Part 9
Days, weeks, and months passed away, and no clue to their mysterious disappearance presented itself until the eve of St. John, their patron saint. The vespers had been sung, with special reference to the coming day, and the nuns had gone out to breathe the air of the summer evening, whilst the Abbess, taking the key of the tower, unlocked the door and went up the stone stairs to the top, a place not much frequented, where she thought to offer up her prayers beneath the open dome of heaven, without any intervening walls. She had just placed her foot on the topmost stair when she was startled at beholding the two sisters lying locked in each other's arms and with upward turned eyes. At the first glance she supposed them to be dead, but a moment after was undeceived by their rising, and saying, "Mother, dear! it will soon be time for the midnight Mass; but how is this? We lay down an hour ago, under the sky of a winter night, but now we have awakened under the setting sun of a summer eve."
"An hour ago! my children," replied the Abbess, "it is now months since you disappeared on the eve of the Nativity, and months since the midnight Mass of the birth of our Saviour was sung. Can it be you have been sleeping here all through the interval?"
"Mother, dear," they replied, after some further questionings and explanations, "we have not been sleeping, we have been transported to heaven, and have seen sights inconceivable to the human eye, and heard music such as has never been listened to in this lower world. The heaven that we have visited is no mere localised spot, but extends throughout infinite space. It possesses no land or water; no mountains and valleys; no rivers, or lakes, or trees, or material objects of any kind; but has picturesque scenery, impalpable and cloudlike, of the most ravishing beauty. It is peopled by myriads of angelic beings and beatified mortals, unsubstantial and etherealised, all of exquisitely symmetrical figures, and with gloriously radiant features, beaming with happiness and smiling with serenity. Unlike the popular opinion, it is not a place of idle lounging and repose, but of intense activity, all being engaged in employments which afford an intensity of pleasurable emotions. The Almighty Father and Creator of all this realm of beauty and of all these glorified creatures it was not possible for us to see with our mortal eyes, but we were perfectly cognisant of His influence and presence everywhere throughout the infinitude of space. But oh! the music! here, on earth, it is termed divine, but our sweetest melodies are but a jarring discord of sounds compared with that of heaven; mortal ear cannot form the faintest conception of its sublime grandeur and unutterable loveliness."
Thus spake they to the astonished Abbess, who at once recognised the fact of their miraculous transportation to the realms of light for a temporary sojourn there, that on their return to earth they might be the means of comforting and encouraging those who by holy lives of asceticism, self-denial, and prayer, were wending their way thitherwards; and she conducted them down to their sister nuns, to whom again they had to narrate the visions that had been vouchsafed to them.
"There is joy in the convent of Beverley, Now these saintly maidens are found, And to hear their story right wonderingly The nuns have gathered around; The long-lost maidens, to whom was given To live so long the life of heaven."
The Sisters further stated that the first spirit they met was the holy St. John, the founder of their convent, whom they immediately recognised, although he had cast off his earthly integuments, and appeared in a glorified form, but in semblance as when he performed the miracle at South Burton.
He welcomed them with affectionate warmth, and told them that their parents were now enjoying the reward of their virtuous and pious lives, but that they could not be permitted to see them until they themselves had finally passed away from earthly life. He further told them that he kept a watchful eye over his town and monastery in Inder-a-wood, with affectionate love, which should be seen in after ages, in the promotion of their prosperity.
The next day the festival of St. John was celebrated in the monastery and church, with more than usual interest and devotion. Towards the close of it--
"The maidens have risen, with noiseless tread They glide o'er the marble floor; They seek the Abbess with bended head: 'Thy blessing we would implore, Dear mother! for e'er the coming day Shall blush into light, we must hence away.' The Abbess hath lifted her gentle hands, And the words of peace hath said, 'O vade in pacem;' aghast she stands, 'Have their innocent spirits fled?' Yes, side by side lie these maidens fair, Like two wreaths of snow in the moonlight there."
At the same time the church became lighted up with a supernatural roseate hue, and sounds of celestial music ravished the ears of the assembly. The Sisters were laid side by side by tender and reverent hands in a tomb near the altar of the church, and now--
"Fifty summers have come and passed away, But their loveliness knoweth no decay; And many a chaplet of flowers is hung, And many a bead told there; And many a hymn of praise is sung, And many a low-breathed prayer; And many a pilgrim bends the knee At the shrine of the Sisters of Beverley."
The tomb of the Sisters was destroyed in the great fire of 1188, which destroyed not only St. John's Church and monastery, but the whole town besides. They were afterwards rebuilt--the Minster in the superb style which it now presents--and it was in remembrance of these sainted Sisters that the uninscribed tomb was placed in the new church.
This legend has formed the subject of an exquisite poem, which appeared in the pages of the _Literary Gazette_, and has been attributed to the pen of Alaric A. Watts, which, however, is open to doubt.
The Dragon of Wantley.
Once on a time--as the old storytellers were wont to commence their tales of love, chivalry, and romance--there dwelt in the most wild and rugged part of Wharncliffe Chase, near Rotherham, a fearful dragon, with iron teeth and claws. How he came there no one knew, or where he came from; but he proved to be a most pestilent neighbour to the villagers of Wortley--blighting the crops by the poisonous stench of his breath, devouring the cattle of the fields, making no scruple of seizing upon a plump child or a tender young virgin to serve as a _bonne-bouche_ for his breakfast table, and even crunching up houses and churches to satisfy his ravenous appetite.
Wortley, is situated in the parish of Penistone, and belongs now, as it has done for centuries, to the Wortley family. Before the dissolution of monasteries, the Rectory of Penistone belonged to the Abbey of St. Stephen, Westminster, and was granted, when the Abbey was dissolved, to Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk, who out of the proceeds established in Sheffield a set of almshouses. The impropriation of the great tithes were let to the Wortley family, who, by measures of oppression and extortion, contrived to get a great deal more than they were entitled to, and Nicholas Wortley insisted on taking the tithes in kind, but was opposed by Francis Bosville, who obtained a decree (17th Elizabeth) against him; but Sir Francis Wortley, in the succeeding reign, again attempted to enforce payment in kind, with so much disregard to the suffering he inflicted upon the poor that they determined upon finding out some champion who would dare to attack this redoubtable dragon in his den at Wantley, so as to put an end, once and for all, to the destruction of their crops, the loss of their cattle, and the desolation of their ruined homes. Foremost in this movement was one Lyonel Rowlestone, who married the widow of Francis Bosville; and the parishioners entered into an agreement to unite in opposition to the claims of the Wortleys. The parchment on which it is written is dated 1st James I., and bristles with the names and seals of the people of Penistone of that time, and is still extant.
In the neighbourhood, on a moor not far from Bradfield, stood a mansion called More or Moor Hall, and was inhabited by a family who had resided there from the time of Henry II., but of whom little is known, excepting the wonderful achievement of one member of the family, "More of More Hall," who slew the Dragon of Wantley.
The family had for their crest a green dragon, and there was formerly in Bradfield Church a stone dragon, five feet in length, which had some connection with the family. To this worthy, who, it is supposed, may have been an attorney or counsellor, the parishioners of Penistone, having decided upon appealing to the law courts, applied to undertake their case, and make battle on the terrible dragon in his den among the rocks of the forest of Wharncliffe. He readily complied with their wish, and with great boldness and valour prepared for the conflict by going to Sheffield and ordering a suit of armour, studded with spikes--that is, arming himself with the panoply of law, and then went forth and made the attack. The fight is said, in the ballad narrative, to have lasted two days and nights, probably the duration of the lawsuit, and in the end he killed the dragon, or won his suit, thus relieving the people of Penistone from any further annoyance or unjust exaction from that quarter. Sir Francis Wortley persuaded his cousin Wordsworth, the freehold lord of the manor (ancestor, lineal or collateral, of the Poet Wordsworth), to stand aloof in the matter, and now the Wortley and the Wordsworth are the only estates in the parish that pay tithes.
To commemorate the event an exceedingly humorous and cleverly satirical ballad was written, which, being also a lively burlesque on the ballad romances of chivalry, served the same purpose towards them that Cervantes' "Don Quixote" did for the prose fictions of the same character. Thus opens the ballad--
"Old stories tell how Hercules A dragon slew at Gerna, With seven heads and fourteen eyes To see and well discerna; But he had a club, this dragon to drub, Or he had ne'er I warrant ye; But More of More Hall with nothing at all, He slew the dragon of Wantley.
"This dragon had two furious wings, Each one upon each shoulder; With a sting in his tail, as long as a flail, Which made him bolder and bolder. He had long claws, and in his jaws Four and forty teeth of iron; With a hide as tough as any buff, Which did him round environ."
It then goes on to describe how "he ate three children at one sup, as one would eat an apple." Also all sorts of cattle and trees, the forest beginning to diminish very perceptibly, and "houses and churches," which to him were geese and turkeys, "leaving none behind."
"But some stones, dear Jack, that he could not crack, Which on the hills you will finda."
These stones are supposed to be a reference to the Lyonel Rowlestone, who was the leader of the opposition. There are many local allusions of a similar character, which would no doubt add much to the keenness of the satire and the humour, but which are lost to us through our ignorance of the circumstances and persons alluded to.
"In Yorkshire, near fair Rotherham," was his den, and at Wantley a well from which he drank.
"Some say this dragon was a witch, Some say he was a devil; For from his nose a smoke arose And with it burning snivel."
"Hard by a furious knight there dwelt," who could "wrestle, play at quarter-staff, kick, cuff, and huff; and with his hands twain could swing a horse till he was dead, and eat him all up but his head." To this wonderful athlete came "men, women, girls, and boys, sighing and sobbing, and made a hideous noise--O! save us all, More of More Hall, thou peerless knight of these woods; do but slay this dragon, who won't leave us a rag on, we'll give thee all our goods." The Knight replied--
"Tut, tut," quoth he, "no goods I want; But I want, I want, in sooth, A fair maid of sixteen, that's brisk and keen, With smiles about her mouth; Hair black as sloe, skin white as snow, With blushes her cheeks adorning; To anoint me o'er night, e'er I go to the fight, And to dress me in the morning."
This being agreed to, he hied to Sheffield, and had a suit of armour, covered with spikes five or six inches long, made, which, when he donned it, caused the people to take him for "an Egyptian porcupig," and the cattle for "some strange, outlandish hedgehog." When he rose in the morning,
"To make him strong and mighty He drank, by the tale, six pots of ale And a quart of _aqua vitæ_."
Thus equipped and with his valour braced up, he went to Wantley, concealing himself in the well, and when the dragon came to drink, he shouted "Boh," and struck the monster a blow on the mouth. The knight then came out of the well, and they commenced fighting, for some time without advantage on either side--without either receiving a wound. At length, however, after fighting two days and a night, the dragon gave him a blow which made him reel and the earth to quake. "But More of More Hall, like a valiant son of Mars," returned the compliment with such vigour that--
"Oh! quoth the dragon, with a deep sigh, And turned six times together; Sobbing and tearing, cursing and swearing Out of his throat of leather; More of More Hall! O, thou rascal! Would I had seen thee never; With the thing on thy foot, thou has pricked my gut And I'm quite undone for ever.
"Murder! murder! the dragon cry'd. Alack! alack! for grief; Had you but mist that place, you could Have done me no mischief. Then his head he shaked, trembled and quaked, And down he laid and cry'd, First on one knee, then on back tumbled he: So groan'd, kick't, and dy'd."
Henry Carey, in 1738, brought out an opera on the subject, entitled "The Dragon of Wantley," abounding in humour, and a fine burlesque on the Italian operas of the period, then the rage of fashion. And in 1873, Poynter exhibited at the Royal Academy a picture of "More of More Hall and the Dragon."
The Miracles and Ghost of Watton.
In a sweetly sequestered spot, environed by patriarchal trees of luxuriant foliage, between the towns of Driffield and Beverley, nestles a Tudoresque building, which goes by the name of Watton Abbey, although it never was an abbey, but a Gilbertine Priory. It is now a private residence, and was occupied for many years as a school, the existing buildings apparently having been erected since the dissolution, and there are but few remains of the original convent, saving a portion of the nunnery, now converted into stables, a hollow square indicating the site of the kitchen and the moat which originally surrounded the entire enclosure. A couple of centuries ago there were extensive remains of the old priory, but they were removed for the purpose of repairing Beverley Minster. Moreover, the abbey has a haunted room, which, however, has no connection with the monastic times, although the ghost that haunts it is usually designated "The Headless Nun of Watton," but belongs to the civil war period of the seventeenth century. The fact is that story tellers of the legend confound two altogether different narratives--the one of a trangressing nun of the twelfth century, and the other of a murdered lady of the seventeenth, combining their two histories into one story, as if their persons were identical.
A nunnery was established here in a very early period of Anglo-Saxon Christianity, probably soon after its re-introduction into Northumbria by King Oswald, as we find St. John of Beverley performing a miracle there, which would be about the year 720, after he had resigned his Bishopric and retired to Beverley. It appears that he was an intimate friend of the Lady Prioress--Heribury--and made frequent visits to Watton to administer spiritual advice and ghostly consolation to the inmates under her charge. On one occasion when he went thither, he found the Prioress's daughter suffering great agony from a diseased and swollen arm, the result of unskilful bleeding, and was solicited to go to her chamber and give her his blessing, which might be the means of alleviating the pain. He inquired when she had been bled, and was told on the fourth day of the moon, which he said was a very inauspicious day, quoting Archbishop Theodore as his authority, and he feared his prayers would be of no avail. Nevertheless he went to her room, prayed for her restoration to health, gave her his blessing, and went down to dinner. They had, however, scarcely seated themselves when a servant came in, stating that all her pain had gone, her swollen arm had been reduced to its natural size, and that she was perfectly restored to health, and was dressing to come down and dine with them.
The nunnery was destroyed, it is presumed, by the Danes at the same time that the Monastery of Beverley perished at their hands, in the ninth century, and it lay waste and desolate until the twelfth century, although we find from the Domesday survey that there were then a church and priest in the village.
In 1148-9, Eustace Fitz John, Lord of Knaresborough, and a favourite of King Henry I., at the instance of Murdac, Archbishop of York, refounded the convent, in atonement for certain crimes he had committed. It was established for thirteen canons and thirty-six nuns of the new Gilbertine order, who were to live in the same block of buildings, but with a party wall for the separation of the sexes; the canons "to serve the nuns perpetually in terrene as well as in divine matters." He endowed it with the Lordship of Watton, with all its appurtenances in pure and perpetual alms for the salvation of his soul, and those of his wife, his father and mother, brothers and sisters, friends and servants.
Archbishop Murdac was at the time resident at Beverley, the gates of York having been shut against him; and it may be that the fact of his predecessor, St. John, the patron-saint of the town where he dwelt, having performed a great miracle there, was what influenced him in his desire to see a resuscitation of the monastery. He was a remarkable man, and had led a somewhat adventurous life. Archbishop Thurstan was his patron, and gave him some preferments in the church of York, which he resigned at the pressing invitation of St. Bernard, founder of the Cistercians, to become a monk at Clervaux. Soon after he was sent by his superior to found a Cistercian house at Vauclair, of which he was appointed the first abbot, in 1131, where he remained until 1143, when, at the recommendation of St. Bernard, he was elected Abbot of Fountains. Under his judicious and able government the abbey prospered and threw off not less than seven offshoots--those of Kirkstall, Lix, Meaux, Vaudy, and Woburn.
On the death of Archbishop Thurstan, King Stephen desired the canons to elect William Fitzherbert, his nephew and their treasurer, in his place, which they were willing to do, but the Cistercians, headed by Murdac, suspecting that undue influence had been made use of, vehemently opposed his election, and Pope Eugenius, on the appeal of St. Bernard, suspended Fitzherbert.
Fitzherbert, out of revenge, went with his friends to Fountains, broke open the door, searched ineffectually for Murdac, then fired the abbey, and retired. This act caused a great sensation, and the Archbishop was deprived in 1147. The same year an assembly met at Richmond, and elected Murdac as Archbishop, who immediately went to Rome and obtained his pall from Pope Eugenius; but on his return found York barred against his entrance, upon which he retired to Beverley. Stephen, the King, refused to recognise him, sequestering the stalls of York, and fining the town of Beverley for harbouring him. It was at this time that he promoted the re-establishment of Watton, and placed within its walls a child of four years of age to be educated, with a view of taking the veil.
In retaliation, he excommunicated Puisnet, Treasurer of York, and laid the city under an interdict. Puisnet was afterwards elected Bishop of Durham, upon which Murdac excommunicated the Prior and Archdeacon, who came to Beverley to implore pardon, and could only obtain absolution on acknowledging their fault and submitting to scourging at the entrance to Beverley Minster. He died at Beverley in the same year (1153), and was buried in York Cathedral.
Elfleda, the child whom Murdac had placed in the convent, was a merry, vivacious little creature; and whilst but a child was a source of amusement to the sisterhood, who, although prim and demure in bearing, and some of them sour-tempered and acid in their tempers, were wont to smile at her youthful frolics and ringing laugh; but as she grew older, her outbursts of merriment, and the sallies of wit that began to animate her conversation, were checked, as being inconsistent with the character of a young lady who was now enrolled as novice, preparatory to taking the veil. As she advanced towards womanhood her form gradually developed into a most symmetrical figure; and her features became the perfection of beauty, set off with a transparent delicacy of complexion, such as would have rendered her a centre of attraction even among the beauties of a Royal Court. This excited the jealousy of the sisters, who were chiefly elderly and middle-aged spinsters, whose homely and somewhat coarse features had proved detrimental to their hopes of obtaining husbands. They began to treat her with scornful looks, chilling neglect, and petty persecutions; but when she, later on, evinced a manifest repugnance to convent life, ridiculed the ways of the holy sisters, and even satirised them, they charged her with entertaining rebellious and ungodly sentiments, and subjected her to penances and other modes of wholesome correction, such as they considered would subdue her worldly spirit.
Sprightly and light-hearted as she was, Elfleda was not happy, immured as she was within these detested walls, and condemned to assist in wearisome services, such as she thought might perhaps be congenial to the souls of her elder sisters, whose hopes of worldly happiness and conjugal endearment had been blighted, but which were altogether unsuited for one so beautiful (for she knew that she was fair, and was vain of her looks) and so cheerful-minded as herself; and she longed with intense desire to make her escape, mingle with the outer world, and have free intercourse with the other sex.
According to the charter of endowment, the lay brethren of the monastery were entrusted with the management of the secular affairs of the nunnery, which necessitated their admission within its portals on certain occasions for conference with the prioress. On these occasions Elfleda would cast furtive and very un-nunlike glances upon their persons. She was particularly attracted by one of them, a young man of prepossessing mien and seductive style of speech, and she felt her heart beat wildly whenever he came with the other visitors. He noticed her surreptitious glances, and saw that she was exceedingly beautiful, and his heart responded to the sentiment he felt that he had inspired in hers. They maintained this silent but eloquent language of love for some time, and soon found means of having stolen interviews under the darkness of night, when vows of everlasting love were interchanged, and led, eventually, to consequences which at the outset were not dreamt of by the erring pair.