Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/103

Rh earthly voice are heard around the decayed towers, and along the garden terraces, on the festival night of the saint who presided of old over the fortunes of the name of Vernon. And no longer agone than yesterday, old Edgar Ferrars assured me that he had nearly as good as seen the apparition of the King of the Peak himself, mounted on his visionary steed, and, with imaginary horn, and hound, and halloo, pursuing a spectre stag over the wild chase of Haddon. Nay, so far has vulgar credulity and assurance gone, that the great garden entrance, called the Knight's Porch, through which Dora Vernon descended step by step among her twenty attendant maidens, all rustling in embroidered silks, and shining and sparkling, like a winter sky, in diamonds, and such like costly stones—to welcome her noble bride groom, Lord John Manners, who came, cap in hand, with his company of gallant gentlemen'

Nay, now, Dame Foljambe,' interrupted the husbandman, 'all this is fine enough, and lordly too, I'll warrant; but thou must not apparel a plain old tale in the embroidered raiment of thy own brain, nor adorn it in the precious stones of thy own fancy. Dora Vernon was a lovely lass, and as proud as she was lovely; she bore her head high, Dame; and well she might, for she was a gallant knight's daughter; and lords and dukes, and what not, have descended from her. But, for all that, I cannot forget that she ran away in the middle of a moonlight night with young Lord John Manners, and no other attendant than her own sweet self. Ay, Dame, and for the diamonds, and what not, which thy story showers on her locks and her garments, she tied up her berry-brown locks in a menial's cap, and ran away in a mantle of Bakewell brown, three yards for a groat. Ay, Dame, and instead of going out regularly by the door, she leapt out of a window; more by token, she left one of her silver-heeled slippers fastened in the grating, and the place has ever since been called the Lady's Leap.'

"Dame Foljambe, like an inexperienced rider whose steed refuses obedience to voice and hand, resigned the contest in despair, and allowed her rustic companion to enter full career into the debateable land where she had so often fought and vanquished in defence of the decorum of the mode of alliance between the houses of Haddon and Rutland.

And now, Dame,' said the husbandman, 'I will tell thee the story in my own and my father's way. The last of