The following group of four tales deals specifically with the Devil, but he can also be found at his evil tricks elsewhere – see ‘The Wild Huntsman’, ‘The Wedding at Stanton Drew’ and ‘The Parson and the Clerk’. His influence is also to be found in such tales as ‘The Phantom Coach’, ‘The Vicar of Germsoe’, ‘The Wrecker of Sennen Cove’, and ‘Herne the Hunter’.
When ordinary people meet the Devil they are likely to get the worst of the encounter; when saints take him on, they at least stand a chance of coming out of it victorious. Doughty St Dunstan is a worthy example of a saint with quick reactions and a practical turn of mind.
Time was when Dunstan had been merely a simple craftsman, skilled in the working of metals, and above all an expert goldsmith. Now he was Archbishop of Canterbury, the most important man of the Church in the whole realm; but sometimes the pomp and the ceremony of his high calling irked his simple soul, and he looked back with longing to his early days, and lived again in his imagination the uplifting moments of creation when a beautiful vessel of gold had taken shape in front of his eyes. Then in contrition he prayed, and thanked God both for his skill, and for the fact that the high position he now held was of more service to his Creator than that of a travelling goldsmith, however skilled he might have been.
Yet the thought and the longing persisted, that he might once more live a simple life for a while, and know again the gratification of the artist as the precious yellow metal yielded to the persuasion of his clever hands.
At Mayfield, in Sussex, there was then no church. Dunstan desired that one should be built there, and a tiny wooden one soon arose. Alas, when the archbishop travelled to Mayfield to consecrate the new building, he found to his chagrin that it was out of position, and did not lie true east and west, as churches should. Taking a deep breath and relying on the strength of the Almighty, he applied his shoulder to the church, and gently pushed. The foundations moved, and the next moment the little church was aligned as it had been first intended.
Pleased with his success, the saint then desired that there should be erected close by the wooden church a tiny cell with a smithy attached. When it was completed, Dunstan took himself off from Canterbury as often as he could, and dwelt as a hermit in his little cell. He set up a forge in the smithy, where he could follow his old craft, both for the glory of God and as solace to his own restless creative spirit. In this way, too, he served his neighbours, because though few there needed gold chalices, many needed horseshoes; and the humble saint saw no reason why his skill as a blacksmith was not as worthy as that of his skill as a goldsmith.
So it was that one day Dunstan was at work in his forge, making an ordinary horseshoe. The bellows were roaring, the fire was bright and clear, and the iron in the tongs he held glowed almost white hot with the heat. The saint was happy, and sang at his work the age-old song of the blacksmith in time and rhythm with his bellows. But suddenly the song died on his lips as a shadow fell over the smithy, and in spite of the heat of the fire, his blood ran cold with dread.
Glancing up, he saw before him a figure so strong and so tall, so well-made and so handsome, so pleasant and so beguiling of manner that a lesser man than Dunstan must have been deceived; but Dunstan had striven against the Devil and all his works from the moment when, as a young man, he had first heard and believed the blessed word of Christ. He had no need to look for cloven hoof or forked tail; he knew his Arch-Enemy by instinct on the instant, and waited for no formal introduction.
Drawing the white-hot tongs from the fire with the rapid dexterity born of long practice, he opened them, leaned forward, and closed them again – one blade on each side of His Satanic Majesty’s large and handsome nose.
The Devil yelled with pain and anger, but St Dunstan held on tight. The Devil sprang this way and that, roaring vengeance and calling up curses onto the head of the agile saint-archbishop. Still Dunstan held on. Then, with a mighty wrench, the Devil pulled himself free, and leaped, high over forge and smithy, high over church and village, high over the lovely countryside where Kent and Sussex meet, till he came to earth again in the middle of Tunbridge Wells. There, at the foot of the Pantiles, a spring gushes clear and cold, and with a growl of anguish the Devil plunged his burnt nose into the cooling water. Steam and fumes of sulphur rose and hissed as cold water met the scorching flesh; and from that day to this the spring at the Pantiles has had the chalybeate qualities that have made ‘the waters’ of Tunbridge Wells famous the world over.
As for St Dunstan, he went on working at his forge whenever he could; and the archbishops of Canterbury who succeeded him enlarged his cell from time to time till it became the splendid Mayfield Palace, where they lived in turn until such time as Cranmer exchanged it with the king in return for other property. Sir Thomas Gresham lived there then, and Queen Elizabeth the First in her time slept under its roof.
People came from far and wide to drink of the sulphurous waters of Tunbridge, and somebody invented the idea of fixing pins into the sides of the drinking cups as measuring points to show how much had been swallowed. Some people even give St Dunstan the credit for that bit of invention, too – but who is there now to know?
The Devil in disguise is a constantly recurring theme in folktale – which also acknowledges that the wickedest of all disguises for him is the cloak of piety. In this story he personifies evil in its own right destroying the innocent, the tempter corrupting promising youth, and a kind of Nemesis, never leaving the side of the sinner he has brought low. Even he, however, can be thwarted by love and repentance.
There is now no fragment to be found to mark the place where the once-proud castle stood, if indeed it ever existed in the reality of solid stone. All that remains is the Castle Rock, at the northern edge of the wild valley called the Valley of the Rocks, and with it, an age-old story of the doom-cursed family to whom castle and valley once belonged.
Once upon a time, so the story goes, a magnificent castle stood upon this spot, four-square and sturdy as only the Normans knew how to build. The castellan was a knight of great renown, a favourite with the king, and a valiant warrior though proud and avaricious. When his liege lord raised the banner of the cross and set out for the Holy Land to rescue the Holy Places from the clutches of the Infidels, the knight left home and family, castle and demesne to follow. Time passed from months to years, and he did not come home. Meanwhile his lady took his place, and kept the affairs of her husband in good order against his return.
One evening, as the lady sat in the great hall, word was brought to her that a stranger was at the gate, asking alms and hospitality, which in the ordinary way was usually given, though sometimes grudgingly, by her lord.
‘What manner of man is he?’ the lady asked.
‘Madam, I like not his looks, though he is a man of the Church,’ replied her steward.
‘I will see for myself,’ said the châtelaine, for monks had none too good a reputation in those parts, or anywhere else, just then.
So she came down to the gate, and saw before her a tall, strong man whose long black habit could not conceal the powerfully built frame, and whose black cowl did not mask his handsome though cruel visage. The steward had been right, she felt. This was not a man to harbour willingly under one’s roof in the absence of the lord and master.
The stranger begged for alms, in the name of the Blessed St Mary; but the lady stood her ground, and forbade either alms or admittance to him.
Then the strange monk threw back his sable cowl, while his face grew even darker with anger. He raised his hand above his head, and cursed the lady and all her brood. His voice shook with fury as he clenched his fist and proclaimed these cryptic words:
What is thine
shall be mine,
and so shall remain,
till in the porch
of the Holy Church
a dame and a child
stand side by side
and beckon a sinner in.
Then he strode away, and the lady and all her household felt a strange foreboding of evil yet to come; but as it happened it was not long before her knight returned, unharmed, from the Holy Wars. All seemed to be well, in spite of the Black Monk’s curse.
However, the knight had come back hardened and embittered, and more avaricious than ever. Riches and treasure obsessed his thoughts during his waking hours, and at night filled all his dreams. Greed drove him to acts of cruelty and dishonesty that made his name a by-word through the neighbourhood, and troubled much the conscience of his lady.
He amassed such treasure that he feared for its safety, guarded though it was within his stronghold; and he began to make plans for adding new defences to the castle. But building materials were expensive and hard to come by; so he pulled down the Church of St John, near by, and used the stones to erect new turrets and battlements, new walls and gatehouses. And as if that were not sacrilege enough, he took for himself the church’s treasures of gold and silver, studded all over with precious jewels, and added them to the loot he had brought back from his travels. All this plate was stored together, within a massive iron-bound chest made specially for the purpose.
Night after night the castellan locked himself in his chamber and gloated over his treasures, while his lady wife grieved and prayed, and did her best to bring up her son and her little daughter in more Christian ways.
One evening in winter, as the knight knelt before his treasure chest, he was aware of a dark shadow looming above him, cutting off the light of the torch that blazed from the cresset on the wall. Looking up, he beheld a tall, handsome, powerfully built stranger clothed in a long black habit and a monkish cowl. As the knight cringed in awesome dread, the Black Monk pronounced his doom; the time had come when the knight must pay for his evil deeds, as the day of judgment inevitably falls for those who commit the deadly sins of greed and sacrilege.
Terror-stricken, the knight began to scream for his steward, his guards, his men-at-arms – all those he had housed for years to protect his property and his person. They heard him, and obeyed his urgent summons at once, but even so, they were too late. When they broke down the door of his chamber, they found only his dead body lying across the open chest of treasure, his face still contorted with the terror of his last living moments. The Black Monk had gone.
Great was the grief of the lady and her children. Her son, the new owner of the castle and all that was in it, was by this time a fine young man. Her only other child was a girl, still an infant, of whom the young knight was particularly fond. To them, the lady told the story of the curse put upon the family by the Black Monk. It seemed to the heir that somehow or other he must expiate the sins of his father, in order to free his mother and sister from the curse. What better way could there be than to take up arms again in the holy cause, and join the new crusade to the Holy Land?
He armed himself anew with the latest of harness and the most tried of weapons, and all his retinue likewise. Then he bade a loving farewell to his mother and his baby sister, and rode away to do battle for Christ on foreign shores in the East.
Alas for the hopes and aspirations of youth! He was valiant and brave, intelligent and courageous; but his spirit was neither old enough nor experienced enough to stand against the sense of doom that surrounded him, nor against the worldly temptations placed daily in his way. He fought many a fierce battle against the Saracens, and wrought valiant deeds with his sword; yet always at the moment of triumph over his enemies, he would look up to find the Black Monk at his side, wearing a sardonic grin on his gloomy, swarthy face. When the knight returned to camp with his fellows, and sat feasting while the tales of valour in the field were recounted, he would find the Black Monk seated at his side, still leering from beneath his cowl at the thought of what was to come. Even in the softness of a lady’s bower, when he had laid aside his harness for pleasurable dalliance with his chosen fair one, he would suddenly be aware of the uninvited presence of the Black Monk sneering as always, watching and waiting.
The knight grew depressed under the constant strain, and began to give up hope. What was the good of knightly chivalry, of valiant deeds, of self-denial, honesty and clean living, if at the end all that was his was to be surrendered to the Black Monk, as the curse had foretold? He grew bitter, and reckless. He indulged in the violent fighting no longer for the cause, but for his own vainglory and reputation as a warrior. He slipped into lascivious ways of greed, gluttony and lust. His besmirched reputation went ahead of him wherever he journeyed, and tales of his wild doings and evil ways of life were brought back to Devon by other returning Crusaders. When his mother and little sister heard them, they could scarcely believe their ears, or credit the truth of the tale-bearers. But as each report confirmed another, and every new tale bore fresh evidence that their loved one was going from bad to worse, they gave way to grief that made the proud castle they lived in seem the veriest Palace of Sorrow.
The mother’s frail health, weakened by all she had endured, soon failed her, so that she died; and bereft of mother and father, without hope of seeing her beloved brother again as she had remembered him, the little girl, too, lost her grip on life, and very soon let it go. Then the retainers of the castle buried her side by side with her mother in a tomb in the village church.
At length, however, the time came when the Crusaders turned their steps homewards, and among them was the knight, notorious now both for his valour and his evil reputation. Once landed in England, he made his way towards Devon, with the Black Monk, as ever, at his side. He was weary with travel and satiated with strife as his horse climbed the last hill and he looked down once more on the beautiful valley where he had been born. There stood the castle, sturdy and grim as he had remembered it; there lay the fields he owned, green and fertile in the beautiful light of spring. There stood the little grey church where he had sat by his mother, holding his tiny sister lovingly by the hand. He reined his steed to a halt, while memories of his childhood flooded over him, and remorse filled his heart for all the wrong he had done and the sins he had committed since leaving his mother’s loving care. As grief and sorrow flooded over him, he hung his head to hide the gathering tears. At his side the Black Monk chafed and fidgeted at the delay, and urged him towards the castle at all speed, to take possession at last of all his worldly inheritance. Then, just as the knight was about to yield to his dark companion’s evil counsel, there stole from the church tower the first mellow tones of the evening bells calling in the faithful. The ringing notes, softened by distance, floated clear across the valley and completely melted the heart of the returning knight. He wheeled his horse in the direction of the church, and began to urge it forward, not towards the castle, but to where the bells were calling him home.
Enraged, the Black Monk clattered by his side, endeavouring still by threat and promise to dissuade him, and to turn him aside from his purpose; but in vain. The knight rode resolutely on, till he was almost at the entrance to the porch; and there, suddenly, framed by the arch of the doorway, stood his mother and little sister, surrounded by a halo of most glorious heavenly light. Then as he gazed, his mother smiled upon him a smile of such loving forgiveness that his heart leapt towards her, while both she and the child at her side began to beckon him to get down and come to them.
Then the knight shook off the strong restraining hand of the Black Monk, and with a glad cry of ‘Mother! Mother! I come’ he dismounted and ran towards his mother’s outstretched arms; but before he reached them, or entered the church porch, he fell on his knees and cried, ‘May Heaven forgive my sins!’ Then the most glorious music broke all round them, as a radiance of light enwrapped all three figures; and even as it enveloped them, all three were borne upwards till they dissolved to nothing against the blue of the evening sky.
No sooner had the heavenly radiance faded, and the celestial music trembled into silence, than there came in its stead a flash of terrible lightning and a deafening roar of thunder from directly overhead. The Black Monk had turned his horse in rage, and had just left the churchyard, as the thunder pealed. Then the earth before him opened into a great fissure that ran from side to side of the valley, and the Black Monk, thwarted in his designs by a sinner’s genuine repentance, spurred his horse and leaped right into the middle of it. So the Evil One returned in rage and fury to the depths to which he belonged; and over his head the yawning gap closed again, but not before the castle in all its worldly might had crumbled to dust and slithered with him into the abyss.
As years passed, the beautiful fertile valley, now neglected, turned into a stretch of wild desolation. So it remains, called the Valley of the Rocks. In it, there is now no trace of a castle ever having been there, nor is there a record of the name of the family so doomed by the curse of the Black Monk. Indeed, nothing remains but this old story, and when or how that began, nobody knows at all.
Another story of the Devil in contention with the Church, and again defeated by virtue, although nearly victorious this time by reason of the Church’s preoccupation with worldly affairs.
The Devil was jealous. It irked his proud spirit that he had nothing to compare with the wonderful city of Canterbury. Since the murder of that holy man Archbishop Thomas Becket, within his own great church, people had flocked from the four corners of the earth, let alone from every parish in England, to do reverence to his tomb and to seek their own salvation at his hands. Many were the miracles St Thomas had performed, and the reputation of its saint made Canterbury a very rich as well as a very proud place.
Yet the Devil knew perfectly well that the people of Canterbury – including the monks – had quite as many thoughts in their heads, and quite as many deeds to their credit, that smacked of the world and the flesh as they did of more spiritual matters. The love of money is the root of all evil, as the Bible says. The thousands of pilgrims travelling yearly to St Thomas’s tomb had brought money beyond their dreams to many a citizen of the town as well as to the monastery; but the appetite for riches grows by what it feeds on, and it seemed they could never have enough of it, or of the profligate life of sin it made possible.
The Devil kept his eye on all that happened there, until he came to the conclusion that it really was so wicked that he ought to be able to claim it for his own. The snag was that right in the very middle of the city were the relics of St Thomas the Martyr, and round his tomb the monks of Canterbury kept constant vigil, night and day, with prayer and praise, lesson and canticle; and while that persisted, it could never wholly be his.
In the end, he made representations on his own behalf to the Almighty Power, pointing out that even the brothers were by no means free of the sins that were so rife among the lay-people; and he desired permission to gather it up, and cast the whole lot of it into the sea. There was sorrow in heaven that his allegations could not be refuted, and in the end reluctant permission was given to him that if ever the sound of prayer and praise round the Martyr’s tomb were to cease, Canterbury should become the Devil’s property, and he might take it up and dump it wherever he liked.
Long he watched; but there were always those among the older monks whose utter devotion to St Thomas thwarted his desires, and could be relied on never to allow the sound of praise to die away from the church entirely, even for a second.
Then, at last, his chance came. A great and holy festival was held, to which pilgrims came in numbers never before equalled. Day after day they pressed in upon the town, and hour after hour the ritual inside the church went on. The priests and monks whose duty it was to keep the endless chain of devotions moving grew more and more weary until they were all utterly exhausted; those who had borne the brunt of the day’s exertions tottered to their rest, but those of the night shift were all so worn out that they did not hear the bells for once, and slept on. The time the Devil had been waiting for had come; the glory of Canterbury would be no more. Buildings and churches, palaces and cottages, lords and lackeys, men, women and children were now fair game for the Prince of Darkness, who had permission to drown it all if he wished.
Down he swooped, with his great black wings making ominous shadows over the moonlit town as he flew. Then he pounced, endeavouring to scoop up the entire city, cathedral and all, in his mighty arms. But it was a good deal larger than ever he had reckoned, and try as he might, he could not get his arms right round it, to pick it up entire, as he had intended. In spite of his dreadful talons, outstretched to their utmost limit, he could not even pluck up a half of it. So he grabbed what he could conveniently hold, rose on the strong beat of his powerful wings, and glided out to sea. Once clear of the land, he let go, and that part of the city fell pell-mell into the water, to disappear for ever beneath the waves. Then back went the fiend, clawed up another armful, and repeated the process, and so on, again, with the third portion. The proud city was almost gone; but St Thomas, neglected though his shrine had been, now performed a miracle to preserve that district of it in which his bones were resting.
Asleep in his cell, exhausted by his day’s work, was a good old monk, Brother Hubert the sacristan. Stirring uneasily in his slumbers, he saw before him the bright outline of an angel – indeed it was the angel that was doing its best to rouse him into wakefulness; and as soon as the bemused brother had made sure he was not dreaming, he gave all his attention to what his excited heavenly visitor was urging him to do.
Rushing into the church, he seized the rope of Great Harry, the huge bell that in the ordinary way took the strength of ten hefty ringers to raise it. Tonight, as Hubert pulled, it yielded to his touch as if he had been a very giant instead of a frail old man.
The Devil had returned for yet another armful, and was flying with it towards the coast, when the first great Boom! from Harry fell on his ear, and on those of the surrounding countryside. There is nothing the Evil One fears more than the clang of consecrated metal, and in his surprise and fury he lost his grip on his load, and let it fall. Then he made off back to his own infernal quarters, having wreaked his vengeance on the greater part of Canterbury, but being forced to leave the rest under the protection of its vigilant, powerful saint.
Great was the wonderment of the people next day, for it was quite clear that it was those quarters of the town in which vice had been rampant that had disappeared completely, though the Devil’s last armful had been the far more respectable part, in which many comparatively virtuous citizens had dwelt; and as it was their dwellings that the tolling of Great Harry had caused the Fiend to drop, they had been preserved from destruction by falling higgledypiggledy up and down a hillside. From them in their new situation grew the thriving town and port of Whitstable; but Canterbury has never since regained its wealth or importance.
The rest of its buildings are in the sea, a mile or so from the coast, where occasionally glimpses of them could be seen for long afterwards. Wise antiquarians have declared that what has been revealed from time to time are the remains of Roman dwellings, submerged by the rising ocean. But of course, the people of Kent know better than that!
The medieval folk-concept of the Devil as distinct from that preached by the Church, is that of Rex Mundi – large, dark and handsome, infinitely attractive, a jolly fellow full of pranks and merriment and still displaying some of the attributes of his counterparts in pagan times. This is the picture of him portrayed in this old Yorkshire tale.
Ralph Calvert was a cobbler, in the days when a well-fitting pair of boots or sandals made all the difference to the comfort of life, especially for those whose daily round took them up hill and down dale through the wide stretches of Yorkshire. He lived in Thorpe, a village in Wharfedale, and supplied a good many of his neighbours with sturdy soles; but his best customers were the monks at Fountains Abbey. It was a long trail from Thorpe to Fountains, but when the message came that the monks needed his services, he set off with more than his usual good cheer; for he was a merry fellow at all times, and there was nothing he liked better than a convivial hour or two with the porter, who, to say the least of it, lived well. So did the monks, and a cheery lot they were, too, by all accounts; at any rate the peasant girls of Wharfedale found them so, when they happened to meet them on the hills, where the flocks of the Abbey’s sheep grazed in their thousands.
Ralph loved his stomach, but he loved a good song, too, for he had a most melodious voice, and knew by heart all the old ballads handed down from his grandfathers – gay ones, sad ones, romantic ones, stirring ones – words, melodies, choruses and all. To keep them in mind, and to while away the miles, he sang them to himself as he jogged along with his sack of shoes on his shoulder. When he got tired, especially towards a warm noonday, he sat down by the wayside and partook liberally of the fare he had provided himself with for the journey; and sometimes the exercise, and the warmth, and the food, to say nothing of the good home-brewed, got the better of him, and he stretched out for a nap among the inquisitive ewes before setting forth again on his journey. But this, as every Yorkshireman knows, is a dangerous practice, for those who take a snooze after a good lunch are very likely to dream of the Devil, and Ralph Calvert was no exception.
He dreamed that the Evil One pounced on him from behind, like a cat, before he had time to defend himself at all; and the Old ’Un then pinioned him, gathered him up like a baby in one hand, and held him up in the air while with the other hand he deftly untied the string that bound the neck of a huge sack that he carried. Then he bundled the scared cobbler into the bag, as if he had been a trussed rabbit, and had just begun to close the sack up again over the head of the shrieking wayfarer, when that worthy woke himself up with his own cries. Mightily relieved he was, too, to find himself safe on the hillside in the sunshine, with nothing more to frighten him than the unceasing movement of the jaws of the stolid sheep. But it had been a particularly vivid, nasty dream, and he had difficulty in making himself believe there was nothing more behind it than a stomach too well lined; so he looked most carefully for any tell-tale hoof marks in the dust, or signs of scorching on the grass. There were none, and at length the cobbler picked up his sack and trudged on again, gradually recovering his normal cheerful spirits as he sang his way along until the tower of the Abbey appeared in the distance and the end of his journey was in sight.
Having delivered his work to the monks, he made his way back to the gate and his old crony, the porter. There he spent a pleasant evening, hearing all the latest tales and consuming a large quantity of excellent roast beef and ale. Then he put himself down to sleep, ready for the start of the long walk home again, early next morning.
So off he went with his snap-bag newly topped-up with supplies for the road by the hospitable porter, full of high spirits, and struck off into the woods, singing to himself cheerily as always. Once through the woods, he looked back and saw the tower of the Abbey standing proud above them, and the Pately road stretched out before him. Somehow, the farther he got from the Abbey, the more he dwelt upon the curious dream he had had the previous day. He thought so much about it that he was in danger of losing his ordinary cheery endurance, and several times he felt it really necessary to fortify himself with a swig or two of an innkeeper’s strong ale. Then up to the hills he went again, and on to the high moors; but in front of him was a swollen river, and there was nothing for it but to take off his boots and hose, sling them over his shoulder, and wade through. Once on the other side, he sat down on the bank to let his feet dry, pulled on his hose, and then prepared to don his boots again. He was feeling fine, but hungry, and as he bent to put on his boots, he sang happily
As he was a-riding along the high way,
Old Nick came unto him, and to him did say.
Sing link-a-down, heigh-down, ho-down derry –
when a deep voice behind him joined in with gusto,
Tol-lol-de-rol, lol-de-rol, dol, dol, derry.
Ralph twisted himself round with his heart in his mouth, and looking up over his own shoulder, there he saw him – Old Nick himself, slightly larger than life and twice as handsome, making no attempt to disguise all the tell-tale evidence of his identity – cloven hoofs, tiny horns, forked beard and unmistakable tail – in fact, just as the cobbler had seen him in his dream, even to the sack, which now lay empty at the Devil’s side as he reclined lazily on his elbow on the river bank.
Now Ralph was in fear of his life – nay, of his immortal soul; but he knew from many a previous wayfaring incident that the last thing to do in such a case is to show fear, at least until you are sure of your antagonist’s intentions. Old Nick didn’t look as if he meant mischief, and so it proved, for when he spoke again, Ralph’s fear was replaced by mild surprise, as all the Fiend did was to ask him politely how far it was to Grassington!
‘Now,’ thought Ralph to himself, ‘I’ve got to sing this one by ear, as it comes’; but he told himself bravely that there couldn’t be all that amiss in a chap as was so handy and willing to join in a good chorus. So he answered pat, and merrily, ‘Too far to go wi’out a bite and sup’; and opening his snap-sack, he brought out a bottle of Abbey wine and a mouth-watering, generous-sized eel pie.
Well, Old Nick’s eyes fairly sparkled at the sight of it, and he broke into the next verse of the ballad. By the time they got round to
Tol-lol-de-rol, lol-de-rol, dol, dol, derry
again, they were sitting side by side like old friends. Then Old Nick asked Ralph if he’d heard the one about the monk and the maiden of Nidderdale, and Ralph said no, but he had heard some lovely juicy scandal about the abbot, no later than last night. The eel pie vanished, and the wine bottle was emptied, as they capped each other’s stories, till they were both holding their sides with merriment, and the ewes stood chewing stolidly round them in a circle, wondering at a sight they had never seen before.
Then the Devil rose to go, full of grace and courtesy – in fact, as Ralph had to admit, a perfect gentleman, and such good company that he was reluctant to see him leave. Ralph tried to stand up, though his head did feel a bit muzzy; and as he staggered to his feet, he hiccupped out, ‘I knaw not whether tha’ beest t’devil or not; but whoever tha’ be, tha’ beest a merry chap! An’ I say that if tha’ bees truly Old Nick, bigg us a brigg ower this river to prove it!’
The Devil did not turn a hair. ‘Done, old friend!’ he said. ‘Look for it in three days’ time, and it shall be there.’
Then he caught up his bag, slung it over his shoulder, and to the fuddled cobbler’s astonishment, reached the top of the next hill in only two strides. The man saw him darkly outlined on the top of it, stark against the sky, until a huge black cloud came down and enveloped him completely. Then the cloud burst, and sent a rush of water down the river, raising the foaming waters almost breast high; but Ralph was on the homeward side of it already, and he set off again, shaking his still-fuddled head from time to time as if he didn’t quite know what to make of his own thoughts. However, three days later, there stood the bridge just where they had sat together in such good company; and a splendid bridge it was – and is. One thing Ralph stuck to all the rest of his life was that even Old Nick isn’t as black as he’s painted, because when you get to know him properly there’s no doubt but he’s a right merry fellow, and a gentleman who keeps his words into the bargain. There stands the bridge to prove it, after all.
