Foxholme Hall, and Other Tales

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“But I asked you to sit down on this stone by my side, while we watch the shipping in the harbour below, and the deep blue sea sparkling in the rays of the setting sun, to listen to a tale of my younger days, and instead of that, I have been moralising, prating, you will say perhaps, of things which do not interest you. Well, well, follow my counsel; it is all I ask; and so to my tale.

“It is now more than half a century ago that I got the berth of second mate on board a fine ship belonging to the port of Liverpool. Liverpool was a very different town in those days from what it is now. There were no fine docks and spacious quays, no broad streets and magnificent buildings, but yet it was a place of much bustle and trade; and trade is the true mother of all the improvements. Our ship was called the Chameleon. She was bran new, and had never yet made a voyage; she measured four hundred and fifty tons burthen, was ship-rigged, and was well found and fitted in every respect. Her master was as thorough a sailor as ever stepped, and, take them all in all, I suppose a stouter ship, a better crew, or a more able master, never sailed from the port of Liverpool. But I have now more particularly to speak of the master. His name was Derick—Captain Ashby Derick. He was a young man, about seven or eight-and-twenty, I suppose, and was very well connected and educated. He was very good-looking—the women called him remarkably handsome—he was tall, with a firm, well-made figure and broad chest; his complexion was naturally fair, though now bronzed by the sun, with an abundance of light curly hair, and full whiskers; his eyes were large and grey; his lips firm, and his nose fine, though somewhat hooked, which prevented his face from having any approach to effeminacy. He had from boyhood been rather wild; indeed, his principles were none of the best, and it was for that reason that his father, who was a very strict man, had sent him to sea, that he might not set a bad example to his brothers. The world looked on him as a rollicking, careless blade, with more animal spirits than wisdom to guide him; but his employers knew him to be a first-rate seaman, and one liked by his crew, and that was all they had to inquire about. Now for my part, I believe that had he been well guided at first, and properly instructed in his duty to God and man, he would not have turned out a bad man; but he had not his fair play; he was cast like a waif on the waters, without rudder or compass, to find his way as he best could over the troubled sea of life, and how could those who sent him expect him to escape shipwreck? His fate has been the fate of many. He grew up with numerous fine manly qualities. He was brave and bold as man can be; he was generous to his friends, kind-hearted to any in distress, and full of life and animation, but his temper was hot and hasty. He had no religion, though he did not scoff at it in others; but he did not know what it meant; and he had no morality; indeed, no one could trust to his principles. With women he had very winning ways, and was a great favourite with them.

“After his return from his last voyage he went to stay with some friends living in Lancashire, not many miles from Liverpool. At the distance of a mile or two from the house where he was staying, there lived on the borders of a wild heath or common, in an almost ruined cottage, an old woman. The old woman’s name was Kirby—Mother Kirby she was called—and she was reported to be a witch by the common people, who told all sorts of stories about her. It is certain that she was of a sour bad temper, that she was very old and very ugly, and could use her tongue most fluently. But it is not about her I am going to speak at present. She had a granddaughter who lived in the hut with her, but was as unlike her in every respect as light from darkness. Amy Kirby was one of the most beautiful girls you ever saw—she was slight and graceful, with a well-rounded form, and tall rather than short; her hair was black as jet; her eyes large, dark, and lustrous; and her cheeks bore all the bloom of health and youth; her complexion was clear, but it just showed that there was a slight touch of gipsy blood in her veins; her step, as she walked along, was as elastic as a young fawn’s; and her voice was like the skylark’s as it mounts into the blue sky at early dawn.

“It was surprising to see how the old woman loved a being so unlike herself, how carefully she tended her, how well she had brought her up. She had taught her many things which girls in her rank of life never learn; she even got all sorts of books for her to read. Amy was always neatly dressed, and while the rest of the cottage was almost in ruins, her room was as good as any in a well-to-do house. No one knew how the old woman got the money for these purposes, but whenever any was wanted for Amy it was always forthcoming. One thing, alas! she had not taught her—that was religion; and neither the old woman nor her grandchild was ever seen to enter a church.

“Amy was about seventeen when Ashby Derick first saw her. He met her on the common near her grandmother’s cottage, and as he was a stranger there he stopped to ask his way, and from one question another was asked, and a few words led to many. His heart in a moment was struck by her beauty, and he felt that he had never seen any one he admired so much. She, too, was pleased with his look and fine manly bearing, but she would not tell him who she was, nor where she came from. She laughingly said that she was the spirit of the heath, that she dwelt in the air, and that her carriage was the storm, and that whenever he would seek her he must come there to find her. This excited his curiosity, and if she had told him that she lived in the ruined cottage hard by, from her dress and language he would not have believed her. Every day he visited the heath, and each time he found her there on the same spot, and hour after hour he spent with her, more and more captivated by her charms. What was extraordinary was, that he could never find out her name, nor anything about her, or he might perhaps have not gone so far as he did. The strangeness of the affair pleased him, for he was of a romantic turn, and I believe fancied her some well-born lady in disguise who had fallen in love with him. She must have been, from what I heard, full of life and wit, and of course showed out more to him than she had ever done to others. Indeed, her mind was of no ordinary character, and had it been well guided she would have been equal to any lady in the land. At last he offered her marriage. She laughed, and told him that he would be marrying a spirit, and that he must come to her home, for that she would never go to his. He had better think over it, for that no good could come of it. This only made him more vehement, and he vowed and swore that he would marry her and her alone. The belief is that she was of the gipsy religion as well as of the gipsy race, and gipsies look upon an oath as binding as any other form of marriage, and therefore after that she considered Ashby Derick as her husband. I cannot say if what she told him about her being the spirit of the heath had anything of truth in it, as some people believed, but her heart and soul were his, and she loved him with all the passionate ardour of a child of a race which comes from the lands of the burning sun of Egypt. The consequence was, that she went to reside with him at his house near Liverpool.

“Her grandmother had never come to see her, but at last the old woman could no longer resist the strong wish she had of visiting her. Derick came in and saw the witch-like creature sitting by the side of the beautiful girl he professed to love so much. He did not like the look of her, and in an angry tone he asked her what she did there.

”‘I’ve as much right to be here as you have,’ answered the old woman. ‘I’ve come to see my grandchild, and I should like to know what fault you can find with that!’

”‘You come to see your grandchild!—you Amy’s grandmother! I don’t believe it,’ he exclaimed, starting back from her with a look of horror. ‘You, you wizen-faced, shrivelled old hag!’

”‘What! you dare to call me names!’ screamed the old woman; ‘you’ll repent it—that you will, my master.’

“On this, Derick turned to Amy and asked if the old woman spoke the truth. Amy confessed that she was her grandmother, and then burst into tears, which so enraged the dame that she went away muttering curses between her teeth, which Derick could not understand. They had a great effect upon him, and from that time his love for the beautiful gipsy began to cool. I ought to have said that before Derick had fallen in with the poor girl he had been paying his addresses to a young lady of family and fortune who had been captivated by his handsome face and figure. While the above affair had been going on he had neglected his former attentions to this lady, but he now began to resume them. He never told her the reason of his absence, and he made so much play to recover his lost ground, that he was soon reinstated in her good graces. She was not only rich, but handsome and clever, and she so quickly enslaved the heart of Derick, that he neglected poor Amy altogether. He next proposed marriage to her; he was accepted, and the day of the wedding was fixed.