Part 8

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.