At first, taking this figure for something
supernatural, the traveller was startled, but quickly recovering
himself, he rode boldly up to, and addressed, the object of his idle
fears:--"I have been waiting here for hours," replied the young woman,
for such indeed she was, "and my friend is not yet come; I am sadly
afraid, sir, some accident may have happened to him."
"_Him!_" quoth the stranger laughing, "O my good girl, if you be waiting
for a _gentleman_, no wonder you're disappointed. He has played you
false, rely upon it, and won't come to night,--so you'd better go home."
"O sir! O my Lord!--I cannot--I dare not! What would father and mother
say? and what could I say?"
"Ay--Annette,--Annette Martin,--what _could_ you say?"
"Only the _truth_, your lordship;" replied the poor girl sobbing, and
curtseying, "and then they'd turn me out of doors, for they do so hate
Charles,--Charles Elliott, your honour,--that they've as good as sworn,
as they'll never consent to my marrying him, and so--and so--I was just
a waiting here to-night for him to come as he promised he would, and
take me away to the far off town, and"--
"And there marry you, I suppose, without your father and mother's
consent:--eh, Annette?"
"Yes, my lord, an please you," replied the poor girl with another rustic
dip.
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