Legends of Lancashire 12

Legends of Lancashire 12

He started up from the couch, and fell at the feet of his

mysterious companion, exclaiming,--

 

“Perpetuate the scene! Give me boyhood again; give me the lost and

the beloved, and I’ll adore you,--aye, love you!”

 

He arose calmly, after her lips had been pressed to his.

 

“Drink,” was the reply. “Drink from this cup, Morden, and death

shall not separate the brother from the sister. Beautiful she

was a month before her sudden end, and that month shall never be

enrolled in your existence. Drink,--and the past is written over

with every drop of this liquid, on the tablet of your mind, and on

the objects of your external senses. Could inanimate things feel

its influence--and shall not the mind? Drink!” and the scene again

arose, in more thrilling beauty and truth. Sweet and long was the

draught, and he returned the cup, empty. Strange sensations shot

through his frame, and as strange feelings passed in his mind.

Emily, in a moment, was forgotten, and his arms were around his

companion, when a shriek was heard, and in place of the fading form

of his sister, stood the withered Weird of the Cave! Her daughter,

(for such the beautiful witch was,) now coldly repulsed him, and

shrunk from his embrace. As soon as he could move his eyes from the

hag, he turned round to chide his companion, when he found that

she had disappeared. A loud laugh was raised by the old witch, and

he pursued her. Darkness fell over the scene, and once more he was

near to the dying embers.

 

“Go home!” exclaimed the hag,--“go home, and die there along

with your dead wife and child! It is long past midnight. It is,

therefore, meet time that you should go to sleep with them.

Home--fool!”

 

Her words drove Morden almost to madness. He climbed up to the

entrance, and as he left the cave, he heard the laugh of the two

witches. He rushed along the path. He saw not the lurid lights that

flashed around him, from the dark abode which he had left. Terror,

shame, and despair, were driving their victim to what he considered

as a sanctuary from evil. He was heedless of his steps, and as he

stumbled, it but increased his fury; when he felt himself suddenly

grasped, and on looking up, recognized his servant Roger.

 

“Is all well,--is all well, Roger, with your mistress? Speak,

man,--speak!”

 

The servant hesitated, and then replied, “Yes, master!”

 

“Kind, dear Emily!” exclaimed Morden, “she has sent you to

search for me. Nay, Roger, I will outstrip you; and I can delay

no longer.--How anxious she will be! Death! no--no--it was but a

horrible dream! Yet, Roger,--am I agitated? would my looks frighten

Emily? Frighten--oh! no. Not a moment is to be lost,” and he darted

forward, and soon, all breathless, reached his abode. He trode up

the lawn with as heavy a pace as possible, in order that suspense

might be ended, and that she might know of his return, before he

appeared. A dim light was in the hall when he entered.

 

* * * * *

 

The faithful servant, when he arrived, heard no noise, and although

he felt keenly for the woes of his master, did not venture into the

hall before morning,--and there was his master lying, with his arms

around his wife. He spoke to him;--but he spoke to the dead!

 

* * * * *

 

A distant relation laid claim to the dwelling, with the land

attached to it; but from the awful scenes in the former, which we

have related, it became uninhabited, and was soon an entire ruin;

finally even without a wreck.

 

 

 

 

THE DEVIL’S WALL.

 

 

“Jeremiah, read those directions and intimations once more; they

contain no less than a challenge to my valour. Truly his Black

Majesty seems to think that he can toss about the ball of earth for

his amusement; and that there is not a tailor who would venture to

‘measure him.’ Ah! Nick, give me a trial.”

 

Thus spoke Gideon Chiselwig, tailor, in Ormskirk. Unlike the most

of his brethren belonging to that honourable profession, he could

boast of six feet of perpendicular matter; but conceiving that

even that height was too low a tabernacle for his giant soul, he

fixed to the one extremity a long red nightcap, whilst he made

the other move on tiptoe, much to the mirth of the quizzing old

maids, for which that town is noted. He was never seen with that

upper garment, commonly called a coat; unless to display one of

fashionable cut, which he had just finished; and the absence of

this did not take from Gideon’s stature. Some conjectured that he

knew this; others had seen Mrs. Gideon, at home, arrayed in what,

evidently, had once been a coat; and they jocosely remarked, that

she had altogether monopolized the use of her husband’s apparel,

for now they had seen her with the coat, and Gideon himself had

confessed that she wore the breeches.--He had a vest, but the

pockets were only visited by his hands; silver and gold they had

never weighed; so that to all intents and purposes--the wife wore

the vest also.

 

Nature, however, had denied him her average allowance of breadth

and thickness, so much so, that in a tour to remarkable places,

during the honey-moon, having entered a museum in the metropolis,

the blushing bride was asked by the keeper, what was the price she

fixed upon the piece of anatomy which she brought. Gideon, did,

indeed, convince the questioner of his mistake, by a powerful and

conclusive argument directed against his head: still people will

suspect, even in the face of ample evidence; and the report had

been afloat, that there was something altogether strange about him.

This only served to give a more singular character to the tailor,

and nothing short of the marvellous in adventure could win his

attention and occupy his thoughts.

 

Others hinted, that were Mrs. Gideon not to awake him so early;

not to rap his knuckles, when at table he was stretching forth his

hand to help himself; nor yet to allow the poker to fall upon his

toes and corns, when they ventured within a few yards of the fire;

not to compel him to perform the necessary ablutions on a cold

morning, a mile from the house, and then allow the sun, the wind,

or the frost, to dry him; not to confine him, for bedclothes, to a

sheet in winter, and his shirt in summer; nor yet, occasionally,

to exercise her hands, and a stick, upon his body; Gideon would

soon improve in appearance, and, at length, be a rival to the oily

priest. But the old maids (for Mrs. Gideon had formerly been one

of the numerous sisterhood residing there) considered such hints

as morsels of scandal;--and who can, with more propriety, condemn

scandal, than old maids?--and if, in the multitude of councillors

there be safety, their view of the matter, certainly, had every

assurance of being the correct one--that he was killed by too

much fondling and love. Ah! ah! poor Gideon knew better. He had a

scar on his face that he was proud to shew, for he had received

it in honourable combat with a barber;--but he had others, below

the night-cap, and many all over his person, which he was glad to

conceal; for these he received from his wife! At first he resisted

her encroachment upon the rights of man; but soon his noble spirit

disdained to contend with a woman. He had not lost a dram of

courage, and he burned for some supernatural achievement.

 

His brother Jeremiah was made exactly in the antipodean style. He

was short and round; yet, as he himself pathetically said, when the

doctor, dreading apoplexy, had inquired about his diet, “tears were

his daily food, and misfortunes were the vinegar and salt.” His

eyes, in fact, seemed to have invisible onions always around them.

It was so when he was a babe, and his mother was in the habit of

remarking, that Jeremiah would not be troubled with water in the

head, because it would never stay there. When he entered upon the

profession of a tailor, Gideon had serious doubts that he would but

bring disgrace on it, himself, and all his relations; for, as he

very wisely reasoned, “How could he use the goose?--however hot it

was, in a moment his tears would cool it. And as for his needles--a

hundred would become rusty in a day.” However, Jeremiah passed

his apprenticeship with distinction, and became a partner in his

brother’s shop; where we introduce them, squatted on a large table,

to our readers, at the moment that Gideon had finished the sentence

which opens the Legend.

 

Jeremiah had in his hand, an old and tattered book, which seemed

to have been read by the feet, and not the eyes. He raised his eyes

from it, as his brother spoke, and poured forth a fresh flood of

tears. “Ah! brother,” he said, “you’ll still be after what leads

to your destruction. I warned you against marriage. On the night

previous, did I not strike you sharply on the ankle, and then upon

the head, and ask you how you could endure to have it repeated a

hundred times, in the whole multiplication table of your life. And

now,” here tears impeded his words, “can I not read about Satan’s

tricks without your wishing--”

 

“Resolving you mean; nay, Jeremiah, call it resolving to fight him.

I’m sure that he’s in Ormskirk. Yesterday morning, when I came from

washing myself, I traced in the snow a strange hoof to this very

door. There never was such a nunnery of old maids, in which he was

not found wooing them. But--but I’ll make a goose of him--I will!”

concluded the magnanimous tailor.

 

“A goose! a goose!” exclaimed the simple Jeremiah, in horror,

“he’ll burn our hands, and the cloth. I cannot use him for a goose.

Oh! brother, only say that you will not make him either a needle or

a goose, and I’ll read the words over again.”

 

“Well, well,” returned Gideon, a little pacified, as well as

elated, by the thought that there was one who really did think

that he was able to turn the devil into a goose, “sweep away your

tears. You’ll find the table cloth near you. Use the dirty corner

twice, and Nelly wont need to wash it.”

 

Jeremiah followed his brother’s directions, carefully passed the

cloth over his face, and once more fixed his eyes upon the book.

Gideon laid aside a pair of gaiters, which he was making for the

comfort of his wife. The winter was severe--and the doctor, it

seems, had said at the house of some wealthy person that there

would be a great mortality that season, should females not keep

their feet properly warm, and the report had spread through all the

town, and had been pretty well circulated, both by the tailors and

shoemakers. In fact, shoes and gaiters had been exhibited under

the imposing titles of life-preservers. Towards evening the sexton

had been known to look suspiciously upon them, and even openly to

condemn the traffic; but the articles were still in great demand.