what is better, the last link is uncorroded with the rust of modern
conventions. Seriously, your castle is the most romantic I have ever
seen. The nineteenth century is forgotten, and I am a belted Knight of
Merrie England who has stormed your castle and won you by his prowess.
You stood in your window, high up in your tower, and threw me a rose,
while your father stalked about the ramparts and swore that my bones
should whiten on the beach. I raised the rose to my lips, dashed
across the drawbridge, and hurled my lance at the gates. About my head
a shower of barbs and bullets fell, but I heeded them not. Behind me
thundered my retainers, and under their onslaught the mighty gates
gave way with a crash, and the castle was ours! We trampled into
the great hall, making it ring with our shouts and the clash of our
shields. Your father's men fled before us, but he calmly descended the
staircase and confronted us with his best Welsh stare. 'I fear ye not,
villains,' he cried. 'Barbarians, English dogs! I defy ye. Do your
worst. My daughter and I for death care not. The mighty house of
Istyn-ap-Dafyd-ap-Owain-ap-Caradoc-ap-Iltyd-ap-Penrhyn knoweth not
fear of living man, nor yet of death's mysterious charnel-house.'
'Wrong me not, gentle sir,' I cried, snatching off my helmet
and trailing its plumes upon the floor; 'I come in love, not
in destruction. Give me but thy daughter, O
Dafyd-ap-Owain-ap-Istyn-ap-Caradoc-ap-Iltyd-ap-Penrhyn, and thy castle
and thy lands, thy rocks and thy sea, are thine again, even as were
they before the beauty of the Lady Weir turned my blood to lava and
my heart to a seething volcano. Give me but thy daughter's hand, and
wealth shall flow into thy coffers, and the multitude of thy retainers
shall carry terror to the heart of thy foe. What say ye, my Lord
Caradoc-ap-Owain-ap-etcetera?' Whereupon the lord of Rhyd-Alwyn unbent
his haughty brows, and placing one narrow, white, and shapely hand
upon my blood-stained baldric, spoke as follows: 'Well said, young