5acft /Iftusters iss 



On the 17th of August 1805, Jack Musters made the 

 greatest mistake of his life. He married Mary Anne, 

 the only daughter of George Chaworth of Annesley, 

 and heiress to a great estate which bordered upon that 

 of the Musters. Miss Chaworth was as beautiful as she 

 was wealthy, and a romantic interest attaches to her 

 name from the fact that she was the object of Lord 

 Byron's early and passionate love. The Byrons and 

 the Chaworths had been, previously to this, brought 

 together in a tragic manner. Miss Chaworth's ancestor, 

 William Chaworth, was killed in a duel by the fifth I>ord 

 Byron, under circumstances which led most people to 

 believe that there had been foul play. They fought, alone 

 without seconds, in a room in a tavern at Acton, and it 

 was alleged that Chaworth, with his dying breath, accused 

 Lord Byron of having taken such an unfair advantage 

 of him as practically amounted to murder. The poet, 

 when he first visited the Chaworths at Annesley, as a 

 boy, had a superstitious fancy that the family portraits 

 would come out from their frames to haunt the 

 descendant of the duellist, and for a long while was 

 afraid to sleep under the roof But the fascination of 

 Mary's society eventually overcame his superstition and 

 he was a constant visitor. His passion for her he made 

 no attempt to conceal, but Mary, who was two years his 

 senior, only laughed at it as a boyish fancy. There she 

 was mistaken, for the boy of fifteen was in such deadly 

 earnest that to the day of his death he still cherished 

 fondly the memory of the only woman whom he ever 

 sincerely, deeply, and purely loved. He is described as 

 being then ' a fat, bashful boy,' with nothing of that 

 beauty bf feature and charm of manner which afterwards 

 made him the idol of all the women he met. Moreover, 



