Part 19

The park of Chartley is a wild and romantic spot, in its primitive state, untouched by the hand of the agriculturist, and was formerly attached to the royal forest of Needwood, and the honour of Tutbury, of the whole of which the ancient family of De Ferrars were once the puissant lords. Their immense possessions, now forming part of the duchy of Lancaster, were forfeited by the attainder of Earl Ferrars, after his defeat at Burton Bridge, where he led the rebellious barons against Henry III. The Chartley estate, being settled in dower, was alone reserved, and handed down to its present possessor. In the park is preserved, in its primitive purity, the indigenous Staffordshire cow, small in stature, of a sand-white colour, with black ears, muzzle, and tips at the hoofs. In the year of the battle of Burton Bridge, a black calf was born, and the downfall of the great house of Ferrars happening at the same period, gave rise to the tradition, which to this day has been held in veneration by the common people, that the birth of a party-coloured calf from the wild breed in Chartley Park, is a sure omen of death within the same year to a member of the lord’s family. A calf of this description has been born whenever a death has happened in the family of late years. The decease of the last earl and his countess, of his son Lord Tamworth, of his daughter, Mrs. William Jolliffe, as well as the deaths of the son and heir of the present nobleman and his daughter, Lady Frances Shirley, have each been forewarned by the ominous birth of a spotted calf. In the spring of a late year, an animal perfectly black was calved by one of this weird tribe, in the park of Chartley, and this birth also has been followed by the death of the countess.

In the beautiful chapel of Rosslinne, founded by William Saint Clair, prince of Orkney, there is a legend of the spectral light, which illumined its gothic beauty, on the eve of a death among his descendants. And my sweet Castaly will remember how pathetically Harold sings the fate of Rosabelle Saint Clair.

In other districts, on the coming of such an event, these lights are seen of various colours, and are termed “Dr’ Eug,”—“the Death of the Druid;” and they also marshal the funeral procession to the very verge of the grave.

Dr. Caldicot solemnly writes, that when a Christian is drowned in the Dee, a light appears over the spot, by which the body is easily discovered; and hence the river is called “Holy” Dee.

The mysteries of the “Skibbereen Lights” are recorded by an honourable gentleman of Ireland, and ladies and philosophers journeyed far to behold them, and believed.—In a cottage in a marshy flat near Bantry lived a man named Harrington, a perfect anatomie vivante, and bedridden,—his heart devout,—his books all of a religious kind. In his chamber, strange lights soon appeared, at first like the dim moonlight on the wall, deepening often into yellow light, and flickering round the room. There was often a group of literati and fashion assembled there, on whom the light danced and displayed all the various emotions of the parties. Once at noon, but mostly at midnight, the light appeared; and on all occasions Harrington seemed to anticipate before others beheld them. Science has searched for causes; but neither in the arts of an impostor, or the natural exhalation of luminous gases, has been yet discovered a solution of this mystery.

In the wild country around Dolgelly, where Cader Idris frowns upon the floods and fells of Merioneth,—where the Mawddach, after its magnificent fall, rolls its waters through the brown and purple valley to join the Wonion, and then expand into the mountain estuary of Abermaw,—the wanderer will hear from many lips this current story.

On a dark evening, a few winters ago, some persons were returning to Barmouth, on the south or opposite side of the river. As they approached the ferry-house at Penthryn, which is directly opposite Barmouth, they observed a light near the house, which they conjectured to be produced by a bonfire; and greatly puzzled they were to discover the reason why it should have been lighted. As they came nearer, however, it vanished; and when they inquired at the house respecting it, they were surprised to learn, that not only had the people there displayed no light, but they had not even seen one, nor could they perceive any signs of it on the sands. On reaching Barmouth, the circumstance was mentioned, and the fact corroborated by some of the people there, who had also plainly and distinctly seen the light. It was settled, therefore, by some of the old fishermen, that this was a “death token;” and sure enough the man who kept the ferry at that time was drowned at high water a few nights afterwards, on the very spot where the light was seen. He was landing from the boat, when he fell into the water, and so perished.

The same winter the Barmouth people, as well as the inhabitants of the opposite banks, were struck by the appearance of a number of small lights, which were seen dancing in the air at a place called Borthwyn, about half a mile from the town. A great number of people came out to see these lights, and after a while they all but one disappeared, and this one proceeded slowly towards the water’s edge, to a little bay where some boats were moored. The men in a sloop which was anchored near the spot saw the light advancing; they saw it also hover for a few seconds over one particular boat, and then totally disappear. Two or three days afterwards the man to whom that particular boat belonged was drowned in the river, while he was sailing about Barmouth harbour in that very boat.

On a lofty mountain, rising over Marbach in Austria, stands the church of Maria-Taferl; and miracles on miracles are related of this sacred spot, since the time when the “Vesperbild,” an image of the Virgin, was fixed on its oak. Even angels have visited the shrine. In the 17th century these angelic visitants appeared in processions bearing a red cross, while stars shone around the head of the Virgin. On one occasion a red cross was borne along and a taper was lighted, by no mortal hand, at the feet of the Vesperbild; and this is recorded and attested by the crowd who gazed in wonder on the miracle.

The trials of the two divines, John Huss and Wickliffe, were marked by awful and impressive phenomena. While the tribunal was sitting in judgment on Wickliffe, the monastery in which the English monks had assembled was nearly overwhelmed by an earthquake. And it chanced, that while the council were in high assembly at Constance, which condemned Huss to the stake, the eclipse, which over that city was nearly total, occurred, and the consternation of the people, at that time prone to the belief of miracles, was extreme.

“The night had wan’d; but darkness and dismay Rose with the dawn, and blotted out the day. The council’s warder, struck with sudden fear, Dropt from his palsied hand th’ uplifted spear. Aghast each gazer saw the mystic power, That rob’d in midnight’s pall the matin hour; While hurrying feet, and wailings to and fro, Spread the wild panic of impending woe. The prince and prelates shudder’d at the sign: The monk stood dumb before the darken’d shrine: With faltering hand uprais’d the cross on high, To chase that dismal omen from the sky.”

The wonders told me by one of my reverend ancestors of the “Aurora,” years ago, are so circumstantial, and withal so prophetic, that well might she, like the Lady of Branxholme, believe that “spirits were riding the northern blast.”

Speed repeats a record in the “Ypodigma Neustriæ” of “Walsingham,” that the rebellion of the Percies was preceded by spectral battles in Bedfordshire, “sundry monsters of divers colours and shapes issuing from woods,” &c.

Remember, it is a matter of history, that phantasms were seen by numbers in Whitehall during the Commonwealth. And the wondrous narrative of The Just Devil of Woodstock, which was writ in 1649, by Master Widows, the learned clerk of Woodstock, “who each day put in writing what he heard from the mouths of the commissioners, and such things as they told to have befallen them the night before; therein keeping to their own words:”—the coney-stealers were so alarmed that they left their ferrets beyond Rosamond’s well. And this he saith also, that “At Saint James’s the Devil so joaled the centinals against the sides of the Queen’s Chappell doors, that some of them fell sick upon it, and others, not taking warning by it, killed one outright; and all other such dreadful things those that inhabited the royal houses have been affrighted with.”

I remember not the source from which I gleaned some mysteries of “The Lyffe of Virgilius,” a professor of the occult sciences, alluded to, I believe, in Gower’s “Confessio Amantis,” and identified with the Mantuan poet,—a magus, who “dyd many marvayles in hys lyfe tyme by whychcrafte and nygramancye thorowgh the helpe of the devyls of hell.” One of these marvels I well recollect. This Virgil was cut up, salted and pickled, at his own request, in a barrel; and when the emperor discovered him, he slew Virgilius’ man, and “then sawe the emperoure and all his folke a nakyd chylde, three tymes rennynge aboute the barell, sayinge the wordes, ‘Cursed be the tyme that ye cam ever here;’ and with those wordes vanyshed the chylde away.”

Then in the associations of lucky days and influential colours, is there not often a striking truth?

Sir Kenelm Digby, writes Master Aubrey, among other wonders of his “Miscellanies,” was born, fought, and conquered at Scanderoon, and died,—on the 11th day of June.

In a book, printed in 1687, we learn that the fourteenth of October was a lucky day for the princes of England. On it William the Conqueror won the crown: Edward III. landed: and James II. was born.

In the eventful life of Napoleon, the number eighteen was associated with so many important events, that you will scarce deny something more than casualty. Such were, the engagement from which he assumed the consulate: that of Torlina on the river Beresina: the battles of Leipsic and of Waterloo: which were all fought on the 18th of the month. On that day also his corpse was landed on St. Helena: and on the 18th also the “Belle Poule” sailed with his remains for France.

As of the Emir of the East, green was the favourite colour of the “Daoine Shi,” or men of peace, in Scotland; and the Druids waved a green standard, as we read in the Scandana, when they fought with the Fingallians. From some cause, perchance from their adoption of it, this colour was fatal to the clan “Grahame.” The Highlanders believe to this day that the field of Killicrankie was lost because Dundee was habited in green uniform; and an old Græme, when his horse stumbled at a fox-chace, referred his disaster to his green whip-cord.

Do not so many sequences prove a consequence?

EV. You do not mince the matter, Astrophel; indeed, from the boldness of your display, I might think you had kissed the blarney-stone, by which charm, the Irish believe you will ever after be free from bashfulness.

But coincidence, and the natural leaning of the mind to superstition, will unfold all your mysteries: and these your illustrations (I cannot term them arguments,) are even weaker than the former. Remember, that the mind of some beings is impressible as the yielding wax, and especially, if under the constant influence of other minds; which, as continual dropping will wear away a stone, first tends to bewilder, and, at length, to convince. And as to the special trifles to which you allude, although it is certain a sparrow falls not to the ground without a Providence, and the hairs of our head are all numbered, I cannot believe that the Creator will thus alter a gigantic law for an atom.

ANALYSIS AND CLASSIFICATION OF SPECTRAL ILLUSION.

“The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, And these are of them.” MACBETH.

EV. You are a most industrious gleaner among the sheaves of history, Astrophel. But why, in all these seeming prophecies, seek to thwart the harmonious course of nature? Leave superstition to the heathen and the savage: be assured, in the words of Principal Robertson, that a vain desire of prying into futurity is the error of the infancy of a people, and a proof of its weakness.

From this weakness proceeded the faith of the Americans in dreams, their observation of omens, their attention to the chirping of birds and the cries of animals, all which they supposed to be indications of future events. And if any one of these prognostics was deemed unfavourable, they instantly abandoned the pursuit of those measures on which they were most eagerly bent.

I wonder you brought not some classic proofs of this credulity, for such were all-prevalent in Judæa and the Eternal City.