English literature -- England -- Lancashire; Legends -- England -- Lancashire
The chapel which he built is said to have been vowed at Flodden, but
this statement is evidently untrue, having no foundation but the
averments of those who content not themselves with a plain narrative of
facts, but assume a licence to invent motives agreeable to their own
folly or caprice. That Sir Edward Stanley made any such vow we cannot
imagine, much less would he put it into execution. "Let us eat and
drink, for to-morrow we die," was the governing principle of his life,
and the mainspring of his actions. It would be a strange anomaly in the
records of human opinions to find an edifice reared to perpetuate a
belief which the founder thought a delusion, a mere system of
priestcraft and superstition. To this prominent feature in his history
our attention has been directed, and we think the following tradition
assigns a better and more plausible motive for the founding of that
beautiful structure, the chapel at Hornby.
It was by the still light of a cloudless harvest-moon that two men
appeared to be sauntering up the stream that winds through the vale near
Hornby. One of them wore a clerical habit, and the other, from his
dress, seemed to attend in the capacity of a menial. They rested at the
foot of a steep cliff overhung with firs and copse-wood. The castle,
upon the summit, with its tall and narrow tower, like a feather stuck in
its crown, was not visible from where they sat. The moon threw an
unclouded lustre from her broad full face far away over the wide and
heavy woods by which they were surrounded. A shallow bend of the stream
towards the left glittered over its bed like molten silver, issuing from
a dark and deep pool shaded by the jutting boughs and grim-visaged rocks
from whence they hung.
The travellers now ascended by a narrow and precipitous path. Their task
was continued with no little difficulty, by reason of the looseness of
the soil, and the huge rocks that obstructed their progress. By dint of
scrambling, rather than walking, they, however, approached to the
summit, when a light became visible over the hill, growing brighter as
they ascended. It was the castle turret, where Lord Monteagle generally
spent the greater part of the night in study. Whatever might be the
precise nature of his pursuits, they were not supposed to be of the most
reputable sort.
"Wizard spells and rites unholy"
were said to occupy these midnight vigils. Often, as that lonely
watch-tower caught the eye of the benighted peasant, did he cross
himself, and fancy that shadows were flitting to and fro on the
trembling and distant beam.
"There it is," said the hindmost person, who was none other than the
parson of Slaidburn. "That lantern, I think, is unquenchable. Does thy
master never quit yon burning pinnacle?"
"May be," replied the servant, "he careth not to be oft abroad; and who
dare thwart his will? 'Troth he had need be of a tough temper that
should give him speech unquestioned."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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