It is a story possessing a fair allowance of tragic incident, and in some hands might be worked up into something worth while; but I am a wretched story-teller, and regret exceedingly that I cannot recapitulate its leading particulars in the racy and terse, aye, and poetical, albeit broadly provincial phraseology of my rustic informant.
In good time here we are at the very fittest spot for the commencement of my story, about a quarter of a mile above the Saw-mills, where, by craning over the hedge to your right, you may perceive, near to the verge of the precipitous bank of Yewdale Beck, and a few yards from the road side, a long narrow mound which seems to be formed of solid stone covered with moss, but which a nearer inspection would shew to be composed of several blocks fitted so closely together as to prove the mound to have had an artificial, and not a natural origin. You observe it is somewhere between three and four yards long. That singular accumulation of lichen-clad rock has been known for centuries amongst the natives of Yewdale and the adjacent valleys, by the romance-suggesting designation of “Girt Will’s Grave.” How it came by that name, and how Cauldron Dub and Yewdale Bridge came to be haunted, my task is now to tell.
A GIGANTIC SQUATTER.
Some few hundred years ago, the inhabitants of these contiguous dales were startled from their propriety, if they had any, by a report that one of the Troutbeck giants had built himself a hut, and taken up his abode in the lonely dell of “The Tarns,” above Yewdale Head. Of course you have read the history and exploits of the famous Tom Hickathrift, and remembering that he was raised at Troutbeck, you will not be much surprised when I tell you that it was always famous for breeding a race of extraordinary size and strength, for even in these our own puny days, the biggest man in Westmorland is to be found in that beautiful vale.
The excitement consequent upon the settlement of one of that gigantic race in this vicinity soon died away, and the object of it, who stood somewhere about nine feet six out of his clogs—if they were in fashion then—and was broad in fair proportion, became known to the neighbours as a capital labourer, ready for any such work as was required in the rude and limited agricultural operations of the period and locality—answered to the cognomen of “Girt (great) Will o’ t’ Tarns,” and, once or twice, did good service as a billman under the Knight of Conistone, when he was called upon to muster his powers to assist in repelling certain roving bands of Scots or Irish, who were wont, now and again, to invade the wealthy plains of Low Furness.
MISTRESS AND MAID.
The particular Knight, who was chief of the Flemings at the period of the giant’s location at the Tarns, was far advanced in the vale of years, and, in addition to some six or eight gallant and stately sons, had
“One fair daughter, and no more,
The which he loved passing well.”
And Eva le Fleming, called by the country people “the Lady Eva,” was famed throughout the broad north for her beauty and gentleness, her high-bred dignity and her humble virtues; but it is not with her that my story has to do. She, like the mother of “the gentle lady married to the Moor,” had a maid called Barbara, an especial favourite with her mistress, and, in her own sphere, deemed quite as beautiful. In fact, it was hinted that, when she happened to be in attendance upon her lady on festive or devotional occasions, the eyes of even knights and well-born squires were as often directed to the maid as to the mistress, and seemed to express as much admiration in one direction as the other. And when mounted on the Lady Eva’s own palfrey, bedecked in its gayest trappings, she rode, as she oftentimes did, to visit her parents at Skelwith, old and young were struck with her beauty, and would turn, as she ambled past, to gaze after her, and to wonder at the elegance of her figure, the ease of her deportment, and the all-surpassing loveliness of her features. Her lady, notwithstanding the disparity of their rank, loved her as a sister, and it was whispered amongst her envious fellow-servants, that her mistress’s fondness made her assume airs unbecoming her station. True enough it was that she seemed sufficiently haughty and scornful in her reception of the homage paid to her charms by the young men of her own rank, and by many above it. The only one to whom she showed the slightest courtesy on these occasions was wild Dick Hawksley, the Knight’s falconer, and he was also the only one who appeared to care no more for her favours than for her frowns.