A Night on the Moor and Other Tales of Dread

by R. Murray Gilchrist

  Five halting verses follow, wherein ’tis told that the lovers had parted, that Roxana had wedded an old man, that she felt incapable of expressing in words the vehemency of her passion. But dear, pleasing ghosts haunted her chambers day and night.

  My lord’s cast-off doxy sent the journal, with a venomous letter bidding him rub his forehead, for fear of the cuckoo. So he pondered in his book-room, his half-blinded eyes fixed upon the logs; and, after many struggles with his better nature, he devised a plot worthy of Satan himself.

  For Roxana was a prize worth keeping. She was pale, exquisitely pale. One forgot her eyes, but remembered that somewhere in her face was seen the sudden starting of a timid woman’s soul. . . . Hast ever watched the heart of a palm-catkin when a wanton hand has fired it? Lurking under the outer blackness are red and yellow intermixed. Such was the colour of her hair that fell from nape to heel. Hands that alone might have quenched lawless desires: of a subtle pink, like the ivory that comes from Africk.

  Few women could have given such devotion as she gave my lord. By some stratagem, some wild persuasion in her moment of wavering, he had gained possession. Compassion weakens distaste, and he had posed long as one broken-hearted. How daintily did she acknowledge his requirements, how sweet her service had become! When he had decided concerning Hyperion, his punctilio was greater than ever: the house rang with shrill commands for madam’s comfort, and he sat hour after hour listening to her tenderest songs. She was a lutanist too, and great in the Italian masters.

  On Oak Day, when men and maids bore the garland through the park, a country fellow came to mistress and delivered her a note. My lord was not present, but she grew faint and chill, and had much ado to applaud the pageant. With unseemly haste she withdrew to her chamber and read there—

  ‘Many days have passed ere I could summon courage. At twilight to-morrow we will meet; I have discovered the place. What manner of love was mine erstwhile that thou wert false?’

  In her cabinet were many choice silks. She made a bag of the richest, and put the folded sheet inside, and spread ambergris upon it, then hung it between her breasts. That night as she slept her fingers relaxed, and my lord took thence the token, and read it, gnashing his teeth. He put it back: so that in the morning flush, when her hand sought the thing, it seemed untouched.

  That day passed so wearily! In her spouse’s company she was gay and brilliant; all her paleness had disappeared, and a feverish red pulsed in her cheeks. And he was brimful of paradox and of jesting, but sometimes she trembled because of the fearsome coldness of his looks. Once, when she fawned upon him he put her away, not untenderly.

  ‘Sweetheart,’ he said towards sunset, ‘an’ if thou wert false!’

  ‘Ay, me,’ she faltered, for the repetition of Hyperion’s words struck her with terror. ‘False! false!’

  It was growing dusk; he peered close to the clock-face. ‘More than two months have passed since we came here,’ he noted, breaking the ominous silence. ‘And yet this place is strange to you. Let us visit the old house—see, here are the keys! Dearest, lean on my arm.’

  They passed through the garden to the porch and so to the mildewed avenues of the pre-Elizabethan part where all the lumber was stored. My lord saw Roxana’s bodice swell as if the threads would burst. Soon they reached a great hall lighted with green windows, whose dimness scarce revealed the many sacks of too long-garnered grain, where the mice ran in and out. There, near the foot of a staircase that led to the gallery, he left her, and she heard the clicking of a lock.

  My lord went to an upper chamber whence he could see the outlet of the maze. The belling of his red-eyed dogs as they strutted in their leash tickled his ears: he laughed and rubbed his forehead. The moon rose, and he could hear Roxana clamouring in the hall. After a while he descended by another way, and took out his death-hounds, and went towards the trysting-place.

  Roxana could not know what happened in the darkness. The agony of the man whose every vestige of clothes was torn away, and whose white flesh gaped bloodily, was hidden from her by the seven feet of masonry that parted them as he leaped madly into the courtyard. Nor could she hear his worn, querulous cry—such a cry as the peewit makes before dawn. Yet, withal, her hands began to drum in her lap.

  When the darkness was intense my lord came back. He felt for Roxana in the place where he had left her. She was not there: an hour before she had climbed to the gallery. He groped painfully round the walls.

  In one corner soft delicious things like nets of gossamer fell on his fingers. He stooped to the floor, and touched more of them. Above was a sound of tearing, but no panting nor indrawing of breath. Another web fluttered past his face; his lips began to quiver.

  It was Roxana’s hair.

  The Grotto at Ravensdale

  Three weeks after the wedding of Peregrine Fury and Lady Mary Tufton, daughter of the Earl of Thanet, the young couple left Newbottle (my lord’s Northamptonshire seat), and journeyed in a new coach and six to Ravensdale, the bridegroom’s estate in one of the most remote Peakland valleys. Of the journey they knew but little, each being vastly in love, and deeming no prospect in the world comparable with the reflection to be found in the other’s eyes.

  Mrs Tryphena Wilbraham, a kinswoman of the young lady - one of those useful spinsters upon whom devolve the smoothing of other folk’s paths - had been sent, the day after the nuptials, to see that the house was set in readiness for one who had been accustomed to luxury from her birth. Peregrine Fury had not visited the place since his infancy, the late owner, his uncle, Sir Agabus Webbe, having alienated the affections of all his relatives by a middle age marred by eccentricity of no very pleasant nature.

  For a life of Sir Agabus, one must consult the third volume of The British Magazine, or Monthly Repository for Gentlemen and Ladies, wherein is a brief biography, entitled: ‘The Character of a Miser, founded on fact, though veiled under a Fictitious name’. There it will be seen that a conjugal catastrophe changed a harmless gentleman into a parsimonious hermit, whose whole energy was devoted to almost incredible cheeseparing. For well-nigh twenty years no fire burned on the hearths of Ravensdale Lodge; the doors and gates of house and garden were ever kept locked and barred; only one servant (an elderly female) was permitted to sleep beneath the roof. Eggs with cresses from the stream made the baronet’s usual diet, though it was occasionally varied by a partridge or rabbit trapped in the garden. Throughout those years ‘Fuscus’ (so the Grub Street writer called him) never stirred beyond the confines of his park, or looked upon a stranger’s face. He died of some slight complaint, which any country chirurgeon might have remedied.

  And after his demise, it was discovered that he had tripled his securities, and, dying intestate, left enough to make his heir one of the wealthiest men in the kingdom.

  At the time of his uncle’s death, Peregrine was page-in-waiting to Frederick, Prince of Wales, and at Leicester House had frequently met Lady Mary Tufton. His position, however, was not such as found favour in the eyes of my Lord Thanet; since his patrimony consisted of naught save a few hundred acres of Lincolnshire marsh, and a green-lichened, moated house overrun with rats. But the great windfall caused the father to veer round suddenly (in sober truth the earl often played weathercock), and welcome young Master Fury with a stately blessing.

  Lady Mary had inherited considerable beauty from her mother, the Marquis of Halifax’s daughter. She was tall and slender - indeed, her height came to within an inch of Peregrine’s - with a dainty silken skin and languishing, melting blue eyes. She had loved him for a full twelvemonth, and had been much troubled by her father’s strenuous endeavours to wed her to one of her own rank. She had little of the virgin’s foolish meekness - more than once she had threatened to enter a convent unless she could have the man of her own choice. When the death of Sir Agabus set all matters right, I dare swear that no happier girl could be found anywhere.

  Peregrine was, in man’s fashion, as pleasant to look upon as she - a stron
gly-built lad, with the frankest, handsomest face, quite unspoiled by the time he had spent in the artificial atmosphere of the Court. He bade fair to become a greatly respected country gentleman, who would sit in Parliament, and maybe towards his latter end be rewarded with a barony.

  At Newhaven Inn, a great posting-house on the Manchester road, within two stages of home, Mrs Tryphena herself, who had been to the county-town to arrange about the repairing of some hangings, joined them, and shared their carriage for the remainder of the journey. They did not resent her presence as they would have done that of a less kindly woman; for she was mistress of consummate tact, and had ever been noted for her pleasing blindness to the foibles of young lovers. During the greater part of their drive together, she sat very primly gazing from the nearest window, and not until they came in sight of the river Darrand for the first time did she make any remark beyond comments upon her delight in seeing them again. Then, in a pause of the young couple’s ‘little language’, she leaned forward and took the wife’s hand.

  ' ,Tis the strangest house I ever dreamed of,’ she said. ‘Sir Agabus, whatever may have been his faults (and I hold miserliness one of the worst that any man is capable of), possessed a virtue which atones for much, according to an old woman’s way of thinking. When I reached Ravensdale, I found not as much as a footstool unswathed in brown holland! ’Tis true that dust lay thick upon everything; but the fabrics wherewith the furniture’s covered are fresh as when he bought anew for his wife’s homecoming. The dame who played housekeeper - lacquey - God knows what to the late master -assures me that the dust-sheets had not been removed for a score years, and that her chief duty in autumn was the making of little bags of lavender (there’s thousands of’em all piled now in an empty chamber), to keep away the moths. The garden’s in as perfect order as the house; on all the temples and belvederes - I vow there’s as many here as at Stow Park - the roofs are as perfect as if built but yesterday.’

  Lady Mary turned happy eyes upon her husband. ‘And yet you never told me - ’ she began.

  ‘I remember naught of Ravensdale,’ he replied; ‘since I was not more than a year old on my former visit. All will be as new to me as to you; we shall spend many merry hours in peering into every hole and corner.’

  ‘A new Adam and Eve in a formal Eden!’ cried the spinster, who was something of a wit. ‘With not even a blindworm to play tempter! But, to speak plainly, the domain is vastly pleasant - all that I hold against it is its entire seclusion amongst the limestone hills. You’ll be as far removed from the world as if you’d crossed the seas to Virginia . . . And now we’re about to climb Black Harry - in my belief the highest hill of these parts. Another four miles and we’re at the Lodge.’

  They crossed the Darrand, low with summer drought, at an ancient ford, and began to ascend the steep deep-rutted road, which soon became little more than a track across the open heath. A magnificent prospect opened - north, east, and west rolled the billowing expanses of primeval moorland, the south being occupied by the bright Darrand valley and the serrated Edge of Stanage. The red sun was setting behind a conical mound; a soft breeze swayed the white cotton-grass in the hollows.

  To the right of the hill-top a narrow dough descended to Ravensdale, whose concave was now filled with a mist faintly rose-coloured, pierced with the tops of heavy-foliaged trees and the grotesquely twisted chimneys of the Lodge. Peregrine and his wife (his arm around her waist) leaned from the open window and looked downwards. They had passed out of the warm sunlight now; Lady Mary shivered; he drew her closer to his side.

  ‘ ’Tis like an enchanted world!’ she said. ‘Aunt Tryphena was right in calling it an Eden. There’s no sign of life here.’

  ‘We’re to bring life,’ whispered the lover. ‘We’re to people this world. And there’ll be no angels with flaming swords.. .. ’

  The coach passed suddenly through the rising curtain of mist, and at last the strange beauty of the valley became visible. The house, built in the latter part of Elizabeth’s reign, was stately and large -its frontispiece containing more of window than of wall; around lay gardens and a park where the sward was green as moss in winter, and where a shallow stream meandered level with its banks until it threaded a ravine that clove the rocky bank of the Darrand. A lake nearby the terrace was full of yellow and white lilies; in the centre a tall Neptune spurted thin jets from the end of his trident.

  The young husband and wife talked in low voices now (somehow it seemed as if the time for idle prattle were past), until the coach drew up affont the colonnade, where an old, old woman, gowned in sober black with white apron and cap, stood curtseying.

  ‘This is Law, the housekeeper,’ said Mrs Tryphena. ‘She holds it her duty to lift her mistress across the threshold, according to the custom of the family. The good soul - as faithful a creature as ever lived, for she starved in Sir Agabus’ day, rather than leave him in utter solitude - hath rehearsed the scene more than once.’

  The dame, smiling as genially as a face whose nose and chin almost met would permit, took Lady Mary in her arms and tottered with her from the coach to the hall.

  ‘ ’Twas so I bore Sir Agabus’s lady,’ she said breathlessly; ‘a beauty, too, though not to be spoken of with you. I bid you welcome, sir and madam, and may God grant this be a happier house!’

  Mrs Tryphena now led the way, past the smirking newly-hired servants, to the dining-parlour, where, lighted with wax candles in silver sticks, the table was laid for supper. i here, only doffing their travelling cloaks, they sat and spent the next hour in refreshment and talk. Afterwards Peregrine drew his wife to the window, and they stood with linked arms looking out upon the formal garden, white beneath the crescent moon.

  ‘Eden in night-time!’ said Lady Mary, in truth I believe there’s no finer home in all the world than ours! What think you of a walk amongst yonder flowers? A good housewife’d not be content till she’d passed through every chamber of the place, but I’m no good housewife. And I’m cramped with our long journey - ’twould refresh us both.’

  He tied the strings of her cloak, and, with her arm still in his, conducted her from the house and down a great stone staircase to the French garden, where they walked to and fro for more than an hour, till both yawned sleepily, and were minded to go bedward.

  As they reached the terrace, Peregrine saw a young gentleman, dressed in garments of antiquated cut, standing beside the mounting-block, holding in his right hand a rose that glowed like a living ruby. He was watching them intently, his eyes lighted with a yellow gleam. The young husband, curious because of a stranger’s presence, moved towards him; but he glided in perfect silence to the shadow of a gigantic cedar.

  Lady Mary gave a little cry. ‘Tell me why you started!’ she said. ‘You have seen someone.. . . ’

  ‘Ay,’ he replied, ‘the oddest creature - see, there he walks down yonder yew-path, quivering like to a leaf! Some friend, perchance, of Sir Agabus - come to pay compliments, and taken with shyness.’

  ‘Let’s follow,’ she cried. ‘No visitor must go unwelcomed on our first night.’

  Then hand in hand they ran along the path, catching ever and anon glimpses of the stranger, who, despite Peregrine’s halloos, went on and on without turning.

  ‘As deaf as an adder!’ exclaimed Peregrine. ‘By the Lord! The fellow is as eccentric as old Sir Agabus himself!’

  They stopped short, each with a gasp of surprise; for the yew-alley terminated abruptly there, at the entrance of a cave whose roof and sides were covered with great shells. The man was no longer visible; nothing stirred in that mysterious archway save a tiny stream that wound, clear as crystal, over the floor of variegated pebbles.

  ‘He’s gone!’ cried Peregrine. ‘How, I cannot tell - unless there’s some opening in the hedge!’

  Lady Mary’s face had grown of a sudden very strained and haggard. ‘Let us go back,’ she said. ‘I am afraid. I saw him pass into the grotto. Oh, come, Peregrine,’ (her voice broke foolishly) �
�I do not like this place in the moonlight... I am weary - cold - ’

  He lifted her in his arms and carried her to the house and up to her bedchamber. Whilst the abigail undressed her, he wandered aimlessly through the suites, until by some odd chance he came across the housekeeper’s parlour, where good Mrs Law sat sipping her nightcap of sloe-cordial. She rose as he entered; but being of a genial nature, he bade her resume her pleasant occupation, and chose for himself a chair at the further end of the hearth.

  ‘We came upon a stranger in the garden,’ he said. ‘A young man attired in the quaintest clothes, who disappeared in a way I cannot account for, nearby a grotto with a stream.’

  ‘Dear God!’ muttered the woman, lifting her hand to her heart. ‘Dear God! There’s no way by which anyone could have entered after your honour’s coming; for at edge-o’-dark all the gates were locked. It must have been the trees - the clipped yews cast marvellous shadows.’

  ‘Not shadows with eyes that burn like coals,’ said Peregrine. ‘Nay, ’twas a living man, who carried a rose in his hand. Moreover he was not a little handsome both of face and figure.’

  Mrs Law crossed herself. ‘Sir Agabus’ lady once spoke of such an one,’ she said; ‘but none of the housefolk e’er came upon him. And ’tis more than twenty years since she died.’

  ‘So it could not be Sir Agabus’ lady’s friend,’ said her master laughingly. ‘Tomorrow, maybe, the gentleman will come again in full daylight, and we shall jest over our first meeting. Prythee, what cave is that we came to? There’s shells there, and the inmost wall’s made of stones roughly piled.’

  The woman’s forehead puckered like the shell of a walnut. ’Tis the grotto made by Sir Agabus for a whim of his lady’s,’ she replied, ‘and ’twas there that she died ... Lord, sir, I entreat you not to speak oft to my mistress - sure ’twould set her against the place. My late master built the screen himself, afterwards - carrying each stone from the Holy Circle on the hilltop.’