The Project Gutenberg eBook, Through Welsh Doorways, by Jeannette Augustus
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Title: Through Welsh Doorways
Author: Jeannette Augustus Marks
Release Date: September 10, 2012 [eBook #40726]
Language: English
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THROUGH WELSH DOORWAYS
[Illustration: SHE LOOKED SHARPLY AT THE APPROACHING GROUP
(Page 18.)]
THROUGH WELSH DOORWAYS
by
JEANNETTE MARKS
With Illustrations by Anna Whelan Betts
London
T. Fisher Unwin
Adelphi Terrace
1910
(All rights reserved.)
_CONTENTS_
_The Merry Merry Cuckoo_ 11
_Mors Triumphans_ 27
_Dreams in Jeopardy_ 45
_Tit for Tat_ 77
_An Oriel in Eden_ 97
_The Child_ 121
_An All-Hallows' Honeymoon_ 133
_The Heretic's Wife_ 151
_The Choice_ 175
_A Last Discipline_ 203
_Respice Finem_ 227
_ILLUSTRATIONS_
_She looked sharply at the approaching group_
(_page_ 18) Frontispiece
TO FACE PAGE
_Janny watched Ariel's thin fingers work skilfully_ 106
_Betto Griffiths laughed_ 112
_The Merry Merry Cuckoo_
"Lad _dear_, no more or ye'll be havin' an attack, an'----"
Annie's words sounded inconclusive, although she fortified them by an
animated gesture with her plump wrinkled hand. Her eyes glanced timidly
from the window to David's face.
"But, Annie, ye've not said a word of the cuckoo," replied David
plaintively.
"Aye, the cuckoo," said Annie, her heart sinking as she sent her voice
up. "The cuckoo--"
"Has it come? Did ye hear it?"
The old man clasped and unclasped his hands helplessly, childish
disappointment overspreading his face.
"David _dear_, if ye'd but listen to what I was a-goin' to say"--Annie
gulped--"I was a-goin' to say that I've not heard the cuckoo yet, but
that everythin' 's over early an' I'm expectin' to hear one any time
now. It's so warm there might be one singin' at dusk to-day--there
might be!"
"Might there be?" asked David, his eyes brightening, "might there be,
Annie?"
"Aye, there might be, lad," and she lifted his head on her arm gently
while she turned the pillow.
"It's over early," he objected, "an', Annie----"
"Davie _dear_, be still," she commanded, drawing his head close to her
bosom before she put him down on the pillow again. "Pastor Morris says
everythin' 's over early; even the foxglove is well up in the garden;
an' the heather by Blaen Cwm will be bloomin' a month early, an' the
hills will be pink, lad--soon. Now, dearie, I'll be back by and by with
the broth; ye must be still awhile."
Annie went out of the room stepping as softly as she could. For a moment
she stood on the doorsill, looking into the old garden, green at last
after the dreary winter and beautiful in the promise of coming summer
blossom. Foxglove and columbine, honeysuckle, lilies and roses would
bloom, but David would see them no more! For fifty springs they had gone
into the garden together, he to trim the hedge and bind up the
honeysuckle, she to dig about the rose-bushes and flowers. And every
spring there had been one evening when the cuckoo's song was heard for
the first time and when there came into David's eyes a look of boyish
joy. Ah, lad, lad, how she loved him! And he _should_ hear the cuckoo
again!
Resolutely Annie started up hill, climbing close by the high pasture
wall, and, panting made her way as best she could over boggy places.
After she had gone about a quarter of a mile she looked around her,
furtively. There lay Gwyndy Bach in the distance, Ty Ceryg and Cwm Cloch
far away, and the Chapel still farther. Only the mountains were near by,
and a few lazy sheep trailing over their wild, grey ledges. She did not
see even a sheep-dog. When she sat down by the stone-wall there was a
look of approval on her face, followed, as she opened her mouth, by a
look of appealing misery.
"Aye, it was somethin' like this: _coo-o_. Dear, let me see, every year
I've heard it, an' David he does it. _Coo-o-o!_ Tut, that sounds like a
hen." Annie peered about her. "_Cu, cu_," then she shook with silent
laughter. "I know! it goes over and over again, sing-song, sing-song,
like this: _cu-cu, cu-cu_. Aye, that's better." Practising the song
Annie rocked herself backwards and forwards. "It's growing better!" she
exclaimed, "but, lad, lad, I'm plannin' to deceive ye"; and the tears
rolled out of her old eyes. She brushed the tears away impatiently and
began the song again: "_Cucu-cu, cucu-cu, cucucucu, cu_; aye, that's
fair, aye, it's fine! He'll not know me from a real cuckoo. I'll have to
be tryin' it now, for ye've no long, dearie."
Annie went down into the valley, humming the bird-notes over to herself
lest she forget what she had learned. She lifted her short skirts and
waded through the marshy places; in her eagerness she was unmindful of
the pasture-bogs, her seventy years, her weary body; and her sparse grey
hair lay damp on her forehead. In her mother-heart was but one thought:
bringing his wish to Davie. Gasping she reached the southern corner of
the cottage garden, and there leaned on a trellis for support till she
could get her breath. Completely engrossed in what she was to do, she
did not think to look about her, she did not listen for possible
approaching footsteps, and even Davie had slipped in importance a wee
bit behind the cuckoo song. Finally she drew a long breath and began;
she paused a moment, then repeated the song, softly, slowly. Pleased
with her success, she sang the song again, very softly, very slowly,
till it sounded much as if it came from a distance somewhere by the
stream near the mill wheel.
She was just beginning once more when steps rustled behind her and a
voice said tauntingly: "Pooh! 'tis a pretty cuckoo ye make, Annie, an' a
pretty song!"
"Lowry Prichard!"
"It's over early for the cuckoo, is it not?"
"Aye."
"An' what are ye singin' in your garden for, an' David dyin'?"
Annie's mild eyes gathered fire, but she said nothing.
"Are ye deceivin' David, an' he on the edge of the grave, Annie? 'Tis a
godly song to sing, an' a tale for Chapel, eh, Annie?"
"Ye--may--go--out--of--this--garden, an' that this minute," said Annie,
advancing.
Lowry backed towards the wicket.
"Ye look fair crazy, Annie, crazy with wrath, aye, and your hair is all
rumpled an' your smock is wet. Bein' a cuckoo is----"
But Lowry never finished her taunt, for Annie pushed her through the
wicket gate.
The old wife went towards the cottage door slowly. David must have heard
Lowry's words, and she could never make him happy again.
"Annie! Annie!" Her face brightened, then fell.
"Aye, David, I'm comin'."
"Annie, did ye hear a cuckoo singin'?" David's eyes glowed rapturously
in the twilight.
"Aye, I thought so, dearie."
"It sang three times; first, it sounded like somethin' else, it was so
breathless; then it sang quiet and sweet like a cuckoo; an' the third
time it seemed comin' from the old mill wheel. I was listenin' for it
again when I heard Lowry Prichard's shrill voice an' I could hear no
more."
"But, lad _dear_, ye've heard it, an' I'm that glad!" Annie beamed upon
him. "Three times; aye, that's fine an' a real cuckoo; now ye're happy,
dearie, an' ye'll sleep well upon it."
"Will it be singin' again?" asked David, with a sigh.
"Aye, in the early mornin' an' at dusk. Now ye must drink your broth an'
go to sleep."
David drank it obediently.
"It's been a fine day, lad dear, is it not so?"
"Aye, a fine day. I did not think I'd ever hear it sing again"; and
David's head slipped contentedly on to the pillow. "Aye," he murmured,
"a happy day!"
At dawn Annie stole out to sing her cuckoo song. It was done quickly,
and she was back among her pots and kettles before David could know that
she had been away. She rattled the saucepans around, then she stopped
to listen. Yes, there he was calling.
"Aye, David, I'm comin'; I did not hear for the noise, dearie."
"Annie, it's been singin' again!" There was an expression of eager
happiness on David's wan face. "I'm a-wantin' to hear it sing over an'
over again, over an' over again. But, Annie, ye make such a clatter
there's no hearin' more than a song or two, an' yesterday 'twas Lowry."
"Aye, dearie, 'tis a pity I was makin' such a noise gettin' breakfast
for ye."
"I was awake, Annie, when the stars were hangin' in the trees, an' I saw
them go out one by one while I was a-waitin' for it to sing. I heard
little creepin' things makin' way through the trees an' the grass, an' I
saw the poplar by the window turn from silver to brown an' back to grey;
an' I heard the other birds makin' their early mornin' stirrin',
flittin' an' chirpin'; an' a little breeze came an' bustled through the
trees with them, but no cuckoo; an' then just as it was singin' ye began
stormin' with pots an' kettles."
"I'm that sorry, Davie lad, but ye have heard it twice, dearie, an'
it'll be singin' this evenin' at dusk, perhaps, over an' over again. Ye
are feelin' fine this mornin', Davie?"
"Aye, better nor yesterday mornin'; I'll be gettin' well, Annie, is it
not so?"
"Indeed, lad _dear_, ye'll be about among the heather 'fore long."
Annie turned suddenly and went back into the kitchen; there in a corner
she dried her eyes with her apron, drew a long breath, and went on with
her household duties. She was disposing of the work rapidly when she
heard the click of the wicket gate. Coming up the path were John
Roberts, Peter Williams, and Lowry Prichard. Annie put down the pot she
was scouring, wiped her hands on her apron, and went to the kitchen
door, which, stepping outside, she closed carefully behind her. She
looked sharply at the approaching group, and her kindly wrinkled face
hardened. Peter Williams spoke first:--
"A fine mornin' to ye, Annie Dalben."
"Thank ye, Peter Williams, for the wish."
"How is your man?" asked John Roberts.
"He is the same," replied Annie, in a level tone of voice.
Lowry Prichard moved nearer:--
"We've come about the cuckoo-singin', Annie. At the Chapel last night
the congregation prayed for ye, an' a committee was appointed to wrestle
with ye."
Annie breathed quickly.
"Aye, Sister," continued Peter Williams, "ye've always been a godly
member of the flock; ye would not have David go to Heaven with your lie
on his soul?"
"Amen!" sang Lowry Prichard.
"An', Sister, there was light in that meetin'; the Spirit's among us
these days; yours are the only lyin' lips."
"Repent!" shouted John Roberts.
"Have ye done?" asked Annie.
"But, Sister----"
"I've a word to say. I've no mind to your salvation, no, nor to Heaven
if the Lord makes this singin' a lie. I'm a-thinkin' of David as I've
thought of him these fifty years, an' if a lie will make him happy when
he's dyin', then I'm willin' to lie, an' do it every minute of the day."
"Sinner!" muttered John Roberts.
"Aye, sinner, a willin' sinner," said Annie, her soft eyes blazing; "be
gone, an' ye need not return."
Annie bolted the door and sat down wearily on a chair. She felt quiet;
it mattered so little now what the neighbours thought of her if only
David might die happy, and David still believed he had heard the cuckoo.
She was tired, so tired that she did not care what the Chapel said of
her; and her heart was numb. She knew that David was going, but it did
not come home to her in the least except to make her hungry to bring him
happiness. He should have that if she could give it. At a faint call she
hastened to his room.
"Annie, there's some one outside, an'----"
"Aye, David Dalben, there is, an' Annie is a cuck--"
But the sentence was never finished, for Annie forced Lowry Prichard's
head back and slammed the casement to, latching it securely.
"What does she want?" asked David feebly.
"I cannot say, lad, but she's no right talkin' to ye through a window.
She's an idle, pryin' young woman. I'll see now that she's out of the
garden. Go to sleep, dearie, it's bad for ye havin' so much noise over
nothin'; aye, that's a good lad," and Annie smoothed his brow with one
hand the while she brushed aside her tears with the other.
If David should live a week longer, could she ever keep the truth from
him? For a day, yes, perhaps. But for an entire week, with all Nant y
Mor trying to force a way to the sick man? No. And how could she sing
morning and night with the neighbours spying into the garden and around
the house? She felt friendless; for strength only the courage of a
mother left alone in the world with a sick child to protect. She had no
idea of relinquishing her plan, although she was in despair, and if any
one had come to her with a friendly hand she would have wept. As it was,
she was ready to meet attack after attack.
Annie was not surprised, later in the day, to see young Pastor Morris
coming up the pathway. He came slowly. When he greeted Annie his eyes
sought the ground, his complexion was ruddier and more boyish than ever,
and his lips, usually firm in speech, seemed uncertain. But the large
hand with which he held Annie's was warm and kind. In the clean kitchen
he began to talk with Annie about David: how was David, what did the
physician say, wasn't Annie growing tired, what could he do? Suddenly
the young Pastor changed as if brought face to face with a disagreeable
duty.
"Annie, they say that you are imitating a cuckoo; is it so?"
"Aye, sir, for David's ears."
"But, Annie, that is acting a lie, is it not?"
"It may be," replied Annie wearily.
"Wouldn't it be better if I were to tell David, Annie?"
"Oh, no, no, no!" sobbed Annie. "Not that!"
"Annie, Annie, you mustn't cry so; there!" and the young man stretched
out his hand helplessly.
"Oh, sir, it's all the happiness David's got, an' he is goin'. O my lad,
my lad!"
"There, there, Annie!"
"We've been married fifty years this spring, an' every spring we've
listened for the cuckoo an' not one missed. An' this year he's dyin',
an' he's a-wantin' to hear it so, an' it's over early. O Davie, Davie!"
"There, Annie, there, _dear_," soothed the young man; "tell me about it.
We'll see, Annie."
"There's no more," said Annie, "only he kept askin' about things,
violets an' cowslips an' birch-trees an' poplars, an' I knew all the
time he was thinkin' of the cuckoo an' not askin' because he was goin'
an' mightn't hear it. An' one day he did. An' I said I thought he'd hear
one that very evenin', that everythin' was over early. Then he seemed
happier than I'd seen him, an' I went off up the hill an' practised it
till I could do it fair. O Davie, lad!"
"Now, Annie _dear_," comforted the young man, patting her helplessly on
the back. "Annie _dear_, don't cry, just tell me more."
"Then, sir, I sang the song in the corner of the garden, an' when I went
into the house there was such a look of joy on David's face that's not
been there for many a month, an' it was no matter Lowry Prichard found
me singin'. It's the last happiness I can give him, sir."
"I see," said the young man; "aye, Annie, I see. And you will be wishing
to do it again?"
"Aye, sir, Davie's expectin' to hear the cuckoo to-night. Each time
might be his last, an' I cannot disappoint him, poor lad."
"Well, Annie," said the minister, looking shyly out the window, "I'll be
around the garden at dusk watching, and there'll be no one to annoy you
while you are singing, so sing your best for Davie."
"Oh, sir, thank you," replied Annie, drying her tears and sighing with
relief; "it's a comfort. But ye're no harmin' your conscience for me,
sir, are ye?"
"I'm not saying, Annie; I'm over young to have a conscience in some
things. I'll be going in to speak a few words to David, shall I?"
"Aye, sir, ye're so kind."
And so it happened that at dusk, when David's eyes were growing wider
with expectation and his heart was beating for very joy of the coming
song, Annie, after she had patted him in motherly fashion, smoothed out
his coverlets, called him lad _dear_, and dearie, and Davie, and all the
sweet old names she knew so well how to call him--so it happened that
she stole out into the garden with a lighter heart to sing than she had
had in many a day. She knew the young minister was somewhere around to
protect her from interruption. Standing by the honeysuckle trellis,
swaying her old body to and fro, she sang. The song came again and
again, low, sweet, far away, till all the hill seemed chiming with the
quiet notes and echoes. And the young man listening outside to the old
woman singing inside the garden knew something more of the power of love
than he had known before; and he bowed his head, thinking of the merry
notes and of David in the twilit room dying. Annie sang the song over
and over again, then over and over again, till beyond the valley she saw
the evening star hanging in the sky. Once more she sang, and all the
spring was in her song. Then she turned to go into the house, her heart
beating with fear. As she came through the doorway she heard her name
called.
"Annie, sweetheart, did ye hear the cuckoos singin'?"
David was sitting up in bed, his hands stretched towards her.
"Aye, lad dear," replied Annie softly, taking David into her arms.
"An' there were so many, an' they sang over an' over again."
"Aye, David."
"But ye were not here, an' I'd like hearin' them better with ye here."
"Aye, dearie, I was busy."
"Oh, it was beautiful singin'--"
"Aye, lad, I know."
"An' over an' over again, like this----" But David's notes trailed away
as he started to sing.
"Aye, dearie, I see."
"An' the--valley--was--quiet--but--Annie----" The voice ceased, for a
second the pulse in his throat ticked sharply against her heart, then
his head settled drowsily upon her breast.
"Oh, lad, lad _dear_, Davie," called Annie, rocking him in her arms,
"lad, lad _dear_, will ye not speak to me?"
And the young minister stepping in over the threshold saw that the
Messenger had come.
_Mors Triumphans_
I
_Griffith Griffiths has a Happy Thought and takes a Trip_
Each new election for the Town Council found Griffith Griffiths still
unelected. The primary reason for his failure was a party matter:
Griffiths was a Conservative, whereas every other Welshman in the town
of Bryn Tirion was a Radical. Let him change his politics, said Bryn
Tirion. No, said Griffith Griffiths, never! And the town knew he meant
it. But, added Griffiths, I _will_ be a member. For thirty years this
battle was waged; children were born and their children; mothers grew
old and died; and Griffiths grew rich in slate and sheep. Now he was
sixty and still unsuccessful. If he wished he could buy up all
Merionethshire; true, but he could not buy up one independent honest
Welshman, whether that Welshman counted his sheep by tens or thousands.
Nor, to do Griffiths justice, did he think of buying votes, for he was
as honest as his fellow townsmen. Pulling his whiskers, he looked
vindictively at the mantelpiece before him, with its cordon of shining,
smiling china cats. Had he not done more for the village than any other
man? He had given Bryn Tirion two sons of whom to be proud, he had
provided the young minister with a wife in the person of a beloved
daughter, he had piously paid for tearing down a shabby old treasure of
a church built in the time of Edward I., he had presented the village
with a fountain and a new bread-oven, he had introduced improved methods
in cleaning and shearing sheep, and he employed daily over one hundred
men in his slate-quarry. Notwithstanding all these benefactions, he was
still obliged to consider schemes for winning a paltry election.
"That's a happy thought," he exclaimed, starting forward, "I'll do it.
Aye, it'll win this time. I'll go for it myself an' bring it home, I
will. There'll be no word spoke when they see that. It'll cost me a
hundred pounds an' the trip, but I'll do it."
Griffith's eyes twinkled as he winked at the mantelpiece cats. "There'll
be no doubt this time, my girls. No doubt, no doubt this time, an'
every old granny in the town a-thankin' me. Oho, ho, ho!"
Mrs. Griffiths peered in.
"Father!"
"Aye!"
"Father?"
"Well, _mother_?"
"Is it a joke?"
"No-o, a joke, yes, a--no-o, it is not."
"Father, what are ye thinkin'?"
"I--I, well, I've _been_ a-thinkin'!" replied Griffiths, with
conviction.
Mother's face expressed censure.
"I'm thinkin' _now_, mother, I'm thinkin' of goin' to Liverpool."
"Liverpool! an' what would ye be goin' there for?"
"I'm thinkin', mother, of goin' to-morrow."
"Thinkin' of goin' to-morrow?"
"Aye!"
"Are ye goin' about slate?"
"No, not just about slate," father hedged.
"Is it sheep?"
"No, not exactly sheep."
Mrs. Griffiths by this time regarded her husband with alarm.
"Ye've not been to Liverpool in twenty years; am I goin'?"
"Why, no, mother, I'll travel there one day and back the next. I'm--I'm
a-goin' just--I'm a-goin' for the trip."
"For the trip!" sniffed Mrs. Griffiths.
"What'll I bring ye, mother?"
"I'm no' wantin' anything," replied Mrs. Griffiths coolly.
II
_ Griffith Griffiths takes a Trip and his Wife receives a Call_
While her generous husband was running about Liverpool to buy another
benefaction for Bryn Tirion, Mrs. Griffiths was receiving calls at Sygyn
Fawr.
"Good-day," said Olwyn Evans, stepping over the brass doorsill of Sygyn
Fawr.
"Good-day," replied Betty Griffiths.
"I hear Griffiths is gone to Liverpool?"
"Aye, he is."
"He went yesterday?"
"Aye."
"He comes back this evening?"
"Aye."
The clock ticked and the china cats smiled blandly in the silence.
"He's not come yet?"
"No, he has not."
Olwyn readjusted her shawl.
"Evan says he's not taken the trip for twenty years?"
"No, twenty years ago this September."
"Rhys Goch says he's gone for new machinery come from Ameriky; has he
so?"
At this point there was a chorus of yaps and shrieks from Colwyn Street,
on which Sygyn Fawr stood.
"It's Marged Owen's baby, Johnny. Dalben's terriers are always upsettin'
him when they're fightin'. At Cwm Dyli farm they say he's gone to sell
sheep; has he so?"
"It's neither sheep nor slate," replied Betty Griffiths acridly.
"Is it so?"
The street rang with another volley of yells.
"It's Cidwm Powell this time, fallin' off the slate copin'. He always
is; some day he'll fall in, an' I don't know what Maggie'll do then."
"No, nor I," added Olwyn Evans, "it's her only. Jane Wynne and Jane
Jones is ill. Their folks've been to the chemist's in Tremadoc for them,
but you'd think they'd have the doctor, now wouldn't you?"
"You would," assented Betty. "Jane Wynne's eighty; how old is Jane
Jones?"
"She's comin' seventy-five."
"She is?"
"The chemist says it's failin' with both," commented Olwyn. "They'll not
die very far apart. They'll be keepin' the minister busy what with
visitin' them and then buryin' them. It'll be hard on Robert."
"It will."
"You say Griffiths is not back?"
"No, not back."
"He'll be comin'?"
"Aye."
"Goodbye."
"Goodbye."
III
_Griffith Griffiths brings his Happy Thought Home_
The evening light lay purple and lavender on the heather-covered hills;
it cut through Aberglaslyn Pass in a golden shaft, gilding the jagged
top of Craig y Llan and making the cliff side of Moel Hebog sparkle.
Griffith Griffiths sniffed the honeyed air of his Welsh valleys
hungrily. The nearer he came to home the more purple seemed the heather
and the more golden the gorse.
"How d'ye think of it, Griffiths?" said Jones, looking back approvingly.
"Well, the village hasn't any."
"It'll be a great surprise, man."
"It will be," agreed Griffiths.
"The folks over to C'n'rvon can't give themselves airs any more."
"Well, no, they cannot."
"Did Betty know?"
"No, a woman worries when she's to keep a secret."
"The folks have all been askin' for ye for two days"; and Jones's face
shone with the same delighted goodwill as that on his master's.
"We'll take it to Ty Isaf; it'll be kept there."
"Aye. Ye're a thoughtful man, Griffiths. Ye've done about everything
could be done for this village. There ain't a man better thought of nor
ye, except ye're a Conservative. But they ought to put ye on the Council
just the same."
The caravan moved slowly into Bryn Tirion. At the rumble of wheels Olwyn
thrust her head out of Cwm Cloch door, took one look at the moving load,
and rushed into the back garden for Evan.
To Ty Isaf they hurried with the crowd; girls with water-pails dropped
them; children staggering along under mammoth loaves of bread fresh from
the oven tumbled them in the white dust of the road; mothers with babies
strapped to them by shawls tightened the shawls and hastened along; old
women put down their bundles of faggots; dogs ceased their quarrelling
and children their playing, all rushing in the same direction.
Griffiths and Jones were stripping away the crating.
"It's an organ for Chapel," said Marged Owen.
"It's a new pulpit," exclaimed Maggie Powell.
"It's a HEARSE!" cried Olwyn Evans, as the bagging was ripped from one
side.
For an instant admiration made the concourse silent; then old Marslie
Powell said softly: "If the Lord had 'a' asked me what I wanted most He
could not've done better."
"Surely, it is the Lord's gift," affirmed Ellen Roberts.
"To think I'd live to see a real live hearse!" shrilly exclaimed old
Annie Dalben.
"It's a fine smart present, it is," said Howell Roberts, "an' there
wouldn't no one else 'a' thought of it except Griffith Griffiths."
"It'll be pretty and tasty with mournin', now won't it!" commented Gwen
Williams.
"It's a pity Jane Jones and Jane Wynne's too sick to be here an' see it
when they're likely to have first chance at it!" declared Olwyn Evans.
"It'll be fine for the first as is buried in it," nodded Ellen Roberts
wistfully.
"It'll be an honour," assented old Annie Dalben.
IV
_Bryn Tirion sees a Lighted Candle of the Dead and a Contest_
"The doctor from Tremadoc has been called in," remarked Betty.
"Has he so!" replied Griffiths, toasting his feet before the fire and
eyeing the smiling cats benevolently. "He's a clever young man."
"Aye, but it won't save Jane Jones nor Jane Wynne."
"No?"
"The Joneses is havin' him come every other day, so the Wynneses is
doin' the same. They're both failin' rapidly. When the family asks about
Jane Jones, all he'll say is, 'She's no worse.' An' when the Wynneses
ask about Jane Wynne he says, 'She's no better.' Olwyn Evans says it's
her opinion he don't know which is worse; doctors, she thinks, has to
keep quiet, they're always so uncertain what the Lord is plannin'. It'll
be hard on Robert if they both die the same day an' he has to bury them
simultaneous. Virginia says he's poorly now from havin' to make so many
visits each day on the Joneses, to say nothin' of the neighbours
flockin' in to ask him questions after each visit. It's hard on Robert."
"Aye, it is," assented Griffiths peacefully.
In the thirtieth year of the contest Griffith Griffiths had won his
election; by the gift of the hearse he put Bryn Tirion under a final
obligation. Politics paled before the generations of dead who would be
indebted to this benefactor. That a man should be a Conservative or a
Radical mattered not to the dead, and the living must discharge for the
dead their debt of gratitude. But the outcome of this contest was
quickly lost sight of in the uncertainty of a new strife. Would Jane
Jones or Jane Wynne be buried first in the new hearse? While Griffiths
and Betty were still discussing this question the door-knocker clapped
rapidly.
"I do believe it's Olwyn Evans come with news," exclaimed Betty.
"Good-evening," said Olwyn, disposing of her greeting. "She's seen it!"
"Seen it?"
"Aye, Gwen Williams. She was walkin' there by the old hedge over the
Glaslyn this evening, an' first she thought it was a light in the old
mill, for it looked large just like a lamp-flame. Then she saw it was
movin' and it was comin' toward her."
"It was the Candle of the Dead she saw?" asked Griffiths.
"Aye, it was; the nearer it came the smaller grew the flame till it was
no bigger than a thimble. Gwen was frightened so she couldn't move from
the wall; she let it pass close by her, and it was a woman carryin' the
light."
"A woman!"
"Aye, a woman, an' she moved on to the doorsill of Jane Jones's house
an' stopped there."
"Jane Jones's?"
"Aye, an' then she went over to Jane Wynne's door an' stopped there."
"She did?"
"Aye, she did, an' then she went over to the graveyard an' waved her
candle over the gate, an' it went out. Gwen says there weren't no more
thickness to her than to the candle-flame,--ye could thrust your finger
straight through her."
"Which door did she go to first--Jane Jones's?"
"Aye, it was Jane Jones's, but Gwen says she stood nearer the Wynne's
plot in the graveyard."
Griffith's eyes sought the cats, and he pulled his side-whiskers
thoughtfully. "Ye cannot tell which it'll be, now can ye?"
"No, you cannot, but I've my opinion it'll be Jane Jones, she's more
gone in the face. I must be goin'; Betty, will you be comin' with me; I
promised Gwen I'd step in for a neighbourly look at the Joneses, an'
perhaps I can help her decide which it'll be."
First they went to Jane Wynne's; they found her propped up in bed
surrounded with a circle of interested neighbours. The doctor had just
gone and the minister was on his way in. Old Marslie Powell curtsied
gravely to the minister as he entered. "Dear love, she'll not last the
night."
"Aye, aye," chorused the circle of neighbours, "her breath's failin'
now."
But in Jane Wynne's eye there was a live coal of intelligence; she
beckoned imperiously with her scrawny old hand to the young minister.
"If I do, ye'll put it on the stone?" she whispered eagerly.
"Yes, Jane, Hugh will have it done."
"She's not long," said Olwyn to Betty; "let us be goin' to Jane
Jones's."
They walked across the street.
"Poor dear," said Ellen Roberts to them as they entered, "she'll not
last till morn. Her heart's beatin' slower a'ready."
"Aye, aye, she's failin'," assented the neighbours.
"It would be a credit, somethin' to be proud on," whispered old Annie
Dalben.
"Aye, a credit," agreed the neighbours.
Jane beckoned to the doctor.
"If I do, tell Robert Roberts to make mention of it in his sermon," she
pleaded weakly.
"I will," replied the doctor.
"Well," remarked Olwyn Evans as they went out, "it'll be a credit either
way to one of the families to be carried in that smart hearse. Jane
Wynne's older, an' perhaps she'd ought to get it; but then the Joneses
has always meant more to Bryn Tirion, an' it seems as if they'd ought to
have the honour. I never saw two families more ambitious for anything.
It does seem as if Griffiths had thought of everything a man could think
of to benefit the village."
"Aye," assented Betty proudly, "he's a wonderful man for thinkin' of
other folks."
V
_Bryn Tirion sees Death Triumphant_
"I don't know," said Olwyn Evans, in a resigned voice, "I don't know but
it was best. The Wynneses always had fewer chances than the Joneses.
Hugh Wynne didn't say much, but I could see he was happy, an' the Wynne
girls was so pleased. They said as long as their mother had to go she
couldn't have done better, the stone'll look so pretty with it all writ
on it; an' then the hearse an' their mournin' did look so nice
together."
"There was a good many folks there?" suggested Griffiths.
"Aye, there was; I thought it was more'n pleasant for all the Joneses to
come, because they must feel disappointed with Jane Jones still livin'."
"Is she the same?" asked Griffiths.
"Aye, no worse."
"There was people at the funeral from Tremadoc," added Betty.
"From Tremadoc and from Rhyd Dhu, too. Some haven't ever seen a real
hearse before. A cart to draw the coffin in is all the Rhyd Dhu folks
know," concluded Olwyn.
"They say the plate on the coffin was more'n filled with money," added
Betty.
"Aye, it was," said Olwyn; "there was more'n enough to pay both the
doctor an' the minister. It does the town good to have a lot of folks
here. They wasn't all interested in Jane Wynne, but they was interested
in seein' which'd die first, an' in the hearse. I suppose they wanted to
come an' make sure she really was dead. Well, you never did better by
Bryn Tirion, Griffith."
"Aye," said Griffith, tapping his finger-tips together and smiling
contentedly at the row of big-eyed, whiskered cats, "aye, it's an
assistance."
_Dreams in Jeopardy_
Pedr Evans dived into the contents of a box of picture post-cards; from
the shop counter all that could be seen of him was the back of broad
shoulders, two inches of sturdy neck, well-shaped ears, and a thatch of
brown hair. The box, which was large and placed on a shelf behind the
counter, gave evidences to the person who could peek over the counter
and around Pedr of being in an alarming state of disorder. Apparently
the man fumbling among the cards intended to rearrange them; at least
some line of the figure suggested that this was the impression he wished
to convey. But it was as if he were running his hands through sand, for
the post-cards slipped from his fingers and fell in even greater
confusion. A woman who had entered the shop-door looked at his back a
second--she had caught a rim of the face as it had turned quickly
away--smiled, lifted her eyebrows, and stuck her tongue into one heavily
tinted cheek.
"'Ts, 'ts," she hissed, behind her teeth.
Pedr wheeled about; in turning he caught the corner of his box of
post-cards, and over they went upon the floor.
"Well, indeed, Catrin Griffiths," he said, with an attempt at composure.
"Aye, it's me," she answered airily. "Ffi! Playin' cards, Pedr Evans?
Um-m, what would Nelw Parry be sayin'?"
Pedr coloured and shifted his weight.
"No, puttin' the stock in order," he objected.
"Yes? Well, an' playin' you didn't see me? Yes?"
Catrin patted the puffs of yellow hair that projected from under her
pink hat, and, placing a finger on her lips, smiled insinuatingly at
Pedr. It was evident as she stood before him that she considered herself
alluring, a charming embodiment of the world and the flesh and the
devil. Of that world, it was rumoured, Pedr Evans knew something; at
least he had made excursions into it; he had been to Liverpool, nay, he
had been even farther, for he had been to London. London! The word
chimed as merrily in Catrin's ears as coronation bells. London! Pedr
Evans had been to London, and the magic word had been in more mouths
than Catrin's. There was never a question asked in Conway, climbing by
degrees to the wise men of the village and still failing an answer, but
people would say, "Aye, well, indeed, _we_ dunno, but Pedr Evans he's
been to London, an' he'll know, whatever."
Catrin Griffiths had seen him mount the London coach, and she had seen
him return. And, by a method of reasoning wholly her own, she had
concluded that he would appreciate her, for she, Catrin Griffiths, had
seen something of that world, too; she had seen highly-coloured prints
of Piccadilly, the 'busses with gay people atop and fine ladies in their
carriages clad in cloaks and furs and furbelows, throats and wrists
bejewelled in a marvellous fashion, and such fine gentlemen driving the
carriages; and, what is more, she had spelled painfully through the
English, in which her tongue was stiff, of a beautiful romance, "Lady
Nain's Escape." Catrin considered her worldly schooling of coloured
pictures, a novel, and advertisements, the best, and with an occasional
shilling sent to Liverpool she had literally applied this tuition to her
face and figure. She realised, however, that there were still worlds for
her to conquer, and a far enchanted land called Drawing Room into which
she had not as yet had even a lithographic peep. Because she longed for
greater nearness to this kingdom, therefore she longed for Pedr. As she
stood before him, her pink hat on her yellow hair, her painted face
thick with chalk, her lips a glossy carmine, her throat embedded in
fluffs of cheap tulle, her figure stuffed into an ancient dress of white
serge, she was wondering how it would be possible for any man to resist
her.
But the man whom she ogled blushed; he looked furtively towards the
windows, and at the door at the back of the shop, and it was plain to be
seen that he felt himself caught in a trap between his counter and the
shelf. He seemed ashamed, ashamed to look at her.
"Well, Catrin," he said, without lifting his eyes, "what can I do for
you to-day?"
"Dear _anwyl_, it's most slipped my mind--um-m--well, I'll be havin'
sixpence worth of writin' paper."
"Aye, smooth, I suppose?" he asked, taking it from the shelf.
"No, I think I'll take it rough, for that's the style now, whatever."
"Oh! very well."
"Been takin' photographs lately, Pedr?"
"Not many."
"I'm thinkin' you'll be goin' down Caerhun way some day soon," she
continued, her pink face wrinkling with mingled mirth and devilry;
"it's very pretty there, good for an artist like you."
Pedr folded in the ends of the parcel and said nothing.
"Aye," she went on, "an' there's an old church there, with a bell-tower
that looks over the wall like an eye. It don't wink, Pedr, but I'm
thinkin', indeed, it could tell a good deal, if it had a mind to. It's
next to the church the Parrys used to live."
Pedr, tying the parcel and snapping the string, maintained his silence.
"It's there old Parry used to be drunk as a faucet; aye, an', Pedr," she
whispered, "I could be tellin' you somethin' else. Nelw Parry----"
"Tut!" said Pedr angrily; "here's your parcel, Catrin Griffiths. You'll
have to be excusin' me this morning, for I'm busy."
"Pooh, busy!" and Catrin laughed shrilly; "you're always busy when
there's a mention of Nelw Parry. Well, ask Nelw herself what it is she
can tell you that you don't know. Perhaps you'll be _wantin'_ to know
before you marry her."
And with a flounce Catrin Griffiths betook herself out of the shop.
Pedr with his back to the counter was the same as Pedr with his face to
the shop-door; however, he did not seem the same. The back suggested
middle age, but the face was the face of a boy in its expression, with
something perennially young about it: it may have been innocence or
untouched pride or something that looked from his eyes as if they had
been those of a mere girl. Indeed, except for a conscious awkwardness of
hand and a certain steadfast, almost impassive look about the mouth, he
might have recited an _awdl_ or been a bard. Howbeit, he could neither
play a harp nor recite an ode. And because he kept only a stationer's
shop, which contained a fine medley of inferior post-cards scattered
everywhere, piles of newspapers, books, shelves of letter-paper,
trinkets of rustic and plebeian sort, it would not be safe to conclude
that he was no more than a thoroughly commonplace man. Because he spent
his leisure from the shop in taking pictures of the country he loved, it
would not be wise to decide that he was therefore a poor, mediocre thing
who had not brains enough to make even a very wretched artist; who was,
in short, a mere factotum to higher ability.
Pedr's shop, which lay on a steep winding cobblestone street next to the
Cambrian Pill Depôt, five doors down from Plas Mawr and twenty doors up
from the Castle Gate, was tenanted by dreams as fair and holy in
service, although they never found their way into the world except by
means of sensitised paper or by an occasional expression in Pedr's eye
or tremble of his impassive lips--this shop was tenanted by dreams as
fair as any which had ever waited upon accepted painter or poet. They
had a habit of tiptoeing about unseen, so that the usual customer who
entered Pedr's door would not have felt their presence. Nelw Parry had
come to know them well, but before Catrin Griffiths they vanished away.
The lovely colour of dawn itself was not gobbled up faster by the smoke
of trade than these entities disappeared at the sound of Catrin
Griffiths' heels upon the street. In fact the tiny beings were troubled
by the presence of even post-cards, for, dream-like, they wished to give
all they had, if need be, to the hearts which could be seen beating
through the hands that held them, and these cards lying upon the floor,
these flaunting things of many colours, were commerce; things, they
thought, which were to steal something from men. Over the counter, from
which a few minutes ago he had recoiled, Pedr Evans had often leaned,
many invisible eyes smiling upon him, taking from some old folio
pictures which had caught the very lustre of the sky; or the mingled
shadow and iridescence of a hillside, mysteriously suggestive of the
sea; or some flow and subsidence of light itself. Like any other mortal,
poor Pedr had to live, and that is why he was obliged to keep a shop
next to the Cambrian Pill Depôt. If he had been an artist, the world
might willingly have forgotten that he had to live at all and paid him
just nothing for his work. But it was not the necessity of existence
which made him lean upon the counter, showing a picture another man
never would have had the wit to take. To Pedr something beautiful was
always worth a plate, so he had many pictures no one bought, and he was
not often given a chance to show.
Later in the day, after his encounter with Catrin Griffiths, Pedr was
with Nelw Parry in the sitting-room of the Raven Temperance, drinking
tea. Nelw's house, from the outside, was a quaint, stuccoed building
with a quantity of chimney-pots sticking up into the sky, neat steps and
a brass sill at the front door, a painted sign "Raven Temperance," and
printed cards at the windows, one bearing a cyclist's wheel decorated
with mercurial wings, the other the gratifying word, "Refreshments."
Within the room were two people, both middle-aged, drinking tea--a
commonplace enough scene the casual observer would have said; however,
at that moment these two people, even if they were doing nothing more
romantic than talking quietly together, lifting their teacups once in a
while and looking at each other a good deal, were very much like good
children in a fairy tale. It may have been merely a trick of the light
due to the low casement windows, that the room seemed more peaceful than
most rooms in Conway; the subdued light touched the soft green walls
gently, reaching for the top of the walls as if it were some enchanted
region, to enter which it must climb. Indeed, it was an enchanted
region, for there a shining silver river ran in and out, in and out,
among alleys of green trees. In and out, in and out, it ran noiselessly,
and yet it seemed to Pedr, as to some strangers who entered the little
room for refreshments, to sing a song heard before--just when, just how,
was another question. Some visitors who had been in that room once came
again to sit, often bodily weary, while their eyes travelled to that
border of the shining river, and the mistress of the "Raven" waited upon
them tranquilly, placing the tea-service before them, and, it may be,
adjusting a wrap about a stranger's shoulders as delicately as if she
were adding to the comfort of some happy fancy, some ideal, some dream,
that a burdened touch might shatter. Grateful, there were tired
travellers glad to come and go phantom-like, putting down their silver
gently, in a room where reality seemed the greatest phantom of all.
To Pedr it was better than the best picture he had ever taken--better
than the best because the thought of taking it would have seemed like
desecration. He looked at Nelw, as he did every few seconds,
alternately, over his teacup and then without that barrier to his gaze.
Coils of dark hair made the shapely head heavy on the slender neck, as
if the weight of that abundant beauty were great. It was wonderful hair,
making in its shadowy depth a shade for the white, sensitive face, quiet
as the reverie of her eyes. In a land where comely hair blessed poor and
rich alike with its wealth, Nelw Parry's was even lovelier than that of
her neighbours. It had one peculiarity, however, which her neighbours
did not admire but which to Pedr--perhaps to something untutored in
Pedr--was dear. Around the edges of its abundance little curls escaped.
"Nelw," he said, glancing at her wistfully, "they're prettier than
ever."
She brushed the curls back and looked at him with reproach, as if
something she was thinking about, or something of which they had been
talking, had been rudely disturbed. As an actual matter of fact they had
been saying nothing for two or three minutes, indulging the
speechlessness of those who know their way even by day to another land.
But Pedr was aware what sort of answer any remark about Nelw's hair
always fetched, so he changed the subject.
"Dearie, Catrin Griffiths was in the shop this mornin'."
"What was she wantin'?"
"I dunno; she bought sixpence worth of writin' paper," replied Pedr,
regarding Nelw with the air of a man who would like to say more. He was
wondering how much she guessed of Catrin's angling.
A shadow of annoyance passed over Nelw's face.
"Dearie," he continued, encouraged by her expression, "I can't like her,
whatever; she's--she's not nice."
"Well, indeed, she's smart," answered Nelw gently.
"Tut! smart in those things she wears? She looks more than frowsy to me;
an'--an' she's always coming into my shop."
"Poor thing!" murmured Nelw, her face tender with pity.
Pedr observed her wonderingly. What prompted this compassion in Nelw?
What made her understand weakness without being disgusted or repelled by
its ugliness? Other women were not like her in this respect. And just
behind this yielding lovableness that yearned over the mistakes of
others, that reached out to Pedr as one athirst for the necessity of
life, that clung to Pedr for strength, for protection, like a child
afraid of the dark, what was this sense he had, of an obstinate
reticence which seemed the very resiliency of her mysterious nature?
Certainly she had had a bitter life. Then, like a viper into its nest,
what Catrin Griffiths had said darted into Pedr's mind. Was there
something he did not know, that he ought to know? With the acuteness of
the man who can detect the shadow of even a folded leaf, he searched
Nelw's face. Why when she needed him, when she was alone, when she was
fretted by the difficulties of her solitary life, why did she always put
off their marriage? Baffled, irritated, he spoke sharply.
"Poor thing, nothin'! It's a pound head an' a ha'penny tail with Catrin
Griffiths."
Nelw gasped.
"A pound head an' a ha'penny tail, I say," he continued roughly, "Aye,
an' the time is comin', comin' soon, when she'll get herself into
trouble, flauntin' around with those frocks on, all decked out, an' all
her false seemin', her face painted and powdered, an' her hair dyed. The
deceitful thing!"
"Och, Pedr, don't!"
But Pedr, excited beyond self-control by the workings of his
imagination, could not stop. The blanching face before him was no more
than a cipher, it expressed nothing to him.
"Tut! that I will. An' what is it Catrin Griffiths knows an' I don't?
Yes?"
There was a cry of "Pedr!" Nelw shivered, her eyes widened and stared at
him. It was so still in that room that the flutter of the draught
sucking the smoke up the chimney could be heard. Pedr sat motionless in
his chair, the reality of what he had done yet to reach him. Nelw moved,
and in an instant he was beside her.
"Dearie, dearie, what have I done?"
"Och, nothin'--nothin' at all," she answered, her face twitching
helplessly.
"But I did; och, I was beside myself; I didn't know what I was sayin'!"
Pedr paused, he looked at her longingly: "Nelw, little lamb, is it
_somethin'_ I ought to know?"
"It's nothin', nothin' at all," she replied, her eyes still staring at
him, her hands lying open upon her lap, palms up. And there she sat and
sighed and sighed, refusing to answer any of Pedr's questions; and,
every once in a while, moaning, "Not him, dear God, och! not him!"
At dusk every day, and every day in the year except Sunday, and year
after year, the servant had brought the lights into Pedr Evans's
stationery shop, and, setting them down, had gone back into the kitchen.
This evening, as she went into the room, scarcely knowing whether her
master was in or not, everything had been so noiseless, she started, for
there he sat, his head in his hands. Except for a slight disturbance
when Pedr entered his shop, which it is probable no other human ear
would have heard, there had not been a sound, until Betsan came in.
Nelw's "Nothin', nothin' at all" had been going around and around in his
mind like a turn-buckle tightening up his thoughts, till it seemed to
him they would snap. Then it would be, "What has she done? what has she
done?" He had known her, in her sensitiveness, to exaggerate; she had
confided to him some of the incidents of her childhood, which would have
been taken quietly enough by other children. But he was unable to reason
away the horror that looked out from her face to-day. And he, Pedr
Evans, had asked the question that had brought that expression! A
question suggested by a woman of whom even to think in the same moment
was to dishonour Nelw. He wondered what it was that crawled into a man's
mind and made him to do a thing like that?
Betsan had barely closed the door into the kitchen, when, like the
vision of the woman who tempted St. Anthony, Catrin Griffiths stood
before him, the shrewd ogling eyes looking at him out of the painted
face. The question, the answer to which was of more concern to him than
anything else on earth, surged back upon him and stifled him and beat in
his temples and his ears till it seemed as if he could not breathe.
Catrin coughed.
"Um-m, Pedr Evans, I forgot the envelopes this mornin'."
"Well, indeed," he replied mechanically.
"Aye," she affirmed. Then asked, "Did ye see Nelw Parry this afternoon?"
knowing that he had done so, for her room was opposite the Raven.
"Yes," he said.
"What was she tellin' you, eh, what? She's not so unlike me, yes?"
Pedr looked at her, his mind at a bow-and-string tension of expectancy.
"She didn't tell you, I see," Catrin continued. "Well, may every one
pity the poor creature! You'll be wantin' to know so----"
But Catrin Griffiths never got any further, for with a leap Pedr was
upon her.
"Out of my shop, girl, out!" and she was bundled through the door and
the door slammed behind her and locked.
Pedr's feeling of passionate anger against himself as well as against
Catrin gradually settled. He must try to think. He would see no one else
to-night and turned out the lamps. For a minute the wicks flickered,
puffing odd jets of shadow on the raftered ceiling. There was an instant
of wavering flame, then darkness, and only the silvered window-panes
looking into the obscure room like big shining eyes. Pedr sat still,
thinking, sighing and sighing. There were vague rustling noises in the
shop; every time he sighed it seemed as if the noises quivered together
like dry leaves. What would it ever matter to him now what happened?
Without warning he had been robbed of his happiness; even time never
could have proved such a thief, for time was no common plunderer,--if it
took away, often it put something far more precious in its place. Pedr
had always liked to think what time meant to anything lastingly
beautiful; he loved the houses better when they were old, the thought
that they had been attractive to others, had held many joys and even
sorrows, made them beautiful to him; he liked the lines in an old face,
somehow they made it merrier, made it sweeter; even the yellowing of a
photograph, for Pedr was limited in his subjects from which to draw
illustrations, pleased him with some added softening of tone. Life with
Nelw, as it wound towards the end of the road, would be, he had thought,
ever more and more enchanting, for just where the road dipped over into
space there was the sky. Even Death confirmed love. That last blessing
it had to give--the greatest blessing of all. But now his mind must be
forever like the track of the snail in the dust. It was no matter to him
now what lay upon the hillsides or within the valleys; the heavy-domed
shadows of foliage trees, the shadow of ripple upon ripple where the
water wrinkles, were alike of little account. He sighed again, and there
was the same succession of small sounds, for he was not alone in the
room. Hidden away in all the corners and nooks of the darkened shop were
scores of little beings, once his comrades. Now they hid and trembled in
their dark places, shrinking from Pedr from whom it had been their wont
to take what the all-powerful hand offered. They well knew what tragedy
might be coming to them, for of their race more had died in one age than
of the race of man in all ages. But like the children of men, till the
moment of danger they had counted themselves secure, and now when Pedr
sighed it was as if the sea went over them. They had always been so well
off; but they had seen the fate of their kin, the wide reachless waters
that had unexpectedly surrounded them, the boiling of the waves, the
calm, and the bodies floating on the surface, their wee diaphanous hands
empty of the hearts that had once beat through them, their faces looking
with closed eyes up into the everlasting day. As Pedr sighed again and
again, they shook now, their hands over their ears, in the dusty holes
of the shop. At last Pedr sighed a mighty sigh, and it was like the
shaking of the wind in a great tree. Although it was a mighty sigh, the
little beings uncovered their ears, and, with a new expression on their
faces, leaned forward to hear it repeated. It came once more. Then they
crept softly out of their nooks and small recesses and dusty corners,
and stood tiptoe waiting for the next sigh. It came, and the wind seemed
to shake down lightly through the great tree with the most dulcet notes
in all the world; whisperings and tremolos and flutings and pipings. At
that, the little beings ran from every part of the shop, and Pedr heard
them coming; they clambered about his knees, they climbed into his lap,
and Pedr gathered them all into his arms--that is as many as he could
hold, and the rest seemed happy enough without being there.
If the truth must be told, Pedr slept soundly that night, just like the
most fortunate of lovers. And the next morning, after he had found fault
with his breakfast and scolded Betsan for her late rising, he betook
himself, with a far more cheerful heart than he had known in many hours,
to Nelw's. Pedr in the darkened shop had learned a lesson which he would
not have exchanged for any pure unmixed joy upon earth. And he knew even
now, with the sun upon him and a strange yearning within him, that it
mattered very little what Nelw had done or was hiding from him, for
despite every dreadful possibility he loved her with a feeling that
mastered fear.
When Nelw opened the door for him she shrank away.
"Och, Pedr," she said, "so early!"
"Well, indeed, _so_ early," he replied, with an attempt at gaiety.
"So now I must be tellin' you," she whispered, hanging her head, and
looking, with her white face, ready to sink to the floor.
"Indeed, dearie, you'll not be tellin' me, whatever," he declared
hotly.
"Pedr!" she exclaimed, "but you said Catrin Griffiths--alas, I must tell
you!" She lifted her hand as if she were going to point to something and
then dropped it.
"I'm not carin' what I said about Catrin Griffiths or about any one
else. Dear little heart, you're makin' yourself sick over this an'----"
"Och, but I must tell you!" and again came the futile motion of the
hand.
"You shall not!" he commanded.
"Yes, now, now," she cried, lifting her hand; "Pedr I--I have----"
Pedr seized the uplifted hand.
"No, Nelw, no;" and he put his finger over her mouth and drew her to
him.
"Pedr, I must," she pleaded, struggling to free herself.
"No, not now; I'm not carin' to know now. Wait until we're married."
"Oh no, oh no!" Nelw moaned. "That wouldn't be fair to you. Och, if you
knew----"
But Pedr covered her mouth with his hand and drew her closer.
"Not now, little lamb."
She sat quite still, her head upon his shoulder. Pedr felt her relaxing
and heard her sighing frequently. She seemed so little and so light
where she rested upon him, almost a child, and a new sense of
contentment stole over Pedr. He patted her face; she made no reply, but
he felt her draw nearer to him. At last she lifted her hand and passed
it gently over his head.
"Och, Pedr," she whispered, "I'm growin' old."
"Old, nothin'," replied Pedr.
"Aye, but I'm over thirty."
"Pooh!" returned Pedr, "that's nothin'!"
"Yes, it is; an' as I grew older you would mind even more if----"
"Nelw," said Pedr warningly, covering her mouth again.
"But, Pedr, how could you love me when I'd grown very old? I wouldn't
have any hair at all," she faltered, "an' not any teeth," she continued,
gasping painfully, "an'--an' wrinkles an' oh--an' oh--dear!" she half
sobbed.
"Tut," said Pedr calmly, "what of it? It's always that way, an' I'm
thinkin' love could get over a little difficulty like that, whatever.
Indeed, I'm thinkin' what with love an' time we'd scarcely notice it. I
dunno," he added reflectively, "if we did notice it I'm thinkin' we'd
love each other better."
At these words Nelw smiled a little as if she were forgetting her
trouble. After a while she spoke--
"You are comin' this afternoon again, Pedr, are you?"
"Yes, dearie," he answered, "I'm comin'."
"Och, an' it must--it must be told," she ended, forlornly.
It was quiet up and down the winding cobblestone street; no two-wheeled
carts jaunted by; there was no clatter of wooden clogs, no merriment of
children playing, no noise of dogs barking. And all this quietude was
due to the simple fact that people were preparing to take their tea,
that within doors kettles were boiling, piles of thin bread and butter
being sliced, jam--if the family was a fortunate one--being turned out
into dishes, pound-cake cut in delectably thick slices, and, if the
occasion happened to need special honouring, light cakes being browned
in the frying-pan. Previous to the actual consumption of tea, the men,
their legs spread wide apart, were sitting before the fire, enjoying the
possession of a good wife or mother who could lay a snowy cloth. And the
children, having passed one straddling age and not having come to the
next, were busy sticking hungry little noses into every article set upon
the cloth, afraid, however, to do more than smell a foretaste of
paradise.
So the street, except for a gusty wind that romped around corners, was
deserted. When Nelw Parry opened a casement on the second floor, she
saw not a soul. She looked up and down, up and down,--no, there was not
a body stirring. Then her head disappeared, and shortly one hand
reappeared and hung something to the sill. True, there was not a soul
upon the street, but opposite the Raven Temperance, behind
carefully-closed lattice windows, sat a woman who saw everything. Catrin
Griffiths had been waiting there some time to discover whether Pedr
Evans would come to-day as he did other days at half-past four. But when
she beheld Nelw's hand reappear to hang something at the window, she
jumped up, with a curious expression on her face, exclaiming, "A
wonder!" and ran swiftly downstairs and out into the street. Once in the
street she gazed steadily at the object swinging from the casement of
the Raven, and again, "A wonder!" she ejaculated. She began to laugh in
a harsh low fashion, then shrilly and more shrilly. "Oh, the lamb!" she
exclaimed, "oh, the innocent!" Her hilarity increased, and she slapped
herself on the hip, and finally held on to her bodice as if she would
burst asunder. At the doors, heads appeared; some disappeared
immediately upon descrying Catrin, but others thrust them out further.
"See" she called, seeing Modlan Jones coming towards her, "there's Nelw
Parry's _cocyn_."
Modlan canted her head upwards towards the object and chuckled--
"Ow, the idiot!"
"Och, the innocent!" laughed Catrin. "'Ts, 'ts," she called to Malw
Owens, who, munching bread, was approaching from a little alley-way;
"Nelw Parry's _cocyn's_ unfurled at last an' flappin' in the breeze."
One by one a throng gathered under the walls of the Raven Temperance,
and the explosions of mirth and the exclamations multiplied, until the
whole street rang with the boisterous noise, and one word, "_Cocyn!
cocyn!_" rebounded from lip to lip and wall to wall. But there were some
who, coming all the way out of their quiet houses and seeing the
occasion of this mad glee, shook their heads sadly and said, "Poor
thing! she's not wise!" and went in again. And there were others who
passed by on the other side of the road, and they, too, muttered, "Druan
bach!" pityingly, and if they were old enough to have growing sons, cast
glances none too kind at Catrin Griffiths. Evidently the "poor little
thing" was not intended for her; but, indeed, they might have spared one
for her, for it is possible that she needed it more than the woman who
lay indoors in a convulsion of tears. Suddenly, amidst the nudges and
thrusts and sniggers and shrieks, Catrin clapped her hands together.
"Listen," she bade, "now listen! I'll be fetchin' Pedr." And with a
snort of amusement from them all, she was off down the street.
What happened to Catrin before she reached Pedr's door will never be
told. By the time she came to the Cambrian Pill Depôt she was screwing
her courage desperately. Even the most callous have strange visitations
of fear, odd forebodings of failure, and hang as devoutly upon
Providence as the most pious. It would be robbing no one to give Catrin
a kind word or, indeed, a tear or two. Good words and tears are spent
gladly upon a blind man, then why not upon Catrin, whose blindness was
an ever-night far deeper? She was but groping for something she thought
she needed, for something to make her happier, as every man does. And
now, as it often is with the one who hugs his virtue as well as with the
sinful, the road slipped suddenly beneath her feet and her thoughts were
plunged forward into a dark place of fears. She, who always had had
breath and to spare for the expression of any vulgar or trivial idea
which came to her, could barely say, as she thrust her head in at the
door of Pedr's shop, "Nelw Parry'll be needin' you now." What she had
intended to say was something quite different; since she did not say
it, it need not be repeated here.
It seemed an eternity to Pedr before, without any show of following
Catrin too closely, he could leave the shop. The sounds of the jangling
voices he was nearing mingled with the gusty wind that whickered around
housetops and corners, and brushed roughly by him with a dismal sound.
He walked with slow deliberateness, but his thoughts ran courier-like
ever forward and before him. To his sight things had a peculiar
distinctness, adding in some way to his foreknowledge, prescient with
the distress he heard in the wind. He looked up to the casement towards
which all eyes were directed. Something attached to the sill whipped out
in the wind and then flirted aimlessly to and fro. Pedr scanned it
intently. Another gust of wind caught it, and again it spread out and
waved about glossily plume-like. Then for a moment, unstirred by the
air, it hung limp against the house-side; it was glossy and black
and--and--thought Pedr with a rush of comprehension--like a long strand
of Nelw's hair.
There were suppressed titters and sly winks as he came to the group
before the Raven.
"Ffi, the poor fellow, I wonder what he'll do now?" asked one.
"Hush!" said another.
"Well, indeed," answered a third, tapping her head significantly, "what
would one expect when she's not wise?"
"He's goin' in," said a fourth.
While all eyes were upon Pedr, Catrin Griffiths had slipped away from
their midst, slid along the wall, and stolen across the street. The look
upon Pedr's face was like a hot iron among her wretched thoughts, and
hiss! hiss! hiss! it was cutting down through all those strings that had
held her baggage of body and soul together.
Pedr made his way into the house and to the couch where Nelw lay.
"Nelw," he said.
Nelw caught her breath between sobs.
"Nelw," he repeated gently, sitting down by her, "there, little lamb!"
Nelw stopped crying.
"Pedr, did you see?" she asked.
"Did I see? Yes, I saw your _cocyn_ hangin' to the window."
Nelw sat up straight.
"Do--do you understand, Pedr? Did you hear them mockin' me?"
"Aye, an' I know it's your _cocyn_." Pedr smiled, "Little lamb, did you
think that would make any difference?"
"But, Pedr," she said insistently, as if she must make him understand,
"these curls are all I really--really have." She drew one out straight.
"Aye, dearie, I'm thinkin' that is enough."
If he had been telling her a fairy story Nelw's eyes could not have
grown wider.
Pedr cocked his head critically to one side.
"It's very pretty, whatever," he added; "I was always likin' that part
of your hair the best."
* * * * *
And now there is no more story to tell; for Pedr set to work to get the
tea for Nelw. As he went in and out of a door, sometimes they smiled at
each other foolishly and sometimes Pedr came near enough to pat her on
the head. The room, although it would have been difficult to lay hands
on its visitors, had other inmates too, for it was full of Pedr's
comrades. Every minute they increased in number, as is the way of the
world when two people, even if they are not very wise,--and of course
they never will be wise if they are not by the time they are
middle-aged,--are joined together in love. And every one of these little
visitors took the heart it held in its wee transparent hands and offered
it to Nelw. And Nelw, as Pedr had done almost twenty-four hours ago,
gathered the dreams into her arms, and there they lay upon her breast
like the children they really were. And above this scene the shining
silver river ran in and out, in and out among its alleys of green trees
singing a gentle song which, once it has been learned, can never be
forgotten.
_Tit for Tat_
On the chimney-pot of Adam Jones's cottage sat two rooks. They put their
bills together this morning just as they did every day, and one said
"Ma! Ma!" and the other answered "Pa! Pa!" in raucous but affectionate
tones. And the grey wood-pigeons in the woods said "Coo! Coo! Coo!" all
day long; and the geese by the stream made futile rushes at one another
and passed harmlessly like clumsy knights atilt. And when the kittens
played, as they did sometimes on Twthill, there was no suggestion of
frolic about it; the ladies' chain with their mother's hind legs was
done with such harmonious _ensemble_ that it was just as quiet as the
chapel-going step of old Deacon Aphael Tuck and his wife Olwyn. Even the
lusty toad who lived under the holly-bush hopped only half-way home, and
then, lifting himself unwillingly, straddled _pronunciamento_ to the
holly stem.
At half-past seven the milkman went by, with a very small can in a very
small cart, ringing a very big bell,--a bell big as a dinner-bell, that
went "Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong," in the sleepiest fashion in all
the world. And this bell the milkman had to ring a long, long time, for,
either it put the inhabitants to sleep and then they must have leisure
to wake up again before they could attend to their business, or they
were asleep anyway and must have time to get up. And an hour later the
post went by, marked V. R. in large shabby gilt letters, for you may be
certain that _Eduardus Rex_ had not yet got on to any document inside or
outside this cart that bowled slowly up Twthill, looking as it
disappeared at the top like a lazy beetle crawling into a hole. And down
at the bottom of Twthill a little stream purred and purred and purred,
like a convention of all the comfortable tabby-cats in the universe, or
a caucus of drowsy tea-kettles. In the woods beyond the stream, where
the wood-pigeons cooed, a little bird called "Slee-eep! Slee-ep!
Slee-p!" Some of the young people on Twthill had been known to maintain
that it said "Sweet! Sweet! Sweet!" But later they changed their minds,
and it seemed like "Sleep! Sleep! Sleep!" to them, too, and they sharply
corrected other young people for thinking nonsense. And every day there
was the sound of Deacon Aphael Tuck puffing up the hill, saying under
his breath, "Tut, tut, tut, a hill whatever, tut, now isn't it!"
At the foot of the hill, in the midst of all this quiet lived a little
old woman, Gladys Jones, the wife of Deacon Adam Jones. The Welsh have a
saying that the first man Adam was a Welshman and that his name was Adam
Jones. However that may be, this Adam Jones seemed assuredly the first
man in all the world to Gladys, and, in the course of the story you may
consider Adam justified in thinking of Gladys sometimes as his Eve. They
were very different in appearance. He was tall, gaunt, with a saintly
look about his waxen features, a look made attractively human by two
deep lines on either side of his mouth. When Gladys was at her antics,
caprioling like a shy, pathetic marmoset, these lines deepened, and he
would pull his beard and his eyes would twinkle much as stars twinkle on
a frosty night. Adam Jones was a saint, and he had need to be. Gladys
was tiny in size, round, merry, alert. Her face was round, too, with
cheeks as full-moulded as a baby's, and a small pointed chin that was as
sensitive as it was whimsical, and wide, round blue eyes that were as
apt to weep as they were to sparkle.
This Saturday morning Gladys sat by the hearth, her head forward,
listening for a step. At her left the table was spread with an abundant
breakfast. As she listened, misfortune did not come running, but slowly
and with the footfall of an old man. Gladys was waiting for an answer
concerning the thing she wished to do more than anything else in the
world, more than she had ever wished to do anything; the thing she had
never done, the thing she had never had a chance to do: go to the
Circus. The Circus was to be held on Monday in Carnarvon, near the
Castle where the Eisteddfod was held last year; and Carnarvon, only
eight miles away, was her old home. She knew that no one else in Twthill
had even thought of such an act as going. But what was there wicked
about it? Gladys asked herself; and reasoning thus she forthwith asked
the deacon for permission. First he looked astounded, then he said he
must consider the matter over-night. Now he was coming in to breakfast,
and she would have his answer.
Adam Jones came slowly through the doorway, which was surmounted by a
gable guard of slate pigeons and flanked by slate rosettes. Out on the
hedge poised a privet-cut pigeon, lacking the evil eye of his slate
brethren, but possessed of an evil green tail now pointed with evil
significance at Adam's entering back.
"Well, dad," said Gladys, as he took his seat at the table.
"Aye, mam, the mist means fine summer weather, indeed."
"Have ye been thinkin', father?"
"I dunno----" he faltered. "Aye, mam; better the evil we know than that
we know not."
"Och, dad, am I _not_ to go?"
"'Twould be playing with fire, and that's no play, mam. I've been
talkin' with Aphael Tuck, and with Keri Lewis, and Evan Edwards, and
they say the only man in Twthill has thought of goin' is Morris Thomas.
Morris Thomas is a dark bird, he's always had a long spoon to eat with
the devil, whatever. His missus is sick cryin' over his ways."
"But, father, I long so to go!" sobbed Gladys.
"Mother, ye are too gay, too gay! A weak doctrine, an easy path." The
deacon was inclined to attribute Gladys's gaiety to her Wesleyanism; he
himself was a Calvinist.
At this moment, with tears rolling down her cheeks, Gladys did not look
over gay; and it would have been difficult for any one to divine the
reputation for liveliness which she had made for herself. No good was
coming to her now because she had lightened the heavy quiet of Twthill
in various ways; because she had talked with the slate pigeons and
clipped the wicked green tail of the privet pigeon; because she twinkled
over the candytuft, bright and beautiful enough for a dozen Joseph's
coats, or rang the Canterbury bells when nobody was looking, or pulled
the bees off the honeysuckle, or fed the tiny sparrows and sandpipers
and rooks as if they were geese, or tickled the toad under the
holly-bush till he swelled with joy. It was no consolation to her now
that she had always found something during the quiet dreary hours on
Twthill to please her fancy, or that she had turned her attention
successfully to her neighbours. Mrs. Thomas the greengrocer was a stupid
thing, Betty Harries proud, and Olwyn Tuck the shop, starched with her
doctrines. Many a trap of words had she set for them and many a trap had
been sprung. There were harmless practical jokes, too, and there were
matchmaking and theology. In these heat-producing topics Gladys had
gained no mean skill, as the privet pigeon knew.
But the deacon took a serious view of her relation to a possible future.
He longed to grant everything she might desire. However, there was her
soul to be kept! He gathered himself together.
"Mam, ye cannot go," was his final word.
Adam got up; he wanted to go out very much, and Gladys sat alone
thinking. At last she straightened, and shook her head; then she half
laughed, then she half cried, as children sometimes laugh and cry almost
in the same breath. After this she said aloud to herself--
"I will do it, now, won't I?" She nodded, "Aye, I will indeed."
She arose, looking mischievously wicked, and stole out of the back-door
of the cottage. She glanced about, and evidently her eyes alighted on
what she wished, for she stood there thinking. It wasn't fair, och! it
was such a silent place, not worth a man's while to wake up in. And that
stream, purr, purr, purr, purr all day long, just as if the cats
couldn't attend to that sort of noise better. And those heavy-looking
ugly-coloured foxglove bells that grew on the sunny side of the stone
wall, and rustled "Tinkle-tinkle, tinkle-tinkle" in a way that Gladys
had sometimes thought like the mysterious swishing of dry leaves or the
scampering of tiny feet. What if they did know a deal about the Little
Folk, it was of no earthly use to her. And the white clover and the red
clover had such a warm sleepy smell, and those loppy dandelions that
grew tall and drooped over, and those silly pink and white stone-crops
that lay as still as lizards on the stone wall! Och, what if she had
played with them once? She hated them all now. This stillness weighed
down upon her like the rocks upon the hills.
She took something from the clothes-line and went into the house. Then
she opened a long, heavy chest and was busy in its depths for several
minutes. After that she was restlessly active throughout the day. At
last bedtime came, and she went to sleep as innocently as the lamb in
the sheepfold. But Adam Jones lay awake. He touched the plump wrinkled
cheek gently and looked at Gladys's frilled nightcap with inexpressible
longing. White Love, she was so different from other bodies in Twthill,
enough to make a man happy as in the Garden of Eden these long years,
but enough to vex him sorely too. Aye, he must manage to keep her soul
for her, and the good deacon, his hands folded on his chest, his eyes
blinking in an effort to stay awake, passed from prayers for Gladys into
sleep.
When they arose, the quiet on Twthill had deepened to silence, for it
was the Sabbath. The milkman made his rounds as usual, but instead of
the dinner-bell he had a small boy who tiptoed from door to door, gently
rapping up the good wives. There was no sound in all Twthill; only the
smoke from the chimney-pots told of the life within. And all day long
there would be no sound except the Chapel bell ringing worshippers to
service and the tread of obedient Sunday-shod feet.
"Come," said Adam Jones to Gladys, "'tis time to be dressin' for
Chapel."
"Nay, I'm not goin'."
"Not goin'! Dear heart, what's come over ye?"
"I'm not goin'," was all Gladys obstinately replied.
This was all the good deacon could get from her. Nor would she stir from
her place by the fire.
"Mam, where's my Sunday socks?" he called from upstairs.
"How should I be knowin'?"
"But I cannot find them," was the distressed answer, while bureau
drawers flew in and out.
"Mam," he called again, "I can't find them whatever, an' my grey socks
are not here, either."
"They're in the mendin' basket to be darned."
"But, mam, then where's the other pair of greys?"
"They're not clean, they're to be washed to-morrow."
"Tut, tut, tut," said the deacon, sitting on the edge of the bed; then
he pulled his boots on over bare feet and stretched down his trousers as
far as he could. After that he went meekly downstairs.
"Where's my Sunday coat, mam?"
"In the chest where it is always."
"In the chest?"
"Aye."
Adam Jones bent over the big box where his Sunday coat lay spread out
carefully from Sabbath to Sabbath. He groped around, fished out the
coat, put it on unaided by Gladys, and leaned over his wife to say
good-bye.
"Ye're not lovin' me much to-day, mother, are ye?"
Gladys gulped and pushed him away.
He left the house, his Bible under his arm, to join the people streaming
up Twthill to the Chapel. Gladys ran to the door and called once. He
turned around, but she bit her lips and said, "No matter."
As Adam stepped into the upward moving throng, Mrs. Thomas, the wife of
Morris Thomas, whispered--
"Och, Morris, look!"
Morris gave one look, covered his mouth with his fingers, and began to
shake; but dark bird that he was and long spoon that he had for supping
with the devil, his face took on a pitying expression.
"'Tis too bad," he said; "what shall I do?"
Meantime the children had begun to giggle, little Dilys, and Haf and
Delwyn and Ifor and Kats, and a score more. The suppressed tittering
caught all the way down the line like a fuse attended by sundry minor
explosions, and every eye was directed at Deacon Jones's back. But
Morris's question remained unanswered, and no one did anything. The
deacon, with his gentle bows to right and left and his long stride,
skimmed past couple after couple, and entering the Chapel took his
deacon's seat immediately under the pulpit, his back to the
congregation.
Other deacons gathered rapidly about him on the circular seat, and there
was much nudging among them, and more stir and craning of necks in the
Chapel than had ever been there before. But soon the worshippers were
launched upon a discussion of Arminianism, that unfortunate set of
questions gentle John Wesley managed to flourish before Calvinism. Now
Calvinism, full-tilt, rushed smoking and roaring from the kind mouths of
the good people in the Chapel, belching flame and destruction upon the
laxity of Wesleyanism. Deacon Adam Jones, with his eyes tight closed and
his heart bursting with sorrow, was engaged in something like prayer. No
matter that he could not know within himself that he was one of the
elect. After all, if he strove to be saved and then wasn't, he could not
grumble. He had tried his best; if he failed it was not his fault. But
oh, his beloved Gladys, that her feet might be on the Rock and off this
sliding sand of Wesleyanism! Or that already he might be landed on the
happy shores of the other side, and know her foreordained to be saved!
She might ride the wicked Elephant and not fall; a thousand circuses
would not harm her in his sight.
Suddenly there was the tramping of a multitude in their silent Sabbath
street, followed by a wild "Yah!" The deacons quivered together like so
many leaves on a branch, and looked to the high windows, but the windows
were so high that only the hills peered down serenely upon the
congregation.
At home Gladys, eyeing disconsolately the bright fire and the rows of
brass candlesticks and the big shiny cheese dishes, sat in the same
place in which Adam had left her. Ah! it was wicked for her to have done
that, for her husband was so gentle to her, no man could be better. And
now she was making a laughingstock of the lad among the neighbours. The
tears rolled out of her eyes, and, irresponsible little body that she
was, with the flow of her tears there came a great desire to be
comforted for her wickedness. Adam had always comforted her. Suddenly
she sat up, for there was the sound of many feet upon the road. She
listened, she looked out, she gasped, she sped to the hedge. A great
procession was going by. Her amazed eyes fell upon camels, with
gentlemen in baggy trousers on their backs. The camels were walking
forward, stealthily spreading out their soft-padded feet. And there were
many elephants, uneasily swaying the keepers who sat on their heads; for
the elephants, hearing the purring of the stream, thought it sounded
like the rustling of long jungle-grass, and wished more than anything
else that this tidy little hill were a jungle in which they might lie
down. Instead, they must trundle wearily up hill, taking comfort in
elephantine ways by holding by their trunks to one another's tails. And
the ladies from Egypt, seated high in a great barge, fanned themselves
and looked yellow and much as Cleopatra must have looked when Mark
Antony wooed her. And the float-full of American Indians seemed tired,
and something must have been washed off their faces, for certainly they
were not red. And the gentlemen representing the musical talent of the
German Empire were mopping their fat necks. And in the huge barge
representing Japan, courteous little Japs covered their yawns with
fastidiously-kept hands. And the "artist" who sat inside the steam-organ
wagon became so sleepy that his hand slipped and struck one of the organ
pedals. "Yah!" screeched the organ, and I think it was the loudest sound
ever heard on Twthill. The only rosy, tidy being in the whole procession
was a little maid in white cap and apron who was hanging up fresh towels
in one of the living vans, and peeping out of the window at the curious
cottages and unpronounceable names decorating each one that she saw.
There was no talking, no laughter. This was part of the day's work for
these men and women and beasts. They were on their way to Carnarvon for
Monday's performance. The men looked tired and sober, and so did the
women. Gladys thought they all seemed strangely draggled. Indeed, she
had imagined they would be quite different, so bright and beautiful,
very creatures of the air like the birds. She believed she did not wish
to go to the circus after all, for if they were not happy, she was
certain she could never be happy looking at them, poor dears! If only
Adam would come home, she could stand the stillness, and she would never
do anything wrong again.
In the Chapel the service went forward without interruption; the
minister, a man of character, convinced that he had met on Twthill all
the forces of the world and the flesh and the devil, was not to be
terrified by a multitude of feet, even though those feet were an
avenging host sent for the destruction of this wicked village, in which
he laboured and struggled in vain. The congregation, ignorant of this
unflattering opinion of them, followed their heroic leader to a man.
At the close of the service, Deacon Aphael Tuck leaned forward towards
Adam Jones.
"Mr. Jones, your socks--your socks----"
"What is that, Mr. Tuck?"
"Your socks. I'm sorry, but did ye intend----"
"Aye, my socks, Deacon," said Adam, looking apprehensively towards his
boots, "aye, I've been lookin' for them--my Sunday socks."
"They're on your back," said the senior deacon, coughing.
Adam Jones flushed all over his pale face; then he smiled, much as if he
enjoyed having his Sunday socks on his back rather than on his feet, and
then, recollecting, he began to explain to the deacon.
"Well, 'tis Sunday,"--the deacon knew this,--"and Gladys takes very good
care of my clothes whatever, and puts them--lays them out in the chest
an'--an' she's not well to-day."
While Aphael Tuck was pulling out the strong stitches with which the
socks were tacked on,--strong stitches which he and Mrs. Tuck often
discussed later as part of the liveliest day Twthill had ever
known,--the Recording Angel, who had been taking down Adam's prayers
much cut in angelic shorthand, spaced out every one of these half-true
faltering words carefully, and over them, the Angel wrote, in beautiful
bright letters, LOVE, and beneath them, with lax impartiality to
Calvinism and Wesleyanism, made this note, "Elect: Adam and wife."
_An Oriel in Eden_
Mrs. Jenkins looked over at Mr. Jenkins the shop merchant and bard, and
there was love and wonderment in her eyes. He was reclining in an
arm-chair, his long legs stretched before him, his head at rest against
the chair, his hands folded over his stomach, his eyes tight closed, his
mouth wide open, his lips moving, and every once in a while his tongue
quickly lapping his upper lip. Janny looked away and out of the windows
to the meadows that rolled up into the mist like big grey waves; this
was the act of composition, she knew, and too sacred even for her, his
humbler half, to behold. But the misty uplands suggested overmuch of
that unnamable something which, when she looked at her husband, made her
wish to shut her eyes; for, might she not, Janny reasoned, see more than
she ought to see of the divine spirit that moved behind those hills and
behind the lips of Ariel Jenkins. So her thoughts slipped back into the
living-room of Ty Mawr, while her eyes avoided the inspired contents of
the arm-chair. She had been a bride and the envied mistress of Ty Mawr
just two weeks; however, she was forty and matrimony was late for her,
and Ariel Jenkins being forty-five, it was none too early for him. Janny
felt her responsibilities keenly. Was she living up to them? She was at
the mercantile centre of the village, her better half was not only a
merchant but also a crowned poet, her house the most important in
Glaslyn. And Glaslyn expected changes; Mrs. Parry Wynn the baker said
so, Mrs. Gomer Roberts the tinman had prophesied, and Mrs. Jeezer Morris
the minister had whispered to Betto Griffiths who had told Janny of
these expectations, that she supposed, nay, she _hoped_ Ariel Jenkins's
home with a woman in it would soon look like a God-fearing place and
receive some improvements. Janny's glance roved through the
sitting-room. She had made a few alterations, but somehow in the
half-light of dusk they seemed as nothing. What was the moving or
replenishing of a taper holder, a fresh case for Ariel's harp, a new
cover for the table, or the addition of a few pleasant-faced china cats
to a regimental mantelpiece,--indeed, she sadly asked herself, what were
these changes in comparison with the unappointed something she was
expected to accomplish as Mrs. Ariel Jenkins the shop? She was a
stranger in Glaslyn, an intruder from a great outside world, and now she
felt bewildered, lonely. Her eyes flitted to Ariel's face for company.
"Dearie!"
There was no answer.
"Is it comin', Ariel dear?"
"Aye," he snapped.
Janny winced; she had never lived with genius, and, somehow, she thought
it would be different. Her deep-blue eyes had a still look in them that
suggested not only a long habit of self-repression but also perplexity,
and sadness, too; there was appeal in every feature of her face,--an
appeal made the more pathetic, perhaps, by the childlike lines of
pale-gold curling hair about her forehead and tired eyes, and the
delicate hollows beneath her cheek-bones, and the fragile sweetness of
her mouth. It was a face in its soft bloom and delicacy, forever young
and yet unforgettably weary. She straightened out her kirtle, and again
her glance roved the room. There must be a clean hearth-brush, new
muslin curtains for the casement; the stairway landing, where it turned
by the front windows, even in the twilight looked shabby with the wear
and tear of heavily-booted feet and clogs, the light from the oriel
window above the landing shining through with bald ugliness upon the
stairs. As she looked at the light Janny's eyes dilated, her face
flushed, and she leaned forward, gazing intently at the window. For the
minute she had forgotten Ariel, but he, puff, puff, puff, with many
sighs and yawns and much stretching of his long legs, was coming out of
his inspired coma. His awakening look fell upon Janny there where she
sat, her hands clasped in her lap, her shoulders tipped forward, her
chin tilted upward, a circle of quiet light about her hair, her eyes
intent upon the stairway window.
"Janny dear, what is it? What are ye lookin' at?"
"Oh! na--aye, lad, I--I----"
"Well, well, Janny!"
"Ariel, I was thinkin'."
"Aye, an' ye were plannin', too."
He was thoroughly aroused now from his inspiration, and studying that
object, woman, which through some twenty-five years he had sung and
praised. Ariel's eyes searched her; stanza, metre, rhyme, theme, were
all forgotten, for he saw that Janny possessed a thought she had no
intention of parting with to him. He glanced from her to the window upon
which she had been looking so rapturously when he surprised her gaze.
So far as he could see it was like any other stairway light in Glaslyn,
except that it was oval instead of rectangular, and perhaps a little
deeper than some, but otherwise precisely like scores he had seen. Then
he called imagination to his aid, that imagination which had been the
means of begetting shillings over the counter of his shop, which had won
for him a comfortable income, and commercial success, as well as made
him the foremost bard in his county. He peered through the window; what
he beheld was a bit of dusky sky with a shadowy star seemingly behind
it. He dismissed imagination and returned to the study of his bride. It
was a whim probably; perhaps one of those unshaped thoughts, elemental,
unspoken, to which women listen in their idle moments; indeed, it might
even be some dreaming about him of which Janny in the shyness of their
relation, still new, was too sensitive to speak. Gradually Ariel forgot
the problem in his renewed consciousness of the charm of Janny, with her
deep blue eyes, her childlike pale-gold hair, the delicate lines of her
fragile face so different from the Welsh women of their village. Under
his scrutiny Janny sat serenely with a more than wonted air of
self-possession.
She interrupted him: "Ariel, ye've been to sea, dear?"
"Aye, when I was a lad."
"Was it for long?"
"No, not long, two years sailin' with cargoes between our coast and
Ireland."
"Did ye learn much of the ways of sailorfolk?"
"Aye, much."
"Runnin' up an' down the ropes?"
"Aye, that, an' more too."
"Did ye learn tattooin', dear?"
"Aye, the marks ye've seen on my arms an old salt taught me to do. The
sailors were clever with the needle, sketchin' as well as sewin'."
"Do ye think ye could sketch a star now, Ariel, or have ye forgotten?"
Ariel laughed, partly with pleasure at this talk by the fire, partly
from joy in the companionship.
"Aye, I'm thinkin' I could, little lamb."
He drew his chair closer to hers and saw her face brighten; it rested
her to have him near her, and her thoughts sped back through all the
years of loneliness and hunger for the things she could not have; she
had a new consciousness of life and of being useful; it was not merely
Ariel, it was the house, too, and what she could do to make it--Well,
the word escaped her; anyway it was the house as well as Ariel, and it
was lovely to think of what she could do for it while he made poetry and
sold things in the shop.
"An', Ariel, could ye sketch me an anchor an' a bit of rope?"
"Aye, dearie, I could; ye know I could anyway, for I had drawin' at the
school in Carnarvon while I was an apprentice there."
"Drawin'?"
"Aye, it was mam's idea."
Janny's eyes grew large.
"Ariel, do ye--do ye--think ye could draw me a--a cat?"
Ariel took one look at Janny and burst into laughter; shop, poetry,
everything was forgotten in his amusement at her childlike eagerness.
Suddenly he stopped, for Janny's face was quivering. Aye, he had
forgotten, too, that this was no peasant-woman; his laughter seemed
brutal.
"Janny, little lamb," he said softly, drawing her head to him, "I could,
dear, I'll sketch all the cats ye want."
Janny sighed comfortably, her head still upon his shoulder, the
weariness easing away from her heart. She could do it now; it would
make the greatest difference; Betto Griffiths and others should see that
she was something more than a bit of porcelain in Ariel's home, that she
could do something more than merely oversee house-cleaning. Besides, it
really was something more,--it was having an idea of her own, and that
until Ariel rescued her she had never been allowed to have. She reached
up and patted his face; even her gestures were incomprehensibly
childlike. What she lacked in the passion of a woman she seemed to make
up in the perfect trust of a child. Ariel, selfish with the selfishness
of a man who has lived by himself and who had lived much in his own
mind, thought now with a pang how lonely Janny must have been ever since
she came to him; the appeal of her confidence touched the best that was
in him, the protection that was his to give her, and some potential
sense of fatherhood. Aye, he knew how tired she was after the life that
lay behind her, and he gathered her into his arms, holding her there
quietly while he talked.
"What shall it be, Janny? A star, an anchor, a bit of rope, an' a cat,
did ye say, dear?"
"Aye, a star, Ariel, please. I don't think I want the anchor. The bit of
rope would be nice, dear. An' I'd like the cat."
"An' what are ye goin' to do with these drawin's, Janny? Are ye goin' to
hang them on the wall?"
"No, I'm not goin' to do that."
"Well, it's just as well, dearie, for Betto Griffiths, an' Mrs. Gomer
Roberts the tinman, an' Mrs. Parry Winn the baker, would be hauntin' Ty
Mawr. But what _are_ ye goin' to do with them, dearie?"
"Ariel, I couldn't say _now_." Janny stirred uneasily. "I _might_ be
hangin' them in our bedroom, an'--an'--an' I might be puttin'--puttin'
them in the--Bible to press. They'd be useful."
"Aye, that's so. An' how large shall I draw them?"
Janny thought a minute.
"The cat, dear, I'd like about a foot long, that is from his tail to his
whiskers--No, I'm thinkin' that's too narrow for the cat; from the tail
to the whiskers I'd like him one foot an' a half, Ariel."
Janny's glance took a flight over Ariel's shoulder.
"An' the star?"
Janny thought again.
"Six inches from point to point, an' four stars--no--one star will do--I
can cut--och?--Ariel, _one_ star, please."
"An' the rope?"
"It's the twisted kind I want, an' it must go all around the--Oh, dear!
Ariel, about an inch wide, please."
"Good! one cat, one star, one inch rope. Anything more, little lamb?"
"No-o-o, could ye do it now?"
"Aye, dearie, fetch me the ruler, the paper, an' a pencil."
So Janny watched Ariel's thin fingers work skilfully, swiftly with the
pencil, the ruler measuring off star points and a cat's length as
carefully as if the paper were Welsh flannel worth one-and-six a yard.
And the next night, after a day of unusual elation of feeling, Janny,
when sleep had come to Ariel, stole noiselessly from the marital side,
crept to the whitewashed wall of their bedroom pallid in moonshine, felt
for the white paper cat and star and length of rope hanging there
indiscernible, caught the edge of the paper with her fingers as she felt
about, unpinned the pieces, and tiptoed out of the room and down the
stairway. As she moved about the sitting-room in her night-gown, she
looked pathetically little, the flush in her cheeks marking her eager
helplessness. Much had slipped by her, and she had lost much in that
sorry life before Ariel took her and brought her to live among
strangers, whose motives and feelings she had no means of penetrating.
But the tenderness, the innocence, the expectancy of childhood had
remained with her, as if making amends for her loss or awaiting the
sunshine of maturing impulses. She set a candle beside the settle,
lifted the cover, took out two long rolls of paper, closed the settle,
and bore her parcels to the table. Then she untied them with trembling
fingers, rolling out several feet of green and crimson paper and a small
sheet of yellow. She placed weights on the corners of the lengths,
pausing to run her fingers into her hair as she gazed with rapt eyes
upon the coloured surfaces, commonplace enough to all appearances. She
took the cat, laid it carefully on the crimson, pinned it down and
pencilled around the edges. In the same fashion she drew the outlines
for four yellow stars and some lengths of yellow rope. Finally, with a
pair of shears she cut out all the outlined figures. She lifted the cat,
freed now from the matrix of surrounding paper and enlivened with the
lifelikeness of a new liberty, and held its foot and a half of length
against the candle-light. The light shone through the crimson paper but
dimly. Janny nodded, took a small cake of paraffin, melted it, and with
a bit of cloth sponged the cat as it lay upon the table. This she did
also to the four yellow stars, to the lengths of rope, and to a large
piece of green paper upon which the original cat pattern had been
appliquéd. Once more she lifted the crimson animal to the light,--the
candle-flame shone through clearly with a beautiful crimson flood of
softer light. After this Janny broke a half-dozen eggs, separating the
white from the yolk. Her fingers worked feverishly now, and her eyes
kept measuring distances; in her nervous haste there were moments when
she seemed hardly able to accomplish the next step forward in the task
she saw already complete in her mind's eye. She stopped to listen for
sounds and steps as she worked, and again and again she imagined that
Ariel was looking down from the head of the staircase. But she finished
the work uninterrupted, and with a sigh, half-sob of weariness,
half-contentment, and with many a glance of admiration as she went, she
tiptoed up the stairway. Ariel was sleeping, and as she crept into bed
she put out a hand to touch his thick black hair, and then, curling into
the cool white of her pillow, fell asleep as children sleep, one hand
resting lightly on his arm.
[Illustration: JANNY WATCHED ARIEL'S THIN FINGERS WORK SKILFULLY]
Ariel Jenkins awoke at the waking-time of all Glaslyn--the dawn; Janny
lay beside him, still sleeping, her face heavily shadowed in her
abundant hair. She seemed so wistfully childlike and her closed eyes so
unforgettably weary. Perhaps it was merely the shadows of the early dawn
and her hair, but the eyelids had a kind of veined transparency and her
skin a transparent pallor, and the mouth drooped. Ariel's selfishness
smote him consciously; he thought with a pang of Janny, and he made
resolutions. With this awakening he transferred a little of his poetry
from the bard to the man. Aye, he acknowledged to himself, this might
well be called the Education of Ariel Jenkins, bard and merchant. And
for the first time a thought that gripped his heart brought him no
desire to turn it into rhyme. He recalled compassionately all her
efforts to make improvements in the house, her evident inability to
understand and cope with the shrewd Welsh women of their village; and he
remembered with fear the prying curiosity and overt enmity these women
had shown toward Janny. Then he wondered in a desultory way what she was
planning to do with the stars and the cat and the bits of rope. And
after she awakened and they were talking at breakfast, he reflected how
easily his resolution won success, for Janny since he brought her to
Glaslyn had not been as buoyant, almost animated, as she was this
morning. Ariel thought, too, that he had not noticed before the way
Janny had of looking at him, as if she expected him to discover some
extraordinary joy; maybe she was merely looking to him for happiness,
but certainly there was an air of anticipation about her to-day.
Upon finishing breakfast Ariel passed with a sense of secure well-being
into his shop; so many problems were solving themselves, and on the
whole the man made him happier than the bard. Even the flag sidewalk
outside the shop seemed more than ordinarily lively and merry to-day. He
saw neighbours passing and heard them chatting, and once in a while
there was a loud shout of laughter. Across the street, looking towards
his shop he beheld a little knot of men,--Ivor Jones and Wil Penmorfa
and Parry Wynn,--men who did not usually have time for mirth so early in
the morning. They were talking and laughing, and Ariel saw one of them
point towards Ty Mawr. Just then Mrs. Gomer Roberts the tinman came in.
She wanted some flannel for a blouse like the material she was wearing,
and Mrs. Roberts threw back her long cloak to display the neat striped
flannel. How was Mrs. Jenkins? Ariel thanked her: Janny was well.
"I'm comin' soon to have a good long visit with her," said Mrs.
Roberts.
"Aye, ye'll be welcome."
"Ye're makin' improvements, I see."
"Aye, a few," replied Ariel, using his yardstick deftly and wondering
what improvements Mrs. Gomer Roberts could have had any opportunity to
see.
"Glaslyn's no seen anything like it," continued Mrs. Roberts,
straightening her beaver hat over the crisp white of her cap.
"No, I'm thinkin' not," answered Ariel vaguely, rolling up the bundle of
flannel with precise neatness.
He was still wondering why women talked in riddles when in came Mrs.
Jeezer Morris the minister. She had torn her blue kirtle and wanted a
new breadth. Ariel took down the cloth. Then were showered upon him in a
compacter form, and one of greater authority, practically the same
remarks as those made by Mrs. Gomer Roberts: How was Mrs. Jenkins, she
was coming to visit her, there were improvements she saw, the like of
which Glaslyn had not seen before. Mrs. Morris the minister had scarcely
finished her purchase when in came Mrs. Parry Wynn the baker; they had
apparently met that morning and their greetings were purely
conventional,--a smile, a look of inquiry, a nod of negation. Mrs. Parry
Wynn wanted some new cotton cloth, but apparently she also wished to
make the same remarks as those made by Mrs. Gomer Roberts and Mrs.
Jeezer Morris.
Then Ariel Jenkins's thoughts began the converging process, began to
gather in towards some definite centre, to fix themselves upon some one
thing which all these estimable women must have in mind. And when Mrs.
Parry Wynn left the shop, Ariel went to the door. Betto Griffiths walked
by briskly, joining the women who had just made purchases and who were
gathered in a little group opposite Ty Mawr. They were looking eagerly
at the house and gesticulating. Betto Griffiths laughed harshly as she
pointed at Ty Mawr, and shrugged her shoulders in the direction of the
shop. Ariel's heart sank. What had Janny done to make the house such an
object of attraction? He stepped out to the little group of customers
and looked up.
Except for the quick flexing of the muscles in his forehead and the
dilation of his eyes Ariel betrayed no emotion. The oriel window jutting
over the street had been transformed; he saw no longer the clear glass
of the stairway-light common to Ty Mawr and the other houses of Glaslyn,
but a crimson cat, fore-feet in air, blazoned on a green background,
each quarter of the oriel brilliant with a yellow star and the whole
device bound together with a chaplet of rope.
[Illustration: BETTO GRIFFITHS LAUGHED.]
"It _does_ make a pretty light!" he exclaimed thoughtfully; "prettier,"
he added with pride, "than I had any idea it would."
The women stared at him.
"Aye, an' it's prettier within," he continued; "it sheds such a bright
colour on dark days."
"No, is it so!" ejaculated Mrs. Parry Wynn.
"Aye, it is so," replied Ariel. "Out of Glaslyn ye see many coloured
windows like this in private houses--smart houses of course."
"Just fancy!" responded Mrs. Jeezer Morris, "we've seen them in
churches, the Nonconformists as well as the Established, but we've never
heard of coloured windows before in a village house, especially not with
such a cat----"
"Aye, the cat!" interrupted Ariel, in a caressing voice, the far-away,
much-reverenced look of the poet in his eyes, "that cat is a copy from
a--medal taken from--the sar-coph-a-gus of Tiglath Pileser II. Aye," he
added dreamily, "the cat, the sacred symbol of Egypt, holy to the Muses,
beloved of----"
"Mr. Jenkins, ye don't say so!" they all exclaimed, looking with curious
glances at the oriel window.
"I will say," nodded Mrs. Gomer Roberts, "that it has an uncommonly
intelligent look."
"Aye, so it has," agreed Mrs. Parry Wynn, "intelligent
an'--an'--lively."
Betto Griffiths glanced about the little group shrewdly.
"An' the stars, Mr. Jenkins?" she said.
"Tut, the _star_! Betto Griffiths, ye don't say ye don't know the
meanin' of the five-pointed star, sacred to history, to sacred history,
guide in the----"
"Oh, aye!" interrupted Betto, "if _that's_ the star ye mean, I certainly
do."
The little gathering took a fresh look at the window; their eyes
lingered reverently now on the emblazoned group of cat and stars leashed
together with yellow rope.
"Aye, it's a wonderful idea!" asserted Mrs. Jeezer Morris, from her
superior position and knowledge.
"Aye, wonderful!" solemnly affirmed the rest.
"I'm thinkin'," said Betto Griffiths, an undisciplined look in her eyes,
"Mrs. Jenkins made it?"
"Mrs. Jenkins! Oh, no!" exclaimed Ariel, thrusting his hands into his
trousers pockets, "I did it."
"Ye did!" they all exclaimed, admiringly.
"Mr. Jenkins," continued Mrs. Parry Wynn, whose husband, the baker, had
been standing across the street not more than a half-hour ago laughing
over the crimson cat _rampant_, blazoned on the green field, "Mr.
Jenkins, if Mr. Wynn thinks he could afford something like it, would ye
be willin'----"
"Aye, gladly," returned Ariel, "but it's expensive, Mrs. Wynn."
"Oh!" chorused the women, in deferential voices.
"But I'm thinkin'," continued Ariel, "through my connection as a
merchant I might be able to obtain the material at less expense an'----"
"If ye could!" clamoured the little group.
"Mr. Jenkins, if Mr. Roberts----" broke in Mrs. Roberts.
"Mr. Jenkins, if Mr. Morris----" interrupted Mrs. Morris.
"Won't ye come in?" asked Ariel, placidly interrupting them all. "I'm
certain ye will like the light even better from the inside where it
falls in such pleasin' colours on the landin'. When I was workin' on it
last night by moonlight the colours were like fairyland."
"Aye, it's only a poet could have conceived this," said Mrs. Morris,
with assurance, "only a poet!"
"Only a poet!" echoed the rest.
"But won't ye come in? Mrs. Jenkins will be glad to see ye."
"Aye, thank ye, 'twould be a pleasure!" And flock-like they followed
Ariel into the house.
Mrs. Jenkins's eyes were red, and there was the furtive aspect of a
trapped animal about her; but when she saw their eager faces and heard
their enthusiastic and admiring exclamations as they crowded into the
stairway landing, there was a look of surprise first, and then of
delight upon her face.
"Mr. Jenkins tells me ye didn't make it yourself," said Betto Griffiths,
suspicion still on her sharp features.
"Well, it came," replied Janny, glancing appealingly at Ariel, "it--came
from Liverpool."
"Janny _dear_," corrected Ariel, with a look straight into her eyes, "ye
mean the _material_ did."
"Aye, Ariel," answered Janny, with a mixture of childlike obedience and
confusion, "aye, just the material."
Ariel talked a great deal; the window was admired, commented upon, there
were demands for future assistance, envious exclamations of delight to
Mrs. Jenkins, who was given no chance to say a word, and the little
group departed.
"Well, Janny!" exclaimed Ariel.
"Ariel _dear_, I--I saw them--them laughin' an'--then--ye," the
flood-gates burst and Janny threw herself sobbing into Ariel's arms.
"There, there, _dear_, little lamb!" he comforted, his own eyes wet with
tears.
"I thought--thought it would--be so--pretty--an' people's
been--expectin' me--to--to make changes--an'--an'--Betto Griffiths said
improvements, an' Ariel--I--I----" Janny's voice caught and she sobbed
afresh.
"Tut, tut, little lamb, dearie, don't. Janny, Janny, don't cry."
"Ariel, I saw--the--men--laughin' an'--an' slappin' their
knees--an'--an' pointin' at the window--an' even--little Silvan runnin'
by--laughed, an' then when Betto Griffiths----" Janny faltered, gulping.
"Pooh, little lamb, Betto Griffiths!" exclaimed Ariel derisively, "Betto
Griffiths is an ignorant woman. An', dearie, didn't ye hear them all
askin' me to help them to get windows like this?"
"But, Ariel, didn't ye laugh at all?"
"I laugh, Janny! Why, dear," answered Ariel slowly, "I
think--the--window--is beautiful!"
"Oh, Ariel!" said Janny happily.
"Aye, I do; only if ye should have another idea, just tell me about it,
dearie, beforehand, for it might--perhaps it wouldn't," he added gently,
"make it awkward."
"But, Ariel, I saw----"
"Well, dear, that's enough--ye don't understand these people quite yet.
The window is beautiful; aye," he continued, "I like it, so we'll be
sendin' it to Liverpool to get a real stained-glass window something the
same--aye, dearie, I can well afford it."
_The Child_
The irons of the fireplace glowed in the light of the steady peat-fire.
The odour from the peat was delicious with the aroma of age-old forests.
With this was mingled the odour of the supper Jane Morris was clearing
away. As she moved nimbly about the table, Jane's shadow advanced and
withdrew across the blackened rafters of the roof.
"Whoo-o!" said Tom, comfortably, at the sound of the wind booming down
the rocky mountain-side. "'Tis a bad night for strangers to be abroad,
bad to be wandering along Bryn Bannog."
"Aye, 'tis dark," answered Owen, removing his pipe, and rubbing the head
of a pet lamb that lay beside him. "One minute it cries like a child,
and another it wails like a demon. But 'tis snug within, lad, an' we'll
never know want."
The bachelor brothers regarded each other and their sister with
contentment. Outside the wind shouted and cried by turns, and then died
away clamorously in the deep valley.
"Snug within, lad," reaffirmed Owen, drawing his harp to him.
Tom lifted his finger.
"Hush! Some one comes."
All listened while the wind beat upon the house and sobbed piteously in
the chimney. Jane hastened to the door.
"God's blessin'--rest--on this house!" gasped a man, stumbling in.
"Take the stranger's cloak off," commanded Owen, before the visitor was
in, "an' here's my clogs dry an' warm."
"Tut, tut," objected Jane, "'tis food he needs, whatever. I'll fetch him
bread an' fill the big pint. Now, friend, this chair by the table."
The Stranger sat down; his deep-set eyes looked out wistfully on the
awakened bustle, and on the warmth and the cheer of the cottage room.
But they heard him whisper drearily, "My little child, my little child!"
Tom tried to lift the silence that was settling over them all with a
question here and a question there. The Stranger ate absent-mindedly and
ravenously, drinking his ale in greedy draughts. Owen knocked the ashes
from his pipe and stared into the fire.
"'Tis late," he said.
The Stranger lifted his eyes, looked at the two brothers, and long at
Jane.
"I shall not rest----" he began.
"Well, Stranger, that you will not with a burden on your mind. That's
so, lad?" Tom asked, turning to Owen.
"I shall not rest till I have told my dream," he resumed. "All day and
every day my little one lies on her back--the crooked back that is
killin' her."
"Dear _anwyl_!" exclaimed Owen to Jane and Tom, "'tis very like his
little one."
"Aye, lad," answered Jane, while the wind drew gently over the
house-roof.
"The dream came many times an' I did not heed it."
"He who follows dreams follows fools," interrupted Tom.
"I am a poor man, with naught richer than dreams to follow, an' no
mother for my child. If the dream prove true, gold would make my little
one well. But the days are goin' fast an' she is weaker every day."
"Och!" sighed Jane.
"Tut, a dream come true!" scoffed Tom, laughing. "But what _was_ your
dream?" he asked, leaning forward.
"It was of a pitcherful of gold hid beneath a ruin of rocks piled one
upon another, an' it was near a great fortress built in a fashion
unknown to me. The fortress was on the crown of a rugged hill, an' it
seemed away from the sea. So I have travelled eastward."
"Pen y Gaer!" exclaimed Owen and Tom and Jane, looking at one another.
"An' in this dream I saw many strange things, garments unlike aught men
wear now."
"Aye," agreed Jane, "but it was all a dream."
"Nay, nay," replied the Stranger, "can you not tell me of it?"
"That we can," said Owen.
"Tut," interrupted Tom, "there is a round tower, aye, two round towers,
the one by Pen y Gaer, south-west over Bryn Bannog, down the bridle-path
by Llyn Cwm-y-stradlyn."
"Aye, but, lad," objected Owen, "the other----"
"The other's further away, more like a sheep-pen once than a tower for
any fortress."
Owen's face was perplexed, but Tom's calm, and his eyes keen with light.
"Rest here, Stranger," he said. "On the morrow you shall start out for
your treasure, up over Bryn Bannog."
"Nay, Tom," interrupted Owen, but Tom silenced him.
The next morning Tom stood outside the hedge that enclosed their
grey-stone mountain cottage, pointing with his finger.
"Well, more to the west, so."
"Aye," replied the Stranger, scanning Bryn Bannog, its steep meadows,
its rocks tufted with golden gorse, its craggy spine from which the mist
was lifting; "yes, the path is plain."
The Stranger set his eyes southward up the mountain. After a while he
turned to look back at the cottage cradled in the fields below; beyond
the valley, Moelwyn, massive and green; eastward, Cynicht, sharp and
grey; and still farther east, a vast wilderness of crag tumbled hither
and thither down to the very edge of the glimmering sea. "Hope goes with
me, little one," he said, and turned to climb higher. At the summit he
looked westward; there lay a lake blue as a meadow-flower, and half-way
down, by the little brook Tom had described, there was a large circle of
loose stones.
The Stranger hurried forward. He glanced at the sun, and began by the
edge of the circle near the brook, turning up the soggy earth in large
clods. He dug feverishly, working hour after hour. He lay down and
pulled the earth away in rolls, the wet drenching him, still hoping
against hope. He took the clods of earth and dashed them against the
rocks where they broke noiselessly. He looked about as if praying that
some power might come to him from the blue distance or the sky above or
the golden sun; then he sank on the stones and wept. The little green
snake that crept by in the grass, the snail that trailed over the sod,
heard him weep, and the cry that came from him, "My little one, my
little one, was it for this?"
The afternoon swung its shadows eastward, and the roof of the cottage
lay in a pointed figure on the grass beyond the hedge. Two men bearing
something toiled up the path to the hedge gate. As the sun set behind
Bryn Bannog the pointed roof-shadow drew in, and the shadow from the
hedge lay on the grass in a dark ribbon, growing narrower and fainter.
From the distant summit a single figure dropped slowly downhill, the
autumn dusk closing around it. In the windows candle-light flickered; a
woman came to the west door and looked uphill. She seemed troubled and
she had been crying.
"Brothers, he is comin'," called Jane, "he is close by the house. Och,
be kind to him for the child's sake! It is not too late even now."
"Well, Stranger," said Tom, appearing at the door, "did you find aught?"
"Nay," replied the Stranger, in a level voice. "Is there another ruin
where the dream might lie?"
"Dreams!" exclaimed Tom cheerily, "dreams, dreams! 'Tis no place for
dreams. You will find nothin' but sheep bones buried on Bryn Bannog. Do
you know of any other place, Owen?"
Owen took his pipe from his mouth, looked hard at his brother, hard at
the Stranger, started to speak, changed his mind, and put the pipe in
his mouth again.
"Will you come in an' rest?" asked Tom. "'Tis growin' dark."
"My way is long, westward over the hills, an' the child is waitin'."
"Here," said Tom, holding out a coin, "here is a crown for the little
Flower."
"Nay," replied the Stranger gently, "it would avail nothin'. She hath
need of many crowns. Good-night."
As the Stranger took the path downhill, the brothers turned indoors.
Jane confronted them, her eyes indignant, her lips tense.
"You--you will go after him. Och, that I should live to see this day!
The Lord will find you out."
Tom laughed.
"Set the candle on the table," he said; "'tis an odd box. Is the door
fast, Owen?"
"Aye, fast."
"To think it's lain in our pastures these hundreds of years."
Tom undid the hasps. He lifted out one chalice of silver after another,
and several silver plates, all marked with early dates. Tom looked
disappointed; Owen's face had grown pallid. Jane was speaking to them
both:--
"'Tis the lost church silver, the altar-service, aye, the holy
altar-service; now what will you do?" she cried.
* * * * *
At the breakfast table the porridge was eaten in silence. Jane's eyes
were red. Tom looked uneasy, and Owen stared into his dish. In vain
Gwennie thrust her little white nose against Owen's leg. "Baa-a!" Still
no attention.
"I'm glad the wind is quiet," said Jane.
There was no response.
"Did you sleep, Tom?" she asked.
"Sleep! With that shriekin' of the wind!"
"Nay," said Owen softly, "the cryin' of a little child, indeed."
"There _was_ no gold, I say," Tom asserted.
"True," Owen complied.
"Well, 'twas altar silver, whatever."
"Aye," assented Jane, "an' it must go back to the church."
"Yes, an' we're no richer," ended Tom. "We've nothin' to spare to a
stranger an' his child."
Owen turned the leaves of the big Bible on the table. Tom was staring
defiantly from Jane to Owen.
"'It were better a millstone'--" Owen began to read to himself.
"The devil!" shouted Tom, rushing from the table and slamming the door
behind him.
Owen went out after him. Their work for that day lay in the sheep-pens
by the brook, washing and shearing the sheep. Before him Tom was walking
very fast and talking in a loud, angry voice. But Owen was thinking of
the sound of the wind as it cried and whimpered and pleaded all night
long. And the flowers he saw in the grass at his feet made him think of
big eyes; and the sheen on the grass, of a child's hair; and the slender
birch-wands, of a child's little body. What would it have been like to
have had such a little one a part of him? And supposing it had lain
crumpled together like yonder fern--Owen's heart gave a great leap.
Tom was still talking when he reached the sheepfold. The anger had left
his face, and in its stead there was uneasy inquiry. Owen, without
looking at his brother, took his seat on the shearing-stool and the
shepherd carried a sheep to him. Owen turned it deftly. Clip, clip,
clip, the fleece began to roll back from the shears and the skin to
show pink through the stubble of remaining fleece. Clip! a deft turn to
right, then to left, and the fleece slipped to the ground and lay there,
white, and with arms outstretched.
"Och!" exclaimed Owen, staring at it, "I'm goin' westward to the child,
tell Jane."
"I'm goin', too," called Tom, walking after him rapidly, grumbling and
talking, "an' I'll not tell Jane. There's no need to go so fast,
whatever."
Jane came to the door of the cottage and looked down to the roadway.
Gwennie was beside her and caught sight of Owen. "Baa-a!" the lamb
bleated, scampering downhill.
"Gwennie, Gwennie!" called Jane.
But the stiff little legs were taking the hillside in leaps and bounds.
"Gwennie, _bach_, Gwen_nie_, Gwennie bach!"
Jane started downhill after the lamb. "If they're goin'," she said to
herself, with a shrewd look of understanding, "indeed, I'm goin' too."
"Baa-a!" bleated Gwennie, with little frisks and skips to right and
left.
_An All-Hallows' Honeymoon_
Intermittently the wind whined and raced, howling like a wolf, through
the Gwynen Valley; and intermittently, too, the rain doused the bridge
on whose slate coping Vavasour Jones leaned. It was a night when spirits
of air and earth, the racing wind, the thundering water, the slashing
rain, were the very soul of this chaos of noise. Still, cosy lights
shone on either side of the bridge, the lights of Ty Ucha and Ty Usaf,
where a good mug of beer could be had for a mere song to a man of
Vavasour's means. And the lights from all the cottages, too, for it was
All-Hallows' Eve, twinkled with festive brilliance upon the drenched
flags of the street. Indeed, there was not one of these houses in all
Gwynen whose walls and flaggings were not familiar to him, where
Vavasour Jones and his wife Catherine had not been on an occasion, a
knitting-night, a Christmas, a bidding, a funeral, an All-Hallows' Eve.
But to-night his eyes gazed blankly upon these preliminary signs of a
merry evening within doors, and he seemed unconscious of the rain
pouring upon him and the wind slapping the bridge. He moved when he saw
a figure approaching.
"Hist! Eilir!"
"Aye, man, who is it?"
"It's me, it's Vavasour Jones."
"Dear me, lad, what do ye here in the dark and rain?"
Vavasour said nothing; Eilir peered more closely at him. "Are ye sick,
lad?"
"Och, I'm not sick!" Vavasour's voice rang drearily, as if that were the
least of ills that could befall him.
"Well, what ails ye?"
"It's All-Hallows' Eve an'----"
"Aren't ye goin' to Pally Hughes's?"
"Ow!" he moaned, "the devil! goin' to Pally Hughes's while it's drawin'
nearer an' nearer an'--Ow!"
"Tut, man," said Eilir sharply, "ye're ill; speak up, tell me what ails
ye."
"Ow-w!" groaned Vavasour.
Eilir drew away; here was a case where All-Hallows' had played havoc
early in the evening. What should he do? Get him home? Notify Catherine?
Have the minister? He was inclining to the last resource when Vavasour
groaned again and spoke:--
"Eilir, I wisht I were dead, man."
"Dear me, lad, what is it?"
"It's the night when Catherine must go."
"When Catherine must go? What do ye mean?"
"She'll be dead the night at twelve."
"Dead at twelve?" asked Eilir, bewildered. "Does she know it?"
"No, but I do, an' to think I've been unkind to her! I've tried this
year to make up for it, but it's no use, man; one year'll never make up
for ten of harsh words an' unkind deeds. Ow!" groaned Vavasour,
collapsing on to the slate coping once more.
"Well, ye've not been good to her," replied Eilir, mystified, "that's
certain, man, but I've heard ye've been totally different the past year.
Griffiths was sayin' he never heard any more sharp words comin' from
your windows, an' they used to rain like hail on the streets some days."
"Aye, but a year'll not do any good, an' she'll be dyin' at twelve
to-night, Ow!"
"Well," said Eilir, catching at the only thing he could think of to say,
"there's plenty in the Scriptures about a man an' his wife."
"Aye, but it'll not do, not do, not do," sobbed Vavasour Jones.
"Have ye been drinkin', lad?"
"Drinkin'!" exclaimed Jones.
"Well, no harm, but lad, about the Scriptures; there's plenty in the
Scriptures concernin' a man an' his wife, an' ye've broken much of it
about lovin' a wife, an' yet I cannot understand why Catherine's goin'
an' where."
"She's not goin' anywhere, Eilir; she'll be dyin' at twelve."
Whereupon Vavasour Jones rose up suddenly from the coping, took a step
forward, seized Eilir by the coat-lapel, and, with eyes flickering like
coals in the dark, told his story. All the little Gwynen world knew that
he and his wife had not lived happily or well together; there had been
no children coming and no love lost, and, as the days went on,
bickering, scolding, harsh words, and even ugly actions. Aye, and it had
come to such a pass that a year ago this night, on All-Hallows' Eve, he
had gone down to the church-porch shortly before midnight to see whether
the spirit of Catherine would be called, and whether she would live the
twelve months out. And as he was leaning against the church-wall hoping,
aye, man, and praying that he might see her there, he saw something
coming around the corner with white over its head; it drew nearer and
nearer, and when it came in full view of the church-porch it paused, it
whirled around, and sped away with the wind flapping about its feet and
the rain beating down on its head. But Vavasour had time to see that it
was the spirit of Catherine, and he was glad because his prayer had been
answered, and because, with Catherine dying the next All-Hallows', they
would have to live together only the year out. So he went homeward
joyfully, thinking it was the last year, and considering as it was the
last year he might just as well be as kind and pleasant as possible.
When he reached home he found Catherine up waiting for him. And she
spoke so pleasantly to him and he to her, and the days went on as
happily as the courting days before they were married. Each day was
sweeter than the one before, and they knew for the first time what it
meant to be man and wife in love and kindness. But all the while he saw
that white figure by the churchyard, and Catherine's face in its white
hood, and he knew the days were lessening and that she must go. Here it
was All-Hallows' Eve again, and but four hours to midnight, and the best
year of his life was almost past. Aye, and it was all the result of his
evil heart and evil wish and evil prayer.
"Think, man," groaned Vavasour, "prayin' for her callin', aye, goin'
there hopin' ye'd see her spirit, an' countin' on her death!"
"Oh, man, it's bad," replied Eilir mournfully, "aye, an' I've no word to
say to ye for comfort. I recollect well the story my granny used to tell
about Christmas Powell; it was somethin' the same. An' there was Betty
Williams was called ten years ago, an' didn't live the year out; an'
there was Silvan Evans, the sexton, an' Geffery his friend, was called
two years ago, and Silvan had just time to dig Geffrey's grave an' then
his own, too, by its side, an' they was buried the same day an' hour."
"Ow!" wailed Vavasour.
"Aye, man, it's bad; it'll have to be endured, an' to think ye brought
it on yourself. Where's Catherine?"
"She's to Pally Hughes's for the All-Hallows' party."
"Och, she'll be taken there!"
"Aye, an' oh! Eilir, she was loth to go to Pally's, but I could not tell
her the truth."
"That's so, lad; are ye not goin'?"
"I cannot go; I'm fair crazy an' I'll just be creepin' home, waitin' for
them to bring her back. Ow!"
"I'm sorry, man," called Eilir, looking after him with an expression of
sympathy: "I can be of no use to ye now."
Across the bridge the windows of Pally Hughes's grey-stone cottage
shone with candles, and as the doors swung to and fro admitting guests,
the lights from within flickered on the brass doorsill and the hum of
merry words reached the street. Mrs. Morgan the baker, dressed in her
new scarlet whittle and a freshly starched cap, was there; Mr. Howell
the milliner, in his highlows and wonderful plum-coloured coat; Mrs.
Jenkins the tinman, with bright new ribbons to her cap and a new beaver
hat which she removed carefully upon entering; and Mr. Wynn "the shop,"
whose clothes were always the envy of Gwynen village; and many others,
big-eyed girls and straight young men, who crossed the bright doorsill.
Finally, Catherine Jones tapped on the door. Within, she looked vacantly
at the candles on the mantelpiece and on the table, all set in festoons
of evergreens and flanked by a display of painted china eggs and
animals; and at the lights shining steadily, while on the hearth a fire
crackled. Catherine, so heavy was her heart, could scarcely manage a
decent friendly greeting to old Pally Hughes, her hostess. She looked
uncheered at the big centre table, whereon stood a huge blue
wassail-bowl, about it little piles of raisins, buns, spices, biscuits,
sugar, a large jug of ale and a small bottle tightly corked. She
watched the merriment with indifference; bobbing for apples and
sixpences seemed such stupid games. There was no one in whom she could
confide now, and anyway it was too late; there was nothing to be done,
and while they were talking lightly and singing, too, for the harp was
being played, the hours were slipping away, and her one thought, her
only thought, was to get home to Vavasour. "Oh," reflected Catherine,
"I'm a wicked, wicked woman to be bringin' him to his death!"
The candles were blown out and the company gathered in a circle about
the fire to tell stories, while a kettle of ale simmered on the crane
and the apples hung roasting. Pally began the list of tales. There was
the story of the corpse-candle Lewis's wife saw, and how Lewis himself
died the next week; there were the goblins that of All-Hallows' Eve led
Davies such a dance, and the folks had to go out after him with a
lantern to fetch him in, and found him lying in fear by the sheep-wall;
and there were the plates and mugs Annie turned upside down and an
unseen visitor turned them right side up before her very eyes.
Then they began to throw nuts in the fire, each with a wish: if the nut
burned brightly the wish would-come true. Old Pally threw on a nut, it
flickered and then blazed up; Maggie tossed one into the fire, it
smouldered and gave no light. Gradually the turn came nearer Catherine;
there was but one wish in her heart and she trembled to take the chance.
"Now, Catherine!"
"Aye, Catherine, what'll she be wishin' for, a new lover?" they laughed.
With shaking hand she tossed hers into the fire; the nut sputtered and
blackened, and with a shriek Catherine bounded from the circle, threw
open the door and sped into the dark. In consternation the company
scrambled to their feet, gazing at the open door through which volleyed
the wind and rain.
Old Pally was the first to speak: "'Tis a bad sign."
"Aye, poor Catherine's been called, it may be."
"It's the last time, I'm thinkin', we'll ever see her."
"Do ye think she saw somethin', Pally, do ye?"
"There's no tellin'; but it's bad, very bad, though her nut is burnin'
brightly enough now."
"She seemed downcast the night, not like herself."
"It can be nothin' at home, for Vavasour, they say, is treatin' her
better nor ever, an' she's been that sweet-tempered the year long, which
is uncommon for her."
As she fled homeward through the dark, little did Catherine think of
what they might be saying at Pally's. When Vavasour heard feet running
swiftly along the street, he straightened up, his eyes in terror upon
the door.
"Catherine!" he cried, bewildered at her substantial appearance, "is it
ye who are really come?"
There was a momentary suggestion of a rush into each other's arms
checked, as it were, in mid-air by Vavasour's reseating himself
precipitately and Catherine drawing herself up.
"Yes," said Catherine, seeing him there and still in the flesh, "it
was--dull, very dull at Pally's; an' my feet was wet an' I feared takin'
a cold."
"Aye," replied Vavasour, looking with greed upon her rosy face and
snapping eyes, "aye, it's better for ye here, dearie."
There was an awkward silence. Catherine still breathed heavily from the
running, and Vavasour shuffled his feet. He opened his mouth, shut it,
and opened it again.
"Did ye have a fine time at Pally's?" he asked.
"Aye, it was gay and fine an'--na----" Catherine halted, remembering the
reason she had given for coming home, and tried to explain. "Yes, so it
was, an' so it wasn't," she ended.
Vavasour regarded her with attention, and there was another pause, in
which his eyes sought the clock. The sight of that fat-faced timepiece
gave him a shock.
"A quarter past eleven," he murmured; then aloud: "Catherine, do ye
recall Pastor Evans's sermon, the one he preached last New Year?"
Catherine also had taken a furtive glance at the clock, a glance which
Vavasour caught and wondered at.
"Well, Catherine, do----"
"Aye, I remember, about inheritin' the grace of life together."
"My dear, wasn't he sayin' that love is eternal an' that--a
man--an'--an' his wife was lovin' for--for----"
"Aye, lad, for everlastin' life," Catherine concluded.
There was another pause, a quick glancing at the clock, and a quick
swinging of two pairs of eyes towards each other, astonishment in each
pair.
"Half-after eleven," whispered Vavasour, seeming to crumple in the
middle. "An', dear," he continued aloud, "didn't he, didn't he say that
the Lord was mindful of our--of our--difficulties, and our temptations,
an' our--our----"
"Aye, an' our mistakes," ended Catherine.
"Do ye think, dearie," he went on, "that if a man were to--to--na--to be
unkind a--a very little to his wife--an' was sorry an' his wife--his
wife--died, that he'd be--be----?"
"Forgiven?" finished Catherine. "Aye, I'm thinkin' so. An', lad dear, do
ye think if anythin' was to happen to ye the night,--aye, _this_
night,--that ye'd take any grudge away with ye against me?"
Vavasour stiffened.
"Happen to _me_, Catherine?"
Then he collapsed, groaning.
"Oh, dearie, what is it, what is it, what ails ye?" cried Catherine,
coming to his side on the sofa.
"Nothin', nothin' at all," he gasped, slanting an eye at the clock. "Ow,
the devil, it's twenty minutes before twelve!"
"Oh, lad, what is it?"
"It's nothin', nothin' at all, it's--it's--ow!--it's just a little pain
across me."
Catherine stole a look at the timepiece,--a quarter before twelve, aye,
it was coming to him now, and her face whitened to the colour of the
ashes in the fireplace.
To Vavasour the whimpering of the wind in the chimney was like the bare
nerve of his pain. Even the flickering of the flame marked the flight of
time, which he could not stay by any wish or power in him. Only ten
minutes more, aye, everything marked it: the brawl of the stream
outside, the rushing of the wind, the scattering of the rain like a
legion of fleeing feet, then a sudden pause in the downpour when his
heart beat as if waiting on an unseen footstep; the very singing of the
lazy kettle was a drone in this wild race of stream and wind and rain,
emphasising the speed of all else. Vavasour cast a despairing glance at
the mantel, oh! the endless _tick-tick, tick-tick_, of that round clock
flanked by rows of idiotic, fat-faced, whiskered china cats, each with
an immovably sardonic grin, not a whisker stirring to this merciless
_tick-tick_. Aye, it was going to strike in a minute, and the clanging
of it would be like the clanging of the gates of hell behind him. He
did not notice Catherine, that she, too, unmindful of everything, was
gazing in horror at the mantel. Vavasour groaned; oh! if the clock
were only a toad or a serpent, he would put his feet on it, crush it,
and--oh!--Vavasour swore madly to himself, covering his eyes. Catherine
cried out, her face in her hands--the clock was striking.
Twelve!
The last clang of the bell vibrated a second and subsided; the wind
whimpered softly in the chimney, the tea-kettle sang on. Through a chink
in her fingers Catherine peered at Vavasour; through a similar chink
there was a bright agonised eye staring at her.
"Oh!" gulped Catherine.
"The devil!" exclaimed Vavasour.
"Lad!" called his wife, putting out a hand to touch him.
Then followed a scene of joy; they embraced, they kissed, they danced
about madly, and having done it once, they did it all over again and
still again.
"But, Katy, are ye here, really _here_?"
"Am _I_ here? Tut, lad, are _ye_ here?"
"Aye, that is, are we _both_ here?"
"Did ye think I wasn't goin' to be?" asked the wife, pausing.
"No-o, not that, only I thought, I thought ye was goin'--to--to faint. I
thought ye looked like it," replied Vavasour, with a curious expression
of suppressed, intelligent joy in his eyes.
"Oh!" exclaimed Catherine. Then, suddenly, the happiness in her face was
quenched. "But, lad, I'm a wicked woman, aye, Vavasour Jones, a bad
woman!"
As Vavasour had poured himself out man unto man to Eilir, so woman unto
man Catherine poured herself out to her husband.
"An', lad, I went to the church-porch hopin', almost prayin' ye'd be
called, that I'd see your spirit walkin'."
"Catherine, ye did that!"
"Aye, but oh! lad, I'd been so unhappy with quarrelling and hard words,
I could think of nothin' else but gettin' rid of them."
"Och, 't was bad, very bad!" replied Vavasour.
"An' then, lad, when I reached the church-corner an' saw your spirit was
really there, really called, an' I knew ye'd not live the year out, I
was frightened, but oh! lad, I was glad, too."
Vavasour looked grave.
"Katy, it was a terrible thing to do!"
"I know it now, but I didn't at that time, dearie," answered Catherine;
"I was hardhearted, an' I was weak with longin' to escape from it all.
An' then I ran home," she continued; "I was frightened, but oh! lad
dear, I was glad, too, an' now it hurts me so to think it. An' when ye
came in from the Lodge, ye spoke so pleasantly to me that I was
troubled. An' now the year through it's grown better an' better, an' I
could think of nothin' but lovin' ye an' wishin' ye to live an knowin' I
was the cause of your bein' called. Och, lad, _can_ ye forgive me?"
asked Catherine.
"Aye," replied Vavasour slowly, "I can--none of us is without sin--but,
Katy, it was wrong, aye, a terrible thing for a woman to do."
"An' then to-night, lad, I was expectin' ye to go, knowin' ye couldn't
live after twelve, an' ye sittin' there so innocent an' mournful; an'
when the time came I wanted to die myself. Oh!" moaned Catherine
afresh.
"No matter, dearie, now," comforted Vavasour, putting his arm about her,
"it _was_ wrong in ye, but we're still here an' it's been a sweet year,
aye, it's been better nor a honeymoon, an' all the years after we'll
make better nor this. There, Katy, let's have a bit of a wassail to
celebrate our All-Hallows' honeymoon, shall we?"
"Aye, lad, it would be fine," said Catherine, starting for the bowl,
"but Vavasour, can ye forgive me, think, lad, for hopin', aye, an'
almost prayin' to see your spirit, just wishin' that ye'd not live the
year out?"
"Katy, I can, an' I'm not layin' it up against ye, though it was a
wicked thing for ye to do--for any one to do. Now, dearie, fetch the
wassail."
Catherine started for the bowl once more, then turned, her black eyes
snapping upon him.
"Vavasour, how does it happen that the callin' is set aside an' that
ye're _really_ here? Such a thing's not been in Gwynen in the memory of
man"; and Catherine proceeded to give a list of the All-Hallows'-Eve
callings that had come inexorably true within the last hundred years.
"I'm not sayin' how it's happened, Catherine, but I'm thinkin' it's
modern times an' things these days are happenin' different,--aye, modern
times."
"Good!" sighed Catherine contentedly, "it's lucky 'tis modern times."
_The Heretic's Wife_
"Mother, Mr. Thatcher oversteps himself; any such suggestions should be
comin' from the landlord." Gabriel puffed out his whiskered cheeks and
grew red under his eyes.
"There, father dear, there," Maggie hastened to soothe him.
"Tut, mam, a man knows what he's talkin' about by the time he's seventy,
doesn't he? A man has a right to his own thoughts; now, hasn't he? I
tell ye, it was insultin', most insultin'!"
"Aye, it's so," admitted Maggie ruefully, "but, father----"
"He's always interferin' with your private affairs, he is," Gabriel
interrupted, heedless of Maggie's attempts to change the conversation.
"At best he's nothin' but an absentee's gentleman, now, isn't he?"
"No, I think; I'm thinkin', dad, he is himself a gentleman," Maggie
contradicted gently.
"Pooh! no gentleman at all! He's the lad's tool, given the education of
a gentleman, taught to carry himself like a gentleman, an' livin' in
the landlord's house in his absence; but for all that he's not a
gentleman, naught but an upper servant, an' Sir Evan treats him so. I'm
thinkin' a very self-respectin' man wouldn't be takin' such a position
nowadays, now, would he?"
At the sound of a horse's hoofs upon the road Gabriel turned to the
window with eager curiosity, his head travelling the width of the
latticed light.
"There's the young master ridin' by now!" he exclaimed.
As she contemplated the back of Gabriel's head, his pink ears protruding
independently from the sides of his bald, shiny pate as if they, too,
had opinions of their own, Maggie's eyes gathered anxiety. Gabriel
turned to the hearth again.
"Well, mam?"
"Father, these are dangerous new ideas ye're gettin'," she answered.
"Tut, if Mr. Thatcher, steward or no steward, felt like a gentleman,
then in my eyes he'd be a gentleman, indeed. But no gentleman would ever
act as Mr. Thatcher does, now, isn't it?"
"Lad, lad!" Maggie remonstrated.
This advanced thinking would do for the young ones; she would have had
to confess to a liking for it in her children's letters. It was right
for a new world perhaps; but she thought with alarm of Gabriel daring
to assert such views here on the very flaggings, under the very thatch
of Isgubor Newydd. She looked anxiously towards the hearth, as if she
feared such social doctrine might quench its brightly glowing pot of
coals, or destroy its shining fire-stools, candlesticks, pewter
platters, and big copper cheese-dishes, or break its fragile, iridescent
creamers and sugar basins and jugs,--there, much of it, four hundred
years ago at a certain wedding-breakfast, just as it had been at her own
some forty years ago. It would not have surprised her now to have it all
come clattering down about her head and break in precious fragments on
the stone hearth.
"Mam," said Gabriel, looking shrewdly at her troubled face, "do ye
recall the repairs we asked for and never got?"
"Aye, dad dear."
"Well, mam, David Jones had his an' he asked after us. David Jones
trades at Mr. Thatcher's shop, mam, an' we don't an' we're not a-goin'
to," Gabriel ended pugnaciously.
"Och, father!"
"Aye, it's so, isn't it? It's insultin', isn't it, suggestin' a man
change his way of prayin' to suit his landlord's steward an'--an'--"
Gabriel added hesitatingly, "his landlord, I suppose, too; an' the
steward obligin' him to trade at his shop to get any paint or a roof
tatchèd."
The firelight shone upon Gabriel's fringe of whiskers and glowed through
his pink ears and twinkled upon his bald head. He looked up indignantly
to the rafters above him; they were well hung with hams and bacons upon
which the dry salt glistened like frost. His expression mellowed. He
glanced at the bright hearth with its bright trimmings; he looked from
the purring kettle and purring kitten before Maggie's feet to Maggie
herself, daintily upright on the dark settle, her cap and apron
immaculately white. She was as comely and fragile as the antique china
she cherished. Then Gabriel spoke contentedly, like a man who has
counted his riches and found them after all more than sufficient.
"Well, mam, we've prospered even here, haven't we? It's leading a
righteous life does it; aye, an' there's the young man has made us all
feel like livin' better, hasn't he?"
"Aye, dear beloved," Maggie nodded, glad of the turn the conversation
was taking, "even in his picture he looks like one lifted up, like the
apostle Paul."
"They say, mam, that for fifteen years he prayed the same prayer to get
knowledge an' do good."
"Aye, an' it came, an' now from being nought but a collier, he's
influencin' thousands and thousands."
"Good reason; there's power there we know nothin' about," Gabriel said
meditatively, "an', mam," he continued, "he appears like a gentleman;
you might think he'd been born an' bred a gentleman."
"Yes, dad, an' they say he's questionin' himself seriously," replied
Maggie, leading away from the possibility of a renewed debate; "that
he's puzzlin' an gettin' learnin' an' goin' to college. It's been a
sweet season, father; the long winter's not been dull at all, what with
meetin's every night till ten and eleven."
"Aye, it's been a blessed time, mam, an' growin' better every day. With
the singin' above the housetops an' the heavenly lights, it looks like a
new revelation."
"But I'm wishin' the Revival was quieter in some ways," Maggie objected;
"there's people that's fairly crazed by it; yes, an' when they're
gettin' the hwyl so many at once it's--it's----"
"Tut, mam," said Gabriel fiercely, "it's hot, aye; but it's a grand an'
blessed stir. An' the strength it brings to men!"
As Gabriel raised his hand to enforce his belief, there was a rap on the
cottage door. Maggie got up nimbly, smoothed down her apron, and
hastened to the low entry.
"Aye, Mr. Thatcher, come in."
"Ah!" said Mr. Thatcher, coming in, "cosy little room, brasses
attractive, pretty willow-wood there. Ah, good-afternoon, Gabriel, about
to have your tea, don't let me disturb you." And Mr. Thatcher seated
himself comfortably by the kitchen fire.
"We can wait for our tea, Mr. Thatcher," said Gabriel, continuing to
stand.
"Ah, very well, I won't keep you long! I just came in to speak to you
about that little matter I mentioned the other day. Sir Evan is much in
earnest; he feels that church tenants would be a decided advantage
to--to the harmony of the estate."
Maggie's glance fluttered anxiously to Gabriel.
"Mr. Thatcher, a man can't change his beliefs to suit his landlord's,
meanin' no disrespect to Sir Evan," came the reply, in a voice as
uncompromising as Gabriel's attitude.
"Ah-h, well," drawled Mr. Thatcher, tapping his long nose; "there's
Price an' Howell an' Jenkins, they're church people _now_," he
concluded.
"May every one pity them!" exclaimed Gabriel.
"Dad, dad!" called Maggie rebukingly.
"Ah!" said Mr. Thatcher. "Well, Gabriel, I came here to speak of other
matters, too. You never come to my shop?"
"No, Mr. Thatcher, I don't."
Maggie was wringing her hands under her apron.
"You farmers don't know when you're well off; it would be profitable for
you to trade there."
Maggie stared in dismay at the red mounting under Gabriel's eyes and
flushing the edges of his bald head.
"Is that a bribe ye're offerin' me, Mr. Thatcher?" Gabriel asked.
"Ah! no impertinence, if you please," replied the steward. "As I was
saying, Sir Evan is very devout now and much in earnest about having his
people churched, so it will be necessary, unless you have a change of
opinion, for you to leave Isgubor Newydd in two weeks."
Mr. Thatcher rapped his gaiter and looked before him into the fire.
"Father," said Maggie, poking him, her wrinkled cheeks white, her lips
trembling; "father, did he say _leave_ Isgubor Newydd?"
"You heard Mr. Thatcher, mam," answered Gabriel stonily.
"Of course, Gabriel," continued the steward, "there is the shop, as a
favour to you, if----"
"Sir!" roared Gabriel, his hands working, his eyes blazing.
"Dad, dad dear!" cried Maggie, clinging to his arm; "father, remember."
Mr. Thatcher had risen and was stepping towards the door.
"Good-afternoon," he said, "in two weeks, if you please."
They watched the figure of the steward disappear through the doorway,
then Gabriel took his seat by the fire.
"Leave Isgubor Newydd?" Maggie whispered.
"Well, mam, I'd rather go than stay," said Gabriel sharply.
"Dad!"
"Aye, it'll be sacrificin' somethin' for the faith."
"Och, you don't understand," Maggie cried; "I was born here, mother was
born here--for hundreds of years we've lived in Isgubor Newydd!"
"Mam, it'll be doin' somethin' for the faith," Gabriel replied
obstinately, in his voice the trumpet-sound of battle; "an' I say I'd
rather go than stay, whatever."
"Och, father, father dear, how can ye? An' we were married here an' the
little ones were born here, an' when they come home where'll they come
to now?"
For an instant Gabriel looked bewildered, then said stoutly, "Tut, mam!"
"I can't believe the young master did it," continued Maggie, unsilenced;
"lovin' the house is most like lovin' the children. Dear beloved, can't
you see?"
Without even a shake of the head Gabriel stared before him.
"Dad, I have----" Maggie hesitated, "I've three pounds put by for an ill
day."
"Well?"
"Dad dear," Maggie whispered, desperate courage on her lips, desperate
fear in her eyes, "would ye--would ye buy me somethin'--somethin' at Mr.
Thatcher's shop--or--that is just for me or--or--I'll do it, father?"
"Maggie Williams," Gabriel shouted, "do ye know what ye are sayin', or
are ye the devil temptin' me?"
* * * * *
With the habit of a lifetime Maggie, in the end, tried to acquiesce and
think only of Gabriel's point of view. She chid herself for lack of
strength, for want of courage to act for her faith. She made, as the
days went by, an effort to seem the same to Gabriel, but all the while
it was as if something were eating out her life. As she went about the
little cottage her hands followed from one object to another, for
whereever her eyes fell they fell upon something dearly loved. It took
her an interminable time to pack anything to leave Isgubor Newydd; it
was handled and handled again, and then set aside because, after all,
she could not tell what should be done with it. As a result, for the
first time in many generations the cottage was in confusion.
Maggie began with the chest. The very odour from the oaken box made her
ache. When, first of all, out came the little garments of the children
who had scattered over the world, as a Welshman's children often must,
she wept. The wee, clumsy clogs with their stubbed toes, the patched
corduroy trousers, the round caps, seemed so dear, as if their little
master's frolics were a thing of yesterday.
But Maggie knew that time now to be a thing of the past,--a past of
which she could not keep even the hearth, the walls, the garden within
which these joys had been lived. Next, she took out a beaver hat that
had been her mother's; she smoothed it gently as if it were a tired
head, she put it against her cheek, she held it away from her, looking
at it tenderly, then with a moan she dropped it back into the chest.
That part of her life, too, seemed but yesterday, and yet it was so much
older than Gabriel and the children. As long as she lived, Maggie asked
herself, would these things always be young to her? As she stood there
thinking, it came to her that people at least did not realise that they
were growing old if they stayed in the same place, for the place was
always young, its rafters staunch, its walls fresh, the flowers renewed
their bloom and the grass its colour. With sudden resolve Maggie
decided that they must not leave Isgubor Newydd, for Gabriel did not
know what he was doing. There were the three pounds--perhaps that might
help them. She had no time to lose, she must hasten, and her thoughts
ran feverishly forward into the future.
Gabriel had noticed that Maggie was growing weaker; her hands shook, she
talked to herself, and often, when Gabriel came into the room, she
started. Gabriel did not wish to see these things; he was like a cruel
prophet exulting in sacrifice, even in the sacrifice of Maggie to the
uttermost. The stress of these days but added strength to his step and
power to his glance. In chapel he sang with a mighty voice, and loud and
frequent were his assents to the minister's prayers. From his deacon's
seat, where he received congratulation from those less blessed by
persecution than himself, he could see Maggie seated limply upon the
narrow pew bench, all her one-time erectness gone, her eyes wandering to
the windows high above the heads of the congregation, and to the
mountains, higher still, which looked down into this little chapel of
men. Gabriel was like some protomartyr of ancient Wales, like Amphibalus
or Albanus of Caerlon; in his zeal he was indifferent to personal
discomfort and sacrifice. He exulted in his strength with a savage joy,
and because he was resisting his natural inclination to be kind to
Maggie, he was roughly unkind,--unkind for the first time in their
lives. On his fingers he told over and over all the sacrifices martyrs
and prophets and teachers had made of their nearest and dearest. It was
a glorious bead-roll, one to make the eyes of a valiant man shine. He
could give nothing more precious than Maggie. He exhorted her to be
strong in spirit. She listened patiently to his words, her hands
unclasped in her lap, her head drooping, and a gentle "yes" breathed
from time to time. She was like a tired child, good still, but too weary
to know what it was all about. To Gabriel she seemed so ineffective that
he wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her, for in his eyes
righteousness had gone completely out of her. She was a vessel empty of
strength, and every time he spoke to her, her head drooped a little more
and the poor hands lay more weakly in her lap. "Yes, father, I will
try," she would say in reply to his exhortation; and then the touch of
the place ached in her fingers and ran up into her heart, and her one
longing was to gather it all to her breast, if only she could, and run
away with it to the ends of the earth, where persecution could not take
it from her again. There was no piece of its wood or stone that was not
living to her, that had not entered into her sense of motherhood, of
possession, for which she did not feel, where a good woman weak or
strong feels everything that is inseparable from her.
One day, four days before they must leave Isgubor Newydd, Gabriel came
out of his fields, rich with the grass the benefit of which he was not
to reap, and saw something creeping slowly by the hedge along the road
to the village. He studied it. He rubbed his old eyes and looked again.
It was Maggie's cloak and cap, and she was well up the hill to the town.
But she went slowly, one hand leaning on the wall in front of the hedge,
the other grasping a stick. Suddenly Gabriel started. Ah, if she had
_that_ in mind! He hurried forward to overtake her. As he approached,
Maggie turned.
"Is that you, dad?" she said.
"Mam," was all he answered, his eyes looking her through.
"I--I was goin' to--to the town," she faltered.
"Why?"
"To--to buy somethin'," she replied unsteadily.
"At Mr. Thatcher's shop?" Gabriel demanded.
"A--a little, dad," she replied, stretching out one hand upon the wall
for more support.
"Give me your purse."
Maggie gave it to him and Gabriel opened it; there within lay the three
gold pieces. Gabriel took her by the arm, and, shaking her, turned her
towards home.
Another day went by, and Maggie continued to pick up things that should
be packed, only to put them down again. The Welsh have tender hearts for
trouble, and many a kind soul among her neighbours would have been glad
to assist her. Besides, there was the added incentive of persecution
which makes all the Welsh world kin and which made the village proud of
Isgubor Newydd. But the thought of neighbourly assistance was repulsive
to Maggie. She could not let others see those things now. Under
Gabriel's condemnation, too, she had lost her self-respect, and was
furtive and half ashamed of meeting her neighbours. When Gabriel was in
the house, she moved about from thing to thing, with a feint of
accomplishing something of the work of which so much was to be done. But
when he was out she hurried from object to object, talking incessantly
to herself and whatever she touched.
"There, little one," she said to a creamer she took from a shelf,
stuffing a piece of paper into it, "that will be grand to keep your
heart from crackin' while you're away from home." Then, looking
aimlessly about the room, she put the pitcher back again upon the shelf
and went over to the latticed light where stood a pot of tall fuchsias.
With her finger she counted the blossoms: "Twenty blossoms an' fifty
buds; that's less than this time last year. You must grow, little
hearts," she said. "Ow! he'll be comin' back an' not a thing done," she
continued, hastening to a pile of plates that had stood in the same
place for almost a week. "My! but the lads wore the bench slidin' in an'
out, an' here's a rough place; I'll call Eilio to make it smooth.
Eilio!" she called, then brushed her hand uncertainly over her forehead.
"He's not here," she said. "Ow! there's the candlesticks. I'd most
forgotten ye, ten--a dozen bright eyes; that's a many for old
Maggie,--I'm old now, yes, I am,--a dozen bright eyes for one old woman;
aye, an' for Gabriel, too, the lad'd not do without ye. In ye go!" And
she took them all and threw them clattering into an empty box. "Hwi,
hwi, now go to sleep while mam sings a lullabye--a sweet lullabye--a
little lullabye--shoo! Here, Gwennie bach, here, darlin'--it's--it's
just a bit of tea-cake mam made for ye--it's rich, most too rich for a
little one an', dear little heart, it's plums in it an'--an'----" And
with a moan Maggie slipped to the slate flaggings, the empty plate
breaking upon the stones.
So Gabriel found her lying huddled upon the hearth, her cap awry, her
eyes closed, her mouth open and her breath coming harshly. Out in the
barn he had heard the call for Eilio and stopped to wonder what it
meant. Then followed a great clatter, and shortly a crash as of breaking
china.
"Mam," he said, gathering her head awkwardly into his arms, "mam, are ye
hurt?"
There was no answer.
"Mam," he whispered, staring at her, "what is it?" Still the eyelids,
puffed and blue, lay unstirred. "Och!" he cried, "mam, mam, can't ye
speak?"
Tremblingly Gabriel picked her up and carried her over to the couch. He
fetched water and wrung out his handkerchief in it and bathed Maggie's
head. He dropped on his knees beside her and clumsily loosened her cap
and blouse. He thought he had killed Maggie, and he saw now that he had
done so without making even an effort to keep what might have saved her
life. The sense of righteousness had gone completely out of him, and his
satisfied and valiant soul was crumpled into a wretched little wad, the
very thought of which sickened him. Year after year she had taken the
brunt of all the trouble of their home, and there was no sorrow that had
not rested its head on her bosom, and, soothed by her hand, found its
peace there. Gabriel bathed her face with the cool water; still no sign
of consciousness stirred the bland look of the mouth. She had worn
herself out in his service, and now at the last he had been willing,
without an effort to see her point of view, to sacrifice her on the
altar of his self-righteousness. He was a man; steward or no steward, he
could have fought for her rights. Even if he had not won, if the
landlord had proved as obdurate as the steward was corrupt, why the
fight might have heartened Maggie for what must come. He not only had
not fought for her, but he had been cruel to her, leaving her wholly
alone at a time when she most needed support and sympathy.
"Poor little mam!" he whispered, helpless with the thought that he might
be helpless to do anything for her any more.
With a sigh Maggie opened her eyes and smiled at him.
"Lad, are ye here?"
"Aye, mam."
"Did it break?"
"No, dearie," he replied, looking from the strewn floor with such
reassurance for her that the deacons, if they could have seen his face,
would have been confounded.
"An' the creamer I stuffed so full of paper? I thought I heard it
crack."
"No, mam, not a crack."
"What'm I lyin' here for, lad? Dreamin'?"
"Aye, restin' ye a little."
"Aren't we goin' somewhere? I'm a bit tired, dad; I'd rather stay here,"
she concluded, looking up at him trustfully.
"We're goin' nowhere whatever, mam; an' ye shall stay here," Gabriel
answered.
"Is that the children playin'?"
"Aye, dearie, playin' in the garden."
"Dear, dear!" Maggie exclaimed, "I hear their little clogs clattering
like ponies. I'll just peek at the lambs."
She lifted herself up and dropped back.
"I'm tired!" she exclaimed apologetically.
"Aye, dearie," Gabriel said; then asked, "Will ye be still here a half
hour while I write a bit of a letter an' take it out?"
"Yes," she said, "very still, lad; I'll just sleep awhile"; and smiling
at him, she closed her eyes.
* * * * *
"Poor old man!" Sir Evan muttered, his austere young face angry and
pained. He turned to the letter again.
"Sir," it read, "Mr. Thatcher said we must leave Isgubor Newydd in two
weeks. It broke Maggie's heart. A few minutes ago I found her lying on
the floor touched. It will kill her if we must go. Sir, if your honoured
lady mother were living, would you have the heart to send her away from
her home? Sir, for God's sake let me hear from you. Your humble servant,
GABRIEL WILLIAMS."
The stewards of the estate had been brought up upon it for generations
in an unbroken line of eldest sons from one family of the tenantry. So
rigid had the family's adherence to this custom been, that sometimes
their world had had a good steward, sometimes a bad, just as all the
Empire had had sometimes an excellent monarch, sometimes a wicked or
incompetent ruler. It was a condition of affairs Sir Evan had taken for
granted, without question of the right and wrong to himself or to
others. He had wasted neither liking nor affection upon Thatcher, but it
had not occurred to him that he could employ some one in whom he had
confidence. Now Evan saw the possibilities of the past few years, the
injustices and neglect and trouble which the steward might have
inflicted in the landlord's name. How could he know that repairs, for
which he paid, had been carried out? How could he know that all the
houses had been kept in good condition? How could he tell whether the
tenants were receiving an equal amount of attention, that the fields
were being improved and the stock increased? He was convinced that there
had been injustice of some kind to Gabriel and Maggie; he knew the old
man well enough to know that he would have trouble with any steward not
so uncompromisingly honest as himself. Evan realised now, with the
letter before him, what sort of a master he had been to these people who
called him "Master," and in every one of whose homes there hung a
picture of himself. He did not know now, he had never known, whether
they had been dealt with justly or unjustly.
As he rode on towards Isgubor Newydd his mind was full of anxieties. For
the first time in the few years of his majority possessions had become a
burden. The real obligation to administer, he saw, could not be given to
a deputy as he had been giving it to Thatcher. And all the while he had
known the steward was not the man morally or otherwise that he should
be. Evan saw a new meaning in the fields and hills of his estate and a
new accountability for himself--one in which he would himself be
directly responsible. Already, however, it might be too late to undo
some of the harm he had wrought. He asked immediately for Maggie when
Gabriel opened the door.
"She's the same, sir," replied Gabriel, admitting him.
"O Gabriel, I'm so sorry," Evan said.
"Aye, sir," Gabriel replied, with some stiffness, "it's natural your
wantin' church tenants."
"But did you think I would let Thatcher send you away from the home you
have had so long?" asked Evan, sick with the thought that this after all
was what his tenants thought he would do.
"Indeed, sir, we didn't know."
"Ah well, it's my fault," Evan answered humbly. "For what reasons were
you asked to leave?"
"Och, sir, you would not like the truth."
"Aye, Gabriel, but tell it since I ask for it."
"Well, sir, first because we wouldn't be churched."
Evan's eyes winced. "And then?"
"Well, sir, because we wouldn't trade at Mr. Thatcher's shop."
"Trade at Thatcher's shop?" Evan repeated incredulously, anger and
humiliation in his tone.
"Aye, sir." Then seeing the mortification upon Sir Evan's face, Gabriel
added hastily: "But it's my fault Maggie's out'n her head. I was cruel
to her, an' between that an' havin' to leave home it broke her heart."
"No, Gabriel, it's more my fault than yours," said Evan. "May I see
her?"
"Aye, sir," assented Gabriel, taking him into the kitchen.
Maggie raised her head, a bright look of love and welcome upon her face.
"Lad, I heard ye, I thought ye'd come, an' ye've come so far."
"Och, pardon her, sir," said Gabriel, "she thinks it's Eilio. Mam, it's
the master, not Eilio."
Evan rested his hand on Maggie's hot forehead. "So," he asked, "you are
not well to-day?"
"Aye, tired--but it's nothin' at all, nothin' at all, whatever, except a
sorrow here, dearie," and Maggie pointed to her bosom.
"A sorrow, Maggie?"
"Aye, but it's no matter at all now," she answered. "I'll put it by in
the creamer with the paper, stuff it in tight like cheese in a sack."
And she laughed merrily.
"That's right," he replied.
"My, ye've grown to a sweet-lookin' lad," she said, patting his hand.
"Could ye--could ye keep a home for mam now? I'll give ye," she
whispered, looking at Gabriel furtively, "everythin' I have--that's
three pounds. But ye mustn't tell him."
Evan glanced at Gabriel, but the old man did not see him, for he was
staring at the floor.
"Lad, could ye?" Maggie demanded again.
"Yes, Maggie," Evan answered, "we will keep a home for you as long as
you live. You shall have Isgubor Newydd--see, I will give it to you. You
shall have a deed of it."
"There," said Maggie, "of course, tell father now, an'--an' I hope he'll
want to stay."
_The Choice_
I
Keturah, leaning towards the open grate of coals in the cheerful kitchen
of the Reverend Samson Jones, rubbed up and down, up and down her old
shin; so rhythmical was the motion that she might have been sousing or
rubbing clothes, except for a polyphonic "Ow! Ow!" to set off the
rubbing. Keturah knew better than to quarrel with fate. But when the
latch lifted she looked up eagerly, with that instinctive hunger for
sympathy upon which most of the satisfaction of joy or the pleasure of
pain depends. It was Deb, the widow Morgan's servant, and Keturah
groaned afresh with the joyous sense of having from all the world just
the audience she would have chosen for her misery.
"Ow, ow!"
"Well, indeed, what is it?" asked Deb, subduing her voice, but unable to
dim the two ripe, red cherries in her old red cheeks, or the snap in her
old eyes.
"Ow, 'tis a pain--ow! a pain in me leg."
"Och, well, 't is too bad, but 'tis nothin', 'tis nothin'
but the effect of old age," said Deb comfortingly, "an' old age is
never comin' alone."
"Not comin' alone?"
"Nay, nay, no more nor youth comes without love, nor middle age without
comfort, nor----"
"Tut," interrupted Keturah sharply, "indeed ye are makin' a mistake; the
pain has nothin' to do with growin' old. The other leg is quite as old
whatever, but that one is well, aye, quite well."
After an awkward silence Deb said lightly, "Is it? well, indeed!" then
passed with feminine skill to another subject. "Have ye heard the news
about Tudur Williams? No? Well, he went quite nasty with Cardo Parry for
playin' false with poor little Sally Edwards."
"Did he so! Tudur is always fightin', his pale face looks so fierce."
"Aye, bleached. 'Tis hard rememberin' he an' the schoolmistress are
brother and sister."
"Aye, hard, but what did Cardo Parry do?"
The two women lowered their voices, and with that naïve liking old age
often has for repulsive tales, they rolled this particular story as a
sweet morsel under their tongues. Keturah forgot to rub her old shin,
and the two women confronted each other in the candle-lighted room with
bright eyes in which every skip of the flame from the coals over the
shining brasses was reflected.
"Tudur Williams was right!" exclaimed Keturah.
"Aye, Tudur Williams is always right; but do you believe in it?"
"Aye, aye, I do indeed."
"Tut, Keturah, believe that? I cannot. Ye're that trustin', ye'd believe
the whale swallowed Jonah, indeed."
"Aye, so I do," fervently affirmed Keturah; "that blessed story I heard
from the master's father first, and I've heard it often from the master
himself. 'Tis true as the Lord's Prayer."
"Pooh!" sniffed Deb, with the superiority of one indulging in the higher
criticism; "if the Bible said Jonah swallowed the whale ye'd believe
that, too!"
"Aye, aye, indeed, iss, iss, if the Bible said so," admitted Keturah
simply; "but the Bible don't."
"Well," Deb hastened to add, with a sense of having been on tottering
exegetical foundations, "I dunno. But if I was to say the pastor would
marry my mistress, would ye believe that, now would ye?"
Keturah considered; she had a helpless sense of tossing Jonah and the
whale to and fro in an effort to understand the connection of Deb's last
remark. To this sober, long-nosed old woman, the pastor's devoted
servant, the mental processes of the widow's cherry-cheeked Deb were
often hard to understand. Keturah thought her distinctly light-minded,
but without Deb the old woman would have been lost. In the last ten
years, in which the Reverend Samson Jones had been, according to more
lenient Wesleyan dispensation and the power of his own eloquence,
returned twice to Gelligaer, Keturah had conceived a real love for and
dependence on Deb.
"Marry the widow Jenkin Morgan?" she repeated.
"Aye, the mistress."
"Are her parents ailin'?"
"Nay," admitted Deb, crestfallen.
"Then what made ye say it?"
"I dunno," replied Deb, "but I've a feelin' here"--she patted her
corsage with bright assurance--"that somethin' is comin', aye, somethin'
is comin', now isn't it?"
"How can I tell? I'm thinkin' it will not be the widow whatever."
"Tut, he loves her, now doesn't he?"
"Aye, he does," replied Keturah, taking again to rubbing her shin.
"Aye, so he does, an' it's like to have ruined his life. A woman's no
right to hold out to stay with her parents, be they as old as
Methuselah, when a man needs her to wife. Aye, he's grown old with it
all, an' he the first man in Gelligaer! But I'm thinkin' he'll not marry
her."
"Not marry her!" exclaimed Deb, in real alarm. "Not marry her in the
end?"
"Not marry her," solemnly repeated Keturah. "Since he went to see his
lady mother last he's acted brisker, aye, he's stepped firmer and
swifter, an'--an'----"
"An' what?" asked Deb breathlessly.
"An' he's been to see the schoolmistress three times since Sabbath once
before last."
Deb gasped, her eyes helplessly fixed on the erect Keturah. "The
schoolmistress!" she exclaimed. "Tudur Williams's sister?"
"Aye, the schoolmistress."
"But she's poor."
"Aye, so she is, an' your mistress is rich, but a minister cannot stay
unmarried all his life, now can he, with all the women in the parish
pursuin' him. Jane Elin's a handsome, capable young woman."
"But does he love her?" persisted Deb.
"Love her? I dunno."
"Aye, does he as he does the widow?"
"Well, indeed, I dunno. Nay," admitted Keturah reflectively, "not as he
loves the widow, I'm thinkin'."
In his study the Reverend Samson Jones was conscientiously at work on
his sermon; the will is a good horse, and if ever a man strove to ride
it well it was Samson Jones, as he ran his fingers through his hair,
looking now this way and now that, tipping back in his chair and
muttering disconnectedly "planet shining in the night," "morning star of
a revival," "brook in the desert," "arid waste," "Dan to Beersheba,"
"the understanding and the conscience," "the affections and the will."
The last word smote him and he pushed away the neatly written sheets of
his sermon. Nothing any longer that he said or wrote seemed coherent or
to have meaning. In years past when the Almighty had called on Samson
Jones, Samson Jones had answered, with the result that Gelligaer had
been listening to an eloquence unparalleled in the history of the
village,--an eloquence that had brought men, women, and children from
the outlying farms and hills into the Chapel, that had touched every
nonconformist tradesman in the town, that had won the respect of the
stricter Calvinists, and the friendly co-operation of the Church. But
for two weeks no eloquent word had come to his lips; his speech had
been like a spring checked at its source. To-morrow was the day he had
set on which to display finally the power of his will, and to-morrow
would be here in twelve hours; after that he might allow a few hours,
until the proper interval came in Jane Elin's school work, and then----!
Samson Jones covered his eyes and moaned aloud, with pagan reliance upon
the helpfulness of an old saying, "Gwell pwyll nog aur [prudence is
better than gold]; ond tan enw pwyll y daw twyll [but under the name of
prudence deceit will come]." His head felt hot and as if every thought
were a string stretched to the snapping-point; and his heart beat
uncomfortably. He unlocked the drawer of his writing-table and took out
a picture; it was the photograph of a charming face, of a woman
evidently about thirty, but whose features were round and childlike, the
deep fringed lashes, the coronal of hair and contour of chin giving the
countenance the circular aspect and soft depth and delicate tinting of a
pansy. Before it Samson Jones, who was of the same flesh and blood as
other mortals, sat, tears filling his eyes, spilling over and rolling
down his face, and the hand that held the picture shaking as it had not
shaken since it held its first public sermon. Ah, he loved her so, and
had loved her even before her marriage! After her husband had died
unexpectedly, Samson Jones got himself recalled to Gelligaer, a feat
that only he could have accomplished, and then had come this second
trial.
With the unaccountable determination soft, gentle things sometimes
display, Dolly Morgan had decided not to marry again so long as her old
father and mother lived. She had admitted her love for Samson Jones, but
assured him at the same time that he must wait. He had loved her now
with the exclusive passion of a warm, dependent nature through six long
years. The parents might live, however, for twenty years more. He had
battled in vain against the resolution of Dolly, who, having experienced
matrimony once, had no longer a maiden's eagerness to rush into
matrimony again, however desirable. He had urged upon her the especial
responsibility of a minister's life, the need he had for a wife to help
him, the years that her parents were likely to live, the wish of his
congregation that he should marry, and finally, again and again, his
great love for her. But Dolly could be convinced of no immediate duty
beyond that due to her parents. But there was no shadow of a doubt in
her mind that the day would come inevitably when she would be Mrs.
Samson Jones "the minister," just as she had certainly been two years
ago Mrs. Jenkin Morgan "the shop." Her mind was full of untroubled
_axiomata media_, and these two facts were of them, the one proved, the
other unproved but not disproved.
In the meantime the pastor's work suffered; he was pursued by
marriageable women young and old; he had advice from experienced matrons
forced upon him; from every conceivable point of view, utilitarian to
ideal, his brothers of the cloth had taken up the subject of matrimony
for a young minister; and at last had come his own conviction that he
had not given himself over wholly to the good of his ministry. Finally,
there had been a conversation with his wise old mother. Samson Jones saw
afresh that Jane Elin had made herself indispensable to him in his work.
She was useful in every organisation connected with the Chapel: the
societies, the sessions, the prayer-meetings, the Cymanfas; and she was
a leader in the Sunday school, which young and old attended. She was
always effective, always busy, and always polite. Her equilibrium could
no more have been disturbed than a buoy's on the ocean, for whatever
came, she was still in her element.
Jane Elin had learned her most important lessons under that best of
teachers--adversity; from this unexceptionable preceptress she had grown
wise in reflection, and from teacher and teaching she had won the sharp
weapon of an excellent education. Consciously or unconsciously there
were two decisive factors in the minister's feeling that it was
advisable to marry the schoolmistress now, since he could not have the
widow. First, she worshipped him, as every one in Gelligaer knew; that
was as near as Jane Elin had come thus far to an insurmountable
difficulty. And, secondly, Samson Jones leaned on her; for if the world
is divided into those who lift and those who lean, Samson Jones had
learned to lean on Jane Elin.
The will is a good horse, but the Reverend Samson Jones sat his horse
with difficulty, and only by steadying himself with the thought of his
mother. He took the picture of Dolly, which he felt that he no longer
had any right to keep, and tore it slowly in two, then once more in two,
then in two again, then he dropped his head on the table with a sob. By
the morrow he would have committed himself, and even his thoughts after
that must be honourable to the schoolmistress.
It is easy to sleep in a perfect skin; when a man feels as Samson Jones
did, the very thought of sleep is misery. But the cottage was quiet,
Keturah had gone to her loft, and, habit being strong, he took his
candle and stumbled upstairs to bed, wiping his eyes with his
coat-sleeve. He took off his clothes with a sense that each garment
stripped him of one more hope and joy. And as he slipped on to his knees
by his bedside, there seemed nothing left for which to live. He had
merely a dull sense of a nightly duty still to be performed. Before he
knew what he was saying, he had repeated a childish rhyme not thought of
since he was a boy. Horrified that it had come to him at such a moment,
he rushed fervently into the petitions and acknowledgments of a
conventional prayer. He sought to spread himself meekly before an
inevitable will in this choice of a wife, then he paused a minute,
groaned and ended with, "Lord, Lord, I long exceedingly for Dolly."
Little Dilys sat with her doll in front of the schoolhouse by the
stream. As the happy children had tumbled out of school, the bell rang
its quick strokes from the bell-cot. That it would soon ring them in
again did not much matter to Dilys, for despite the fact that she loved
Lul, the doll, with a love warmer than platonic, there was another she
loved still better. Both had pink cheeks, but Lul's helplessness wore
on Dilys and the schoolmistress was never helpless. The child liked the
proprietary feeling she had in the helpful hands and nice warm arms of
her schoolmistress foster-mother. At the moment she was provoked with
Lul for looking so stuffed, just as if she had eaten too much, and she
shook her till her eyes clappered in her head and her Welsh beaver
tumbled off her fuzzy hair. Overcome by remorse at Lul's dilapidated
aspect, she called her all the endearing names she could muster: "white
sugar," "sugar and honey," "hundred and a thousand," "the world's
value," "white love," "the apple of her eye," and "tidy baby" which she
obviously was not. But not one of these superlative terms of endearment
took away the pained, stuffed expression of Lul's countenance.
The doll's history had not been a happy one. Ever since she had been
born in Gelligaer, the summer before, she had presented many grave
questions, that had incessantly to be referred from Dilys to the
schoolmistress, from the schoolmistress to the Reverend Samson Jones,
and finally to the medical man. There was the question in the first
place of how she got here--Dilys always sought for the sources of truth,
as her sweet name might indicate; then, once admitting that Lul was
here,--which she seemed to be,--why did she come without being properly
provided with a fashionable bonnet? Dilys found herself obliged to take
a great deal on faith.
When she saw the minister entering the school close, she dropped Lul and
rushed upon Samson Jones. But the minister, putting her away gently,
asked for the schoolmistress. Dilys led him in, never once aware that
his thoughts clappered worse than Lul's eyes had, and that he saw
neither stick nor stone of the school close as he marched forward
blindly to the completion of a last duty. Dilys found all grown-ups,
except Jane Elin, unaccountable at seasons: sometimes they would talk
too much, for example when Lul was saying her prayers or going to sleep;
and sometimes, when any sensible mortal would be glad of conversation,
they wouldn't talk at all.
Half an hour later, when the minister came out, Dilys, who based a
reasonable faith on the substance of things hoped for, ran trustingly to
him again. And this time he did talk, and looked so brisk, and inquired
about Lul and gave her,--oh, wonderful new joy!--a whole shilling with
which to buy a stylish bonnet for Lul.
Dilys ran skipping and jumping in to her guardian, but Jane Elin, wiping
her eyes and smiling at the same time, put Dilys away with a "Well,
indeed, dear, 'tis grand, but 'tis very late now. Run tell Glyn to ring
the bell." While she wiped away the last tears, Glyn did ring the bell
till it danced like mad in the bell-cot and the old people thought with
a smile how boys must be boys with bell-ropes. To Jane Elin it seemed,
as all the little valleys and hilltops tossed its clangour to and fro,
the sweetest sound in all the world; for the joy of all joys, the great
unaccountable joy, had come to her, after it had been resigned a score
of times to another. Further than this thought the schoolmistress
allowed herself no hysterical pause. Her character, like a firm sock,
had been knit a stitch at a time, and stood the strain of the last
half-hour with no sign of wear and tear.
Dilys tucked Lul under her bench, Lul was so dull, and looked lovingly
at the shine on Jane Elin's bright face and at her pretty bright hair.
Dilys was certain there was no one in all Gelligaer or beyond its
mountains like her own dear Jane Elin, and as the baton beat time for
them to sing their closing song, Dilys opened her little mouth, red as a
holly-berry, very wide indeed, and sang with all the lustiness of happy
childhood:--
"My Cambria! thy valleys how dearly I love,
And thy mountains that darken the blue sky above."
II
Again Deb and Keturah confronted each other in the kitchen.
"Och, och, to think it!" sighed Deb.
"Well, 'tis natural, now isn't it? They were old people."
"Aye, but she's that lonely; 'tis pitiful to see her distress."
"But they died peaceful; neither one wanted other more than three hours;
I'm thinkin' the old man barely set foot in heaven before the old woman
was travellin' after him. If the Lord had 'a' planned that,--and perhaps
He did,--He couldn't have done better, now could He? If Peter has the
keys, as master says he has, he must have smiled to see those two old
people hurryin' so to get in together, the old woman with that hasty
step of hers a-skippin' after him."
"Aye, aye, they went together," sighed Deb, wiping away tears; "but,
och! the mistress is like a distracted creature, pacin' up and down, up
and down the house, wringin' her hands, her soft, pretty eyes all cried
out, an' goin' every day to the grave where those poor souls lie."
"Poor souls," sniffed Keturah, "nothin' could satisfy ye, Deborah.
They're lyin' side by side in the same grave on earth, an' singin' an'
rejoicin' hand-in-hand in heaven. Ye think too little an' talk too
much," concluded Keturah, who thus far had done most of the talking
herself.
The old woman had no patience with sentimentality about death, for she
had served forty years in a minister's family, where life in its birth,
its growth, its death, had come and gone about her with epical fullness.
There was little human history that Keturah's old eyes had not as calmly
surveyed as they looked now upon the tearful face of Deb.
"But she weeps so, poor dear, an' the only time she seemed more cheerful
was when the pastor came to bury the old people. When they came back
from the grave she begged him to stay awhile, but he couldn't, an' then
she cried an' cried again, poor child."
"Well, well," said Keturah, with a shrewd, troubled look, "'tis a pity."
"But he loves her, now doesn't he?"
"Aye, he does whatever."
"T'was only a week ago," said Deb, patting herself on her corsage again,
"I was sayin' somethin' was comin'; an' I thought then, when we were
talkin' 'twould be their gettin' married, aye, I did indeed."
"Indeed, so ye did," Keturah repeated. "Tut, there's the knocker
clappin'. Now who would be comin' this late, and the master so tired?"
Keturah hobbled swiftly through the kitchen and narrow hallway to the
door.
"Well, Mrs. Morgan!"
"Yes, Keturah, is your master in?"
"Aye, in his study; will ye go in there?"
To the Reverend Samson Jones, since the death of the widow Morgan's
parents, life had seemed nothing more dignified than a low gambling
game. He had done what he believed a man should do; after protracted
delay and a final self-conquest greater than any one knew, he had done
the thing duty told him to do. Had he delayed twenty-four hours longer
to do this duty, that for which he had waited and longed through six
years would have been his. Now, horse and rider had stumbled together,
and all the principles which have been as a guide-post to his fervid
spirit lay prostrate with him.
When the door opened and the widow Morgan came in, Samson Jones was
sitting idly in his study-chair, nerveless and confused, one moment
saying to himself that he would send for Jane Elin and tell her all, the
next minute terrified at the very thought, and the third moment
condemning himself for lack of courage to accept what had come upon him
through no fault of his own. The aspect of his thin, long face had
become so ghastly, and the confusion of his words so unusual, that not
only had Keturah and Jane Elin watched him with alarm, but the deacons
and good-wives of Gelligaer began to question, to talk of the oncoming
of the spring and its bad effect on the system, to suggest a holiday for
their beloved pastor; and one good-wife had gone so far as to consult
Keturah and to write to Mrs. Jones, his mother. His thoughts and
feelings were like filings with no centrifugal force to gather them in.
As he jumped to his feet with the exclamation, "Dolly!" these thoughts
and feelings flocked swiftly about the love he had for her.
The widow's eyes looked red and her voice quavered as she said, "I am so
lonely, Samson, och, so lonely!"
"Aye," said Samson, trying to shift his glance from her appealing face.
Dolly dropped into a chair and slipped back her scarf. Her chin trembled
pitifully. "I am so lonely, Samson; I thought perhaps you had forgotten
me?"
"No, I've not indeed."
"Well, and don't you love me any more? I thought you'd never forget."
"Aye, I love you but--but----"
At this Dolly rushed upon him like an impulsive, gladdened child. "Och,
then, nothing else matters, nothing at all whatever!" She clung to him
eagerly, and with her arms about him the last vestige of Samson Jones's
resolution was quenched.
After that, through the blissful evening he knew nothing but blind
snatching at ecstasy. He tried to forget everything. That night, when he
saw Dolly home, she was an appeased, contented child whose only thought
of the morrow is the untroubled one that it will come again and again
with the same delicious happiness.
But never had Samson Jones known anything like the week that followed,
with its dissimulations petty and large, its pained irresolution, its
alternations between ecstasy and despair. The surface of his mild
zealous eyes had come to have the feverish look of a man living in a
delirium. With Jane Elin he was gallant, attentive, punctilious, a
finished lover. With Dolly he gave himself up so to the luxury of their
love, that the widow Morgan wondered why she had not seen before the
extravagant passionateness of his nature.
For her part, Jane Elin rang again and again on the surface of this
emotion called love and listened with troubled ears to the hollow
sounds within. Jane Elin had had just twenty-four hours in which to
rejoice undisturbed in her new happiness. She was no idle
sentimentalist, afraid to face the truth, or with rose-coloured glasses
through which to look at the truth. Up to this point she had seen
clearly the course of events and the ninepins fate had played with a
question she believed finally settled. At last the widow was free, and
Jane Elin was sober-thoughted at the new aspect that that fact put upon
her relations to the minister. With both, despite the fact that Samson
Jones was exceeding in devotion to each the highest expectation either
could have held, intuition of something wrong about their lover made
them keenly anxious.
On the Sunday after this week that Gelligaer will never forget, the
minister, without a note of any kind on the desk or in his hand,
preached a sermon of extraordinary power. And the old white-haired
deacons sitting in a row around the pulpit nodded their heads
approvingly, for it seemed to them that the good old times of fifty
years ago were coming back, when all preaching in Wales was
extemporaneous. Keturah alone looked with troubled face upon the
minister, certain that a catastrophe was overtaking him, at the nature
of which she had shrewdly guessed. And it was the Monday following this
Sunday that the Reverend Samson Jones made a convulsive resolution to
see Jane Elin and tell her all. He would send for her to come to his
pastoral study; it would be easier to talk with her there. His action in
sending for Jane Elin was like the action of the man who instinctively
puts out his hand to shield his head from a blow, for Samson Jones saw
the calamity coming upon him.
He stood with down-dropped eyes as she came into the study, fingering
the objects on his writing-table.
Jane Elin went up to him swiftly. "What is it, Samson? Has anything
happened? Do you need me?"
"Aye, I have been meaning this last week--it seemed only right--I don't
see how it is possible--I----"
"Och, tell me, Samson, tell me quickly, what is it?"
"Well, that day two weeks ago----"
"Dear, dear!" Jane Elin interjected, turning pale.
Samson Jones was thinking of an escape, any escape--this was too
horrible, he could not continue with it--when his eye fell on a letter
just received from his mother in answer to the one sent by the deacon's
wife, and the word "mother" flashed over his whole being like a great
light revealing a path in the darkness. The joy in the freedom that came
to him with this thought was almost too great for him to bear. His
mother would help him.
"My mother," he stammered, "my mother, och, it is too horrible!"
"Dear anwyl!" said Jane pitifully, thinking of sickness or of death. "Is
it that bad?"
"Aye," he muttered, looking around wildly, and then at his watch;
"there's just time to catch the narrow-gauge to Qwyllyn. Och, goodbye!"
And he was gone.
With a sense of real relief, Jane Elin stood still a moment. It was
that, after all, which had been worrying him. Why had he not told her
before that his mother was ill?
She walked thoughtfully toward the kitchen. "Keturah, is she very ill?"
"Who?"
"The master's mother; he told me to tell you he'd gone to catch the
narrow-gauge. Is she?"
Keturah's eyes widened and contracted as she said, "Aye, very."
"Och, 'tis too bad! I must go to him."
"Nay, nay, there's no need, Miss Williams, he'll manage somehow."
"Aye, but I can nurse her; yes, I must go; I can get the next train."
"Well, ye know best," replied Keturah.
Keturah continued to sit by the fire, muttering to herself: "Well, well
indeed, 'tis as I thought; dear, the poor lass, the poor lad! Trouble,
trouble, trouble!" She leaned forward to stir the pot. "He'll not be
wantin' it, not at all." Keturah dwelt moodily on her thoughts, with no
change in attitude except when she took the oat-cake from the skillet
and reached forward to stir the pot. "'Tis certain disgrace whatever;
och, och, the poor lad!"
Suddenly there was the rush of hurrying feet and Deb came in breathless
and excited. "Well, well, he's gone, and I didn't know that his
mother----" she gasped.
"Aye, he went over an hour ago," interrupted Keturah.
"He was passin' the window, an' my mistress saw him an' called to him;
but he wouldn't stay, he said he couldn't, he was runnin' to catch the
train."
"Aye, so he was indeed," agreed Keturah.
"An' she ordered me to pack up an' call the coach, an' so I did; she
thought she'd get there all the quicker to help him than by takin' the
train an' makin' so many changes."
"Jane Elin's gone, too; she left Gelligaer over half an hour past," said
Keturah slowly.
"The schoolmistress gone?" questioned Deb. "What for, indeed?"
"To be with him."
"To be with him!"
"Aye, ye're blind, blind as a bat, Deborah, an' that trustin' ye see
nothin' and believe anythin'. Believin' the whale swallowed Jonah is
nothin' to what ye're capable of takin' on faith," ended Keturah, with
infinite sarcasm.
"Dear, dear, dear, Keturah, I cannot believe this whatever! What shall
we do? Och, the disgrace it'll be!"
There was an imperative rap on the door: "Keturah, where is my sister?"
"Gone, Mr. Tudur, to be with the minister."
"She left word his mother was ill. I do not believe it. Is she?"
"Nay, to my knowledge, the old lady Jones is not ill."
"Och, the scoundrel! I thought it of him. There, you Deb, where's your
mistress?"
"She's--she's gone, too," Deb answered, shaking from her ankles up.
"Gone where?"
"To Qwyllyn."
"I'll go after," he shouted, slamming the door.
Keturah sank back by the fire. "Well, indeed, well, indeed!" she said,
with the peaceful accent of one who has accomplished an end, "they're
all off now. Ye've no need to cry, for what will be, will be," she
continued dryly to Deb, who was sobbing. "The old lady Jones will
manage."
"Och, but 'tis shockin', shockin'; an' they'll never have him in
Gelligaer again."
"So 'tis. Well, they're all on the road now. The master's about at
Dinas; Jane Elin, if her train's on time, is at Llanengan; the widow
Morgan, if her coach is makin' good speed, is about at Abersoch; and
Tudur's just leavin' Gelligaer. The old lady Jones will have her hands
full, but she's a wise old lady, a very wise old lady. 'Twill all get
settled when she takes it up, aye, so 'twill."
_A Last Discipline_
"Barbara, the flummery's sour!"
Samuel pushed back his dish and dropped his spoon.
"Aye, dad, a bit sour; I'm sorry."
"A bit sour!" exclaimed the husband, "a bit sour! tut, _more'n_ a bit
sour, whatever!"
Barbara looked at him, the corners of her sweet old mouth trembling,
"Father, I'm sorry; I thought it was better nor usual."
"Better nor usual! Ye're full of fancies, Barbara, a-runnin' round
nursin' other folks, an takin' other folks' troubles, all except your
own. Yesterday ye made broth for the servant-men, an' it was every bit
meat; broth like that'll ruin my pocket, an' anyhow we arn't providin'
for gentlemen's families."
"Aye, father dear, but for a long while they've had nothin' but barefoot
porridge, an' there was a little extra meat in the house, an' I
thought----"
"An' ye thought! Ye needn't think, mother. Such thinkin' as ye do is
ruinin' my prospects."
"Dad dear, I'll not do it again if ye say no."
"I did not say 'no,' I said yesterday ye gave the men an all-meat broth
an' it was no holiday."
The old man's voice grew petulantly angry, the childlike appeal of his
wife's eyes, the trembling lips, her gentle sweetness, irritated him.
"Very well, dear."
"Mother, they've milk on the farm, which is more'n they'd have in their
own homes; if they lived at home they'd be scramblin' with their
children to suck herrin'-bones. Stirabout with plenty of milk is good
for any man, an' it's especially good for a workin' man; they have all
the stirabout they can eat here, an' some kind of meat-broth an' tart
every day."
"Very well, dear, I'll see that it doesn't happen again."
"Aye, an' mother, I found one of the tubs of butter in the dairy
touched; there was most a half a pound of butter taken out. Do ye know
who took it?"
"Dad, I took it for Mrs. Powell the carpenter, who's ill."
"For Mrs. Powell the carpenter! An' then how are we goin' to pay the
landlord, think ye, if ye go takin' the butter to sick people?"
"She's very sick, father, an' they're very poor, an' I thought it would
be such a nice to her just now, and she did relish it so."
"Relish it! Aye, soon ye'll be distributin' the sheep to the neighbours.
An', mother, I found some broken crockery in the garden out by the
corner of the hedge. It looked most as if it had been hidden there; do
ye know anythin' about it?"
"Aye, I know somethin' about it."
"An' what do ye know?"
"Father, that I shall not be tellin' ye, whatever."
"Not be tellin' me! not be tellin' _me_?" he exclaimed hotly. "Tut,
Barbara, what's come over ye?"
"No, father, not be tellin' ye," answered Barbara, with gentle
deliberateness.
"Indeed, we'll see. Maggie, Maggie," shouted Samuel, "Maggie, come
here!"
Maggie came hurrying to the door, anxiety in every feature of her face.
"Maggie Morgan, what do ye----" began Samuel.
"Father, that will do," interrupted Barbara; "Maggie, ye may go."
The girl turned and went; speechless, Samuel regarded his wife.
"Father," she continued gently, "I broke it an' I hid it. I was--mixin'
oat-cake in the bowl an' the bowl was on my knee, an' suddenly it
slipped an' fell on to the flaggin's an' broke. Then I hid it
'cause,"--the quiet voice faltered,--"'cause--why 'cause, of course,
father, I thought ye'd be troubled over it if ye saw it, an' ye'd not
miss it if ye didn't."
"Alack, mother!" There was genuine astonishment in the husband's
exclamation. "Barbara! to think we'd be livin' together forty-five years
an' ye deceivin' me at the last like this. I've just one thing the more
to say to ye. There's no cause for makin' a duck-pond out'n the kitchen
floor an' if----"
"But, father," interrupted Barbara, wiping her eyes with her apron,
"father _dear_, the lads was just foolin' a little an' they spilt a bit
of water on the flaggin's, an' before Maggie could mop it up ye came
in."
"Tell them an' such as them to go live with the pigs!" And Samuel,
pushing back his chair, rose hastily to his feet, and left the room.
"Father, father _dear_!" called Barbara.
There was no answer, and she was alone.
"Oh, father, if ye but loved me as ye used to! There were never any
words then. Oh, lad, lad!"
There was no reproach, no bitterness in her voice, only longing; she
loved him so, and their time at best was short, and she couldn't manage
to please him in anything. And perhaps this was their one chance--a few
years at best, perhaps a few weeks, and it might be only days. She cried
patiently as if she had lost something irrecoverable, an ideal, a hope,
a child. Their past, the past of their youth, lay before her now, in its
human romance and young love, like something perished; and, wistful, she
dwelt in its memories, on its common human beauty. Suddenly she ceased
crying.
"Aye, but I lied to him an' I never did before, indeed. I was afraid
Maggie'd lose her place if he knew she broke it; an' to think that I hid
the pieces from him! Oh, Sammie, Sammie! I'm deservin' what's come
to-day, deservin' it," she concluded with satisfaction, "for sinnin' so
against conscience."
She sat up straight in her chair as if to receive punishment.
"An' I'm more blessed than most. Samuel's a good man an' well
respected--no man better respected. He's honest in his dealin's, he's
more generous than some to his men. There was Eilir's little lad he paid
the doctor's bill for, an' Morgan's old mother he buried an'----"
Barbara was sitting very straight in her chair now, with one wrinkled
hand spread before her, telling off on its fingers Samuel's good deeds;
her eyes shone joyously, there were so many, and in their numbering she
forgot a sore heart, a cap askew, a kerchief wet over the bosom, and a
wrinkled apron. "An' there was old Silvan he'd partly fed an' clothed
these ten years, an' an old crot no one would do anything for, an'
Sammie helped her, too. An' there was the dress he brought me from the
fair, an' the gold-rimmed spectacles from Liverpool, an' the beautiful
linen for caps, better nor any one else in the valley has. An' he's done
everythin' for the children, an' one of them's fine a scholar as any in
Wales, which is sayin' much. Aye, he's a good man, an' I'm a wicked
woman to be dreamin' so; but oh, lad, lad _dear_," she ended lamely, "if
ye'd only love me as ye used to!"
Samuel went out on to the farm with irritable thoughts, indignant
against extravagances which he laid to Barbara, and which meant a
slender purse even in their old age. He was willing to admit that she
was a good woman, aye, a more than ordinarily good woman, but where she
fell short, he thought, was in managing. Yes, he had prospered a little;
for an instant he had an uncomfortable sense of owing this prosperity
in part to the efforts of some one besides himself. But there was this
constant leakage, and again his mind flamed up over the broth and the
broken pottery. It was the woman's business to see to it that no
ha'penny was wasted; he failed to recall a certain rusted spade, some
moulded straps, and a snapped fill in the year's calendar. And then, at
last, manlike, in the midst of the work out on the farm, he not only
washed his lungs with the keen mountain air, but he washed his mind of
the whole difficulty, straightway forgetting it.
When once more he entered the house for his tea, he found Barbara in the
kitchen knitting before the fire--knitting socks for him. There was no
trace of what had passed, no trace of her care, her grief. Her cap was
fresh and tied with new ribbons, her kerchief was folded neatly over her
shoulders, her apron clear white and starched, and out from beneath the
short skirt peeped two brass-toed shoes bright-eyed as mice. Samuel did
not know how quaint and sweet she looked. But then, why should he? she
had been always just so. He took her, all of her, for granted,--the bit
of red in her old cheeks, red that matched the bright cap-ribbons; the
soft white hair, the tender eyes, the kind tired mouth, the little
figure dainty as the sweet alyssum in their garden--in short, there was
nothing to be remarked upon; he simply took her for granted as he had
done always, or as, for example, one takes the fresh air till one is in
prison, or the sky till one goes blind, or love till it is gone.
The tea and bread and butter were on the table. Barbara poured out his
cup, put in the sugar, the top of the cream, and passed the cup to him
as he sat toasting his feet before the fire. Then she handed him the
bread.
"Well, father," she said, patting him on the shoulder, "did ye have a
successful afternoon?"
"Aye, Barbara," he answered, "fine."
Without touching the tea, she took up her knitting.
"Are the lambs comin', dear?"
"Aye, mother, they're most as big as yearlin's now. Are ye not goin' to
take tea?"
"No, I've a bit distress, no more'n I have often."
"Have ye tried the peppermint?"
"Aye, but it's no good. Did Eilir say what the shearin' 'd be?"
"He did; it'll be heavier nor usual. It'll make a big shipment this
year."
"Good, father, we'll be takin' a trip to the lad's college yet, what
with the lambs comin' fine, the wool heavy, the calves double the
number they were last year. Father, do ye think the boy'd be ashamed of
his old mam?"
"Ashamed? He's no lad of mine if he is. Well, mother, if it's all really
comin' as well as it seems to be, we'll be takin' that trip to see the
boy."
"Oh, father dear, 'twould be grand, what I've dreamed of these many,
many years!" Barbara dropped her knitting and clasped her hands in
childlike abandonment of pleasure.
"Tut, mam," added Samuel, his face lengthening, "it's not absolutely
certain, what with waste in the kitchen, the breakin' of crockery, an'
the men eatin' themselves out'n house an' home, it's no tellin'. It
might be an extravagance, but we'll see."
"But, father!" exclaimed Barbara impulsively, and stopped.
"Well, mam, maybe it'll be; maybe we'll see the boy an' see him a great
man in his college, aye, a most successful man, as good's the best."
"Oh, dearie, to think we'll be seein' him--perhaps. But, dad, do ye
think he'll forget he's my boy?"
"Why should he? Mother, if we're goin' it'll be in six weeks."
"Aye, but father,"--Barbara paused, her head reflectively to one
side,--"there's the shoes. I'll have to be havin' shoes; these clogs'll
not do for the lad's college."
"No matter, mother," replied Samuel, thrusting his hands into his
pockets with boyish energy, "we'll have proper shoes for ye an' we'll go
first to Liverpool for a travellin' suit for ye an' a proper bonnet for
me an'----"
"Listen to what ye are sayin'--a bonnet for _ye_!" And Barbara laughed
merrily.
"Dear me!" laughed Samuel, slapping his knee, "I mean a proper bonnet
for _ye_ an' for _me_ a proper suit of clothes. Aye, we'll afford it all
if the lambs keep comin'."
"Dearie, it'll be most too much happiness, the boy, the trip, an all the
clothes. I'll be takin' him some socks an'----" Barbara gasped and
touched her side with her hand.
"What ails ye, mother?"
"It's just a stitch in my side." Samuel did not notice that Barbara had
turned white up to the very edges of her cap. "An' what'll ye be takin'
him, dearie?"
"Dear, dear, I'll bring him a--a--well, mother, what'll I take him? He's
such a great man 'twouldn't do to fetch him a cheese or eggs or a fowl,
now would it?"
"That's so, father," replied Barbara reflectively. "Aye, he's a great
man an' 'twouldn't do, whatever. I have it, dad, we'll be buyin' him
books in Liverpool."
"Good, so we will, mam, as many books as we can afford." And Samuel
thrust his hands still further into his pockets, pursed out his lips,
spread his legs apart, and contemplated the fire earnestly. "Aye,
mother, books is the very thing; the lad'll be more'n pleased to have
them an' to think I thought of them."
"Aye, that's so, dearie."
"Well, I'll be goin' now; we'll have to be makin' haste to have all done
in six weeks, an' we'll go, mother, we'll go if we can afford it."
Samuel strode out of the room; he was over seventy, but he walked with
youthful elation; indeed, in some marked fashion, despite white hair,
wrinkled skin, and limbs that were beginning to bend with years, he was
still a boy.
Barbara looked after him, sighing wistfully as he left the room. "It
seems a bit like bein' young once more, a bit like old times." She
caught her side again. "This stitch is worse than common. Aye, dearie, I
was unjust to ye the mornin', an' I'm a bad old woman."
When Samuel came in for supper, he found Barbara lying down. Nothing was
the matter, she assured him, "just a stitch worse than common, aye, an'
they'd be goin' to Liverpool the same." But as the night wore on it grew
worse still, and by morning she was a very sick woman, suffering what
even his man's eyes could see was intense pain. The old cheeks had
shrunk in the night, the face blanched to an ashen gray; only the eyes
remained unchanged and shone sweetly and serenely upon him.
The physician was sent for, and while one of the men was fetching him,
Samuel told Barbara at least fifty times that she would "be better the
morrow," and each time Barbara, too weak for speech, nodded as much as
to say that she certainly would be. When the doctor came he saw her
extremity and sent Samuel and Maggie from the room. A quick examination
followed.
"Samuel," said the doctor, stepping into the kitchen, "Barbara is a very
sick woman."
"Aye, sir, but she'll be better the morrow."
"No, Samuel, not to-morrow."
"Not to-morrow, sir? Then next day?"
"No, man, nor the next day."
"But, sir, Barbara's never ill."
"She can never get well here."
"Not the week, sir?"
"Samuel, ye do not understand. _Barbara will never be well here._"
"Och!"
"She's dying, man; there's nothing to do for her that could be done out
of Liverpool."
"Liverpool," said Samuel.
His thoughts seemed to be somewhere in the back of his mind,
inaccessible, walled up from contact with the reality of what he heard
and saw. He appeared unable to grasp what had happened, what was coming.
Surely he was walking in a dream, and every minute there was the chance,
so he thought, that he might awake from it. What was this that had come
upon him in a night? Certainly not the reality, for with that he had
been living for years--that was life. Barbara was dying; the words rang
oddly in his ears without reaching his mind. Some stranger was speaking
with him; he did not understand. Barbara was dying; no, not Barbara,
somebody else; other people _did_ die. Barbara, was dying; not his
Barbara, not the mother of his children, the wife of his fireside, his
companion during a lifetime. Somebody _was_ dying; no, not his Barbara
but somebody else; just give him time to think. Barbara was dying--could
it be his Barbara?
"Dyin'?" asked Samuel aloud, "_Barbara_ dyin'?" He repeated the words as
if questioning and testing them.
"Aye, man," replied the doctor sharply, "she's dying; she's caught
herself lifting something. With an operation there might be some chance;
but there's none here in this place, only in Liverpool."
"Aye, Liverpool," answered Samuel, "we're goin' to Liverpool soon."
The doctor glanced at him keenly; before this he had seen childishness
with some shock of grief take a sudden, unrelinquishing hold on old age.
"Well," continued Samuel, still as if talking to himself or to some one
outside the room, "we'll go now; aye, we'll take the chance."
"But, man," replied the doctor, "it'll cost more money than ye spend in
two years."
"No matter, sir, we'll sell the sheep, if need be. Aye, dearie," he
added gently, "we'll take the chance."
"There's no time to spare, then," said the doctor looking at his watch.
"Aye," replied Samuel, "we'll be ready."
"Then be sharp about it," said the doctor, alert for the one chance of
life.
"Aye, sir"; and Samuel went into the room where Barbara lay.
He looked down upon her lying in bed; he could see that her strength was
slipping, slipping away. He dropped on his knees beside her. He patted
her hand, he smoothed her forehead.
"Mother!" he called.
Her eyes smiled confidingly, reassuringly up at him.
"Och, mother, I never thought of this!"
There came a feeble answering pat from her hand.
"Mother, we're goin' to Liverpool; aye, dear, they're goin' to make ye
well."
Barbara moaned, and her eyes brimmed with tears.
"Father _dear_," she whispered, "let me--oh! Sammie--let me die--here."
"Tut, mam, ye're not goin' to die--aye, they'll be makin' ye well in
Liverpool."
"Dad _dear_," she plead, "let me--die--here."
"But, mam," argued Samuel, "the lad'll be there waitin' for us--an'--an'
to see ye," he ended weakly.
"Sammie, Sammie," she begged, "let me die here--not--away--from--home;
the lad--will--understand."
"Barbara, there's a chance for ye to get well; will ye not take it for
me, dearie--aye, will ye not do it for me, Barbara, for my sake?"
The big eyes that had looked into his without anger, without
selfishness, through all the circumstances of life, smiled now with
sudden sweetness. The hand lying in his hand tightened, her lips
trembled.
"Aye, Sammie, lad, I will."
"Dearie, Barbara, my Barbara!" he exclaimed, struggling to control
himself. "Oh, mam, I do love ye so, an' I've not been good to ye!"
"Sammie, not been good to me? but ye have been, lad, an' I'm a bad old
woman an' before I leave the house----"
"Mam _dear_, ye're not to say such things. I've found fault with ye an'
neglected ye, but ye do know I love ye?"
"Aye, lad _dear_, I know--ye--love me but I'm a bad--old--woman, an' I
must tell ye before--I--leave the house----"
"Tut, mother, mother, ye're not to say such things. I'll do for ye now,
oh! I will. Mam, I'd never thought of this."
"But lad," she persisted, "I'm a bad old woman an'----"
"Tut, dearie, no, no," he silenced her. "We've just a little while an' I
must see about some things. I'll call Maggie an' she'll have ye all
ready, dear."
Preparations were soon made, and when Maggie had her mistress wrapped
up for the journey, Samuel and the doctor hastened into the room. It was
evident that Barbara's strength was ebbing more and more rapidly away.
After she was lying on the stretcher she reached out a hand to Maggie.
"Goodbye, my dear," she faltered; "be--a--good--girl."
"Och, mistress, please let me tell----"
"No, Maggie, no, not--a--word," she answered. Then suddenly Barbara
cried out, "Sammie!" the first terror of death in her voice.
"There, there, mam _dear_; aye, dearie, I'm here."
"Oh, Sammie, to die--away--from home,--aye, once--over--the threshold,"
she murmured.
For an instant her eyes tried to smile into his, then consciousness
slipped away, and a wing swept over them,--they fluttered and they
closed. The doctor's stern "No matter, she will recover in the air,"
checked the sobs of Maggie; and so they bore her, still and white, over
the threshold of her home, past the farm-servants, to the carriage.
Fields, hills, buildings flashed by, seeming with their shadows and
forms to flick the windows of the railway coach. The doctor and Samuel
sat side by side, and opposite on the long seat lay Barbara, quiet and
semi-conscious. The half-day's journey to Liverpool stretched out
interminably, even now the most of it had been covered. Samuel was
thinking, thinking, thinking, as he had never thought before, and the
discipline of these thoughts was biting into him like acid. There were
lines graven on his face which years alone could never write there. Aye,
to learn a lesson like this in a few hours which should be learned
through a lifetime,--to learn it thus in one last brief discipline! Oh,
Barbara, Barbara, what had he done for her, what had he been to her? And
now _if_--the thought strangled him--where, where was she going?
Then came to him the years when he might not be able to tell her any
more how he regretted the selfishness of weeks and months, aye, of half
a century. Even now the separation had begun; she was too weak to listen
to him, he could not tell her, and in a few hours the one chance might
be gone. Already, as she lay there hovering between life and death, she
was no longer his in the old substantial way, but merely a hostage,
fragile, ethereal, of a past life. If he had loved her every hour of
those days that seemed so lastingly secure, if he had tried in every
way--all the little ways--to show her how tenderly, how deeply he really
loved her, the years would have been too short. And to-day, at the
best, there was the one chance growing less certain every minute; there
were but a few years at the most when he might try to make her know what
she was to him.
Then, with a revulsion of feeling, the little commonplace joys dear to
them both crowded in upon him; he felt benumbed in their midst,
helplessly conscious that the heart of them all was slipping, slipping
away. The road of their life flowed swiftly behind him, receding
ribbonlike, as the hills and trees and fields passed the coach-window,
into indistinguishable distance. Their tea-time with its happy quiet,
their greeting at night, their rest side by side, their goodbye in the
morning, Barbara's caps, Barbara's knitting, the shining eyes, the
smile--each daily commonplace thing a part of his very being. He had a
sickening sense of having the roots of existence torn out.
With a pang came the thought of that other trip to Liverpool they had
planned to take. What would the boy say now? And he must know how that
mother-life had been wasted, neglected. And the books they were going to
bring the lad, and the socks Barbara had made, and the shoes that were
to delight her, and the new clothes for both, and the bonnet over which
they had laughed so merrily--the agony of these simple things,
remembered, ate at his thoughts like fire. They were so little; he had
never known before what they meant, or he had forgotten; now, surely,
they could not be taken from him. Samuel's mind prostrated itself in
petition to that Inexorable in whose power lay these little joys, his,
his only, of account only to him, sacred to him only, that he might be
allowed to keep them.
His face was gray with the battle of these hours when the doctor spoke,
telling him that they were almost in Liverpool and must move quickly.
Their voices aroused Barbara; her eyes sought Sammie's and smiled
faithfully into them.
"Dearie!" he said, leaning forward with such an expression that Barbara,
if she saw it clearly, could never doubt his love again.
"Lad!" she whispered in reply.
But Samuel's eyes shrank when he saw the ambulance at the station,
waiting. The doctor was going in it with Barbara. Oh! this cut, cut, as
that knife would cut Barbara. Already they were being separated. They
were taking her out of the train, away from him, and he was looking
around the great station blindly, when he felt a strong grip on his arm
and heard the word, "Father!" Nothing else seemed clear after that, and
the way, the long way, rumbling through those streets, was like a narrow
lane in the night. Barbara was in the streets, alone, without him, or
she was already at that place where lay the one chance for him.
"There, father," the lad was comforting him, "there's no better place
for her; you did just right."
Samuel sobbed convulsively, tears rolling out of his eyes unnoticed, his
hands clenching the chair.
"Father, father, don't; we shall know soon."
But the old face over which he leaned paid no heed to what was said; nor
did Samuel hear the quick entrance into the room and the whispered
words.
"Father, do you hear? Mother's safe."
Then Samuel rose to his feet, started forward, and swayed uncertainly.
The lad took his arm.
"Father," he said, "mother's very weak, and we must be careful; we can
see her only a minute, that is all, the doctor says."
When they entered, Barbara lay on the bed, smiling. The nurse stepped
outside; ah! she had seen so many, many moments like this, and yet her
heart ached for the old man coming through the door, coming through to
take into his arms the few precious years that were left.
"Mother!" he said simply.
"Sammie _dear_!" she answered, her heart shining in her eyes.
Then she espied the lad standing behind his father.
Samuel watched their greeting, his lips twitching. "Lad, lad," he cried,
unable to withhold the words, "I've not been good to mam."
A flush overspread Barbara's face.
"Tut, Sammie _dear_, ye never----" she commenced indignantly.
"Be still, mother, I'm goin' to say it now; ye know I've not been good
to ye. Lad," he continued, turning to him, "when ye marry, as ye will,
don't think any way is too little to show her that ye love her."
"Tut, tut, Sammie _dear_," insisted Barbara, "ye _are_ good to me, an' I
lied to ye an'----"
"It's time to leave," said the nurse, coming in.
"But I'm going to have one word more," Barbara replied, the life
springing into her eyes with this gentle defiance. "Sammie, Sammie
_dear_," she called as the two men were urged through the door, "I lied
about the bowl--I didn't break it but I did hide it. Maggie broke it,
an' I was afraid she'd lose her place, so I hid it. Father, did ye
_hear_?"
"There!" said the nurse, shutting the door.
_Respice Finem_
"Good-mornin', Mrs. Rhys," said Megan Griffiths, as she stooped to save
her high beaver.
"'Tis kind of ye to come," answered Nance.
"How is Mr. Rhys?"
"Och, he's no----" Nance began, but she was hindered by a merry voice
singing in the next room.
"Dear, dear, I can't hear ye. Did ye say he is the same?"
"Aye, he's no better."
"Is that him singin'?"
"Aye," admitted Nance.
"He's not got any cause to sing, I'm thinkin'. 'Tis a pity," she
continued significantly, "ye couldn't attend Harry James's funeral.
'Twas grand. They had beautiful black candles with Scripture words
written on them."
Chuckles and a protesting bark followed this observation. Megan
stiffened.
"Such a funeral, Mrs. Rhys," she snapped, "is an _honour_ to Rhyd Ddu!
An' such loaves as she handed over the bier to that hungry Betsan! An'
the biggest cheese in the parish, with a whole guinea stuck in it! At
every crossin' they rung the bell, an' we knelt down to pray in all that
drenchin' wet."
"'Tis seldom Rhyd Ddu sees black candles with Scripture words on them,"
assented Nance.
"Pooh! the candles, _they_ was nothin' to the cards Mrs. James had had
printed for him--nothin'. Here's mine. They have his last words."
Nance looked eagerly towards the card.
"Scripture words, too," added Megan. "'Tis sanctifyin' how many people
in Rhyd Ddu die repeatin' such words."
"What was they, Mrs. Griffiths?" asked Nance, her eagerness turning into
trembling.
Megan opened the large card with its wide border of black and inner
borders of silver and black, and read the words. The verses were long,
and during their reading no sound came from the adjoining room. Then,
aloud, Megan counted off on her fingers neighbours who had left life in
this approved fashion, while the excitement in Nance's eyes was
deepening and her cheeks were quivering.
"Show it me," she said.
"Indeed, 'tis a safe way to----" Megan commenced speaking, but commands
and a sudden breaking forth of song interrupted her.
"'Tis the dog takin' him his slippers," Nance apologised.
"Yes, a safe way to die," concluded Megan testily.
In the midst of a blithe refrain of "Smile again, lovely Jane," she rose
to go, muttering as she repocketed the card.
In Rhyd Ddu the rush of the modern world had not cut up the time of the
folk into a fringe of unsatisfying days. With these Welsh mountain
people from sunrise to sunset was a good solid day, full of solid joys
and comforts or equally solid woes and sorrows. In Rhyd Ddu a man might
know the complete tragic or joyous meaning of twenty-four hours, with
solemn passages from starlight to dawn and manifold song from sunrise to
dusk. There was no illusion in such a day, so that when he came to the
Edge of the Great Confine, sharper than the ridge of his own thatched
roof, that, too, seemed merely a part of the general illusion. Rather,
he knew that step from the green and gold room of his outdoor world,
with its inclosed hearth of daily pleasures, was a step into another
room not known to him at all. But he said to himself, especially when he
had spent his days among the hills and amid mountain winds and valleys,
that he could not get beyond the love in the room he knew well; so
trusting what he could not see, he stepped forward quietly. And the deep
waters of an infinite space closed over his head. One soul after another
came to the Great Edge. There were no outcries, no lamentations over
lost days, no shattering questions, no wail to trouble the ears of those
who made grave signs of farewell. But there was a pang, part of the pang
of birth and of love, and taken as the workman takes the ache in his
crushed finger--silently. So simple were they that the coming and going
of the mown grass was as an allegory of their own days, and the
circumstance of death was as natural to them as the reaping of their
abundant valley fruit, or the dropping of a leaf from a tree.
In Rhyd Ddu, however, the acceptance of death differed from life in one
respect, for the simple pride of life was as nothing compared with the
pride centring about some incident of death. They honoured dying with
the frank, unhushed voice with which they praised a beautiful song or
the narration of some stirring tale. They discussed it freely at a
knitting-night or a merry-making; even at the "bidding" of a bride the
subject was acceptable discourse. The ways of their living taught them
no evasion of this last moment.
To Nance the little old man in the next room, with his arched eyebrows,
delicate features, and whimsical sprightly look, had been more than life
itself, and more completely than she had words to express, her hero. The
one object through the years of living that seemed worth remembering at
all--those with Silvan--had been to Nance the glorification of this
husband about whom the Rhyd Ddu folk were by no manner of means in
concord, for pranks of speech and hand are disconcerting to the
slow-moving wits of the average human being. Now, in the end, Nance
foresaw wrested away from Silvan the last of the distinctions she had
hoped to win for him. When she entered the room revolving these
ambitions, beautiful only because love was their source, he was shaking
his finger at Pedr and taking advantage of his good humour.
"Och, mam, this poor dog has had nothin' to eat. Ye're pinchin' him,
whatever."
"Pinchin' him!" exclaimed Nance. "Tut, he'll not be gettin' in an' out'n
the door much longer, an' I see the neighbours a-laughin' now when they
look at him. He'll die with over-feedin', he will."
"He will," mocked Silvan, "die of over-feedin', he will!"
"Lad, Mrs. Griffiths's been here."
"Well, dearie, do ye think I didn't know Megan Griffiths was here? She'd
crack the gates of heaven with that voice. Was she tellin' ye everythin'
that didn't happen, now was she?"
"Dad, what will ye say such things about Megan for? She was tellin' of
Harry James's funeral."
"Nance, she's a bell for every tooth, an' they jingle, jingle, jingle,
jingle."
Nance's eyes filled.
"Och, mam, I'm just teasin' ye; an' ye were thinkin' of me the while,
now weren't ye?"
"Aye, father. 'Twas a grand funeral, an' he died with them wonderful
verses on his lips."
"Did he so!" exclaimed Silvan. "Well, the man had need to, drinkin' as
he did."
"But, lad, there's been others, too."
"Aye, dearie, I heard Megan shoutin' them for my entertainment. I'm not
deaf. But, mam," he continued, the merriment leaving his eyes, "ye're
ambitious for me? Aye?"
"Aye, lad, I am," she whispered, looking away from Silvan, "I am, lad,
for ye have been so long the cleverest man in Rhyd Ddu, an' the
handsomest an' the kindest, an' nothin's too fine for ye. There's no
woman ever had a better man nor I have, lad."
"These girls----"
Nance put up her hand.
"Lad, lad, I cannot stand it, I cannot."
"Och, dearie, I'm just teasin' ye; come here."
She went over to him and sat beside him, her head turned away from the
bright eyes.
"Father, have ye thought of what's comin', have ye?"
"Nance, I'm thinkin' of it all the while, but I'm not afraid, only for
ye. Dearie, ye're not to believe everythin' ye hear; Megan has a good
memory, an' it takes a good memory to tell lies. 'Tisn't everybody dies
repeatin' Bible verses."
"Aye, but father, Harry James _did_ say those words on the card, an' all
the time he never was a good man, swearin' an' drinkin' so, an' ye've
been _so_ good, dad, for all your teasin' an' fun."
"Tut, mam, ye're just wantin' to spoil me, a-makin' out I'm the best man
in Rhyd Ddu. An' ye're wantin' me to have more honour among the
neighbours nor any one else when I'm gone, now isn't that it?"
"Aye," she whispered.
"An' ye're wishin' me to promise to say some text? Would it comfort ye,
mam?"
"Aye," she answered.
"What text?"
Nance thought and repeated some verses.
"No, I can't," he said, shaking his head, "I can't. They're sad, an'
I've always been merrylike."
In the silence that followed these words Silvan turned to Nance.
"I might, if 'twould please ye, say _these_ words." Silvan repeated a
verse. "But I cannot promise even these."
As she listened Nance's face fell.
"Aye, well, dad darlin'," she said, as bravely as she could, "they're
good words indeed, over-cheerful, I'm thinkin', but Holy Writ, aye, Holy
Writ."
Whatever happened in the luxuriant green of the Rhyd Ddu valley, which
the bees still preferred to Paradise, and the flowers to the Garden of
Eden itself,--whatever happened in this valley--some phenomenal spring
season, the flood that swept away their plots of mid-summer marigolds,
the little life that suddenly began to make its needs felt, or the life
with its last need answered--was adjudged with the most primitive wisdom
and philosophy.
Megan Griffiths lost no time in distributing the gleanings from her
visit with Nance, information which was often redistributed and to
which new interest accrued daily as the end of Silvan Rhys's life drew
near.
"Tut," said Megan, "she's that ambitious for him, it fairly eats her up.
'Twas always so from the day of their biddin', an' here 'tis comin' his
funeral, an' he'll never end with a word of Holy Writ on _his_ lips,
that he won't."
"There, there!" Dolly Owen objected, compassionately, her motherly face
full of rebuke.
"Aye, he won't, _that_ he won't," affirmed Morto Roberts, wagging his
head, and sniffing the pleasant odours from the browning light-cakes.
Dolly made no reply, but turned a cake with a dexterous flip, and pulled
forward the teapot to fill it with hot water. The quiet glow from the
fire mirrored itself equally in her kind eyes and in the shining brass
pots and kettles of the flanking shelves, and was multiplied in a
thousand twinkles on the glistening salt of the flitches hanging above
her head. The table was already spread with a gaily-patterned cloth, and
set with china bright as the potted fuchsias and primroses blooming in
the sunshine of her windows. There was nothing garish about this humble
dwelling of Dolly's, yet everywhere it seemed as if sunshine had been
caught and were in process. Warmth, odour, gleam, colour, and the soft
heavy wind travelling by outside, made this the workroom of a golden
alchemy. Dolly smiled with benevolence as she piled up the light-cakes.
"The fat's snappish to-day; it sputtered more nor usual," she said to
Megan, who was seated in the shadow of the high settle.
"Aye," responded Megan, in an irritable voice. "When I went by the house
this mornin'," she persisted, "I heard him singin' some gay thing, a
catch--singin' in bed, indeed, an' dyin'."
"Singin' in bed," puffed Morto, "singin' in bed whatever, an' dyin'. Up
to the last a-caper-in' an' a-dancin' like a fox in the moonlight."
"There, there!" Dolly objected again, filling Morto's plate with cakes;
"he's been a kind man, a very kind man. There was Tom _bach_ he put to
school an' clothed would follow him about like a puppy, an' so would
Nance, an' so would his own dog."
"Pooh! what's that?" asked Megan. "Mrs. Rhys has had the managin' of
most everythin', I'm thinkin', an' his houses he's been praised for
keepin' in such fine repair, an' the old pastor's stipend--aye, well,
ask Nance," ended Megan, with a shrug of her shoulder, and a gulp of hot
tea.
"Aye, well, ask Mrs. Rhys," echoed Morto, "an' ye mind it was the same
pastor's coat-tails he hung the dog-tongs to when he was some thirty
years younger, an' by twenty too old for any such capers. He's an
infiddle, he is, a-doin' such things."
"An' 'twas he, wasn't it," Megan added, "who put that slimy newt in Sian
Howell's hat?"
"Aye, so 'twas, an' she had a way of clappin' her beaver on quick, an'
down came that newt a-hoppin' on her white cap."
"An' he tied the two Janes's cap-strings together, the one who always
prayed sittin' straight up, an' the other in the pew behind leanin'
forward, didn't he?" demanded Megan. "They went quite nasty with him for
that."
"Well," said Dolly, cutting a generous slice of pound cake for Megan,
"I'm thinkin' it's not just, talkin' so; the lad was full of life. He
could no more keep his feet on earth than the cricket in the field. 'Tis
come he's old an' dyin', an' I can see no harm in his havin' had a
little fun, an' singin' now an' then."
"Tut, now an' then!" exclaimed Megan. "'Tis over foolish he is, now
isn't he?"
"Aye," agreed Morto, "he's light."
"He'd have gone quite on the downfall years ago, hadn't it been for
Nance."
"Quite on the downfall," echoed Morto.
"Aye, an' there'll be no word of Scripture crossin' _his_ lips,"
concluded Megan.
Morto had his private reasons for losing no love upon Silvan, and Megan
hers of a similar nature. Even the kindest villagers had taken to
considering the words Silvan would or would not speak at the last.
Rumour, peering into corners with antiquarian diligence and nodding his
white head in prophecy, sat down by every fireside as much at home as
the cottage cat or the fat bundle of babyhood that rolled upon the
hearth. Wherever Rumour seated himself, "he will" and "he won't" was
tossed about excitedly under thatched roofs. The very shepherd on the
hills cast a speculative glance upon Nance's cottage, and Mr. Shoni "the
_coach_" added another question to his daily _questionnaire_.
There was no begging the fact that precedent had begun to weigh heavily
on the last moments of speech of the Rhyd Ddu inhabitants. A man of
years thought anxiously, like one skating on thin ice, how far out he
dare venture without some talismanic and now established words. There
were neighbours in Rhyd Ddu, however, probably no more accomplished with
their tongues than motherly Dolly Owen, who speculated but little and
whose hearts went out to Nance and Silvan. Although they had never seen
the Silvan Nance saw, nevertheless they considered him a good neighbour,
and the path to Nance's cottage was much travelled by kindly thoughts
and by helpful feet.
While the news, old Rumour panting in the rear, was running swiftly from
door to door, Nance was watching Silvan with passionate devotion, no
expression of the face that had lain close to her own for so many years
escaping her. Rhyd Ddu must know at the last, must have some solemn sign
of the eminent goodness he had meant to her. She could not let him go
with one of his jests on his lips--every day was fit enough for that,
but not these minutes. Her thoughts clung even to the words of the
over-cheerful verse she believed he would say. And yet there was a
tantalising merriness in his eyes.
"Father," she said, "do ye mind?"
"Aye, dearie, I'm to be sayin' that ye--have the faith an' I--I have the
works?"
"Och, lad!"
"There, mam, I'm just teasin' ye--just teasin' ye."
"But, lad, it'll be soon."
"Mam," he whispered, "closer."
Nance bent her head.
"Mam--ye--are a darlin', an'--I'll--no--forget."
Every word came more faintly.
"Lad, lad," plead Nance, "quick, now!"
Silvan cast one imploring look at Nance, and his lips struggled for
speech, then his gaze slipped away like a light withdrawing into deep
woods.
Coming down the lane sounded the tread of many feet. Nance heard the
steps approaching; she rose, shook the tears from her eyes, and closed
the bedroom door behind her. Already the latch had been lifted and her
neighbours were filing in, the men taking off their caps and making way
for the women. Nance, confronting them, leaned against the door frame.
"Och, dear," said Dolly compassionately, "he's gone already."
There was no reply.
"Were his last words----" asked Megan.
"Aye," answered Nance, her voice courageous, proud, "aye, these words:
'In the shadow of Thy wings I will rejoice.'"
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Transcriber's note: |
| |
| Archaic and inconsistent punctuation and spelling were retained.|
| |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
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