BOOK THE SECOND.

Pendle Forest.

I.    Flint
II.     Read hall
iii.     The boggart’s glen
IV.     The reeve of the forest
V.    Bess’s O’ th’ booth
VI.     The temptation
VII.     The perambulation of the boundaries
viii.     Rough Lee
IX.     How rough Lee was defended by Nicholas
X.    Roger Nowell and his double
XI.     Mother Demdike
XII.     The mysteries of Malkin tower
XIII.     The two familiars
XIV.     How rough Lee was again besieged
XV.     The phantom monk
XVI.     One o’clock! 
XVII.     How the beacon fire was extinguished

BOOK THE THIRD.

Hoghton Tower.

I. Downham manor-house
II.  The PENITENT’S retreat
iii.  Middleton hall
IV.  The gorge of Cliviger
V. The end of Malkin tower
VI.  Hoghton tower
VII.  The royal declaration concerning lawful sports on the Sunday
viii.  How king James hunted the hart and the wild-boar in Hoghton
park
IX.  The banquet
X. Evening entertainments
XI.  Fatality
XII.  The last hour
XIII.  The masque of death
XIV.  “One grave”
XV.  Lancaster castle

INTRODUCTION.

The Last Abbot of Whalley.

CHAPTER I.—­THE BEACON ON PENDLE HILL.

There were eight watchers by the beacon on Pendle Hill in Lancashire.  Two were stationed on either side of the north-eastern extremity of the mountain.  One looked over the castled heights of Clithero; the woody eminences of Bowland; the bleak ridges of Thornley; the broad moors of Bleasdale; the Trough of Bolland, and Wolf Crag; and even brought within his ken the black fells overhanging Lancaster.  The other tracked the stream called Pendle Water, almost from its source amid the neighbouring hills, and followed its windings through the leafless forest, until it united its waters to those of the Calder, and swept on in swifter and clearer current, to wash the base of Whalley Abbey.  But the watcher’s survey did not stop here.  Noting the sharp spire of Burnley Church, relieved against the rounded masses of timber constituting Townley Park; as well as the entrance of the gloomy mountain gorge, known as the Grange of Cliviger; his far-reaching gaze passed over Todmorden, and settled upon the distant summits of Blackstone Edge.