Allworth Abbey is rich in historical associations and traditional lore. Its cloisters have sheltered kings; its walls have withstood sieges; it possesses its haunted cell, its spectre monk and phantom maiden.
In the reign of Henry the Church-burner and Wife-killer, Allworth Abbey was the home of a rich fraternity of Benedictine monks. And at the time of that tremendous visitation of wrath which overswept the land, when
“The ire of an infuriate king
Rode forth upon destruction’s wing,”
Allworth Abbey was besieged and sacked by a party of soldiers under Lord Leaton, a baron of ancient lineage in the North of England, and of great merit in the estimation of King Henry Bluebeard. The abbot was slain at the altar, the brethren were put to the sword, the Abbey was given to the flames, and the lands conferred by the King upon the conqueror.
Lord Leaton rebuilt the ruined portions of the Abbey, adapted it as a family residence, and constituted it the principal seat of his race, in whose possession it remained from that time until the date of those strange household mysteries that I am about to disclose.
The last male representative of the Leatons of Allworth was Henry, Lord Leaton, whose name has since become so painfully memorable. With an ancient title, an ample fortune, a handsome person, well-cultivated mind, and amiable disposition, he married, early in life, a fair woman, every way worthy of his affections. Their union was blest by one child, Agatha, “sole daughter of his house,” who, at the opening of this story, had just attained her eighteenth year.
It is scarcely possible for a human being to be happier than was Lord Leaton at this time. In the prime of his manly life, blessed with a fair wife in the maturity of her matronly beauty, and a lovely daughter, just budding into womanhood, endowed with an ancient title, an immense fortune, and a wide popularity, Lord Leaton was the most contented man in England.
It was not even a drawback to his happiness that there was no male heir to his titles and estates, for in Malcolm Montrose, the betrothed of his daughter, he had found a son after his own heart.
Malcolm Montrose, and Norham, his younger brother, were the sons of Lord Leaton’s half sister, who had married a poor but proud Scotch laird. Their parents were now both dead. From their father they had inherited little more than an ancient name, a ruined tower, and a blasted heath. It was therefore only by the assistance of Lord Leaton, that Malcolm was enabled to enter the University of Oxford, and Norham to obtain a commission in the army.