Under the Red Dragon: A Novel
replying to Dora, my thoughts and wishes were with another.
"I told you how it would be, Mr. Hardinge," whispered Dora; "that the
staple conversation of the gentlemen, if it didn't run on the county
pack, would be about horses and cattle, sheep, horned and South Down;
or on the British Constitution, which must be a very patched
invention, to judge by all they say of it."
I confessed inwardly that much of what went on around me was so
provincial and local--the bishop's visitation, the--parish poor,
crops and game, grouse and turnips--and proved such boredom that, but
for the smiling girl beside me, with her waggish eyes and pretty ways,
and the longing and hope to have more of the society of Lady Estelle,
I could have wished myself back at the mess of the depôt battalion in
Winchester. Yet this restlessness was ungrateful; for Craigaderyn was
as much a home to me as if I had been a son of the house, and times
there were when the girls, like their father, called me simply
"Harry," by my Christian name.
The long and stately dining-room, like other parts of the house, was
well hung with portraits. At one end was a full-length of Sir Madoc in
his scarlet coat and yellow-topped boots, seated on his favourite bay
mare, "Irish Jumper," with mane and reins in hand, a brass horn slung
over his shoulder, and looking every inch like what he was--the M.F.H.
of the county, trotting to cover. Opposite, of course, was his
lady--it might almost have passed for a likeness of Winifred--done
several years ago, her dress of puce velvet cut low to show her
beautiful outline, but otherwise very full indeed, as she leaned in
the approved fashion against a vase full of impossible flowers beside
a column and draped curtain, in what seemed a windy and draughty
staircase, a view of Snowdon in the distance. "Breed and blood," as
Sir Madoc used to say, "in every line of her portrait, from the bridge
of her nose to the heel of her slipper;" for she was a lineal
descendant of _y Marchog gwyllt o' Cae Hywel_, or "the wild Knight of
Caehowel," a circumstance he valued more than all her personal merits
and goodness of heart.
Some of Dora's remarks about the family portraits elicited an
occasional glance of reprehension from the Dowager of Naseby, who
thought such relics or evidences of descent were not to be treated
lightly. On my enquiring who that lady in the very low dress with the
somewhat dishevelled hair was, I had for answer, "A great favourite of
Charles II., Mr. Hardinge--an ancestress of ours. Papa knows her name.
There was some lively scandal about her, of course. And that is her
brother beside her--he in the rose-coloured doublet and black wig. He
was killed in a duel about a young lady--run clean through the heart
by one of the Wynnes of Llanrhaidr, at the Ring in Hyde Park."
"When men risked their lives so, love must have been very earnest in
those days," said Lady Estelle.
"And very fearful," said the gentler Winny. "It is said the lady's
name was engraved on the blade of the sword that slew him."
"A duel! How delightful to be the heroine of a duel!" exclaimed the
volatile Dora.
"And who is that pretty woman in the sacque and puffed cap?" asked
Caradoc, pointing to a brisk-looking dame in a long stomacher. She was
well rouged, rather _décolletée_, had a roguish kissing-patch in the
corner of her mouth, and looked very like Dora indeed.
"Papa's grandmother, who insisted on wearing a white rose when she was
presented to the Elector at St. James's," replied Dora; "and her
marriage to the heir of Craigaderyn is chronicled in the fashion of
the Georgian era, by gossipping Mr. Sylvanus Urban, as that of
'Mistress Betty Temple, an agreeable and modest young lady with
50,000_l_. fortune, from the eastward of Temple Bar.' I don't think
people were such tuft-hunters in those days as they are now. Do _you_
think so, Mr. Guilfoyle? O, I am sure, that if all we read in novels
is true, there must have been more romantic marriages and much more
honest love long ago than we find in society now. What do you say to
this, Estelle?"
But the fair Estelle only fanned herself, and replied by a languid
smile, that somehow eluded when it might have fallen on _me_. So while
we lingered over the dessert (the pineapples, peaches, grapes, and so
forth being all the produce of Sir Madoc's own hothouses), Dora
resumed:
"And so, poor Harry Hardinge, in a few weeks more you will be far away
from us, and face to face with those odious Russians--in a real
battle, perhaps. It is something terrible to think of! Ah, heavens, if
you should be killed!" she added, as her smile certainly passed away
for a moment.
"I don't think somehow there is very much danger of that--at least I
can but hope--"
"Or wounded! If you should lose a leg--two legs perhaps--"
"He could scarcely lose _more_," said Mr. Guilfoyle.
"And come home with wooden ones!" she continued, lowering her voice.
"You will look so funny! O, I could never love or marry a man with
wooden stumps!"
"But," said I, a little irritated that she should see anything so very
amusing in this supposed contingency, "I don't mean to marry _you_."
"Of course not--I know that. It is Winny, papa thinks--or is it
Estelle Cressingham you prefer?"
Lowly and whispered though the heedless girl said this, it reached the
ears of Lady Estelle, and caused her to grow if possible paler, while
I felt my face suffused with scarlet; but luckily all now rose from
the table, as the ladies, led by Winifred, filed back alone to the
drawing-room; and I felt that Dora's too palpable hints must have done
much to make or mar my cause--perhaps to gain me the enmity of both
her sister and the Lady Estelle.
Sir Madoc assumed his daughter's place at the head of the table, and
beckoned _me_ to take his chair at the foot. Owen Gwyllim replenished
the various decanters and the two great silver jugs of claret and
burgundy, and the flow of conversation became a little louder in tone,
and of course less reserved. I listened now with less patience to all
that passed around me, in my anxiety to follow the ladies to the
drawing-room. Every moment spent out of _her_ presence seemed doubly
long and doubly lost. The chances of the coming war--_where_ our
troops were to land, whether at Eupatoria or Perecop, or were to await
an attack where they were literally rotting in the camp upon the
Bulgarian shore; their prospects of success, the proposed bombardment
of Cronstadt, the bewildering orders issued to our admirals, the inane
weakness and pitiful vacillation, if not worse, of Lord Aberdeen's
government, our total want of all preparation in the ambulance and
commissariat services, even to the lack of sufficient shot, shell, and
gunpowder--were all freely descanted on, and attacked, explained, or
defended according to the politics or the views of those present; and
Guilfoyle--who, on the strength of having been attaché at the petty
German court of Catzenelnbogen, affected a great knowledge of
continental affairs--indulged in much "tall talk" on the European
situation till once more the county pack and hunting became the chief
topic, and then too he endeavoured, but perhaps vainly, to take the
lead.
"You talk of fox-hunting, gentlemen," said he, raising his voice after
a preliminary cough, "and some of the anecdotes you tell of wonderful
leaps, mistakes, and runs, with the cunning displayed by reynard on
various occasions, such as hiding in a pool up to the snout, feigning
death--a notion old as the days of Olaus Magnus--throwing dogs off the
scent by traversing a running stream, and so forth, are all remarkable
enough; but give me a good buck-hunt, such as I have seen in Croatia!
When travelling there among the mountains that lie between Carlstadt
and the Adriatic, I had the good fortune to reside for a few weeks
with my kind friend Ladislaus Count Mosvina, Grand Huntsman to the
Emperor of Austria, and captain of the German Guard of Arzieres, and
who takes his title from that wine-growing district, the vintage of
which is fully equal to the finest burgundy. The season was winter.
The snow lay deep among the frightful valleys and precipices of the
Vellibitch range, and an enormous _rehbock_, or roebuck, fully five
feet in height to the shoulder, with antlers of vast size--five feet,
if an inch, from tip to tip--driven from the mountains by the storm
and _la bora_, the biting north-east wind, took shelter in a thicket
near the house. Several shots were fired; but no one, not even _I_,
could succeed in hitting him, till at last he defiantly and coolly
fed among the sheep, in the yard of the Count's home farm, where, by
the use of his antlers, he severely wounded and disabled all who
attempted to dislodge him. At last four of the Count's farmers or
foresters--some of those Croatian boors who are liable to receive
twenty-five blows of a cudgel yearly if they fail to engraft at least
twenty-five fruit-trees--undertook to slay or capture the intruder.
But though they were powerful, hardy, and brave men, this devil
of a _rehbock_, by successive blows of its antlers, fractured the
skulls of two and the thigh-bones of the others, smashing them like
tobacco-pipes, and made an escape to the mountains. A combined hunt
was now ordered by my friend Mosvina, and all the gentlemen and
officers in the _generalat_ or district commanded by him set off,
mounted and in pursuit. There were nearly a thousand horsemen; but the
cavalry there are small and weak. _I_ was perhaps the best-mounted man
in the field. We pursued it for twenty-five miles, by rocky hills and
almost pathless woods, by ravines and rivers. Many of our people fell.
Some got staked, were pulled from their saddles by trees, or tumbled
off by running foul of wild swine. Many missed their way, grew weary,
got imbogged in the half-frozen marshes, and so forth, till at last
only the Count and I with four dogs were on his track, and when on it,
we leaped no less than four frozen cataracts, each at least a hundred
feet in height--'pon honour they were. We had gone almost neck and
neck for a time; but the Grand Huntsman's horse began to fail him now
(for we had come over terrible ground, most of it being uphill), and
ultimately it fell dead lame. Then whoop--tally-ho! I spurred onward
alone. Just as the furious giant was coming to bay in a narrow gorge,
and, fastening on his flanks and neck, the maddened dogs were tearing
him down, their red jaws steaming in the frosty air, the Count came up
on foot, breathless and thoroughly blown, to have the honour of
slaying this antlered monarch of the Dinovian Alps. But I was too
quick for him. I had sprung from my horse, and with my unsheathed
_hanshar_ or Croatian knife had flung myself, fearlessly and
regardless of all danger, upon the buck, eluding a last and desperate
butt made at me with his pointed horns. Another moment saw my knife
buried to the haft in his throat, and a torrent of crimson blood
flowing upon the snow, then I courteously tendered my weapon by the
hilt to the Count, who, in admiration of my adroitness, presented me
with this ring--a very fine brilliant, you may perceive--which his
grandfather had received from the Empress Maria Theresa, and the pure
gold of which is native, from the sand upon the banks of the Drave."
And as he concluded his anecdote, which he related with considerable
pomposity and perfect coolness, he twirled round his finger this
remarkable ring, of which I was eventually to hear more from time to
time.
"So, out of a thousand Croatian horsemen, _you_ were the only one in at
the death! It says little for their manhood," said an old fox-hunter,
as he filled his glass with burgundy, and pretty palpably winked to
Sir Madoc, under cover of an épergne.