~Craven Dales.~
No. III.
He had been in Yorkshire dale
Among the winding scars,
Where deep and low the hamlets lie,
Beneath a little patch of sky,
And little patch of stars.--WORDSWORTH.
* * * * *
_Proem._
In the summer of 1823 I was residing for a few days at a solitary inn
amongst the hills of Craven. One afternoon I had planned an excursion
to a neighbouring cave, but was prevented from going there by a heavy
rain which had fallen during the whole of the day. I had no friends in
the neighbourhood, and could not have procured at my inn any work worth
the perusal. The library of my landlord was small, and the collection
not remarkable for being well chosen; it consisted of Pamela, Baron
Munchausen, Fox’s Martyrs, the Pilgrim’s Progress, and a few other
publications of an equally edifying description. I should have been at a
loss how to have spent the tedious hours, had I not had a companion. He
was a stout, elderly man, a perfect stranger to me; and by his
conversation showed himself possessed of a very considerable share of
erudition: his language was correct, his remarks strong and forcible,
and delivered in a manner energetic and pointed. While engaged in
conversation, our ears were stunned by a number of village lads shouting
and hallooing at the door of the inn. On inquiring of the landlord into
the cause of this disturbance, we were informed that a poor woman, who
was reputed to be a witch, had taken shelter at his house from the
inclemency of the storm, and that some idle boys, on seeing her enter,
were behaving in the rude manner already mentioned.
The landlord having left the room, I said to my companion, “So you have
witches in Craven, sir; or, at least, those who pretend to be such. I
thought that race of ignorant impostors had been long extinct, but am
sorry to find the case is otherwise.”
The stranger looked at me, and said, “Do you then disbelieve the
existence of witchcraft?”
“Most assuredly,” I replied.
“But you must confess that witchcraft _did_ exist?”
“I _do_; but think not its existing in the prophetical ages to be any
evidence of its being permitted in the present.”
“But learned works have been written to prove the existence of it in
late times--You are aware of the treatises of Glanvill and Sinclair?”
“True; and learned men have sometimes committed foolish actions; and
certainly Glanvill and Sinclair, great as their talents undoubtedly
were, showed no great wisdom in publishing their ridiculous effusions,
which are nothing more than the overflowings of heated imaginations.”
My companion seeing I was not to be convinced by any arguments he could
advance, but that, like the adder in holy writ, I was “deaf to the
voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely,” thus addressed me:--“I
_was_ like you, sceptical on the subject of our present discourse; but
the doubts I once entertained have long since vanished; and if you can
attend patiently to a history I will relate, I think you will be
convinced that witchcraft _does_ exist; or at least has existed in very
modern times.”