My Lord Pottersleigh and the adventurer Hawkesby Guilfoyle--for an artful, presumptuous, and very singular adventurer he eventually proved to be--could not detect that there was a secret understanding, and still less that there was any engagement, between Lady Estelle and me; yet both were sharp enough to fancy that there was something wrong so far as they were concerned--something understood by us which to them was incomprehensible; and the latter now referred in vain to Baden, Berlin, Catzenelnbogen, and other places where they had met so pleasantly on the Continent. Engaged solemnly and tenderly to Estelle, I had yet the absurd annoyance of beholding Pottersleigh, who was assured of her mother's countenance and favour (though he would have been a more seemly suitor for herself), and whose years and position gave him perfect confidence, hovering or shambling perpetually about her, absorbing her time if not her attention, mumbling his overstrained compliments into her unwilling ear, touching her hand or tapered arm, and even patting her lovely white shoulders from time to time with his withered paws, and every way giving himself such fatherly and lover-like airs of proprietary oddly mingled that I could with pleasure have punched his aristocratic old head. We frequently laughed at all this even when he was present; for by a glance rather than a word, Estelle could convey to me all she thought and felt. There was something delightful in this secret understanding, this secret community of thought and interest, with one so young and beautiful--more than all, when blended with it was the charm of the most perfect success in a first affair of love; and I thought myself one of the happiest fellows in the world.
Superb as her toilettes were at all times, she seemed to make little Babette Pompon take extra pains with them now, and I felt delighted accordingly, for such infinite care seemed to express a desire to please me. Our next departure from the Court was Mr. Hawkesby Guilfoyle, whom Sir Madoc and all his visitors had begun to view with a coolness and disfavour of which the party in question found it convenient to seem quite oblivious; but it reached its culminating point through a very small matter. One day after luncheon we had gone so far as Penmaen Mawr. The four ladies were in the open carriage; I occupied the rumble; Sir Madoc, Lord Pottersleigh, and Guilfoyle were mounted, and we were all enjoying to the fullest extent that glorious combination of marine and mountain scenery peculiar to the Welsh coast; the air was full of ozone and the sky was full of sunshine. We were all happy, and even Winifred seemed in unusually high spirits; as for Dora, she was never otherwise. The well-hung carriage rolled pleasantly along, between the beautiful green hills, past quiet villages and ancient churches, vast yawning slate quarries, green mounds and gray stones that marked where battles had been, with occasional glimpses of the Irish Sea, that stretched away to the dim horizon like a sheet of glittering glass. Estelle, by arrangement, sat with her back to the horses, so that she and I could freely converse with our eyes, from time to time, under the shade of her skilfully-managed parasol.
Sir Madoc on this day was peculiarly enthusiastic, and having mounted what the girls called his "Welsh hobby," was disposed to give it full rein. We halted in a little sequestered glen, a lovely spot embosomed among trees, on the southern slope of the hill. The horses were unbitted; Owen Gwyllim had put the champagne' bottles to cool in a runnel, where their long gilded necks and swollen corks stood invitingly up amid the rich green grass that almost hid the murmuring water. We had come by Caerhun, through an old and little-frequented road, where Sir Madoc insisted on pointing out to us all the many erect old battle-stones by the wayside; for his mind was now full of quaint stories, and the memory of heroes with barbarous names. Thus when Owen uncorked the Cliquot, he drank more than one guttural Welsh toast, and told us how, often in his boyhood, the road had been obstructed for weeks by masses of rock that fell thundering from the mountain above; and in his love of the olden time or detestation of change, I believe he would have preferred such barriers to progress still, rather than have seen the lines of road and rail that now sweep between the mountain and the sea on the way to Holyhead.
"It was in this dell or glyn," said Sir Madoc, as he seated his sturdy figure on the grass, though the ladies did not leave the carriage, "that Llewellyn ap Jorwerth took prisoner the luckless William de Breas, whom he hanged at Aber, in the time of Henry III."
"Why did he hang him?" asked Guilfoyle, holding his glass for Owen to refill it.
"Because he was a handsome fellow, and found too much favour in the eyes of his princess, whom he dragged to the window that she might see his body hanging lifeless on the gibbet."
"Deuced hard lines," said Guilfoyle, laughing. "I thought he might have been hung because he hadn't a pedigree, or some other enormity in Welsh eyes." As Sir Madoc looked at the speaker his eyes sparkled, for the remark was a singularly gratuitous one.
"You English," said he, "laugh at what you are pleased to consider our little weakness in that respect; and yet the best names in the peerage are apt to be deduced from some corporal or sergeant of William's Norman rabble."
"Heavens, papa! when I change my name of Lloyd, I hope it won't be for that of Mrs. John Smith or Robinson?" said Dora, merrily, as she heard that Sir Madoc's tone was sharp.
"Well, but you must admit that these fortuitous circumstances are deemed of small account now; for as Dick Cypher sings,
"'A peer and a 'prentice now dress much the same, And you can't tell the difference excepting by name.'"
"I don't know who your friend Dick Cypher may be," replied Sir Madoc, quietly, though evidently greatly ruffled, "but Burke and Debrett record as ancient, names we deem but those of yesterday, and when compared with ours are as the stunted gorsebush to pine or oak--yes, sir! or as the donkey that crops thistles by the wayside when compared to the Arab horse!"
"God bless my soul!&quo............