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From The Ingoldsby Legends, or Mirth
and Madness, First Volume
London
RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON
Publishers in ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen
1894
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's (1) 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? 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.
Not many miles removed from the verge of this
recondite region, stands a collection of houses, which its
maligners call a fishing-town, and its well-wishers a
Watering- At the eastern extremity of the town, on the
sea-beach, and scarcely above high-water mark, stood, in the
good old times, a row of houses then denominated
'Frog-hole.' Modern refinement subsequently euphonized the
name into 'East-street'; but 'what's in a name?'--the
encroachments of Ocean have long since levelled all in one
common ruin.
Here, in the early part of the seventeenth
century, flourished, in somewhat doubtful reputation but
comparative opulence, a compounder of medicines, one Master
Erasmus Buckthorne; the effluvia of whose drugs from within,
mingling agreeably with the 'ancient and fish-like smells'
from without, wafted a delicious perfume throughout the
neighbourhood.
At seven of the clock, on the morning when
Mrs. Botherby's narrative commences, a stout Suffolk
'punch,' about thirteen hands and a half in height, was
slowly led up and down before the door of the pharmacopolist
by a lean and withered lad, whose appearance warranted an
opinion, pretty generally expressed, that his master found
him as useful in experimentalizing as in household drudgery;
and that, for every pound avoirdupois of solid meat,he
swallowed, at the least, two pounds troy-weight of chemicals
and galenicals. As the town clock struck the quarter Master
Buckthorne emerged from his laboratory,and, putting the key
carefully into his pocket, mounted the sure-footed cob
aforesaid, and proceeded up and down the acclivities and
declivities of the town with the gravity due to his station
and profession. When he reached the open country his pace
was increased to a sedate canter, which, in somewhat more
than half an hour, brought 'the horse and his rider' in
front of a handsome and substantial mansion, the numerous
gable-ends and bayed windows of which bespoke the owner a
man of worship and one well to do in the world.
'How now, Hodge Gardener?' quoth the Leech,
scarcely drawing bit; for Punch seemed to be aware that he
had reached his destination and paused of his own
accord;'how now, man? How fares thine employer, worthy
Master Marsh? How hath he done? How hath he slept?--My
potion hath done its office? Ha!'
'Alack! ill at ease worthy sir--ill at ease,'
returned the hind; 'his honour is up and stirring; but he
hath rested none, and complaineth that the same gnawing pain
devoureth, as it were, his very vitals in sooth he is ill at
ease.'
'Morrow, doctor!' interrupted a voice from a
casement opening on the lawn. 'Good morrow! I have looked
for, longed for, thy coming this hour and more enter at
once; the pasty and tankard are impatient for thine attack!'
'Marry, Heaven forbid that I should baulk
their fancy!' quoth the Leech sotto voce, as,
abandoning the bridle to honest Hodge, he dismounted, and
followed a buxom-looking handmaiden into the breakfast
parlour.
There, at the head of his well-furnished
board, sat Master Thomas Marsh, of Marston Hall, a Yeoman
well respected in his degree one of that sturdy and sterling
class which, taking rank immediately below the Esquire (a
title in its origin purely military), occupied, in the
wealthier counties, the position in society now filled by
the Country Gentleman. He was one of those of whom the
proverb ran:
A cold sirloin, big enough to frighten a
Frenchman, filled the place of honour, counter-checked by a
game-pie of no stinted dimensions; while a silver flagon of
'humming-bub,'--viz. ale strong enough to blow a
man's beaver off,--smiled opposite in treacherous amenity.
The sideboard groaned beneath sundry massive cups and
waiters of the purest silver; while the huge skull of a
fallow deer, with its branching horns, frowned majestically
above. All spoke of affluence, of comfort,--all save the
master, whose restless eye and feverish look hinted but too
plainly the severest mental or bodily disorder. By the side
of the proprietor of the mansion sat his consort, a lady now
past the bloom of youth, yet still retaining many of its
charms. The clear olive of her complexion and 'the darkness
of her Andalusian eye' at once betrayed her foreign origin;
in fact, her 'lord and master,' as husbands were even then,
by a legal fiction, denominated, had taken her to his bosom
in a foreign country. The cadet of his family, Master Thomas
Marsh had early in life been engaged in commerce. In the
pursuit of his vocation he had visited Antwerp, Hamburg, and
most of the Hanse Towns; and had already formed a tender
connexion with the orphan offspring of one of old Alva's
officers, when the unexpected deaths of one immediate and
two presumptive heirs placed him next in succession to the
family acres. He married and brought home his bride; who, by
the decease of the venerable possessor, heart-broken at the
loss of his elder children, became eventually lady of
Marston Hall. It has been said that she was beautiful, yet
was her beauty of a character that operates on the fancy
more than the affections; she was one to be admired rather
than loved. The proud curl of her lip, the firmness of her
tread, her arched brow and stately carriage, showed the
decision, not to say haughtiness, of her soul; while her
glances, whether lightening with anger or melting in extreme
softness, betrayed the existence of passions as intense in
kind as opposite in quality. She rose as Erasmus entered the
parlour, and bestowing on him a look fraught with meaning
quitted the room, leaving him in unrestrained communication
with his patient.
''Fore George, Master Buckthorne!' exclaimed
the latter, as the Leech drew near, 'I will no more of your
pharmacy; Thus conjured, the practitioner paused and
even turned somewhat pale There was a perceptible faltering
in his voice, as, evading the question, he asked, 'What say
your other physicians?'
'Doctor Phiz says it is wind,--Doctor Fuz
says it is water,--and Doctor Buz says it is something
between wind and water.'
'They are all of them wrong,' said Erasmus
Buckthorne.
'Truly, I think so,' returned the patient.
'They are manifest asses; but you, good Leech, you are a
horse of another colour. The world talks loudly of your
learning, your skill, and cunning in arts the most abstruse;
nay, sooth to say, some look coldly on you therefore, and
stickle not to aver that you are cater-cousin with Beelzebub
himself.'
'It is ever the fate of science,' murmured
the professor, 'to be maligned by the ignorant and
superstitious. But a truce with such folly;--let me examine
your palate.'
Master Marsh thrust out a tongue long, clear,
and red as beet-root. 'There is nothing wrong there,' said
the Leech. 'Your wrist: 'Nothing the matter with me, Sir 'Potecary?
But I tell you there is the matter with me,--much the matter
with me. Why is it that something seems ever gnawing at my
heart-strings? Whence this pain in the region of the liver?
Why is it that I sleep not o' nights,--rest not o' days?
Why----'
'You are fidgety, Master Marsh,' said the
doctor.
Master Marsh's brow grew dark; he half rose
from his seat, supported himself by both hands on the arms
of his elbowchair, and in accents of mingled anger and
astonishment repeated the word 'Fidgety!'
'Ay, fidgety,' returned the doctor calmly.
'Tut, man, there is nought ails thee save thine own
overweening fancies. Take less of food, more air, put aside
thy flagon, call for thy horse; be boot and saddle the word!
Why,--hast thou not youth?'
'I have,' said the patient.
'Wealth and a fair domain?'
'Granted,' quoth Marsh cheerily.
'And a fair wife?'
'Yea,' was the response, but in a tone
something less satisfied.
'Then arouse thee, man, shake off this
fantasy, betake thyself to thy lawful occasions,--use thy
good hap,--follow thy pleasures, and think no more of these
fancied ailments.'
'But I tell you, master mine, these ailments
are not fancied. I lose my rest, I loathe my food, my
doublet sits loosely on me,--these racking pains. My wife,
too! when I meet her gaze, the cold sweat stands on my
forehead, and I could almost think----' Marsh paused
abruptly, mused a while, then added, looking steadily at his
visitor, 'These things are not right; they pass the common,
Master Erasmus Buckthorne.'
A slight shade crossed the brow of the Leech,
but its passage was momentary; his features softened to a
smile,in which pity seemed slightly blended with contempt
'Have done with such follies, Master Marsh. You are well, an
you would but think so. Ride, I say, hunt,shoot, do
anything, 'Well, I will do your bidding,' said Marsh
thoughtfully. 'It may be so; and yet,--but I will do your
bidding. Master Cobbe of Brenzet writes me that he hath a
score or two of fat ewes to be sold a pennyworth; I had
thought to have sent Ralph Looker, but I will essay to go
myself. Ho, there!--saddle me the brown mare, and bid Ralph
be ready to attend me on the gelding.'
An expression of pain contracted the features
of Master Marsh as he rose and slowly quitted the apartment
to prepare for his journey; while the Leech, having bidden
him farewell, vanished through an opposite door, and betook
himself to the private boudoir of the fair mistress of
Marston, muttering as he went a quotation from a then newly
published play--
Of what passed at this interview between the
Folkestone doctor and the fair Spaniard Mrs. Botherby
declares she could never obtain any satisfactory elucidation
Not that tradition is silent on the subject, quite the
contrary; it is the abundance, not paucity, of the materials
she supplies, and the consequent embarrassment of selection,
that makes the difficulty. Some have averred that the Leech,
whose character, as has been before hinted, was more than
threadbare, employed his time in teaching her the mode of
administering certain noxious compounds, the unconscious
partaker whereof would pine and die so slowly and gradually
as to defy suspicion. Others there were who affirmed that
Lucifer himself was then and there raised in
propriâ personâ with all his terrible
attributes of horn and hoof. In support of this assertion,
they adduce the testimony of the aforesaid buxom housemaid,
who protested that the Hall smelt that evening like a
manufactory of matches. All, however, seemed to agree that
the confabulation, whether human or infernal, was conducted
with profound secrecy and protracted to a considerable
length; that its object, as far as could be divined, meant
anything but good to the head of the family; that the lady,
moreover, was heartily tired of her husband; and that, in
the event of his removal by disease or casualty, Master
Erasmus Buckthorne, albeit a great philosophist, would have
no violent objection to 'throw physic to the dogs,' and
exchange his laboratory for the estate of Marston, its live
stock included. Some,too, have inferred that to him did
Madame Isabel 'seriously incline'; while others have
thought, induced perhaps by subsequent events, that she was
merely using him for her purposes; that one José, a
tall, bright-eyed, hook-nosed stripling from her native
land, was a personage not unlikely to put a spoke in the
doctor's wheel; and that,should such a chance arise, the
Sage, wise as he was,would after all run no slight risk of
being 'bamboozled.'
Master José was a youth well-favoured
and comely to look upon. His office was that of page to the
dame; an office which, after long remaining in abeyance, has
been of late years revived, as may well be seen in the
persons of sundry smart hobbledehoys, now constantly to be
met with on staircases and in boudoirs, clad, for the most
part,in garments fitted tightly to the shape, the lower
moiety adorned with a broad stripe of crimson or silver
lace, and the upper with what the first Wit of our times has
described as 'a favourable eruption of buttons.' The precise
duties of this employment have never, as far as we have
heard, been accurately defined. The perfuming a
handkerchief, the combing a lap-dog, and the occasional
presentation of a sippet-shaped billet doux, are, and
always have been, among them; but these a young gentleman
standing five foot ten, and aged nineteen 'last grass,'might
well be supposed to have outgrown José, however, kept
his place, perhaps because he was not fit for any other. To
the conference between his mistress and the physician he had
not been admitted his post was to keep watch and ward in the
ante-room; and, when the interview was concluded, he
attended the lady and her visitor as far as the courtyard,
where he held, with all due respect, the stirrup for the
latter, as he once more resumed his position on the back of
Punch.
Who is it that says 'little pitchers have
large ears'? Some deep metaphysician of the
potteries, 'Susan, look here; see what a nasty scratch I
have got on my hand,' said the young lady, when routed out
at length from her hiding-place to her noontide meal.
'Yes, Miss, this is always the way with you!
mend,mend, mend,-- 'But I have not torn my clothes, Susan, and
it was not the bushes; it was the doll only see what a great
ugly pin I have pulled out of it! and look, here is
another!' As she spoke, Marian drew forth one of those
extended pieces of black pointed wire, with which, in the
days of toupets and pompons, our foremothers were wont to
secure their fly-caps and head-gear from the impertinent
assaults of 'Zephyrus and the Little Breezes.'
'And pray, Miss, where did you get this
pretty doll, as you call it?' asked Susan, turning over the
puppet and viewing it with a scrutinizing eye.
'Mamma gave it me,' said the child.--This was
a fib!
'Indeed!' quoth the girl thoughtfully; and
then, in half soliloquy and a lower key, 'Well! I wish I may
die if it doesn't look like master!--But come to your
dinner, Miss! Hark! the bell is striking One!'
Meanwhile Master Thomas Marsh and his man
Ralph were threading the devious paths--then, as now, most
pseudonymously dignified with the name of roads--that wound
between Marston Hall and the frontier of Romney Marsh. Their
progress was comparatively slow; for, though the brown mare
was as good a roadster as a man might back and the gelding
no mean nag of his hands, yet the tracks, rarely traversed
save by the rude wains of the day,miry in the 'bottoms,' and
covered with loose and rolling stones on the higher grounds,
rendered barely passable the perpetual alternation of hill
and valley.
The master rode on in pain, and the man in
listlessness. Although the intercourse between two
individuals so situated was much less restrained in those
days than might suit the refinement of a later age, little
passed approximating to conversation beyond an occasional
and half-stifled groan from the one, or a vacant whistle
from the other. An hour's riding had brought them among the
woods of Acryse; and they were about to descend one of those
green and leafy lanes, rendered by matted and over-arching
branches impervious alike to shower or sunbeam, when a
sudden and violent spasm seized on Master Marsh and nearly
caused him to fall from his horse. With some difficulty he
succeeded in dismounting and seating himself by the
road-side. Here he remained for a full half-hour in great
apparent agony; the cold sweat rolled in large round drops
adown his clammy forehead, a universal shivering palsied
every limb, his eyeballs appeared to be starting from their
sockets, and to his attached, though dull and heavy
serving-man, he seemed as one struggling in the pangs of
impending dissolution. His groans rose thick and frequent;
and the alarmed Ralph was hesitating between his
disinclination to leave him and his desire to procure such
assistance as one of the few cottages, sparsely sprinkled in
that wild country, might afford, when, after along-drawn
sigh, his master's features as suddenly relaxed; he declared
himself better, the pang had passed away and, to use his own
expression, he 'felt as if a knife had been drawn from out
his very heart.' With Ralph's assistance, after a while he
again reached his saddle; and though still ill at ease, from
a deep-seated and gnawing pain which ceased not,as he
averred, to torment him, the violence of the paroxysm was
spent and it returned no more.
Master and man pursued their way with
increased speed, as, emerging from the wooded defiles, they
at length neared the coast then, leaving the romantic castle
of Saltwood, with its neighbouring town of Hithe, a little
on their left, they proceeded along the ancient paved
causeway, and, crossing the old Roman road, or Watling,
plunged again into the woods that stretched between Lympne
and Ostenhanger.
The sun rode high in the heavens and its
meridian blaze was powerfully felt by man and horse, when,
again quitting their leafy covert, the travellers debouched
on the open plain of Aldington Frith,(3) a
wide tract of unenclosed country stretching down to the very
borders of 'the Marsh' itself.
Here it was, in the neighbouring chapelry,
the site of which may yet be traced by the curious
antiquary, that Elizabeth Barton, the 'Holy Maid of Kent,'
had, something less than a hundred years previous to the
period of our narrative, commenced that series of
supernatural pranks which eventually procured for her head
an unenvied elevation upon London Bridge; and, though the
parish had since enjoyed the benefit of the incumbency of
Master Erasmus's illustrious and enlightened namesake,
still, truth to tell, some of the old leaven was even yet
supposed to be at work. The place had, in fact, an ill name;
and, though Popish miracles had ceased to electrify its
denizens, spells and charms, operating by a no less wondrous
agency, were said to have taken their place Warlocks, and
other unholy subjects of Satan, were reported to make its
wild recesses their favourite rendez-vous, and that to an
extent which eventually attracted the notice of no less a
personage than the sagacious Matthew Hopkins himself,
Witchfinder- A great portion of the Frith, or Fright, as
the name was then, and is still, pronounced, had formerly
been a Chase, with rights of free-warren, etc.,
appertaining to the Archbishops of the province. Since the
Reformation, however, it had been disparked; and, when
Master Thomas Marsh and his man Ralph entered upon its
confines, the open greensward exhibited a lively scene,
sufficiently explanatory of certain sounds that had already
reached their ears while yet within the sylvan screen which
concealed their origin.
It was Fair-day booths, stalls, and all the
rude paraphernalia of an assembly, that then met as
much for the purposes of traffic as festivity, were
scattered irregularly over the turf. Pedlars with their
packs, horse- Nor were rural sports wanting to those whom
pleasure rather than business had drawn from their humble
homes. Here was the tall and slippery pole, glittering in
its grease and crowned with the ample cheese, that mocked
the hopes of the discomfited climber. There the fugitive
pippin, swimming in water not of the purest and bobbing from
the expanded lips of the juvenile Tantalus. In this quarter
the car was pierced by squeaks from some beleaguered porker,
whisking his well-soaped tail from the grasp of one already
in fancy his captor. In that, the eye rested, with
undisguised delight, upon the grimaces of grinning
candidates for the honours of the horse-collar. All was fun,
frolic, courtship, junketing, and jollity.
Maid Marian, indeed, with her lieges, Robin
Hood, Scarlet, and Little John, was wanting; Friar Tuck was
absent; even the Hobby-horse had disappeared but the agile
Morris- In one corner of the green, a little apart
from the thickest of the throng, stood a small square stage,
nearly level with the chins of the spectators, whose
repeated bursts of laughter seemed to intimate the presence
of something more than usually amusing. The platform was
divided into two unequal portions; the smaller of which,
surrounded by curtains of a coarse canvas, veiled from the
eyes of the profane the penetralia of this movable
temple of Esculapius, He was in the midst of a long and animated
harangue explanatory of his master's high pretensions; he
had informed his gaping auditors that the latter was the
seventh son of a seventh son, and of course, as they very
well knew, an Unborn Doctor; that to this happy accident of
birth he added the advantage of most extensive travel; that
in his search after science he had not only perambulated the
whole of this world, but had trespassed on the boundaries of
the next; that the depths of the Ocean and the bowels of the
Earth were alike familiar to him; that besides salves and
cataplasms of sovereign virtue by combining sundry mosses,
gathered many thousand fathoms below the surface of the sea,
with certain unknown drugs found in an undiscovered island,
and boiling the whole in the lava of Vesuvius, he had
succeeded in producing his celebrated balsam of
Crackapanoko, the never- 'Hath your master ever a charm for the
toothache, an't please you?' asked an elderly countryman,
whose swollen cheek bespoke his interest in the question.
'A charm!--a thousand, and every one of them
infallible. Toothache, quotha! I had hoped you had come with
every bone in your body fractured or out of joint. A
toothache! The clown, fumbling a while in a deep
leathern purse, at length produced a sixpence, which he
tendered to the jester. 'Now to thy master, and bring me the
charm forthwith.'
'Nay, honest man; to disturb the mighty
Aldrovando on such slight occasion were pity of my life:
areed my counsel aright, and I will warrant thee for the
nonce. Hie thee home, friend; infuse this powder in cold
spring-water, fill thy mouth with the mixture, and sit upon
thy fire till it boils!'
'Out on thee for a pestilent knave!' cried
the cozened countryman; but the roar of merriment around
bespoke the bystanders well pleased with the jape put upon
him. He retired, venting his spleen in audible murmurs; and
the mountebank, finding the feelings of the mob enlisted on
his side, waxed more impudent every instant, filling up the
intervals between his fooleries with sundry capers and
contortions, and discordant notes from the cow's horn.
'Draw near, draw near, my masters! Here have
ye a remedy for every evil under the sun, moral, physical,
natural and supernatural! Hath any man a termagant
wife?--here is that will tame her presently! Hath anyone a
smoky chimney?--here is an incontinent cure!'
To the first infliction no man ventured to
plead guilty, though there were those standing by who
thought their neighbours might have profited withal. For the
last-named receipt started forth at least a dozen
candidates. With the greatest gravity imaginable, Pierrot,
having pocketed their groats, delivered to each a small
packet curiously folded and closely sealed, containing, as
he averred, directions which, if truly observed, would
preclude any chimney from smoking for a whole year. They
whose curiosity led them to dive into the mystery found that
a sprig of mountain ash culled by moonlight was the charm
recommended, coupled, however, with the proviso that no fire
should be lighted on the hearth during its exercise.
The frequent bursts of merriment proceeding
from this quarter at length attracted the attention of
Master Marsh, whose line of road necessarily brought him
near this end of the fair; he drew bit in front of the stage
just as its noisy occupant, having laid aside his formidable
horn, was drawing still more largely on the amazement of
'the public' by a feat of especial wonder,--he was eating
fire! Curiosity mingled with astonishment was at its height,
and feelings not unallied to alarm were beginning to
manifest themselves, among the softer sex especially, as
they gazed on the flames that issued from the mouth of the
living volcano. All eyes indeed were fixed upon the
fire-eater with an intentness that left no room for
observing another worthy who had now emerged upon the scene.
This was, however, no less a personage than the Deus ex
machinâ, Short in stature and spare in form, the sage
had somewhat increased the former by a steeple- For a while the latter was unobservant of the
inquisitorial survey with which he was regarded; the eyes of
the parties, however, at length met. The brown mare had a
fine shoulder; she stood pretty nearly sixteen hands. Marsh
himself, though slightly bowed by ill-health and the 'coming
autumn' of life, was full six feet in height. His elevation
giving him an unobstructed view over the heads of the
pedestrians, he had naturally fallen into the rear of the
assembly, which brought him close to the diminutive Doctor,
with whose face, despite the red heels, his own was about
upon a level.
'And what makes Master Marsh here?--what sees
he in the mummeries of a miserable buffoon to divert him
when his life is in jeopardy?' said a shrill cracked voice
that sounded as in his very ear. It was the Doctor who
spoke.
'Knowest thou me, friend?' said Marsh,
scanning with awakened interest the figure of his
questioner: 'I call thee not to mind; and yet--stay, where
have we met?'
'It skills not(5) to declare,'
was the answer; 'suffice it we have met,--in other
climes perchance, 'Why, truly the trick of thy countenance
reminds me of somewhat I have seen before; where or when I
know not: but what wouldst thou with me?'
'Nay, rather what wouldst thou here, Thomas
Marsh? What wouldst thou on the Frith of Aldington? Marsh started as the last words were
pronounced with more than common significance: a pang shot
through him at the moment, and the vinegar aspect of the
charlatan seemed to relax into a smile half compassionate,
half sardonic.
'Grammercy,' quoth Marsh, after a long-drawn
breath, 'what knowest thou of me, fellow, or of my
concerns?What knowest thou----'
'This know I, Master Thomas Marsh,' said the
stranger gravely, 'that thy life is even now perilled; evil
practices are against thee; but no matter, thou art quit for
the nonce 'Stay! Nay, prithee stay!' cried Marsh
eagerly, 'I was wrong; in faith I was. A change, and that a
sudden and most marvellous, hath indeed come over me; I am
free; I breathe again; I feel as though a load of years had
been removed; and--is it possible? 'Thomas Marsh!' said the Doctor, pausing and
turning for the moment on his heel, 'I have not: I
repeat, that other and more innocent hands than mine have
done this deed. Nevertheless heed my counsel well! Thou art
parlously encompassed; I, and I only, have the means of
relieving thee. Follow thy courses; pursue thy journey; but,
as thou valuest life and more than life, be at the foot of
yonder woody knoll what time the rising moon throws her
first beam upon the bare and blighted summit that towers
above its trees.'
He crossed abruptly to the opposite quarter
of the scaffolding, and was in an instant deeply engaged in
listening to those whom the cow's horn had attracted, and in
prescribing for their real or fancied ailments. Vain were
all Marsh's efforts again to attract his notice; it was
evident that he studiously avoided him; and when, after an
hour or more spent in useless endeavour, he saw the object
of his anxiety seclude himself once more within his canvas
screen, he rode slowly and thoughtfully off the field.
What should he do? Was the man a mere quack?
an impostor? True, Aldrovando, if that were his name, had
disclaimed all co-operation in his recovery: but he knew, or
he at least announced it. Nay, more: he had hinted that he
was yet in jeopardy; that practices When the late Mr. Pitt was determined to keep
out Bonaparte and prevent his gaining a settlement in the
county of Kent, among other ingenious devices adopted for
that purpose, he caused to be constructed what was then, and
has ever since been, conventionally termed a 'Military
Canal.' This is a not very practicable ditch, some thirty
feet wide and nearly nine feet deep--in the
middle, So much indeed was his mind occupied by his
adventure and extraordinary cure that his original design
had been abandoned, and Master Cobbe remained unvisited. A
rude hostel in the neighbourhood furnished entertainment for
man and horse; and here, a full hour before the rising of
the moon, he left Ralph and the other beasts, proceeding to
his rendezvous on foot and alone.
'You are punctual, Master Marsh,' squeaked
the shrill voice of the Doctor, issuing from the thicket as
the first silvery gleam trembled on the aspens above. ''Tis
well: now follow me and in silence.'
The first part of the command Marsh hesitated
not to obey; the second was more difficult of observance.
'Who and what are you? Whither are you
leading me?' burst not unnaturally from his lips; but all
question was at once cut short by the peremptory tones of
his guide.
'Hush! I say; your finger on your lip, there
be hawks abroad: follow me, and that silently and quickly.'
The little man turned as he spoke, and led the way through a
scarcely perceptible path or track which wound among the
underwood. The lapse of a few minutes brought them to the
door of a low building, so hidden by the surrounding trees
that few would have suspected its existence It was a cottage
of rather extraordinary dimensions, but consisting of only
one floor. No smoke rose from its solitary chimney; no
cheering ray streamed from its single window, which was,
however, secured by a shutter of such thickness as to
preclude the possibility of any stray beam issuing from
within. The exact size of the building it was, in that
uncertain light, difficult to distinguish, a portion of it
seeming buried in the wood behind. The door gave way on the
application of a key, and Marsh followed his conductor
resolutely, but cautiously, along a narrow passage feebly
lighted by a small taper that winked and twinkled at its
farther extremity. The Doctor, as he approached, raised it
from the ground, and, opening an adjoining door, ushered his
guest into the room beyond.
It was a large and oddly furnished apartment,
insufficiently lighted by an iron lamp that hung from the
roof and scarcely illumined the walls and angles, which
seemed to be composed of some dark- 'Now strip thee, Master Marsh, and that
quickly: untruss, I say! discard thy boots, doff doublet and
hose, and place thyself incontinent in yonder bath.'
The visitor cast his eyes again upon the
formidable- 'Trifle not the time, man, an you be wise,'
said the former: 'Passion of my heart! let but yon
minute-hand reach the hour, and thou not immersed, thy life
were not worth a pin's fee!'
The Black Cat gave vent to a single Mew,--a
most unnatural sound for a mouser,--it seemed as it were
mewed through a cow's horn.
'Quick, Master Marsh! uncase, or you perish!'
repeated his strange host, throwing as he spoke a handful of
some dingy-looking powders into the brasier. 'Behold the
attack is begun!' A thick cloud rose from the embers; a cold
shivering shook the astonished yeoman; sharp pricking pains
penetrated his ankles and the palms of his hands, and, as
the smoke cleared away, he distinctly saw and recognised in
the mirror the boudoir of Marston Hall.
The doors of the well-known ebony cabinet
were closed; but fixed against them, and standing out in
strong relief from the contrast afforded by the sable
background, was a waxen image--of himself! It appeared to be
secured, and sustained in an upright posture, by large black
pins driven through the feet and palms, the latter of which
were extended in a cruciform position. To the right and left
stood his wife and José; in the middle, with his back
towards him, was a figure which he had no difficulty in
recognising as that of the Leech of Folkestone. The letter
had just succeeded in fastening the dexter hand of the
image, and was now in the act of drawing a broad and
keen-edged sabre from its sheath. The Black Cat mewed again.
'Haste or you die!' said the Doctor: 'Heed well the clock!' cried the Conjuror:
'with the first stroke of Nine plunge thy head beneath the
water; suffer not a hair above the surface; plunge deeply,
or thou art lost!'
The little man had seated himself in the
centre of the circle upon the large skull, elevating his
legs at an angle of forty-five degrees. In this position he
spun round with a velocity to be equalled only by that of a
tee-totum, the red roses on his insteps seeming to describe
a circle of fire. The best buckskins that ever mounted at
Melton had soon yielded to such rotatory friction--but he
spun on--the Cat mewed, bats and obscene birds fluttered
overhead; Erasmus was seen to raise his weapon; the clock
struck!--and Marsh, who had 'ducked' at the instant, popped
up his head again, spitting and sputtering, half-choked with
the infernal solution, which had insinuated itself into his
mouth, and ears, and nose. All disgust at his nauseous dip
was, however, at once removed, when, cast in, his eyes on
the glass, he saw the consternation of the party whose
persons it exhibited. Erasmus had evidently made his blow;
and failed; the figure was unmutilated; the hilt remained in
the hand of the striker, while the shivered blade lay in
shining fragments on the floor.
The Conjuror ceased his spinning and brought
himself to an anchor; the Black Cat purred,--its purring
seemed strangely mixed with the self-satisfied chuckle of a
human being. He was rising from his unsavoury couch when a
motion from the little man checked him. 'Rest where you are,
Thomas Marsh; so far all goes well, but the danger is not
yet over!' He looked again, and perceived that the shadowy
triumvirate were in deep and eager consultation; the
fragments of the shattered weapon appeared to undergo a
close scrutiny. The result was clearly unsatisfactory; the
lips of the parties moved rapidly, and much gesticulation
might be observed, but no sound fell upon the ear. The hand
of the dial had nearly reached the quarter at once the
parties separated, and Buckthorne stood again before the
figure, his hand armed with a long and sharp-pointed
miséricorde,--a dagger little in use of late,
but such as, a century before, often performed the part of a
modern oyster-knife, in tickling the osteology of a
dismounted cavalier through the shelly defences of his plate
armour. Again he raised his arm 'Duck!' roared the Doctor,
spinning away upon his cephalic pivot:--the Black Cat cocked
his tail, and seemed to mew the word 'Duck!' Down went
Master Marsh's head.--One of his hands had unluckily been
resting on the edge of the bath; he drew it hastily in, but
not altogether scathless; the stump of a rusty nail,
projecting from the margin of the bath, had caught and
slightly grazed it. The pain was more acute than is usually
produced by such trivial accidents; and Marsh, on once more
raising his head, beheld the dagger of the Leech sticking in
the little finger of the wax figure, which it had seemingly
nailed to the cabinet door.
'By my life, truly, a scape o' the
narrowest!' quoth the Conjuror: 'the next course, dive you
not the readier, there is no more life in you than in a
pickled herring--What! courage, Master Marsh; but be
heedful; an they miss again let them bide the issue!'
He drew his hand athwart his brow as he
spoke, and dashed off the perspiration which the violence of
his exercise had drawn from every pore. Black Tom sprang
upon the edge of the bath and stared full in the face of the
bather his sea-green eyes were lambent with unholy fire, but
their marvellous obliquity of vision was not to be mistaken;
the very countenance, too!--Could it be?--the features were
feline, but their expression was that of the Jack Pudding!
Was the Mountebank a Cat?--or the Cat a Mountebank? Great dissatisfaction, not to say dismay,
seemed now to pervade the conspirators Dame Isabel was
closely inspecting the figure's wounded hand, while
José was aiding the pharmacopolist to charge a huge
petronel with powder and bullets. The load was a heavy one;
but Erasmus seemed determined this time to make sure of his
object. Somewhat of trepidation might be observed in his
manner as he rammed down the balls, and his withered cheek
appeared to have acquired an increase of paleness; but
amazement rather than fear was the prevailing symptom, and
his countenance betrayed no jot of irresolution. As the
clock was about to chime half-past nine, he planted himself
with a firm foot in front of the image, waved his unoccupied
hand with a cautionary gesture to his companions, and, as
they hastily retired on either side, brought the muzzle of
his weapon within half a foot of his mark. As the shadowy
form was about to draw the trigger, Marsh again plunged his
head beneath the surface; and the sound of an explosion, as
of fire-arms, mingled with the rush of water that poured
into his ears. His immersion was but momentary, yet did he
feel as though half suffocated he sprang from the bath, and,
as his eye fell on the mirror, he saw--or thought he
saw--the Leech of Folkestone lying dead on the floor of his
wife's boudoir, his head shattered to pieces, and his hand
still grasping the stock of a bursten petronel.
He saw no more; his head swam, his senses
reeled, the whole room was turning round; and, as he fell to
the ground, the last impressions to which he was conscious
were the chucklings of a hoarse laughter and the mewings of
a Tom Cat!
Master Marsh was found the next morning by
his bewildered serving-man, stretched before the door of the
humble hostel at which he sojourned. His clothes were
somewhat torn and much bemired: and deeply did honest Ralph
marvel that one so staid and grave as Master Marsh of
Marston should thus have played the roisterer, missing,
perchance, a profitable bargain for the drunken orgies of
midnight wassail, or the endearments of some rustic
light-o'-love. Tenfold was his astonishment increased when,
after retracing in silence their journey of the preceding
day, the Hall, on their arrival about noon, was found in a
state of uttermost confusion.--No wife stood there to greet
with the smile of bland affection her returning spouse; no
page to hold his stirrup or receive his gloves, his hat and
riding-rod. José, too, had disappeared: he had
been last seen riding furiously towards Folkestone early in
the preceding afternoon: to a question from Hodge Gardener
he had hastily answered that he bore a missive of moment
from his mistress. The lean apprentice of Erasmus Buckthorne
declared that the page had summoned his master, in haste,
about six of the clock, and that they had rode forth
together, as he verily believed on their way back to the
Hall, where he had supposed Master Buckthorne's services to
be suddenly required on some pressing emergency. Since that
time he had seen nought of either of them: the grey cob,
however, had returned late at night, masterless, with his
girths loose and the saddle turned upside down.
Nor was Master Erasmus Buckthorne ever seen
again. Strict search was made through the neighbourhood, but
without success; and it was at length presumed that he must,
for reasons which nobody could divine, have absconded,
together with José and his faithless mistress. The
latter had carried off with her the strong box, divers
articles of valuable plate and jewels of price. Her boudoir
appeared to have been completely ransacked; the cabinet and
drawers stood open and empty; the very carpet, a luxury then
newly introduced into England, was gone. Marsh, however,
could trace no vestige of the visionary scene which he
affirmed to have been last night presented to his eyes.
Much did the neighbours marvel at his
story:--some thought him mad; others, that he was merely
indulging in that privilege to which, as a traveller, he had
a right indefeasible. Trusty Ralph said nothing but shrugged
his shoulders, and, falling into the rear, imitated the
action of raising a wine-cup to his lips. An opinion,
indeed, soon prevailed that Master Thomas Marsh had gotten,
in common parlance, exceedingly drunk on the preceding
evening, and had dreamt all that he so circumstantially
related. This belief acquired additional credit when they
whom curiosity induced to visit the woody knoll of Aldington
Mount declared that they could find no building such as that
described, nor any cottage near; save one, indeed--a
low-roofed hovel, once a house of public entertainment, but
now half in ruins. The 'Old Cat and Fiddle'--so was the
tenement called--had been long uninhabited, yet still
exhibited the remains of a broken sign, on which the keen
observer might decipher something like a rude portrait of
the animal from which it derived its name. It was also
supposed still to afford an occasional asylum to the
smugglers of the coast, but no trace of any visit from sage
or mountebank could be detected; nor was the wise
Aldrovando, whom many remembered to have seen at the fair,
ever found again on all that country-side.
Of the runaways nothing was ever certainly
known. A boat, the property of an old fisherman who plied
his trade on the outskirts of the town, had been seen to
quit the bay that night; and there were those who declared
that she had more hands on board than Carden and his son,
her usual complement; but, as the gale came on, and the
frail bark was eventually found keel upwards on the Goodwin
Sands, it was presumed that she had struck on that fatal
quicksand in the dark, and that all on board had perished.
Little Marian, whom her profligate mother had
abandoned, grew up to be a fine girl and a handsome. She
became, moreover, heiress to Marston Hall, and brought the
estate into the Ingoldsby family by her marriage with one of
its scions.
Thus far Mrs. Botherby.
It is a little singular that, on pulling down
the old Hall in my grandfather's time, a human skeleton was
discovered among the rubbish; under what particular part of
the building I could never with any accuracy ascertain; but
it was found enveloped in a tattered cloth, that seemed to
have been once a carpet, and which fell to pieces almost
immediately on being exposed to the air. The bones were
perfect but those of one hand were wanting; and the skull,
perhaps from the labourer's pick-axe, had received
considerable injury: the worm-eaten stock of an
old- The portrait of the fair Marian hangs yet in
the gallery of Tappington; and near it is another, of a
young man in the prime of life, which Mrs. Botherby affirms
to be that of her father. It exhibits a mild and rather
melancholy countenance with a high forehead, and the peaked
beard and moustaches of the seventeenth century. The
signet-finger of the left hand is gone, and appears, on
close inspection, to have been painted out by some later
artist; possibly in compliment to the tradition, which,
teste Botherby, records that of Mr. Marsh to have
gangrened, and to have undergone amputation at the
knuckle-
'Rome stood on
seven hills; Folkestone seems to have been built upon
seventy.'--P. 123.
PEOPLE who run down in a
couple of hours, 'by express,' to Folkestone, and find a
fashionable and flourishing watering- 'From the time of the celebrated couplet with
which the Mayor addressed Queen Elizabeth,--
and her Majesty's most gracious reply--
a Folkestone Rhyme became a term of ridicule in
the county. The unlucky Folkestoners, however, bore up
heroically against the gibes of their neighbours, and many
were the arguments advanced by them to prove that their
powers of versification had been unjustly stigmatized. To
convince the public of this they produced, as their
champion, a venerable cobbler, the poet-laureate of the
place, who undertook to compose two lines in a given period,
which the first judges of such matters should instantly
acknowledge to be bonâ fide rhymes.
Accordingly, on the evening appointed, the bells pealed
joyously, the shops were shut, the windows illuminated, and
precisely as the clock struck eight the long- Long and reiterated shouts of applause burst from the
assembled townsmen at this announcement of their poet's
triumphant effusion. But, alas! how fleeting are all human
honours. A neighbouring tailor, jealous of the cobbler's
fame, produced a short tale in verse founded on a
circumstance which had recently occurred; and this, as it
recorded the prowess of their boatmen, was held by the
people of Folkestone to surpass in a literary point of view
the distich of the cobbler. It ran thus:--
In later times it happened to be discovered
that Folkestone Church stood in a sufficiently conspicuous
situation to serve as a landmark for ships entering the
Downs or Dover harbour. Admiral Foley therefore sent a
polite note to the corporation, requesting, as a matter of
public utility, that they would whitewash the church
steeple. This communication was considered to be an affair
of considerable importance, and a deputation of the
inhabitants accordingly waited upon the Admiral to make a
respectful inquiry as to what colour he would please to have
their church steeple whitewashed?
'Aldington Frith.--P. 135.
Aldington Frith, locally pronounced
'Allington Fright,' is a tongue of wild land projecting into
the marsh from the higher ground, and was formerly,
according to Hasted, 'a chace for deer and wild beasts
belonging to the archbishop's manor at Aldington.'
Another legend appertaining to this wild
district was commenced by 'Ingoldsby,' but I have been
unable to discover more of the story than is hinted at in
the few following stanzas:--
THE BELL OF ALDINGTON
It is the Bell of Aldington!
Sir Edmund rocks on his restless bed;
The page made a bow his obedience to show--
(End.)
(1) The 'Witchfinder,' see Note, supra, p. 49.
(2) See Notes appended to the story.
'A Knight of Cales,
A Gentleman of Wales,
And a Laird of the North Countree;
A Yeoman of Kent,
With his yearly rent,
Will buy them out all three!'
'Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou own'dst yesterday.'
(3) See Notes appended to the story.
(4) A silver coin of the time of Henry VIII., borrowed from
France; of value from about 18d. originally to about 6d.
later.
(5) An obsolete expression for it boots not, or it
serves not.
NOTES
"O mighty Queene!
Welcome to Folkesteene!"
"You great Fool!
Get off that stool!"
"Folkestone Church;
Knives and Forks!"
"A mighty whale
Come down the chan-nale;
The Dover men could not catch it
But the Folkestoners did!"
And it tolls at the midnight hour;--
It tolls at One, and it tolls at
Two,
Dismally deep the whole night
through
It tolls from that old grey tower.
Down is the moon, and dark is the night,
Yet the belfry window has never a light.
He tosses, and tumbles, and turns his head
To and again:--
Seems as his brain
Were addled with care, or with grief, or with pain.
Yet his pillow is stuffed with the eider down,
And his bed with feathers that no shop in town
Would send you a pound of for less than a crown;
And, go where you will, it's seldom one meets
With such Whitney blankets or fine Holland
sheets.
Spite of it all, you may say what you please,
But it's clear, if a host of unanimous fleas
Had attacked him at once from his nose to his knees,
Fully bent upon eating him up by degrees,
Sir Edmund would not have been less at his ease.
And he fidgets and kicks off the bed-clothes, and oft
He beats the down pillow to make it more soft.
In vain--sleep defies him! It seems rather odd,
But he can't get so much as 'three winks and a nod.'
So he roars to the poor little foot-page who still
Keeps watch in the ante-room, waiting his will,
'Hallo! you young monkey--come hither, you Bill!
What means this noise
That my rest destroys?
I suppose it's some "lark" of you rascally
boys.
Go run to the church, sir--take with you a light,
And see who 'tis daring the village to fright
With his horrid bim-boming at this time of night.--
Be off, you young ----!' (something it wouldn't be right
To record, or my readers might fancy the knight,
Though a very great man, was not over-polite.)
As well-bred foot-pages ought always to do;
He descended the stair,
And, opening a pair
Of huge folding-doors, stept out into the air;
Then pausing and listening, said--'Well, I declare
I don t hear any bell.
It's all very well,
But what he can mean I am sure I can't tell;
Though I've not for my part seen a glass touch his lips,
he
Must somehow have managed to make himself tipsy!'