Under the Red Dragon. James Grant
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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.
My mind being so filled with Estelle and her fancied image, caused me to be unusually soft and tender to Winifred. I seemed to be mingling one woman's presence with that of another. I regarded Winifred as the dearest of friends; but I loved Estelle with a passion that was full of enthusiasm and admiration.
"No two men have the same idea of beauty," said Winifred, after a pause.
"True, nor any two nations; it exists chiefly, perhaps, in the mind of the lover."
"Yet love has nothing exactly to do with it."
"Prove this," said I, laughing, as I caught her hand in mine.
"Easily. Ask a Chinese his idea of loveliness, and he will tell you, a woman with her eyebrows plucked out, the lids painted, her teeth blackened, and her feet shapeless; and what does the cynical Voltaire say?--'Ask a toad what is beauty, the supremely beautiful, and he will answer you, it is his female, with two round eyes projecting out of its little head, a broad flat neck, a yellow breast, and dark-brown back.' Even red hair is thought lovely by some; and did not Duke Philip the Good institute the order of the Golden Fleece of Burgundy in honour of a damsel whose hair was as yellow as saffron; and now, Harry Hardinge, what is your idea?"
"Can you ask me?" I exclaimed, with something of ardour, for she looked so laughingly bright and intelligent as she spoke; then divining that I was thinking of another, not of her, "for there is a thread in our thoughts even as there is a pulse in our hearts, and he who can hold the one knows how to think, and he who can move the other knows how to feel," she said, with a point scarcely meant.
"The eye may be pleased, the vanity flattered, and ambition excited by a woman of beauty, especially if she is one of rank; yet the heart may be won by one her inferior. Talking of beauty, Lady Naseby has striven hard to get the young earl, her nephew, to marry our friend, Lady Estelle."
"Would she have him?" I asked, while my cheek grew hot.
"I cannot say--but he declined," replied Winifred, pressing a wild rose to her nostrils.
"Declined--impossible!"
"Why impossible? But in her fiery pride Estelle will never, never forgive him; though he was already engaged to one whom he, then at least, loved well."
"Ah--the Irish girl, I suppose?"
"Yes," said Winifred, with a short little sigh, as she looked down.
"Such a girl as Estelle Cressingham must always find admirers."
"Hundreds; but as the estates, like the title, have passed to the next male heir, and Lady Naseby has only a life-rent of the jointure house in Hants--Walcot Park, a lovely place--she is anxious that her daughter should make a most suitable marriage."
"Which means lots of tin, I suppose?" said I, sourly.
"Exactly," responded Winifred, determined, perhaps, if I had the bad taste to speak so much of Estelle, to say unpleasant things; "and the favoured parti at present is Viscount Pottersleigh, who comes here to-morrow, as his letter informed her."
"Old Pottersleigh is sixty if he is a day!" said I, emphatically.
"What has age to do with the matter in view? Money and position are preferable to all fancies of the heart, I fear."
"Nay, nay, Winifred, you belie yourself and Lady Estelle too; love is before everything!"
She laughed at my energy, while I began to feel that, next to making love, there is nothing so pleasant or so suggestive as talking of it to a pretty girl; and I beg to assure you, that it was somewhat perilous work with one like Winifred Lloyd; a girl who had the sweetest voice, the most brilliant complexion, and the softest eyes perhaps in all North Wales. She now drew her hand away; till then I had half forgot it was her hand I had been holding.
"Remember that oft-quoted line in the song of Montrose," said she, pretty pointedly.
"Which? for I haven't an idea."
"'Love one--and love no more.'"
"The great marquis was wrong," said I; "at least, if, according to a more obscure authority in such matters, Price of ours, one may love many times and always truly."
"Indeed!" Her lip curled as she spoke.
"Yes; for may not the same charms, traits, manner, and beauty which lure us to love once, lure us to love again?"
Winifred actually sighed, with something very like irritation, as she said, "I think all this the most abominable sophistry, Mr. Hardinge, and I feel a hatred for 'Price of ours,' whoever he may be."
"Mister! Why I was Harry a moment ago."
"Well, here is the abode of Cameydd Llewellyn; and you must tell me what you think of your future Welsh comrade; his beard may be to the regimental