The man in black written by Stanley Weyman in 1894 was one of historical novels of romance and evil. .

[Hermes]

Introduction

Written in 1894, The man in black was one of many novels written by Stanley Weyman. He is well known for writing historical novels of romance and evil. This tale is no exception, having as it does a crafty-eyed showman, an evil man in black, a monkey and an orphan boy amongst its characters.

Set in 1637 the novel starts with the fair at Fecamp, at which were:

the pitches of stilt-walkers and funambulists, the morris dancers and hobby-horses: in a word, of an innumerable company of quacks, jugglers, poor students, and pasteboard giants, come together for the delectation of the gaping Normans.
Into this company come the main players of the story: a showman called Master Crafty-Eyes, a sad boy called Jehan, Taras, his monkey and later the "man in black".

Jehan is a boy without a past and at the mercy of the adults in the story. He is under the lock and key of his master, who bought him from gypsies:

"I have to put up the boy…I am not going to lose him for you or for anyone. And for a penny he'd be off!"….It was a vile, evil-smelling place they entered, divided into six or eight stalls by wooden partitions reaching half-way to the tiles. "You cannot lock him in here," said the stranger, looking round him.
The showman grunted. "Cannot I?"
Later, the boy's despair is depicted:

The moon, shining with great brightness through the little square aperture above him…roused him more completely. He sat up and gazed at it, and God knows what softening thoughts and pitiful recollections the beauty of the night brought into his mind; but presently he began to weep--not as a child cries, with noise and wailing, but in silence, as a man weeps. The monkey awoke and crept into his breast, but he hardly regarded it. The misery, the hopelessness, the slavery of his life, ignored from hour to hour, or borne at other times with a boy's nonchalance, filled his heart.
Then he is given a chance to escape, from the mysterious stranger who had accompanied the showman home. This man is Soloman Notredame--the man in black. And although Jehan is no longer beaten or starved he lives in fear of the dark, imposing man who tells him:

"You have sold yourself to the devil. You have sold yourself--body, soul and spirit. You came of your own accord, and climbed on the black horse."
The story unfolds to tell of the adventures Jehan has with "the man in black" who acts as an astrologer for the rich whilst paying the poor for information.

Few in the Rue Touchet knew that the house had a second door, which did not open on the water, as the back doors of the riverside houses did, but on a quiet street leading to it.
M. Notredame's house was, in fact, double, and served two sorts of clients. Great ladies and courtiers, wives of the long robe and city madams, came to the door in the quiet street, and knew nothing of the Rue Touchet. Through the latter, on the other hand, came those who paid in meal, if not in malt; lackeys and waiting-maids, and skulking apprentices, and led-captains, the dregs of the quarter, sodden with vice and crime--and knowledge.

The story progresses through poisonings and the re-emergence of Master Crafty-Eyes to a final happy ending for the young boy as he is returned to his true family.