Part 3 (1/2)
These men were monks, who, desiring to imitate the extraordinary sanct.i.ty of the Cistercian abbey of Rieval, had withdrawn from their own monastery of St Mary's at York, and being sanctioned in their preference by the archbishop, they retired to this desolate and uncultivated spot. They had no house to shelter them, nor certainty of provisions to subsist on; but, in the depth of the lone valley, stood an aged elm, among the ample branches of which they erected a straw roof, and this was their only shelter for some time. But at length the rain fell fast, and the wind rose high, and they were constrained to quit the shelter of the elm for that of seven stately yew-trees, which grew on the south side of the valley, where a splendid abbey afterwards arose. These trees were of extraordinary size, for the trunk of one of them measured twenty-six feet in circ.u.mference, at the height of three feet above the root. Neither history nor tradition have preserved the knowledge of that period when they first arose from out the ground. Ages may have pa.s.sed since, and countries rose and waned. The yew-trees of Skelldale may have continued growing even from the brilliant periods of Thebes and Memphis, when Phoenician barks traded to the Isle of Tin, and all around them was one wild impenetrable forest. But the yew-trees were now in their prime, and beneath them the monks took shelter by night and by day, from the rain and snow, and the cold east wind, that swept moaning through the valley. Thus they lived, drinking at the stream when thirsty, and allaying their hunger with the bread which their archbishop sent them from time to time. When the snow melted from the branches of the sheltering trees, and the cold east wind was still--when the delicate yellow blossoms of the yew varied its dark funereal branches, and bees came humming to gather in the pollen, they cleared a small spot of ground to serve them as a garden, and built a wooden chapel. Thus they pa.s.sed the first winter, and their piety was noised abroad. Many repaired to them from distant parts, some for instruction, others to join the fraternity; and as their numbers increased, their privations increased also. They were often reduced to the necessity of eating the leaves of trees and wild herbs; but their fort.i.tude did not fail them, and one day when their stock of provisions consisted of merely two loaves and a half, a pa.s.sing stranger asked for a morsel of bread. ”Give him a loaf,” said the abbot; ”the Lord will provide.” The hope thus piously expressed, was soon fulfilled, and a cart piled with bread was seen coming down the rocky pathway, a present from Eustace Fitz-John, owner of the neighbouring castle of Knaresborough.
Time pa.s.sed on, and none who witnessed the privations which the monks of Skelldale endured, could have pictured to themselves the future greatness of their monastery. Meanwhile, the garden flourished, and fields were added to those which they began to cultivate, till at length, wrote one of the secluses, ”We have bread and cheese, b.u.t.ter and ale, and in time we shall have beef and mutton.” He lamented that the soil was too poor for the growth of vines; but he added, ”that the garden was well supplied with pot-herbs.” Of these he gave no particular description, but we may presume that they consisted of colewort and onions, of peas and beans, of spinach, and radishes with a vegetable called feret, most probably carrot, or perhaps beet, and a variety of sweet-herbs, for such were in use among the Saxons. At length the privations of the monks of Skelldale ceased, as also the necessity for labour. Hugh, Dean of York, bequeathed to them his wealth, and benefactions having poured in successively, from different quarters, the abbey became exceedingly rich in land and cattle, with plate and costly vestments. A wild and beautiful spot was also bestowed on Fountains Abbey by the Percy family; this was Walham Cove, situated among the hilly and mountainous tracts of the West-Riding of Yorks.h.i.+re. It was included in lands belonging to the manor of Walham, and possessed a valuable right of fis.h.i.+ng in the ample stream that flowed from out an immense and perpendicular crag of limestone, more than three hundred feet in height, that stretched across the valley like a magnificent screen.
Thither the monks of Fountains Abbey used to repair; thither, too, many of those recluses, who wearied with fights and forage in foreign lands, sought for rest within the abbey walls, loved to muse and moralize upon the pa.s.sing waters. But they learned not wisdom from them, nor read in things inanimate, lessons that might have taught them to retain the habits of their predecessors. Most of those devoted men, who had sought to wors.h.i.+p their Creator in privacy and stillness, were laid down to rest.
They had laboured with their hands while living, and thankfully saw the blessings which they sought, spring from out the earth they cultivated; those who filled their places were not actuated by the same necessity, and hence the pa.s.ser-by no longer beheld a humble cloister, with its garden and low fence, but instead of this a stately building, the Abbey of the Fountain, as it was called in reference to the stream that flowed beside it, fresh and untroubled as when the monks of St. Mary's first sought the precincts of the dale. There were many in after years who desired that their mortal remains might be deposited beneath the abbey walls, and for this purpose they devised large sums of money:--some who had been in the deathful career of storm and siege, and those, the flowers of chivalry, who had won the prize at tilts and tournaments; when armed knight met knight, and high-born ladies gazed on and awarded the victor's meed. Rest they had not found on earth, amid the stunning tide of crime and human care, and they wished that bells might toll for them, and prayers be said for them, beside the rus.h.i.+ng waters of the Skill. The mental eye, back glancing, through the vista of long ages, sees at intervals successive funerals slowly proceeding through the abbey gates.
Warriors of the n.o.ble house of Percy borne there. Lord Rieland, one of the twenty guardians of the Magna Charta, he who sustained the shock of arms and cheered on his va.s.sals in the Barons' wars. He too, Lord Henry de Percy, another member of that ancient race, who followed in after years the banner of King Edward into Scotland, was borne by his tall yeomen to that still and narrow bed which receives alike the prince and peasant.
Others also followed, great in their day, and filled while living with busy schemes, but of whom, as years were added, scarcely a trace remained.--Where knees bent in prayer, and the white-robed priest chanted the high requiem, a broken stone figure, rec.u.mbent on a lichen-dotted stone, points out a warrior's resting-place; and perchance a mound thrown up, with broken slabs of richly-sculptured marble, indicate that some one who had figured greatly in past ages lay there; again, a broken crosier, or a pilgrim's staff, tell of years spent in wanderings, and in prayer.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration: HOWE SELE'S OAK]
Howel Sele's Oak.
”I mark'd a broad and blasted oak, Scorched by the lightning's livid glare, Hollow its stem from branch to branch, And all its shrivell'd arms were bare.
E'en to this day, the peasant still, With cautious fear, avoids the ground; In each wild branch a spectre sees, And trembles at each rising sound.”
How beautiful is this wild spot, with its accompaniments of lawn and thicket, with its clear stream, now prattling over a rocky bed, and now dancing in playful eddies beside the tufts of gra.s.s and yellow flowers, that skirt the margin of the water! Innumerable boughs shut out the distant prospect, and neither a church-spire, nor curling smoke, ascending from some lone cottage, betoken the abode of men. In the midst of this fair spot stands a ”caverned, huge, and thunder-blasted oak;” its dry branches are white with age, the bark has long since fallen from them, and most impressive is the contrast which it presents to the lightness and the freshness of the young green trees among which it stands, as among them, though not of them. Beyond their verdurous circle are a variety of romantic dingles, covered with blackberry-bushes, with moss, and ivy.
Gigantic trees fling the shadow of their n.o.ble branches over the green sward, and the s.p.a.ces between them are filled, here, and there, with an exuberant growth of underwood. The music of almost every feathered songster that frequents the woods of England is heard in this wild spot; but except the buzzing of flies that rise in crowds from the copses, and the pleasant rippling of the stream, no other sound meets the ear.
The old tree with its bleached and skeleton arms has a fearful name, and stout of heart must the man be who would pa.s.s within sight of it when the sun is set behind the hill, and the trees cast their lengthened shadows on the gra.s.s. It is called the 'haunted oak,' the 'spirit's blasted tree,' or the 'hobgoblin's hollow tree,' and dismal is the tale to which the name refers.
Howel Sele, whose sad history is a.s.sociated with this blasted oak, was lord of the wide domain which extends around it for many miles. We know not whether his heart was secretly inclined to espouse the faction of Henry IV., or whether he loved a life of ease, and preferred to dwell in his castle-hall, hoping that the storm which threatened to overwhelm his country might pa.s.s away. Certain it is that Owen Glendour thought not well of him, and perhaps with reason. He came not forth to a.s.sist in delivering his country from the aggressions of a foreign enemy; some even said that he had been induced to desert her cause, and that he only waited for an opportunity to avow himself. Others, whispered, that he looked with a jealous eye on the generous Glendour; and that he feared not to speak of him as the sole leader of a desperate faction, who, if deprived of their head, had no other hope.
Glendour knew that such evil rumours were abroad, and it seemed as if he wished to set his kinsman at defiance; for having taken with him his chosen companion Madog, he set forth to drive the red deer from the forest brake, in the domains of the unbending lord of Nannau. But the lord of Nannau could not brook that his red deer should be thus vexed and driven, and when one of these n.o.ble animals crossed his path, closely pursued by the fiery Glendour with hound and horn, he rushed from the forest and summoned his cousin to single combat. It was a fatal one for Howel; he fell on the green sward, in the very place where all is now so verdurous and joyful, and his corpse was dragged by his enraged kinsman beneath the tree, whose bare and sapless branches and high top, bald with dry antiquity, whose gnarled and rugged trunk, and large projecting roots are almost fearful in their decay.
The tree was hollow at that time, and the companion of Glendour having, with his a.s.sistance, lifted the corpse of the unhappy chieftain from off the ground, dropped it within the oak. This was a ruthless deed, but the natural gentleness of Owen Glendour had been perverted by the scenes in which he mingled, and by the oppression that was exercised towards him. He saw only, in the husband and the father who had fallen by his hand, one, who, if he favoured not the cause of the usurper, was yet indifferent to the welfare of his country. He, therefore, sought not for him Christian burial, in consecrated ground.
Glendour could no longer tarry in the domains of the murdered chieftain, for he knew how greatly Howel was beloved, and that when the hour of his return was pa.s.sed, every glen and forest-path would be sought for him.
Calling to his companion, he hastened back to his stronghold, Glyndwrdry, where, amid rocks and waterfalls, and the howling of fierce winds, he pa.s.sed a few more unquiet years. The wretched day which caused him to become a murderer, and deprived Nannau of her lord, was one of anxiety and grief. Far and wide did his va.s.sals haste, now down the glen, now in the depth of the still forest, now scouring over the wide moor, and now making every rock resound with his name. But in vain did they hurry along the forest paths, or dash amid the torrent's roar, or scour over the wide moor, echo alone answered to their loud shouts. In vain did the sorrowing wife of Howel look out through the gloom of evening, and listen for his footsteps; and when the moon shone bright, and louder sounded the wild torrent, and the whoop of the owl was heard, did she pace her lonely chamber and strain her sight through the gathered mist, to see if he was coming.
The next day, and the next, did the va.s.sals of Nannau renew their search.
Again every glen was visited, and every forest-walk was traced and retraced; the base, too, of every hill was carefully examined, lest the chieftain should have fallen from some height, which the creeping bramble and thickly-tangled underwood had concealed. But no trace of Howel was discovered.
Thus one year succeeded to another, and no tidings of the chieftain were received, till at length an armed horseman was seen to urge his weary steed up the hill that leads to Nannau, from the neighbouring town of Dolgelly. The rain fell fast, and the wind blew a perfect hurricane, but he seemed not to heed either the one or the other, or to spare the horse on which he rode. The va.s.sals hastened to the castle-gate, and the lady looked anxiously from the window. Perhaps a faint hope flashed across her mind that the Lord of Nannau was returning. But it was not him, although the stranger brought tidings where he might be found. He told the lady that the enemy of her house was dead; that he in dying, had conjured him to bring to her ear tidings of her husband, and to make known the dreadful mystery of his sudden disappearance. He then told his tale; for it was Madoc, who came thus late, and he referred to the blasted oak in confirmation of the truth. The va.s.sals of Nannau hurried thither, and with them went Madoc, but he could not bear to see the bringing forth of him, whom he had helped to sepulchre within its trunk; he shrunk from witnessing the awful sight that was about to be revealed, and plunging into the forest was soon on the road to Dolgelly. The evening was far advanced when Madoc reached the castle, and now the night had closed in.
The va.s.sals worked by torch-light, for such was the lady's command, and their own eagerness confirmed it. Their strokes fell heavy on the trunk of the tree, which sounded hollow, and somewhat of a rattling was heard within, as if of iron and of bones. Some feared to continue, and truly it was solemn work, for the night was dark, and the wind exceeding loud, and the tree stood forth in its sepulchral whiteness, with its long skeleton-looking and bleached arms, which the lightning had riven. A few strokes more, and the horrid mystery' was revealed. There stood the skeleton of Howell; his right hand grasped a rusty sword, and those who saw it, well remembered that it had often been wielded by their chieftain.