i. pp. 224, 242), played a part. The story is told at
considerable length in a letter to Hodgson, dated January 28, 1812. To
the same affair probably belong the following scrap and Byron's note:
"Pray don't forget me, as I shall never cease thinking of you, my
Dearest 'and only Friend, (signed) S. H. V.'"
To this Byron has added this note:
"This was written on the 11th of January, 1812; on the 28th I received
ample proof that the Girl had forgotten _me_ and _herself_ too.
Heigho! B."
The letters show, writes Moore ('Life', p. 152),
"how gravely and coolly the young lord could arbitrate on such an
occasion, and with what considerate leaning towards the servant whose
fidelity he had proved, in preference to any new liking or fancy by
which it might be suspected he was actuated toward the other."
In a MS. book written by Mrs. Heath of Newstead ('nee' Rebekah
Beardall), it is stated that the elder Rushton had as his farm-servant
Fletcher, afterwards Byron's valet. Byron watched Fletcher and young
Robert Rushton ploughing, took a fancy to both, and engaged them as his
servants. Rushton accompanied Byron to Geneva, but afterwards entered
the service of James Wedderburn Webster (see p. 2, 'note' 1). In 1827 he
married a woman of the name of Bagnall, and with her help kept a school
at Arnold, near Nottingham. Subsequently he took a farm on the Newstead
estate, named Hazelford, and shortly afterwards died, leaving a widow
and three children.
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