Chapter 13

"'Tis needless; the token, once from my grasp and in the fingers of another whose grave I have digged, would never change my doom by its return. Keep what thou hast; and may it serve thee more faithfully than it hath served me! But remember--let me say it while my senses hold together, for I feel the blast coming that shall scatter them to the four winds--remember, if thou part therefrom, as I have done, to some doomed one, thou shalt go to the grave in his stead. But a charmed life is thine as long as it is in thy possession. Away--leave me--the master will be here presently for his own. Leave me, I say; for when the fiend cometh, he'll not tarry. But be sure you make fast the door, lest I escape, and mischief happen, should I get abroad."

"Stephen!" said Marian, "slight not the mercy of thy God, nor dishonour His name, by hearkening to the suggestions of the enemy. His arm is not shortened, nor His ear heavy."

"I know it; but when the fiend came, and found the house swept and garnished, did he not take unto himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and was not the latter end of that man worse than the first?"

"Yet," said Marian, "would he have been delivered if he had cried out to the strong man armed."

"But he would hear no refutation, persisting in the thought that his crime was unpardonable, since he had relapsed after the devil was cast out." During the present paroxysm, it was in vain to thwart him further; indeed their stay was attended with some hazard, of which, it seems, he felt aware, inasmuch as he drove them forth without ceremony. Availing themselves of his suggestion they bolted the door on the outside, thus preventing any further mischief. Here was a perplexing and unforeseen dilemma; and how to dispose of the cavalier was a question of no slight importance. At present the only alternative was to convey him to his fellow-traveller, Chisenhall, who, comfortably established in his narrow loft, was quite unconscious of the events that were passing so near him.

As they left the cemetery they heard the groans and cries of the unfortunate victim, suffering, as he imagined, from the resistless power of his tormentor.

Early, with the early dawn, Marian again sought the dwelling of Gilgal Snape. She earnestly entreated him that he would make all speed to the chapel--again exercising his peculiar gift in "binding the strong man armed," or, in other words, dispossessing the demoniac.

The benevolent divine instantly accompanied her, and forthwith proceeded to the relief of the possessed. Howls and shrieks accosted him as he ascended the stair.

"I must be alone," said he; "no earthly witness may be nigh. Strong in faith, by the grace that is given me, I doubt not that this also thou wilt vouchsafe to thine unworthy dust,"--he raised his eyes toward Heaven;--"yet should I fail, He will not let me be overcome, nor fall into the snare of the wicked one; for I know, and am assured, that this trial shall turn out to the furtherance of His glory!"

Marian left him at the entrance. But, with the minister's appearance in the chamber, the agony of the deluded sufferer seemed to quicken, as if the sight of him who was the herald of mercy only added fresh fuel to his torments. Marian was fain to depart; her ears almost stunned with the cries and howlings of the demoniac. She withdrew in great agitation, her knees almost sinking under their burden. Hardly conscious of the removal, she reached her own chamber, where, covering her face with both hands, she wept bitterly. This outburst of tears relieved her; though she still suffered from the recent excitement. Her former resolutions were strengthened by the terrible example she had just witnessed; and the backsliding impenitent she looked upon as a watchlight to warn her from the rocks whereon he had made shipwreck.

Some hours passed on, but no tidings came from the "abbey." She often looked out across the path, and towards the stile which led to the ruins; but all was undisturbed. The sun shining down, bright and unclouded, all was harmony and peace--"all, save the spirit of man, was divine"--all fulfilling their Maker's ordinances, and his behest.

The sun was creeping down towards the dark low tower of the chapel; and Marian was still at the door, gazing out anxiously for intelligence. She saw a figure mounting the stile. It was--she could not be mistaken--it was the reverend and easily-recognised form of Gilgal Snape. She ran down the path to meet him; and she could not help noticing that he looked more sedate than usual, appearing harassed and disquieted, betraying more obviously the approach of age and infirmities.

"Have you wrestled with the adversary and prevailed?" inquired she, anxiously.

"I have had a fearful and a perilous struggle. The fight was long; but, by the sword of the Spirit, I _have_ prevailed."

"Has the backslider been brought again to the fold?"

"He hath, I trust, been found of the Good Shepherd; and he now sleepeth in Abraham's bosom!"

"Dead! Hath the grave so soon demanded its prey?"

"I left him not until the spirit was rendered unto Him who gave it. He entreated me sore that I would not leave him until I had watched his dismissal from the body."

"Then do I know of a surety that the evil spirit was cast out, and the lost one restored."

"There was joy in heaven over a repentant sinner this day. When the dark foe was vanquished, his spirit came again as a little child, and the leprosy of his sin was healed. Verily, the evil one, ere he was overthrown, did utter many strange words touching things to come, and our present perplexities. There seemed to be a spirit of divination within him which did prophesy. Marian," continued the divine, with a scrutinising look, "he did tell of thy dealing with our enemies, and that thou dost even now nourish and conceal those of whom we are in search."

"If thine enemy hunger"----But Marian was hastily interrupted in her plea.

"But of the secrets which, by virtue of mine office and godly vocation, men do entrust to my safe keeping, I may not use, even to the hurt of our enemies and the welfare of the Church, yet buffeted by Satan in the wilderness. Nevertheless, I was sore troubled that thou, even thou, shouldest harbour and abet these wicked men, who have broken the covenant and plucked up the seed of the kingdom. Truly, I wot not where the afflicted Church shall find succour when her foes be they of her own household."

"I knew not that they were enemies when first they sought our habitation. They had eaten and drunken at our board, and the"----

"These sons of Belial found favour in thy sight, even the chief captain of the king's host. I would not accuse or blame thee rashly; but verily thou hast not judged wisely in this matter, for now must they depart, inasmuch as I cannot use, even to the advantage of our just cause, the knowledge I have gained; nor wilt thou render them up, I trow; but mark me, the avenger of blood is behind them, and though the city of refuge be nigh, they shall not escape!----Yet there be other marvels this wicked one did set forth," said the minister, with a searching eye directed to the maiden. "One of these uncircumcised Philistines did woo thee for his bride. What answer gavest thou?"

"Such answer as becometh one who seeketh not fellowship with the works of darkness."

"'Tis well. Now lead me to this Joab the son of Zeruiah, this captain of the king's host; for I have a message unto him also."

Following the astonished and trembling maiden, the divine, fraught with some weighty commission, was admitted into the temporary concealment of the fugitives. It was a narrow and inconvenient loft above one of the outbuildings--the roof so low that it was only in some places the upright figure of the minister might be sustained. The light penetrated through an aperture in the roof, showing the guests within seated, and enjoying a frugal, but sufficient repast.

"I am one of few words," said the divine, "and so much the rather as that I now stand in the presence of mine enemies. What sayest thou, Prince Rupert, the persecutor of God's heritage, who didst not stay thine hand from the slaughter even of them that were taken captive? What sayest thou that the word should not go forth to kill and slay, even as thou didst smite and not spare, but didst destroy utterly them who, when beleaguered by thine armies in Bolton, were delivered into thine hand?"

"Ha!" said the Prince; "thou--a cockatrice to betray me!"

"She hath not betrayed thee. Yonder poor and afflicted sinner, when in bondage unto Satan, led captive by him at his will, did reveal it by the spirit of prophecy that was in him. But we take not advantage of this to thine hurt; we may not use the devil's works for the building up and welfare of the Church, even though she were mightily holpen thereby. But listen: thou hast wooed this maiden to be the wife of thy bosom. In the dark roll of destiny it is written--so spake the unclean spirit--that if thou shouldest wed, a son springing from thy loins shall sit upon the throne of this unhappy realm. He shall govern the people righteously, every one under his own vine and his own fig-tree, none daring to make them afraid. Surely it would not be a vain and an evil thing should the maiden be----Yet--this is my temptation. Get thee behind me, Satan. May the thought and the folly of my heart be forgiven me! No! proud and cruel persecutor, this maiden is a pearl of rare price which thou shalt not win--a chosen one who hath had grace given unto her above measure, even above that vouchsafed unto me. I do loathe and abhor myself for the iniquity of my heart, and the unsubdued carnality of my spirit."

"Your Highness had need of great meekness and patience to endure this grievous outpouring," said Chisenhall to the silent and bewildered Prince. "Shall I thrust him through, and make sure of his fidelity?"

"Hurt him not," said his Highness to this effectual admonisher unto secrecy. "And what if I should not wed?" continued he, addressing the divine, and at the same time looking tenderly on the damsel.

"To this point too was the prophecy accordant. The sceptre shall nevertheless be given to one of thy race; thy sister's son shall carry down the line of kings to this people; and the Lord's work shall still prosper. Now, daughter of many prayers--for I have yearned over thee with more than a father's love--choose thee without constraint this day. Thou hearest the words of this prophecy: wilt thou be the mother of kings, or the lowly and despised follower of God's heritage?"

"I will not grasp the bubble of ambition. It bursts--a hollow vapour when possessed. Let me choose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than obtain all the treasures of Egypt. But tempt me not again, for my soul cleaveth to the dust--flesh and blood shrink from the trial!"

She sobbed aloud, and threw herself on the old man's neck, who scarcely refrained from joining in her tears.

"Thou hast come forth as gold from the furnace--thou hast kept the faith, and holden fast thy profession," said the divine, with a glance of triumph. Marian held out her hand to the Prince, who grasped it with fervour. She seemed more like to some holy and heavenward thing than a denizen of this polluted earth--more like a type of the confessors and martyrs of the primitive church than a disciple of our own, nurtured in the lap of carnal security, with little show of either zeal or devotion.

"Your Highness must depart--but whither?" said she, with an anxious and inquiring glance directed to the minister.

"Take no thought for their safety; thy constancy hath earned their deliverance. My safe-conduct will carry them unharmed beyond the reach of their enemies; but let them not return. It is at their own peril if they be found again harboured in this vicinage, and their blood be on their own heads!"

They departed, and the subsequent history of the gallant Rupert is well known. He joined the king at Oxford, and helped him to retrieve his defeat at Newbury, bringing off his artillery left at Dunnington Castle in the very face of the enemy. At the decisive Battle of Naseby we find him performing feats of extraordinary valour; but, as before, his headlong and precipitate fury led him into the usual error; and though the loss of the battle was not to be attributed entirely to his imprudence, yet a little more caution would have altered materially the results of that memorable conflict. Harassed and dispirited, he threw himself with the remainder of his troops into Bristol, intending to defend it to the last extremity; but even here his constitutional fortitude and valour seemed to forsake him: a poorer defence was not made by any town during the whole war, and the general expectations were extremely disappointed. No sooner had the Parliamentary forces entered the lines by storm, than the Prince capitulated, and surrendered the place to General Fairfax. A few days before, he had written a letter to the King, in which he undertook to defend it for four months, if no mutiny obliged him to surrender it. Charles, who was forming schemes and collecting forces for the relief of the city, was astonished at so unexpected an event, which was little less fatal to his cause than the defeat at Naseby. Full of indignation, he instantly recalled all Prince Rupert's commissions, and sent him a pass to go beyond sea.

Several years afterwards we find him in command of a squadron of ships, entrusted to him by Charles II, when an exile in Normandy. Admiral Blake received orders from the Parliament to pursue him. Rupert, being much inferior in force, took shelter in Kinsale, and escaping thence, fled toward the coast of Portugal. Blake pursued and chased him into the Tagus, where he intended to attack him; but the King of Portugal, moved by the favour which throughout Europe attended the royal cause, refused Blake admission, and aided the Prince in making his escape. Having lost the greater part of his fleet off the coast of Spain, he made sail towards the West Indies; but his brother, Prince Maurice, was there shipwrecked in a hurricane. Everywhere his squadron subsisted by privateering, sometimes on English, sometimes on Spanish, vessels. Rupert at last returned to France, where he disposed of the remnants of his fleet, together with his prizes.

He was never married; peradventure the remembrance of the noble and heroic maiden marred his wiving; he cared not for the presence of those courtly dames by whom he was surrounded, though a soldier, and a brave one. By one of his race the crown of these realms was inherited; and the same line is yet perpetuated in the person of our gracious monarch, whom God preserve! The sister of Rupert, Princess Sophia, by marriage with the Elector of Hanover, became the mother of George I.; and thus was that singular prediction of the supposed demoniac strangely and happily verified. Of Marian little remains to be told; the lives of the virtuous and well-doing furnish little matter for the historian; their deeds are not of this world; the bright page of their history is unfolded only in the next.

[8] Hume.

[9] Clarendon.

[10] Hume.

CLEGG HALL.

"Is there no exorcist Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes? Is't real that I see?" --SHAKESPEARE.

Clegg Hall, about two miles N.E. from Rochdale, is still celebrated for the freaks and visitations of a supernatural guest, called "Clegg-Hall Boggart."

So desultory and various are the accounts we have heard, and many of them so vague and unintelligible, that it has been a work of much difficulty to weave them into one continuous narrative, and to shape them into a plot sufficiently interesting for our purpose. The name and character of "Noman" are still the subject of many an absurd and marvellous story among the country chroniclers in that region.

Dr Whitaker says it is "the only estate within the parish which still continues in the local family name." On this site was the old house built by Bernulf de Clegg and Quenilda his wife as early as the reign of Stephen. Not a vestige of it remains. The present comparatively modern erection was built by Theophilus Ashton of Rochdale, a lawyer, and one of the Ashtons of Little Clegg, about the year 1620.

Stubley Hall, mentioned in our tale, was built by Robert Holt in the reign of Henry VIII. The decay of our native woods had then occasioned a pretty general disuse of timber for the framework of dwelling-houses belonging to this class of our domestic architecture. Dr Whitaker says--"It is the first specimen in the parish of a stone or brick hall-house of the second order--that is, with a centre and two wings only. Long before the Holts, appear at this place a Nicholas and a John de Stubley, in the years 1322 and 1332; then follow in succession John, Geoffrey, Robert, and Christopher Holt; from whom descended, though not in a direct line, Robert Holt of Castleton and Stubley, whose daughter, Dorothy, married in the year 1649, John Entwisle of Foxholes. Robert, who built Stubley, and who was grandson of Christopher Holt before mentioned, was a justice of the peace in the year 1528. In an old visitation of Lancashire by Thomas Tong, Norroy, 30 Hen. VIII., is this singular entry:--"Robarde Holte of Stubley, hase mar. an ould woman, by whom he hase none issewe, and therefore he wolde not have her name entryed." Yet it appears he had a daughter, Mary, who married Charles Holt, her cousin, descended from the first Robert. Her grandson was the Robert Holt, father to Dorothy Entwisle before-named, at whose marriage the events took place which, if the following tradition is to be credited, were the forerunners of a more strange and unexpected development.

In the year 1640, nine years before the date of our story, Robert Holt abandoned Stubley for the warmer and more fertile situation of Castleton, about a mile south from Rochdale. It was so named from the _castellum de Recedham_, wherein dwelt Gamel, the Saxon Thane; which place and personage are described in our first series of _Traditions_. Castleton was principally abbey-land belonging to the house of Stanlaw. Part of this township, the hamlet of Marland or Mereland, was, at the dissolution of monasteries, granted to the Radcliffs of Langley, and sold by Henry Radcliff to Charles Holt, who married his cousin, Mary Holt of Stubley, and was grandfather to Robert, who left Stubley for this place, which we have noticed above.

Stubley, with its neighbourhood, was always noted for good ale. From its situation, exposed to all the rigours of that hilly region, the climate was reckoned so cold as to require that their daily beverage should be of sufficient strength to counteract its effects. That habits of intemperance would be contracted from the constant use of such stimuli may easily be inferred. The following letter from Nicholas Stratford, Bishop of Chester, to James Holt of Castleton, son of Robert Holt before-named, is but too melancholy a confirmation of this inference.

The original is in the possession of the Rev. J. Clowes of Broughton Hall:--

"SIR,--Your request in behalf of Mr Halliwell was easily granted; for I am myself inclined to give the best encouragement I can to the poor curates, as long as they continue diligent in the discharge of their duty. But I have now, Sir, a request to make to you, which I heartily pray you may as readily grant me; and that is, that you will for the future abandon and abhor the sottish vice of drunkenness, which (if common fame be not a great liar) you are much addicted to. I beseech you, Sir, frequently and seriously to consider the many dismal fruits and consequences of this sin, even in this world--how destructive it is to all your most valuable concerns and interests; how it blasts your reputation, destroys your health, and will (if continued) bring you to a speedy and untimely death: and, which is infinitely more dreadful, will exclude you from the kingdom of heaven, and expose you to that everlasting fire where you will not be able to obtain so much as one drop of water to cool your tongue. I have not leisure to proceed in this argum^t, nor is it needful that I should, because you yourself can enlarge upon it without my ... I assure you, S^r, this advice now given you proceeds from sincere love and my earnest desire to promote your happiness both in this world and the next; and I hope you will be pleased so to accept from,

"S^r, "Your affectionate friend "and humble servant, "N. CESTRIENS.

"CHESTER, _Nov. 1699_."

Clegg Hall, after many changes of occupants, is now in part used as a country alehouse; other portions are inhabited by the labouring classes who find employment in that populous and manufacturing district. It is the properpty of Joseph Fenton, Esq., of Bamford Hall, by purchase from John Entwisle, Esq., the present possessor of Foxholes, in that neighbourhood.

To Clegg Hall, or rather what was once the site of that ancient house, tradition points through the dim vista of past ages as the scene of an unnatural and cruel tragedy. Not that this picturesque and stately pile, with its gable and zigzag terminations, the subject of our present engraving, was the very place where the murder was perpetrated; but a low, dark, and wooden-walled tenement, such as our forefathers were wont to construct in times anterior to the Tudor ages. The present building, with its little porch, quaint and grotesque, its balustrade and balcony above, and the points and pediments on the four sides, are evidently the coinage of some more modern brain--peradventure in King James's days. Not unlike the character of that learned monarch and of his times, half-classical, half-barbarous, it combines the puerilities of each, without the power and grandeur of the one, or the rich and chivalric magnificence of the other; and might remind the beholder of some gaunt warrior of the Middle Ages, with lance, and armour, and "ladye-love," stalking forth, clad in the Roman toga or the stately garb of the senator. The building, the subject of our tale, has neither the gorgeous extravagance of the Gothic nor the severe and stern utility of the Roman architecture. Little bits of columns, dwarf-like, and frittered down into mere extremities, give the porch very much the appearance of a child's plaything, or a Dutch toy stuck to its side.