Traditions of Lancashire Volume I Part 31

THE SEER.

"_Petruchio_. Pray, have you not a daughter Call'd Katharina, fair and virtuous?

_Baptista_. I have a daughter, sir, call'd Katharina,"

_Taming of the Shrew, Act II. Scene_ I.

"What sudden chance is this, quoth he, That I to love must subject be, Which never thereto would agree, But still did it defie?"

_King Cophetua and the Beggar-maid._

"Yet she was coy, and would not believe That he did love her so; No, nor at any time would she _Any countenance to him show_."

_The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington_.

The wonderful exploits of Edward Kelly, one of which is recorded in the following narrative, would, if collected, fill a volume of no ordinary dimensions. He was for a considerable time the companion and a.s.sociate of John Dee, by courtesy called Doctor, from his great acquirements, performing for him the office of seer, a faculty not possessed by Dee, who was in consequence obliged to have recourse to Kelly for the revelations he has published respecting the world of spirits. These curious transactions may be found in Casaubon's work, ent.i.tled "A true and faithful Relation of what pa.s.sed for many Years between Dr John Dee and some Spirits,"--opening out another dark page in the history of imposture and credulity. Dee says that he was brought into unison with Kelly by the mediation of the angel Uriel. Afterwards he found himself deceived by him in his opinion that these spirits, which ministered unto him, were messengers of the Deity. They had several quarrels before-time; but when he found Kelly degenerating into the worst species of the magic art for purposes of avarice and fraud, he broke off all connection with him, and would never afterwards be seen in his company.

Kelly, being discountenanced by the Doctor, betook himself to the meanest practices of magic, in all which money and the works of the devil appear to have been his chief aim. Many wicked and abominable transactions are recorded of him. Wever, in his "Funereal Monuments,"

records that Kelly, in company with one Paul Waring, who acted with him in all his conjurations, went to the churchyard of Walton-le-Dale, near Preston, where they had information of a person being interred who was supposed to have hidden a considerable sum of money, and to have died without disclosing where it was deposited. They entered the churchyard exactly at midnight, and having had the grave pointed out in the preceding day, they opened it and the coffin, exorcising the spirit of the deceased until it again animated the body, which rose out of the grave and stood upright before them. It not only satisfied their wicked desires, it is said, but delivered several strange predictions concerning persons in the neighbourhood, which were literally and exactly fulfilled.

In "Lilly's Memoirs" we have the following account of him:--

"Kelly outwent the Doctor--viz., about the elixir and philosopher's stone, which neither he nor his master attained by their own labour and industry. It was in this manner Kelly obtained it, as I had it related from an ancient minister, who new the certainty thereof from an old English merchant resident in Germany, at what time both Kelly and Dee were there.

"Dee and Kelly being on the confines of the emperor's dominions, in a city where resided many English merchants, with whom they had much familiarity, there happened an old friar to come to Dr Dee's lodging, knocking at the door. Dee peeped down the stairs:--'Kelly,' says he, 'tell the old man I am not at home.' Kelly did so. The friar said, 'I will take another time to wait on him.' Some few days after, he came again. Dee ordered Kelly, if it were the same person, to deny him again.

He did so; at which the friar was very angry. 'Tell thy master I came to speak with him and to do him good, because he is a great scholar and famous;--but now tell him, he put forth a book, and dedicated it to the emperor. It is called '_Monas Hieroglyphicas_.' He understands it not. I wrote it myself. I came to instruct him therein, and in some other more profound things. Do thou, Kelly, come along with me; I will make thee more famous than thy master Dee. Kelly was very apprehensive of what the friar delivered, and thereupon suddenly retired from Dee, and wholly applied unto the friar, and of him either had the elixir ready made, or the perfect method of its preparation and making. The poor friar lived a very short time after; whether he died a natural death, or was otherwise poisoned or made away by Kelly, the merchant who related this did not certainly know."

Kelly was born at Worcester, and had been an apothecary. He had a sister who lived there for some time after his death, and who used to exhibit some gold made by her brother's projection. "It was vulgarly reported that he had a compact with the devil, which he outlived, and was seized at midnight by infernal spirits, who carried him off in sight of his family, at the instant he was meditating a mischievous design against the minister of the parish, with whom he was greatly at enmity."

It would have been easy to select a more historical statement of facts respecting Kelly; but the following tale, the events of one day only, will, we hope, be more interesting to the generality of readers. It exhibits a curious display of the intrigues and devices by which these impostors acquired an almost unlimited power over the minds of their fellow-men. Human credulity once within their grasp, they could wield this tremendous engine at their will, directing it either to good or bad intents, but more often to purposes of fraud and self-aggrandis.e.m.e.nt.

In the ancient and well-thriven town of Manchester formerly dwelt a merchant of good repute, Cornelius Ethelstoun by name. Plain dealing and an honest countenance withal, had won for him a character of no ordinary renown. His friezes were the handsomest; his stuffs and camlets were not to be sampled in the market, or even throughout the world; insomuch that the courtly dames of Venice, and the c.u.mbrous vrows of Amsterdam and the Hague, might be seen flaunting in goodly attire gathered from the store-houses of Master Cornelius.

His coffers glittered with broad ducats, and his cabinets with the rarest productions of the East. His warehouses were crammed, even to satiety, and his trestles groaned under heaps of rich velvets, costly brocades, and other profitable returns to his foreign adventures. But, alas!--and whose heart holdeth not communion with that word!--Cornelius was unhappy. He had one daughter, whom "he loved pa.s.sing well;" yet, as common report did acknowledge, the veriest shrew that ever went unbridled. In vain did his riches and his revenues increase; in vain was plenty poured into his lap, and all that wealth could compa.s.s acc.u.mulate in lavish profusion. Of what avail was this outward and goodly show against the cruel and wayward temper of his daughter?

Kate--by this name we would distinguish her, as veritable historians are silent on her sponsorial appellation--Kate was unhappily fair and well-favoured. Her hair was dark as the raven-plume; but her skin, white as the purest statuary marble, grew fairer beneath the black and glossy wreaths twining gracefully about her neck. Her cheek was bright as the first blush of the morning, and ever and anon, as a deeper hue was thrown upon its rich but softened radiance, she looked like a vision from Mahomet's paradise--a being nurtured by a warmer sky and fiercer suns than our cold climate can sustain. She had lovers, but all approach was denied, and, one by one, they stood afar off and gazed. Her pretty mouth, lovely even in the proudest glance of petulance and scorn, was so oftentimes moulded into the same aspect that it grew puckered and contemptuous, rendering her disposition but too manifest; and yet--wouldest thou believe it, gentle reader?--she was in love!

Now it so fell out that on the very morning from which we date this first pa.s.sage of our history, Cornelius awoke earlier than he was wont.

His brow wore an aspect of more than ordinary care. It was but too evident that his pillow had been disturbed. Thoughts of more than usual perplexity had deprived him of his usual measure of repose. His very beard looked abrupt and agitated; his dress bore marks of indifference and haste. A slight, but tremulous movement of the head, in general but barely visible, was now advanced into a decided shake. With a step somewhat nimbler than aforetime, he made, as custom had long rendered habitual, his first visit to the counting-house.

The unwearied and indefatigable Timothy Dodge sat there, with the same crooked spectacles, and, as it might seem, mending the same pen which the same knife had nibbed for at least half-a-century. The tripod on which rested this grey Sidrophel of accompts looked of the like hard and impenetrable material, as though it were grown into his similitude, forming but a lower adjunct to his person. It was evident they had not parted company for the last twenty years. Nature had formed him awry. A boss or hump, of considerable elevation, extended like a huge promontory on one shoulder; from the other depended an arm longer by some inches than its fellow. As it described a greater arc its activity was proportionate. His grey and restless eyes followed the merchant's track with unwearied fidelity; yet was he a man full sparing of words--the ever ready "Anon, master," being the chief burden of his replications.

It was like the troll of an old ballad--a sort of inveterate drawl tripping unwittingly from the tongue.

The sun was just peeping through the long dim cas.e.m.e.nt as Cornelius stepped over the threshold of his sanctuary. In it lay hidden the mysteries of many a goodly tome, more precious in his eyes than the rarest and richest that Dee's library could boast. No mean value, inasmuch as this celebrated scholar and mathematician, who was lately appointed warden of the college, had the most costly store of book-furniture that individual ever possessed.

"Good morrow, Dodge."

The pen was twice nibbed ere the usual rejoinder.

"Are the camlets arrived from the country?" inquired the merchant.

"Anon, master--this forenoon may be."

"Is the accompt against Anthony Hardcastle discharged?"

"No," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the grim fixture.

"And where is the piece of Genoa velvet Dame Margery looked out yesterday for her mistress's wedding-suit? I do bethink me it is a good ell too long at the measure."

"Six ells, three nails, and an odd inch, besides the broad thumbs,"

replied Timothy.

"Right:--she reckoned on a good snip for waste; but let no more be sent than the embroiderer calls for."

"Not a thread," grunted Dodge.

A pause ensued. Some question was evidently hesitating on the merchant's tongue. Twice did his lips move, but the word fell unuttered. The affair was, however, finally disposed of as follows:--

"Hast heard of aught, Timothy, touching the private matter that I unfolded yesterday?" Cornelius put on as careless an aspect as the disquietude of his brow could needs carry, but the inquiry was evidently one of no ordinary interest. He twisted the points of his doublet, tied and untied the silk cords from his ruff, waiting Dodge's answer in a posture not much belying the anxiety he wished to conceal.

"Why, master, an' it were of woman's humours, the old seer himself could not unriddle their pranks."

Cornelius sighed, making the following hasty reply:--

"Thinkest thou this same seer could not give me a lift from out my trouble?"

"This same seer, I wot," replied Dodge, "is sore perplexed: some evil and mischievous aspect doth afflict the horoscope of the nation--Mars being conjunct with Venus and the Dragon's tail. Now, look to it, master, it is no light matter that will move him; but almost or ere I showed him the first glimpse of the business he waxed furious, and said that he cared not if all the unwed hussies in Christendom were hung up in a row, like rats on a string."

"It is Kate's birthday," answered the merchant, "to-night being the feast of St Bartlemy; but, as thou knowest well, the astrologer that cast her figure gave no hope of her amendment should this day pa.s.s and never a husband. Who would yoke with a colt untamed? O Timothy! it were well nigh to make an old man weep. I am a withered trunk. Better had I been childless than have this proud wench to trouble mine house."

The old man here wept, and it was a grievous thing to see his wrinkled cheeks become, as it were, but the sluices and channels of his tears.

Timothy, too, was something moved from his common posture; and once he endeavoured to turn, as though he would hide his face from his master's trouble.

He sought to speak, but an evil and husky sort of humour settled in his throat, and he waited silently the subsiding of the sorrow he could not quell.

Cornelius raised his head: a sudden thought seemed to animate him. A ray had penetrated the gloomy envelope of his mind; and he peered through the cas.e.m.e.nt intently eyeing the cool atmosphere.

"I'll visit the cunning man myself, Timothy. If he hear me not, then can I but return, weeping as I went." And with this speech he hastily departed.

Now on this, the morrow of St Bartlemy, it so happened that Kate also arose before the usual hour, and in a mood even more than ordinarily strange and untoward. Her maiden was like to find it a task of no slight enterprise, the attempt to adorn Kate's pretty person. Not a garment would fit. She threw the whole furniture of her clothes-press on a heap, and stamped on them for very rage. She looked hideous in her brown Venice waistcoat; frightful in her orange tiffany farthingale;--absolutely unbearable in her black velvet hood, wire ruff, and taffety gown. So that in the end she was nigh going to bed again in the sulks, had not a jacket of crimson satin, with slashed bodice, embroidered in gold twist, taken her fancy. Her little steel mirror, not always the object of such complacency, did for once reflect a beam of good humour, which so bewitched Kate that for the next five minutes she found herself settling into the best possible temper in the world.

"Give me my kerchief, lace scarf, and green silk hood, and my petticoat with the border newly purfled. Hark! 'Tis the bell for prayers. Be quick with my pantofles:--not those, wench--the yellow silk with silver spangles. Now my rings and crystal bracelets. I would not miss early matins to-day for the best jewel on an alderman's thumb."

"Anon, lady," replied her waiting-woman, with a sort of pert affectation of meekness. But what should cause Kate to be so wonderfully attentive to her devotions was a matter on which Janet could have no suspicions, or at least would not dare to show them if she had.