In days of yore, before the birth of order,
When rapine was the warden of the border;
When will was law, --- craft, wisdom, --- and strength,
right, ---
And the best plea for doing wrong was might!
Those good old times the poets love to paint,
When whip-cord and cold water made a saint,
And turbulence a hero; when the maid
Stabbed her betrayer - if she was betrayed.
Or, if the gentle suitor begged her love,
She sent him to the wars his faith to prove;
When all the honeyed words the lover spoke
Were far less moving than the heads he broke.
Then if he died, or stayed away too long,
The minstrels told his story in song;
And the fair lady stove her grief to smother
For one true love - by wedding another!
Aye! these were times indeed - when if a fair one
Had twenty lovers, yet she could not spare one,
But set them in a chamber all together,
Or in a yard (according to the weather);
Armed them with spears and cudgels, as the case was,
Mounted or not, as more or less the space was;
And he who in this struggle stood the longest,
Whose head was thickest or whose arm was strongest,
And best his rivals thumped or hacked pell-mell,
From every crown cracked champion bore the bell.
Oh! blessed age! oh! dear lamented times!
When theft and homicide were jokes, not crimes;
When burning peels and towns were acts of merit,
And deep revenge became a lad of spirit;
When every eye saw fairies, ghosts, and devils,
Frisk in the moonbeam in their midnight revels.
When Merley ruled in Morpeth's well kept castle,
And plundered and protected many a vassal,
Of one of them a fearful tale is told,
Which, if you dare to listen, I'll unfold.
He was a youth of grace in form and manners,
High Cuddy Bell - or Cuddy of the Stanners,
A study, home-spun, true Northumbrian yeoman,
Who neither fear'd the devil nor a foeman;
Scotchmen he drubbed, as drubbed St. George the dragon,
And loved one woman as he loved a flagon, ---
The daughter of the Parish Clerk of Mitford;
I'll sketch her portrait, though she did not sit for't
In person just below the middle size,
With dark brown hair, and black and sparkling eyes;
A pretty nose, ripe lips, and ruby cheeks;
That neatness, which a well turned mind bespeaks,
Graced her plump person - plump? - at least her bodice
Required tight lacing to make Nan a Goddess.
 |
| The Ruins of Mitford Church 1832 |
One night, when fierce December's drifting snow
Whitened the towers above - the ground below,
When the keen blasts alternate roared and howled,
And thro' the hall strange fire bronzed shadows scowled,
There, midst the wardens, while the black jack danced
Merrily round, had Cuddy sat entranced,
And still had sat, nor cared to sleep a wink,
While tales were yet to tell, or draughts to drink.
But churlish duty roused at length his hosts
From cup and jest, and tales of blood and ghosts,
And sent them growling to their several posts.
Then forth must Cuddy, right reluctant, hie,
To brave and tender mercies of the sky;
And then - oh then! - to love and Nanny true,
Towards Mitford's town with timeless steps he drew.
Of blood and ghosts, I say, their tales had been,
Of wild shrieks heard and hideous faces seen!
Of forms from new made graves beheld to rise,
Grim fleshless things that glared with stony eyes!
Of dancing devils, gibbering and grinning
At wights less prone to praying than to sinning;
And elves and spirits that oft, at midnight's hour,
O'er righteous men themselves have fearful power.
No marvel then that Cuddy held his way,
Brimful of horrors, as a rustic may,
And heard a thousand demons in the woods,
And in the Wansbeck's redly rushing floods.
Sore was the conflict, none, methinks, may doubt,
'Twixt ghastly terrors and sublime brown stout.
 |
| Newminster Abbey, early 19th Century. |
Where the Newminster rear'd its hoary face,
What was his joy to find his Nanny wait,
In such a night, his coming at the gate!
He clasped Nanny gently to his breast,
And fiercely kissed, and boorishly carest.
In vain the tempest work'd its furious will,
The raptured lovers kissed and wander'd still,
And reached at length the foot of the dark hill,
On the south bank above the abbey mill;
And just as glared the castle beacon's gleam,
A dread voice thundered from the rushing stream,
And, "Come, Diablo!" it loudly cried,
And Nanny whisked from Cuddy's shuddering side,
And straight the form, so beautiful before,
A demon's horns, and tail, and talons wore!
Full in his face she laugh'd with fiendish spite,
And would have torn his eyes out if she might;
But on and fast sped Cuddy like the wind,
And left his phantom sweetheart far behind.
"Oh! Mary! mother!" - thus the frighted swain,
Roar'd to the virgin, - "this was kindly parried;
Thank God, I've found her out before we married."
