The Legend of Gallow's Clough.
Near Mottram, on the verge of the moors, overlooking what is now the
high road to Stalybridge, is a spot known as Gallow's Clough, which,
as its name implies, was in feudal times the scene of the Gibbeting of
malefactors. Here in the good old days, was reared the gallows,
whereon the criminal was first "hanged by the neck until he was dead,"
and from which his body was afterwards suspended in chains, until the
weather and the birds between them had picked the flesh away, and
nothing remained but a few bones--a grim reminder of the power of the
law, and the folly and risk of departing from the paths of virtue.
In the days when gibbetting was fashionable, it behoved almost every
petty township to possess its own gallows, for there was far too great
a demand for the services of rope and hangman to permit of only a few
recognised places of execution, and one common hangman, as is the
custom at the present time. Not that people were very much worse than
they are now, but the extreme punishment of the law was meted out for
what are now considered the minor crimes of sheep and cattle stealing,
poaching, highway robbery, house-breaking with violence, and such like
offences. The sight of a dead man dangling between earth and sky was
of too common a nature to cause surprise, even so late as the early
decades of the nineteenth century.
Wild and lonesome as the Gallow's Clough is at the present day, it was
a much bleaker and more awesome place in the days when the gibbet was
standing there. Then it was considered as a place accursed, and was
said to be haunted by the ghosts of all the dead men who had been
strangled there. Even in the daylight folk gave the spot a wide berth,
and at night when the winds moaned down the gullies from the hills,
and swayed the dead men to and fro, and caused the chains to clank and
rattle, then, indeed, the traveller kept as far off as his route would
permit, and hurried past with beating heart, and face blanched with
fear.
Nor was that all the terror. Witches were said to infest the place at
certain seasons, and in the darkness to hold converse with the ghosts
of the malefactors, from whom they learned how to transact deeds of
darkness successfully. Men forced to pass that way at these seasons
had seen from a distance the crouching forms of the old hags, and had
even heard their crooning voices, and the fiendish laughter with which
they accompanied their terrible midnight revels. Many a timid dame
added a petition to her prayers--that Providence would accord her and
all belonging to her, special protection from the witches who danced
and plotted and sang the hell-song round the gibbet at Gallow's
Clough.
On a certain day in the olden time, a throng of people might have been
seen wending their way through Mottram to the place of execution at
Gallow's Clough. It was a gloomy procession,--calculated to depress
the beholder for the remainder of the day, and probably for many days
to come. First marched a company of well-armed men--part of the
retinue of the feudal lord--and in their midst was one bound, and
wearing a halter dangling from his neck. Behind came a motley company
of the country-folk--some weeping, some grimly silent, and some few
laughing and jesting. Most of those who thus followed in the heels of
the armed men were women, and in the front rank of these was a
handsome peasant girl, who wrung her hands and cried aloud as though
distracted.
The prisoner--condemned man though he was, with only a few hundred
yards between himself and death--walked with a firm tread, and head
held proudly erect. Now and then he turned his head to look at the
weeping, wailing girl, and at such times his eyes grew moist: when the
guards somewhat roughly thrust the girl back, his lips compressed, and
his chest heaved, and his arms tugged at the thongs which bound him,
in a manner which indicated that it would have fared ill with the
guards had the young man been free. But beyond those silent
manifestations of feeling, the prisoner marched to his death as calmly
and fearlessly as though the journey had been an ordinary country
walk.
Presently the procession reached the gibbet at Gallow's Clough, and
here it halted. The guard cleared a space about the gibbet, and by
means of their axes and bills kept back the crowd. The prisoner and
the executioners took their place beneath the gallows, and near them
stood a well-dressed man--the representative of the feudal lord.
Without loss of time, and with but little ceremony, the executioners
went about their business, heedless of the cries of the women, and the
piteous appeals for mercy from the handsome peasant girl.
Soon the preparations were complete; the well-dressed,
officious-looking personage drew forth a document, and proceeded to
read aloud the details of the crime for which the poor wretch had to
suffer death--shooting at and killing deer in his lordship's forest of
Longdendale--a crime of so serious a nature in the eyes of the
authorities of that day that nothing less than the death of the
offender could atone for the sin. The reading being ended, the reader
nodded to the executioners, and they made as though to carry out the
sentence forthwith.
But at this juncture a diversion was created, for the young woman who
had hitherto so persistently and closely hung upon the steps of the
guard, burst through the ring and threw herself upon her knees before
the lord's representative.
"Mercy, mercy, Master Steward! Thou canst save him yet; and it is such
a little crime. What is one deer from the forest against the life of a
good man? He but shot the deer because I--his wife--and his child
needed food. And if thou sparest his life we will work, and more than
doubly make up the loss to his lordship."
The steward--a dark man of evil countenance--looked at the girl for a
moment, and hesitated; then he caught the eye of the prisoner, and
instantly his face grew stern.
"Get thee gone, thou baggage," said he, spurning the female. "Stop her
mouth, some of you; or, if she will scream, take her to the ducking
stool."
Then, turning to the hangman, he curtly said:
"Do your work."
With a wild cry of despair, the girl sprang up, leaped towards the
condemned man, flung her arms about his neck, and kissed him, and
then, before any could stop her, burst from the crowd and fled,
shrieking and laughing, over the wastes of the hills. In another
moment the prisoner was dangling in the air, and before the night fell
the gibbet at Gallow's Clough held the ghastly form of a dead man
swinging in chains.
* * * * *
It was midnight, and the skies were inky black; not a single star
showed in the heavens, and there was no moon. A cold wind moaned down
the gully, and swung the dead man in his chains so that the gibbet
rocked and creaked. In the distant farms the timid country folk
shivered in their beds, and as the wind shook the casements, they
trembled the more, and told each other they could hear the clanking of
the chains and the shrieking of the witches at Gallow's Clough.
It was a night on which few would care to stir out of doors, but for
all that there were those who set out through the eerie darkness to
wend their way to the gibbet. When night had fallen, the dead man's
wife crept down from the hills and stood beneath the swaying form of
her lifeless husband, and with a grim energy cast pebbles, and uttered
shrill cries to scare away the birds that came to peck at the carrion
that had once been man.
As she kept her vigil, she sang snatches of wild songs, and ever and
anon talked to the dead man as though he could understand. It was
clear that the woman's grief had driven her mad.
Towards midnight she slackened in her exertions, and seated herself at
the foot of the gibbet, contenting herself with fearful but
intermittent screams to scare away the birds. But presently nature
gave out, and she fell into a troubled slumber. She was awakened by
the sensation that some other mortal was near, and with a wild cry she
sprang to her feet to find herself confronted by an old hag who
appeared to be sawing at the dead man's wrist, as though to sever the
hand from the arm.
"Malediction," croaked the hag, "who art thou?"
"I am his wife," answered the mad woman. "What dost thou want, witch?"
"Ah!" said the hag; "now I know thee. Thou hast need of help and
friendship--I will be thy friend."
"What dost thou here?" said the woman, unheeding the latter part of
the sentence.
"I seek a dead man's hand, and a dead man's flesh. The hand I would
dry and wither in the smoke of the fire, and it will point out the way
by which my schemes may achieve success. Of the fat of the dead man I
would make candles--witch-lights--and by their glimmer I shall see,
and see, and see,--things and secrets that are hidden from mortal
eyes."
"Thou shalt not touch this dead man; he is my husband. Seek what thou
requirest elsewhere."
The witch placed a long hand on the distracted widow's shoulder.
"Be not so foolish, poor wench," said she. "Trouble not over what I
do. I tell thee I am thy friend, and the hand of thy dead husband once
in my possession, will be of more service to thee than if left rotting
here. Will not the ravens come--the birds of the air--and peck the
bones clean; and is that not a greater defilement than boiling the fat
in the witches' kitchen, and drying the dead man's hand in the smoke
of the witches' fire? Listen!--dost know the meaning of revenge?"
The poor widow's eyes glistened as though a fire burned within her
brain, and she repeated the single word "Revenge."
The old witch laughed, and said:
"Ah--thou knowest that. Tell me thy story."
Then the younger woman told the tale of want and woe and cruel wrong.
"The steward cast his eyes on me," she said, "but I loved my husband,
and would have nought to do with him. And one day, my man being near
when the tyrant insulted me, struck him to the ground, whereupon the
steward dismissed him from his post, and we were made beggars. Then my
child sickened, and since we needed nourishment, and there was no
chance of honest labour for my husband, he took to the forest and shot
one of the deer, saying that no wife or child of his should starve as
long as there were any of God's creatures to be shot in the woods of
Longdendale. The steward heard of this, and, like a wicked fiend, he
hounded my man to death. There his body hangs, and the man who drove
him to sin walks about in pride and power."
She ended her story with a wail, and commenced to tear at her hair.
"Where is thy child?" asked the hag.
The distracted creature pointed to a bundle, which she had previously
deposited at the foot of the gallows. In the bundle was the form of a
male child, lately dead.
"Dead too, like its father," said the witch. "How did it die?"
"It died of want and of grief. Grief poisoned my milk, and the child
drank of it and died."
"Does anyone know 'tis dead?"
"No one but me--its mother."
The witch looked intently at the eyes of the mother, as though she
would read her very soul.
"And thou would'st have revenge?" she asked at length.
"Would I not," answered the woman; "Oh, would I not. 'Tis all I live
for now. Give me vengeance and I will become thy slave."
"Then listen to me." And the hag whispered something in the ears of
her young companion which appeared to satisfy her, for in a little
while the two left the gibbet, carrying the dead child in a bundle
between them.
The next day, one who passed the gibbet noticed that the corpse
hanging thereon had only one hand.
A short time afterwards it was reported that the infant child of the
steward had been spirited away in the night. It had been set to sleep
in its cradle, and when the nurse awoke the cradle was empty, and the
window open. There was a great outcry, and men were sent in search;
the searchers presently returned bearing the dead body of a male
child, the face of which had been half eaten away. It was impossible
to recognise the features, but the steward wept over the body, telling
himself that his son had been devoured by some savage beast of the
forest, that had made its way into the mansion, and stolen the child
while the household slept. He suspected that some evil witch-wife had
been at work, and he trembled with fear, for he was sore afraid of the
powers of darkness, as all wicked men are.
Meanwhile the dead man's widow dwelt with the old witch at a haunted
hut in the forest, and it was reported that her son throve apace.
* * * * *
Years passed by, and the steward had no more children. The shock of
his son's death had proved too much for his lady's strength, and she
became an invalid. He grew more brutal and unmerciful in his conduct
day by day, and the peasantry came to regard him as a fiend in human
shape.
As for the old witch and the poor distracted widow and her child, they
lived in the haunted hut, shunned by all--for it was reported that the
widow herself had also become a witch, and was in league with the
powers of darkness. The lad grew up into a fine youth, and had he
lived an honest life, he would have been accounted one of the
handsomest and likeliest lads in all Longdendale. But the training of
his mother and the old witch had led him to spend his days in all
manner of evil, he robbed and plundered, and finally took to the woods
as an outlaw. Inspired by his mother, he was particularly severe in
his depredations upon the property of the steward, and being reckless
and daring to an unusual degree, he had so far succeeded in avoiding
capture. At length there came a time when an adventure more impudent
and daring than all previous affairs, caused the steward to put a
price upon his head, and so keen was the hunt after him that the bold
rascal found it necessary to keep in hiding.
The steward chafed with anger, for all his efforts to lay the robber
by the heels were fruitless, and he had small hopes of ascertaining
the whereabouts of the man he wanted. One day, however, an old hag
presented herself at his gate, and asked for an interview.
"Ah," said he, recognising the old witch, "what doest thou here. Where
is that imp of Satan whom thou hast helped to rear?"
"That, good Master Steward, is even what I am come to tell thee,"
answered the hag.
"How now," said the steward; "what evil scheme is afloat now?'
"Revenge," said the witch, snapping her toothless gums, and shaking
her crutch. "Revenge upon the woman--my companion, and upon her
evil-minded son. They have played me false, and now I mean to return
the compliment. The woman is away on a journey, and to-night her son
crept in from the forest for shelter and a meal. I gave him meat and
drink, but I drugged the drink, and now he lies in slumber at my hut
in the forest. Send thy guards, steward, and take him ere he wakes."
The steward rubbed his hands with glee, and laughed joyously.
"Thou devil's spawn," said he, "thou shalt be rewarded if we take
him."
"I seek no reward but to see him gibbetted," said the witch.
"Thy wish shall be gratified," said the steward; and without more ado
he called his men, and marched off to the witch's hut to effect the
arrest.
In those days little time was lost between the arrest of a man and his
death upon the gallows; and on the following day the witch and
her companion--the young widow of the earlier part of this
story--accompanied a procession to the place of execution at Gallow's
Clough. The steward was there with his men-at-arms--and as he beheld
the widow, he turned to her and began to rail.
"Ah, thou hell-cat. Dost thou love the gallows so? Thy husband died on
this gibbet, and now thy son comes to the same end. Like father, like
son. 'Tis in the breed. Why dost thou not weep and shriek for mercy as
thou did'st when thy man was swung?"
Then the woman answered with a laugh:
"Because I am mad, thou fool, and cannot weep. My tears were dried up
with weeping over my husband, and now I can weep no more. I must
laugh, man, laugh when the gibbet creaks beneath the weight of a dead
man. The days of weeping are past, the time of laughter and rejoicing
is come."
"Thou speakest truth," quoth the steward, turning away. "Thou art mad
indeed."
"Yet not so mad as thou, oh, thou wise man," said the woman,--but the
steward did not hear her.
The executioners did their work, and the young man was hanged by the
neck until he was dead. Then the steward and his men turned to depart.
But the widow stood before him, and laughed in his face.
"Wise man--madman, rather," said she. "Whom, thinkest thou, is that
dead man on the gallows?"
"Thy son, witch, thy son," said the steward, stepping back before the
wild appearance of the woman.
"My son, fool! Nay, 'tis thy son, steward. The child who disappeared
from his nurse's room was brought to me, was reared by me, was trained
for the gallows, and hangs there dead. My son died the same day that
his father was hanged--murdered by thee--and his mangled and
disfigured body was found by thy servants and buried as thy son. Dost
understand me now?"
The steward reeled, but recovered himself with an effort.
"'Tis false," said he, in a choking voice.
"'Tis true," screamed the woman; "was not there a birthmark upon thy
child's shoulder? Ah, thou rememberest it, I see. Look at the dead man
on the gallows, and thou wilt find the birthmark there."
With a wild cry the steward stripped the clothing from the dangling
corpse, and there upon the lifeless shoulder, he found the mark which
branded the criminal as his child. He had hanged his own son.
Before his men could lend a hand to stay him he had fallen senseless
to the ground.
The men turned and sprang towards the woman, who was now convulsed
with horrible laughter.
"Seize her," cried one,--and they all made to obey.
But quickly raising a phial to her lips, she drank the contents, and
in an instant fell back a corpse.
The old witch shook her crutch at the armed men.
"The murder of an innocent man is avenged," she cried. "Is it not
written that the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the
children? And lo--the murderer's son perishes upon the gibbet where
the father's crime was done."
Then, laughing shrilly, she hobbled away over the hills, and, full of
fear, the men-at-arms let her go unmolested.