Traditions of Lancashire Volume II Part 31

A huge figure approached. In its hand a weapon was uplifted, as if to destroy him. He made a vehement effort to escape; but was holden, without the power of resistance. Just as it was descending he awoke.

For a while he was unable to recollect precisely the nature of his situation. The apartment was quite dark. He groped confusedly about him, but to no purpose. At that instant a ray seemed to glide from the cas.e.m.e.nt. It was a moonbeam struggling through that almost impervious inlet. By this light he beheld a figure intently gazing towards the window. At the first glance he did not recognise his companion; but, as he started from the couch, the former approached him, and, laying one hand on his shoulder, whispered that he should be still. He obeyed, and remained motionless. The reason for this admonition was soon apparent. He heard a slight pattering at intervals on the few brittle fragments which the window yet retained. Seaton at first thought it might be the rain, especially as the wind had considerably abated; but he soon found there must be some other cause, from the rattling of sand and other coa.r.s.er materials upon the floor and bed.

He crept close to the window, looking out below, but was unable to find out the reason of this disturbance. Suddenly a volley of pebbles bounded past his face, and the moon shining forth at the same instant, a figure was distinguished anxiously attempting to arouse and excite their attention. To his great astonishment he recognised the wayward being whose glance had startled him so disagreeably a few hours before. He recollected the idiot's former signal, and felt convinced that this was a more direct and friendly interference. Seaton carefully pulled away a portion of the stuffing, and was thus enabled to bring his head closer to the bars. This movement was observed; and with an admonition to silence, the strange creature pointed to the ground, at the same time he appeared as if urging them to escape.

Seaton comprehended his meaning; but the iron fastenings were an apparently insurmountable impediment. He laid hold of one of the bars with considerable force; and to his great joy it yielded to the pressure. Apparently there was no other individual beneath, or this friendly warning would not have been given. It seemed as if the tenants of the hovel were too secure of their prey to set a watch. He descended cautiously to his companion. A few whispers were sufficient to convey the intelligence. Again he mounted to the window; and, on looking down, found that their providential monitor had disappeared.

There was no time to be lost. Seaton again tried the bar, and succeeded in removing it. Another was soon wrenched from its hold, and a few minutes more saw him safely through the aperture, from which he let himself down with little difficulty to the ground. His companion immediately followed; and once more outside their lodging, a new difficulty presented itself. Seaton knew of no other path than the one by which they had previously gained the cottage; and this would, in all probability, afford a leading track to their pursuers, who might be expected shortly to be aware of their escape. But he was relieved from this dilemma by his companion making a signal that he should follow. "Remember thy promise," said he. Seaton was prepared to obey, feeling a renewed confidence in the discretion of his guide. Turning into a pathway near the place where they had alighted, their course was towards a river, which they beheld at no great distance twinkling brightly in the moonbeams. They cautiously yet rapidly proceeded down a narrow descent, fear hastening their flight, for they expected every moment to hear the footsteps of their pursuers. In a little while they turned out of the road, and, by a circuitous path, which the guide seemed to tread with unhesitating confidence, they came to the river's brink. By the brawling of its current, and the appearance it presented, the water was evidently shallow, and might be crossed without much difficulty. Seaton was preparing to make the attempt, but was prevented by his comrade.

"I have some inward impression that we may not cross here. We shall be pursued; and our adversaries will imagine that we have pa.s.sed over what is doubtless the ford of this Jordan. I know not why, but we must follow its banks, and for some distance, ere we pa.s.s."

Seaton urged the danger and folly of this proceeding, and proposed crossing immediately, but met with a decided and unflinching refusal from his companion. They now kept along the river's brink, but with much difficulty. The rain having swollen the waters, they were often forced to wade up to the knees through the little creeks and rivulets that intersected their path. They journeyed on for a considerable time in silence, when the elder traveller made a sudden pause.

"It is here," said he. Seaton looked on the river; but the broad and deep wave rolled past with frightful impetuosity. The moonbeams glittered on a wide and rapid flood, whose depths were unknown, but to which, nevertheless, it seemed that they were on the point of committing themselves.

"The river is both wide and deep!" said the youth.

"Nevertheless, we must cross," replied his more taciturn companion.

Without further parley the latter plunged boldly into the stream.

Urged on by his fears, and preferring death in any shape to the death that was pursuing him, Seaton followed his example. For some time they struggled hard with the full sweep of the current; and it seemed little short of a miracle when they arrived, almost breathless and exhausted, on the opposite side.

"Praised be His name who hath given strength! Though deep waters have encompa.s.sed us, yet His arm is our deliverance."

With a holy and ardent outpouring of soul did this good man render thanksgivings unto Him whose hand had been so visibly stretched out for their protection. Just as he had made an end of speaking, a distant but distinct howl was borne down upon the wind. They listened eagerly, as the sound evidently grew nearer. It was like the short but stifled cry of a hound in full chase.

"Peril cometh as a whirlwind," said George Fox; "but fear not--a way will be left for our escape!"

"It is that malicious hound!" replied Seaton shuddering, as he remembered the beast which had gazed so intently on him, and which was evidently trained for the present purpose.

"We must climb up to those tall bushes with all speed," said the companion of his flight, at the same time leading the way with considerable haste and agility.

From this height they saw, at some distance up the river, three men on horseback, preceded by a large hound, who, true to the scent, was following steadily on their footsteps. They approached rapidly to the place where the fugitives had gone over, when the dog made a dead halt, and looked wistfully across.

"Loo, loo!" said the foremost rider, "hie on, la.s.s!" But the beast would not move.

"Sure now, Mike," said he, as the others came up, "if they've taken the water at this unlucky hole, they'll need no drownin' by this anyhow."

"It's the brute, bad luck to her," replied his comrade. "She's on the wrong scent. Why they're over the ford by this, and we shall have the b.l.o.o.d.y thief-catchers here before we can open the door for 'em."

"If the b.i.t.c.h had followed my nose, instead of her own beautiful scent," said the remaining speaker, "we should ha' been over the ford too, long ago. They'd as soon think of swimming o'er the bay in a cabbage-leaf as cross at this place. Back, back; and we'll shoulder 'em yet, my darlings. Come along, boys--one of you take the ford, an'

watch the road over the hill. Have a care, now, that the rogues be not skulking round the bog. I'll keep the road hereabout; an' thou, Mike, lay to with the hound when thou art on the other side. Maybe they'll not find it just so easy to beat us in the hunting while we've a leg to lay on after them."

The worthy triumvirate here withdrew. The animal was with much difficulty forced from her track; but by the help of a stout cord she was dragged off, yelping and whining, to the great joy of their intended victims. Seaton could not but recognise the very finger of Providence, which had pointed out the means of preservation. No other way was left apparently for their escape. Whatsoever course they had taken, save this, must have inevitably thrown them into the very toils of their pursuers; and he determined to follow, fearlessly and without question, the future impulses of his companion.

"Shall we attempt to flee, or must we tarry here a s.p.a.ce?" he hesitatingly inquired.

"Nay, friend," said his guide, "I wis not yet what we shall do; but methinks we are to abide here until morning!"

Seaton shivered at this intimation. His clothes were drenched, and his whole frame stiffened and benumbed with cold. His position, too, crouching amongst decayed branches and alder twigs, was none of the most eligible or easy to sustain. He felt fully resolved, however, to follow the leadings of his friend, being convinced that his ultimate safety depended on a strict adherence to this determination.

The country was very thinly inhabited, and their enemies were in possession of the only outlets by which they could escape to the nearest village. Aided, too, by the sagacity of the dog, their track would inevitably be discovered before daylight enabled them to find shelter. These considerations were too important to be overlooked, and Seaton quietly resolved to make himself as comfortable as circ.u.mstances would permit. He wrung out the wet from his clothes, chafed his limbs, and ere long, to his inexpressible relief, the first symptoms of the dawn were visible in the east. Just as a glowing rim of light was gliding above the horizon, they ventured to peep forth cautiously from their retreat. To their great mortification, they saw, at a considerable distance, a horseman stationed on the brow of a neighbouring hill, evidently for the purpose of a more extended scrutiny. Signals would inevitably betray their route should they emerge from their concealment; and escape now seemed as hopeless as ever.

In this fresh difficulty Seaton again sought counsel from his friend, who replied with great earnestness--

"There is yet another and a more grievous trial;"--he lifted up his eyes, darkening already with the energy of his spirit;--"but I trust our deliverance draweth nigh. We must return!"

"Return?" cried Seaton, his lips quivering with amazement. "Whither?

Not to the den we have just left?"

"Even so," said the other with great composure.

"Then all hope is lost!" mournfully returned the inquirer.

"Nay," replied his companion, "but let me ask what chance, even according to thine own natural and unaided sense, there is of deliverance in our present condition? Hemmed in on every hand, without a guide, and strangers to the path we should take, if the watchman from the hill miss our track, there is the hound upon our scent!"

There was no gainsaying these suggestions; but still a proposal that they should return to the cabin, whence they had with such pains and difficulty made their escape, in itself was so absurd and inexplicable a piece of manoeuvring, that common sense and common prudence alike forbade the attempt. Yet, on the other hand, common sense and common prudence appeared to be equally unavailing as to any mode of escape from the toils in which they were entangled.

Again he determined to follow his friend's guidance: who, addressing himself immediately to the task, made the best of his way to the ford which he had refused to cross the preceding night. They now took the direct road to the house. The morning was sharp and clear. Seaton felt the cold and raw atmosphere cling to his frame, already chilled to an alarming degree; but the excitation he had undergone prevented further mischief than the temporary inconvenience he then suffered. As they came nearer the hut his very faculties seemed to escape from his control. A sense of danger, imminent and almost insupportable, came upon him. Bewildered, and actuated with that unaccountable but instinctive desperation which urges on to some inevitable doom, he rushed wildly into the dwelling. It was not as they had left it.

Several horses were quietly standing by the door; and a party, who had merely called for the purpose of half-an-hour's rest and refreshment, were then making preparations to depart. Seaton took one of them aside, and disclosed the terrible circ.u.mstances we have related. By a judicious but prompt application of their forces they prevented any one from leaving the house, and were prepared to seize all who should return thither. A close search soon betrayed the quality and calling of its inmates. A vast h.o.a.rd of plunder was discovered, and proofs too abundant were found that deeds had been there perpetrated of which we forbear the recital. The old woman was seized; and her capture was followed by the apprehension of the whole gang, who shortly after met with the retribution merited by their crimes.

The maniac proved to be a son of the old beldame. At times, the cloud unhappily clearing from his mental vision had left him for a short s.p.a.ce fearfully cognisant of the transactions he was then doomed to witness. On that night to which our history refers a sudden providential gleam of intelligence flashed upon him, and an unknown impulse prompted his interference in behalf of the unfortunate, and, as he thought, unsuspecting victims. Ere leaving the country they saw him comfortably provided for; and, as far as the nature of his malady would permit, his mind was soothed, and his darkest moments partly relieved from the horrors which humanity alone could mitigate, but not prevent.

[15] _Vide_ West's _Antiquities of Furness_.

THE DEMON OF THE WELL.

"Avaunt, thou senseless thing!

Can graven image mimic life, and glare Its stony eye-b.a.l.l.s; grin, make mouths at me?

Go to, it is possessed;--some demon lurks Within its substance."

Peggy's well, the subject of our engraving, is near the brink of the Ribble, in a field below Waddow Hall; Brunckerley Stepping-stones not being far distant, where several lives have been lost in attempting to cross, at times when the river was swollen by a rapid rise, which even a day's rain will produce.

These calamities, along with any other fatal accidents which happened in the neighbourhood, are usually attributed to the malevolence of Peggy. The stepping-stones are alluded to in our first volume as the place where King Henry VI was taken, after escaping from Waddington Hall.

Some stones are still visible at low water; but whether these are the original "Hippins," or the foundations of a wooden bridge which succeeded them, and was borne down by the ice at the breaking up of the frost in the year 1814, is not known.

The stone image by the well, depicted in our engraving, has been the subject of many strange tales and apprehensions, being placed there when turned out of the house at Waddow, to allay the terrors of the domestics, who durst not continue under the same roof with this misshapen figure. It was then broken, either from accident or design, and the head, some time ago, we have understood, was in one of the attic chambers at Waddow Hall.

One loud, roaring, and tempestuous night--the last relics of the year 1660--some half-dozen boon companions were comforting themselves beside a blazing fire, and a wa.s.sail-cup, at the ingle of a well-ordered and well-accustomed tavern within the good borough of c.l.i.theroe, bearing on its gable front, over a grim and narrow porch, a marvellous portraiture apparently of some four-footed animal, by common usage and consent denominated "The Bull." What recked they of the turmoil that was abroad, while good liquor lasted, and the troll and merry tale went round? The yule-log was blazing on the hearth, and their cups were bright and plenished.

[Ill.u.s.tration 10: PEG O'NELLY'S WELL, NEAR c.l.i.tHEROE.

_Drawn by G. Pickering._ _Engraved by Edw^d Finden._]

"'Ods bodikins, Nic--and that's a parson's oath," said a small waspish figure from the farther chimney-corner, in a sort of husky wheezing voice, "I'll lay thee a thimblefull of pins thou dar'na do it."

"And I'll lay thee a grey lapstone, an' a tachin-end to boot, that I run ower t' hippin-stones to-night, and never a wet sole; but a buss and a wet lip I'll bring fro' the bonniest maiden at Waddow!"

"Like enough, like enough, though thou hast to brag for't," said the first speaker tauntingly--an old customer of the house, and a compiler of leathern extremities for the good burghers and their wives.