What hempen homespuns have we swaggering here?
_Midsummer Night's Dream._
Time out of mind there had stood on the high street of Wythburn a
modest house of entertainment, known by the sign of the Red Lion.
Occasionally it accommodated the casual traveller who took the valley
road to the north, but it was intended for the dalesmen, who came
there after the darkness had gathered in, and drank a pot of
home-brewed ale as they sat above the red turf fire.
This was the house to which Wilson's body had been carried on the
morning it was found on the road. That was about Martinmas. One night,
early in the ensuing winter, a larger company than usual was seated in
the parlor of the little inn. It was a quaint old room, twice as long
as it was broad, and with a roof so low that the taller shepherds
stooped as they walked under its open beams.
From straps fixed to the rafters hung a gun, a whip, and a horn. Two
square windows, that looked out over the narrow causeway, were covered
by curtains of red cloth. An oak bench stood in each window recess.
The walls throughout were panelled in oak, which was carved here and
there in curious archaic devices. The panelling had for the most part
grown black with age; the rosier spots, that were polished to the
smoothness and brightness of glass, denoted the positions of
cupboards. Strong settles and broad chairs stood in irregular places
about the floor, which was of the bare earth, grown hard as stone, and
now sanded. The chimney nook spanned the width of one end of the room.
It was an open ingle with seats in the wall at each end, and the fire
on the ground between them. A goat's head and the horns of an ox were
the only ornaments of the chimney-breast, which was white-washed.
On this night of 1660 the wind was loud and wild without. The
snowstorm that had hung over the head of Castenand in the morning had
come down the valley as the day wore on. The heavy sleet rattled at
the windows. In its fiercer gusts it drowned the ring of the lusty
voices. The little parlor looked warm and snug with its great cobs of
old peat glowing red as they burnt away sleepily on the broad hearth.
At intervals the door would open and a shepherd would enter. He had
housed his sheep for the night, and now, seated as the newest corner on
the warmest bench near the fire, with a pipe in one hand and a pot of
hot ale in the other, he was troubled by the tempest no more.
“At Michaelmas a good fat goose, at Christmas stannen' pie, and good
yal awt year roond,” said an old man in the chimney corner. This was
Matthew Branthwaite, the wit and sage of Wythburn, once a weaver, but
living now on the husbandings of earlier life. He was tall and slight,
and somewhat bent with age. He was dressed in a long brown sack coat,
belted at the waist, below which were pockets cut perpendicular at the
side. Ribbed worsted stockings and heavy shoes made up, with the
greater garment, the sum of his visible attire. Old Matthew had a vast
reputation for wise saws and proverbs; his speech seemed to be made of
little else; and though the dalespeople had heard the old sayings a
thousand times, these seemed never to lose anything of their piquancy
and rude force.
“It's a bad night, Mattha Branthet,” said a new-comer.
“Dost tak me for a born idiot?” asked the old man. “Dost think I
duddent known that afore I saw thee, that thou must be blodderen oot,'
It's a bad neet, Mattha Branthet?'” There was a dash of rustic spite
in the old man's humor which gave it an additional relish.
“Ye munnet think to win through the world on a feather bed, lad,” he
added.
The man addressed was one Robbie Anderson, a young fellow who had for
a long time indulged somewhat freely in the good ale which the sage
had just recommended for use all the year round. Every one had said he
was going fast to his ruin, making beggars of himself and of all about
him. It was, nevertheless, whispered that Robbie was the favored
sweetheart among many of Matthew Branthwaite's young daughter Liza;
but the old man, who had never been remarkable for sensibility, had
said over and over again, “She'll lick a lean poddish stick, Bobbie,
that weds the like of thee.” Latterly the young man had in a silent
way shown some signs of reform. He had not, indeed, given up the good
ale to which his downfall had been attributed; but when he came to the
Red Lion he seemed to sleep more of his time there than he drank. So
the village philosopher had begun to pat him on the back, and say,
encouragingly, “There's nowt so far aslew, Bobbie, but good manishment
may set it straight.”
Robbie accepted his rebuff on this occasion with undisturbed
equanimity, and, taking a seat on a bench at the back, seemed soon to
be lost in slumber.
The dalesmen are here in strength to-night. Thomas Fell, the miller of
Legberthwaite, is here, with rubicund complexion and fully developed
nose. Here, too, is Thomas's cousin, Adam Rutledge, fresh from an
adventure at Carlisle, where he has tasted the luxury of Doomsdale, a
noisome dungeon reserved for witches and murderers, but sometimes
tenanted by obstreperous drunkards. Of a more reputable class here is
Job Leathes, of Dale Head, a tall, gaunt dalesman, with pale gray
eyes. Here is Luke Cockrigg, too, of Aboonbeck Bank; and stout John
Jackson, of Armboth, a large and living refutation of the popular
fallacy that the companionship of a ghost must necessarily induce such
appalling effects as are said to have attended the apparitions which
presented themselves to the prophets and seers of the Hebrews. John
has slept for twenty years in the room at Armboth in which the
spiritual presence is said to walk, and has never yet seen anything
more terrible than his own shadow. Here, too, at Matthew Branthwaite's
side, sits little blink-eyed Reuben Thwaite, who _has_ seen the
Armboth bogle. He saw it one night when he was returning home from the
Red Lion. It took the peculiar form of a lime-and-mould heap, and,
though in Reuben's case the visitation was not attended by convulsions
or idiocy, the effect of it was unmistakable. When Reuben awoke next
morning he found himself at the bottom of a ditch.
“A wild neet onyways, Mattha,” says Reuben, on Robbie Anderson's
retirement. “As I com alang I saw yan of Angus Ray haystacks blown
flat on to the field--doon it went in a bash--in ya bash frae top to
bottom.”
“That minds me of Mother Garth and auld Wilson haycocks,” said
Matthew.
“Why, what was that?” said Reuben.
“Deary me, what thoo minds it weel eneuf. It was the day Wilson was
cocking Angus hay in the low meedow. Mistress Garth came by in the
evening, and stood in the road opposite to look at the north leets.
'Come, Sarah,' says auld Wilson, 'show us yan of thy cantrips; I
divn't care for thee.' But he'd scarce said it when a whirlblast came
frae the fell and owerturn't iv'ry cock. Then Sarah she laughed oot
loud, and she said, 'Ye'll want na mair cantrips, I reckon.' She was
reet theer.”
“Like eneuf,” said several voices amid a laugh.
“He was hard on Mother Garth was Wilson,” continued Matthew; “I nivver
could mak ought on it. He called her a witch, and seurly she is a laal
bit uncanny.”
“Maybe she wasn't always such like,” said Mr. Jackson.
“Maybe not, John,” said Matthew; “but she was olas a cross-grained yan
sin the day she came first to Wy'burn.”
“I thought her a harmless young body with her babby,' said Mr.
Jackson.
“Let me see,” said Reuben Thwaite; “that must be a matter of
six-and-twenty year agone.”
“Mair ner that,” said Matthew. “It was long afore I bought my new
loom, and that's six-and-twenty year come Christmas.”
“Ey, I mind they said she'd run away frae the man she'd wedded
somewhere in the north,” observed Adam Rutledge through the pewter
which he had raised to his lips. “Ower fond of his pot for Sarah.”
“Nowt o' t' sort,” said Matthew. “He used to pommel and thresh her up
and doon, and that's why she cut away frae him, and that's why she's
sic a sour yan.”
“Ey, that's reets on it,” said Reuben.
“But auld Wilson's spite on her olas did cap me a laal bit,” said
Matthew again. “He wanted her burnt for a witch. 'It's all stuff and
bodderment aboot the witches,' says I to him ya day; 'there be none.
God's aboon the devil!' 'Nay, nay,' says Wilson, 'it'll be past
jookin' when the heed's off. She'll do something for some of us yit.'”
“Hush,” whispered Reuben, as at that moment the door opened and a
tall, ungainly young dalesman, with red hair and with a dogged
expression of face, entered the inn.
A little later, amid a whirl of piercing wind, Ralph Ray entered,
shaking the frozen snow from his cloak with long skirts, wet and cold,
his staff in his hand, and his dog at his heels. Old Matthew gave him
a cheery welcome.
“It's like ye'd as lief be in this snug room as on the fell to-neet,
Ralph?” There was a twinkle in the old man's eye; he had meant more
than he said.
“I'd full as soon be here as in Sim's cave, Matthew, if that's what
you mean,” said Ralph, as he held the palms of his hands to the fire
and then rubbed them on his knees.
“Thou wert nivver much of a fool, Ralph,” Matthew answered. And with a
shovel that facetious occupant of the hearth lifted another cob of
turf on to the fire.
“It's lang sin' Sim sat aboon sic a lowe as that,” he added, with a
motion of his head downwards.
“Worse luck,” said Ralph in a low tone, as though trying to avoid the
subject.
“Whear the pot's brocken, there let the sherds lie, lad,” said the old
man; “keep thy breath to cool thy poddish, forby thy mug of yal, and
here't comes.”
As he spoke the hostess brought up a pot of ale, smoking hot, and put
it in Ralph's hand.
“Let every man stand his awn rackups, Ralph. Sim's a bad lot, and reet
serv'd.”
“You have him there, Mattha Branthet,” said the others with a laugh,
“a feckless fool.” The young dalesman leaned back on the bench, took a
draught of his liquor, rested the pot on his knee, and looked into the
fire with the steady gaze of one just out of the darkness. After a
pause he said quietly,--
“I'll wager there's never a man among you dare go up to Sim's cave
to-night. Yet you drive him up there every night of the year.”
“Bad dreams, lad; bad dreams,” said the old man, shaking his head with
portentous gravity, “forby the boggle of auld Wilson--that's maybe
what maks Sim ga rakin aboot the fell o' neets without ony eerand.”
“Ay, ay, that's aboot it,” said the others, removing their pipes
together and speaking with the gravity and earnestness of men who had
got a grip of the key to some knotty problem. “The ghost of auld
Wilson.”
“The ghost of some of your stout sticks, I reckon,” said Ralph,
turning upon them with a shadow of a sneer on his frank face.
His companions laughed. Just then the wind rose higher than before,
and came in a gust down the open chimney. The dogs that had been
sleeping on the sanded floor got up, walked across the room with
drooping heads, and growled. Then they lay down again and addressed
themselves afresh to sleep. The young dalesman looked into the mouth
of his pewter and muttered, as if to himself,--
“Because there was no evidence to convict the poor soul, suspicion,
that is worse than conviction, must so fix upon him that he's afraid
to sleep his nights in his bed at home, but must go where never a
braggart loon of Wythburn dare follow him.”
“Aye, lad,” said the old man, with a wink of profound import, “foxes
hev holes.”
The sally was followed by a general laugh.
Not noticing it, Ralph said,--
“A hole, indeed! a cleft in the bare rock, open to nigh every wind,
deluged by every rain, desolate, unsheltered by bush or bough--a hole
no fox would house in.”
Ralph was not unmoved, but the sage in the chimney corner caught
little of the contagion of his emotion. Taking his pipe out of his
mouth, and with the shank of it marking time to the doggerel, he
said,--
“Wheariver there's screes
There's mair stones nor trees.”
The further sally provoked a louder laugh. Just then another gust came
down the chimney and sent a wave of mingled heat and cold through the
room. The windows rattled louder with the wind and crackled sharper
with the pelting sleet. The dogs rose and growled.
“Be quiet there,” cried Ralph. “Down, Laddie, down.” Laddie, a
large-limbed collie, with long shaggy coat still wet and matted and
glistening with the hard unmelted snow, had walked to the door and put
his nose to the bottom of it.
“Some one coming,” said Ralph, turning to look at the dog, and
speaking almost under his breath.
Robbie Anderson, who had throughout been lounging in silence on the
bench near the door, got up sleepily, and put his great hand on the
wooden latch. The door flew open by the force of the storm outside. He
peered for a moment into the darkness through the blinding sleet. He
could see nothing.
“No one here!” he said moodily.
And, putting his broad shoulder to the stout oak door, he forced it
back. The wind moaned and hissed through the closing aperture. It was
like the ebb of a broken wave to those who had heard the sea. Turning
about, as the candles on the table blinked, the young man lazily
dashed the rain and sleet from his beard and breast, and lay down
again on the settle, with something between a shiver and a yawn.
“Cruel night, this,” he muttered, and so saying, he returned to his
normal condition of somnolence.
The opening and the closing of the door, together with the draught of
cold air, had awakened a little man who occupied that corner of the
chimney nook which faced old Matthew. Coiled up with his legs under
him on the warm stone seat, his head resting against one of the two
walls that bolstered him up on either hand, beneath a great flitch of
bacon that hung there to dry, he had lain asleep throughout the
preceding conversation, only punctuating its periods at intervals with
somewhat too audible indications of slumber. In an instant he was on
his feet. He was a diminutive creature, with something infinitely
amusing in his curious physical proportions. His head was large and
well formed; his body was large and ill formed; his legs were short
and shrunken. He was the schoolmaster of Wythburn, and his name Monsey
Laman. The dalesmen found the little schoolmaster the merriest comrade
that ever sat with them over a glass. He had a crack for each of them,
a song, a joke, a lively touch that cut and meant no harm. They called
him “the little limber Frenchman,” in allusion to a peculiarity of
gait which in the minds of the heavy-limbed mountaineers was somehow
associated with the idea of a French dancing master.
With the schoolmaster's awakening the conversation in the inn seemed
likely to take a livelier turn. Even the whistling sleet appeared to
become less fierce and terrible. True, the stalwart dalesman on the
door bench yawned and slept as before; but even Ralph's firm lower lip
began to relax, and he was never a gay and sportive elf. The rest of
the company charged their pipes afresh and called on the hostess for
more spiced ale.
“'Blessing on your heart,' says the proverb, 'you brew good ale.' It's
a Christian virtue, eh, Father?” said Monsey, addressing Matthew in
the opposite corner.
“Praise the ford as ye find it,” said that sage; “I've found good yal
maks good yarn. Folks that wad put doon good yal ought to be
theirselves putten doon.”
“Then you must have been hanged this many a long year, Father
Matthew,” said Monsey, “for you've put down more good ale than any man
in Wythburn.”
Old Matthew had to stand the laugh against himself this time. In the
midst of it he leaned over to Ralph, and, as though to cover his
discomfiture, whispered, “He's gat a lad's heart, the laal man has.”
Then, with the air of one about to communicate a novel idea,--
“And sic as ye gie, sic will ye get, frae him.”
“Well, well,” he added aloud, “ye munnet think I cannot stand my
rackups.”
The old man, despite this unexpected fall, was just beginning to show
his mettle. The sententious graybeard was never quite so happy, never
looked quite so wise, never shook his head with such an air of
good-humored consequence, never winked with such profundity of
facetiousness, as when “the laal limber Frenchman” was giving a “merry
touch.” Wouldn't Monsey sing summat and fiddle to it too; aye, that he
would, Mattha knew reet weel.
“Sing!” cried the little man,--“sing! Monsieur, the dog shall try me
this conclusion. If he wag his tail, then will I sing; if he do not
wag his tail, then--then will I not be silent. What say you Laddie?”
The dog responded to the appeal with an opportune if not an
intelligent wag of that member on which so momentous an issue hung.
From one of the rosy closets in the wall a fiddle was forthwith
brought out, and soon the noise of the tempest was drowned in the
preliminary tuning of strings and running of scales.
“You shall beat the time, my patriarch,” said Monsey.
“Nay, man; it's thy place to kill it,” answered Matthew.
“Then you shall mark the beat, or beat the mark, or make your mark.
You could never write, you know.”
It was a sight not to be forgotten to see the little schoolmaster
brandishing his fiddlestick, beating time with his foot, and breaking
out into a wild shout when he hit upon some happy idea, for he
rejoiced in a gift of improvisation. A burst of laughter greeted the
climax of his song, which turned on an unheroic adventure of old
Matthew's. The laughter had not yet died away when a loud knocking
came to the door. Ralph jumped to his feet.
“I said some one was coming; and he's been here before, whoever he
is.”
At that he walked to the door and opened it. Laddie was there before
him.
“Is Ralph Ray here?”
It was the voice of a woman, charged with feeling.
Ralph's back had been to the light, and hence his face had not been
recognized. But the light fell on the face of the new-comer.
“Rotha!” he said. He drew her in, and was about to shut out the storm
behind her.
“No,” she said almost nervously. “Come with me; some one waits outside
to see you; some one who won't--can't come in.”
She was wet; her hair was matted over her forehead, the sleet lying in
beads upon it. A hood that had been pulled hurriedly over her head was
blown partly aside. Ralph would have drawn her to the fire.
“Not yet,” she said again. Her eyes looked troubled, startled,
denoting pain.
“Then I will go with you at once,” he said.
They turned; Laddie darted out before them, and in a moment they were
in the blackness of the night.