the magnificent conventual church, and dyed with rainbow hues the marble tombs of the Lacies, the founders of the establishment, brought thither when the monastery was removed from Stanlaw in Cheshire, and upon the brass-covered gravestones of the abbots in the presbytery. There lay Gregory de Northbury, eighth abbot of Stanlaw and first of Whalley, and William Rede, the last abbot; but there was never to lie John Paslew. The slumber of the ancient prelates was soon to be disturbed, and the sacred structure within which they had so often worshipped, up-reared by sacrilegious hands. But all was bright and beauteous now, and if no solemn strains were heard in the holy pile, its stillness was scarcely less reverential and awe-inspiring. The old abbey wreathed itself in all its attractions, as if to welcome back its former ruler, whereas it was only to receive him as a captive doomed to a felon’s death.
But this was outward show. Within all was terrible preparation. Such was the discontented state of the country, that fearing some new revolt, the Earl of Derby had taken measures for the defence of the abbey, and along the wide-circling walls of the close were placed ordnance and men, and within the grange stores of ammunition. A strong guard was set at each of the gates, and the courts were filled with troops. The bray of the trumpet echoed within the close, where rounds were set for the archers, and martial music resounded within the area of the cloisters. Over the great north-eastern gateway, which formed the chief entrance to the abbot’s lodging, floated the royal banner. Despite these warlike proceedings the fair abbey smiled beneath the sun, in all, or more than all, its pristine beauty, its green hills sloping gently down towards it, and the clear and sparkling Calder dashing merrily over the stones at its base.
But upon the bridge, and by the river side, and within the little village, many persons were assembled, conversing gravely and anxiously together, and looking out towards the hills, where other groups were gathered, as if in expectation of some afflicting event. Most of these were herdsmen and farming men, but some among them were poor monks in the white habits of the Cistertian brotherhood, but which were now stained and threadbare, while their countenances bore traces of severest privation and suffering. All the herdsmen and farmers had been retainers of the abbot. The poor monks looked wistfully at their former habitation, but replied not except by a gentle bowing of the head to the cruel scoffs and taunts with which they were greeted by the passing soldiers; but the sturdy rustics did not bear these outrages so tamely, and more than one brawl ensued, in which blood flowed, while a ruffianly arquebussier would have been drowned in the Calder but for the exertions to save him of a monk whom he had attacked.
This took place on the eleventh of March, 1537—more than three months after the date of the watching by the beacon before recorded—and the event anticipated by the concourse without the abbey, as well as by those within its walls, was the arrival of Abbot Paslew and Fathers Eastgate and Haydocke, who were to be brought on that day from Lancaster, and executed on the following morning before the abbey, according to sentence passed upon them.
The gloomiest object in the picture remains to be described, but yet it is necessary to its completion. This was a gallows of unusual form and height, erected on the summit of a gentle hill, rising immediately in front of the abbot’s lodgings, called the Holehouses, whose rounded, bosomy beauty it completely destroyed. This terrible apparatus of condign punishment was regarded with abhorrence by the rustics, and it required a strong guard to be kept constantly round it to preserve it from demolition.
Amongst a group of rustics collected on the road leading to the north-east gateway, was Cuthbert Ashbead, who having been deprived of his forester’s office, was now habited in a frieze doublet and hose with a short camlet cloak on his shoulder, and a fox-skin cap, embellished with the grinning jaws of the beast on his head.
“Eigh, Ruchot o’ Roaph’s,” he observed to a bystander, “that’s a fearfo sect that gallas. Yoan been up to t’ Holehouses to tey a look at it, beloike?”
“Naw, naw, ey dunna loike such sects,” replied Ruchot o’ Roaph’s; “besoide there wor a great rabblement at t’ geate, an one o’ them lunjus archer chaps knockt meh o’ t’ nob wi’ his poike, an towd me he’d hong me wi’ t’ abbut, if ey didna keep owt ot wey.”
“An sarve te reet too, theaw craddinly carl!” cried Ashbead, doubling his horny fists. “Odds flesh! whey didna yo ha’ a tussle wi’ him? Mey honts are itchen for a bowt wi’ t’ heretic robbers. Walladey! walladey! that we should live to see t’ oly feythers driven loike hummobees owt o’ t’ owd neest. Whey they sayn ot King Harry hon decreet ot we’re to ha’ naw more monks or friars i’ aw Englondshiar. Ony think o’ that. An dunna yo knoa that t’ Abbuts o’ Jervaux an Salley wor hongt o’ Tizeday at Loncaster Castle?”
“Good lorjus bless us!” exclaimed a sturdy hind, “we’n a protty king. Furst he chops off his woife’s heaod, an then hongs aw t’ priests. Whot’ll t’ warlt cum ‘to?
“Eigh by t’ mess, whot win it cum to?” cried Ruchot o’ Roaph’s. “But we darrna oppen owr mows fo’ fear o’ a gog.”
“Naw, beleady! boh eyst oppen moine woide enuff,” cried Ashbead; “an’ if a dozen o’ yo chaps win join me, eyn try to set t’ poor abbut free whon they brinks him here.”
“Ey’d as leef boide till to-morrow,” said Ruchot o’Roaph’s, uneasily.
“Eigh, thou’rt a timmersome teyke, os ey towd te efore,” replied Ashbead. “But whot dust theaw say, Hal o’ Nabs?” he added, to the sturdy hind who had recently spoken.
“Ey’n spill t’ last drop o’ meh blood i’ t’ owd abbut’s keawse,” replied Hal o’ Nabs. “We winna stond by, an see him hongt loike a dog. Abbut Paslew to t’ reskew, lads!”
“Eigh, Abbut Paslew to t’ reskew!” responded all the others, except Ruchot o’ Roaph’s.
“This must be prevented,” muttered a voice near them. And immediately afterwards a tall man quitted the group.
“Whoa wor it spoake?” cried Hal o’ Nabs. “Oh, ey seen, that he-witch, Nick Demdike.”
“Nick Demdike here!” cried Ashbead, looking round in alarm. “Has he owerheert us?”
“Loike enow,” replied Hal o’ Nabs. “But ey didna moind him efore.”
“Naw ey noather,” cried Ruchot o’ Roaph’s, crossing himself, and spitting on the ground. “Owr Leady o’ Whalley shielt us fro’ t’ warlock!”
“Tawkin o’ Nick Demdike,” cried Hal o’ Nabs, “yo’d a strawnge odventer wi’ him t’ neet o’ t’ great brast o’ Pendle Hill, hadna yo, Cuthbert?”
“Yeigh, t’ firrups tak’ him, ey hadn,” replied Ashbead. “Theawst hear aw abowt it if t’ will. Ey wur sent be t’ abbut down t’ hill to Owen o’ Gab’s, o’ Perkin’s, o’ Dannel’s, o’ Noll’s, o’ Oamfrey’s orchert i’ Warston lone, to luk efter him. Weel, whon ey gets ower t’ stoan wa’, whot dun yo think ey sees! twanty or throtty poikemen stonding behint it, an they deshes at meh os thick os leet, an efore ey con roor oot, they blintfowlt meh, an clap an iron gog i’ meh mouth. Weel, I con noather speak nor see, boh ey con use meh feet, soh ey punses at ’em reet an’ laft; an be mah troath, lads, yood’n a leawght t’ hear how they roart, an ey should a roart too, if I couldn, whon they began to thwack me wi’ their raddling pows, and ding’d meh so abowt t’ heoad, that ey fell i’ a swownd. Whon ey cum to, ey wur loyin o’ meh back i’ Rimington Moor. Every booan i’ meh hoide wratcht, an meh hewr war clottert wi’ gore, boh t’ eebond an t’ gog wur gone, soh ey gets o’ meh feet, and daddles along os weel os ey con, whon aw ot wunce ey spies a leet glenting efore meh, an dawncing abowt loike an awf or
