The Horrors of the Dungeon.
Their route lay up the glen, and the darkness of the night, with the
roughness of the way, very much impeded their progress. At one time
they were led along the very margin of the stream, and, at another,
they climbed diagonally up the steep sides of the hills that bounded
it, and wound over far above, to avoid some impediment which blocked
all passage below. Now they penetrated extensive thickets of brushwood,
and again wound up among the tall stems of luxuriant oaks, or passed,
with greater ease to themselves and their weary horses, over small open
glades among the woods. At length they began to rise over the sides of
the hills, to a height so much beyond any that they had hitherto
mounted, that Assueton thought the deviation strange and unaccountable,
and was tempted to put some question to his guide.
“Whither dost thou lead us now, good forester?” said he; “thou seemest
to have abandoned the glen altogether, and methinks thou art now
resolved to soar to the very clouds. I much question whether garron of
mosstrooper ever climbed such a house-wall as this.”
“Sir Knight,” replied the forester, “I but intend to lead thee over the
ridge of a hill here, by a curter cast. The glen maketh a wicked wide
courbe below, and goeth miles about. This gate will save us leagues
twayne, at the very shortest reckoning. Trust me I am well up to all
the hills and glens of these parts, by night as well as by day.”
“Nay, good forester,” said Assueton, “I doubt thee not; but, by our
Lady, this seemeth to me to be a marvellous uncouth path.”
“T’other, indeed, is better, Sir Knight,” said the forester; “but bad
as this may be, ’twill haine us a good hour’s time of travel.”
Assueton was satisfied with this explanation, and the ground getting
more level as they advanced, he soon discovered that they were crossing
a wild ridge of moorland, and hoped that the impediments to a speedier
progress would be fewer. But the way seemed, if possible, to be even
more puzzling and difficult than ever. They wound round in one
direction, and then went zig-zag to the opposite point of the compass;
then they wormed their way through bogs and mosses—then stretched away
Heaven knew whither, and then, making a little detour, they (as it
seemed to Assueton) returned again in a line nearly parallel to that
which they had just pursued. Hours appeared to glide away in this
wearisome and endless maze, and Assueton’s impatience became excessive.
“Good forester,” said he, “methinks we are never to get out of this
enchanted labyrinth.”
“Nay, Sir Knight,” replied the forester, “’tis an enchanted labyrinth
in good soberness; for, verily, full many a goodly steed hath been
ygraven in the flows that surround us. There be quaking bogs here that
would swallow a good-sized tower. Nay, halt thee, Sir Knight, thou must
of needscost turn thee this gate again.”
“By St. Cuthbert,” said Assueton, “meseems it a miracle that thou
shouldst have memory to help thee to thread the intricacies of so
puzzling a path, maugre the darkness that yet prevails.”
“’Tis indeed mirk as a coal mine,” said the forester, “but I look for
the moon anon.”
After better than half-an-hour more of such travelling as we have
described, they at length wound down a very precipitous hill, where
their necks were in considerable peril, and found themselves again in
the glen, and by the side of its stream. As well as Assueton could
guess, they had now travelled fully three or four hours, the greater
part of which time they had spent on the high ground. The state of
their horses, too, bore out his calculation, for they showed symptoms
of great exhaustion, from this so large addition to the previous severe
journey. They pushed them on, however, as fast as the nature of the
ground would admit, the glen presenting the same variety of woods,
glades, and thickets, as it had formerly done.
At length they came to a place where the hills approached on each side,
and the glen narrowed to a wild gorge, where all passage was denied
below, except for the stream, and they were consequently again
compelled to ascend the abrupt banks by a diagonal path. But they had
no sooner gained the summit than the moon arose, and threw its silver
light full over the scene into which they were about to advance. Above
the gorge, the valley was split into two distinct glens, or rather deep
ravines, each pouring out its stream, and these, uniting together,
formed that which they had so long traced upwards. Above the point of
their union arose a green-headed eminence, swelling from among the rich
woods that everywhere clothed it, and all the other lower parts of the
space within their view. The round top of the eminence was crowned with
a rude Border Tower; and the whole was backed, a good way behind, by a
semi-circular range of hilly ridges. The moonlight shone powerfully on
the building, the keep of which seemed to be of no great size, but very
strong in itself; and the outworks, consisting of massive walls
defended here and there by round towers, showed that it was a
stronghold where determined men might make a powerful resistance.
“Yonder is the peel of Burnstower,” said the forester, pointing to it;
“thou must ford the stream there below, under the hill whereon it
stands, and so make thy way up through the woods by a narrow path, that
will lead thee to the yett. I shall yet go with thee as far as the
ford, to show thee the right gate through the water; but I must then
bid thee farewell, nor canst thou lack mine aid any longer.”
“Good forester,” said Assueton, “certes thou hast merited the guerdon
of my best thanks for thine obliging and toilsome convoy. When I join
thee again, trust me they shall be cheerfully paid thee, together with
what more solid warison thou mayest see fit to accept, in token of my
gratitude. Meanwhile, I beseech thee to take good charge of my brave
men.”
“Nay, fear me not in that, Sir Knight,” said the forester; “they shall
be well looked after, I promise thee. My men have doubtless already
taken good care of them, and of their steeds too.”
Having descended the hill, they pushed their way through the opposing
brushwood, and reached the bank of one of the streams, immediately
above the spot where it united itself to the other. The forester
indicated the ford to Assueton, and then took an abrupt leave, diving
into the thicket with his two followers.
Assueton stood for a moment on the brink of the stream before he
entered, and took that opportunity of telling his two attendants to be
particularly on their guard, to watch his eye, attend to his signals,
and be ready to act as these might appear to suggest to them. They were
also to bear in mind that for the present they were to pass as equals.
He then cautiously entered the ford, and, followed by Riddel and
Lindsay, soon reached the farther bank.
They now found themselves on a low grassy tongue of land, which shot
out between the two streams from the woods at the base of the eminence
the Castle stood on, and which, though of considerable length, was
nowhere more than a few yards wide. Along this they pushed their
horses, as fast as the weary animals could advance. A few trees
struggled down over it at the farther extremity, where it united itself
to the base of the hill; and just as they had entered among these, all
their horses were at one and the same moment tumbled headlong on the
ground. An instant shout arose from the thickets on either side, and
about a dozen men sprang from them on the prostrate riders; and, after
a short and ineffectual struggle on their part, Assueton and his two
attendants were bound hand and foot, and blindfolded. All this time not
a word was spoken; and excepting the shouts that were the signal of the
onset, not a sound was heard. But the prey was no sooner fairly
mastered, than a loud bugle blast was blown from the thickets near
them, and it was immediately answered by another, that rang through the
woods at some distance. The horses were then extricated from the toils
of ropes which had been so treacherously though ingeniously employed to
ensure their prostration, and on regaining their legs, their late
riders were lifted up and laid across them like sacks, and they were
led by the villains who had captured them up the steep and devious
ascent, through the thick wood to the Castle. The party then entered
the gateway, as Assueton judged from the noise made in raising the
portcullis, and the prisoners being lifted from their horses, were
carried each by two men into the main tower.
Whither they took his two attendants, Assueton had no means of
guessing; but he was borne up a long and winding stair, as he supposed
to the top of the building, and then through several passages. There he
heard the withdrawing of rusty bolts, and the heavy creaking of hinges;
and, being set down on the floor of his prison, his arms and legs were
unbound, his eyes uncovered, and he was left in utter darkness and
amazement.
After sitting for some moments to recover from the surprise occasioned
by this sudden and unlooked for annihilation of all his plans and of
all the hopes he had cherished from them, he arose, and, before
yielding to despair, groped his way to the walls, and felt them
anxiously all round. Not a crevice or aperture could he discover but
the doorway, and that was blocked by an impregnable door, crossed and
recrossed by powerful bars of iron, so that he saw no hope of its being
moved by any strength of human arm, unassisted by levers or other such
instruments. The walls and floor were of the most solid masonry in
every part; yet he felt the balmy air of a soft night blow upon his
face, and, on looking upwards, he could just descry a faint glimmer of
light, that broke with difficulty through the enormous thickness of the
building, by a narrow window immediately over where he then stood. This
opening, however, was quite beyond his reach, being at least a dozen
feet above him.
As he moved backwards to get from under the wall where the window was,
that he might obtain a better view of it, his head came in contact with
something hanging behind him. He turned round, but his eyes were not
yet sufficiently accustomed to the obscurity, to enable him to discover
anything more than that there was some dark object suspended from
above. He put up his hands to ascertain what it was, and, to his
inexpressible horror, felt the stiffened legs of a corpse, which swung
backwards and forwards at his touch. Bold and firm as he was, Assueton
started involuntarily back, and his heart revolted at the thought that
he was to be so mated for the night. He retired to a corner, where he
had discovered a heap of straw with a coarse blanket, and he sat him
down on it; but it immediately occurred to him that this had probably
been the bed of the unfortunate man who now dangled lifeless from the
centre of the vault, and he could sit on it no longer. That the poor
wretch had been put to death in the very chamber which had been his
prison, seemed to argue a degree of hardened cruelty and summary
vengeance in those in whose power he had now himself the misfortune to
be, that left him little room to hope for much mercy at their hands.
Having moved to an opposite corner, nearly under the little window, he
seated himself on the floor, and gave up his mind to the full
bitterness of its thoughts. The first recollection that presented
itself was that of the Lady Isabelle, torn from her home, her father,
and himself, by an unprincipled and abandoned villain. His reflections
on this painful theme banished every thought of his own captivity, as
well as every speculation as to what its result might be, excepting,
indeed, in so far as it might affect the fate of her who was now the
idol of his heart. He ran over his past conduct, and seeing that he
could now have no hope of being the instrument of her rescue, he blamed
himself in a thousand ways. He accused himself bitterly for not having
sent back a messenger from the place where he had met Sir Walter de
Selby, to inform Sir Patrick Hepborne the elder of the intelligence he
had obtained from the Captain of Norham; then unavailing regrets and
self-accusations arose within him for having neglected to obtain more
full information from Sir Walter, when he had it in his power to do so;
but, above all, he cursed his folly for having abandoned his
stout-hearted spearmen, who would have backed him against any foes to
the last drop of their blood. He turned over the circumstances of his
rencontre with the foresters, and, recalling the whole conduct of their
leader, he now began to be more than half suspicious that they had
played him false. This last reflection made him tremble for the fate of
his people whom he had left with them; and remembering his guide’s
parting assurance, “that they should be well looked after,” he felt
disposed to interpret it in a very opposite sense to that he had put
upon it the moment it was uttered.
He then again recurred to the Lady Isabelle. Why had he gone a-hunting
on the day she was carried off, when he had been repeatedly warned, by
something within his own breast, that he ought to stay at home with
her? Alas! where was she now? The question was agony to him. Could she
be within these walls? To know that she, indeed, really was so, would
have been cheering to him even in his present state of desponding
uncertainty, as it might have given him some frail hope of yet being of
use to her. He listened for distant sounds. Faint female shrieks came
from some part of the building far below. Again he heard them yet more
distinctly; and, full of the maddening idea that they came from the
Lady Isabelle, he started up, unconscious of what he was doing, flew
like a madman to the door, and began beating it with his fists,
screaming out, “Villains! murderers!” But his voice, and the noise of
his furious knocking, returned on his ear with a deadened sound, and
speedily convinced him that nothing could be heard from the lofty,
solitary, and massive-walled prison in which he was immured.
With a heart torn and distracted, and almost bereft of reason, he paced
the floor violently backwards and forwards. His ear then caught, from
time to time, the distant and subdued shouts of merriment and laughter.
These again stung him to fury.
“What!” cried he aloud, “do they make sport of her purity and her
misery? Villains! demons! hell-hounds!” And he again raved about his
prison with yet greater fury than before, a thousand horrible ideas
arising to his heated and prolific imagination.
At length he flung himself on the floor, utterly exhausted both in body
and mind by the intensity of his sufferings, and lay for some moments
in a state of quiet, from absolute inability to give further way to the
extravagance of action excited by his feelings. He had not been long in
this state, however, when the distant and faint chanting of a female
voice fell upon his ear. He started, and raising himself upon his
elbow, listened anxiously that he might drink in the minutest portion
of the sound which reached him. Though evidently coming from some
far-off chamber below, he distinctly caught the notes, which he
recognized to be those of a hymn to the Virgin, from the vesper
service. The melody was sweet and soothing to his lacerated soul. Again
it stole on him.
“The voice,” said he to himself, “that can so employ itself must come
from one who may be unhappy, but who cannot suppose herself to be in
any very immediate peril; nor, if her mind had been so lately suffering
urgent alarm, could she have by this time composed it so far as to be
able to lift it to Heaven in strains so gentle and placid.”
Though immediately afterwards convinced of the folly of such an idea,
he, for a moment, almost persuaded himself that he recognized the voice
of the Lady Isabelle Hepborne in that of the pious chantress. He threw
himself upon his knees, and offered up his fervent orisons for help in
his affliction. The voice came again upon him—and again he fancied he
knew it to be that of her he loved; but although he found himself, in
sound reason, obliged to discard all idea of the possibility of such a
recognition, yet it clung to his broken spirit, and was as a healing
balm to it, in despite of reason.
It produced one happy effect, however, by causing his agonizing
thoughts to give way, at last, to the immense bodily and mental fatigue
he had undergone. He dropped asleep on the bare pavement,
notwithstanding the horrors that hung over him, the uncertain fate that
awaited him, and the complication of misery by which he was oppressed.