Traditions of Lancashire Volume I Part 46

PART SECOND.

On the verge of the Castle Clough, a deep and winding dingle, once shaded with venerable oaks, are the small remains of the Castle of Hapton, the seat of its ancient lords, and, till the erection of Hapton Tower, the occasional residence of the De la Leghs and Townleys. Hapton Tower is now destroyed to its foundation. It was a large square building, and about a hundred years ago presented the remains of three cylindrical towers with conical bas.e.m.e.nts. It also appears to have had two princ.i.p.al entrances opposite to each other, with a thorough lobby between, and seems not to have been built in the usual form,--that of a quadrangle. It was erected about the year 1510, and was inhabited until 1667. The family-name of the n.o.bleman--for such he appears to have been--of whom the following story is told, we have no means of ascertaining. That he was an occasional resident or visitor at the Tower is but surmise. During the period of these dark transactions we find that the mansion was inhabited by Jane a.s.sheton, relict of Richard Townley, who died in the year 1637. Whoever he might be, the following horrible event, arising out of this superst.i.tion, attaches to his memory. Whether it can be attributed to the operations of a mind just bordering on insanity, and highly wrought upon by existing delusions,--or must be cla.s.sed amongst the proofs, so abundantly furnished by all believers in the reality of witchcraft and demoniacal possession, our readers must determine as we unfold the tale.

Lord William had seen, and had openly vowed to win, the proud maiden of Bernshaw Tower. He did win her, but he did not woo her. A dark and appalling secret was connected with their union, which we shall briefly develop.

Lady Sibyl, "the proud maiden of Bernshaw," was from her youth the creature of impulse and imagination--a child of nature and romance. She roved unchecked through the green valleys and among the glens and moorlands of her native hills; every nook and streamlet was a.s.sociated with some hidden thought "too deep for tears," until Nature became her G.o.d,--the hills and fastnesses, the trackless wilds and mountains, her companions. With them alone she held communion; and as she watched the soft shadows and the white clouds take their quiet path upon the hills, she beheld in them the symbols of her own ideas,--the images and reflections,--the hidden world within her made visible. She felt no sympathy with the realities--the commonplaces of life; her thoughts were too aspiring for earth, yet found not their resting-place in heaven! It was no grovelling, degrading superst.i.tion which actuated her: she sighed for powers above her species,--she aspired to hold intercourse with beings of a superior nature. She would gaze for hours in wild delirium on the blue sky and starry vault, and wish she were freed from the base enc.u.mbrances of earth, that she might s.h.i.+ne out among those glorious intelligences in regions without a shadow or a cloud. Imagination was her solace and her curse; she flew to it for relief as the drunkard to his cup, sparkling and intoxicating for a while, but its dregs were bitterness and despair. Soon her world of imagination began to quicken; and, as the wind came sighing through her dark ringlets, or rustling over the dry gra.s.s and heather bushes at her side, she thought a spirit spoke, or a celestial messenger crossed her path. The unholy rites of the witches were familiar to her ear, but she spurned their vulgar and low ambition; she panted for communion with beings more exalted--demiG.o.ds and immortals, of whom she had heard as having been translated to those happier skies, forming the glorious constellations she beheld. Sometimes fancies wild and horrible a.s.saulted her; she then shut herself for days in her own chamber, and was heard as though in converse with invisible things. When freed from this hallucination, agony was marked on her brow, and her cheek was more than usually pale and collapsed. She would then wander forth again:--the mountain-breeze reanimated her spirits, and imagination again became pleasant unto her.

She heard the wild swans winging their way above her, and she thought of the wild hunters and the spectre-horseman:[41] the short wail of the curlew, the call of the moor-c.o.c.k and plover, was the voice of her beloved. To her all nature wore a charmed life: earth and sky were but creatures formed for her use, and the ministers of her pleasure.

The Tower of Bernshaw was a small fortified house in the pa.s.s over the hills from Burnley to Todmorden. It stood within a short distance from the Eagle Crag; and the Lady Sibyl would often climb to the utmost verge of that overhanging peak, looking from its dizzy height until her soul expanded, and her thoughts took their flight through those dim regions where the eye could not penetrate.

One evening she had lingered longer than usual: she felt unwilling to depart--to meet again the dull and wearisome realities of life--the petty cares that interest and animate mankind. She loathed her own form and her own species:--earth was too narrow for her desire, and she almost longed to burst its barriers. In the deep agony of her spirit she cried aloud--

"Would that my path, like yon clouds, were on the wind, and my dwelling-place in their bosom!"

A soft breeze came suddenly towards her, rustling the dry heath as it swept along. The gra.s.s bent beneath its footsteps, and it seemed to die away in articulate murmurs at her feet. Terror crept upon her, her bosom thrilled, and her whole frame was pervaded by some subtle and mysterious influence.

"Who art thou?" she whispered, as though to some invisible agent. She listened, but there was no reply; the same soft wind suddenly arose, and crept to her bosom.

"Who art thou?" she inquired again, but in a louder tone. The breeze again flapped its wings, mantling upwards from where it lay, as if nestled on her breast. It mounted lightly to her cheek, but it felt hot--almost scorching--when the maiden cried out as before. It fluttered on her ear, and she thought there came a whisper--

"I am thy good spirit."

"Oh, tell me," she cried with vehemence: "show me who thou art!"--a mist curled round her, and a lambent flame, like the soft lightning of a summer's night, shot from it. She saw a form, glorious but indistinct, and the flashes grew paler every moment.

"Leave me not," she cried; "I will be thine!"

Then the cloud pa.s.sed away, and a being stood before her, mightier and more stately than the sons of men. A burning fillet was on his brow, and his eyes glowed with an ever-restless flame.

"Maiden, I come at thy wish. Speak!--what is thy desire."

"Let thought be motion;--let my will only be the boundary of my power,"

said she, nothing daunted; for her mind had become too familiar with invisible fancies, and her ambition too boundless to feel either awe or alarm. Immediately she felt as though she were sweeping through the trackless air,--she heard the rush of mighty wings cleaving the sky,--she thought the whole world lay at her feet, and the kingdoms of the earth moved on like a mighty pageant. Then did the vision change.

Objects began to waver and grow dim, as if pa.s.sing through a mist; and she found herself again upon that lonely crag, and her conductor at her side. He grasped her hand: she felt his burning touch, and a sudden smart as though she were stung--a drop of blood hung on her finger. He unbound the burning fillet, and she saw as though it were a glimpse of that unquenchable, unconsuming flame that devoured him. He took the blood and wrote upon her brow. The agony was intense, and a faint shriek escaped her. He spoke, but the sound rang in her ears like the knell of hopes for ever departed.

For words of such presumptuous blasphemy, tradition must be voiceless.

The demon looked upwards; but, as if blasted by some withering sight, his eyes were suddenly withdrawn.

What homage was exacted, let no one seek to know.

After a pause, the deceiver again addressed her; and his form changed as he spoke.

"One day in the year alone thou shalt be subject to mischance. It is the feast of All-Hallows, when the witches meet to renew their vows. On this night thou must be as they, and must join their company. Still thou mayest hide thyself under any form thou shalt choose; but it shall abide upon thee until midnight. Till then thy spells are powerless. On no other day shall harm befall thee."

The maiden felt her pride dilate:--her weak and common nature she thought was no longer a degradation; she seemed as though she could bound through infinite s.p.a.ce. Already was she invested with the attributes of immateriality, when she awoke!--and in her own chamber, whither the servants had conveyed her from the crag an hour before, having found her asleep, or in a swoon, upon the verge of the precipice.

She looked at her hand; the sharp wound was there, and she felt her brow tingle as if to remind her of that irrevocable pledge.

Lord William sued in vain to the maid of Bernshaw Tower. She repulsed him with scorn and contumely. He vowed that he would win her, though the powers of darkness withstood the attempt. To accomplish this impious purpose, he sought Mause, the witch's dwelling. It was a dreary hut, built in a rocky cleft, shunned by all as the abode of wicked and malignant spirits, which the dame kept and nursed as familiars, for the fulfilment of her malicious will.

The night was dark and heavy when Lord William tied his steed to a rude gate that guarded the entrance to the witch's den. He raised the latch, but there was no light within.

"Holloa!" cried the courageous intruder; but all was dark and silent as before. Just as he was about to depart he thought he heard a rustling near him, and presently the croaking voice of the hag close at his ear.

"Lord William," said she, "thou art a bold man to come hither after nightfall."

He felt something startled, but he swerved not from his purpose.

"Can'st help me to a bride, Mother Helston?" cried he, in a firm voice; "for I feel mightily constrained to wed!"

"Is the doomed maiden of Bernshaw a bride fit for Lord William's bosom?"

said the invisible sorceress.

"Give me some charm to win her consent,--I care not for the rest."

"Charm!" replied the beldame, with a screech that made Lord William start back. "Spells have I none that can bind her. I would she were in my power; but she hath spell for spell. Nought would avail thee, for she is beyond my reach; her power would baffle mine?"

"Is she too tainted with the iniquity that is abroad?"

"I tell thee yea; and my spirit must bow to hers. Wouldst wed her now--fond, feeble-hearted mortal?"

Lord William was silent; but the beautiful form of the maiden seemed to pa.s.s before him, and he loved her with such overmastering vehemence that if Satan himself had stood in the gap he would not have shrunk from his purpose.

"Mause Helston," said the lover, "if thou wilt help me at this bout, I will not draw back. I dare wed her though she were twice the thing thou fearest. Tell me how her spell works,--I will countervail it,--- I will break that accursed charm, and she shall be my bride!"

For a while there was no reply; but he heard a muttering as though some consultation were going on.

"Listen, Lord William," she spoke aloud. "Ay, thou wilt listen to thine own jeopardy! Once in the year--'tis on the night of All-Hallows--she may be overcome. But it is a perilous attempt!"

"I care not. Point out the way, and I will ride it rough-shod!"

The beldame arose from her couch, and struck a light. Ere they separated the morning dawned high above the grey hills. Many rites and incantations were performed, of which we forbear the disgusting recital.

The instructions he received were never divulged; the secrets of that night were never known; but an altered man was Lord William when he came back to Hapton Tower.

On All-Hallows' day, with a numerous train, he went forth a-hunting. His hounds were the fleetest from Calder to Calder; and his horns the shrillest through the wide forests of Accrington and Rossendale. But on that morning a strange hound joined the pack that outstripped them all.

"Blow," cried Lord William, "till the loud echoes ring, and the fleet hounds o'ertake yon grizzled mongrel."

Both horses and dogs were driven to their utmost speed, but the strange hound still kept ahead. Over moor and fell they still rushed on, the hounds in full cry, though as yet guided only by the scent, the object of their pursuit not being visible. Suddenly a white doe was seen, distant a few yards only, and bounding away from them at full speed. She might have risen out of the ground, so immediate was her appearance. On they went in full view, but the deer was swift, and she seemed to wind and double with great dexterity. Her bearing was evidently towards the steep crags on the east. They pa.s.sed the Tower of Bernshaw, and were fast approaching the verge of that tremendous precipice, the "Eagle Crag." Horse and rider must inevitably perish if they follow. But Lord William slackened not in the pursuit; and the deer flew straight as an arrow to its mark,--the very point where the crag jutted out over the gulf below. The huntsmen drew back in terror; the dogs were still in chase, though at some distance behind;--Lord William only and the strange hound were close upon her track. Beyond the crag nothing was visible but cloud and sky, showing the fearful height and abruptness of the descent. One moment, and the gulf must be shot:--his brain felt dizzy, but his heart was resolute.

"Mause, my wench," said he, "my neck or thine!--Hie thee; if she's over, we are lost!"

Lord William's steed followed in the hound's footsteps to a hair. The deer was almost within her last spring, when the hound, with a loud yell, doubled her, scarcely a yard's breadth from the long bare neb of that fearful peak, and she turned with inconceivable speed so near the verge that Lord William, in wheeling round, heard a fragment of rock, loosened by the stroke from his horse's hoof, roll down the precipice with a frightful crash. The sudden whirl had nearly brought him to the ground, but he recovered his position with great adroitness. A loud shriek announced the capture. The cruel hound held the deer by the throat, and they were struggling together on the green earth. With threats and curses he lashed away the ferocious beast, who growled fiercely at being driven from her prey. With looks of sullenness and menace, she scampered off, leaving Lord William to secure the victim. He drew a silken noose from his saddle-bow, and threw it over the panting deer, who followed quietly on to his dwelling at Hapton Tower.

At midnight there was heard a wild and unearthly shriek from the high turret, so pitiful and shrill that the inmates awoke in great alarm. The loud roar of the wind came on like a thunder-clap. The tempest flapped its wings, and its giant arms rocked the turret like a cradle. At this hour Lord William, with a wild and haggard eye, left his chamber. The last stroke of the midnight bell trembled on his ear as he entered the western tower. A maiden sat there, a silken noose was about her head, and she sobbed loud and heavily. She wrung her white hands at his approach.

"Thy spells have been o'ermastered. Henceforth I renounce these unholy rites; I would not pa.s.s nights of horror and days of dread any longer.