Mystery and Confidence: A Tale. Vol. 1Pinchard, Elizabeth Sibthorpe
General
Mystery and Confidence: A Tale. Vol. 1
Pinchard, Elizabeth Sibthorpe
Fiction
The tradition says, that Llewelyn the Great had a house at the place now
called Beth-gelert, and that being once from home, a wolf entered it. On
Llewelyn's return, his favourite greyhound, Gelert, came to meet him,
wagging his tail, but covered with blood. The prince was much alarmed,
and on entering the house, found the cradle of his infant overturned,
and the floor stained with blood. Imagining the dog had killed the
child, he instantly drew his sword, and killed the greyhound; but
turning up the cradle, found the babe asleep, and the wolf dead by its
side. Llewelyn deeply repented his rage, and built a tomb over his
ill-fated greyhound. Mr. Spencer has thus beautifully described the
event:
The hound all o'er was smear'd with gore,
His lips, his fangs, ran blood!
Llewelyn gazed with fierce surprize,
Unused such looks to meet:
His fav'rite check'd his joyful guise,
And crouch'd and lick'd his feet.
Onward in haste Llewelyn pass'd--
O'erturn'd his infant's bed he found,
With blood-stained covert rent!
And all around the walls and ground
With recent blood besprent!
He called his child, no voice replied;
He search'd with terror wild;
Blood, blood, he found on every side,
But no where found his child.
Llewelyn then passionately accuses and kills the greyhound.
Aroused by Gelert's dying yell,
Some slumbers waken'd nigh;
What words the parent's joy could tell,
To hear his infant's cry!
Conceal'd beneath a tumbled heap,
His hurried search had miss'd;
All glowing from his rosy sleep,
The cherub boy he kiss'd.
No scratch had he, nor harm, nor dread;
But the same couch beneath,
Lay a gaunt wolf, all torn and dead,
Tremendous still in death.
Ah! what was then Llewelyn's pain?
For then the truth was clear,
His gallant hound the wolf had slain,
To save Llewelyn's heir.
Vain, vain, was all Llewelyn's woe:
"Best of thy kind, adieu!
The frantic blow which laid the low,
This heart shall ever rue."
]
They next visited Pont Aberglass-lyn, the wild and sublime scenery of
which inspired them with awe. Its high grotesque rocks, surrounding like
an amphitheatre the romantic bridge (consisting of a single arch thrown
from one rough precipice to another), to which they approached by a road
winding along a narrow stony valley, where the rocks on each side
scarcely leave room for the road; and the dark impetuous stream, which
rolls at the side of it, filled them with astonishment at the grandeur
of the scene.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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