The Works of William Harrison Ainsworth

by William Harrison Ainsworth

  “Are you of this abbey?” asked Paslew, tremblingly.

  “I was,” replied the monk, in a stern tone; “but the monastery is dissolved, and all the brethren ejected.”

  “Your name?” cried Paslew.

  “I am not come here to answer questions, but to hear a confession,” rejoined the monk. “Bethink you of the awful situation in which you are placed, and that before many hours you must answer for the sins you have committed. You have yet time for repentance, if you delay it not.”

  “You are right, father,” replied the abbot. “Be seated, I pray you, and listen to me, for I have much to tell. Thirty and one years ago I was prior of this abbey. Up to that period my life had been blameless, or, if not wholly free from fault, I had little wherewith to reproach myself — little to fear from a merciful judge — unless it were that I indulged too strongly the desire of ruling absolutely in the house in which I was then only second. But Satan had laid a snare for me, into which I blindly fell. Among the brethren was one named Borlace Alvetham, a young man of rare attainment, and singular skill in the occult sciences. He had risen in favour, and at the time I speak of was elected sub-prior.”

  “Go on,” said the monk.

  “It began to be whispered about within the abbey,” pursued Paslew, “that on the death of William Rede, then abbot, Borlace Alvetham would succeed him, and then it was that bitter feelings of animosity were awakened in my breast against the sub-prior, and, after many struggles, I resolved upon his destruction.”

  “A wicked resolution,” cried the monk; “but proceed.”

  “I pondered over the means of accomplishing my purpose,” resumed Paslew, “and at last decided upon accusing Alvetham of sorcery and magical practices. The accusation was easy, for the occult studies in which he indulged laid him open to the charge. He occupied a chamber overlooking the Calder, and used to break the monastic rules by wandering forth at night upon the hills. When he was absent thus one night, accompanied by others of the brethren, I visited his chamber, and examined his papers, some of which were covered with mystical figures and cabalistic characters. These papers I seized, and a watch was set to make prisoner of Alvetham on his return. Before dawn he appeared, and was instantly secured, and placed in close confinement. On the next day he was brought before the assembled conclave in the chapter-house, and examined. His defence was unavailing. I charged him with the terrible crime of witchcraft, and he was found guilty.”

  A hollow groan broke from the monk, but he offered no other interruption.

  “He was condemned to die a fearful and lingering death,” pursued the abbot; “and it devolved upon me to see the sentence carried out.”

  “And no pity for the innocent moved you?” cried the monk. “You had no compunction?”

  “None,” replied the abbot; “I rather rejoiced in the successful accomplishment of my scheme. The prey was fairly in my toils, and I would give him no chance of escape. Not to bring scandal upon the abbey, it was decided that Alvetham’s punishment should be secret.”

  “A wise resolve,” observed the monk.

  “Within the thickness of the dormitory walls is contrived a small singularly-formed dungeon,” continued the abbot. “It consists of an arched cell, just large enough to hold the body of a captive, and permit him to stretch himself upon a straw pallet. A narrow staircase mounts upwards to a grated aperture in one of the buttresses to admit air and light. Other opening is there none. ‘Teter et fortis carcer’ is this dungeon styled in our monastic rolls, and it is well described, for it is black and strong enough. Food is admitted to the miserable inmate of the cell by means of a revolving stone, but no interchange of speech can be held with those without. A large stone is removed from the wall to admit the prisoner, and once immured, the masonry is mortised, and made solid as before. The wretched captive does not long survive his doom, or it may be he lives too long, for death must be a release from such protracted misery. In this dark cell one of the evil-minded brethren, who essayed to stab the Abbot of Kirkstall in the chapter-house, was thrust, and ere a year was over, the provisions were untouched — and the man being known to be dead, they were stayed. His skeleton was found within the cell when it was opened to admit Borlace Alvetham.”

  “Poor captive!” groaned the monk.

  “Ay, poor captive!” echoed Paslew. “Mine eyes have often striven to pierce those stone walls, and see him lying there in that narrow chamber, or forcing his way upwards, to catch a glimpse of the blue sky above him. When I have seen the swallows settle on the old buttress, or the thin grass growing between the stones waving there, I have thought of him.”

  “Go on,” said the monk.

  “I scarce can proceed,” rejoined Paslew. “Little time was allowed Alvetham for preparation. That very night the fearful sentence was carried out. The stone was removed, and a new pallet placed in the cell. At midnight the prisoner was brought to the dormitory, the brethren chanting a doleful hymn. There he stood amidst them, his tall form towering above the rest, and his features pale as death. He protested his innocence, but he exhibited no fear, even when he saw the terrible preparations. When all was ready he was led to the breach. At that awful moment, his eye met mine, and I shall never forget the look. I might have saved him if I had spoken, but I would not speak. I turned away, and he was thrust into the breach. A fearful cry then rang in my ears, but it was instantly drowned by the mallets of the masons employed to fasten up the stone.”

  There was a pause for a few moments, broken only by the sobs of the abbot. At length, the monk spoke.

  “And the prisoner perished in the cell?” he demanded in a hollow voice.

  “I thought so till to-night,” replied the abbot. “But if he escaped it, it must have been by miracle; or by aid of those powers with whom he was charged with holding commerce.”

  “He did escape!” thundered the monk, throwing back his hood. “Look up, John Paslew. Look up, false abbot, and recognise thy victim.”

  “Borlace Alvetham!” cried the abbot. “Is it, indeed, you?”

  “You see, and can you doubt?” replied the other. “But you shall now hear how I avoided the terrible death to which you procured my condemnation. You shall now learn how I am here to repay the wrong you did me. We have changed places, John Paslew, since the night when I was thrust into the cell, never, as you hoped, to come forth. You are now the criminal, and I the witness of the punishment.”

  “Forgive me! oh, forgive me! Borlace Alvetham, since you are, indeed, he!” cried the abbot, falling on his knees.

  “Arise, John Paslew!” cried the other, sternly. “Arise, and listen to me. For the damning offences into which I have been led, I hold you responsible. But for you I might have died free from sin. It is fit you should know the amount of my iniquity. Give ear to me, I say. When first shut within that dungeon, I yielded to the promptings of despair. Cursing you, I threw myself upon the pallet, resolved to taste no food, and hoping death would soon release me. But love of life prevailed. On the second day I took the bread and water allotted me, and ate and drank; after which I scaled the narrow staircase, and gazed through the thin barred loophole at the bright blue sky above, sometimes catching the shadow of a bird as it flew past. Oh, how I yearned for freedom then! Oh, how I wished to break through the stone walls that held me fast! Oh, what a weight of despair crushed my heart as I crept back to my narrow bed! The cell seemed like a grave, and indeed it was little better. Horrible thoughts possessed me. What if I should be wilfully forgotten? What if no food should be given me, and I should be left to perish by the slow pangs of hunger? At this idea I shrieked aloud, but the walls alone returned a dull echo to my cries. I beat my hands against the stones, till the blood flowed from them, but no answer was returned; and at last I desisted from sheer exhaustion. Day after day, and night after night, passed in this way. My food regularly came. But I became maddened by solitude; and with terrible imprecations invoked aid from the powers of darkness to set me free. One night, while thus
employed, I was startled by a mocking voice which said,

  “‘All this fury is needless. Thou hast only to wish for me, and I come.’

  Alvetham and John Paslew.

  “It was profoundly dark. I could see nothing but a pair of red orbs, glowing like flaming carbuncles.

  “‘Thou wouldst be free,’ continued the voice. ‘Thou shalt be so. Arise, and follow me.’

  “At this I felt myself grasped by an iron arm, against which all resistance would have been unavailing, even if I had dared to offer it, and in an instant I was dragged up the narrow steps. The stone wall opened before my unseen conductor, and in another moment we were upon the roof of the dormitory. By the bright starbeams shooting down from above, I discerned a tall shadowy figure standing by my side.

  “‘Thou art mine,’ he cried, in accents graven for ever on my memory; ‘but I am a generous master, and will give thee a long term of freedom. Thou shalt be avenged upon thine enemy — deeply avenged.’

  “‘Grant this, and I am thine,’ I replied, a spirit of infernal vengeance possessing me. And I knelt before the fiend.

  “‘But thou must tarry for awhile,’ he answered, ‘for thine enemy’s time will be long in coming; but it will come. I cannot work him immediate harm; but I will lead him to a height from which he will assuredly fall headlong. Thou must depart from this place; for it is perilous to thee, and if thou stayest here, ill will befall thee. I will send a rat to thy dungeon, which shall daily devour the provisions, so that the monks shall not know thou hast fled. In thirty and one years shall the abbot’s doom be accomplished. Two years before that time thou mayst return. Then come alone to Pendle Hill on a Friday night, and beat the water of the moss pool on the summit, and I will appear to thee and tell thee more. Nine and twenty years, remember!’

  “With these words the shadowy figure melted away, and I found myself standing alone on the mossy roof of the dormitory. The cold stars were shining down upon me, and I heard the howl of the watch-dogs near the gate. The fair abbey slept in beauty around me, and I gnashed my teeth with rage to think that you had made me an outcast from it, and robbed me of a dignity which might have been mine. I was wroth also that my vengeance should be so long delayed. But I could not remain where I was, so I clambered down the buttress, and fled away.”

  “Can this be?” cried the abbot, who had listened in rapt wonderment to the narration. “Two years after your immurement in the cell, the food having been for some time untouched, the wall was opened, and upon the pallet was found a decayed carcase in mouldering, monkish vestments.”

  “It was a body taken from the charnel, and placed there by the demon,” replied the monk. “Of my long wanderings in other lands and beneath brighter skies I need not tell you; but neither absence nor lapse of years cooled my desire of vengeance, and when the appointed time drew nigh I returned to my own country, and came hither in a lowly garb, under the name of Nicholas Demdike.”

  “Ha!” exclaimed the abbot.

  “I went to Pendle Hill, as directed,” pursued the monk, “and saw the Dark Shape there as I beheld it on the dormitory roof. All things were then told me, and I learnt how the late rebellion should rise, and how it should be crushed. I learnt also how my vengeance should be satisfied.”

  Paslew groaned aloud. A brief pause ensued, and deep emotion marked the accents of the wizard as he proceeded.

  “When I came back, all this part of Lancashire resounded with praises of the beauty of Bess Blackburn, a rustic lass who dwelt in Barrowford. She was called the Flower of Pendle, and inflamed all the youths with love, and all the maidens with jealousy. But she favoured none except Cuthbert Ashbead, forester to the Abbot of Whalley. Her mother would fain have given her to the forester in marriage, but Bess would not be disposed of so easily. I saw her, and became at once enamoured. I thought my heart was seared; but it was not so. The savage beauty of Bess pleased me more than the most refined charms could have done, and her fierce character harmonised with my own. How I won her matters not, but she cast off all thoughts of Ashbead, and clung to me. My wild life suited her; and she roamed the wastes with me, scaled the hills in my company, and shrank not from the weird meetings I attended. Ill repute quickly attended her, and she became branded as a witch. Her aged mother closed her doors upon her, and those who would have gone miles to meet her, now avoided her. Bess heeded this little. She was of a nature to repay the world’s contumely with like scorn, but when her child was born the case became different. She wished to save it. Then it was,” pursued Demdike, vehemently, and regarding the abbot with flashing eyes— “then it was that I was again mortally injured by you. Then your ruthless decree to the clergy went forth. My child was denied baptism, and became subject to the fiend.”

  “Alas! alas!” exclaimed Paslew.

  “And as if this were not injury enough,” thundered Demdike, “you have called down a withering and lasting curse upon its innocent head, and through it transfixed its mother’s heart. If you had complied with that poor girl’s request, I would have forgiven you your wrong to me, and have saved you.”

  There was a long, fearful silence. At last Demdike advanced to the abbot, and, seizing his arm, fixed his eyes upon him, as if to search into his soul.

  “Answer me, John Paslew!” he cried; “answer me, as you shall speedily answer your Maker. Can that malediction be recalled? Dare not to trifle with me, or I will tear forth your black heart, and cast it in your face. Can that curse be recalled? Speak!”

  “It cannot,” replied the abbot, half dead with terror.

  “Away, then!” thundered Demdike, casting him from him. “To the gallows! — to the gallows!” And he rushed out of the room.

  * * *

  CHAPTER VII. — THE ABBEY MILL.

  For a while the abbot remained shattered and stupefied by this terrible interview. At length he arose, and made his way, he scarce knew how, to the oratory. But it was long before the tumult of his thoughts could be at all allayed, and he had only just regained something like composure when he was disturbed by hearing a slight sound in the adjoining chamber. A mortal chill came over him, for he thought it might be Demdike returned. Presently, he distinguished a footstep stealthily approaching him, and almost hoped that the wizard would consummate his vengeance by taking his life. But he was quickly undeceived, for a hand was placed on his shoulder, and a friendly voice whispered in his ears, “Cum along wi’ meh, lort abbut. Get up, quick — quick!”

  Thus addressed, the abbot raised his eyes, and beheld a rustic figure standing beside him, divested of his clouted shoes, and armed with a long bare wood-knife.

  “Dunna yo knoa me, lort abbut?” cried the person. “Ey’m a freent — Hal o’ Nabs, o’ Wiswall. Yo’n moind Wiswall, yeawr own birthplace, abbut? Dunna be feert, ey sey. Ey’n getten a steigh clapt to yon windaw, an’ you con be down it i’ a trice — an’ along t’ covert way be t’ river soide to t’ mill.”

  But the abbot stirred not.

  “Quick! quick!” implored Hal o’ Nabs, venturing to pluck the abbot’s sleeve. “Every minute’s precious. Dunna be feert. Ebil Croft, t’ miller, is below. Poor Cuthbert Ashbead would ha’ been here i’stead o’ meh if he couldn; boh that accursed wizard, Nick Demdike, turned my hont agen him, an’ drove t’ poike head intended for himself into poor Cuthbert’s side. They clapt meh i’ a dungeon, boh Ebil monaged to get me out, an’ ey then swore to do whot poor Cuthbert would ha’ done, if he’d been livin’ — so here ey am, lort abbut, cum to set yo free. An’ neaw yo knoan aw abowt it, yo con ha nah more hesitation. Cum, time presses, an ey’m feert o’ t’ guard owerhearing us.”

  “I thank you, my good friend, from the bottom of my heart,” replied the abbot, rising; “but, however strong may be the temptation of life and liberty which you hold out to me, I cannot yield to it. I have pledged my word to the Earl of Derby to make no attempt to escape. Were the doors thrown open, and the guard removed, I should remain where I am.”

  “Whot!” exclaimed
Hal o’ Nabs, in a tone of bitter disappointment; “yo winnaw go, neaw aw’s prepared. By th’ Mess, boh yo shan. Ey’st nah go back to Ebil empty-handed. If yo’n sworn to stay here, ey’n sworn to set yo free, and ey’st keep meh oath. Willy nilly, yo shan go wi’ meh, lort abbut!”

  “Forbear to urge me further, my good Hal,” rejoined Paslew. “I fully appreciate your devotion; and I only regret that you and Abel Croft have exposed yourselves to so much peril on my account. Poor Cuthbert Ashbead! when I beheld his body on the bier, I had a sad feeling that he had died in my behalf.”

  “Cuthbert meant to rescue yo, lort abbut,” replied Hal, “and deed resisting Nick Demdike’s attempt to arrest him. Boh, be aw t’ devils!” he added, brandishing his knife fiercely, “t’ warlock shall ha’ three inches o’ cowd steel betwixt his ribs, t’ furst time ey cum across him.”

  “Peace, my son,” rejoined the abbot, “and forego your bloody design. Leave the wretched man to the chastisement of Heaven. And now, farewell! All your kindly efforts to induce me to fly are vain.”

  “Yo winnaw go?” cried Hal o’Nabs, scratching his head.

  “I cannot,” replied the abbot.

  “Cum wi’ meh to t’ windaw, then,” pursued Hal, “and tell Ebil so. He’ll think ey’n failed else.”

  “Willingly,” replied the abbot.

  And with noiseless footsteps he followed the other across the chamber. The window was open, and outside it was reared a ladder.

  “Yo mun go down a few steps,” said Hal o’ Nabs, “or else he’ll nah hear yo.”

  The abbot complied, and partly descended the ladder.

  “I see no one,” he said.

  “T’ neet’s dark,” replied Hal o’ Nabs, who was close behind him. “Ebil canna be far off. Hist! ey hear him — go on.”