The Lancashire Witches (Historical Novel). William Harrison Ainsworth

      There was a pause for a few moments, broken only by the sobs of the abbot. At length, the monk spoke.

      “And the prisoner perished in the cell?” he demanded in a hollow voice.

      “I thought so till to-night,” replied the abbot. “But if he escaped it, it must have been by miracle; or by aid of those powers with whom he was charged with holding commerce.”

      “He did escape!” thundered the monk, throwing back his hood. “Look up, John Paslew. Look up, false abbot, and recognise thy victim.”

      “Borlace Alvetham!” cried the abbot. “Is it, indeed, you?”

      “You see, and can you doubt?” replied the other. “But you shall now hear how I avoided the terrible death to which you procured my condemnation. You shall now learn how I am here to repay the wrong you did me. We have changed places, John Paslew, since the night when I was thrust into the cell, never, as you hoped, to come forth. You are now the criminal, and I the witness of the punishment.”

      “Forgive me! oh, forgive me! Borlace Alvetham, since you are, indeed, he!” cried the abbot, falling on his knees.

      “Arise, John Paslew!” cried the other, sternly. “Arise, and listen to me. For the damning offences into which I have been led, I hold you responsible. But for you I might have died free from sin. It is fit you should know the amount of my iniquity. Give ear to me, I say. When first shut within that dungeon, I yielded to the promptings of despair. Cursing you, I threw myself upon the pallet, resolved to taste no food, and hoping death would soon release me. But love of life prevailed. On the second day I took the bread and water allotted me, and ate and drank; after which I scaled the narrow staircase, and gazed through the thin barred loophole at the bright blue sky above, sometimes catching the shadow of a bird as it flew past. Oh, how I yearned for freedom then! Oh, how I wished to break through the stone walls that held me fast! Oh, what a weight of despair crushed my heart as I crept back to my narrow bed! The cell seemed like a grave, and indeed it was little better. Horrible thoughts possessed me. What if I should be wilfully forgotten? What if no food should be given me, and I should be left to perish by the slow pangs of hunger? At this idea I shrieked aloud, but the walls alone returned a dull echo to my cries. I beat my hands against the stones, till the blood flowed from them, but no answer was returned; and at last I desisted from sheer exhaustion. Day after day, and night after night, passed in this way. My food regularly came. But I became maddened by solitude; and with terrible imprecations invoked aid from the powers of darkness to set me free. One night, while thus employed, I was startled by a mocking voice which said,

      “‘All this fury is needless. Thou hast only to wish for me, and I come.’

      “It was profoundly dark. I could see nothing but a pair of red orbs, glowing like flaming carbuncles.

      “‘Thou wouldst be free,’ continued the voice. ‘Thou shalt be so. Arise, and follow me.’

      “At this I felt myself grasped by an iron arm, against which all resistance would have been unavailing, even if I had dared to offer it, and in an instant I was dragged up the narrow steps. The stone wall opened before my unseen conductor, and in another moment we were upon the roof of the dormitory. By the bright starbeams shooting down from above, I discerned a tall shadowy figure standing by my side.

      “‘Thou art mine,’ he cried, in accents graven for ever on my memory; ‘but I am a generous master, and will give thee a long term of freedom. Thou shalt be avenged upon thine enemy—deeply avenged.’

      “‘Grant this, and I am thine,’ I replied, a spirit of infernal vengeance possessing me. And I knelt before the fiend.

      “‘But thou must tarry for awhile,’ he answered, ‘for thine enemy’s time will be long in coming; but it will come. I cannot work him immediate harm; but I will lead him to a height from which he will assuredly fall headlong. Thou must depart from this place; for it is perilous to thee, and if thou stayest here, ill will befall thee. I will send a rat to thy dungeon, which shall daily devour the provisions, so that the monks shall not know thou hast fled. In thirty and one years shall the abbot’s doom be accomplished. Two years before that time thou mayst return. Then come alone to Pendle Hill on a Friday night, and beat the water of the moss pool on the summit, and I will appear to thee and tell thee more. Nine and twenty years, remember!’

      “With these words the shadowy figure melted away, and I found myself standing alone on the mossy roof of the dormitory. The cold stars were shining down upon me, and I heard the howl of the watch-dogs near the gate. The fair abbey slept in beauty around me, and I gnashed my teeth with rage to think that you had made me an outcast from it, and robbed me of a dignity which might have been mine. I was wroth also that my vengeance should be so long delayed. But I could not remain where I was, so I clambered down the buttress, and fled away.”

      “Can this be?” cried the abbot, who had listened in rapt wonderment to the narration. “Two years after your immurement in the cell, the food having been for some time untouched, the wall was opened, and upon the pallet was found a decayed carcase in mouldering, monkish vestments.”

      “It was a body taken from the charnel, and placed there by the demon,” replied the monk. “Of my long wanderings in other lands and beneath brighter skies I need not tell you; but neither absence nor lapse of years cooled my desire of vengeance, and when the appointed time drew nigh I returned to my own country, and came hither in a lowly garb, under the name of Nicholas Demdike.”

      “Ha!” exclaimed the abbot.

      “I went to Pendle Hill, as directed,” pursued the monk, “and saw the Dark Shape there as I beheld it on the dormitory roof. All things were then told me, and I learnt how the late rebellion should rise, and how it should be crushed. I learnt also how my vengeance should be satisfied.”

      Paslew groaned aloud. A brief pause ensued, and deep emotion marked the accents of the wizard as he proceeded.

      “When I came back, all this part of Lancashire resounded with praises of the beauty of Bess Blackburn, a rustic lass who dwelt in Barrowford. She was called the Flower of Pendle, and inflamed all the youths with love, and all the maidens with jealousy. But she favoured none except Cuthbert Ashbead, forester to the Abbot of Whalley. Her mother would fain have given her to the forester in marriage, but Bess would not be disposed of so easily. I saw her, and became at once enamoured. I thought my heart was seared; but it was not so. The savage beauty of Bess pleased me more than the most refined charms could have done, and her fierce character harmonised with my own. How I won her matters not, but she cast off all thoughts of Ashbead, and clung to me. My wild life suited her; and she roamed the wastes with me, scaled the hills in my company, and shrank not from the weird meetings I attended. Ill repute quickly attended her, and she became branded as a witch. Her aged mother closed her doors upon her, and those who would have gone miles to meet her, now avoided her. Bess heeded this little. She was of a nature to repay the world’s contumely with like scorn, but when her child was born the case became different. She wished to save it. Then it was,” pursued Demdike, vehemently, and regarding the abbot with flashing eyes—“then it was that I was again mortally injured by you. Then your ruthless decree to the clergy went forth. My child was denied baptism, and became subject to the fiend.”

      “Alas! alas!” exclaimed Paslew.

      “And as if this were not injury enough,” thundered Demdike, “you have called down a withering and lasting curse upon its innocent head, and through it transfixed its mother’s heart. If you had complied with that poor girl’s request, I would have forgiven you your wrong to me, and have saved you.”

      There was a long, fearful silence. At last Demdike advanced to the abbot, and, seizing his arm, fixed his eyes upon him, as if to search into his soul.

      “Answer me, John Paslew!” he cried; “answer me, as you shall speedily answer your Maker. Can that malediction be recalled? Dare not to trifle with me, or I will tear forth your black heart, and cast it in your face. Can that curse be recalled? Speak!”

      “It cannot,” replied the abbot, half dead with terror.