hour he spent with her, more and more captivated by hercharms. What was extraordinary was, that he could never find out hername, nor anything about her, or he might perhaps have not gone so faras he did. The strangeness of the affair pleased him, for he was of aromantic turn, and I believe fancied her some well-born lady in disguisewho had fallen in love with him. She must have been, from what I heard,full of life and wit, and of course showed out more to him than she hadever done to others. Indeed, her mind was of no ordinary character, andhad it been well guided she would have been equal to any lady in theland. At last he offered her marriage. She laughed, and told him thathe would be marrying a spirit, and that he must come to her home, forthat she would never go to his. He had better think over it, for thatno good could come of it. This only made him more vehement, and hevowed and swore that he would marry her and her alone. The belief isthat she was of the gipsy religion as well as of the gipsy race, andgipsies look upon an oath as binding as any other form of marriage, andtherefore after that she considered Ashby Derick as her husband. Icannot say if what she told him about her being the spirit of the heathhad anything of truth in it, as some people believed, but her heart andsoul were his, and she loved him with all the passionate ardour of achild of a race which comes from the lands of the burning sun of Egypt.The consequence was, that she went to reside with him at his house nearLiverpool.
"Her grandmother had never come to see her, but at last the old womancould no longer resist the strong wish she had of visiting her. Derickcame in and saw the witch-like creature sitting by the side of thebeautiful girl he professed to love so much. He did not like the lookof her, and in an angry tone he asked her what she did there.
"`I've as much right to be here as you have,' answered the old woman.`I've come to see my grandchild, and I should like to know what faultyou can find with that!'
"`You come to see your grandchild!--you Amy's grandmother! I don'tbelieve it,' he exclaimed, starting back from her with a look of horror.`You, you wizen-faced, shrivelled old hag!'
"`What! you dare to call me names!' screamed the old woman; `you'llrepent it--that you will, my master.'
"On this, Derick turned to Amy and asked if the old woman spoke thetruth. Amy confessed that she was her grandmother, and then burst intotears, which so enraged the dame that she went away muttering cursesbetween her teeth, which Derick could not understand. They had a greateffect upon him, and from that time his love for the beautiful gipsybegan to cool. I ought to have said that before Derick had fallen inwith the poor girl he had been paying his addresses to a young lady offamily and fortune who had been captivated by his handsome face andfigure. While the above affair had been going on he had neglected hisformer attentions to this lady, but he now began to resume them. Henever told her the reason of his absence, and he made so much play torecover his lost ground, that he was soon reinstated in her good graces.She was not only rich, but handsome and clever, and she so quicklyenslaved the heart of Derick, that he neglected poor Amy altogether. Henext proposed marriage to her; he was accepted, and the day of thewedding was fixed.
"Poor Amy had heard nothing about it, whatever she might have suspected,and she had grown accustomed to his long absences, though her heart wasbreaking at his coldness. Well, Captain Derick and his beautiful bridewent to church to be married, and a very grand wedding it was, andnumbers of relations and friends attended. Just as the service began, aalight female figure, wrapped close in a cloak with a hood, was seen tosteal into the church, and to hide itself behind one of the pillarswhich supported the roof. Derick observed the circumstance and changedcolour, and his hand trembled as he put the ring on his wife's finger.Just at that moment a piercing scream was heard ringing through theaisles and vaulted roof of the church, and filling the hearts ofeverybody present with dismay. They searched the church throughout forthe stranger in the hooded cloak, they looked around in every direction,but she was nowhere to be found, and no one had seen her quit thechurch, nor had any one observed her in the neighbourhood. That nightthere was a fierce storm of thunder and lightning, wind and rain, and onthe following morning the young and once beautiful Amy Kirby was found ablackened corpse on the very spot where Ashby Derick had first met her.Some said that she had been killed by lightning, but it was generallysupposed that she had died by poison, which she had taken in herdespair.
"The old grandmother was the first person to tell Derick of what hadhappened, though he was a hundred miles or so from the spot on hiswedding tour. She came into the room where he and his young wife weresitting, without any one announcing her, and nearly frightened the brideto death by the way she swore and cursed Derick, so that at last hebecame so enraged that he called up the servants and turned her out ofthe house by main force. She went away threatening that she wouldshortly wreak a bitter vengeance on him for his murder of the only beingshe loved on earth. The same evening she was back again in her nowdesolate hut near Liverpool. If she had with some reason been beforesuspected of being a witch, she was thought to be one now to a certaintyfrom her strange look and ways of going on, and she took delight inmaking everybody believe her one. The sudden appearance of the oldwoman so frightened the young bride that she fell ill, and the doctorsall agreed that the best thing to restore her shattered nerves would befor her to take a long voyage to a southern climate. Derick was notsorry to hear of this advice, for though he loved his wife, so he didhis profession, and had no intention of giving that up, especially whenhe could take her with him. At first her friends did not like the ideaof her going, but he soon persuaded them, and she, poor young thing! wasdelighted at the thought of accompanying him, and of visiting foreigncountries. She had been nurtured in every sort of luxury, and had neverbeen to sea before, so she little knew what she had to undergo.However, he had a cabin fitted up for her very elegantly, so that shemight be as comfortable as possible. The cargo was stowed, the ship wascleared at the custom-house, the lady and all her things were on board,our owners and different friends had gone on shore, and Captain Derickwas standing close to the taffrail and waving his hat, as the ship, allher fastenings being cast off, moved away from the quay, when on asudden there appeared at the end of a jetty, close to which we had topass, the old hag, Dame Kirby.
"I have not yet described her. She had in her youth been very tall, butshe was now bent nearly double, though she contrived to raise herself attimes of great excitement to nearly her former height. She was thin andwizened, with large prominent features, and eyes once large, now sunk sodeep in her head that they would have been scarcely perceptible, exceptfrom their extraordinary lustre. In her hand she carried a long twistedstaff to support herself, and she wore a red cloak and a queer littlehat, from under which her long grey locks straggled in the wind. Hergown, such as it was, all rags and tatters, was looped up in front toenable her to walk, and as she raised herself up, her long bony leg,which was advanced forward, looked so like that of a skeleton that itwas impossible to believe that it belonged to a living being. Her arms,which were also quite bare, appeared composed of nothing but bone andsinew, and the skin which covered them, like that of her face, was asyellow as parchment. They, as well as her hands and fingers, were ofgreat length, and as she walked along in her usual way, she almosttouched the ground with them. When the captain first saw her standingdirectly in front of him, with her hideous features scowling malignantlyon him, appearing, as she did, the prominent figure, while his friendsfaded in the distance, he started back and trembled violently. Hequickly, however, recovered himself, especially when he found his wife,who had come upon deck, close to his side. Her presence seemed toenrage the old woman greatly. She slowly raised up her bent body tillshe seemed taller than any woman I ever saw, and stretching out herstaff, waved it round and round in the direction of the ship.
"`Curses attend you, and follow all who sail with you,' she shriekedout, in a loud shrill voice, which pierced through our ears, and madethe oldest seaman on board turn pale with apprehension. `False-hearted,perju
red murderer, betrayer of innocence, deceiver of a faithful heart,destroyer of one who would have clung to you through weal and throughwoe, through good report and evil report, through life unto death! Nowtake the consequence. As you valued not the treasure of her love, youshall rue the bitterness of my hate. You are proud of your knowledge,you are proud of your hardy crew, you are proud of your stout ship, butyour knowledge shall not avail you in the fierce tempest I will raise;the waters shall drown your hardy crew, and the hard rocks shall batterin pieces your stout ship! Wherever you go I will follow you; in thefurthermost parts of the wide ocean you shall find me, in the howling ofthe raging storm you shall hear me, in the flashes of the vividlightning you shall see me. My vengeance will not sleep, my hate willnot abate. Your bold heart shall quail and sink like a woman's, yourcheek shall blanch, when you feel that
Foxholme Hall, and Other Tales Page 45
