Even the artist might
here, perchance, have seized on the dry ineffable pervading spirit, as
one visiting an old cathedral seems to scent out the constriction of its
heart.
From the legendary sword of that Welsh chieftain who by an act of high,
rewarded treachery had passed into the favour of the conquering William,
and received, with the widow of a Norman, many lands in Devonshire,
to the Cup purchased for Geoffrey Caradoc; present Earl of Valleys, by
subscription of his Devonshire tenants on the occasion of his marriage
with the Lady Gertrude Semmering--no insignia were absent, save the
family portraits in the gallery of Valleys House in London. There
was even an ancient duplicate of that yellow tattered scroll royally,
reconfirming lands and title to John, the most distinguished of all the
Caradocs, who had unfortunately neglected to be born in wedlock, by one
of those humorous omissions to be found in the genealogies of most old
families. Yes, it was there, almost cynically hung in a corner; for this
incident, though no doubt a burning question in the fifteenth century,
was now but staple for an ironical little tale, in view of the fact that
descendants of John's 'own' brother Edmund were undoubtedly to be found
among the cottagers of a parish not far distant.
Light, glancing from the suits of armour to the tiger skins beneath
them, brought from India but a year ago by Bertie Caradoc, the younger
son, seemed recording, how those, who had once been foremost by virtue
of that simple law of Nature which crowns the adventuring and strong,
now being almost washed aside out of the main stream of national life,
were compelled to devise adventure, lest they should lose belief in
their own strength.
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