Chapter 4

"Oh, there is beauty in every land," The sorrowing knight replied; "But I'd rather Margaret of Lonsdale wed, Than the fairest dame beside."

"And thou shalt the Lady Margaret wed," Said that loathly dwarf again; "There's a key in Muncaster Castle can break That maiden's heart in twain!"

"Oh never, oh never, thou lying elf, That maiden's word is spoken: The cup of grace left a traitor's hand, Proud Muncaster's '_Luck_' is broken."

Then scornfully grinned that elfin dwarf, And aloud he laughed again: "There's a key in thy castle, Sir Knight, can break That maiden's heart in twain!"

The knight he turned him on his steed, And he looked over hill and stream; But he saw not that elfin dwarf again, He had vanished as a dream!

The knight came back to his castle hall, And stabled his good grey steed; And he is to his chamber gone, With wild and angry speed.

And he saw the oaken casket, where Lay hid that cup of grace, Since that fearful day, when the traitor foe Wrought ruin on his race.

"Thou cursed thing," he cried in scorn, "That ever such 'Luck' should be; From Muncaster's house, ill-boding fiend, Thou shalt vanish eternally."

He kicked the casket o'er and o'er With rage and contumely; When, lo! a tinkling sound was heard-- Down dropped a glittering key!

He remembered well the wondrous speech Of the spectre dwarf again, "There's a key in Muncaster Castle can break A maiden's heart in twain!"

He took the key, and he turned the lock, And he opened the casket wide; When the cause of all his agony The lover now espied.

The holy cup lay glistering there, And he kissed that blessed token, For its matchless form unharmed lay, The "Luck" had ne'er been broken!

The loud halls rung, and the minstrels sung, And glad rolled the Esk's bonny tide, When Lonsdale's Lady Margaret Was Muncaster's winsome bride!

Now prosper long that baron bold, And that bright and blessed token: For Muncaster's Luck is constant yet, And the crystal charm unbroken!

THE PEEL OF FOULDREY.

"True, treason never prospers; what's the reason? When treason prospers, 'tis no longer treason!"

The ancient castle of Peel of Fouldrey, the island of fowls, stands a little beyond the southern extremity of the isle of Walney. The castle and its site belong to the ladies of the liberty of Furness.

The ruins, seen from the heights above Rampside, are beautifully picturesque. Though the sea has wasted part of the outworks, yet the remains exhibit a complete specimen of the principles and plan upon which these ancient defences were usually constructed. It may not be thought out of place to give the reader some account of its present appearance. West, in his _Antiquities of Furness_, inserts the following account of his visit to this delightful spot; and as it is detailed with a good deal of graphic simplicity, if not elegance of style, we prefer it to our own record of an expedition to this place.

"Choosing a proper time of the tide," says he, "for our excursion, we set out from Dalton, early on a pleasant summer's morning, and having crossed the sands in Walney channel, we followed the eastern shore of the isle of Walney from the small village of Northscale, by the chapel, to Bigger. Leaving this hamlet, and crossing over a small neck of land by a narrow lane winding amongst well-cultivated fields, smiling with the prospect of a plenteous harvest of excellent grain, but principally of wheat, which the land in Walney generally produces of a superior quality, we again came to the shore, and having a pretty distinct view of several parts of the ruinous fabric which was the object of our excursion, we took the distant castle for our guide, and entered upon a trackless sand, which, by the route we pursued, is about two miles and a half over. It is soft and disagreeable travelling in many places; but there is no quicksand. Those, however, who are unacquainted with the road to the Peel of Fouldrey should take a guide from Bigger.

"About half-way over the sand, the mouldering castle, with its extensive shattered walls and ruinated towers, makes a solemn, majestic appearance. Having arrived on the island, which is destitute of tree or shrub, except a few blasted thorns and briers, we left our horses at a lonely public-house, situated close by the side of the eastern shore, and proceeded to inspect the ruins of the castle. The main tower has been defended by two moats, two walls, and several small towers. We crossed the exterior fosse or ditch, and entered the outer bayle or yard, through a ruinous guard-tower, overleaning a steep precipice formed by the surges of the sea. The ancient pass, where the drawbridge over the outer ditch was fixed, has been long washed away. The greater part of the outer wall is also demolished, for in those places which are out of the reach of the tide the stones have been removed for various purposes.

"The drawbridge over the exterior ditch of these castles used commonly to be defended by a fortification consisting of a strong high wall with turrets, called the barbacan or antemural; the great gate or entrance into the outer bayle or yard was often fortified by a tower on each side, and by a room over the intermediate passage; and the thick folding-doors of oak, by which the entrance was closed, were often strengthened with iron, and faced by an iron portcullis or grate, sliding down a groove from the higher part of the building.

"A chapel commonly stood in the outer bayle: accordingly, just at our entrance into that part we saw the ruins of a building which is said to have been the chapel belonging to this castle.

"At the inside of the yard we came to the inner fosse, moat, or ditch, and arriving at the place where the drawbridge had been fixed, we entered the inner bayle or court by the ancient passage through the interior wall, the entrance whereof had evidently been secured by a portcullis, and defended by a room over the passage.

"We now proceeded to the entrance into the main tower or keep; but the doorway into the porch, which precedes it, being walled up, we were obliged to creep into the edifice by a narrow aperture. The entrance has been secured by a portcullis. The main tower has consisted of three storeys, each divided into three oblong apartments by two interior side walls being carried from bottom to top.

"The rooms on the ground-floor have been very low, and lighted by long apertures, extremely narrow, at the outside of the walls, but a considerable width in the inside, perhaps so constructed for the use of the bow. The apartments have communicated with each other; and there has been a winding staircase leading from one of them to the rooms above, and to the top of the castle. Under the ground-floor of these ancient castles used commonly to be dark and dismal apartments, or dungeons, for the reception of prisoners, but nothing of the kind is known to be here. The porch is called the dungeon.

"The second floor has been on a level with the first landing at the principal entrance. The rooms have been lofty, and lighted by small pointed windows, and many of them have had fireplaces. The apartments on the third floor have been apparently similar to those on the second. The side apartments have been lighted by several small pointed windows, but those in the middle have been very dark and gloomy.

"The great door of the castle opens into one of these intermediate apartments. On the left-hand side of the entrance has been a spiral staircase, leading to the rooms above and to the top of the castle, which has had a flat roof, surrounded by a parapet and several turrets. The walls of this tower are very strong and firm; a deep buttress is placed at each corner, and one against the middle of each side wall. A small square tower has stood at the southern corner, but the greater part of it has been thrown down by the sea. The foundation of one side wall is also undermined the whole of its length, and as it in some places overhangs the precipice formed by the waste of the sea, and as the castle is not situated upon a rock, but upon hard loamy soil, this side must inevitably fall in a few years.

"Many huge fragments of the wasted walls are scattered upon the shore, under the cliff from whence they have fallen; and notwithstanding the concussion they have received in falling from a great height, and the frequent surges of the sea, they are as firm as ever, and in many places exhibit the shape of the edifice.

"The corners and doorcases of the guard-towers, the buttresses, window-frames, and several parts of the main tower, are constructed with red freestone; but all the other parts of the walls which in general are about six or seven feet in thickness, are formed of round stones collected from the adjacent shores. The inside of the walls has been constructed with small stones, and plenty of fluid mortar to fill the interstices.

"To this mode of construction, to the excellent binding quality of the stones, and to the slow drying of the grout-work in the inside, may be attributed the great tenacity of the walls of this fabric, more than to any uncommon or unknown method of composing the mortar.

"The roofs of the numerous guard-houses in the surrounding walls of this castle have apparently been flat. Upon these, and along the walls, which in most castles were topped by a parapet and a kind of embrasure called crennels, the defenders of the castle were stationed during a siege, and from thence discharged arrows, darts, stones, and every kind of annoyance they could procure, upon their enemies.

"There were often subterraneous passages leading from the lowest part of the main tower to a great distance; and by these the besieged could make their escape in time of imminent danger, when the outworks were carried by storm.

"On the north-east side of the outworks of this castle has been a large pond or reservoir for supplying the ditches with water in cases of sudden emergency. There has also been a fish-pond on the north-west side.

"Though many variations were made in the structure of castles, as the plan was often modified by the architect according to the site occupied by the edifice, yet the most perfect and magnificent were generally constructed with all the different parts we have mentioned.

"The walls contain no decorations of art, and are equally destitute of all natural embellishments; the rugged outlines of dilapidation, associating with the appearance of past magnificence, are the qualities which chiefly interest the imagination, while comparing the settled tranquillity of the present with the turbulent ages that are past, and contemplating the view of this mouldering fabric.

"The island of Fouldrey has certainly been much larger at the erection of the castle than it is at present; but the sea, having reduced it to its present small compass, has abated the rapid career of its destruction. It now wastes the western shore of Walney, and forms a new tract out of the ruins, which proves a barrier to its progress upon the Peel of Fouldrey, and at some future period may be an accession to this island, in place of the land which it has lost."

The period when it was reduced to ruins is not well ascertained, but it is probable that this was one of the fortresses which fell under the dismantling orders of the Commonwealth.

The port is very large and commodious, and would float a first-rate ship of war at low water.

In 1789 a body of commissioners and trustees, appointed to improve the navigation of the river Lune, built a lighthouse on the south-east end of the isle of Walney. It is an octagonal column, placed upon a circular foundation of a little more than twenty feet in diameter. At the plinth, its diameter is eighteen feet, and diminishes gradually with the elevation through fifty-seven feet to fourteen. The ascent from the bottom to the lantern is by a staircase, consisting of ninety-one steps, winding up the inside of the pillar. The whole height is about sixty-eight feet. At the base of the column there is a small dwelling for the keeper and his family.

* * * * *

It was in the "merry month of May," in the year 1487, scarcely two years after Richard's overthrow at Bosworth, and Earl Richmond's usurpation of the English crown by the title of King Henry the Seventh, that a great armament, landing on the barren island of Fouldrey, took possession of the castle, a fortress of great strength commanding the entrance to the bay of Morecambe, and a position of considerable importance to the invaders. It occupied, with the outworks and defences, nearly the whole area of the island (a few acres only), two or three fishermen's huts at that time being irregularly scattered on the beach below. Built by the monks of Furness in the first year of Edward III., as a retreat from the ravages of the Scots, and a formidable barrier against their approaches by sea, it was now unexpectedly wrested from its owners, becoming a point of resistance from whence the formidable power of Henry might be withstood, and in the end successfully opposed.

A royal banner floated from the battlements: the fortress had been formally taken into possession by the invaders in the name of their king, previously proclaimed at Dublin by the title of Edward the Sixth. The youth was crowned there with a diadem taken from an image of the Virgin, priests and nobles espousing his cause with more than ordinary enthusiasm; and Henry, in the second year of his reign, was threatened, from a source as unexpected as it was deemed contemptible, with the loss of his ill-gotten sovereignty.

Lambert Simnel, according to some historians, was the real name of this "pretender;" but there be others who scruple not to assert, that he was in reality the unfortunate Earl of Warwick, son to Clarence, elder brother of Richard III., and that he had made his escape from the Tower, where he long suffered an ignominious confinement by the cruel policy of Henry. The prior claims of this young prince to the English crown could not be doubted, and Margaret, the "bold" Duchess of Burgundy, sister to Edward IV., had furnished the invaders with a body of two thousand chosen Flemish troops, commanded by Martin Swartz, a brave and experienced officer. With them came the Earl of Lincoln, related to Edward IV. by intermarriage with Elizabeth, the king's eldest sister.

This nobleman had long entertained ambitious views towards the crown; his uncle Richard, it is said, in default of issue to himself, having expressed the intention of declaring Lincoln his successor. The Lord Lovel, too, a bitter enemy of the reigning prince, who had fled to the court of Burgundy beforetime for protection, was entrusted with a command in the expedition. To these were joined the Earl of Kildare, the king's deputy for Ireland, with several others of the nobility from the sister kingdom. The countenance thus unexpectedly given to the rebellion by persons of the highest rank, and the great accession of military force from abroad, raised the courage and exultation of the Irish to such a pitch that they threatened to overrun England, nothing doubting but their restless and disaffected spirit would be fully met by a similar disposition on the part of those whom they invaded. In supposing that the inhabitants in the north of England, and especially in Lancashire, would immediately join their standard, they had not calculated wisely. The king, in crushing the hopes of the Yorkists, had made himself, at that period, too popular in the county; the reluctance, too, which it may be supposed that Englishmen would feel in identifying themselves with a troop of foreign adventurers, as well as their general animosity against the Irish, to whom the "northerns" never bore any good-will, being too near neighbours to agree,--these circumstances taken into account, the ultimate failure of the expedition might have been easily prognosticated. Sir Thomas Broughton, a gentleman of some note in Furness, was the only person of weight and influence in the county who joined their standard, and he soon found himself a loser by his defection.

This brief preliminary statement we have thought essential to the right understanding and development of our plot.

The evening was dark and lowering, the sky broken into wild irregular masses of red and angry clouds. The sun, after throwing one fierce look over the broad and troubled sea, had sunk behind a hard, huge battlement of cloud, on the round waving edges of which ran a bright burning rim, that looked like a train of fire ignited by the glowing luminary behind.

The beach round the little island of Fouldrey is mostly covered with pebbles thrown up by the tide, occasionally intermingled with rock and patches of dark verdure. A few boats may be seen with their equipments, and two or three straggling nets upon the shore. A distant sail occasionally glides across the horizon; but the usual aspect is that of solitude, still and uninterrupted, the abode of sterility and sadness. Now, the narrow bay by the island was glittering with gallant streamers. Ships of war, in all their pride and panoply, majestically reposed upon its bosom. All was bustle and impatience. The trumpet-note of war brayed fiercely from the battlements. Incessant was the march of troops in various directions. Tents were pitched before the castle. Guards were appointed; and this hitherto peaceful and solitary spot resounded with the din of arms, and the hoarse clang of preparation for the approaching strife.

Messengers were constantly passing to and from the mainland. The insignia of royalty were ostentatiously displayed, and the captains and leaders within the fortress fulfilled the duties of this mimic and motley court in honour of their anticipated sovereign.

Under a steep cliff, washed by the sea at high water, but of no great height, and above which the higher walls of the castle or keep might be discovered, sat two fishermen, the owners, or rather occupiers, of one of the cottages built under the very walls of the fortress, where these peaceful inhabitants had placed their little nests, protected and covered by the wing of their loftier but more exposed and dangerous neighbour.

The place they had chosen for their conference was secluded from general observation, and their low and heavy speech was concealed from the prying sentinels above by the hoarse and impetuous voice of the retiring waves. Not many paces distant was the inlet to a subterraneous passage, supposed to lead under the deepest foundations of the castle; but its termination was now a mystery, at any rate, to the present occupiers and inhabitants of the place. Many strange and horrible stories were told and believed, of its uses and destination in times past. Being burdened with a bad name--"some uncleansed murder stuck to it"--the place ran little risk of disturbance or intruders. When the tides ran high this outlet was inaccessible, being partly flooded by the sea. From neglect and disuse an accumulation of sand and pebbles, washed by the violence of the waves into the cavity, was deposited there, so that the entrance, which, according to tradition was once wide and sufficiently lofty for a person to walk upright, was now dwindled into a narrow and insignificant-looking hole, scarcely big enough to admit an urchin.

"Thee hasna seen it thysel', then?" said one of the fishermen to his companion.

"Nea; I waur it' hoose man when it cam'; but"--the speaker looked wistfully towards the dark entrance we have named,--"but I'se sure Dick wouldna seay sae if"----

"Dick's a starin' gowk, and a coward too. I'se warrant there waur plenty o' room 'twixt his carcase and the wa'. That I'd bin there i'stead! There shouldn't ha' bin room to cram a herrin' tail atween me an' the ghost's substance. I would ha' hedged him up thus, an' then master ghost, taken aback, says, 'Friend, by yere sweet leave I would pass;' but I make out elbows, and arms this'n, facing till him so. Help! murder!"

This sudden change in the voice and attitude of the speaker, this sudden exhalation of his courage, unfortunately arose from the parties having, in the heat and interest of the discourse, turned their backs to the haunted entrance, and, so intent was Davy in accommodating the action to the valiant tenor of his speech, that it was only on turning round, for the purpose of showing to his companion the way in which he would have disputed a passage with the ghost, that he was aware for the first time of the presence of that terrible thing, and within a very few inches too of his own person. They stayed not for any further exemplification of this theory of ghost-laying, but in an instant were beyond observation, bounding over the beach, nor once looking behind them until safe in their little hut, and the door fastened against the fearful intruder. Davy, being foremost in the race, sat down, followed by his companion George, who, maugre his great apprehensions, could not forbear laughing heartily at the sudden melting away of the big-mouthed valour of this cowardly boaster.

"Praised be our lady of Furness," said the merry taunter, with many interruptions from laughter and want of breath; "thy heels are as glib as thy tongue: for which--oh, oh! I am breathed--blown--dispossessed of my birthright, free quaffing o' the air. Ha, ha! I cannot laugh. Oh! what a mouth didst thou make at old blacksleeves. Gaping so, I wonder he mistook not thy muzzle for one of the vents into his old quarters. A pretty gull thee be'st, to swallow yon black porpoise."

"I tell thee, messmate," returned the other, gravely, "thou hast miss'd thy tack. It waur but a slip, maybe a kin' of a sudden start which took me, as they say, by the nape. I jumped back, I own--a foul accident, by which he took advantage. He comes behind me, thou sees, and with a skip 'at would have seated him upo' the topmost perch o' the castle, he lights whack, thump, fair upo' my shoulders. I ran but to shake the whoreson black slug fro' my carcase. Saints ha' mercy, but his legs waur colder than a wet sheet. I soon unshipp'd my cargo, though--I tumbled him into the sea, made a present of old blacksleeves to the fishes!"

"Thou lying chub," said George, angrily, "did not I watch thee? Why, thou cub, thou cormorant, thou maker of long lies and quick legs, didst not o'ershoot me, ay, by some fathoms? I followed hard i' thy wake, but I see'd nought of all this bull-scuddering of thine. Faith, but thou didst ply thy courses with a wet sail!"