Читать книгу The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 560, August 4, 1832 - Various - Страница 2

THE HUNTSMAN

A Traditionary Tale: by Miss M.L. Beevor

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.