Strange Pages from Family PapersThiselton-Dyer, T. F. (Thomas Firminger)
History
Strange Pages from Family Papers
Thiselton-Dyer, T. F. (Thomas Firminger)
Legends; Superstition
The Cure's suspicions were aroused, and at his suggestion, an inquiry
was made, when it was discovered that the youthful soldier had no
right to the masculine vestments she wore. Don Carlos, who was told of
the affair, desired that she should be sent as a nurse to the hospital
of Durango, and, when he visited the establishment, presented the fair
Amazon with a military cross of merit. The poor girl was delighted
with the decoration, and besought the "King" to allow her to return to
the regiment, as she said she was more accustomed to inflicting wounds
than to healing them. In fact, she so implored to be permitted to
serve once more as a soldier, that at last, Don Carlos, to extricate
himself from the difficulty, said, "No, I cannot allow you to join a
regiment of men; but when I form a battalion of women, I promise, upon
my honour, that you shall be named the Colonel."
"It will never happen," said the girl, and she burst into tears as the
King left the hospital.
At Haddon Hall may still be seen "Dorothy Vernon's Door," whence the
heiress of Haddon stole out one moonlight night to join her lover. The
story generally told is that, while her elder sister, the affianced
bride of Sir Thomas Stanley, second son of the Earl of Derby, was made
much of in her recognised attachment, Dorothy, on the other hand, was
not only kept in the background, but every obstacle was thrown in her
way against a connection she had formed with John Manners, son of the
Earl of Rutland. But "something of the wild bird," it is said, "was
noticed in Dorothy, and she was closely watched, kept almost a
prisoner, and could only beat her wings against the bars that confined
her." This kind of surveillance went on for some time, but did not
check the young lady's infatuation for her lover, and it was not long
before the young couple contrived to see one another. Disguised as a
woodman, John Manners lurked of a day in the woods round Haddon for
several weeks, obtaining now and then a stolen glance, a hurried word,
or a pressure of the hand from the fair Dorothy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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