Part 4

"Whew! my courteous dame. How now! and so because they are become part of the movables of Holy Church, I trow, they must be handled softly, forsooth! Tut, tut, beldame, they are--let me see, so it runs; the old clerk of St Chad's rang the nomine in my ears long enough, and I am not like to forget it. They be 'Trinitarians,' said he, 'of the house of St Robert near Knaresborough, admitted by Brother Robert, the minister of the Holy Trinity, for the redemption of captives imprisoned by the pagans, for the faith of Jesus Christ.' Gramercy, what a bead-roll of hard words! They say we are like to have a 'Holy War' again, when we have settled our own reckonings; and the blood and groats of old England are again to be spent for the purchase of 'Holy Land.' O' my halidome, wench, but I would let all the priests and friars fight for it. Cunning rogues! they set us together by the ears, and then run away with the pudding."

No doubt this profane speech rendered him easier of access to the tempter, and the powers of evil; who, ever watchful for the slips of silly mortals, report such unholy words at head-quarters, where Satan and his crew are assembled in full council.

The dame groaned deeply at this reply from her graceless husband.

"Some time or another," said she, "thou wilt rue these wicked speeches; and who knows whether these very words of thine may not have been heard i' the Fairies' Chapel, or whispered away beyond the forest to the witches' tryst!"

"I care not for all the imps and warlocks i' th' parish, hags and old women to boot. Let them come face to face. Here am I, honest Ralph the miller, who never took toll from an empty sack, nor e'er missed the mouth of a full one. Tol-de-rol."

Here he stood, with arms akimbo, as if daring the whole fellowship of Satan, with their abettors and allies. This speech, too, was doubtless reported at the Fairies' Chapel hard by; for the dame vowed ever after that she heard, as it were, an echo, or a low sooning sound, ending with an eldritch laugh, amongst the rocks in that direction. This well-known haunt of the elves and fays, ere they had fled before the march of science and civilisation, was but a good bowshot from the mill, and would have terrified many a stouter heart, had not familiarity lulled their apprehensions, and habit blunted the edge of their fears. Strangers often wondered that any human being dared to sojourn so near the haunts of the "good people," and were sure that, sooner or later, the inhabitants would rue so dangerous a proximity.

A few evenings after this foolhardy challenge Ralph had been scrambling away, far up the dingle, for a supply of firewood. The same keen tinkling air was abroad, but the sky, where the sun had thrown his long coronal of rays, was streaked across with a mottled and hazy light, probably the forerunner of a change. Ralph was labouring down the steep with his load, crashing through the boughs, and shaking off their hoary burdens in his progress. Suddenly he heard the shrill and well-known shriek of a hare struggling in the toils. At this joyful and refreshing sound the miller's appetite was wonderfully stimulated; his darling propensities were immediately called forth; he threw down his burden, and, rushing through the brake, he saw, or thought he saw, in the soft twilight, an unfortunate puss in the noose. He threw himself hastily forward expecting to grasp the prize, when lo! up started the timid animal, and limping away, as if hurt, kept the liquorish poacher at her heels, every minute supposing he was sure of his prey. Rueful was the pilgrimage of the unfortunate hunter. The hare doubled, and sprang aside whenever he came within striking distance, then hirpling onward as before. Ralph made a full pause where a wide gap displayed the scanty waterfall, just glimmering through the mist below him. The moon, then riding out brightly in the opposite direction, sparkled on the restless current, tipped with foam. It was the nearest cut to the "Fairies' Chapel," which lies behind, and higher towards the source of the waterfall. The unlucky hare paused too for a moment, as though afraid to leap; but she looked back at her pursuer so bewitchingly that his heart was in his mouth, and, fearless of consequences, he rushed towards her; but he slipped, and fell down the crumbling bank. When sufficiently recovered from the shock, he saw the animal stealing off, between the edge of the stream and the low copsewood by the brink, towards the Fairies' Chapel. He made one desperate effort to lay hold of her before she set foot upon enchanted ground.

He seized her, luckily as he thought, by the scut; when lo! up started something black and "uncanny," with glaring eyes, making mouths, and grinning at him, as though in mockery. He felt stupefied and bewildered. Fascinated by terror, he could not refrain from following this horrible appearance, which, as if delighted to have ensnared him, frisked away with uncouth and fiendish gambols, to the very centre of the Fairies' Chapel.

Ralph, puissant and valorous upon his own hearthstone, felt his courage fast oozing out at elbows when he saw the cold moonlight streaming through the branches above him, and their crawling shadows on the grotesque rocks at his side.

He was now alone, shivering from cold and fright. He felt as though undergoing the unpleasant process of being frozen to the spot, consciously metamorphosing into stone, peradventure a sort of ornamental fixture for the fairies' apartment. His great hoofs were already immovable; he felt his hair congealing; his locks hung like icicles; and his whole body seemed like one solid lump of ice, through which the blood crept with a gradually decreasing current. Suddenly he heard a loud yelping, as though the hounds were in full cry. The sound passed right through the midst of the Fairies' Hall, and almost close to his ear; but there was no visible sign of their presence, except a slight movement, and then a shiver amongst the frost-bitten boughs above the rocks. He had not power to bethink him of his Paternosters and Ave Marias, which, doubtless, would have dissolved the impious charm. Ralph had so neglected these ordinances that his tongue refused to repeat the usual nostrums for protection against evil spirits. His creed was nigh forgotten, and his "salve" was not heard. Whilst he was pondering on this occurrence, there started through a crevice a single light, like a glow-worm's lantern. Then a tiny thing came forth, clad in white, like a miniature of the human form, and, peeping about cautiously, ran back on beholding the unfortunate miller bolt upright in the narrow glen.

Ralph now saw plainly that he had been enticed hither by some evil being for no good. It might be for the malicious purpose of drawing down upon him the puny but fearful vengeance of those irritable creatures the fairies; and soon he saw a whole troop of them issuing out of the crevice. As they came nearer he heard the short sharp tread of this tiny host. One of them mounted the little pillar called the "Fairies' Chair," round which multitudes gathered, as if waiting for the fiat of their king. It was evident that their purpose was to inflict a signal chastisement on him for his intrusion.

Ralph watched their movements with a deplorable look. Horrible indeed were his anticipations. The elf on the pillar, a little wrinkled being with a long nose, bottle-green eyes, and shrivelled yellowish-green face, in a shrill squeaking tone, addressed him courteously, though with an ill-suppressed sneer, inquiring his business in these regions. But Ralph was too terrified to reply.

"How lucky!" said the old fairy: "we have a mortal here, just in the nick of time. He will do our bidding rarely, for 'tis the stout miller hard by, who fears neither fiend nor fairy, man nor witch, by his own confession. We'll put his courage to the proof."

Ralph was now thawing through terror.

"We would have punished this thine impertinent curiosity, had we not other business for thee, friend," said the malicious little devilkin. "Place thy fingers on thy thigh, and swear by Hecate, Merlin, and the Fairies' Hall, that within three days thou wilt fulfil our behest."

Ralph assented, with a hideous grimace, glad upon any terms to escape.

The whole company disappeared, but a faint, sulphur-like flame hovered for a while over the spot they had left.

Soon he heard the following words, in a voice of ravishing sweetness:--

"Mortal I must cease to be, If no maiden, honestly, Plight her virgin troth to me, By yon cold moon's silver shower, In the chill and mystic hour, When the arrowy moonbeams fall In the fairies' festive hall. Twice her light shall o'er me pass, Then I am what once I was, Should no maid, betrothed, but free, Plight her virgin vow to me."

The music ceased for a short space; then a voice, like the soft whisper of the summer winds, chanted the following lines in a sort of monotonous recitation:--

"Mortal, take this unstained token, Unpledged vows were never broken; Lay it where a Byron's hand This message finds from fairy-land,-- Fair Eleanor, the love-sick maid, Who sighs unto her own soft shade:-- Bid her on this tablet write What lover's wish would e'er indite; Then give it to the faithful stream (As bright and pure as love's first dream) That murmurs by,--'twill bring to me The messenger I give to thee.

"But the maiden thou must bring Hither, to our elfin king, Ere three days are come and gone, When the moon hath kissed the stone By our fairy monarch's throne. Shouldst thou fail, or she refuse, Death is thine; or thou may'st choose With us to chase the moonbeams bright, Around the busy world. Good night!"

He now felt something slipped into his hand.

"Remember," said the voice, "when that shadow is on the pillar, thou must return."

Immediately his bodily organs resumed their office, and the astonished miller was not long in regaining his own threshold.

But he was a moody and an altered man. The dame could not help shuddering as she saw his ashen visage, and his eyes fixed and almost starting from their sockets. His cheeks were sunken, his head was bare, and his locks covered with rime, and with fragments from the boughs that intercepted his path.

"Mercy on me!" cried she, lifting up her hands, "what terrible thing has happened? O Ralph, Ralph, thy silly gostering speeches, I do fear me, have had a sting in their tail thou hast little dreamed of!"

Here she crossed herself with much fervour and solemnity. She then turned to gaze on the doomed wretch, who, groaning heavily, seated himself on the old settle without speaking.