LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2128, 18 December 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE MYSTERY or LORD BRACKENBTJRY: A NOVEL. BY AMELIA B. EDWARDS, Author of "Barbara's History,” ’* Debenham’s Vow,” &c. ( Continued. Chapter XXI, THE ‘ DARK FOLK.’ True to his promise, Lancelot took his guest for a long day’s tramp across the moor—a long day’s tramp meaning a circuit of some twenty miles or so over a bleak sandy plateau, all furze and heather, with out-croppings of limestone rock on the higher levels. It was a day such as we get frequently In October, but rarely in midNovember. A brisk north-east wind was blowing. The sky overhead was fall of light; and there was a pleasant scent as of freshly-tnrned turf upon the air. The moor was wonderfully open, and lonely, and high; intersected, apparently, by one tolerably good road, from which a rough cart-track diverged occasionally to right or left. A ruined shed, a stone fence, a bit of cultivated patch here and there, a puff of smoke in a sheltered hollow far away were for miles tbe only visible sign of human habitation. Now and they met a sand-carrier trndging besides his laden ass; or an old man stooping under a handle of cut furzej or a horde of shy little fiaxen-polled savages beating the hashes in quest of a few late blackberries ; bnt sometimes they went for two or three miles without encountering a soul.

More than once, a covey of partridges rose whirring from the heather almost beneath their horses’ feet; and once they saw a hawk circling high against the keen blue sky overhead.

Once, too, they turned aside at a little farm, crossed, a fallow field, and came to a bit of marsh meadow, iu one corner of which a tiny spring babbled np through the lash grass and slipped away unseen in a channel of its own making. This was the sonroe of the Trent.

At length, mounting continually into a more and more barren region, they came to a group of fantastic rooks ranged in single file along the summit of a solitary ridge. • These,’ said Lancelot, ’are the • Wlcking Stones ; ’ the Alpine peaks of onr Northcountry Oberland.’ ‘ Wioklng ? ’ repeated Cochrane. 1 Ay—that’s one of Jthe old words— ‘ wicking ’ being supposed to oome from the AngloSaxon ‘ewio,’ or ’quick,’meaning the living or uncut rook. One hears plenty of these queer, primitive words here on the moor. Bat yon mast do a bit of mountaineering now, and survey the country. ’ They leaped a fence and made for the rocks, each of which had its rude local name

—the Castle Stone, the Hog’s Back, the Mitre Stone, and so on. The Mitre Stone

—a peaked and cloven mass lifted high npon a ragged base in which the popular fancy detected some vague resemblance to a grotesque face—was the highest of the greup. In a few moments the friends were comfortably seated between the Peaks of the Mitre Stone, enjoying the rest they had so fairly earned. A more wild and solitary eyrie it would have been hard to find south of the Scottish .border. The moor was all aronnd them—one undulating sea of hill and hollow, here green with gorse, there reddening with fast-withering bracken; breaking yonder into crests of barren rook ; dipping farther away into leas sterile levels ; and melting at last into a bine horizon.

_On the one side, a brooding cloud of very distant smoke marked the site of the great pottery district; on the other were visible the massed tree-tops of Brackenbury Park ; while on the north-east, p»le and ghost-like, as though outlined upon the transparent air, towered one solitary peak—the Peak of Derbyshire, more than forty miles away. Sign or sound of human toil up here there was none, A forlorn-looking goat was cropping the scant herbage round about the Wlcking Stones, and a few sheep were scattered over a bare hill-side abont half a mile away; but these were the only living things in sight. No moving figure quickened the waste; no rumble of wheels, no ploughboy’s whistle, no homely farmhouse sounds stirred the whole silence.

Enjoying the rest, the solitude, the farstretching landscape, Lancelot and his friend demolished with disproportionate appetite some biscuits and a flask of sherry with which Cbnrob, the bntler, had provided them on starting. ‘And now,’ said Oochrane, when they had arrived at the end of this unsubstantial entertainment, ‘ what about these good folks whom we have com. so high to see? Where do they live and have their being f ’ ‘Well, they live here,’ replied Lancelot, drily. "The deuce they do! Are they cave-dwellers—earth-bnrrowera—gnomes f ’ ‘Gnomes, undoubtedly. You see that hollow where there are somes bushes and a fence ? ’ ‘Yes.’ * And behind the bushes a thatched roof P ’

• I see the thatch, I took it for the top of a haystack.’ ’That is the roof which shelters your venerable friend, Mr Isaac Plant. Near it, bnt lower down, are two or three more cottages. Yon can’t see them from here. And over yonder, at the other side of that long bill, there is a whole colony of dark folk. We can go on there by and by, if you like ; but I think when yon have paid yonr respects to those close at hand, yonr ethnological curiosity will be sufficiently gratified. They are charming people; bnt a little of them goes a long way.’ * Do they preserve any traditions of their origin ? Have they any peculiar manners and customs ? May one question them freely ? ’ Lancelot laughed heartily. ‘ Manners!’ he said. ‘My dear fellow, they have no manners; and as for their customs, they are more honored in the breach than the observance. Yoa are going to be awfully * desillnsionne.’ Instead of characters out of ‘The Talisman’ or ’The Arabian Nights,’ be prepared to see a brood of lawless settlers just a shade more respectable than gypsies. Perhaps, after all, they aie gypsies whose forefathers happened to took root up here a few centuries back. Who knows ? We have but a vague oral tradition to show for the Crusading part of the story.’ ‘ Oral tradition, handed down through many generations of an anoient family, is not to be despised, ’ said Cochrane, *At all events I am not disposed to give np my Saracens,’

‘ Your Saracens, anyhow, indulge in a truly Oriental passion for color,’ replied Lancelot. * You will notice how it breaks out in showy kerchiefs and cheap trinkets, and in the bines and reds, with which they make their hovels gaudy. ’ They had clambered down by this time from their perch, and were sauntering towards the cottages, four of which—mere shanties plastered outside with mud—lay snugly bidden away at the bottom of a steep pitch under the lee of the hill. The yonng men stood for a moment on the brink of the bank above, looking down upcn the weed* grown roofs; the patched and broken windows; the rags hung out to dry upon the bushes. On a rough bench outside the door of the nearest cottage there sat an old man intently at work upon something which Lancelot’s experienced eye at once recognised as a gin. • There’s an iniquitous old fox for you ! ’ said he. * And that poulterer at Singleton swears ha has never seen a feather of a Braokenbnry pheasant!—Hang the curs, how they bark! I would have liked to come upon him unawares,—Why, Isaac, man, do yon keep a pack of hounds here 7 ’ Mr Isaac Plant dexteronsly dropped the gin between his knees, kicked it under the bench as he rose to his foet, and hurried forward to meet his visitors.

‘ Eh, Muster Braok'nb’ry, mind the gap, ■ir—them stoanos is loose to tread on! Doon, Snap ! Doon, Growler ! Bow’d thy noise, or I’ll fettle thee! Beggin’ yer pardon, gentleman both, bnt th* do ant know no better. ’

‘Are the poor brutes shut up in that Black bole there ?’ asked Lancelot, pointing

to r. little bearded shed, with a padlocked door, built up against the end of the cottage. * How many of them ? ’ 'Just three or fowr, Muster Brack’nb’ry. on’ the’ owd bitch, an’ the pups. Tho’t be m’ain snug in there, air.’ ‘As snng as herrings in a barrel, I ehen’.d think. Where’s Sethi ? ’ * Seth’s gone to Leek, sir, wi’ a few bits o’ hardware for sale.’ Then, turning to Cochrane, with a scrape and bow :— ‘ Coom to see th’ pup, sir ? ’ Ho was a tall, sallow man, apparently between sixty and seventy, with lank, gray hair, and qniok, furtive black eyes. Bound his neok be wore a rod woollen scarf, and in his hands he twirled and squeezed a shapeless velveteen cap. Cochrane expressed hfs willingness to inspect the said pup: whereupon Plant unlocked the shed door, plunged in his arm, and brought out a very small, fat, bewildered specimen of the genus bull dog. ‘Woantyoube please 1 t’coom into th’ house to look at nn, honorable gentlemen both ? ’ said he, anxiously. 4 Doan’t ’ee sit thee down their in the cowd. Muster Brack’nb’ry, sir. I’ve a bit o’ fire inside.’ (To be continued.')