Part 16 (1/2)
She seemed to borrow from the wind its wings, When from its southern portal first it springs-- Flying, as borne upon the billowy air, Urged by distraction on, and blank despair.
Her base pursuer spurr'd by dire intent, Kept closely in the track the fair one went; Nor hurried much, but thought her failing feet Would soon r.e.t.a.r.d a course so wondrous fleet-- He thought aright, and in his felon arms, Pressed Henry's beauteous wife, half wild with dread alarms.
Scarce had he dared to grasp her sinking frame, When with the quickness of devouring flame, A furious wolf from out the bordering wood With eyes all glaring near Edwina stood-- The brindled hair rose stiff upon his chine, Of ghastly, deathful joy, the horrid sign; His clinging sides confessed his famished state, And his deep howl proclaimed a victim's fate.
The coward fled!--O! now my pen forbear, Nor with the shrieks of terror rend the air!-- The wolf's fell teeth--but O! I check the song, Nor can the horrid, agonizing chord prolong.
The savage, starting from his bleeding prey, Rush'd to his haunt, and briefly fled away; Approaching steps declared swift danger nigh, And forc'd--too late! the unglutted beast to fly.
Those steps were Henry's!--he first reached the spot, For him to reach it, was the dreadful lot!
He saw her marble bosom torn--her mangled head; He saw--mysterious fate! Edwina dead!
Those eyes were closed, whose rich and beamy light, Would shed a l.u.s.tre on pale Sorrow's night-- Dumb was that honied mouth, whose graceful speech, Beyond the schoolman's eloquence would reach!
The snowy arms which lately clasped her lord, Now streaked with flowing blood--O! thought abhorred!
Before his starting eyes, all lifeless hang, And give him more than death's last, rending pang.
His cries of agony spread o'er the plain, And reached the distant undulating main; His screams of anguish struck with terror more Than the lank wolf's most desolating roar.
Vain his attendants sooth--in vain they pray, In stormy grief he wearied down the day.
A furious maniac now he raged around, And tore the bushes from the embracing ground, Then spent, all p.r.o.ne upon the earth he fell, And from his eyes the gus.h.i.+ng torrents swell; When sorrow could articulate its grief, When words allowed a transient short relief, ”Woe to thee, Bank!” were the first sounds that burst, ”And be thy soil with bitter offspring curst!
”Woe to thee, Bank, for thou art drunk with gore, ”The purest heart of woman ever bore!”
”Woe to thee, Bank!” the attendants echoed round, And pitying shepherds caught the grief-fraught sound.
Thus, to this hour, through every changing age, Through ev'ry year's still ever-varying stage, The name remains; and Wo-to-Bank is seen, From ev'ry mountain bleak, and valley green-- Dim Skiddaw views it from his monstrous height, And eagles mark it in their dizzy flight; The Ba.s.senthwaite's soft murmurs sorrow round, And rocks of b.u.t.termere protect the ground, Rills of Helvellyn raging in their fall, Seem on Lodore's rough sympathy to call-- From peak to peak they wildly burst away, And form, with rus.h.i.+ng tone, a hollow, dirge-like lay.
Not rocks, and cataracts and alps alone, Paint out the spot, and make its horrors known.
For faithful lads ne'er pa.s.s, nor tender maid, But the soft rite of tears is duly paid; Each can the story to the traveller tell, And on the sad disaster, pitying dwell-- Thus Wo-to-Bank, thou'rt known thy swains among, And now thou liv'st within an humble stranger's song!”
LADY EVA AND THE GIANT.
A LEGEND OF YEWDALE.
As you enter the romantic vale of Yewdale, about a quarter of a mile above the saw-mills, by looking over the hedge to your right, you may perceive, near to the verge of the precipitous bank of Yewdale Beck, and a few yards from the roadside, a long narrow mound which seems to be formed of solid stone covered with moss, but which a nearer inspection would show to be composed of several blocks fitted so closely together as to prove the mound to have had an artificial, and not a natural origin. You observe it is somewhere between three and four yards long.
That singular acc.u.mulation of lichen-clad rock has been known for centuries amongst the natives of Yewdale and the adjacent valleys, by the romance-suggesting designation of Girt Will's Grave. How it came by that name, and how Cauldron Dub and Yewdale Bridge came to be haunted, my task is now to tell.
Some few hundred years ago, the inhabitants of these contiguous dales were startled from their propriety, if they had any, by a report that one of the Troutbeck giants had built himself a hut, and taken up his abode in the lonely dell of the Tarns, above Yewdale Head. Of course you have read the history and exploits of the famous Tom Hickathrift, and remembering that he was raised at Troutbeck, you will not be much surprised when I tell you that it was always famous for a race of extraordinary size and strength; for even in these our own puny days, the biggest man in Westmoreland is to be found in that beautiful vale.
The excitement consequent upon the settlement of one of that gigantic race in this vicinity soon died away, and the object of it, who stood somewhere about nine feet six out of his clogs, if they were in fas.h.i.+on then, and was broad in fair proportion, became known to the neighbours as a capital labourer, ready for any such work as was required in the rude and limited agricultural operations of the period and locality--answered to the cognomen of ”Girt (great) Will o' t' Tarns,”
and, once or twice, did good service as a billman under the Knight of Conistone, when he was called upon to muster his powers to a.s.sist in repelling certain roving bands of Scots or Irish, who were wont, now and again, to invade the wealthy plains of low Furness.
The particular Knight who was chief of the Flemings of Conistone, at the period of the giant's location at the Tarns, was far advanced in years, and, in addition to some six or eight gallant and stately sons, had
”One fair daughter, and no more, The which he loved pa.s.sing well.”
And Eva le Fleming, called by the country people ”the Lady Eva,” was famed throughout the broad north for her beauty and gentleness, her high-bred dignity and her humble virtues; but it is not with her that my story has to do. She, like the mother of ”the gentle lady married to the Moor,” had a maid called Barbara, an especial favourite with her mistress, and, in her own sphere, deemed quite as beautiful. In fact, it was hinted that, when she happened to be in attendance upon her lady on festive or devotional occasions, the eyes of even knights and well-born squires were as often directed to the maid as to the mistress, and seemed to express as much admiration in one direction as the other.
And when mounted on the Lady Eva's own palfrey, bedecked in its gayest trappings, she rode, as she oftentimes did, to visit her parents at Skelwith, old and young were struck with her beauty, and would turn, as she ambled past, to gaze after her, and to wonder at the elegance of her figure, the ease of her deportment, and the all-surpa.s.sing loveliness of her features. Her lady, notwithstanding the disparity of their rank, loved her as a sister, and it was whispered amongst her envious fellow-servants, that her mistress's fondness made her a.s.sume airs unbecoming her station. True enough it was that she seemed sufficiently haughty and scornful in her reception of the homage paid to her charms by the young men of her own rank, and by many above it. The only one to whom she showed the slightest courtesy on these occasions was wild d.i.c.k Hawksley, the Knight's falconer, and he was also the only one who appeared to care no more for her favours than for her frowns.