Strange Pages from Family PapersThiselton-Dyer, T. F. (Thomas Firminger)
History
Strange Pages from Family Papers
Thiselton-Dyer, T. F. (Thomas Firminger)
Legends; Superstition
"She made him no reply, but, after a few minutes' silence, she
suddenly exclaimed, 'O, what shall we do? I have left my money behind
me in my room!'
"'Then,' said he, 'we must go and fetch it.' They were soon again at
the house, the ladder was again placed, the lady remounted, while the
ill-natured lover waited below. But she delayed to come, and so he
gently called, 'Are you coming?' when she looked out of the window
and said, 'Perhaps I may, and perhaps not,' then shut down the window,
and left him to return upon the double horse alone."
But, if traditionary lore is to be believed, the sudden disappearance
of the bride on her wedding day has had, in more than one instance, a
very romantic and tragic origin. There is the well-known story which
tells how Lord Lovel married a young lady, a baron's daughter, who, on
the wedding night, proposed that the guests should play at
"hide-and-seek." Accordingly, the bride hid herself in an old oak
chest, but the lid falling down, shut her in, for it went with a
spring lock. Lord Lovel and the rest of the company sought her that
night and many days in succession, but nowhere could she be found. Her
strange disappearance for many years remained an unsolved mystery, but
some time afterwards the fatal chest was sold, which, on being opened,
was found to contain the skeleton of the long-lost bride. This popular
story was made the subject of a song, entitled "The Mistletoe Bough,"
by Thomas Haynes Bayley, who died in 1839; and Marwell Old Hall, near
Winchester, once the residence of the Seymours, and afterwards of the
Dacre family, has a similar tradition attached to it. Indeed, the very
chest has been preserved in the hall of Upham Rectory, having been
removed from Marwell some forty years ago. The great house at
Malsanger, near Basingstoke, has a story of a like nature connected
with it, reminding us of that of Tony Forster in Kenilworth, and of
Rogers's Ginevra:
"There then had she found a grave!
Within that chest had she concealed herself,
Fluttering with joy, the happiest of the happy,
When a spring lock that lay in ambush there,
Fastened her down for ever."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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