Traditions of Lancashire Volume I Part 48

"I think I payed one on 'em, your wors.h.i.+p," said Robin, taking the bundle in his hand. "Not a cat said mew when they felt my whittle.

Marry, I spoilt their catterwauling: I've cut a rare s.h.i.+ve!"

"How didst fare last night with thy wenches?" inquired the other.

"I've mended their manners for a while, I guess. As I peeped about betimes this morning, I found--a paw! If cats are bred with hands and gowden rings on their fingers, they shall e'en ha' sporting-room i' the mill! No bad luck, methinks."

Robin uncovered the prize, and drew out a bleeding hand, mangled at the wrist, and blackened as if by fire; one finger decorated with a ring, which Lord William too plainly recognised. He seized the terrific pledge, and, with a look betokening some deadly purpose, hastened to his wife's chamber. He demanded admittance in too peremptory a tone for denial. His features were still, not a ripple marked the disturbance beneath. He stood with a calm and tranquil brow by her bed-side; but she read a fearful message in his eye.

"Fair lady, how farest thou?--I do fear me thou art ill!"

"She's sick, and in great danger. You may not disturb her, my lord,"

said the nurse, attempting to prevent his too near approach;--"I pray you depart; your presence afflicts her sorely."

"Ay, and so it does," said Lord William, with a strange and hideous laugh. "I pray thee, lady, let me play the doctor,--hold out thy hand."

The lady was still silent. She turned away her head. His glance was too withering to endure.

"Nay, then, I must constrain thee, dame."

She drew out her hand, which Lord William seized with a violent and convulsive grasp.

"I fear me 'tis a sickness unto death; small hope of amendment here.

Give me the other; perchance I may find there more comfort."

"Oh, my husband, I cannot;--I am--I have no strength."

"Why, thou art grown peevish with thy distemper. Since 'tis so, I must e'en force thy stubborn will."

"Alas! I cannot."

"If not thy hand, show me thy wrist!--I have here a match to it, methinks. O earth--earth--hide me in thy womb!--let the darkness blot me out and this blasting testimony for ever!--Accursed hag, what hast thou done?"

He seized her by the hair.

"What hast thou promised the fiend? Tell me,--or"--

"I have, oh, I fear I have,--consented to the compact!"

"How far doth it bind thee?"

"My soul--my better part!"

"Thy better part?--thy worse! A loathsome ulcer, reeking with the stench from the pit! Better have given thy body to the stake, than have let in one unhallowed desire upon thy soul. How far does thy contract reach?"

"All interest I can claim. His part that created it I could not give, not being mine to yield."

"Lost! lost! Thou hast, indeed, sold thyself to perdition! I'll purge this earth of witchery;--I'll make their carcases my weapon's sheath;--hence inglorious scabbard!" He flung away the sheath. Twining her dark hair about his fingers--"Die!--impious, polluted wretch! This blessed earth loathes thee,--the grave's holy sanctuary will cast thee out! Yon glorious sun would smite thee should I refrain!"

He raised his sword--a gleam of triumph seemed to flash from her eye, as though she were eager for the blow; but the descending weapon was stayed, and by no timid hand.

Lord William turned, yet he saw not the cause of its restraint. The lady alone seemed to be aware of some unseen intruder, and her eye darkened with apprehension. Suddenly she sprang from the couch; a shriek from no human agency escaped her, and the spirit seemed to have pa.s.sed from its abode.

Lord William threw himself on her pale and inanimate form.

"Farewell!" he cried: "I had thought thee honest!--Nay, lost spirit, I must not say farewell!"

He gazed on his once-loved bride with a look of such unutterable tenderness that the heart's deep gush burst from his eyes, and he wept in that almost unendurable anguish. The sight was too harrowing to sustain. He was about to withdraw, when a convulsive tremor pa.s.sed across her features--a trembling like the undulation of the breeze rippling the smooth bosom of the lake; a sigh seemed to labour heavily from her breast; her eyes opened; but as though yet struggling under the influence of some terrific dream, she cried--

"Oh, save me--save me!" She looked upwards: it was as if the light of heaven had suddenly shone in upon her benighted soul.

"Lost, saidst thou, accursed fiend?--Never until his power shall yield to thine!"

Yet she shuddered, as though the appalling shadow were still upon her spirit.--"Nay, 'twas but a dream."

"Dreams!" cried Lord William, recovering from a look of speechless amazement. "Thy dreams are more akin to truth than ever were thy waking reveries."

"Nay, my Lord, look not so unkindly on me--I will tell thee all. I dreamt that I was possessed, and this body was the dwelling of a demon.

It was permitted as a punishment for my transgressions; for I had sought communion with the fiend. I was the companion of witches--foul and abominable shapes;--a beastly crew, with whom I was doomed to a.s.sociate. h.e.l.lish rites and deeds, too horrible to name, were perpetrated. As a witness of my degradation, methought my right hand was withered. I feel it still! Yet--surely 'twas a dream!"

She raised her hand, gazing earnestly on it, which, to Lord William's amazement, appeared whole as before, save a slight mark round the wrist, but the ring was not there.

"What can this betide?" said the trembling sufferer. She looked suspiciously on this apparent confirmation of her guilt, and then upon her husband. "Oh, tell me that I did but dream!"

But Lord William spoke not.

"I know it all now!" she said, with a heavy sob. "My crime is punished; and I loathe my own form, for it is polluted. Yet the whole has pa.s.sed but as some horrible dream--and I am free! This tabernacle is cleansed; no more shall it be defiled; for to Thee do I render up my trust."

A mild radiance had displaced the wild and unnatural l.u.s.tre of her eye, as she looked up to the mercy she invoked, and was forgiven.

Her spirit was permitted but a brief sojourn in this region of sorrow.

Ere another sun, her head hung lifeless on Lord William's bosom;--he had pressed her to his heart in token of forgiveness; but he held only the cold and clammy shrine--the idol had departed!

According to the popular solution of this fearful mystery, a demon or familiar had reanimated her form while she lay senseless at the sudden and unlooked-for dissolution of the witches' a.s.sembly. In this shape the imp had joined the rendezvous at the mill, and fleeing from the effects of Robin's valour, maliciously hoped that Lord William would execute a swift vengeance on his erring bride. But his hand was stayed by another and more merciful power, and the demon was cast out.

The ring and glove were not found. It was said that Mause Helston had taken them as a gage of fealty, and dying about the same period, was denied the rites of Christian burial. Hence may have arisen the belief which tradition has preserved respecting the Lady Sibyl.

Popular superst.i.tion still alleges that her grave was dug where the dark "Eagle Crag" shoots out its cold bare peak into the sky. Often, it is said, on the eve of All-Hallows, do the hound and the milk-white doe meet on the crag--a spectre huntsman in full chase. The belated peasant crosses himself at the sound as he remembers the fate of "The Witch of Bernshaw Tower."

[Ill.u.s.tration: LATHOM HOUSE AS IT EXISTED BEFORE THE SIEGE, RESTORED FROM EXISTING DOc.u.mENTS.

_Drawn by G. Pickering. Engraved by Edw^d Finden._]

FOOTNOTES:

[42] "Riggin'" or ridging. The hills which divide the counties of York and Lancaster are sometimes called "th' riggin'," from their being the highest land between the two seas forming part of what is called the backbone of England. An individual residing at a place named "The Summit," from its situation, was asked where he lived. "I live at th'

riggin' o' th' warld, I reckon," says he; "for th' water fro' t' one side o' th' roof fa's to th' east sea, an' t' other to th' west sea."