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immense boulder stones, called the Thumb Stone* and the Little Finger Stone, are said to have been brought here by him; and an antient unfinished causeis also said to have been the work of this necromancer. way "He undertook," says the legend, " to do it as fast as a man could gallop a horse, on condition that the rider should not look behind him.' When the person had proceeded a few yards he heard such a noise and confusion that his fears got the better of his resolution; he looked back, and saw stones and gravel flying in all directions, and William in the midst of hundreds of little demons, not in blue but in red jackets, macadamising as fast as possible. The terrified horseman exclaimed, "God speed your work," which, as is usual in all these stories, put a stop to the whole business, and left the good people who had to pass and repass from Lindholme to Hatfield, to wade through the bog for two hundred years longer. When the time had arrived for the fulfilment of his contract with Satan, he dug a grave in his cell, and lay down in it; and then, by taking away the prop which supported a large flag stone just over it, buried himself.

These traditions, and the singular character of the place, attracted the attention of the Hatfield Antiquary, who describes the old house as being nothing more than a modern cottage, but that the floor looked like the floor of some antient chapel; and in the midst thereof there was a large gravestone, which plainly appears to have had an inscription upon it. This account is corroborated by Mr. Stovin, and the Rev. Samuel Wesley, Rector of Epworth, who visited Lindholme, for the express purpose of investi

gation,

The word Thumb I derive from the coalescence of the definite article with the Ang. Sax. ymb. circum, whence Thumb Stone is boundary stone, a purpose which well accounts for the pains which must have been taken to place it in its present position. When, by the alteration of the meres in this neighbourhood, and the disuse of the term ymb, or the obscurity which was thrown over it by the union with it of the article, the nature and intention of these stones was forgotten. Nothing was more in accordance with the course of such traditions, than that transporting of them should become associated with the name of one who was already placed in connection with demons: and this necessarily implied that he was endowed with that bodily strength which popular opinion ascribes to him. Hunter's History of the Deanery of Doncaster.

gation, in 1727. "In order to be better informed," says Mr. Stovin, in a letter, inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine, for January, 1747, "I accompanied the Rev. Samuel Wesley and others to view the place, and after passing the morass, found the hermitage or cell situate in the middle of sixty acres of firm sandy ground, full of pebbles, on which was growing barley, oats, and pease. There was likewise a well, four or five yards deep, full of clear spring water. Here is great plenty of furze bushes, &c. and variety of game, such as hares, foxes, kites, eagles, curlews, ducks, and geese. The house is a little stud and bound one, and seems ready to fall. At the east end stood an altar, made of hewn stone; and at the west is the hermit's grave, covered with a large freestone, that measures in length eight feet and a half, and in breadth three, which, with the consent of Richard Houlegate, the present inhabitant, and the help of levers, was raised up and removed; and digging under, found a tooth, a skull, the thigh and shin bones of a human body, all of a very large size. We likewise found in the grave a peck of hemp seed and a beaten piece of copper."

There can be no doubt that, at some remote period, Lindholme had been the abode of a hermit. Thus we find that Roger de Mowbray gave certain lands in Sandtoft and Hanes, a spot almost as secluded in the parish of Croule, to St. Peters at York, for the maintenance of a similar character; and willed also, "that a mastiff be kept for his protection," as the reader will find related in the History of Sandtoft, in this work. De la Prymne, who was sometime Minister of Thorne, entertained this opinion of William of Lindholme, as appears from the following verses, which he wrote after his visit to the Hermitage.

"Within an humble lonesome cell,

He free from care and noise does dwell;
No pomp, no pride, no cursed strife,
Disturbs the quiet of his life.

A truss or two of straw his bed,

His arms the pillow for his head;

His hunger makes makes his bread go down,
Altho' it be both stale and brown:

A purling

A purling brook, that runs hard by,
Affords him drink whene'er he's dry:
In short a garden and a spring
Does all life's necessaries bring.
What is't the foolish world calls poor?
He has enough, he needs no more.
No anxious thoughts corrode his breast,
No passions interrupt his rest.
No chilling fear, no hot desire,
Freezes or sets his blood on fire.
No tempest is engendered there
All does serene and calm appear
And 'tis his comfort, when alone,
Seeking no ill to think of none.

He spends each moment of his breath
In preparations for his death;
And patiently expects his doom,
When fate shall order it to come.

He sees the winged lightning fly
Thro' the tempestuous angry sky,
And unconcerned its thunders hears :-

Who knows no guilt can feel no fears.

These hermits seem to have selected places remarkable for their seclusion and unwholesomeness, under the idea that they were the favourite abodes of evil spirits and that, to erect a cell there, was, attacking Satan in his stronghold. Thus we read that St. Guthlac fixed his abode in a similar situation, at Crowland, in the fens of Lincolnshire, where he passed fifteen years, and suffered violent temptations and assaults, not unlike those which St. Anastatius relates of St. Antony*.

This place before the drainage was one of the stations of the keepers of the game. And amongst the testamentary burials collected by Torre†, there

is

*Butler's Lives of the Saints.

Hunter's History of the Deanery of Doncaster.

is mention of Richard Bland of Lindholme, gentleman, who, in the reign of Charles the First, directed that his body should be buried at Hatfield.

Since then, a causeway, covered with sand, has been made all the way to Hatfield Woodhouse; and of late years two handsome apartments, for the sidence of the owner, have been added to the antient cottage mentioned by Wesley and Stovin. A neat flower garden has also been planted round the house, in which are placed a vast number of bee-hives; the busy occupants find ample room for the exercise of their industry among the heathery flowers of the waste. The present proprietor has raised several broods of grouse on these moors; he has also made some attempts at cultivation; and, as the old channel of the river Torn contains a considerable quantity of warp, he contemplates covering some portion of the surface of the moor with that material, by means of a small waggon, of a very ingenious construction. Could this be accomplished, and the ground kept sufficiently drained, no land would crop better than this mixture of warp and peat earth.

A small space, of several yards square, had been covered about three inches thick with warp, by way of experiment, on which was growing, at the time of my visit, a luxuriant crop of white clover and other seeds. I cannot help thinking, however, that a decoy for wild fowl, on a large scale, now that there are such facilities for sending them to the great markets, would yield by far the greatest profit with the least out-lay of capital. In this retreat the fowl could never be disturbed; they would never hear the report of a gun, which Charles Waterton, Esq.* says no member of the feathered race can endure; and I have no doubt they would congregate in vast numbers. These moors may be compared to a vast sponge filled with water, from which cause they have expanded and raised themselves above the level of the adjoining countries; so that, however much water they might contain, they were never covered to a depth sufficient for the passage of boats. In crossing this waste to Lindholme, there is a complete bird's-eye view of all

the

* This celebrated naturalist has, adjoining his dominium at Walton Hall, an inclosure, containing about four hundred acres of ground, within which he never allows a gun to be fired. There is also adjoining and near his Hall, a piece of water, about twenty-three acres, on which in some winters he has counted as many as twenty-three thousand fowl.

the low level which Cornelius Vermuyden drained. Before any attempts were made to improve the drainage, which he left in such an unfinished state, the bog was much too moist and deep to be passed even on foot, except in seasons of extreme drought, or during very severe frosts; and even now, when I crossed it from Goodcop near Sandtoft, during the dry weather of August, in the summer of 1836, I found that it required very great care in stepping from tuft to tuft, which in Ireland, is called bog trotting, to avoid sinking up to the knees.

The spot is still shewn where William of Lindholme was buried, but not a vestige of the gravestone remains. The wife of the man who now resides in the house told me, that it had been taken up when some repairs were effected, and had from time to time been broken to pieces, in order to furnish stone for rubbing and scouring the floors.

The two large boulders, called the Thumb and Little Finger Stones before alluded to, are still upon the premises.

THE

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