Chapter IV: Preface: To the Second Edition (3)

But this tranquillity of his lordship was not to last. A couple of Saints had been seriously offended; and we have all of us read at school that celestial minds are by no means insensible to the provocations of anger. There were those who expected that St. Bridget would come in person, and have the friar up again, as she did the sailor; but perhaps her ladyship did not care to trust herself within the walls of Shurland Castle. To say the truth, it was scarcely a decent house for a female Saint to be seen in. The Baron's gallantries, since he became a widower, had been but too notorious; and her own reputation was a little blown upon in the earlier days of her earthly pilgrimage: then things were so apt to be misrepresented: in short, she would leave the whole affair to St. Austin, who, being a gentleman, could interfere with propriety, avenge her affront as well as his own, and leave no loop-hole for scandal. St. Austin himself seems to have had his scruples, though of their precise nature it would be difficult to determine, for it were idle to suppose him at all afraid of the Baron's boots. Be this as it may, the mode which he adopted was at once prudent and efficacious. As an ecclesiastic, he could not well call the Baron out,--had his boots been out of the question;--so he resolved to have recourse to the law. Instead of Shurland Castle, therefore, he repaired forthwith to his own magnificent monastery, situate just within the walls of Canterbury, and presented himself in a vision to its abbot. No one who has ever visited that ancient city, can fail to recollect the splendid gateway which terminates the vista of St. Paul's-street, and stands there yet in all its pristine beauty. The tiny train of miniature artillery which now adorns its battlements is, it is true, an ornament of a later date; and is said to have been added some centuries after by a learned but jealous proprietor, for the purpose of shooting any wiser man than himself who might chance to come that way. Tradition is silent as to any discharge having taken place, nor can the oldest inhabitant of modern days recollect any such occurrence.[4] Here it was, in a handsome chamber, immediately over the lofty archway, that the Superior of the monastery lay buried in a brief slumber snatched from his accustomed vigils. His mitre--for he was a Mitred Abbot, and had a seat in parliament--rested on a table beside him; near it stood a silver flagon of Gascony wine, ready, no doubt, for the pious uses of the morrow. Fasting and watching had made him more than usually somnolent, than which nothing could have been better for the purpose of the Saint, who now appeared to him radiant in all the colours of the rainbow.

"Anselm!"--said the beatific vision,--"Anselm! are you not a pretty fellow to lie snoring there, when your brethren are being knocked at head, and Mother Church herself is menaced?--It is a sin and a shame. Anselm!"

"What's the matter?--Who are you?" cried the Abbot, rubbing his eyes, which the celestial splendour of his visitor had set a-winking. "Ave Maria! St. Austin himself!--Speak, _Beatissime_! what would you with the humblest of your votaries?"

"Anselm!" said the Saint, "a brother of our order, whose soul Heaven assoilzie! hath been foully murdered. He hath been ignominiously kicked to the death, Anselm; and there he lieth cheek-by-jowl with a wretched carcass, which our sister Bridget has turned out of her cemetery for unseemly grinning.--Arouse thee, Anselm!"

"Ay, so please you, _Sanctissime_!" said the Abbot. "I will order forthwith that thirty masses be said, thirty _Paters_, and thirty _Aves_."

"Thirty fools' heads!" interrupted his patron, who was a little peppery.

"I will send for bell, book, and candle--"

"Send for an inkhorn, Anselm.--Write me now a letter to his Holiness the Pope in good round terms, and another to the Coroner, and another to the Sheriff, and seize me the never-enough-to-be-anathematised villain who hath done this deed! Hang him as high as Haman, Anselm!--up with him!--down with his dwelling-place, root and branch, hearthstone and roof-tree,--down with it all, and sow the site with salt and sawdust!"

St. Austin, it will be perceived, was a radical reformer.

"Marry will I," quoth the Abbot, warming with the Saint's eloquence: "ay, marry will I, and that _instanter_. But there is one thing you have forgotten, most Beatified--the name of the culprit."

"Robert de Shurland."

"The Lord of Sheppey! Bless me!" said the Abbot, crossing himself, "won't that be rather inconvenient? Sir Robert is a bold baron, and a powerful;--blows will come and go, and crowns will be cracked and--"

"What is that to you, since yours will not be of the number?"

"Very true, _Beatissime_!--I will don me with speed, and do your bidding."

"Do so, Anselm!--fail not to hang the baron, burn his castle, confiscate his estate, and buy me two large wax candles for my own particular shrine out of your share of the property."

With this solemn injunction the vision began to fade.

"One thing more!" cried the Abbot, grasping his rosary.

"What is that?" asked the Saint.

"_O Beate Augustine, ora pro nobis!_"

"Of course I shall," said St. Austin. "_Pax vobiscum!_"--and Abbot Anselm was left alone.

Within an hour all Canterbury was in commotion. A friar had been murdered,--two friars--ten--twenty; a whole convent had been assaulted,--sacked,--burnt,--all the monks had been killed, and all the nuns had been kissed!--Murder!--fire!--sacrilege! Never was city in such an uproar. From St. George's gate to St. Dunstan's suburb, from the Donjon to the borough of Staplegate, all was noise and hubbub. "Where was it?"--"When was it?"--"How was it?" The Mayor caught up his chain, the Aldermen donned their furred gowns, the Town-clerk put on his spectacles. "Who was he?"--"What was he?"--"Where was he?"--he should be hanged,--he should be burned,--he should be broiled,--he should be fried,--he should be scraped to death with red-hot oyster-shells! "Who was he?"--"What was his name?"

The Abbot's Apparitor drew forth his roll and read aloud:--"Sir Robert de Shurland, Knight banneret, Baron of Shurland and Minster, and Lord of Sheppey."

The Mayor put his chain in his pocket, the Aldermen took off their gowns, the Town Clerk put his pen behind his ear.--It was a county business altogether:--the Sheriff had better call out the _posse comitatus_.

While saints and sinners were thus leaguing against him, the Baron de Shurland was quietly eating his breakfast. He had passed a tranquil night, undisturbed by dreams of cowl or capuchin; nor was his appetite more affected than his conscience. On the contrary, he sat rather longer over his meal than usual: luncheon-time came, and he was ready as ever for his oysters: but scarcely had Dame Martin opened his first half-dozen when the warder's horn was heard from the barbican.

"Who the devil's that?" said Sir Robert. "I'm not at home, Periwinkle. I hate to be disturbed at meals, and I won't be at home to anybody."

"An't please your lordship," answered the Seneschal, "Paul Prior hath given notice that there is a body--"

"Another body!" roared the Baron. "Am I to be everlastingly plagued with bodies? No time allowed me to swallow a morsel. Throw it into the moat!"

"So please you, my lord, it is a body of horse,--and--and Paul says there is a still larger body of foot behind it; and he thinks, my lord,--that is, he does not know, but he thinks--and we all think, my lord, that they are coming to--to besiege the castle!"

"Besiege the castle! Who? What? What for?"

"Paul says, my lord, that he can see the banner of St. Austin, and the bleeding heart of Hamo de Crevecœur, the Abbot's chief vassal; and there is John de Northwood, the sheriff, with his red-cross engrailed; and Hever, and Leybourne, and Heaven knows how many more; and they are all coming on as fast as ever they can."

"Periwinkle," said the Baron, "up with the drawbridge; down with the portcullis; bring me a cup of canary, and my nightcap. I won't be bothered with them. I shall go to bed."

"To bed, my lord?" cried Periwinkle, with a look that seemed to say, "He's crazy!"

At this moment the shrill tones of a trumpet were heard to sound thrice from the champaign. It was the signal for parley: the Baron changed his mind; instead of going to bed, he went to the ramparts.

"Well, rapscallions! and what now!" said the Baron.

A herald, two pursuivants, and a trumpeter, occupied the foreground of the scene; behind them, some three hundred paces off, upon a rising ground, was drawn up in battle array the main body of the ecclesiastical forces.

"Hear you, Robert de Shurland, Knight, Baron of Shurland and Minster, and Lord of Sheppey, and know all men, by these presents, that I do hereby attach you, the said Robert, of murder and sacrilege, now, or of late, done and committed by you, the said Robert, contrary to the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King, his crown and dignity: and I do hereby require and charge you, the said Robert, to forthwith surrender and give up your own proper person, together with the castle of Shurland aforesaid, in order that the same may be duly dealt with according to law. And here standeth John de Northwood, Esquire, good man and true, sheriff of this his Majesty's most loyal county of Kent, to enforce the same, if need be, with his _posse comitatus_--"

"His what?" said the Baron.

"His _posse comitatus_, and--"

"Go to Bath!" said the Baron.

A defiance so contemptuous roused the ire of the adverse commanders. A volley of missiles rattled about the Baron's ears. Nightcaps avail little against contusions. He left the walls, and returned to the great hall.

"Let them pelt away," quoth the Baron; "there are no windows to break, and they can't get in."--So he took his afternoon nap, and the siege went on.

Towards evening his lordship awoke, and grew tired of the din. Guy Pearson, too, had got a black eye from a brick-bat, and the assailants were clambering over the outer wall. So the Baron called for his Sunday hauberk of Milan steel, and his great two-handed sword with the terrible name;--it was the fashion in feudal times to give names to swords: King Arthur's was christened Excalibar; the Baron called his Tickletoby, and whenever he took it in hand it was no joke.

"Up with the portcullis! down with the bridge!" said Sir Robert; and out he sallied, followed by the _élite_ of his retainers. Then there was a pretty to-do. Heads flew one way--arms and legs another; round went Tickletoby; and, wherever it alighted, down came horse and man: the Baron excelled himself that day. All that he had done in Palestine faded in the comparison; he had fought for fun there, but now it was for life and lands. Away went John de Northwood; away went William of Hever, and Roger of Leybourne.--Hamo de Crevecœur, with the church vassals and the banner of St. Austin, had been gone some time.--The siege was raised, and the Lord of Sheppey was left alone in his glory.

But, brave as the Baron undoubtedly was, and total as had been the defeat of his enemies, it cannot be supposed that _La Stoccata_ would be allowed to carry it away thus. It has before been hinted that Abbot Anselm had written to the Pope, and Boniface the Eighth piqued himself on his punctuality as a correspondent in all matters connected with church discipline. He sent back an answer by return of post; and by it all Christian people were strictly enjoined to aid in exterminating the offender, on pain of the greater excommunication in this world, and a million of years of purgatory in the next. But then, again, Boniface the Eighth was rather at a discount in England just then. He had affronted Longshanks, as the loyal lieges had nicknamed their monarch; and Longshanks had been rather sharp upon the clergy in consequence. If the Baron de Shurland could but get the King's pardon for what, in his cooler moments, he admitted to be a peccadillo, he might sniff at the Pope, and bid him "do his devilmost."

Fortune, who, as the poet says, delights to favour the bold, stood his friend on this occasion. Edward had been, for some time, collecting a large force on the coast of Kent, to carry on his French wars for the recovery of Guienne; he was expected shortly to review it in person; but, then, the troops lay principally in cantonments about the mouth of the Thames, and his Majesty was to come down by water. What was to be done?--the royal barge was in sight, and John de Northwood and Hamo de Crevecœur had broken up all the boats to boil their camp-kettles.--A truly great mind is never without resources.

"Bring me my boots!" said the Baron.

They brought him his boots, and his dapple-grey steed along with them. Such a courser! all blood and bone, short-backed, broad-chested, and,--but that he was a little ewe-necked,--faultless in form and figure. The Baron sprang upon his back, and dashed at once into the river.

The barge which carried Edward Longshanks and his fortunes had by this time nearly reached the Nore; the stream was broad and the current strong, but Sir Robert and his steed were almost as broad, and a great deal stronger. After breasting the tide gallantly for a couple of miles, the Knight was near enough to hail the steersman.

"What have we got here?" said the King.--"It's a mermaid," said one.--"It's a grampus," said another.--"It's the devil," said a third.--But they were all wrong; it was only Robert de Shurland. "Grammercy," quoth the King, "that fellow was never born to be drowned!"

It has been said before that the Baron had fought in the Holy wars; in fact, he had accompanied Longshanks, when only heir apparent, in his expedition twenty-five years before, although his name is unaccountably omitted by Sir Harris Nicolas in his list of crusaders. He had been present at Acre when Amirand of Joppa stabbed the prince with a poisoned dagger, and had lent Princess Eleanor his own tooth-brush after she had sucked out the venom from the wound.--He had slain certain Saracens, contented himself with his own plunder, and never dunned the commissariat for arrears of pay.--Of course he ranked high in Edward's good graces, and had received the honour of knighthood at his hands on the field of battle.

In one so circumstanced it cannot be supposed that such a trifle as the killing of a frowzy friar would be much resented, even had he not taken so bold a measure to obtain his pardon. His petition was granted, of course, as soon as asked; and so it would have been had the indictment drawn up by the Canterbury town-clerk, viz., "That he the said Robert de Shurland, etc., had then and there, with several, to wit, one thousand, pairs of boots, given sundry, to wit, two thousand, kicks, and therewith and thereby killed divers, to wit, ten thousand, Austin friars," been true to the letter.

Thrice did the gallant grey circumnavigate the barge, while Robert de Winchelsey, the chancellor, and archbishop to boot, was making out, albeit with great reluctance, the royal pardon. The interval was sufficiently long to enable His Majesty, who, gracious as he was, had always an eye to business, just to hint that the gratitude he felt towards the Baron was not unmixed with a lively sense of services to come; and that, if life were now spared him, common decency must oblige him to make himself useful. Before the archbishop, who had scalded his fingers with the wax in affixing the great seal, had time to take them out of his mouth, all was settled, and the Baron de Shurland had pledged himself to be forthwith in readiness, _cum suis_, to accompany his liege lord to Guienne.

With the royal pardon secured in his vest, boldly did his lordship turn again to the shore; and as boldly did his courser oppose his breadth of chest to the stream. It was a work of no common difficulty or danger; a steed of less "mettle and bone" had long since sunk in the effort: as it was, the Baron's boots were full of water, and Grey Dolphin's chamfrain more than once dipped beneath the wave. The convulsive snorts of the noble animal shewed his distress; each instant they became more loud and frequent; when his hoof touched the strand, and "the horse and his rider" stood once again in safety on the shore.

Rapidly dismounting, the Baron was loosening the girths of his demi-pique, to give the panting animal breath, when he was aware of as ugly an old woman as he had ever clapped eyes upon, peeping at him under the horse's belly.

"Make much of your steed, Robert Shurland! Make much of your steed!" cried the hag, shaking at him her long and bony finger. "Groom to the hide, and corn to the manger! He has saved your life, Robert Shurland, for the nonce; but he shall yet be the means of your losing it, for all that!"

The Baron started: "What's that you say, you old faggot?"--He ran round by his horse's tail;--the woman was gone!

The Baron paused; his great soul was not to be shaken by trifles; he looked around him, and solemnly ejaculated the word "Humbug!"--then slinging the bridle across his arm, walked slowly on in the direction of the castle.

The appearance, and still more the disappearance, of the crone, had however made an impression; every step he took he became more thoughtful. "'Twould be deuced provoking, though, if he _should_ break my neck after all."--He turned and gazed at Dolphin with the scrutinizing eye of a veterinary surgeon.--"I'll be shot if he is not groggy!" said the Baron.

With his lordship, like another great Commander, "Once to be in doubt, was once to be resolved:" it would never do to go to the wars on a rickety prad. He dropped the rein, drew forth Tickletoby, and, as the enfranchised Dolphin, good easy horse, stretched out his ewe-neck to the herbage, struck off his head at a single blow. "There, you lying old beldame!" said the Baron, "now take him away to the knacker's."

* * * * *

Three years were come and gone. King Edward's French wars were over; both parties, having fought till they came to a standstill, shook hands; and the quarrel, as usual, was patched up by a royal marriage. This happy event gave his Majesty leisure to turn his attention to Scotland, where things, through the intervention of William Wallace, were looking rather queerish. As his reconciliation with Philip now allowed of his fighting the Scotch in peace and quietness, the monarch lost no time in marching his long legs across the border, and the short ones of the Baron followed him of course. At Falkirk, Tickletoby was in great request; and in the year following, we find a contemporary poet hinting at his master's prowess under the walls of Caerlaverock,

Ovec eus fu achiminez
Li beau Robert de Shurland
Ki kant seoit sur le cheval
Ne sembloit home ke someille.

A quatrain which Mr. Simpkinson translates,

"With them was marching
The good Robert de Shurland,
Who, when seated on horseback,
Does not resemble a man asleep!"

So thoroughly awake, indeed, does he seem to have proved himself, that the bard subsequently exclaims, in an ecstasy of admiration,

Si ie estoie une pucelette
Je li donrie ceur et cors
Tant est de lu bons li recors.

"If I were a young maiden,
I would give my heart and person,
So great is his fame!"

Fortunately the poet was a tough old monk of Exeter; since such a present to a nobleman, now in his grand climacteric, would hardly have been worth the carriage. With the reduction of this stronghold of the Maxwells seem to have concluded the Baron's military services; as on the very first day of the fourteenth century we find him once more landed on his native shore, and marching, with such of his retainers as the wars had left him, towards the hospitable shelter of Shurland Castle. It was then, upon that very beach, some hundred yards distant from high-water mark, that his eye fell upon something like an ugly old woman in a red cloak! She was seated on what seemed to be a large stone, in an interesting attitude, with her elbows resting upon her knees, and her chin upon her thumbs. The Baron started: the remembrance of his interview with a similar personage in the same place some three years since, flashed upon his recollection. He rushed towards the spot, but the form was gone;--nothing remained but the seat it had appeared to occupy. This, on examination, turned out to be no stone, but the whitened skull of a dead horse!--A tender remembrance of the deceased Grey Dolphin shot a momentary pang into the Baron's bosom; he drew the back of his hand across his face; the thought of the hag's prediction in an instant rose, and banished all softer emotions. In utter contempt of his own weakness, yet with a tremor that deprived his redoubtable kick of half its wonted force, he spurned the relic with his foot. One word alone issued from his lips, elucidatory of what was passing in his mind,--it long remained imprinted on the memory of his faithful followers,--that word was "Gammon!" The skull bounded across the beach till it reached the very margin of the stream;--one instant more, and it would be engulfed for ever. At that moment a loud "Ha! ha! ha!" was distinctly heard by the whole train to issue from its bleached and toothless jaws; it sank beneath the flood in a horse laugh!

Meanwhile Sir Robert de Shurland felt an odd sort of sensation in his right foot. His boots had suffered in the wars. Great pains had been taken for their preservation. They had been "soled" and "heeled" more than once;--had they been "goloshed," their owner might have defied Fate! Well has it been said that "there is no such thing as a trifle." A nobleman's life depended upon a question of ninepence.

The Baron marched on; the uneasiness in his foot increased. He plucked off his boot;--a horse's tooth was sticking in his great toe!

The result may be anticipated. Lame as he was, his lordship, with characteristic decision, would hobble on to Shurland; his walk increased the inflammation; a flagon of _aqua vitæ_ did not mend matters. He was in a high fever; he took to his bed. Next morning the toe presented the appearance of a Bedfordshire carrot; by dinner-time it had deepened to beet-root; and when Bargrave, the leech, at last sliced it off, the gangrene was too confirmed to admit of remedy. Dame Martin thought it high time to send for Miss Margaret, who, ever since her mother's death, had been living with her maternal aunt, the abbess, in the Ursuline convent at Greenwich. The young lady came, and with her came one Master Ingoldsby, her cousin-german by the mother's side; but the Baron was too far gone in the dead-thraw to recognise either. He died as he lived, unconquered and unconquerable. His last words were--"Tell the old hag she may go to----." Whither remains a secret. He expired without fully articulating the place of her destination.

But who and what _was_ the crone who prophesied the catastrophe? Ay, "that is the mystery of this wonderful history."--Some say it was Dame Fothergill, the late confessor's mamma; others, St. Bridget herself; others thought it was nobody at all, but only a phantom conjured up by conscience. As we do not know, we decline giving an opinion.

And what became of the Clerk of Chatham?--Mr. Simpkinson avers that he lived to a good old age, and was at last hanged by Jack Cade, with his inkhorn about his neck, for "setting boys copies." In support of this he adduces his name "Emmanuel," and refers to the historian Shakspear. Mr. Peters, on the contrary, considers this to be what he calls one of Mr. Simpkinson's "Anacreonisms," inasmuch as, at the introduction of Mr. Cade's reform measure, the Clerk, if alive, would have been hard upon two hundred years old. The probability is, that the unfortunate alluded to was his great-grandson.

Margaret Shurland in due course became Margaret Ingoldsby, her portrait still hangs in the gallery at Tappington. The features are handsome, but shrewish, betraying, as it were, a touch of the old Baron's temperament; but we never could learn that she actually kicked her husband. She brought him a very pretty fortune in chains, owches, and Saracen ear-rings; the barony, being a male fief, reverted to the Crown.

In the abbey-church at Minster may yet be seen the tomb of a recumbent warrior, clad in the chain-mail of the 13th century.[5] His hands are clasped in prayer; his legs, crossed in that position so prized by Templars in ancient, and tailors in modern days, bespeak him a soldier of the faith in Palestine. Close behind his dexter calf lies sculptured in bold relief a horse's head; and a respectable elderly lady, as she shows the monument, fails not to read her auditors a fine moral lesson on the sin of ingratitude, or to claim a sympathising tear to the memory of poor "Grey Dolphin!"

FOOTNOTES:

[2] I-run, is a town said to have been so named from something of this sort.

[3] One of the uses to which this mystic chandelier was put, was the protection of secreted treasure. Blow out all the fingers at one puff and you had the money.

[4] Since the appearance of the first edition of this Legend "the guns" have been dismounted. Rumour hints at some alarm on the part of the Town Council.

[5] Subsequent to the first appearance of the foregoing narrative, the tomb alluded to has been opened during the course of certain repairs which the church has undergone. Mr. Simpkinson, who was present at the exhumation of the body within, and has enriched his collection with three of its grinders, says the bones of one of the great toes were wanting. He speaks in terms of great admiration at the thickness of the skull, and is of opinion that the skeleton is that of a great patriot much addicted to Lundy-foot.

It is on my own personal reminiscences that I draw for the following story; the scene of its leading event was most familiar to me in early life. If the principal actor in it be yet living, he must have reached a very advanced age. He was often at the Hall, in my infancy, on professional visits. It is, however, only from those who "prated of his whereabouts" that I learned the history of his adventure with

THE GHOST.

There stands a City,--neither large nor small,
Its air and situation sweet and pretty;
It matters very little--if at all--
Whether its denizens are dull or witty,
Whether the ladies there are short or tall,
Brunettes or blondes, only, there stands a city!--
Perhaps 'tis also requisite to minute
That there's a Castle and a Cobbler in it.

A fair Cathedral, too, the story goes,
And kings and heroes lie entomb'd within her;
There pious Saints, in marble pomp repose,
Whose shrines are worn by knees of many a Sinner;
There, too, full many an Aldermanic nose
Roll'd its loud diapason after dinner;
And there stood high the holy sconce of Becket,
--Till four assassins came from France to crack it.

The Castle was a huge and antique mound,
Proof against all th' artillery of the quiver,
Ere those abominable guns were found,
To send cold lead through gallant warrior's liver.
It stands upon a gently rising ground,
Sloping down gradually to the river,
Resembling (to compare great things with smaller)
A well-scooped, mouldy Stilton cheese,--but taller.

The keep, I find, 's been sadly alter'd lately,
And, 'stead of mail-clad knights, of honour jealous,
In martial panoply so grand and stately,
Its walls are filled with money-making fellows,
And stuff'd, unless I'm misinformed greatly,
With leaden pipes, and coke, and coals, and bellows;
In short, so great a change has come to pass,
'Tis now a manufactory of Gas.

But to my tale.--Before this profanation,
And ere its ancient glories were cut short all,
A poor hard-working Cobbler took his station
In a small house, just opposite the portal;
His birth, his parentage, and education,
I know but little of--a strange, odd mortal;
His aspect, air, and gait, were all ridiculous;
His name was Mason--he'd been christened Nicholas.

Nick had a wife possessed of many a charm,
And of the Lady Huntingdon persuasion;
But, spite of all her piety, her arm
She'd sometimes exercise when in a passion;
And, being of a temper somewhat warm,
Would now and then seize, upon small occasion,
A stick, or stool, or anything that round did lie,
And baste her lord and master most confoundedly.

No matter!--'tis a thing that's not uncommon,
'Tis what we all have heard, and most have read of,--
I mean, a bruizing, pugilistic woman,
Such as I own I entertain a dread of,
--And so did Nick,--whom sometimes there would come on
A sort of fear his Spouse might knock his head off,
Demolish half his teeth, or drive a rib in,
She shone so much in "facers" and in "fibbing."

"There's time and place for all things," said a sage,
(King Solomon, I think,) and this I can say,
Within a well-roped ring, or on a stage,
Boxing may be a very pretty _Fancy_,
When Messrs. Burke or Bendigo engage;
--'Tis not so well in Susan, Jane, or Nancy:--
To get well mill'd by any one's an evil,
But by a lady--'tis the very Devil.

And so thought Nicholas, whose only trouble,
(At least his worst,) was this his rib's propensity,
For sometimes from the alehouse he would hobble,
His senses lost in a sublime immensity
Of cogitation--then he couldn't cobble--
And then his wife would often try the density
Of his poor skull, and strike with all her might,
As fast as kitchen-wenches strike a light.

Mason, meek soul, who ever hated strife,
Of this same striking had a morbid dread,
He hated it like poison--or his wife.
A vast antipathy!--but so he said
And very often, for a quiet life,
On these occasions he'd sneak up to bed,
Grope darkling in, and, soon as at the door
He heard his lady--he'd pretend to snore.

One night, then, ever partial to society,
Nick, with a friend (another jovial fellow),
Went to a Club--I should have said Society--
At the "City Arms," once call'd the Porto Bello;
A Spouting party, which, though some decry it, I
Consider no bad lounge when one is mellow;
There they discuss the tax on salt, and leather,
And change of ministers and change of weather.

In short, it was a kind of British Forum,
Like John Gale Jones's, erst in Piccadilly,
Only they managed things with more decorum,
And the Orations were not _quite_ so silly;
Far different questions, too, would come before 'em,
Not always Politics, which, will ye nill ye,
Their London prototypes were always willing,
To give one _quantum suff._ of--for a shilling.

It more resembled one of later date,
And tenfold talent, as I'm told in Bow Street,
Where kindlier natured souls do congregate,
And, though there are who deem that same a low street,
Yet, I'm assured, for frolicsome debate
And genuine humour it's surpassed by no street,
When the "Chief Baron" enters, and assumes
To "rule" o'er mimic "Thesigers" and "Broughams."

Here they would oft forget their Ruler's faults,
And waste in ancient lore the midnight taper,
Inquire if Orpheus first produced the Waltz,
How Gas-lights differ from the Delphic Vapour,
Whether Hippocrates gave Glauber's Salts,
And what the Romans wrote on ere they'd paper;--
This night the subject of their disquisitions
Was Ghosts, Hobgoblins, Sprites, and Apparitions.

One learned gentleman, "a sage grave man,"
Talk'd of the Ghost in Hamlet, "sheath'd in steel;"--
His well-read friend, who next to speak began,
Said, "That was Poetry, and nothing real;"
A third, of more extensive learning, ran
To Sir George Villiers' Ghost, and Mrs. Veal;
Of sheeted Spectres spoke with shorten'd breath,
And thrice he quoted "Drelincourt on Death."

Nick smoked, and smoked, and trembled as he heard
The point discuss'd, and all they said upon it,
How, frequently, some murder'd man appear'd,
To tell his wife and children who had done it;
Or how a Miser's ghost, with grisly beard,
And pale lean visage, in an old Scotch bonnet,
Wander'd about to watch his buried money!
When all at once Nick heard the clock strike One,--he

Sprang from his seat, not doubting but a lecture
Impended from his fond and faithful She;
Nor could he well to pardon him expect her,
For he had promised to "be home to tea;"
But having luckily the key o' the back door,
He fondly hoped that, unperceived, he
Might creep up stairs again, pretend to doze,
And hoax his spouse with music from his nose.

Vain fruitless hope!--The wearied sentinel
At eve may overlook the crouching foe,
Till, ere his hand can sound the alarum-bell,
He sinks beneath the unexpected blow;
Before the whiskers of Grimalkin fell,
When slumb'ring on her post, the mouse may go;--
But woman, wakeful woman, 's never weary,
--Above all, when she waits to thump her deary.

Soon Mrs. Mason heard the well-known tread;
She heard the key slow creaking in the door,
Spied, through the gloom obscure, towards the bed
Nick creeping soft, as oft he had crept before;
When, bang, she threw a something at his head,
And Nick at once lay prostrate on the floor;
While she exclaim'd with her indignant face on,--
"How dare you use your wife so, Mr. Mason?"

Spare we to tell how fiercely she debated,
Especially the length of her oration,--
Spare we to tell how Nick expostulated,
Roused by the bump into a good set passion,
So great, that more than once he execrated,
Ere he crawl'd into bed in his usual fashion;
--The Muses hate brawls; suffice it then to say,
He duck'd below the clothes--and there he lay!

'Twas now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards groan, and graves give up their dead,
And many a mischievous, enfranchised Sprite
Had long since burst his bonds of stone or lead,
And hurried off, with schoolboy-like delight,
To play his pranks near some poor wretch's bed,
Sleeping perhaps serenely as a porpoise,
Nor dreaming of this fiendish Habeas Corpus.

Not so our Nicholas, his meditations
Still to the same tremendous theme recurred,
The same dread subject of the dark narrations,
Which, back'd with such authority, he'd heard;
Lost in his own horrific contemplations,
He ponder'd o'er each well-remember'd word;
When at the bed's foot, close beside the post,
He verily believed he saw--a Ghost!

Plain and more plain the unsubstantial Sprite
To his astonish'd gaze each moment grew;
Ghastly and gaunt, it rear'd its shadowy height,
Of more than mortal seeming to the view,
And round its long, thin, bony fingers drew
A tatter'd winding-sheet, of course _all white_;--
The moon that moment peeping through a cloud,
Nick very plainly saw it _through the shroud_!

And now those matted locks, which never yet
Had yielded to the comb's unkind divorce,
Their long-contracted amity forget,
And spring asunder with elastic force;
Nay, e'en the very cap, of texture coarse,
Whose ruby cincture crown'd that brow of jet,
Uprose in agony--the Gorgon's head
Was but a type of Nick's up-squatting in the bed.

From every pore distill'd a clammy dew,
Quaked every limb,--the candle too no doubt,
_En règle_, _would_ have burnt extremely blue,
But Nick unluckily had put it out;
And he, though naturally bold and stout,
In short, was in a most tremendous stew;--
The room was fill'd with a sulphureous smell,
But where that came from Mason could not tell.

All motionless the Spectre stood,--and now
Its rev'rend form more clearly shone confest;
From the pale cheek a beard of purest snow
Descended o'er its venerable breast;
The thin grey hairs, that crown'd its furrow'd brow,
Told of years long gone by.--An awful guest
It stood, and with an action of command,
Beckon'd the Cobbler with its wan right hand.

"Whence, and what art thou, Execrable Shape?"
Nick _might_ have cried, could he have found a tongue,
But his distended jaws could only gape,
And not a sound upon the welkin rung:
His gooseberry orbs seem'd as they would have sprung
Forth from their sockets,--like a frightened Ape
He sat upon his haunches, bolt upright,
And shook, and grinn'd, and chatter'd with affright.

And still the shadowy finger, long and lean,
Now beckon'd Nick, now pointed to the door;
And many an ireful glance, and frown, between,
The angry visage of the Phantom wore,
As if quite vex'd that Nick would do no more
Than stare, without e'en asking, "What d'ye mean?"

Because, as we are told,--a sad old joke too,--
Ghosts, like the ladies, "never speak till spoke to."

Cowards, 'tis said, in certain situations,
Derive a sort of courage from despair,
And then perform, from downright desperation,
Much more than many a bolder man would dare.
Nick saw the Ghost was getting in a passion,
And therefore, groping till he found the chair,
Seized on his awl, crept softly out of bed,
And follow'd quaking where the Spectre led.

And down the winding stair, with noiseless tread,
The tenant of the tomb pass'd slowly on,
Each mazy turning of the humble shed
Seem'd to his step at once familiar grown,
So safe and sure the labyrinth did he tread
As though the domicile had been his own,
Though Nick himself, in passing through the shop,
Had almost broke his nose against the mop.

Despite its wooden bolt, with jarring sound,
The door upon its hinges open flew;
And forth the Spirit issued,--yet around
It turn'd as if its follower's fears it knew,
And, once more beckoning, pointed to the mound,
The antique Keep, on which the bright moon threw
With such effulgence her mild silvery gleam,
The visionary form seem'd melting in her beam.

Beneath a pond'rous archway's sombre shade,
Where once the huge portcullis swung sublime,
'Mid ivied battlements in ruin laid,
Sole, sad memorials of the olden time,
The Phantom held its way,--and though afraid
Even of the owls that sung their vesper chime,
Pale Nicholas pursued, its steps attending,
And wondering what on earth it all would end in.

Within the mouldering fabric's deep recess
At length they reach a court obscure and lone;--
It seem'd a drear and desolate wilderness,
The blacken'd walls with ivy all o'ergrown;
The night-bird shriek'd her note of wild distress,
Disturb'd upon her solitary throne,
As though indignant mortal step should dare,
So led, at such an hour, to venture there!

--The Apparition paused, and would have spoke,
Pointing to what Nick thought an iron ring,
But then a neighbouring chanticleer awoke,
And loudly 'gan his early matins sing;
And then "it started like a guilty thing,"
As that shrill clarion the silence broke.
--We know how much dead gentlefolks eschew
The appalling sound of "Cock-a-doodle-do!"

The vision was no more--and Nick alone--
"His streamers waving" in the midnight wind,
Which through the ruins ceased not to groan;
--His garment, too, was somewhat short behind,--
And, worst of all, he knew not where to find
The ring,--which made him most his fate bemoan--
The iron ring,--no doubt of some trap door,
'Neath which the old dead Miser kept his store.

"What's to be done?" he cried, "'Twere vain to stay
Here in the dark without a single clue--
Oh, for a candle now, or moonlight ray!
'Fore George, I'm vastly puzzled what to do,"
(Then clapped his hand behind)--"'Tis chilly too--
I'll mark the spot, and come again by day.
What can I mark it by?--Oh, here's the wall--
The mortar's yielding--here I'll stick my awl!"

Then rose from earth to sky a withering shriek,
A loud, a long-protracted note of woe,
Such as when tempests roar, and timbers creak,
And o'er the side the masts in thunder go;
While on the deck resistless billows break,
And drag their victims to the gulfs below;--
Such was the scream when, for the want of candle,
Nick Mason drove his awl in up to the handle.

Scared by his Lady's heart-appalling cry,
Vanished at once poor Mason's golden dream--
For dream it was;--and all his visions high,
Of wealth and grandeur, fled before that scream--
And still he listens with averted eye,
When gibing neighbours make "the Ghost" their theme;
While ever from that hour they all declare
That Mrs. Mason used a cushion in her chair!

* * * * *

Confound not, I beseech thee, reader, the subject of the following monody with the hapless hero of the tea-urn, Cupid, of "Yow-Yow"-ing memory. Tray was an attached favourite of many years' standing. Most people worth loving have had a friend of this kind; Lord Byron says he "never had but one, and here he (the dog, not the nobleman,) lies!"

THE CYNOTAPH.

Poor Tray charmant!
Poor Tray de mon Ami!
Dog-bury and Vergers.

Oh! where shall I bury my poor dog Tray,
Now his fleeting breath has passed away?--
Seventeen years, I can venture to say,
Have I seen him gambol, and frolic, and play,
Evermore happy, and frisky, and gay,
As though every one of his months was May,
And the whole of his life one long holiday--
Now he's a lifeless lump of clay,
Oh! where shall I bury my faithful Tray?

I am almost tempted to think it hard
That it may not be there, in yon sunny churchyard,
Where the green willows wave O'er the peaceful grave,
Which holds all that once was honest and brave,
Kind, and courteous, and faithful, and true;
Qualities, Tray, that were found in you.
But it may not be--yon sacred ground,
By holiest feelings fenced around,
May ne'er within its hallow'd bound
Receive the dust of a soul-less hound.

I would not place him in yonder fane,
Where the mid-day sun through the storied pane
Throws on the pavement a crimson stain;
Where the banners of chivalry heavily swing
O'er the pinnacled tomb of the Warrior King,
With helmet and shield, and all that sort of thing.
No!--come what may, My gentle Tray
Shan't be an intruder on bluff Harry Tudor,
Or panoplied monarchs yet earlier and ruder,
Whom you see on their backs, In stone or in wax,
Though the Sacristans now are "forbidden to ax"
For what Mister Hume calls "a scandalous tax;"
While the Chartists insist they've a right to go snacks.--
No!--Tray's humble tomb would look but shabby
'Mid the sculptured shrines of that gorgeous Abbey.
Besides, in the place They say there's no space
To bury what wet-nurses call "a Babby."
Even "Rare Ben Jonson," that famous wight,
I am told, is interr'd there bolt upright,
In just such a posture, beneath his bust,
As Tray used to sit in to beg for a crust.
The epitaph, too, Would scarcely do:
For what could it say, but, "Here lies Tray,
A very good kind of a dog in his day?"
And satirical folks might be apt to imagine it
Meant as a quiz on the House of Plantagenet.

No! no!--The Abbey may do very well
For a feudal "Nob," or poetical "Swell,"
"Crusaders," or "Poets," or "Knights of St. John,"
Or Knights of St. John's Wood, who once went on
To the ~Castle of Goode Lorde Eglintonne~.
Count Fiddle-fumkin, and Lord Fiddle-faddle,
"Sir Craven," "Sir Gael," and "Sir Campbell of Saddell,"
(Who, as poor Hook said, when he heard of the feat,
"Was somehow knock'd out of his family-seat:")
The Esquires of the body To my Lord Tomnoddy;
"Sir Fairlie," "Sir Lamb,"
And the "Knight of the Ram,"
The "Knight of the Rose," and the "Knight of the Dragon,"
Who, save at the flagon, And prog in the wagon,
The newspapers tell us did little "to brag on;"

And more, though the Muse knows but little concerning 'em,
"Sir Hopkins," "Sir Popkins," "Sir Gage," and "Sir Jerningham,"
All _Preux Chevaliers_, in friendly rivalry
Who should best bring back the glory of Chi-valry.--
--(Pray be so good, for the sake of my song,
To pronounce here the ante-penultimate long;
Or some hyper-critic will certainly cry,
"The word 'Chivalry' is but a 'rhyme to the eye.'"
And I own it is clear A fastidious ear
Will be, more or less, always annoy'd with you when you
insert any rhyme that's not perfectly genuine.
As to pleasing the "eye," 'Tisn't worth while to try,
Since Moore and Tom Campbell themselves admit "Spinach"
Is perfectly antiphonetic to "Greenwich.")--
But stay!--I say!
Let me pause while I may--
This digression is leading me sadly astray
From my object--A grave for my poor dog Tray!

I would not place him beneath thy walls,
And proud o'ershadowing dome, St. Paul's!
Though I've always consider'd Sir Christopher Wren,
As an architect, one of the greatest of men;
And,--talking of Epitaphs,--much I admire his,
"_Circumspice, si Monumentum requiris_;"
Which an erudite Verger translated to me,
"If you ask for his monument, _Sir-come-spy-see!_--"
No!--I should not know where To place him there;
I would not have him by surly Johnson be;--
Or that queer-looking horse that is rolling on Ponsonby;--
Or those ugly minxes The sister Sphynxes,
Mix'd creatures, half lady, half lioness, _ergo_,
(Denon says), the emblems of _Leo_ and _Virgo_;
On one of the backs of which singular jumble,
Sir Ralph Abercrombie is going to tumble,
With a thump which alone were enough to despatch him,
If the Scotchman in front shouldn't happen to catch him.

No! I'd not have him there,--nor nearer the door,
Where the man and the Angel have got Sir John Moore,[6]
And are quietly letting him down through the floor,
By Gillespie, the one who escaped, at Vellore,
Alone from the row;-- Neither he, nor Lord Howe
Would like to be plagued with a little Bow-wow.
No, Tray, we must yield, And go further a-field;
To lay you by Nelson were downright effront'ry;--
--We'll be off from the City, and look at the country.

It shall not be there, In that sepulchred square,
Where folks are interr'd for the sake of the air,
(Though, pay but the dues, they could hardly refuse
To Tray what they grant to Thuggs, and Hindoos,
Turks, Infidels, Heretics, Jumpers, and Jews,)

Where the tombstones are placed In the very _best taste_,
At the feet and the head Of the elegant Dead,
And no one's received who's not "buried in lead:"
For, there lie the bones of Deputy Jones,
Whom the widow's tears, and the orphan's groans
Affected as much as they do the stones
His executors laid on the Deputy's bones;
Little rest, poor knave! Would Tray have in his grave;
Since Spirits, 'tis plain, Are sent back again,
To roam round their bodies,--the bad ones in pain,--
Dragging after them sometimes a heavy jack-chain;
Whenever they met, alarm'd by its groans, his
Ghost all night long would be barking at Jones's.

Nor shall he be laid By that cross Old Maid,
Miss Penelope Bird,--of whom it is said
All the dogs in the parish were ever afraid.
He must not be placed By one so strait-laced
In her temper, her taste, and her morals, and waist.
For, 'tis said, when she went up to Heaven, and St. Peter,
Who happened to meet her, Came forward to greet her,
She pursed up with scorn every vinegar feature,
And bade him "Get out for a horrid Male Creature!"
So, the Saint, after looking as if he could eat her,
Not knowing, perhaps, very well how to treat her,
And not being willing,--or able,--to beat her,
Sent her back to her grave till her temper grew sweeter,
With an epithet--which I decline to repeat here.
No,--if Tray were interr'd By Penelope Bird,
No dog would be e'er so be "whelp"'d and be-"cur"r'd--
All the night long her cantankerous Sprite
Would be running about in the pale moon-light,
Chasing him round, and attempting to lick
The ghost of poor Tray with the ghost of a stick.

Stay!--let me see!-- Ay--here it shall be
At the root of this gnarled and time-worn tree,
Where Tray and I Would often lie,
And watch the bright clouds as they floated by
In the broad expanse of the clear blue sky,
When the sun was bidding the world good b'ye;
And the plaintive Nightingale, warbling nigh,
Pour'd forth her mournful melody;
While the tender Wood-pigeon's cooing cry
Has made me say to myself, with a sigh,
"How nice you would eat with a steak in a pie!"
Ay, here it shall be!--far, far from the view
Of the noisy world and its maddening crew.
Simple and few, Tender and true
The lines o'er his grave.--They have, some of them, too,
The advantage of being remarkably new.

_Epitaph._

Affliction sore Long time he bore,
Physicians were in vain!--
Grown blind, alas! he'd Some Prussic Acid,
And that put him out of his pain!

* * * * *

NOTE, PAGE 71.

In the autumn of 1824, Captain Medwin having hinted that certain beautiful lines on the burial of that gallant officer might have been the production of Lord Byron's Muse, the late Mr. Sydney Taylor, somewhat indignantly, claimed them for their rightful owner, the late Rev. Charles Wolfe. During the controversy a third claimant started up in the person of a _soi-disant_ "Doctor Marshall," who turned out to be a Durham blacksmith, and his pretensions a hoax. It was then that a certain "Doctor Peppercorn" put forth _his_ pretensions, to what he averred was the only "true and original" version, viz.:--

Not a _sous_ had he got,--not a guinea or note,
And he look'd confoundedly flurried,
As he bolted away without paying his shot,
And the Landlady after him hurried.

We saw him again at dead of night,
When home from the Club returning;
We twigg'd the Doctor beneath the light
Of the gas-lamp brilliantly burning.

All bare, and exposed to the midnight dews,
Reclined in the gutter we found him;
And he look'd like a gentleman taking a snooze,
With his _Marshall_ cloak around him.

"The Doctor's as drunk as the d----," we said,
And we managed a shutter to borrow;
We raised him, and sigh'd at the thought that his head
Would "consumedly ache" on the morrow.

We bore him home, and we put him to bed,
And we told his wife and his daughter
To give him, next morning, a couple of red
Herrings, with soda-water.--

Loudly they talk'd of his money that's gone,
And his Lady began to upbraid him;
But little he reck'd, so they let him snore on
'Neath the counterpane just as we laid him.

We tuck'd him in, and had hardly done
When, beneath the window calling,
We heard the rough voice of a son of a gun
Of a watchman "One o'clock!" bawling.

Slowly and sadly we all walk'd down
From his room in the uppermost story;
A rushlight we placed on the cold hearth-stone,
And we left him alone in his glory!!

FOOTNOTES:

[6] See note at end of "The Cynotaph."

Hos ego versiculos feci, tulit alter honores.--VIRGIL.

I wrote the lines-- ... owned them--he told stories!

THOMAS INGOLDSBY.

MRS. BOTHERBY'S STORY.

THE LEECH OF FOLKESTONE.

Reader, were you ever bewitched?--I do not mean by a "white wench's black eye," or by love potions imbibed from a ruby lip;--but, were you ever really and _bonâ fide_ bewitched, in the true Matthew Hopkins sense of the word? Did you ever, for instance, find yourself from head to heel one vast complication of cramps?--or burst out into sudorific exudation like a cold thaw, with the thermometer at zero?--Were your eyes ever turned upside down, exhibiting nothing but their whites?--Did you ever vomit a paper of crooked pins? or expectorate Whitechapel needles?--These are genuine and undoubted marks of possession; and if you never experienced any of them,--why, "happy man be his dole!"

Yet such things have been: yea, we are assured, and that on no mean authority, still are.

The World, according to the best geographers, is divided into Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Romney Marsh. In this last-named, and fifth, quarter of the globe, a Witch may still be occasionally discovered in favourable, _i.e._, stormy, seasons, weathering Dungeness Point in an egg-shell, or careering on her broomstick over Dymchurch wall. A cow may yet be sometimes seen galloping like mad, with tail erect, and an old pair of breeches on her horns, an unerring guide to the door of the crone whose magic arts have drained her udder.--I do not, however, remember to have heard that any Conjuror has of late been detected in the district.