Cynthia wished to obtain some photographs of old inns, so, when they had admired the cathedral, and shuddered at the memory of Richard the Third—who wrote at Gloucester the order to Brackenbury for the murder of the princes in the Tower of London—and smiled at Cromwell’s mordant wit in saying that the place had more churches than godliness when told of the local proverb, “As sure as God’s in Gloucester,” Medenham brought them to Northgate Street, where the New Inn—which is nearly always the most antiquated hostelry in an English country-town—supplied a fine example of massive timberwork, with courtyard and external galleries.
The light was so perfect that he persuaded Cynthia to stand in a doorway and let him take a picture. During the focusing interval, he suggested that the day’s route should be varied by leaving the coast road at Westbury and running through the Forest of Dean, where a secluded hotel in the midst of a real woodland would be an ideal place for luncheon.
She agreed. Something in his tone told her that Mrs. Devar’s consent to the arrangement had better be taken for granted. So they sped through the blossom-laden lanes of Gloucestershire to the leafy depths of the Forest, and saw the High Beeches, and the Old Beech, and the King’s Walk, and many of the gorgeous vistas that those twin artists Spring and Summer etched on the wooded undulations of one of Britain’s most delightful landscapes; as a fitting sequel to a run through fairyland they lunched at the Speech House Hotel, where once the skins of daring trespassers on the King’s preserves were wont to be nailed on the Court House door by the Verderers.
It was Cynthia who pointed the moral.
“There is always an ogre’s cave near the Enchanted Garden,” she said, “and those were surely ogerish days when men were flayed alive for hunting the King’s deer.”
It is not to be wondered at if they dawdled somewhat by the way, when that way led past Offa’s Dyke, through Chepstow, and Tintern, and Monmouth, and Symon’s Yat. Indeed, Cynthia’s moods alternated between wide-eyed enjoyment and sheer regret, for each romantic ruin and charming countryside not only aroused her enthusiasm but evoked a longing to remain riveted to the spot. Yet she would not be a woman if there were not exceptions to this rule, as shall be seen in due course.
Mrs. Devar, perchance tempted by the word “Castle,” quitted the car at Chepstow, and climbed to the nail-studded oak door of one of the most perfect examples of a Norman stronghold now extant. Once committed to the rôle of sightseer, she was compelled to adhere to it, and before the fourth court was reached, had she known the story, she would have sympathized with the pilgrim who did not boil the peas in his shoes of penance. Chepstow Castle is a splendid ruin, but its steep gradients and rough pavements are not fitted for stout ladies who wear tight boots.
To make matters worse, the feelings of Cynthia’s chaperon soon became as sore as her toes. The only feature of Marten’s Tower that appealed to her was its diabolical ingenuity in providing opportunities for that interfering chauffeur to assist, almost to lift, Cynthia from one mass of fallen masonry to another. Though she knew nothing of Henry Marten she reviled his memory. She heard “Fitzroy” telling her wayward charge that the reformer really hated Charles I. because the King called him “an ugly rascal” in public, and directed that he should be turned out of Hyde Park; the words supplied a cue.
“Pity kings are not as powerful nowadays,” she snapped. “The presumption of the lower orders is becoming intolerable.”