A PEEP THROUGH AN IRON GRATING.—THE LONELY PRISONER IN HIS
DUNGEON.—THE MYSTERY.
Without forestalling the interest of our story, or recording a fact in
its wrong place, we now call our readers’ attention to a circumstance
which may, at all events, afford some food for conjecture.
Some distance from the Hall, which, from time immemorial, had been the
home and the property of the Bannerworth family, was an ancient ruin
known by the name of the Monks’ Hall.
It was conjectured that this ruin was the remains of some one of those
half monastic, half military buildings which, during the middle ages,
were so common in almost every commanding situation in every county of
England.
At a period of history when the church arrogated to itself an amount
of political power which the intelligence of the spirit of the age now
denies to it, and when its members were quite ready to assert at any
time the truth of their doctrines by the strong arm of power, such
buildings as the one, the old grey ruins of which were situated near to
Bannerworth Hall, were erected.
Ostensibly for religious purposes, but really as a stronghold for
defence, as well as for aggression, this Monks’ Hall, as it was
called, partook quite as much of the character of a fortress, as of an
ecclesiastical building.
The ruins covered a considerable extent, of ground, but the only part
which seemed successfully to have resisted the encroaches of time, at
least to a considerable extent, was a long, hall in which the jolly
monks no doubt feasted and caroused.
Adjoining to this hall, were the walls of other parts of the building,
and at several places there were small, low, mysterious-looking doors
that led, heaven knows where, into some intricacies and labyrinths
beneath the building, which no one had, within the memory of man, been
content to run the risk of losing himself in.
It was related that among these subterranean passages and arches there
were pitfalls and pools of water; and whether such a statement was true
or not, it certainly acted as a considerable damper upon the vigour of
curiosity.
This ruin was so well known in the neighbourhood, and had become from
earliest childhood so familiar to the inhabitants of Bannerworth Hall,
that one would as soon expect an old inhabitant of Ludgate-hill to make
some remark about St. Paul’s, as any of them to allude to the ruins of
Monks’ Hall.
They never now thought of going near to it, for in infancy they had
sported among its ruins, and it had become one of those familiar
objects which, almost, from that very familiarity, cease to hold a
place in the memories of those who know it so well.
It is, however, to this ruin we would now conduct our readers,
premising that what we have to say concerning it now, is not precisely
in the form of a connected portion of our narrative.
• • • • •
It is evening—the evening of that first day of heart loneliness to poor
Flora Bannerworth. The lingering rays of the setting sun are gilding
the old ruins with a wondrous beauty. The edges of the decayed stones
seem now to be tipped with gold, and as the rich golden refulgence of
light gleams upon the painted glass which still adorned a large window
of the hall, a flood of many-coloured beautiful light was cast within,
making the old flag-stones, with which the interior was paved, look
more like some rich tapestry, laid down to do honour to a monarch.
So picturesque and so beautiful an aspect did the ancient ruin wear,
that to one with a soul to appreciate the romantic and the beautiful,
it would have amply repaid the fatigue of a long journey now to see it.
And as the sun sank to rest, the gorgeous colours that it cast upon
the mouldering wall, deepened from an appearance of burnished gold to
a crimson hue, and from that again the colour changed to a shifting
purple, mingling with the shadows of the evening, and so gradually
fading away into absolute darkness.
The place is as silent as the tomb—a silence far more solemn than could
have existed, had there been no remains of a human habitation; because
even these time-worn walls were suggestive of what once had been;
and the wrapt stillness which now pervaded them brought with them a
melancholy feeling for the past.
There was not even the low hum of insect life to break the stillness of
these ancient ruins.
And now the last rays of the sun are gradually fading away. In a
short time all will be darkness. A low gentle wind is getting up, and
beginning slightly to stir the tall blades of grass that have shot
up between some of the old stones. The silence is broken, awfully
broken, by a sudden cry of despair; such a cry as might come from some
imprisoned spirit, doomed to waste an age of horror in a tomb.
And yet it was scarcely to be called a scream, and not all a groan. It
might have come from some one on the moment of some dreadful sacrifice,
when the judgment had not sufficient time to call courage to its aid,
but involuntarily had induced that sound which might not be repeated.
A few startled birds flew from odd holes and corners about the ruins,
to seek some other place of rest. The owl hooted from a corner of what
had once been a belfry, and a dreamy-looking bat flew out from a cranny
and struck itself headlong against a projection.
Then all was still again. Silence resumed its reign, and if there had
been a mortal ear to drink in that sudden sound, the mind might well
have doubted if fancy had not more to do with the matter than reality.
From out a portion of the ruins that was enveloped in the deepest
gloom, there now glides a figure. It is of gigantic height, and it
moves along with a slow and measured tread. An ample mantle envelopes
the form, which might well have been taken for the spirit of one of the
monks who, centuries since, had made that place their home.
It walked the whole length of the ample hall we have alluded to, and
then, at the window from which had streamed the long flood of many
coloured light, it paused.
For more than ten minutes this mysterious looking figure there stood.
At length there passed something on the outside of the window, that
looked like the shadow of a human form.
Then the tall, mysterious, apparition-looking man turned, and sought a
side entrance to the hall.
Then he paused, and, in about a minute, he was joined by another who
must have been he who had so recently passed the stained glass window
on the outer side.
There was a friendly salutation between these two beings, and they
walked to the centre of the hall, where they remained for some time in
animated conversation.
From the gestures they used, it was evident that the subject of their
discourse was one of deep and absorbing interest to both. It was one,
too, upon which, after a time, they seemed a little to differ, and more
than once they each assumed attitudes of mutual defiance.
This continued until the sun had so completely sunk, that twilight was
beginning sensibly to wane, and then gradually the two men appeared to
have come to a better understanding, and whatever might be the subject
of their discourse, there was some positive result evidently arrived at
now.
They spoke in lower tones. They used less animated gestures than
before; and, after a time, they both walked slowly down the hall
towards the dark spot from whence the first tall figure had so
mysteriously emerged.
• • • • •
There is a dungeon—damp and full of the most unwholesome
exhalations—deep under ground it seems, and, in its excavations, it
would appear as if some small land springs had been liberated, for the
earthen floor was one continued extent of moisture.
From the roof, too, came perpetually the dripping of water, which fell
with sullen, startling splashes in the pool below.
At one end, and near to the roof,—so near that to reach it, without
the most efficient means from the inside, was a matter of positive
impossibility—is a small iron grating, and not much larger than might
be entirely obscured by any human face that might be close to it from
the outside of the dungeon.
That dreadful abode is tenanted. In one corner, on a heap of straw,
which appears freshly to have been cast into the place, lies a hopeless
prisoner.
It is no great stretch of fancy to suppose, that it is from his lips
came the sound of terror and of woe that had disturbed the repose of
that lonely spot.
The prisoner is lying on his back; a rude bandage round his head, on
which were numerous spots of blood, would seem to indicate that he had
suffered personal injury in some recent struggle. His eyes were open.
They were fixed despairingly, perhaps unconsciously, upon that small
grating which looked into the upper world.
That grating slants upwards, and looks to the west, so that any one
confined in that dreary dungeon might be tantalized, on a sweet
summer’s day, by seeing the sweet blue sky, and occasionally the white
clouds flitting by in that freedom which he cannot hope for.
The carol of a bird, too, might reach him there. Alas! sad remembrance
of life, and joy, and liberty.
But now all is deepening gloom. The prisoner sees nothing—hears
nothing; and the sky is not quite dark. That small grating looks like a
strange light-patch in the dungeon wall.
Hark! some footstep sounds upon his ear. The creaking of a door
follows—a gleam of light shines into the dungeon, and the tall
mysterious-looking figure in the cloak stands before the occupant of
that wretched place.
Then comes in the other man, and he carries in his hand writing
materials. He stoops to the stone couch on which the prisoner lies, and
offers him a pen, as he raises him partially from the miserable damp
pallet.
But there is no speculation in the eyes of that oppressed man. In vain
the pen is repeatedly placed in his grasp, and a document of some
length, written on parchment, spread out before him to sign. In vain is
he held up now by both the men, who have thus mysteriously sought him
in his dungeon; he has not power to do as they would wish him. The pen
falls from his nerveless grasp, and, with a deep sigh, when they cease
to hold him up, he falls heavily back upon the stone couch.
[Illustration: The mysterious visitants to the prisoner in Monk’s Hall.]
Then the two men looked at each other for about a minute silently;
after which he who was the shorter of the two raised one hand, and,
in a voice of such concentrated hatred and passion as was horrible to
hear, he said,—
“D——n!”
The reply of the other was a laugh; and then he took the light from the
floor, and motioned the one who seemed so little able to control his
feelings of bitterness and disappointment to leave the place with him.
With a haste and vehemence, then, which showed how much angered he was,
the shorter man of the two now rolled up the parchment, and placed it
in a breast-pocket of his coat.
He cast a withering look of intense hatred on the form of the
nearly-unconscious prisoner, and then prepared to follow the other.
But when they reached the door of the dungeon, the taller man of the
two paused, and appeared for a moment or two to be in deep thought;
after which he handed the lamp he carried to his companion, and
approached the pallet of the prisoner.
He took from his pocket a small bottle, and, raising the head of the
feeble and wounded man, he poured some portion of the contents into his
mouth, and watched him swallow it.
The other looked on in silence, and then they both slowly left the
dreary dungeon.
• • • • •
The wind rose, and the night had deepened into the utmost darkness. The
blackness of a night, unillumined by the moon, which would not now rise
for some hours, was upon the ancient ruins. All was calm and still, and
no one would have supposed that aught human was within those ancient,
dreary looking walls.
Time will show who it was who lay in that unwholesome dungeon, as
well as who were they who visited him so mysteriously, and retired
again with feelings of such evident disappointment with the document
it seemed of such importance, at least to one of them, to get that
unconscious man to sign.