In submitting this Book to the Public, I have thought it best to give it precisely as it was left in manuscript by my late Brother. His sudden death in 1868 prevented the final revision which he still contemplated.
The Notes may by some be thought unnecessarily long, and in many instances they undoubtedly are very discursive. Much labour, however, was expended in their composition, in the hope, not merely of giving a new interest to localities and incidents already familiar to the resident, but also of affording the numerous visitors to the charming region which forms the theme of the Volume, an amount of information supplementary to the mere outline which, only, it is the province of a Guide Book, however excellent, to supply.
The Work occupied for years the leisure hours of a busy professional life; and the feelings with which the Author entered upon and continued it, are best expressed in those lines of Burns chosen by himself for the motto.
July 1st, 1873.
The English Lake District may be said, in general terms, to extend from Cross-Fell and the Solway Firth, on the east and north, to the waters of Morecambe and the Irish Sea; or, more accurately, to be comprised within an irregular circle, varying from forty to fifty miles in diameter, of which the centre is the mountain Helvellyn, and within which are included a great portion of Cumberland and Westmorland and the northern extremity of Lancashire.
After the conquest of England by the Normans, the counties of Cumberland and Westmorland, the ancient inheritance of the Scottish Kings, as well as the county of Northumberland, were placed by William under the English crown. But the regions thus alienated were not allowed to remain in the undisturbed possession of the strangers. For a long period they were disquieted by the attempts which from time to time were made by successive kings of Scotland to re-establish their supremacy over them. Supporting their pretensions by force of arms, they carried war into the disputed territory, and conducted it with a rancour and cruelty which spared neither age or sex. The two nations maintained their cause, just or unjust, with unfaltering resolution; or if they seemed to hesitate for a moment, and a period of settlement to be at hand, their frequent compromises only ended in a renewal of their differences. Thus these northern counties continued to pass alternately under the rule of both the contending nations, until the Scottish dominion over them was finally terminated by agreement in the year 1237; Alexander of Scotland accepting in lieu lands of a certain yearly value, to be holden of the King of England by the annual render of a falcon to the Constable of the Castle of Carlisle, on the Festival of the Assumption.
The resumption, at no distant period, of the manors which had been granted to Alexander, renewed in all their strength the feelings of animosity with which the Scots had been accustomed to regard their southern neighbours, and the feuds between the two kingdoms continued with unabated violence for more than three centuries longer. The dwellers in the unsettled districts lying along the English and Scottish borders, being originally derived from the same Celtic stock, had been gradually and progressively influenced as a race by the admixture of Saxon and Danish blood into the population; and although much of the Celtic character was thereby lost, they seem to have retained in their mountains and forests much of the spirit, and many of the laws and manners, of the ancient Britons. They continued to form themselves into various septs, or clans, according to the Celtic custom; sometimes banded together for the attainment of a common end; and as often at feud, one clan with another, when some act of personal wrong had to be revenged upon a neighbouring community. Thus a state of continual restlessness, springing out of mutual hatred and jealousies, existed among the borderers of either nation. The same feelings of enmity were fostered, and the same system of petty warfare was carried on, between the borderers of the two kingdoms. Cumberland and Westmorland, from their position, were subject to the frequent inroads of the Scots; by whom great outrages were committed upon the inhabitants. They drove their cattle, burned their dwellings, plundered their monasteries, and even destroyed whole towns and villages. A barbarous system of vengeance and retaliation ensued. Every act of violence and bloodshed was perpetrated; whilst the most nefarious practices of free-booting became the common occupation of the marauding clans; and a raid into a neighbouring district had for them the same sort of charm and excitement which their descendants find in a modern fox chase. Even after the union of the two kingdoms under one sovereign, when the term "Borders" had been changed to "Middle Shires," as being more suitable to a locality which was now nearly in the centre of his dominions, the long cherished distinctions and prejudices of the inhabitants were maintained in all their vigour; and it required a long period of conflict with these to be persevered in, before the extinction of the border feuds could be completely effected. These distractions have now been at an end for more than two centuries. The mountains look down upon a peaceful domain; the valleys, everywhere the abode of quiet and security, yield their rich pasturage to the herds, or their corn-fields redden, though coyly, to the harvest; and the population, much of it rooted in the soil, and attached by hereditary ties to the same plots of ancestral ground in many instances for six or seven hundred years, is independent, prosperous, and happy.
Some evidences of the old troublous times remain, in the dismantled Border Towers, and moated or fortified houses called Peles, which lie on the more exposed parts of the district; in the ruins of the conventual retreats; and in the crumbling strongholds of the chiefs, which still retain something of a past existence in the names which even yet cling about their walls, as if the spirits of their former possessors were reluctant to depart entirely from them. Whilst a few traditions and recollections survive of those stirring periods which have left their mark upon the nation's history, and are associated for ever with images of those illustrious persons whose familiar haunts were within the shadows of the hills.
But the great charm of this region, which is not without attractions also of a superstitious and romantic character, lies in the variety of the aspects of nature which it presents; exhibiting, on a diminutive scale, combinations of the choicest features of the scenery of all those lands which have a name and fame for beauty and magnificence. Mr. West, a Roman Catholic clergyman, long resident in the district, and the author of one of the earliest Guides to the Lakes, thus expresses himself: "They who intend to make the continental tour should begin here; as it will give in miniature, an idea of what they are to meet with there, in traversing the Alps and Appenines: to which our northern mountains are not inferior in beauty of line, or variety of summit, number of lakes, and transparency of water; not in colouring of rock or softness of turf; but in height and extent only. The mountains here are all accessible to the summit, and furnish prospects no less surprising, and with more variety than the Alps themselves." Wordsworth also, who could well judge of this fact, and none better; he who for fifty years
and looked on all their changing phases with a superstitious eye of love; after he had become acquainted with the mountain scenery of Wales, Scotland, Switzerland, and Italy, gave his judgment that, as a whole, the English Lake District within its narrow limits is preeminent above them all. He thus speaks: "A happy proportion of component parts is indeed noticeable among the landscapes of the North of England; and, in this characteristic essential to a perfect picture, they surpass the scenes of Scotland, and, in a still greater degree, those of Switzerland.... On the score even of sublimity, the superiority of the Alps is by no means so great as might hastily be inferred; and, as to the beauty of the lower regions of the Swiss mountains, their surface has nothing of the mellow tone and variety of hues by which our mountain turf is distinguished.... The Lakes are much more interesting than those of the Alps; first, as is implied above by being more happily proportioned to the other features of the landscape; and next, as being infinitely more pellucid, and less subject to agitation from the winds." And again, "The water of the English Lakes being of a crystalline clearness, the reflections of the surrounding hills are frequently so lively, that it is scarcely possible to distinguish the point where the real object terminates, and its unsubstantial duplicate begins."
It is therefore not to be wondered at, that during the greater part of a century, where the old Border raids of violence have ceased, excursions of a very different character should have taken their place. Every summer brings down upon the valleys clouds of visitors from every corner of our island, and from many countries of Europe and America, eager to enjoy their freshness and beauty, and breathe a new life in the companionship of the lakes and hills. And if in a spirit somewhat more akin to the moss-trooping Borderer of an earlier time, an occasional intruder has scoured the vales in search of their traditions; and in the pursuit of these has ransacked their annals, plundered their guides, and levied a sort of black-mail upon even casual and anonymous contributors to their history; it may in some degree extenuate the offence to remember that such literary free-booting makes no one poorer for what it takes away; and that the opima spolia of the adventurer are only so much gathered to be distributed again. More especially to the Notes which constitute so large a portion of the present Volume may this remark be applied. Scenery long outlasts all traditional and historical associations. To revive these among their ancient haunts, and to awaken yet another interest in this land of beauty, has been the aim and end of this modern Raid into the valleys of the North, and the regions that own the sovereignty of the "mighty Helvellyn."
Broughton Tower, the ancient part of which is all that remains of the residence of the unfortunate Sir Thomas Broughton, stands a little to the eastward of the town of that name, upon the neck of a wooded spur of land, which projects from the high ground above the houses towards the river Duddon, about a mile distant. The towered portion, as it rises from the wood, has much of the appearance of a church; but is in reality part of the ancient building, now connected with a modern mansion. It has a southern aspect, with a slope down to the river, being well sheltered in the opposite direction. "It commands an extensive view, comprising in a wonderful variety hill and dale, water, wooded grounds, and buildings; whilst fertility around is gradually diminished, being lost in the superior heights of Black Comb, in Cumberland, the high lands between Kirkby and Ulverston, and the estuary of the Duddon expanding into the sands and waters of the Irish sea."
The Broughtons were an Anglo-Saxon family of high antiquity, in whose possession the manor of Broughton had remained from time immemorial, and whose chief seat was at Broughton, until the second year of the reign of Henry the Seventh. At this period the power and interest of Sir Thomas Broughton were so considerable, that the Duchess of Burgundy, sister to the late King and the Duke of Clarence, relied on him as one of the principal confederates in the attempt to subvert the government of Henry by the pretensions of Lambert Simnel.
Ireland was zealously attached to the house of York, and held in affectionate regard the memory of the Duke of Clarence, the Earl of Warwick's father, who had been its lieutenant. No sooner, therefore, did the impostor Simnel present himself to Thomas Fitz-Gerald, Earl of Kildare, and claim his protection as the unfortunate Warwick, than that credulous nobleman paved the way for his reception, and furthered his design upon the throne, till the people in Dublin with one consent tendered their allegiance to him as the true Plantagenet. They paid the pretended Prince attendance as their sovereign, lodged him in the Castle of Dublin, crowned him with a diadem taken from a statue of the Virgin, and publicly proclaimed him King, by the appellation of Edward the Sixth.
In the year 1487 Lambert, with about two thousand Flemish troops under the command of Colonel Martin Swart, a man of noble family in Germany, an experienced and valiant soldier, whom the Duchess of Burgundy had chosen to support the pretended title of Simnel to the crown of England, and a number of Irish, conducted by Thomas Gerardine their captain from Ireland, landed in Furness at the Pile of Fouldrey. The army encamped in the neighbourhood of Ulverston, at a place now known by the name of Swart-Moor. Sir Thomas Broughton joined the rebels with a small body of English. The army, at this time about eight thousand strong, proceeded to join the Earl of Lincoln, Lord Lovel, and the rest of the confederates, passing on through Cartmel to Stoke field, near Newark-upon-Trent, where they met and encountered the King's forces on the 5th of June, 1487.
The day being far advanced before the King arrived at Stoke, he pitched his camp and deferred the battle till the day following. The forces of the Earl of Lincoln also encamped at a little distance from those of the King, and undismayed by the superior numbers they had to encounter, bravely entered the field the next day, and arranged themselves for battle, according to the directions of Colonel Swart and other superior officers. The charge being sounded, a desperate conflict was maintained with equal valour on both sides for three hours. The Germans were in every respect equal to the English, and none surpassed the bravery of Swart their commander. For three hours each side contended for victory, and the fate of the battle remained doubtful. The Irish soldiers, however, being badly armed, and the Germans being overpowered by numbers, the Lambertines were at length defeated, but not before their principal officers, the Earl of Lincoln, Lord Lovel, Sir Thomas Broughton, Colonel Swart, and Sir Thomas Gerardine captain of the Irish, and upwards of four thousand of their soldiers were slain.
Young Lambert and his tutor were both taken prisoners. The latter, being a priest, was punished with perpetual imprisonment; Simnel was too contemptible to be an object either of apprehension or resentment to Henry. He was pardoned, and made a scullion in the King's kitchen, whence he was afterwards advanced to the rank of falconer, in which employment he ended his days.
Sir Thomas Broughton is said to have fallen on the field of battle: but there remains a tradition, that he returned and lived many years amongst his tenants in Witherslack, in Westmorland; and was interred in the Chapel there; but of this nothing is known for certain at present, or whether he returned or where he died. Dr. Burn, speaking of the grant of Witherslack to Sir Thomas, on the attainder of the Harringtons in the first year of Henry's reign for siding with the house of York, and of its subsequent grant to Thomas Lord Stanley, the first Earl of Derby, on the attainder of Sir Thomas for having been concerned in this affair of Lambert Simnel, goes on to say—"And here it may not be amiss to rectify a mistake in Lord Bacon's history of that King, (Henry VII.) who saith that this Sir Thomas Broughton was slain at Stoke, near Newark, on the part of the counterfeit Plantagenet, Lambert Simnell; whereas Sir Thomas Broughton escaped from that battle hither into Witherslack, where he lived a good while incognito, amongst those who had been his tenants, who were so kind unto him as privately to keep and maintain him, and who dying amongst them was buried by them, whose grave Sir Daniel Fleming says in his time was to be seen there."
The erection of the new chapel of Witherslack by Dean Barwick, in 1664, at a considerable distance from where the ancient chapel stood, has obliterated the memory of his once well-known grave. With this unhappy gentleman the family of Broughton, which had flourished for many centuries and had contracted alliances with most of the principal families in these parts, was extinguished in Furness.
After these affairs the King had leisure to revenge himself on his enemies, and made a progress into the northern parts of England, where he gave many proofs of his rigorous disposition. A strict inquiry was made after those who had assisted or favoured the rebels, and heavy fines and even sanguinary punishments, were imposed upon the delinquents in a very arbitrary manner. The fidelity therefore of Sir Thomas Broughton's tenants to their fallen master was not without its dangers, and is a pleasing instance of attachment to the person of a leader in a rude and perilous age.
In the wars of the Roses the Broughtons had always strenuously supported the House of York. It is however remarkable that, the manor of Witherslack having been granted to Sir Thomas by Henry the Seventh in the first year of his reign, he should have joined the Pretender in arms against that monarch in the following year.
Methop and Ulva, though distinctly named in the title and description of this manor, yet make but a small part of it. They are all included within a peninsula, as it were, between Winster Beck, Bryster Moss, and Lancaster Sands.
The fate of Lord Lovel, another of the chiefs in this disastrous enterprise, is also shrouded in mystery. It has often been told that he was never seen, living or dead, after the battle.
The dead bodies of the Earl of Lincoln and most of the other principal leaders, it was said, were found where they had fallen, sword-in-hand, on the fatal field; but not that of Lord Lovel. Some assert that he was drowned when endeavouring to escape across the river Trent, the weight of his armour preventing the subsequent discovery of his body. Other reports apply to him the circumstances similar to those which have been related above as referring to Sir Thomas Broughton; namely, that he fled to the north where, under the guise of a peasant, he ended his days in peace. Lord Bacon, in his History of Henry the Seventh, says "that he lived long after in a cave or vault." And his account has been partly corroborated in modern times. William Cowper, Esquire, Clerk of the House of Commons, writing from Hertingfordbury Park in 1738, says—"In 1708, upon the occasion of new laying a chimney at Minster Lovel, there was discovered a large vault or room underground in which was the entire skeleton of a man, as having been sitting at a table which was before him, with a book, paper, pen, etc.; in another part of the room lay a cap, all much mouldered and decayed; which the family and others judged to be this Lord Lovel, whose exit has hitherto been so uncertain."
A tradition was rife in the village in the last century to the effect that, in this hiding place, which could only be opened from the exterior, the insurgent chief had confided himself to the care of a female servant, was forgotten or neglected by her, and consequently died of starvation.
The ancient Castle or Pile of Fouldrey, (formerly called Pele of Foudra, or Futher,) stands upon a small island near the southern extremity of the isle of Walney; and is said by Camden to have been built by an Abbot of Furness, in the first year of King Edward the Third (A. D. 1327). It was probably intended for an occasional retreat from hostility; a depository for the valuable articles of the Monastery of Furness; and for a fortress to protect the adjoining harbour; all which intentions its situation and structure were well calculated to answer at the time of its erection.
It seems to have been the custom in the northern parts of the kingdom, for the monasteries to have a fortress of this kind, in which they might lodge with security their treasure and records on the approach of an enemy; of this the Castle on Holy Island, in Northumberland, and Wulstey Castle, near the Abbey of Holm Cultram, in Cumberland, are examples. It has even been said that an underground communication existed between Furness Abbey and the Pele of Fouldrey.
The harbour alluded to, appears to have been of considerable importance to the shipping of that period, when the relations of Ireland with the monks had become established. In the reign of Henry the Sixth, it is mentioned as being found a convenient spot for the woollen merchants to ship their goods to Ernemouth, in Zealand, without paying the duty; and in Elizabeth's days as "the only good haven for great shippes to londe or ryde in" between Scotland and Milford Haven, in Wales.
It was apprehended that the Spanish Armada would try to effect a landing in this harbour.
The rock thus named, lies off the harbour at Harrington, on the coast of Cumberland, and is only visible at low water during spring tides.
The Gleemen, or Waits, as the Christmas minstrels are called, still keep up their annual rounds, with song and salutation, and with a heartiness and zeal, which have been well described by the great Poet of the Lake district in those feeling and admirable verses to his brother, Dr. Wordsworth, prefixed to his Sonnets on the River Duddon.
In the parish of Muncaster, on the eve of the new year, the children go from house to house, singing a ditty, which craves the bounty, "they were wont to have, in old king Edward's days." There is no tradition whence this custom arose; the donation is two-pence or a pie at every house. Mr. Jefferson suggests, may not the name have been altered from Henry to Edward? and may it not have an allusion to the time when King Henry the sixth was entertained at Muncaster Castle in his flight from his enemies?
The little rocky tree-decked islet in Windermere, called St. Mary's, or the Ladye's Holme, hitherto reputed to have formed part of the conventual domains of the Abbey at Furness, had its name from a chantry dedicated to the Virgin Mary, which was standing up to the reign of King Henry the Eighth, but of which no traces are now remaining. "When," says an anonymous writer, "at the Reformation, that day of desolation came, which saw the attendant priests driven forth, and silenced for ever the sweet chant of orison and litany within its walls; the isle and revenues of the institution were sold to the Philipsons of Calgarth. By them the building was suffered to fall into so utter a state of ruin, that no trace even of its foundations is left to proclaim to the stranger who meditates upon the fleeting change of time and creed, that here, for more than three centuries, stood a hallowed fane, from whence at eventide and prime prayers were wafted through the dewy air, where now are only heard the festal sounds of life's more jocund hours." Lately renewed antiquarian investigation has, however, disclosed the erroneousness of the generally received statement respecting the early ownership of this tiny spot; as in Dodsworth's celebrated collection of ancient evidences there is contained an Inquisition, or the copy of one, taken at Kendal, so far back as the Monday after the feast of the Annunciation, in the 28th Edward the Third, which shews that this retreat, amid the waters of our English Como, appertained not to Furness Abbey, but to the house of Segden, in Scotland, which was bound always to provide two resident chaplains for the service of our Ladye's Chapel in this island solitude. For the maintenance and support of those priests, certain lands were given by the founder, who was either one of that chivalrous race, descended from the Scottish Lyndseys "light and gay," whose immediate ancestor in the early part of the thirteenth century had married Alice, second daughter and co-heiress of William de Lancaster, eighth Lord of Kendal; and with her obtained that moiety of the Barony of Kendal, whose numerous manors are collectively known as the Richmond Fee; or the chantry may have owed its foundation to the pious impulses of Ingelram de Guignes, Sire de Courci, one of the grand old Peers of France, whose house, so renowned in history and romance, proclaimed its independence and its pride in this haughty motto:—
"Je ne suis Roy ni Prince aussi,
Je suis Le Seignhor de Courci."And which Ingelram in 1285 married Christiana, heiress of the last de Lyndsey, and in her right, besides figuring on innumerable occasions as a feudal potentate, both in England and Scotland, he became Lord of the Fee, within which lies St. Mary's Isle.
On an Inquisition taken after the death of Johanna de Coupland, in the 49th Edward the Third, it was found that she held the advowson of the Chapel of Saint Mary's Holme, within the lake of Wynandermere, but that it was worth nothing, because the land which the said Chapel enjoyed of old time had been seized into the hands of the King, and lay within the park of Calgarth. It is on record, however, that in 1492, an annual sum of six pounds was paid out of the revenues of the Richmond Fee, towards the support of the Chaplains; and in the returns made by the ecclesiastical Commissioners in Edward the Sixth's reign, "the free Chapel of Holme and Wynandermere" is mentioned, shortly after which it was granted, as aforesaid, to the owners of Calgarth.
The singular name of the "Crier of Claife" is now applied to an extensive slate or flag quarry, long disused, and overgrown with wood, on the wildest and most lonely part of the height called Latter-barrow, which divides the vales of Esthwaite and Windermere, above the Ferry. In this desolate spot, by the sanctity and skill of holy men, had been exorcised and laid the apparition who had come to be known throughout the country by that title; and the place itself has ever since borne the same name. None of the country people will go near it after night fall, and few care to approach it even in daylight. Desperate men driven from their homes by domestic discord, have been seen going in its direction, and never known to return. It is said the Crier is allowed to emerge occasionally from his lonely prison, and is still heard on very stormy nights sending his wild entreaty for a boat, howling across Windermere. Mr. Craig Gibson, in one of his graphic sketches of the Lake country, says that he is qualified to speak to this, for he himself has heard him. "At least," says he, "I have heard what I was solemnly assured by an old lady at Cunsey must have been the Crier of Claife. Riding down the woods a little south of the Ferry, on a wild January evening, I was strongly impressed by a sound made by the wind as, after gathering behind the hill called Gummershow for short periods of comparative calm, it came rushing up and across the lake with a sound startlingly suggestive of the cry of a human being in extremity, wailing for succour. This sound lasted till the squall it always preceded struck the western shore, when it was lost in the louder rush of the wind through the leafless woods. I am induced to relate this," he continues, "by the belief I entertain that the phenomenon described thus briefly and imperfectly, may account for much of the legend, and that the origin of many similar traditional superstitions may be found in something equally simple."
The late Mr. John Briggs, in his notes upon "Westmorland as it was," by the Rev. Mr. Hodgson, has furnished his readers with some curious information upon the "philosophy of spirits," which he collected from those ancient sages of the dales who were supposed to be best acquainted with the subject. Many of these superstitions are now exploded: but the marvellous tales at one time currently believed, still furnish conversation for the cottage fireside. According to the gravest authorities, he says, no spirit could appear before twilight had vanished in the evening, or after it had appeared in the morning. On this account, the winter nights were peculiarly dangerous, owing to the long revels which ghosts, or dobbies, as they were called, could keep at that season. There was one exception to this. If a man had murdered a woman who was with child by him, she had power to haunt him at all hours; and the Romish priests (who alone had the power of laying spirits,) could not lay a spirit of this kind with any certainty, as she generally contrived to break loose long before her stipulated time. A culprit might hope to escape the gallows, but there was no hope of escaping being haunted. In common cases, however, the priest could "lay" the ghosts; "while ivy was green," was the usual term. But in very desperate cases, they were laid in the "Red Sea," which was accomplished with great difficulty and even danger to the exorcist. In this country, the most usual place to confine spirits was under Haws Bridge, a few miles below Kendal. Many a grim ghost has been chained in that dismal trough!
According to the laws to which they were subject, ghosts could seldom appear to more than one person at a time. When they appeared to the eyes, they had not the power of making a noise; and when they saluted the ear, they could not greet the eyes. To this, however, there was an exception, when a human being spoke to them in the name of the Blessed Trinity. For it was an acknowledged truth, that however wicked the individual might have been in this world, or however light he might have made of the Almighty's name, he would tremble at its very sound, when separated from his earthly covering.
The causes of spirits appearing after death were generally three. Murdered persons came again to haunt their murderers, or to obtain justice by appearing to other persons likely to see them avenged. Persons who had hid any treasure, were doomed to haunt the place where that treasure was hid; as they had made a god of their wealth in this world, the place where their treasure lay was to be their heaven after death. If any person could speak to them, and give them an opportunity of confessing where their treasure was hid, they could then rest in peace, but not otherwise. Those who died with any heavy crimes on their consciences, which they had not confessed, were also doomed to wander on the earth at the midnight hour.
Spirits had no power over those who did not molest them; but if insulted, they seem to have been extremely vindictive, and to have felt little compunction in killing the insulter. They had power to assume any form, and to change it as often as they pleased; but they could neither vanish nor change, while a human eye was fixed upon them.
Midway on Windermere, below the range of islands which intersect the lake, extends the track along which ply the Ferry boats between the little inn on the western side and the wooded promontory on the opposite shore. The Ferry House, with its lawn in front and few branching sycamores, occupies a jutting area between the base of a perpendicular cliff and the lake. Few finer prospects can be desired than that afforded from the summit which overhangs the Mere at this point. The summer house, which has been built for the sake of the views it commands of the surrounding country, is a favourite resort of lovers of the beautiful in nature, whence they may witness, in its many aspects afar, the grandeur of the mountain world; and near and below, the beauty of the curving shores and wooded isles of this queen of English lakes. From the Ferry House to the Ferry Nab, as the promontory is called, on the western shore, is barely half a mile. It was from thence that in the dark stormy night the Evil voice cried "Boat!" which the poor ferryman obeyed so fatally. No passenger was there, but a sight which sent him back with bloodless face and dumb, to die on the morrow.