the terrors of a solitary house.

the citizen who lives in a compact house in the centre of a great city; whose doors and windows are secured at night by bars, bolts, shutters, locks, and hinges of the most approved and patented construction; who, if he look out of doors, looks upon splendid rows of lamps; upon human habitations all about him; whose house can only be assailed behind by climbing over the tops of other houses; or before, by eluding troops of passengers and watchmen, whom the smallest alarm would hurry to the spot: i say, if such a man could be suddenly set down in one of our many thousand country houses, what a feeling of unprotected solitude would fall upon him. to sit by the fire of many a farm-house, or cottage, and hear the unopposed wind come sighing and howling about it; to hear the trees swaying and rustling in the gale, infusing a most forlorn sense of the absence of all neighbouring[140] abodes; to look on the simple casements and the old-fashioned locks and bolts, and to think what would their resistance be to the determined attack of bold thieves;—i imagine it would give many such worthy citizen a new and not very enviable feeling. but if he were to step out before the door of such a house at nine or ten o’clock of a winter or autumnal night, what a state of naked jeopardy it would seem to stand in! perhaps all solitary darkness;—nothing to be heard but the sound of neighbouring woods; or the roar of distant waters; or the baying of the ban-dogs at the scattered and far-off farm-houses; the wind puffing upon him with a wild freshness, as from the face of vast and solitary moors; or perhaps some gleam of moonlight, or the wild, lurid light which hovers in the horizon of a winter-night sky, revealing to him desolate wastes, or gloomy surrounding woods. in truth, there is many a sweet spot that, in summer weather, and by fair daylight, do seem very paradises; of which we exclaim, in passing, “ay! there could i live and die, and never desire to leave it!” there are thousands of such sweet places, which, when night drops down, assume strange horrors, and make us wish for towers and towns, watchmen, walkers of streets, and gaslight. one seems to have no security in any thing. a single house five or six miles from a neighbour. mercy! why it is the very place for a murder! what would it avail there to cry help! murder! murder might be perpetrated a dozen times before help could come!

just one such fancy as that, and what a prison! a trap! does such a place become to a fearful heart. we look on the walls, and think them slight as card-board; on the roof, and it becomes in our eyes no better than a layer of rushes. if we were attacked here, it were all over! this gimcrack tenement would be crushed in before the brawny hand of a thief. and to think of out-of-doors! yes! of that pleasant out-of-doors, which in the day we glorified ourselves in. those forest tracts of heath, and gorse, and flowering broom, where the trout hid themselves beneath the overhanging banks of the most transparent streams—ugh! they are now the very lurking-places of danger! what admirable concealment for liers-in-wait, are the deep beds of heather. how black do those bushes of broom and gorse look to a suspicious fancy! they are just the very things[141] for lurking assassins to crouch behind. and what is worse, those woods! those woods that come straggling up to the very doors; putting forward a single tree here and there, as advanced guards of picturesque beauty in the glowing summer noon, or in the spring, when their leaves are all delicately new. beauty! how could we ever think them beautiful, though we saw them stand in their assembled majesty; though they did tower aloft with their rugged, gashed, and deeply-indented stems, and make a sound as of many waters in their tops, and cast down pleasant shadows on the mossy turf beneath; and though the thrush and the nightingale did sing triumphantly in their thickets. beautiful! they are horrible! their blackness of darkness now makes us shudder. their breezy roar is fearful beyond description. let daylight and summer sunshine come, and make them look as pleasant as they will, we would not have a wood henceforward within a mile of us. why, up to the walls of your house, under your very windows, may evil eyes now be glaring from behind those sturdy boles;—they seem to have grown there just to suit the purposes of robbery and murder. we look now to the dogs and guns for assistance, but they give us but cold comfort: for the guns only remind us that at this moment the muzzle of one may be at that chink in the shutter, at that hole out of which a knot has dropped, and in another moment we are in eternity! and the dogs!—see, they rise! they set up the bristles on their backs! they growl! they bark! our fears are true! the place is beset!

this may seem rather exaggerated, read by good daylight, or by the fire of a city hearth; but this is the natural spirit of the solitary house. it is that which many a one has felt. it has cured many a one of longing to live in a “sweet sequestered cot;” nay, it is the spirit felt by the naturalized inhabitants of such solitary places. i look upon such places to generate fears and superstitions too, in no ordinary degree. the inhabitants of solitary houses are often most arrant cowards; and for this there are many causes. a sense of exposure to danger if it be not lost by time, is more likely to generate timidity of disposition than courage. then, the sound of woods and waters; the mysterious sighings and moanings, and lumberings, that winds and other causes occasion amongst the old walls and decayed roofs, and ill-fastened[142] doors and casements of large old country houses, have a wonderful influence on the minds of the ignorant and simple, who pass their lives in the solitude of fields; and go to and fro between their homes and the scene of their duties, often through deep and lonesome dells, through deep, o’ershadowed lanes by night; by the cross-road, and over the dreary moor: all places of no good character. superstitious legends hang all about such neighbourhoods; and traditions enough to freeze the blood of the ignorant, taint a dozen spots round every such place. in this field a girl was killed by her jealous, or only too favoured lover: to the boughs of that old oak, a man was found hanging: in that deep dark pool the poor blind fiddler was found drowned: in that old stone-quarry, and under that high cliff, deeds were done that have mingled a blackness with their name. nay, in one such locality, the head of a woodman was found by some mowers returning in the evening from their work. there it lay in the green path of a narrow dingle, horrid and blackening in the sun. it was supposed to have been severed from the wretched man’s body with his own axe, by a band of poachers, who charged him with being a spy upon them. the body was found cast into a neighbouring marsh.

what lonely country but has these petrifying horrors? and is it wonderful that they have their effect on the simple peasantry? especially as they are the constant topics round the evening fire, along with a thousand haunted-house and churchyard stories; ghosts, and highway robberies, and

horrid stabs in groves forlorn,

and murders done in caves.—hood.

the very means of defence sometimes become the aggravators of their evils. the dogs and guns have added to the catalogue of their tales of horror. the dogs, as conscious of their solitary station as their masters, and with true canine instinct, feeling a great charge and responsibility upon them, set up the most clamourous barkings at the least noise in the night, and often seem to take a melancholy pleasure, a whole night through, in uttering such awful and long-spun howls as are seldom heard in more secure and cheerful situations. these are often looked upon as prognostics of family troubles, and occasion great fears. who[143] has not heard these dismal howlings at old halls, and been witness to the anxiety they occasioned? and, if a branch blown by the wind do but scrape against a pane, or an unlucky pig get into the garden, the dogs are all barking outrageously, and the family is up, in the certain belief that they are beset with thieves; and it has been no unfrequent circumstance, on retiring to rest again, that loaded pistols have been left about on tables, and the servants on coming down next morning, with that fatal propensity to sport with fire-arms, have playfully menaced, and actually shot one another in their rashness. such a catastrophe occurred in the family of a relative of mine, on just such an occasion. but truly, the horrors and depredations which formerly were perpetrated in such places, were enough to make a solitary house a terrible sojourn in the night. a single cottage on a great heath; a toll-bar on a wild road, far from a town; a wealthy farm-house in a retired region; an old hall or grange, amongst gloomy woods. these were places in which such outrages were committed in former years as filled the newspapers of the time with continual details of terror; and would furnish volumes of the most dreadful stories. it is said that the diminution of highway robberies and stopping of mails, once so frequent, has been in a great measure occasioned by the system of banking and paper-money. instead of travellers, carrying with them large bags of gold, a letter by post transmits a bill to any amount, which, if intercepted is of no use to the thief, because the fact is immediately notified to the bank, and payment prevented; and notes being numbered, makes it a matter of the highest risk to offer them, lest the public be apprized of the numbers, and the offender be secured. but the wonderful improvement of all our roads since the days of m‘adam, the consequently increased speed of travelling—the increased population and cultivation of the country, all have combined to spoil the trade of the public plunderer. and the press, as in other respects so in this, has added a marvellous influence. scarcely has a crime of any sort against society been committed, but it raises a hue and cry; handbills and paragraphs in newspapers are flying far and wide, and dexterous must be the offender who escapes. the house of a friend of mine was entered on a sunday night, and by means of handbills four of the thieves[144] were secured on the monday, and tried and transported on the tuesday. but fifty years ago this could not have been done in a country place. the traveller had to wade through mud and deep ruts, along our well-frequented roads; and if assailed it was impossible to fly. desperate bands of thieves made nocturnal assaults upon solitary houses; and, long ere a hue and cry could be raised, they had vanished into woods and heaths, or had fled beyond the slow flight of lumbering mails, and newspapers that did not reach their readers sometimes for a fortnight. those were the times for fearful tragedies in lonely dwellings, which even yet furnish thrilling themes for winter firesides.

there is an account of the attack of the house of colonel purcell, which appeared in the newspapers at the time, and was twice reprinted in the kaleidoscope, a liverpool literary paper; the last time soon after the gallant colonel’s death, in 1822, which, although it belongs to ireland, a country whence not volumes, but whole libraries of such recitals might be imported, i shall insert here, because it so well illustrates the sort of horrors to which lonely houses were, in this country, formerly very much exposed; and from which they are not now entirely exempt; and because perhaps no greater instance of manly courage is upon record. a similar one, of female intrepidity, in a young woman who defended a toll-bar, in which she was alone, against a band of thieves, and shot several of them, i recollect seeing some years ago in the newspapers.

extraordinary intrepidity of sir john purcell.

at the cork assizes, maurice noonan stood indicted for a burglary, and attempting to rob the house of sir john purcell, at highfort, on the night of the 11th of march, 1812.

sir john purcell said, that, on the night of the 11th of march last, after he had retired to bed, he heard some noise outside the window of his parlour. he slept on the ground-floor, in a room immediately adjoining the parlour. there was a door from one room into the other; but this having been found inconvenient, and there being another passage from the bed-chamber more accommodating, it was nailed up, and some of the furniture of the parlour[145] placed against it. shortly after sir john heard the noise in the front of his house, the windows of the parlour were dashed in, and the noise, occasioned by the feet of the robbers in leaping from the windows down upon the floor, appeared to denote a gang not less than fourteen in number, as it struck him. he immediately got out of bed; and the first resolution he took being to make resistance, it was with no small mortification that he reflected upon the unarmed condition in which he was placed, being destitute of a single weapon of the ordinary sort. in this state he spent little time in deliberation, as it almost immediately occurred to him, that, having supped in the bed-chamber on that night, a knife had been left behind by accident, and he instantly proceeded to grope in the dark for this weapon, which happily he found, before the door leading from the parlour into the bed-chamber had been broken. while he stood in calm but resolute expectation that the progress of the robbers would soon lead them to the bed-chamber, he heard the furniture which had been placed against the nailed-up door, expeditiously displaced, and immediately afterwards the door was burst open. the moon shone with great brightness, and when the door was thrown open, the light streaming in through three large windows in the parlour, afforded sir john a view that might have made an intrepid spirit not a little apprehensive. his bed-room was darkened to excess, in consequence of the shutters of the windows, as well as the curtains being closed; and thus while he stood enveloped in darkness, he saw standing before him, by the brightness of the moonlight, a body of men well armed; and of those who were in the van of the gang, he observed that a few were blackened. armed only with this case-knife, and aided only by a dauntless heart, he took his station by the side of the door, and in a moment after one of the villains entered from the parlour into the dark room. instantly upon advancing, sir john plunged the knife at him, the point of which entered under the right arm, and in a line with the nipple, and so home was the blow sent, that the knife passed into the robber’s body, until sir john’s hand stopped its further progress. upon receiving this thrust, the villain reeled back into the parlour, crying out blasphemously that he was killed; and shortly after another advanced, who was received in a similar manner, and who also staggered back into the parlour, crying out[146] that he was wounded. a voice from the outside gave orders to fire into the dark room. upon which, a man stepped forward with a short gun in his hand, which had the butt broke off at the small, and which had a piece of cord tied round the barrel and stock near the swell. as this fellow stood in the act to fire, sir john had the amazing coolness to look at his intended murderer, and without betraying any audible emotion whatever, which might point out the exact spot which he was standing in, he calmly calculated his own safety from the shot which was preparing for him. he saw that the contents of the piece were likely to pass close to his breast without menacing him with, at least, any serious wound, and in this state of pain and manly expectation, he stood without flinching until the piece was fired, and its contents harmlessly lodged in the wall. it was loaded with a brace of bullets and three slugs. as soon as the robber fired, sir john made a pass at him with the knife, and wounded him in the arm, which he repeated again in a moment with similar effect; and as the others had done, the villain after being wounded, retired, exclaiming that he was wounded. the robbers immediately rushed forward from the parlour into the dark room, and then it was that sir john’s mind recognised the deepest sense of danger, not to be oppressed by it, however, but to surmount it. he thought that all chance of preserving his own life was over; and he resolved to sell that life still dearer to his intended murderers, than even what they had already paid for the attempt to deprive him of it. he did not lose a moment after the villains had entered the room, to act with the determination he had so instantaneously adopted. he struck at the fourth fellow with his knife, and wounded him, and at the same instant he received a blow on the head, and found himself grappled with. he shortened his hold of the knife, and stabbed repeatedly at the fellow with whom he found himself engaged. the floor being slippery with the blood of the wounded men, sir john and his adversary both fell, and while they were on the ground, sir john thinking that his thrusts with his knife, though made with all his force, did not seem to produce the decisive effect, which they had in the beginning of the conflict, he examined the point of his weapon with his finger, and found that the blade of it had been bent near the point. as he lay struggling on the ground, he endeavoured, but unsuccessfully, to[147] straighten the curvature of the knife; but while one hand was employed in this attempt, he perceived that the grasp of his adversary was losing its constraint and pressure, and in a moment or two after, he found himself released from it; the limbs of the robber were, in fact, by this time, unnerved by death. sir john found that this fellow had a sword in his hand, and this he immediately seized, and gave several blows with it, his knife being no longer serviceable. at length the robbers, finding so many of their party had been killed or wounded, employed themselves in removing the bodies; and sir john took this opportunity of retiring to a place a little apart from the house, where he remained a short time. they dragged their companions into the parlour, and having placed chairs with the backs upwards, by means of these they lifted the bodies out of the windows, and afterwards took them away. when the robbers retired, sir john returned to the house, and called up a man-servant from his bed, who, during this long and bloody conflict, had not appeared, and had consequently received from his master warm and loud upbraiding for his cowardice. sir john then placed his daughter-in-law, and grandchild, who were his only inmates, in places of safety, and took such precautions as circumstances pointed out, till the daylight appeared. the next day, the alarm having been given, search was made after the robbers, and sir john, having gone to the house of the prisoner noonan, upon searching, he found concealed under his bed, the identical short gun with which one of the robbers had fired at him. noonan was immediately secured and sent to gaol, and upon being visited by sir john purcell, he acknowledged that sir john “had like to do for him,” and was proceeding to show, until sir john prevented him, the wounds he had received from the knife in his arm.

an accomplice of the name of john daniel sullivan was produced, who deposed to the same effect. the party met at noonan’s house; that they were nine in number, and had arms; that the prisoner was one of the number, and that he carried a small gun. upon the gun, which was in the court, being produced, with which sir john had been fired at, the witness said it was that with which the prisoner was armed the night of the attack; that two men were killed, and three dreadfully wounded. the witness stood a long and rigorous examination by mr. counsellor o’connell; but none[148] of the facts seemed to be shaken, though every use was made of the guilty character of the witness. the prisoner made no defence, and judge mayne then proceeded to charge the jury, and commended with approbation the bravery and presence of mind displayed throughout a conflict so very unequal and bloody, by sir john purcell. the jury, after a few minutes, returned their verdict—guilty.

but it was not only plunder which excited these fearful attacks; party and family feuds were prosecuted in the same savage spirit, even by the light of day. i have heard my wife’s mother relate the following incident, which occurred in her own neighbourhood. about sixty-five years ago there lived at llanelwth hall, midway between llandilo and llandovery, a gentleman of considerable fortune of the name of powell. he had separated from his wife, by whom he had two daughters,—and her brother, captain bowen, inflamed by the animosity which naturally arises out of such family divisions, and supposed to be instigated by a paramour of the lady’s of the name of williams, engaged, in concert with this williams, a band of men to accompany him on a pretended smuggling expedition; and having plied them well with promises of ample payment and plenty of liquor—a bottle of brandy and a pair of new shoes for the day—marched up to powell’s house at twelve o’clock at noon, and at the time of llandilo fair, when the conspirators knew that powell’s servants would be absent. the only persons actually left in the house with him, were an old woman, and a daughter of this very bowen’s. the conspirators advanced to the front door, and entered the hall, where the old woman met them. her they seized, and bound to the leg of an old massy oak table. powell, attracted to the hall by the noise, was immediately seized and literally hewn to pieces in the most horrible manner in the presence of the old woman, and of the murderer’s own daughter, who alarmed at the entrance of so grim a band, had concealed herself under this table. the girl from that hour lost her senses, and wandered about the country, a confirmed maniac. my informant often saw this girl at her mother’s, who was kind to her, and where she often therefore came, having a particular seat by the fire always left for her. in a lucid interval, they once ventured to ask her what she recollected of this shocking event. she said that she believed she[149] had fainted, and on coming to herself, saw her father stand with a hatchet over her uncle in the act to give him another blow, and that she actually saw her uncle’s face hanging over his shoulder. at this point of the recital, the recollection of the horrors of it came upon her so strongly, that she fell into one of her most violent fits of madness, and they never dared to mention the subject afterwards in her presence.

a fall of snow happening while the murderers were in the house, caused them to be tracked and secured, and bowen and several, if not all, of his accomplices were executed. williams made his escape, and was afterwards taken as a sailor on board an american vessel during the war, where he was recognised by some of his countrymen. he made, however, a second escape, as is supposed through the connivance of some relenting neighbour, and never was heard of afterwards. my informant well recollects two of these murderers coming to her mother’s house at cyfarthfa, a few days after the perpetration of the outrage, having so long managed to elude their pursuers. they were equipped as travelling tinkers; but they had new knapsacks, and what was more provocative of notice at that moment, very downcast and melancholy aspects. they felt by the looks which the mistress of the house fixed on them, that they were suspected, and immediately hastened away over the hills towards aberdare, where they were secured the next day.

a fact related by a minister of the society of friends, shews at once the primitive simplicity which still prevails in some retired districts, and the evident power of faith in providence over the spirit of evil. in one of the thinly-peopled dales of that very beautiful, and yet by parts, very bleak and dreary region—the peak of derbyshire, stood a single house far from neighbours. it was inhabited by a farmer and his family, who lived in such a state of isolation, so unmolested by intruders, and unapprehensive of danger, that they were hardly in the habit of fastening their door at night. the farmer who had a great distance to go to market, was sometimes late before he got back,—late it may be supposed according to their habits; for in such old-fashioned places, where there is nothing to excite and keep alive the attention but their daily labour, the good people when the day’s duties are at an end,[150] drop into bed almost before the sun himself; and are all up, and pursuing their several occupations, almost before the sun too. on these occasions, the good woman used to retire to rest at the usual time, and her husband returning found no latch nor bolt to obstruct his entrance. but one time the wife hearing some one come up to the door, and enter the house, supposed it was her husband; but, after the usual time had elapsed, and he did not come to bed, she got up and went down stairs, when her terror and astonishment may be imagined, for she saw a great sturdy fellow in the act of reconnoitring for plunder. at the first view of him, she afterwards said, she felt ready to drop; but being naturally courageous, and of a deeply religious disposition, she immediately recovered sufficient self-possession to avoid any outcry, and to walk with apparent firmness to a chair which stood on one side of the fireplace. the marauder immediately seated himself in another chair which stood opposite, and fixed his eyes upon her with a most savage expression. her courage was now almost spent; but recollecting herself, she put up an inward prayer to the almighty for protection, and threw herself upon his providence. she immediately felt her internal strength revive, and looked steadfastly at the man, who now had drawn from his pocket a large clasp-knife, opened it, and with a murderous expression in his eyes, appeared ready to spring upon her. she however evinced no visible emotion; she said not a word; but continued to pray for deliverance, or resignation; and to look on the fearful man with a calm seriousness. he rose up, looked at her, then at the knife; then wiped it across his hand; then again eagerly glanced at her; when, at once, a sudden damp seemed to fall upon him; his eyes seemed to blench before her still fixed gaze; he closed his knife, and went out. at a single spring she reached the door; shot the bolt with a convulsive rapidity, and fell senseless on the floor. when she recovered from her swoon, she was filled with the utmost anxiety on account of her husband, lest the villain should meet him by the way. but presently, she heard his well-known step; his well-known voice on finding the door fastened; and let him in with a heart trembling with mingled agitation and thankfulness. great as had been her faith on this occasion, and great the interposition of providence, we may be sure that she[151] would not risk the exercise of the one, or tempt the other, by neglecting in future to shoot the bolt of the door; and her husband, at once taught the danger of his house and of his own passage home, made it a rule to leave the market-town at least an hour earlier after the winter markets.

the unwelcome visitant in this anecdote is one of that class of offenders called “sturdy rogues.” of the real “sturdy rogue” the city, amongst all its numerous varieties of rogues, knows nothing. he forms one of the terrors of the solitary house. they are such places that he haunts, because he there finds opportunities in the absence of the men to frighten and bully the women. if he find only a single woman left, as is often the case in harvest time, or at fair or market time, when all the family that can leave have left, he then makes the terror of his presence a means of extorting large booty. what can be more fearful than for a single individual, but especially for a woman, at a lonely house, while all the men are absent in the fields, or elsewhere, to see a huge brawny fellow of ill looks come to the door, peering about with a suspicious inquisitiveness, armed with a sturdy staff, followed, perhaps, by a strong sullen bull-dog, professing himself a tinker, a rag-gatherer, a rat-catcher—anything, under which to hide evil designs? nothing, truly, can be more appalling, except when under the garb of a woman, you feel assured that you have a man before you; or a troop of fellows acting the distressed tradesmen, or sailors with nothing on their bodies, perhaps, but a pair of trousers, and on their heads a handkerchief tied. when such sturdy vagabonds come, and first cringe and beg in a piteous tone, till, having spied out the real nakedness of the place, as to physical strength, they rise in their demands, hint strange things; instead of going away when desired, walk into the house, grow insolent, and at length downright thievish and outrageous,—these are circumstances of peculiar terror not to be exceeded in human experience, and which yet have been often experienced by the dwellers in solitary houses.

i have heard a lady describe her sensations in such a situation. a figure in a man’s hat, tied down with an india silk handkerchief, blue cloak and stuff petticoat, suddenly appeared before her, and demanded a supply of articles of female attire. she offered half-a-crown[152] to be rid of this unpleasant guest, for there was something about her which filled the lady with apprehension; but the money was refused, and with a gesture that threw open the cloak, and revealed the real figure of a man, with naked arms, and in a white marseilles waistcoat. the demand for women’s garments was complied with as speedily as possible, and the person hastily went away. the next day, the lady on going to the neighbouring town, beheld a large handbill in the post-office window, offering a reward of 100l. for the apprehension of a delinquent charged with high crimes and misdemeanours, and described as “a dane well known to the nobility and gentry, having been master of the ceremonies at brighton and tunbridge wells.” it was the very description of her yesterday’s guest.

but when night is added to such a situation, how much is its fearfulness increased! imagine one or two unprotected women sitting by the fire of a lone house, on a winter’s evening, with a consciousness of the insecurity of their situation upon them. how instinct with danger becomes every thing, every movement, every sound!—the stirring of the trees—the whispering of the wind—the rustling of a leaf—the cry of a bird. they are not wishing to listen, but cannot help it; they are all sense; all eye and ear. a foot is heard without, and is lost again! a face is suddenly placed against a pane in the window! the latch of the door is slowly raised in their sight, or the click of one is heard where it is not seen. imagine this, and you imagine what has thrilled through the heart, and frozen the blood of many a tenant of a solitary house.

these are not the least of the causes that contribute to produce that timidity of disposition which, in an early part of the chapter, i have said to belong to many country people. my grandfather’s house was such a place. it stood in a solitary valley, with a great wood flanking the northern side. it had all sorts of legends and superstitions hanging about it. this field, and that lane, and one chamber or outbuilding or another, had a character that made them all hermetically sealed to a human foot after dark-hour, as it is there called. my grandmother was a bold woman in some respects, but these fears were perfectly triumphant over her; and she had, on one occasion, met with an incident which did not make her feel[153] very comfortable alone in her house, in the day time. an ajax of a woman once besieged her when left entirely by herself; who finding the doors secured against her, began smashing the windows with her fists, as with two sledge-hammers; and declared she would wash her hands in her heart’s blood. my grandfather too, had had a little adventure which just served to shew what courage he had, or rather had not. in that primitive time and place, if a tailor were wanted, he did not do his work at his own house, but came to that of his employer, and there worked, day after day, till the job was finished; that is, till all making and mending that could possibly be found about the house by a general examination of garments, was completed. he then adjourned to another house, and so went the round of the parish. i know not whether the tailors of those primitive times were as philosophical as heinrich johann jung stilling, and his fellows of germany, who thus went from house to house, and both there with their employers, and on sundays when they wandered into the woods, held the most interesting conversations on religion, philosophy, and literature: if this were the case, our country tailors have very much retrograded; and yet it would almost seem so, for my grandfather was passionately fond of paradise lost, and on a terribly snowy day had been reading it all day to the tailor, who had established himself by the parlour fire, with all his implements and work before him. he had been thus employed; but the tailor was gone, and the old gentleman having supped, dropped asleep on the sofa. when he awoke it was late in the night; no one had ventured to disturb him, but all had gone to bed. the house was still; the fire burning low; but he had scarcely become aware of his situation before he was aware also of the presence of some one. as he lay, he saw a man step out of the next room into the one in which he was. the man immediately caught sight of the old gentleman, and suddenly stopped, fixing his eyes upon him; and perhaps to ascertain whether he were asleep, he stepped back and drew himself up in the shadow of the clock-case. the old gentleman slowly raised himself up without a word, keeping his eyes fixed on the shadow of the clock-case, till he had gained his feet, when with a hop, stride, and jump, he cleared the floor, and flew up stairs at three steps at a time. here he raised a fierce alarm, crying—“there is a[154] sturdy rogue in the house! there is a sturdy rogue in the house!” but this alarm, instead of getting anybody up, only kept them faster in bed. neither man, woman, nor child, would stir; neither son nor servant, except to bolt every one his own chamber door. in the morning they found the thief had taken himself off through a window, with the modest loan of a piece of bacon.

this house, however, was not quite out of hearing of neighbours. beyond the wood was a village, thence called wood-end; and a large horn was hung in the kitchen at the fall,—so this house was named, which was blown on any occasion of alarm, and brought the inhabitants of the wood-end thither speedily. the cowardice which had grown upon this family in such matters,—for in others they were bold as lions, and one son was actually killed in a duel,—was become so notorious, that it once brought a good joke upon them. the farm-servants were sitting, after their day’s labour, by the kitchen fire at the close of a winter’s day. preparation was making for tea, and there were some of those rich tea-cakes which wealthy country ladies know so well how to make, in the act of buttering. now i dare say that the sight of those delicious cakes set the mouths of all those hearty working men a-watering; but there was a cunning rogue of a lad amongst them, who immediately conceived the felicitous design of getting possession of them. it is only necessary to say that his name was jack; for all jacks have a spice of roguery in them. jack was just cogitating on this enterprise, when his mistress said, “jack, those sheep in the hard-meadow have not been seen to-day. your legs are younger than anybody else’s; so up and count them before you go to bed;—it is moonlight.” jack, whose blood after the chill of the day was circulating most luxuriously in his veins before that warm hearth, felt inwardly chagrined that so many great lubberly fellows should be passed over, and this unwelcome business be put upon him. “ay,” thought he, “they may talk of young legs, but mistress knows very well that none of those burly fellows dare go all the way to the hard-meadow to-night,—through the dingle; over the brook; and past the hovel where old chalkings was found dead last august, with his hand still holding fast his tramp-basket, though his clothes were rotten on his back! no! jack must trudge, though the old gentleman himself were in the way!” this[155] persuasion furnished him at once with a scheme of revenge, and of coming at the tea-cakes. he therefore rose slowly, and with well-feigned reluctance; put on his clouted shoes, which he had put off to indulge his feet with their accustomed portion of liberty and warmth before he went to bed; and folding round him a sack-bag, the common mantle and dread-naught of carters and farmers in wet or cold weather, he went out. instead of marching off to the hard-meadow, however, of which he had not the most remote intention, he went leisurely round to the front door, which he knew would be unfastened; for what inhabitants of an old country-house would think of fastening doors till bed-time? he entered quietly; ascended the front stairs; and reaching a large, old oaken chest which stood on the landing-place, all carved and adorned with minster-work, he struck three bold strokes on the lid with a pebble which he had picked up in the yard for the purpose.

at the sound, up started every soul in the kitchen. “what is that?” said every one at once in consternation. the mistress ordered the maid to run and see; but the maid declared that she would not go for the world. “go you, then, betty cook—go joe—go harry!” no, neither betty, joe, harry, nor anybody else would stir a foot. they all stood together aghast, when a strange rumbling and grinding sound assailed their ears. it was jack rubbing the pebble a few times over the carved lid of the chest. this was too much for endurance. a great fellow in a paroxysm of terror, snatched down the horn from its nail, and blew a tremendous blast. it was not long neither before its effect was seen. the people of wood-end came running in a wild troop, armed with brooms, pitchforks, spits, scythes, and rusty swords. they were already assured by the dismal blast of the horn that something fearful had occurred, but the sight of the white faces of the family made them grow white too. “what is the matter! what is the matter in heaven’s name?” “o! such sounds, such rumblings, somewhere upstairs!” in the heat of the moment, if heat it could be called, it was resolved to move in a body to the mysterious spot. swords, scythes, pitchforks fell into due rank; candles were held by trembling hands; and in a truly fearful phalanx they marched across the sitting-room and reached the stair-foot. here was a sudden pause; for there seemed to be[156] heavy footsteps actually descending. they listened—tramp! tramp! it was true; and back fled the whole armed and alarmed troop into the kitchen, and banged the door after them. what was now to be done? every thing which fear could suggest or terror could enact was done. they were on the crisis of flying out of the house, and taking refuge at wood-end, when jack was heard cheerfully whistling as if returning from the field. jack had made the tramp upon the stairs; for, hearing the sound of the horn, and the approach of many feet below, he thought it was time to be going; and had the armed troop been courageous enough, they would have taken him in the fact. but their fears saved both him and his joke. he came up with a well-affected astonishment at seeing such a body of wild and strangely armed folk. “what is the matter?” exclaimed jack; and the matter was detailed by a dozen voices, and with a dozen embellishments. “pshaw!” said jack, “it is all nonsense, i know. it is a horse kicking in the stable; or a cat that has chucked a tile out of the gutter, or something. give me a candle; i durst go!” a candle was readily put into his hands, and he marched off, all following him to the foot of the staircase, but not a soul daring to mount a single step after him. up jack went—“why,” he shouted, “here’s nothing!” “o!” they cried from below, “look under the beds; look into the closets,” and look into every imaginable place. jack went very obediently, and duly and successively returned a shout, that there was nothing; it was all nonsense! at this there was more fear and consternation than ever. a thief might have been tolerated; but these supernatural noises! who was to sleep in such a house? there was nothing for it, however, but for them to adjourn and move to the kitchen, and talk it all over; and torture it into a thousand forms; and exaggerate it into something unprecedentedly awful and ominous. the wood-endians were regaled with a good portion of brown-stout; thanked for their valuable services, and they set off. the family was left alone. “mistress,” said jack, “now you’d better get your tea; i am sure you must want it.” “nay jack,” said she, “i have had my tea: no tea for me to-night. i haven’t a heart like thee, jack; take my share and welcome.”

jack sate down with the servant maids, and talked of this[157] strange affair, which he persisted in calling “all nonsense;” and devoured the cakes which he had determined to win. many a time did he laugh in his sleeve as he heard this “great fright,” as it came to be called, talked over, and painted in many new colours by the fireside; but he kept his counsel strictly while he continued to live there; for he knew a terrible castigation would be the sure consequence of a disclosure; but after he quitted the place, he made a full and merry confession to his new comrades, and occasioned one long laughter to run all the country round. the people of the fall, backed by the wood-endians, persisted that the noises were something supernatural, and that this was an after-invention of jack’s to disgrace them; but jack and the public continued to have the laugh on their side.

after all, i know not whether the world of sprites and hobgoblins may not assume a greater latitude of action and revelation in these out-of-the-world places than in populous ones; whether the lars and lemures, the fairies, robin-goodfellows, hobthrushes and barguests, may not linger about the regions where there is a certain quietness, a simplicity of heart and faith, and ample old rooms, attics, galleries and grim halls to range over, seeing that they hate cities, and knowledge, and the conceit that attends upon them; for certainly, i myself have seen such sights and heard such sounds as would puzzle dr. brewster himself, with all his natural magic, to account for. in an old house in which my father lived when i was a boy, we had such a capering of the chairs, or what seemed such in the rooms over our heads; such aerial music in a certain chimney corner, as if puck himself were playing on the bagpipes; such running of black cats up the bed-curtains and down again, and disappearing no one knew how; and such a variety of similar supernatural exhibitions, as was truly amusing. and a friend of mine, having suffered a joiner to lay a quantity of elm boards in a little room near a kitchen chimney to dry, was so annoyed by their tumbling and jumbling about, that when the man came the next day to fetch part of them, he desired him to take the whole, giving him the reason for it. “o!” said the man, “you need not be alarmed at that—that is always the way before a coffin is wanted!” as if the ghost of the deceased[158] came and selected the boards for the coffin of its old world-mate the body.

but enough of the terrors of solitary houses without those of superstition. i close my chapter; and yet i expect, dear readers, that in every place where you peruse this, you will say, “o, these are nothing to what i could have told. if mr. howitt had but heard so and so.” thank you, my kind and fair friends in a thousand places—i wish i had.