Mr. Marston had come and gone, then, like a flash of light, leaving my eyes dazzled. The serenity of Malory seemed now too quiet for me; the day was dull. I spent my time sitting in the window, or moping about the place. I must confess that I had, by no means, the horror of this stranger that the warnings of Mr. Carmel and Laura Grey ought, I suppose, to have inspired. On the contrary, his image came before me perpetually, and everything I looked at, the dark trees, the window-sill, the garden, the estuary, and the ribs of rock round which the cruel sea was sporting, recalled the hero of a terrible romance.
I tried in vain to induce Laura to come with me for a walk, late in the afternoon. So I set out alone, turning my back on Cardyllion, in the direction of Penruthyn Priory. The sun was approaching the western horizon as I drew near the picturesque old farm-house of Plas Ylwd.
A little to the south of this stretches a fragment of old forest, covering some nine or ten acres of peaty ground. It is a decaying wood, and in that melancholy and miserable plight, I think, very beautiful. I would commend it as a haunt to artists in search of "studies," who love huge trees with hollow trunks, some that have "cast" half their boughs as deer do their antlers; some wreathed and laden with ivy, others that stretch withered and barkless branches into the air; ground that is ribbed and unequal, and cramped with great ringed, snake-like roots, that writhe and knot themselves into the earth; here and there over-spread with little jungles of bramble, and broken and burrowed by rabbits.
Into this grand and singular bit of forest, now glorified by the coloured light of evening, I had penetrated some little way. Arrested in my walk by the mellow song of a blackbird, I listened in the sort of ecstasy that every one has, I suppose, experienced under similar circumstances; and I was in the full enjoyment of this sylvan melody, when I was startled, and the bird put to flight, by the near report of fire-arms. Once or twice I had heard boys shooting at the birds in this wood, but they had always accompanied their practice with shouting and loud talking. A dead silence followed this. I had no reason for any misgivings about so natural an interruption in such a place, but I did feel an ominous apprehension. I began to move, and was threading my way through one of these blackberry thickets, when I heard, close to my side, the branches of some underwood thrust aside, and Mr. Marston, looking pale and wicked, walked quickly by. It was plain he did not see me; I was screened by the stalks and sprays through which I saw him. He had no weapon as he passed me; he was drawing on his glove. The sudden appearance of Mr. Marston whom I believed to be by this time miles away--at the other side of Cardyllion--was a shock that rather confirmed my misgivings.