Under the Red Dragon. James GrantЧитать онлайн книгу.

       CHAPTER V.--CRAIGADERYN COURT.

      Apart from Welsh fable and tradition, the lands of Craigaderyn had been in possession of Sir Madoc's family for many ages, and for more generations of the line of Lloyd; but the mansion, the Court itself, is not older than the Stuart times, and portions of it were much more recent, particularly the library, the shelves of which were replete with all that a gentleman's library should contain; the billiard-room and gun-room, where all manner of firearms, from the old long-barrelled fowling-piece of Anne's time down to Joe Manton and Colt's revolver, stood side by side on racks; the kennels, where many a puppy yelped; and the stable-court, where hoofs rang and stall-collars jangled, and where Mr. Bob Spurrit--a long-bodied, short-and-crooked legged specimen of the Welsh groom--reigned supreme, and watered and corned his nags by the notes of an ancient clock in the central tower--a clock said to have been brought as spoil from the church of Todtenhausen, by Sir Madoc's grandfather, after he led the Welsh Fusileers at the battle of Minden. Masses of that "rare old plant, the ivy green," heavy, leafy, and overlapping each other, shrouded great portions of the house. Oriels, full of small panes and quaint coats of arms, abutted here and there; while pinnacles and turrets, vanes, and groups of twisted, fluted, or garlanded stone chimney stacks, rose sharply up to break the sky-line and many a panel and scutcheon of stone were there, charged with the bend, ermine, and pean of Lloyd--the lion rampant wreathed with oak, and armed with a sword--and the heraldic cognizance of many a successive matrimonial alliance.

      Some portions of the house, where the walls were strong and the lower storey vaulted, were associated, of course, with visits from Llewellyn and Owen Glendower; and there also abode--a ghost. The park, too, was not without its old memories and traditions. Many of its trees were descendants of an ancient grove dedicated to Druidic worship; and bones frequently found there were alleged by some to be the relics of human sacrifice, by others to be those of Roman or of Saxon warriors slain by the sturdy Britons who, under Cadwallader, Llewellyn of the Torques, or some other hero of the Pendragonate, had held, in defiance of both, the caer or fort on the summit of Craigaderyn. But the woodlands on which Sir Madoc mostly prided himself were those of the old acorn season, when Nature planted her own wild forests, and sowed the lawn out of her own lawns, as some writer has it. They were unquestionably the most picturesque, but the trim and orderly chase was not without its beauties too, and there had many grand Eisteddfoddiau been held under the auspices of Sir Madoc, and often fifty harpers at a time had made the woods ring to "The noble Race of Shenkin," or "The March of the Men of Harlech."

      The old Court and its surroundings were such as to make one agree with what Lord Lyttelton wrote of another Welsh valley, where "the mountains seemed placed to guard the charming retreat from invasions; and where, with the woman one loves, the friend of one's heart, and a good library, one might pass an age, and think it a day."

      The ghost was a tall thin figure, dressed somewhat in the costume of Henry VIII.'s time; but his full-skirted doublet with large sleeves, the cap bordered with ostrich feathers, the close tight hose, and square-toed shoes, were all deep black, hence his, or its, aspect was sombre in the extreme, shadowy and uncertain too, as he was only visible in the twilight of eve, or the first dim and similarly uncertain light of the early dawn; and these alleged appearances have been chiefly on St. David's day, the 1st of March, and were preceded by the sound of a harp about the place--but a harp unseen. He was generally supposed to leave, or be seen quitting, a portion of the house, where the old wall was shrouded with ivy, and to walk or glide swiftly and steadily, without casting either shadow or foot-mark on the grass, towards a certain ancient tree in the park, where he disappeared--faded, or melted out of sight. On the wall beneath the ivy being examined, a door--the portion of an earlier structure--was discovered to have been built up, but none knew when or why; and tradition averred that those who had seen him pass--for none dared follow--towards the old tree, could make out that his figure and face were those of a man in the prime of life, but the expression of the latter was sad, solemn, resolute, and gloomy.

      The origin of the legend, as told to me by Winifred Lloyd, referred to a period rather remote in history, and was to the following effect. Some fifteen miles southward from Craigaderyn is a quaint and singular village named Dinas Mowddwy, situated very strangely on the shelf of a steep mountain overlooking the Dyfi stream--a lofty spot commanding a view of the three beautiful valleys of the Ceryst; but this place was in past times the abode and fortress of a peculiar and terrible tribe, called the Gwylliad Cochion, or Red-haired Robbers, who made all North Wales, but more particularly their own district, a by-word and reproach, from the great extent and savage nature of the outrages they committed by fire and sword; so that to this day, we are told, there may be seen, in some of the remote mountain hamlets, more especially in Cemmaes near the sea, the well-sharpened scythe-blades, which were placed in the chimney-corners overnight, to be ready for them in case of a sudden attack. They were great crossbowmen, those outlaws, and never failed in their aim; and so, like the broken clans upon the Highland border, they levied black mail on all, till the night of the 1st of March, 1534; when, during a terrific storm of thunder, lightning, and wind, Sir Jorwerth Lloyd of Craigaderyn, John Wynne ap Meredydd, and a baron named Owen, scaled the mountain at the head of their followers, fell on them sword in hand, and after slaying a great number, hung one hundred of them in a row. One wretched mother, a red-haired Celt, begged hard and piteously to have her youngest son spared; but Sir Jorwerth was relentless, so the young robber perished with the rest. Then the woman rent her garments, and laying bare her bosom, said it had nursed other sons and daughters, who would yet wash their hands in the blood of them all. Owen was waylaid and slain by them at a place named to this day Llidiart-y-Barwn, or the Baron's Gate, and Meredydd fell soon after; but for Lloyd the woman, who was a reputed witch, had prepared another fate, as if aiming at the destruction of his soul as well as his body; for after his marriage with Gwerfyl Owen, he fell madly in love with a golden-haired girl whom he met when hunting in the forest near Craigaderyn; and as he immediately relinquished all attendance at church and all forms of prayer, and seemed to be besotted by her, the girl was averred to be an evil spirit, as she was never seen save in his company, and then only (by those who watched and lurked) "in the glimpses of the moon."

      On the third St. David's eve after the slaughter at Dinas Mowddwy, he was seated with Gwerfyl in her chamber, listening to a terrific storm of wind and rain that swept through the valley, overturning the oldest trees, and shaking the walls of the ancient house, while the lightning played above the dim summits of Snowdon, and every mountain stream and rhaidr, or cataract, rolled in foam and flood to Llyn Alwen or the Conway.

      On a tabourette near his knee she sat, lovingly clasping his hand between her own two, for he seemed restless, petulant, and gloomy, and had his cloak and cap at hand, as if about to go forth, though the weather was frightful.

      "Jorwerth," said she softly, "the last time there was such a storm as this was on that terrible night--you remember?"

      "When we cut off the Gwylliad Cochion--yes, root and branch, sparing, as we thought, none, while the rain ran through my armour as through a waterspout. But why speak of it, to-night especially? Yes, root and branch, even while that woman vowed vengeance," he added, grinding his teeth. "But what sound is that?"

      "Music," she replied, rising and looking round with surprise; but his tremulous hand, and, more than that, the sudden pallor of his face, arrested her, while the strains of a small harp, struck wildly and plaintively, came at times between the fierce gusts of wind that shook the forest trees and the hiss of the rain on the window-panes without. Louder they seemed to come, and to be more emphatic and sharp; and, as he heard them, a violent trembling and cold perspiration came over all the form of Sir Jorwerth Lloyd.

      "Heaven pity the harper who is abroad to-night!" said Gwerfyl, clasping her white hands.

      "Let