Here Twm took his hand, and said, "You look deeper into the hearts of men than I thought; but listen to a mystery and expound the dream that has so long haunted me."

Here he related the particulars of the "glorious vision" in the hay-loft of Morris Greeg, and of its repet.i.tion since he came to London; "and strange to say," added he, "it was in widow's weeds the fair spirit each time appeared. What can be the meaning or end of such dreams?" "I'll tell thee," answered Rhys, leaning on his shoulder and looking in his face; "Dreams long nursed, especially waking dreams, in time become realities-so will yours; you will marry this young widow, Twm!"

"Me! impossible!" cried Twm, blushing from the chin to the forehead.

"Oh, very well, I'll court her myself, then!" cried Rhys; on which they both burst into a most hearty laugh.

Our hero was growing silent and meditative, when Rhys, striking him a hearty smack on the shoulder, asked, "What would you say now, if the fair widow was herself in town at this moment?"

"What!" cried Twm, starting up, with an expression of interest that nothing could repress. Rhys in a most serious strain, a.s.sured him that her father, being chosen a knight of the shire for the ancient county of Brecon, was now in town with his widowed daughter. That he had ridden to town in their company, by which he had availed himself of a safe escort from the dangers of the road. Rhys added, that he had frequently conversed with the Lady Devereaux, both at home and on the journey, and that he, Master Thomas Jones, had always been the subject of her conversation and eulogy.

Very shortly after this conversation, in fact as shortly after as sufficed to take Twm and his friend Rhys to the town-house of Sir John Price, which was situated in Derby-street, Westminster, our hero was shaking hands and exchanging hearty good-wishes and congratulations with the "lady of his dream." His recollection of his dearly-cherished vision was now stronger than ever, in consequence of the widows' cap which she had lately a.s.sumed.

On the part of Sir John, our hero's reception was more ceremonious than friendly, but the feeling evinced in his daughter's eyes, and the speaking pressure of her hand, made ample amends for the baronet's stately coldness.

Having dined together, Sir John retired early on a more ceremonial visit, and the three friends were left together; for Lady Devereaux held Rhys in great esteem for his high professional character, and una.s.suming manners; and, in truth, we must add, more than all, for the friendship evinced by him for our hero, and the friendly way in which he spoke of him in his absence. It was with surprise and regret they heard the announcement of Rhys' intention (being now superceded in his curacy by the new inc.u.mbent,) of quitting his country and entering a foreign university, to seek in a far land that consideration and advancement not attainable in his own.

Lady Devereaux being only in the fifth month of her widowhood, the conversation, although kindly in the extreme, was of a melancholy cast.

Rhys having to embark in the morning, urged the necessity of retiring early, and took his final leave of the fair widow, who expressed the kindest wishes for his prosperity and success in all undertakings.

Accompanying his friend, Twm bade her adieu for the evening, and gained her leave to repeat his visit on the morrow. The permission to repeat his visits was eagerly seized by Twm, and not once a day only, but many times did he trouble Sir John's stately domestic to open the door to him.

That he was welcome by the fair enchantress, he could not doubt, and pleasant were the mid-day walks in the Park or Mall, their indoor conferences, and the evening parties at which they shone as twin-stars; but trebly pleasant to our hero was the hour in which he ventured to break to her his tender feelings and his darling hopes.

With the utmost candour, and without the least reservation, he told the humbleness of his origin, the blemish in his birth, his wretched bringing-up, and withal, the mysterious matter of his glorious vision.

The a.s.sertion that the moment he beheld her, on rescuing her from the robber, he identified her face and figure with the lady of his dream, called forth her deepest blushes, and she audibly whispered "Incredible!"

His repeated a.s.sertions, pa.s.sionately urged, of the truth of his a.s.sertion, silenced and perhaps convinced her.

Certain it is that, like the gentle Desdemona, "She gave him for his pains a world of sighs;" and time evinced to him that the lady had a tale to tell also, which proved that although highly born, and affluent as she was, her lot had not been entire sunshine.

"I am yet hardly twenty-one," replied she, "although I have been twice married. To neither of these husbands have I been able to give my entire heart. My first union was at my father's _command_, when solicitations proved useless, to his contemporary and old schoolfellow, who was old-fashioned enough to restore the long-exploded _abs_ in his name, vaunting himself as Thomas ab Rhys ab Thomas Gock, of Ystrad Feen; who could carry on the antique and rusty chain of _abs_, without a broken link, through several centuries up to the patriarch of his tribe, Elystan Glodrydd.

"Poor old gentleman! I fed him with a pap-spoon, in his large gothic arm-chair, when a stroke of paralysis had withered his right hand; but in six months after our marriage (marriage!) he fell a victim to his ruling pa.s.sion, which I will not name to his disparagement, and died of apoplexy. My year's mourning for him had barely expired, when my mother claimed her right of choosing my next husband; and, in the course of time, poor Sir George (peace to the memory of a harmless man!) became my second husband. Had I lived to these days unwedded," said she, with a look and tone of resolute firmness, almost foreign to her usual gentleness, "it is more than probable that I should not have become the victim of either of my parents' whims."

"My poor mother has been long deceased; but well I know my father's future aim respecting me-to have me united to some other choice of his own; but no! the sapling may bend to the storm, but, springing up again, who shall re-bend the youthful oak that time matures? If my good father inclines to play the tyrant with me, he will find some difference between the woman and the child." Applauding her resolution, Twm, kissed her hand with rapture; and, she added in a tone of gaiety, "if ever I change my state, I shall become the votary of a different shrine to any that I have yet bowed to;"

"The little G.o.d shall shoot the porch, Ere faithful Hymen waves his torch."

With that expressive couplet, she rose, and our hero, with enlarged hopes, took a tender, but restrained and respectful leave of her.

If Twm was heartily welcomed by Lady Devereaux, he was no less heartily disliked by her father. Sir John had learnt that he was a natural son of Sir John Wynn of Gwydir's, and no earthly merit could compensate, in his estimation, the bar of b.a.s.t.a.r.dy in his escutcheon. He sternly desired his daughter to break off all intercourse with our hero, as he had discovered, he said, the baseness of his origin. Although Twm appeared no more in his house, he had the mortification to learn that at the play, the ball, and in the Park and Mall, their meetings had been frequent. In a bitter spirit of resentment against his daughter, without the least previous warning, he one morning compelled her roughly to enter a coach at the door, which soon drove off, taking her she knew not whither.

Our hero's surmises became numerous and agonizing, when for three long weeks he had neither seen nor heard from his charmer, although he had not missed one opportunity of encountering her at any of their accustomed places of meeting, and his days became burdensome, and his nights sleepless. Just as he was sinking into a state of despondency, he one evening received a note in the hand of Lady Devereaux, informing him of her forcible conveyance to, and safe arrival at Ystrad Feen. His father having long since returned to North Wales, he took an affectionate but hasty leave of the hospitable family of the Martyns, and commenced his journey to his native princ.i.p.ality.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

TWM in Wales again. His meeting with the "lady of his dream." "The course of true love never did run smooth," which Twm ruefully acknowledges.

The dangers of the road had been somewhat reduced by the vigorous prosecution of highwaymen and robbers, many of whom had been lately convicted and executed. Travellers could pursue their way in comparative security, so Twm encountered no "hair-breadth escapes by flood or field"

and his journey home, consequently added no exciting incident to swell his gallant reputation. At Reading, he heard of the late execution there of his former antagonist Tom Dorbell.

Our hero's impatience towards the close of his journey was so great that he rode all night, that he might reach Ystrad Feen a day earlier. How would the "lady of his dream" receive him? With what delight would he not gaze upon her dear face again! When Twm, mounted on a goodly steed, dashed into the court-yard, Lady Devereaux, who witnessed his arrival sprang from her seat and hurried to meet him as he reached the entrance hall. We fear, for the honour of prudery, that her resistance was not very great.

When our gallant hero caught her in his arms, and impressed a certain number of kisses somewhere about the region of the cheeks and lips, both of which looked many degrees redder than when, a few minutes before, she complained to Miss Meredith of his strange delay in town.

"Kiss her also, so that she can't tell tales of me!" said the gay young widow; so Twm, somewhat less ardently, kissed Miss Meredith, and seemed to look about to see if there were any more business of that kind on hand.

"My dear Mr. Jones, you are welcome, most welcome, back to Wales, and trebly welcome to me, and the lonely walls of Ystrad Feen," were the kind Lady Joan's first words. Neither of the ladies was slow in discovering the change for the better which had taken place in his address, his former diffidence and indecision of manner being supplanted by easy confidence, and high animal spirits.

Twm was now, indeed, happy with the "lady of his dream;" for he was on much more intimate terms with her than he had, at one time, ever hoped to be. She told him that when her father so suddenly forced her into the coach, to be hurried towards the country, she was joined by two lofty ladies, his maiden sisters, who literally became her jailors in the travelling vehicle. Our hero remembered them well, from seeing them at cards one evening at their brother's; and he did not fail to describe them to young Martyn, as ugly as heartless pride, ill-temper, long saturnine noses, yellow ribbons and slippers, could make them.

The ancient gentlewomen had chosen the state of ceaseless virginity, they said, to keep up the dignity of the family, which, in their persons, they proudly added, should never be lowered by an unworthy alliance. During their homeward journey, they entertained their victim with ingenious reproaches and disparaging observations respecting "the strange young man who had obtruded himself into their brother's house-the unknown Mr.

Jones."

"Why, the creature has no family," observed the long-waisted Miss Felina Tomtabby Price. "Then," replied our heroine, "he is never likely to be pestered with the claims of poor relations, nor the persecution of rich ones." "No, he is of no stock," said Miss Euphemia Polparrot Price, following up her sister's remark; "the creature was only born yesterday."

"Then he is singularly young and harmless," answered the lady of Ystrad Feen. "And, above all blemishes, he is base-born," added Miss Felina Tomtabby Price. "That is less his fault than his misfortune, as the Irishman said who warranted his blind mare free from faults," answered their merry niece.

The young lady was evidently more than a match for the two elder ones, and so these ancient gentlewomen kept a dignified silence, or spoke only to each other, during the rest of the journey; which terminated at length by their seeing her to Ystrad Feen, and betaking themselves to the Priory House at Brecon.

In the course of many private conversations between Miss Meredith and the young widow, the subject of which discourses, strange to say, being invariably Twm himself; she declared herself delighted with him, and Twm, it was easy to see, returned the compliment with interest. At her invitation, he became an inmate of the house, until, as she said, he could put himself to rights. The golden chain and sum of money left to her care, were delivered up to him with considerable additions, in return for his services by a journey to London and from her own private bounty.

With the evident encouragement vouchsafed to him by the lady of Ystrad Feen, Twm was soon madly and irrecoverably lost in his warm affection for her, and there is nothing to surprise any reasonable being when he is told that Twm, with energetic enthusiasm, protested that he admired-nay, loved her! If the lady chided him, it was with such winning gentleness that it seemed to say, "Pray, do so again." If she turned aside her head to conceal her blushes, smiles ever accompanied them, in coming and retreating; or if she frowned, it was so equivocally, that, for the life of him, our hero could not help considering each transient bend of the brow as so many invitations to kiss them away, which the gallant Twm never failed to accept and obey.

These golden days were too rich in delight to last long. As the _good-natured and most virtuous world_ discovered that they were very happy, and pleased with each other, it breathed forth its malignant spirit, and doubted whether they had a legitimate right to be so; of course, deciding negatively, and consequently awarding to the lovers the pains and penalties of persecution and mutual banishment.

When they had become for some time, undivided companions, and walked, rode, danced at Brecon b.a.l.l.s, and resided under the same roof together, although under the strict guidance of moral propriety, as daily witnessed by the lady's female friend; it will be no wonder that scandal at last became busy with the lady's fame. An additional incentive for raising these evil reports was that she had rejected the attentions of several of the rural n.o.blesse, who had endeavoured to recommend themselves to her good graces.

All at once like the inmates of a hornet's nest, the various members of her family, the proud Prices of Brecon, buzzed about her ears and stung her with their reproaches. She bore all with determined patience, until a.s.sured that her fame had been vilified, and that she had been described as living a life of profligacy and dishonour. Conscious of rect.i.tude, however indiscreet she might have been, the haughtiness of her spirit now rose, as she indignantly repelled the infamous charges; in the end, requested her _dear friends and relations_ to dismiss their tender fears for her reputation, and keep to their own homes for the future, or at least not to trouble hers.

Although she had treated her officious friends with the contumely they deserved, she could not afford to set at nought, altogether, the opinions of the little world in which she lived; and, tired, irritated, and vexed, by hearing the same tale from day to day, she at last consented to send away her deliverer and friend, as she called him, from the protection of her roof. Our hero, however, could never be brought to distinguish between her real kind feelings towards him, and the constrained appearance which her altered conduct made in his sight.

Free as the air, as he felt himself, he could not understand why a great and wealthy lady was not equally unshackled and independent.

Explanations and excuses were entirely thrown away upon him, as he could not, or would not, understand aught so opposed to his happiness and pre-conceived notions.

When, at length, it was made known to him that the separation was inevitable, and the season of it arrived, he received the astounding intelligence like a severe blow of fortune, that struck him at once both sorrowful and meditative. Pride and resentment, from a supposed sense of injury at last supplanted every other feeling; and, starting up with a frenzied effort, he ordered his horse to be got ready, and gave directions for his things to be forwarded to Llandovery; after which, he wrote a note, and sent it to the lady's room requesting a momentary interview with her alone, before he took his departure.

She came down with a slow, languid step, and met him in the parlour. Her eyes were red with weeping; and, before she uttered a syllable, our hero's much-altered looks affected her so much, that she burst out into a heavy fit of sobbing. "Do not think hardly-do not feel unkindly towards me, Jones," were her first words! "I entreat you to give me the credit due to my sincerity, when I a.s.sure you that the sacrifice I made on consenting to part with you, was-yes! although I have buried two husbands who loved me tenderly, it was the heaviest of my life."

Twm replied in a tone and manner that evinced both his pride and his suffering; "I have but few words, madame, and they shall not long intrude upon your leisure. I came here a stranger, and had some trifling claims, perhaps, on your attention. Those claims have been more than satisfied-n.o.ble has been your remuneration of my humble services, your beneficence generous and princely.

"A change took place in your destiny; you honoured me beyond my merits, and bade me stand to the world in a new character. You called me friend, your sole friend, in a faithless world; nay, lady, your lover; I loved, and love you with a pure but unconquerable flame! Blame me not if I am presumptuous;-it was your own condescension, your own encouragement, that made me so, and elevated me to an equality with yourself. You gave me hopes to be the future, the only husband of your choice. You stretched forth your hand to aid my efforts, as I eagerly climbed towards the darling object of my aim; but before I attained the summit, you, madame, in the spirit of caprice or treachery, dashed me headlong downwards, to perish in despair.

"Your great and wealthy friends will praise you for this, while the mincing madames and the insipid misses of Brecon shall learn a n.o.ble lesson by your conduct, and emulating you, become in their day as arrant coquettes and tramplers on manly hearts, as their limited powers and vanity will permit. But enough! you shall have your generous triumph,-and from this hour I tread the world without an aim, a wanderer in the wilderness, reckless of everything. Advancement, estimation, I here abjure; nor, from this hour, would I raise my hand to save from annihilation the being I am-for life is henceforth hateful to me.

"Lady, farewell!-never more will I cross your path; but you may hear of my wayward steps,-and if in me you are told of a wretched idiot, a being whose mind had perished while his frame was strong, remember that it was yourself who wrought that mental desolation. Or, if they name me as a lawless being, plunged head-long into deeds of guilt, remember it is you, you, madame, who are the auth.o.r.ess of my crimes and sorrows, and, may be, of an ignominious death. And now, madame, farewell!" On which he darted out, mounted his horse, and rode off; while the unhappy lady of Ystrad Feen, whose agitation choked her utterance, caught a last glimpse of him, and fell on the parlour floor in a swoon.