The Ingoldsby Legends :: :: University of Virginia Library

King Edward went o'er to his wars in Guienne,
Taking with him his barons, his knights, and his men,
You may look through the whole
Of that King's muster-roll,
And you won't find the name of Sir Alured Denne;
But Chronicles tell that there formerly stood
A little old chapel in Bilsington wood;
The remains to this day,
Archæologists say,
May be seen, and I'd go there and look if I could.
There long dwelt a hermit remarkably good,
Who lived all alone,
And never was known
To use bed or bolster, except the cold stone;
But would groan and would moan in so piteous a tone,
A wild Irishman's heart had responded “Och hone!”
As the fashion with hermits of old was to keep skins
To wear with the wool on—most commonly sheep-skins

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He, too, like the rest was accustom'd to do so;
His beard, as no barber came near him, too, grew so,
He bore some resemblance to Robinson Crusoe,
In Houndsditch, I'm told, you'll sometimes see a Jew so.

He lived on the roots,
And the cob-nuts and fruits,
Which the kind-hearted rustics, who rarely are churls
In such matters, would send by their boys and their girls;
They'd not get him to speak,
If they'd tried for a week,
But the colour would always mount up in his cheek,
And he'd look like a dragon if ever he heard
His young friends use a naughty expression or word.
How long he lived, or at what time he died,
'Twere hard, after so many years, to decide,
But there's one point on which all traditions agree,
That he did die at last, leaving no legatee,
And his linen was marked with an A and a D.

Alas! for the glories of Bonnington Hall!
Alas, for its splendour! alas for its fall!
Long years have gone by
Since the trav'ler might spy
Any decentish house in the parish at all.
For very soon after the awful event,
I've related, 'twas said through all that part of Kent
That the maids of a morning, when putting the chairs
And the tables to rights, would oft pop unawares
In one of the parlours, or galleries, or stairs,
On a tall, female figure, or find her, far horrider,
Slowly o' nights promenading the corridor;

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But whatever the hour, or wherever the place,
No one could ever get sight of her face!
Nor could they perceive,
Any arm in her sleeve,
While her legs and her feet too, seem'd mere “make-believe,”
For she glided along with that shadow-like motion
Which gives one the notion
Of clouds on a zephyr, or ships on the ocean;
And though of her gown they could hear the silk rustle
They saw but that side on't ornée with the bustle.
The servants, of course, though the house they were born in,
Soon “wanted to better themselves,” and gave warning,
While even the new Knight grew tired of a guest
Who would not let himself or his family rest;
So he pack'd up his all,
And made a bare wall
Of each well-furnish'd room in his ancestors' Hall,
Then left the old Mansion to stand or to fall,
Having previously barr'd up the windows and gates,
To avoid paying sesses, and taxes and rates,
And settled on one of his other estates,
Where he built a new mansion, and called it Denne Hill
And there his descendants reside, I think, still.

Poor Bonnington, empty, or left, at the most,
To the joint occupation of rooks and a Ghost,
Soon went to decay,
And moulder'd away,
But whether it dropp'd down at last I can't say,
Or whether the jackdaws produced, by degrees, a
Spontaneous combustion like that one at Pisa

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Some cent'ries ago,
I'm sure I don't know,
But you can't find a vestige now ever so tiny,
“Perierunt,” as some one says, “etiam ruin(ce).”