ROBBERS' DENS
The name of the outlaw, Humphrey Kynaston, who, with his horse, lived
in the face of a precipice, is not likely speedily to be forgotten in
Shropshire; his exploits are still matter of tradition, and the scenes
of his adventures are yet pointed out.
Humphrey was the son of Sir Roger Kynaston, of Hordley, near Ellesmere.
The family derived from Wales and from the princes of Powys. Their arms
were argent, a lion rampant sable.
Sir Roger Kynaston had zealously embraced the side of the York faction.
King Henry VI. had attempted to make peace by holding a conference in
London, when the Lord Mayor at the head of five thousand armed citizens
kept peace between the rival parties. Henry proposed an agreement,
which was accepted, and then the King, with representatives of both
sides, went in solemn procession to S. Paul's. To the great joy of the
spectators, the Yorkist and Lancastrian leaders walked before him arm
in arm, Richard, Duke of York, leading by the hand the queen, the real
head of her husband's party.
But the pacification had been superficial. The Yorkists were determined
to win the crown from the feeble head of Henry. At their head was the
Earl of Warwick, and the King had hoped to get him out of the way by
making him Governor of Calais. But strife broke out again six months
after the apparent reconciliation at S. Paul's. The Earl of Salisbury
was the first to move; but he had no sooner put himself in march from
Yorkshire to join the Duke of York at Ludlow, than Lord Audley, with
7000 men, attempted to intercept him. They met at Blore Heath, in
Staffordshire. Audley was drawn into a snare, and slain by Sir Roger
Kynaston with his own hand; along with him fell 2000 of his followers.
Thenceforth the Kynastons assumed, not only the Audley arms and the
motto, "Blore Heath," but the rising sun of York as their crest.
Wild Humphrey was the son of Sir Roger Kynaston, by his wife the Lady
Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Gray, Earl of Tankerville, and Lord of
Powys. He was the second son, and not expecting to succeed to the
family estates, was given the constableship of the castle of Middle,
which had at one time belonged to the Lords le Strange, but which had
lapsed to the Crown.
He sadly neglected his duties, and allowed the castle to fall into
disrepair, almost into ruin. This was not altogether his own fault. The
castle was of importance as guarding the marches against the Welsh,
always ready, at the least provocation, to make raids into England. The
office of constable was honorary rather than remunerative, a poor
recompense for the services rendered by Sir Roger to the Yorkist cause.
Humphrey was expected to keep up the castle out of his own resources,
and he was without private means. It was true that with the accession
of the House of Tudor, danger from the Welsh was less imminent: but
Henry VII. was a parsimonious monarch, careful mainly to recover for
the exchequer the sums of which it had been depleted in the Wars of the
Roses.
As Humphrey was short of money, he took to robbery. The Wars of the
Roses had produced anarchy in the land, and every man's hand was
against his fellow, if that fellow had something of which he might be
despoiled.
The story is told that one day Wild Humphrey rode to the manor-house of
the Lloyds of Aston, and requested a draught of wine. With ready
hospitality a silver beaker was brought forth swimming with the juice
of the grape. Humphrey, who was mounted, drained it to the last drop,
then, striking spurs into his horse, galloped away, carrying the silver
vessel with him. As has been said of Robin Hood, so it was told of the
Shropshire freebooter, that he robbed the rich and befriended the poor.
On one occasion he stopped the steward of a gentleman and plundered him
of the rents just received. The Lord of the Manor sent him a message
that he had been a forbearing landlord, but now he absolutely must put
the screw upon his tenants to make up for his loss. Kynaston at once
waylaid another gentleman's steward, and paid the first back to the
last penny with the proceeds of the second robbery.
His depredations at length became so intolerable that he was outlawed
in the eighth year of Henry VII. As this year began on the 22nd August
1490, and did not end till the 21st of August 1491, it is not quite
certain in which year of our reckoning he was placed under ban.
He was now obliged to fly from the dilapidated castle of Middle, and
seek himself out a place of refuge. This he found or made for himself
in the face of the cliff of Ness.
This is a hill of new red sandstone, near Bass Church, that forms an
abrupt scarp towards the south. The top commands a superb view of the
Shropshire plain, with the Breiden Hills rising out of them, and the
Long Mynd to the south. The western horizon is walled up by the Welsh
mountains. Formerly the head and slopes of Ness Cliff were open down,
but have been enclosed and planted of late years by Earl Brownlow, so
that it is not easy to realise what the appearance was when Wild
Humphrey took up his abode in the rock.
In the cliff, that is reached by a rapid ascent, and which rises above
the slope some 70 feet, he cut a flight of steps in the side of a
buttress that projects, till he reached the main face of the crag,
about half-way up. Then he scooped out a doorway, next excavated two
chambers, one to serve as a stable for his horse, the other for a
habitation for himself. In the latter he formed a hearth, and bored a
hole upwards in a slanting direction, till he reached daylight, and
this served as chimney. Beside his door he cut a circular orifice to
act as window. The doorway was closed by a stout door sustained in
place by a massive bar, the socket holes to receive which remain.
In the pier between the stable and his own apartment, he cut two
recesses, probably to receive a lamp. Between these a later hand has
engraved the initials H.K., and the date 1564. As Humphrey died in
1534, this was, of course, none of his doing.
At the foot of the cliff near the first step is a trough or manger cut
in the living rock, apparently to receive water, but as no water exudes
from the rock, it must have served for the oats or other corn given to
his horse. It is traditionally said that Wild Humphrey's horse pastured
in proximity to the Ness. When Humphrey saw danger, and when the shades
of evening fell, he whistled; whereupon the beast ran like a cat up the
narrow steps in the face of the rock, and entered its stable. Once
there, Kynaston was master of the situation, for only one man at a time
could mount the stair, and this was commanded by his window, through
which with a pike he could transfix or throw down an intruder.
Where now stands the National School at the foot of the hill was at
that time a meadow, to the grass of which his horse was partial.
The farmer to whom the meadow belonged naturally enough objected, and
collected a number of men who linked themselves together with ropes and
surrounded the field. The horse took no notice but continued browsing.
The ring gradually contracted on him. Kynaston saw the proceeding from
his eyrie, and uttered a shrill whistle. At once the gallant steed
pricked up his ears, snorted, ran, leaped clean over the head of a man,
and scrambled up the stair in the cliff, to his master's shelter. On
another occasion a thief, thinking it no harm to rob a felon, succeeded
in leaping on the horse's back. But the beast, feeling that some one
was astride of him other than Wild Humphrey, ran to the cliff, and the
rider, frightened at the prospect of being carried up the rock side and
into the power of the desperate outlaw, was but too thankful to throw
himself off and get away with a broken arm.
Humphrey had two wives, both Welsh girls, whom he carried off, but
married. Gough, in his history of Middle, says: "Humphrey Kynaston had
two wives, but both of soe mean birth that they could not claim to any
coat of arms." By the first he had a son, Edward, who died young. By
the second he had three sons, Edward, Robert, and Roger. If tradition
may be trusted he proved so brutal and so bad a husband that his second
wife left and returned to her kinsfolk in Wales. His son Edward was
heir to the last Lord Powys, and continued the succession. Humphrey's
elder brother died without lawful issue, and the honours and estates of
the family devolved on Edward, upon his father's death in 1534.
Now the laws relating to the marriage of Englishmen with Welsh women
were still in force. The English Parliament, in 1401, had passed a
series of the most oppressive and cruel ordinances ever enacted against
any people; prohibiting marriage between English and Welsh, and
disfranchising and disqualifying any Englishman from holding or
inheriting property, if he had married a Welsh woman, and closing all
schools and learned professions to the Welsh. These infamous laws had
been re-enforced by Parliament in 1413, and were not repealed when
Henry VII. came to the throne, as might have been anticipated. But
Henry granted the Welsh a charter, which rendered the administration
less rigorous. These tyrannous laws were not repealed till 1536. Now,
the fact that Humphrey's marriage with Welsh women stood against him in
no way justified his treatment of his wives.
Deserted by his second wife, Wild Humphrey was assisted by his mother,
who came to Ruyton, in the neighbourhood, and carried him food on
Sunday, a day of civil freedom.
On one occasion when he had been committing his usual depredations, on
the further side of the Severn, the Under Sheriff at the head of a
posse rode to arrest him, and for this purpose removed several planks
of Montford Bridge, by which he was expected to return, and then laid
in wait till he arrived. In due course Humphrey Kynaston rode to the
Severn Bridge and prepared to cross. Thereupon the _posse
comitatus_ rose and took possession of the bridge end believing that
they had him entrapped. But the outlaw spurred his horse, which leaped
the gap, and he escaped. A farmer, who had been looking on, so the
legend tells, called out, "Kynaston, I will give thee ten cows and a
bull for thy horse." "Get thee first the bull and cows that can do such
a feat," shouted the outlaw in reply, "and then we will effect the
exchange."
The leap of Kynaston's horse was measured and marked out on Knockin
Heath, and cut in the turf, with the letters H.K. at each end.
The accession of a Welsh prince to the crown was in reality a fortunate
thing for the Kynastons, especially for Wild Humphrey; for ever since
the rising of Owen Glendower, an Englishman who had married a Welsh
woman was, as already said, legally disqualified from holding any
office of trust, and from acquiring or inheriting land in England.
Consequently Humphrey's issue by his Welsh wife might have been
debarred from representing the family but for the accession of Henry
VII. As it turned out, since his elder brother left no issue, the son
of Humphrey eventually inherited the family estates of the Kynastons.
Two and a half or three years after his outlawry, Humphrey was
pardoned, 30th May 1493. The pardon is still extant, and is in the
possession of Mr. Kynaston, of Hardwick Hall and Hordley, the present
representative of the family. The direct line from Wild Humphrey
expired in 1740.
It is somewhat noticeable that in all the successive generations there
was no further outbreak of the wild blood. The Kynastons descending
from the outlaw, who was the terror of the countryside, were orderly
country gentlemen, who did their duty and pursued harmless pleasures.
Perhaps Wild Humphrey was rather a product of his lawless times, of the
terrible disorders of the Wars of the Roses, and of the cruel law that
blasted him and his issue, on account of his Welsh marriages, than a
freebooter out of sporting propensities.
Tradition says that his continued misconduct and ill-treatment of his
wife kept her estranged from him. But on his deathbed he had one single
desire, and that was to see her and obtain her pardon. He stoutly
refused to be visited by any leech; and only reluctantly agreed to
allow a "wise woman," who lived at Welsh Felton, near the scene of his
old exploits at Ness Cliff, to visit him and prescribe herbs.
On her arrival, however, his humour had changed, and he impatiently
turned away, saying, "I'll have none of your medicines. I want naught
but my Elizabeth, my poor wronged wife."
"And she is here," answered the wise woman, throwing off her hood.
Humphrey turned and laid his head on her bosom, and without another
word, but with his eyes on her face, breathed his last.
Is the story true or _ben trovato_? Who can say! It reposes on
tradition.
Ness Cliff, the rock, in the face of which Humphrey Kynaston lived four
hundred years ago, remains, with his cave, his flight of steps, up
which ran his faithful horse, his stable, and the feeding trough, and
the hearth on which burned Wild Humphrey's fire, very much as he left
it. Only one feature is changed. There, from his rock, his eye ranged
over the rolling woodland and open champagne country for miles so that
he could see and prepare against the enemy who ventured to approach his
stronghold; now it is buried in larch and Austrian pine plantations, so
that nothing is visible from the cave, save their green boughs. It
seems strange that for so many years he can have been suffered to
continue his depredations without an attempt being made to surround his
rock and keep him imprisoned therein till he was starved into
surrender. But the explanation is probably this. He had made friends
among the peasantry of the neighbourhood, whom he never molested, and
to whom he showed many kindnesses; and they rewarded him by giving him
timely warning of the approach of those bent on his capture, and thus
enabled him to mount his horse, gallop away, and conceal himself
elsewhere. Yet this only partly explains the mystery. If the cave were
deserted, why did not the sheriff and his _posse comitatus_
destroy the steps leading up into it, and thus render a retreat into it
impossible? The only conclusion at which one can arrive is that the
custodians of the law in the fifteenth century were half-hearted in the
discharge of their duty, that there was a secret admiration for the
wild outlaw in their hearts, and that they were reluctant to see the
scion of a brave and ancient house brought to the gallows.
Some men have become predatory animals, and as such seek out lairs as
would the beasts of prey.
The Chinaman possesses an instinctive reversion to old subterranean
life. Wherever he goes, wherever he succeeds in forming a "China-town,"
he begins to burrow and undermine the houses in which he and his
fellow-countrymen live, and a labyrinth of passages and chambers is
constructed, communicating with the several dwellings, so that a
criminal Chinaman can rarely be trapped in the native quarter by the
police. When San Francisco was burnt, the ground under the Chinese town
was found to be honeycombed with runs and lurking-holes to an
astounding extent.
When David had to escape from the pursuit of Saul, he fled first of all
to Gath, but being recognised there, he made his way to the cave of
Adullam. "And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in
debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto
him, and he became a captain over them; and there were with him about
four hundred men." [Footnote: 1 Sam. xxii. 1-2] In a word, he became
the head of a party of freebooters, who laid the neighbourhood under
contribution.
The Palestine surveyors have identified the cave of Adullam with one
now called by the peasants Aid-el-Ma. It lies in a round hill about 500
feet high, pierced with a number of caverns; the hill itself being
isolated by several valleys and marked by ancient ruins, tombs, and
quarryings. "A cave which completes the identification exists in the
hill. It is not necessary to suppose that the one used by David was of
great size, for such spacious recesses are avoided by the peasantry
even now, from their dampness and tendency to cause fever. Their
darkness, moreover, needs many lights, and they are disliked from the
numbers of scorpions and bats frequenting them. The caves used as human
habitations, at least in summer, are generally about twenty or thirty
paces across, lighted by the sun, and comparatively dry. I have often
seen such places with their roofs blackened by smoke: families lodging
in one, goats, cattle, and sheep, stabled in another, and grain or
straw stored in a third. At Adullam are two such caves in the northern
slope of the hill, and another further south, while the opposite sides
of the tributary valley are lined with rows of caves, all smoke-
blackened, and mostly inhabited, or used as pens for flocks and herds.
"The cave on the south of the hill itself was tenanted by a single
family when the surveyors visited it, just as it might have been by
David and his immediate friends, while his followers housed themselves
in those near at hand." [Footnote: Geikie (C.), "The Holy Land and the
Bible," Lond. 1887, i. p. 108.]
The haunts of the bandits in the times of Herod must have been very
much like those in Dordogne. They were high up in the face of
precipices in Galilee, and he was able only to subdue these gangs of
freebooters by letting his soldiers down in baskets from the top of the
cliffs, with machines for forcing entrance. [Footnote: Josephus,
"Antiq.," xiv. 6.]
Stanley says [Footnote: "Sinai and Palestine," 1856, pp. 148-149.]:
"Like all limestone formations, the hills of Palestine abound in caves.
In these innumerable rents, and cavities, and holes, we see the shelter
of the people of the land in those terrible visitations, as when 'Lot
went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in a cave.' Or as when 'in the days of
Uzziah, King of Judah, they fled before the earthquake to the ravine of
the mountains;' to the rocky fissures, safer, even though themselves
rent by the convulsions, than the habitations of man. We see in them,
also, the hiding-places which served sometimes for the defence of
robbers and insurgents, sometimes for the refuge of those of whom 'the
world was not worthy;' the prototypes of the catacombs of the early
Christians, of the caverns of the Vaudois and the Covenanters. The cave
of the five kings at Makkedah; the 'caves, and dens, and strongholds,
and 'rocks,' and 'pits,' and 'holes' in which the Israelites took
shelter from the Midianites in the time of Gideon, from the Philistines
in the time of Saul; the cleft of the cliff Etam, into which Samson
went down to escape the vengeance of his enemies; the caves of David at
Adullam and at Maon, and of Saul at Engedi; the cave in which Obadiah
hid the prophets of the Lord; the caves of the robber hordes above the
plain of Gennesareth; the sepulchral caves of the Gadarene demoniacs;
the cave of Jotopata, where Josephus and his countrymen concealed
themselves in their last struggle, continue from first to last what has
been called the cave-life of the Israelite nation."
The vast grotto of Lombrive in Ariège has been already mentioned. It
became a den of a band of murderous brigands at the beginning of the
nineteenth century. A detachment of soldiers was sent to dislodge them
in 1802; to reach the great hall access is had by crawling through a
narrow passage, and here the robbers murdered as many as 146 of the
soldiers, taking them one after another as they emerged from the
passage, and cutting their throats. [Footnote: "Spelunca," Paris,
1905, t. vi. p. 169.] The passage now bears the name of that of _Du
Crime_.
The Surtshellir in Iceland has attracted a great deal of attention,
perhaps because it is so different from other caves, being formed in
the lava. Its origin is very easily explained. At a great eruption of
lava from a neighbouring crater, the crust hardened rapidly whilst the
viscid current below continued to flow, and this latter flowed on till
it also became rigid, and left a great gap between it and the original
crust. I visited it in 1860. It has several branches, and in it lie
pools perpetually frozen. There are gaps here and there in the roof
through which rays of light penetrate, and also snow that heaps itself
on the floor. In one side-chamber is a great accumulation of sheep-
bones. In the thirteenth century a band of twenty-four robbers took up
their abode in this cavern, and made excursions in all directions
around, robbing farmhouses, and driving away sheep. When this had gone
on for some time the bonders united and succeeded in surrounding the
gang, and killing eighteen of them. The six who escaped fled to the
snow mountains, and were never heard of again. Now the strange thing
is, how could the men live through a winter in this horrible cavern
with a floor of ice in many places, and with a temperature below
freezing even in summer? Fuel they could not procure, as there are but
black sandy moors around that grow nothing but dwarf willow, and that
is so scarce as to be inefficient for their purpose. They must have
supplied themselves with light and heat by the tallow of the sheep they
killed, run into a lamp. This is the only heating fuel used at present
by the Icelanders, apart from the animal heat they give out in the
closely sealed common room they occupy as sleeping quarters as well as
dining-room and workshop. It may be vastly pleasant in theory to live
at other people's expense, but it has its drawbacks, and in this
instance _le jeu ne valait pas la chandelle_.
In Pitscottie's "Chronicles of Scotland," and in Holinshed's "Scottish
Chronicle," at the end of the reign of James II. there is a story of a
brigand who is said to have lived in a den called Feruiden, or
Ferride's Den, in Angus, who was burnt along with his wife and family
for cannibalism, the youngest daughter alone was spared as she was but
a twelvemonth old. But when she grew up she was convicted of the same
crime, and was condemned to be burnt or buried alive.
I have given elsewhere a very full account of the cave--a den of
robbers beside which that to which Gil Blas was carried was a paradise
--La Crouzate on the Causse de Gramat in the Department of Lot. I will
therefore here mention it but superficially. At the entrance are
notches in the rock, showing that at one time it was closed by a door.
A rapid descent is suddenly brought to a standstill by an opening in
the floor of a veritable _oubliette_, and this opening is crossed
only by a bridge of poles, the hand helping to maintain the balance by
pressing against the wall of rock on the right hand. Then comes a
second hollow, but not so serious, and then a third that can only be
descended by a ladder. This opens into a hall in the midst of which
yawns a horrible chasm, across which lies a rough bridge of poles that
give access to some small chambers beyond, which had formerly been
tenanted by the brigands who had their lair in this cavern. Notches in
the walls of the well show that across it were laid poles that
sustained a pulley, by means of which a bucket could be let down to the
well 265 feet, for water. My cousin, Mr. George Young, actually found
remains of the crane employed for the purpose at the bottom of the
well. About the year 1864, M. Delpons, prefect of the Department of
Lot, observing a huge block of limestone lying in a field near La
Crouzate, had it raised, and discovered beneath it twelve skeletons
ranged in a circle, their feet inwards, and an iron chain linking them
together; probably the remains of the bandits who made of La Crouzate
their den, whence they issued to rob in the neighbourhood. According to
the local tradition, the peasants of the surrounding country paid a
poll-tax for every sheep and ox they possessed so as to raise a levée
which should sweep the Causse of these marauders, and it was due to
this effort that the band was captured and every member of it hung to
the branches of the walnut tree beneath which lies the broad stone.
At Gargas, near Montzéjeau, in Hautes Pyrenées, is a prehistoric cavern
of considerable extent. In it have been found sealed up in stalagmite
the remains of primitive man. Now the significant fact exists that just
ten years before the outbreak of the French Revolution this cave was
inhabited by Blaise Ferrage, a stone-mason, who at the age of twenty-
two deliberately threw aside his trade and retired into the grotto,
whence he sallied forth to seize, murder, and eat children and young
girls. Men also he shot, strangled, or stabbed, and dragged to his
lair, there to devour their carcases.
For three years this monster terrorized the countryside. The number of
his victims was innumerable. As last he was caught and broken on the
wheel in December 1782. There is no evidence that the naked prehistoric
men who had inhabited the cave of Gargas were cannibals.
That the outlaw and he who has dropped out of the ranks of ordered
social life, and he who seeks to prey on civilised society should
naturally, instinctively, make the cave his home, is what we might
expect. He is reverting to the habits of early man whose hand was
against every man.
In the "Two Gentlemen of Verona," the outlaws are presented as living
in a cave. The robbers in "Gil Blas" had their lair also in one.
One of the finest and most pathetic of Icelandic Sagas is the history
of Grettir the Outlaw, who was born in 997, and killed by his enemies
in 1031. He spent nineteen years in outlawry in Iceland, and outlawry
there in that terrible climate, with no house to cover his head, would
seem an ordeal impossible for human endurance. Between the autumn of
1022 and the spring of 1024, that is to say during two winters, he
lived in a cave in the west of the island. A steep shale slide was
below a cliff, and above this a hollow in the rock. He built up the
mouth of the cave, and hung grey wadmal before the entrance, so that
none below could notice anything peculiar, or any one living there.
Whatever fuel he wanted, all he had to eat, everything he needed, had
to be carried up this slippery ascent by him. Down the shale slide he
went when short of provisions, and over the marshes to this or that
farm and demanded or carried off, sometimes a sheep, sometimes curds,
dried fish--in a word what he required.
In the summer of 1862 a very similar lair which Grettir inhabited a
little later in the east of Iceland was explored by a farmer living
near. This is his description of it: "The lair stands in the upper part
of a slip of stones beneath some sheer rocks. It is built up of stones,
straight as a line, four and three-quarter ells long and ten inches
wide, and is within the walls seven-eighths of an ell deep. Half of it
is roofed over with flat stones; small splinters of stone are wedged in
between these to fill up the joints, and these are so firmly fixed that
they could not be removed without tools. One stone in the south wall is
so large that it would require six men to move it. The north wall is
beginning to give way. On the outside the walls are overgrown with
black lichen and grey moss."
A chapman spending the winter in a farm hard by, named Gisli the Dandy,
heard that a price of nine marks of silver was placed on the head of
Grettir. "Let me but catch him," said he, "and I will dress his skin
for him."
The outlaw heard of this threat, and one day looking down from his rock
he saw a man with two attendants riding along the highway. His kirtle
was scarlet, and his helmet and shield flashed in the sun. It occurred
to Grettir that this must be the dandy, and he at once ran down the
slide of stones, clapped his hand on a bundle of clothes behind the
saddle, and said, "This I am going to take." Gisli, for it was he, got
off his horse, and called on his men to attack Grettir. But the latter
soon perceived that the chapman kept behind his servants, and never
risked himself where the blows fell; so he put the two thralls aside
and went direct upon the merchant, who turned and took to his heels.
Grettir pursued him, and Gisli, in his fear, threw aside his shield,
then away went his helmet, and lastly a heavy purse of silver attached
to his girdle. Presently the flying man came to a bed of old lava full
of cracks. He leaped the fissures and reached a river that flowed
beyond. There he halted, unable to make up his mind to risk a plunge
into it, and that allowed Grettir to run in on him and throw him down.
"Keep my saddle-bags and what I have thrown away," pleaded the fallen
man, "only spare my life." "There must be a little skin-dressing done
first," answered Grettir. Then he took a good handful of birch rods
from the wood, pulled Gisli's clothes up over his head, and laid the
twigs against his back in none of the gentlest fashion. Gisli danced
and skipped about, but Grettir had him by his garments twisted about
his head, and contrived to flog till the fellow threw himself down on
the ground screaming. Then Grettir let go, and went quietly back to his
lair, picking up as he went the purse and the belt, the shield, casque,
and whatsoever else Gisli had thrown away. Also he retained the
contents of his saddle-bags. [Footnote: "Grettir Saga," Copenh. 1859.
"Grettir the Outlaw," Lond. 1890.]
At Dunterton, on the Devon side of the Tamar, is a headland of rock and
wood projecting above the river, and in this is a cave. In or about
1780 there was a man, the terror of the neighbourhood, who lived in
this cave, but that he was there was unknown. He was wont to "burgle"
the houses of the gentry round, and his favourite method of proceeding
was to get on the roof and descend the chimneys, which in those days
were wide. In my hall chimney was, till I removed it, an apparatus
fitted with sharp spikes upward to impale the burglar should he attempt
to get into the house that way. In the house of a neighbouring squire a
funnel was made into which he might drop, and from which he could not
escape. He was finally discovered by Colonel Kelly, when drawing the
wood with his hounds; as the cave was held to be the den of the ogre,
it was looked upon with fear, and was also long the lair of smugglers.
Perhaps the latest cave-dwelling criminal was Carl Friedrich Masch, who
before his execution confessed to having committed twelve murders and
to having attempted several more. This man carried on this warfare
against society from 1856 to 1864, that is to say for eight years, in
Prussia. His presence in the district was always suspected rather than
ascertained, by the numerous cases of arson, burglary, and robbery, as
well as by murders and murderous attacks. One of his worst crimes was
the butchery of a whole family, a miller, his wife, three children,
aged respectively twelve, ten, and five, and a young servant-maid in
1861. In vain were large rewards offered for the capture of Masch; if
he had confederates they were not bribed to betray him, and the police
were powerless to trace him. Even soldiers were called out to search
the forests, but all in vain, and he was not captured till 1864 when he
was arrested when tipsy in the street of Frankfurt on the Oder, and
then it was not till some hours later that it was discovered he had but
just committed a fresh murder.
In March 1858 a miller named Ebel went into the Pyritz forest near
Soldin, along with his servant-man to fetch away firewood he had
purchased. After having laden his wagon he sent it home under the
conduct of his man, and remained behind among the trees. He looked
about among the bushes to find a suitable branch that he could cut to
serve as a walking-stick. Whilst thus engaged he came on some rising
ground overgrown with young birch, and on the slope of the hill not
more than 200 paces from the much-frequented highroad he noticed a spot
where the snow was beaten hard, as if it had been the lair of a wild
beast. To get a better sight of this, Ebel parted the bushes and came
closer. Then he was aware of a patch of dried leaves uncovered by snow.
Unable to account for this, he stirred the leaves with his recently cut
stick, and to his surprise saw them slide down into the earth as into a
funnel. More puzzled than ever he began to examine the locality, when
he noticed that the ground under his feet sounded hollow, and that
there was hard by a second and larger hole. As he stood staring at
this, suddenly a cudgel appeared followed by the white face of a man
with black hair and beard and dark piercing eyes, rising out of the
ground. For a moment Ebel stood paralysed with terror, and then, as the
man was heaving himself to the surface, he beat a hasty retreat.
When he reported what he had seen to the forester and some wood-
cutters, he was at first not believed, but he insisted that they should
accompany him to the spot. They did so, and this is what they found: a
board, covered with earth, but with a hole in the midst, through which
a couple of fingers could be thrust so as to bring it from below into
position, had been used to cover the entrance to an underground
habitation. Jumping into a pit, a passage was seen about five feet
high, in which a stove had been placed, and the hole the miller had
seen, into which the leaves had fallen, was the chimney. Further on was
a chamber seven feet long by seven feet broad, and five feet high, that
had clearly served as a dwelling for some considerable time. It was
full of clothing, linen, an axe, a hammer, a bunch of keys, and an
assortment of burglar's tools. The roof was supported by posts and
transverse beams, and from them hung legs of pork, bacon, and sausages.
There was also a cellar well stocked with wine and brandy, and even
champagne. A bed was fashioned of birch boughs and fir branches and
hay. The boughs protected from the damp of the soil. Great quantities
of bones of pigs, sheep, geese, and other poultry were found buried in
the sides of the passage and about on the surface.
The forester reported to the police what he had seen. A good many of
the articles found were reclaimed by peasants who had been robbed; but
the denizen of the cave-dwelling had vanished, and returned no more. At
the same time, attacks on persons and property ceased in that
neighbourhood, but began in the neighbourhood of Berlin. But in the
spring of 1859 they were renewed in the district of Soldin. The
military were ordered to manoeuvre, surround, and traverse the woods,
and search every moor. All was in vain, not a trace of the perpetrator
of these crimes could be found, and no sooner were the soldiers
withdrawn than a taverner and his young wife were discovered in their
little inn, with their heads beaten in, and their throats cut, and the
man's watch and his money taken. This was followed by the murder of a
peasant girl, on the highroad, as she was returning from saying
farewell to her lover who had to leave his village for military
service. Next came the slaughter of the miller and his family. Renewed
efforts to trace the murderer were made and were equally fruitless.
A toll-keeper was fired at in his bed and severely wounded. The would-
be assassin had drawn a cart into position, placed boards on it, raised
an erection on the boards to support himself so as to be able to take
aim at the sleeping man through the window. He could see where he was,
as a light burned in the room. He was prevented breaking into the house
and murdering the wife and child by the approach of passengers. A
farmer was shot at and also badly hurt when returning from market, and
only saved from being killed and robbed by his horse taking fright and
galloping out of reach.
A further hiding-place of Masch was discovered by accident, as was the
first, in May 1861, in the neighbourhood of Warsin. It was more roomy
than the first, constructed with more art, was also underground, and
contained innumerable objects that had been stolen; amongst others a
little library of books that Masch could read in the long winter
evenings to pass away the time.
When after eight years of this sort of life, he was finally arrested,
he was brought to confess his crimes. And one portion of his narrative
concerned his place of concealment in the winter of 1858-59, before he
had dug out his subterranean abode at Warsin, and after the discovery
of his den at Pyritz.
That was also spent underground, but not in a cave of his construction.
I will give the account in his own words.
"The winter came on and I had no money and no place of refuge against
the cold. It was only when a hard frost set in that I found an asylum
in the culvert constructed to carry off the water from the Bermling
lake. The canal consists of a stone-built tunnel, the entrance to which
is closed by closely-set iron stancheons. But accustomed as I was, like
a cat, to contract and wriggle through narrow spaces, I succeeded in
forcing my way in and I formed my lair on the solid ice. Before a fall
of snow I provided myself with food, wine, brandy, clothing, and
bedding, but I was constrained to spend many weeks in my hiding-place
lest I should betray it by my footprints in the snow. My abode there
was terribly irksome, for the culvert was not lofty enough to allow one
to stand upright in it, and I was constrained to wriggle about in it,
crawling or thrusting myself along with hands and feet. I had indeed
covered my legs with leather wound about them, but my limbs became
stiff. Sitting on the ice was almost as uncomfortable as lying on it.
An upright position when seated became unendurable with my legs
stretched out straight before me. Accordingly I hacked a hole through
the ice into the frozen mud, and thrust my legs down into it. But my
blood chilled in them, and my legs would have been frozen in, had I not
withdrawn them and stretched them out as before, well enveloped.
Moreover I could not sit with my back leaning against the ice-cold
stone walls, and the air in the tunnel was dense and foggy. As soon as
the ground was clear of snow I escaped from my horrible prison, and
enjoyed myself in the open, but for safety had to retreat to it again.
On one occasion I narrowly escaped discovery. The owner of the estate
hard by and his son were out one day with their hounds. These latter
rushed to the entrance of the culvert and began snuffing about at it.
Their masters observed this, and made the brutes enter the tunnel. I
crouched, my loaded gun in my hand, and peered betwixt the iron bars.
If one of the hounds had come near me, I would have shot it. Happily
the beasts did not venture far in, probably on account of the heavy
vapour they had lost the scent. They withdrew, and I remained in my
cellar-dwelling till the spring. When the ice melted and the mud became
soft, I had to quit my winter quarters. I had suffered so unspeakably
that I resolved without more ado to excavate for myself a new
habitation underground which in comparison with the culvert seemed a
paradise to me." [Footnote: _Der neue Pitaval_, Leipzig; neue
Serie, ii. 1867, pp. 104-105.]
Masch was executed on 18th July 1864.
A picturesque walk through the woods near Wiesbaden on the Taunus road
leads to the Leichtweishöhle, a cave under a mass of fallen rock, in
the Nerothal. The cave measures 100 feet in length, and at its entrance
and exit are now set up portraits of the former occupant of this
retreat and his mistress. Within, in a side chamber, is the bedroom of
the robber, and his bed, that was covered with dry moss. In the midst
of the cave is a round, massive stone table, and under its foot is a
pit excavated to receive his money and other valuables. The cave, now
accessible, is an object of many a pleasant excursion from Wiesbaden;
over a century ago it was in a dense and pathless forest, the
intricacies of which were unknown.
Henry Antony Leichtweiss was born in 1730 at Ohrn, and was the son of a
forester in the service of the Duke of Nassau. He was put apprentice to
a man who was at once a baker and a besom-maker, and he learned both
professions with readiness. Being a well-built, handsome youth, he
managed to get engaged as courier in a noble family, and in the
situation made many journeys and learned to know the world, and also to
lay by some money. In September 1757 he married the daughter of the
magistrate (Schultheiss) of Dotzheim, and he obtained appointment under
him as scrivener. By his wife he had seven children. On the death of
his father-in-law, and the appointment of a new magistrate, the aspect
of his affairs changed. He was detected in attempts to appropriate
trust-money to his own use, and was dismissed his office. He sank
deeper and deeper, and was arrested and imprisoned at last for theft.
On leaving Wiesbaden, where he had been confined, he returned to
Dotzheim, but there no one would have anything to say to him, and his
own wife refused to receive him into her house.
Leichtweiss now gave himself up to a vagabond life, and as he had of
old been associated with the chase, he turned to poaching as a
resource. The wide stretch of forests of the Taunus, well stocked with
game, and the proximity to such markets as Frankfort and Mainz, offered
him a prospect of doing a good business in this line. He managed to
induce a wench to associate herself with him, and he dug out a cave of
which the description has already been given, in which he made his
headquarters, and where he lived and carried on his depredations
unmolested for seven years. The spot was so secret and the confusion of
rocks there was so great, that he trusted never to be discovered. The
main danger lay in smoke betraying him when his fire was lighted, or of
his track bring followed in the snow during the winter. But, as already
said, for seven years he remained undiscovered, although the keepers of
the Duke were well aware that the game in the forests was being shot
down and disposed of in the town, and although villagers declared that
he had stayed and robbed them. These allegations were, however, never
proved. When he was at last captured, he was tried and sentenced to be
placed in the stocks at Wiesbaden in the market. Two days after he hung
himself in prison.
In the chapter on Souterrains I have spoken of the Adersbach and
Wickelsdorf rock labyrinths, without mentioning that they have served
as a haunt for robbers. I will now deal with them from this point of
view. Take a piece of veined marble, and suppose all the white veins of
felspar washed clear, leaving the block cleft in every direction from
top to bottom, and all the cleavages converging to one point and
through that one point only, on the Wickelsdorf side, is access to be
had to the labyrinth. But then conceive of the block thus fissured
towering three hundred feet or more sheer up, and having narrow rifts
as the passages by which the interior may be penetrated. In the
eleventh century sixty knights of the army of Boleslas III., when the
latter was driven back by the Emperor Henry II., took refuge in the
neighbourhood of Trauterau, and built there a castle, and subsisted on
robbery. The captain was a Pole named Nislaf. As they prospered and
multiplied, Nislaf divided his company, and placed one portion under
Hans Breslauer, who said to his men, "We have a treasure-house in these
rocks, only unhappily it is empty. We must pillage the merchants and
travellers, and fill it." Nislaf's party fell out with one another, and
one, named Alt, led off the discontented and built a fortress, the
remains of which may be traced at the highest point above the Adersbach
labyrinth. One day the crowing of a cock betrayed where Nislaf had his
abode, and troops were sent from Prague to clear the country. Most of
the bandits were captured and executed.
In the early part of the nineteenth century a notorious ruffian at the
head of a gang lurked in this neighbourhood. His name was Babinsky.
One evening, in the autumn of 1839, a carriage drew up at the outskirts
of the Dobrusch forest. A couple of ladies descended from it at the
door of a tavern, and asked the Jewish landlady if they could be
accommodated with supper and a bed. "We are afraid to proceed," said
one of the ladies, "for fear of Babinsky." "Babinsky," answered the
hostess, "has never shown his face here."
The ladies were shown into a plain apartment, but were made uneasy by
seeing a number of ferocious looking men in the passage and bar. "Who
are these?" asked the lady. "Only packmen," replied the landlady. After
supper the two ladies were shown into a large bedroom in which at one
side was an old-fashioned wardrobe. When left alone they examined this
article of furniture, and perceived an unpleasant odour issuing from
it. By some means or other they succeeded in forcing open the door,
when they perceived that at the bottom of the wardrobe was a trap-door.
This they raised, and to their dismay discovered a well or vault, out
of which the unpleasant odour issued. They now set fire to some
newspaper, and threw it down the hole, and to their unspeakable horror
saw by the flames a half-naked corpse. The ladies closed the trap and
considered. It was clear that they were in a murderous den, probably
controlled by Babinsky. The youngest lady, who had most presence of
mind and courage, descended the stairs, opened the guest-room, and said
to her coachman, "Hans, it is now half-past nine. This is the hour at
which Captain Feldegg, my brother-in-law, promised to start at the head
of a military escort to conduct us through the forest. We will leave as
soon as you can harness the horses to save him the trouble of coming on
so far as this."
Hans finished his glass of wine and rose. The men in the guest-room
looked at one another. Before half-an-hour had elapsed the carriage
rolled away, and next morning the police were communicated with. It
need hardly be said the ladies met with no escort.
A few days later a middle-aged, ragged fellow, with a grinding organ,
arrived at the inn, and called for a glass. In the guest-room were the
"packmen," and some equally wild-looking girls. The grinding organ was
put in requisition, and to its strains they danced till past midnight,
when Babinsky himself entered and the dancing ceased. The organ-grinder
had so ingratiated himself into the favour of the robbers, that they
resolved on retaining him as the musician of the band. He was conveyed
across country till they reached some such a rocky retreat as that of
Wickelsdorf or Adersbach, and there spent three weeks, only allowed to
accompany the band when they were going to have a frolic. On these
occasions they betook themselves to the resort agreed on, by twos and
threes. One day as some of them passed along a road, they saw a blind
beggar in the hedge, asking for alms. Some cast him coppers, and the
organ-grinder slipped into his hand a kreutzer, wrapped in a bit of
paper.
That night the tavern was surrounded by the military, and the whole
gang, along with Babinsky, was captured. This was on 15th October 1839.
The organ-grinder was the Prague detective Hoche.
The trial dragged on for several years; some of the robbers were
executed, some sentenced to ten, others to twenty years of
imprisonment. No evidence was produced that actually convicted Babinsky
of having committed, or been privy to the murders, and he was sentenced
to penal servitude for life.
I was rambling in Bohemia and tracing the Riesen Gebirge in 1886. On
reaching home I read what follows from the Vienna Correspondent of the
_Standard_. "At the little market town of Leitomischl in Bohemia,"
at the foot of the continuation of the Giant Mountains I had been
exploring, "an innkeeper and his wife and son have just been arrested
by the police on a charge of having, during the last twenty-five years,
murdered no fewer than eleven persons. The victims were all travellers
who had put up for a night at his house, and who had shown that they
were in possession of ready cash. For a considerable time the
suspicions of the police had been aroused by the sudden disappearance
of various visitors staying at this inn. Among the latest cases was a
cattle dealer who, after visiting the market, was returning home with
the proceeds of the sale of a herd of cattle, and a young baron who had
won a large sum in a public lottery. After putting up at the inn in
question, these men, like others before them, were never heard of
again. The very last case was that of the sudden disappearance of a
lady, who was undoubtedly murdered and robbed by the arrested persons."
I did in fact find the inns in Bohemia, in certain places infested, but
not with bandits and cut-throats.