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 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.