Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated) (231 page)

“The place is used for a burial-ground still,” resumed the old villager; “and it happened, that as Guy, our sexton, was one day going to dig a grave there, he lighted upon the coffin, or the chest, or whatever it was, that held many things besides this strange book.”

“Indeed!” said Willoughton, eagerly; “let us hear a little about this.”

“We shall not get to Warwick to-night,” said Mr. Simpson, gravely.

“Why, Sir, it was one day last autumn, — no, I believe it was as late as November; I remember it had rained hard all morning; but whether it was October or November, I cannot be sure.”

“That, I should suppose, does not much signify,” said Mr. Simpson.

“Come, now,” said Willoughton, “do let him be as circumstantial as he pleases.”

“Willingly, willingly, only remember, we are not to sleep at Kenilworth.”

“Well, Sir, I cannot be sure exactly of the time, only it had been a dismal day; but the rain was over, when old Guy came running to me in as great a fright as ever I saw a man, and said he had found something in the ground, he could not tell what, but he never felt any thing so heavy in his life; he could not move it, and desired I would go and help him to raise it; and he stared, as if he was out of his wits. When I heard it was so heavy, I thought we might as well have my son to help us, for he was a stout lad. Guy did not much like this, I saw, for he was thinking he should find a treasure, and Guy was always a close one, and for getting as much as he could; it was only two years before he got his money raised for tolling; and there is not one in the parish has liked him since. However, I got my son to go with me, and we set to work, without saying a word to any one; and it was so near dark that nobody was likely to see us in that lonely place.”

“Well! but if it had been treasure, it would have belonged to the Lord of the Manor,” said Mr. Simpson.

“Yes, Sir, I know that well enough; but you shall hear. We raised it out of the ground at last, and what should it be but an old oak chest. It was so large, a man might have lain down in it at full length; but what helped to make it so heavy was the iron bands that held it together, and three great iron locks, that fastened it. Now, as the place where it was dug up was the east end of the church, Guy took it into his head it contained church plate, that had been put there, in troublesome times, by the monks of the priory. If you had but seen him! He thought his fortune was made; he threw away his spade, and cut a caper as high as a wall. I thought myself there must be something worth looking at o’the inside, but by this time it was so dark we could hardly see what we were about; so I sent my son home for the lantern, and then we tried with old Guy’s crow to get the lid open. We got it off at last; and what do you think, Sir, we found? Why, nothing but old parchments; some with seals dangling to them, and some old books, dropping to pieces with the worms, though the leaves were thick enough, too: at the bottom of the chest was a great heap of dust.”

“Did you find nothing else?” asked Mr. Simpson, fixing his eyes on him.

“No, Sir, nothing else,” said the old man, with a little hesitation; “nothing else, except an old staff, with a large head; and there was a little silver on that and on a book I have at home.”

Mr. Simpson inquired what had made the chest so weighty.

“Why, Sir, it was made of solid oak, six inches thick, I warrant, and had a great deal of iron about it. I took a fancy to that book, though I could not read it, for I could not make out the letters; but there is some pretty pictures on the leaves, and the colours are as fresh as if they were just painted; and some of the great letters are done all over with gold as bright as the sun.”

“A manuscript, illuminated probably by some monk of the priory,” said Willoughton; “can I see it?”

“Yes, Sir,” replied the old man, “I have it at home; but what made me wonder most was to see it look so fresh, after it had lain all that time in the ground; to be sure it was well wrapped up in parchment, and the trunk was thick enough, for that matter; but some of the other books dropped to pieces as soon as the air came to them.”

Willoughton asked what had been done with the parchments; adding, to his companion, that they were probably the leiger-book and some other muniments of the Priory, hidden when the terrors of Henry the Eighth first prevailed in the monasteries, and afterwards pretended to be lost, first from some hope of their future utility, and then from a fear of avowing their concealment.

“When Guy,” resumed the old man, “found what sort of treasure he had gotten, he was ready to throw himself into the old chest, to be put under ground with it again; but I said there was no need of that; so we took out some of the best of the books, but none of the others had pictures; and Guy took the old staff, and then we did lay the trunk in the earth again.”

Willoughton made many inquiries concerning the parchments with the seals, and the seals themselves, and whether his informant could find again the spot where they were deposited.

“Come, come,” said Mr. Simpson; “let us leave this place; it is almost dark.”

The old man said he thought he could find the spot; but that would be of no use; for it had lain so deep in the ground, that there had been depth over it for graves, and it was now beneath them.

Willoughton, shocked at this circumstance, said no more on the subject; but the old man proceeded.

“Among other things in the book, Sir, is a view of this old hall. I should never have found it out myself; for it was no more like what it is now than nothing: but Timothy Crabb, our schoolmaster, knew it at once by this very window, too — and by a doorway in the wall, yonder.”

“How does it appear in the drawing?” asked Willoughton.

“Why, Sir, — but you shall see the book, if you like. The hall had a high roof, like a church there, and a gallery ran all along the bottom of it, and such a chimney!” —

“Ay! like the remains of what we see here now, I suppose,” said Mr. Simpson.

“No, Sir, as different as can be.”

“O! perhaps,” turning to Willoughton, “it was such an one as we saw at Penshurst; a raised hearth, with irons to hold wood, in the middle of the hall.”

“No; that style,” observed Willoughton, “was of later date than chimneys in English halls. It came in, I apprehend, with the castellated mansion, of which style is Penshurst, the more ancient part of the building at least. In the hall of the older castle, a chimney sloped back from the line of the wall into the thickness of it, and let the smoke through a loop above. Thus, the raised hearth, on which the wood-fire blazed, projected into the chamber, and was sometimes overhung by a canopy of stone-work supported by pillars, that gave it a resemblance to a gothic porch, such as adorn some of our finest cathedrals.”

“Yes, Sir, this in the book looks like something like a church porch without the sides, the top comes so far over the hearth. Then all down the hall are rows of tables, with gentlefolk and ladies sitting at them, and— “

“I must see this manuscript,” interrupted Willoughton; “it appears to be a curious one.”

“Come,” said Mr. Simpson, “it is already so dark, we can hardly see our way hence. There is scarce a gleam of light left on the horizon.”

“No, Sir, but the moon is rising yonder, and some gentry have a fancy to see this place by moonlight.”

“O! we have seen enough of it.”

“I recommend you,” said Willoughton, “to avoid looking, just at this moment, towards the door at the bottom of the hall, lest you should see the stately form of Elizabeth in the archway; I had a glimpse of something like her just now; nay, I am not quite sure that I did not see the grave physiognomy of Leicester, under his small black velvet cap and feather.”

“We shall not get to Warwick to-night,” said Mr. Simpson, fretfully. “They talk of the patience of a painful antiquary; think what the patience of his friend must be.”

“I have not the honour to deserve the former title,” said Willoughton.

“Between us, we approach to it; the painful part of it, you will allow, belongs to me.”

“In the old sense of the word,” said Willoughton, “you do not claim it; and, as to the new one, your jests recompense you for your pain: I have all possible inclination to deserve the title, in its best sense; at least by cherishing those inquiries, which make us intimate with the characters and habits of our fellow creatures in past ages, which show them to us in their halls, their ceremonies, their tournaments, their banquets, their domestic usages and even in their monastic retirement. These picturesque visions, in which the imagination so much delights, and every discovery, however remote, awaken a peculiar kind of interest and of sentiment no less delightful, which render antiquity, of all studies, the least liable to the epithet of dry, though dull and dry people so liberally bestow it. Antiquity is one of the favourite regions of poetry.”

“Nay,” said Mr. Simpson, “your woods and your meadows are the region for that. Who ever thought of looking for a muse in an old castle? But come, let us remember, that we are on the road for Warwick.”

“Before we go, my friend here must show me his old manuscript; and I must see this fine ruin by moonlight.”

“By moonlight!” exclaimed Simpson; “would you really stay for so romantic a purpose? We have seen it already by sun-light, and almost by no light at all?”

“The moon is rising, now, Sir,” said the old man, “and by the time the gentleman has seen the book it will be risen high enough to give you light on your journey.”

“Meanwhile, the horses will have no objection to a little corn,” remarked Willoughton; “nor the postilion to a little ale, if this good man will direct him where to get it.”

Mr. Simpson having added, that he too should like a little Warwickshire ale, the old man replied, “The ale they sell is not much to brag on; but, if you please, gentlemen, I will direct the lad where he and the horses may rest themselves, and, if you will step with me, you can taste some of my home-brewed, and see the book at the same time.”

The travellers assented, and their conductor, after having directed the postilion to a house, accompanied them to his cottage, where he produced the desired manuscript. It was written on vellum, and richly illuminated, and purported to be an account of what passed at Kenilworth, when Henry the Third there kept the feast of Saint Michael, and of some wonderful accident that there befel.

“There is a title-page written almost in the form of a triangle,” said Willoughton, “and that about as closely as if it were printed. The date, which forms the apex of the reversed triangle, I cannot wholly make out, but it is twelve hundred and something.”

At the heads of chapters and sometimes on the broad margins, there were made drawings of parts of Kenilworth Castle, as it had appeared in the time of Henry probably, with some of the scenes which had there passed, and sometimes with single portraits of the chief persons engaged in them. These gave vivid ideas of the customs and manners of that period, and were traced, with more knowledge of perspective and more attention to proportion, than Willoughton expected. Among them was a procession of knights and ladies, led by numerous harpers, returning from the tilt-yard to the great hall, which showed a high sloping roof, while the windows below, at a considerable elevation from the ground, had round-headed arches, instead of pointed ones. The doorway, leading into it, accorded with the place where one still appears; but the arch was differently constructed, and the receding mouldings seemed to have been ornamented with chevron work, or zigzag, instead of the elegant vine now sculptured there, which latter he had no hesitation in assigning to the time of Leicester.

Another drawing gave an inside view of the hall, as mentioned by the old man. The roof was of great height, open to the rafters, and with pendent beams below, formed into arches, ornamented with inverted pinnacles, nicely carved. Another drawing gave the inside of a chapel, of which there are no longer any remains at Kenilworth.

The original style of the building appeared very ancient, but this was mixed with one more light and elegant, like that of the pointed arches of the windows; and Willoughton conjectured this improvement to have been made by Henry the Third, who is known to have repaired the chapel of the castle for his own use, during his occasional residence there.

There was a representation of a marriage ceremony in celebration at the altar, where a numerous assemblage of dignified persons were arranged in state. A king was giving the hand of the bride to a young man, who was decorated with many military insignia, but who was so far from receiving the gift with joy, that he appeared to be struck with consternation, while the lady, by her attitude, seemed to be fainting.

In the margin was a portrait of a king robed and wearing a crown of gold, which seemed intended for Henry the Third, to whose statue in brass, in his monument in Westminster Abbey, it bore a considerable resemblance.

At the head of another chapter was an inside view of a tower, where a man was sitting alone near a lamp. In the background a face appeared at the grate. The same chamber was represented afterwards, with a man stretched upon a low pallet, but whether asleep, or dead, was not expressed by the drawing. The lamp had gone out, and, instead of a face at the grate, the moon appeared through a window beyond, and threw a pale light on the couch.

Another drawing gave a view of a chapel, or hall; Willoughton was not certain which: there was, however, something like an altar at the farthest end, near which stood a figure alone, the face concealed in a vizor, the left arm, uplifted, held a shield, the right a lance, but the feet were in a position of rest, though another figure near a door was departing, as if with the fear of being pursued, his hands outstretched, and his face turned back over his shoulder. There, too, the moon appeared through a window, and the light fell upon the lifted shield.