he made.
"Plague on thy civility!—A fly will drink from anybody's cup, and so will a Yorkshireman," growled the uncourteous churl.
Ralph had, however, braced himself tightly to the task, and stood with an air of dogged defiance, stoutly confronting his accuser—though, being a man of few words, the principal weight of the argument rested upon Will, whose eloquence was with difficulty interrupted on any subject.
"Peace," said one of the sleepers, raising himself half-way—"I think we be like to bide here till our bones rot. There's nought but the same dun sky—black, black, and unchanging. I should like to see a stiff blaze from some quarter. Our bundle, here, would soon be in a low."
"Hark!" said the other, "'tis something creaking amongst the faggots."
The sentinel rushed out, but the beacon was undisturbed.
"St. Mary protect us!—'Tis the same noise I heard last night, and about the same hour."
The stranger here entered the hut. Enveloped in a huge cloak, he sate silent, and apparently inattentive; but the conversation was now abrupt, and broken down into short and interrupted whispers.
"I wish old Hal and his wives were here, with all my heart," said one: "we'd have a rare bonfire. How his fat paunch would swell! But for him and his unlucky women, we had been snug in the chimney-corner, snoring out psalmody, or helping old Barn'by off with the tit-bits in the kitchen."
"Hush!" said his neighbour: "there be the faggots talking again. I think they are bewitched.—Dan, look to them."
"Nay," said Dan, "they may bide awhile for me."
The words were scarcely uttered when the building seemed in a blaze. Crash upon crash followed. The inmates, stupified with terror, were well nigh suffocated ere their astonishment left them the power to escape. In the full conviction that the foul fiend had taken him at his word, Dan was dragged from the hut, wan, speechless, and gasping with affright. Nothing less, too, than a visit from his Satanic majesty in person was expected by the terrified rustics.
On gaining the outside, the whole burning mass was before them, one vast pyramid of flame. Flakes of blazing matter were hurled into the sky, with short and rapid explosions. The roar of the wind through the glowing furnace was awful and appalling. Huge and ignited fragments were borne away with frightful rapidity. They rode on the rolling volumes of smoke like fire-fiends armed with destruction; but the vast reservoir of flame still glowed on, apparently undiminished. The curtain of night seemed to be suddenly undrawn. Objects the most minute were visible as in the broad view of day. The brown heath, the grey and the mossy stone, were each distinguishable, but clad alike in one bright and unvarying colour, red as the roaring furnace. Soon the great magazine of inflammable matter in the interior caught fire, and rolled out in a wide mass of light, like the first burst of a volcano.
The stranger stood with apparent unconcern, his back to the flames, looking from the brink of the mountain northward, as if on the watch for corresponding signals. Soon a bright star hung on the heights above Sawley. Increasing in splendour, another broke out on the verge of the horizon, marking the site of the camp near Romald's Moor.
Turning towards the south-west, and looking to the right, beyond the chain of successive heights that form the vale of Todmorden, he beheld a dim spark in the distance, from the summit of Hades Hill, scarcely penetrating the mist which hung like a dense cloud in that direction; this place and Thieveley Pike forming the connecting-links between Pendle Hill and Buckton Castle.
The terrified attendants knew too well the results which would follow this unaccountable and irreparable mistake. The whole country would be in commotion. Hordes of zealous and fanatic idlers and malcontents would repair to the appointed rendezvous, and this premature, and perhaps fatal movement, would be attributed to their carelessness. Paslew, not over-nice in discriminating their several deserts, would doubtless subject them to immediate and condign punishment.
These were thoughts common to each, unquestionable and conclusive; but what answer to give, or what excuse to make, was far from being decided upon with the same degree of certainty.
"We shall be hanged without mercy," was the dread sum of these uncomfortable reflections.
"I know not what you may be," said Will; "but I intend to run for it. I've an old dame would make a sore disturbance at my death, more especially if dangling from the gallows-tree, which of all the trees in the wood hath been my aversion ever since I saw Long Tom of the Nab make so uncomfortable a shriving from thence."
"Run, then," said Nicholas, rather stoutly, and in a tone of more confidence than heretofore. "I'll stay my ground this bout; and, further, I do propose to commit yon knaves into the holy keeping of our four-cornered crib, where they may be indulged in recreations of another sort than setting the whole country by the ears. 'Twill save our necks to slip theirs into the noose."
This happy suggestion, the whole of these honest and conscientious servants of the church were prepared to obey. They might with safety accuse the strangers; indeed, it was more than probable they had hit out the right source of the mischief; so, marching up boldly to the execution of this Christian purpose, they were proceeding to lay hands on the foremost of the culprits. At this critical moment he turned suddenly round. Perhaps from a prior suspicion of their intentions, or from the knavish cast of their countenances, he saw that hostilities were in contemplation: at any rate, he seemed to be prepared for the event. Will, being the mouthpiece of the party, and accustomed, moreover, at times to a precise and methodical manner of delivery, was the chief speaker.
"Sir, we arrest you for high treason. You are charged with firing off beacons without our privity or consent, thereby endangering the safety of the lord abbot, and the peaceable governing of this realm." He paused, quaking even at his own eloquence; but the stranger made no reply, till, throwing aside his cloak, he drew out a hagbut or demi-hague as it was sometimes called, being a sort of small harquebuss, with its match ready kindled.
"Tell the Abbot of Whalley that neither ye nor the whole horde of drones and drivellers about his hive, shall take me against my own liberty and consent. Hold back! Your first step, is your last, save to your grave! I will see the abbot shortly, but not by your grace or assistance." Saying this, he bounded down the steep like the roused deer, in its first pride of flight, scorning the chase. The light flashing from his weapons marked his form rapidly receding from their grasp.
But Ralph, who, as we may suppose, was minded to imitate the evolutions of his master, being it seemed of a more heavy and considerate demeanour, paused for a space ere he leapt.
This deliberation was fatal to his enterprise. The enemy, recovering from their confusion, seized him in default of his master, and without further ado bore him away as a visible acquittance of themselves to the abbot. There could be no great harm in throwing the blame of this unlucky affair on the companion of the escaped incendiary: besides, it would be an effective lesson to him on the danger of keeping bad company.
Through bog and brake, over moor and mountain, they hurried on with their prisoner, who, dooming them all to "clootie" and his imps, and commending himself to Michael, Mary, and a number of his especial patrons in the Romish calendar, was urged forward with more than their usual speed.
The blaze had ceased to be visible when they came to the last descent towards the village. Far and wide the alarm had spread; consternation and inquiry were on every countenance. The guards were besieged with anxious faces, supplicating intelligence, and much impeded thereby in their progress to the abbey.
Outside the gates they found a dense crowd
