hillsborough and its outlying suburbs make bricks by the million, spin and weave both wool and cotton, forge in steel from the finest needle up to a ship's armor, and so add considerably to the kingdom's wealth.
but industry so vast, working by steam on a limited space, has been fatal to beauty: hillsborough, though built on one of the loveliest sites in england, is perhaps the most hideous town in creation. all ups and down and back slums. not one of its wriggling, broken-backed streets has handsome shops in an unbroken row. houses seem to have battled in the air, and stuck wherever they tumbled down dead out of the melee. but worst of all, the city is pockmarked with public-houses, and bristles with high round chimneys. these are not confined to a locality, but stuck all over the place like cloves in an orange. they defy the law, and belch forth massy volumes of black smoke, that hang like acres of crape over the place, and veil the sun and the blue sky even in the brightest day. but in a fog—why, the air of hillsborough looks a thing to plow, if you want a dirty job.
more than one crystal stream runs sparkling down the valleys, and enters the town; but they soon get defiled, and creep through it heavily charged with dyes, clogged with putridity, and bubbling with poisonous gases, till at last they turn to mere ink, stink, and malaria, and people the churchyards as they crawl.
this infernal city, whose water is blacking, and whose air is coal, lies in a basin of delight and beauty: noble slopes, broad valleys, watered by rivers and brooks of singular beauty, and fringed by fair woods in places; and, eastward, the hills rise into mountains, and amongst them towers cairnhope, striped with silver rills, and violet in the setting sun.
cairnhope is a forked mountain, with a bosom of purple heather and a craggy head. between its forks stood, at the period of my story, a great curiosity; which merits description on its own account, and also as the scene of curious incidents to come.
it was a deserted church. the walls were pierced with arrow-slits, through which the original worshipers had sent many a deadly shaft in defense of their women and cattle, collected within the sacred edifice at the first news of marauders coming.
built up among the heathery hills in times of war and trouble, it had outlived its uses. its people had long ago gone down into the fruitful valley, and raised another church in their midst, and left this old house of god alone, and silent as the tombs of their forefathers that lay around it.
it was no ruin, though on the road to decay. one of the side walls was much lower than the other, and the roof had two great waves, and was heavily clothed, in natural patterns, with velvet moss, and sprinkled all over with bright amber lichen: a few tiles had slipped off in two places, and showed the rafters brown with time and weather: but the structure was solid and sound; the fallen tiles lay undisturbed beneath the eaves; not a brick, not a beam, not a gravestone had been stolen, not even to build the new church: of the diamond panes full half remained; the stone font was still in its place, with its gothic cover, richly carved; and four brasses reposed in the chancel, one of them loose in its bed.
what had caused the church to be deserted had kept it from being desecrated; it was clean out of the way. no gypsy, nor vagrant, ever slept there, and even the boys of the village kept their distance. nothing would have pleased them better than to break the sacred windows time had spared, and defile the graves of their forefathers with pitch-farthing and other arts; but it was three miles off, and there was a lion in the way: they must pass in sight of squire raby's house; and, whenever they had tried it, he and his groom had followed them on swift horses that could jump as well as gallop, had caught them in the churchyard, and lashed them heartily; and the same night notice to quit had been given to their parents, who were all mr. raby's weekly tenants: and this had led to a compromise and flagellation.
once or twice every summer a more insidious foe approached. some little party of tourists, including a lady, who sketched in water and never finished anything, would hear of the old church, and wander up to it. but mr. raby's trusty groom was sure to be after them, with orders to keep by them, under guise of friendship, and tell them outrageous figments, and see that they demolished not, stole not, sculptured not.
all this was odd enough in itself, but it astonished nobody who knew mr. raby. his father and predecessor had guarded the old church religiously in his day, and was buried in it, by his own orders; and, as for guy raby himself, what wonder he respected it, since his own mind, like that old church, was out of date, and a relic of the past?
an antique tory squire, nursed in expiring jacobitism, and cradled in the pride of race; educated at oxford, well read in books, versed in county business, and acquainted with trade and commerce; yet puffed up with aristocratic notions, and hugging the very prejudices our nobility are getting rid of as fast as the vulgar will let them.
he had a sovereign contempt for tradespeople, and especially for manufacturers. any one of those numerous disputes between masters and mechanics, which distinguish british industry, might have been safely referred to him, for he abhorred and despised them both with strict impartiality.
the lingering beams of a bright december day still gilded the moss-clad roof of that deserted church, and flamed on its broken panes, when a young man came galloping toward it, from hillsborough, on one of those powerful horses common in that district.
he came so swiftly and so direct, that, ere the sun had been down twenty minutes, he and his smoking horse had reached a winding gorge about three furlongs from the church. here, however, the bridle-road, which had hitherto served his turn across the moor, turned off sharply toward the village of cairnhope, and the horse had to pick his way over heather, and bog, and great loose stones. he lowered his nose, and hesitated more than once. but the rein was loose upon his neck, and he was left to take his time. he had also his own tracks to guide him in places, for this was by no means his first visit; and he managed so well, that at last he got safe to a mountain stream which gurgled past the north side of the churchyard: he went cautiously through the water, and then his rider gathered up the reins, stuck in the spurs, and put him at a part of the wall where the moonlight showed a considerable breach. the good horse rose to it, and cleared it, with a foot to spare; and the invader landed in the sacred precincts unobserved, for the road he had come by was not visible from raby house, nor indeed was the church itself.
he was of swarthy complexion, dressed in a plain suit of tweed, well made, and neither new nor old. his hat was of the newest fashion, and glossy. he had no gloves on.
he dismounted, and led his horse to the porch. he took from his pocket a large glittering key and unlocked the church-door; then gave his horse a smack on the quarter. that sagacious animal walked into the church directly, and his iron hoofs rang strangely as he paced over the brick floor of the aisle, and made his way under the echoing vault, up to the very altar; for near it was the vestry-chest, and in that chest his corn.
the young man also entered the church; but soon came out again with a leathern bucket in his hand. he then went round the church, and was busily employed for a considerable time.
he returned to the porch, carried his bucket in, and locked the door, leaving the key inside.
that night abel eaves, a shepherd, was led by his dog, in search of a strayed sheep, to a place rarely trodden by the foot of man or beast, viz., the west side of cairnhope peak. he came home pale and disturbed, and sat by the fireside in dead silence. “what ails thee, my man?” said janet, his wife; “and there's the very dog keeps a whimpering.”
“what ails us, wife? pincher and me? we have seen summat.”
“what was it?” inquired the woman, suddenly lowering her voice.
“cairnhope old church all o' fire inside.”
“bless us and save us!” said janet, in a whisper.
“and the fire it did come and go as if hell was a blowing at it. one while the windows was a dull red like, and the next they did flare so, i thought it would all burst out in a blaze. and so 'twould, but, bless your heart, their heads ha'n't ached this hundred year and more, as lighted that there devilish fire.”
he paused a moment, then said, with sudden gravity and resignation and even a sort of half business-like air, “wife, ye may make my shroud, and sew it and all; but i wouldn't buy the stuff of bess crummles; she is an ill-tongued woman, and came near making mischief between you and me last lammermas as ever was.”
“shroud!” cried mrs. eaves, getting seriously alarmed. “why, abel, what is cairnhope old church to you? you were born in an other parish.”
abel slapped his thigh. “ay, lass, and another county, if ye go to that.” and his countenance brightened suddenly.
“and as for me,” continued janet, “i'm cairnhope; but my mother came from morpeth, a widdy: and she lies within a hundred yards of where i sit a talking to thee. there's none of my kin laid in old cairnhope churchyard. warning's not for thee, nor me, nor yet for our jock. eh, lad, it will be for squire raby. his father lies up there, and so do all his folk. put on thy hat this minute, and i'll hood myself, and we'll go up to raby hall, and tell squire.”
abel objected to that, and intimated that his own fireside was particularly inviting to a man who had seen diabolical fires that came and went, and shone through the very stones and mortar of a dead church.
“nay, but,” said janet, “they sort o' warnings are not to be slighted neither. we must put it off on to squire, or i shall sleep none this night.”
they went up, hand in hand, and often looked askant upon the road.
when they got to the hall, they asked to see mr. raby. after some demur they were admitted to his presence, and found him alone, so far as they could judge by the naked eye; but, as they arrived there charged to the muzzle with superstition, the room presented to their minds some appearances at variance with this seeming solitude. several plates were set as if for guests, and the table groaned, and the huge sideboard blazed, with old silver. the squire himself was in full costume, and on his bosom gleamed two orders bestowed upon his ancestors by james iii. and charles iii. in other respects he was rather innocuous, being confined to his chair by an attack of gout, and in the act of sipping the superannuated compound that had given it him—port. nevertheless, his light hair, dark eyebrows, and black eyes, awed them, and co-operated with his brilliant costume and the other signs of company, to make them wish themselves at the top of cairnhope peak. however, they were in for it, and told their tale, but in tremulous tones and a low deprecating voice, so that if the room should happen to be infested with invisible grandees from the other world, their attention might not be roused unnecessarily.
mr. raby listened with admirable gravity; then fixed his eyes on the pair, in silence; and then said in a tone so solemn it was almost sepulchral, “this very day, nearly a century and a half ago, sir richard raby was beheaded for being true to his rightful king—”
“eh, dear poor gentleman! so now a walks.” it was janet who edged in this—
“and,” continued the gentleman, loftily ignoring the comment, “they say that on this night such of the rabys as died catholics hold high mass in the church, and the ladies walk three times round the churchyard; twice with their veils down, once with bare faces, and great eyes that glitter like stars.”
“i wouldn't like to see the jades,” quavered abel: “their ladyships i mean, axing their pardon.”
“nor i!” said janet, with a great shudder.
“it would not be good for you,” suggested the squire; “for the first glance from those dead and glittering eyes strikes any person of the lower orders dumb, the second, blind; the third, dead. so i'm informed. therefore—let me advise you never to go near cairnhope old church at night.”
“not i, sir,” said the simple woman.
“nor your children: unless you are very tired of them.”
“heaven forbid, sir! but oh, sir, we thought it might be a warning like.”
“to whom?”
“why, sir, th' old squire lies there; and heaps more of your folk: and so abel here was afear'd—but you are the best judge; we be no scholars. th' old church warn't red-hot from eend to eend for naught: that's certain.”
“oh it is me you came to warn?” said raby, and his lip curled.
“well, sir,” (mellifluously), “we thought you had the best right to know.”
“my good woman,” said the warned, “i shall die when my time comes. but i shall not hurry myself, for all the gentlemen in paradise, nor all the blackguards upon earth.”
he spake, and sipped his port with one hand, and waved them superbly back to their village with the other.
but, when they were gone, he pondered.
and the more he pondered, the further he got from the prosaic but singular fact.
