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diff --git a/39712.txt b/39712.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2a3d572 --- /dev/null +++ b/39712.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6056 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Goblin Tales of Lancashire, by James Bowker + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license + + +Title: Goblin Tales of Lancashire + +Author: James Bowker + +Illustrator: Charles Gliddon + +Release Date: May 16, 2012 [EBook #39712] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOBLIN TALES OF LANCASHIRE *** + + + + +Produced by sp1nd, Mebyon, Matthew Wheaton and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + + + GOBLIN TALES OF LANCASHIRE. + + BY JAMES BOWKER, F.R.G.S.I. + + + AUTHOR OF 'PHOEBE CAREW, A NORTH COAST STORY,' + 'NAT HOLT'S FORTUNE,' ETC. + + _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS + BY THE LATE CHARLES GLIDDON._ + + 'Of Faery-land yet if he more enquire, + By certain signes here sett in sondrie place, + He may itt fynd.' + + SPENSER + + 'La veuve du meme Plogojovits declara que son mari depuis + sa mort lui etait venu demander des souliers.' + + CALMET, _Traite sur les Apparitions_, 1751. + + London + + W. SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO. + PATERNOSTER ROW + + + TO + + THE MOST NOBLE + THE MARQUIS OF HARTINGTON, P.C., D.C.L. + THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS DEDICATED + IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF + MUCH KINDNESS. + + + + + CONTENTS. + + + INTRODUCTION, + I.--THE SKRIKER, + II.--THE UNBIDDEN GUEST, + III.--THE FAIRY'S SPADE, + IV.--THE KING OF THE FAIRIES, + V.--MOTHER AND CHILD, + VI.--THE SPECTRAL CAT, + VII.--THE CAPTURED FAIRIES, + VIII.--THE PILLION LADY, + IX.--THE FAIRY FUNERAL, + X.--THE CHIVALROUS DEVIL, + XI.--THE ENCHANTED FISHERMAN, + XII.--THE SANDS OF COCKER, + XIII.--THE SILVER TOKEN, + XIV.--THE HEADLESS WOMAN, + XV.--THE RESCUE OF MOONBEAM, + XVI.--THE WHITE DOBBIE, + XVII.--THE LITTLE MAN'S GIFT, + XVIII.--SATAN'S SUPPER, + XIX.--THE EARTHENWARE GOOSE, + XX.--THE PHANTOM OF THE FELL, + XXI.--ALLHALLOW'S NIGHT, + XXII.--THE CHRISTMAS-EVE VIGIL, + XXIII.--THE CRIER OF CLAIFE, + XXIV.--THE DEMON OF THE OAK, + XXV.--THE BLACK COCK, + XXVI.--THE INVISIBLE BURDEN, + APPENDIX.--COMPARATIVE NOTES, + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +For many of the superstitions which still cling to him the Lancashire +man of the present day is indebted to his Celtic and Scandinavian +ancestors. From them the Horse and Worm stories, and the Giant lore of +the northern and southern mountains and fells, have come down, while +the relationship of the 'Jinny Greenteeth,' the presiding nymph of the +ponds and streams, with allusions to whom the Lancastrian mother +strives to deter her little ones from venturing near the pits and +brooks; to the water-spirits of the Gothic mythology, is too evident +to admit of any doubt. The source of the 'Gabriel Ratchets,' the +hell-hounds whose fear-inspiring yelps still are heard by the +benighted peasant, who finds in the dread sound a warning of the +approach of the angel of death; in the Norse Aasgaardsveia, the souls +condemned to ride about the world until doomsday, and who gallop +through the midnight storm with shrieks and cries which ring over the +lonely moors; or in that other troop of souls of the brave ones who +had died in battle, being led by the storm-god Woden to Walhalla, also +is undeniable. + +Striking, however, as are the points of similitude between some of the +Lancastrian traditions and those of the north of Europe, others seem +to be peculiar to the county, and that these are of a darker and +gloomier cast than are the superstitions of districts less wild and +mountainous, and away from the weird influence of the sea, with its +winter thunderings suggestive of hidden and awful power, may in a +great measure be correctly attributed to the nature of the scenery. + +It is easy to understand how the unlettered peasant would people with +beings of another world either the bleak fells, the deep and gloomy +gorges, the wild cloughs, the desolate moorland wastes two or three +thousand feet above the level of the sea, of the eastern portion of +the county; or the salt marshes where the breeze-bent and +mysterious-looking trees waved their spectral boughs in the wind; the +dark pools fringed with reeds, amid which the 'Peg-o'-Lantron' +flickered and danced, and over which came the hollow cry of the +bittern and the child-like plaint of the plover; and the dreary glens, +dark lakes, and long stretches of sand of the north and west. + +To him the forest, with its solemn Rembrandtesque gloom, + + Where Druids erst heard victims groan, + +the lonely fir-crowned pikes, and the mist-shrouded mountains, would +seem fitting homes for the dread shapes whose spite ended itself in +the misfortunes and misery of humanity. Pregnant with mystery to such +a mind would be the huge fells, with their shifting 'neetcaps' of +cloud, the towering bluffs, the swampy moors, and trackless morasses, +across which the setting sun cast floods of blood-red light; and +irresistible would be the influence of such scenery upon the lonely +labourer who would go about his daily tasks with a feeling that he was +surrounded by the supernatural. + +And wild as are many parts of the county to-day, it is difficult to +conceive its condition a century or two ago, when much of the land +was not only uncultivated, but was, for at least a portion of the +year, covered by sheets of water, the highways being little more than +bridle roads, or, if wider than usual, very sloughs of despond, the +carts in several of the rural districts being laid aside in winter as +utterly useless, and grain and other commodities, even in summer time, +being conveyed from place to place on the backs of long strings of +pack-horses. + +Living in lonely houses and cottages shut out from civilisation by the +difficulties of communication, and hemmed in by floating mists and by +much that was awe-inspiring, with in winter additional barriers of +storm, snow and flood, it is easy to imagine how in the fancy of the +yeoman, shepherd, farmer, or solitary lime burner, as 'th' edge o' +dark' threw its weird glamour over the scene, boggarts and phantoms +would begin to creep about to the music of the unearthly voices heard +in every sough and sigh of the wandering wind as it wailed around the +isolated dwellings. + +In everything weird they found a message from the unknown realms of +death. The noise of the swollen waters of the Ribble or the Lune, or +the many smaller streams hurrying down to the sea, was to them the +voice of the Water Spirit calling for its victim, and the howling of +their dogs bade the sick prepare to meet 'the shadow with the keys.' +All around them were invisible beings harmful or mischievous, and to +them they traced much of the misfortune which followed the stern +working of nature's laws. + +The superstitions which date from, as well as the actual annals of the +Witch Mania in Lancashire, in some slight degree confirm this theory, +for whereas in the flat and more thickly-populated districts the hag +contented herself with stealing milk from her neighbour's cows, +spoiling their bakings, and other practical jokes of a comparatively +harmless kind, in the wilder localities--the region of pathless moors +and mist-encircled mountains--the witch ever was raising terrible +storms, bringing down the thunder, killing the cattle, dealing out +plagues and pestilence at will, wreaking evil of every conceivable +kind upon man and beast, and, hot from her sabbath of devil-worship, +even casting the sombre shadows and dread darkness of death over the +households of those who had fallen under the ban of her hate. + +Lancashire has, however, an extensive ghost lore to which this theory +has no reference, consisting as it does of stories of haunted houses +and churchyards, indelible blood-stains, and all the paraphernalia of +the + + Shapes that walk + At dead of night, and clank their chains and wave + The torch of hell around the murderer's bed. + +The sketch in this volume, 'Mother and Child,' for the skeleton of +which tradition I am indebted to the late Mr. J. Stanyan Bigg, may be +considered a fair specimen of these stories. In most cases these +legends are not simply the vain creations of ignorance and darkness, +although they fade before the light of knowledge like mists before the +sun, for under many of them may be found a moral and a warning, or a +testimony to the beauty of goodness, hidden it is true beneath the +covering of a rude fable, just as inscriptions rest concealed below +the moss of graveyards. The well-known legend of the Boggart of +Townley Hall, with its warning cry of 'Lay out, lay out!' and its +demand for a victim every seventh year, is a striking example of +traditions of this class--emphatic protests against wrong, uttered in +the form of a nerve-affecting fable. In more than one of the stories +of this kind to which I have listened, the ghost of the victim has +re-visited 'the pale glimpses of the moon,' and made night so hideous +to the wrong-doer, that, in despair and remorse, he has put an end to +himself; and trivial as these things may seem to Mr. Gradgrind and his +school, they have, like other and nobler parables, influenced minds +impervious to dry fact. + +To the devil lore of the county, however, the theory certainly will +apply, for surely it is in a gloomy gorge, through which forked +lightnings flash and chase each other, and the thunder rolls and +reverberates, or on a dark and lonesome moor, rather than upon the +shady side of Pall Mall, one would expect to meet the Evil One. + +Yet, undoubtedly, other causes contributed to enrich the store of +tales of fiends with which the county abounds. + +In Lancashire many of the old customs, even such as the riding of the +wooden Christ on Palm Sunday, continued to be kept up at a later +period than was the case in other parts of England; and, +notwithstanding the prohibitory edicts of the commissioners appointed +by Queen Elizabeth, Miracle Plays and Moralities doubtless were +performed there even during the early part of the reign of James I., +for the Reformation, rapidly as its principles took root and spread in +other parts of the country, did not make rapid headway in Lancashire, +where great numbers of the people remained true to the faith of their +forefathers. In fact, in many parishes, long after the Church of +England had been by law established, Catholic priests continued to be +the only officiating ministers. Probably the people loved their church +not only on account of its doctrines, of which it may be presumed most +of them knew but little, and of its impressive ceremonies, but also +because of its recognition of the holy days and fair days, wakes, and +games it was powerless to suppress; and perhaps of all the amusements +thus winked at or even patronised by the church, that of dramatic +representations, rude and grotesque as they undoubtedly were, was the +most important. In many places the members of the various guilds and +brotherhoods were the performers, but in the majority of cases the +entertainments were given by the priests and other ecclesiastical +functionaries. + +What part the Devil played in these amusements is well known to the +antiquary, the old accounts containing particulars of the expenditure +upon not only hair for the Evil One's wig, but also for canvas, of +which to construct black shirts for the Satanic tag-rag, or, as the +old scribes plainly put it, 'for the damned.' It is evident from the +old records that Satan left the hands of his dresser an object +compared with which the most hideous jack-in-the-box of the modern toy +shop would be a vision of loveliness; and, as his chief occupations +were those of roaring and yelling, and of suffering all sorts of +indignities at the hands of the Vice, as does the pantaloon at the +hands of the clown in a pantomime of to-day, it is easy to see that +his _role_ was not a very dignified one. Everywhere the stage devil +was simply the stage fool. Even in France, where the drama ever has +been submitted to precise rules, 'there was,' as Albert Reville has +remarked (_Histoire du Diable, ses origines, sa grandeur et sa +decadence._ Strasbourg: 1870), 'a class of popular pieces called +devilries (_diableries_), gross and often obscene masquerades, in +which at least four devils took part.... In Germany also the devil +was diverting on the stage. There exists an old Saxon Mystery of the +Passion, in which Satan repeats, like a mocking echo, the last words +of Judas who hangs himself; and when, in accordance with the sacred +tradition, the traitor's bowels fall asunder, the Evil One gathers +them into a basket, and, as he carries them away, sings a +little melody appropriate to the occasion.' Undoubtedly these +misrepresentations of the apostate angel helped to familiarise the +popular mind with the idea of a personal devil going about veritably +seeking whom he might devour; and although, when with the crowd in the +presence of the Thespian ecclesiastics, people might feel quite at +home with, and really enjoy, the company of the Evil One, away again +on the dreary moor, or in the lonely hillside cottage, with the night +wind howling at the door, fear would resume its wonted supremacy, and +the feeling would be deepened and intensified by the memory of the +horrid appearance of the stage Satan. + +It is possible that in a great measure we owe to these performances +the somewhat monotonous frequency with which, in the purely local +Lancashire devil stories, the Evil One, who generally in the most +stupid manner permits himself to be overreached, comes oft second +best, for doubtless many of the traditions were moulded in accordance +with the lot of Satan in the miracle plays, as, in their turn, these +were, although perhaps indirectly, based upon the teachings of the +church, and that, in its turn, upon the writings of the Fathers, some +of whom, and notably Origen, did not hesitate to speak of the +Redemption even as due in no small degree to Satanic stupidity, a view +so lastingly predominant in the Church that as Reville has said, 'la +poesie ecclesiastique, la predication populaire, des enseignements +pontificaux meme le repandirent, le dramatiserent, le consacrerent +partout.' + +An interesting chapter in the history of religious beliefs might be +written upon the views of the early Fathers with reference to Satan +and his legion, and the student is not inclined to be quite so severe +upon the superstitions of the unlettered peasant when he finds Jerome +recording it as the opinion of all the doctors in the church, that the +air between heaven and earth is filled with Evil Spirits, and +Augustine and others stating that the devils had fallen there from a +higher and purer region of the air. The early Christian Church too had +its order of _Exorcists_, who had care of those possessed by Evil +Spirits, the _energumeni_, and the Bishops, departing from the +original idea that laymen had the power of exorcism, ordained men to +the office and called upon them to exercise their functions even +before the rite of baptism, to deliver the candidates 'from the +dominion of the power of darkness.' + +Of the lighter superstitions in Lancashire, that of belief in fairies +appears to be almost extinct, and it is to be lamented that forty +years ago folk lore was considered of so little importance, for the +slight and vague references in a rare little 'History of Blackpool,' +by the Rev. W. Thornber, upon two of which the sketches entitled 'The +Silver Token,' and 'The Fairy's Spade' are founded, show that the task +of gathering a goodly store of such vestiges of ancient faiths would +at the time when that volume was written have been a comparatively +easy one. To-day, however, the case is different. Even my friend, the +late Mr. John Higson, of Lees, to whose kindness I owe the tradition +upon which the story of 'The King of the Fairies' is based, and whose +labours in out-of-the-way paths dear to antiquaries were for some +years as untiring as successful and praiseworthy, was not able to +gather much bearing upon the fairy mythology of the Lancashire people. + +Most of the fairy and folk stories it was my good fortune to hear in +the county and moorland districts were of a conventional kind, lubber +fiends, death warnings, fairy ointment, and fairy money being as +plentiful as diamonds in Eastern tales, and for that reason it was not +thought necessary to reproduce them in this volume. + +The darker forms of superstition, like lower organisms, are more +tenacious of life, and in many a retired nook of Lancashire there +still may be found small congregations of believers in all the mystic +lore of devildom and witchcraft. Readers of Mr. Edwin Waugh's +exquisite sketches of north country life will at once call to mind, in +the 'Grave of the Griselhurst Boggart,' an illustration of that dim +fear of the supernatural which is yet so all-powerful, while the +valuable collection of Folk Lore from the pens of the late Mr. +Wilkinson and Mr. John Harland is full of testimony to the vitality of +many of these offshoots from old-world creeds. + + + + +GOBLIN TALES OF LANCASHIRE. + + + + +TH' SKRIKER (SHRIEKER). + + +On a fine night, about the middle of December, many years ago, a +sturdy-looking young fellow left Chipping for his cottage, three or +four miles away, upon the banks of the Hodder. The ground was covered +with snow, which in many places had drifted into heaps, and the keen +frost had made the road so slippery that the progress he made was but +slow. Nature looked very beautiful, and the heart of the rustic even +was touched by the sweet peacefulness of the scene. The noble old +Parlick, and the sweeping Longridge, with its fir-crowned Thornley +Height and Kemple End, stood out boldly against the clear sky, and the +moon shed her soft silvery light into the long silent valley, +stretching away until its virgin paleness mingled with the shadows and +the darkness of the distant fells beyond Whitewell. + +All was still, save when the sighing wind rustled gently through the +frosted branches of the leafless trees by the roadside, and shook down +upon the wayfarer a miniature shower of snow; for even the tiny +stream, so full of mirth and music in the summer time, had been lulled +to sleep by the genius of winter; and the cottagers, whose little +houses, half-hidden by the rime, seemed hardly large enough for the +dwellings of dwarfs, had been snugly sleeping for hours. + +Adam was by no means a timid or nervous being, but there was a +nameless something in the deathly silence which oppressed, if it did +not actually frighten, him; and although he sang aloud a verse of the +last song he had heard before he left the kitchen of the Patten Arms, +his voice had lost its heartiness. He earnestly wished himself safely +across the little bridge over the brook; but he was yet some distance +from the stream when the faint chimes of midnight fell upon the air. +Almost immediately after the last stroke of twelve had broken the +silence a cloud passed over the face of the moon, and comparative +darkness enveloped the scene; the wind, which before had been gentle +and almost noiseless, began to howl amid the boughs and branches of +the waving trees, and the frozen snow from the hedgerows was dashed +against the wayfarer's face. + +He had already begun to fancy that he could distinguish in the +soughing of the wind and the creaking of the boughs unearthly cries +and fiendish shouts of glee; but as he approached the dreaded stream +his courage almost entirely failed him, and it required a great effort +to keep from turning his back to it, and running away in the direction +of the little village at the foot of Parlick. It struck him, however, +that he had come a long distance; that if he did go back to the Patten +Arms the company would be dispersed, and the inmates asleep, and, what +was more effective than all, that if he could only cross the bridge he +would be safe, the Greenies, Boggarts, and Feorin not having power +over any one who had passed over the water. Influenced by this +thought, yet with his knees trembling under him, he pushed forward +with assumed boldness, and he had almost reached the bridge when he +heard the noise of passing feet in the crunching snow, and became +conscious of the presence of a ghastly thing he was unable to see. +Suddenly a sepulchral howl brought him to a stop, and, with his heart +throbbing loudly enough to be heard, he stood gazing fixedly into the +darkness. There was nothing to be perceived, however, save the copings +of the bridge, with their coverings of rime; and he might have stood +there until daylight had not another cry, louder and even more +unearthly and horrible than the preceding one, called him from his +trance. No sooner had this second scream died away than, impelled by +an irresistible impulse, he stepped forward in the direction whence +the noise had come. At this moment the moon burst forth from behind +the clouds which had for some time obscured her light, and her rays +fell upon the road, with its half-hidden cart-tracks winding away into +the dim distance; and in the very centre of the bridge he beheld a +hideous figure with black shaggy hide, and huge eyes closely +resembling orbs of fire. + +Adam at once knew from the likeness the dread object bore to the +figure he had heard described by those who had seen the Skriker, that +the terrible thing before him was an Ambassador of Death. + +Without any consciousness of what he was doing, and acting as though +under the sway of a strange and irresistible mesmeric influence, he +stepped towards the bridge; but no sooner did he stir than the +frightful thing in front of him, with a motion that was not walking, +but rather a sort of heavy gliding, moved also, slowly retreating, +pausing when he paused, and always keeping its fiery eyes fixed upon +his blanched face. Slowly he crossed the stream, but gradually his +steps grew more and more rapid, until he broke into a run. Suddenly a +faint knowledge of the horrible nature of his position dawned upon +him. A little cottage stood by the roadside, and from one of its +chamber-windows, so near to the ground as to be within his reach, a +dim light shone, the room probably being occupied by a sick person, or +by watchers of the dead. Influenced by a sudden feeling of +companionship, Adam tried to cry out, but his tongue clave to his +parched mouth, and ere he could mumble a few inarticulate sounds, +scarcely audible to himself, the dwelling was left far behind, and a +sensation of utter loneliness and helplessness again took possession +of him. + +He had thus traversed more than a mile of the road, in some parts of +which, shaded by the high hedgerows and overhanging boughs, the only +light seemed to him to be that from the terrible eyes, when suddenly +he stumbled over a stone and fell. In a second, impressed by a fear +that the ghastly object would seize him, he regained his feet, and, to +his intense relief, the Skriker was no longer visible. With a sigh of +pleasure he sat down upon a heap of broken stones, for his limbs, no +longer forced into mechanical movement by the influence of the +spectre's presence, refused to bear him further. Bitterly cold as was +the night, the perspiration stood in beads upon his whitened face, +and, with the recollection of the Skriker's terrible eyes and horrible +body strong upon him, he shook and shivered, as though in a fit of the +ague. A strong and burly man, in the very prime of life, he felt as +weak as a girl, and, fearing that he was about to sink to the ground +in a swoon, he took handfuls of the crisp snow and rubbed them upon +his forehead. Under this sharp treatment he soon revived a little, +and, after several unsuccessful efforts, he succeeded in regaining his +feet, and resumed his lonely journey. + +Starting at the least sough of the breeze, the faintest creak of a +bending branch, or the fall of a piece of frozen rime from a bough, he +slowly trudged along. + +He had passed the quaint old house at Chaigely, the sudden yelp of a +chained dog in the court-yard giving him a thrill of horror as he went +by, and he had reached the bend in that part of the road which is +opposite the towering wood-covered Kemple End. A keen and cutting +blast swept through the black firs that crowned the summit, and stood, +like solemn sentinels, upon the declivity. There was a music in the +wind mournful as a croon over the corpse of a beautiful woman, whose +hair still shimmers with the golden light of life; but Adam heard no +melody in the moaning sighs which seemed to fill the air around. To +him, whose soul was yet under the influence of the terror through +which he had so recently passed, the sounds assumed an awful nature; +whilst the firs, standing so clearly defined against the snow, which +lay in virgin heaps upon the beds of withered fern, seemed like so +many weird skeletons shaking their bony arms in menace or in warning. + +With a suddenness that was more than startling, there was a lull, and +the breeze ceased even to whisper. The silence was more painful than +were the noises of the blast battling with the branches, for it filled +the breast of the solitary wayfarer with forebodings of coming woe. At +the point he had reached the road sank, and as Adam stepped into the +almost utter darkness, caused by the high banks, to which clung masses +of decayed vegetation, beautified by the genius of winter into white +festoons, again and again the terrible shriek rang out. + +There was no mistaking the voice of the Skriker for that of anything +else upon earth, and, with a sickly feeling at his heart, Adam slowly +emerged from the gloom, and, in expectation of the appearance of the +ghastly figure, passed on. He had not to wait long, for as he reached +the old bridge spanning the Hodder, once more he saw, in the centre +of the road, about midway of the stream, the same terrible object he +had followed along the lane from the brook at Thornley. + +With a sensation of terror somewhat less intense than that which had +previously influenced him, he again yielded to the power which +impelled him forward, and once more the strange procession commenced, +the Skriker gliding over the snow, not, however, without a peculiar +shuffling of its feet, surrounded, as they were, by masses of long +hair, which clung to them, and deadened the sound, and Adam following +in his mechanical and involuntary trot. The journey this time, +however, was of but short duration, for the poor fellow's cottage was +only a little way from the river. The distance was soon traversed, and +the Skriker, with its face towards the terrified man, took up its +position against the door of the dwelling. Adam could not resist the +attraction which drew him to the ghastly thing, and as he neared it, +in a fit of wild desperation, he struck at it, but his hand banged +against the oak of the door, and, as the spectre splashed away, he +fell forward in a swoon. + +Disturbed by the noise of the fall, the goodwife arose and drew him +into the cottage, but for some hours he was unable to tell the story +of his terrible journey. When he had told of his involuntary chase of +the Skriker, a deep gloom fell over the woman's features, for she well +knew what the ghastly visit portended to their little household. The +dread uncertainty did not continue long, however, for on the third day +from that upon which Adam had reached his home the eldest lad was +brought home drowned; and after attending the child's funeral, Adam's +wife sickened of a fever, and within a few weeks she too was carried +to Mytton churchyard. These things, together with the dreadful +experience of the journey from Chipping, so affected Adam that he lost +his reason, and for years afterwards the sound of his pattering +footsteps, as in harmless idiotcy, with wild eyes and outstretched +hands, he trotted along the roads in chase of an imaginary Boggart, +fell with mournful impressiveness upon the ears of groups gathered by +farm-house fires to listen to stories of the Skriker.{1} + + + + +THE UNBIDDEN GUEST. + + +In a little lane leading from the town of Clitheroe there once lived a +noted 'cunning man,' to whom all sorts of applications were made, not +only by the residents, but also by people from distant places, for the +fame of the wizard had spread over the whole country side. If a theft +was committed, at once the services of 'Owd Jeremy' were enlisted, +and, as a result, some one entirely innocent was, if not accused, at +least suspected; while maidens and young men, anxious to pry into +futurity, and behold the faces of their unknown admirers, paid him +trifling fees to enable them to gratify their curiosity. In short, +Jeremy professed to be an able student of the Black Art, on familiar +speaking terms with Satan, and duly qualified to foretell men's +destinies by the aid of the stars. + +The cottage in which the old man resided was of a mean order, and its +outward appearance was by no means likely to impress visitors with an +idea that great pecuniary advantages had followed that personal +acquaintance with the Evil One of which the wizard boasted. If, +however, the outside was mean and shabby, the inside of the dwelling +was of a nature better calculated to inspire inquirers with feelings +of awe, hung round, as the one chamber was, with faded and moth-eaten +black cloth, upon which grotesque astrological designs and the figure +of a huge dragon were worked in flaming red. The window being hidden +by the dingy tapestry, the only light in the room came from a +starved-looking candle, which was fixed in the foot of the skeleton of +a child, attached to a string from the ceiling, and dangling just over +the table, where a ponderous volume lay open before a large crystal +globe and two skulls. + +In an old-fashioned chair, above which hung suspended a dirty and +dilapidated crocodile, the wizard sat, and gave audience to the stray +visitors whose desire to peer into futurity overmastered the fear with +which the lonely cottage was regarded. A quaint-looking old man was +Jeremy, with his hungry-looking eyes and long white beard; and, as +with bony fingers he turned over the leaves of the large book, there +was much in his appearance likely to give the superstitious and +ignorant customers overwhelming ideas of his wondrous wisdom. The +'make up' was creditable to Jeremy, for though he succeeded in +deceiving others with his assumption of supernatural knowledge, he +himself did not believe in those powers whose aid he so frequently +professed to invoke on behalf of his clients. + +One day, when the ragged cloth had fallen behind a victim who was +departing from the wizard's sanctum with a few vague and mysterious +hints in exchange for solid coin, the old man, after laughing +sarcastically, pulled aside the dingy curtains and stepped to the +casement, through which the glorious sunlight was streaming. The scene +upon which the wizard looked was a very beautiful one; and the old man +leaned his head upon his hands and gazed intently upon the landscape. + +''Tis a bonnie world,' said he,--''tis a bonnie world, and there are +few views in it to compare with this one for beauty. My soul is drawn +toward old Pendle, yon, with a love passing that of woman, heartless +and passionless though the huge mass be. Heartless!' said he, after a +pause,--'heartless! when every minute there is a fresh expression upon +its beautiful front? Ay, even so, for it looms yonder calm and +unconcerned when we are ushered into the world, and when we are +ushered out of it, and laid to moulder away under the mountain's +shadow; and it will rear its bold bluffs to heaven and smile in the +sunlight or frown in the gloom after we who now love to gaze upon it +are blind to the solemn loveliness of its impassable face. Poor +perishable fools are we, with less power than the breeze which ruffles +yon purple heather!' + +With a heavy sigh Jeremy turned away from the window, and as the +curtain fell behind him, and he stood again in the wretchedly-lighted +room, he saw that he was not alone. The chair in which the trembling +hinds generally were asked to seat themselves held a strange-looking +visitor of dark and forbidding aspect. + +'Jeremiah,' said this personage, 'devildom first and poetising +afterwards.' + +There was an unpleasant tone of banter in this speech, which did not +seem in keeping with the character of one who fain would pry into +futurity; and as the wizard took his usual position beneath the +crocodile, he looked somewhat less oracular than was his wont when in +front of a shivering and terrified inquirer. + +'What wantest thou with me?' said he, with an ill-assumed appearance +of unconcern. + +The occupant of the chair smiled sardonically as he replied-- + +'A little security--that's all. For five-and-twenty years thou hast +been amassing wealth by duping credulous fools, and it is time I had +my percentage.' + +The wizard stared in astonishment. Was the stranger a thief, or worse? +he wondered, but after a time, however, he said, drily-- + +'Even if thou hadst proved thy right to a portion of the profits of my +honest calling--and thou hast not--thou wouldst not require a +packhorse to carry thy share away. Doth this hovel resemble the abode +of a possessor of great wealth? Two chairs, a table, and a few old +bones, its furniture; and its tenant a half-starved old man, who has +had hard work to support life upon the pittance he receives in return +for priceless words of wisdom! Thou art a stranger to me, and thy +portion of my earnings is correctly represented by a circle.' + +A loud and unmusical laugh followed the wizard's words; and before the +unpleasant sound had died away the visitor remarked-- + +'If I am yet a stranger to thee, Jeremiah, 'tis not thy fault, for +during the last quarter of a century thou hast boasted of me as thy +willing servant, and extorted hard cash from thy customers upon the +strength of my friendship and willingness to help thee; and now, true +to thy beggarly instincts, thou wouldst deny me! But 'twill be in +vain, Jeremiah--'twill be in vain! I have postponed this visit too +long already to be put off with subterfuges now.' + +'I repeat, I know thee not,' said the wizard, in a trembling voice. +And, hurriedly rising from his chair, he flung aside the thick +curtain, in order that the light of day might stream into the chamber, +for a nameless fear had taken possession of him, and he did not care +to remain in the darkened apartment with his suspicious visitor. To +his surprise and terror, however, darkness had fallen upon the scene, +and, as he gazed in alarm at the little diamond-framed window, +through which so short a time before he had looked upon a fair +prospect of meadow and mountain, a vivid flash of lightning darted +across the heavens, and a clap of thunder burst over the cottage. + +''Twill spoil good men's harvests, Jeremiah,' the stranger calmly +said; 'but it need not interrupt our interesting conversation.' + +Angry at the bantering manner in which the visitor spoke, the wizard +flung open the door, and cried-- + +'Depart from my dwelling, ere I cast thee forth into the mire!' + +'Surely thou wouldst not have the heart to fulfil thy threat,' said +the stranger, 'although 'tis true I have but one shoe to be soiled by +the mud.' And as he spoke he quietly crossed his legs, and Jeremiah +perceived a hideous cloven foot. + +With a groan, the wizard sank into his chair, and, deaf to the roaring +of the thunder, and to the beating of the rain through the doorway, he +sat helplessly gazing at his guest, whose metallic laughter rang +through the room. + +'Hast thou at length recognised me, Jeremiah?' asked the Evil One, +after an interval, during which he had somewhat prominently displayed +the hoof, and gloated over the agony its exhibition had caused his +victim. + +The old man was almost too terrified to answer, but at last he +whispered-- + +'I have.' + +'And thou no longer wilt refuse me the security?' hissed the +tormentor, as he placed a parchment upon the table. + +'What security dost thou demand?' feebly inquired the quaking wizard. + +'Personal only,' said Satan. 'Put thy name to this,' and he pointed to +the bond. + +Jeremy pushed his chair as far from the suspicious-looking document as +he could ere he replied-- + +'Thou shalt not have name of mine.' + +He had expected that an outburst of fiendish wrath would follow this +speech, but to his surprise the guest simply remarked-- + +'Very well, Jeremiah. By to-morrow night, however, thou shalt be +exposed as the base and ignorant pretender thou art. Thou hast +trespassed upon the rightful trade of my faithful servants long +enough, and 'tis time I stopped thy prosperous career. Ere sunset +thou shalt have a rival, who will take the bread from thy ungrateful +mouth.' + +After this polite speech the visitor picked up the parchment, and +began to fold it in a methodical manner. + +Such utterly unexpected gentlemanly behaviour somewhat reassured +Jeremiah, and in a fainter voice he humbly asked what his visitor had +to give in exchange for a wizard's autograph. + +'Twenty-two years of such success as thou hast not even dared to dream +of! No opposition--no exposure to thy miserable dupes,' readily +answered Satan. + +Jeremiah considered deeply. The offer undoubtedly was a tempting one, +for after all, his profession had not been very lucrative, and to lose +his customers, therefore, meant starvation. He was certain that if +another wizard opened an establishment the people would flock to him, +even through mere curiosity; but he knew what signing the bond +included, and he was afraid to take the step. + +After a long delay, during which Satan carefully removed a sharp +stone from his hoof, Jeremiah therefore firmly said-- + +'Master, I'll not sign!' + +Without more ado the visitor departed, and almost before he was out of +sight the storm abated, and old Pendle again became visible. + +A few days passed, and no one came to the dwelling of the wizard; and +as such an absence of customers was very unusual, Jeremy began to fear +that the supernatural stranger had not forgotten his threat. On the +evening of the fifth day he crept into the little town to purchase +some articles of food. Previously, whenever he had had occasion to +make a similar journey, as he passed along the street the children ran +away in terror, and the older people addressed him with remarkable +humility; but this time, as he stepped rapidly past the houses, the +youngsters went on with their games as though only an ordinary mortal +went by, and a burly fellow who was leaning against a door jamb took +his pipe from his mouth to cry familiarly-- + +'Well, Jerry, owd lad, heaw are ta'?' + +These marks of waning power and fading popularity were sufficiently +unmistakable; but as he was making his few purchases he was informed +that a stranger, who seemed to be possessed of miraculous powers, had +arrived in the town, and that many people who had been to him were +going about testifying to his wonderful skill. With a heavy heart the +wizard returned to his cottage. Next night a shower of stones dashed +his window to pieces, and, as he peered into the moonlight lane, he +saw a number of rough fellows, who evidently were waiting and watching +in hopes that he would emerge from his dwelling. These were the only +visitors he had during an entire week; and at length, quite prepared +to capitulate, he said to himself-- + +'I wish I had another chance.' + +No sooner had he uttered the words, than there was a sudden burst of +thunder, wind roared round the house, again the clients' chair was +occupied, and the parchment lay upon the table just as though it had +not been disturbed. + +'Art thou ready to sign?' asked Satan. + +'Ay!' answered the old man. + +The Evil One immediately seized the wizard's hand, upon which Jeremy +gave a piercing yell, as well he might do, for the Satanic grip had +forced the blood from the tips of his fingers. + +'Sign!' said the Devil. + +'I can't write,' said the wizard. + +The Evil One forthwith took hold of one of the victim's fingers, and +using it as a pen, wrote in a peculiarly neat hand 'Jeremiah Parsons, +his x mark,' finishing with a fiendish flourish. + +After doing this he again vacated the chair and the room as +mysteriously as on the previous occasion. + +The autograph-loving visitor had barely departed with the parchment +ere a knock at the door was heard, and in stepped a man who wished to +have the veil lifted, and who brought the pleasing news that, +influenced by the reports of the opposition wizard, he had been to his +house in Clitheroe, but had found it empty, the whilom tenant having +fled no one knew whither. From that time things looked up with Jeremy, +and money poured into the skulls, for people crowded from far and near +to test his skill. For two-and-twenty years he flourished and was +famous, but the end came.{2} One morning, after a wild night when the +winds howled round Pendle, and it seemed as though all the powers of +darkness were let loose, some labourers who were going to their work +were surprised to find only the ruins of the wizard's cottage. The +place had been consumed by fire; and although search was made for the +magician's remains, only a few charred bones were found, and these, +some averred, were not those of old Jeremy, but were relics of the +dusty old skeleton and the dirty crocodile under the shadow of which +the wizard used to sit. + + + + +THE FAIRY'S SPADE. + + +'Th' fairies han getten varra shy sin' thee an' me wir young, Matty, +lass!' said an old grey-headed man, who, smoking a long pipe, calmly +sat in a shady corner of the kitchen of a Fylde country farm-house. +'Nubry seems to see 'em neaw-a-days as they ust. I onst had a seet o' +one on 'em, as plain as I con see thee sittin' theer, ravellin' thi +owd stockin'. I wir ploughin' varra soon after dayleet, an' ther +worn't a saand to be heeart nobbut th' noise o'th' graand oppenin', +an' th' chirp ov a few brids wakkenin' an' tunin' up, an' ov a +toothrey crows close at after mi heels a-pikin' up th' whorms. O ov a +suddent I heeard sumbry cry, i' a voice like owd Luke wench i'th' +orgin loft ov a Sundays, "I've brokken mi speet!" I lost no toime i' +tornin' to see whoa wir at wark at that haar, an' i' aar fielt too, +an' I clapt mi een on as pratty a little lass as ever oppent een i' +this country side. Owd England choilt's bonny, yone warrant mi, but +hoo's as feaw as sin aside o'th' face as I see that morn. Hoo stood +theer wi' th' brokken spade i' her hond, an' i'th' tother a hommer an' +a toothrey nails, an' hoo smoilt at mi, an' offert mi th' tackle, as +mich as t' say, "Naaw, Isik, be gradely for onst i' thi loife, an' +fettle this speet for mi, will ta?" For a whoile I stood theear gapin' +like a foo', and wontherin' wheear hoo could ha' risen fray, but hoo +cried aat onst mooar, "I've brokken mi speet!" Sooa I marcht toart her +and tuk th' hommer an' th' nails, an' tacklet it up. It didn't tek mi +long a-dooin', for it wir but a loile un; but when I'd done hoo smoilt +at mi, an' so bonny, summat loike tha ust, Margit, when owd Pigheeod +wir cooartin' tha; an' gan mi a hanful o' brass,{3} an' afooar I'd +time to say owt off hoo vanisht. That wur th' only feorin as ivver +I've seen, an' mebbi th' only one as I'm likely to luk at, for mi +seet's getten nooan o'th' best latterly.' + + + + +THE KING OF THE FAIRIES. + + +Many years ago there lived in a farm-house at a point of the high-road +from Manchester to Stockport, where Levenshulme Church now stands, a +worthy named Burton, 'Owd Dannel Burton.'[A] The farm held by Daniel +was a model one in its way, the old man raising finer crops than any +other farmer in the district. It was rumoured that Daniel was very +comfortably provided for, and that a few bad years would not harm him; +and so wonderfully did everything he took in hand prosper, that his +'luck' became proverbial. Such uniform prosperity could not long +continue without the tongue of envy and detraction being set wagging, +and the neighbours who permitted thistles to overrun their pastures +whilst they gadded about to rush-bearings and wakes, finding a +reproach to their idleness not only in the old man's success, but also +in the careful, industrious habits of his daily life, were not slow to +insinuate that there was something more than farming at the bottom of +it. 'Dannel' had sold himself to Satan, said some whose pigs had faded +away, and whose harvests had not been worth the gathering; and others +pretended to know even the terms of the contract, and how many years +the old man yet had to play on. A few of these detractors were young +men whose imaginations were not kept in sufficient control, but they +grew wonderfully reserved respecting the Satanic bargain after the +hearty Daniel had had an interview with them, and proved to them that +he had not forgotten the use of a good tough black-thorn. + +[A] Mr. Burton's grandson was for many years rector of All Saints', +Manchester. + +'It's nobbut luck,' philosophically remarked others, 'mebbe it'll be +my turn to-morn;' but the remainder vowed that neither luck or Evil +One had anything to do with it, for the success was due to the labours +of Puck, King of the Fairies. + +They were right. It was Puck, although no one ever knew how the old +man had been able to enlist the services of so valuable an auxiliary, +Daniel being strangely reticent upon the point, although generally by +no means loth to speak of the fairies and their doings. Reserve with +reference to these things, however, would not have availed much, for +the farm labourers, the ruddy-cheeked milkmaids, and the other +women-folk about the farm-house, were fond of boasting of the exploits +of Puck--how during the night everything was 'cleaned up,' and all was +in apple-pie order when they came into the kitchen at daybreak, the +milk churned, the cows foddered, the necessary utensils filled with +water from the well, the horses ready harnessed for their day's work +at the plough, and even a week's threshing done and the barn left as +tidy as though it had just been emptied and swept. Evidently the +servant lasses had no fear of, or objection to, a hard-working +supernatural visitor of this kind, but just the reverse, and many of +their listeners found themselves wishing that their house, too, had +its Boggart. + +For so long a period did this state of things continue, each morning +revealing an astounding amount of work performed by the willing and +inexpensive workman, that at length the assistance was taken for +granted, and as a matter of course, offering no food for surprise, +although it did not cease to be a cause of envy to the neighbours. + +On one occasion, however, as old Daniel was despatching a hearty and +substantial breakfast, a heated labourer brought word that all the +corn had been housed during the past night. The strange story was true +enough, for when the old man reached the field, where on the previous +evening the golden sheaves of wheat had stood, he found the expanse +quite bare, and as clean as though reapers, leaders, gleaners, and +geese had been carefully over it. The harvest was in the barn, but not +content with this, Daniel, illustrating the old proverb that 'much +would have more,' suddenly exclaimed, 'I wonder whose horses Puck{4} +used in this work. If yon of mine, I daresay he sweated them rarely;' +and away he strode towards the stable. He had not reached the fold, +however, when he met Puck coming towards him, and in a fever of greedy +anxiety he cried, 'Puck, I doubt thou'st spoiled yon horses!' No +sooner were the words out of his mouth, however, than he saw that for +once in his life he had made a mistake, for the fairy went pale with +anger as he shouted in a shrill treble:-- + + Sheaf to field, and horse to stall, + I, the Fairy King, recall! + Never more shall drudge of mine + Stir a horse or sheaf of thine. + +After which vow he at once vanished. + +The old man walked home in a sorrowful mood, and actually forgot to go +to the stable; but next morning early he was disturbed by a knocking +at his chamber door. 'Mesthur, ger up,' cried the messenger, who on +the previous day had brought the news of the housing of the corn, +'Mesthur, ger up, th' corn's back i'th' fielt.' With a groan of +anguish Daniel arose, and hastily made his way to the barn. All the +pile was gone, and the floor littered with straw, exactly as it was +before the fairy labour had so transformed the place. + +It did not take the farmer long to get over the ground between his +barn and the corn-field, and arrived there he found the expanse once +more covered with yellow sheaves, on which the beams of the rising sun +were beginning to fall. Here and there a sheaf had fallen upon the +ground, and everywhere straw and ears of corn were scattered about as +though the reapers had not long before left the place. The old man +turned away in despair. + +From that time forward there was no more work done about the farm, or +the shippons, and stables; but in the house, however, the maids +continued to find their tasks performed as usual. + +Great were the rejoicings in the locality when the story of the +sheaves became known, and it got noised about that 'Dannel's' fairy +had 'fown eawt' with him. The old man became very dejected, for +although he did not clearly perceive that the rupture was entirely due +to his own selfish greed, he could not go about the farm without +observing how much he had lost. + +One summer evening in a thoughtful mood he was walking homewards, and +wishing that the meadows were mown. Plunged in such reflections, he +met a neighbour, who at once asked the cause of his trouble. Daniel +turned to point to the meadows, and as he did so he saw the fairy, in +an attitude of rapt attention, stooping behind the hedgerow as though +anxious to overhear the conversation. 'Yo' miss your neet-mon?' said +the neighbour. The old man thought that the time was come to make his +peace with offended royalty, and with a cunning glance in the +direction of the hiding-place, he answered, 'I do, Abrum, and may God +bless Puck, th' King o'th' Fayrees.'{5} There was a startled cry from +behind the hedgerow, and both men turned in that direction, but there +was nothing to be observed. The fairy had vanished, never again to be +seen in Daniel Burton's fields. That night the work was left undone +even inside the farm-house, and thenceforward when the kitchen needed +cleaning, water was wanted from the well, or when milk had to be +churned, the maids had to get up early and do the work, for Puck, King +of the Fairies, would not touch either mop or pail. + + + + +MOTHER AND CHILD. + + +The tenants of Plumpton Hall had retired to rest somewhat earlier than +was their wont, for it was the last night of November. + +The old low rooms were in darkness, and all was silent as the grave; +for though the residents, unfortunately for themselves, were not +asleep, they held their breath, and awaited in fear the first stroke +of the hour from the old clock in the kitchen. Suddenly the sound of +hurried footsteps broke the silence; but with sighs of relief the +terrified listeners found that the noise was made by a belated +wayfarer, almost out of his wits with fright, but who was unable to +avoid passing the hall, and who, therefore, ran by the haunted +building as quickly as his legs could carry him. The sensation of +escape, however, was of but short duration, for the hammer commenced +to strike; and no sooner had the last stroke of eleven startled the +echoes than loud thuds, as of a heavy object bumping upon the stairs, +were heard. + +The quaking occupants of the chambers hid their heads beneath the +bedclothes, for they knew that an old-fashioned oak chair was on its +way down the noble staircase, and was sliding from step to step as +though dragged along by an invisible being who had only one hand at +liberty. + +If any one had dared to follow that chair across the wide passage and +into the wainscoted parlour, he would have been startled by the sight +of a fire blazing in the grate, whence, ere the servants retired, even +the very embers had been removed, and in the chair, the marvellous +movement of which had so frightened all the inmates of the hall, he +would have seen a beautiful woman seated, with an infant at her +breast. + +Year after year, on wild nights, when the snow was driven against the +diamond panes, and the cry of the spirit of the storm came up from the +sea, the weird firelight shone from the haunted room, and through the +house sounded a mysterious crooning as the unearthly visitor softly +sang a lullaby to her infant. Lads grew up into grey-headed men in the +old house; and from youth to manhood, on the last night of each +November, they had heard the notes, but none of them ever had caught, +even when custom had somewhat deadened the terror which surrounded the +events of the much-dreaded anniversary, the words of the song the +ghostly woman sang. The maids, too, had always found the grate as it +was left before the visit--not a cinder or speck of dust remaining to +tell of the strange fire, and no one had ever heard the chair ascend +the stairs. Chair and fire and child and mother, however, were seen by +many a weary wayfarer, drawn to the house by the hospitable look of +the window, through which the genial glow of the burning logs shone +forth into the night, but who, by tapping at the pane and crying for +shelter, could not attract the attention of the pale nurse, clad in a +quaint old costume with lace ruff and ruffles, and singing a mournful +and melodious lullaby to the child resting upon her beautiful bosom. + +Tradition tells of one of these wanderers, a footsore and miserable +seafaring man on the tramp, who, attracted by the welcome glare, crept +to the panes, and seeing the cosy-looking fire, and the Madonna-faced +mother tenderly nursing her infant, rapped at the glass and begged for +a morsel of food and permission to sleep in the hayloft--and, finding +his pleadings unanswered, loudly cursed the woman who could sit and +enjoy warmth and comfort and turn a deaf ear to the prayers of the +homeless and hungry; upon which the seated figure turned the weird +light of its wild eyes upon him and almost changed him to stone--a +labourer, going to his daily toil in the early morn, finding the poor +wretch gazing fixedly through the window, against which his +terror-stricken face was closely pressed, his hair turned white by +fear, and his fingers convulsively clutching the casement. + + + + +THE SPECTRAL CAT. + + +Long ago--so long, in fact, that the date has been lost in +obscurity--the piously-inclined inhabitants of the then thickly wooded +and wild country stretching from the sea-coast to Rivington Pike and +Hoghton determined to erect a church at Whittle-le-Woods, and a site +having been selected, the first stone was laid with all the ceremony +due to so important and solemn a proceeding. Assisted by the labours +as well as by the contributions of the faithful, the good priest was +in high spirits; and as the close of the first day had seen the +foundations set out and goodly piles of materials brought upon the +ground ready for the future, he fell asleep congratulating himself +upon having lived long enough to see the wish of his heart gratified. +What was his surprise, however, when, after arising at the break of +day, and immediately rushing to his window to gaze upon the work, he +could not perceive either foundation or pile of stone, the field in +which he expected to observe the promising outline being as green and +showing as few marks of disturbance as the neighbouring ones.{6} + +'Surely I must have been dreaming,' said the good man, as he stood +with rueful eyes at the little casement, 'for there are not any signs +either of the gifts or the labours of the pious sons of the church.' + +In this puzzled frame of mind, and with a heavy sigh, he once more +courted sleep. He had not slumbered long, however, when loud knocks at +the door of his dwelling and lusty cries for Father Ambrose disturbed +him. Hastily attiring himself, he descended, to find a concourse of +people assembled in front of the house; and no sooner had he opened +the door than a mason cried out-- + +'Father Ambrose, where are the foundations we laid yesterday, and +where is the stone from the quarry?' + +'Then I did not simply dream that I had blessed the site?' said the +old man, inquiringly. + +Upon which there was a shout of laughter, and a sturdy young fellow +asked-- + +'And I did not dream that I carted six loads from the quarry?' + +'Th' Owd Lad's hed a hand int',' said a labourer, 'for t' fielt's as +if fuut hed never stept int'.' + +The priest and his people at once set off to inspect the site, and +sure enough it was in the state described by the mason; cowslips and +buttercups decking the expanse of green, which took different shades +as the zephyr swept over it. + +'Well, I'm fair capped,' said a grey-headed old farmer. 'I've hed +things stown afoor today, bud they'n generally bin things wi' feathers +on an' good to heyt an' not th' feaundations uv a church. Th' warlt's +gerrin' ter'ble wickit. We's hev' to bi lukkin' eawt for another +Noah's flood, I warrant.' + +A peal of laughter followed this sally, but Father Ambrose, who was in +no mood for mirth, sternly remarked--'There is something here which +savoureth of the doings of Beelzebub;' and then he sadly turned away, +leaving the small crowd of gossips speculating upon the events of the +night. Before the father reached his dwelling, however, he heard his +name called by a rustic who was running along the road. + +'Father Ambrose,' cried the panting messenger, 'here's the strangest +thing happened at Leyland. The foundations of a church and all sorts +of building materials have been laid in a field during the night, and +Adam the miller is vowing vengeance against you for having trespassed +on his land.' + +The priest at once returned to the little crowd of people, who still +were gaping at the field from which all signs of labour had been so +wonderfully removed, and bade the messenger repeat the strange story, +which he did at somewhat greater length, becoming loquacious in the +presence of his equals, for he enjoyed their looks of astonishment. +When the astounding narrative had been told, the crowd at once started +for Leyland, their pastor promising to follow after he had fortified +himself with breakfast. + +When the good man reached the village he had no need to inquire which +was Adam the miller's field, for he saw the crowd gathered in a +rich-looking meadow. As he opened the gate Adam met him, and without +ceremony at once accused him of having taken possession of his field. +'Peace, Adam,' said the priest. 'The field hath been taken not by me, +but by a higher power, either good or evil--I fear the latter,' and he +made his way to the people. True enough, the foundations were laid as +at Whittle, and even the mortar was ready for the masons. 'I am loth +to think that this is a sorry jest of the Evil One,' said Father +Ambrose; 'ye must help me to outwit him, and to give him his labour +for his pains. Let each one carry what he can, and, doubtless, Adam +will be glad to cart the remainder,'--a proposition the burly miller +agreed to at once. Accordingly each of the people walked off with a +piece of wood, and Adam started for his team. Before long the field +was cleared, and ere sunset the foundations were again laid in the +original place, and a goodly piece of wall had been built. + +Grown wise by experience, the priest selected two men to watch the +place during the night. Naturally enough, these worthies, who by no +means liked the task, but were afraid to decline it, determined to +make themselves as comfortable as they could under the circumstances. + +They therefore carried to the place a quantity of food and drink, and +a number of empty sacks, with which they constructed an impromptu +couch near the blazing wood fire. Notwithstanding the seductive +influence of the liquor, they were not troubled with much company, for +the few people who resided in the vicinity did not care to remain out +of doors late after what Father Ambrose had said as to the proceeding +having been a joke of Satan's. The priest, however, came to see the +men, and after giving them his blessing, and a few words of advice, he +left them to whatever the night might bring forth. No sooner had he +gone than the watchers put up some boards to shield them from the +wind, and, drawing near to the cheerful fire, they began to partake of +a homely but plentiful supper. Considering how requisite it was that +they should be in possession of all their wits, perhaps it would have +been better had not a large bottle been in such frequent requisition, +for, soon after the meal was ended, what with the effects of the +by-no-means weak potion, the warmth and odour sent forth by the +crackling logs, and the musical moaning of the wind in the branches +overhead, they began to feel drowsy, to mutter complaints against the +hardship of their lot, and to look longingly upon the heap of sacks. + +'If owt comes,' said the oldest of the two, 'one con see it as well as +two, an' con wakken t' tother--theerfore I'm in for a nod.' And he at +once flung himself upon the rude bed. + +'Well,' said the younger one, who was perched upon a log close to the +fire, 'hev thi own way, an' tha'll live lunger; but I'se wakken tha +soon, an' hev a doze mysen. That's fair, isn't it?' + +To this question there was no response, for the old man was already +asleep. The younger one immediately reached the huge bottle, and after +drinking a hearty draught from it placed it within reach, saying, as +he did so-- + +'I'm nooan freetunt o' thee, as heaw it is! Thaart not Belsybub, are +ta?' + +Before long he bowed his head upon his hands, and gazing into the fire +gave way to a pleasant train of reflections, in which the miller's +daughter played a by-no-means unimportant part. In a little while he, +too, began to doze and nod, and the ideas and thronging fancies soon +gave way to equally delightful dreams. + +Day was breaking when the pair awoke; the fire was out, and the noisy +birds were chirping their welcome to the sun. For a while the watchers +stared at each other with well-acted surprise. + +'I'm freetunt tha's o'erslept thysel',' said the young fellow; 'and +rayly I do think as I've bin noddin' a bit mysen.' And then, as he +turned round, 'Why, it's gone ageean! Jacob, owd lad! th' foundation, +an' th' wo's, an' o th' lots o' stooans are off t' Leyland ageean!' + +The field was again clear, grass and meadow flowers covering its +expanse, and after a long conference the pair determined that the best +course for them to pursue would be that of immediately confessing to +Father Ambrose that they had been asleep. Accordingly they wended +their way to his house, and having succeeded in arousing him, and +getting him to the door, the young man informed him that once more the +foundations were missing. + +'What took them?' asked the priest. To which awkward query the old man +replied, that they did not see anything. + +'Then ye slept, did ye?' asked the Father. + +'Well,' said the young man, 'we did nod a minnit or two; but we wir +toired wi' watchin' so closely; an', yo' see, that as con carry th' +foundations ov a church away connot hev mich trouble i' sendin' +unlarnt chaps loike Jacob an' me to sleep agen eaur will.' + +This ended the colloquy, for Father Ambrose laughed heartily at the +ready answer. Shortly afterwards, as on the preceding day, the +messenger from Leyland arrived with tidings that the walls had again +appeared in Adam's field. Again they were carted back, and placed in +their original position, and once more was a watch set, the priest +taking the precaution of remaining with the men until near upon +midnight. Almost directly after he had left the field one of the +watchers suddenly started from his seat, and cried-- + +'See yo', yonder, there's summat wick!' + +Both men gazed intently, and saw a huge cat, with great +unearthly-looking eyes, and a tail with a barbed end. Without any +seeming difficulty this terrible animal took up a large stone, and +hopped off with it, returning almost immediately for another. This +strange performance went on for some time, the two observers being +nearly petrified by terror; but at length the younger one said-- + +'I'm like to put a stop to yon wark, or hee'll say win bin asleep +ageean,' and seizing a large piece of wood he crept down the field, +the old man following closely behind. When he reached the cat, which +took no notice of his approach, he lifted his cudgel, and struck the +animal a heavy blow on its head. Before he had time to repeat it, +however, the cat, with a piercing scream, sprang upon him, flung him +to the ground, and fixed its teeth in his throat. The old man at once +fled for the priest. When he returned with him, cat, foundations, and +materials were gone; but the dead body of the poor watcher was there, +with glazed eyes, gazing at the pitiless stars. + +After this terrible example of the power of the fiendish labourer it +was not considered advisable to attempt a third removal, and the +building was proceeded with upon the site at Leyland chosen by the +spectre. + +The present parish church covers the place long occupied by the +original building; and although all the actors in this story passed +away centuries ago, a correct likeness of the cat has been preserved, +and may be seen by the sceptical.{7} + + + + +THE CAPTURED FAIRIES. + + +There once lived in the little village of Hoghton two idle, +good-for-nothing fellows, who, somehow or other, managed to exist +without spending the day, from morn to dewy eve, at the loom. When +their more respectable neighbours were hard at work they generally +were to be seen either hanging about the doorway of the little +ale-house or playing at dominoes inside the old-fashioned hostelry; +and many a time in broad daylight their lusty voices might be heard as +they trolled forth the hearty poaching ditty, + + 'It's my delight, on a shiny night.' + +It was understood that they had reason to sympathise with the +sentiments expressed in the old ballad. Each was followed by a ragged, +suspicious-looking lurcher; and as the four lounged about the place +steady-going people shook their heads, and prophesied all sorts of +unpleasant terminations to so unsatisfactory a career. So far as the +dogs were concerned the dismal forebodings were verified, for from +poaching in the society of their masters the clever lurchers took to +doing a little on their own account, and both were shot in the pursuit +of game by keepers, who were only too glad of an opportunity of +ridding the neighbourhood of such misdirected intelligence. Soon after +this unfortunate event, the two men, who themselves had a narrow +escape, had their nets taken; and, as they were too poor to purchase +others, and going about to borrow such articles was equivalent to +accusing their friends of poaching habits, they were reduced to the +necessity of using sacks whenever they visited the squire's fields. + +One night, after climbing the fence and making their way to a +well-stocked warren, they put in a solitary ferret and rapidly fixed +the sacks over the burrows. They did not wait long in anxious +expectation of an exodus before there was a frantic rush, and after +hastily grasping the sacks tightly round the necks, and tempting their +missionary from the hole, they crept through the hedgerow, and at a +sharp pace started for home. For some time they remained unaware of +the nature of their load, and they were congratulating themselves upon +the success which had crowned their industry, when suddenly there came +a cry from one of the prisoners, 'Dick, wheer art ta?' The poachers +stood petrified with alarm; and almost immediately a voice from the +other bag piped out-- + + 'In a sack, + On a back, + Riding up Hoghton Brow.'{8} + +The terrified men at once let their loads fall, and fled at the top of +their speed, leaving behind them the bags full of fairies, who had +been driven from their homes by the intruding ferret. Next morning, +however, the two poachers ventured to the spot where they had heard +the supernatural voices. The sacks neatly folded were lying at the +side of the road, and the men took them up very tenderly, as though in +expectation of another mysterious utterance, and crept off with them. + +Need it be said that those bags were not afterwards used for any +purpose more exciting than the carriage of potatoes from the +previously neglected bit of garden, the adventure having quite cured +the men of any desire to 'pick up' rabbits. + +Like most sudden conversions, however, that of the two poachers into +hard-working weavers was regarded with suspicion by the inhabitants of +the old-world village, and in self-defence the whilom wastrels were +forced to tell the story of the imprisonment of the fairies. The +wonderful narrative soon got noised abroad; and as the changed +characters, on many a summer evening afterwards, sat hard at work in +their loom-house, and, perhaps almost instinctively, hummed the old +ditty, + + 'It's my delight, on a shiny night,' + +the shock head of a lad would be protruded through the honeysuckle +which almost covered the casement, as the grinning youngster, who had +been patiently waiting for the weaver to commence his song and give an +opportunity for the oft-repeated repartee, cried, 'Nay, it isn't thi +delight; "Dick, wheer art ta?"' + + + + +THE PILLION LADY. + + +It was on a beautiful night in the middle of summer that Humphrey +Dobson, after having transacted a day's business at Garstang market, +and passed some mirthful hours with a number of jovial young fellows +in the best parlour of the Ffrances Arms, with its oak furniture and +peacock feathers, mounted his steady-going mare, and set off for home. +He had got some distance from the little town, and was rapidly nearing +a point where the road crossed a stream said to be haunted by the +spirit of a female who had been murdered many years back; and although +the moon was shining brightly, and the lonely rider could see far +before him, there was one dark spot overshadowed by trees a little in +advance which Humphrey feared to reach. He felt a thrill of terror as +he suddenly remembered the many strange stories told of the headless +woman whose sole occupation and delight seemed to be that of +terrifying travellers; but, with a brave endeavour to laugh off his +fears, he urged his horse forward, and attempted to troll forth the +burden of an old song:-- + + 'He rode and he rode till he came to the dooar, + And Nell came t' oppen it, as she'd done afooar: + "Come, get off thy horse," she to him did say, + "An' put it i'th' stable, an' give it some hay."' + +It would not do, however; and suddenly he put spurs to the mare and +galloped towards the little bridge. No sooner did the horse's hoofs +ring upon the stones than Humphrey heard a weird and unearthly laugh +from beneath the arch, and, as the animal snorted and bounded forward, +the young fellow felt an icy arm glide round his waist and a light +pressure against his back. Drops of perspiration fell from his brow, +and his heart throbbed wildly, but he did not dare to look behind lest +his worst fears should be verified, and he should behold 'th' boggart +o'th' bruk.' + +As though conscious of its ghastly burden, the old mare ran as she +never had run before; the hedgerows and trees seemed to fly past, +while sparks streamed from the flints in the road, and in an +incredibly short space of time the farm-house was reached. +Instinctively, Humphrey tried to guide the mare into the yard, but his +efforts were powerless, for the terrified animal had got the bit in +her teeth, and away she sped past the gateway. + +As the rider was thus borne away, another sepulchral laugh broke the +silence, but this time it sounded so close to the horseman's ear that +he involuntarily looked round. + +He found that the figure, one of whose arms was twined round his +waist, was not the headless being of whom he had heard so many fearful +narratives, but another and a still more terrible one, for, grinning +in a dainty little hood, and almost touching his face, there was a +ghastly skull, with eyeless sockets, and teeth gleaming white in the +clear moonlight. + +Petrified by fear, he could not turn his head away, and, as the mare +bore him rapidly along, ever and anon a horrid derisive laugh sounded +in his ears as for a moment the teeth parted and then closed with a +sudden snap. Terrified as he was, however, he noticed that the arm +which encircled his body gradually tightened around him, and putting +down his hand to grasp it he found it was that of a fleshless +skeleton. + +How long he rode thus embraced by a spectre he knew not, but it seemed +an age. + +Suddenly, however, as at a turn in the road the horse stumbled and +fell, Humphrey, utterly unprepared for any such occurrence, was thrown +over the animal's head and stunned by the fall. + +When he recovered full consciousness it was daybreak. The sun was +rising, the birds were singing in the branching foliage overhead, and +the old mare was quietly grazing at a distance. With great difficulty, +for he was faint through loss of blood, and lame, he got home and told +his story. There were several stout men about the farm who professed +to disbelieve it, and pretended to laugh at the idea of a skeleton +horsewoman, who, without saying with your leave or by your leave, had +ridden pillion with the young master, but it was somewhat remarkable +that none of them afterwards could be induced to cross the bridge over +the haunted stream after 'th' edge o' dark.' + + + + +THE FAIRY FUNERAL. + + +There are few spots in Lancashire more likely to have been peopled by +fairies than that portion of the highway which runs along the end of +Penwortham wood. + +At all times the locality is very beautiful, but it is especially so +in summer, when the thin line of trees on the one side of the road and +the rustling wood upon the other cast a welcome shade upon the +traveller, who can rest against the old railings, and look down upon a +rich expanse of meadow-land and corn-fields, bounded in the distance +by dim, solemn-looking hills, and over the white farm-houses, snugly +set in the midst of luxurious vegetation. From this vantage-ground a +flight of steps leads down to the well of St. Mary, the water of +which, once renowned for its miraculous efficacy, is as clear as +crystal and of never-ceasing flow. + +To this sacred neighbourhood thousands of pilgrims have wended their +way; and although the legend of the holy well has been lost, it is +easy to understand with what superstitious reverence the place would +be approached by those whose faith was of a devout and unquestioning +kind, and what feelings would influence those whose hearts were heavy +with the weight of a great sorrow as they descended the steps worn by +the feet of their countless predecessors. + +From the little spring a pathway winds across meadows and through +corn-fields to the sheltered village, and a little further along the +highway a beautiful avenue winds from the old lodge gates to the +ancient church and priory. Wide as is this road it is more than shaded +by the tall trees which tower on each side, their topmost branches +almost interlaced, the sunbeams passing through the green network, and +throwing fantastic gleams of light upon the pathway, along which so +many have been carried to the quiet God's Acre. + +At the end of this long and beautiful walk stands the old priory, no +longer occupied by the Benedictines from Evesham, the silvery sound of +whose voices at eventide used to swell across the rippling Ribble; +and, a little to the right of the pile, the Church of St. Mary, with +its background of the Castle Hill. + +By the foot of this Ancient British and Roman outlook there is a +little farm-house, with meadow land stretching away to the broad +river; and one night, fifty or sixty years ago, two men, one of whom +was a local 'cow-doctor,' whose duties had compelled him to remain +until a late hour, set out from this dwelling to walk home to the +straggling village of Longton. It was near upon midnight when they +stepped forth, but it was as light as mid-day, the moon shining in all +her beauty, and casting her glamour upon the peaceful scene. So quiet +was it that it seemed as though even the Zephyrs were asleep. There +was not a breath of wind, and not a leaf rustled or a blade of grass +stirred, and had it not been for the sounds of the footsteps of the +two men, who were rapidly ascending the rough cart-track winding up +the side of the hill, all would have been as still as death. The sweet +silence was a fitting one, for in the graveyard by the side of the +lane through which the travellers were passing, and over the low +moss-covered wall of which might be seen the old-fashioned tombstones, +erect like so many sentinels marking the confines of the battle-field +of life, hundreds were sleeping the sleep with which only the music of +the leaves, the sough of the wind, and the sigh of the sea seem in +harmony. + +As the two men opened the gate at the corner of the churchyard, the +old clock sounded the first stroke of midnight. + +'That's twelve on 'em,' said the oldest of the two. + +'Ay, Adam,' said the other, a taller and much younger man. 'Another +day's passin' away, an' it con't dee wi'eaut tellin' everybody; yet +ther's bod few on us as tez onny notice on't, for we connot do to be +towd as wer toime's growin' bod short. I should think as tha dusn't +care to hear th' clock strike, Adam, to judge bith' colour o' thi +toppin', for tha 'rt gerrin' varra wintry lookin'.' + +The old man chuckled at this sally, and then said, slowly and drily:-- + +'Speyk for thisen, Robin--speyk for thisen; an' yet why should ta +speyk at o? Choilt as tha are--an' tha art nobbut a choilt, clivver as +tha fancies thisen--tha 'rt owd enough to mind as it's nod olus th' +grey-heeoded uns as dees th' fost. Th' chickins fo' off th' peeark +mooar oftener nor th' owd brids. Ther's monny an owd tree wi' nobbud a +twothree buds o' green abaat it, to show as it wur yung wonst, as +tha'd hev herd wark to delve up, th' roots bein' so deep i'th' graand; +an' ther's monny a rook o' young-lukkin' uns as tha met poo up as +yezzy as a hondful o' sallet. It teks leetnin' to kill th' owd oak, +but th' fost nippin' woint off th' Martch yon soon puts th' bonnie +spring posies out o' seet. If I'm growin' owd, let's hope I'm roipnin' +as weel. Tha'rt not th' fost bit of a lad as thowt heer baan to last o +th' tothers aat, an' as hed hardly toime to finish his crowin' afoor +th' sexton clapt o honful o' sond i' his meauth.' + +This conversation brought the two beyond the gate and some distance +along the avenue, in which the moonlight was somewhat toned by the +thickness of the foliage above, and they were rapidly nearing the +lodge gates, when suddenly the solemn sound of a deep-toned bell +broke the silence. Both men stopped and listened intently. + +'That's th' passin'-bell,'{9} said Adam. 'Wodever con be up? I never +knew it rung at this toime o'th' neet afooar.' + +'Mek less racket, will ta,' said Robin. 'Led's keep count an' see heaw +owd it is.' + +Whilst the bell chimed six-and-twenty both listeners stood almost +breathless, and then Adam said:-- + +'He's thy age, Robin, chuz who he is.' + +'Ther wer no leet i 'th' belfry as wi come by, as I see on,' said the +young man, 'I'd rayther be i' bed nor up theer towlin' ad this toime, +wudn't tha?' + +'Yoi,' said Adam. 'But owd Jemmy dusn't care, an' why should he? Hee's +bin amung th' deeod to' long to be freet'nt on 'em neet or day, wake +an' fable as he is. I dar' say hee's fun aat afoor neaw as they'r not +varra rough to dale wi'. Ther's nod mich feightin i'th' bury-hoyle, +beaut ids wi' th' resurrectioners. Bud led's get to'art whoam, lad; +we're loikely enough to larn o abaat it to-morn.' + +Without more words they approached the lodge, but to their great +terror, when they were within a few yards from the little dwelling, +the gates noiselessly swung open, the doleful tolling of the +passing-bell being the only sound to be heard. Both men stepped back +affrighted as a little figure clad in raiment of a dark hue, but +wearing a bright red cap, and chanting some mysterious words in a low +musical voice as he walked, stepped into the avenue. + +'Ston back, mon,' cried Adam, in a terrified voice--'ston back; it's +th' feeorin; bud they'll not hort tha if tha dusna meddle wi' um.' + +The young man forthwith obeyed his aged companion, and standing +together against the trunk of a large tree, they gazed at the +miniature being stepping so lightly over the road, mottled by the +stray moonbeams. It was a dainty little object; but although neither +Adam nor Robin could comprehend the burden of the song it sang, the +unmistakable croon of grief with which each stave ended told the +listeners that the fairy was singing a requiem. The men kept perfectly +silent, and in a little while the figure paused and turned round, as +though in expectation, continuing, however, its mournful notes. +By-and-by the voices of other singers were distinguished, and as they +grew louder the fairy standing in the roadway ceased to render the +verse, and sang only the refrain, and a few minutes afterwards Adam +and Robin saw a marvellous cavalcade pass through the gateway. A +number of figures, closely resembling the one to which their attention +had first been drawn, walked two by two, and behind them others with +their caps in their hands, bore a little black coffin, the lid of +which was drawn down so as to leave a portion of the contents +uncovered. Behind these again others, walking in pairs, completed the +procession. All were singing in inexpressibly mournful tones, pausing +at regular intervals to allow the voice of the one in advance to be +heard, as it chanted the refrain of the song, and when the last couple +had passed into the avenue, the gates closed as noiselessly as they +had opened. + +As the bearers of the burden marched past the two watchers, Adam bent +down, and, by the help of a stray gleam of moonlight, saw that there +was a little corpse in the coffin. + +'Robin, mi lad,' said he, in a trembling voice and with a scared look, +'it's th' pictur o' thee as they hev i' th' coffin!' + +With a gasp of terror the young man also stooped towards the +bearers, and saw clearly enough that the face of the figure borne by +the fairies indeed closely resembled his own, save that it was ghastly +with the pallor and dews of death. + +The procession had passed ere he was able to speak, for, already much +affrighted by the appearance of the fairies, the sight of the little +corpse had quite unnerved him. Clinging in a terrified manner to the +old man, he said, in a broken voice-- + +'It raley wor me, Adam! Dust think it's a warnin', an' I'm abaat to +dee?' + +The old man stepped out into the road as he replied-- + +'It wur a quare seet, Robin, no daat; bud I've sin monny sich i' mi +toime, an' theyne come to nowt i' th' end. Warnin' or not, haaever,' +he added, with strong common sense, 'ther'll be no harm done bi thee +livin' as if it wur one.' + +The mournful music of the strange singers and the solemn sound of the +passing bell could still be heard, and the two awe-struck men stood +gazing after the cavalcade. + +'It mon be a warnin', again said Robin, 'an' I wish I'd axed um haa +soon I've to dee. Mebbee they'n a towd me.' + +'I don't think they wod,' said Adam. 'I've olus heeard as they'r rare +and vext if they'r spokken to. Theyn happen a done tha some lumberment +if tha 'ad axed owt.' + +'They could but a kilt mi,' replied Robin, adding, with that grim +humour which so often accompanies despair, 'an' they're buryin' mi +neaw, ar'nod they?' Then in a calm and firm voice he said--'I'm baan +to ax 'em, come wod will. If tha 'rt freetent tha con goo on whoam.' + +'Nay, nay,' said Adam warmly, 'I'm nooan scaret. If tha'rt for +catechoizing um, I'll see th' end on it.' + +Without further parley the men followed after and soon overtook the +procession, which was just about to enter the old churchyard, the +gates of which, like those of the lodge, swung open apparently of +their own accord, and no sooner did Robin come up with the bearers +than, in a trembling voice, he cried-- + +'Winnot yo' tell mi haaw lung I've to live?' + +There was not any answer to this appeal, the little figure in front +continuing to chant its refrain with even deepened mournfulness. +Imagining that he was the leader of the band, Robin stretched out his +hand and touched him. No sooner had he done this than, with startling +suddenness, the whole cavalcade vanished, the gates banged to with a +loud clang, deep darkness fell upon everything, the wind howled and +moaned round the church and the tombstones in the graveyard, the +branches creaked and groaned overhead, drops of rain pattered upon the +leaves, mutterings of thunder were heard, and a lurid flash of +lightning quivered down the gloomy avenue. + +'I towd tha haa it ud be,' said Adam, and Robin simply answered-- + +'I'm no worse off than befooar. Let's mak' toart whoam; bud say nowt +to aar fowk--it ud nobbut freeten th' wimmin.' + +Before the two men reached the lodge gates a terrible storm burst over +them, and through it they made their way to the distant village. + +A great change came over Robin, and from being the foremost in every +countryside marlock he became serious and reserved, invariably at the +close of the day's work rambling away, as though anxious to shun +mankind, or else spending the evening at Adam's talking over 'th' +warnin'.' Strange to say, about a month afterwards he fell from a +stack, and after lingering some time, during which he often +deliriously rambled about the events of the dreadful night, he dozed +away, Old Jemmy, the sexton, had another grave to open, and the +grey-headed Adam was one of the bearers who carried Robin's corpse +along the avenue in which they had so short a time before seen the +fairy funeral.{10} + + + + +THE CHIVALROUS DEVIL. + + +About half-a-century ago there lived, in a lane leading away from a +little village near Garstang, a poor idiot named Gregory. He was at +once the sport and the terror of the young folks. Uniformly kind to +them, carefully convoying them to the spots where, in his lonely +rambles, he had noticed birds' nests, or pressing upon them the wild +flowers he had gathered in the neighbouring woods and thickets, he +received at their ungrateful hands all kinds of ill treatment, not +always stopping short of personal violence. In this respect, however, +the thoughtless children only followed the example set them by their +elders, for seldom did poor Gregory pass along the row of cottages, +dignified by the name of street, which constituted the village, +without an unhandsome head being projected from the blacksmith's or +cobbler's shop, or from a doorway, and a cruel taunt being sent after +the idiot, who, in his ragged clothing, with his handful of harebells +and primroses, and a wreath of green leaves round his battered, old +hat, jogged along towards his mother's cottage, singing as he went, in +a pathetic monotone, a snatch of an old Lancashire ballad. + +In accordance with that holy law which, under such circumstances, +influences woman's heart, the mother loved this demented lad with +passionate fondness, all the tenderness with which her nature had been +endowed having been called forth by the needs of the afflicted child, +whose only haven of refuge from the harshness of his surroundings and +the cruelty of those who, had not they been as ignorant as the hogs +they fed, would have pitied and protected him, was her breast. +Lavishing all her affection upon the poor lad, she had no kindness to +spare for those who tormented him; and abstaining from any of those +melodramatic and vulgar curses with which a person of less education +would have followed those who abused her child, she studiously held +herself aloof from her neighbours, and avoided meeting them, except +when she was compelled to purchase food or other articles for her +little household. This conduct gave an excuse for much ill +feeling, and as the woman had no need to toil for her daily bread, and +as her cottage was the neatest in the district, there was much +jealousy. + +One night, at a jovial gathering, it was arranged that a practical +joke, of what was considered a very humorous kind, should be played +upon the idiot. The boors selected one of their party, whose task it +should be to attire himself in a white sheet, and to emerge into the +lane when the poor lad should make his appearance. In accordance with +this plan the pack of hobbledehoys watched the cottage night after +night, in the hope of seeing the idiot leave the dwelling, and at +length their patience was rewarded. They immediately hid themselves in +the ditch, while the mock ghost concealed himself behind the trunk of +a tree. The lad, not suspecting any evil, came along, humming, in his +melancholy monotone, the usual fragment, and just before he reached +the tree the sheeted figure slowly stepped forth to the accompaniment +of the groanings and bellowings of his associates. They had expected +to see the idiot flee in terror; but instead of so doing, he laughed +loudly at the white figure, and then suddenly, as the expression of +his face changed to one of intense interest, he shouted, 'Oh, oh! a +black one! a black one!' Sure enough, a dark and terrible figure stood +in the middle of the road. The mock ghost fled, with his companions at +his heels, the real spectre chasing them hotly, and the idiot bringing +up the rear, shouting at the top of his voice, 'Run, black devil! +catch white devil!' + +They were not long in reaching the village, down the street of which +they ran faster than they ever had run before. Several of them darted +into the smithy, where the blacksmith was scattering the sparks right +and left as he hammered away at the witch-resisting horseshoes, and +others fled into the inn, where they startled the gathered company of +idle gossips; but the mock ghost kept on wildly, looking neither to +the left nor to the right. The idiot had kept close behind the phantom +at the heels of the mock ghost, and when at the end of the village the +spectre vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, the lad ran a little +faster and took its place. Of this, however, the white-sheeted young +fellow was not aware, and, fearing every moment that the shadow would +catch him in its awful embrace, he dashed down a by lane. Before he +got very far, however, the idiot, who had gradually been lessening the +distance between them, overtook and seized him by the neck. With a +terrible cry the rustic fell headlong into the ditch, dragging Gregory +with him as he fell. The latter was soon upon his feet, and dancing +about the lane as he cried, 'Catch white devil! catch white devil!' +The mock ghost, however, lay quiet enough among the nettles. + +Roused by the story told by the affrighted ones who had rushed so +unceremoniously into their presence, as well as by the startling cry +of 'Run, black devil! catch white devil!' which the idiot had shouted +as he sped past the door, several of the topers emerged from their +abiding place; and as nothing could be seen of either mock ghost, +spectre, or idiot, they bravely determined to go in search of them. As +they passed along the road from the village, their attention was +attracted by the cries which seemed to come from the lonely lane, and +somewhat nervously making their way along it, they soon saw the idiot +dancing about the side of the ditch. With a sudden access of courage, +due to the presence of anything human, however weak, they hurried +along, and as they drew nearer, the idiot paused in his gambols, and +pointed to the mock ghost, who lay stretched in the shadow of the +hedgerow. He was soon carried away to the village, where he lay ill +for weeks. + +The kindness of Gregory's mother to the sick lad's parents, who were +very poor and could ill afford to provide the necessary comforts his +condition required, caused public feeling to turn in her favour, and +those who formerly had been loudest in defaming her became her warmest +eulogists. Between the idiot and the young fellow, too, a strange +friendship sprang up, and the pair might often be seen passing along +the lanes, the idiot chanting his melancholy fragments to the +companion whose cap he had adorned with wreaths of wild flowers. + +With such a protector the idiot was quite safe, and, indeed, had the +village children been wishful to torment Gregory, if the presence of +this companion had not sufficed to restrain them, they had only to +remember that it was in defence of poor Gregory the Evil One himself +had raced through the village.{11} + + + + +THE ENCHANTED FISHERMAN. + + +There are few views in the north of England more beautiful than that +which is seen from Morecambe, as the spectator looks over the +beautiful bay, with its crescent coast-line of nearly fifty miles in +extent. At low water the dazzling sands, streaked by silvery deceptive +channels, stretch to the distant glimmering sea, the music of whose +heavings comes but faintly on the gentle breeze; but at tide-time a +magnificent expanse of rolling waves sweeps away to Peel, and is +dotted over with red-sailed fishing boats and coasters. Far to the +north the huge heather-covered Furness Fells stand sentinel-like over +the waters, and above them, dimly seen through the faint blue haze, +tower the grand mountains of the magic lake country. The scene is full +of a sweet dream-like beauty; but there are times when the beautiful +is swallowed in the majestic, as the mists come creeping over the sea, +obscuring the coasts, and hiding everything save the white caps of the +waves gleaming in the darkness, through which the muttering diapasons +of the wind, as though in deep distress, sound mysteriously; or when, +in winter, the moon is hidden by scudding clouds, and the huge +rollers, driven before the breeze, dash themselves to death, as upon +the blast come the solemn boom of a signal gun, and the faint cries of +those in danger on the deep. + +Years ago, however, before the little village of Poulton changed its +name, and began to dream of becoming a watering-place, with terraces +and hotels, instead of the picturesque, tumble-down huts of the +fishermen, against which, from time immemorial, the spray had been +dashed by the salt breezes, the only people who gazed upon the lovely +prospect were, with the exception of an occasional traveller, the +families of the toilers of the sea, and the rough-looking men +themselves. These hardy fellows, accustomed to a wild life, and whose +days from childhood had been spent on or by the sea, loved the deep +with as much tenderness as a strong man feels towards a weak and +wayward maiden, for they were familiar with its every mood, with the +soothing wash of its wavelets when the sunbeams kissed the foam-bells, +as they died on the white sands, and with the noise of the thunder of +the breakers chased up the beach by the roaring gales. + +One evening a number of these men were seated in the cosy kitchen of +the John-o'-Gaunt, listening to 'Owd England' as he narrated some of +his strange experiences. + +'I moind,' said he, 'when I was nobbut a bit of a lad, Tum Grisdale +bein' dreawnt; an' now as we're tawkin' abeaut th' dangers o' th' +sonds, yo'll mebbi hearken to th' tale. Poor Tum was th' best cockler +i' Hest Bank, an' as ust to th' sands as a choilt is to th' face o' +its mother; but for o that he wir dreawnt on 'em after o. I can co to +moind yet--for young as I wor I're owd enough to think a bit when owt +quare happent, an' th' seet o' th' deead bodies th' next ebb wir wi' +me day an' neet fur lung afterwart--th' day when Tum an' his missis +an' th' two lasses seet eawt o' seein' some relations o' th' missis's +soide, as livt i' th' Furness country yon, th' owd mon an' th' +dowters i' th' shandray, an' th' missis ridin' upo' th' cowt at th' +soide. It wir a gradely bonnie afternoon, at th' back eend o' th' +year. Th' day as they should o come back wir varra misty; an' abaat +th' edge o' dark, just as here an' theear a leet wir beginnin' to +twinkle i' th' windows, an' th' stars to peep aat, th' noise ov a cart +comin' crunchin' o'er th' beach tuk mi feyther to th' door. "Why, +yon's owd Tum Grisdale cart back ageean," he cried eaut. An' he dartit +eawt o' th' dur, an' me after, as fast as I could. A creawd o' folk +an' childer soon gathert reawnt, wonderin' what wir up; but neawt +could bi larnt, for though th' lasses as seet eawt, as breet an' +bonnie as posies o gillivers, wir theear i' th' shandray, they wir too +freetent an' dazed, an' too wake wi' th' weet an' cowd, to say a +whord. One thing, however, wir sewer enough, th' owd folk hedn't come +back; an' altho' th' toide then hed covert th' track, an' wir shinin' +i' th' moonleet, wheear th' mist could bi sin through, just as if it +hedn't mony a Hest Bank mon's life to answer for, a lot o' young +cocklers wir for startin' off theear an' then i' search on 'em. Th' +owder an' mooar expayrienced, heawiver, wodn't hear on it. Two lives +i' one day wir quoite enough, they said; so they o waitit till th' +ebb, an' then startit, me, loile as i'wir, among th' rest, for mi +feyther wir too tekken up i' talking to send me whoam. It wir a sad +outin', but it wir loively compaart wi' t' comin' back, for when we +tornt toart Hest Bank, th' strungest o' th' lads carriet owd Tum an' +his missis, for we hedn't getten far o'er th' sonds afooar we feawnt +th' poor owd lass, an' not far off, i' th' deep channel, owd Tum +hissel. They wir buriet i' th' owd church-yart, an' one o' th' lasses +wir laid aside on 'em, th' freet hevin' bin too mich for her. When t' +tother sister recovert a bit, an' could bide to talk abaat it, hoo +said as they geet lost i' th' mist, an' th' owd mon left 'em i' th' +shandray while he walkt a bit to foind th' channel. When he didn't +come back they geet freetent, but t' owd woman wodn't stir fray th' +spot till they heeart t' watters comin', an' then they went a bit fur, +but could find nowt o' Tum, though they thowt neaw an' then they could +heear him sheautin' to 'em. Th' sheawts, heawiver, geet fainter an' +fainter, an' at last stopt o' together. Givin' thersels up for lost, +they left th' reins to th' mare an' t' cowt. Th' poor owd lass wir +quoite daz't at th' absence o' Tum; an' as th' cowt wir swimmin' +across th' channel hoo lost her howd, an' wir carriet away. Th' lasses +knew neawt no mooar, th' wench olus said, till th' fowk run deawn to +th' cart uppo' th' beach. Hor as wir left, hoo wir olus quare at +after; an' hoo uset to walk alung t' bay at o heawers just at th' +toide toime, yo' known, an' it wir pitiful t' heear her when th' woint +wir a bit sriller nor usal, sayin' as hoo could heear her owd +fayther's voice as he sheauted when hee'd wander't fray 'em an' +couldn't foint way to 'em through t' mist. Hoo afterwarts went to +sarvice at Lankister, to a place as th' paason fun' for her, i' th' +idea o' th' change dooin' her good; but it worn't lung afooar th' news +come as hoo wir i' th' 'sylum, an' I heeart as hoo deed theear some +toime after.' + +No sooner had the grey-headed old fisherman finished his story than +one of the auditors said, 'Hoo met weel fancy hoo heeart th' voice ov +her fayther, for monnie a neet, an' monnie another hev I heeart that +cry mysen. Yo' may stare, bud theear's mooar saands to be heeard i' +th' bay nor some o' yo' lads known on; an' I'm no choilt to be +freetent o' bein' i' th' dark. Why nobbut th' neet afooar last I +heeart a peal o' bells ringin' under th' watter.'{12} There was a +moment of surprise, for Roger Heathcote was not a likely man to be a +victim to his own fancies, or to be influenced by the superstitions +which clung to his fellows. Like the rest of his companions, he had +spent the greatest portion of his life away from land; and either +because he possessed keener powers of observation than they, or loved +nature more, and therefore watched her more closely, he had gradually +added to his store of knowledge, until he had become the recognised +authority on all matters connected with the dangerous calling by which +the men-folk of the little colony earned daily bread for their +families. As he was by no means addicted to yarns, looks of wonder +came over the faces of the listeners; and in deference to the wishes +of Old England, who pressed him as to what he had heard and seen, +Roger narrated the adventure embodied in this story.{13} + + * * * * * + +The fisherman's little boat was dancing lightly on the rippling waters +of the bay. + +The night was perfectly calm, the moon shining faintly through a thin +mist which rested on the face of the deep. It was nearly midnight, and +Roger was thinking of making for home, when he heard the sweet sounds +of a peal of bells. Not without astonishment, he endeavoured to +ascertain from what quarter the noises came, and, strange and unlikely +as it seemed, it appeared that the chimes rang up through the water, +upon which, with dreamy motion, his boat was gliding. Bending over the +side of the skiff he again heard with singular distinctness the music +of the bells pealing in weird beauty. For some time he remained in +this attitude, intently listening to the magical music, and when he +arose, the mist had cleared off, and the moon was throwing her lovely +light upon the waters, and over the distant fells. Instead, however, +of beholding a coast with every inch of which he was acquainted, Roger +gazed upon a district of which he knew nothing. There were mountains, +but they were not those whose rugged outlines were so vividly +impressed upon his memory. There was a beach, but it was not the one +where his little cottage stood with its light in the window and its +background of wind-bent trees. The estuary into which his boat was +gliding was not that of the Kent, with its ash and oak-covered crags. +Everything seemed unreal, even the streaming moonlight having an +unusual whiteness, and Roger rapidly hoisted his little sails, but +they only flapped idly against the mast, as the boat, in obedience to +an invisible and unknown agency, drifted along the mysterious looking +river. As the fisherman gazed in helpless wonder, gradually the water +narrowed, and in a short time a cove was gained, the boat grating upon +the gleaming sand. Roger at once jumped upon the bank, and no sooner +had he done so, than a number of little figures clad in green ran +towards him from beneath a clump of trees, the foremost of them +singing-- + + To the home of elf and fay, + To the land of nodding flowers, + To the land of Ever Day + Where all things own the Fay Queen's powers, + Mortal come away! + +and the remainder dancing in circles on the grass, and joining in the +refrain-- + + To the home of elf and fay, + To the land of Ever Day, + Mortal come away! + +The song finished, the little fellow who had taken the solo, tripped +daintily to Roger, and, with a mock bow, grasped one of the fingers of +the fisherman's hand, and stepped away as though anxious to lead him +from the water. + +Assuming that he had come upon a colony of Greenies, and feeling +assured that such tiny beings could not injure him, even if anxious to +do so, Roger walked on with his conductor, the band dancing in a +progressing circle in front of them, until a wood was reached, when +the dancers broke up the ring and advanced in single file between the +trees. The light grew more and more dim, and when the cavalcade +reached the entrance to a cavern, Roger could hardly discern the +Greenies. Clinging to the little hand of his guide, however, the +undaunted fisherman entered the cave, and groped his way down a flight +of mossy steps. Suddenly he found himself in a beautiful glade, in +which hundreds of little figures closely resembling his escort, and +wearing dainty red caps, were disporting themselves and singing-- + + Moonbeams kissing odorous bowers + Light our home amid the flowers; + + While our beauteous King and Queen + Watch us dance on rings of green. + Rings of green, rings of green, + Dance, dance, dance, on rings of green. + +No sooner had the fisherman entered the glade than the whole party +crowded round him, but as they did so a strain of enchanting music was +heard, and the little beings hopped away again, and whirled round in a +fantastic waltz. Roger himself was so powerfully influenced by the +melody that he flung himself into the midst of the dancers, who +welcomed him with musical cries, and he capered about until sheer +fatigue forced him to sink to rest upon a flowery bank. Here, after +watching for a while the graceful gambols of the Greenies, and soothed +by the weird music, the sensuous odours, and the dreamy light, he fell +into a deep sleep. When he awoke from his slumber the fairies had +vanished, and the fisherman felt very hungry. No sooner, however, had +he wished for something to eat than on the ground before him there +appeared a goodly array of delicacies, of which, without more ado, +Roger partook. + +'I'm in luck's way here,' he said to himself; 'It's not every day of +the week I see a full table like this. I should like to know where I +am, though.' As the wish passed his lips he saw before him a beautiful +little being, who said in a sweet low voice-- + + In the land of nodding flowers, + Where all things own the Fay Queen's powers! + +The fisherman no sooner saw the exquisite face of the dainty Greenie +than he forgot altogether the rosy-cheeked wife at home, and fell +hopelessly over head and ears in love with the sweet vision. Gazing +into her beautiful eyes he blurted out, 'I don't care where it is if +you are there.' With a smile the queen, for it was indeed the queen, +seated herself at his side. 'Dost thou, Mortal, bow to my power?' +asked she. 'Ay, indeed, do I to the forgetfulness of everything but +thy bonny face,' answered Roger; upon which the queen burst into a +hearty fit of laughter, so musical, however, that for the life of him +the fisherman could not feel angry with her. 'If the king were to hear +thee talking thus thou wouldst pay dearly for thy presumption,' said +the Fay, as she rose and tripped away to the shadow of the trees. The +enraptured Roger endeavoured to overtake her before she reached the +oaks, but without success; and though he wandered through the wood +for hours, he did not again catch a glimpse of her. He gained an +appetite by the freak however, and no sooner had he wished for food +again than dishes of rich viands appeared before him. + +'I wish I could get money at this rate,' said the fisherman, and the +words had hardly left his lips when piles of gold ranged themselves +within his reach. Roger rapidly filled his pockets with the glittering +coins, and even took the shoes from off his feet, and filled them +also, and then slung them round his neck by the strings. + +'Now, if I could but get to my boat,' thought he, 'my fortune would be +made,' and accordingly he began to make his way in what he believed to +be the direction of the river. He had not proceeded very far, however, +when he emerged upon an open space surrounded by tall foxgloves,{14} +in all the beautiful bells of which dreamy-eyed little beings were +swinging lazily as the quiet zephyr rocked their perfumed dwellings. +Some of the Greenies were quite baby fairies not so large as Roger's +hand, but none of them seemed alarmed at the presence of a mortal. A +score of larger ones were hard at work upon the sward stitching +together moth and butterfly wings for a cloak for their Queen, who, +seated upon a mushroom, was smiling approvingly as she witnessed the +industry of her subjects. Roger felt a sudden pang as he observed her, +for although he was glad once more to behold the marvellous beauty of +her face, he was jealous of a dainty dwarf in a burnished suit of +beetles' wing cases and with a fantastic peaked cap in which a red +feather was coquettishly stuck, for this personage he suspected was +the King, and forgetting his desire to escape with the gold, and at +once yielding to his feelings, he flung himself on the luxuriant grass +near the little being whose weird loveliness had thrown so strange a +glamour over him, and without any thought or fear as to the +consequences he at once bent himself and kissed one of her dainty +sandalled feet. No sooner had he performed this rash act of devotion +than numberless blows fell upon him from all sides, but he was unable +to see any of the beings by whom he was struck. Instinctively the +fisherman flung his huge fists about wildly, but without hitting any +of the invisible Greenies, whose tantalising blows continued to fall +upon him. At length, however, wearying of the fruitless contest, he +roared out, 'I wish I were safe in my boat in the bay,' and almost +instantaneously he found himself in the little skiff, which was +stranded high and dry upon the Poulton beach. The shoes which he had +so recently filled with glittering pieces of gold and suspended round +his neck were again upon his feet, his pockets were as empty as they +were when he had put out to sea some hours before, and somewhat +dubious and very disgusted, in a few minutes he had crept off to bed. + + * * * * * + +When the strange tale of the fisherman's wonderful adventure with the +hill folk was ended, the unbelievers did not hesitate to insinuate +that Roger had not been out in the bay at all, and that the land of +nodding flowers might be found by anyone who stayed as long and +chalked up as large a score at the John-o'-Gaunt as he had done on the +night when he heard the submerged bells and had so unusual a catch. + +Others, however, being less sceptical, many were the little boats that +afterwards went on unsuccessful voyages in search of the mysterious +estuary and the colony of Greenies, and a year afterwards, when a +sudden gale swept over the restless face of the deep and cast Roger's +boat bottom upwards upon the sandy beach, many believed that the +fisherman had again found the land of Ever Day. + + + + +THE SANDS OF COCKER. + + +The quiet little village of Cockerham is hardly the spot one would +expect to find selected as a place of residence by a gentleman of +decidedly fast habits, and to whom a latch-key is indispensable; yet +once upon a time the Evil One himself, it is said, took up his +quarters in the go-to-bed-early hamlet. It hardly need be stated that +the undesirable resident caused no small stir in the hitherto drowsy +little place. Night after night he prowled about with clanking chains, +and shed an unpleasantly-suggestive odour of sulphur, that rose to the +diamond-paned windows and crept through cracks and chinks to the nasal +organs of the horrified villagers, who had been disturbed by the +ringing of the Satanic bracelets, and, fearing to sleep whilst there +was so strong a smell of brimstone about, lay awake, thinking of the +sins they had committed, or intended to commit if they escaped 'Old +Skrat.' + +Before the wandering perfumer had thus, above a score of times, +gratuitously fumigated the villagers, a number of the more daring +ones, whose courage rose when they found that after all they were not +flown away with, resolved that they would have a meeting, at which the +unjustifiable conduct of a certain individual should be discussed, and +means be devised of ridding the village of his odoriferous presence. +In accordance with this determination, a gathering was announced for +noonday, for the promoters of the movement did not dare to assemble +after sunset to discuss such a subject. After a few cursory remarks +from the chairman, and a long and desultory discussion as to the best +way of getting rid of the self-appointed night watchman, it was +settled that the schoolmaster, as the most learned man in the place, +should be the deputation, and have all the honour and profit of an +interview with the nocturnal rambler. + +Strange as it may appear, the pedagogue was nothing loath to accept +the office, for if there was one thing more than another for which he +had longed, it was an opportunity of immortalising himself; the daily +round of life in the village certainly affording but few chances of +winning deathless fame. He therefore at once agreed to take all the +risks if he might also have all the glory. Not that he purposed to go +to the Devil; no, the mountain should come to Mahomet; the Evil One +should have the trouble of coming to him. + +His determination was loudly applauded by the assembled villagers, +each of whom congratulated himself upon an escape from the dangerous, +if noble, task of ridding the place of an intolerable nuisance. + +There was no time to be lost, and a night or two afterwards, no sooner +had the clock struck twelve, than the schoolmaster, who held a branch +of ash and a bunch of vervain in his hand, chalked the conventional +circle{15} upon the floor of his dwelling, stepped within it, and in +a trembling voice began to repeat the Lord's Prayer backwards. When he +had muttered about half of the spell thunder began to roar in the +distance; rain splashed on the roof, and ran in streams from the +eaves; a gust of wind moaned round the house, rattling the loose +leaded panes, shaking the doors, and scattering the embers upon the +hearth. At the same time the solitary light, which had begun to burn a +pale and ghastly blue, was suddenly extinguished, as though by an +invisible hand; but the terrified schoolmaster was not long left in +darkness, for a vivid flash of lightning illuminated the little +chamber, and almost blinded the would-be necromancer, who tried to +gabble a prayer in the orthodox manner, but his tongue refused to +perform its office, and clave to the roof of his mouth. + +At that moment, could he have made his escape, he would willingly have +given to the first comer all the glory he had panted to achieve; but +even had he dared to leave the magic circle, there was not time to do +so, for almost immediately there was a second blast of wind, before +which the trees bent like blades of grass, a second flash lighted up +the room, a terrible crash of thunder shook the house to its +foundations, and, as a number of evil birds, uttering doleful cries, +dashed themselves through the window, the door burst open, and the +schoolmaster felt that he was no longer alone. + +An instantaneous silence, dreadful by reason of the contrast, +followed, and the moon peeped out between the driving clouds and threw +its light into the chamber. The birds perched themselves upon the +window sill and ceased to cry, and with fiery-looking eyes peered into +the room, and suddenly the trembling amateur saw the face of the dark +gentleman whose presence only a few minutes before he had so eagerly +desired. + +Overpowered by the sight, his knees refused to bear him up, what +little hair had not been removed from his head by the stupidity of the +rising generation stood on end, and with a miserable groan he sank +upon his hands and knees, but, fortunately for himself, within the +magic ring, round which the Evil One was running rapidly. How long +this gratuitous gymnastic entertainment continued he knew not, for he +was not in a state of mind to judge of the duration of time, but it +seemed an age to the unwilling observer, who, afraid of having the +Devil behind him, and yielding to a mysterious mesmeric influence, +endeavoured, by crawling round backward, to keep the enemy's face in +front. At length, however, the saltatory fiend asked in a shrill and +unpleasant voice, + +'Rash fool, what wantest thou with me? Couldst thou not wait until in +the ultimate and proper course of things we had met?' + +Terrified beyond measure not only at the nature of the pertinent +question, but also by the insinuation and the piercing and horrible +tone in which it was spoken, the tenant of the circle knew not what +reply to make, and merely stammered and stuttered-- + +'Good Old Nick,{16} go away for ever, and'-- + +'Take thee with me,' interrupted the Satanic one quickly. 'Even so; +such is my intent.' + +Upon this the poor wretch cried aloud in terror, and again the Evil +One began to hop round and round and round the ring, evidently in the +hope of catching a part of the body of the occupant projecting over +the chalk mark. + +'Is there no escape,' plaintively asked the victim in his extremity, +'is there no escape?' + +Upon this Old Nick suddenly stopped his gambols and quietly said, + +'Three chances of escape shalt thou have,{17} but if thou failest, +then there is no appeal. Set me three tasks, and if I cannot perform +any one of them, then art thou free.' + +There was a glimmer of hope in this, and the shivering necromancer +brightened up a little, actually rising from his ignoble position and +once more standing erect, as he gleefully said, + +'I agree.' + +'Ah, ah,' said the Evil One _sotto voce_. + +'Count the raindrops on the hedgerows from here to Ellel,' cried the +schoolmaster. + +'Thirteen,' immediately answered Satan, 'the wind I raised when I came +shook all the others off.' + +'One chance gone,' said the wizard, whose knees again began to +manifest signs of weakness. + +There was a short pause, the schoolmaster evidently taking time to +consider, for, after all, life, even in a place like Cockerham, was +sweet in comparison with what might be expected in the society of the +odoriferous one whose mirth was so decidedly ill-timed and unmusical. +The silence was not of long continuance, however, for the Evil One +began to fear that a detestably early cock might crow, and thereby +rescue the trembling one from his clutches. In his impatience, +therefore, he knocked upon the floor with his cloven hoof and whistled +loudly, after the manner followed now-a-days by dirty little patrons +of the drama, perched high in the gallery of a twopenny theatre, and +again danced rapidly round the ring in what the tenant deemed +unnecessary proximity to the chalk mark. + +'Count the ears of corn in old Tithepig's field,' suddenly cried the +schoolmaster. + +'Three millions and twenty-six,' at once answered Satan. + +'I have no way of checking it,' moaned the pedagogue. + +'Ah, ah,' bellowed the fiend, who now, instead of hopping round the +ring, capered in high glee about the chamber. + +'Ho, ho!' laughed the schoolmaster, 'I have it! Here it is! Ho, ho! +Twist a rope of sand{18} and wash it in the river Cocker without +losing a grain.' + +The Evil One stepped out of the house, to the great relief of its +occupier, who at once felt that the atmosphere was purer; but in a few +minutes he returned with the required rope of sand. + +'Come along,' said he, 'and see it washed.' And he swung it over his +shoulder, and stepped into the lane. + +In the excitement of the moment the wizard had almost involuntarily +stepped out of the magic circle, when suddenly he bethought himself of +the danger, and drily said-- + +'Thank you; I'll wait here. By the light of the moon I can see you +wash it.' + +The baffled fiend, without more ado, stepped across to the rippling +streamlet, and dipped the rope into the water, but when he drew it out +he gave utterance to a shout of rage and disappointment, for half of +it had been washed away. + +'Hurrah!' shouted the schoolmaster. 'Cockerham against the world!' And +as in his joy he jumped out of the ring, the Evil One, instead of +seizing him, in one stride crossed Pilling Moss and Broadfleet, and +vanished, and from that night to the present day Cockerham has been +quite free from Satanic visits.{19} + + + + +THE SILVER TOKEN. + + +Believe i' Fairies? 'Ay, that I do, though I never clapped mi een on +'em,' said old Nancy to a group of gaping listeners seated by the +farm-house kitchen fire. + +'That's quare,' remarked a sceptical young woman in the ingle nook. + +Old Nancy gave her a scornful glance, and then went on:-- + +'I never see'd a fairy as I know on, but I used to sarve one on 'em +wi' milk. Yo' mon stare; but th' way on it wir this. I wir at mi wark +i' th' dairy one day, abaat th' edge o' dark, when o ov a suddent a +loile jug clapt itsel daan afooar mi on th' stooan. Yo' may be sure I +wir fair capt, for wheear it come fray, or heaw it geet theear, I +couldn't mek aat. I stoopt mi daan to pike howd on it, and it met a' +bin silver, it wir that breet and bonnie; but it wir as leet as a +feather, an' I couldn't tell what it wir med on. I wir baan to set it +o' th' stooan again, when I seed at a new sixpenny bit hed bin put +theer wi' it, so it struck mi as milk wir wantit. Accordingly I fillt +th' jug and seet it daan again, an' welly as soon as I'd clapt it +wheear I fun' it, it up an' whipt eaut o' seet. Well I thowt it +meeterly quare, bud I'd heeard mi feyther say, monny an' monny a +toime, as thuse as geet fairy brass gin 'em should tell nubry, so I +kept it to mysen, though I'd hard wark, yo' may be sure. Every neet +th' jug an' th' sixpenny bit clapt theirsens o' th' stooan as reglar +as milkin' toime, an' I fillt th' jug and piked up th' brass. At last, +ha'ever, I thowt happen no lumber could come on it if I towd nobbut +one, so when Roger theear and me settlet a beein wed I towd him what +sooart ov a nest-egg I'd getten so quarely. Mi feyther wir reet, +ha'ever, for th' next neet nayther jug nor th' sixpenny bit showed +thersels, an' fray that day to this I've sin no mooar on 'em, an' it's +ower forty year sin I piked up th' last brass.{3} + + + + +THE HEADLESS WOMAN. + +(BEAWT HEEOD.) + + +It was near upon twelve when Gabriel Fisher bade good night to the +assembled roysterers who were singing and shouting in the kitchen of +the White Bull, at Longridge, and, turning his back to the cosy +hearth, upon which a huge log was burning, emerged into the moonlit +road. With his dog Trotty close at his heels, he struck out manfully +towards Tootal Height and Thornley, for he had a long and lonely walk +before him. It was a clear and frosty night, but occasionally a light +cloud sailed across the heavens, and obscured the moon. Rapidly +passing between the two rows of cottages which constituted the little +straggling village, his footsteps ringing upon the frozen ground, +Gabriel made for the fells, and, as he hurried along, he hummed to +himself a line of the last song he had heard, and now and again burst +into a fit of laughter as he remembered a humorous story told by 'Owd +Shuffler.' When he reached the highest point of the road whence he +could see the beautiful Chipping valley, a soft breeze was whispering +among the fir-trees, with that faint rustle suggestive of the gentle +fall of waves upon a beach. Here and there a little white farm-house +or labourer's cottage was gleaming in the moonlight, but the inmates +had been asleep for hours. There was an air of loneliness and mystery +over everything; and though Gabriel would have scorned to admit that +he was afraid of anything living or dead, before he had passed out of +the shadow of the weird-looking melodious branches he found himself +wishing for other company than that of his dog. He suddenly +remembered, too, with no access of pleasurable feelings, that on the +previous day he had seen a solitary magpie, and all sorts of stories +of 'Banister Dolls' and 'Jinny Greenteeths,' with which his youthful +soul had been carefully harrowed, came across his mind. He tried to +laugh at these recollections, but the attempt was by no means a +successful one, and he gave expression to a hearty wish that Kemple +End were not quite so far off. + +Just then a sharp shrill cry fell upon his ear, and then another and +another. 'Th' Gabriel Ratchets,'{33} he shouted, 'what's abaat to +happen?' The cries were not repeated, however, and he went on, but +when he reached the peak of the fell, and gazed before him into the +deep shade of a plantation, he could not repress a slight shudder, for +he fancied that he saw something moving at a distance. He paused for a +moment or two to assure himself, and then went on again slowly, his +heart throbbing violently as he lessened the space between the moving +object and himself. The dog, as though equally influenced by similar +feelings, crept behind him in a suspicious and terrified manner. + +'It's nobbut a woman,' said he, somewhat re-assured; 'it's a woman +sewerly. Mebbee someburry's badly, an' hoo's gooin' for help. Come on, +Trotty, mon.' + +So saying, he quickened his pace, the dog hanging behind, until he +approached almost close to the figure, when, with a wild howl, away +Trotty fled down the hillside. As Gabriel drew still closer, he saw +that the object wore a long light cloak and hood, and a large +coal-scuttle bonnet; and surprised to find that the sound of his +footsteps did not cause her to turn to see who was following, he +called out: + +'It's a bonny neet, Missis; bud yo're aat rayther late, arn't yo'?' + +'It is very fine,' answered the woman, in a voice which Gabriel +thought was the sweetest he had ever heard, but without turning +towards him as she spoke. + +'Summat wrong at your fowk's, happen?' he asked, anxious to prolong +the talk. There was no reply to this, though, and Gabriel knew not +what to think, for the silent dame, although she declined to reply, +continued to keep pace with him, and to walk at his side. Was it some +one who had no business to be out at that hour, and who did not wish +to be recognised, he wondered? But if so, thought he, why did she +continue to march in a line with him? The voice, certainly, was that +of one of a different rank to his own; but, on the other hand, he +reflected, if she were one of the gentle folks, why the cottager's +cloak and bonnet, and the huge market basket? These conjectures +crossed his brain in rapid succession; and influenced by the last +one--that as to his companion's clothing--he determined again to +address her. + +'Yo' met a left yir tung at whoam, Missis,' said he, 'sin' yo' connot +answer a civil mon.' + +This taunt, however, like the direct query, failed to provoke an +answer, although the startled Gabriel could have sworn that a +smothered laugh came from beneath the white cloth which covered the +contents of the basket 'Let me carry yer baskit,' said he; 'it's heavy +for yo'.' + +Without a word, the woman held it out to him; but, as Gabriel grasped +the handle, a voice, which sounded as though the mouth of the speaker +were close to his hand, slowly said: + +'You're very kind, I'm sure;' and then there came from the same +quarter a silvery peal of laughter. + +'What i' th' warld can it be?' said Gabriel, as without more ado he +let the basket fall to the ground. He did not remain in ignorance very +long, however, for, as the white cloth slipped off, a human head, with +fixed eyes, rolled out 'Th' yedless boggart!' cried he, as the figure +turned to pick up the head, and revealed to him an empty bonnet, and +away he fled down the hill, fear lending him speed. He had not run +far, however, before he heard a clatter of feet on the hard road +behind him; but Gabriel was one of the fleetest lads about the fells, +and the sight he had just seen was calculated to bring out all his +powers; so the sound did not grow louder, but just as he turned into +the old Chaighley Road, the head, thrown by the boggart, came whizzing +past in unpleasant proximity to his own, and went rolling along in +front of him. For a second or two Gabriel hesitated what to do, the +headless woman behind and the equally terrible head in front; but it +did not take long to decide, and he went forward with renewed vigour, +thinking to pass the dreadful thing rapidly rolling along in advance +of him. No sooner was he near to it, however, than, with an impish +laugh, which rang in his ears for days afterwards, the ghastly object +diverged from its course and rolled in his way. With a sudden and +instinctive bound, he leaped over it; and as he did so the head jumped +from the ground and snapped at his feet, the teeth striking together +with a dreadfully suggestive clash. Gabriel was too quick for it, +however, but for some distance he heard with horrible distinctness the +clattering of the woman's feet and the banging of the head upon the +road behind him. + +Gradually the sounds grew fainter as he speeded along, and at length, +after he had crossed a little stream of water which trickled across +the lane from a fern-covered spring in the fell side, the sounds +ceased altogether. The runner, however, did not pause to take breath +until he had reached his home and had crept beneath the blankets, the +trembling Trotty, whom he found crouched in terror at the door of the +cottage, skulking upstairs at his heels and taking refuge under the +bed. + +'I olus said as tha'd be seein' a feeorin wi' thi stoppin' aat o' +neets,' remarked his spouse after he had narrated his adventure; 'bud +if it nobbut meks tha fain o' thi own haath-stooan I'se be some glad +on it, for it's moor nor a woman wi' a heead on her shoothers hes bin +able to do.'{20} + + + + +THE RESCUE OF MOONBEAM. + + +From one corner of Ribbleton Moor, the scene of Cromwell's victory +over Langdale, there is as lovely a view as ever painter dreamed of. +Far below the spectator the Ribble sweeps almost in a circle beneath +the scars which, by the action of years of this washing, have been +scooped out so as to form a large precipice, under which the waters +flow, marking out in their course the great 'horse-shoe meadow,' with +its fringe of shining sand. The peaceful valley through which the +river, reflecting in its moving bosom the overhanging many-tinted +woods and cliffs, meanders on its way to the sea, is bounded afar-off +by noble hills, the whale-like Pendle towering in majestic grandeur +above the rest. From the moor a rough and stony lane winds down the +wooded hillside, past a beautiful old half-timbered house down to the +dusty highway and the bridge over the Belisamia of the Romans. The +beautiful river, with its tremulous earth and sky pictures, the +meadows and corn-fields whence come now and again the laugh and song +of the red-faced mowers and reapers, the clearly-defined roads and +white farm-houses, the spires of distant hillside churches, and the +rich green of the waving woods, make up an enchanting picture. When +night comes, however, and the lovely stars peep out, and the crescent +moon casts her glamour over the dreaming earth, and half-hidden in a +dimly transparent veil of shimmering mist the Ribble glides as gently +as though it had paused to listen to its own melody, a still deeper +loveliness falls upon the dreaming landscape, over which the very +genius of beauty seems to hover silently with outspread wings. + +At such a time, when moon and stars threw a faint and mysterious light +over the sleeping woods, and not a sound, save the cry of a restless +bird, broke the silence, a young countryman made his way rapidly +across the horse-shoe meadow to the bend of the stream under Red +Scar. + +It was not to admire the beautiful scenery, however, that Reuben +Oswaldwistle was crossing the dew-besprinkled field, over which faint +odours of hay were wafted by a gentle breeze. The sturdy young fellow +was too practical to yield entirely to such an influence, and although +he was by no means unlearned in the traditions and stories of the +neighbourhood, long familiarity had taught him to look upon the +landscape with the eye of a farmer. He was simply about to practise +the gentle art in the hope of beguiling a few stray 'snigs' for dinner +on the following day. Still the scene in all its glamour of moonlight +and peace was not powerless even upon his rude nature; so, after +setting his lines, he took out a little black pipe, filled it from a +capacious moleskin pouch, and after lighting the fragrant weed, gave +way to a train of disconnected fancies--past, present, and future +mingling strangely in his reverie. + +What with the rustling of the leaves overhead, the musical rippling of +the river as it danced over the stones on its way to the sea, and the +soothing effect of the tobacco, Reuben was beginning to doze, when +suddenly he fancied he heard the sound of a light footstep in the +grass behind him. Turning round somewhat drowsily, he beheld a little +figure of about a span high, clad in green, and wearing a dainty red +cap, struggling along under the load of a flat-topped mushroom much +larger than itself. After having more than once fallen with its load, +the dwarf cried out in a sweet, faint voice, 'Dewdrop, Dewdrop!' and +no sooner had the sound died into silence than another little fellow, +who evidently answered to the pretty name, came tripping from the +shadow of a hawthorn. + +'What's the matter, Moonbeam?' said the new-comer, cheerily. + +'This table is too much for me,' answered the labourer whom Reuben had +seen first, 'and if the king's dinner is not ready to a minute he will +have me stung. Help me with this load, there's a good sort.' + +Without any more ado Dewdrop came forward and the tiny pair put their +shoulders beneath the load and marched off. They did not bear it very +far, however, for the astonished Reuben simply stretched himself at +full length on the grass and again was quite close to them. + +The two dots stopped when they came to a hole, into which they at once +stuck the stem of the mushroom. Moonbeam then took from his pocket a +butterfly's wing, which served him as a handkerchief, and wiping his +forehead as he spoke, he said:-- + +'I'm about tired of this. Every night the table is stolen, Dewdrop, +and I've to find a new one for each dinner, and no thanks for it +either. What has come of late over the king I am at a loss to imagine, +for he has done nothing but have me stung. I shall emigrate if this +continues, that's all.' + +'So would I,' answered the other little fellow, 'if Blue-eyes would go +also, but I can't leave her.' + +After a hearty peal of laughter, during which he had held his shaking +sides, Moonbeam shouted-- + +'Why, my dear innocent, if you went she would be after you in a trice. +I remember that when I was as guileless as you I fell in love with +Ravenhair, the daughter of old Pigear. She treated me just as +Blue-eyes uses you, but when, in a fit of jealous rage, I began to pay +delicate attentions to Jasmine, the tables soon were turned, and one +evening, as I was dozing in a flower cup, I heard some one call me, +and peeping out of my chamber, I saw the once scornful Ravenhair +weeping at the foot of the stalk. No sooner did she catch a glimpse of +the tip of my nightcap than in piteous tones, that went straight to my +heart, she cried out, "Dearest Moony, let me come up and"--. But, +hush! wasn't that the dinner gong?' + +The pair listened intently as over the grass came the solemn hum of a +bee. + +'I'm in for it,' said the fairy whose tale had been so suddenly +interrupted; 'there's the first bell, and I haven't got even the table +set.' + +The pair darted off, and tripping away into the shade of the hawthorn, +they were for a moment or two lost to the sight of the wondering +Reuben, but they soon returned, each bearing a dish and cover made of +a little pearl shell. These they placed upon the mushroom, and away +they scudded, again to return in a minute with another load. In an +incredibly short space of time the table was set out with a goodly +array of tiny dishes and plates. + +Once more the hum of the bee was heard booming over the grass, and +from the shadow of the tree there emerged a dainty being whose attire +glittered in the moonlight, and whose step was like that of a proud +monarch. He was clad in a many-hued coat made of wings of dragon +flies, a green vest cut from a downy mouse-ear leaf, and with buttons +of buttercup buds; little knee-breeches of fine-spun silk dyed in the +juice of a whinberry, stockings of cobweb, and shoes of shining beetle +case; his shirt, which was as white as falling snow, had been cut from +convolvulus flowers ere they had opened to the light; and his hat, a +gem of a thing fit only for a fairy, was of red poppy, with a waving +white feather, and a band of fur from a caterpillar. He led by the +hand another personage, equally daintily dressed, but of a higher +order of loveliness, with a pale oval face, and dreamy-looking eyes, +gleaming like the sea when the moon and stars are bending over its +bosom, and the wind is whispering its sad secrets. Her hair was +golden, and rippled almost to her exquisite feet, and over it she wore +a blue cornflower wreath, with diamond dewdrops here and there amid +the leaves. Her dress was of damask rose leaves looped up with +myosotis. + +The grass hardly bent beneath her, so daintily did she trip along, +just touching the tips of the fingers of the hand the king extended +to her. Following this royal pair came a group of gaily-clad +attendants, and a band discoursing sweet sounds, the deep bass of bees +harmonising happily with the barytone of a beetle and the crescendo +chirp of a cricket. + +With a loud flourish from the musicians all took their places at the +festive mushroom, and the banquet began. The dishes were sufficiently +various to tempt even an anchorite to excess, for all the delicacies +of the season were there. Ladybird soup, baked stickleback, roasted +leg of nightingale, boiled shoulder of frog with cranberry sauce, wild +strawberry tarts, and numerous kinds of fruits and juices, made up a +dainty repast, of which king, queen, and courtiers partook heartily. +The band, the members of which were perched in the swinging flowers of +a foxglove close by, played lustily during the feast. + +'For once,' said the king, 'for once--and let the circumstance be +remembered when the annals of our reign are written--a day hath passed +without anything having annoyed our royal self, without anything +unpleasant having happened in our royal presence, and without +anything having disagreed with our royal stomach.' + +No sooner had these words passed the royal lips, however, than the +queen gave a faint shriek, and cried out-- + +'My love, there is not a drop of my chickweed wine on the table.' + +A dark cloud passed over the monarch's face as he angrily shouted-- + +'Methinks we were congratulating our royal self somewhat too early in +the day. Bring hither the rascally Moonbeam and bid the executioners +attend for orders.' + +One of the courtiers, with an alacrity marvellously resembling that of +beings of a larger growth, rushed out, and speedily returned with the +unfortunate dependant, who at once flung himself on the ground before +the angry king and begged to be forgiven. What result might have +followed these prayers is uncertain, for, unfortunately, the +suppliant's tears fell upon one of the monarch's shoes and dimmed its +lustre. + +'Bring hither the executioners and their instruments,' roared the +infuriated king, and almost immediately a couple of sturdy little +fellows appeared leading by a chain two large wasps. + +'Do your disreputable work!' shouted the monarch. + +The executioners seized Moonbeam, fastened him to a stake, and pressed +a wasp against him. The insect instantly stung him, and the miserable +little fellow howled with pain. + +'Take him away,' cried the queen; 'we don't want _whine_ of that +kind.' + +'What a wretched pun!' involuntarily said Moonbeam, as they were +dragging him from the royal presence. + +'Bring the villain back,' roared the King; 'bring him back, and sting +him until he is less critical.' + +'If tha hez him stung ageeon,' interrupted the indignant Reuben, who +in his excitement had gradually crept nearer to the royal table, 'I'll +knock thi proud little heeod off, chuz who tha art.' + +Neither the king or the executioners, however, took the slightest +notice of the warning, so, as the latter were once more forcing the +unhappy Moonbeam against the other wasp, down came a huge fist upon +the royal head. + +'Theer,' said the fisherman, exultingly, 'I towd tha, didn't I, bud +tha wouldn't tek wernin'. Tha 'rt on 't' penitent form bi this time, I +daat.' + +Lifting up his hand, however, what was the surprise of the wondering +Reuben to find only a little crushed grass under it. King, Queen, +courtiers, Moonbeam, executioners, and wasps, all had vanished, and +even the band, whose humming and droning he had heard so distinctly +during the whole banquet, no longer broke the silence. + +'Well,' said the fisherman, 'that's a capper, in o mi born days. I see +'em as plain as a pikestaff. Th' last day connot be far off, I'm +sewer. Bud I'll hev th' tabble, at onny rate, beawt axin.' And, so +saying, he took possession of the huge mushroom, and after hurriedly +gathering up his lines, he wended his way across the meadow to his +little cottage by the high road, and arrived there, he narrated to his +drowsy wife the story of the banquet. + +'Drat th' fairies, an' thee, too, wi' thi gawmless tales,' said his +sceptical helpmate, 'I wondered what hed getten tha. Tha's bin asleep +for hours i' th' meadow istid a lookin' after th' fish. Tha never seed +a fairy i' thi life. Tha'rt nod hauve sharp enough, clivver as tha +art i' owt as is awkurt.' There was a short pause after this sally, +and then the sly Reuben drily answered-- + +'Yoy, I 've sin a fairy monny an' monny a time. Olus when I used to +come a cooartin' to thi moather's. Bud tha 'r nod mich like a fairy +neaw, tha 'st autert terbly. Tha 'rt too thrivin' lookin'.' + +'Be off wi' thi fawseness,' said the pleased woman; 'tha 'd ollus a +desayvin tung i' thi heead;' and then after a drowsy pause as she was +dosing to sleep; 'but for o that I'll mek a soop o' good catsup out +o' thi fairy tabble.' + + + + +THE WHITE DOBBIE. + + +Many years ago, long before the lovely Furness district was invaded by +the genius of steam, the villagers along the coast from Bardsea to +Rampside were haunted by a wandering being whose errand, the purpose +of which could never be learned, used to bring him at night along the +lonely roads and past the straggling cottages. This pilgrim was a +wearied, emaciated-looking man, on whose worn and wan face the sorrows +of life had left deep traces, and in whose feverish, hungry-looking +eyes, mystery and terror seemed to lurk. Nobody knew the order of his +coming or going, for he neither addressed anyone, nor replied if +spoken to, but disregarded alike the 'good neet' of the tramp who knew +him not, and the startled cry of the belated villager who came +suddenly upon him at a turn of the road. Never stopping even for a +minute to gaze through the panes whence streamed the ruddy glow of the +wood fires, and to envy the dwellers in the cosy cottages, he kept on +his way, as though his mission was one of life and death, and, +therefore, would not brook delay. + +On wild wintry nights, however, when the salt wind whirled the foam +across the bay, and dashed the blinding snow into heaps upon the +window-sills and against the cottage doors, and darkness and storm +spread their sombre wings over the coast, then was it certain that the +mysterious being would be seen, for observation had taught the +villagers and the dwellers in solitary houses along the lonely roads +between the fishing hamlets that in storm and darkness the weird +voyager was most likely to appear. + +At such times, when the sound of footsteps, muffled by the snow, was +heard between the soughs and moans of the wailing wind, the women +cried, 'Heaven save us; 'tis th' White Dobbie,' as, convulsively +clutching their little ones closer to their broad bosoms, they crept +nearer to the blazing log upon the hearth, and gazed furtively and +nervously at the little diamond-paned window, past which the restless +wanderer was making his way, his companion running along a little way +in advance, for not of the mysterious man alone were the honest people +afraid. In front of him there invariably ran a ghastly-looking, +scraggy white hare,{21} with bloodshot eyes. No sooner however did +anyone look at this spectral animal than it fled to the wanderer, and +jumping into his capacious pocket, was lost to sight. + +Verily of an unearthly stock was this white hare, for upon its +approach and long before it neared a village, the chained dogs, by +some strange instinct conscious of its coming, trembled in terror, and +frantically endeavoured to snap their bonds; unfastened ones fled no +man knew whither; and if one happened to be trotting alongside its +belated master as he trudged homeward and chanced to meet the ghastly +Dobbie with its blood-red eyes, with a scream of pain almost human in +its keen intensity, away home scampered the terrified animal, madly +dashing over hedge and ditch as though bewitched and fiend-chased. + +For many years the lonely wanderer had traversed the roads, and for +many years had the hare trotted in front of him; lads who were cradled +upon their mother's knee when first they heard the awe-inspiring +footfalls had grown up into hearty wide-chested men, and men who were +ruddy fishers when the pilgrim first startled the dwellers in Furness +had long passed away into the silent land; but none of them ever had +known the wayfarer to utter a syllable. At length, however, the time +came when the solemn silence was to be broken. + +One night when the breeze, tired of whispering its weird messages to +the bare branches, and chasing the withered leaves along the lanes, +had begun to moan a hushed prelude to the music of a storm, through +the mist that had crept over the bay, and which obscured even the +white-crested wavelets at the foot of the hill on which stood the +sacred old church, there came at measured intervals the melancholy +monotone of the Bardsea passing bell{9} for the dead. + +Dismally upon the ears of the dwellers in the straggling hamlet fell +the announcement of the presence of death, and even the woman who had +for years been bell-ringer and sexton, felt a thrill of fear as she +stood in the tower but dimly lighted by a candle in a horn lantern, +and high above her head the message of warning rang out; for, although +accustomed to the task, it was not often that her services were +required at night. Now and again she gazed slowly round the chamber, +upon the mouldering walls of which fantastic shadows danced, and she +muttered broken fragments of prayers in a loud and terrified voice, +for as the door had been closed in order that the feeble light in the +lantern might not be extinguished by the gusts of wind, isolated as +she was from the little world upon the hillside, she felt in an +unwonted manner the utter loneliness of the place and its dread +surroundings. + +Suddenly she uttered a shrill shriek, for she heard a hissing whisper +at her ear and felt an icy breath upon her cheek. She dared not turn +round, for she saw that the door opening upon the churchyard remained +closed as before, and that occasionally passing within the range of +her fixed stare, a white hare with blood-red eyes gambolled round the +belfry. + +'T' Dobbie!' sighed she, as the dim light began to flicker and the +hare suddenly vanished. + +As she stood almost paralysed, again came the terrible whisper, and +this time she heard the question-- + +'Who for this time?' + +The horrified woman was unable to answer, and yet powerless to resist +the strange fascination which forced her to follow the direction of +the sound; and when the question was put a second time, in an agony of +fear she gazed into the wild eyes of the being at her elbow, her +parched tongue cleaving to her open mouth. From the pocket of the +dread visitor the ghastly animal gazed at the ringer, who mechanically +jerked the bell-rope, and the poor woman was fast losing her senses, +when suddenly the door was burst open, and a couple of villagers, who +had been alarmed by the irregular ringing, entered the tower. They at +once started back as they saw the strange group--the wanderer with +sad, inquiring look, and pallid face, the phantom hare with its +firelit eyes, and the old ringer standing as though in a trance. No +sooner, however, did one of the intruders gaze at the animal than it +slipped out of sight down into the pocket of its companion and keeper, +and the wanderer himself hastily glided between the astonished men, +and out into the darkness of the graveyard. + +On many other gloomy nights afterwards the ringer was accosted in the +same manner, but although the unnatural being and the spectral hare +continued for some winters to pass from village to village and from +graveyard to graveyard, a thick cloud of mystery always hung over and +about them, and no one ever knew what terrible sin the never-resting +man had been doomed to expiate by so lonely and lasting a pilgrimage. + +Whence he came and whither he went remained unknown; but long as he +continued to patrol the coast the hollow sound of his hasty footsteps +never lost its terror to the cottagers; and even after years had +passed over without the usual visits, allusions to the weird pilgrim +and his dread companion failed not to cause a shudder, for it was +believed that the hare was the spirit of a basely-murdered friend, and +that the restless voyager was the miserable assassin doomed to a +wearisome, lifelong wandering.{22} + + + + +THE LITTLE MAN'S GIFT. + + +Many are the wells in Lancashire that once were supposed to be the +homes of good or evil spirits--of demons or of beneficent +fairies--and, despite the injunctions of the Church against the +customs of praying at and waking wells, down to a comparatively recent +period they were resorted to by pilgrims of all grades who were in +search of health. One such spring near Blackpool, known as the +Fairies' Well, had its daily crowds of the ailing and the sorrowful, +for its water was credited with virtues as wonderful as they were +manifold, and from far and near people brought vessels to be filled +with the miraculous fluid. + +One day at noon, a poor woman who had journeyed many a weary mile in +order to obtain a supply of the water with which to bathe the eyes of +her child, whose sight was fast failing, and upon whom all the usual +remedies had been tried without success, on rising from her knees at +the well side, was surprised to find standing near her a handsome +little man clad in green, who certainly was not in sight when she bent +to fill her bottle. As she stood gazing at the dainty object, the +visitor, without having previously asked her any questions, handed to +her a beautiful box filled with ointment, and directed her to apply +the salve to the eyes of her child, whose sight it would restore. +Surprised beyond measure at the little man's knowledge of her family +affairs, the woman mechanically accepted the gift, but when, after +carefully placing the box in her pocket, she turned to thank the +giver, he was no longer to be seen; and satisfied that she had had an +interview with one of the beings after whom the well was named, she +started on her journey to her distant home. + +The strangeness of the present, given as she trusted it was by a fairy +who was conversant with the painful circumstances under which she had +made her pilgrimage, caused her to hope that the ointment would prove +efficacious in removing the disorder under which her child was +labouring; but this vague feeling, based as it was upon the mysterious +nature of the gift, was accompanied by a perfectly natural fear that, +after all, the giver might have been one of those mischievous beings +whose delight it was to wreak harm and wrong upon humanity. + +When she reached home and told the strange story to her wondering +husband, the nervous pair decided that the ointment should not be used +unless a further mark of fairy interest in the child's welfare were +vouchsafed to them; but when a few days had passed, and the child +continued to grow worse, the anxious mother, in the absence of her +husband, determined to test the salve upon one of her own eyes. She +did so, and after a few minutes of dreadful suspense, finding that +evil results did not follow, and saying to herself that surely the +fairy could not be desirous of harming her child, she anointed the +little girl's eyes. She refrained, however, from making her helpmate +acquainted with what she had done, until in the course of a few days +the child's eyesight was so nearly restored that it was no longer +necessary or possible to keep the matter from him. Great were the +rejoicings of the worthy pair over their little one's recovery; but +there was not for a very long time any opportunity afforded them of +expressing their gratitude. + +Some years had passed,--and, as the girl had never had a relapse, the +strange gift was almost forgotten,--when one day, in the market-place +at Preston, the woman, who was haggling about the price of a load of +potatoes, saw before her the identical little fellow in green attire +from whom, long before, she had received the box of wonder-working +ointment. Although he was busily engaged in a pursuit in which, +perhaps, few gentlemen would care to be interrupted, that of stealing +corn from an open sack, the thoughtless woman, regardless of +etiquette, and yielding to the sudden impulse which prompted her to +thank him, stepped forward, and, grasping the fairy's hand, gave +utterance to her gratitude. + +To her surprise, however, the little fellow seemed very angry with +her, and, instead of acknowledging her thanks, hastily asked if she +could see him with both eyes, and if she had used the ointment +intended for her child. The frightened woman at once said that she +saw him with only one eye, and was entering into a long account of the +circumstances under which, with maternal instinct, she had tested the +value of the gift, when, without more ado, the irritated fairy struck +her a violent blow and vanished, and from that time forward the poor +woman, instead of being able to see better than her neighbours, was +blind of one eye. The daughter, however, often saw the fairies, but, +profiting by her mother's painful experience, she was wise enough to +refrain from speaking to them either when they gathered by moonlight +beneath the trees or in broad daylight broke the Eighth Commandment, +utterly unconscious that they were observed by a mortal to whom had +been given the wondrous gift of fairy vision.{23} + + + + +SATAN'S SUPPER.{24} + + + I. + + Ye Evil One The 'Old Lad' sat upon his throne, + giveth unto Beneath a blasted oak, + them a stayve. And fiddled to the mandrake's groan, + The marsh-frog's lonely croak; + + + II. + + Ye corpses Whilst winds they hissed, and shrieked, and moaned + dashe their About the branches bare, + wigges. And all around the corpses groaned, + And shook their mould'ring hair; + + + III. + + Ye hagges As witches gathered one by one, + crowde to ye And knelt at Satan's feet, + _levee_. With faces some all worn and wan, + And some with features sweet, + + + IV. + + Ye power The earth did ope and imps upsprang + of Of every shape and shade, + Musicke. Who 'gan to dance as th' welkin rang + With tunes the 'Old Lad' played; + + + V. + + Ye poetrie At which the witches clapped their hands, + of And laughed and screamed in glee; + motion. Or jumped about in whirling bands, + And hopped in revelry, + + + VI. + + Ye delicacies Till Satan ceased, when all did rest, + of ye And swarmed unto the meat: + season, The flesh of infants from the breast, + The toes from dead men's feet, + + + VII. + + Ye ditto, With sand for salt, and brimstone cates, + With blood for old wine red; + On glittering dish and golden plates + The dainty food was spread. + + + VIII. + + Ye From heavy cups, with jewels rough, + coolinge The witches quenched their thirst; + drinkes. Yet not before the ruddie stuff + Had been by Satan cursed. + + + IX. + + Ye barde But one lank fiend of skin and bone, + telleth of With hungry-looking eyne, + an outcaste Gazed at the food with dreary moans, + impe. And many a mournful whine; + + + X. + + Of hys For Satan would not let him feed + unparalleled Upon the toothsome cheer, + wickednesse; (He had not done all day a deed + To cause a human tear); + + + XI. + + Of hys And so he hopped from side to side, + gamboles To beg a bit of 'toke,' + and praieres, And, vagrant-like, his plea denied, + He prayed that they might choke + + + XII. + + And of Themselves with morsels rich and fat + hys Or die upon the floor, + revylyngs of Like paupers (grieving much thereat + goode menne. The guardians of the poor). + + + XIII. + + Ye earlie byrde A cock then flapped his wings and crew, + prepareth for ye Announcing coming light; + 'Diet of When, seizing on a jar of stew, + Wormes.' The snubbed imp took his flight. + + + XIV. + + _Les Adieux._ And at the solemn sound of doom + The witches flew away, + While Satan slunk off through the gloom, + Afraid of break of day; + + + XV. + + Ye fruitlesse And in the darkness drear he cried-- + remorse of His voice a trifle gruff, + Beelzebubbe. 'Those omelettes were nicely fried; + I have not had enough!' + + + XVI. + + Ye resulte A blight fell on the trembling flowers + of ye meetynge And on the quivering trees-- + uponne ye No buds there drink the passing showers, + Or leaves wave in the breeze; + + + XVII. + + Agryculture For Satan's presence withered all + of ye The daisies and the grass, + dystricte. And all things over which like pall + His sulphurous tail did pass. + + + + +THE EARTHENWARE GOOSE. + + +Once upon a time, which somewhat vague reference in this instance +means long before it was considered a compliment by the fair dames of +Lancashire to be termed witches, there lived in the Fylde country +village of Singleton a toothless, hooknosed old woman, whose ill +fortune it was to be credited with the friendship of the Evil One. +Perhaps had the ancient dame been somewhat better looking she might +have borne a better character. In those distant days to be poor was +considered decidedly discreditable, but to be ugly also was to add +insult to injury. The old woman knew only too well that she was poor +and that she was plain, for the urchins and hobbledehoys of the +locality lost no opportunity of reminding her of the facts, whenever, +on frugal mind intent, she emerged from her rude cottage to expend a +few pence upon articles of food. + +Ugliness and poverty, however, Mag Shelton persisted in considering +misfortunes and not crimes, and when anybody to whom she was an +eyesore, with gallantry peculiar to the time and place let us hope, +wished that she would die and rid the village of her objectionable +presence, the old woman took no notice of the polite expression. To +die by particular desire was not in Mag's line. What harm could a +toothless old woman do, that the world, by which term the half-dazed +creature meant the village in which she had spent her life, should +evince so much anxiety to be rid of her?--argued Mag. True, if +toothless, she had her tongue; but without a visiting circle, and with +no benefactors to belie, that valuable weapon in the service of spite +might just as well have been in the mouth of an uneducated heathen. +Harmless, however, as the old dame thought herself, the villagers held +a different opinion, and the children, afraid of disturbing the witch, +invariably removed their wooden-soled clogs before they ran past the +hut in which Mag lived,{25} while the older folk, if they did not +literally take the coverings from their feet as they passed the +lonely dwelling, crept by on tiptoe, and glanced furtively at the +unsuspecting inhabitant of the cottage, who, by the aid of the fitful +firelight, might be seen dozing near the dying embers, and now and +again stroking a suspiciously bright-eyed cat, nestled snugly upon her +knee. + +The old woman's solitary way of life favoured the growth of +superstitions regarding her, for the Singletonians were not without +their share of that comforting vanity which impresses the provincial +mind with a sense of the high importance of its society, parish, and +creed; and they could not imagine anyone preferring to keep away from +them and to sit alone, without at once believing, as a necessary +consequence, that the unappreciative ones must have dealings with +Satan. + +It soon was found convenient to attribute anything and everything of +an unpleasant nature to the denizen of the lonely cottage, 'th' Owd +Witch,' as she was termed. Was a cow or a child ailing? Mag had done +it! Had the housewife omitted to mark with the sign of the cross the +baking of dough left in the mug on the hearth, and the bread had +turned out 'heavy,' Mag Shelton had taken advantage of the overworked +woman's negligence! Was there but a poor field of wheat? 'Twas the +fault of old Mag, swore the farmer. In short, whatever went wrong +throughout the entire country-side was judged to be clearly traceable +to the spite and malevolence of the toothless old woman and her +suspicious-looking cat. + +This state of things might, however, have continued without any +interruption, until Nature had interposed and released Mag from her +attendance upon such a world, had it not begun to be noticed that +almost every farmer in the neighbourhood was complaining of the +mysterious disappearance of milk, not only from the dairies, but also +from the udders of the cows grazing in the pastures. A bucolic genius +immediately proclaimed that in this case, too, the culprit must be +Mag, for had not she her familiars to feed, and what could be more +agreeable to the palate of a parched fiend or perspiring imp, than a +beaker of milk fresh from the cow and redolent of meadow-flowers? With +such a gaping family to satisfy, what regard could the old lady retain +for the Eighth Commandment? + +This logic was deemed unanswerable, and a number of the farmers +determined to conceal themselves one night about the witch's cottage, +in the hope of something confirmatory turning up. It was late when +they took their places, and they barely had settled themselves +comfortably behind the hedgerow before a noise was heard, and the old +woman emerged from the house,--the cat, and, of all things else in the +world, a stately goose solemnly paddling behind her. + +The men in ambush remained silent until Mag and her attendants had +passed out of sight and hearing, when one of them said, 'Keep still, +chaps, till hoo comes back. Hoo's gone a milkin', I daat.' The +watchers therefore kept perfectly quiet, and in a little while their +patience was rewarded; for the old woman reappeared, walking slowly +and unattended by her former companions. As she paused to unfasten the +cottage door, the men pounced out of their hiding-place, seized her +roughly, and at once tore off her cloak. To the surprise of the rude +assailants, however, no sign of milkjugs could be observed; and, as +they stood aghast, Mag cried, in a shrill and angry voice, 'Will ye +never learn to respect grey hair, ye knaves?' 'We'll respect tha' +into th' pit yon, mi lady,' immediately responded one of the roughest +of the men. 'What hes ta done with th' milk to-neet?' + +In vain were the old woman's protestations,--that, driven from the +roads and lanes in the daytime by the children and the hobbledehoys +who persecuted her, she had of late taken her exercise by night; the +judicial mind was made up, and rude hands were outstretched to drag +her to the horsepond, when, fortunately for Mag, the appearance of the +goose, waddling in a hurried and agitated manner, created a timely +diversion in her favour. + +'I thowt it quare,' said one of the would-be executioners--'varra +quare, that th' goose worn't somewheer abaat, for hoo an' it's as +thick as Darby an' Jooan.' + +As though conscious that all was not well with its mistress, the +ungainly and excited bird, stretching its neck towards the bystanders, +and hissing loudly, placed itself by the old woman's side. + +'We want no hissin' heear,' said the leader of the band, as he lifted +a heavy stick and struck the sibilant fowl a sharp rap on its head. + +No sooner had the sound of the blow fallen upon the ears of the +assembled rustics than the goose vanished, not a solitary feather +being left behind, and in its place there stood a large broken +pitcher, from which milk, warm from the cow, was streaming. Here was +proof to satisfy even the most credulous, and, as a consequence, in a +moment the old woman was floundering in the pond, from which she +barely escaped with her life. A few days afterwards, however, upon the +interposition of the Vicar, she was permitted to leave the +inhospitable village, and away she tramped in search of 'fresh woods +and pastures new,' her cat and the revivified goose bearing her +company.{26} + +She had left the inhospitable place, when the landlord of the Blue Pig +discovered that the jug in which the witch-watchers had conveyed their +'allowance' to the place of ambush had not been returned. It was not +again seen in its entirety, and the sarcastic host often vowed that it +was here and there in the village in the shape of cherished fragments +of the broken one into which the watchers declared that they had seen +Mag's goose transformed. + + + + +THE PHANTOM OF THE FELL. + + +On a beautiful night late in summer a solitary man, who was returning +from some wedding festivities, was rapidly crossing Fair Snape. The +moon was at the full, and threw her glamour upon the lovely fell, as a +breeze sighed among the tall ferns which waved gently to and fro under +the sweet invisible influence, and the only sounds which fell upon the +wayfarer's ear were the almost inaudible rustling of the bracken, and +the occasional faint bark of a distant watch-dog. Giles Roper, +however, was not thinking of the beauty of the night, or of the +scenery, but, naturally enough, was congratulating himself upon being +ever so much nearer to the stocking of that farm without which he +could not hope for the hand of the miller's rosy daughter. Thoughts of +a chubby, good-hearted little woman like Liza were calculated to +drive out all other and less pleasant ones; but Giles was rapidly +approaching a part of the hillside said to be haunted. Many tales had +he heard by the winter's fire of the doings of the nameless +appearance, the narrators speaking in hushed voices, and the hearers +instinctively drawing closer together on the old settle; and these +narratives crowded into his recollection as he left the cheerful +moonlight and stepped into the shade of the little clough. Before he +had got very far down he was prepared to see or hear anything; but, +making allowance for the fear which somehow or other had taken +possession of him, he knew that there was something more than fancy in +a melancholy wail which broke upon his ears as he reached a bend in +the ravine. There was nothing however in the sad note of lamentation +calculated to terrify, save the consciousness that such sweet music +could not be that of a mortal. Instinctively Giles looked in the +direction whence the sound had come, and in the dim light he saw the +figure of a woman with a pallid face of singular and unearthly beauty, +her hair falling behind her like a sheet of gold, and her eyes +emitting a strange lustre, which, however, was not sufficiently +intense to conceal their beautiful azure hue. The bewildered spectator +gazed in rapt worship, for though his limbs still trembled he no +longer felt any fear, but rather a wild delirious longing to speak to, +and to be addressed by, the beautiful being before him. He was +sufficiently near to the appearance to be able to distinguish the +features clearly, and when he saw a movement of the lips his heart +throbbed violently under the expectation that he was about to receive +a mysterious commission. He was, however, doomed to be disappointed, +for the only sound emitted by the phantom was another low melodious +cry, even more pathetic and mournful than that by which his attention +had first been attracted to the lovely object. At the same time Giles +saw that the figure was more distant than before, and that it was +slowly gliding away, but beckoning to him, as though anxious that he +should follow. The young man, spell-bound and fascinated by the +enchanting eyes, which were beautiful enough to turn the head of one +wiser than the raw country lad upon whom they were fixed, followed +eagerly, but at the end of the clough, where the moonlight was +brilliant, the figure vanished, leaving Giles, not with that feeling +of relief said to follow the disappearance of a mysterious visitant, +but, on the contrary, anxious to behold the vision again. He therefore +turned and retraced his steps to the undulating summit of the fell, +where the wind was sighing over the many-flowered heather, but there +was nothing to be seen of the blue-eyed phantom, and only for the +faint wash of the rustling ferns all would have been silent. + +Unwilling to leave the spot, although he was conscious that the task +was a fruitless one, he continued to wander from one point to another, +and it was not until daybreak that he finally gave up the search and +descended the fell. Not caring to allude to his adventure and vain +search upon the pike, Giles accounted for his lateness by asserting +that he had remained until midnight at the distant farmhouse where the +rejoicings had taken place, and had afterwards lost his way on the +fells. With this excuse, however, his relatives were quite content, +one sarcastic farm-servant drily remarking that after wedding +festivities it was wonderful he had been able to find his way home at +all. + +The extraordinary thoughtfulness which Giles evinced during the day +was of too marked a nature to remain unobserved; but the old father +attributed it merely to that natural dislike to settled labour which +generally follows boisterous relaxation, and the mother thought it was +due to a desire to be off again to see the chubby daughter of the +miller. The old dame, therefore, was not surprised when her son +announced his intention to leave home for a few hours, and she +congratulated herself on her foresight and discernment, finishing her +soliloquy by saying--'Well, hoo's a bonny wench as he's after; an', +what's mooar, hoo's as good as hoo's pratty.' + +It was not, however, to the far-off dwelling of the miller that Giles +was making his way. + +On the contrary, he was leisurely pacing in quite an opposite +direction, his back turned to the old mill, and his eyes fixed upon +the distant fells, which he did not care to reach until the gloaming +had given way to moonlight. Not that he was afraid of being seen, the +road he trod was too lonely for that; but he thought it was unlikely +his watchings would be rewarded before the night had properly set in. +If the beautiful object was a spirit--and what else could it have +been?--it would come at its own time, and who ever heard of spirits +appearing before midnight? The young fellow, therefore, waited until +the moon rose and bathed the hills in her golden flood, when he at +once began to climb the fell, making his way up the ravine in which on +the previous night he had heard the mysterious voice. + +It was some time from midnight, and he stopped to rest, taking his +seat upon a moss-covered stone. Here he waited patiently; but he had +begun to fear that his visit was to be a fruitless one, when once more +he heard the peculiar mournful wail, and rapidly turning round, he saw +that he was not alone. Again the weird eyes, in all their unearthly +beauty, were fixed upon him, and the long white arms were extended as +though to beckon him to draw nigh. + +Instinctively Giles rose in obedience to the pleading attitude of the +fair vision; but as he approached the phantom it grew less and less +distinct, and at length vanished. As on the previous night, the young +fellow wandered about in the hope of again seeing the lovely being, +and once more he was obliged to return to the farm unsuccessful. + +Possessed by a maddening and irresistible desire to gaze upon the +wondrous face which had bewitched him, the approach of nightfall +invariably found Giles on his way to the fell, and it can easily be +imagined to what unpleasantness in his family circle this course of +conduct gave rise. On the one hand the parents gave the rein to all +sorts of vague suspicions as to the cause of the night rambles; and +the lad's disinclination to give any explanations did not help the old +people to think more kindly of him. The father of the girl whom he had +asked in marriage also did not fail to expostulate with him, in the +idea that he had fallen into evil ways, and that his pilgrimages were +to a distant town; while the girl herself, loving him as she did with +all the vigour of her simple and earnest nature, and uninfluenced by +any foolish feeling of false shame, came to his parents' house in the +hope of obtaining a promise of better things. + +Her pleadings and her womanly threats, however, were unavailing, the +whilom lover in a shamefaced manner refusing to make any promise of +different behaviour. The interview was a painful one; for the girl, +feeling certain that her father's interpretation was correct, used all +her powers to induce Giles to abandon his evil courses; but at length, +finding that her prayers were ineffectual, she bitterly reproached him +with his want of honesty. + +'It's no evil as I'm after, lass! Don't think that on mi,' said the +young man, in an appealing tone; but the girl was not to be convinced +by mere assertion. + +'It's no good as teks tha away o'er t' pike neet after neet,' said +she, with a sudden access of grief, 'it'ull come by tha in some way or +another, Giles.' And in tears she turned away from him. + +'Whisht, lass, whisht! If tha nobbut knew, O tha'd pity i'stid o' +blaming mi.' + +The girl heeded not these words, but kept on her way. When she got to +a turn in the road, however, she looked back mournfully, as though in +doubt whether to return and cast herself upon his breast, and bid him +trust in her; but pride overcame her, and she resisted the impulse. + +That night, as two of the miller's men were poaching, they were +startled by the unexpected sound of a human voice, and hastily hiding +themselves beneath the tall ferns, they saw Giles emerge from the +clough and run towards the place where they were concealed. He seemed +to be half mad with excitement, and as he ran he was crying aloud some +words they could not catch. When he drew nearer, however, they were +able to hear more distinctly, and to their surprise they found that he +was appealing to an invisible being to appear to him. + +For some time they remained in their place of concealment, Giles +hovering about the spot; but when the young fellow ran to a distance, +they emerged from their hiding-place and rapidly made their way to the +mill. For obvious reasons, however, they agreed to keep silence as to +what they had seen and heard. + +The day after this episode Giles was in a fever and delirious, raving +continually about the bonny face and 'breet een' of the being he had +seen in the ravine. His afflicted parents found in the wild utterances +sad confirmation of their worst fears, and, half broken-hearted, they +hovered sorrowfully about his bed. For weeks he battled with the +disorder, and at nightfall frequently endeavoured to leave the house, +and vainly struggled with the friends who prevented him, to whom he +frantically cried that she of the blue eyes was calling him. + +A cloud fell over the hitherto happy household. Night and day the old +people watched over their sick lad, each of them feeling that the task +would have been a comparatively easy one had not the patient's +delirious ravings revealed to them so terrible a background to the +round of their primitive and innocent daily life. Not that they loved +their child any less because of the revelations he had unconsciously +made to them, but they brooded and fretted over his supposed +wickedness, and bowed their heads in grief and shame as they +unwillingly heard his impassioned cries. + +By-and-by the story of these ravings got noised about, and the +miller's daughter, who hitherto had been suffering bravely, broke down +altogether when she knew that she was an object of pity to the +gossips. It fortunately happened, however, that the miller's men who +had seen Giles at the pike got into conversation with their master +about the matter, and it struck one of them that the woman about whom +Giles was supposed to be raving, and of whom tales of all sorts were +being circulated, was a feeorin of some kind that the young fellow had +seen on the lonely fell. No sooner was this idea arrived at than off +they started to see the distressed parents, the miller's daughter +hastening with them. They found no difficulty in gaining credence for +their narrative, and with a burst of thankfulness the old people felt +that the gulf which had yawned between them and their eldest born was +for ever closed; while, as for the girl, her transports of joy were +almost painful in their intensity. So great a weight was lifted from +all hearts that the illness of the patient was for the time almost +forgotten. Giles, however, still remained in a very critical +condition, but he soon had an additional nurse, who, despite the +watchings and the toil of which she relieved the old people, was +rapidly becoming more and more like the ruddy-faced damsel to whom the +young fellow had plighted his troth, for she could listen to and +disregard the ravings of her lover and look forward to the time when +happiness should again smile upon them. + +A few weeks passed. The violence of the disorder abated, and the +patient recovered so far as to be able to bear removal to a large +chair by the kitchen fire. As he sat quietly dreaming the short autumn +days away, without any allusions to the beauty about whom he had so +constantly raved during his delirium, the old people and the miller's +daughter began to congratulate themselves that the dream-madness had +passed away with the worst phase of the illness. The girl, however, +although she did not utter any complaint, suffered deeply from the +coolness with which Giles treated her. Not that he was ungrateful, +for, on the contrary, it was impossible to do anything for him, +however slight the service might be, without a thankful +acknowledgment; but there was a visible constraint in his manner which +could not escape the keen sight of love. Fearing to distress him by +any remonstrances, the patient girl refrained from referring to the +past or showing that she was observant of any change in his behaviour +towards her, but she brooded over her grief when she was alone. The +young fellow knew that the poor girl was suffering, but for the life +of him he could not assume that which he did not feel. Much as he had +loved her before the night of his adventure on the pike, from the +moment when he had first seen the face of the mysterious being his +affection for her had faded away, consumed by the intense longing +which filled his soul night and day whenever he thought of the eyes +illumined by a fire that was not human, and of the features and hair +so exquisitely beautiful in the faint moonlight. Calm and quiet as he +looked, seated propped with cushions in the old chair by the fire, he +was inwardly fretting against the weakness that kept him from the +fells, and his longing soul came into his eyes as he gazed through the +little diamond-paned window, and saw the pike, in all the beauty of +many-tinted autumn, kissed by the setting sun as the blushing day sank +into the swarthy arms of night. + +Slowly winter came, bringing snow and storm, and as though influenced +by a feeling that even Nature had interposed her barriers between him +and the lovely being, one afternoon, as the mists crept slowly over +the white landscape, and hid in their shimmering folds the distant +fells where he had first seen the sweet face so seldom absent from +his feverish dreams, he could not resist the desire which seized him +to visit once more the haunted ravine. The various members of the +little household were away from the house engaged in their labours +about the farm, and taking advantage of this, Giles fled from the +dwelling, and made his way through the dim light to the hills. It was +not long, however, before his absence was discovered, but some time +elapsed before the men-folk could be gathered, and the shades of night +had fallen before the anxious pursuers reached the foot of the pike. + +The thick mist had enveloped everything, and as the lanterns, choked +as they were by the damp, threw but a fitful light, it was with the +utmost difficulty that the men found the footmarks of the wanderer in +the snow up the fell side. The searchers were led by the father of +Giles, who spoke not, but glanced at the track as though in dread of +discovering that which he had come to find. Suddenly the old man gave +a startled cry, for he had followed the marks to the edge of a little +cliff, over which he had almost fallen in his eagerness. It was +forthwith determined to follow the ravine to its commencement, and +although nothing was said by any of the party, each man felt certain +that the missing young fellow would be found at the bottom. It did not +take long to reach the entrance, and with careful steps the old man +led the way over the boulders. He had not gone far before the light +from his lantern fell upon the upturned face of his son, whose body +lay across the course of a little frozen stream. The features were set +in the sleep of death, for Giles had fallen from the level above, the +creeping mists having obscured the gorge where he first saw the lovely +phantom, in search of which he had met an untimely end. + + + + +ALLHALLOW'S NIGHT. + + +To many a beautiful landscape the majestic Pendle adds a nameless +charm, and the traveller who gazes upon it from any of the points +whence a view of the whalelike mass is to be obtained, would hardly +dream that the moss and fern-covered hill, smiling through the dim +haze, once was the headquarters of witchcraft and devilry. Readers of +the quaint and sad trials of the witchmania period, and of Harrison +Ainsworth's celebrated novel based thereon, will, however, remember +what dread scenes were said to have transpired in the dim light of its +cloughs and upon its wild sides, when Chattox, Mouldheels, and the +other poor wretches whose 'devilish practices and hellish means,' as +they were termed in the old indictments, made the neighbourhood of the +mountain so unsafe a locality. + +In a lonely little house some distance from the foot of Pendle, there +dwelt a farmer and his family, together with a labourer whom he +employed. Entirely illiterate, and living in a wild and weird +district, with but few houses nearer than a mile away, the household +believed firmly in all the dreadful boggart, witch, and feeorin +stories current in the district. For a long time, however, the farmer +had not any personal experience of the power of either witch or +boggart; but at length his turn came. After a tempestuous night, when +the windows and doors rattled in their frames, and the wind, dashing +the big rain drops against the little diamond-shaped panes, moaned and +shrieked round the lonely dwelling, three of the beasts were found +dead in the shippon. A few days afterwards two of the children +sickened, and when 'th' edge o' dark' was creeping up the hill-side +one of them died. As though this trouble was not enough, the crops +were blighted. With reluctance the farmer saw in these things proof +that he had in some unknown manner incurred the displeasure of the +invisible powers, and that the horse-shoe over his door, the branches +of ash over the entrance to the shippon, and the hag stones hung up +at the head of his own and of the children's bed, had lost their power +of protection. + +The family council, at which the unprotected condition of the house +was discussed, was of the saddest kind, for even the rough labourer +missed the prattle of the little one whose untimely end had cast a +shadow over the dwelling, and he thoroughly sympathised with his +master in his losses; while, as for the farmer and his wife, dread of +what the future might have in store for them mingled with their +sorrow, and added to the heaviness of their hearts. + +'Isaac, yo' may as weel tek' th' wiggin{27} an' th' horse shoes +deawn, for onny use they seem to be on. We'en nowt to keep th' feorin' +off fra' us, an' I deawt we'es come off bud badly till November,' said +the farmer, as he knocked the ashes from his pipe. + +'An' why nobbut till November, Ralph,' asked the wife in a terrified +voice, as she gazed anxiously towards the little window through which +Pendle could be dimly seen looming against the evening sky. + +'Because on O'Hallow neet, mi lass, I meean to leet th' witches{28} +on Pendle.' + +'Heaven save us!' cried the woman. 'Tha'll be lost as sewer as th' +whorld.' + +There was a short silence, and then old Isaac spoke-- + +'If th' mestur goes, Isik guz too. Wis be company, at onny rate.' + +The farmer gratefully accepted this offer of fellowship, and the +appeals of his wife, who implored him to abandon the notion, were of +no avail. Others had lighted the witches, and thereby secured a +twelvemonth's immunity from harm, and why should not he go and do +likewise? Ruin was staring him in the face if things did not improve, +thought he, and his determination to 'leet' his unseen enemies grew +stronger and stronger. + +At length the last day of October came, bringing with it huge clouds +and a misty rain, which quite obscured the weird hill; but at +nightfall the wind rose, the rain ceased, the stars began to appear, +and the huge outline of Pendle became visible. + +When the day's work was over, the farmer and Isaac sat in the kitchen, +waiting for the hour at which they were to start for the haunted +mountain, and the dread and lonesome building where the witches from +all parts gathered in mysterious and infernal conclave. Neither of the +men looked forward to the excursion with pleasurable feelings, for, as +the emotion caused by the losses had somewhat subsided, terror of the +beings who were supposed to assemble in the Malkin Tower resumed its +sway; but soon after the old clock had chimed ten they rose from the +settle and began their preparations for the lighting. Each man grasped +a branch of mountain ash, to which several sprigs of bay were tied as +a double protection against thunder and lightning, and any stray +fiends that might happen to be lurking about, and each carried in the +other hand an unlighted candle. + +As they passed from the house the tearful goodwife cried a blessing +upon them, and a massive old bulldog crept from a corner of the yard +and took its place at their heels. + +The three stepped along bravely, and before long they had crossed the +brook and reached the foot of Pendle. Rapidly making their way to a +well-known ravine they paused to light the candles. This operation, +performed by means of a flint and steel and a box of tinder, occupied +some time; and while they were so engaged clouds obscured the moon, a +few heavy drops of rain fell, the wind ceased to whisper, and an +ominous silence reigned, and the dog, as though terrified, crept +closer to its master and uttered a low whine. + +'We's hev' a storm, I daat, Isik,' said the farmer. + +'Ise think mysen weel off an' win nowt else bud a storm,' drily +replied the old man, as, lighted candle in hand, he began to climb the +hill-side, his master and the dog following closely behind. + +When they had almost reached the top of the ravine a flash of +lightning suddenly pierced the darkness, and a peal of thunder seemed +to shake the earth beneath them; while a weird and unearthly shriek of +laughter rang in their ears as a black figure flew slowly past them, +almost brushing against their faces in its flight. The dog immediately +turned and fled, howling terribly as it ran down the hill-side; but +the men went on, each one carefully shading his light with the hand in +which the branch of ash was grasped. The road gradually became +rougher, and occasionally Isaac stumbled over a stone, and almost +fell, the farmer frantically shouting to him to be careful of his +candle, but without any serious mishap the pair managed to get within +sight of the tower. + +Evidently some infernal revelry was going on, for light streamed from +the window-openings, and above the crash of the thunder came shrieks +of discordant laughter. Every now and again a dark figure floated over +their heads and whirled in at one of the windows, and the noise became +louder, by the addition of another shrill voice. + +'It mon be drawin' nee midneet,' said the farmer. 'If we con but pass +th' hour wis be reet for a twelvemonth. Let's mek for whoam neaw.' + +Both men readily turned their backs to the building, but no sooner had +they done so than a Satanic face, with gleaming eyes, was visible for +a moment, and instantaneously both lights were extinguished. + +'God bless us!' immediately cried both men. + +Almost before the words had left their lips the tower was plunged in +total darkness, the shrieks of unholy laughter were suddenly stilled, +and sounds were heard as of the rapid flight of the hags and their +familiars, for the ejaculations had broken up the gathering. + +Terrified beyond measure at the extinction of their lights, but still +clinging tenaciously to the branches, which apparently had proved so +ineffectual to preserve them against the power of the witches, the men +hurried away. They had not proceeded far in the direction in which +they supposed the farm lay, when, with a cry, the farmer, who was a +little in advance of his aged companion, fell and vanished. He had +slipped down the cleft, on the brink of which Isaac stood, tremblingly +endeavouring to pierce the darkness below. + +Not a sound came up to tell the old man that his master had escaped +with his life; and, as no response came to his shouts, at length he +turned away, feeling sure that he was masterless, and hoping to be +able to reach the farm, and obtain assistance. After wandering about +for some time, however, half-blinded by the lightning, and terrified +beyond measure at the result of their mutual boldness, Isaac crept +under a large stone, to wait for the dawn. Influenced by the cold and +by fatigue, the old man fell asleep; but no sooner had the first faint +rays of coming day kissed the hill-summit, than he was aroused by the +old bulldog licking his face, and as he gazed around in sleepy +astonishment some men appeared. The farmer's wife, terrified by the +arrival of the howling dog, and the non-arrival of the 'leeters,' had +made her way to a distant farm-house and alarmed the inmates, and a +party of sturdy fellows had started off to find the missing men. +Isaac's story was soon told; and when the searchers reached the gorge +the farmer was found nursing a broken leg. + +Great were the rejoicings of the goodwife when the cavalcade reached +the farm, for, bad as matters were, she had expected even a worse +ending; and afterwards, when unwonted prosperity had blessed the +household, she used to say, drily, 'Yo' met ha' kept th' candles in to +leet yo' whoam, for it mon ha' bin after midneet when _he_ blew 'em +aat,' a joke which invariably caused the farmer and old Isaac to smile +grimly. + + + + +THE CHRISTMAS-EVE VIGIL. + + +Many years have passed since the living of Walton-le-Dale was held by +a gentleman of singularly-reserved and studious habits, who, from noon +till night, pored over dusty black-letter folios. Although he was by +no means forgetful of the few duties which pertained to his sacred +office, and never failed to attend to the wants of those of his +parishioners who were in trouble and had need of kind words of +sympathy and advice, or even of assistance of a more substantial +nature, the length of time he devoted to his mysterious-looking +volumes, and a habit he had of talking to himself, as, late at night, +with head bent down, he passed along the village street, and vanished +into the darkness of a lonely lane, gave rise to cruel rumours that he +was a professor of the black art; and it was even whispered that his +night walks were pilgrimages to unholy scenes of Satanic revelry. +These suspicions deepened almost into certainty when the old people +who had charge of his house informed the gossips that the contents of +a large package, since the arrival of which the women in the village +had been unable to sleep for curiosity, were strange-looking bottles, +of a weird shape, with awful signs and figures upon them; and that, +during the evening, after the carrier had brought them, noises were +heard in the clergyman's room, and the house was filled with +sulphurous smoke. Passing from one gossip to another, the story did +not fail to receive additions as usual, until when it reached the last +house in the straggling village the narrator told how the student had +raised the Evil One, who, after filling the house with brimstone, +vanished in a ball of fire, not, however, without first having +imprinted the mark of his claws upon the study table. + +Had the unconscious clergyman lived more in the everyday world around +him, and less in that of black-letter books, he would not have failed +to perceive the averted looks with which his parishioners acknowledged +his greetings, or, what would have pained him even more deeply, the +frightened manner in which the children either fled at his approach, +if they were playing in the lanes, or crept close to their parents +when he entered the dwellings of the cottagers. Ignorant alike of the +absurd rumours, and unobservant of the change which had come over his +flock, or at least acting as though unaware of them, the clergyman +continued to perform the duties of his sacred office, and to fly from +them to his beloved volumes and experiments, growing more and more +reserved in his habits, and visibly paling under his close +application. + +After matters had gone on in this way for some time, the villagers +were surprised to see a friendship spring up and ripen between their +pastor and an old resident in the village, of almost equally strange +habits. There was, however, in reality but little to wonder at in +this, for the similarity between the pursuits and tastes of the two +students was sufficiently great to bridge over the gulf of +widely-different social positions. + +Abraham, or 'Owd Abrum,' as he was generally named, was a herb doctor, +whose knowledge of out-of-the-way plants which possessed mysterious +medicinal virtues, and of still more wonderful charms and spells, was +the theme of conversation by every farmhouse fireside for miles round. +At that day, and in that locality, the possession of a few books +sufficed to make a man a wonder to his neighbours; and Abraham had a +little shelf full of volumes upon his favourite subjects of botany and +astrology. + +The old man lived by himself in a little cottage, some distance along +a lane leading from the village across the meadows; and, despite the +absence of female supervision, the place always was as clean and +bright as a new pin. Had he needed any assistance in his household +duties, Abraham would not have asked in vain for it, for he was feared +as well as respected. If he was able to charm away evil and sickness, +could he not also bring sickness and evil? So reasoned the simple +villagers; and those who were not, even unconsciously, influenced by +the guileless everyday life of the old man, were impressed by the idea +that he had the power to cast trouble upon them if they failed to +maintain an outward show of reverence. + +However early the villagers might be astir, as they passed along the +lanes on their way to their labour in the fields, they were certain to +find 'Owd Abrum' searching by the hedgerows or in the plantations for +herbs, to be gathered with the dew upon them; and at night the belated +cottager, returning from a distant farm, was equally certain of +finding Abraham gazing at the heavens, 'finding things aat abaat +fowk,' as the superstitious country people said and believed. + +Addicted to such nocturnal studies, it was not likely that the old +herb doctor and the pale student would remain unknown to each other. +The acquaintance however, owing to the reserved habits of both, began +in a somewhat singular manner. Returning from a long and late walk +about midnight, the minister was still some distance from his abode, +when he heard a clear voice say: 'Now is the time, if I can find any: +Jupiter is angular, the moon's applied to him, and his aspect is +good.' + +The night was somewhat cloudy--the stars being visible only at +intervals--and it was not until the clergyman had advanced a little +way that he was able to perceive the person who had spoken. He saw +that it was the old herbalist, and immediately accosted him. An +animated conversation followed, Abraham expatiating on the virtues of +the plants he had been gathering under the dominion of their +respective planets, and astonishing the pale student by the extent of +his information. In his turn, the old man was delighted to find in the +clergyman a fellow-enthusiast in the forbidden ways of science; and as +the student was no less charmed to discover in the 'yarb doctor' a +scholar who could sympathise with him and understand his yearnings +after the invisible, late as was the hour, the pair adjourned to +Abraham's cottage. The visitor did not emerge until the labourers were +going to their toil, the time having been spent in conversation upon +the powers exercised by the planets upon plants and men, the old man +growing eloquent as to the wonderful virtue of the Bay Tree, which, he +said, could resist all the evil Saturn could do to the human body, and +in the neighbourhood of which neither wizard nor devil, thunder or +lightning, could hurt man; of Moonwort, with the leaves of which locks +might be opened, and the shoes be removed from horses' feet; of +Celandine, with which, if a young swallow loseth an eye, the parent +birds will renew it; of Hound's Tongue, a leaf of which laid under the +foot will save the bearer from the attacks of dogs; of Bugloss, the +leaf of which maketh man poison-proof; of Sweet Basil, from which +(quoting Miraldus) venomous beasts spring--the man who smelleth it +having a scorpion bred in his brain; and of a score of other herbs +under the dominion of the Moon and Cancer, and of the cures wrought by +them through antipathy to Saturn. + +From that time the pair became intimate friends, the clergyman +yielding, with all the ardour of youth, to the attraction which drew +him towards the learned old man; and Abraham gradually growing to love +the pale-faced student, whose thirst after knowledge was as intense as +his own. Seldom a day passed on which one of them might not have been +observed on his way to the abode of the other; and often at night the +pair walked together, their earnest voices disturbing the slumbering +echoes, as at unholy hours they passed up the hill, and through the +old churchyard, with its moss-covered stones and its rank vegetation. + +Upon one of these occasions they had talked about supernatural +appearances; and as they were coming through the somewhat neglected +God's Acre, the clergyman said he had read, in an old volume, that to +anyone who dared, after the performance of certain ghastly ceremonies, +wait in the church porch on Christmas-eve, the features of those who +were to die during the following year would be revealed, and that he +intended upon the night before the coming festival to try the spell. +The old man at once expressed a wish to take part in the trial, and +before the two parted it was agreed that both should go through the +preliminary charms, and keep the vigil. + +In due time the winter came, with its sweet anodyne of snow, and as +Christmas approached everything was got in readiness. + +Soon after sunset on Christmas-eve the old herb doctor wended his way +to the dwelling of his friend, taking with him St. John's Wort, +Mountain Ash, Bay leaves, and Holly. The enthusiasts passed the +evening in conversation upon the mysterious qualities of graveyard +plants; but shortly after the clock struck eleven they arose, and +began to prepare for the vigil, by taking precautions against the +inclemency of the weather, for the night was very cold, large flakes +of snow falling silently and thickly upon the frozen ground. + +When both were ready the old man stepped to the door to see that the +road was clear, for, in order to go through the form of incantation, a +small fire was requisite; and as they were about to convey it in a +can, they were anxious that the strange proceeding should not be +noticed by the villagers. Late as it was, however, lights shone here +and there in the windows, and even from the doorways, for, although it +was near midnight, many of the cottage doors were wide open, it being +believed that if, on Christmas-eve, the way was thus left clear, and a +member of the family read the Gospel according to St. Luke, the saint +himself would pass through the house. + +As the two men, after carefully closing the door behind them, stepped +into the road, a distant singer trolled forth a seasonable old hymn. +This was the only noise, however, the village street being deserted. +They reached the churchyard without having been observed, and at once +made their way round the sacred building, so as not to be exposed to +the view of any chance reveller returning to his home. It was well +that they did so, for they had hardly deposited the can of burning +charcoal upon a tombstone ere sounds of footsteps, somewhat muffled by +the snow, were heard, and several men passed through the wicket. They +were, however, only the ringers, on their way to the belfry, and in a +few minutes they had entered the building, and all was still again for +a few moments, when, upon the ears of the somewhat nervous men there +fell the voices of choristers singing under the window of a +neighbouring house the old Lancashire carol-- + + 'As I sat anonder yon green tree, + Yon green tree, yon green tree-- + + As I sat anonder yon green tree + A Christmas day in the morning.'{29} + +The words could be heard distinctly, and almost unconsciously the two +men stood to listen; but directly the voices ceased the student asked +if they had not better begin, as the time was passing rapidly. + +'Ay,' replied Abraham, 'we han it to do, an' we'd better ger it ower.' + +Without any more words they entered the porch, and at once made a +circle around them with leaves of Vervain, Bay, and Holly. The old man +gave to his companion a branch of Wiggintree,{27} and firmly held +another little bough, as with his disengaged hand he scattered a +powder upon the embers. A faint odour floated around them, as they +chanted a singular Latin prayer; and no sooner was the last word +uttered than a strain of sweet sad music, too inexpressibly soft and +mournful to be of earth, was heard. Every moment it seemed to be dying +away in a delicious cadence, but again and again was the weird melody +taken up by the invisible singers, as the listeners sank to their +knees spell-bound. An icy breath of wind hissed round the porch, +however, and called the entranced men to their senses, and suddenly +the student grasped the arm of his aged companion, and cried, in a +terrified voice-- + +'Abraham, the spell works. Behold!' + +The old man gazed in the direction pointed out, and, to his +inexpressible horror, saw a procession wending its way towards the +porch. It consisted of a stream of figures wrapped up in +grave-clothes, gleaming white in the dim light. With solemn and +noiseless steps the ghastly objects approached the circle in which +stood the venturesome men, and, as they drew nearer, the faces of the +first two could be seen distinctly, for the blazing powder cast a +lurid glow upon them, and made them even more ghastly. + +Both spectators had almost unconsciously recognised the features of +several of the villagers, when they were aroused from their lethargy +of terror by the appearance of one face, which seemed to linger longer +than its predecessors had done. Abraham at once saw that the likeness +was that of the man by his side, and the clergyman sank to the ground +in a swoon. + +For some time the old man was too much affected by the lingering face +to think of restoring the unconscious man at his feet; but at length +the clashing of the bells over his head, as they rang forth a +Christmas greeting, called him to himself, and he bent over the +prostrate form of his friend. The minister soon recovered, but as he +was too weak to walk, the old man ran to the belfry to beg the ringers +to come to his assistance. When these men came round to the porch the +fire was still burning, the flickering flames of various colours +casting dancing shadows upon the walls. + +'Abraham,' said one of the ringers, 'there's bin some wizzard wark +goin' on here, an' yo' sin what yo'n getten by it.' + +'Han yo' bin awsin to raise th' devul, an' Kesmus-eve an' o'?' asked +another, in a low and terrified voice. + +With a satirical smile, Abraham answered the last speaker: 'It dusn't +need o' this mak' o' things to raise th' devul, lad. He's nare so far +fra' thuse as wants him.' + +Bearing the clergyman in their arms, the men walked through the +village, but they did not separate without having, in return for the +confidence Abraham reposed in them by confiding to them the secret of +the vigil, promised strict secrecy as to what they had witnessed. + +Abraham's companion soon recovered from the shock, but not before the +story of the night-watch had gone the round of the village. Many were +the appeals made to the old herbalist to reveal his strangely-acquired +knowledge, but Abraham remained sternly obdurate, remarking to each of +his questioners-- + +'Yo'll know soon enough, mebbi.' + +The clergyman, however, was in a more awkward position, and his +parishioners soon made him aware how unwise he had been in giving way +to the desire to pry into futurity; for, when any of them were ill and +he expressed a kindly wish for their recovery, it was by no means +unusual for the sick person to reply-- + +'Yo could tell me heaw it will end iv yo' loiked.' + +This oftentimes being followed by a petition from the assembled +relatives-- + +'Will yo tell us if he wir one o' th' processioners?' + +Ultimately Abraham's companion went away, in the hope of returning +when the memory of the watch should have become less keen, but, before +a few months had passed away, news came of his death, after a violent +attack of fever caught during a visit to a wretched hovel in the +fishing village where he was staying. By the next December, all the +people whose features the old herbalist had recognised during the +procession had been carried to the churchyard; but, although several +men offered to accompany Abraham to the porch on the forthcoming +Christmas-eve, he dared not again go through the spells and undergo +the terrors of a church-porch vigil.{30} + + + + +THE CRIER OF CLAIFE. + + +Upon a wild winter night, some centuries ago, the old man who plied +the ferry-boat on Windermere, and who lived in a lonely cottage on the +Lancashire side of the Lake, was awakened from his sleep by an +exceedingly shrill and terrible shriek, which seemed to come from the +opposite shore. The wind was whistling and moaning round the house, +and for a little while the ferryman and his family fancied that the +cry by which they had been disturbed was nothing more than one of the +mournful voices of the storm; but soon again came another shriek, even +more awe-inspiring than the former one, and this was followed by +smothered shouts and groans of a most unearthly nature. + +Against the wishes of his terrified relatives, who clung to him, and +besought him to remain indoors, the old fellow bravely determined to +cross the water, and heeding not the prayers of his wife and daughter, +he unfastened his boat, and rowed away. The two women, clasped in each +other's arms, trembling with fear, stood at the little door, and +endeavoured to make out the form of their protector; but the darkness +was too deep for them to see anything upon the lake. At intervals, +however, the terrible cry rang out through the gloom, and shrieks and +moans were heard loud above the mysterious noises of the night. + +In a state of dreadful suspense and terror the women stood for some +time, but at length they saw the boat suddenly emerge from the +darkness, and shoot into the little cove. To their great surprise, +however, the ferryman, who could be seen sitting alone, made no effort +to land, and make his way to the cottage; so, fearing that something +dreadful had happened to him, and, impelled by love, they rushed to +the side of the lake. They found the old man speechless, his face as +white and blanched as the snow upon the Nab, and his whole body +trembling under the influence of terror, and they immediately led him +to the cottage, but though appealed to, to say what terrible object +he had seen, he made no other response than an occasional subdued +moan. For several days he remained in that state, deaf to their +piteous entreaties, and staring at them with wild-looking eyes; but at +length the end came, and, during the gloaming of a beautiful day, he +died, without having revealed to those around him what he had seen +when, in answer to the midnight cry, he had rowed the ferry-boat +across the storm-ruffled lake. + +After the funeral had taken place the women left the house, its +associations being too painful to permit of their stay, and went to +live at Hawkshead, whence two sturdy men, with their respective +families, removed to the ferry. The day following that of the arrival +of the new-comers was rough and wild, and, soon after darkness had +hidden everything in its sable folds, across the lake came the fearful +cry, followed by a faint shout for a boat, and screams and moans. The +men, hardy as they were, and often as they had laughed at the story +told by the widow of the dead man, no sooner heard the first shriek +ring through the cottage than they were smitten with terror. +Profiting, however, by the experience of their predecessor, and +influenced by fear, they did not make any attempt to cross the lake, +and the cries continued until some time after midnight. + +Afterwards, whenever the day closed gloomily, and ushered in a stormy +night, and the wind lashed the water of the lake into fury, the +terrible noises were heard with startling distinctness, until at +length the dwellers in the cottage became so accustomed to the noises +as not to be disturbed by them, or, if disturbed, to fall asleep again +after an ejaculation of 't' crier!' Pedlars and others who had to +cross the lake, however, were not so hardened, and after a time the +ferry-boat was almost disused, for the superstitious people did not +dare to cross the haunted water, save in the broad daylight of summer. + +It therefore struck the two individuals who were most concerned in the +maintenance of the ferry that if they intended to live they must do +something to rid the place of its bad name, and of the unseen being +who had driven away all their patrons. In their extremity they asked +each other who should help them, if not the holy monks, who had come +over the sea to the abbey in the Valley of Deadly Night Shade; and one +of the ferrymen at once set out for Furness. No sooner had he set eyes +upon the stately pile erected by the Savignian and his companions than +his heart felt lighter, for he had a simple faith in the marvellous +power of the white-robed men, whose voices were seldom if ever heard, +save when lifted in worship during one of their seven daily services. + +Knocking at the massive door, he was received by a ruddy-looking +servitor, who ushered him into the presence of the abbot. The ferryman +soon told his story, and begged that a monk might return with him to +lay the troubled spirit, and after hearing the particulars of the +visitation, the abbot granted the request, making a proviso, however, +that the abbey coffers should not be forgotten when the lake was freed +from the fiend. + +No sooner had the visitor finished the meal set before him by the +hospitable monks than, in company with one of the holy men, he set out +homeward. As, by a rule of his order, the monk was not permitted to +converse, the journey was not an enlivening one, and the ferryman was +heartily glad when they reached his cottage. + +The first night passed without any alarm, the monk and his hosts +spending the dreary hours in watching and waiting. The following day, +however, was as stormy as the worst enemy of the ferry could have +wished, and, when night fell, all the dwellers in the cottage, as well +as the silent monk, gathered together again to wait for the cries, but +some hours passed without any other sounds having been heard than +those caused by the restless wind, as it swept over the lake and among +the trees. The Cistercian was beginning to imagine himself the victim +of an irreverent practical joke, and that the stories of the spectral +crier which had reached the distant abbey long before the ferryman's +visit were a pack of falsehoods, when about midnight, he suddenly +jumped from the chair upon which he was dozing by the wood fire, +hastily made the sign of the cross, and hurriedly commended himself to +the protection of his patron saint, for sharp and clear came the dread +cry, followed rapidly by a number of shrieks and groans and a +smothered appeal for a boat. + +In an instant one of the men, with courage doubtless inspired by the +presence of the holy man, shouldered the oars and opened the door, and +the monk at once stepped into the open air and hurried to the lake, +the men following at a respectful distance. The white-robed father was +the first to get into the boat, and the ferrymen hoped that he +intended to go alone, but he called upon them to propel the boat to +the middle of the lake, and much as they disliked the task, as it was +on their behalf that the monk was about to combat the evil spirit, +they could not well refuse to accompany him. + +When they were about half-way across the lake the wind suddenly +lulled, and once more they heard the awful scream, and this time it +sounded as though the crier was quite close to them. The occupants of +the boat were terribly frightened, and one of them, after suddenly +shrieking 'he's here,' fainted, and lay still at the bottom of the +boat, while the monk and the other man stared straight before them, as +though petrified. + +There was a fourth person present, a grim and ghastly figure, with the +trappings of this life still dangling about its withered and shrunken +limbs, and a gaping wound in its pallid throat. For a few minutes +there was a dead silence, but at last it was broken by the monk, who +rapidly muttered a prayer for protection against evil spirits, and +then took a bottle from a pocket of his robe, and sprinkled a few +drops of holy water upon himself and the ferryman, who remained in the +same statuesque attitude, and upon the unconscious occupant of the +bottom of the boat. After this ceremony, he opened a little book, and, +in a sonorous voice, intoned the form for the exorcism of a wandering +soul, concluding with _Vade ad Gehennam!_ when to the infinite relief +of the ferryman, and probably of the monk also, the ghastly figure +forthwith vanished. + +The Cistercian asked to be immediately taken to the shore, and when he +neared the house, the little book was again brought into requisition, +and the spirit's visits, should it ever again put in an appearance, +limited to an old and disused quarry, a distance from the +cottage.{31} + +From that time to this, the wild, lonely place has indeed been +desolate and deserted, the boldest people of the district not having +sufficient courage to venture near it at nightfall, and the more timid +ones shunning the locality even at noonday. These folks aver that +even yet, despite the prayers and exorcisms of the white-robed +Cistercian from Furness, whenever a storm descends upon the lake, the +Crier escapes from his temporary prison house, and revisits the scene +of his first and second appearance to men, and that on such nights, +loud above the echoed rumble of the thunder, and the lonely sough of +the wind, the benighted wayfarer still hears the wild shrieks and the +muffled cry for a boat. + + + + +THE DEMON OF THE OAK. + + +Once a fortress and a mansion, but now, unfortunately, little more +than a noble ruin, Hoghton Tower stands on one of the most commanding +sites in Lancashire. From the fine old entrance-gate a beautiful +expanse of highly-cultivated land slopes down and stretches away to +the distant sea, glimmering like a strip of molten silver; and on +either hand there are beautiful woods, in the old times 'so full of +tymber that a man passing through could scarce have seen the sun shine +in the middle of the day.' At the foot of these wooded heights a +little river ripples through a wild ravine, and meanders through the +rich meadows to the proud Ribble. From the building itself, however, +the glory has departed. Over the noble gateway, with its embattled +towers, and in one of the fast-decaying wainscots, the old family +arms, with the motto, _Mal Gre le Tort_, still remain; but these +things, and a few mouldering portraits, are all that are left there to +tell of the stately women who, from the time of Elizabeth down to +comparatively modern days, pensively watched the setting sun gild the +waters of the far-off Irish Sea, and dreamed of lovers away in the +wars--trifling things to be the only unwritten records of the noble +men who buckled on their weapons, and climbed into the turrets to gaze +over the road along which would come the expected besieging parties. +Gone are the gallants and their ladies, the roystering Cavalier and +the patient but none the less brave Puritan, for, as Isaac Ambrose has +recorded, during the troublous times of the Restoration, the place, +with its grand banqueting chamber, its fine old staircases, and quaint +little windows, was 'a colledge for religion.' The old Tower resounds +no more with the gay song of the one or the solemn hymn of the other, + + 'Men may come, and men may go,' + +and an old tradition outlives them all. + +To this once charming mansion there came, long ago, a young man, +named Edgar Astley. His sable garments told that he mourned the loss +of a relative or friend; and he had not been long at the Tower before +it began to be whispered in the servants'-hall that 'the trappings and +the suits of woe' were worn in memory of a girl who had been false to +him, and who had died soon after her marriage to his rival. This story +in itself was sufficient to throw a halo of romance around the young +visitor; but when it was rumoured that domestics, who had been +returning to the Tower late at night, had seen strange-coloured lights +burning in Edgar's room, and that, even at daybreak, the early risers +had seen the lights still unextinguished, and the shadow of the +watcher pass across the curtains, an element of fear mingled with the +feelings with which he was regarded. + +There was much in the visitor calculated to deepen the impressions by +which the superstitious domestics were influenced, for, surrounded by +an atmosphere of gloom, out of which he seemed to start when any of +them addressed him, and appearing studiously to shun all the society +which it was possible for him to avoid, he spent most of his time +alone, seated beneath the spreading branches of the giant oak tree at +the end of the garden, reading black-letter volumes, and plunged in +meditation. Not that he was in any way rude to his hosts; on the +contrary, he was almost chivalrous in his attention to the younger +members of the family and to the ladies of the house, who, in their +turn, regarded him with affectionate pity, and did their utmost to +wean him from his lonely pursuits. Yet, although he would willingly +accompany them through the woods, or to the distant town, the approach +of the gloaming invariably found him in his usual place beneath the +shadow of the gnarled old boughs, either poring over his favourite +books, or, with eyes fixed upon vacancy, lost in a reverie. + +Time would, the kind people thought, bring balm to his wounds, and in +the meanwhile they were glad to have their grief-stricken friend with +them; and fully appreciating their sympathy, Edgar came and went about +the place and grounds just as the whim of the moment took him. This +absence of curiosity on the part of the members of the family was, +however, amply compensated for by the open wonder with which many of +the domestics regarded the young stranger; and before he had been many +months in the house his nightly vigils were the theme of many a +serious conversation in the kitchen, where, in front of a cosy fire, +the gossips gathered to compare notes. + +Unable to repress their vulgar curiosity, or to gratify it in any more +honourable or less dangerous manner, it was determined that one of the +domestics should, at the hour of twelve, creep to the door of the +visitor's chamber, and endeavour to discover what was the nature of +those pursuits which rendered lights necessary during the whole of the +night. The selection was soon made, and after a little demur the +chosen one agreed to perform the unpleasant task. + +At midnight, therefore, the trembling ambassador made his way to the +distant door, and after a little hesitation, natural enough under the +circumstances, he stooped, and gazed through a hole in the dried oak +whence a knot had fallen. Edgar Astley was seated at a little table, +an old black-looking book with huge clasps open before him. With one +hand he shaded his eyes from the light which fell upon his face from +the flames of many colours dancing in a tall brazen cup. Suddenly, +however, he turned from his book, and put a few pinches of a +bright-looking powder to the burning matter in the stand. A searching +and sickly odour immediately filled the room, and the quivering flames +blazed upwards with increased life and vigour as the student turned +once more to the ponderous tome, and, after hastily glancing down its +pages, muttered: 'Strange that I cannot yet work the spell. All things +named here have I sought for and found, even blood of bat, dead man's +hand, venom of viper, root of gallows mandrake, and flesh of +unbaptized and strangled babe. Am I, then, not to succeed until I try +the charm of charms at the risk of life itself? And yet,' said he, +unconscious of the presence of the terrified listener, 'what should I +fear? So far have I gone uninjured, and now will I proceed to the +triumphant or the bitter end. Once I would have given the future +happiness of my soul to have called her by my name, and now what is +this paltry life to me that I should hesitate to risk it in this +quest, and perhaps win one glimpse of her face?' + +There was a moment of silence as the student bent his head over the +book, but though no other person was visible, the listener, to his +horror, quickly heard a sharp hissing voice ask, 'And wouldst thou not +even yet give thy soul in exchange for speech with thy once +betrothed?' The student hastily stood erect, and rapidly cried: 'Let +me not be deceived! Whatever thou art, if thou canst bring her to me +my soul shall be thine now and for ever!' + +There was a dead hush for a minute or two, during which the lout at +the door heard the beating of his own heart, and then the invisible +being again spoke: 'Be it so. Thou hast but one spell left untried. +When that has been done thou shalt have thy reward. Beneath the oak at +midnight she shall be brought to thee. Darest thou first behold me?' + +'I have no fear,' calmly replied the student, but such was not the +state of the petrified listener, for no sooner had the lights +commenced to burn a weird blue than he sank fainting against the door. + +When he came to consciousness he was within the awful room, the +student having dragged him in when he fell. + +'What art thou, wherefore dost thou watch me at this hour, and what +hast thou seen?' sternly demanded Edgar, addressing the terrified +boor, and in few and trembling words the unhappy domestic briefly +answered the queries; but the student did not permit him to leave the +chamber, through the little window of which the dawn was streaming, +before he had sworn that not a word as to anything he had seen or +heard should pass his lips. The solemnity of the vow was deepened by +the mysterious and awful threats with which it was accompanied, and +the servant, therefore, loudly protested to his fellows that he had +not seen or heard anything, but that, overcome by his patient +watching, he had fallen asleep at the door; and many were the +congratulations which followed when it was imagined what the +consequences would have been had he been discovered in his strange +resting-place. + +The day following that of the adventure passed over without anything +remarkable beyond the absence of Edgar from his usual seat under the +shade of the giant oak, but the night set in stormily, dark clouds +scudded before the wind, which swept up from the distant sea, and +moaned around the old tower, whirling the fallen leaves in fantastic +dances about the garden and the green, and shaking in its rage even +the iron boughs of the oak. The household had retired early, and at +eleven o'clock only Edgar and another were awake. In the student's +chamber the little lamp was burning and the book lay open as usual, +and Edgar pored over the pages, but at times he glanced impatiently at +the quaint clock. At length, with a sigh of relief, he said, sternly +and sadly, 'The time draws nigh, and once more we shall meet!' He then +gathered together a few articles from different corners of the room +and stepped out upon the broad landing, passed down the noble old +staircase, and out from the hall. Here he was met by a cold blast of +wind, which shrieked round him, as though rejoicing over its prey; and +as Edgar was battling with it, a man emerged from a recess and joined +him. + +The night was quite dark, not a star or a rift in the sky visible, and +the two men could hardly pick their way along the well-known path. +They reached the oak tree, however, and Edgar placed the materials at +its foot, and at once, with a short wand, drew a large circle around +the domestic and himself. This done, he placed a little cauldron on +the grass, and filled it with a red powder, which, although the wind +was roaring through the branches above, immediately blazed up with a +steady flame. + +The old mastiffs chained under the gateway began to howl dismally; +but, regardless of the omen,{32} Edgar struck the ground three times +with his hazel stick, and cried in a loud voice: 'Spirit of my love, I +conjure thee obey my words, and verily and truly come to me this +night!' + +Hardly had he spoken when a shadowy figure of a beautiful child +appeared, as though floating around the magic ring. The servant sank +upon his knees, but the student regarded it not, and it vanished, and +the terrified listener again heard Edgar's voice as he uttered another +conjuration. No sooner had he begun this than terrible claps of +thunder were heard, lightning flashed round the tree, flocks of birds +flew across the garden and dashed themselves against the window of the +student's chamber, where a light still flickered; and, loud above the +noises of the storm, cocks could be heard shrilly crowing, and owls +uttering their mournful cries. In the midst of this hubbub the +necromancer calmly went on with his incantation, concluding with the +dread words: 'Spirit of my love, I conjure thee to fulfil my will +without deceit or tarrying, and without power over my soul or body +earthly or ghostly! If thou comest not, then let the shadow and the +darkness of death be upon thee for ever and ever!' + +As the last word left his lips the storm abated its violence, and +comparative silence followed. Suddenly the little flame in the +cauldron flared up some yards in height, and sweet voices chanting +melodiously could be heard. 'Art thou prepared to behold the dead?' +asked an invisible being. + +'I am!' undauntedly answered Edgar. + +An appearance as of a thick mist gathered opposite him, and slowly, in +the midst of it, the outlines of a beautiful human face, with mournful +eyes, in which earthly love still lingered, could be discerned. + +Clad in the garments of the grave, the betrothed of Edgar Astley +appeared before him. + +For some time the young man gazed upon her as though entranced, but at +length he slowly extended his arms as though to embrace the beautiful +phantom. The domestic fell upon his face like one stricken by death, +the spectre vanished, and again the pealing thunder broke forth. + +'Thou art for ever mine,' cried a hissing voice; but as the words +broke upon the ears of the two men, the door of the mansion was flung +open, and the old baronet and a number of the servants, who had been +disturbed by the violence of the storm, the howling of the dogs, and +the shrill cries of the birds, rushed forth. + +'Come not near me if ye would save yourselves,' cried the necromancer. + +'We would save thee,' shouted the old man, still advancing. '_In +nomine Patris_,' said he, solemnly, as he neared the magic circle; and +no sooner had the words left his lips than sudden stillness fell upon +the scene; the lightning no longer flashed round the oak; and, as the +flame in the cauldron sank down, the moon broke through a cloud, and +threw her soft light over the old garden. + +Edgar was leaning against the oak tree, his eyes fixed in the +direction where the image of his betrothed had appeared; and when they +led him away, it was as one leads a trusting child, for the light of +reason had left him. The unfortunate domestic, being less sensitive, +retained his faculties; but he ever afterwards bore upon his wrist, as +if deeply burned into the flesh, the marks of a broad thumb and +fingers. This strange appearance he was wont to explain to stray +visitors, by saying that when, terrified almost out of his wits, he +fell to the ground, his hand was outside the magic circle, and +'summat' seized him; which lucid explanation was generally followed up +by an old and privileged servitor, who remarked, 'Tha'll t'hev mooar +marks nor thuse on tha' next toime as _He_ grabs tha', mi lad.' + + + + +THE BLACK COCK. + + +'Ay,' said Old 'Lijah, 'I mind one time when they said th' Owd Lad +hissel appear't i' broad dayleet, an' wir seen bi hunderts o' fowk, +owd an' yung.' + +There was a dead silence for a little while as the listeners gathered +nearer the blazing fire, two or three of them getting a little further +away from the door, against which the wind was dashing the snow, and +then 'Lijah resumed: 'When I wir a lad, me an' mi mestur wer ast to a +berryin. Ther wer a deeol o' drink stirrin, th' coffee pot, wi th' +lemon peel hangin aat, gooin abaat fray one side to th' tother fast +enough, and at last o' wer ready, but just as they wer baan to lift +th' coffin a clap o' thunder shuke th' varra glasses o' th' table. + +'Th' chaps as hed howd stopped a bit an' lukt raand, but th' deead +chap's feythur shouted, "Come on, lads, or wist be late, an' th' +paason waynt berry;" so they piked off, but no sooner hed they +getten' i' th' street nor a lad i' th' craad cried out, "Heigh, chaps, +luk at th' black cock {34} on th' top o' th' coffin," an' sure enough +theer it wor. One o' th' beerers said directly as they'd enough to +carry wi'out ony passingers, an' up wi' his fist an' knockt it off, +but it wer on ageean in a minit, an one bi' one they o' hed a slap at +it, but every time it wer knockt off back it flew to it' place at th' +deead mon's feet, so at last th' owd mon give th' word of command, an' +off they startit wi' th' looad. Th' craad geet bigger afooar they +reached th' owd country church wheer he hed to be berried, an' th' +fowk geet a throwin stooans at th' black bird, an' hittin it wi' +sticks an' shaatin at it, but it stuck theer like a fixter. + +'After a while we reached th' graveyart, an' th' paason come deawn th' +road fray th' church door to meet th' coffin, an' he wer just baan to +start th' service when he see th' bird an' stopped. + +'"What han yo' got theere?" he says, lukin varra vext, for he thowt +some marlock wer gooin on. "What han yo' theere, men?" + +'Th' owd feythur stepped forrut an' towd him what hed happent, an' as +nooan on 'em could freetun it off it peeark naythur wi' sticks or +stooans or sweearin. + +'"It's a strange tale," said th' vicar, "but we moant hev no brids +here! Yo' fowk keep eaut o' th' graveyart nobbut thuse as is invitet +to th' funeral! I'll settle him for yo!" an' so sayin he grabbed howd +o' th' cock, an' walked o'er th' graves wi' it to a place wheer th' +bruk run under th' hedges, an' then he bent deawn o' th' floor an' +dipped th' bird i'th' watter, an' held it theer for abaat a quarter ov +an hour. + +'No sooner had he getten up, heawever, nor th' brid flew up eaut o' +th' watter quite unhort, an' hopped o'er th' grass to th' coffin an' +peearkt ageean as if nowt hed happent. + +'Th' vicar lukt varra consarnt for a while, an' skrat his yed as he +staret at th' fowk. + +'Theer's summat not reet abaat that brid,' he said, 'but that's no +rayson why we shouldn't bury th' deead!' an' he pottert off toart th' +grave, an' th' beerers carriet th' coffin to th' side, an' th' sarvice +wer gone through, wi' th' bird harkenin every word like a Christian. + +'Th' chaps then startit o' lowerin th' coffin into th' grave, an' th' +brid still stuck o' th' peeark, an' it wer nobbut when th' hole wer +filled, as it came above graand ageean, an' theer it set on th' maand. + +'A craad o' fowk waited abaat an' hung on th' graveyart wo' till th' +edge o' dark, an' then they piket off whoam, for they begun to think +as mebbi it were th' Owd Lad hissel, but a twothree on us stopped till +it wer neet afooar we went after 'em, th' cock sittin theear just th' +same as it hed done i' th' dayleet. + +'It were usual i' thuse days to watch th' graves for a few neets, for +ther wer a deeal o' resurrectionin' gooin on i'o' directions, th' +body-snatchers hevin mooar orders than they could attend to; but +though th' deead chap's feythur offert brass an' plenty o' drink an' +meyt to anybody as ud keep a look aat, not one dar do it, an' th' +deead mon wer laft to tek care o' hissel, or for th' brid to mind him. + +'Soon after dayleet th' next mornin I went wi' a twothree moor young +chaps to see heaw th' place lukt, an' th' grave hedn't bin brokken +into, but th' brid had flown, and fray that day to this I could never +find aat ayther wheer it coom fray or went to, but I heeart as th' +vicar said it met be th' Owd Lad claimin' his own.' + + + + +THE INVISIBLE BURDEN. + + +At the junction of the four cross roads, gleaming white in the hot +sunshine and hawthorn-bounded, and marked by the parallel ruts made by +the broad wheels of the country carts, the old public house of the +_Wyresdale Arms_ was scarcely ever without a number of timber wagons +or hay carts about its open door, the horses quietly munching from the +nose-bags and patiently waiting until their owners or drivers should +emerge from the sanded kitchen. + +Nathan Peel's hostelry was the half-way house for all the farmers and +cart-drivers in the district, and generally quiet enough at night +time, but from its capacious kitchen roars of laughter rang out many a +summer afternoon, as the carters and yeomen told their droll stories. + +On one of these occasions, when the sun was blazing outside, and +shimmering upon the sands and the distant sea, and through the open +window the perfume of the may-blossom stole gently, a quaint looking +old fellow, whose face had been bronzed by three-score summers and +winters, happened to mention an occurrence as having taken place about +the time of 'th' quare weddin',' and a chorus of voices at once called +upon him for the story. + +'It's quite forty year sin,' he said thoughtfully, 'an' I wir quite a +young chap then, an' ready for any marlock. I could dance too wi' hear +an' thear one, an' no weddin' wir reet wi'aat axin' me. This one I'm +baan to tell abaat heawivir wir Mester Singleton's owdest son o' th' +Dyke Farm, an' as he wir weddin' th' prattiest lass i' o' th' country +side, varra nigh everybody wir theear, 'specially as Mester Singleton +hed given it aat ther'd be a welcome for onnybody. A string o' nearly +twenty conveyances, milk carts, an' shandrys, an' gigs, went to th' +church wi' fowk o' seein' 'em wed; but comin' back, young Adam started +off wi' his young wife as if he wir mad, an' isted o' gooin' th' owd +road across th' Stone Brig, an' through th' Holme meadow he pelted +off through th' Ingleton Road an' th' Owd Horse Lane. Th' mare seemed +to know what th' young chap wir up to, an' to enter into th' spirit +o't' thing an' off hoo went like th' woint, th' string o' shandrys an' +milk carts an' gigs peltin' on at after abaat a mile behint, an' th' +fowk laughin' an' shaatin' at th' fun. Th' gate into th' Owd Horse +Lane wir wide open, so th' fowk wir disappointed as expected to gain a +minnit or two wi' Adam hevin' to get daan theer to oppen it, an' into +th' lane th' mare dashed, an' on hoo went as if th' shandry an' Adam +an' his wife wir nowt behint her. Abaat midway i'th' lane heawever th' +road dipped a bit, an' th' watter fra a spring i'th' bank ran o'er it, +an' just afoor th' shandry reyched it th 'mare stopped o' of a sudden, +an' Adam flew aat o'er th' horse's back an' pitched into th' hedge +like leetnin'. Th' wife shaated as if he wir kilt, but he'd no bones +brokken, an' when we geet up to him he crept aat o'th' prickles wi' a +shame-faced look as if he'd bin catcht thievin'. Ther wir some rare +jokin' as he climbed up to th' side of his wife an' lasht the mare for +another start, but it wir no use, th' mare couldn't stir th' +conveyance. Adam lasht away at her, but stir it hoo couldn't, an' at +last eight or ten on us set to an' turned th' wheels for twenty or +thirty yards an' it wir th' same as if it wir a timber-wagon, it wir +that heavy. It wir th' same wi' every one o'th' conveyances, not one +could be got o'er th' watter only wi' eight or ten on us toilin' an' +slavin' at th' wheels, no matter heaw th' horse strained an' pulled. +Nobody could make aat what it wir, an' th' Vicar came an' look't abaat +but could find nowt. He said, heawever, th' Owd Lad had some hand in +it, an' he warned th' fowk not to use th' road when they could help +it. Many an' many a time heawivir, I see carts stuck theear bi' th' +day together, for some chaps wouldn't be persuaded not to go through +th' lane, for it wir a short cut, an' other chaps went i' nowt but +darin' when they'd hed a sup o' drink. It went on for some years like +that, an' fowk came fray far an' near to see it. I'd gettin' wed mysen +and hed a farm on the Holme, but I used to go raand to it bi'th' owd +road across the Brig, but one day, a breet hot day, I'd mi little lad +i'th cart an' he bothert mi to go through th' lane, he wantit to see +th' Owd Lad he said, an' as he started o' cryin' abaat it, I went. +Well, the cart stuck i'th' owd place bi th' runnin' watter, an' th' +little lad wir deleeted. I geet daan an' took howd o'th' wheel, for I +knew it wir no use usin' the whip, an' th' horse wir sweatin' as if it +wir rare an' 'freetont, when little Will shaated aat o' ov a sudden +'Feythar, I con see him!' 'See what?' I sang aat, an' broad dayleet as +it wir, mi knees wir quakin'. 'A little chap i'th' cart,' he said, 'a +fat little chap wi' a red neet cap on.' 'Wheer is he?' I shaated, for +I couldn't see owt. 'Theer on th' cart tail,' he said, an' then he +shaated 'Why, he's gone,' an' no sooner hed he spokken than th' horse +started off wi' th' cart as if it hed nowt behint it. + +Thir never wir a cart stuck theer at after that, an' th' Vicar said it +wir because little Will hed persayved th' Feeorin, an' as Will hed th' +gift o' seein' feeorin an' sich like because he wir born at midneet. + + + + +APPENDIX. + +_COMPARATIVE NOTES._ + + +1. + +Belief in the appearance of the Skriker, Trash, or Padfoot, as the +apparition is named in Lancashire, or Padfooit, as it is designated in +Yorkshire, is still very prevalent in certain parts of the two +counties. This boggart is invariably looked upon as the forerunner of +death, and it is supposed that only the relatives of persons about to +die, or the unfortunate doomed persons themselves, ever see the +apparition. + +Of quite a distinct class to that of the 'Skrikin' Woman,' an +appearance which, at a but recent period, obtained for a lane at +Warrington the reputation of being haunted, the Padfoot seems to be +peculiar to Lancashire and Yorkshire, unless, indeed, the Welsh +Gwyllgi or Dog of Darkness, and the Shock of the Norfolk seaboard, are +of the same family. In Norfolk, the spectre, as it does in Lancashire, +portends death, but I have been unable to find any Welsh story of the +apparition with a more tragic ending than fright and illness. + +As the Trash generally takes the form of a large shaggy dog or small +bear, can the superstition be an offshoot from that old Aryan belief +which gave so important an office to the dog as a messenger from the +world of the dead, and an attendant upon the dying, or has the grim +idea come down to us from the ancient times, when, as the Rev. S. +Baring Gould says, 'It was the custom to bury a dog or a boar alive +under the corner-stone of a church, that its ghost might haunt the +neighbourhood, and drive off any who would profane it--_i.e._ witches +or warlocks'? + + +2. + +In most of these stories of compacts with the Evil One it is singular +how little is received in exchange for the soul. In a few instances +poverty bargains for untold wealth, or ugliness and age for youth and +loveliness, but generally it is for the bare means of prolonging or +supporting life that the daring and despairing one enters into the +everlasting agreement. In fact, as a French authoress has said, it is +'for a mouthful of bread to nourish their debilitated stomachs, and +the bundle of sticks which warms again their benumbed limbs.' In +Sussex it would appear, from what a country-lad told the Rev. S. +Baring Gould, that half-a-crown is the price Satan pays for a soul,--a +letter addressed to the Evil One, and containing an offer of the soul, +bringing a response in that practical form, if placed under the pillow +at night. + +In Normandy it is considered sufficient to make the compact binding +for the acceptance to be simply a verbal one; but in Lancashire the +formal parchment deed, with its signatures in blood, is indispensable. + + +3. + +Old Isaac, it would seem, was not disappointed when he came to make +use of his handful of money, and probably, therefore, he had spent it +before he told the story, for in all instances where the fairies are +recorded as rewarding mortals with money, any revelation as to its +source is invariably followed by the gift being turned to bits of +paper or leaves. + + +4. + +Although there appears to have been some little confusion in the mind +of the old farmer as to the rank in the world of faerie held by his +little benefactor, he seems to have designated him correctly, for +although the general idea of Puck is that of a mere mischief-loving +and mischief-working sprite, such as is painted by Drayton, Shakspere +credits Puck not only with wanton playfulness, but also with industry, +for in the second act of the 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' the fairy, +addressing the sprite, says: + + 'Those that hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck, + _You do their work_.' + +Shakspere and Ben Jonson, however, agree in making Oberon King of the +Fairies--a king, too, with a stately presence, and far above showing +an interest in a farmer's fields. Under any circumstances one is not +prepared to find Puck of royal estate, and doubtless the labouring +spirit of our story was simply one of those goblins who, according to +the author of the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, would 'grind corn for a +mess of milk, cut wood, or do any manner of nursery work'--a Robin +Goodfellow merely, the 'lubber fiend' of Milton, the Bwbach or +household fairy of Wales. Lancashire had many such. Stories of beings +rejoicing in the name of Hobthrust or Throbthrush, but in all other +respects closely resembling the fairy king of the foregoing tradition, +still are told by the farm-house fires in Furness, in South-East +Lancashire, and in the Fylde country. Rewarded night after night with +a supply of oatmeal porridge--strange relic, probably, of the old +libations to the gods--they toiled at the churn till daybreak. A +Furness legend chronicles how a farmer, whose house was the favourite +resting-place of one of these visitors, one evening, when threatening +clouds were gathering, wished that he had the harvest carted. Next +morning the work was found done, but a horse was found dead in the +stable, Hob having been unsparing. As the day was a beautiful one, the +farmer did not appreciate the housing as he ought to have done, and +testily wished that Hob was in the mill-dam. A few hours afterwards, +not Hob, but the grain was found there. + +'Crawshaws in Berwickshire,' says the author of the _Popular Rhymes of +Berwickshire_, 'was once the abode of an industrious Brownie, who both +saved the corn and thrashed it for several seasons. At length, after +one harvest, some person thoughtlessly remarked that the corn was not +well mowed or piled up in the barn. The sprite took offence at this, +and the next night threw the whole of the corn over the Raven Crag, a +precipice about two miles off, muttering-- + + "It's no weel mowed! It's no weel mowed! + Then it's ne'er be mowed by me again. + I'll scatter it o'er the Raven stone, + And they'll hae some wark ere it's mowed again."' + +The North Lancashire Hobthrusts, however, do not seem to have been +made to disappear by man's ingratitude, but, like the Irish Cluricaun +and the Scotch Brownie, were to be driven away by kindness. In one +instance, a tailor, for whom a Hobthrust had done some work, +gratefully made him a coat and hood for winter wear, and in the night +the workman was heard bidding farewell to his old quarters-- + + 'Throb-thrush has got a new coat and new hood, + And he'll never do no more good.' + +Readers of the Brothers Grimm and lovers of George Cruikshank will not +need to be reminded how the grateful shoemaker deprived himself of the +assistance of the elves. In the German story, however, as in Breton +ones, although the elves depart, prosperity continues to bless the +labours of the people whose practical gratitude has driven the little +beings away. + +The Hob which, according to Harrison Ainsworth, haunted the Gorge of +Cliviger, does not appear to have been at all domesticated, the +novelist, in the only allusion he makes to it, characterising it as 'a +frightful hirsute demon, yclept Hobthrust.' In the Fylde country, +however, the lubber fiends seem to have been as industrious as was +that of our legend. Tradition tells of one at Rayscar which not only +housed the grain but also got the horses ready for the journey to the +distant market. At Hackensall Hall one took the Celtic form of a great +horse, and required only a pie in reward for its toil. + +The Hobs of the neighbouring county of Yorkshire are credited with +greater powers than those required for the rapid performance of +household duties. One of these beings is still said to haunt a cave in +the vicinity of the old-world hamlet of Runswick. To this place +anxious and superstitious mothers brought their ailing little ones, +and as they stood at the mouth of the cavity, cried, 'Hob, my bairn's +gettent kinkcough (whooping-cough?), takkt off, takkt off!' In the +same district there is a haunted tumulus called 'Obtrash Roque,' +rendered by Walcott 'the Heap of Hob-o'-the-Hurst.' Of the bogle +denizen of this mound a story similar to that told by Mr. Crofton +Croker, in Roby's _Traditions (Clegg Hall Boggart)_, is current in the +district. A farmer who was bothered by the spirit, determined to +remove to a quieter locality, and as the carts were leaving with the +goods and implements a neighbour cried out, 'It's flittin yo' are,' +when the Hob at once replied, from a churn, 'Ay, we're flitting;' upon +which the farmer thought he might as well remain where he was. Similar +flitting stories, however, are told of the Scandinavian _Nis_, the +Irish _Cluricaun_, the Welsh _Bwbach_, and the Polish _Ickrzycki_. + + +5. + +Why the expression of a wish like this should have offended Puck is +not very evident. There is in Sweden a lubber fiend named the _Tomte_, +and of this being the peasantry believe that only by unrewarded toil +can it work out its salvation. Can the Lancashire King of the Fairies +have been one of the same order, and have considered the utterance of +a good wish as a reward, or even as a sarcastic allusion to his 'lost +condition'? + +The belief is by no means uncommon that the fairies are the angels who +were neutral during the Satanic rebellion. In Brittany, however +(_Chants Populaires de la Bretagne_, par Th. Hersart de la +Villemarque), they are the Princesses who, in the days of the +Apostles, would not embrace Christianity. + +The traditions of most countries agree, however, in attributing to +the fairies extreme sensitiveness on the subject of their condition. +Mr. Campbell has recorded that when the elves, who had grown weary of +crossing the Dornoch Frith in cockle-shells, were engaged in building +a bridge of gold across its mouth, a passer-by lifted his hands and +blessed the tiny workmen, who immediately vanished, the bridge sinking +with them beneath the waves, and its place being at once taken by +quicksands. Almost every district haunted by 'greenies' or 'hill folk' +has its story of a piteous appeal on the subject of their future state +made by visible or invisible fairies. In a Highland story it is an old +man reading the Bible who is accosted, the inquirer screaming and +plunging into the sea upon being answered that the sacred pages did +not contain any allusion to the salvation of any but the sons of Adam. +My friend, Mr. Kennedy, in his valuable _Legendary Fictions of the +Irish Celts_, gives a charming traditionary story of a priest who was +benighted and lost upon a moor, and who was similarly accosted, and +implored to declare that at the last day the lot of the fairies would +not be with Satan. After the appeal had been somewhat ambiguously +answered, 'a weak light was shed around where he stood, and he +distinguished the path and an opening in the fence.' + +In Cornwall they are supposed to be the spirits of the people who +inhabited the country long before the birth of Christ, and who, +although not good enough to partake of the joys of Heaven, yet are too +good for Hell. In Wales there is a somewhat similar belief, but it is +said that their probation will end at the day of judgment, when they +will be admitted to Paradise. It is commonly believed by the Cornish +peasants that they are gradually growing smaller, and that at length +they will change into ants. Few people in Cornwall, therefore, are +sufficiently venturesome to destroy a colony of those insects. + + +6. + +Many are the old sacred piles in Lancashire with the building of which +it is believed that goblins had something to do. The parish church of +Rochdale, the old church of Samlesbury, that of St. Oswald's at +Winwick, near Warrington, and the parish church of Burnley, may be +instanced as a few of those which are popularly supposed to have been +interfered with by superhuman labourers. At Rochdale the unexpected +workpeople took the form of 'strange-looking men;' in other cases, as +in those of Winwick and Burnley, pigs removed the materials, it being +traditional that their cry of 'we-week' gave its name to the former +place; while at Newchurch, in Rossendale, although the interloping +builders were invisible, a little old woman with a bottle was not only +seen, but was fraternised with by the thirsty watchers who had been +appointed to guard the foundations. Similar stories of changed site +are told of numerous churches throughout Britain. The legend of +Gadshill church, near Ventnor, like that of Hinderwell, Yorkshire, +attributes the removal of the foundations to supernatural means, the +stones having hopped after each other from their original place at the +foot of the hill to that in which they were afterwards found, the +shins of the watchers having been 'barked' in the most unceremonious +manner by certain little blocks of somewhat erratic tendencies. It is, +however, by no means improbable that at Gadshill, as at Rochdale, the +fact of the building having been erected in a position so difficult of +access, and so trying to aged and infirm parishioners, may have caused +a testy and irreverent, and perhaps asthmatic, worshipper to invent +the Satanic theory. In one case, that of Bredon, in Leicestershire, +the objectors appear to have taken the form of doves. Loth as one may +be to think harm of such sweet messengers, Mr. Kennedy, after telling +the story of the building of the cathedral of Ardfert, in Kerry, by +St. Brendain, and the trouble caused by a large crow, which took the +measuring line in its bill and flew across the valley with it, adds, +'The bird was a fairy in disguise. If the messenger had been _from +another quarter_, he would have made his appearance under snowy +plumes.'[B] + +[B] The foundations of the priory church of Christchurch, Hampshire, +were, tradition says, removed by unseen hands, down from the lonely +St. Catherine's Hill to the present site in the valley. The beams and +rafters, too short on the hill, were too long in the vale. In the +valley, too, an extra workman, Christ, always came on the pay-night. + + +7. + +This work of art was one of the gargoyles of the old building, and was +purchased by Mr. Ffarington, the father of the present lady of the +manor, when the church was rebuilt. It bore the name of 'the Cat +Stone.' + +Another version of this tradition, of but limited circulation, and +little known even in the immediate locality, credits an angel with the +removal of the foundations and with the utterance of the following +anything but angelic strain:-- + + Here I have placed thee, + And here shalt thou stand; + And thou shalt be called + The church of Leyland! + + +8. + +This legend appears to have had a Teutonic origin. Mr. Kelly, in his +chapter on the 'Wild Hunt,' quotes a somewhat similar story from a +German source: 'The wild huntsman's hounds can talk like men. A +peasant caught one of them, a little one, and hid it in his pack. Up +came the wild huntsman and missed it. "Where are you, Waldmann?" he +cried. "In Heineguggeli's sack," was the answer.' + + +9. + +'The passing bell,' says Harland, 'according to Grose, was anciently +rung for two purposes, one to bespeak the prayers of all good +Christians for a soul just departing, the other to drive away the evil +spirits who stood at the bed's foot ready to seize their prey, or at +least to molest and terrify the soul on its passage.' + +Mr. Sikes says that in Wales, before the Reformation, 'there was kept +in all Welsh churches, a handbell which was taken by the Sexton to the +house where a funeral was to be held, and rung at the head of the +procession,' and that 'the custom survived long after the Reformation +in many places, as at Caerleon, the little Monmouthshire village, +which was a bustling Roman city when London was a hamlet. The bell, +called the _bangu_, was still preserved in the parish of Llanfair +Duffryn Clwyd half a dozen years ago.' + +The bell might now with greater propriety be called the _passed_ bell, +as it is tolled only after a death, the ringing concluding with a +number of distinct knells to announce the years and sex of the +deceased, which the authority alluded to above considers 'a vestige of +an ancient Roman Catholic injunction.' Until a comparatively recent +period it was customary at Walton-le-Dale, Lancashire, to inter +Protestants in the afternoon, a bell being tolled at intervals prior +to the funeral; Catholics, however, were buried in the evening, a full +peal being rung upon the bells immediately before the procession +started. + +Mr. Thornber, writing in 1844, says that at the beginning of this +century, at Poulton, the more respectable portion of the inhabitants +were buried by candle-light, and that it was considered a sacred duty +to expose a lighted candle in the windows of every house as the corpse +was carried through the streets. He speaks of the custom as a mark of +respect to the dead, but possibly there was something more than this +in it. In Ireland even to-day it is usual to leave lighted candles in +the room where a corpse is laid out. + +This belief in the power of bells over not only demons and evil +spirits of every kind, but also over the elves and 'good people,' +appears to have been held in all countries ever inhabited by fairies +and hill folk. The Danish trolls are said to have been driven out of +the country by the hanging of bells in the churches, the noise +reminding them forcibly of the time when Thor used to fling his hammer +after them. It is recorded in a bit of local doggrel from the pen of a +dead and forgotten rhymester, that the fairies remained at +Saddleworth, on the confines of Lancashire and Yorkshire, until + + 'The steeple rose, + And bells began to play;' + +when the Queen wandered away to the wild district + + 'Where Todmore's kingdom lay;' + +and the less important plebeians of fairy land 'dispersed, went.' Mr. +Henderson says that 'at Horbury, near Wakefield, and at Dewsbury, on +Christmas Eve, is rung the "devil's knell," a hundred strokes, then a +pause, then three strokes, three strokes, and three strokes again.' + +In Iceland it is believed that at daybreak or upon the ringing of a +bell the trolls flee. + + +10. + +Fairy funerals, according to tradition, have been seen in other +counties beside Lancashire, for an old Welsh writer alludes to such +sights as having been witnessed in his day. Mr. Wirt Sikes, in his +_British Goblins_, a recent and most valuable contribution to the folk +lore and mythology of South Wales, says that the bell of Blaenporth, +Cardiganshire, was noted for tolling thrice at midnight, unrung by +human hands, to foretell death, and that when the 'Tolaeth before the +burying,' the sound of an unseen funeral-procession passing by, is +heard, the voices sing the 'Old Hundredth,' and the tramping of feet +and the sobbing and groaning of mourners can be heard. In Normandy, +says P. Le Fillastre, _Annuaire de la Manche_, 1832, the large white +coffins, _les bieres_, which the belated voyager sees along the roads, +or placed on the churchyard fences, are unaccompanied by either +bearers or mourners, and the cemetery bell is silent. + +Readers of Professor Hunt's volumes of Cornish Drolls and Romances +will remember the beautiful legend of the fisherman who, gazing by +night through the window of a lonely church, saw a procession passing +along the aisle, and witnessed the interment, near the sacramental +table, of the fairy queen. The only point of resemblance, however, +between the Southern and Northern traditions is to be found in the +solemn tolling of the church-bell. The Cornish story is unique in one +respect, inasmuch as, although we have plenty of legends in which the +fairies evince a desire to peer into their future state, and even some +in which their deaths are alluded to, it is extremely rare to find one +in which the burial of a fairy is narrated; and this fact would seem +to point to a defect in the 'Finn theory,' so plausibly advocated by +Mr. Campbell; for, surely, if once upon a time 'the fairies were a +real people, like the Lapps,' tradition would not be so silent, as it +almost universally is, with reference to the outward and visible signs +of their mortality.[C] + +[C] Only since these notes were in type have I seen the excellent +paper from the pen of Mr. Grant Allen (_Cornhill Magazine_, March +1881), on the Genesis of the Myth of the Fairies. See also the same +charming writer's _Vignettes from Nature_, p. 206, and papers by B. +Melle and F. A. Allen, in _Science Gossip_ for 1866, 'The Track of the +Pigmies.' + + +11. + +My friend, Mr. W. E. A. Axon, in his interesting _Black Knight of +Ashton_, tells a story of a 'Race with the Devil,' the hero of which +was one of a party of _pace-eggers_, who, waking up after a doze by a +farm-house fire, beside which the party had been permitted to sleep on +a wild night, and, feeling cold, had put on his Beelzebub dress, to +the terror of another member of the company, who awoke afterwards, and +seeing, as he supposed, the Devil seated airing himself by the fire, +fled into the darkness and the storm, his equally terrified companions +following him, and the no-less-frightened Beelzebub bringing up the +rear. + +The Mid and South Lancashire stories, as will at once be seen, do not +resemble each other in any way, however; and I refer to Mr. Axon's +legend for the sake of directing my readers' attention to a valuable +note appended to it, in which Mr. Axon points out that there is a +similar old Hindoo story of such a chase, which was translated from +the Sanscrit into Chinese not later than the year 800. + +It seems hardly probable that the Lancashire pace-egging story, so +exquisitely narrated by my friend, could have had an Aryan origin, yet +the resemblance is a striking and remarkable one. + + +12. + +Many are the traditions of submerged bells told along the Lancashire +coast. 'Here,' says the Rev. W. Thornber in the scarce _History of +Blackpool_ (1844), 'or out at sea opposite this spot, once stood the +cemetery of Kilgrimol, mentioned in the above-quoted chapter of the +Priory of Lytham. Of this fact, tradition is not silent, and the +rustic who dwells in the neighbourhood relates tales of fearful +sights, and how many a benighted wanderer has been terrified with the +sounds of bells pealing dismal chimes.' In Wales, too, the +superstition is a common one. It is by no means improbable that there +may be more in these faint whispers than would at first appear, and +that underneath these dim traditions of churches swallowed by the sea +there may rest a faint stratum of the old Scandinavian superstition +that sweet singing and beautiful music could be heard by any who stood +to listen on an Elf hill; for, although the idea of submerged cities +may be found floating in the lore of all Celtic peoples, and in some +places the submersion is a matter even of history,[D] in others, as at +Kilgrimol, it is doubtful whether the sounds come from the sea or the +earth. It is, therefore, more than likely that the traditions of +submersion have received the addition of pealing bells from natural +causes. There is an Indian superstition which in another way +illustrates this theory. Manitobah Lake, in the Red River region, +derives its name from a small island, upon which is heard, whenever +the gales blow from the north, a sound resembling the pealing of +distant church-bells, and which is caused by the waves beating on the +shore at the foot of the cliffs and the rubbing of the fallen +fragments against each other. This island the Ojibeways suppose to be +the home of Manitobah, 'the speaking god,' and upon it they dare not +land. + +[D] _Vide_ Lyell's _Principles of Geology_, Chapter on _Encroachments +of the Sea_, for many instances of submerged villages and churches +along the English coast. + +There is in Normandy a singular tradition of a submerged bell, dating +back to the time of the English occupation, along with others of +buried and hidden treasure. It is said that, as the English soldiers +were abandoning the country, they destroyed the abbey of Corneville, +and were taking away with them the principal bell, when the barge +capsized. As they were trying to recover the prize, the French came +upon them, and they were obliged to hurry away, leaving the bell +behind. Since that time, whenever the bells of the churches in the +district ring out their joyous peals upon solemn festival days, the +submerged bell also can be heard joining in the carillon. (_Essai sur +l'arrondissement de Pont-Audemer_.) + +A story somewhat similar to this is told of a bell from St. David's, +Pembrokeshire, carried off by Cromwellian troops whose vessel +afterwards was wrecked in Ramsay Sound, from the moving waters of +which the pealing can be heard when a storm is rising. + + +13. + +For the sake of those who are not 'native and to the manner born,' +Roger's story is not given in his vernacular, a mixture of the +Mid-Lancashire and the Furness dialects, trying even to those who are +acquainted with the expressive Doric of other parts of the County +Palatine. + + +14. + +Mr. Henderson, in his _Notes on the Folk Lore of the Northern Counties +of England and the Borders_, states that Mr. Wilkie maintains that the +_Digitalis purpurea_ was in high favour with the witches, who used to +decorate their fingers with its largest bells; hence called Witches' +Thimbles. Mr. Hartley Coleridge has more pleasing associations with +this gay wild-flower. He writes of 'the fays + + That sweetly nestle in the foxglove bells;' + +and adds in a note, 'popular fancy has generally conceived a +connection between the foxglove and the good people.' In Ireland, +where it is called _lusmore_, or the great herb, and also Fairy Cup, +the bending of its stalks is believed to denote the unseen presence of +supernatural beings. The Shefro, or gregarious fairy, is represented +as wearing the corona of the foxglove on his head, and no unbecoming +head-dress either. In Wales, that the elves wear gloves of the bells +of _Digitalis_ is a common fancy. + + +15. + +This conventional circle seems to be universally common to such +stories of summoning the Evil One. Even in China, as Mr. Dennys has +stated, the ring is drawn round the summoner, and the incantation +uttered, as in our own stories. + + +16. + +In Lancashire, Old Nick (afterwards St. Nicholas, the patron saint of +sailors) is considered the patron saint of the wind, just as in the +Scandinavian mythology it is Odin, also termed Nick and Hold Neckar, +who raises storms. + +In Normandy, near Aigle, there is a superstition respecting a Mother +_Nique_, doubtless, says Vaugeois, of Scandinavian origin. + + +17. + +Instances of generous treatment of opponents on the part of the Evil +One are by no means rare. Readers of Mr. Roby will remember that Satan +gave a loophole of escape to Michael Waddington, the hero of 'Th' Dule +upo' Dun' legend, by granting him an extra wish, although the poor +wretch's time was up. + + +18. + +The Cockerham schoolmaster appears to have lacked originality, for in +the Scottish legend of 'Michael Scott' it is recorded that when the +fairies crowded round his dwelling crying for work, he bade them twine +ropes of sand to reach the moon, and tradition has it that traces of +their unsuccessful attempts may yet be found. A more recent instance +is told in a sketch of Dr. Linkbarrow, a Westmoreland wizard, who +lived about a hundred years ago, quoted from the _Kendal Mercury_ by +Mr. Sullivan, in his _Cumberland and Westmoreland, Ancient and +Modern_. The Doctor, who was disturbed at church by a terrible storm, +hurried home, and on the way met the devil, who asked for work. He +immediately set him to make 'thumb symes' of river sand. Imitating the +Israelites, perhaps not unconsciously--for Satan's knowledge of +Scripture is proverbial--the Evil One asked for straw, which was +refused him. On his arrival at home, the Doctor found his servant +prying into his black-letter book, which imprudence had caused the +storm and Satan's pilgrimage. + +Several similar stories, illustrating the danger of tampering with +books of magic, are told in Normandy. In one of them it is recorded +that the servant of a village cure, moved by curiosity, read a page or +two of one of his master's volumes, when suddenly Satan appeared. The +domestic fled, but the Evil One captured him, and was making away with +him when the cure arrived and simply read a few other words from the +book, upon which Satan dropped his prey. In another one Satan keeps +his victim three years, but at length is obliged to let him go. + +In the last story of this kind, however, which has come under my +notice--a French one by the way--the incautious student has scarcely +read a line of the open book when Satan appears and strangles him. The +sorcerer, quietly returning home, sees devils perched on the house, +and, surprised, beckons them to approach. One does so, and tells him +the story, and he thereupon rushes to his study and finds the student +stretched dead upon the floor. Afraid of being accused of murder, he +orders the devil who had assassinated the scholar to pass into the +body of his victim. The demon obeys, and goes to promenade in the +street at the point most frequented by the students, but suddenly, +upon another order, he quits the body, and the corpse falls in the +midst of the terrified promenaders. + +In Cornwall, instead of the devil, it is the ghost of Tregeagle, the +wizard, that is doomed to make trusses of sand in Genvor Cove, and to +bear them to the top of Escol's Cliff. Having once succeeded in +carrying a truss, after having first brought water from a neighbouring +stream and frozen the sand, he is now condemned to make the trusses +without water. + + +19. + +Another version of this story, which is still told in the lonely +farm-houses of the district, gives the scholars the credit of having +raised the devil during the absence of their master. Similar tasks +were given to the infernal visitor by a sharp-witted lad, who feared +lest his should be the soul the Evil One threatened to take back with +him; and not many years ago a flag, said to have been broken by the +outwitted Satan in his passage across the floor, used to be +triumphantly exhibited to any daring and irreverent sceptic who +expressed doubts as to the truthfulness of the narrative. + +At Burnley Grammar School a black mark on a stone was at one time +exhibited in proof of a state visit of the same kind, and a similar +ignominious flight. + +The Grammar School of Middleton, near Manchester, also can boast of +the patronage of the Evil One; and Samuel Bamford has recorded that in +his youth a hole in the school flags was shown as an impression of the +Satanic hoof. The Middleton legend credits the lads with the +unenviable honour of having called up the fiend and afterwards +innocently wishing him to withdraw, which he sternly declined to do +without having received his usual fee of a soul. As at Cockerham, he +was requested to make a rope of sand; and he was rapidly completing +the task, when, to the joy of the urchins, the schoolmaster came upon +the scene, and quickly exorcised the visitor, who, in his disgusted +and disordered flight, broke down nearly half of the building. + + +20. + +Stories of headless beings may be found in the lore of most countries +of Europe, and are of the same class as those of the men, women and +horses 'beawt yeds,' common to the hilly districts of both North and +South Lancashire. As a general rule, in South Lancashire, the head is +not seen at all, whereas in the northern part of the county the +spectre almost invariably carries it under the left arm, as is done by +the wandering beings in similar Danish stories. A Scotch legend, +alluded to by Sir Walter Scott, credits the ghost of a Duchess of +Queensberry with an innovation, as the spectre is said to wheel its +head in a barrow through the galleries of Drumlanrick Castle. In +Glamorganshire there is a tradition of a headless woman, who appears +every sixty years, and many are the terrible stories told of her +dreadful visitations. + +Although tales of headless horses are not rare in Lancashire, there +does not appear to be any tradition of hearses, or other conveyances +drawn by them, similar to the Northumberland legend of the midnight +cavalcade along the subterraneous passage between Tarset and Dalby +Castles, or to the stories told by the Irish peasants. + +It is more than probable that many of the legends and stories of +headless beings of both sexes had their origin in the old Saxon belief +that if a person who was guilty of a crime for which he deserved to +lose his head, died without having paid the penalty, he was condemned +after death to travel over the earth with his head under his arm. + + +21. + +Not very long ago it was commonly believed at Warrington, on the +authority of many persons who declared they had seen the apparition, +that a spectral white rabbit haunted Bank Quay, its appearance +invariably foretelling the early death of a relative of the person +whose misfortune it was to behold the animal. + +'In Cornwall,' says Mr. Hunt, 'it is a very popular fancy that when a +maiden who has loved not wisely but too well, dies forsaken and +broken-hearted, she comes back in the shape of a white hare to haunt +her deceiver. The phantom follows the false one everywhere, mostly +invisible to all else. It sometimes saves him from danger, but +invariably the white hare causes the death of the betrayer in the +end.' + + +22. + +Can this tradition be an offshoot of the legend of Ahasuerus, the +Wandering Jew, the man who, standing at his door, refused the cup of +water for which the Saviour, bowed down beneath the burden of the +cross, begged, but who bade the Lord walk quicker, and was answered, +'I go, but thou shalt thirst and tarry till I come'? In one shape or +another most European countries have the weird myth of this restless +being. In none of the stories, however, have I found any reference to +an animal accompanying the wanderer. + + +23. + +The belief in the efficacy of fairy ointment appears to have been +somewhat generally held in England. A Northumberland tradition tells +of a midwife who was fetched to attend a lady, and who received a box +of ointment with which to anoint the infant. By accident the woman +touched one of her eyes with the mixture, and at once saw that she was +in a fairy palace. She had the good sense, however, to conceal her +astonishment, and reached her home in safety. Some time afterwards she +saw the lady stealing bits of butter in the market-place, and +thoughtlessly accosted her, when, after an inquiry similar to that of +the Lancashire legend, the fairy breathed upon the offending eye and +destroyed the sight. Other versions still current in Northumberland +make the thief a fairy stealing corn. Similar stories are told in +Devonshire and in both the Lowlands and Highlands of Scotland. In +Scotland, however, the fairy spits into the woman's eye. The Irish +fairy (Co. Wexford), a vindictive being, uses a switch. + +In Cornwall a fairy bantling has to be put out to nurse, and has to be +washed regularly in water and carried to its room by its invisible +relatives. The nurse receives the marvellous sight after some of the +liquid has splashed upon her eyes, and the usual result follows. She +sees a thief in the market-place--that of St. Ives; and after he has +muttered-- + + 'Water for elf, not water for self! + You've lost your eye, your child, and yourself!' + +she becomes blind. In another Cornish legend a green ointment, made +with four-leaved clover, gathered at a certain time of the moon, +confers the wondrous gift. In Lancashire the four-leaved clover does +not require any preparation; the mere possession of it being supposed +to render fairies visible. + +The Scandinavian belief appears to have been that, although the hill +folk could bestow the gift of this sight upon whom they chose, all +children born on Sunday possessed the faculty. This superstition seems +to survive in a slightly altered form in the Lancashire one that +children born during twilight can see spirits and foretell deaths, +the latter faculty, probably, having been substituted for the +prophetic power of the chosen of the elves in the Northern mythology. + +It is more than probable that these ointment stories came from the +East. Who does not remember the charming history of the blind man, +Baba Abdalla, whose sight was destroyed by a little miraculous +ointment, and afterwards as wonderfully restored by a box on the ear? + + +24. + +An old farm-labourer pointed out to me a place where the Evil One used +to meet the witches, and gambol with them until cock-crow. It was at +the junction of four cross-roads, between Stonyhurst and Ribchester; +and as I stood there at 'th' edge o' dark,' when the wind was +whispering through the fir woods on either hand, with that mysterious +sound so like the gentle wash of waves upon a sandy shore, the spot +seemed indeed a suitable one for such gatherings. + +My informant, however, although very circumstantial in his account of +what had transpired at the nocturnal assemblies, scouted the idea of +anything of the sort taking place in these times, and remarked drily: +'Ther's too mich leet neaw-a-days, Mesthur, fur eawt o' that mak'. Wi' +should hev' th' caanty police after um afooar they'd time to torn +raand!' + + +25. + +Until recently, there was an ancient British tumulus by the side of +the highway from Darwen to Bolton, where the road passes through the +domains of White Hall and Low Hill. This spot, long before the urns of +bones were disinterred, was looked upon by the country people as being +haunted by various boggarts, and Mr. Charles Hardwick says that +children were in the habit of taking off their clogs and shoes, and +walking past the heap barefooted when compelled to traverse the road +after nightfall.[E] + +[E] _Vide_ Footnote [C] + + +26. + +Mag did not wander far, for her grave is shown in the churchyard at +Woodplumpton, in which village her memory still is green. But few +people venture to rest themselves upon the huge stone which marks the +spot where her spirit was laid. + +A strangely jumbled tradition tells how a priest managed to 'catch' +her and 'lay her spirit.' In Cornwall and other counties a clergyman +of the Establishment was considered qualified to 'lay' a ghost; but in +Lancashire it was believed that only a Roman Catholic priest had the +wondrous power. In Wales the magical number three is brought in, for +three clergymen are necessary to exorcise a spirit. In Normandy, as a +matter of course, only the priests have the power. + + +27. + +Witchen or quicken, old English names of the rowan or mountain ash. +Mr. Kelly (_Indo-European Tradition and Folklore_) accounts for the +reputation of the 'wiggin' by connecting it with the Indian Palasa, +the tree that, according to the Vedas, sprang from the feather which, +together with a claw, fell from the falcon bringing the heavenly +_soma_ to earth. The same writer also compares it with the Mimosa, and +quotes a singular passage from Bishop Heber, to the effect that the +natives of Upper India are in the habit of wearing sprigs of it in +their turbans, and of suspending pieces of it over their beds, as +security against wizards, spells, the Evil Eye, etc. Naturally enough +the Bishop expresses his surprise at finding the superstitions, which +in England and Scotland attach to the rowan, applied in India to a +tree of similar form, and he asks, 'From what common centre are these +common notions derived?' The Mimosa is popularly supposed to have +sprung from the claw alluded to above. + +On account of its reputed power against the 'feorin,' a rowan tree was +almost invariably planted near the moorland or mountain side +farm-house. + + 'Rowan, ash, and red thread + Keep the devils from their speed,' + +says the old distich. + +In some parts of Scotland ash sap still is given to infants as a +preservative against fairies. + + +28. + +It was firmly believed in Lancashire, says Mr. Harland, that a great +gathering of witches assembled on this night at their general +rendezvous in the Forest of Pendle--a ruined and desolate farm-house +called the _Malkin Tower_ (Malkin being the name of a familiar demon +in Middleton's old play of _The Witch_, derived from _maca_, an equal, +a companion). This superstition led to another, that of _lighting_, +_lating_, or _leeting_ the witches (from _leoht_, A.-S., light). It +was believed that if a lighted candle were carried about the fells or +hills from eleven to twelve o'clock at night, and it burned all the +time steadily, it had so far triumphed over the evil power of the +witches, who, as they passed to the Malkin Tower, would employ their +utmost efforts to extinguish the light, that the person whom it +represented might safely defy their malice during the season; but if +by any accident the light went out, it was an omen of evil to the +luckless wight for whom the experiment was made. It was also deemed +inauspicious to cross the threshold of that person until after the +return from leeting, and not then unless the candle had preserved its +light. Mr. Milner describes the ceremony as having been recently +performed. + + +29. + +Mr. Sullivan quotes this quaint old carol at length in his _Cumberland +and Westmoreland, Ancient and Modern_; and adds, 'This song is still +sung at Penrith, having replaced one called "Joseph and Mary," in the +early part of the century. Yet its antiquity is undoubted, and it has +probably come here from Lancashire, where it is well known.' + +As, however, it is by no means so widely known as Mr. Sullivan +supposes, we may be pardoned if we reproduce it here. The second and +remaining verses are as follows:-- + + 'I met three ships come sailing by, + Come sailing by, etc. + + Who do you think was in one of them? + In one of them? etc. + + The Virgin Mary and her Son, + And her Son, etc. + + She combed His hair with an ivory comb, + An ivory comb, etc. + + She washed His face in a silver bowl, + A silver bowl, etc. + + She sent Him up to heaven to school, + To heaven to school, etc. + + All the angels began to sing, + Began to sing, etc. + + The bells of heaven began to ring, + Began to ring, etc.' + + +30. + +Mr. Samuel Bamford says that Middleton Parish Church was the scene of +a procession similar to that described in the above legend, the +observer being an avaricious old sexton who was anxious to know what +fees he should receive in the following year. This worthy, on All +Souls' night, stationed himself in the sacred building, and counted +the spirits he saw enter and walk about, until he observed a double of +himself. Of course, soon afterwards there was a vacancy for a +gravedigger at Middleton, the sight having been too much for 'Old +Johnny.' + +A similar superstition reigns in various parts of England and in +Wales, where, at Christmas-time, says Mr. Croker, quoting from a Welsh +authority, the relatives of the deceased listen at the church door in +the dark, 'when they sometimes fancy they hear the names called over +in church of those who are destined shortly to join their lost +relatives in the tomb.' + +In Cornwall, strange to say, it is a young unmarried woman who, +standing in the church porch at midnight on Midsummer's-eve, sees the +strange gathering. 'This is so serious an affair,' says Professor +Hunt, 'that it is not, I believe, often tried. I have, however, heard +of young women who have made the experiment. But every one of the +stories relate that they have seen shadows of themselves coming last +in the procession; that pining away from that day forward, ere +Midsummer has again come round they have been laid to rest in the +village graveyard.' + +Mr. Sikes says that it is a Hallow-Een custom in some parts of Wales +to listen at the church door in the dark to hear shouted by a ghostly +voice in the edifice the names of those who are shortly to be buried +in the adjoining churchyard. In other parts, he says, 'the window +serves the same purpose,' and, he adds, 'there are said to be still +extant outside some village churches steps which were constructed in +order to enable the superstitious peasantry to climb to the window to +listen.' These steps in several places seemed to me to be merely old +mounting blocks, but they may have been made use of for the less +practical purpose in question. + + +31. + +It is asserted that at the present day dogs cannot be induced to go +near this quarry, and that even closely hunted animals will permit +themselves to be captured rather than enter its recesses. + + +32. + +Few superstitions have a wider circle of believers in Lancashire than +that which attributes to dogs the power of foretelling death and +disaster. There are few people, however well educated, who would be +able to resist a foreboding of coming woe if they heard the howling of +a strange dog under the window of a sick person's room; and, absurd as +the dread so inspired may seem to the sceptic, there is more ground +for it than can easily be explained away. It has frequently been urged +that the animals are attracted by the lighted window, and that their +howlings are nothing more than unpleasant appeals for admittance; and +that often, by reason of the awe with which tradition has surrounded +the noises, they terrify the invalid, and produce the end they are +supposed to foretell. This plausible theory, however, does not account +in any way for the similar visitations made in the daytime, when there +is no artificial light to attract; or for the singular facts, that +generally the dog is a stranger to the locality--that it does not +loiter about, but makes its way direct to the particular house--that +it will wait until a gate is opened, so that it may get near to the +window--that it cannot be driven away before its mission has been +performed--and that, in all cases, the howling is alike, invariably +terminating in three peculiar yelping barks, which are no sooner +uttered than the animal runs off, and is no more seen in the +neighbourhood. + +In Normandy the noise is considered an infallible presage of death. + +Mr. Kelly says that this superstition obtains credence in France and +Germany; and that in Westphalia, a dog howling along a road is +considered a sure sign that a funeral soon will pass that way. In the +Scandinavian mythology, Hel, Goddess of Death, is visible only to +dogs. + +The superstition has, at any rate, antiquity to recommend it, and it +seems evident from Exodus xi. 5-7, that even in the days of the +captivity of the Children of Israel in Egypt, the omen was firmly +believed in. + +I was seated one summer evening in the drawing-room of a house in one +of the large London squares. The conversation was of the ordinary +after-dinner nature, but enlivened by the remarks of more than one +gifted guest. It was, however, suddenly interrupted in a very +startling manner by the howling of a dog, which had placed itself in +the roadway facing the house, regardless alike of the wheels of the +numerous passing carriages and cabs, and of the whips of the drivers. +The lady of the house, a north-country woman, said at once, as she +rose from her seat at the open window, 'That means death. I shall hear +of some sad trouble.' The dog would not be driven away by the angry +coachmen and cabmen, but finished the howling with three peculiar +yelps, and then trotted off rapidly; and there was much jesting during +the rest of the evening about the strange occurrence. A few days +afterwards, however, I was informed that on the evening of the +dinner-party the brother of the hostess had died in North Lancashire. + + +33. + +'Th' Gabriel Ratchets' strike terror into the heart of many a moorland +dweller in Lancashire and Yorkshire still, presaging, as they are +believed to do, death or sorrow to every one who is so unfortunate as +to hear them. In the popular idea they are a pack of dogs yelping +through the air. Our old literature has many references to the +superstition. In more recent days, Wordsworth has introduced it in one +of his sonnets:-- + + 'And oftentimes will start-- + For overhead are sweeping GABRIEL'S HOUNDS.' + +Mr. Philip Gilbert Hamerton, in a poem dated 1849, in his _Isles of +Loch Awe and other Poems_, which he has kindly given me permission to +quote here, says of them,-- + + 'Faintly sounds the airy note, + And the deepest bay from the staghound's throat, + Like the yelp of a cur, on the air doth float, + And hardly heard is the wild halloo.' + +and-- + + 'They fly on the blast of the forest + That whistles round the withered tree, + But where they go we may not go, + Nor see them as they fly.' + +Mr. Hamerton, however, goes beyond the Lancashire peasant, at any rate +so far as I have been able to ascertain, for I never met any one in +the hill country or on the moorlands of the North who fancied that the +throng included anything but _Ratchets_, _i.e._ dogs, for the poet +goes on to sing-- + + 'Hark! 'tis the goblin of the wood + Rushing down the dark hill-side, + With steeds that neigh and hounds that bay.' + +Mr. Henderson has recorded that, about Leeds, the flight is supposed +to be that of 'the souls of unbaptized children doomed to flit +restlessly above their parents' abode.' In Germany, certainly the Wild +Hunt or Furious Host is accompanied by unbaptized children, and it has +been recorded that a woman, about the year 1800, died of grief upon +learning that the Furious Host had passed over the village where her +still-born child had died just before. Mr. Kelly (_Indo-European +Tradition_) very ably and poetically resolves all the various +superstitions of this Wild Hunt into figurative descriptions of +natural phenomena, but Mr. Yarrell, the distinguished naturalist, +reduces the cries of the Gabriel Hounds into the whistling of the Bean +Goose, _Anser Segetum_, as the flocks are flying southward in the +night, migrating from Scandinavia. + +In Wales 'The Whistlers,' the cry of the golden-plover, is considered +an omen of death, but it seems to be a quite distinct superstition +from that of the _Cwn Annwn_, or Dogs of Hell, which latter is a Wild +Hunt. + +I have heard the weird cry of the Gabriel Ratchets at night in several +of the northern countries, and in the loneliness and gloom of early +winter in the heart of the hills, or upon a wild bleak moorland, it +was difficult to overcome a sudden feeling of dread when the yelps +rang forth, even with Mr. Yarrell's scientific explanation fresh in my +mind. + +To sketch the ramifications of the superstition of the Wild Hunt, +however, would require a volume, so numerous and various are they. + + +34. + +In the old witch-mania records it is not unusual to find a cock +sacrificed to the Evil One, and Satan's dislike of cock-crow has +become proverbial. Brand has pointed out that the Christian poet +Prudentius (fourth century) mentions that antipathy as a tradition of +common belief. In an old German story Satan builds a house for a +peasant who agrees to pay his soul for the work. A condition is made, +however, that this house must be completed before cock-crow, and the +wily peasant, just before the last tile is put on the roof, imitates +the bird of morn, upon which all the cocks in the locality crow, and +Satan, baffled, flees. + +The Evil One's appearance in the form of a cat, a goat, a pig, an old +woman, a black dog, a stylish gentleman, and the conventional shape, +with hoof and horns, have been testified to, and Calmet (_Traite sur +les apparitions des Esprits et sur les Vampires_, 1751) alludes to his +taking the shape of a raven, but I have not met with any record of his +appearance as a cock. In this case, however, that was insisted upon, +although it was suggested that it might have been some other fowl. + + +EDINBURGH: T. AND A. CONSTABLE, + +PRINTERS TO THE QUEEN, AND TO THE UNIVERSITY. + + + ADVERTISEMENTS + + +THE ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY OF + +The Fairy Tales of all Nations. + + + 'The Boys and Girls of to-day owe a deep debt of gratitude to + Messrs. Sonnenschein & Co. for the treat here prepared for + them.'--_School Board Chronicle._ + + 'The idea is a good one, and in addition to the intrinsic + interest of the stories, the volumes will be convenient for + Students of comparative Folk-lore.'--_British Quarterly + Review._ + + 'The idea is an excellent one. The paper, print, binding and + illustrations, are all that could be desired.'--_School + Guardian._ + + +_SERIES I.--ORIGINAL FAIRY TALES._ + + =Germany: Hauff's Longnose the Dwarf and other Fairy Tales. 5s.= + + 'Hauff as a story-teller is inimitable.... We have never known + this book to fail with a child audience.'--_Journal of + Education._ + + =Scandinavia: Gustafsson's Tea-time Tales for Young Little Folks + and Young Old Folks.= 4_s._ 6_d._ + + 'Gustafsson will doubtless succeed in continually increasing + his retinue of readers.'--_Academy._ + + =The New Arabian Nights: Select Tales omitted from the Editions + of GALLAND and of LANE.= Edited by W. F. KIRBY. 4_s._ 6_d._ + + _Just published._ + + + _In preparation._ + + =Clemens Brentano's Fairy Tales.--Topelius' Finland Idyls.= + + + _SERIES II.--FOLK TALES._ + + + =America: Hiawatha and other Legends of the Wigwams of the Red + American Indians,= compiled by C. MATHEWS. 5_s._ + + _Just published._ + + =Ireland: Fairy Legends and Traditions of Ireland, Collected + from the People,= by T. CROFTON CROKER. 5_s._ + + _Just published._ + + =Lancashire: Goblin Tales of Lancashire,= + Collected by JAMES BOWKER. 4_s._ 6_d._ + + _Just published._ + + =Scandinavia: Old Norse Fairy Tales,= Gleaned from the Swedish + Folk, by STEPHENS and CAVALLIUS. 4_s._ 6_d._ + + _Just published._ + + =Spain: The Bird of Truth, and other Fairy Tales,= Collected by + FERNAN CABALLERO. 4_s._ 6_d._ + + _In preparation._ + + Volumes for =Brittany, Basque Provinces, Portugal, Modern Greece.= + + +_EXTRA SERIES._ + + =Old Norse Sagas,= Selected and Translated by EMILY S. CAPPEL. + 4_s._ 6_d._ + + _Just published_ + + =Gesta Romanorum: The Ancient Moral Tales of the Old + Story-tellers,= Selected and Adapted. 4_s._ 6_d._ + + _Just published._ + + _In preparation._ + + =Popular Books of the Middle Ages.--Tales of Enchantment + from all Lands.= + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + +Archaic and inconsistent spelling, dialect, and punctuation retained. + +Advertisements were moved from the front of the book to the end. + +Numbers in braces {} refer to sections of the appendix. + +Letters in brackets [] refer to footnotes at the end of the paragraph. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Goblin Tales of Lancashire, by James Bowker + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOBLIN TALES OF LANCASHIRE *** + +***** This file should be named 39712.txt or 39712.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/7/1/39712/ + +Produced by sp1nd, Mebyon, Matthew Wheaton and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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