Chapter 30

"We must return," said the maiden, looking up, alarmed at seeing, for the first time, that they were cut off from all connection and intercourse with their companions. Her attendant was a perfect stranger, except in name, and though counselled to rely implicity on his care by the master of the ceremonies himself, she felt her situation embarrassing and unpleasant.

"And why must we return?" said the mask. The tone startled her; its expression was now soft and beseeching, as though he had before spoken in a masked voice.

"Why!" said she, looking as though she would have pierced through his disguise.

"Nay, whet not thy glance so keenly. I am not what I seem, and yet am not unseemly."

"Your jests had been better timed had they taken a fitter season. I must hence."

"Go not, my beauteous queen," said the stranger, taking her hand, which she dashed from her with indignation and alarm. She was darting up the crag, but was again detained.

"I will worship thee:--thou shall be my star--the axle of my thoughts. All"----

"Unhand me, sir, or I'll call those who have the power to punish as well as to humble thy presumption!"

"Whom wilt thou call, my pretty lamb? The wolf? The snake is scotched in the bower, and I but beseech thy gratitude. How that look of scorn becomes thee! Pout not so, my queen, or thou wilt indeed make an excuse for my rudeness."

"How? Again this insult! Begone, or thou shalt rue that ever thy thought escaped thy tongue. I'll report thee to thy betters."

"My betters! and who be they, maiden? Thou knowest me not, _perdie_. Hath not Sir John Finett shorn his love-locks and eschewed thy service after leaving thy bower the other night?"

This taunt raised her indignation to a blaze--her bosom swelled at the rebuke.

Still he retained her hand--with the other she clung to a withered tree, whose roots held insecurely by the rock. Making another effort, she sprang from his grasp; but the tree was rent from its hold, and she fell with it to the edge of the precipice. Ere the Silver Knight could interpose, a faint shriek announced her descent: a swift crash was heard amongst the boughs and underwood--a groan and a rebound. He saw her disappear behind a crag. Then came one thrilling moment of terror, one brief pause in that death-like stillness, and a heavy plunge was heard in the gulf below! He listened--his perceptions grew more acute--eye and ear so painfully susceptible, and their sensibility so keen, that the mind scarcely distinguished its own reactions from realities--from outward impressions on the sense. He thought he heard the gurgle and the death-throe. Then the pale face of the maiden seemed to spring out from the abyss. He rushed down the precipice. Entangled in the copsewood and bushes, some time elapsed ere he gained the narrow path below. He soon found, as in most other situations, the shortest road the longest--that the beaten track would have brought him quicker to his destination; but these nice calculations were forgotten. All pranked out and bedizened as he was, the puissant knight plunged into the gulf; but his exertions were fruitless, and he gave up the search. His love for the maiden living and breathing did not prompt him to drown himself for her corpse. With hasty steps he regained the Tower, where he doffed his dripping garments unobserved.

Sir John Finett, by advice from his friend Weldon, determined on acquainting their host with the lady's disappearance. They had a shrewd suspicion that Buckingham was the contriver of this daring outrage; though from his great power, influence, and audacity, they had everything to fear and but little to hope from the result. Yet no time should be lost in the attempt.

As they entered the hall, Sir Gilbert Hoghton and several of the guests were still making merry after the feast. Calling him aside, they communicated the dismal tidings.

"Grace Gerard amissing, say ye?"

"'Tis even so," said Sir John; "we have yet no clue to the search; but this night shall not pass without the attempt, at any rate. In the morning we will to the king with our complaint."

"Boy," said the baronet to his little henchman, "go to the woman's suite, and rouse Grace Gerard's maid."

"The woman was in the kitchen some half hour agone, conveying her mistress a warm draught, or some such puling diet," said the page.

"Haste," cried Sir John impatiently, marvelling at this unexpected intelligence,--"the lad is blinded by some misapprehension. I'll forfeit my best jewel she is not in her chamber. This interlude works i' the plot--part of the trickery now enacting."

But the page made a quick return.

"What news?" said Finett.

"The lady is gone to rest; something discomposed, though, and out of spirits. So says her maiden, whom I would have questioned more straitly, but she rebuked me sharply for my impertinence."

"Pray you send and question her," said Sir John.

"Nay," returned Sir Gilbert, smiling, "I'll be bound the lady is safe; and her maiden has other guess-matters to look to than letting out the secrets of her mistress's chamber."

They were obliged to rest satisfied, or rather unsatisfied, with this answer. But the mystery was more and more inexplicable. Either some laughable mistake or some deep-laid villany was intended. Sir John dared not pursue the subject to this extremity. He felt assured of her purity and honour. Her manners, so confiding and unsuspicious, showed a heart unacquainted with guile.

After a sleepless night Sir John arose, feverish and unrefreshed. He threw open the window of his chamber, which looked into the courtyard. Near a side postern stood a grey palfrey, caparisoned for a lady's use, and impatiently awaiting its burden. The hour was too early for morning rambles, but the beast was evidently equipped for a journey. Two other steeds were now led forth, as if for the attendants. He caught a glimpse of Grace Gerard's maid, who seemed, by her dress, to be of the party whose movements he was so anxious to ascertain. He suspected this sudden departure was for the purpose of escaping without his observance. He hurried towards the stairs: just entering the corridor, he met Grace Gerard. She was evidently confused at his appearance. It was but for a moment; her spirit grappled with the occasion; and she replied firmly, and with becoming dignity, to his questions.

"Whither away, our beauteous queen?" said he, bowing almost to the ground. "Are you bound for some isle of the Western Ind, getting the start of Phoebus in his nightly race to those gem-bearing climes? Methinks the sun is departing from us, though but just risen."

"'Tis my purpose to depart, Sir John. This clime is too bright, and its beams too fervid, for a lady's eye."

"One word in sober speech:--Wherefore?"

"I know your question, Sir John. Time hastens, and I reply. Your knight of the silver mantle I proclaim a recreant, as treacherous as he is base. Sir John, for my--no, for your own sake"----

"Another stole into his place," said he, interrupting her with great eagerness. "A base-born changeling!--some villain, who, under this disguise, abused our honourable intent; but say, peerless princess, to whose prowess we owe your rescue."

"'Tis my first venture into the unhallowed limits of your licentious court; and through the grace that hath preserved me harmless, I here resolve it shall be my last. By your instructions, Sir John, I relied implicitly on the protection of your friend. He would fain have abused his trust, but I escaped from the offered insult. Struggling to free my hand from his grasp, by yonder hill-side, I lost my footing. I fell down the steep unhurt. Fear lent me unwonted strength, and I escaped unseen, round the narrow pathway. My discourteous knight thought, doubtless, I had tumbled into the roaring abyss; for the night mist hung below, and I heard a huge fragment of rock, loosened in my descent, plunge into the dimly-rolling waters. Now, hear me: my resolve is taken, and no earthly influence or persuasion shall stay me. 1 was bewildered, yet flattered by your follies: foolish and thoughtless enough to frolic and flutter on the very brink of a precipice. I was dazzled by the glittering but dangerous excitement. Conscience spoke, but I durst not listen. My course of life hitherto has been through scenes of gentleness and peace, and I could not look on your bustle and dissipation without alarm. Yet was I persuaded to mingle in your sports yesterday--that day hallowed by the last fiat of its Creator, wherein the soul, freed awhile from the cares of earth, may prostrate itself in homage before Him who said, 'It is mine!' Justly punished for trifling with my better thoughts, my escape shall not be without its acknowledgment."

Sir John was silent. She stood before him like some purer, brighter thing than could be deemed akin to this polluted earth.

"Those siren waves were bearing me on to the gulf where"--She paused a moment, shuddering at the dark retrospect of the past. "Where all your pomp and pageantry will be overwhelmed, and yourselves, for ever, in the same irretrievable ruin!"

Sir John looked uneasy, and his eye wandered, as if in search of some object wherewith to throw off these gloomy anticipations. The maiden again spoke:--

"It seemed as though a veil, invisible heretofore, were suddenly undrawn. The glory and the baseness, the splendour and the pollution, were at once revealed. The hand unseen had drawn it aside. I would now shun--I hope for ever--- these paths of folly; and I bid farewell to your pleasures without a murmur or a regret."

Sir John, courtier though he was, ardently and willingly rendering homage at the shrine of pleasure and dissipation, was awe-struck. Conscience echoed a fearful response; and he shrank before the reproof he could not shun.

"Without regret!" said he, faltering and abashed. "I had hoped--perhaps wished--but it was too presumptuous. My purest thoughts would have sullied so pure a shrine."

"Stay, Sir John; though the confession be humbling to a maiden's pride, yet my heart tells me 'tis the last time we meet; and it is the only acknowledgment,--I render it to your honesty and good faith." Her voice grew hesitating and tremulous. "There was a tendril twining about my heart; but it is wrung off, and I am again--alone!"

Her heart was full, and her whole frame convulsed by some overpowering emotion. An adieu died upon her lips; but she resolutely refused any further communication. Hastening to the courtyard, she mounted her little white palfry, and quitted for ever those fascinating and dangerous allurements, which, having once felt, few have had the power to withstand.

We need scarcely add, that, amid the gaieties and splendours by which the lover was enthralled, the recollection of Grace Gerard sometimes mingled in the revelries of this votary of pleasure. It often came as a warning and a rebuke. By degrees the impression grew less powerful. Each succeeding wave from the ever-tossing ocean left the traces less distinct, until they were overwhelmed in the dull tide of oblivion.

NOTE ON THE BALLAD, p. 269.

The _music_ to these words is _traditionary_, if we may be allowed the expression. It is one of the many wild and characteristic melodies floating about, perhaps unappropriated, on the popular breath, varied indefinitely according to the humour of the performer. The author has listened to several of these ditties; some of them he thinks peculiar to this and the neighbouring counties. They are generally sung by the labouring classes, and would, in many cases, defy any attempt to commit them to writing, being apparently founded upon a ratio of tones and semitones at variance with our diatonic scale. From this we might almost be led to imagine some truth in the theory that the ancients had different scales peculiar to their different moods: a theory which, however impossible it may be considered, is not without its advocates, who will perhaps not be displeased to find here some slight confirmation of their opinions. Yet in these songs the prevailing character of the minor key may generally be detected, which, from its being imperfect, and probably vitiated by the mistakes of these rustic melodists, may give a colour to the notion of a change in the scale.

The great antiquity of these melodies is unquestionable, and it would be an interesting inquiry to trace them back through remote ages, perhaps to the Jewish temple and the tent of the patriarchs. The author has found in them a strong resemblance to the Hebrew music, sounds which, since the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, and the destruction of their temple, 606 B.C., and in consequence of musical instruments being afterwards forbidden, they have clung to with increased tenacity, preserving their ancient melodies, and bequeathing them by memory from one generation to another with the same jealous care that a miser would his treasure, and as the last melancholy relics of a "kingdom passed away."

Algarotti says, "Those airs alone remain for ever engraven on the memory of the public, that paint images to the mind, or express the passions, and are for that reason called the speaking airs, because more congenial to nature, which can never be justly imitated but by a beautiful simplicity, that will always bear away the palm from the most laboured refinement of art."

The author has ventured to give the following air, which he fancies would almost suggest the words of the song to which Sir John Finett is supposed to have appropriated it. As we have before mentioned, the tune is traditionary, possessing some of the peculiar characteristics we have described. It bears a considerable resemblance to the ancient Jewish music, and likewise to the airs generally given to the little snatches of old ballads in Shakespeare's plays, which are supposed to have been handed down successively from the performers in his time; being then probably "household" music more ancient than the ballads themselves. This opinion seems warranted by the poet himself in that beautiful allusion, with which he introduces one of the songs of the _Clown_, in Twelfth Night--

"Mark it, Cesario; it is old and plain: The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, And the free maids that weave their thread with bones, Do use to chant it; it is silly sooth, And dallies with the innocence of love Like the old age."

HOGHTON TOWER.

They bade me sing, they bade my smile, They bade my heart be gay; They called my spirit forth to while The laughing hours away. I've sung, I've smiled: where'er my path Mirth's dazzling meteors shine; All hearts have owned its magic power, And all are glad but mine.

FOOTNOTES:

[29] "Sir George Goring, of Hurst Pierrepoint, in Sussex, representative of a junior line of the respectable family of Goring, which maintains its importance in that county, was bred at Court, under the care of his father, one of Elizabeth's Gentlemen Pensioners; was knighted May 29, 1608; in 1610, occurs as Gentleman in Ordinary of the Bedchamber to Prince Henry; and now accompanied the king to Scotland as Lieutenant of his Gentlemen Pensioners. He was recommended to James equally by his sagacity and a peculiar jocularity of humour, and became the king's familiar companion."--Nichols's _Royal Progresses_, vol. iii. p. 256.

[30] Sir John Finett, says Anthony à Wood (Fasti by Bliss, vol. i. col, 492), was son of Sir Robert Finett, of Soulton, near Dover, in Kent, son and heir of Sir Thomas, son and heir of John Finett, of Sienna, in Italy (where his name is ancient), who came into England in quality of servant to Cardinal Campegius, and married a maid of honour to Queen Katharine. "Sir John was always bred in the Court, where by his wit, innocent mirth, and great skill in composing songs, he pleased James the First very much. He was sent into France in 1614, about matters of public concern, and in the year after received the honour of knighthood at Whitehall; about which time (or rather about 1612) he was made assistant to the master of the ceremonies, with the reversion of that place."--Nichols's _Progresses_, vol. iii. p. 133.

[31] This stone, the author has been told, was in existence less than a century ago, though not in the precise situation above alluded to. He has heard the disappointment of the curious passers-by told with considerable humour; they, however, generally took care to replace the stone with its word of promise before the eye, that the next comer might bestow the same labour for the like result.

[32] Some say this petition was presented at Myerscough, but we incline to the opinion here given.

[33] Royal proclamation, May 21, 1618.

[34] This ceremony was formerly used for the conveyance of rushes intended to be strewed in the church upon the clay floors between the benches. It is now generally known but as an unmeaning pageant still practised in the northern and eastern parts of Lancashire, for the purpose of levying contributions on the inhabitants. An immense banner, of silk adorned with tinsel and gay devices, precedes the rush-cart, wherein the rushes, neatly woven and smooth cut, are piled up and decorated with flowers and ribands, in rustic taste. The cart, thus laden, is drawn round to the dwellings of the principal inhabitants, by morris-dancers, who perform an uncouth dance, attended by a man in motley attire, a sort of nondescript, made up of the ancient fool and Maid Marian. This personage jingles a horse-collar hung with bells, which forms not an unsuitable accompaniment to the ceremony.

[35] See Note at the end.

[36] This person is supposed to be the writer of a curious satire (Harl. MSS. 5191), called a Description of Scotland. Welden's name is not attached to it in the MS., but it is duly ascribed to him by Sir Walter Scott, in his description of Holyrood Chapel, in the _Antiquities of Scotland_. Sir Anthony Weldon accompanied the king into Scotland; but that he returned with him is not so certain, one of his letters saying he should return by sea. By this, however, may be understood his return to the court at Edinburgh, having had leave of absence to visit his friends in London.

THE LANCASHIRE WITCHES.

"More swift than lightning can I flye About this aery welkin soone; And, in a minute's space, descrye Each thing that's done below the moone."

--BEN JONSON.

"When I consider whether there are such persons as _witches_, my mind is divided: I believe, in general, that there is such a thing as witchcraft, but can give no credit to any particular instance of it."--ADDISON.

The term witchcraft, says the historian of Whalley, is now "transferred to a gentler species of fascination, which my fair countrywomen still continue to exert in full force, without any apprehension of the county magistrates, or even of the king in council."

Far different was the application in days of old. The common parish witch is thus described by a contemporary writer, as an old woman "with a wrinkled face, a furred brow, a hairy lip, a gobber tooth, a squint eye, a squeaking voice, or a scolding tongue; having a rugged coat on her back, a skull-cap on her head, a spindle in her hand, and a dog or cat by her side." Such was the witch of real life when this superstition was so prevalent in our own neighbourhood, and even throughout England. From the beginning of the reign of James the First to the concluding part of the reign of James the Second, it may be considered as having attained the zenith of its popularity. "Witchcraft and kingcraft both came in with the Stuarts and went out with them." It was as if his _infernal_ majesty had taken a lesson from his _sacred_ majesty, and issued a book of sports for his loyal subjects. "The Revolution put to rights the faith of the country as well as its constitution." "The laws were more liberally interpreted and rationally administered. The trade of witch-finding ceased to be reputable or profitable;" and that silly compilation, the "Demonology" of James, which, with the severe laws enacted against witchcraft by Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth, had conjured up more witches and familiars than they could quell, was consigned to the book-worm and the dust. It is said in the Arabian tales, that Solomon sent out of his kingdom all the demons that he could lay his hands on, packed them up in a brazen vessel, and cast them into the sea. But James, "our English Solomon," "imported by his book all that were flying about Europe, to plague the country, which was sufficiently plagued already in such a sovereign." This sapient ruler, who, it is said, "taught divinity like a king, and made laws like a priest," in the first year of his reign made it felony to suckle imps, &c. This statute, which was repealed March 24th, 1736, describes offences declared felonious, thus:--

"One that shall use, practise, or exercise any invocation or conjuration of any evil or wicked spirit, or consult, covenant with, entertain or employ, feed or reward, any evil or wicked spirit, to or for any intent or purpose; or take up any dead man, woman, or child, out of his, her, or their grave, or any other place where the dead body resteth; or the skin, bone, or other part of any dead person, to be employed or used in any manner of witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or enchantment; or shall practise or exercise any witchcraft, &c., whereby any person shall be killed, destroyed, wasted, consumed, pined, or lamed in his or her body, or any part thereof: such offenders, duly and lawfully convicted and attainted, shall suffer death."

As might be expected, witchcraft so increased in consequence of these denunciations, that, "in the course of fifty years following the passing of this act, besides a great number of single indictments and executions, fifteen were brought to trial at Lancaster in 1612, and twelve condemned; in 1622, six were tried at York; 1634, seventeen condemned at Lancaster; 1644, sixteen were executed at Yarmouth; 1645, fifteen condemned at Chelmsford, and hanged; in the same and following year, about forty at Bury in Suffolk; twenty more in the county, and many in Huntingdon; and (according to the estimate of Ady) some thousands were burned in Scotland."

Popular hatred rendered the existence of a reputed witch so miserable, that persons bearing that stigma often courted death in despair, confessing to crimes which they had never committed, for the purpose of ridding themselves of persecution.

"One of the latest convictions was that of Amy Duny and Rose Cullender, before Sir Matthew Hale at Bury, in 1664. They were executed, and died maintaining their innocence." Their execution was a foul blot upon his name, as it is scarcely to be doubted but that they were the victims of imposture. It was clearly ascertained by experiments in the judge's presence, that the children who pretended to be bewitched, when their eyes were covered, played off their fits and contortions at the touch of some other person, mistaking it for that of the accused, yet "he charged the jury without summing up the evidence, dwelling only upon the certainty of the fact that there were witches, for which he appealed to the Scriptures, and, as he said, to 'the wisdom of all nations;' and the jury having convicted, the next morning left them for execution."

But we proceed with a few explanatory notices respecting that portion of the history of this superstition, which will be found interwoven with the traditionary matter in our text.