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THE FOURTH DAY.
THE sky once more cloudy and threatening. No news of George. I
corrected Morgan's second story to-day; numbered it Seven, and
added it to our stock.
Undeterred by the weather, Miss Jessie set off this morning on
the longest ride she had yet undertaken. She had heard--through
one of my brother's laborers, I believe--of the actual existence,
in this nineteenth century, of no less a personage than a Welsh
Bard, who was to be found at a distant farmhouse far beyond the
limits of Owen's property. The prospect of discovering this
remarkable relic of past times hurried her off, under the
guidance of her ragged groom, in a high state of excitement, to
see and hear the venerable man. She was away the whole day, and
for the first time since her visit she kept us waiting more than
half an hour for dinner. The moment we all sat down to table, she
informed us, to Morgan's great delight, that the bard was a rank
impostor.
"Why, what did you expect to see?" I asked.
"A Welsh patriarch, to be sure, with a long white beard, flowing
robes, and a harp to match," answered Miss Jessie.
"And what did you find?"
"A highly-respectable middle-aged rustic; a smiling,
smoothly-shaven, obliging man, dressed in a blue swallow-tailed
coat, with brass buttons, and exhibiting his bardic legs in a
pair of extremely stout. and comfortable corduroy trousers."
"But he sang old Welsh songs, surely?"
"Sang! I'll tell you what he did. He sat down on a Windsor chair,
without a harp; he put his hands in his pockets, cleared his
throat, looked up at the ceiling, and suddenly burst into a
series of the shrillest falsetto screeches I ever heard in my
life. My own private opinion is that he was suffering from
hydrophobia. I have lost all belief, henceforth and forever, in
bards--all belief in everything, in short, except your very
delightful stories and this remarkably good dinner.
Ending with that smart double fire of compliments to her hosts,
the Queen of Hearts honored us all three with a smile of
approval, and transferred her attention to her knife and fork.
The number drawn to-night was One. On examination of the Purple
Volume, it proved to be my turn to read again.
"Our story to-night," I said, "contains the narrative of a very
remarkable adventure which really befell me when I was a young
man. At the time of my life when these events happened I was
dabbling in literature when I ought to have been studying law,
and traveling on the Continent when I ought to have been keeping
my terms at Lincoln's Inn. At the outset of the story, you will
find that I refer to the county in which I lived in my youth, and
to a neighboring family possessing a large estate in it. That
county is situated in a part of England far away from The Glen
Tower, and that family is therefore not to be associated with any
present or former neighbors of ours in this part of the world."
After saying these necessary words of explanation, I opened the
first page, and began the story of my Own Adventure. I observed
that my audience started a little as I read the title, which I
must add, in my own defense, had been almost forced on my choice
by the peculiar character of the narrative. It was "MAD MONKTON."
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