an a village--were in view. In the
valleys there were a few hamlets and scattered cottages, and on the
uplands an occasional "booth," as the hut of the herdsman was termed;
but of more important mansions there were only six, as Merley,
Twistleton, Alcancoats, Saxfeld, Ightenhill, and Gawthorpe. The
"vaccaries" for the cattle, of which the herdsmen had the care, and the
"lawnds," or parks within the forest, appertaining to some of the halls
before mentioned, offered the only evidences of cultivation. All else
was heathy waste, morass, and wood.

Still, in the eye of the sportsman--and the Lancashire gentlemen of the
sixteenth century were keen lovers of sport--the country had a strong
interest. Pendle forest abounded with game. Grouse, plover, and bittern
were found upon its moors; woodcock and snipe on its marshes; mallard,
teal, and widgeon upon its pools. In its chases ranged herds of deer,
protected by the terrible forest-laws, then in full force: and the
hardier huntsman might follow the wolf to his lair in the mountains;
might spear the boar in the oaken glades, or the otter on the river's
brink; might unearth the badger or the fox, or smite the fierce
cat-a-mountain with a quarrel from his bow. A nobler victim sometimes,
also, awaited him in the shape of a wild mountain bull, a denizen of the
forest, and a remnant of the herds that had once browsed upon the hills,
but which had almost all been captured, and removed to stock the park of
the Abbot of Whalley. The streams and pools were full of fish: the
stately heron frequented the meres; and on the craggy heights built the
kite, the falcon, and the kingly eagle.

There were eight watchers by the beacon. Two stood apart from the
others, looking to the right and the left of the hill. Both were armed
with swords and arquebuses, and wore steel caps and coats of buff. Their
sleeves were embroidered with the five wounds of Christ, encircling the
name of Jesus--the badge of the Pilgrimage of Grace. Between them, on
the verge of the mountain, was planted a great banner, displaying a
silver cross, the chalice, and the Host, together with an ecclesiastical
figure, but wearing a helmet instead of a mitre, and holding a sword in
place of a crosier, with the unoccupied hand pointing to the two towers
of a monastic structure, as if to intimate that he was armed for its
defence. This figure, as the device beneath it showed, represented John
Paslew, Abbot of Whalley, or, as he st