_A Traditionary Tale: by Miss M.L. Beevor._
"The merciful man is merciful to his beast."
"The worm we tread upon will turn again."
Charles, the chief huntsman of Baron Mortimer, was undeniably a very
handsome young man, the _beau ideal_ of the lover, as pictured by the
glowing imagination of maidens, and the beau _real_ of a dozen villages
in the vicinity of Mortimer Castle. Yet, was his beauty not amiable, but
rather calculated to inspire terror and distrust, than affection and
confidence: in fact, a bandit may be uncommonly handsome; but, by the
fierce, haughty character of his countenance, the fire which flashes
from his eyes, and the contempt which curls his mustachoed lip, create
fear, instead of winning regard, and this was the case with Charles.
One, however, of those maidens, unto whom it was the folly and vanity of
his youth to pay general court, conceived for him a passion deep and
pure, which in semblance, at least, he returned; but how far to answer
his own nefarious purposes, for Charles Elliott was a godless young man,
we shall hereafter discover.
Annette Martin was the daughter of a small farmer who resided about a
mile and a half from the Castle; but, being the tenant of Lord Mortimer,
had not only frequent occasion to go thither himself with the rural
produce of his farm, (for which the Castle was a ready market,) but also
to send Annette. Thus then commenced that innocent girl's acquaintance
with the Baron's chief huntsman, not long after Elliott's induction into
that office, by the resignation of his superannuated predecessor.
Strange rumours were afloat respecting the conduct of Charles; none of
which, it is to be presumed, met the Baron's ears, or assuredly the
deprivation of his office would have followed. But Lord Mortimer was a
young man, paying his addresses to a lady who lived at some distance
from the Castle, and consequently much absent from it. And, what said
pretty Annette to the rumours which failed not to meet _her_ ear, of her
lover's misconduct? "I don't believe a word of them! Charles may be
fonder of pleasure than of business, but he is a young man; by and by he
will see and feel the necessity of steady application to the duties of
his situation, and become less wild and more manly." "NEVER!" would be
solemnly enunciated by Annette's auditors. "As to the charge," would she
undauntedly continue, "brought against him of cruelty to the dogs under
his care, it is an abominable falsehood; Elliott may be passionate, I
don't say he is not, but he is generous and humane. _I_ have never seen
him scourge the hounds, as you tell me he does, until blood drops from
their mangled hides; _I_ have never heard the cries which, you say,
resound from their kennels day and night; cries of pain and hunger."
"And have you never seen," would ask some well-meaning tale-bearer, "any
of those poor brutes, whose wealed and mangled coats, proclaimed how
savagely they had been treated?"
"I have indeed seen," would answer Annette, "dogs lacerated by the wild
boars with which the Castle forests abound."
"And have you never observed the miserable skin-and-bone plight of my
lord's hounds?"
"They are not thinner, Charles says, than most hounds in good training:
when dogs get fat, they become lazy, lose the faculty of finding game,
and the inclination of bringing it down."
"Dogs it is true, ought not to be pampered and surfeited, but they ought
to be _fed_." Upon this, Annette would vehemently maintain that fed they
were, and amply, as she had seen Elliott cut up their meat; whilst the
friendly newsmonger would charitably hint, that her intended knew as
well as most men how to turn an _honest_ penny, by cheating the dogs of
their food, and selling it elsewhere.
Annette cared little for inuendos which she attributed chiefly to malice
and ill-nature. None are so difficult to convince as those who are
obstinately deaf to conviction, and there is an idolatry of affection
which sometimes burns fonder and deeper, as its object is contemned and
despised by the world. Annette had also some idea, that these, and other
reports to the prejudice of Charles, originated with an unsuccessful
rival, though poor William Curry, amiable, single-minded, and
good-humoured as he was, never breathed in her presence, a syllable to
the disparagement of Elliott.
Time sped, and upon an occasion when Lord Mortimer returned for a week
or two to his Castle, the conduct of his chief huntsman was reported to
him; but Charles with consummate art, so vindicated himself, and so
contrived to disgrace his accusers, that when the young baron again left
home, he stood higher perhaps than ever, in his confidence and favour.
It was the bright summer-time, the period when rural folks make holiday,
(at least they did so then, but times have strangely altered of late in
once _merry_ England,) the woods put on their brightest green, and the
people their finest clothes, for there were wakes, fairs, and rustic
meetings innumerable in the vicinity of the Castle. Charles the huntsman
might, as usual, be seen at these _fêtes_ for nothing, but after his
late victory, he carried his head higher, assumed a swaggering gait, and
looked his neighbours out of countenance with impudent defiance.
The village feasts were not yet over, when late one night, a cavalier,
passing through one of the great forests which surrounded Mortimer
Castle, beheld, (for it was a moon-light night,) a female form slowly
sauntering about the bridle-way in which he was riding, and uttering
heavy moans and sobs. At first, taking this figure for something
supernatural, the traveller was startled, but quickly recovering
himself, he rode boldly up to, and addressed, the object of his idle
fears:--"I have been waiting here for hours," replied the young woman,
for such indeed she was, "and my friend is not yet come; I am sadly
afraid, sir, some accident may have happened to him."
"_Him!_" quoth the stranger laughing, "O my good girl, if you be waiting
for a _gentleman_, no wonder you're disappointed. He has played you
false, rely upon it, and won't come to night,--so you'd better go home."
"O sir! O my Lord!--I cannot--I dare not! What would father and mother
say? and what could I say?"
"Ay--Annette,--Annette Martin,--what _could_ you say?"
"Only the _truth_, your lordship;" replied the poor girl sobbing, and
curtseying, "and then they'd turn me out of doors, for they do so hate
Charles,--Charles Elliott, your honour,--that they've as good as sworn,
as they'll never consent to my marrying him, and so--and so--I was just
a waiting here to-night for him to come as he promised he would, and
take me away to the far off town, and"--
"And there marry you, I suppose, without your father and mother's
consent:--eh, Annette?"
"Yes, my lord, an please you," replied the poor girl with another rustic
dip.
"No, Annette," replied the young baron, "it does not quite please me;
and Charles, at any rate, unless some very unforeseen circumstance
should have detained him, shall know what _I_ think of his present
conduct to you. But come,--mount behind me,--I am unexpectedly returning
to the Castle, Dame Trueby shall there make you comfortable for
to-night, your parents and friends shall never know but that your
absence from home was occasioned by a regular visit to her, and your
marriage in two or three days, with _my_ sanction, Annette, will, I
think, completely settle matters."
The urbane young baron alighting, assisted Annette to mount his noble
steed, who, though overwhelmed by his kindness, refused to listen to all
the consolation, or banterings, with which he endeavoured to cheer her
on her way to Castle Mortimer, choosing rather to believe that some
dreadful accident had befallen her lover, than that carelessness, or
perfidy, caused his absence. Dame Trueby's account was little calculated
to soothe Annette's anxiety, or to satisfy Lord Mortimer respecting
Elliott's proceedings.
"I have not seen Charles," said she, "since early this morning, when I
heard him say he was going to feed the hounds, poor creatures! and time
enough that he did, I think, considering that he left them without a
morsel for a whole day and night, whilst he was capering away at
Woodcroft Feast; and then,--the beast!--what does he, but comes back so
dead drunk that we were forced to carry him up to bed; meanwhile, the
hungry brutes, poor dumb souls, just ready to eat one another, have been
fit to raise the very dead with their barking, and ramping, and
yowling!"
"A sad account is this, Margery."
"A very _true_ one, please your lordship," replied the old housekeeper,
testily.
"I don't doubt it," returned Lord Mortimer, "but cannot at this time of
night, dame, with Charles absent, and this young woman, his intended
wife, wanting some refreshment and a bed (for which indeed I have ample
need myself), make any inquiry into the affair. Let Elliott call me in
the morning instead of More, do you meanwhile make this young woman as
comfortable as you can, and _recollect_, Mrs. Trueby, _that she is come
to the Castle upon a visit to you_."
Margery curtseyed, and "yessed," and "very welled," with apparent
submission, but though she dared not express her thoughts, it was easy
to read in her ample countenance, sad suspicions relative to the honour
of her noble master, and of the forlorn damsel thus thrust upon her
peculiar hospitality. "And," continued Lord Mortimer, "Charles, you are
sure, fed the dogs this morning?"
"Don't know, my lord, I'm sure," replied the old housekeeper, doggedly,
"I suppose he did, and belike beat 'em too; I only know they've been
quiet all day, which, it stands to reason, they wouldn't have been
without _wittals_; but Master Elliott, I've not seen since."
"Not since early this morning, and 'tis now midnight! Where can he be?"
"The Lord knows, sir! after no good I doubt, for he's a wild lad, and
these fairs and dances, fairly turn his brain."
Little further passed that night between the young lord and his
housekeeper; after taking some refreshment he retired to rest, and poor
Annette also sought, under the auspices of circumspect Mistress Margery,
repose in Castle Mortimer, little anticipating the singularly dreadful
disclosure of the ensuing morning. Charles, in fact, not having
returned, one of the inferior serving-men,--who durst not, now that his
master was at home, stand upon the punctilio of "_not my business_,"
undertook soon after dawn to "see to the hounds," in his stead; when
upon opening the door of the large enclosure in which they were kept, he
there beheld, to his unutterable consternation and horror, _the mangled
remnants of the careless and cruel Huntsman_: these consisted of his
clothes, torn into strips, and dyed in blood, with fragments sufficient
of flesh and bone to attest the hideous fact, that the ravenous brutes,
had, after their last long fast, sprung upon their tormentor, (awful
retribution!) even at the very moment when he appeared amongst them with
their long delayed meal, torn him in pieces, and devoured him!
Lord Mortimer, though, he could not in conscience blame his canine
favourites, nor forbear regarding his huntsman's fate as a signal
instance of the retributive justice of Providence, felt himself obliged
to destroy the whole pack, after their ferocious banquet on human flesh;
and with tears in his eyes, he forced himself to witness their
execution, lest the cupidity or misjudging kindness of any of his
retainers, should induce them to mitigate the culprits' doom. The horrid
story spread far and wide, and one of its earliest results was the
appearance at Castle Mortimer of a poor woman and three young children,
who stated in an agony of grief, that _she_ was the lawful _wife_ of the
deceased Charles Elliott, whom he had maintained in a distant town, unto
whom his visits, when off duty at the Castle, and absent without leave,
were sometimes paid, and who, with her children, being suddenly bereaved
by his awful demise of their sole hope and support, now humbly threw
themselves upon the benevolence of Lord Mortimer for employment and
subsistence!
The grief and confusion of poor Annette Martin, upon this discovery of
black villany meditated against her by the unprincipled huntsman, and
upon its miraculous and awful frustration, may be imagined: yet had it
also its beneficial influence; for, whilst shuddering at the fearful end
of the wretch who had plotted her destruction, her once fond affection
was converted into bitter hatred; and, ere long, blessing and thanking
God for her miraculous preservation, and casting the very memory of the
deceiver from her heart, she was without much difficulty persuaded to
become the wife of William Curry, her once rejected, but really worthy
and amiable admirer.
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