FAMILY STORES. No. X. BY THOMAS INGOLDSBY. WITH AN ILLUSTRATION BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. GRANDPAPA'S STORY-THE WITCHES FROLIC. [Scene, the "Snuggery" at Tappington.-Grandpapa in a high-backed, canebottomed 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 moustachios, 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! I cannot away with that horrible din, Through the Fair of good Saint Bartlemy, Now lay, little Ned, those nuisances by, [Grandpapa riseth, yawneth like the crater of an extinct volcano, proceedeth slowly to the window, and apostrophizeth the Abbey in the distance.] I love thy tower, Grey Ruin, Ijoy thy form to see, Cell, cloister, and hall, Nothing is left save a tottering wall, Careless thy grass-grown courts among, 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 an end, One tale I remember of mickle dread Now lithe and listen, my little boy, Ned! Thou mayest have read, my little boy Ned, Of a gentleman called King James, Well,-in King James's golden days,- They could not be less, for good Queen Bess Had died aged threescore and ten, And her days, we know, Were all of them so; While the Court poets sung, and the Court gallants swore, That the days were as golden still as before. Some people, tis true, a troublesome few, But who can believe to a monarch so wise -Well, then, in good King James's days, Yon ruin a sort of a roof had got; For, though repairs lacking, its walls had been cracking Since Harry the Eighth sent its friars a-packing. Though joist and floors, And windows and doors, Had all disappear'd, yet pillars by scores Just in that farthermost angle, where As if defying the power of Fate, or Bowing, in ruin had strew'd the ground, One night-twas in Sixteen hundred and six— The month was May. At this distance of time the particular day- Folks ever afterwards said with affright That they never had seen such a terrible sight. The Sun had gone down fiery red, He must have scalded the goddess's knees. He left behind him a lurid track Of blood-red light upon clouds so black, That Warren and Hunt, with the whole of their crew, There came a shrill and whistling sound, Yet leaf ne'er moved on tree! So that some people thought old Beelzebub must And then a hollow moaning blast Came sounding more dismally still than the last, And the lightning flash'd, and the thunder growl'd, And louder and louder the tempest howl d, And the rain came down in such sheets as would stagger a Bard for a simile short of Niagara. The storm came at last, loud roar'd the blast, Rob stands within that postern gate. And there were gossips sitting there, Two were an old, ill-favour'd pair ; Rob would have given his ears to sip As they sat in that old and haunted room, It was, I trow, a fearsome scene. "Now riddle me, riddle me right, Madge Gray, And oh! such awful music !-ne'er Fell sounds so uncanny on mortal ear. There were the tones of a dying man's groans, Mix'd with the rattling of dead men's bones: Had you heard the shrieks, and the squeals, and the squeaks, You'd not have forgotten the sound for weeks. And around, and around, and around they go, Prance and caper, curvet and wheel, "Tis merry, tis merry, Cummers, I trow, To dance thus beneath the nightshade bough !”— "Goody Price, Goody Price, now riddle me right, |