Volume II Part 22 (1/2)
The hues of evening were spread out, like a rich tapestry, above and behind the long unpicturesque line of hills, the lower acclivities of Blackstonedge, opposite to the stately mansion of Clegg Hall. The square squat tower of Rochdale Church peered out from the dark trees, high on its dim eyrie, in the distance, towards the south-west, below which a wan hazy smoke indicated the site of that thriving and populous town. To the right, the heavy blue ridge of mountains, bearing the appropriate name of Blackstonedge, had not yet put on its cold, grey, neutral tint; but the ma.s.s appeared to rise abruptly from the green enclosures stretching to its base, in strong and beautiful contrast of colour, such as painters love to express on the mimic canvas. It was a lovely evening in October; one of Nature's parting smiles, ere she envelops herself in the horrors and the gloom of winter. So soft and balmy was the season that the wild flowers lingered longer than usual in the woods and copses where they dwelt.
In the gardens some of the spring blossoms had already unfolded. The wallflowers and polyanthuses had looked out again, unhesitatingly, on the genial sky--deprived, by sophistication and culture, of the instincts necessary to their preservation: the wild untutored denizens of the field and the quiet woods rarely betray such lack of presentiment. But such are everywhere the results of civilisation; which, however beneficial to society in the aggregate, gives its objects altogether an artificial character, and, by depriving them of their natural and proper instincts, renders them helpless when single and unaided; while it makes them more dependent upon each other, and on the fact.i.tious wants, the offspring of those very habits and conditions into which they are thrown.
On the hollow trunk of a decrepit ash the ivy was blossoming profusely, gathering its support from the frail prop which it was fated to destroy. The insects were humming and frolicking about on their tiny wings, taking their last enjoyment of their little day, ere they gave place to the ephemera of the next.
”How merry and jocund every life-gifted thing looks forth on this our festival. It might be Nature holding high jubilee in honour of Holt's daughter on her wedding-night!”
Thus spake Nicholas Haworth to his sister Alice, as they stepped forth from the hall porch, and stayed for a moment by this aged trunk to admire the scene that was fast losing its glory and its brightness.
They were bidden to the marriage-supper at Stubley, where a masqued ball was to be given after the nuptials of Dorothy Holt, the daughter of its possessor, with Entwisle, the heir of Foxholes.[11]
”It may be holiday and gladness too; but I feel it not,” said Alice pensively, as she leaned on her brother's arm, while they turned into a narrow lane overarched by irregular groups of beech and sycamore trees.
”Heed not such idle fancies,” said her brother. ”And so, because, forsooth, an impudent beggar-man predicts some strange event that must shortly befall thee, the apprehension doth cast its shadow ere it come, and thou art ready to conjure up some grim spectre in the gloom it hath created. But, in good sooth, here comes the wizard himself who hath raised these melancholic and evil humours.”
”I never pa.s.s him without a shudder,” said she, at the same time cringing closely to her protector.
This awful personage was one of an ancient cla.s.s, now probably extinct; a sort of privileged order, supplying, or rather usurping, the place of the mendicant friars of former days. Their vocation was not of an unprofitable kind, inasmuch as alms were commonly rendered, though more from fear than favour. Woe betide the unlucky housewife who withheld her dole, her modic.u.m of meal or money to these st.u.r.dy applicants! Mischief from some invisible hand was sure to follow, and the cause was laid to her lack of charity.
The being, the subject of these remarks, had been for many months a periodical visitor at the Hall, where he went by the name of ”Noman.”
It is not a little remarkable that tradition should here point out an adventure something a.n.a.logous to that of Ulysses with the Cyclop as once happening to this obscure individual, and that his escape was owing to the same absurd equivoque by which the Grecian chief escaped from his tormentor. Our tale, however, hath reference to weightier matters, and the brief s.p.a.ce we possess permits no further digression.
This aged but hale and st.u.r.dy beggar wore a grey frieze coat or cloak loosely about his person. Long blue stocking gaiters, well patched and darned, came over his knee, while his doublet and hosen, or body-gear, were fastened together by the primitive attachment of wooden skewers--a contrivance now obsolete, being superseded by others more elegant and seemly. A woollen cap or bonnet, of unparalleled form and dimensions, was disposed upon his head, hiding the upper part of his face, and almost covering a pair of bushy grey eyebrows, that, in their turn, crouched over a quick and vagrant eye, little the worse for the wear of probably some sixty years. A grizzled reddish beard hung upon his breast; and his aspect altogether was forbidding, almost ferocious. A well-plenished satchel was on his shoulder; and he walked slowly and erect, as though little disposed to make way for his betters in the narrow path, where they must inevitably meet. When they came nearer he stood still in the middle of the road, as though inclined to dispute their pa.s.sage. His tall and well-proportioned figure, apparent even beneath these grotesque habiliments, stood out before them in bold relief against the red and burning sky, where an opening in the lane admitted all the glow and fervour of the western sunset. His strange, wayward, and even mysterious character was no bar to his admittance into the mansions of the gentry through a wide circuit of country, where his familiarities were tolerated, or perhaps connived at, even by many whose gifts he received more as a right than as an obligation.
He looked steadfastly on them as they approached, but without the slightest show either of respect or good-will.
”Prithee, stand a little on one side, that we may pa.s.s by without fear of offence,” said Nicholas Haworth, good-humouredly.
”And whither away, young master and my dainty miss?” was the reply, in his usual easy and familiar address, such as might have suited one of rank and condition.
Haworth, little disturbed thereat, said with a careless smile,--”Troth, thou hast not been so long away but thou mightest have heard of the wedding-feast to-night, and, peradventure, been foremost for the crumbs of the banquet.”
”I know well there's mumming and foolery a-going on yonder; and I suppose ye join the merry-making, as they call it?”
”Ay, that do we; and so, prithee, begone.”
”And your masks will ne'er be the wiser for't, I trow,” said the beggar, looking curiously upon them from beneath his penthouse lids.
”But that I could laugh at his impertinence, Alice, I would even now chide him soundly, and send his pitiful carcase to the stocks for this presumption. Hark thee, I do offer good counsel when I warn thee to s.h.i.+ft thyself, and that speedily, ere I use the readiest means for thy removal.”
”Gramercy, brave ruffler; but I must e'en gi'e ye the path; an' so pa.s.s on to the masking, my Lord Ess.e.x and his maiden queen.”
He said this with a cunning look and a chuckle of self-gratulation at the knowledge he had somehow or other acquired of the parts they were intended to enact.
”Foul fa' thy busy tongue, where foundest thou this news? I've a month's mind to change my part, Alice, but that there's neither leisure nor opportunity, and they lack our presence at the nuptials.”
”How came he by this knowledge, and the fas.h.i.+on of our masks?”
inquired Alice from her brother. ”Truly, I could join belief with those who say that he obtained it not through the ordinary channels open to our frail and fallible intellects.”
Mistress Alice, ”the gentle Alice,” was reckoned fair and well-favoured. Strongly tinctured with romance, her superst.i.tion was continually fed by the stories then current in relation to her own dwelling, and by the generally-received opinions about witches and other supernatural things which yet lingered, loth to depart from these remote limits of civilisation.
”Clegg-Hall Boggart” was the type of a notion too general to be disbelieved; yet were the inmates, in all probability, less intimately acquainted with the freaks and disturbances attendant thereon than every gossip in the neighbourhood; for, as it frequently happens, tales and marvels, for the most part originating through roguery, and the pranks of servants and retainers, were less likely to come to the ears of the master and his family than those of persons less interested, but more likely to a.s.sist in their propagation. The vagrant and erratic movements of ”Noman” were, somehow or another, connected with the marvellous adventures and appearances in the ”boggart chamber.” At the Hall, this discarded room, being part of the old house yet remaining, was the one which he was permitted to occupy during his stay; and his appearance was generally the signal of a visit from their supernatural guest. To be sure, the strange sights he beheld rested on his testimony alone; but his word was never questioned, and his coming was of equal potency with the magician's wand in raising the ghost.