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 thinne