Volume I Part 47 (1/2)

Maiden, thou art in my power. Unless thou wilt be mine,--renouncing thine impious vows,--for ever shunning thy detested arts,--breaking that accursed chain the enemy has wound about thee,--I will deliver thee up to thy tormentors, and those that seek thy destruction. This done, and thou art free.”

The maiden threw her snake-like glance upon him.

”Alas!” she cried, ”I am not free. This magic noose! remove it, and my promise shall be without constraint.”

”Nay, thou arch-deceiver,--deceiver of thine own self, and plotter of thine own ruin,--I would save thee from thy doom. Promise, renounce, and for ever forswear thy vows. The priest will absolve thee; it must be done ere I unbind that chain.”

”I promise,” said the maiden, after a deep and unbroken silence. ”I have not been happy since I knew their power. I may yet wors.h.i.+p this fair earth and yon boundless sky. This heart would be void without an object and a possession!”

She shed no tear until the holy man, with awful and solemn denunciations, exorcised the unclean spirit to whom she was bound. He admonished her, as a repentant wanderer from the flock, to shun the perils of presumption, reminding her that HE, of whom it is written that He was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be _tempted_ of the devil,--HE who won for us the victory in that conflict, taught _us_ in praying to say, ”Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

She was rebaptized as one newly born, and committed again to the keeping of the Holy Church. Shortly afterwards were united at the altar Lord William and Lady Sibyl. He accompanied her to Bernshaw Tower, their future residence,--becoming, in right of his wife, the sole possessor of those domains.

FOOTNOTES:

[41] In Lancas.h.i.+re these noises are called the Gabriel Ratchets, according to Webster, which seem to be the same with the German Rachtvogel or Rachtraven. The word and the superst.i.tion are still prevalent. Gabriel Ratchets are supposed to be like the sound of puppies yelping in the air, and to forebode death or misfortune.

PART THIRD.

Twelve months were nigh come and gone, and the feast of All-Hallows was again at hand. Lord William's bride sat in her lonely bower, but her face was pale, and her eyes red with weeping. The tempter had been there; and she had not sought for protection against his snares. That night she was expected to renew her allegiance to the prince of darkness. Those fearful rites must now bind her for ever to his will.

Such appeared to be her infatuation that it led her to imagine she was yet his by right of purchase, without being fully conscious of the impiety of that thought. His own power had been promised to her: true, she must die; but might she not, a spirit like himself, rove from world to world without restraint? She thought--so perilously rapid was her relapse and her delusion--that his form had again pa.s.sed before her, beautiful as before his transgression!--”The Son of the Morning!”

arrayed in the majesty which he had before the world was,--ere heaven's Ruler had hurled him from his throne. Her mental vision was perverted.

Light and darkness, good and evil, were no longer distinguished. Perhaps it was a dream; but the imagination had becomed diseased, and she distinguished not its inward operations from outward impressions on the sense. Her husband was kind, and loved her with a lover's fondness, but she could not return his affection. He saw her unhappy, and he administered comfort; but the source of her misery was in himself, and she sighed to be free?

”Free!”--she started; the voice was an echo to her thought. It appeared to be in the chamber, but she saw no living form. She had vowed to renounce the devil and all his works in her rebaptism, before she was led to the altar, and how could she face her husband?

”He shall not know of our compact.”

These words seemed to be whispered in her ear. She turned aside; but saw nothing save the glow of sunset through the lattice, and a wavering light upon the floor.

”I would spare him this misery,” she sighed. ”Conceal but the secret from him, and I am again thine!”

Suddenly the well-known form of her familiar was at her side.

The following day was All-Hallows-e'en, and her allegiance must be renewed in the great a.s.sembly of his subjects held on that fearful night.

It was in the year 1632, a period well known in history as having led to the apprehension of a considerable number of persons accused of witchcraft. The depositions of these miserable creatures were taken before Richard Shuttleworth and John Starkie, two of his Majesty's justices of the peace, on the 10th of February 1633; and they were committed to Lancaster Castle for trial.

Seventeen of them were found guilty, on evidence suspicious enough under ordinary circ.u.mstances, but not at all to be wondered at, if we consider the feeling and excitement then abroad. Some of the deluded victims themselves confessed their crime, giving minute and connected statements of their meetings, and the transactions which then took place. Justices of the peace, judges, and the highest dignitaries of the realm, firmly believed in these reputed sorceries. Even the great Sir Thomas Brown, author of the book intended as an exposure of ”Vulgar Errors,” gave his testimony to the truth and reality of those diabolical delusions. But we have little need to wonder at the superst.i.tion of past ages, when we look at the folly and credulity of our own.

It may, perhaps, be pleasing to learn that the judge who presided at the trial respited the convicts, and reported their case to the king in council. They were next remitted to Chester, where Bishop Bridgeman, certifying his opinion of the matter, four of the accused--Margaret Johnson, Frances d.i.c.kisson, Mary Spencer, and the wife of one Hargreaves--were sent to London and examined, first by the king's physicians, and afterwards by Charles I. in person. ”A stranger scene can scarcely be perceived,” says the historian of Whalley; ”and it is not easy to imagine whether the untaught manners, rude dialect, and uncouth appearance of these poor foresters would more astonish the king; or his dignity of person and manners, together with the splendid scene by which they were surrounded, would overwhelm them.”

The story made so much noise that plays were written on the subject, and enacted. One of them is ent.i.tled, ”The late Lancas.h.i.+re Witches, a well-received Comedy, lately acted at the Globe on the Bank-side, by the King's Majesty's Actors. Written by Thomas Haywood and Richard Broom.

_Aut prodesse solent, aut delectare_, 1634.”

But our element is tradition, especially as ill.u.s.trating ancient manners and superst.i.tions; we therefore give the sequel of our tale as tradition hath preserved it.

Giles d.i.c.kisson, the merry miller at the Mill Clough, had so taken to heart his wife's dishonesty that, as we have before observed, he grew fretful and morose. His mill he vowed was infested with a whole legion of these ”h.e.l.l-cats,” as they were called; for in this shape they presented themselves to the affrighted eyes of the miserable yoke-fellow, as he fancied himself, to a limb of Satan. The yells and screeches he heard o'nights from these witches and warlocks were unbearable; and once or twice, when late at the mill, both he and Robin had received some palpable tokens of their presence. Scratches and b.l.o.o.d.y marks were plainly visible, and every hour brought with it some new source of annoyance or alarm.