But in the belief of the vulgar the abbot did not rest tranquilly.  For many years afterwards a white-robed monastic figure was seen to flit along the cloisters, pass out at the gate, and disappear with a wailing cry over the Holehouses.  And the same ghostly figure was often seen to glide through the corridor in the abbot’s lodging, and vanish at the door of the chamber leading to the little oratory.  Thus Whalley Abbey was supposed to be haunted, and few liked to wander through its deserted cloisters, or ruined church, after dark.  The abbot’s tragical end was thus recorded:—­

          Johannes Paslew:  Capitali Effectus Supplicio.
          12º Mensis Martii, 1537.

As to the infant, upon whom the abbot’s malediction fell, it was reserved for the dark destinies shadowed forth in the dread anathema he had uttered:  to the development of which the tragic drama about to follow is devoted, and to which the fate of Abbot Paslew forms a necessary and fitting prologue.  Thus far the veil of the Future may be drawn aside.  That infant and her progeny became the LANCASHIRE WITCHES.

END OF THE INTRODUCTION.

THE LANCASHIRE WITCHES.

BOOK THE FIRST.

Alizon Device.

CHAPTER I.—­THE MAY QUEEN.

On a May-day in the early part of the seventeenth century, and a most lovely May-day, too, admirably adapted to usher in the merriest month of the year, and seemingly made expressly for the occasion, a wake was held at Whalley, to which all the neighbouring country folk resorted, and indeed many of the gentry as well, for in the good old times, when England was still merry England, a wake had attractions for all classes alike, and especially in Lancashire; for, with pride I speak it, there were no lads who, in running, vaulting, wrestling, dancing, or in any other manly exercise, could compare with the Lancashire lads.  In archery, above all, none could match them; for were not their ancestors the stout bowmen and billmen whose cloth-yard shafts, and trenchant weapons, won the day at Flodden?  And were they not true sons of their fathers?  And then, I speak it with yet greater pride, there were few, if any, lasses who could compare in comeliness with the rosy-cheeked, dark-haired, bright-eyed lasses of Lancashire.

Assemblages of this kind, therefore, where the best specimens of either sex were to be met with, were sure to be well attended, and in spite of an enactment passed in the preceding reign of Elizabeth, prohibiting “piping, playing, bear-baiting, and bull-baiting on the Sabbath-days, or on any other days, and also superstitious ringing of bells, wakes, and common feasts,” they were not only not interfered with, but rather encouraged by the higher orders.  Indeed, it was well known that the reigning monarch, James