Pride resumed its sway, and thus, while riding furiously along the road, I never turned once to look behind me.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE RED LION AT GUILDFORD.
As I rode on, anger, pride, a keen sense of the foul injustice with which my family had treated me, and of the false position in which they had placed me with the world, prompted me with a desire to cast Aurora's handkerchief to the wind; but the knowledge that she was an unwitting participator in the act by which my grandfather had transferred my heritage to her late brother, Tony; the memory of her kind manner, the gentle expression of her eye; together with certain high-flown ideas I had gathered from novels, tales of chivalry, and other romantic lore, prompted me to retain it. Edged with lace, it was of the finest cambric, and "Aurora," marked by her own hand, no doubt, appeared on one of its corners.
It was strange, but certainly not unpleasing, that she should think of and ask for me, whom she had never seen; and the tones of her winning voice yet lingered in my ear. My mind soared into airy regions, and became filled with tumultuous and undefined thoughts, for I was a famous architect of castles in the air.
"Ah, that I had the lamp of Aladdin, or even his ring, for ten minutes!" I exclaimed.
Aurora—who was well named so, with her pure complexion and golden hair—was the only living relative who had ever bestowed a thought upon me, so I placed the relic of her in my breast, and rode on, little foreseeing that on a future day that handkerchief would prove the means of saving my life.
On reaching Guildford, I repaired at once to the inn, where, on entering the stable, I remember well how my noble grey welcomed me by neighing, by licking my hand, and rubbing his forehead against me, when I greeted him as an old friend.
In the next stall there was a bald-faced nag with eyes askance, surveying us over the trevice boards, and his aspect seemed familiar to me.
The Red Lion at Guildford was one of those huge, misshapen, queer old galleried houses which still survive the Tudor days in many parts of England. It had acute wooden gables, with stacks of clustered chimneys that started up in picturesque confusion. The walls were plastered and whitewashed, and had varnished beams of ancient oak, in some instances richly and grotesquely carved, placed in them horizontally, perpendicularly, and diagonally. On the side which faced the stable-yard there opened a triple row of bedroom galleries, having twisted balustrades; and all this quaint superstructure rose from an arcade composed of octagonal stone pillars and ponderous beams of good old English oak elaborately carved. Gigs, chaises, covered carts, and red four-wheeled waggons, occupied the sheds around the yard; and the sound of hoofs and the rattle of stall collars evinced that the stables were well filled.