The anecdotes I had heard of the quondam housekeeper of Lord Byron,
rendered me desirous of paying her a visit. I rode in company with
Colonel Wildman, therefore, to the cottage of her son William, where
she resides, and found her seated by her fireside, with a favorite cat
perched upon her shoulder and purring in her ear. Nanny Smith is a
large, good-looking woman, a specimen of the old-fashioned country
housewife, combining antiquated notions and prejudices, and very
limited information, with natural good sense. She loves to gossip about
the Abbey and Lord Byron, and was soon drawn into a course of
anecdotes, though mostly of an humble kind, such as suited the meridian
of the housekeeper's room and servants' hall. She seemed to entertain a
kind recollection of Lord Byron, though she had evidently been much
perplexed by some of his vagaries; and especially by the means he
adopted to counteract his tendency to corpulency. He used various modes
to sweat himself down; sometimes he would lie for a long time in a warm
bath, sometimes he would walk up the hills in the park, wrapped up and
loaded with great coats; "a sad toil for the poor youth," added Nanny,
"he being so lame."
His meals were scanty and irregular, consisting of dishes which Nanny
seemed to hold in great contempt, such as pillau, macaroni, and light
puddings.
She contradicted the report of the licentious life which he was
reported to lead at the Abbey, and of the paramours said to have been
brought with him from London. "A great part of his time used to be
passed lying on a sofa reading. Sometimes he had young gentlemen of his
acquaintance with him, and they played some mad pranks; but nothing but
what young gentlemen may do, and no harm done."
"Once, it is true," she added, "he had with him a beautiful boy as a
page, which the housemaids said was a girl. For my part, I know nothing
about it. Poor soul, he was so lame he could not go out much with the
men; all the comfort he had was to be a little with the lasses. The
housemaids, however, were very jealous; one of them, in particular,
took the matter in great dudgeon. Her name was Lucy; she was a great
favorite with Lord Byron, and had been much noticed by him, and began
to have high notions. She had her fortune told by a man who squinted,
to whom she gave two-and-sixpence. He told her to hold up her head and
look high, for she would come to great things. Upon this," added Nanny,
"the poor thing dreamt of nothing less than becoming a lady, and
mistress of the Abbey; and promised me, if such luck should happen to
her, she would be a good friend to me. Ah well-a-day! Lucy never had
the fine fortune she dreamt of; but she had better than I thought for;
she is now married, and keeps a public house at Warwick."
Finding that we listened to her with great attention, Nanny Smith went
on with her gossiping. "One time," said she, "Lord Byron took a notion
that there was a deal of money buried about the Abbey by the monks in
old times, and nothing would serve him but he must have the flagging
taken up in the cloisters; and they digged and digged, but found
nothing but stone coffins full of bones. Then he must needs have one of
the coffins put in one end of the great hall, so that the servants were
afraid to go there of nights. Several of the skulls were cleaned and
put in frames in his room. I used to have to go into the room at night
to shut the windows, and if I glanced an eye at them, they all seemed
to grin; which I believe skulls always do. I can't say but I was glad
to get out of the room.
"There was at one time (and for that matter there is still) a good deal
said about ghosts haunting about the Abbey. The keeper's wife said she
saw two standing in a dark part of the cloisters just opposite the
chapel, and one in the garden by the lord's well. Then there was a
young lady, a cousin of Lord Byron, who was staying in the Abbey and
slept in the room next the clock; and she told me that one night when
she was lying in bed, she saw a lady in white come out of the wall on
one side of the room, and go into the wall on the opposite side.
"Lord Byron one day said to me, 'Nanny, what nonsense they tell about
ghosts, as if there ever were any such things. I have never seen any
thing of the kind about the Abbey, and I warrant you have not.' This
was all done, do you see, to draw me out; but I said nothing, but shook
my head. However, they say his lordship did once see something. It was
in the great hall--something all black and hairy, he said it was the
devil.
"For my part," continued Nanny Smith, "I never saw anything of the
kind--but I heard something once. I was one evening scrubbing the floor
of the little dining-room at the end of the long gallery; it was after
dark; I expected every moment to be called to tea, but wished to finish
what I was about. All at once I heard heavy footsteps in the great
hall. They sounded like the tramp of a horse. I took the light and went
to see what it was. I heard the steps come from the lower end of the
hall to the fireplace in the centre, where they stopped; but I could
see nothing. I returned to my work, and in a little time heard the same
noise again. I went again with the light; the footsteps stopped by the
fireplace as before; still I could see nothing. I returned to my work,
when I heard the steps for a third time. I then went into the hall
without a light, but they stopped just the same, by the fireplace, half
way up the hall. I thought this rather odd, but returned to my work.
When it was finished, I took the light and went through the hall, as
that was my way to the kitchen. I heard no more footsteps, and thought
no more of the matter, when, on coming to the lower end of the hall, I
found the door locked, and then, on one side of the door, I saw the
stone coffin with the skull and bones that had been digged up in the
cloisters."
Here Nanny paused. I asked her if she believed that the mysterious
footsteps had any connection with the skeleton in the coffin; but she
shook her head, and would not commit herself. We took our leave of the
good old dame shortly after, and the story she had related gave subject
for conversation on our ride homeward. It was evident she had spoken
the truth as to what she had heard, but had been deceived by some
peculiar effect of sound. Noises are propagated about a huge irregular
edifice of the kind in a very deceptive manner; footsteps are prolonged
and reverberated by the vaulted cloisters and echoing halls; the
creaking and slamming of distant gates, the rushing of the blast
through the groves and among the ruined arches of the chapel, have all
a strangely delusive effect at night. Colonel Wildman gave an instance
of the kind from his own experience. Not long after he had taken up his
residence at the Abbey, he heard one moonlight night a noise as if a
carriage was passing at a distance. He opened the window and leaned
out. It then seemed as if the great iron roller was dragged along the
gravel walks and terrace, but there was nothing to be seen. When he saw
the gardener on the following morning, he questioned him about working
so late at night. The gardener declared that no one had been at work,
and the roller was chained up. He was sent to examine it, and came back
with a countenance full of surprise. The roller had been moved in the
night, but he declared no mortal hand could have moved it. "Well,"
replied the Colonel, good-humoredly, "I am glad to find I have a
brownie to work for me."
Lord Byron did much to foster and give currency to the superstitious
tales connected with the Abbey, by believing, or pretending to believe
in them. Many have supposed that his mind was really tinged with
superstition, and that this innate infirmity was increased by passing
much of his time in a lonely way, about the empty halls and cloisters
of the Abbey, then in a ruinous melancholy state, and brooding over the
skulls and effigies of its former inmates. I should rather think that
he found poetical enjoyment in these supernatural themes, and that his
imagination delighted to people this gloomy and romantic pile with all
kinds of shadowy inhabitants. Certain it is, the aspect of the mansion
under the varying influence of twilight and moonlight, and cloud and
sunshine operating upon its halls, and galleries, and monkish
cloisters, is enough to breed all kinds of fancies in the minds of its
inmates, especially if poetically or superstitiously inclined.
I have already mentioned some of the fabled visitants of the Abbey. The
goblin friar, however, is the one to whom Lord Byron has given the
greatest importance. It walked the cloisters by night, and sometimes
glimpses of it were seen in other parts of the Abbey. Its appearance
was said to portend some impending evil to the master of the mansion.
Lord Byron pretended to have seen it about a month before he contracted
his ill-starred marriage with Miss Milbanke.
He has embodied this tradition in the following ballad, in which he
represents the friar as one of the ancient inmates of the Abbey,
maintaining by night a kind of spectral possession of it, in right of
the fraternity. Other traditions, however, represent him as one of the
friars doomed to wander about the place in atonement for his crimes.
But to the ballad--
"Beware! beware! of the Black Friar,
Who sitteth by Norman stone,
For he mutters his prayers in the midnight air,
And his mass of the days that are gone.
When the Lord of the Hill, Amundeville,
Made Norman Church his prey,
And expell'd the friars, one friar still
Would not be driven away.
"Though he came in his might, with King Henry's right,
To turn church lands to lay,
With sword in hand, and torch to light
Their walls, if they said nay,
A monk remain'd, unchased, unchain'd,
And he did not seem form'd of clay,
For he's seen in the porch, and he's seen in the church,
Though he is not seen by day.
"And whether for good, or whether for ill,
It is not mine to say;
But still to the house of Amundeville
He abideth night and day.
By the marriage bed of their lords, 'tis said,
He flits on the bridal eve;
And 'tis held as faith, to their bed of death,
He comes--but not to grieve.
"When an heir is born, he is heard to mourn,
And when aught is to befall
That ancient line, in the pale moonshine
He walks from hall to hall.
His form you may trace, but not his face,
'Tis shadow'd by his cowl;
But his eyes may be seen from the folds between,
And they seem of a parted soul.
"But beware! beware of the Black Friar,
He still retains his sway,
For he is yet the church's heir,
Whoever may be the lay.
Amundeville is lord by day,
But the monk is lord by night,
Nor wine nor wassail could raise a vassal
To question that friar's right.
"Say nought to him as he walks the hall,
And he'll say nought to you;
He sweeps along in his dusky pall,
As o'er the grass the dew.
Then gramercy! for the Black Friar;
Heaven sain him! fair or foul,
And whatsoe'er may be his prayer
Let ours be for his soul."
Such is the story of the goblin friar, which, partly through old
tradition, and partly through the influence of Lord Byron's rhymes, has
become completely established in the Abbey, and threatens to hold
possession so long as the old edifice shall endure. Various visitors
have either fancied, or pretended to have seen him, and a cousin of
Lord Byron, Miss Sally Parkins, is even said to have made a sketch of
him from memory. As to the servants at the Abbey, they have become
possessed with all kinds of superstitious fancies. The long corridors
and Gothic halls, with their ancient portraits and dark figures in
armor, are all haunted regions to them; they even fear to sleep alone,
and will scarce venture at night on any distant errand about the Abbey
unless they go in couples.
Even the magnificent chamber in which I was lodged was subject to the
supernatural influences which reigned over the Abbey, and was said to
be haunted by "Sir John Byron the Little with the great Beard." The
ancient black-looking portrait of this family worthy, which hangs over
the door of the great saloon, was said to descend occasionally at
midnight from the frame, and walk the rounds of the state apartments.
Nay, his visitations were not confined to the night, for a young lady,
on a visit to the Abbey some years since, declared that, on passing in
broad day by the door of the identical chamber I have described, which
stood partly open, she saw Sir John Byron the Little seated by the
fireplace, reading out of a great black-letter book. From this
circumstance some have been led to suppose that the story of Sir John
Byron may be in some measure connected with the mysterious sculptures
of the chimney-piece already mentioned; but this has no countenance
from the most authentic antiquarians of the Abbey.
For my own part, the moment I learned the wonderful stories and strange
suppositions connected with my apartment, it became an imaginary realm
to me. As I lay in bed at night and gazed at the mysterious panel-work,
where Gothic knight, and Christian dame, and Paynim lover gazed upon me
in effigy, I used to weave a thousand fancies concerning them. The
great figures in the tapestry, also, were almost animated by the
workings of my imagination, and the Vandyke portraits of the cavalier
and lady that looked down with pale aspects from the wall, had almost a
spectral effect, from their immovable gaze and silent companionship--
"For by dim lights the portraits of the dead
Have something ghastly, desolate, and dread.
----Their buried looks still wave
Along the canvas; their eyes glance like dreams
On ours, as spars within some dusky cave,
But death is mingled in their shadowy beams."
In this way I used to conjure up fictions of the brain, and clothe the
objects around me with ideal interest and import, until, as the Abbey
clock tolled midnight, I almost looked to see Sir John Byron the Little
with the long beard stalk into the room with his book under his arm,
and take his seat beside the mysterious chimney-piece.