Traditions of Lancashire Volume I Part 18

The rebel army had their camp at Doncaster, where the Archbishop of York and the Lord D'Arcy openly espoused their cause, receiving in great state a herald from the king's army, who came to negotiate with these dangerous malcontents. They had formed high notions of their own power and importance, and entertained sanguine hopes of success, especially since the Duke of Norfolk, a supporter of the ancient religion, was appointed to the command of the royal forces along with the Earl of Shrewsbury. The monks made themselves certain that the result would be a complete purification of heresy from the land, or at least that measures would be adopted for the purpose of forcing Henry to a rest.i.tution of their rights. So fully established were they in this opinion, that, as we have just seen, some of them took possession of their ancient inheritances without the tedious formality of awaiting a fresh grant from the king.

The rebel army, being allured by Norfolk with vain promises of satisfaction, were now dispersed, though with the understanding that another a.s.semblage should take place at a given notice, for which purpose beacons were erected at convenient distances throughout the north. By these means their forces could again be mustered with the greatest security and despatch.

Within this interval our narrative begins. Paslew had received some communication from the leaders of the pilgrimage; but he seemed wishful to procrastinate, hoping, perhaps, he should be spared the necessity of any more direct treasonable demonstrations, by the timely submission of the king; yet his aid was of too much importance to be neglected.

The stranger, on his introduction, was received with some ostentation, and not a little ceremony. They were evidently unknown to each other; but the keen glance of the abbot instantly detected the signal for some secret message. Paslew was habited in the Cistercian gown, and scapulary of white cloth. His eye was dark, but restless; his lips, drawn in, were narrow and compressed, showing the curbed impetuosity of his spirit.

Either as a churchman or a warrior, he seemed fitted for daring enterprise; yet was he of a wary and cautious bearing, a characteristic which his monkish education had in all probability thrown over his natural temperament. The attendants having departed, the stranger drew an unsealed letter from his bosom.'

"A written message, my lord abbot, from the Abbot of Kirkstall. 'Tis now for your reverence's private regard, afterwards at your discretion." The abbot hastily glanced over this piece of quaint and formal latinity, occasionally darting a rapid and penetrating look at his visitor.

"He says not aught regarding so goodly a messenger," said Paslew, carelessly.

"I should have marvelled if he had," returned the other, with a contemptuous smile. "He knew not of so important a personage when that epistle was elaborated from his pen."

"How?" said the abbot, his features gathering into a portentous scowl.

"Nay, I beseech your reverence's grace, that you throw off all such disturbed apprehensions; for in troth a messenger of my bearing and capacity were worth a knight's ransom in these evil days, when the monks may not abroad with safety."

"Speak out. Remember I have yet the power to punish both insolence and treachery."

The abbot's lip curled upwards, pale and quivering with rage, not unmixed with apprehension.

"Grammercy," said the stranger, with a provokingly careless expression of cool and contemptuous defiance--"I cry you none--I am at present nameless. To work, to work, lord abbot. Thou hast holden back too long; and there is a shrewd suspicion abroad of thine integrity in the good cause. Hold!" said he, rising, as the reverend prelate was on the point of summoning his attendants; "I am not thy prisoner! Impotent, I would crook my finger thus, and thou shouldest crouch at my bidding. Nay, these be evil days, I say again; and more strange things may come to pa.s.s than bearding a lordly abbot in his den!"

Great was the astonishment of Paslew. The stranger stood proudly erect; his arms were folded, and a withering glance shot from beneath his brows. Even John Paslew, unused to a sense of inferiority before his fellow-men, felt cowed before him. For the first time, in all likelihood, he knew not how or what to answer. The stranger interrupted this painful silence.

"Since the monks are forbidden to be out a-gadding, the cowl and scapulary might have found some hindrance over the moors from Kirkstall.

With my hawk and bearing-pole, I can follow on to the sport without let or question." The latter part of this speech seemed to throw some light on the purpose for which this messenger had been selected. Paslew was preparing for a further inquiry, when he was again interrupted.

"I tell thee, a courier of my condition may go free, though nameless.

But to business--Norfolk is tampering with our credulity. He thinks to gain our time to his advantage: but the work must again be urged forward. Yet lack we thy aid. May we depend on its being faithfully rendered? We must have no lukewarm allies in the rear of our camp."

The stranger drew from beneath his inner vest a crucifix, with the representation of a chalice and of the five wounds of Christ.

Paslew kissed the token, and his suspicions were at rest. But still, there was a dubiety and hesitation in his manner displeasing to the stranger. He would bind himself to no distinct pledge respecting the time of his appearance at the rebel camp; and altogether seemed to display either cowardice or a want of cordiality. His guest refusing to stay the night, on a pretext of urgent business farther north, departed soon after the termination of their interview.

The night was fast closing when the strangers left the abbey. One by one the pale stars seemed to start out, as if just lighted up in the blue vault. The dark woods threw their giant arms around the sacred domain, as though to guard it against unhallowed intrusion. The travellers had gained the steep ascent towards the south-east, from whence the river, winding down the narrow valley, seemed as if here and there a spark was floating on its quiet surface--the lights, gliding on the opposite brink, fell distinct and unbroken upon the stream. The soft voice of the current grew strangely audible, in contrast with the deep silence; the wind rolling it round to the ear at intervals startling and abrupt.

Preceded by a guide, they had taken the rough mountain road, leading from the abbey into the forest of Pendle, the stranger and his servant still walking, or rather climbing, for their journey could only be accomplished on foot. Having proceeded about two miles on this rugged path, they diverged to the left, where the only indication to a.s.sist their guide was the turf-cutters' track and a few heaps of stones, scarcely distinguishable from the common ma.s.s, but by an eye accustomed to these land-marks. Carefully were they sought for at times, the blazing torch carried by their leader being often requisite for the search.

They now descended by a narrow and steep ravine, the termination of which brought them to a small brook. This they crossed, and again commenced a sharp and troublesome ascent. The mighty Pendle rose up before them, huge and dark, engrossing half the hemisphere. To this point, it seemed, their path was directed. The guide now trimmed his torch, the smoke from which had for some time been rather an accompaniment than an a.s.sistance to their toil, as it caused them to loiter at an inconvenient distance, thereby enhancing the difficulties they had to encounter. Slow and toilsome was their progress, yet a patient continuance in any path will sooner or later lead to the end.

The brow of the hill seemed rapidly diminishing; the abrupt steep was at length gained, when the whole glorious garniture of the heavens, uninterrupted, from that majestic height, was suddenly revealed. True, it was a November night, but unusually clear and vivid; the stars seemed to burn rather than shine, so piercing was their effulgence. The vast track of the milky way appeared to span the dark and level platform, like the bow of some triumphal arch. They seemed to stand on a huge circle, black, bare,--its verge unapproachable, contrasting deeply with the encompa.s.sing splendour. Proceeding onwards, a dark speck was visible, springing out abruptly from the verge of the horizon. Its bulk rapidly increased, their path evidently tending in that direction. A shrill whistle from the guide was now answered by a corresponding signal. Presently they were challenged by a sentinel.

"_Vale_" growled out the rough voice of their conductor.

"Is it thou, Will?" said the guard. "And what neck art thou fitting for the noose; breeding occupation for the hangsman, I trow."

"Not half so ripe as thine own, gossip. Here be two gentles that have commission, I guess, to look at the beacons, to see they are in trim and properly watched. 'Tis well the guard is set. Holloa, Nicholas Dewhurst, bring the flagon. I am wheezing like an old wife's bellows, nigh disinherited of my birthright, the free quaffing o' the air. I shall die and be canonised."

Will, in his eagerness to attain this glorious end, left his companions with the sentinel, who speedily conducted them into a rude hut, erected as a temporary shelter to those on the look-out for signals. In this narrow shed a lamp was burning. Two of the abbot's servants, stretched before a smouldering heap of turf, were scarcely roused by the vociferations of Will, as he strode over them in his way to the provender. A long pull, and a loud smack, announced the satisfactory relish that ensued.

"Hoa, ye lozel knaves!--who sleeps when Will's awake?" This reflection was accompanied by a smart blow on that part of the rec.u.mbent's person where it was most conveniently administered.

"Begone, sot!" was the abrupt reply, not over-abundantly expressive of good humour at this disturbance. Will looked again towards the flagon; but great was his dismay on beholding it in the very act of disemboguing its precious contents into another gulf as insatiable as his own. Ralph Newcome, incited thereto by his own discrimination, together with the resistless relish of their guide, as soon as the latter had partially concluded, took up the subject, and long, powerful, and undeviating were the requisitions that he made.

"Plague on thy civility!--A fly will drink from anybody's cup, and so will a Yorkshireman," growled the uncourteous churl.

Ralph had, however, braced himself tightly to the task, and stood with an air of dogged defiance, stoutly confronting his accuser,--though, being a man of few words, the princ.i.p.al weight of the argument rested upon Will, whose eloquence was with difficulty interrupted on any subject.

"Peace," said one of the sleepers, raising himself half-way,--"I think we be like to bide here till our bones rot. There's nought but the same dun sky,--black, black, and unchanging. I should like to see a stiff blaze from some quarter. Our bundle, here, would soon be in a low."

"Hark!" said the other, "'tis something creaking amongst the f.a.ggots."

The sentinel rushed out, but the beacon was undisturbed.

"St Mary protect us!--'Tis the same noise I heard last night, and about the same hour."

The stranger here entered the hut. Enveloped in a huge cloak, he sate silent, and apparently inattentive; but the conversation was now abrupt, and broken down into short and interrupted whispers.

"I wish old Hal and his wives were here, with all my heart," said one: "we'd have a rare bonfire. How his fat paunch would swell! But for him and his unlucky women, we had been snug in the chimney-corner, snoring out psalmody, or helping old Barn'by off with the t.i.t-bits in the kitchen."

"Hush!" said his neighbour: "there be the f.a.ggots talking again. I think they are bewitched.--Dan, look to them."

"Nay," said Dan, "they may bide awhile for me."

The words were scarcely uttered when the building seemed in a blaze.

Crash upon crash followed. The inmates, stupified with terror, were well nigh suffocated ere their astonishment left them the power to escape.

In the full conviction that the foul fiend had taken him at his word, Dan was dragged from the hut, wan, speechless, and gasping with affright. Nothing less, too, than a visit from his Satanic majesty in person was expected by the terrified rustics.

On gaining the outside, the whole burning ma.s.s was before them, one vast pyramid of flame. Flakes of blazing matter were hurled into the sky, with short and rapid explosions. The roar of the wind through the glowing furnace was awful and appalling. Huge and ignited fragments were borne away with frightful rapidity. They rode on the rolling volumes of smoke like fire-fiends armed with destruction; but the vast reservoir of flame still glowed on, apparently undiminished. The curtain of night seemed to be suddenly undrawn. Objects the most minute were visible as in the broad view of day. The brown heath, the grey and the mossy stone, were each distinguishable, but clad alike in one bright and unvarying colour, red as the roaring furnace. Soon the great magazine of inflammable matter in the interior caught fire, and rolled out in a wide ma.s.s of light, like the first burst of a volcano.

The stranger stood with apparent unconcern, his back to the flames, looking from the brink of the mountain northward, as if on the watch for corresponding signals. Soon a bright star hung on the heights above Sawley. Increasing in splendour, another broke out on the verge of the horizon, marking the site of the camp near Romald's Moor.

Turning towards the south-west, and looking to the right, beyond the chain of successive heights that form the vale of Todmorden, he beheld a dim spark in the distance, from the summit of Hades Hill, scarcely penetrating the mist which hung like a dense cloud in that direction; this place and Thieveley Pike forming the connecting-links between Pendle Hill and Buckton Castle.

The terrified attendants knew too well the results which would follow this unaccountable and irreparable mistake. The whole country would be in commotion. Hordes of zealous and fanatic idlers and malcontents would repair to the appointed rendezvous, and this premature, and perhaps fatal movement, would be attributed to their carelessness. Paslew, not over-nice in discriminating their several deserts, would doubtless subject them to immediate and condign punishment.

These were thoughts common to each, unquestionable and conclusive; but what answer to give, or what excuse to make, was far from being decided upon with the same degree of certainty.

"We shall be hanged without mercy," was the dread sum of these uncomfortable reflections.

"I know not what you may be," said Will; "but I intend to run for it.

I've an old dame would make a sore disturbance at my death, more especially if dangling from the gallows-tree, which of all the trees in the wood hath been my aversion ever since I saw Long Tom of the Nab make so uncomfortable a shriving from thence."

"Run, then," said Nicholas, rather stoutly, and in a tone of more confidence than heretofore. "I'll stay my ground this bout; and, further, I do propose to commit yon knaves into the holy keeping of our four-cornered crib, where they may be indulged in recreations of another sort than setting the whole country by the ears. 'Twill save our necks to slip theirs into the noose."

This happy suggestion, the whole of these honest and conscientious servants of the church were prepared to obey. They might with safety accuse the strangers; indeed, it was more than probable they had hit out the right source of the mischief; so, marching up boldly to the execution of this Christian purpose, they were proceeding to lay hands on the foremost of the culprits. At this critical moment he turned suddenly round. Perhaps from a prior suspicion of their intentions, or from the knavish cast of their countenances, he saw that hostilities were in contemplation: at any rate, he seemed to be prepared for the event. Will, being the mouthpiece of the party, and accustomed, moreover, at times to a precise and methodical manner of delivery, was the chief speaker.

"Sir, we arrest you for high treason. You are charged with firing off beacons without our privity or consent, thereby endangering the safety of the lord abbot, and the peaceable governing of this realm." He paused, quaking even at his own eloquence; but the stranger made no reply, till, throwing aside his cloak, he drew out a hagbut or demi-hague as it was sometimes called, being a sort of small harquebuss, with its match ready kindled.