THE CHILD OF THE MOAT
1557 A.D.
A STORY FOR GIRLS
BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR
CHILDREN OF FANCY (Poems) $2.00
JACOPO ROBUSTI, CALLED TINTORETTO (Out of print)
ARCHITECTURES OF EUROPEAN RELIGIONS $2.00
THE NEED FOR ART IN LIFE .75
G. ARNOLD SHAW
GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, NEW YORK
THE CHILD OF THE MOAT
A STORY FOR GIRLS. 1557 A.D.
BY
IAN B. STOUGHTON HOLBORN
1916
G. ARNOLD SHAW
NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY G. ARNOLD SHAW
COPYRIGHT IN GREAT BRITAIN AND COLONIES
DEDICATED
TO
AVIS DOLPHIN
PREFACE
On the analogy of the famous apple,--“there ain’t going to be no”
preface, “not nohow.” Children do not read prefaces, so anything of a
prefatory nature that might interest them is put at the beginning of
chapter one.
As for the grown-ups the story is not written for grown-ups, and if
they want to know why it begins with such a gruesome first chapter,
let them ask the children. Children like the horrors first and the end
all bright. Many grown-ups like the tragedy at the end. But perhaps
the children are right and the grown-ups are standing on their heads.
Besides they can skip the first chapter; it is only a prologue.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I HATE 1
II SECRETS 9
III HATE AND LOVE 29
IV THE PRISONER 55
V THE THIEF 79
VI BITTERNESS 94
VII DEATH 104
VIII REMORSE 111
IX THE JUDGMENT 115
X THE PACKMAN’S VISIT 126
XI SWORDS AND QUESTIONINGS 140
XII “MOLL O’ THE GRAVES” 156
XIII COMING EVENTS CAST SHADOWS 166
XIV GOOD-BYE 182
XV THE TERROR OF THE MIST 189
XVI A DESPERATE TASK 200
XVII CARLISLE 217
XVIII A DIPLOMATIC VICTORY 226
XIX THE LOSS 247
XX PERSECUTION 253
XXI TORTURE 259
XXII TO THE RESCUE 282
XXIII DUEL TO THE DEATH 296
XXIV A RIDE IN VAIN 317
XXV AMAZING DISCOVERIES 329
XXVI THE BATTLE OF LIDDISDALE 344
XXVII THE BIRTHDAY PARTY 354
XXVIII THE LAST ADVENTURE 378
XXIX A TALE OF A TUB 388
XXX THE GREAT IRON CHEST 401
[Illustration:
A, STAIRCASE TO SOLAR AND ALINE’S ROOM; B, STAIRCASE TO SOLAR AND
NORTH ROOMS; C, BUTTERY (the place where the drink was kept, Cf.
French _boire_); D, PANTRY (the place where the food was kept,
Cf. French _pain_); E, CHAPEL.
NOTE.--The approach is from the north, therefore the usual position
of the compass is inverted. The scale is a scale of feet.
PLAN OF THE HALL
HOLWICK, YORKSHIRE]
THE CHILD OF THE MOAT
A STORY FOR GIRLS
CHAPTER I
HATE
Sweet children of demurest air,
Pale blossoms woven through your hair,
On shifting rainbows gathering,
Endowed with love’s engaging mien
And crowding lips that toward me lean,
Through little hands, outstretched between
In sympathetic wondering.
Children, ye cannot understand,
Floating in that enchanted land,
The pathos of our helplessness;
And yet your winsome faces bear,
Though ye yourselves are unaware,
The antidote of our despair,--
Exorcists of our hopelessness.
_Children of Fancy: The Guelder Roses._
The great ship _Lusitania_ was nearing Queenstown on May 7th, 1915,
when a terrible explosion occurred, and in fifteen minutes she had
sunk. Among some 1700 adults and 500 children were a lecturer on art
and archaeology and a little girl, with whom he had made friends on
board. About 700 people escaped and these two were both eventually
picked up out of the water. When they reached the land there was
no one left to look after her; so he first took her across to her
relatives in England and then she went to live in the home of the
archaeologist, in Scotland, who had three little boys of his own but no
little girls.
Archaeologists do not know anything about girls’ story books, and he
may have been misinformed when he was told that girls’ books were too
tame and that most girls preferred to read the more exciting books of
their brothers. However, this made him decide himself to write a story
for the little girl, which should be full of adventures. It was frankly
a melodramatic story, a story of love and hate, and he chose the period
of the Reformation, so as to have two parties bitterly opposed to each
other; but, except for dramatic purposes, religious problems were as
far as possible left out.
One difficulty was as to whether the characters should speak in old
English; but, as that might have made it hard to read, only a few old
words and phrases were introduced here and there, just, as it were, to
give a flavour.
Afterwards the author was asked to publish the story “for precocious
girls of thirteen,” as it was delightfully phrased; that is to say,
for girls of thirteen and upwards and perhaps for grown up people, but
hardly for superior young ladies of about seventeen; and this is the
story:
* * * * *
Father Laurence, the parish priest of Middleton, was returning home
from Holwick on a dark night in the late spring. He had come from the
bedside of a dying woman and the scene was unpleasantly impressed on
his mind. Sarah Moulton had certainly not been a blessing to her
neighbours, but, in spite of that, he felt sorry for the delicate child
left behind, as he did not see what was to become of it. He felt very
troubled, too, about the poor creature, herself, for was not his task
the cure of souls? Not that Sarah Moulton was much of a mother; but
perhaps any kind of a mother was better than nothing, and the poor
child had loved her; yet, after she had received the viaticum, she had
given vent to the most frightful curses on her neighbours. “If I cannot
get the better of Janet Arnside in life,” she had screamed, “I will get
the better of her when I am dead. I will haunt her and drive her down
the path to Hell, I will never let her rest, I will....” and with these
words on her lips the soul had fled from her body. He sighed a little
wearily. He was famished and worn for he had previously been a long
tramp nearly to Lunedale. “I do my best,” he said, “but I am afraid the
task is too difficult for me. I wish there were some one better than
myself in Upper Teesdale: poor Sarah!”
Father Laurence’ way led through the churchyard, but clear as his
conscience was, he had never been able to free himself from a certain
fear in passing through it on a dark night. Could it be true that the
spirits of the departed could plague the living? Of course it could
not; and yet, somehow, he was not able to rid himself of the unwelcome
thought. As he passed through the village and drew nearer to the
church, he half resolved to go round. No, that was cowardly and absurd.
He would not allow idle superstitions to get the better of him.
But when he approached the gate he hesitated and his heart began to
beat violently. What was that unearthly screech in the darkness of the
night? He crossed himself devoutly, however, and said a Paternoster
and stepped through the wicket gate. “‘Libera nos a malo,’ yes, deliver
us from evil, indeed,” he said, as, dimly on the sky line he saw a
shadowy figure with long gaunt arms stretched to the sky.
He crossed himself again, when a ghoulish laugh rang through the still
night air. He turned a little to the left, but the figure came swiftly
toward him. He wanted to run, but duty bade him refrain. His heart beat
yet more violently as the figure approached and at length he stood
still, unable to move.
The figure came closer, and closer still, stretching out its arms, and
finally a harsh voice said: “Is that you, Father Laurence? Ha! Ha! I
told you Sarah Moulton would die. You need not tell me about it.”
It was old Mary, “Moll o’ the graves,” as the folk used to call
her. Father Laurence felt a little reassured, but she was not one
whom anybody would wish to meet on a dark night, least of all in a
churchyard.
“What is the matter, Mary? Why are you not in your bed,” he asked;
“disturbing honest folk at this time of night?”
“You let me alone,” she replied, “with your saints and your prayers and
your Holy Mother. I go where I please and do as I please. I knew Sarah
would die. I like folk to die,” she said with horrible glee; “and she
cursed Janet Arnside, did she? A curse on them all, every one of them.
I wish she would die too; ay, and that slip of a girl that Sarah has
left behind. What are you shaking for?” she added. “Do you think I do
not know what is going on? You have nothing to tell me; I assure you
the powers are on our side. There is nothing like the night and the
dark.”
“You are a wicked woman, Mary,” said the old priest sorrowfully, “and
God will punish you one day. See you--I am going home; you go home too.”
“You may go home if you like,” said the old hag as he moved on, “and my
curses go with you; but I stay here;” and she stood and looked after
him as he faded into the darkness.
“Silly old dotard,” she growled; “I saw him at her bedside or ever I
came along here. The blessed sacrament indeed; and much may it profit
her! I wish now I had waited and seen what he did after she had gone;
comforted that child, I expect! Fancy loving a mother like that! Ha!
Ha! No, I am glad I came here and scared the pious old fool.”
She moved among the tombs and sat down near an open grave that had just
been dug. “Pah! I am sick of their nonsense. Why cannot they leave
folk in peace? I want to go my own way; why should I not go my own
way? All my life they have been at me, ever since I was a little girl.
My foolish old mother began it. Why should I not please myself? Well,
she’s dead anyway! I like people to die. And now Mother Church is at
me. Why should I think of other people, why should I always be holding
myself in control? No, I let myself go, I please myself.”
“I have no patience with any of them,” she muttered, “and now there is
a new one to plague me,” and “Moll o’ the graves” saw in her mind’s
eye a slim, graceful girl of twelve, endowed with an unparalleled
refinement of beauty. “What do they mean by bringing that child
to Holwick Hall,” she continued, “as if things were not bad enough
already,--a-running round and waiting on folk, a-tending the sick and
all the rest of it? Let them die! I like them to die. Self-sacrifice
and self-control forsooth! They say she is clever and well-schooled
and mistress of herself and withal sympathetic. What’s the good of
unselfishness and self-control? No, liberty, liberty--that’s the thing
for you, Moll. Self-control, indeed!” and again the ghastly laugh rang
through the night air. “Yes, liberty, Moll,--liberty. Are you not
worth more than all their church-ridden priests and docile unselfish
children? What avails unselfishness and affection? Father Laurence and
Aline Gillespie, there’s a pair of them! No, hate is the thing, hate
is better than love. Scandal and spite and jealousy--that’s true joy,
that’s the true woman, Moll,” and she rubbed her hands with unholy
mirth.
As she talked to herself the moon rose and gradually the churchyard
became light. “Love!” she went on, “love! Yes, Oswald, that’s where
they laid you,” she said, as she looked at the next place to the open
grave. “Ah, but hate got the better of your love, for all that, fine
big man that you were, a head taller than the rest of the parish, and
all the girls after you, too!”
She looked at the side of the open grave, where the end of a bone
protruded. She pulled it out. It was a femur of unusual size. “Yes,
Oswald,” she repeated, “and that’s yours. You did not think I would be
holding your thigh-bone these forty years after!
“Ha! you loved me, did you? I was a pretty lass then. Yes, you loved
me, I know you loved me. You would have died for me, and I loved you,
too. But little Sarah loved you and you loved her. I know you loved me
most, but I would not have that. ‘I should have controlled myself,’ you
say; ha! I was jealous and I hated you. Self-control and love;--no, no,
liberty and hate, liberty and hate; and when you were ill I came to see
you and I saw the love-light in your eyes. They thought you would get
well. Of course you would have got well; but there you were, great big,
strong man, weak as a child,--a child! I hate children. Was that it?
You tried to push my hands off, as I pressed the pillow on your face,
you tried; oh, you tried hard, and I laugh to think of it even now. How
I longed to bury my fingers in your throat, but I knew they would leave
marks.
“Yes, liberty and hate, ha! ha! I would do it again. See, Oswald!” and
she took the brittle bone and viciously snapped it across her knee.
“Self-control! love! unselfishness! Never! And that child up at the
Hall, Oswald, I must send her after you. I have just frightened Sarah
down to you. You can have her now, and that child shall come next. Hate
is stronger than love. Liberty, self-will and hate must win in the end.”
The abandoned old wretch stood up and took her stick--she could not
stand quite straight--and hobbled with uncanny swiftness across to a
newly made child’s grave and began to scrape with her hands; but at
that moment she heard the night-watchman coming along the lane; so she
rose and walked back to Newbiggin, where she lived.
She opened the door and found the tinder box and struck a light, and
then went to a corner where there was an old chest. She unlocked it
and peered in and lifted out a bag and shook it. It was full of gold.
“Yes,” she said, “money is a good thing, too. How little they know
what ‘old Moll o’ the graves’ has got,--old, indeed, Moll is not old!
Ah, could not that money tell some strange tales? Love and learning
and self-control! Leave all that to the priests. Hate will do for
me,--money and liberty are my gods.
“Aha, Aline Gillespie, you little fool, what do you mean by crossing my
path? I was a pretty little girl once and you are not going to win the
love of Upper Teesdale folk for nothing, I’ll warrant you.”