Under the Red Dragon

oc and myself on the Birmingham railway en route for Chester; the exclusive occupants of a softly cushioned compartment, where, by the influence of a couple of florins slipped deftly and judiciou

as of military tailoring subsequent to the Crimean war had not shorn us of our epaulettes, and otherwise red

t great Elizabethan pile which is built of white brick with stone angles and cornices, and where in the playing fields he had gallantly learned to keep his wicket with that skill which made him our prime regimental bat and bowler too. Coventry next, where of course we laughed as we thought of "peeping Tom" and Earl Leofric's pretty countess, when we saw its beautiful and tapering spires rise over the dark and narrow streets below. Anon, we paused amid the busy but grimy world of Birmingham, which furnishes half

ows of the rounded hills deepening as the sun verged westward; "it makes one half inclined to cut the service, and turn farmer or c

, with her dairy-farms in

, but laughed good-hum

she is somewhat more than

have warned us that we were in the land of Owen and Hughes, Griffiths and Davies, and all the men of the Twelve Royal Tribes, even if there had not been the green mountains towering into the blue sky, and the pretty little ivy-covered i

. The Eastern war, and, more than all, the novelty of any war after forty years of European peace, occupied keenly the minds of all thinking people. My regiment was already gone, and I certainly should soon have to follow it. I knew that, individually and collectiv

ng clouds of mist, with all its subordinate peaks. In the immediate foreground were a series of beautiful hills that were glowing, and, to the eye, apparently vibrating, under a burning sunset. The Welsh woods were in all the wealth of their thickest foliage--the umbrageous growth of centuries; and where the

attle or burial; and perched high on the hills the Hafodtai or summer farms, where enormous flocks of sheep--the boasted Welsh mutton--were pasturing. Then we heard at times the mela

ot and dusty gravelled yard of Winchester barracks, the awkward squads at incessant drill

of Craigaderyn had exterminated a band of Rumpers and Roundheads in the last year of Charles I., using as a war-cry the old Welsh shout of "Liberty, loyalty, and the long head of hair!" On either side of the way spread the lawn, closely shorn and carefully rolled, the turf being like velvet of emerald greenness, having broad winding carriage-ways laid with gravel, the bright red of which contrasted so strongly with the verdant hue of the grass. The foliage of the timber was heavy and leafy, and there, at times, could be seen the lively squirrel leap

panions cleared the wire fence in excellent style by a flying leap; but the other, who was less pretentiously mounted, adroitly opened the iron gate

lock'!" said he, cantering up; "welcome to Craig

f rapid progress, scientific marvels, and moneymaking. His manners were easy and polished, yet without anything either of style or fashion about them; for he was simple in all his tastes and ways, and was almost as plainly attired as one of his own farmers. His figure and costume, his rubicund face, round merry eyes, and series of chins, his amplitude of paunch and stunted figure, his bottle-green coat rather short in the sk

of Perkin Warbeck (an epoch but as yesterday in Sir Madoc's estimation) was chancellor of Glamorgan and steward of Gower and Helvie; for what true Welshman is without a pedigree? "Let me look at you again, Harry. God bless me! is it possible that y

surprised if you found him a curly

he joined the service; what

king Mr. Hardinge blush

ieutenants, too; there is l

adoc," said I, as he slowly relinquished my hand, which he had held for

hat if the good old gentleman was seeking for some resemblance to the sweet Mary Vassal of the past times, he sought i

but when you were last here, Winifred was in her f

may be," said Winifred, whose remark had some

f the women still lingers in the more savage regions; the itinerant harper and the

are on the increase, and all our good old Welsh customs are going to Caerphilly and the devil! Without the wants of over-civilisation we were contented; but now--Gwell y chydig gait rad,