(_For the Mirror_.)
The remorseless tragedy on which this ballad is founded, took place
upwards of a century ago. In the retired village of Romanby, near
Northallerton, Yorkshire, there resided a desperate band of coiners,
whose respectability and cunning concealment precluded all possibility of
suspicion as to their proceedings. The victim of their revenge was Mary
Ward, the servant of one of those ruffians. Having obtained an accidental
view of some secret apartments appropriated to their treasonable
practices, she unguardedly communicated her knowledge to an acquaintance;
which reaching her master's ears, he determined to destroy her. The most
plausible story, time, and means were selected for this purpose. On a
Sunday evening, after sunset, an unknown personage on horseback arrived
at her master's mansion, half equipped, to give colour to his alleged
haste, and slated that he was dispatched for Mary, as _her mother was
dying_. She lingered to ask her master's permission; but he feigned sleep,
and she departed without his leave. On the table of her room was her
Bible, opened at those remarkable words in Job, "They shall seek me _in
the morning_, and shall not find me; and where I am, they shall not come."
Her home was at the distance of eight miles from Romanby; and Morton
bridge, hard by the heath where she was murdered, is the traditionary
scene of her nocturnal revisitings. The author has seen the tree said to
have been distorted by her in endeavouring to climb the fence; and has
visited the village and bridge, from which his descriptions are
accurately taken. The impression of her re-appearance is only
_poetically_ assumed, for there is too much of what Coleridge would term
"the divinity of nature" around Morton Bridge, to warrant its association
with supernatural mysteries.
Oh! sights are seen, and sounds are heard,
On Morton Bridge, at night,
When to the woods the cheerful birds
Have ta'en their silent flight.
When through the mantle of the sky
No cheering moonbeams delve,
And the far village clock hath told
The midnight hour of twelve.
Then o'er the lonely path is heard
The sigh of sable trees,
With deadly moan of suff'ring strife
Borne on the solemn breeze--
For Mary's spirit wanders there,
In snowy robe array'd,
To tell each trembling villager
Where sleeps the murder'd maid.
It was a Sabbath's eve of love,
When nature seem'd more holy;
And nought in life was dull, but she
Whose look was melancholy.
She lean'd her tear-stain'd cheek of health
Upon her lily arm,
Poor, hapless girl! she could not tell
What caus'd her wild alarm.
Around the roses of her face
Her flaxen ringlets fell;
No lovelier bosom than her own
Could guiltless sorrow swell!
The holy book before her lay,
That boon to mortals given,
To teach the way from weeping earth
To ever-glorious heaven;
And Mary read prophetic words,
That whisper'd of her doom--
"Oh! they will search for me, but where
I am, they cannot come!"
The tears forsook her gentle eyes,
And wet the sacred lore;
And such a terror shook her frame,
She ne'er had known before.
She ceas'd to weep, but deeper gloom
Her tearless musing brought;
And darker wan'd the evening hour,
And darker Mary's thought.
The sun, he set behind the hills,
And threw his fading fire
On mountain rock and village home,
And lit the distant spire.
(Sweet fane of truth and mercy! where
The tombs of other years
Discourse of virtuous life and hope,
And tell of by-gone tears!)
It was a night of nature's calm,
For earth and sky were still;
And childhood's revelry was o'er,
Upon the daisied hill.
The ale-house, with its gilded sign,
Hung on the beechen bough,
Was mute within, and tranquilly
The hamlet stream did flow.
The room where sat this grieving girl
Was one of ancient years;
Its antique state was well display'd
To conjure up her fears;
With massy walls of sable oak,
And roof of quaint design,
And lattic'd window, darkly hid
By rose and eglantine.
The summer moon now sweetly shone
All softly and serene;
She clos'd the casement tremblingly
Upon the beauteous scene.
Above that carved mantle hung,
Clad in the garb of gloom,
A painting of rich feudal state,--
An old baronial room.
The Norman windows scarcely cast
A light upon the wall,
Where shone the shields of warrior knights
Within the lonely hall.
And, pendent from each rusty nail,
Helmet and steely dress,
With bright and gilded morion,
To grace that dim recess.
Then Mary thought upon each tale
Of terrible romance:--
The lady in the lonely tower--
The murd'rer's deadly glance--
And moon-lit groves in pathless woods,
Where shadows nightly sped;
Her fancy could not leave the realms
Of darkness and the dead.
There stood a messenger without,
Beside her master's gate,
Who, till his thirsty horse had drunk,
Would hardly deign to wait.
The mansion rung with Mary's name,
For dreadful news he bore--
A dying mother wish'd to look
Upon her child once more.
The words were, "Haste, ere life be gone;"
Then was she quickly plac'd
Behind him on the hurrying steed,
Which soon the woods retrac'd.
Now they have pass'd o'er Morton Bridge,
While smil'd the moon above
Upon the ruffian and his prey--
The hawk and harmless dove.
The towering elms divide their tops;
And now a dismal heath
Proclaims her "final doom" is near
The awful hour of death!
The villain check'd his weary horse,
And spoke of trust betray'd;
And Mary's heart grew sick with fright,
As, answering, thus she said--
"Oh! kill me not until I see
My mother's face again!
Ride on, in mercy, horseman, ride,
And let us reach the lane!
"There slay me by my mother's door,
And I will pray for thee--
For she shall find her daughter's corse"--
"No, girl, it cannot be.
"This heath thou shalt not cross, for soon
Its earth will hide thy form;
That babbling tongue of thine shall make
A morsel for the worm!"
She leap'd upon the ling-clad heath,
And, nerv'd with phrensied fear,
Pursued her slippery way across,
Until the wood was near.
But nearer still _two_ fiends appear'd,
Like hunters of the fawn,
Who cast their cumb'ring cloaks away,
Beside that forest lone;
And bounded swifter than the maid,
Who nearly 'scap'd their wrath,
For well she knew that woody glade,
And every hoary path,
Obscur'd by oak and hazel bush,
Where milk-maid's merry song
Had often charm'd her lover's ear,
Who blest her silv'ry tongue.
But Mary miss'd the woodland stile--
The hedge-row was not high;
She gain'd its prickly top, and now
Her murderers were nigh.
A slender tree her fingers caught--
It bent beneath her weight;
'Twas false as love and Mary's fate!
Deceiving as the night!
She fell--and villagers relate
No more of Mary's hour,
But how she rose with deadly might,
And, with a maniac's power,
Fought with her murd'rers till they broke
Her slender arm in twain:
That none could e'er discover where
The maiden's corse was lain.
When wand'ring by that noiseless wood,
Forsaken by the bee,
Each rev'rend chronicler displays
The bent and treach'rous tree.
Pointing the barkless spot to view,
Which Mary's hand embrac'd,
They shake their hoary locks, and say,
"It ne'er can be effac'd!"
* * H.
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