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.