Volume II Part 26 (1/2)

”Then give her back at my request.”

”I tell thee she is not mine, nor in my charge.”

”But thou knowest of her detention, and where she is concealed.”

”What if I do? will that help thee to the discovery?”

”Point out the place, or conduct me thither, and”----

The mendicant here burst forth into a laugh so tantalising and malicious that Nicholas, though silent, grew pale with choler.

”Am I a fool?” said the exorcist; ”an everyday fool? a simpleton of such a dastardly condition that thou shouldest think to whine me from my purpose? Never.”

Scarcely was the word spoken when a loud and awful explosion shook the building to its foundations. Horror and consternation were seen upon the hitherto composed features of the beggar. He grasped his crutch, and with a yell of unutterable anguish he cried, ”Ruined--betrayed!

May the fiends follow ye for this mischance!”

He threw himself almost headlong down the steps, and ran with rapid strides through the yard, followed by Nicholas, who seemed in a stupor of astonishment at these mysterious events.

Pa.s.sing round to the other side of the house, he saw a smoke rising in a dense unbroken column from an outbuilding beyond the moat, towards which Noman was speedily advancing. Suddenly he slackened his pace. He paused, seemingly undecided whither to proceed. He then turned sharply round and made his way into the kitchen, pa.s.sing up a staircase into the haunted chamber, still followed by Nicholas Haworth, and not a few who were lookers-on, hoping to ascertain the cause of this alarm.

To their great surprise the beggar hastily displaced some lumber, and, raising a trap-door, quickly disappeared down a flight of steps. With little hesitation the master followed, and keeping the footsteps of his leader within hearing, he cautiously went forward, convinced that in some way or another this opportune but inexplicable event would lead to the discovery of his sister.

Suddenly he heard a shriek. He felt certain it was the voice of Alice.

He rushed on; but some unseen barrier opposed his progress. He heard noises and hasty footsteps beyond, evidently in hurry and confusion.

The door was immediately opened, and he beheld Noman bearing out the half-lifeless form of Alice. Smoke, and even flame, followed hard upon their flight; but she was conveyed upwards to a place of safety.

”There,” said the mendicant, when he had laid down his burden, ”at the peril of all I possess, and of life too, I have rescued her. My hopes are gone--my schemes for ever blasted--and I am a ruined, wretched old man, without a home or a morsel of bread.”

He walked out through the porch, Nicholas being too busily engaged in attending to the restoration of Alice to heed his escape. Two other men, strangers, had before emerged from the avenue. In the confusion of the moment their flight was effected, and they were seen no more.

When Alice was sufficiently recovered, Nicholas, to his utter surprise and dismay, learned that she had been doomed to be imprisoned, even in her own house, until she consented to be the wife of one whom, however he might have won upon her regard by fair and honest courts.h.i.+p, she hated and repulsed for this traitorous and forcible detention. Yet they had not dared to let her go, lest the secrets of her prison-house should be told. The false beggar, whose real name was Clegg, having become an adept in the art of coining, acquired during his residence abroad, and likewise having arrived at the knowledge of many chemical secrets long hidden from the vulgar and uninitiated, had leagued himself with one of the like sort, together with his own son, a handsome well-favoured youth (whose mother he had rescued from a Spanish convent), for the purpose of carrying on a most extensive manufacture and issue of counterfeit money of several descriptions.

His former knowledge, when young, of his ancestors' mansion at Clegg Hall suggested the fitness of this spot for their establishment. Its situation was sequestered; and the ancient vaults, though nearly filled with rubbish, might yet be made available for their purpose.

The secret entrance, and, above all, the currently-believed story of the ghost, might afford facilities for frightening away those who were disposed to be curious; and any noises unavoidable in the course of their operations might be attributed to this fruitful source of imposture. By a little dexterity, possession of the haunted chamber was obtained, the feigned beggar being a periodical visitant; thence a ready entrance was contrived, and all materials were introduced that were needful for their fraudulent proceedings. Many months their traffic was carried on without discovery; and in the beggar's wallet counterfeit money to a considerable amount was conveyed, and distributed by other agents into general circulation. Well might he say that boundless wealth was at their command; the means employed in disposing of the proceeds of their ingenuity were well calculated for the purpose. They had proposed, by machinations and alarms, to drive away utterly the present inhabitants and possessors of the Hall. The reign of terror was about to commence, plans being already matured for this purpose, had not the younger Clegg seen Alice Haworth; and love, that mighty controller of human affairs and devices, most inopportunely frustrated their intentions. The elder Clegg, too, was induced to aid the design, hoping that, should a union take place, the inheritance might revert into the old channel. We have seen the result: the wilfulness and obduracy of Alice, and the infatuation of the lover, who had thought to dazzle her with the riches he purposely spread before her, prevented the success of their schemes. She peremptorily refused and repulsed him, accusing him of a gross and wanton outrage. What might have been the end of this contention we know not, seeing that an unforeseen accident caused the explosion which led to her escape and the flight of her captors.

What remained of the old house was pulled down. The vaults and cellars, which were found to extend for a considerable distance even beyond the moat, were walled up, and every vestige that was left, together with an immense h.o.a.rd of counterfeit money, was completely destroyed.

[11] Her marriage-gift was 500, nineteen cows, and a bull,--a magnificent portion in those days.

[12] We are sorry that this remark should come from the historian of Whalley; but our respect for the author even will not suffer us to let it pa.s.s unnoticed. The pa.s.sage, indeed, refutes itself, and we need refer to none other than the very terms of the accusation. The circ.u.mstance of Bath ”going out under the Bartholomew Act,” that master-movement of spiritual tyranny, issued by an ill-advised and sensual monarch, when two thousand and upwards of conscientious clergymen were driven from their flocks and deprived of their benefices in one day, is a sufficient denial of what the learned doctor has insinuated, as it respects complying ”with all changes” from mere self-interest and worldly lucre. For what could have hindered this conscientious and self-denying minister from conforming to the terms of the act, and securing his goodly benefice thereby, if it were not a zealous and honest regard to the vows he had taken, and the future welfare of his flock; which the very fact of his subsequent preaching to crowded auditories at his own house sufficiently corroborates. We know the persecutions, the malice, and the poverty, which would a.s.sail this unlicensed administration of ordinances; and nothing but a reverential awe for the sacred and responsible functions he had undertaken could have stimulated him to ”endure the cross and despise the shame,”

when a very different line of conduct would have left him in the undisturbed possession of both wealth and patronage. But, we are afraid, the unpardonable offence of preaching in the church under the authority and protection of the Commonwealth, and his leaving her pale and preaching to ”crowded auditories,”

when the wicked decree of St Bartholomew went forth, is ungrateful to the spirit of many, who ought not to stigmatise as sectaries and malignants all who have dared to think for themselves, and at anytime to oppose ”spiritual wickedness” in ”high places.” The very principles which made Bath an outcast for conscience' sake are those which originated and led on the work of our Protestant Reformation, and placed the historian of Whalley where his sacred functions should have led him to respect the rights and consciences even of those from whom he might differ, and not hold them up to unmerited obloquy and reprehension.

[13] This interesting and curious relic is now in the possession of the Rev. J. Clowes of Broughton, whose ancestor, Samuel Clowes, Esq., about the year 1690, married Mary Cheetham, a descendant of Humphrey Cheetham, founder of the Manchester Blue Coat School. In 1713, after the death of James Holt, whose faithful rebuke from the Bishop of Chester we have noticed in the introduction, Castleton came into possession of the Cheethams until the death of Edward Cheetham, in 1769.

The screen is now made into a side-board, and is most fancifully and beautifully wrought with crests, ciphers, and cognisances, belonging to the Holts and many of the neighbouring families.