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The real romance of Haddon Hall is a sweet, old-world idyll ofsingular attractiveness and interest. The gems of the story have beenreset by dramatists in different surroundings; but while, as in theSullivan-Grundy opera, many of its chief incidents have been retained,many have been omitted.
In the old story there are no Puritans, and not one solitary Scotchmanappears upon the scene. The original drama was enacted in the pastoraldays of "Good Queen Bess," when the Tudor Queen was still young andbeautiful, and
"When all the world was young, lad,
And all the trees were green;
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen."
Haddon Hall, the scene of the story, is situated at the foot of thePeak, between Bakewell and Chatsworth, close to Matlock, and not farfrom Buxton. Far from the madding crowd the hoary old edifice stands,carefully preserved, and generously thrown open to public view by itsprincely owners, the Dukes of Rutland, who, though for more than acentury back they have ceased to inhabit it, have yet most carefullyprotected the building from falling into the slightest disrepair.
In our own day, the Hall stands very much as it did in the heyday ofits glory, when the sisters Margaret and Dorothy received the homageof their numerous admirers, or the "King of the Peak" himself passedto and fro within its walls. But it is more beautiful now than it wasthen, for now it is tinged with a beauty which age alone can bestow,and mellowed with a charm that none of the Vernons ever knew.
And of this charm Dorothy Vernon herself is assuredly the centralfigure. For three centuries her romantic career has been a favouritetheme with minstrel, poet, and painter; and during all this time—likethe ivy which grows and clusters around the walls and nooks andcrannies of what, generations ago, were the abiding-places of kingsor nobles, scenes of splendour and animation—so, during the lapse oftime, there has grown a beautiful and romantic web of legendary lorewhich clings tenaciously to every wall, window, and stone of the oldHall, until every room and every corner of old Haddon seems to tellthe story of the beautiful maiden who, once upon a time, fell in lovewith a certain plain John Manners, whom she was determined to wed, inspite of all the obstacles that were placed in her way.
The story telling how she accomplished this has been told in manyvarying forms, but in the following pages the writer has sought toincorporate the essence of nearly all the legends, concerning not onlyDorothy, but also of Sir George Vernon. A considerable amount of freshmatter has been introduced, and, without unduly intruding the dryfacts of history, a few of the great events and persons of the timehave been pressed into service; whilst at the same time, some of theold English customs of the days of "Good Queen Bess" have been made toserve the purpose of the narrative.