It is on my own personal reminiscences that I draw for the following story; the scene of its leading event was most familiar to me in early life. If the principal actor in it be yet living, he must have reached a very advanced age. He was often at the Hall, in my infancy, on professional visits. It is, however, only from those who "prated of his whereabouts" that I learned the history of his adventure with |
 | HERE stands a City,--neither large nor small, Its air and situation sweet and pretty; It matters very little--if at all-- Whether its denizens are dull or witty, Whether the ladies there are short or tall, |
| Brunettes or blondes, only, there stands a city!-- | ||
| Perhaps 'tis also requisite to minute That there's a Castle and a Cobbler in it. | ||
| A fair Cathedral, too, the story goes, | ||
| And kings and heroes lie entomb'd within her; | ||
| There pious Saints, in marble pomp repose, | ||
| Whose shrines are worn by knees of many a Sinner; | ||
| There, too, full many an Aldermanic nose | ||
| Roll'd its loud diapason after dinner; | ||
| And there stood high the holy sconce of Becket, --Till four assassins came from France to crack it. | ||
| The Castle was a huge and antique mound, | ||
| Proof against all th' artillery of the quiver, | ||
| Ere those abominable guns were found, | ||
| To send cold lead through gallant warrior's liver. | ||
| It stands upon a gently rising ground, | ||
| Sloping down gradually to the river, | ||
| Resembling (to compare great things with smaller) A well-scooped, mouldy Stilton cheese,--but taller. | ||
| The Keep, I find, 's been sadly alter'd lately, | ||
| And, 'stead of mail-clad knights, of honour jealous, | ||
| In martial panoply so grand and stately, | ||
| Its walls are filled with money-making fellows, | ||
| And stuff'd, unless I'm misinformed greatly, | ||
| With leaden pipes, and coke, and coals, and bellows; | ||
| In short, so great a change has come to pass, 'Tis now a manufactory of Gas. | ||
| But to my tale.--Before this profanation, | ||
| And ere its ancient glories were cut short all, | ||
| A poor hard-working Cobbler took his station | ||
| In a small house, just opposite the portal; | ||
| His birth, his parentage, and education, | ||
| I know but little of--a strange, odd mortal; | ||
| His aspect, air, and gait, were all ridiculous; His name was Mason--he'd been christened Nicholas. | ||
| Nick had a wife possessed of many a charm, | ||
| And of the Lady Huntingdon persuasion; | ||
| But, spite of all her piety, her arm | ||
| She'd sometimes exercise when in a passion; | ||
| And, being of a temper somewhat warm, | ||
| Would now and then seize, upon small occasion, | ||
| A stick, or stool, or anything that round did lie, And baste her lord and master most confoundedly. | ||
| No matter!--'t is a thing that's not uncommon, | ||
| 'Tis what we all have heard, and most have read of,-- | ||
| I mean, a bruizing, pugilistic woman, | ||
| Such as I own I entertain a dread of, | ||
| --And so did Nick,--whom sometimes there would come on | ||
| A sort of fear his Spouse might knock his head off, | ||
| Demolish half his teeth, or drive a rib in, She shone so much in "facers" and in "fibbing." | ||
| "There's time and place for all things," said a sage | ||
| (King Solomon, I think,) and this I can say, | ||
| Within a well-roped ring, or on a stage, | ||
| Boxing may be a very pretty Fancy, | ||
| When Messrs. Burke or Bendigo engage; | ||
| --'Tis not so well in Susan, Jane, or Nancy: -- | ||
| To get well mill'd by any one's an evil, But by a lady--'tis the very Devil. | ||
| And so thought Nicholas, whose only trouble, | ||
| (At least his worst,) was this his rib's propensity, | ||
| For sometimes from the alehouse he would hobble, | ||
| His senses lost in a sublime immensity | ||
| Of cogitation--then he could n't cobble-- | ||
| And then his wife would often try the density | ||
| Of his poor skull, and strike with all her might, As fast as kitchen-wenches strike a light. | ||
| Mason, meek soul, who ever hated strife, | ||
| Of this same striking had a morbid dread, | ||
| He hated it like poison--or his wife-- | ||
| A vast antipathy!--but so he said-- | ||
| And very often, for a quiet life, | ||
| On these occasions he'd sneak up to bed, | ||
| Grope darkling in, and, soon as at the door He heard his lady--he'd pretend to snore. | ||
| One night, then, ever partial to society, | ||
| Nick, with a friend (another jovial fellow), | ||
| Went to a Club--I should have said Society-- | ||
| At the "City Arms," once call'd the Porto Bello; | ||
| A Spouting party, which, though some decry it, | ||
| I Consider no bad lounge when one is mellow; | ||
| There they discuss the tax on salt, and leather, And change of ministers and change of weather. | ||
| In short, it was a kind of British Forum, | ||
| Like John Gale Jones's, erst in Piccadilly, | ||
| Only they managed things with more decorum, | ||
| And the Orations were not quite so silly; | ||
| Far different questions, too, would come before 'em, | ||
| Not always Politics, which, will ye nill ye, | ||
| Their London prototypes were always willing, To give one quantum suff. of--for a shilling. | ||
| It more resembled one of later date, | ||
| And tenfold talent, as I'm told in Bow Street, | ||
| Where kindlier natured souls do congregate, | ||
| And, though there are who deem that same a low street, | ||
| Yet, I'm assured, for frolicsome debate | ||
| And genuine humour it 's surpassed by no street, | ||
| When the "Chief Baron" enters, and assumes To "rule" o'er mimic "Thesigers" and "Broughams." | ||
| Here they would oft forget their Rulers' faults, | ||
| And waste in ancient lore the midnight taper, | ||
| Inquire if Orpheus first produced the Waltz, | ||
| How Gas-lights differ from the Delphic Vapour, | ||
| Whether Hippocrates gave Glauber's Salts, | ||
| And what the Romans wrote on ere they 'd paper;-- | ||
| This night the subject of their disquisitions Was Ghosts, Hobgoblins, Sprites, and Apparitions. | ||
| One learned gentleman, "a sage grave man," | ||
| Talk'd of the Ghost in Hamlet, "sheath'd in steel;"-- | ||
| His well-read friend, who next to speak began, | ||
| Said, "That was Poetry, and nothing real;" | ||
| A third, of more extensive learning, ran | ||
| To Sir George Villiers' Ghost, and Mrs. Veal; | ||
| Of sheeted Spectres spoke with shortened breath, And thrice he quoted "Drelincourt on Death." | ||
| Nick smoked, and smoked, and trembled as he heard | ||
| The point discuss'd, and all they said upon it, | ||
| How, frequently, some murder'd man appear'd, | ||
| To tell his wife and children who had done it; | ||
| Or how a Miser's ghost, with grisly heard, | ||
| And pale lean visage, in an old Scotch bonnet, | ||
| Wander'd about to watch his buried money! When all at once Nick heard the clock strike One,--he | ||
| Sprang from his seat, not doubting but a lecture | ||
| Impended from his fond and faithful She; | ||
| Nor could he well to pardon him expect her, | ||
| For he had promised to "be home to tea;" | ||
| But having luckily the key o' the back door, | ||
| He fondly hoped that, unperceived, he | ||
| Might creep up stairs again, pretend to doze, And hoax his spouse with music from his nose. | ||
| Vain fruitless hope!--The wearied sentinel | ||
| At eve may overlook the crouching foe, | ||
| Till, ere his hand can sound the alarum-bell, | ||
| He sinks beneath the unexpected blow; | ||
| Before the whiskers of Grimalkin fell, | ||
| When slumb'ring on her post, the mouse may go;-- | ||
| But woman, wakeful woman, 's never weary, --Above all, when she waits to thump her deary. | ||
| Soon Mrs. Mason heard the well-known tread; | ||
| She heard the key slow creaking in the door, | ||
| Spied, through the gloom obscure, towards the bed | ||
| Nick creeping soft, as oft he had crept before; | ||
| When, bang, she threw a something at his head, | ||
| And Nick at once lay prostrate on the floor; | ||
| While she exclaim'd with her indignant face on,-- "How dare you use your wife so, Mr. Mason?" | ||
| Spare we to tell how fiercely she debated, | ||
| Especially the length of her oration,-- | ||
| Spare we to tell how Nick expostulated, | ||
| Roused by the bump into a good set passion, | ||
| So great, that more than once he execrated, | ||
| Ere he crawl'd into bed in his usual fashion;-- | ||
| The Muses hate brawls; suffice it then to say, He duck'd below the clothes-and there he lay! | ||
| 'T was now the very witching time of night, | ||
| When churchyards groan, and graves give up their dead, | ||
| And many a mischievous, enfranchised, Sprite | ||
| Had long since burst his bonds of stone or lead, | ||
| And hurried off, with schoolboy-like delight, | ||
| To play his pranks near some poor wretch's bed, | ||
| Sleeping perhaps serenely as a porpoise, Nor dreaming of this fiendish Habeas Corpus. | ||
| Not so our Nicholas, his meditations | ||
| Still to the same tremendous theme recurred, | ||
| The same dread subject of the dark narrations, | ||
| Which, back'd with such authority, he'd heard; | ||
| Lost in his own horrific contemplations, | ||
| He ponder'd o'er each well-remember'd word; | ||
| When at the bed's foot, close beside the post, He verily believed he saw--a Ghost! | ||
| Plain and more plain the unsubstantial Sprite | ||
| To his astonish'd gaze each moment grew; | ||
| Ghastly and gaunt, it rear'd its shadowy height. | ||
| Of more than mortal seeming to the view, | ||
| And round its long, thin, bony fingers drew | ||
| A tatter'd winding-sheet, of course all white;-- | ||
| The moon that moment peeping through a cloud, Nick very plainly saw it through the shroud! | ||
| And now those matted locks, which never yet | ||
| Had yielded to the comb's unkind divorce, | ||
| Their long-contracted amity forget, | ||
| And spring asunder with elastic force; | ||
| Nay, e'en the very cap, of texture coarse, | ||
| Whose ruby cincture crown'd that brow of jet, | ||
| Uprose in agony--the Gorgon's head Was but a type of Nick's up-squatting in the bed | ||
| From every pore distill'd a clammy dew, | ||
| Quaked every limb,--the candle too no doubt, | ||
| En règle, would have burnt extremely blue, | ||
| But Nick unluckily had put it out; | ||
| And he, though naturally bold and stout, | ||
| In short, was in a most tremendous stew;-- | ||
| The room was fill'd with a sulphureous smell, But where that came from Mason could not tell. | ||
| All motionless the Spectre stood,--and now | ||
| Its rev'rend form more clearly shone confest; | ||
| From the pale cheek a beard of purest snow | ||
| Descended o'er its venerable breast; | ||
| The thin grey hairs, that crown'd its furrow'd brow, | ||
| Told of years long gone by.--An awful guest | ||
| It stood, and with an action of command, Beckon'd the Cobbler with its wan right hand. | ||
| "Whence, and what art thou, Execrable Shape?" | ||
| Nick might have cried, could he have found a tongue, | ||
| But his distended jaws could only gape, | ||
| And not a sound upon the welkin rung: | ||
| His gooseberry orbs seem'd as they would have sprung | ||
| Forth from their sockets,--like a frightened Ape | ||
| He sat upon his haunches, bolt upright, And shook, and grinn'd, and chatter'd with affright. | ||
| And still the shadowy finger, long and lean, | ||
| Now beckon'd Nick, now pointed to the door; | ||
| And many an ireful glance, and frown, between, | ||
| The angry visage of the Phantom wore, | ||
| As if quite vex'd that Nick would do no more | ||
| Than stare, without e'en asking, "What d' ye mean? | ||
| Because, as we are told,--a sad old joke too,-- Ghosts, like the ladies, "never speak till spoke to." | ||
| Cowards, 't is said, in certain situations, | ||
| Derive a sort of courage from despair, | ||
| And then perform, from downright desperation, | ||
| Much more than many a bolder man would dare. | ||
| Nick saw the Ghost was getting in a passion, | ||
| And therefore, groping till he found the chair, | ||
| Seized on his awl, crept softly out of bed, And follow'd quaking where the Spectre led. | ||
| And down the winding stair, with noiseless tread, | ||
| The tenant of the tomb pass'd slowly on, | ||
| Each mazy turning of the humble shed | ||
| Seem'd to his step at once familiar grown, | ||
| So safe and sure the labyrinth did he tread | ||
| As though the domicile had been his own, | ||
| Though Nick himself, in passing through the shop, Had almost broke his nose against the mop. | ||
| Despite its wooden bolt, with jarring sound, | ||
| The door upon its hinges open flew; | ||
| And forth the Spirit issued,--yet around | ||
| It turn'd as if its follower's fears it knew, | ||
| And, once more beckoning, pointed to the mound, | ||
| The antique Keep, on which the bright moon threw | ||
| With such effulgence her mild silvery gleam, The visionary form seem'd melting in her beam. | ||
| Beneath a pond'rous archway's sombre shade, | ||
| Where once the huge portcullis swung sublime, | ||
| 'Mid ivied battlements in ruin laid, | ||
| Sole, sad memorials of the olden time, | ||
| The Phantom held its way,--and though afraid | ||
| Even of the owls that sung their vesper chime, | ||
| Pale Nicholas pursued, its steps attending, And wondering what on earth it all would end in. | ||
| Within the mouldering fabric's deep recess | ||
| At length they reach a court obscure and lone;-- | ||
| It seem'd a drear and desolate wilderness, | ||
| The blacken'd walls with ivy all o'ergrown; | ||
| The night-bird shriek'd her note of wild distress, | ||
| Disturb'd upon her solitary throne, | ||
| As though indignant mortal step should dare, So led, at such an hour, to venture there! | ||
| --The Apparition paused, and would have spoke, | ||
| Pointing to what Nick thought an iron ring, | ||
| But then a neighbouring chanticleer awoke, | ||
| And loudly 'gan his early matins sing; | ||
| And then "it started like a guilty thing," | ||
| As that shrill clarion the silence broke. | ||
| --We know how much dead gentlefolks eschew The appalling sound of "Cock-a-doodle-do!" | ||
| The vision was no more--and Nick alone-- | ||
| "His streamers waving" in the midnight wind, | ||
| Which through the ruins ceased not to groan; | ||
| --His garment, too, was somewhat short behind,-- | ||
| And, worst of all, he knew not where to find | ||
| The ring,--which made him most his fate bemoan-- | ||
| The iron ring,--no doubt of some trap door, 'Neath which the old dead Miser kept his store. | ||
| "What's to be done?" he cried, "'Twere vain to stay | ||
| Here in the dark without a single clue-- | ||
| Oh, for a candle now, or moonlight ray! | ||
| 'Fore George, I'm vastly puzzled what to do," | ||
| (Then clapped his hand behind)--" 'Tis chilly too-- | ||
| I'll mark the spot, and come again by day. | ||
| What can I mark it by?--Oh, here's the wall-- The mortar's yielding-here I'll stick my awl!" | ||
| Then rose from earth to sky a withering shriek, | ||
| A loud, a long-protracted note of woe, | ||
| Such as when tempests roar, and timbers creak, | ||
| And o'er the side the masts in thunder go; | ||
| While on the deck resistless billows break, | ||
| And drag their victims to the gulfs below;-- | ||
| Such was the scream when, for the want of candle, Nick Mason drove his awl in up to the handle. | ||
| Scared by his Lady's heart-appalling cry, | ||
| Vanished at once poor Mason's golden dream-- | ||
| For dream it was;--and all his visions high, | ||
| Of wealth and grandeur, fled before that scream-- | ||
| And still he listens with averted eye, | ||
| When gibing neighbours make "the Ghost" their theme; | ||
| While ever from that hour they all declare That Mrs. Mason used a cushion in her chair! | ||