Part 2 (1/2)
”Mother or no mother,” gruffly replied one of the rogues, ”we mean to have it, and if you do not part with it freely, we must take it,”
whereupon he seized her hand and attempted to drag off the ring.
Frightened at this act of violence, Anne screamed for help, at which the other ruffian, exclaiming, ”Stop that noise!” struck her a blow, and she fell senseless to the earth. But her screams had attracted attention, and the approach of some villagers caused the villains to make a hasty retreat, without being able to get the ring from her finger. In a dying condition, as it was supposed, Anne was carried back to Harpham Hall, where, under the care of Lady St. Quentin, she made sufficient recovery to be removed the following day to her own home. The brutal treatment she had received from the highwaymen, however, had done its fatal work, and after a few days, during which she was alternately sensible and delirious, she succ.u.mbed to the effects. Her one thought previous to death was her devotion to her home, which had latterly been the ruling pa.s.sion of her life; and bidding her sisters farewell, she addressed them thus:--
”Sisters, never shall I sleep peacefully in my grave in the churchyard unless I, or a part of me at least, remain here in our beautiful home as long as it lasts. Promise me this, dear sisters, that when I am dead my head shall be taken from my body and preserved within these walls. Here let it for ever remain, and on no account be removed. And understand and make it known to those who in future shall become possessors of the house, that if they disobey this my last injunction, my spirit shall, if so able and so permitted, make such a disturbance within its walls as to render it uninhabitable for others so long as my head is divorced from its home.”
Her sisters promised to accede to her dying request, but failed to do so, and her body was laid entire under the pavement of the church.
Within a few days Burton Agnes Hall was disturbed by the most alarming noises, and no servant could be induced to remain in the house. In this dilemma, the two sisters remembered that they had not carried out Anne's last wish, and, at the suggestion of the clergyman, the coffin was opened, when a strange sight was seen. The ”body lay without any marks of corruption or decay; but the head was disengaged from the trunk, and appeared to be rapidly a.s.suming the semblance of a fleshless skull.” This was reported to the two sisters, and on the vicar's advice the skull of Anne was taken to Burton Agnes Hall, where, so long as it remained undisturbed, no ghostly noises were heard. It may be added that numerous attempts have from time to time been made to rid the hall of this skull, but without success.
Many other similar skulls are still existing in various places, and, in addition to their antiquarian interest, have attracted the sightseer, connected as they mostly are with tales of legendary romance. An amusing anecdote of a skull is told by the late Mr. Wirt Sikes.[11] It seems that on a certain day some men were drinking at an inn when one of them, to show his courage and want of superst.i.tion, affirmed that he was ”afraid of no ghosts,” and dared to go to the church and fetch a skull. This he did, and after an hour or so of merrymaking over the skull, he carried it back to where he had found it; but, as he was leaving the church, ”suddenly a tremendous blast like a whirlwind seized him, and so mauled him that he ever after maintained that nothing should induce him to do such a thing again.”
The man was still more convinced that the ghost of the original owner of the skull had been after him, when his wife informed him that the cane which hung in his room had been beating against the wall in a dreadful manner.
Byron had his skull romance at Newstead, but in this case the skull was more orderly, and not given to those unpleasant pranks of which other skulls have seemingly been guilty. Whilst living at Newstead, a skull was one day found of large dimensions and peculiar whiteness.
Concluding that it belonged to some friar who had been domesticated at Newstead--prior to the confiscation of the monasteries by Henry VIII.--Byron determined to convert it into a drinking vessel, and for this purpose dispatched it to London, where it was elegantly mounted.
On its return to Newstead, he inst.i.tuted a new order at the Abbey, const.i.tuting himself grand master, or abbot, of the skull. The members, twelve in number, were provided with black gowns--that of Byron, as head of the fraternity, being distinguished from the rest. A chapter was held at certain times, when the skull drinking goblet was filled with claret, and handed about amongst the G.o.ds of this consistory, whilst many a grim joke was cracked at the expense of this relic of the dead. The following lines were inscribed upon it by Byron:
Start not, nor deem my spirit fled; In me behold the only skull From which, unlike a living head, Whatever flows is never dull.
I lived, I loved, I quaff'd, like thee; I died: let earth my bones resign.
Fill up, thou canst not injure me; The worm hath fouler lips than mine.
Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone, In aid of others, let me s.h.i.+ne, And when, alas! our brains are gone, What n.o.bler subst.i.tute than wine.
Quaff while thou canst. Another race, When thou and thine, like me, are sped, May rescue thee from earth's embrace, And rhyme and revel with the dead.
Why not? since through life's little day Our heads such sad effects produce; Redeem'd from worms and wasting clay, This chance is theirs, to be of use.
The skull, it is said, is buried beneath the floor of the chapel at Newstead Abbey.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Suss.e.x Archaeological Collections xiii. 162-3.
[7] See _Notes and Queries_, 4th S., XI. 64.
[8] Told by Mr. Moncure Conway in _Harper's Magazine_.
[9] ”Tales and Legends of the English Lakes,” 96-7.
[10] ”Harland's Lancas.h.i.+re Legends,” 1882, 65-70.
[11] ”British Goblins,” 1880, p. 146.
CHAPTER III.
ECCENTRIC VOWS.
No man takes or keeps a vow, But just as he sees others do; Nor are they 'bliged to be so brittle As not to yield and bow a little: For as best tempered blades are found Before they break, to bend quite round, So truest oaths are still more tough, And, tho' they bow, are breaking-proof.