Under the Red Dragon. James GrantЧитать онлайн книгу.
pattern, though decidedly his horns and moustaches are not."
As she said this, again laughingly, we found ourselves close to a little hut that abutted on a thatched cottage and cow-house, in a most secluded place, a little glen or dell, over which the trees were arching, and so forming a vista, through which we saw Craigaderyn Court, as if in a frame of foliage. She opened a little wicket, and at the sound of her voice the goat came forth, dancing on his hind legs--a trick she had taught him--or playfully butting her skirts with his horns, regarding me somewhat dubiously and suspiciously the while with his great hazel eyes. He was truly a splendid specimen of the old Carnarvonshire breed of goats, which once ran wild over the mountains there, and were either hunted by dogs or shot with the bullet so lately as Pennant's time. His hair, which was longer than is usual with those of England, led me to fancy there was a Cashmerian cross in his blood; his black horns were two feet three inches long, and more than two feet from one sharp tip to the other. He was as white as the new-fallen snow, with a black streak down the back, and his beard was as venerable in proportion and volume as it was silky in texture.
"He is indeed a beautiful creature--a noble fellow!" I exclaimed, with genuine admiration.
"And just four years old. I obtained him when quite a kid."
"I am so loth that the Fusileers should deprive you of him."
"Talk not of that; but when you see my goat, my old pet Carneydd Llewellyn, marching proudly at their head, and decked with chaplets on St. David's day, when you are far, far away from us, you will--" she paused.
"What, Winifred?"
"Think sometimes of Craigaderyn--of to-day--and of me, perhaps," she added, with a laugh that sounded strangely unlike one.
"Do I require aught to make me think of you?" said I, patting kindly the plump, ungloved hand with which she was caressing the goat's head, and which in whiteness rivalled the hue of his glossy coat; and thereon I saw a Conway pearl, in a ring I had given her long ago, when she was quite a little girl.
"I hope not--and papa--I hope not."
The bright beaming face was upturned to me, and, as the deuce would have it, I kissed her: the impulse was irresistible.
She trembled then, withdrew a pace or two, grew very pale, and her eyes filled with tears.
"You should not have done that, Harry--I mean, Mr. Hardinge."
There was something wild and pitiful in her face.
"Tears?" said I, not knowing very well what to say; for "people often do say very little, when they mean a great deal."
"My old favourite will know the black ladders of Carneydd Llewellyn no more," said she, stooping over the goat caressingly to hide her confusion.
"But, Winifred--Miss Lloyd--why tears?"
"Can you ask me?" said she, her eyes flashing through them.
"Why, what a fuss you make! I have often done so--when a boy!"
"But you are no longer a boy; nor am I a girl, Mr. Hardinge."
"Do please call me Harry, like Sir Madoc," I entreated. "Not now--after this; and here comes Lady Estelle."
"Estelle!"
At that moment, not far from us, we saw Lady Naseby, driven in a pony-phaeton by Caradoc, and Lady Estelle with Guilfoyle a little way behind them, on horseback, and unaccompanied by any groom, coming sweeping at a trot down the wooded glen.
Such is the amusing inconsistency of the human heart--the male human heart, perhaps my lady readers will say--that though I had been more than flirting with Winifred Lloyd--on the eve of becoming too tender, perhaps--I felt a pang of jealousy on seeing that Guilfoyle was Lady Estelle's sole companion, for Dora was doubtless immersed in the details of her forthcoming fête.
Had she seen us?
Had she detected in the distance that little salute? If so, in the silly, kindly, half-flirting, and half-affectionate impulse which led me to kiss my beautiful companion and playfellow of the past years--the mere impulse of a moment--if mistaken, I might have ruined myself with her--perhaps with both.
"A lovely animal'! I hope you are gratified, Mr. Hardinge?" said Lady Estelle, with--but perhaps it was fancy--a curl on her red lip, as she reined-in her spirited horse sharply with one firm hand, and caressed his arching neck gracefully with the other, while he rose on his hind legs, and her veil flew aside.
Already dread of the future had chased away my first emotion of pique, nor was it possible to be long angry with Estelle; for with men and women alike, her beauty made her irresistible. Some enemies among the latter she undoubtedly had; they might condemn the regularity of her features as too classically severe, or have said that at times the flash of her dark eyes was proud or defiant; but the smile that played about her lip was so soft and winning that its influence was felt by all. Her perfect ease of manner seemed cold--very cold, indeed, when compared to the thoughts that burned in my own breast at that moment--dread that I might have been trifling with Winifred Lloyd, for whom I cherished a sincere and tender friendship; intense annoyance lest my friend Caradoc, who really loved her, might resent the affair; and, more than all, that she for whom I would freely have perilled limb and life might also resent, or mistake, the situation entirely. And in this vague mood of mind I returned with the little party to the house, where the bell had rung for tea, before dinner, which was always served at eight o'clock. As we quitted the goat, its keeper, an old peasant dame, wearing a man's hat and coat, with a striped petticoat and large spotted handkerchief, looked affectionately after Miss Lloyd, and uttered an exclamation in Welsh, which Caradoc translated to me as being,
"God bless her! May feet so light and pretty never carry a heavy heart!"
CHAPTER XI.--THE FÊTE CHAMPETRE.
How wild and inconceivable, abrupt, yet quite practicable, were the brilliant visions I drew, the projects I formed! Mentally I sprang over all barriers, cleared at a flying leap every obstacle. In fancy I achieved all my desires. I was the husband of Estelle; the chosen son-in-law of her mother--the man of all men to whom she would have entrusted the future happiness of her only daughter. The good old lady had sacrificed pride, ambition, and all to love. Time, life-usage, all became subservient to me when in these victorious moods. I had distanced all rivals--she was mine; I hers. I had cut the service, bidden farewell to the Royal Welsh; she, for a time at least, to London, the court, the Row, "society," the world itself for me; and were rusticating hand-in-hand, amid the woods of Walcot Park, or somewhere else, of which I had a very vague idea. But from these daydreams I had to rouse myself to the knowledge that, so far from being accepted, I had not yet ventured to propose; that I had more than one formidable rival; that other obstacles were to be overcome; and that Lady Naseby was as cold and proud and unapproachable as ever.
The day of Dora's fête proved a lovely one. The merry little creature--for she was much less in stature than her elder sister--with her bright blue eyes and wealth of golden hair, was full of smiles, pleasure, and impatience; and was as radiant with gems, the gifts of friends, as a young bride. I welcomed the day with vague hopes that grew into confidence, though I could scarcely foresee how it was to close for me, or all that was to happen. Though Caradoc and I had come from Winchester ostensibly to attend this fête, I must glance briefly at many of the details of it, and confine myself almost to the dramatis personæ. Suffice it to say that there was a militia band on one of the flower-terraces; there was a pretty dark-eyed Welsh gipsy, with black, dishevelled hair, who told fortunes, and picked up, but omitted to restore, certain stray spoons and forks; there was an itinerant Welsh harper, whom the staghound Brach, the same stately animal which I had seen on the rug before the hall-fire, inspired by that animosity which all dogs seem to have for mendicants, assailed about the calf of the leg, for which he seemed to have a particular fancy. So Sir Madoc had to plaster the bite with a fifty-pound note. Then there was a prophetic hermit, in a moss-covered grotto, cloaked like a gray friar, and bearded like the pard; a wizard yclept Merlin, who, having