Willy," said the terrified woman.
"Nay," returned the leering half-wit, "I was but a-thinking, that if he does, may be his master too will want a heriot."
"And what may be the name of my master?" said Sir Ralph, with a furious oath.
"The devil," replied the boy, with apparent unconcern.
"Ay—and what will they give him, dost think?"
"Thee!"
Whether the peculiar expression of the lad's face, or the fearless indifference of his address, so unusual to that of the crouching slaves he generally met with, contributed to the result, we know not; but, instead of correcting the boy for his audacity, he hastily departed, finally repeating his threat of punishment in case of disobedience.
When Sir Ralph got home, his ill-humour vented itself with more severity than usual. On joining the sports, he was at the first somewhat startled, on perceiving a representation of the personage which the morning's conversation had by no means prepared him to recognise either with admiration or respect. Still, as it was nothing out of the common usage, he took no apparent notice, farther than by remarking the general gloom that prevailed, contrary to the usual course of these festivities. Then came the unlooked-for aggression upon his person, provoking his already irritated feelings into vehement action. But, when the last unfortunate blow had failed in its purpose, appearing to the furious knight to have been warded off by a charm, a sudden misgiving came across him, which, with the speech of this supposed imp of darkness, so strangely alluding to his adventure with the boy, wrought powerfully upon his now excited imagination, so that he stood aghast, unable to grapple with its terrors. He hastily departed from the hall, leaving the enemy in undisputed possession of the field.
What occurred subsequently we are not told, save that on the following morning the widow's heriot was sent back, with an ungracious message from the knight, showing his unwillingness to restore what terror only had wrung from him.
The person who adventured this dangerous personification of the Evil One was never known. Whether some bold and benevolent individual, interposing on behalf of the fatherless and famishing little ones, or some being of a less substantial nature—whether one of those immortal intelligences of a middle order between earth and heaven, who at that time were supposed to take pleasure in tormenting the vicious and unworthy—is more than our limited capacities can disclose.
It is said that on Easter Monday following the Black Knight died; and though probably it had no connection with the circumstances we have related, yet was his decease a sufficiently strange event in the mysterious chapter of coincidences to warrant this memorial.
FAIR ELLEN OF RADCLIFFE.
In Percy's Relics, this ballad is called "The Lady Isabella's Tragedy," and is thus introduced:—
"This ballad is given from an old black-letter copy in the Pepys Collection, collated with another in the British Museum, H. 263, folio. It is there entitled, 'The Lady Isabella's Tragedy, or the Step-Mother's Cruelty; being a relation of a lamentable and cruel murther, committed on the body of the Lady Isabella, the only daughter to a noble Duke, etc. To the tune of "The Lady's Fall."' To some copies are annexed eight more modern stanzas, entitled, 'The Duchess' and Cook's Lamentation.'"
Dr. Whitaker says, "The remains of Radcliffe Tower prove it to have been a manor-house of the first rank. It has been quadrangular; but two sides only remain." A licence to kernel and embattle shows the date of its erection, or rather rebuilding, to be in the fourth year of Henry IV., by James Radcliffe, who, we find by the pedigree, was the eldest son of William Radcliffe. He married Joan, daughter to Sir John Tempest of Bracewell, in the county of York.
"The noble old hall is forty-three feet two inches in length, and in one part twenty-six feet, in another twenty-eight feet in width. The two massy principals which support the roof are the most curious specimens of ancient wood-work I have ever seen. The broadest piece of timber is two feet seven inches by ten inches. A wall-plate on the outside of one beam, from end to end, measures two feet by ten inches. The walls are finished at the square with a moulded cornice of oak.
"At the bottom of the room is a door opening into one of the towers, the lower part of which only remains, of massy grout-work, and with three arches, each furnished with a funnel or aperture like a chimney. On the left side of the hall are the remains of a very curious window-frame of oak, wrought in Gothic tracery, but square at top. Near the top of the hall, on the right, are the remains of a doorway, opening into what was once a staircase, and leading to a large chamber above the kitchen, the approach to which was by a door of massy oak, pointed at the top.
"Over the high tables of ancient halls (as is the case in some college halls at present) it was common to have a small aperture, through which the lord or master could inspect, unseen, what was going on below. But in this situation at Radcliffe is a ramified window of oaken work, opening from the apartment above mentioned, but now closed up."
This consists of eight arches, with trefoil-pointed tops, four and four, with two narrower apertures above.
"To this place and family are attached the tradition and ballad given by Dr. Percy, under the name of Isabella, but here applied to a Lord Thomas and faire Ellenor, father and daughter, whose figures are supposed to be graven on a slab in the church, which the common people, concluding, I suppose, from its whiteness, that it was meant as an emblem of the innocence it is said to cover, have mutilated by breaking off small fragments, as amulets for the prevention or cure of disorders. Traditions, always erroneous in their circumstances, are yet rarely devoid of foundation; and though the pedigrees of Radcliffe exhibit no failure of the family by the premature death of an heiress; though the last Richard de Radcliffe, who had daughters only, certainly did not make 'a scullion-boy the heir of all his land,' when he settled it on Radcliffe Baron Fitzwalter; though the blood actually pointed out on the kitchen floor, where this Thyestsean banquet is said to have been prepared, deserves no more regard than many other stories and appearances of the same kind; yet we are not to discard as incredible the tradition of a barbarous age, merely because it asserts the sacrifice of a young and beautiful heiress to the jealousy or the avarice of a stepmother. When this is granted, the story of the pie with all its horrors may safely be ascribed to the inventive genius of a minstrel. On the whole, Radcliffe is a place which, not only from its antiquity and splendour, but from the great families which have branched out from it, and the romantic tradition attached to it, can scarcely be surveyed without enthusiasm, or quitted without regret."
There is a story of its being haunted by a black dog; but as this apparition has never been seen by two persons in company, it may safely be ascribed to the genius of fear, quite as creative a power as any other faculty of the imagination.
We have thought it best to give the ballad entire, without any embellishments of our own. Though not in the best style of these metrical romances, it is still of sufficient interest, from its connection, to claim a place in the "Traditions" of the county.
There was a lord of worthy fame,
And a hunting he would ride,
Attended by a noble traine
