Traditions of Lancashire Volume II Part 23

"And who is this thy companion?" said Alice, growing bolder, while the company were gradually gathering round them.

"This, whom your unworthy slave hath brought, most gracious Queen, is the renowned Doctor Aboulfahrez, high conjuror to the Khan of Tartary, and physician to the Great Mogul. He doth drive hence all pains and diseases whatsoever, and will cure your great majesty of any disorder of the spirit, by reason of charms or love-philtres heretofore administered."

With a slight bend of his ill.u.s.trious person, as though the high conjuror to the Khan of Tartary, and physician to the Great Mogul, thought himself too nearly on an equality with her "high mightinesse"

the Queen, the learned doctor for the first time broke silence--

"Will it please the Queen's grace to command an ensample of mine art?"

"We must first be a.s.sured unto what purpose. Hast thou not heard,"

said Alice, with increasing confidence, "that it is treason to put forth strange or unlawful devices before the Queen?"

The stranger bowed. "But your grace hath traitors in those fair eyes which do prompt treason if they practise none."

This gallant speech was much applauded by the company, and relieved Alice from the necessity of a speedy and suitable answer; for she began to be somewhat perplexed by the address of these bold admirers.

"Look at this precious phial, the incomparable elixir, the pabulum of life, the grand arcanum, the supernaculum, the mother and regenerator of nature, the source and the womb of all existence, past, present, and to come!" The learned doctor paused, more from want of breath than from scarcity of epithets wherewith to blazon forth the great virtues of his discovery. Soon, however, he breathed again through the mouth-slit in his mask, and blew on the phial, when lo! a vapour issued from within, curling in long-drawn wreaths down the side, in a manner most wonderful to behold.

This trick roused the admiration of his audience, but he made a sign that they should be still, as their breath and acclamations might disturb the process. He now thrust one finger into the vapour, when it appeared to wind round his hand; then, letting the bottle drop, it fell, suspended from the finger by this novel and extraordinary chain--the vapour seeming to be the link by which it hung. This unexpected feat repressed the noisy burst of applause which might have been the result of a less wonderful device. Every one looked anxiously and uneasily at his neighbour, and at the renowned Doctor Aboulfahrez, not feeling comfortable, perhaps, or even safe, in the presence of so exalted a personage. But new wonders were at hand. The mysterious visitor uttered some cabalistic words, and lo! flames burst forth from the magic phial, to the additional wonder and dismay of the beholders.

"When the Queen's grace doth will it, this box shall be opened; but it will behove her to be discreet in what may follow, lest the charm be evaded."

The Moorish slave was silent during this procedure, standing with arms folded, as though he had been one of the mutes of his master's harem, rather than amba.s.sador to his "ladye love." With the a.s.sent of Alice, the Doctor took in one hand the casket, which he cautiously unlocked. The lid flew open by a secret spring, and a peac.o.c.k of surprising beauty and glittering plumage rose out of the box, imitating the motions of the real bird to admiration. The mimic thing, being placed on the floor, flapped its wings, and unfolded its tail with all the pride and precision of the original.

"Beshrew me!" said Holt, approaching nearer to the performer, "but thou hast been bred to the black art, I think. Some o' ye have catered excellently for our pastime." But who it was none could ascertain, each giving his neighbour credit secretly for the construction of these dainty devices. Yet new wonders were about to follow, when the bride and bridegroom, though wedded to each other's company, came forward to see the spectacle. Not a guest was missing. Even those most pleasantly occupied at the tables left their sack and canary, their spices and confections. The musicians, too, and the menials, seemed to have forgotten their several duties, and stood gaping and marvelling at the show. Suddenly there flew open a little door in the breast of the automaton bird, and out jumped a fair white pigeon, which, after having performed many surprising feats, in its turn became the parent of another progeny--to wit, a beautiful singing bird, or nightingale, which warbled so sweetly, fluttering its wings with all the ecstacy of that divine creature, that the listeners were nearly beside themselves with ravishment and admiration. The nightingale now opened, and a little humming-bird of most surprising brilliancy hopped forth, and jumping up to the Queen, held out its beak, having a label therein, apparently beseeching her to accept the offering. She stooped down to receive the billet, which she hastily unfolded. What effect was visible on her countenance we cannot pretend to say, inasmuch as the mask precluded observation; but there was an evident tremor in her frame. She seemed to be overpowered with surprise, and held out the note as though for the moment incapable of deciding whether to accept it or no. Then with a sudden effort she crumpled it together, and thrust it behind her stomacher. Wonder sat silent and watchful on the face of every beholder. The actors in this strange drama had replaced the automata in the box again, closing its lid. The Moor had made his _salaam_, the Doctor his obeisance, disappearing behind the screen from which they had so mysteriously come forth. But at their departure a train of fire followed upon their track, and a lambent flame played curiously upon the wooden crockets for a few seconds, and then disappeared.

Now was there a Babel of tongues unloosed, at first by sudden impulses and whispers, then breaking forth by degrees into a loud and continuous din of voices, all at once seeking to satisfy their inquiries touching this strange and unexpected visit. Their host was mightily pestered and besieged with questions and congratulations on the subject, which he has promptly and peremptorily disclaimed, attempting to fix the hatching of the plot upon the astonished bridegroom. But even he would not father the conceit; and, in the end, it began to be surmised that these were indeed what their appearance betokened, or something worse, which cast a sudden gloom on the whole a.s.sembly. Some sallied out of the door to watch, and others blamed the master for not seizing and detaining these emissaries of Satan. Alice was closely questioned as to the communication she had received; but she replied, evasively perhaps, that it was only one of the usual stale conceits appropriate to the masque.

Nothing more was heard or seen of them; and it was now high time they should accompany the bridegroom to his own dwelling at Foxholes--a goodly house situate on a pretty knoll near the town of Rochdale, and about two miles distant from Stubley.

Now was there mustering and hurrying to depart. An unwieldy coach was drawn up, into which the bride and her female attendants were forthwith introduced, the bridegroom and his company going on foot. On arriving at Foxholes, the needful ceremonies were performed. Throwing the stocking, a custom then universally practised, was not omitted; which agreeable ceremony was performed as follows:--

The female friends and relations conducted the bride to her chamber, and the men the bridegroom. The latter then took the bride's stockings, and the females those of the bridegroom. Sitting at the bottom of the bed, the stockings were thrown over their heads. When one of the "hurlers" hit the owner, it was deemed an omen that the party would shortly be married. Meanwhile the posset was got ready, and given to the newly-married couple.[14]

It was past midnight, yet Alice sat, solitary and watchful, at her little cas.e.m.e.nt. One fair white arm supported her cheek, and she was gazing listlessly on the silver clouds as they floated in liquid brightness across the full round disc of the moon, then high in the meridian. Her thoughts were not on the scene she beheld. The mellow sound of the waterfalls, the murmur from the river, came on with the breeze, rising and falling like the deep pathos of some wild and mysterious music. Memory, that busy enchanter, was at work; and the scenes she had lately witnessed, so full of disquietude and mystery, mingled with the returning tide of past and almost forgotten emotions.

We have said that the prevailing bent or bias of her disposition was that of romance; and this idol of the imagination, this love of strange and enervating excitement, had not been repressed by the occurrences of the last few hours; on the contrary, she felt as though some wondrous event was impending--some adventure which she alone should achieve--some power that her own arm should contend with and subdue.

She took the billet from her bosom; the moonlight alone fell upon it; but the words were so indeliby fixed upon her imagination that she fancied she could trace every word on that mystic tablet.

"To-morrow, at midnight, in the haunted chamber! If thou hast courage, tarry there a while. Its occupant will protect thee."--['Wherefore am I so bent on this adventure? To visit the beggar in his lair!' thought she; and again she threw her eyes on the billet.] "Peril threatens thine house, which thy coming can alone prevent. Shouldest thou reveal but one word of this warning, thy life, and those dear to thee, will be the forfeit. From thine unknown monitor,

"THESE."

The guest in the boggart-chamber was Noman, to whom it had been allotted, and though he told of terrible sights and harrowing disclosures, he seemed to brave them all with unflinching hardihood, and even exulted in their repet.i.tion. To remain an hour or two with such a companion was in itself a sufficiently novel adventure; but that harm could come from such a source scarcely entered her imagination. A feeling of irrepressible curiosity stimulated her, and prevailed over every other consideration. It was not like spending the time alone; this certainly would have been a formidable condition to have annexed. Besides, would it not be a wicked and a wanton thing to shrink from difficulty or danger when the welfare and even life of one so dear as her brother, peradventure, depended on her compliance.

Another feeling, too, more complicated, and a little more selfish it might be, was the hidden cause to which her inclinations might be traced.

"Mine unknown monitor!" she repeated the words, and a thousand strange and wayward fancies rose to her recollection. Often had she seen, when least expecting it, a stranger, who, in whatsoever place they met, preserved a silence respectful but mysterious. She had seen him in the places of public resort, in the solitary woods, and in the highways; but his reserve and secrecy were unbroken. When she inquired, not an individual knew him; and though his form and features were indelibly traced on her memory, she could never recall them without an effort, which, whether it was attended with more of pain than of pleasure, we will not venture to declare. Once or twice she had fancied, when awaking in the dead stillness of the night, that an invisible something was near and gazing upon her; but this feeling was soon forgotten, though often revived whenever she was more than usually sensitive or excited. The figure of the Moor was wonderfully similar to the form of the mysterious unknown. But the secret was now, at any rate, to be divulged; and a few hours would put her into possession of the key to unlock this curious cabinet. So thought Alice, and her own secret chambers of imagery were strangely distempered thereby. Was she beloved by one of a higher order of beings, a denizen of the invisible world, who tracked her every footstep, and hovered about her unseen?

She had heard that such things were, and that they held intercourse with some favoured mortals--unlimited duration, and a nature more exalted, subject to no change, being vouchsafed to the chosen ones.

The exploits at Stubley seemed to favour this hypothesis, and Alice fell into a delicious reverie, as we have seen, well prepared for the belief and reception of any stray marvels that might fall out by the way.

Looking upon the moat which lay stagnant and unruffled beneath the quiet gaze of the moon, she thought that a living form emerged from the bushes on the opposite bank;--she could not be mistaken, it was her unknown lover. Breathless she awaited the result; but the shadows again closed around him, and she saw him not again. Bewildered, agitated, and alarmed, the day was springing faintly in the dim east when her eyelids lay heavy in the dew of their repose.

Morning was high and far risen in the clear blue atmosphere, but its first and balmy freshness was pa.s.sed when Alice left her chamber. She looked paler and more languid than she was wont, and her brother rallied her playfully on the consequences of last night's dissipation; but her thoughts were otherwise engrossed, and she replied carelessly and with an air of abstraction far different from her usual playful and unrestrained spirit. The mind was absorbed, restricted to one sole avenue of thought: all other impressions ceased to communicate their impulse. Her brother departed soon afterwards to his morning avocations; but Alice sat in the porch. She looked out on the hills with a vacant, but not unwistful eye. Their slopes were dotted with many a fair white dwelling, but the rigour of cultivation had not extended so far up their barren heathery sides as now; yet many a bright paddock, green amid the dark waste, and the little homestead, the nucleus of some subsequent and valuable inheritance, proclaimed the unceasing toil, the primeval curse, and the sweat of the brow, that was here also.

To enjoy the warmth and freshness of the morning, Alice had removed her spinning-wheel into the porch. Here she was engaged in the primitive and good old fas.h.i.+on of preparing yarn for the wants of the household--an occupation not then perfected into the system to which it is now degraded. The wives and daughters of the wealthiest would not then disdain to fabricate material for the household linen, carrying us far back into simpler, if not happier times, when Homer sung, and kings' daughters found a similar employment.

Alice was humming in unison with her wheel, her thoughts more free from the very circ.u.mstance that her body was the subject of this mechanical exercise.

"Good morrow, Mistress Alice!" said a sonorous voice at the entrance.

Turning suddenly, she espied the athletic beggar standing erect, with his staff and satchel, on one side of the porch.

"Ha' ye an awmous to-day, lady?" He doffed his cap and held it forth, more with the air of one bestowing a favour than soliciting one.

"Thou hast been i' the kitchen, I warrant," said Alice, "by the breadth of thy satchel."

"An' what the worse are ye for that?" replied the saucy mendicant; "your hounds and puppies would lick up the leavings, if I did not."

"Go to," said Alice, impatiently; "thou dost presume too far to escape correction. Begone!"

"This air, I reckon--ay, this blessed air--is as free unto my use as thine," said Noman, sullenly, and without showing any symptoms of obedience.

"My brother shall know of thine insolence, and the menials shall drive thee forth."

"Thy brother!--tell him, pretty maiden, that though he is a lawyer, and his uncle, he who built this house to boot, he hath little left in this misgoverned realm but to deal out injustice. Other folks' money sticks i' their skirts that have precious little o' their own, I wis."

"I know not the nature of thine allusions, nor care I to bandy weapons with such an adversary."

"Hark ye, lady! it was to solder down as pretty a piece of roguery as one would wish to leave to one's heirs that Theophilus Ashton, thine uncle, thy mother's brother, now deceased, went to London when he had builded this house."

"Roguery!--mine uncle Ashton! Darest thou?"----

"Ay, the same. The spoils of my patrimony built this goodly dwelling, and the battle of Marston Moor gave thy brother wherewith to buy the remainder of the inheritance. I was made a beggar by my loyalty, he a rich man by his treason."

"What means this foul charge?" said Alice, astounded by the audacity of this accusation.

"But fear not. Had it not been for thee and another--whose well-being is bound up in thine own--long ago would this goodly heritage have been spoiled; for--revenge is sweeter even than possession; so good-morrow, Mistress Alice."

"What, then, is thy business with me?"

"Wentest thou not from the masque with thy pretty love-billet behind thy stomacher?"

"Insolent vagrant, this folly shall not go unpunished!"

"Hold, wench! provoke not an"----he paused for one second, but in that brief s.p.a.ce there came a change over his spirit, which in a moment was subdued as though by some over-mastering effort--"an impotent old man." His voice softened, and there was a touch even of pathos in the expression. "To-night--fail not--I, ay even _I_, will protect thee.

Fear not; thy welfare hangs on that issue!"

Saying this, with an air of dignity far superior to his usual bluntness and even rudeness of address, he slowly departed. Thoughts crowded, like a honey swarm, to this hive of mystery, nor could she throw off the impression which clung to her. She had been warned against revealing this communication, but at one time she felt resolved to make her brother acquainted with the whole, and to claim his protection; but then came the warning, or rather threat, of some hidden mischief that must inevitably follow the disclosure. "Surely, in her own home, she might venture to walk unattended. The beggar she had known for some time in his periodical visits; and though she felt an unaccountable timidity in his presence, yet she certainly was minded to make an experiment of the adventure; but"----And in this happy state of doubt and fluctuation she remained until eventide, when a calm bright moon, as it again rose over the hill, saw Alice at the cas.e.m.e.nt of her own chamber, looking thoughtfully, anxiously, down where the dark surface of the stagnant moat wore a bright star on its bosom. The scene, the soft and tender influence which it possessed--the hour, soothing and elevating the mind, freed from the hara.s.sing and petty cares of existence--to a romantic and imaginative disposition these were all favourable to its effects--the development of that ethereal spirit of our nature, that enchanter whose wand conjures up the busy world within, creating all things according to his own pleasure, and investing them with every attribute at his will.

She felt her fears give way, and her resolution was taken: the die was cast, and she committed herself to the result. What share the handsome, dark, and melancholy-looking stranger had in this decision she did not pause to inquire, nor indeed could she have much if any suspicion of the secret influence he excited. There was danger, and this danger could only be averted by her interference: what might be curiosity was at any rate her duty; and she, feeling mightily like some devoted heroine, would not shrink from the trial. When once brought to a decision she felt a load taken from her breast; she breathed more freely, and her tread was more vigorous and elastic. She left her chamber with a lofty mien, and the gentle Alice felt more like the proud mistress of an empire than the inhabitant of a little country dwelling when she re-entered the parlour: yet there was a restless glance from her eye which ever and anon would start aside from visible objects and wander about, apparently without aim or discrimination. Her brother was busied, happily, with domestic duties, too much engaged to notice any unusual disturbance in her demeanour, and Alice employed her time to little profit until she heard the appointed signal for rest. As they bade the usual "good-night," her heart smote her: she looked on the unconscious, unsuspecting aspect of her brother, and the whole secret of her heart was on her tongue: it did not escape her lips; but the tear stood in her eye; and as she closed the door it sounded like the signal of some long separation--as though the portal had for ever closed upon her.

Wrapped in a dark mantle, with cap and hood, the maiden stepped forth from her little closet about midnight. She bore a silver lamp that waved softly in the night-wind as she went with a noiseless, timid step through the pa.s.sages to the haunted chamber. The room wherein the beggar slept was somewhat detached from the rest of the dormitories. A low gallery led by a narrow corridor to a flight of some two or three steps into this room, now used for the stowage of lumber. It was said to have been one of the apartments in the old house, forming a sort of peduncle to the new, not then removed, like a remnant of the sh.e.l.l sticking to the skirts of the new-fledged bird. This adjunct, the beggar's dwelling, is now gone. An ancient doorcase with a grotesque carving disclosed the entrance. She paused before it, not without a secret apprehension of what might be going on within. For the first time she felt the novelty, not to say imprudence, of her situation, and the unfeminine nature of her exploit. She was just hesitating whether or not to return when she heard the door slowly open; a tall, gaunt, figure looked out, which she immediately recognised to be that of the mendicant. Somewhat rea.s.sured, and her courage strengthened by his appearance, she did not attempt to retreat, but stood silent for a s.p.a.ce, and seemingly not a little abashed; yet the purity of her motives, as far as known to herself, soon recurred to her aid, and her proud and somewhat haughty spirit immediately roused its energies when she had to cope with difficulty and danger.