and when he died he left his two sons, Scroope and Charlie, with a great deal of debt. He also left them with a bad will, “so framed as to set the two brothers instantly at deadly feud.”¹ Scroope had never been Toby’s favorite; Scroope was ugly, a hunchback, and had no taste for the sporting life. Toby had often swore at Scroope and called him “that hog-backed creature” and “a jack-an-ape.” But Charlie was handsome, and loved horses, hounds, and woman. Charlie was also tall and strong, and when Toby once tried to strike Charlie, Charlie overpowered him, which Toby liked.

But Toby’s will gave Charlie possession of Gylingden Hall, and when Scroope and Charlie discussed this their argument became bitter and then litigious. Scroope sued Charlie, and after a long campaign Charlie triumphed, for Toby’s will was legal. Charlie could not forgive Scroope, for the legal battle had further impoverished Charlie. And Charlie had fallen one day while hunting and was permanently injured so that he could no longer hunt. Worse, his former high spirits had abandoned him. Tom Cooper, the family butler, eventually got out of Charlie the reason for his new gloom: when Charlie was injured he was in a coma for five days, and during that time Toby was with him, bullying him and telling him that he had to do something, although now that Charlie was conscious he could no longer remember what it was. Cooper reminds him that Toby still hasn’t received his headstone, so the pair go out to Toby’s grave. There they find a white dog with a black head, scrawny and stained as if from a long journey. The dog acts in an odd manner, alternately whipped and affectionate. On Squire Toby’s grave it writhes like “a cat stretched on the floor with a bunch of Valerian...in the absorption of a sensual ecstasy.”² Charlie takes an instant liking to the dog and adopts him; Cooper takes an instant dislike to the dog and urges that Charlie kill him.

Charlie begins to have dreams in which the dog appears, his face similar to Toby’s. In the dreams the dog tells him that he “must make it up wi’ Scroope.” When Charlie does not act on these dreams, he begins to have nightmares in which the dog tells him, “the eleventh hour be passed, Charlie, and y’ave done nothing...the time’s nigh up, it is going to strike.”³ Prompted by the dream, Charlie gets Cooper to lead him to an old, long-abandoned room in the Hall, and in a papered-over cupboard Charlie finds a supplemental deed which cedes Scroope possession of the Hall. Charlie is horrified by this, and after several hours decides to arrange matters so that Scroope will receive the Hall after Charlie has died. But the dog becomes threatening toward Charlie, and even seems to change its shape. Charlie has the dog shot and then gives in to temptation and destroys the deed. This brings him worse visitors at night, Toby and Scroope both, with Toby telling him, “Put out of our own house by you! It won’t hold for long. We’ll come in together, friendly, and stay. Forewarned, wi’ yer eyes open, ye did it; and now Scroope’ll hang you! We’ll hang you together!”⁴

Scroope dies. He is intestate, so that all of his possessions go to Charlie. Charlie is exultant, but he is unsuccessful in preventing Scroope’s body from being buried in the Gylingden chapel. Charlie refuses to attend the funeral and forbids his servants from attending, but after the service is over Cooper sees two gentlemen in mourning clothes enter the Hall. He does not see them leave and when he searches the Hall for them he cannot find them. From that point forward the Hall is haunted, and everyone inside it hears voices. Both Charlie and Cooper know who is haunting the Hall, and Charlie, whose health is declining, knows that he does not have long to live. One morning Charlie is not to be found in his bedroom. After some searching Cooper finds Charlie in the room in which the supplemental deed was hidden. Charlie’s body is on the floor: “his cravat was drawn halter-wise tight round his throat, and had done its work well.”⁵

“Squire Toby’s Will” is not wonderfully unsettling, in the way of “Schalken the Painter,” and is not historically significant, like “Carmilla.” It is just very good. The story’s narration is more old-fashioned and stiff than in many of Le Fanu’s stories, but this does not detract in any way from the reader’s enjoyment, and this style often adds to the cumulative effect of the story. The narrative voice nicely alternates between deadpan and sardonic, and Charlie’s character is well-described. The dialect is only a slight impediment and is occasionally striking. Best of all, Le Fanu includes a number of memorable, visual details, so that the more horrific elements of the story, like the contortions the dog endures in Charlie’s dream and in reality, come vividly to life in the reader’s mind. If “Squire Toby’s Will” does not reach the heights of Art, as “Schalken the Painter’ did, it is still much better than most other horror stories.

Print: J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Green Tea and Other Ghost Stories. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2015.

¹ J. Sheridan Le Fanu, “Squire Toby’s Will,” Temple Bar 22 (Jan. 1868): 213.

² Le Fanu, “Squire Toby’s Will,” 219.

³ Le Fanu, “Squire Toby’s Will,” 221.

⁴ Le Fanu, “Squire Toby’s Will,” 226-227.

⁵ Le Fanu, “Squire Toby’s Will,” 236.