The last exclamation was wrung from him by the slipping of his foot, and the fact that he suddenly found himself standing up to the knees in the sponge-like peat. He turned his face and tried to retrace his steps, hoping to regain the path, but this was no easy task, and presently he found that he was wandering hopelessly through the bog, with every risk of becoming engulfed if he proceeded further. To make matters worse, at that moment, a thick white choking mist settled down on the moor, and it seemed to the Traveller that his fate was indeed sealed. He stretched out his staff in despair, and by great good luck it struck on firm grit, and in another moment the Traveller had hauled himself upon solid earth. Once here, prudence told him not to stir, either to the right hand or the left, lest all the horrors from which he had just escaped should be again about him. There was nothing for it but to wait patiently for the return of day, when he might be able to thread his way through the mazy bogs in safety. But the night was chill, the mist was like the icy touch of death, and in a little while the Traveller was shaking in every joint. The keen cold went to the bone, and it seemed as though he must now perish from exposure.
“Now indeed am I in a sorry plight,” quoth he, “and I have need of the Divine help; else I am lost.”
Whereupon, being a good Christian, he fell upon his knees, and prayed aloud to God for help, vowing that if he was permitted to reach his home again he would return to those hills, and as a thankoffering erect thereon a house of prayer dedicated to his patron saint.
Scarcely was the prayer ended when a great wind arose, the mists were rolled away like a curtain, the hill tops stood out in the clear night, the stars shone, and the moon-beams fell softly over the landscape, and a shepherd came along as though a heaven-sent guide to show him the path from the hills.
“Friend,” said the shepherd simply, as he beheld the Traveller, “Hast thou been long upon the moor? If so, thou shouldst indeed be thankful to God, for thou hast run a great risk of losing thy life upon this desolate wilderness of heather.”
“Thou sayest truly,” replied the Traveller, who then proceeded to recount his experiences and his vow, and also asked the name of the place where they stood. Then he marked the spot, which lay upon the bleak hill-side above the present village of Charlesworth.
“I will surely come here again,” said he, “if my life is spared, and fulfil my vow.”
On concluding his journey, and having discharged his business, he immediately returned to the Peak, and on the spot of his delivery he built a small chapel or oratory of bog oak, which was specially brought over from Ireland. This building, says tradition, was erected upon the site now occupied by the present Charlesworth Chapel.
Why Irish bog oak should have been the material used in building, the present writer has not been able to discover, nor does the tradition in this particular altogether agree with the following account of what is therein stated to have been the original fabric.
“It was a small octagon chapel,” says the historian, “the roof of which was carved; the arched rafters resting on massive buttresses, the walls rough blocks of stone, the floor earth covered with rushes, the seats and altar simple and unpretentious.”