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"Time has spared the epitaph on
Adrian's horse,--confounded that of himself."
SIR THOMAS BROWNE.
TRADITIONS
OF
LANCASHIRE.
BY
JOHN ROBY, M.R.S.L.
_ILLUSTRATED BY ENGRAVINGS ON STEEL AND WOOD._
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
Fifth Edition.
LONDON:
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS.
MANCHESTER: L. C. GENT.
1872.
PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
Transcriber's note: Minors spelling inconsistencies - mainly
hyphenated words - have been harmonised.
Obvious printer errors have been corrected, but the original
regional spelling of "properpty" (in "Clegg Hall") has been
retained.
Letters after the sign ^ should be read as superscript. Example
Edw^d, where the "d" is superscript.
Some chapters start with illustrations. In the original book
those illustrations are not named. Here they are named after
their chapters.
The Latin numbers (i, ii, etc.) behind some words or expressions
refer to the transcriber's notes at the end of this e-book.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.
PAGE
THE FAIRIES' CHAPEL, 1
THE LUCK OF MUNCASTER, 24
THE PEEL OF FOULDREY, 35
A LEGEND OF BEWSEY, 69
THE BLESSING, 78
THE DULE UPO' DUN, 82
WINDLESHAW ABBEY, 96
CLEGG HALL, 137
THE MERMAID OF MARTIN MEER, 172
GEORGE FOX, 189
THE DEMON OF THE WELL, 206
THE SANDS, 225
THE RING AND THE CLIFF, 236
THE DEAD MAN'S HAND, 247
THE LOST FARM, 262
THE MAID'S STRATAGEM, 294
THE SKULL-HOUSE, 311
RIVINGTON PIKE, 322
MOTHER RED-CAP, 345
THE DEATH-PAINTER, 389
THE CRYSTAL GOBLET, 416
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE PEEL OF FOULDREY _To face page_ 35
BEWSEY, NEAR WARRINGTON 69
WINDLESHAW ABBEY 96
CLEGG HALL, NEAR ROCHDALE 137
PEG O'NELLY'S WELL, NEAR CLITHEROE 206
ULVERSTONE SANDS 225
THE LOST FARM, NEAR SOUTHPORT 262
RIVINGTON PIKE 322
"THE THRUTCH," NEAR ROCHDALE 349
THE FAIRIES' CHAPEL.
"Farewell, rewards and fairies!
Good housewives now may say;
For now foule sluts in dairies,
Doe fare as well as they:
And though they sweepe their hearths no less
Than mayds were wont to doe,
Yet who of late, for cleaneliness,
Finds sixe-pence in her shoe?"
--_Percy's Reliques._
The ancient mansion of Healey Hall was a cumbrous inconvenient
dwelling of timber; but the spirit of improvement having gone
forth in the reign of Elizabeth, an ordinary hall-house of stone
was erected, about the year 1620, by Oliver Chadwick. On the
south front was a projecting wing and three gables, with a large
hall-window. The north front had two gables only, with a
projecting barn. The north entrance, covered by a porch, was a
thorough passage, answering to the screens of a college, having
on one side the hall and parlour beyond; on the other were the
kitchen, buttery, &c. On the river below was a corn-mill; this
and a huge barn being necessary appendages to the hospitable
mansions and plentiful boards of our forefathers. Over the front
door was this inscription--
C. C. DOC. T: R. C: I. C. A. C: R. B.
ANO. DOM'I. 1168.
About the year 1756 the east wall gave way, and a considerable
fishure appeared on the outside. This event was considered by
many as the usual foretokening that its owner, Charles Chadwick,
of Healey and Ridware, would speedily be removed by death from
the seat of his ancestors; and so it proved, for in the course
of a few months he died at Lichfield, _aged eighty-two_. His
great age, though, will be thought the more probable token, the
surer presage of approaching dissolution.
On a stone near the top of the building, on the north side, a
human head was rudely carved in relief, which tradition affirms
to have been a memorial of one of the workmen, accidentally
killed while the house was building.
In 1773, the existing edifice was built, on the ancient site, by
John Chadwick, grandfather to the present owner.
In Corry's _Lancashire_ is the following document, furnished by
the recent possessor, Charles Chadwick, Esq. It relates to the
foregoing John Chadwick, his father--
"In 1745, at the rebellion, when the Pretender's son and his
Highlanders reached Manchester, having obtained a list of the
loyal subscribers, they began (of course) to enforce the
payment of the money for their own use. An officer of the
belted plaid, of the second division, came to the house of Mr
C., in King Street, whilst the master of it was with his father
at Ridware, and, on being told that he was from home, and his
lady ill in bed, he went up-stairs, and opening the
chamber-door, where she was then lying-in, beckoned her sister
to come to him on the stairs, where he told her (in a mild but
decided tone) that the money before mentioned must be paid
quickly for the use of 'the prince (who lodged at the house in
Market Street, now called the Palace Inn), or the house would
be burnt down.' In this dilemma, the man-midwife calling first,
and afterwards the physician, were both consulted by the
ladies; when the former (a Tory) advised to send the money
after them, whilst the latter (a Whig) thought it better to
keep it till called for; consequently, never being called for
in their hasty retreat, the money was not paid. It may be
proper to add, Captain Lachlan MacLachlan, of the first
division (afterwards one of the proscribed), being quartered in
the same house, behaved with the greatest civility and
politeness. On a party of horse coming to the door for
quarters, he called for a lanthorn, and, though he had a cold
(for which white wine whey was offered him, which he called
'varra good stuff'), walked as far as Salford, and there
quartered them; two of his Highlanders, in the meantime, were
dancing reels in the kitchen, and in the morning gave each of
the maids sixpence at parting."
The name Healey Dene denotes a valley or dale, _convallis_,
enclosed on both sides with steep hills; _dene_ being a Saxon
word, signifying a narrow valley, with woods and streams of
water convenient for the feeding of cattle. Here the river
Spodden, which now keeps many fulling-mills and engines at
work, formerly turned one solitary corn-mill only. It was built
in the narrow dingle below the hall, for the supply of the
hamlet. The feudal owners of most mansions usually erected
corn-mills (where practicable) within their own demesnes. After
the family had removed to the more mild and temperate climate
of Mavesyn-Ridware, in Staffordshire, about the year 1636,
Healey Mill was converted into a fulling-mill, so that one of
the principal features in our story no longer exists.
About two miles north from Rochdale lies the hamlet of Healey, a high
tract of land, as its Saxon derivation seems to imply, hea{~LATIN SMALL LETTER EZH WITH CURL~}e, _high_,
and lea{~LATIN SMALL LETTER EZH WITH CURL~} _a pasture_, signifying the "_high pasture_."
Our Saxon ancestors chiefly occupied their lands for grazing
purposes; hence the many terminations in ley, or lea{~LATIN SMALL LETTER EZH WITH CURL~}. Pasturage is
still called a "ley" for cattle in these parts.
In this remote hamlet dwelt a family, probably of Saxon origin, whose
name, De Heley, from their place of residence, had, in all likelihood,
been assumed soon after the Norman conquest. Their descendants, of the
same name, continued to reside here until the reign of Edward III.,
holding their lands as abbey lands, under the abbot of Stanlaw, soon
after the year 1172, in the reign of Henry II., and subsequently under
the abbot of Whalley, from the year 1296.[1] In 1483, John Chadwyke, or
(_Ceddevyc_, from the common appellation _Cedde_, and _vyc_, a mansion
or vill, signifying Cedde's fort, peel, or fortified mansion) married
Alice, eldest daughter and co-heir of Adam Okeden of Heley; and in her
right settled at the mansion of Heley (or Healey) Hall, then a huge
unsightly structure of wood and plaster, built according to the
fashion of those days. An ancestor of Adam Okeden having married
"_Hawise, heir of Thomas de Heley_," in the reign of Edward III.,
became possessed of this inheritance.
The origin of surnames would be an interesting inquiry. In the present
instance it seems clear that the name and hamlet of Chadwick are
derived from Cedde's vyc, or Chad's vyc. This mansion, situated on the
southern extremity of Spotland, or Spoddenland, bounded on the east by
that stream, and southward by the Roche, was built on a bold eminence
above the river, where Cedde and his descendants dwelt, like the
Jewish patriarchs, occupied in the breeding of sheep and other cattle.
"But though this hamlet had been named _Ceddevic_, from its
subordinate Saxon chief, he himself could not have adopted it for his
own surname; because surnames were then scarcely, if at all, known
here. He must have continued, therefore, to use his simple Saxon name
of _Cedde_ only, and his successors likewise, with the addition of
Saxon _patronymics_ even down to the Norman conquest, when the Norman
fashion of local names or surnames was first introduced into England."
But though the Norman addition of surnames "became general amongst the
barons, knights, and gentry, soon after the Conquest, yet Saxon
patronymics long continued in use amongst the common people, and are
still not unusual here. Thus, instead of John Ashworth and Robert
Butterworth, we hear of Robin o' Ben's and John o'Johnny's,"--meaning
Robert the son of Benjamin, and John the son of John, "similar to the
Norman Fitz, the Welsh Ap', the Scotch Mac, and the Irish O'; and this
ancient mode of describing an individual sometimes includes several
generations, as Thomas O'Dick's, O'Ned's, O'Sam's," &c.
But besides patronymics, nicknames (the Norman soubriquets) have been
used in all ages and by all nations, and are still common here; some
of them coarse and ludicrous enough: the real surname being seldom
noticed, but the nickname sometimes introduced, with an alias, even in
a law instrument. And why are not Poden, Muz, Listing, &c., as good as
"the Bald," "the Fat," "the Simple," &c., of the French kings; or "the
Unready," "the Bastard," "Lackland," "Longshanks," &c., of our own? A
lad named Edmund, some generations back, attended his master's sons to
Rochdale school, who latinised his name into "Edmundus;" then it was
contracted into "Mundus," by which name his descendants are best known
to this day: some probably knowing "Tom Mundus" well who are ignorant
of his real surname. Within late years individuals have been puzzled
on hearing themselves inquired after by their own surname. At
Whitworth you might have asked in vain for the house of "Susannah
Taylor," though any child would have taken you straight to the door of
"Susy O'Yem's, O' Fair-off's at top o' th' rake."[2]
Another derivation of the surname De Heley, not at all improbable, has
been suggested--viz., that Hely Dene may have been an early corruption
of Holy Dene, having formerly belonged to the Church, and possibly, in
remote ages, dedicated to the religious rites of the Druids. A clear
rock-spring, in a gloomy dell below the Hall, is still called "the
Spaw," and often frequented by youths and maidens on May mornings.
Hence some have imagined that this Dene and its Spaw may have given to
the river running through it the name of Spodden, or Spaw-Dene.
Another spring, higher up, is called Robin Hood's Well, from that
celebrated outlaw, who seems to have been the favourite champion of
these parts, and who, according to some authorities, lies buried at
Kirklaw, in the West Riding of York.[3]
Such holy wells were, in more superstitious if not happier ages, the
supposed haunts of elves, fairies, and other such beings, not unaptly
denominated the rabble of mythology.
A warm sequestered dingle here conducts the Spodden through a scene of
wild, woodland, and picturesque beauty. Drayton, in his _Polyolbion_,
has thus immortalised it:--
"First Roche, a dainty rill, which Spodden from her springs,
A petty rivulet, as her attendant, brings."
From the mansion of Healey, built on an elevated slope above the dell,
opens out an extensive prospect. Limepark in Cheshire, Cloud End in
Staffordshire, with the Derbyshire hills, may be distinctly seen. Over
the smoke of Manchester, the banks of the Mersey are visible; and upon
the horizon rises up the barn-like ridge of Hellsby Tor,[4] in the
forest of Delamere. Towards the west may be seen, far out, like a vast
barrier, the Welsh mountains, _Moel Famma_ (mother of mountains), with
the vale of Clwyd, like a narrow cleft in the blue hills, which extend
until the chain of Penmaenmawr and the Isle of Anglesey abruptly
terminate in the sea. Few situations, without the toil of a laborious
ascent, show so commanding a prospect; while under the very eye of the
spectator, nature assumes an aspect of more than ordinary beauty.
One wild scene, the subject of our legend, the pencil, not the pen,
must describe. It would be impossible, in any other manner, to convey
an adequate idea of its extreme loveliness and grandeur. It is here
known by its Saxon appellation, "the Thrutch," or Thrust, signifying a
narrow, but deep and rugged channel in the rocks. Through this cleft
the Spodden bursts with great force, forming several picturesque
falls, which, though of mean height, yet, combined with the
surrounding scenery, few behold without an expression of both wonder
and delight.
The ancient corn-mill was here situated, just below the mansion. From
the "Grist Yate," by the main road to Rochdale, a winding horse-way,
paved with stones set on edge, led down the steep bank and pointed to
the sequestered spot where for ages the clack of the hopper and the
plash of the mill-wheel had usurped a noisy and undisputed possession.
In the reign of our fourth Edward--we know not the precise year--an
occurrence, forming the basis of the following legend, is supposed to
have taken place,--when fraud and feud were unredressed; when bigotry
and superstition had their "perfect work;" when barbaric cruelty, and
high and heroic deeds, had their origin in one corrupt and common
source, the passions of man being let loose, in wild uproar,
throughout the land; when the wars of the Roses had almost desolated
the realm, and England's best blood flowed like a torrent. Such was
the aspect of the time to which the following events relate.
It was in the beginning of the year, at the close of an unusually
severe winter. The miller's craft was nigh useless, the current of the
rivulet was almost still. Everything seemed so hard and frost-bound,
that nature looked as though her fetters were rivetted for ever. But
the dark and sterile aspect she displayed was bedizened with such
beauteous frost-work, that light and glory rested upon all, and winter
itself lost half its terrors.
Ralph Miller often looked out from his dusty, dreary tabernacle,
watching the icicles that accumulated on his wheel, and the scanty
current beneath, the hard surface of the brook scarcely dribbling out
a sufficient supply for his daily wants.
Every succeeding morn saw the liquid element becoming less, and the
unhappy miller bethought him that he would shut up the mill
altogether, until the reign of the frozen king should expire.
A seven-weeks' frost was rapidly trenching on the fair proportions of
an eighth of these hebdomadal inconveniences, and still continued the
same hard, ringing sound and appearance, as if the sky itself o'
nights had been frozen too--fixed and impervious--and the darkness had
become already palpable. Yet the moon looked out so calm, so pure and
beautiful, and the stars so spark-like and piercing, that it was a
holy and a heavenly rapture to gaze upon their glorious forms, and to
behold them, fresh and undimmed, as when first launched from the hands
of their Creator.
Want of occupation breeds mischief, idleness being a thriftless carle
that leaves the house empty, and the door open to the next comer--an
opportunity of which the enemy is sure to avail himself. The miller
felt the hours hang heavily, and he became listless and ill-humoured.
"'Tis an ill-natured and cankered disposition this," said he one
night, when sitting by the ingle with his drowsy helpmate, watching
the sputtering billets devoured, one after another, by the ravening
flame: "'Tis an ill-natured disposition that is abroad, I say, that
will neither let a man go about his own business, nor grant him a few
honest junkets these moonlight nights. I might have throttled a hare
or so, or a brace of rabbits; or what dost think, dame, of a couple of
moor-cocks or a cushat for a pie?"
"Thy liquorish tooth will lead thee into some snare, goodman, ere it
ha' done watering. What did Master Chadwyck say, who is to wed
Mistress Alice, our master's daughter, if nought forefend? What did he
promise thee but a week agone, should he catch thee at thy old trade
again?"
"A murrain light on the snivelling bully! Let him stay at his own
homestead, and not take mastership here, to trouble us with his
humours ere the portion be his. His younger brother Oliver is worth a
whole pack of such down-looked, smooth-faced hypocrites. Oliver
Chadwyck is the boy for a snug quarrel. His fingers itch for a
drubbing, and he scents a feud as a crow scents out carrion. The
other--mercy on me!--is fit for nought but to be bed-ridden and
priest-ridden like his father and his mother to boot."
"Hush, Ralph," said the cautious dame; "let thine hard speeches fall
more gently on thy master's son, that is to be. His own parents
too--methinks the son of Jordan and Eleanor Chadwyck should earn a
kinder word and a lighter judgment from thy tongue."
"Whew! my courteous dame. How now! and so because they are become part
of the movables of Holy Church, I trow, they must be handled softly,
forsooth! Tut, tut, beldame, they are--let me see, so it runs; the old
clerk of St Chad's rang the nomine in my ears long enough, and I am
not like to forget it. They be 'Trinitarians,' said he, 'of the house
of St Robert near Knaresborough, admitted by Brother Robert, the
minister of the Holy Trinity, for the redemption of captives
imprisoned by the pagans, for the faith of Jesus Christ.' Gramercy,
what a bead-roll of hard words! They say we are like to have a '_Holy
War_' again, when we have settled our own reckonings; and the blood
and groats of old England are again to be spent for the purchase of
'_Holy Land_.' O' my halidome, wench, but I would let all the priests
and friars fight for it. Cunning rogues! they set us together by the
ears, and then run away with the pudding."
No doubt this profane speech rendered him easier of access to the
tempter, and the powers of evil; who, ever watchful for the slips of
silly mortals, report such unholy words at head-quarters, where Satan
and his crew are assembled in full council.
The dame groaned deeply at this reply from her graceless husband.
"Some time or another," said she, "thou wilt rue these wicked
speeches; and who knows whether these very words of thine may not have
been heard i' the Fairies' Chapel, or whispered away beyond the forest
to the witches' tryst!"
"I care not for all the imps and warlocks i' th' parish, hags and old
women to boot. Let them come face to face. Here am I, honest Ralph the
miller, who never took toll from an empty sack, nor e'er missed the
mouth of a full one. Tol-de-rol."
Here he stood, with arms akimbo, as if daring the whole fellowship of
Satan, with their abettors and allies. This speech, too, was doubtless
reported at the Fairies' Chapel hard by; for the dame vowed ever after
that she heard, as it were, an echo, or a low sooning sound, ending
with an eldritch laugh, amongst the rocks in that direction. This
well-known haunt of the elves and fays, ere they had fled before the
march of science and civilisation, was but a good bowshot from the
mill, and would have terrified many a stouter heart, had not
familiarity lulled their apprehensions, and habit blunted the edge of
their fears. Strangers often wondered that any human being dared to
sojourn so near the haunts of the "good people," and were sure that,
sooner or later, the inhabitants would rue so dangerous a proximity.
A few evenings after this foolhardy challenge Ralph had been
scrambling away, far up the dingle, for a supply of firewood. The same
keen tinkling air was abroad, but the sky, where the sun had thrown
his long coronal of rays, was streaked across with a mottled and hazy
light, probably the forerunner of a change. Ralph was labouring down
the steep with his load, crashing through the boughs, and shaking off
their hoary burdens in his progress. Suddenly he heard the shrill and
well-known shriek of a hare struggling in the toils. At this joyful
and refreshing sound the miller's appetite was wonderfully stimulated;
his darling propensities were immediately called forth; he threw down
his burden, and, rushing through the brake, he saw, or thought he saw,
in the soft twilight, an unfortunate puss in the noose. He threw
himself hastily forward expecting to grasp the prize, when lo! up
started the timid animal, and limping away, as if hurt, kept the
liquorish poacher at her heels, every minute supposing he was sure of
his prey. Rueful was the pilgrimage of the unfortunate hunter. The
hare doubled, and sprang aside whenever he came within striking
distance, then hirpling onward as before. Ralph made a full pause
where a wide gap displayed the scanty waterfall, just glimmering
through the mist below him. The moon, then riding out brightly in the
opposite direction, sparkled on the restless current, tipped with
foam. It was the nearest cut to the "Fairies' Chapel," which lies
behind, and higher towards the source of the waterfall. The unlucky
hare paused too for a moment, as though afraid to leap; but she looked
back at her pursuer so bewitchingly that his heart was in his mouth,
and, fearless of consequences, he rushed towards her; but he slipped,
and fell down the crumbling bank. When sufficiently recovered from the
shock, he saw the animal stealing off, between the edge of the stream
and the low copsewood by the brink, towards the Fairies' Chapel. He
made one desperate effort to lay hold of her before she set foot upon
enchanted ground.
He seized her, luckily as he thought, by the scut; when lo! up started
something black and "uncanny," with glaring eyes, making mouths, and
grinning at him, as though in mockery. He felt stupefied and
bewildered. Fascinated by terror, he could not refrain from following
this horrible appearance, which, as if delighted to have ensnared him,
frisked away with uncouth and fiendish gambols, to the very centre of
the Fairies' Chapel.
Ralph, puissant and valorous upon his own hearthstone, felt his
courage fast oozing out at elbows when he saw the cold moonlight
streaming through the branches above him, and their crawling shadows
on the grotesque rocks at his side.
He was now alone, shivering from cold and fright. He felt as though
undergoing the unpleasant process of being frozen to the spot,
consciously metamorphosing into stone, peradventure a sort of
ornamental fixture for the fairies' apartment. His great hoofs were
already immovable; he felt his hair congealing; his locks hung like
icicles; and his whole body seemed like one solid lump of ice, through
which the blood crept with a gradually decreasing current. Suddenly he
heard a loud yelping, as though the hounds were in full cry. The
sound passed right through the midst of the Fairies' Hall, and almost
close to his ear; but there was no visible sign of their presence,
except a slight movement, and then a shiver amongst the frost-bitten
boughs above the rocks. He had not power to bethink him of his
Paternosters and Ave Marias, which, doubtless, would have dissolved
the impious charm. Ralph had so neglected these ordinances that his
tongue refused to repeat the usual nostrums for protection against
evil spirits. His creed was nigh forgotten, and his "_salve_" was not
heard. Whilst he was pondering on this occurrence, there started
through a crevice a single light, like a glow-worm's lantern. Then a
tiny thing came forth, clad in white, like a miniature of the human
form, and, peeping about cautiously, ran back on beholding the
unfortunate miller bolt upright in the narrow glen.
Ralph now saw plainly that he had been enticed hither by some evil
being for no good. It might be for the malicious purpose of drawing
down upon him the puny but fearful vengeance of those irritable
creatures the fairies; and soon he saw a whole troop of them issuing
out of the crevice. As they came nearer he heard the short sharp tread
of this tiny host. One of them mounted the little pillar called the
"Fairies' Chair," round which multitudes gathered, as if waiting for
the fiat of their king. It was evident that their purpose was to
inflict a signal chastisement on him for his intrusion.
Ralph watched their movements with a deplorable look. Horrible indeed
were his anticipations. The elf on the pillar, a little wrinkled being
with a long nose, bottle-green eyes, and shrivelled yellowish-green
face, in a shrill squeaking tone, addressed him courteously, though
with an ill-suppressed sneer, inquiring his business in these regions.
But Ralph was too terrified to reply.
"How lucky!" said the old fairy: "we have a mortal here, just in the
nick of time. He will do our bidding rarely, for 'tis the stout miller
hard by, who fears neither fiend nor fairy, man nor witch, by his own
confession. We'll put his courage to the proof."
Ralph was now thawing through terror.
"We would have punished this thine impertinent curiosity, had we not
other business for thee, friend," said the malicious little devilkin.
"Place thy fingers on thy thigh, and swear by Hecate, Merlin, and the
Fairies' Hall, that within three days thou wilt fulfil our behest."
Ralph assented, with a hideous grimace, glad upon any terms to escape.
The whole company disappeared, but a faint, sulphur-like flame hovered
for a while over the spot they had left.
Soon he heard the following words, in a voice of ravishing
sweetness:--
"Mortal I must cease to be,
If no maiden, honestly,
Plight her virgin troth to me,
By yon cold moon's silver shower,
In the chill and mystic hour,
When the arrowy moonbeams fall
In the fairies' festive hall.
Twice her light shall o'er me pass,
Then I am what once I was,
Should no maid, betrothed, but free,
Plight her virgin vow to me."
The music ceased for a short space; then a voice, like the soft
whisper of the summer winds, chanted the following lines in a sort of
monotonous recitation:--
"Mortal, take this unstained token,
Unpledged vows were never broken;
Lay it where a Byron's hand
This message finds from fairy-land,--
Fair Eleanor, the love-sick maid,
Who sighs unto her own soft shade:--
Bid her on this tablet write
What lover's wish would e'er indite;
Then give it to the faithful stream
(As bright and pure as love's first dream)
That murmurs by,--'twill bring to me
The messenger I give to thee.
"But the maiden thou must bring
Hither, to our elfin king,
Ere three days are come and gone,
When the moon hath kissed the stone
By our fairy monarch's throne.
Shouldst thou fail, or she refuse,
Death is thine; or thou may'st choose
With us to chase the moonbeams bright,
Around the busy world. Good night!"
He now felt something slipped into his hand.
"Remember," said the voice, "when that shadow is on the pillar, thou
must return."
Immediately his bodily organs resumed their office, and the astonished
miller was not long in regaining his own threshold.
But he was a moody and an altered man. The dame could not help
shuddering as she saw his ashen visage, and his eyes fixed and almost
starting from their sockets. His cheeks were sunken, his head was
bare, and his locks covered with rime, and with fragments from the
boughs that intercepted his path.
"Mercy on me!" cried she, lifting up her hands, "what terrible thing
has happened? O Ralph, Ralph, thy silly gostering speeches, I do fear
me, have had a sting in their tail thou hast little dreamed of!"
Here she crossed herself with much fervour and solemnity. She then
turned to gaze on the doomed wretch, who, groaning heavily, seated
himself on the old settle without speaking.
"He has seen the fairies or the black dog!" said the dame in great
terror. "I will not upbraid thee with thy foolish speeches, yet would
I thou hadst not spoken so lightly of the good people. But take
courage, goodman; thou art never the worse yet for thy mishap, I trow;
so tell me what has befallen thee, and ha' done snoring there, like an
owl in a barn riggin'."
A long time elapsed ere the affrighted miller could reveal the nature
and extent of his misfortunes. But woman's wits are more fertile in
expedients, and therefore more adroit for plots and counterplots than
our own. The dame was greatly terrified at the recital, yet not so as
to prevent her from being able to counsel her husband as to the plan
he should pursue.
We now leave our honest miller for a space, while we introduce another
personage of great importance to the further development of our story.
Oliver Chadwyck was the second son of Jordan Chadwyck before-named,
then residing at their fort or peel of the same name, nearly two miles
from Healey. Oliver had, from his youth, been betrothed to Eleanor
Byron, a young and noble dame of great beauty, residing with her
uncle, Sir Nicholas Byron, at his mansion, two or three miles distant.
Oliver was a hot-brained, amorous youth, fitted for all weathers,
ready either for brotherhood or blows, and would have won his "ladye
love" at the lance's point or by onslaught and hard knocks.
Eleanor seemed to suffer his addresses for lack of other occupation.
She looked upon him as her future husband; but she would rather have
been wooed to be won. The agonies of doubt and suspense, the pangs of
jealousy and apprehension, would have been bliss compared to the dull
monotony of the "betrothed." The lazy current would have sparkled if a
few pebbles had been cast into the stream. Her sensitive spirit,
likewise, shrank from contact with this fiery and impetuous youth; her
heart yearned for some deep and hallowed affection. Strongly imbued
with the witcheries of romance, she would rather have been sought by
blandishments than blows, which, from his known prowess in the latter
accomplishment, the youthful aspirant had no necessity to detail in
the ears of his mistress. She liked not the coarse blunt manner of her
gallant, nor the hard gripe and iron tramp for which he was
sufficiently distinguished.
Yet was Oliver Chadwyck reckoned the best-looking cavalier in the
neighbourhood, and, moreover, an adherent to the "Red Rose," under
whose banner he had fought, and, even when very young, had gained
distinction for his bravery--no mean recommendation, truly, in those
days, when courage was reckoned a sure passport to a lady's favour,
the which, it might seem, whoever held out longest and stuck the
hardest was sure to win.
One evening, about the time of the miller's adventure in the Fairies'
Chapel, Eleanor was looking through her casement listlessly, perhaps
unconsciously. She sighed for occupation. The glorious hues of sunset
were gone; the moon was rising, and she watched its course from the
horizon of long dark hills up to the bare boughs of the sycamores by
the banks of the little stream below. Again she sighed, and so heavily
that it seemed to be re-echoed from the walls of her chamber. She
almost expected the grim panels to start aside as she looked round,
half-wishing, half-afraid that she might discover the intruder.
Disappointed, she turned again to the casement, through which the
moonbeams, now partially intercepted by the branches, lay in chequered
light and darkness on the floor.
"I thought thou wert here. Alas! I am unhappy, and I know not why."
While she spoke a tear trembled on her dark eyelashes, and as the
moonlight shone upon it, the reflection glanced back to the eye-ball,
and a radiant form apparently glided through the chamber. But the
spectre vanished as the eyelid passed over, and swept away the
illusion. She leaned her glowing cheek upon a hand white and
exquisitely formed as the purest statuary: an image of more perfect
loveliness never glanced through a lady's lattice. She carelessly
took up her cithern. A few wild chords flew from her touch. She bent
her head towards the instrument, as if wooing its melody--the
vibrations that crept to her heart. She hummed a low and plaintive
descant, mournful and tender as her own thoughts. The tone and feeling
of the ballad we attempt to preserve in the following shape:--
SONG.
I.
"It is the stream,
Singing to the cold moon with babbling tongue;
Yet, ah! not half so wildly as the song
Of my heart's dream.
Is not my love most beautiful, thou moon?
Though pale as hope delayed;
Methought, beneath his feet the wild-flowers played
Like living hearts in tune.
2.
"We stood alone:
Then, as he drew the dark curls from my sight,
Through his transparent hand and arm of light,
The far skies shone.
List! 'twas the dove.
It seemed the echo of his own fond tone;
Sweet as the hymn of seraphs round the throne
Of hope and love!"
But the moon was not the object of her love. Ladies are little apt to
become enamoured of such a fit emblem of their own fickle and
capricious humours; and yet, somebody she loved, but he was invisible!
Probably her wild and fervid imagination had created a form--pictured
it to the mind, and endowed it with her own notions of excellence and
perfection: precisely the same as love in the ordinary mode, with this
difference only--to wit, the object is a living and breathing
substance, around which these haloes of the imagination are thrown;
whereas, in the case of which we are speaking, the lady's ideal image
was transferred to a being she had never seen.
It was but a short period before the commencement of our narrative
that Eleanor Byron was really in love, and for the first time; for
though her cousin Oliver, as she usually called him, had stormed, and
perchance carried the outworks, yet the citadel was impregnable and
unapproached. But she knew not that it was love. A soft and pleasing
impression stole insensibly upon her, then dejection and melancholy.
Her heart was vacant, and she sighed for an object, and for its
possession. It was a silly wish, but so it was, gentle reader; and
beware thou fall not in love with thine own dreams, for sure enough it
was but a vision, bright, mysterious, and bewitching, that enthralled
her. Love weaves his chains of the gossamer's web, as well as of the
unyielding adamant; and both are alike binding and inextricable. She
saw neither form nor face in her visions, and yet the impalpable and
glowing impression stole upon her senses like an odour, or a strain of
soft and soul-thrilling music. Her heart was wrapped in a delirium of
such voluptuous melody, that she chided the morning when she awoke,
and longed for night and her own forgetfulness. Night after night the
vision was repeated; and when her lover came, it was as though some
chord of feeling had jarred, some tie were broken, some delicious
dream were interrupted, and she turned from him with vexation and
regret. He chided her caprice, which he endured impatiently, and with
little show of forbearance. This did not restore him to her favour,
nor render him more winning and attractive; so that the invisible
gallant, a rival he little dreamt of, was silently occupying the heart
once destined for his own.
One evening, Ralph, in pursuance of the commands he had received,
arrayed in his best doublet, his brown hose, and a huge waist or
undercoat, beneath which lay a heavy and foreboding heart, made his
appearance at the house of Sir Nicholas Byron, an irregular and ugly
structure of lath and plaster, well ribbed with stout timber, situated
in a sheltered nook near the edge of the Beil, a brook running below
Belfield, once an establishment of the renowned knights of St John of
Jerusalem, or Knights Templars.
Ralph was ushered into the lady's chamber; and she, as if expecting
some more distinguished visitant, looked with an eye of disappointment
and impatience upon the intruder as he made his homely salutation.
"Thine errand?" inquired she.
"Verily, a fool's, lady," replied Ralph, "and a thriftless one, I fear
me, into the bargain."
"Stay thy tongue. Yet I bethink me now," said she, looking earnestly
at him, "thou art from my cousin: a messenger from him, I trow."
"Nay," said the ambiguous hind, "'tis from other guess folk, belike;
but--who--I--Like enough that the Lady Eleanor will go a
fortune-hunting with such a simpleton as I am."
"Go with thee?" said the lady in amazement.
"Why, ay--I was bid to bring you to the Fairies' Chapel, beyond the
waterfall in the wood by Healey, and that ere to-morrow night. But I
am a doomed and a dying man, for how should the Lady Eleanor Byron
obey this message?"
Here the unhappy miller began to weep; but the lady was dumb with
astonishment.
"Forgive me, lady, in this matter; but I was in a manner bound to
accomplish mine errand."
"And what if I should accompany thee? Wouldest thou be my champion, my
protector from onslaught and evil?"
Here he opened his huge grey eyes to such an alarming extent that
Eleanor had much ado to refrain from smiling.
"If you will go, lady, I shall be a living man; and you"--a dead
woman, probably he would have said; but the denunciation did not
escape his lips, and the joy and surprise of the wary miller were
beyond utterance.
"But whence thy message, friend?" said the deluded maiden, eyeing him
suspiciously.
"Why; the message was whispered in my ear. A stranger brought it
together with a dismal threat should I not bring you at the time
appointed."
Here the miller again became uneasy and alarmed. A cold shudder crept
over him, and he looked imploringly upon her.
"But they say, my trusty miller, that this chapel of the fairies may
not be visited, forbidden as it is to all catholic and devout
Christians, after nightfall."
At this intimation the peccant miller displayed his broad thumbs, and
looked so dolorous and apprehensive, sprawling out his large ungainly
proportions, that Eleanor, though not prone to the indulgence of
mirth, was mightily moved thereto by the cowardly and dismal aspect he
betrayed.
"Nay, lady, I beseech you," he stammered out. "I am a dead dog--a
piece of useless and unappropriated carrion, if you go not. Ha' pity
on your poor knave, and deliver me from my tormentors!"
"Then to-morrow I will deliver thee," said the maiden, "and break
thine enchantment. But the hour?"
"Ere the moonbeam touches the pillar in the Fairies' Hall."
"Agreed, knave. So begone. Yet--and answer truly for thy life--was no
pledge, no token, sent with this message?"
Ralph unwillingly drew forth the token from his belt. Fearful that it
might divulge more than he wished, the treacherous messenger had kept
back the tablets entrusted to him. He suspected that should she be
aware it was the good people who were a-wanting her, he would have but
a slender chance of success.
She glanced hastily, anxiously, over the page, though with great
surprise.
"How now?" said she, thoughtfully. "Here is a pretty love-billet
truly. The page is fair and unspotted--fit emblem of a lover's
thoughts."
"You are to write thereon, lady, your lover's wish, and throw it into
the brook here, hard by. The stream, a trusty messenger will carry it
back to its owner."
Ralph delivered his message with great reluctance, fearful lest she
might be alarmed and retract her promise.
To his great joy, however, she placed the mystic token in her bosom,
and bade him attend on the morrow.
This he promised faithfully; and with a light heart he returned to his
abode.
Eleanor watched his departure with impatience. She took the tablets
from her bosom. Horror seemed to fold his icy fingers round her heart.
She remembered the injunction. Her mind misgave her, and as she drew
towards the lamp it shot forth a tremulous blaze and expired. Yet with
desperate haste, bent, it might seem, on her own destruction, she
hastily approached the window. The moonbeam shone full upon the page
as she scrawled with great trepidation the word "THINE." To her
unspeakable horror the letters became a track of fire, but as she
gazed a drop of dark blood fell on them and obliterated the writing.
"Must the compact be in blood?" said she, evidently shrinking from
this unhallowed pledge. "Nay then, farewell! Thou art not of yon
bright heaven. My hopes are yet there, whatever be thy doom! If thou
art aught within the pale of mercy I am thine, but not in blood."
Again, but on another page, she wrote the word "THINE." Again the
blood-drop effaced the letters.
"Never, though I love thee! Why urge this compact?" With a trembling
hand she retraced her pledge, and the omen was not repeated. She had
dared much; but her hope of mercy was yet dearer than her heart's deep
and overwhelming passion. With joy she saw the writing was unchanged.
Throwing on her hood and kerchief, she stole forth to the brook, and
in the rivulet, where it was yet dark and unfrozen, she threw the
mystic tablet.
The following night she watched the moon, as it rose above the huge
crags, breaking the long undulating horizon of Blackstone Edge, called
"Robin Hood's Bed," or "Robin Hood's Chair."[5]
One jagged peak, projected upon the moon's limb, looked like some huge
spectre issuing from her bright pavilion. She rose, red and angry,
from her dark couch. Afterwards a thin haze partially obscured her
brightness; her pale, wan beam seemed struggling through a wide and
attenuated veil. The wind, too, began to impart that peculiar chill so
well understood as the forerunner of a change. A loud sough came
shuddering through the frozen bushes, moaning in the grass that
rustled by her path. Muffled and alone, she took her adventurous
journey to the mill, where she arrived in about an hour from her
departure. Ralph was anxiously expecting her, together with his dame.
"Good e'en, lady," said the latter, with great alacrity, as Eleanor
crossed the threshold. She returned the salutation; but her features
were lighted up with a wild and deceptive brightness, and her glowing
eye betrayed the fierce and raging conflict within.
"The shadow will soon point to the hour, and we must be gone," said
the impatient miller.
"Lead on," replied the courageous maiden; and he shrank from her gaze,
conscious of his own treachery and her danger.
The hard and ice-bound waters were dissolving, and might be heard to
gurgle in their deep recesses; drops began to trickle from the trees,
the bushes to relax their hold, and shake off their icy trammels.
Towards the south-west lay a dense range of clouds, their fleecy tops
telling with what message they were charged. Still the moon cast a
subdued and lingering light over the scene, from which she was shortly
destined to be shut out.
Ralph led the way silently and with great caution through the slippery
ravine. The moonlight flickered through the leafless branches on the
heights above them, their path winding through the shadows by the
stream.
"We must hasten," said her guide, "or we may miss the signal. We shall
soon take leave of the moonlight, and perhaps lose our labour
thereby."
They crept onwards until they saw the dark rocks in the Fairies'
Chapel. The miller pointed to a long withered bough that flung out its
giant arms far over the gulph from a great height. The moon threw down
the shadow quite across to the bank on the other side, marking its
rude outline on the crags.
"The signal," said Ralph; "and by your favour, lady, I must depart. I
have redeemed my pledge."
"Stay, I prithee, but within hearing," said Eleanor. "I like not the
aspect of this place. If I call, hasten instantly to my succour."
The miller promised, but with a secret determination not to risk his
carcase again for all the bright-eyed dames in Christendom.
She listened to his departing footsteps, and her heart seemed to lose
its support. An indescribable feeling crept upon her--a consciousness
that another was present in this solitude. She was evidently under the
control of some invisible agent; the very freedom of her thoughts
oppressed and overruled by a power superior to her own. She strove to
escape this thraldom, but in vain. She threw round an apprehensive
glance, but all was still--the dripping boughs alone breaking the
almost insupportable silence that surrounded her. Suddenly she heard a
sigh, and a rustling at her ear; and she felt an icy chillness
breathing on her. Then a voice, musical but sad, whispered--
"Thou hast rejected my suit. Another holds thy pledge."
"Another! Who art thou?" said the maiden, forgetting her fears in the
first emotion of surprise.
"Thou hast been conscious of my presence in thy dreams!" replied the
mysterious visitor. She felt her terrors dissipated, for the being
whom she loved was the guardian of her safety.
"I have loved thee, maiden," said the voice; "I have hovered round
thee when thou slept, and thou hast answered my every thought.
Wherefore hast thou not obeyed? Why not seal thy compact and our
happiness together?"
"Because it was unhallowed," replied she firmly, though her bosom
trembled like the leaf fluttering from its stem.
"Another has taken thy pledge. Yet is it not too late. Renew the
contract, even with thy blood, and I am thine! Refuse, and thou art
his. If this hour pass, I am lost to thee for ever!"
"To whom," inquired Eleanor, "has it been conveyed?"
"To thy first, thy betrothed lover. He found the pledge that I would
not receive."
The maiden hesitated. Her eternal hopes might be compromised by this
compliance. But she dreaded the loss of her insidious destroyer.
"Who art thou? I fear me for the tempter!"
"And what boots it, lady? But, listen. These elves be my slaves; and
yet I am not immortal. My term is nigh run out, though it may be
renewed if, before the last hour be past, a maiden plight her hopes,
her happiness to me! Ere that shadow creeps on the fairy pillar thou
art irrevocably mine, or his whom thou dreadest."
Eleanor groaned aloud. She felt a cold hand creeping on her brow. She
screamed involuntarily. On a sudden the boughs bent with a loud crash
above her head, and a form, rushing down the height, stood before her.
This unexpected deliverer was Oliver Chadwyck. Alarmed by the cries of
a female, as he was returning from the chase, he interposed at the
very moment when his mistress was ensnared by the wiles of her
seducer.
"Rash fool, thou hast earned thy doom. The blood be on thine own head.
Thou art the sacrifice!"
This was said in a voice of terrible and fiendish malignity. A loud
tramp, as of a mighty host, was heard passing away, and Oliver now
beheld the form of his betrothed.
"Eleanor! Here! In this unholy place!" cried her lover. But the maiden
was unable to answer.
"There's blood upon my hand!" said he, holding it up in the now clear
and unclouded moonlight. "Art thou wounded, lady?"
"I know not," she replied; "I was alone. Yet I felt as though some
living thing were nigh--some unseen form, of terrible and appalling
attributes! Was it not a dream?"
"Nay," said Oliver, pensively; "methought another was beside thee!"
"I saw him not."
"How camest thou hither?"
"Let us be gone," said she, trembling; "I will tell thee all."
She laid her head on his shoulder. It throbbed heavily. "I am now
free. The accursed links are broken. I feel as though newly wakened
from some horrible dream! Thou hast saved me, Oliver. But if thine own
life is the price!"
"Fear not; I defy their devilish subtilty--in their very den too: and
thus, and thus, I renounce the devil and all his works!"
He spat thrice upon the ground, to show his loathing and contempt.
"Oh! say not so," cried Eleanor, looking round in great alarm.
Oliver bore her in his arms from that fearful spot. He accompanied her
home; and it was near break of day when, exhausted and alone, she
again retired to her chamber. By the way Oliver told her that he had
found a mysterious tablet on the edge of the brook the same morning.
He had luckily hidden it in his bosom, and he felt as though a
talisman or charm had protected him from the spells in the "Fairies'
Chapel."