day made me fear lest in the darkness I should come upon one, and tumble
down it without hope of ever coming up alive, or indeed of my bones
receiving Christian burial. It was now in vain for me to endeavour to
revive the dream of veal cutlets in order to obliterate the hideous
image of these pots; the pots maintained the day, and haunted me
till--till I suddenly became conscious of some one walking rapidly after
me, endeavouring apparently to overtake me. The conviction came upon me
with relief, and I stood still, eagerly awaiting the individual,
expecting at length to be put in the right direction. The stars gave
light enough for me to discern the figure as that of a man, but I could
scarcely discover more. His walk was strange, a wriggle and duck
accompanying each step, the reason being, as I ascertained on his coming
alongside of me, that he was a cripple in both legs.
"Good evening, friend," said I; "I'm a stranger lost on the moor: can
you direct me towards Arncliffe?"
"On, on with me," was the answer, and the hand was waved as though
pointing forward.
"Dark night this," I said.
"Darker below," he muttered, as though to himself; "darker, darker,
darker."
"Shall we have a bit of moon, think you, presently?"
He made no answer, and I turned to look at him.
There was something in the way he walked which made me uneasy. When he
took a step with his right foot he worked his body round facing me, and
then his head jogged on to his left shoulder and reclined upon it. When
he stepped out with his left foot his body revolved so that his back was
presented to me, and the head was jerked on to the right shoulder. I
noticed that he never held his head upright; sometimes it dropped on his
breast, and once I saw it drop backwards. The impression forced itself
on me that just thus would a man walk who had his neck and legs broken,
if by any means the possibility were afforded him to attempt a
promenade.
"How far to Arncliffe?" I asked, but he vouchsafed no answer. I tried
another question or two, but could obtain no reply. I lost my temper,
and laid my hand on his shoulder to draw his attention to what I was
inquiring, but with a wriggle he glided from under my hand, and hobbled
on before me.
I had no resource but to follow him. He kept ahead of me, and seemed
determined not to enter into conversation; yet I offered him
half-a-crown if he would give me the information I desired to obtain.
I was puzzled with my strange companion, and felt somewhat uneasy. I
felt that he was a bit "uncanny," both in his appearance and in his
manner.
Presently we came near water, as I judged by the sound, which was that
of a beck murmuring among stones. On went my conductor, following the
water-course, and so rapidly that I had difficulty in keeping up with
him. When he leaped on a stone or scrambled up a turf-hummock, so as to
stand against the horizon, where a feeble light still lingered, I could
distinguish the horrible contortions of his body, and the sight
invariably heightened my uneasiness.
Suddenly I missed him!
I called--but there was no reply! I stood still and listened, but heard
nothing save the bubbling of the stream, and, far, far away, the to-whoo
of an owl.
Noiselessly a bat fluttered past me, coming instantaneously out of the
blackness of the night, and vanishing back into it as instantaneously.
"I say, you fellow!" hallooed I to the vanishing guide.
"You fellow!" answered the scaurs of Penigent, in a lower key.
"To-whoo," faintly called the owl.
"What do you mean by deserting me like this?" I roared.
"Like this," muttered the echo. "To-whoo," responded the owl.
"I must follow the beck," I said; "that will lead me to the river, and
the river will guide me to some habitation of living man."
"Living man," growled the echo. "To-whoo," sang the owl.
I stumbled over the water-worn stones, and splashed into water. My
ankles were scarified, my shins bruised; I narrowly escaped breaking my
bones as I fell again and again. I did not dare leave the stream, lest I
should lose my way.
Then a nightjar began to hiss from among the rocks, and the stream to
dash along more wildly. The banks rose higher, and I seemed to be
walking through a railway cutting. I looked up, and saw the rugged
outline of rock and furze on the eastern bank, and on top of a huge
block stood a distorted human figure. It was that of my strange
companion.
Down the slope he came with wriggle and jump; he came straight towards
me, spread out his arms--in a moment they were clasped round me, and I
was lifted from my feet. I was so astonished that I made no resistance
at first, and it was only after he had taken a dozen steps with me, and
I heard the splash of the beck falling into what must be a pot, and saw
the black yawning hole open before me, and felt the man bending as
though about to leap down it with me in his arms, that I tore my right
arm loose, and caught at a young rowan-tree which leaned over the gulf.
At the same moment there flashed before my eyes the light of a lanthorn,
the flame small and yellow, yet sufficient to illumine the face of the
bearer--a young woman, the countenance wondrously beautiful, but full of
woe unutterable.
The lanthorn passed across the open mouth of the pot. The moment it
became visible the arms which held me were unclasped, and I saw the man
sink down the abyss, with the light reflected from his upturned face. He
went down it, not with a whizz as a falling stone, but slowly as a man
might sink in water. Thus I was well able to observe his blanched face
and wide dilated eyes fixed with horror on the lanthorn flame.
Having recovered my feet, naturally my first impulse was to run up the
bank, and get as far as possible from the ugly well into which I might
have been precipitated. My next was to look round for the young woman
who bore the light. I could see the lanthorn at some little distance,
but I could not distinguish the bearer.
I called to her; she lifted the light till her hand came within its
radiance. The small white hand beckoned me to follow.
I ran to catch her up, but the faster I pursued, the swifter glided the
flame before me. Evidently the bearer did not desire to be overtaken.
When I stopped, she stopped; when I advanced, she moved onwards; always
keeping the same distance ahead of me. So we must have proceeded for a
couple of miles, when suddenly the light went out, and at the same
instant I became conscious of a small farm-house lying before me.
In less time than it takes me to write this I had entered the enclosure
which surrounded it, and had rapped hastily at the door. A gaunt
moorland farmer opened it, and looked at me with surprise.
"Can you let me have shelter for a little while, and then a guide to
Arncliffe?" I asked. "I have lost my way, and have met with a strange
adventure, which has somewhat shaken my nerves."
"Sit here; come here; sit thee down there," he said, pointing to the
ingle corner with the stem of his pipe, and then closing and bolting the
door, he stalked over to the opposite corner and sat down on a
rocking-chair. He eyed me musingly, and smoked steadily without making
any remark. After having puffed away for ten minutes, he shouted at the
top of his voice:
"Gi'e him a glass of ale, lass."
"A'm boune to, lad," replied a voice from the back-kitchen: and looking
over my shoulder, I noticed that there was a woman in the little lean-to
back room, "fettling up" by the light of a rush-candle.
"Thou'rt none boune to Arncliffe to-neet?" said the man, slowly
withdrawing his pipe from his mouth.
"I am, if you will direct me," I replied, "for I have a friend there
who is expecting me, and who will be sorely put out at my non-appearance
earlier."
"Humph!"
He smoked for ten minutes more, and then said:
"And what brought thee this road?"
"I will tell you," I replied; and then proceeded to relate what had
happened to me. As soon as I mentioned the strange companion I had met
with--
"It's t' Boggart, lass!" called the farmer to his wife, "he's gotten
agait misleading folk again."
When I spoke of the flash of light before which the man had quailed, and
which had revealed the face of a woman, pale and sad, bending over it--
"Weel done, Peggy!" roared the farmer; "'tis no but Peggy wi' t'
lanthorn, lass,"--again to his wife.
"She's a good 'un," responded the lady from the kitchen.
"Who are the Boggart and Peggy?" I asked; "they seem to be intimate
acquaintances of yours."
The great Yorkshireman did not answer, but whiffed away, with his dreamy
eyes fixed on the fire.
"So t' Boggart thowt to ha' hugged thee down Pothoile!" Then he laughed.
"I reckon," mused he again, "I reckon he were a bit flayed to see Peggy
come anent him that road!"
"I wish," said I, "that you would tell me all about him and her."
"So I will, lad, bi'm bye, if thou'rt boune to Arncliffe to-neet." He
looked up at me. "We can gi' thee a bed if thou likes: it's no but a
poor one, but it's none so bad--eh, lass?" The last two words were
shouted to his wife.
"Ay, ay," she replied from the kitchen.
"Thank you very kindly," said I; "if it were not for my friend at
Arncliffe, I would accept your offer with alacrity; but as it happens, I
_must_ return there to-night."
"Gi'e us a leet, lass!" called the man, knocking the ashes from his
pipe, rising, and taking down a lanthorn.
The good woman lighted the candle for him, and the great Yorkshireman
shut the lanthorn door, took up his cap, and said to me--
"Now, if thou'rt boune to come, come on."
I rose and followed him. He led the way, and as we walked towards
Arncliffe he told me the following tale:--
"Some hundred years ago there lived a young woman in a cottage near
Kettlewell. A strange man came into the neighbourhood, gained her
affections, and married her. They settled at the little farm in which my
guide now resided. They had not lived a twelvemonth together before the
constables entered the house one evening, and took the man up on the
charge of bigamy. He had a wife and family living at Bolton, in
Lancashire. As they were carrying him off, he broke from them and fled
over the moors, and was never retaken. By some it was supposed that he
had escaped to America, but by others that he had fallen into one of the
pots and had perished. His poor second wife, heart-broken, wandered all
that night searching for him, and was found dead on the side of Penigent
next morning. And they say," added my guide, in a low voice, "that she
seeks him still; and when she's gotten him she'll tak' him before the
throne of God to be sentenced for having ruined her happiness, and been
the cause of her death. That's why he's so flayed (afraid) of meeting
wi' she, and sma' blame to him."
"So you think the wretched man perished in one of the pots?"
"I reckon he did. And he'll never have rest till his bones are laid i'
t' churchyard, and that'll never be."
"Farmer," said I, after a pause, "have you plenty of rope about your
house?"
He grunted an assent.
"Then I will descend the pot to-morrow."
I am sorry to state here that my companion was so completely thrown off
his balance by this announcement that he swore.
"Shall you have time to assist me?" I asked.
"I'm none particular thronged," he replied.
"Some additional help will be needed," I continued; "if you have a
workman or two disposed to earn a day's wage by being useful to me, bid
them be ready with all that is requisite at the mouth of the pot
to-morrow."
"Ay! if we can addle us a bit brass that road," responded the farmer,
"we're t' chaps for thee. But I reckon thou'rt no but making gam' of
me."
"I am not, indeed," I replied; "get plenty of rope ready, and a stout
pole laid across the mouth of the hole, and I will go down to-morrow."
I was as good as my word. Keene accompanied me next day to the little
farm, and there we found half-a-dozen men with ropes and windlass ready
to assist in the exploit.
As the sun was shining, I felt no fear whatever, and I laughed and
chatted whilst a belt was strapped round my waist, another under my
arms, and the cord passed beneath them. Before descending I took up my
geological bag and slung it round my neck; I also picked up my hammer.
"You may be sure I shall find some magnificent stalactites down there,"
said I.
"Are you ready?" asked Keene.
I sat on the edge of the gulf under the mountain ash to which I had
clung for life the night before. I directed my eyes downwards, and saw
the little stream lose itself in spray after a leap or two. How awfully
black the abyss seemed! "Now, then!" I slipped down, and the windlass
was slowly unwound. Click, click, click! I heard each sound of the
crank as it descended. The air about me was cold and damp. Beautiful
ferns and mosses flourished on every ledge; presently, however, I got
beyond the fern zone. I was in darkness. The spray of the falling stream
was so finely comminuted that it was more like mist than spray. The
walls of the pot were green with lichen, and now I was below the region
of mosses. Here, on a little patch of moist _Marchanta polymorpha_, I
found a poor butterfly, the common meadow brown. It had probably
fluttered some way down the chasm in the giddiness of the moment, its
wings had been clogged with spray, and it had been carried lower and
lower till at last it had alighted, dripping and chilled, without hope
of seeing sunlight again, on a small ledge covered with lichen. I
rescued the poor insect, and put it inside my hat. I began to swing like
a pendulum, and at one time had some difficulty in preventing myself
from striking the rocky sides.
I could not see the walls now; I could not hear the click of the
windlass. All below was perfectly black; not a sign of a bottom; but
white terraces, covered with stalagmite, gleamed up round the well-like
ribs, catching a little light from above. With my hammer I broke off a
large mass of deposit formed by the droppings of water largely
impregnated with lime. It whizzed down, but still I heard no final
splash. I shouted--only faintly, as the pressure on my lungs from the
belt prevented my using my voice to its full extent--but the whole well
seemed alive with echoes. I tried to turn my head and look up at the
sky, but I was unable. The darkness and chill began to tell upon me, and
an agonising cramp contracted my legs. However I managed to place my
feet upon a ledge, and to stand up. Those working the windlass, feeling
that the strain was off the rope, let out no more. When the cramp left
me, I cast myself off again, and dropped below the ledge. After a while
I began to hear a sound of falling water, and in a few minutes passed an
opening in the side of the pit, out of which gushed an underground
stream, and precipitated itself down the chasm.
Now I became conscious of a broad ledge of rock, extending considerably
out into the well, and contracting its size; something lay upon
it--fragments of broken stalactites and stalagmites, I fancied--what
they were I could not distinguish, especially as at the same moment that
I saw them I perceived something black rising towards me. In one second
I saw the face of the Boggart flash up at me full of hideous triumph,
and I felt the grip of his arms about my waist. Next moment I lost all
consciousness.
When I came to myself I was lying in the sunshine on the slope above the
pot--Hellen or Hull-pot is its name--with Keene and the farmer bending
anxiously over me.
"I'm all right," said I, in a low voice; and in a couple of minutes I
was sufficiently recovered to sit up.
I took off my hat, and away flew the butterfly I had rescued, oblivious
of the hours of darkness and misery it had passed through.
"Did you reach the bottom?" asked Keene. I shook my head.
"We let out all the rope we had," said my friend, "and then we pulled up
again, and found you at the end in a dead faint. I see you have not been
idle," he added, lifting my geological bag. "Full of stalactites, I
suppose," and as he shook it the contents rattled.
"No," said I, "I put nothing into it."
"Then how comes it filled?" he asked. "Why, halloo! what have we here?"
and he emptied out of it a heap of human bones and a shattered skull.
_How_ they got into the sack I shall never know. The remains were very
old, and were encrusted with stalagmite. They lie now in Horton
churchyard. I believe the Boggart has not been seen since.
* * * * * * *
For a considerable time during our walk from Malham Tarn to Settle I had
been silent. Keene could endure it no longer, and at last exclaimed,
"Really this is intolerable! You have been in a brown study for the last
half-hour without speaking a word. A penny for your thoughts!"
"To tell you the truth," I replied, "I have been thinking over what
might have happened if you had fallen lame at Arncliffe, _if_ I had gone
on a geological walk without you, and had lost my way on Penigent, and
had fallen in with a Boggart, who tried to precipitate me down a pot,
and if I had been rescued by an _ignus fatuus_, and had finally
descended the pot and brought up the Boggart's bones!"
Mr. Keene stared at me with amazement. I then related to him what I have
just related to you, good reader, and I concluded with the observation:
"All this, you know, _might_ have happened, but unfortunately it
_didn't_. You have had my thoughts, so hand me your penny."
FOOTNOTE:
[23] Contributed by me to _Once a Week_, March, 1867.
JONATHAN MARTIN,
THE INCENDIARY OF YORK MINSTER.[24]
Jonathan Martin was not a native of Yorkshire, but as it was in
Yorkshire that he lived part of his time, and as his name is inseparably
connected with the glorious Minster at York, which he partially burnt,
he claims our notice in this volume.
He was born, according to his own account, at Hexham, in Northumberland,
in 1782, of poor but honest parents, and by them, at a suitable age, was
put apprentice to a tanner. He appears to have served his apprenticeship
with steadiness, and on its expiration, when he was in his twenty-second
year, he removed to London, intending to travel. Soon after his arrival
in the metropolis, as he was one day viewing the Monument, a man
accosted him, and inquired if he wanted a situation. Martin told him he
wished to go abroad, on which the man replied that he could suit him
exactly, as a gentleman of his acquaintance had a son on board a frigate
on the Indian station, who wanted a person of Martin's description, and
would give him thirty-two shillings per month, besides his chance of
prize-money.
Martin eagerly accepted this offer. But he soon found that he was in
the hands of a press-gang; and he was sent to the Nore, where he was
placed on board the Hercules, 74 guns, which formed a part of the
expedition against Copenhagen in 1804 under Lord Nelson. After the
surrender of the Danish fleet he was drafted into one of the prizes, an
84-gun ship, which, with a squadron of seven other vessels, was ordered
to proceed to Lisbon to blockade the Russian fleet in the Tagus, in
order to prevent it from falling into the hands of the French. These
ships were taken by the British, and were brought to England.
The next affair Martin mentions in his biography as having been engaged
in was in assisting to bring off the troops from Corunna in January,
1809. He says, setting sail from Vigo Bay--
"We reached Corunna in one day, and then approached the shore: the
numerous carcases of dead horses, all floating in the bay, showed us the
toil our army had suffered. We could plainly see the French and English
camps from our ships, each occupying a hill very near the other. We made
every exertion to get close in, to cover the embarkation of our troops,
who were sadly annoyed by the fire from the French artillery on the
heights. Our ships replied to the French as well as the heavy sea then
setting would allow. By great exertion the whole embarkation was
completed. They then directed their batteries against our transports,
who had to slip their cables, and stand out of the reach of their guns.
During this scene of confusion and terror several boats were sunk by the
fire of the enemy and some by the violence of the sea. Our vessels
presented an awful spectacle, from the number and condition of the
wounded, who occupied our cockpit, cable tier, and every spare place on
board, and whose misery was rendered greater by the tempest which
arose, and prevented that attention being paid to them which their
situation required: a great number perished solely on this account.
During the gale five transports were lost, from which only few lives
could be saved, owing to the state of the weather and the rocky nature
of the coast."
Having landed the wounded men in England, the ship on board which Martin
was sailed for Lisbon. Of his adventures at sea Martin tells several
remarkable incidents; but they are many of them connected with dreams,
and if not wilful falsehoods, are most probably misrepresentations. Of
such probably is what he relates as occurring whilst he was at Lisbon.
He says that whilst in the Tagus the whole crew went on shore except
himself, a young negro, and the captain's wife and daughter. The black,
knowing the captain had a quantity of gold in his chest, proposed to
Martin to murder the ladies, and take a boat and escape with it--to
India, Martin says. To this he refused to accede, and ultimately
succeeded in persuading the Indian (African?) to abandon his dreadful
intention. About this time, he says--
"I began to see my lost and ruined state as a sinner, and to cry to God
for mercy and salvation, hoping He would spare me to return to my native
land, when I would join myself to the people of God. But alas! my vows,
often repeated, were as often broken. Notwithstanding, the Lord heard my
prayers, and restored me to my parents as safe and well as when I left
them. My deliverance from on board a man-of-war was extraordinary, but
the Lord having given me favour in the sight of the whole crew, when all
hands were piped to breakfast, a boat appointed for the purpose was
brought under our bows, and the soldiers formed a circle on the
forecastle of the ship, to prevent the sentry seeing what was going
forward; I dropped into the boat and got ashore, and remained in safety
at the waterman's house until our ship sailed. I entered on board a
transport going to Egypt for corn for our troops then lying at Messina.
When I arrived in Egypt, I was filled with delight on beholding the
place where our blessed Lord took refuge from the rage of Herod; and
where the wisdom of Joseph (directed by Almighty God) saved the land of
Egypt and his own father's house from the effects of the seven years'
famine, of which I had so often read. A wide range of buildings was
pointed out to me by the Turks, which they said formerly held the grain
preserved by Joseph. Reflecting on these things, led me to review my
mis-spent life, and to see how often God had preserved me in many
dangers, and how ill I had requited Him; so that my thoughts troubled me
sore, and I resolved anew to amend my life. I began to be comforted by
reflecting that He preserved me for wise purposes, and that I should
live to praise Him. Blessed be the name of the Lord, I was not
disappointed."
A Mr. Nicoll, a native of Peterhead, who was formerly in the navy, and
was a messmate with Martin in two vessels, of which one was the
"Hercules," says--
"I remember Martin well, and sailed with him first about 1803. He was
always skittish. We used to say that he was fitter for a parson than a
sailor; nicknamed him Parson Saxe. He was often sulky and idle. He did
not pray much, but was inclined to argue on religious subjects; he said
he had a light that we had not, and that he held meetings in his dreams.
He told extraordinary and unaccountable tales; but," said Mr. Nicoll,
"they have gone from me, as I treated them as fudge and palaver." Mr.
Nicoll adds that Martin was jolly as any at one time, and would drink
and dance and be merry as the rest; at another time he would weep
bitterly. Some were angry with him, others ridiculed him; "but I," said
Mr. Nicoll, "thought him more rogue than fool. I remember his saying
that a book was shot from his hands at Cadiz, and that he considered it
a warning from heaven. Some one told him he should have been otherwise
employed than in reading at such a time; in reply to which he abused the
person who rebuked him. It was my opinion that he shammed a good deal
for a sulk. He was particularly fond of viewing and conversing about the
celestial bodies, but had a dread of any one pointing to a star,[25] and
would not believe that they were other worlds; and, indeed, grew quite
angry at such an assertion. I have often said such things as a scot
(jest), to draw him on, and he has abused me. He was hale enough, but
used to complain of weakness, and, as I thought, sham sick."