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Indeed, the party could not get out of the ravine without going back nearly a mile, while Sabden was only half that distance from them. What was to be done? Robin still continued obstinate, and for the first time paid no attention to his master's commands. The poor animal was evidently a prey to violent terror, and snorted and reared, while his limbs were bathed in cold sweat.
Not caring to enter into any explanation of the occurrence, he rode a little apart to avoid conversation; as the others, who were still smarting from the blows they had received, were in no very good-humour, a sullen silence prevailed throughout the party, as they mounted the bare hill-side in the direction of the few scattered huts constituting the village of Sabden.
"Till this morning I was not aware of the extent of the evil, but supposed that the two malignant hags, who seem to reign supreme here, confined their operations to blighting corn, maiming cattle, turning milk sour; and even these reports I fancied were greatly exaggerated; but I now find, from what I have seen at Sabden and elsewhere, that they fall very far short of the reality."
On arriving at Sabden he found that, while the business was going fairly well, it had failed to keep the pace that his personality had set. When the man is away the mice will play a little. Things drop down. Eternal vigilance is not only the price of liberty, but of everything else, and success in business most of all.
"Mother Demdike, may be, your warship," replied the man. "You suspect Mother Demdike and Mother Chattox of bewitching you," said Potts, taking out his memorandum-book, and making a note in it. "Your name, good fellow?" "Oamfrey o' Will's o' Ben's o' Tummas' o' Sabden," replied the man. "Is that all?" asked Potts. "What more would you have?" said Richard.
In summer, or in dry seasons, this stream proceeded quietly enough, and left the greater part of its stony bed unoccupied; but in winter, or after continuous rains, it assumed all the character of a mountain torrent, and swept every thing before it. A narrow bridle road led through the ravine to Sabden, and along it, after quitting the park, the cavalcade proceeded, headed by Nicholas.
He prospered rapidly in this congenial atmosphere; but it is at Sabden, not at Manchester, that we see the first monument of his public spirit a little stone school-house, built as the result of an agitation led by him with as much eager enthusiasm as he ever threw afterwards into great affairs of state. Between 1833 and 1836 Cobden's character widened and ripened with surprising quickness.
Medical assistance was fortunately at hand; for it chanced that Master Sudall, the chirurgeon of Colne, was in the house at the time, having been brought to Goldshaw by the great sickness that prevailed at Sabden and elsewhere in the neighbourhood.
Some of the cottages in Sabden were visible, and, from the sad circumstances connected with them, and which oppressed the thoughts of the beholders, added to the dreary character of the prospect. The day, too, had lost its previous splendour, and there were clouds overhead which cast deep shadows on the ground.
Behind the mansion, thick woods extended to the very confines of Pendle Forest, of which, indeed, they originally formed part, and here, if the course of the stream, flowing through the gully of Sabden, were followed, every variety of brake, glen, and dingle, might be found.
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