“‘It happened in the fifth year of the reign of his young and sovereign mistress, that a great hunting festival was held at Haddon, where all the beauty and high blood of Derbyshire assembled. Lords of distant counties came; for to bend a bow or brittle the deer, under the eye of Sir George Vernon, was an honor sought for by many. Over the chase of Haddon, over the Hill of Stanton, over Bakewell-Edge, over Chatsworth Hill and Hardwicke Plain, and beneath the ancient Castle of Bolsover, as far as the edge of the forest of old Sherwood, were the sounds of harquebuss and bowstring heard, and the cry of dogs and the cheering of men. The brown-mouthed and white-footed dogs of Derbyshire were there among the foremost; the snow-white hound and the coal-black, from the Scottish border and bonny Westmoreland, preserved or augmented their ancient fame; nor were the dappled hounds of old Godfrey Foljambe, of Bakewell bank, far from the throat of the red deer when they turned at bay, and gored horses and riders. The great hall floor of Haddon was soon covered with the produce of wood and wild.
“‘Nor were the preparations for feasting this noble hunting-party unworthy the reputation for solid hospitality which characterized the ancient King of the Peak. Minstrels had come from distant parts, as far even as the Scottish border; bold, free-spoken, rude, rough-witted men; “for the selvage of the web,” says the northern proverb, “is aye the coarsest cloth.” But in the larder the skill of man was chiefly employed, and a thousand rarities were prepared for pleasing the eye and appeasing the appetite. In the kitchen, with its huge chimneys and prodigious spits, the menial maidens were flooded nigh ankle-deep in the richness of roasted oxen and deer; and along the passage, communicating with the hall of state, men might have slided along, because of the fat droppings of that prodigious feast, like a slider on the frozen Wye. The kitchen tables, of solid plank, groaned and yielded beneath the roasted beeves and the spitted deer; while a stream of rich smoke, massy and slow and savory, sallied out at the grated windows, and sailed round the mansion, like a mist exhaled by the influence of the moon. I tell thee, dame Foljambe, I call those the golden days of old England.
“‘But I wish you had seen the hall prepared for this princely feast. The floor, of hard and solid stone, was strewn deep with rushes and fern; and there lay the dogs of the chase in couples, their mouths still red with the blood of stags, and panting yet from the fervor and length of their pursuit. At the lower end of the hall, where the floor subsided a step, was spread a table for the stewards and other chiefs over the menials. There sat the keeper of the bows, the warder of the chase, and the head falconer, together with many others of lower degree, but mighty men among the retainers of the noble name of Vernon. Over their heads were hung the horns of stags, the jaws of boars, the skulls of the enormous bisons, and the foreheads of foxes. Nor were there wanting trophies, where the contest had been more bloody and obstinate,——banners and shields and helmets, won in the Civil and Scottish and Crusading wars, together with many strange weapons of annoyance or defence, borne in the Norwegian and Saxon broils. Beside them were hung rude paintings of the most renowned of these rustic heroes, all in the picturesque habiliments of the times. Horns and harquebusses and swords and bows and buff coats and caps were thrown in negligent groups all about the floor; while their owners sat in expectation of an immediate and ample feast, which they hoped to wash down with floods of that salutary beverage, the brown blood of barley.
“‘At the upper end of the hall, where the floor was elevated exactly as much in respect as it was lowered in submission at the other, there the table for feasting the nobles stood; and well was it worthy of its station. It was one solid plank of white sycamore, shaped from the entire shaft of an enormous tree, and supported on squat columns of oak, ornamented with the arms of the Vernons, and grooved into the stone floor, beyond all chance of being upset by human powers. Benches of wood, curiously carved, and covered, in times of more than ordinary ceremony, with cushions of embroidered velvet, surrounded this ample table; while in the recess behind appeared a curious work in arras, consisting of festivals and processions and bridals, executed from the ancient poets; and for the more staid and grave, a more devout hand had wrought some scenes from the controversial fathers and the monkish legends of the ancient church. The former employed the white hands of Dora Vernon herself; while the latter were the labors of her sister Margaret, who was of a serious turn, and never happened to be so far in love as to leap from a window.’
“‘And now,’ said dame Foljambe, ‘I will describe the Knight of Haddon, with his fair daughters and principal guests, myself.’ ‘A task that will last thee to doomsday, dame,’ muttered the husbandman. The portress heeded not this ejaculation, but with a particular stateliness of delivery proceeded. ‘The silver dinner-bell rung on the summit of Haddon Hall, the warder thrice wound his horn, and straightway the sound of silver spurs was heard in the passage, the folding-door opened, and in marched my own ancestor, Ferrars Foljambe by name. I have heard his dress too often described not to remember it. A buff jerkin, with slashed and ornamented sleeves, a mantle of fine Lincoln green, fastened round his neck with wolf-claws of pure gold, a pair of gilt spurs on the heels of his brown hunting-boots, garnished above with taslets of silver, and at the square and turned-up toes, with links of the same metal connected with the taslets. On his head was a boar-skin cap, on which the white teeth of the boar were set, tipt with gold. At his side was a hunting-horn, called the white hunting-horn of Tutbury, banded with silver in the middle, belted with black silk at the ends, set with buckles of silver, and bearing the arms of Edmund, the warlike brother of Edward Longshanks. This fair horn descended by marriage to Stanhope, of Elvaston, who sold it to Foxlowe, of Staveley. The gift of a king and the property of heroes was sold for some paltry pieces of gold.’
“‘Dame Foljambe,’ said the old man, ‘the march of thy tale is like the course of the Wye, seventeen miles of links and windings down a fair valley five miles long. A man might carve thy ancestor’s figure in alabaster in the time thou describest him. I must resume my story, dame; so let thy description of old Ferrars Foljambe stand; and suppose the table filled about with the gallants of the chase and many fair ladies, while at the head sat the King of the Peak himself, his beard descending to his broad girdle, his own natural hair of dark brown——blessings on the head that keeps God’s own covering on it, and scorns the curled inventions of man!——falling in thick masses on his broad, manly shoulders. Nor silver nor gold wore he; the natural nobleness of his looks maintained his rank and pre-eminence among men; the step of Sir George Vernon was one that many imitated, but few could attain,——at once manly and graceful. I have heard it said that he carried privately in his bosom a small rosary of precious metal, in which his favorite daughter Dora had entwined one of her mother’s tresses. The ewer-bearers entered with silver basins full of water; the element came pure and returned red; for the hands of the guests were stained with the blood of the chase. The attendant minstrels vowed that no hands so shapely, nor fingers so taper and long and white and round, as those of the Knight of Haddon, were that day dipped in water.
“‘There is wondrous little pleasure in describing a feast of which we have not partaken: so pass we on to the time when the fair dames retired, and the red wine in cups of gold, and the ale in silver flagons, shone and sparkled as they passed from hand to lip beneath the blaze of seven massy lamps. The knights toasted their mistresses, the retainers told their exploits, and the minstrels with harp and tongue made music and song abound. The gentles struck their drinking-vessels on the table till they rang again; the menials stamped with the heels of their ponderous boots on the solid floor; while the hounds, imagining they heard the call to the chase, leaped up, and bayed in hoarse but appropriate chorus.
“‘The ladies now reappeared in the side galleries, and overlooked the scene of festivity below. The loveliest of many counties were there; but the fairest was a young maid of middle size, in a dress disencumbered of ornament, and possessed of one of those free and graceful forms which may be met with in other counties, but for which our own Derbyshire alone is famous. Those who admired the grace of her person were no less charmed with her simplicity and natural meekness of deportment. Nature did much for her, and art strove in vain to rival her with others; while health, that handmaid of beauty, supplied her eye and her cheek with the purest light and the freshest roses. Her short and rosy upper lip was slightly curled, with as much of maiden sanctity, perhaps, as pride; her white high forehead was shaded with locks of sunny brown, while her large and dark hazel eyes beamed with free and unaffected modesty. Those who observed her close might see her eyes, as she glanced about, sparkling for a moment with other lights, but scarce less holy, than those of devotion and awe. Of all the knights present, it was impossible to say who inspired her with those love-fits of flushing joy and delicious agitation; each hoped himself the happy person; for none could look on Dora Vernon without awe and love. She leaned her white bosom, shining through the veil which shaded it, near one of the minstrel’s harps; and looking round on the presence, her eyes grew brighter as she looked; at least so vowed the knights and so sang the minstrels.
“‘All the knights arose when Dora Vernon appeared. “Fill all your wine-cups, knights,” said Sir Lucas Peverel. “Fill them to the brim,” said Sir Henry Avenel. “And drain them out, were they deeper than the Wye,” said Sir Godfrey Gernon. “To the health of the Princess of the Peak,” said Sir Ralph Cavendish. “To the health of Dora Vernon,” said Sir Hugh de Wodensley; “beauty is above titles, she is the loveliest maiden a knight ever looked on, with the sweetest name too.” “And yet, Sir Knight,” said Peverel, filling his cup, “I know one who thinks so humbly of the fair name of Vernon, as to wish it charmed into that of De Wodensley.” “He is not master of a spell so profound,” said Avenel. “And yet he is master of his sword,” answered De Wodensley, with a darkening brow. “I counsel him to keep it in his sheath,” said Cavendish, “lest it prove a wayward servant.” “I will prove its service on thy bosom where and when thou wilt, Lord of Chatsworth,” said De Wodensley. “Lord of Darley,” answered Cavendish, “it is a tempting moonlight, but there is a charm over Haddon to-night it would be unseemly to dispel. To-morrow, I meet Lord John Manners to try whose hawk has the fairer flight and whose love the whiter hand. That can be soon seen; for who has so fair a hand as the love of young Rutland? I shall be found by Durwood-Tor when the sun is three hours up, with my sword drawn,——there’s my hand on ’t, De Wodensley.” And he wrung the knight’s hand till the blood seemed starting from beneath his finger-nails.
“‘“By the saints, Sir Knights,” said Sir Godfrey Gernon, “you may as well beard one another about the love of ‘some bright particular star and think to wed it,’ as the wild wizard of Warwick says, as quarrel about this unattainable love. Hearken, minstrels: while we drain our cups to this beauteous lass, sing some of you a kindly love-strain, wondrously mirthful and melancholy. Here’s a cup of Rhenish, and a good gold Harry in the bottom on’t, for the minstrel who pleases me.” The minstrels laid their hands on the strings, and a sound was heard like the swarming of bees before summer thunder. “Sir Knight,” said one, “I will sing ye Cannie Johnnie Armstrong with all the seventeen variations.” “He was hanged for cattle stealing,” answered the knight; “I’ll have none of him.” “What say you to Dick of the Cow, or the Harper of Lochmaben?” said another, with something of a tone of diffidence. “What! you northern knaves, can you sing of nothing but thievery and jail-breaking?” “Perhaps your knightship,” humbly suggested a third, “may have a turn for the supernatural, and I’m thinking the Fairy Legend of young Tamlane is just the thing that suits your fancy.” “I like the naïveté of the young lady very much,” answered the knight, “but the fair dames of Derbyshire prize the charms of lovers with flesh and blood, before the gayest Elfin-knight that ever ran a course from Carlisle to Caerlaverock.” “What would your worship say to William of Cloudesley?” said a Cumberland minstrel. “Or to the Friar of Orders Grey?” said a harper from the halls of the Percys.