THE HUNTSMAN.
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."