The When,—the Where,—and the How,—of the succeeding narrative speak for themselves. It may be proper, however, to observe, that the ruins here alluded to, and improperly termed "the Abbey," are not those of Bolsover, described in a preceding page, but the remains of a Preceptory once belonging to the Knights Templars, situate near Swynfield, Swinkefield, or, as it is now generally spelt and pronounced, Swingfield, Minnis, a rough tract of common land now undergoing the process of enclosure, and adjoining the woods and arable lands of Tappington, at the distance of some two miles from the Hall, to the South-eastern windows of which the time-worn walls in question, as seen over the intervening coppices, present a picturesque and striking object.
[THE WITCHES' FROLIC.]
[Scene, the "Snuggery" at Tappington.—Grandpapa in a high-backed cane-bottomed elbow-chair of carved walnut-tree, dozing; his nose at an angle of forty-five degrees,—his thumbs slowly perform the rotatory motion described by lexicographers as "twiddling."—The "Hope of the family" astride on a walking-stick, with burnt-cork mustachios, and a pheasant's tail pinned in his cap, solaceth himself with martial music.—Roused by a strain of surpassing dissonance, Grandpapa loquitur.]
Come hither, come hither, my little boy Ned! Come hither unto my knee— I cannot away with that horrible din, That sixpenny drum, and that trumpet of tin. Oh, better to wander frank and free Through the Fair of good Saint Bartlemy, Than list to such awful minstrelsie. Now lay, little Ned, those nuisances by, And I'll rede ye a lay of Grammarye.
[Grandpapa riseth, yawneth like the crater of an extinct volcano, proceedeth slowly to the window, and apostrophiseth the Abbey in the distance.]
I love thy tower, Grey Ruin, I joy thy form to see, Though reft of all, Cell, cloister, and hall, Nothing is left save a tottering wall That, awfully grand and darkly dull, Threaten'd to fall and demolish my skull, As, ages ago, I wander'd along Careless thy grass-grown courts among, In sky-blue jacket, and trowsers laced, The latter uncommonly short in the waist. Thou art dearer to me, thou Ruin grey, Than the Squire's verandah over the way; And fairer, I ween, The ivy sheen That thy mouldering turret binds, Than the Alderman's house about half a mile off, With the green Venetian blinds.
Full many a tale would my Grandam tell, In many a bygone day, Of darksome deeds, which of old befell In thee, thou Ruin grey! And I the readiest ear would lend, And stare like frighten'd pig! While my Grandfather's hair would have stood up on end, Had he not worn a wig.
One tale I remember of mickle dread— Now lithe and listen, my little boy Ned!