The Essential Works of William Harrison Ainsworth. William Harrison Ainsworth
with the prolonged silence, Peter at length condescended to speak. His voice was harsh and grating as a rusty hinge.
“Another glass?” said he, pouring out a modicum of the pale fluid.
His companion shook his head.
“It will keep out the cold,” continued the sexton, pressing the liquid upon him: “and you, who are not so much accustomed as I am to the damps of a vault, may suffer from them. Besides,” added he, sneeringly, “it will give you courage.”
His companion answered not. But the flash of his eye resented the implied reproach.
“Nay, never stare at me so hard, Luke,” continued the sexton; “I doubt neither your courage nor your firmness. But if you won’t drink, I will. Here’s to the rest eternal of Sir Piers Rookwood! You’ll say amen to that pledge, or you are neither grandson of mine, nor offspring of his loins.”
“Why should I reverence his memory,” answered Luke, bitterly, refusing the proffered potion, “who showed no fatherly love for me? He disowned me in life: in death I disown him. Sir Piers Rookwood was no father of mine.”
“He was as certainly your father, as Susan Bradley, your mother, was my daughter,” rejoined the sexton.
“And, surely,” cried Luke, impetuously, “you need not boast of the connection! ’Tis not for you, old man, to couple their names together — to exult in your daughter’s disgrace and your own dishonor. Shame! shame! Speak not of them in the same breath, if you would not have me invoke curses on the dead! I have no reverence — whatever you may have — for the seducer — for the murderer of my mother.”
“You have choice store of epithets, in sooth, good grandson,” rejoined Peter, with a chuckling laugh. “Sir Piers a murderer!”
“Tush!” exclaimed Luke, indignantly, “affect not ignorance. You have better knowledge than I have of the truth or falsehood of the dark tale that has gone abroad respecting my mother’s fate; and unless report has belied you foully, had substantial reasons for keeping sealed lips on the occasion. But to change this painful subject,” added he, with a sudden alteration of manner, “at what hour did Sir Piers Rookwood die?”
“On Thursday last, in the night-time. The exact hour I know not,” replied the sexton.
“Of what ailment?”
“Neither do I know that. His end was sudden, yet not without a warning sign.”
“What warning?” inquired Luke.
“Neither more nor less than the death-omen of the house. You look astonished. Is it possible you have never heard of the ominous Lime-Tree, and the Fatal Bough? Why, ’tis a common tale hereabouts, and has been for centuries. Any old crone would tell it you. Peradventure, you have seen the old avenue of lime-trees leading to the hall, nearly a quarter of a mile in length, and as noble a row of timber as any in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Well, there is one tree — the last on the left hand before you come to the clock-house — larger than all the rest — a huge piece of timber, with broad spreading branches, and of I know not what girth in the trunk. That tree is, in some mysterious manner, connected with the family of Rookwood, and immediately previous to the death of one of that line, a branch is sure to be shed from the parent stem, prognosticating his doom. But you shall hear the legend.” And in a strange sepulchral tone, not inappropriate, however, to his subject, Peter chanted the following ballad:
THE LEGEND OF THE LIME-TREE
Amid the grove o’er-arched above with lime-trees old and tall
— The avenue that leads unto the Rookwood’s ancient hall —
High o’er the rest its towering crest one tree rears to the sky,
And wide out-flings, like mighty wings, its arms umbrageously.
Seven yards its base would scarce embrace — a goodly tree I ween,
With silver bark, and foliage dark, of melancholy green;
And mid its boughs two ravens house, and build from year to year,
Their black brood hatch — their black brood watch — then screaming disappear.
In that old tree when playfully the summer breezes sigh,
Its leaves are stirred, and there is heard a low and plaintive cry;
And when in shrieks the storm blast speaks its reverend boughs among,
Sad wailing moans, like human groans, the concert harsh prolong.
But whether gale or calm prevail, or threatening cloud hath fled,
By hand of Fate, predestinate, a limb that tree will shed;
A verdant bough — untouched, I trow, by axe or tempest’s breath —
To Rookwood’s head an omen dread of fast-approaching death.
Some think that tree instinct must be with preternatural power.
Like ‘larum bell Death’s note to knell at Fate’s appointed hour;
While some avow that on its bough are fearful traces seen,
Red as the stains from human veins, commingling with the green.
Others, again, there are maintain that on the shattered bark
A print is made, where fiends have laid their scathing talons dark;
That, ere it falls, the raven calls thrice from that wizard bough;
And that each cry doth signify what space the Fates allow.
In olden days, the legend says, as grim Sir Ranulph view’d
A wretched hag her footsteps drag beneath his lordly wood.
His bloodhounds twain he called amain, and straightway gave her chase;
Was never seen in forest green, so fierce, so fleet a race!
With eyes of flame to Ranulph came each red and ruthless hound,
While mangled, torn — a sight forlorn! — the hag lay on the ground;
E’en where she lay was turned the clay, and limb and reeking bone
Within the earth, with ribald mirth, by Ranulph grim were thrown.
And while as yet the soil was wet with that poor witch’s gore,
A lime-tree stake did Ranulph take, and pierced her bosom’s core;
And, strange to tell, what next befell! — that branch at once took root,
And richly fed, within its bed, strong suckers forth did shoot.
From year to year fresh boughs appear — it waxes huge in size;
And, with wild glee, this prodigy Sir Ranulph grim espies.
One day, when he, beneath that tree, reclined in joy and pride,
A branch was found upon the ground — the next, Sir Ranulph died!
And from that hour a fatal power has ruled that Wizard Tree,
To Ranulph’s line a warning sign of doom and destiny:
For when a bough is found, I trow, beneath its shade to lie,
Ere suns shall rise thrice in the skies a Rookwood sure shall die!
“And such an omen preceded Sir Piers’s demise?” said Luke, who had listened with some attention to his grandsire’s song.
“Unquestionably,” replied the sexton. “Not longer ago than Tuesday morning, I happened to be sauntering down the avenue I have just described. I know not what took me thither at that early hour, but I wandered leisurely on till I came nigh the Wizard Lime-Tree. Great Heaven! what a surprise awaited me! a huge branch lay right across the path. It had evidently just fallen, for the leaves were green and unwithered;