



Produced by David Widger







THE KNIGHT OF GWYNNE

By Charles James Lever


A Tale of the Time of the Union

With Illustrations By Phiz.

In Two Volumes. Vol. II.

Boston: Little, Brown, And Company 1894.





THE KNIGHT OF GWYNNE




CHAPTER I. SOME CHARACTERS NEW TO THE KNIGHT AND THE READER

Soon after breakfast the following morning the Knight set out to pay
his promised visit to Miss Daly, who had taken up her abode at a little
village on the coast, about three miles distant. Had Darcy known that
her removal thither had been in consequence of his own arrival at
"The Corvy," the fact would have greatly added to an embarrassment
sufficiently great on other grounds. Of this, however, he was not aware;
her brother Bagenal accounting for her not inhabiting "The Corvy" as
being lonely and desolate, whereas the village of Ballintray was, after
its fashion, a little watering-place much frequented in the season by
visitors from Coleraine, and other towns still more inland.

Thither now the Knight bent his steps by a little footpath across the
fields which, from time to time, approached the seaside, and wound again
through the gently undulating surface of that ever-changing tract.

Not a human habitation was in sight; not a living thing was seen to
move over that wide expanse; it was solitude the very deepest, and well
suited the habit of his mind who now wandered there alone. Deeply lost
in thought, he moved onward, his arms folded on his breast, and his eyes
downcast; he neither bestowed a glance upon the gloomy desolation of
the land prospect, nor one look of admiring wonder at the giant cliffs,
which, straight as a wall, formed the barriers against the ocean.

"What a strange turn of fortune!" said he, at length, as relieving his
overburdened brain by speech. "I remember well the last day I ever saw
her; it was just before my departure for England for my marriage. I
remember well driving over to Castle Daly to say good-bye! Perhaps,
too, I had some lurking vanity in exhibiting that splendid team of four
grays, with two outriders. How perfect it all was! and a proud fellow
I was that day! Maria was looking very handsome; she was dressed for
riding, but ordered the horses back as I drove up. What spirits she
had!--with what zest she seized upon the enjoyments her youth, her
beauty, and her fortune gave her!--how ardently she indulged every
costly caprice and every whim, as if revelling in the pleasure of
extravagance even for its own sake! Fearless in everything, she did
indeed seem like a native princess, surrounded by all that barbaric
splendor of her father's house, the troops of servants, the equipages
without number, the guests that came and went unceasingly, all rendering
homage to her beauty. 'T was a gorgeous dream of life, and well she
understood how to realize all its enchantment. We scarcely parted good
friends on that same last day," said he, after a pause; "her manner
was almost mordant. I can recall the cutting sarcasms she dealt around
her,--strange exuberance of high spirits carried away to the wildest
flights of fancy; and after all, when, having dropped my glove, I
returned to the luncheon-room to seek it, I saw her in a window, bathed
in tears; she did not perceive me, and we never met after. Poor girl!
were those outpourings of sorrow the compensation nature exacted for
the exercise of such brilliant powers of wit and imagination? or had she
really, as some believed, a secret attachment somewhere? Who knows? And
now we are to meet again, after years of absence,--so fallen too! If it
were not for these gray hairs and this wrinkled brow, I could believe it
all a dream;--and what is it but a dream, if we are not fashioned to act
differently because of our calamities? Events are but shadows if they
move us not."

From thoughts like these he passed on to others,--as to how he should be
received, and what changes time might have wrought in her.

"She was so lovely, and might have been so much more so, had she but
curbed that ever-rising spirit of mockery that made the sparkling lustre
of her eyes seem like the scathing flash of lightning rather than the
soft beam of tranquil