Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-12-14
THE WEIRD OF The WALFORDS.
1RY LnuIsA RALDWIN 1


father and disowned by my ancestors. l
laid sacrilegious hands on the old carved
oak four-post family bedstead and de-
stroyed it.
Alone l could not have accomplished
the work of destruction. The massive
posts, canopy and panels would have re-
sisted my single efforts, but I compelled
two reluctant men TO lend me their aid,
and by the help of saws and hatohets we
reduced the whole structure to billets of
wood, such as one might kindle cheerful
fame with in the parlor CRATE on damp
summer evening.
1t was a bed with a history to me so
unspeakabiy melancholy that l had re-
solved when 1 was my own master
would destroy the gloomy structure and
rid me of the nightmare-like feeling with
which the sight of it never failed to in
s2ire me.
The bed itself was upward of three hun
bred years old, carved in oak grown on
our land, while the heavy dark-green
hangings, faded and musty-smelling, dated
only from the time of my great-grand-
father, Walford. | have the dimensions
of the huge hearse-like thing by heart. 1t
was ten feet long by eight feet wide and
ten feet high, and when as a small child |
was brought to see my young mother die
in the recesses of the vast bed, | looked up
at its tall posts with something of the awe
with which l should now regard the lofti-
est tree.
For three centuries this bed had been
the cradle and grave of our family. Its
heavy drapery had deadened the sound of
the first cry and the last groan of the gen
erations of Walfords who had been born or
died in Walford Grange In its solemn
depths the newly-wedded brides of the
family lay the first few nights in their
new home, till the wedding festivities
were ended, and the squire and his wife
began their everyday married life by oc-
cupying a less stately but more comfort
able bed l knew the history of the
gloomy old piece of furniture as family
tradition had preserved it for three cen
turtles. Ten Squire Walfords had either
died in that bed or had lain on it after
death awaiting their burial. l was the
eleventh squire dating from the epoch of
the bed, and l would neither die in it nor
be laid upon after my death; and to make
sure of this there was no way but now, in
my youth and strength, to tall upon it
with Ratchet and saw and utterly de-
stroy it.
I did not fear death more than my fore
fathers, but | resented being hidden by
family tradition and custom to die in
given spot. l rebelled at having definite
place assigned to me to lie down in and
die-a place so fraught with dismal asso-
Citations as the ancient, hearselike bed. 1
could not endure to think that, wander as
wide as | would, must return to this bed
of death at last, and here, among sitting
pillows and heavy curtains, end my life
precisely where it began.
Must this CHASTITY horror OF my child
hood be the goal toward which | tend?
When am sailing on mid-ocean, the ship
blowing her way through the burrows of
the sea, shall / only be speeding, sooner or
later, toward this dismal bed? When l
climb mountains and breathe the keen air
of the nights is it but the end of the ex-
clusion of light and air? Must every step
take, every journey make, be stage
on the road that ends in the sitting pill
lows of this bed of death No, thousand
times no, and l brought my ak down on
the footboard with crash.
How wildly both the dead and living
who had occupied this ancient bed rose
before my minds eye Here had lain
Ralph Walford, killed in the civil wars,
fighting for the King, and his wounded
body was brought home and stretched on
what had been his bridal bed to await his
burial. And here died Squire Ralph's
young widow, who, a short time after her
husbands sad homecoming, gave birth to
his posthumous child, and never again left
this ill-omened bed till they carried her
out feet foremost. Ralph Walford's brother
Heneage, the next Squire, thought
to make the old bed festive with
gold and crimson hangings, to forget that
his brothers corpse had lain on it, his
orphan child had been born in it, and his
widow died in it, and by the upholsterer's
wit to convert hearse into bridal bower.
Brighter times came to our family with
the Restoration. We had spent our blood
and treasure in the Kings cause, for which
he did not suffer US to go unhonored; for
shortly after his joyful restoration his gra-
cious Majesty was travelling within ten
miles of Walford Grange, and, the weather
proving stormy, and there being no other
royalist house of consideration near, he
made shift to pass a night under the roof
of his faithful servant, Heneage Walford.
Ny father often told me the history OF
that memorable visit, as it had been
handed down from generation to gen
Grafton. How gracious and witty was
the Kings majesty, how merry and
light-hearted, as little troubled by
the murder of his royal father and the
heavy misfortunes of his house as by the
brave lives lost and families impoverished
in his cause
Squire Heneage was as loyal a man as
ever drew sword for the King, yet he was
heard to say that it was cursed day for
him when his gracious Majesty honored
him by being his guest, for it turned his
wife, Mistress Johanna's head, and she was
never again the woman she had been. She
grumbled ard bemoaned herself that the
King had not knighted her husband, so
that she might have ruffled it a step above
the squirearchy. But one abiding COM
fort remained with her from the royal
visit And this was that both at coming
and going the King had saluted her, and
she ever after prettily described the royal
manner of kissing, which she affirmed to
differ from that practiced by ordinary men.
Mistress Johanna's serving woman, Anne
Grimshaw, SAID that the King had saluted
her. too, but this her mistress would not
hear OF, and when she appealed to Squire
Heneage he set the vexed question at rest
by giving his opinion that, Judging it as a
matter of probability, it was more likely
that a vain woman should tell lie than
that his sacred Majesty should kiss Anne
Grimshaw, who had foul face of her own.
If l have somewhat enlarged on the fact
of the Kings visit to Walford Grange, it
is not so much on account of any tokens Of
his royal favor that he was pleased to be-
stow on my ancestors as because he lay IN
the best chamber, in the great oak bed
with its brave new hangings. But the
King WINS tnrnlanted hv terrible dreams.