rung
To the unquestioned baron's jest:
Dim old chapel, where were hung
Offerings of the o'erfraught breast;
Moss-clad terrace, strangely still,
Broken shaft and crumbling frieze----
Still as lips that used to fill
With bugle-blasts the morning breeze."

But, unlike most baronial strongholds, the history of Haddon tells only
the romance of peace, love, and hospitality. It came by marriage into
the possession of the Vernons soon after the Conquest; one of them, Sir
Henry Vernon of Haddon, was appointed governor of Prince Arthur by Henry
VII. His grandson, Sir George Vernon, lived in such princely
magnificence at Haddon that he was known as the "King of the Peak;" his
initials, "G. V.," are carved in the banquet-hall. Around his youngest
daughter, Dorothy, gathers the chief halo of romance. The story in brief
is, that her elder sister, being the affianced bride of the son of the
Earl of Derby, was petted and made much of, while Dorothy, at sweet
sixteen, was kept in the background. She formed an attachment for John
Manners, son of the Earl of Rutland, but this her family violently
opposed, keeping her almost a prisoner: her lover, disguised as a
forester, lurked for weeks in the woods around Haddon, obtaining
occasionally a stolen interview. At length on a festal night, when the
ball-room was filled with guests summoned to celebrate the approaching
nuptials of the elder sister, and every one was so wrapped up in
enjoyment that there was no time to watch Dorothy, the maiden,
unobserved, stole out of the ball-room into the anteroom, and through
the door, across the garden, and up the steps to the terrace, where her
lover had made a signal that he was waiting. In a moment she was in his
arms, and rode away with him in the moonlight all night, across the
hills of Derbyshire, and into Leicestershire, where they were married
next morning. It was the old story--an elopement, a grand row, and then
all was forgiven. Sir George Vernon had no sons, and his daughters
divided his estate, Haddon going to Dorothy, who thus by her elopement
carried the famous hall over to the family of Manners. Dorothy died in
1584, leaving four children, the oldest, Sir George Manners, living at
Haddon and maintaining its hospitable reputation. Dying in 1679, his son
John Manners, who was the ninth Earl of Rutland, became the master of
Haddon, and "kept up the good old mansion at a bountiful rate," as the
chronicler tells us. He