Part 91

With a look of great contempt for the incredulity of her spouse, she replied--

"Ay, goodman, sit there and scoff your fill. If't hadn't been for my care and endeavours you had been penniless ere now. But so it is, I may slave night and day, I reckon. The whole roof-tree, as a body may say, is on my shoulders, and what thanks? More hisses than thanks, more knocks than fair words."

Never so well pleased as when opportunity was afforded for grumbling, the dame addressed herself again to her evening avocations.

Pondering deeply what should be the issue of these things, Gervase set out with Grace Ashton to her house at Clegg Hall, a good mile distant. Evening had closed in--a chill wind blew from the hills. The west had lost its splendour, but a pure transparent brightness filled its place, across which the dark wavy outline of the high moorlands rested in deep unvarying shadow. In these bright depths a still brighter star hung, pure and of a diamond-like lustre, the precursor, the herald of a blazing host just rising into view.

As they walked on, it may well be supposed that the strange occurrences of the last few hours were the engrossing theme of their discourse.

"My mother is a little too superstitious, I am aware," said Gervase; "but what I have witnessed to-night has rendered me something more credulous on this head than aforetime."

"I don't half like this neighbourhood," said his companion, looking round. "It hath an ill name, and I could almost fancy the Red Woman again, just yonder in our path."

She looked wistfully; it was only the mist creeping lazily on with the stream.

They were now ascending the hill towards Beil or Belfield, where the Knights Templars had formerly an establishment. Not a vestage now remains, though at that period a ruinous tower covered with ivy, a gateway, and an arch, existed as relics of their former grandeur.

"Here lived the Lady Eleanor Byron," said Grace, pointing to the old hall close by, and as though an unpleasant recollection had crossed her. She shuddered as they passed by the grim archway beneath the tower. Whether it was fancy or reality she knew not, but as she looked curiously through its ivied tracery she thought the Red Woman was peering out maliciously upon them. She shrank aside, and pointed to the spot; but there was nothing visible save the dark and crumbling ruins, from which their steps were echoed with a dull and sullen sound.

The night wind sighed round the grey battlements, and from its hidden recesses came moans and whispers--at least so it seemed to their heated imaginations.

"Let us hasten hence," said Grace; "I like not this lonely spot. There was always a fear and a mystery about it. The tale of the invisible sylphid and Eleanor Byron's elfish lover haunts me whenever I pass by, and I feel as though something was near, observing and influencing every movement and every thought."

"Come, come, a-done I pray. Let not fear o'ermaster reason, else we shall see bogles in every bush."

Above the gateway, in the little square tower now pulled down, was a loophole, nearly concealed by climbing shrubs, which rendered it easy for a person within to look out without being observed. As they passed a low humming din was heard. Then a rude ditty trolled from some not unskilful performer. The lovers stayed to listen, when a dark figure issued out of the gateway singing--

"The bat haunts the tower, And the redbreast the bower, And the merry little sparrow by the chimney hops, Good e'en, hoots master owl, To-whoo, to-whoo, his troll, Sing heigho, swing the can with"----

"What, thee, Tim! Is that thy stupid face?" said Gervase, breaking in upon his ditty, and right glad to be delivered from supernatural fears, though the object of them proved only this strolling minstrel. "Thou might as well kill us outright as frighten us to death."

He that stood before them was one of those wandering musicians that haunt fairs and merry-makings, wakes, and such like pastimes; playing the fiddle and jewtrump too at weddings and alehouses; in short, any sort of idleness never came amiss to these representatives of the old Troubadours. A tight oval cap covered his shaggy poll; he was clad in a coarse doublet or jerkin slashed in the fashion of the time, while his nether integuments were fastened in the primitive mode by a wooden skewer. He could conjure too, and play antics to set the folks agape; but as to his honesty, it was of that dubious sort that few cared to have it in trust. He was apt at these alehouse ditties--many of them his own invention. He knew all the choicest ballads too, so that his vocation was much akin to the jogleurs or jongleurs of more ancient times, when Richard of the Lion's Heart and other renowned monarchs disdained not "the gentle craft of poesie."

Wherever was a feast, let it be a wedding or a funeral, Tim, like the harpies of old, scented the meat, and some of his many vocations were generally in request.

This important functionary now stood whistling and singing by turns with the most admired unconcern.

"What's thy business here?" cried Gervase, approaching him.

"The maid was fair, and the maid was coy, But the lover left, and the maid said 'Why?' Sing O the green willow!"

"Answerest thou me with thy trumpery ditties? I'll have thee put i' the stocks, sirrah."

"Oh, ha' mercy, master! there's naught amiss 'at I know. I'm but takin' roost here wi' the owls an' jackdaws a bit, maybe for want o' better lyin'."

"It were hard to have a better knack at lying than thou hast already. Hast gotten the weather into thy lodgings? When didst flit to thy new quarters?"

"Th' hay-mow at Clegg is ower savoured wi' the new crop, an' I want fresh air for my studies."

"Now art thou lying"----

"Like a lover to his sweetheart," said Tim, interrupting him, and finishing the sentence.

"Peace, knave! There's some mischief i' the wind. Thou'rt after no good, I trow."