Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers | Page 9

thoroughly awake, indeed, does he seem to have proved himself,
that the bard subsequently exclaims in an ecstasy of admiration,
Si ie estoie une pucellete Je li dourie ceur et cors Tant est de lu bons li
reeors.
If I were a young maiden, I would give my heart and perso So great is
his fame!
Fortunately the poet was a tough old monk of Exeter; since such a
present to a nobleman, now in his grand climacteric, would hardly have
been worth the carriage. With the reduction of this stronghold of the

Maxwellsse, em to have concluded the Baron's military services; as on
the very first day of the fourteenth century we find him once more
landed on his native shore, and marching, with such of his retainers as
the wars had left him, towards the hospitable shelter of Shurland Castle.
It was then, upon that very beach, some hundred yards distant from
high-water mark, that his eye fell upon something like an ugly woman
in a red cloak. She was seated on what seemed to be a large stone, in an
interesting attitude, with her elbows resting upon her knees, and her
chin upon her thumbs The Baron started; the remembrance of his
interview with a similar personage in the same place, some three years
since, flashed upon his recollection. He rushed towards the spot, but the
form was gone:--nothing remained but the seat it had appeared to
occupy. This, on examination, turned out to be no stone, but the
whitened skull of a dead horse! A tender remembrance of the deceased
Grey Dolphin shot a momentary pang into the Baron's bosom: he drew
the back of his hand across his face; the thought of the hag's prediction
in an instant rose, and banished all softer emotions. In utter contempt of
his own weakness, yet with a tremor that deprived his redoubtable kick
of half its wonted force, he spurned the relic with his foot. One word
alone issued from his lips, elucidatory of what was passing in his
mind--it long remained imprinted on the memory of his faithful
followers--that word was "Gammon!" The skull bounded across the
beach till it reached the very margin of the stream:--one instant more
and it would be ingulfed for ever. At that moment a loud "Ha! ha! ha!"
was distinctly heard by the whole train to issue from its bleached and
toothless jaws: it sank beneath the flood in a horselaugh.
Meanwhile Sir Robert de Shurland felt an odd sort of sensation in his
right foot. His boots had suffered in the wars. Great pains had been
taken for their preservation. They had been "soled" and "heeled" more
than once:--had they been "goloshed," their owner might have defied
Fate! Well has it been said that "there is no such a thing as a trifle." A
nobleman's life depended upon a question of ninepence.
The Baron marched on: the uneasiness in his foot increased. He
plucked off his boot; a horse's tooth was sticking in his great toe!
The result may be anticipated. Lame as he was, his lordship, with
characteristic decision, would hobble on to Shurland; his walk
increased the inflammation; a flagon of aqua vitae did not mend

matters. He was in a high fever; he took to his bed. Next morning the
toe presented the appearance of a Bedfordshire carrot; by dinner time it
had deepened to beet-root; and when Bargrave, the leech, at last sliced
it off, the gangrene was too confirmed to admit of remedy. Dame
Martin thought it high time to send for Miss Margaret, who, ever since
her mother's death, had been living with her maternal aunt, the abbess,
in the Ursuline convent at Greenwich. The young lady came, and with
her came one Master Ingoldsby, her cousin-german by the mother's
side; but the Baron was too far gone in the dead-thraw to recognize
either. He died as he lived, unconquered and unconquerable. His last
words were--"tell the old hag she may go to--." Whither remains a
secret. He expired without fully articulating the place of her
destination.
But who and what was the crone who prophesied the catastrophe? Ay,
"that is the mystery of this wonderful history."--Some say it was Dame
Fothergill, the late confessor's mamma; others, St. Bridget herself;
others thought it was nobody at all, but only a phantom conjured up by
conscience. As we do not know, we decline giving an opinion.
And what became of the Clerk of Chatham? Mr. Simkinson avers that
he lived to a good old age, and was at last hanged by Jack Cade, with
his inkhorn about his neck, for "setting boys copies." In support of this
he adduces his name "Emmanuel," and refers to the historian
Shakespeare. Mr. Peters, on the contrary, considers this to be