Under the Red Dragon: A Novel
remembered those trivial circumstances at a future, and to me rather
harassing, time. I must own that this man was to me a puzzle. With all
his disposition to boast, he never spoke of relations or of family;
yet he seemed in perfectly easy circumstances; his own valet, groom,
and horses were at Craigaderyn; he could bear himself well and with
perfect ease in the best society; and it was evident that, wherever
they came from, he was at present a man of pretty ample means. He
possessed, moreover, a keen perception for appreciating individuals
and events at their actual value; his manners were, _when he chose_,
polished, his coolness imperturbable, and his _insouciance_ sometimes
amusing. For the present, it had left him.
"Beautiful brilliant that of yours, Mr. Guilfoyle," said Caradoc, to
fish for another legend of the ring; but in vain, for Guilfoyle was no
longer quite himself, though he had policy enough to feed the snarling
cur Tiny in her basket, with choice morsels of cold fowl, as Lady
Naseby's soubrette, Mademoiselle Babette, was waiting to carry it
away. Since the remarks or _contretemps_ concerning the York races he
had been as mute as a fish; and now, when he did begin to speak in the
absence of Sir Madoc, I could perceive that gratitude for kindness did
not form an ingredient in the strange compound of which his character
was made up. Perhaps secret irritation at Sir Madoc's queries about
the letter which so evidently disturbed his usual equanimity might
have been the real spirit that moved him now to sneer at the old
baronet's Welsh foibles, and particularly his weakness on the subject
of pedigrees.
"You are to stay here for the 1st, I believe?" said I.
"Yes; but, the dooce! for what? Such a labour to march through miles
of beans and growing crop, to knock over a few partridges and rabbits"
(partwidges and wabbits, he called them), "which you can pay another
to do much better for you."
"Sturdy Sir Madoc would hear this with incredulous astonishment," said
I.
"Very probably. Kind fellow old Taffy, though," said he, while smoking
leisurely, and lounging back in an easy garden-chair; "has a long
pedigree, of course, as we may always remember by the coats-of-arms
stuck up all over the house. 'County people' in the days of Howel Dha;
'county ditto' in the days of Queen Victoria, and likely to remain so
till the next flood forms a second great epoch in the family history.
Very funny, is it not? He reminds me of what we read of Mathew Bramble
in _Humphry Clinker_--a gentleman of great worth and property,
descended in a straight line by the female side from Llewellyn, Prince
of Wales."
I was full of indignation on hearing my old friend spoken of thus, if
not under his own roof, under his ancient ancestral oaks; but Philip
Caradoc, more Celtic and fiery by nature, anticipated me by saying
sharply, "Bad taste this, surely in you, Mr. Guilfoyle, to sneer thus
at our hospitable entertainer; and believe me, sir, that no one treats
lightly the pedigree of another who--who--"
"Ah, well--who what?"
"Possesses one himself," added Phil, looking him steadily in the face.
"Bah! I suppose every one has had a grandfather."
"Even you, Mr. Guilfoyle?" continued Caradoc, whose cheek began to
flush; but the other replied calmly, and not without point,
"There is a writer who says, that to pride oneself on the nobility of
one's ancestors is like looking among the roots for the fruit that
should be found on the branches."
Finding that the conversation was taking a decidedly unpleasant turn,
and that, though his tone was quiet and his manner suave, a glassy
glare shone in the greenish-gray eyes of Guilfoyle, I said, with an
assumed laugh,
"We must not forget the inborn ideas and the national sentiments of
the Welsh--call them provincialisms if you will. But remember that
there are eight hundred thousand people inspired by a nationality so
strong, that they will speak only the language of the Cymri; and it is
among those chiefly that our regiment has ever been recruited. But if
the foibles--I cannot deem them folly--of Sir Madoc are distasteful to
you, the charms of the scenery around us and those of our lady friends
cannot but be pleasing."
"Granted," said he, coldly; "all are beautiful, even to Miss Dora, who
looks so innocent."
"Who _is_ so innocent by nature, Mr. Guilfoyle," said I, in a tone of
undisguised sternness.
"Then it is a pity she permits herself to say--sharp things."
"With so much unintentional point, perhaps?"
"Sir!"
"Truth, then--which you will," said I, as we simultaneously rose to
leave luncheon-table.
And now, oddly enough, followed by Winifred, Dora herself came again
tripping down the broad steps of the perron towards us, exclaiming,
"Is not papa with you?--the tiresome old dear, he will be among the
harriers or the stables of course!"
"What is the matter?" I asked.
"Only think, Mr. Hardinge, that poor woman we saw at church this
morning, looking so pretty, so pale, and interesting, was found among
the tombstones by Farmer Rhuddlan, quite in a helpless faint, after we
drove away--so the housekeeper tells me; so we must find her out and
succour her if possible."
"But who is she?" asked Caradoc.
"No one knows; she refused obstinately to give her name or tell her
story ere she went away; but at her neck hangs a gold locket, with a
crest, the date, 1st of September, on one side, and H. G. beautifully
enamelled on the other. How odd--your initials, Mr. Guilfoyle!"
"You are perhaps not aware that my name is Henry Hawkesby Guilfoyle,"
said he, with ill-concealed anger, while he played nervously with his
diamond ring.
"How intensely odd!" resumed his beautiful but unwitting tormentor;
"H. H. G. were the three letters on the locket!"
"Did no one open it?" he asked.
"No; it was firmly closed."
"By a secret spring, no doubt."
Guilfoyle looked ghastly for a moment, or it might have been the
effect of the sunlight flashing on his face through the waving foliage
of the trees overhead; but he said laughingly,
"A droll coincidence, which under some circumstances, might be very
romantic, but fortunately in the present has no point whatever. If my
initials hung at your neck instead of hers, how happy I should be,
Miss Dora!"
And turning the matter thus, by a somewhat clumsy compliment or bit of
flattery, he ended an unpleasant conversation by entering the house
with her and Caradoc.
Winifred remained irresolutely behind them.
"We were to visit my future comrade," said I.
"Come, then," said she, with a beautiful smile, and a soft blush of
innocent pleasure.
CHAPTER X.--A PERILOUS RAMBLE.
Winifred Lloyd was, as Caradoc had said, a very complete and perfect
creature. The very way her gloves fitted, the handsome form of her
feet, the softness of her dark eyes, the tender curve of her lips,
and, more than all, her winning manner--the inspiration of an innocent
and guileless heart--made her a most desirable companion at all times;
but with me, at present, poor Winifred was only the means to an end;
and perhaps she secretly felt this, as she lingered pensively for a
moment by the marble fountain that stood before Craigaderyn Court, and
played with her white fingers in the water, causing the gold and
silver fish to dart madly to and fro. Above its basin a group of green
bronze tritons were spouting, great Nile lilies floated on its
surface, and over all was the crest of the Lloyds, also in bronze, a
lion's head, gorged, with a wreath of oak. The notes of a harp came
softly towards us through the trees as we walked onward, for old Owen
Gwyllim the butler was playing in that most unromantic place his
pantry, and the air was the inevitable "Jenny Jones."
From the lawn I led her by walks and ways forgotten since my boyhood,
and since I had gone the same route with her birdnesting and nutting
in those glorious Welsh woods, by hedgerows that were matted and
interwoven with thorny brambles and bright wild-flowers, past laden
orchards and picturesque farms, nooks that were leafy and green, and
little tarns of gleaming water, that reflected the smiling summer sky;
past meadows, where the sleek brown, or black, or brindled cattle were
chewing the cud and ruminating knee-deep among the fragrant pasture;
and dreamily I walked by her side, touching her hand from time to
time, or taking it fairly in mine as of old, and occasionally
enforcing what I said by a pressure of her soft arm within mine, while
I talked to her, saying heaven knows what, but most ungratefully
wishing all the time that she were Estelle Cressingham. All was soft
and peaceful around us. The woods of Craigaderyn, glowing in the heat
of the August afternoon, were hushed and still, all save the hum of
insects, or if they stirred it was when the soft west wind seemed to
pass through them with a languid sigh; and so some of the influences
of a past time and a boyish love came over me; a time long before I
had met the dazzling Estelle--a time when to me there had seemed to be
but one girl in the world, and she was Winifred Lloyd--ere I joined
the --th in the West Indies, or the Welsh Fusileers, and knew what the
world was. I dreaded being betrayed into some tenderness as a treason
to Lady Estelle; and fortunately we were not without some
interruptions in our walk of a mile or so to visit her horned pet,
whom she had sent forth for a last run on his native hills.
We visited Yr Ogof (or the cave) where one of her cavalier ancestors
had hidden after the battle of Llandegai, in the Vale of the Ogwen,
during the wars of Cromwell, and now, by local superstition, deemed an
abode of the knockers, those supernatural guardians of the mines, to
whom are known all the metallic riches of the mountains; hideous pigmy
gnomes, who, though they can never be seen, are frequently heard
beating, blasting, and boring with their little hammers, and singing
in a language known to themselves only. Then we tarried by the
heaped-up cairn that marked some long-forgotten strife; and then by
the Maen Hir, a long boulder, under which some fabled giant lay; and
next a great rocking stone, amid a field of beans, which we found
Farmer Rhuddlan--a sturdy specimen of a Welsh Celt, high cheek-boned
and sharp-eyed--contemplating with great satisfaction. High
above the sea of green stalks towered that wizard altar, where whilom
an archdruid had sat, and offered up the blood of his fellow-men to
gods whose names and rites are alike buried in oblivion; but Strabo
tells us that it was from the flowing blood of the victim that the
Druidesses--virgins supposed to be endowed with the gift of
prophecy--divined the events of the future; and this old stone, now
deemed but a barrier to the plough, had witnessed those terrible
observances.
Poised one block upon the other, resting on the space a sparrow alone
might occupy, and having stood balanced thus mysteriously for
uncounted ages, lay the rocking stone. The farmer applied his strong
hand to the spheroidal mass, and after one or two impulses it swayed
most perceptibly. Then begging me not to forget his son, who was with
our Fusileers far away at Varna, he respectfully uncovered his old
white head, and left us to continue his tour of the crops, but not
without bestowing upon us a peculiar and knowing smile, that made the
blood mantle in the peachlike cheeks of Winifred.
"How strange are the reflections these solemn old relics excite!" said
she, somewhat hastily; "if, indeed, one may pretend to value or to
think of such things in these days of ours, when picturesque
superstition is dying and poetry is long since dead."
"Poetry dead?"
"I think it died with Byron."
"Poetry can never die while beauty exists," said I, smiling rather
pointedly in her face.