Chapter Seven.Very New and very Interesting.It is certainly possible when one is only sixteen to go to sleep in the depths of misery, and to awake after a few hours of slumber, with a heart, if not as light as a feather, yet quite sufficiently so, to enable one to dance, not walk, to eat with an appetite, and to laugh with more than surface merriment. These easily changed feelings may be reckoned as some of the blessings of this pleasant age.At sixteen we have our sharp sorrows, but we have our equally keen pleasures, and it is quite impossible for us to be sad always.So on the morning after Gwen had related to me her dream, though there were sore places which I could not quite bear to touch, somewhere about my heart, yet the leading fact which danced before my young eyes lay concentrated in the one word—change. We were going away, we were going to make another place our home; we would soon be in all the grand excitement of a move. I was very childish in the matter, for this experience was so new to me, so completely novel. I had never seen a house in the chaos of a removal. I had never seen furniture ruthlessly piled up in corners, beds in packing-cases, chairs and tables upside down, carpetless and straw-littered floors.It must have been centuries since Tynycymmer had known such a revolution. Except in the attics, everything was in apple-pie order. Even the Tynycymmer attics were not half so disorderly as they should be. Regularly twice a year they were well cleaned out, and reduced to an alarming degree of niceness. The drawing-rooms, dining-room, study, library, were always destined to hold just their own furniture, and no other. And how proper and staid that old furniture looked! those chairs would never tumble down with one, those rather thread-bare carpets would fade and fade, it was true, until all brightness and beauty had left them, but how provokingly orderly they would keep, and how unnecessary it was to do anything to them except at the grand annual cleanings!I have been so put out and so tired by the everlasting sameness of Tynycymmer, that on some of these exciting occasions, I have forced my way into the dethroned and disarranged rooms, tied the housemaid’s white apron over my hair, and flourished wildly about with a mop, never subsiding into rationalism until I had laid one or two articles of value in fragments at my feet.But now we were going to have confusion grand and glorious, for the cottage at Ffynon was to be furnished with some of the superabundance of Tynycymmer.Mother and David went through the old rooms many times, and everything that was small enough, and choice enough, and pretty enough, was marked to go. Mother and David both looked sad during these pilgrimages through the Tynycymmer rooms. But whenever David said, “Mother I should like you to have this, for such a corner,” or, “Mother, we will put this in Owen’s room,” she just bent her stately head in acquiescence, and said, “It shall be as you wish, my son.”So the rare cases of old china went away, and the choicest landscapes were removed from the walls; only the family portraits remained in the portrait gallery, and a painter’s proof of Noel Paton’s “Mors Janua Vitae,” which David and Amy had brought home after their wedding tour, was left undisturbed in David’s study.Then the waggons came, old-fashioned, slow, and cumbersome, and the furniture was stowed in, and Gwen and mother and David went to and fro.At last the cottage was ready, everything to our least belongings, packed and put away, and mother and I saw the day dawn when we were to leave Tynycymmer, and take up our abode at Owen’s house. I found on the morning of that day in late October, I found on that last day, to my astonishment, that even going away had its sorrows. A mist of tears came dimming my eyes as I looked at the sea, as I wandered through the gardens and grounds, as I peeped into the no longer orderly rooms. Memories I had tried to put out of sight returned to me. That arbour overhanging the sea, where I had talked to Amy of Owen, and Amy, in a short, vivid, last flash of resentment, had told me I was wrong; that David was the brave man. Poor little gentle Amy! I had never loved her very much, I had scorned her earnest words; but they were true. I acknowledged them with a great stab at my heart, when I visited the arbour for the last time.Here was the horse-chestnut-tree where Owen and I had sat and dreamed dreams, summer after summer. I hurried away from it. Here was the cherry-tree from which I had stolen the cherries, for which Owen had reproved me. Here, crawling listlessly after me, was the lame, and half-blind terrier, which had once belonged to Owen, and had been sportive enough when Owen and I were together. Here was the study, where I had copied Owen’s exercises. Here the stain, still left in the carpet, where Owen had upset the ink. Here the spot—here, by the deep, mullioned window—where, after a long labour for Owen, he had put his arm round my childish neck, looked full into my eyes, and “called me the best little sister in the world.”Oh! what ailed the place this morning; it was alive with Owen, peopled with Owen in every nook. From each corner Owen started up and confronted me, as he was.As he was—what was he now? I dashed my blinding tears away. Kissed little David, hugged Gwen, who was absolutely speechless with her own sorrow, got into the carriage beside mother, and was off—away! For mother’s sake, who was very white, and seemed to be suffering intensely, I abstained from shouting. For David’s sake, who kept his hat well down, and who never spoke, I, too, remained silent. In process of time we arrived at Ffynon, and at the cottage which was to be our future home. A tree or two surrounded it; a little scrap of a garden, neat with gravel, and bright with late geraniums in pots, led up to it. Inside there was a drawing-room, low and small; a dining-room to match; behind, kitchens, a pantry, and cellars; over head, four bed-rooms. That was absolutely all. Goodness me! dear, dear! as Gwen would say, was there ever such a nutshell of a place! Why, it was a toy-house, a doll’s abode. I could stand on tiptoe and touch the ceiling of the apartment set aside for my slumbers. I could stand by the bedstead at one end of the room, and nearly pull the bell at the other. But then the bedstead was so pretty, so tiny, so bright! The whole room, encased in its fairy-like pink and white, was like a little bower; the muslin curtains were partly drawn, the blinds partly down, the evening sun cast a glow over everything. I approached the window, whistling to my canary as I went. I drew up the blinds, and pushed back the curtains. My cheeks were hot, I wanted to see my waves. Perhaps from long habit, I thought I should see them. I looked out, and behold! a black country—hills, low and barren destitute of trees, clothed with coal dust; straight, red brick chimneys, from which curled volumes of ugly smoke; roads winding everywhere, of a grimy grey; a train of coal trams, whizzing up to the noisy dirty station; the roar of steam-engines filling the air; dark figures rushing here and there, and the machinery and shaft of what I afterwards learned was David’s mine, quite close. The entrance to this mine lay within not many hundred yards of the house. Oh! there was noise enough and life enough here, but it was ugly! ugly! ugly! I quickly shut down the window; I drew the blinds and curtains into their former position. I would not acknowledge, even to myself, how my heart rose up in wild longing for the green trees, and the fresh, sweet, salt waves of Tynycymmer; I only said to myself, “The cottage is lovely, fairy-like; but the view is ugly!”That night I slept well in my little room, and in the morning was able to acknowledge that, though the coal country was far from beautiful, and Ffynon was not quite the home to choose, yet any change was welcome to me; and had Owen only been coming back the hero I had painted him, had dear old David’s brave face not worn such a patient look, had my mother not been quite so silent, and quite so sorry for leaving Tynycymmer, and had Gwen been still to the fore to scold me, and pet me, I should have been, notwithstanding the ugly view, the happiest girl in the world.I got up early this first morning, and went out. I ran down, without anyone knowing it, to the place where the machinery roared loudest, and the black coal dust was thickest. I looked into the mouth of the shaft, watched with interest the rows of grimy miners getting into the cage, and descending into the mine; started back at first from their black faces, which, relieved by the dazzling white of teeth and eyeballs, made them look hardly human; presently gathered courage, came close, asked eager questions, made all verbal preparations for a speedy descent into the coal mine; rather laughed at the idea of fear in the matter, and returned home in time for breakfast, my light dress covered with dirty stains, my golden hair full of coal dust, my whole person very dirty indeed.“Gwladys,” said mother, “you must never venture near the shaft alone again.”“If you do, Gwladys, I must take you back to Tynycymmer,” said David.I did not want that; if Ffynon was dirty, it was very new and very interesting.
It is certainly possible when one is only sixteen to go to sleep in the depths of misery, and to awake after a few hours of slumber, with a heart, if not as light as a feather, yet quite sufficiently so, to enable one to dance, not walk, to eat with an appetite, and to laugh with more than surface merriment. These easily changed feelings may be reckoned as some of the blessings of this pleasant age.
At sixteen we have our sharp sorrows, but we have our equally keen pleasures, and it is quite impossible for us to be sad always.
So on the morning after Gwen had related to me her dream, though there were sore places which I could not quite bear to touch, somewhere about my heart, yet the leading fact which danced before my young eyes lay concentrated in the one word—change. We were going away, we were going to make another place our home; we would soon be in all the grand excitement of a move. I was very childish in the matter, for this experience was so new to me, so completely novel. I had never seen a house in the chaos of a removal. I had never seen furniture ruthlessly piled up in corners, beds in packing-cases, chairs and tables upside down, carpetless and straw-littered floors.
It must have been centuries since Tynycymmer had known such a revolution. Except in the attics, everything was in apple-pie order. Even the Tynycymmer attics were not half so disorderly as they should be. Regularly twice a year they were well cleaned out, and reduced to an alarming degree of niceness. The drawing-rooms, dining-room, study, library, were always destined to hold just their own furniture, and no other. And how proper and staid that old furniture looked! those chairs would never tumble down with one, those rather thread-bare carpets would fade and fade, it was true, until all brightness and beauty had left them, but how provokingly orderly they would keep, and how unnecessary it was to do anything to them except at the grand annual cleanings!
I have been so put out and so tired by the everlasting sameness of Tynycymmer, that on some of these exciting occasions, I have forced my way into the dethroned and disarranged rooms, tied the housemaid’s white apron over my hair, and flourished wildly about with a mop, never subsiding into rationalism until I had laid one or two articles of value in fragments at my feet.
But now we were going to have confusion grand and glorious, for the cottage at Ffynon was to be furnished with some of the superabundance of Tynycymmer.
Mother and David went through the old rooms many times, and everything that was small enough, and choice enough, and pretty enough, was marked to go. Mother and David both looked sad during these pilgrimages through the Tynycymmer rooms. But whenever David said, “Mother I should like you to have this, for such a corner,” or, “Mother, we will put this in Owen’s room,” she just bent her stately head in acquiescence, and said, “It shall be as you wish, my son.”
So the rare cases of old china went away, and the choicest landscapes were removed from the walls; only the family portraits remained in the portrait gallery, and a painter’s proof of Noel Paton’s “Mors Janua Vitae,” which David and Amy had brought home after their wedding tour, was left undisturbed in David’s study.
Then the waggons came, old-fashioned, slow, and cumbersome, and the furniture was stowed in, and Gwen and mother and David went to and fro.
At last the cottage was ready, everything to our least belongings, packed and put away, and mother and I saw the day dawn when we were to leave Tynycymmer, and take up our abode at Owen’s house. I found on the morning of that day in late October, I found on that last day, to my astonishment, that even going away had its sorrows. A mist of tears came dimming my eyes as I looked at the sea, as I wandered through the gardens and grounds, as I peeped into the no longer orderly rooms. Memories I had tried to put out of sight returned to me. That arbour overhanging the sea, where I had talked to Amy of Owen, and Amy, in a short, vivid, last flash of resentment, had told me I was wrong; that David was the brave man. Poor little gentle Amy! I had never loved her very much, I had scorned her earnest words; but they were true. I acknowledged them with a great stab at my heart, when I visited the arbour for the last time.
Here was the horse-chestnut-tree where Owen and I had sat and dreamed dreams, summer after summer. I hurried away from it. Here was the cherry-tree from which I had stolen the cherries, for which Owen had reproved me. Here, crawling listlessly after me, was the lame, and half-blind terrier, which had once belonged to Owen, and had been sportive enough when Owen and I were together. Here was the study, where I had copied Owen’s exercises. Here the stain, still left in the carpet, where Owen had upset the ink. Here the spot—here, by the deep, mullioned window—where, after a long labour for Owen, he had put his arm round my childish neck, looked full into my eyes, and “called me the best little sister in the world.”
Oh! what ailed the place this morning; it was alive with Owen, peopled with Owen in every nook. From each corner Owen started up and confronted me, as he was.As he was—what was he now? I dashed my blinding tears away. Kissed little David, hugged Gwen, who was absolutely speechless with her own sorrow, got into the carriage beside mother, and was off—away! For mother’s sake, who was very white, and seemed to be suffering intensely, I abstained from shouting. For David’s sake, who kept his hat well down, and who never spoke, I, too, remained silent. In process of time we arrived at Ffynon, and at the cottage which was to be our future home. A tree or two surrounded it; a little scrap of a garden, neat with gravel, and bright with late geraniums in pots, led up to it. Inside there was a drawing-room, low and small; a dining-room to match; behind, kitchens, a pantry, and cellars; over head, four bed-rooms. That was absolutely all. Goodness me! dear, dear! as Gwen would say, was there ever such a nutshell of a place! Why, it was a toy-house, a doll’s abode. I could stand on tiptoe and touch the ceiling of the apartment set aside for my slumbers. I could stand by the bedstead at one end of the room, and nearly pull the bell at the other. But then the bedstead was so pretty, so tiny, so bright! The whole room, encased in its fairy-like pink and white, was like a little bower; the muslin curtains were partly drawn, the blinds partly down, the evening sun cast a glow over everything. I approached the window, whistling to my canary as I went. I drew up the blinds, and pushed back the curtains. My cheeks were hot, I wanted to see my waves. Perhaps from long habit, I thought I should see them. I looked out, and behold! a black country—hills, low and barren destitute of trees, clothed with coal dust; straight, red brick chimneys, from which curled volumes of ugly smoke; roads winding everywhere, of a grimy grey; a train of coal trams, whizzing up to the noisy dirty station; the roar of steam-engines filling the air; dark figures rushing here and there, and the machinery and shaft of what I afterwards learned was David’s mine, quite close. The entrance to this mine lay within not many hundred yards of the house. Oh! there was noise enough and life enough here, but it was ugly! ugly! ugly! I quickly shut down the window; I drew the blinds and curtains into their former position. I would not acknowledge, even to myself, how my heart rose up in wild longing for the green trees, and the fresh, sweet, salt waves of Tynycymmer; I only said to myself, “The cottage is lovely, fairy-like; but the view is ugly!”
That night I slept well in my little room, and in the morning was able to acknowledge that, though the coal country was far from beautiful, and Ffynon was not quite the home to choose, yet any change was welcome to me; and had Owen only been coming back the hero I had painted him, had dear old David’s brave face not worn such a patient look, had my mother not been quite so silent, and quite so sorry for leaving Tynycymmer, and had Gwen been still to the fore to scold me, and pet me, I should have been, notwithstanding the ugly view, the happiest girl in the world.
I got up early this first morning, and went out. I ran down, without anyone knowing it, to the place where the machinery roared loudest, and the black coal dust was thickest. I looked into the mouth of the shaft, watched with interest the rows of grimy miners getting into the cage, and descending into the mine; started back at first from their black faces, which, relieved by the dazzling white of teeth and eyeballs, made them look hardly human; presently gathered courage, came close, asked eager questions, made all verbal preparations for a speedy descent into the coal mine; rather laughed at the idea of fear in the matter, and returned home in time for breakfast, my light dress covered with dirty stains, my golden hair full of coal dust, my whole person very dirty indeed.
“Gwladys,” said mother, “you must never venture near the shaft alone again.”
“If you do, Gwladys, I must take you back to Tynycymmer,” said David.
I did not want that; if Ffynon was dirty, it was very new and very interesting.
Chapter Eight.I said I would do much for these Children.We were a fortnight at Ffynon. All my possessions were unpacked and put neatly away in the wardrobes allotted to them. My favourite books, my “Cambrian Magazine,” my “Westward Ho!” my “Arabian Nights,” my “Mabinogion,” reflected gay colours behind polished glass doors. Packing-cases had disappeared. The cottage inside was perfection, bright with potted plants, cool with muslin drapery, glowing with rich crimson curtains. The rare and lovely Tynycymmer china filled niches in the drawing-room, exquisite landscapes from the pencils of Fielding and Cooper adorned the walls, the blackest of coal sent out the clearest flames of ruddy hue from the highly-polished grates. Every room was perfect, perfect with neatness, cleanliness, order, and perfect also with a minute, but highly-finished beauty. The tiny abode hardly needed even a fairy’s touch to render it more lovely, on the day Owen was expected home. On this day mother came down in the black velvet robe which had lain by for years. It was worn high to her throat, finished off at neck and wrists with Honiton. A tiny Honiton cap rested becomingly on her shining, abundant, still raven black hair.I was lying on my bed, my face flashed, my yellow locks in confusion, a rumpled cotton dress, too soiled for July, too out of season for October, adorning my person, when mother in her massive folds, her eyes bright as stars, came in.“Make yourself nice, my darling. Owen will be here before long,” she said.She kissed me and went away. When she left me I jumped up, and looked at my watch. It was not yet four o’clock. Owen could not arrive before another hour. I cared nothing about my dress. I could not sit in state in the tiny drawing-room to meet Owen. I put on a winter jacket, and my hat, ran downstairs, and went out.Mother saw me from the window, and called after me, and I called back in reply—“I shall not be long, I shall return in time for Owen.”Mother turned away with a sigh. What a rebellious, thoughtless young thing I was! Of course mother wanted me. She would like to look at me in my trim, orderly, number one gown, to arrange a ribbon here and a curl there, to sigh, and smile, and talk, to hazard a thousand sweet innocent conjectures. Should we know our darling? What would he think of me? I had been such a little one when he went away!These remarks, these touches, these looks, would have helped mother through that last trying hour of suspense, that hour which, if allhasbeen well, if allwillbe well, is still fraught with pain through its very intensity. Yes, they would have helped mother, and driven me wild. I was selfish. I went on my way. Oh! that ugly coal country, with the wintry fading light of the first November evening over it! I kicked up coal dust with my feet, and two heavy tears fell from my eyes. Yes, Owen was coming home. Even now, each moment was bringing him nearer to us. Owen was coming home, and I was unhappy. Between this hour, and the hour six weeks before, when David had broken to me one sad fact, a strange but complete revulsion had taken place within me. I was a childish creature still, childish in heart and nature; but just, perhaps, or in part, perhaps, because Iwasso inexperienced, so immature, I had turned from my hero, I had hardened myself against the warmest love of my life.Yes, I had made a god and worshipped it. Nothing was too good for it, no homage too great to lay at its feet, no sacrifice too worthy to offer at its shrine. Mother, David, Amy, were all as nothing in comparison of this my hero. My dream lasted through my childhood and early youth, then suddenly it vanished. My god was a clay god, my idol was dust.Owen Morgan still lived. Owen Morgan was coming back to his mother, brother, sister, but my perfect Owen was dead. A man who had sinned, who had brought disgrace on us, was coming home to-day. More and more as the time drew nearer I had shrunk from seeing, from speaking to, from touching, this altered Owen. I was intensely unmerciful, intensely severe, with the severity of the very young. No after repentance, no future deed of glory could wipe away this early stain. I had been deceived—Owen had sinned—andmyOwen was dead. As I walked quickly along the barren, ugly coal country, I pictured to myself what my feelings would have been to-day had this not been so. Would mother have sat alone then in her velvet and lace to meet the returning hero? Would I? ah! what would Inothave done to-day? I could not think of it. I dashed away another tear or two and walked on. I chose unfrequented, lonely paths, and these abounded in plenty, paths leading up to old, used-up shafts, and neglected mines; paths with thin ragged grass covering them, all equally ugly. At last I came to a huge cinder-heap, which had lain undisturbed so long, that some weak vegetation had managed now to grow up around it. Here I sat down to rest. The cinder-heap was close to the closed-up shaft of an unused pit. In this fortnight I had already learned something of mining life, and I knew where to look for the old shafts, and always examined them with curiosity. As I sat there, I heard the voices of two children, who, evidently quite unaware of my close neighbourhood, were talking eagerly together, at the other side of the cinder-heap. It was a boy’s voice I heard first—high, shrill, passionate.“Yes, indeed, Nan; they’ll call me a coward. No, Nan; I’ll not be daunted. I will go down on Monday!”To these words the girl replied with sobs. I heard the boy kissing her; then there was silence, then the same eager voice said—“Don’t cry, Nan; Monday ain’t come yet. Let’s talk of something pleasant.”“Don’t talk at all, Miles. Let’s sing.”“Shall we sing ‘The Cross?’”“I don’t—no, I do care. Yes, we’ll sing that.” There was a pause, then two sweet, wild voices took up the following words to a plaintive Welsh air:—“The cross! the cross! the heavy cross!The Saviour bore for me!Which bowed Him to the earth with grief,On sad Mount Calvary.“How light, how light, this precious crossPresented now to me;And if with care I take it up,Behold a crown for me!”Here the voices ceased suddenly, and I again heard a kiss of comfort, and the sound of a girl’s sob. I could bear no more. I started to my feet, ran round the cinder-heap, and confronted the children.“Please don’t be frightened! I heard you sing. I want you to sing again. I want to know what’s the matter. I’m Gwladys Morgan—you may have heard of me; my brother is going to manage the mine at Ffynon.”Two pairs of black eyes were raised to my face, then the boy rose slowly to his feet, came forward a step or two, and after gazing at me with the most searching, penetrating glance I had ever been favoured with, said brightly, as if satisfied with the result of his scrutiny—“I’m Miles, and this is little Nan.”“And father works down in the mine,” said little Nan.“Father’s name is Moses Thomas—he’s deputy,” said the boy again, in a proud tone.“Go on,” I said, seating myself close to the children; “tell me all about yourselves. I’m so glad I’ve met you. I am sure we shall be friends. I like you both already. Now you must let me know your whole story, from beginning to end; only first, do,dosing that lovely hymn again.”“I’ll sing, Miss Morgan,” said the boy, instantly; “but you’ll forgive little Nan; little Nan’s in trouble, and her voice ain’t steady.”Throwing back his head, looking straight before him, and clasping his hands round his knee, he sang to the same wild measure the next verse of the Methodist hymn:—“The crown! the crown! the glorious crown!A crown of life for me.This crown of life it shall be mine,When Jesus I shall see.”“When Jesus I shall see,” he repeated, under his breath, looking at the girl as he spoke. As the children looked at each other they seemed to have forgotten my presence.“What’s the cross you’ve got to bear? Nan,” I asked.An old-fashioned, troubled, anxious face was raised to mine; but it was Miles who answered.“’Tis just this, Miss Morgan: ’tis nothing to fret about. I’ve got to go down into the mine to work on Monday. I’ve never been into the mine before, and little Nan’s rare and timmersome; but I says to her that she’s faithless. She knows, and I know, that the Lord’ll be down in the mine too. ’Tis none so dark down there but He’ll find me h’out, and take care on me.”“He didn’t find out Stephie,” sobbed Nan, all her composure giving way. “He took no care on Stephie.”“What is it?” I said; “do tell me about it; and who is Stephie? Miles.”“Stephie is dead, Miss Morgan. There’s only us two now—only us and father. Mother died arter Stephie went; she fretted a good bit, and she died too; and then there was Nan, and me, and father. We lives near Ffynon Mine, and father’s deputy; and we’re none so rich, and father works rare and ’ard; and he don’t get much money, ’cause the times is bad; and I’m fourteen, and I’m very strong, and I says I should work.”“No—no—no!” here screamed the girl, forgetting, in a perfect paroxysm of fright and grief, the presence of the stranger. She clasped her arms round the boy’s neck, and her white lips worked convulsively.“There it is,” said Miles; “she’s sure set agen it, and yet it must be.” Then bending down and speaking in a low voice, in her ear. “Shall I tell the lady about Stephie? Nan.”“Yes,” said Nan, unloosing her hold, and looking up into his face with a sigh. She had the scared look in her wild, bright eyes, I have seen in the hunted hare, when he flew past me—dogs and horsemen in full pursuit. Now she buried her head in her brother’s rough jacket, with the momentary relief which the telling of Stephie’s story would give to the tension of her fears.“Tell me about Stephie,” I said.“Stephie,” continued Miles—“he was our brother. Mother set great store by Stephie; he was so strong, and big, and brave. Nothing ’ud daunt ’im. Many of the lads about ’ere ’ud try; and they’d say, ‘Wait till the day you goes down inter the mine, and you’ll show the white feather’; but he—he larfed at ’em. He ’ad no fear in ’im, and h’all the stories ’bout fire-damp, and h’all the other dangers—and worse’rn all, the ghosts of the colliers as died in the mine, they couldn’t daunt him. Other lads ’ud run away, wen they come near the h’age; but he—he on’y counted the days; and ‘Mother,’ ’e’d say—for mother war werry weakly—‘Mother, wen you ’as my wage, you can buy this thing and t’other thing, and you’ll be strong in no time.’ Well, mother she thought a sight on Stephie, and she never wanted ’im to go down inter the mine; and she used to ask father to try and ’prentice ’im to another trade, for he war so big, and bright, and clever; but the times was bad, and father couldn’t, so Stephie had to go. Hewasclever, and fond o’ readin’, and a man wot lived near, lent ’im books, real minin’ books, and he knew ’bout the dangers well as anybody; but nothing could daunt Stephie, and he often said that he’d work and work, and rise hisself; and he’d try then ef he couldn’t find h’out something as ’ud help to lessen the danger for the colliers. At last the day came wen he was to go down.”Here Miles paused, drew a long breath, and little Nan buried her head yet farther into his rough jacket. He stooped to kiss her, then raising his head, and fixing his eyes on my face, he continued. “The day ’ad come, and Stephie got h’up very early in the mornin’, and he put on ’is collier’s dress, and we h’all got up—Nan and h’all; and mother she give ’im ’is breakfast. Well, he was standin’ by the fire, and mother’s ’and on ’is shoulder, and ’er eyes on ’is face, when father, he came.“Father had h’always promised to go down the first time wid Stephie, and show ’im the mine, and put ’im wid someone as ’nd learn ’im ’is work; but now he said, ‘Stephie, lad, I can’t go down till night. I ’as ’ad a sudden call elsewhere, so thee ’ad better wait, lad;’ but Stephie answered, ‘No, father; there’s poor little James, Black William’s son, and he’s going down too, to-day; and he’s rare and daunted, and I ain’t a bit; and Black William said as he might stay along wid me the first day, so I must go, father, and Black William ull take care on us both;’ then father, he said no more—on’y mother, she cried and begged Stephie to wait. And he looked at ’er amost scornful, for h’all he loved her so; and he said, ‘Doestheetell me to forsake the little sickly lad?’ Then he kissed mother, and he kissed little Nan, and waved his hand back at ’em, and set off running to the bank, and I ran wid ’im, and he said to me, ‘Miles, lad, don’t you h’ever be daunted when your turn comes to go down, for God takes care of h’everybody, in the earth and on the earth—’tis all the same to God.’ Then he stepped on to the cage, and gripped the hand of little James, who was shakin’ fit to drop, and he called h’out to me—‘Tell mother as I’ll be coming up wid the day crew, and to ’ave supper ready, for I’ll be very ’ungry,’ and the other colliers larfed to ’ear ’im so ’arty.“Well, Miss Morgan, that day mother war stronger nor ordinary, and she cleaned and scrubbed the floor, and when evening came, she got a rare and good bit of supper ready, and just wen we was looking h’out for Stephie, and mother had put a rough towel, and water in the tub, ready for him to wash hisself, who should come runnin’ in but the wife of Black Bill, h’all crazy like, and ’ringin’ ’er ’hands; and she said there had been a gas explosion, and h’every livin’ soul in the mine was dead.”Here Miles paused; speaking again in a moment, more slowly.“Thatwasn’t true. A few did escape, and was brought up next day. But Black Bill was dead, and Stephie, and little James. Black Bill was found all burnt dreadful; but Stephie and little James—it was the after-damp had done for them. They was found in one of the stalls; Stephie’s arms round the little lad.” Another long pause. “Mother, she never held up her head—she died three months later, and now there’s on’y Nan, and father, and me. Nan is such a careful little body, and keeps the house so trim.”“You are not afraid to go down into the mine?” I said.“Well, miss, it is a bit of a cross; partic’lar as it cuts up the little ’un so; but, good gracious! it ain’t nothin’; there ain’t bin a h’accident for h’ages—andIain’t daunted.”“When are you going down?”“On Monday, Miss Morgan.”“Little Nan,” I said, turning to the child, “I mean to come to see you at your own house on Monday. You may expect me, for I shall be sure to come; and I’ll bring you pictures—lots; and if you like, I can show you how to colour them.”I thought this offer must charm Nan, and make her forget the terrors of the mine; but it did not. She looked gravely, almost fretfully at me, and it was Miles who said, “Thank you.”“I must go now,” I said, jumping to my feet. “I have stayed too long already; but I’m very glad I have met you, Miles, and Nan. I think your Stephie a real, real hero; and, Miles, Iloveyou for being so brave, and I should like, beyond anything, to shake hands with you, and to kiss little Nan.”After clasping a small brown hand, and pressing a warm salute on two trembling lips, I started home. The children’s story had excited me, and warmed my heart. For the present it absorbed my thoughts, even to the exclusion of Owen. I said I would do much for these two. This boy and girl, so lonely, so interesting, with their tragic story and tragic life, should find in me a benefactor and friend. The thought was delicious and exhilarating. David, through my intervention, should rescue Miles from the miner’s life, and relieve the timid little sister from her worst fears. My spirits rose high as I contemplated this event, which a word from my lips could bring about. I entered the house humming the wild sweet air which the children had set to their Methodist hymn. The music of my voice was greeted by the richer music of gay and happy laughter. I stood motionless in the hall. My heart almost ceased to beat, then bounded on wildly. The colour fled from my cheeks and lips, returning in a moment in a full tide of richest crimson. I could have given way then. I could have rushed to Owen’s side, thrown my arms round his neck, and wept out on his breast, a whole flood of healing and forgiving tears. Had I done so, my soul would have been knit to his with a love strong as the old love was weak—noble as the old passionate affection was erring and idolatrous; but I did not. I conquered the emotion, which the sound of his voice, and his laughter, had stirred within me. I told myself thatthatwas not my Owen—mine, my hero was dead. Untidy, pale, agitated, but unforgiving, I opened the drawing-room door and went in. David, mother, and Owen, were standing in a loving, happy group. I went up to the group—they had not heard me come in—and touched Owen on the sleeve, and said, in a quiet voice, “Welcome home, brother.”For an instant two bright, dark eyes looked expectantly into mine—one instant the brilliant eyes wore that look—one instant after, they were blank with disappointment. Then all was commonplace—a commonplace, but affectionate brother’s kiss was on my cheek, and a gay voice said, laughingly—“Why, Gwladys, you’re as wild and disreputable-looking a little romp as ever.”
We were a fortnight at Ffynon. All my possessions were unpacked and put neatly away in the wardrobes allotted to them. My favourite books, my “Cambrian Magazine,” my “Westward Ho!” my “Arabian Nights,” my “Mabinogion,” reflected gay colours behind polished glass doors. Packing-cases had disappeared. The cottage inside was perfection, bright with potted plants, cool with muslin drapery, glowing with rich crimson curtains. The rare and lovely Tynycymmer china filled niches in the drawing-room, exquisite landscapes from the pencils of Fielding and Cooper adorned the walls, the blackest of coal sent out the clearest flames of ruddy hue from the highly-polished grates. Every room was perfect, perfect with neatness, cleanliness, order, and perfect also with a minute, but highly-finished beauty. The tiny abode hardly needed even a fairy’s touch to render it more lovely, on the day Owen was expected home. On this day mother came down in the black velvet robe which had lain by for years. It was worn high to her throat, finished off at neck and wrists with Honiton. A tiny Honiton cap rested becomingly on her shining, abundant, still raven black hair.
I was lying on my bed, my face flashed, my yellow locks in confusion, a rumpled cotton dress, too soiled for July, too out of season for October, adorning my person, when mother in her massive folds, her eyes bright as stars, came in.
“Make yourself nice, my darling. Owen will be here before long,” she said.
She kissed me and went away. When she left me I jumped up, and looked at my watch. It was not yet four o’clock. Owen could not arrive before another hour. I cared nothing about my dress. I could not sit in state in the tiny drawing-room to meet Owen. I put on a winter jacket, and my hat, ran downstairs, and went out.
Mother saw me from the window, and called after me, and I called back in reply—
“I shall not be long, I shall return in time for Owen.”
Mother turned away with a sigh. What a rebellious, thoughtless young thing I was! Of course mother wanted me. She would like to look at me in my trim, orderly, number one gown, to arrange a ribbon here and a curl there, to sigh, and smile, and talk, to hazard a thousand sweet innocent conjectures. Should we know our darling? What would he think of me? I had been such a little one when he went away!
These remarks, these touches, these looks, would have helped mother through that last trying hour of suspense, that hour which, if allhasbeen well, if allwillbe well, is still fraught with pain through its very intensity. Yes, they would have helped mother, and driven me wild. I was selfish. I went on my way. Oh! that ugly coal country, with the wintry fading light of the first November evening over it! I kicked up coal dust with my feet, and two heavy tears fell from my eyes. Yes, Owen was coming home. Even now, each moment was bringing him nearer to us. Owen was coming home, and I was unhappy. Between this hour, and the hour six weeks before, when David had broken to me one sad fact, a strange but complete revulsion had taken place within me. I was a childish creature still, childish in heart and nature; but just, perhaps, or in part, perhaps, because Iwasso inexperienced, so immature, I had turned from my hero, I had hardened myself against the warmest love of my life.
Yes, I had made a god and worshipped it. Nothing was too good for it, no homage too great to lay at its feet, no sacrifice too worthy to offer at its shrine. Mother, David, Amy, were all as nothing in comparison of this my hero. My dream lasted through my childhood and early youth, then suddenly it vanished. My god was a clay god, my idol was dust.
Owen Morgan still lived. Owen Morgan was coming back to his mother, brother, sister, but my perfect Owen was dead. A man who had sinned, who had brought disgrace on us, was coming home to-day. More and more as the time drew nearer I had shrunk from seeing, from speaking to, from touching, this altered Owen. I was intensely unmerciful, intensely severe, with the severity of the very young. No after repentance, no future deed of glory could wipe away this early stain. I had been deceived—Owen had sinned—andmyOwen was dead. As I walked quickly along the barren, ugly coal country, I pictured to myself what my feelings would have been to-day had this not been so. Would mother have sat alone then in her velvet and lace to meet the returning hero? Would I? ah! what would Inothave done to-day? I could not think of it. I dashed away another tear or two and walked on. I chose unfrequented, lonely paths, and these abounded in plenty, paths leading up to old, used-up shafts, and neglected mines; paths with thin ragged grass covering them, all equally ugly. At last I came to a huge cinder-heap, which had lain undisturbed so long, that some weak vegetation had managed now to grow up around it. Here I sat down to rest. The cinder-heap was close to the closed-up shaft of an unused pit. In this fortnight I had already learned something of mining life, and I knew where to look for the old shafts, and always examined them with curiosity. As I sat there, I heard the voices of two children, who, evidently quite unaware of my close neighbourhood, were talking eagerly together, at the other side of the cinder-heap. It was a boy’s voice I heard first—high, shrill, passionate.
“Yes, indeed, Nan; they’ll call me a coward. No, Nan; I’ll not be daunted. I will go down on Monday!”
To these words the girl replied with sobs. I heard the boy kissing her; then there was silence, then the same eager voice said—
“Don’t cry, Nan; Monday ain’t come yet. Let’s talk of something pleasant.”
“Don’t talk at all, Miles. Let’s sing.”
“Shall we sing ‘The Cross?’”
“I don’t—no, I do care. Yes, we’ll sing that.” There was a pause, then two sweet, wild voices took up the following words to a plaintive Welsh air:—
“The cross! the cross! the heavy cross!The Saviour bore for me!Which bowed Him to the earth with grief,On sad Mount Calvary.“How light, how light, this precious crossPresented now to me;And if with care I take it up,Behold a crown for me!”
“The cross! the cross! the heavy cross!The Saviour bore for me!Which bowed Him to the earth with grief,On sad Mount Calvary.“How light, how light, this precious crossPresented now to me;And if with care I take it up,Behold a crown for me!”
Here the voices ceased suddenly, and I again heard a kiss of comfort, and the sound of a girl’s sob. I could bear no more. I started to my feet, ran round the cinder-heap, and confronted the children.
“Please don’t be frightened! I heard you sing. I want you to sing again. I want to know what’s the matter. I’m Gwladys Morgan—you may have heard of me; my brother is going to manage the mine at Ffynon.”
Two pairs of black eyes were raised to my face, then the boy rose slowly to his feet, came forward a step or two, and after gazing at me with the most searching, penetrating glance I had ever been favoured with, said brightly, as if satisfied with the result of his scrutiny—
“I’m Miles, and this is little Nan.”
“And father works down in the mine,” said little Nan.
“Father’s name is Moses Thomas—he’s deputy,” said the boy again, in a proud tone.
“Go on,” I said, seating myself close to the children; “tell me all about yourselves. I’m so glad I’ve met you. I am sure we shall be friends. I like you both already. Now you must let me know your whole story, from beginning to end; only first, do,dosing that lovely hymn again.”
“I’ll sing, Miss Morgan,” said the boy, instantly; “but you’ll forgive little Nan; little Nan’s in trouble, and her voice ain’t steady.”
Throwing back his head, looking straight before him, and clasping his hands round his knee, he sang to the same wild measure the next verse of the Methodist hymn:—
“The crown! the crown! the glorious crown!A crown of life for me.This crown of life it shall be mine,When Jesus I shall see.”
“The crown! the crown! the glorious crown!A crown of life for me.This crown of life it shall be mine,When Jesus I shall see.”
“When Jesus I shall see,” he repeated, under his breath, looking at the girl as he spoke. As the children looked at each other they seemed to have forgotten my presence.
“What’s the cross you’ve got to bear? Nan,” I asked.
An old-fashioned, troubled, anxious face was raised to mine; but it was Miles who answered.
“’Tis just this, Miss Morgan: ’tis nothing to fret about. I’ve got to go down into the mine to work on Monday. I’ve never been into the mine before, and little Nan’s rare and timmersome; but I says to her that she’s faithless. She knows, and I know, that the Lord’ll be down in the mine too. ’Tis none so dark down there but He’ll find me h’out, and take care on me.”
“He didn’t find out Stephie,” sobbed Nan, all her composure giving way. “He took no care on Stephie.”
“What is it?” I said; “do tell me about it; and who is Stephie? Miles.”
“Stephie is dead, Miss Morgan. There’s only us two now—only us and father. Mother died arter Stephie went; she fretted a good bit, and she died too; and then there was Nan, and me, and father. We lives near Ffynon Mine, and father’s deputy; and we’re none so rich, and father works rare and ’ard; and he don’t get much money, ’cause the times is bad; and I’m fourteen, and I’m very strong, and I says I should work.”
“No—no—no!” here screamed the girl, forgetting, in a perfect paroxysm of fright and grief, the presence of the stranger. She clasped her arms round the boy’s neck, and her white lips worked convulsively.
“There it is,” said Miles; “she’s sure set agen it, and yet it must be.” Then bending down and speaking in a low voice, in her ear. “Shall I tell the lady about Stephie? Nan.”
“Yes,” said Nan, unloosing her hold, and looking up into his face with a sigh. She had the scared look in her wild, bright eyes, I have seen in the hunted hare, when he flew past me—dogs and horsemen in full pursuit. Now she buried her head in her brother’s rough jacket, with the momentary relief which the telling of Stephie’s story would give to the tension of her fears.
“Tell me about Stephie,” I said.
“Stephie,” continued Miles—“he was our brother. Mother set great store by Stephie; he was so strong, and big, and brave. Nothing ’ud daunt ’im. Many of the lads about ’ere ’ud try; and they’d say, ‘Wait till the day you goes down inter the mine, and you’ll show the white feather’; but he—he larfed at ’em. He ’ad no fear in ’im, and h’all the stories ’bout fire-damp, and h’all the other dangers—and worse’rn all, the ghosts of the colliers as died in the mine, they couldn’t daunt him. Other lads ’ud run away, wen they come near the h’age; but he—he on’y counted the days; and ‘Mother,’ ’e’d say—for mother war werry weakly—‘Mother, wen you ’as my wage, you can buy this thing and t’other thing, and you’ll be strong in no time.’ Well, mother she thought a sight on Stephie, and she never wanted ’im to go down inter the mine; and she used to ask father to try and ’prentice ’im to another trade, for he war so big, and bright, and clever; but the times was bad, and father couldn’t, so Stephie had to go. Hewasclever, and fond o’ readin’, and a man wot lived near, lent ’im books, real minin’ books, and he knew ’bout the dangers well as anybody; but nothing could daunt Stephie, and he often said that he’d work and work, and rise hisself; and he’d try then ef he couldn’t find h’out something as ’ud help to lessen the danger for the colliers. At last the day came wen he was to go down.”
Here Miles paused, drew a long breath, and little Nan buried her head yet farther into his rough jacket. He stooped to kiss her, then raising his head, and fixing his eyes on my face, he continued. “The day ’ad come, and Stephie got h’up very early in the mornin’, and he put on ’is collier’s dress, and we h’all got up—Nan and h’all; and mother she give ’im ’is breakfast. Well, he was standin’ by the fire, and mother’s ’and on ’is shoulder, and ’er eyes on ’is face, when father, he came.
“Father had h’always promised to go down the first time wid Stephie, and show ’im the mine, and put ’im wid someone as ’nd learn ’im ’is work; but now he said, ‘Stephie, lad, I can’t go down till night. I ’as ’ad a sudden call elsewhere, so thee ’ad better wait, lad;’ but Stephie answered, ‘No, father; there’s poor little James, Black William’s son, and he’s going down too, to-day; and he’s rare and daunted, and I ain’t a bit; and Black William said as he might stay along wid me the first day, so I must go, father, and Black William ull take care on us both;’ then father, he said no more—on’y mother, she cried and begged Stephie to wait. And he looked at ’er amost scornful, for h’all he loved her so; and he said, ‘Doestheetell me to forsake the little sickly lad?’ Then he kissed mother, and he kissed little Nan, and waved his hand back at ’em, and set off running to the bank, and I ran wid ’im, and he said to me, ‘Miles, lad, don’t you h’ever be daunted when your turn comes to go down, for God takes care of h’everybody, in the earth and on the earth—’tis all the same to God.’ Then he stepped on to the cage, and gripped the hand of little James, who was shakin’ fit to drop, and he called h’out to me—‘Tell mother as I’ll be coming up wid the day crew, and to ’ave supper ready, for I’ll be very ’ungry,’ and the other colliers larfed to ’ear ’im so ’arty.
“Well, Miss Morgan, that day mother war stronger nor ordinary, and she cleaned and scrubbed the floor, and when evening came, she got a rare and good bit of supper ready, and just wen we was looking h’out for Stephie, and mother had put a rough towel, and water in the tub, ready for him to wash hisself, who should come runnin’ in but the wife of Black Bill, h’all crazy like, and ’ringin’ ’er ’hands; and she said there had been a gas explosion, and h’every livin’ soul in the mine was dead.”
Here Miles paused; speaking again in a moment, more slowly.
“Thatwasn’t true. A few did escape, and was brought up next day. But Black Bill was dead, and Stephie, and little James. Black Bill was found all burnt dreadful; but Stephie and little James—it was the after-damp had done for them. They was found in one of the stalls; Stephie’s arms round the little lad.” Another long pause. “Mother, she never held up her head—she died three months later, and now there’s on’y Nan, and father, and me. Nan is such a careful little body, and keeps the house so trim.”
“You are not afraid to go down into the mine?” I said.
“Well, miss, it is a bit of a cross; partic’lar as it cuts up the little ’un so; but, good gracious! it ain’t nothin’; there ain’t bin a h’accident for h’ages—andIain’t daunted.”
“When are you going down?”
“On Monday, Miss Morgan.”
“Little Nan,” I said, turning to the child, “I mean to come to see you at your own house on Monday. You may expect me, for I shall be sure to come; and I’ll bring you pictures—lots; and if you like, I can show you how to colour them.”
I thought this offer must charm Nan, and make her forget the terrors of the mine; but it did not. She looked gravely, almost fretfully at me, and it was Miles who said, “Thank you.”
“I must go now,” I said, jumping to my feet. “I have stayed too long already; but I’m very glad I have met you, Miles, and Nan. I think your Stephie a real, real hero; and, Miles, Iloveyou for being so brave, and I should like, beyond anything, to shake hands with you, and to kiss little Nan.”
After clasping a small brown hand, and pressing a warm salute on two trembling lips, I started home. The children’s story had excited me, and warmed my heart. For the present it absorbed my thoughts, even to the exclusion of Owen. I said I would do much for these two. This boy and girl, so lonely, so interesting, with their tragic story and tragic life, should find in me a benefactor and friend. The thought was delicious and exhilarating. David, through my intervention, should rescue Miles from the miner’s life, and relieve the timid little sister from her worst fears. My spirits rose high as I contemplated this event, which a word from my lips could bring about. I entered the house humming the wild sweet air which the children had set to their Methodist hymn. The music of my voice was greeted by the richer music of gay and happy laughter. I stood motionless in the hall. My heart almost ceased to beat, then bounded on wildly. The colour fled from my cheeks and lips, returning in a moment in a full tide of richest crimson. I could have given way then. I could have rushed to Owen’s side, thrown my arms round his neck, and wept out on his breast, a whole flood of healing and forgiving tears. Had I done so, my soul would have been knit to his with a love strong as the old love was weak—noble as the old passionate affection was erring and idolatrous; but I did not. I conquered the emotion, which the sound of his voice, and his laughter, had stirred within me. I told myself thatthatwas not my Owen—mine, my hero was dead. Untidy, pale, agitated, but unforgiving, I opened the drawing-room door and went in. David, mother, and Owen, were standing in a loving, happy group. I went up to the group—they had not heard me come in—and touched Owen on the sleeve, and said, in a quiet voice, “Welcome home, brother.”
For an instant two bright, dark eyes looked expectantly into mine—one instant the brilliant eyes wore that look—one instant after, they were blank with disappointment. Then all was commonplace—a commonplace, but affectionate brother’s kiss was on my cheek, and a gay voice said, laughingly—
“Why, Gwladys, you’re as wild and disreputable-looking a little romp as ever.”
Chapter Nine.Earth—Air—Fire—Water.Whether Owen had come back, in my opinion, a hero, or an unpardoned and disgraced man, appeared after his first swift glance into my face to affect him very little, if at all; and I had to admit to myself that whatever else he may have failed in, he had arrived at Ffynon with a full knowledge of the duty which he had undertaken.As a boy, he had always loved engineering, and when in those bright and happy days he and I had discussed his golden future, theproshad generally ended in favour of his becoming an engineer.“All things considered, I should like this best, Gwladys,” he would say. And though in these very youthful days he appeared to care more for poetry and the finest of the fine arts, yet it was here, I believe, that his true talent lay. Owen had not been idle during the four years of his exile, he had studied engineering as a profession when he was at Oxford, and during these years he had gone through a course of practical training with regard to the duties of a mining engineer, not only in the German mines, but in the North of England. He now brought this knowledge to bear on the rather slow working and unprofitable mine at Ffynon. This mine, which belonged to our mother, had at one time yielded a great deal of coal and was a source of much wealth, but of late, year by year, the mine yielded less, and its expenses became greater. It was worked on an old-fashioned system; it had not the recent improvements with regard to ventilation; and many serious accidents had taken place in consequence. Neither was the manager popular, he worked the mine recklessly, and many accidents of the most fatal character were constantly taking place from the falls of roofs, this expression meaning the giving way of great portions of the coal for want of proper supports being put under it. A short time before Owen’s return, the manager of the mine for some more flagrant act of carelessness than usual, had been dismissed, and it was on hearing this, that Owen had written to David, telling him of his studies and his profession, reminding him also that when a boy he had more than once gone down into the old mine at Ffynon, that with his present knowledge he believed the mine to be still rich in coal, and that it only needed to be properly worked to yield a fine return. He spoke strongly against the unprofitable and expensive system which had hitherto been adopted; and finally he begged of David to give him permission to step into the manager’s shoes, and for at least a year to have absolute control of the mine: promising at the end of that time to reduce order out of chaos, to lessen current expenses, and to bring in the first instalments of what should be large profits.He had frankly told David his reason for this: he had a debt to pay, a debt of love and gratitude it was true, but still a debt that fretted his proud spirit, a debt that must be paid before he could know happiness again. But it was just on account of this reason that David hesitated to accept the services of one whose knowledge of the work he meant to undertake, was certainly great. The primary motive in Owen’s heart, seemed to David, in the present state of Ffynon mine, hardly a worthy one. Coal was valuable, gold scarce, but lives were precious; it seemed to David that until all was done to insure the safety of the lives of those men and boys who worked in the mine, gold ought to weigh very low in the balance, and as he alone of us all knew something truly of his brother’s character, so he hesitated to accept his offer; but while David hesitated, mother urged. Mother was ignorant of the miner’s life; gold to mother was not valueless: she had dreams of the Morgans being restored to all their former riches and power, she had also, notwithstanding his one fall, still implicit faith in Owen. Owen would not only win the gold but make the mine safe. It was a grief to her to leave Tynycymmer, but it was a counterbalancing delight to live on any terms for a year with her favourite son; she urged the acceptance of his offer. Thus urged, David yielded.We moved to Ffynon. Owen arrived, eager, hopeful, enthusiastic, as of old. Handsome and brilliant as ever he looked as gay as though he had never known a sorrow. So I thought for the first week after his arrival, then I saw that his spirits were fitful, sometimes I fancied a little forced; a bad report of the mine would depress him for the day, whereas good news would send his gay laugh echoing all over the small house.Thus I found myself in the midst of mining life. Mother, hitherto profoundly ignorant of such matters, now took up the popular theme with interest and zest.She and I learned whatfire-damp,black-damp,after-dampmeant. We learned the relative destructiveness of explosions by gas and inundations by water. Then we became great on the all-important subject of ventilation. We knew what the steam jet could do, what furnace ventilation could effect. I admired the Davy lamps, learned something of their construction, and at last, I obtained the strongest wish I at present possessed, namely, a visit to this underground region of awe and danger, myself. It is a hackneyed theme, and I need scarcely describe it at length. I remember stepping on to the cage with some of the enthusiasm which I had admired in Miles’ brave hero brother, and long before I reached the bottom of the shaft, suffering from an intolerable sense of suffocation, and shivering and shaking with inward fear, such as must have overtaken poor little James on that fatal day. Finally, when I got to the bottom, recovering my courage, rejoicing in the free current of fresh air which was blown down from the great fan above, growing accustomed to the dim light of the Davy lamps, and then discovering little, by little, that the mine with its rail-roads, its levels, its drift ways, where the loaded trams of coal ran swiftly down, impelled by their own weight, its eager, grimy workers, its patient horses, destined many of them to live and die in this underground gloom, was very like a town, and had an order and method of its own.The knowledge gained by the visit, the knowledge gained by listening to Owen’s and David’s conversation, the knowledge perhaps greater than all, which I had won by my friendship for Miles and Nan, inspired in me the strongest respect and admiration for the brave collier. He works in the dark, his heroic deeds are little heard of beyond his own circle, and yet he is as true a hero as the soldier in the field of battle or the sailor in the storm: his battle-field is the mine, his enemies, earth, air, fire, and water. Any moment the earth can bury him in a living tomb, a vast quantity of that solid coal may give way, and crush him beneath its weight; any instant, the air, in the poisoned form of black, or after-damp, may fill his lungs, take all power from his limbs, fell him in his strength and prime to the earth, and leave him there dead; or in half an instant, through the explosion of a match, the wrong adjustment of a safety-lamp, the whole mine may from end to end become a cavern of lurid fire, destroying every living thing within its reach. Or one stroke too many of the miner’s pick, may let in a volume of black and stagnant water from an unused and forgotten pit, which rising slowly at first, then gaining, in volume, in strength, in rapidity, buries the miners in a watery grave of horrible and loathsome desolation.Yes, the miners are brave; for small pay they toll unremittingly, labouring in the dark, exposed to many dangers. Day by day these men go down into the mines literally with their lives in their hands. The wives, mothers, sisters, know well what the non-arrival of a husband, father, brother means. They hope a little, fear much, weep over the mangled remains when they can even have that poor source of consolation, and then the widow who has lost her husband, dries her eyes, puts her shoulder to the wheel, and like a true Spartan woman, when his turn comes, sends down her boy to follow in his father’s steps, and, if God wills it, to die bravely, as his father died before him.I visited the schools about Ffynon, and noticed the bright dark-eyed, Welsh children, each boy among them destined to become a collier as he grew up. Many of these boys shrank from it, struggled against it, feared it as a coming nightmare; some few, as the dreaded time drew near, ran away to sea, preferring the giving up of father and mother, and encountering the hardships of the sea, to the greater hardships of the mine, but most of them yielded to the inevitable fate.I found, too, on observation that the colliers of Ffynon were a religious people; the sentiments I had heard in astonishment and almost awe dropping from the lips of little Miles, I found were the sentiments rather of the many than the few. They lived an intense life, and they needed, and certainly possessed, an intense faith.The body of them were not Church people; they had a simple and impassioned service of their own, generally held in the Welsh tongue. At these services they prayed and sang and listened to fervent addresses. At these services, after an accident, slight or great, the men and women often bowed their heads and wept. Their services were alive and warm, breathing the very breath of devotion, suited to their untrained, but strong natures. They left them with the sense of a present God alive in each heart; a God who would go with them into the mine, who would accompany them through the daily toil and danger, and, if need be, and His will called them, would carry them safely, even in a chariot of fire, into the Golden City.To the religious miner, the descriptions of Heaven as written in the Apocalypse, were the very life of his life. He loved to sit by his fire on Sunday evenings, and slowly read from the well-worn page to his listening wife, and his lads and lasses, of the city sparkling with gems and rich with gold. To the man who toiled in the deepest of darkness, a land without night or shadow was a theme of rapture. To the man who knew danger and pain, who fought every day with grim death, that painless shore, that eternal calm, that home where father, mother, brother, sister, rudely parted and torn asunder here, should be together, and God with them, was as an anchor to his soul. No place on earth could be more real and present than Heaven was to the religious collier. Take it from him, and he could do no more work in the dark and dangerous mine; leave it with him, and he was a hero. The colliers had one proud motto, one badge of honour, which each father bequeathed as his most precious possession to his son—this motto was “Bravery;” one stigma of everlasting disgrace which, once earned, nothing could wipe out, “Cowardice.” In the collier’s creednostone was too heavy to roll away to rescue a brother from danger. Into the midst of the fire and the flood, into the fatal air of the after-damp, they must go without shrinking to save a companion who had fallen a victim to these dangers. Each man as he toiled to rescue his fellow man, knew well that he in his turn, would risk life itself for him. No man reflected credit on himself for this, no man regarded it as other than his most simple and obvious duty.Into the midst of this simple, brave, and in many ways noble people, came Owen with his science and his skill. He went down into the mine day after day, quickly mastered its intricacies, quickly discovered its defects, quickly lighted upon its still vast stores of unused treasures. At the end of a month he communicated the result to David. I was seated by the open window, and I heard, in detached sentences, something of what was spoken, as the brothers paced the little plot of ground outside, arm in arm. As I watched them, I noticed for the first time some of the old look of confidence and passion on Owen’s face. The expressive eyes revealed this fact to me—the full hazel irids, the pupils instinct with fire, the whole eyes brimming with a long-lost gladness, proclaimed to me that the daring, the ambition I had loved, was not dead.“Give me but a year, David,” I heard him say in conclusion. “Give me but one year, and I shall see my way to it. In a year from this time, if you but give me permission to do as I think best, the mine shall begin to pay you back what I have lost to you!”David’s voice, in direct contrast to Owen’s, was deep and sad.“I don’t want that,” he said, laying his hand on his brother’s arm, “I want something else.”“What?” asked Owen.“I want something else,” continued David. “This is it. Owen, I want you to help me to fulfil a duty, a much neglected duty. I take myself to task very much for the gross way I have passed it by hitherto. God knows it was my ignorance, not my wilful neglect, but I ought to have known; this is no real excuse. Owen, I have lived contented at Tynycymmer, and forgotten, or almost forgotten, this old mine. I left things in the hands of the manager; I received the money it brought without either thought or comment. And all the time, God help me, the place was behind its neighbours. I had not much money to expend on it, and I was content it should be worked on the old system, never thinking, never calculating, that the old system involved danger and loss of life. The mine is not ventilated as the other mines are; in no mine in the neighbourhood do so many deaths occur. You yourself have discovered it to be full of many dangers. So, Owen, what I ask of you is this, help me to lift this sin of my neglect off my soul. I don’t want the money, Owen; it is enough for me, it is more than enough, to see you as you now are; the money, I repeat, is a thing to me of no value, but the people’s lives are of much. I can and will raise the sum you require to put the mine into a state of safety, to perfect the ventilation, to do all that can be done to lessen the danger for the colliers. Do your part in this as quickly as possible, Owen, and let us think nothing of money gains for the present.”While David was speaking, Owen had again drawn a veil of perfect immobility over his face. Impossible, with this veil on, to guess his thoughts, or fathom his feelings.“Of course, of course,” he said, “the ventilation shall be improved and all that is necessary done.”
Whether Owen had come back, in my opinion, a hero, or an unpardoned and disgraced man, appeared after his first swift glance into my face to affect him very little, if at all; and I had to admit to myself that whatever else he may have failed in, he had arrived at Ffynon with a full knowledge of the duty which he had undertaken.
As a boy, he had always loved engineering, and when in those bright and happy days he and I had discussed his golden future, theproshad generally ended in favour of his becoming an engineer.
“All things considered, I should like this best, Gwladys,” he would say. And though in these very youthful days he appeared to care more for poetry and the finest of the fine arts, yet it was here, I believe, that his true talent lay. Owen had not been idle during the four years of his exile, he had studied engineering as a profession when he was at Oxford, and during these years he had gone through a course of practical training with regard to the duties of a mining engineer, not only in the German mines, but in the North of England. He now brought this knowledge to bear on the rather slow working and unprofitable mine at Ffynon. This mine, which belonged to our mother, had at one time yielded a great deal of coal and was a source of much wealth, but of late, year by year, the mine yielded less, and its expenses became greater. It was worked on an old-fashioned system; it had not the recent improvements with regard to ventilation; and many serious accidents had taken place in consequence. Neither was the manager popular, he worked the mine recklessly, and many accidents of the most fatal character were constantly taking place from the falls of roofs, this expression meaning the giving way of great portions of the coal for want of proper supports being put under it. A short time before Owen’s return, the manager of the mine for some more flagrant act of carelessness than usual, had been dismissed, and it was on hearing this, that Owen had written to David, telling him of his studies and his profession, reminding him also that when a boy he had more than once gone down into the old mine at Ffynon, that with his present knowledge he believed the mine to be still rich in coal, and that it only needed to be properly worked to yield a fine return. He spoke strongly against the unprofitable and expensive system which had hitherto been adopted; and finally he begged of David to give him permission to step into the manager’s shoes, and for at least a year to have absolute control of the mine: promising at the end of that time to reduce order out of chaos, to lessen current expenses, and to bring in the first instalments of what should be large profits.
He had frankly told David his reason for this: he had a debt to pay, a debt of love and gratitude it was true, but still a debt that fretted his proud spirit, a debt that must be paid before he could know happiness again. But it was just on account of this reason that David hesitated to accept the services of one whose knowledge of the work he meant to undertake, was certainly great. The primary motive in Owen’s heart, seemed to David, in the present state of Ffynon mine, hardly a worthy one. Coal was valuable, gold scarce, but lives were precious; it seemed to David that until all was done to insure the safety of the lives of those men and boys who worked in the mine, gold ought to weigh very low in the balance, and as he alone of us all knew something truly of his brother’s character, so he hesitated to accept his offer; but while David hesitated, mother urged. Mother was ignorant of the miner’s life; gold to mother was not valueless: she had dreams of the Morgans being restored to all their former riches and power, she had also, notwithstanding his one fall, still implicit faith in Owen. Owen would not only win the gold but make the mine safe. It was a grief to her to leave Tynycymmer, but it was a counterbalancing delight to live on any terms for a year with her favourite son; she urged the acceptance of his offer. Thus urged, David yielded.
We moved to Ffynon. Owen arrived, eager, hopeful, enthusiastic, as of old. Handsome and brilliant as ever he looked as gay as though he had never known a sorrow. So I thought for the first week after his arrival, then I saw that his spirits were fitful, sometimes I fancied a little forced; a bad report of the mine would depress him for the day, whereas good news would send his gay laugh echoing all over the small house.
Thus I found myself in the midst of mining life. Mother, hitherto profoundly ignorant of such matters, now took up the popular theme with interest and zest.
She and I learned whatfire-damp,black-damp,after-dampmeant. We learned the relative destructiveness of explosions by gas and inundations by water. Then we became great on the all-important subject of ventilation. We knew what the steam jet could do, what furnace ventilation could effect. I admired the Davy lamps, learned something of their construction, and at last, I obtained the strongest wish I at present possessed, namely, a visit to this underground region of awe and danger, myself. It is a hackneyed theme, and I need scarcely describe it at length. I remember stepping on to the cage with some of the enthusiasm which I had admired in Miles’ brave hero brother, and long before I reached the bottom of the shaft, suffering from an intolerable sense of suffocation, and shivering and shaking with inward fear, such as must have overtaken poor little James on that fatal day. Finally, when I got to the bottom, recovering my courage, rejoicing in the free current of fresh air which was blown down from the great fan above, growing accustomed to the dim light of the Davy lamps, and then discovering little, by little, that the mine with its rail-roads, its levels, its drift ways, where the loaded trams of coal ran swiftly down, impelled by their own weight, its eager, grimy workers, its patient horses, destined many of them to live and die in this underground gloom, was very like a town, and had an order and method of its own.
The knowledge gained by the visit, the knowledge gained by listening to Owen’s and David’s conversation, the knowledge perhaps greater than all, which I had won by my friendship for Miles and Nan, inspired in me the strongest respect and admiration for the brave collier. He works in the dark, his heroic deeds are little heard of beyond his own circle, and yet he is as true a hero as the soldier in the field of battle or the sailor in the storm: his battle-field is the mine, his enemies, earth, air, fire, and water. Any moment the earth can bury him in a living tomb, a vast quantity of that solid coal may give way, and crush him beneath its weight; any instant, the air, in the poisoned form of black, or after-damp, may fill his lungs, take all power from his limbs, fell him in his strength and prime to the earth, and leave him there dead; or in half an instant, through the explosion of a match, the wrong adjustment of a safety-lamp, the whole mine may from end to end become a cavern of lurid fire, destroying every living thing within its reach. Or one stroke too many of the miner’s pick, may let in a volume of black and stagnant water from an unused and forgotten pit, which rising slowly at first, then gaining, in volume, in strength, in rapidity, buries the miners in a watery grave of horrible and loathsome desolation.
Yes, the miners are brave; for small pay they toll unremittingly, labouring in the dark, exposed to many dangers. Day by day these men go down into the mines literally with their lives in their hands. The wives, mothers, sisters, know well what the non-arrival of a husband, father, brother means. They hope a little, fear much, weep over the mangled remains when they can even have that poor source of consolation, and then the widow who has lost her husband, dries her eyes, puts her shoulder to the wheel, and like a true Spartan woman, when his turn comes, sends down her boy to follow in his father’s steps, and, if God wills it, to die bravely, as his father died before him.
I visited the schools about Ffynon, and noticed the bright dark-eyed, Welsh children, each boy among them destined to become a collier as he grew up. Many of these boys shrank from it, struggled against it, feared it as a coming nightmare; some few, as the dreaded time drew near, ran away to sea, preferring the giving up of father and mother, and encountering the hardships of the sea, to the greater hardships of the mine, but most of them yielded to the inevitable fate.
I found, too, on observation that the colliers of Ffynon were a religious people; the sentiments I had heard in astonishment and almost awe dropping from the lips of little Miles, I found were the sentiments rather of the many than the few. They lived an intense life, and they needed, and certainly possessed, an intense faith.
The body of them were not Church people; they had a simple and impassioned service of their own, generally held in the Welsh tongue. At these services they prayed and sang and listened to fervent addresses. At these services, after an accident, slight or great, the men and women often bowed their heads and wept. Their services were alive and warm, breathing the very breath of devotion, suited to their untrained, but strong natures. They left them with the sense of a present God alive in each heart; a God who would go with them into the mine, who would accompany them through the daily toil and danger, and, if need be, and His will called them, would carry them safely, even in a chariot of fire, into the Golden City.
To the religious miner, the descriptions of Heaven as written in the Apocalypse, were the very life of his life. He loved to sit by his fire on Sunday evenings, and slowly read from the well-worn page to his listening wife, and his lads and lasses, of the city sparkling with gems and rich with gold. To the man who toiled in the deepest of darkness, a land without night or shadow was a theme of rapture. To the man who knew danger and pain, who fought every day with grim death, that painless shore, that eternal calm, that home where father, mother, brother, sister, rudely parted and torn asunder here, should be together, and God with them, was as an anchor to his soul. No place on earth could be more real and present than Heaven was to the religious collier. Take it from him, and he could do no more work in the dark and dangerous mine; leave it with him, and he was a hero. The colliers had one proud motto, one badge of honour, which each father bequeathed as his most precious possession to his son—this motto was “Bravery;” one stigma of everlasting disgrace which, once earned, nothing could wipe out, “Cowardice.” In the collier’s creednostone was too heavy to roll away to rescue a brother from danger. Into the midst of the fire and the flood, into the fatal air of the after-damp, they must go without shrinking to save a companion who had fallen a victim to these dangers. Each man as he toiled to rescue his fellow man, knew well that he in his turn, would risk life itself for him. No man reflected credit on himself for this, no man regarded it as other than his most simple and obvious duty.
Into the midst of this simple, brave, and in many ways noble people, came Owen with his science and his skill. He went down into the mine day after day, quickly mastered its intricacies, quickly discovered its defects, quickly lighted upon its still vast stores of unused treasures. At the end of a month he communicated the result to David. I was seated by the open window, and I heard, in detached sentences, something of what was spoken, as the brothers paced the little plot of ground outside, arm in arm. As I watched them, I noticed for the first time some of the old look of confidence and passion on Owen’s face. The expressive eyes revealed this fact to me—the full hazel irids, the pupils instinct with fire, the whole eyes brimming with a long-lost gladness, proclaimed to me that the daring, the ambition I had loved, was not dead.
“Give me but a year, David,” I heard him say in conclusion. “Give me but one year, and I shall see my way to it. In a year from this time, if you but give me permission to do as I think best, the mine shall begin to pay you back what I have lost to you!”
David’s voice, in direct contrast to Owen’s, was deep and sad.
“I don’t want that,” he said, laying his hand on his brother’s arm, “I want something else.”
“What?” asked Owen.
“I want something else,” continued David. “This is it. Owen, I want you to help me to fulfil a duty, a much neglected duty. I take myself to task very much for the gross way I have passed it by hitherto. God knows it was my ignorance, not my wilful neglect, but I ought to have known; this is no real excuse. Owen, I have lived contented at Tynycymmer, and forgotten, or almost forgotten, this old mine. I left things in the hands of the manager; I received the money it brought without either thought or comment. And all the time, God help me, the place was behind its neighbours. I had not much money to expend on it, and I was content it should be worked on the old system, never thinking, never calculating, that the old system involved danger and loss of life. The mine is not ventilated as the other mines are; in no mine in the neighbourhood do so many deaths occur. You yourself have discovered it to be full of many dangers. So, Owen, what I ask of you is this, help me to lift this sin of my neglect off my soul. I don’t want the money, Owen; it is enough for me, it is more than enough, to see you as you now are; the money, I repeat, is a thing to me of no value, but the people’s lives are of much. I can and will raise the sum you require to put the mine into a state of safety, to perfect the ventilation, to do all that can be done to lessen the danger for the colliers. Do your part in this as quickly as possible, Owen, and let us think nothing of money gains for the present.”
While David was speaking, Owen had again drawn a veil of perfect immobility over his face. Impossible, with this veil on, to guess his thoughts, or fathom his feelings.
“Of course, of course,” he said, “the ventilation shall be improved and all that is necessary done.”
Chapter Ten.Little Twenty.I had not forgotten my promise to visit Nan on the day her brother first went down into the mine.I selected a bundle of illustrated papers—some old copies ofPunch—as, judging from the delight I took in them myself, I hoped they would make little Nan laugh. I also put a sixpenny box of paints into my pocket. These sixpenny paint-boxes were the most delightful things the Tynycymmer children had ever seen, so, doubtless, they would look equally nice in the eyes of Nan.The Thomas’s cottage was one of a row that stood just over the pit bank. I ascended the rather steep hill which led to it, entered the narrow path which ran in front of the whole row of houses, and where many women were now hanging out clothes to dry, and knocked at Nan’s door. She did not hear me; she was moving briskly about within, and singing to her work. Her voice sounded happy, and the Welsh words and Welsh air were gay. I knocked a second time, then went in.“I am so glad to hear you singing, Nan,” I said. “I was sure you would be in trouble, for I thought Miles had gone into the mine to-day!”Little Nan was arranging some crockery on the white dresser. She stopped at the sound of my voice, and turned round with the large china tea-pot in her hand. When I had seen her on Saturday, seated weeping on the old cinder-heap, I had regarded her as a very little child. Now I perceived my mistake. Nan was no child; she was a miniature woman. I began to doubt what effect my copies ofPunchand my sixpenny paints would produce on this odd mixture; more particularly when she said, in a quiet old-fashioned voice—“But he did go into the mine, Miss Morgan; Miles went down the shaft at five o’clock this mornin’.”“You take it very calmly when the time comes,” I continued; “I thought you would have been in a terrible state.”“Yes, ain’t I easy,” said Nan, “I never thought as the Lord ’ud help me like this; why, I ain’t frighted at all.”“But there’s just as much danger as ever there was,” I said. “Your not being frightened does not make it at all safer for Miles down in the pit.”I made this remark, knowing that it was both unkind and disagreeable; but I was disappointed; I had meant to turn comforter—I was provoked to find my services unnecessary.“There ain’t no danger to-day,” replied Nan, to my last pleasant assurance.“How can you say that?” I asked.“’Cause the Lord revealed it to me in a dream.”Now I, too, believed in dreams. I was as superstitious as the most superstitious Welsh girl could possibly be. Gwen, my isolated life, my Welsh descent, had all made me this; it was, therefore, with considerable delight, that, just when I was beginning to place Nan very low in my category of friends, I found that I could claim her for a kindred spirit.“You are a very odd little girl,” I said; “but I’m sure Ishalllike you. See! I’ve brought youPunch, and theIllustrated News, and a box of paints, andperhapsI shall show you how to colour these pictures, as the children did at Tynycymmer.”Then I seated myself uninvited, and unrolled my treasures; my newspapers, my copies ofPunch, my paint-box with the lid off, were all revealed to Nan’s wondering eyes.“Get me a saucer and a cup of water,” I said, “and I’ll show you how to colour this picture, and then you can pin it up against the wall for your father to see when he comes home.”“If you please, miss,” said Nan, dropping a little curtsey, and then coming forward and examining the print in question with a critical eye, “if you please, miss, I’d rayther not.”“What do you mean?” I said.“Well, miss, I’m very gratified to you; but, father, he don’t like pictures pasted up on the walls, and, indeed, Miss Morgan,” getting very red, her sloe-black eyes gleaming rather angrily, “I ’as no time for such child’s play as lookin’ at pictures, and colourin’ of ’em, and makin’ messes in cups and plates. I ’as enough to do to wash h’up the cups and saucers as is used for cookin’, and keepin’ the house tidy, and makin’ the money go as far and as comfort as possible. I’m very gratified to you, miss; but I ’as no time for that nonsense. I ain’t such a baby as I looks.”As little Nan spoke, she grew in my eyes tall and womanly, while I felt myself getting smaller and smaller, in fact, taking the place I had hitherto allotted to her. I rolled up my despised goods hastily, rose to my feet, and spoke—“You are not half as nice as you looked. I am very sorry that I disturbed so busy and important a person. As I see you don’t want me, I shall wish you good morning.”I had nearly reached the door, when Nan ran after me, laid her hand on my arm, and looked into my face with her eyes full of tears.“I ain’t a wishin’ you to go,” she said, “I wants you to set down and talk to me woman-like.”“How old are you? you strange creature,” I said; but I was restored to good humour, and sat down willingly enough.“I’m ten,” said Nan, “I’m small for my h’age, I know.”“You are, indeed, small for your age,” I said, “and your age is very small. Why, Nan, whatever you may pretend about it, you are a baby.”“No, I ain’t,” said Nan, gravely and solemnly, “it ain’t years only as makes us babies or womans, ’tis—”“What?” I said, “do go on.”“Well, miss, I b’lieves as ’tis anxiety. Miles says as I has a very h’anxious mind. He says I takes it from mother, and that ages one up awful.”“I’ve no doubt of it,” I said. “I’ve felt it myself, ’tis overpowering.”“I don’t think you knows it much, miss,” said Nan. “I should say from the looks o’ you, that you was much younger nor me.”“Mind what you’re about,” I said, “I’m sixteen—a young lady full grown. But come, now, Nan, with all your anxiety, you were merry enough when I came in—you did sing out in such a jolly style,—I thought you such a dear little thing; I did not know you were an old croak.”“Why yes,” said Nan, half-smiling, and inclined to resume her song, “I’m as light as a feather this mornin’, that’s the Lord’s doing.”“What did the Lord do for you, Nan?”“He sent me a token, miss, as sure as sure could be, and it came just in the minute before waking.”“What was it?” I repeated, for little Nan had paused, her face had grown soft and almost beautiful; the hard unpleasing lines of care and anxiety had vanished, and in their stead, behold! the eyes were full of love and faith, the lips tender, trustful, but withal, triumphant.“I was sore fretted,” she began, “as father couldn’t go down with Miles; he had to stay to go ever the mine with the strange gentleman as is to be manager, and Miles going down h’all alone, reminded me sore of Stephie. And I was frettin’, frettin’, frettin’, and the prayers, nor the hymns, nor nothing, couldn’t do me no good, and Miles hisself, at last, he were fain to be vexed with me, and when I went to bed my heart was h’all like a lump o’ lead, and I felt up to forty, at the very least, and then it was that the Lord saw the burden was too big for me, and He sent me the dream.”“What was it? Nan.”“I thought, miss, as I seed the Lord Hisself, all pitiful and of tender mercy. I seed Him as plain as I sees you, and He looked me through and through, very sorrowful, as I shouldn’t trust Him, and Miles, he was standin’ on the cage, just afore it went down, and there was an empty place near Miles, and I saw that every one had their comrade and friend with them, ’cept Miles; and then the Lord, He went and stood by Miles, on the empty space, and He put His arm round Miles, and he looked at me, and I saw the Lord and Miles going down into the dark, dark pit together.”“I’m sure that was true,” I said, “that was very much what Miles said himself, don’t you remember? You were much better after your dream, were you not? Nan.”“Yes, miss, I was light and easy in my mind, as if I was twenty!”“Whatdoyou mean, now?” I said.“Well, Miss Morgan, I can’t help it. I know I’m queer, the folks all say I’m queer. I know I haven’t h’aged with my years. Sometimes, miss, the anxiety brings me up to fifty, and I feels my hair’s a-turnin’ white; then again, I’m thirty, and forty; most times I feels like thirty, but now and then, as to-day, the Lord gives me a special revelation, and then, why, I’m as light as a feather, and down to twenty, but I’m never below that, miss.”And yet I meant to offer that creature toys! Such was my mental comment, but before I could speak again, the door was opened, and a tall man—coal-black—with gleaming eyeballs, and snowy teeth, came in. He took no notice of me, perhaps he did not see me, but in passing through to another room, he called out in a full cheery voice—“I say, little lass, how do you feel?”“Fine, father, down to twenty.”“Well, Twenty, bustle about, and get me some dinner; I’ll be ready for it in ten minutes.”“I must go away now,” I said, rising.“No, miss, that you mustn’t; I wants you to see father. Father’s a wonderful man, Miss Morgan, he have had a sight o’ trouble one way and t’other, and he’s up to fifty in years; but the Lord, He keeps him that strong and full o’ faith, he never passes thirty, in his mind; but there, what a chatterbox I am, and father a wantin’ his dinner!”The old-fashioned mortal moved away, laid a coarse but clean cloth on a small table, dished up some bacon and potatoes in a masterly manner, and placed beside them a tin vessel—which, she informed me, was a miner’s “jack”—full of cold tea.“Father will never go down into the mine without his jack o’ tea,” she explained; and just then the miner, his face and hands restored to their natural hue, came in.“Father,” said Nan, in quite a stately fashion, “this lady is Miss Morgan; she’s a very kind lady, and she spoke good words to Miles o’ Saturday.”“Mornin’, miss,” said the miner, pulling his front lock of hair, “I’m proud to see you, miss, and that I am; and now, lass,” turning to his daughter, “you’ll have no call to be anxious now no more, for this young lady’s brother was h’all over the mine this mornin’, and he and Squire Morgan promises that all that is right shall be done, and the place made as snug and tight as possible. That young gentleman, miss,” again addressing me, “is very sharp;heknows wot he’s about, that he do!”“Is the mine dangerous?” I asked.“No, no,” said the collier, winking impressively at me, while Nan was helping herself to a potato, “but might be made safer, as I says, might be made safer; another shaft let down, and wentilation made more fresh. But there! praise the Lord, ’tis all to be done, and that in no time; why, that mine will be so safe in a month or two, that little Nan might go and play there, if she so minded.”As the big man spoke, looking lovingly at his tiny daughter, and the daughter replied, with anxious, knitted brows, “You know, father, as I don’t play,” he looked the younger of the two.“No more you does, Twenty,” he replied, “but even Twenty can put away her fears and sing us a song when she hears a bit of good news.”“Shall I sing a hymn? father.”“Well, yes, my lass, I does feel like praisin’—there, you begin, and I’ll foller up.”Little Nan laid down her knife and fork, fixed her dark eyes straight before her, clasped her hands, and began—“We shall meet beyond the river,By and by,And the darkness shall be over,By and by.With the toilsome journey done,And the glorious battle won,We shall shine forth as the sun,By and by.”She paused, looked at her father, who joined her in the next verse—“We shall strike the harps of glory,By and by.We shall sing redemption’s story.By and by.And the strains for evermoreShall resound in sweetness o’erYonder everlasting shore,By and by.“We shall see and be like JesusBy and by.Who a crown of life shall give us,By and by.All the blest ones who have goneTo the land of life and song,We with gladness shall rejoinBy and by!”I have given the words, but I cannot describe the fervent looks that accompanied them, nor catch any echo here, of the sweet voice of the child, or the deep and earnest tones of the man. The strong spiritual life in both their natures came leaping to the surface, the man forgot the stranger by his hearth, he saw his God; the child, too, forgot her fears and her anxieties, and as she sang she became really young.
I had not forgotten my promise to visit Nan on the day her brother first went down into the mine.
I selected a bundle of illustrated papers—some old copies ofPunch—as, judging from the delight I took in them myself, I hoped they would make little Nan laugh. I also put a sixpenny box of paints into my pocket. These sixpenny paint-boxes were the most delightful things the Tynycymmer children had ever seen, so, doubtless, they would look equally nice in the eyes of Nan.
The Thomas’s cottage was one of a row that stood just over the pit bank. I ascended the rather steep hill which led to it, entered the narrow path which ran in front of the whole row of houses, and where many women were now hanging out clothes to dry, and knocked at Nan’s door. She did not hear me; she was moving briskly about within, and singing to her work. Her voice sounded happy, and the Welsh words and Welsh air were gay. I knocked a second time, then went in.
“I am so glad to hear you singing, Nan,” I said. “I was sure you would be in trouble, for I thought Miles had gone into the mine to-day!”
Little Nan was arranging some crockery on the white dresser. She stopped at the sound of my voice, and turned round with the large china tea-pot in her hand. When I had seen her on Saturday, seated weeping on the old cinder-heap, I had regarded her as a very little child. Now I perceived my mistake. Nan was no child; she was a miniature woman. I began to doubt what effect my copies ofPunchand my sixpenny paints would produce on this odd mixture; more particularly when she said, in a quiet old-fashioned voice—“But he did go into the mine, Miss Morgan; Miles went down the shaft at five o’clock this mornin’.”
“You take it very calmly when the time comes,” I continued; “I thought you would have been in a terrible state.”
“Yes, ain’t I easy,” said Nan, “I never thought as the Lord ’ud help me like this; why, I ain’t frighted at all.”
“But there’s just as much danger as ever there was,” I said. “Your not being frightened does not make it at all safer for Miles down in the pit.”
I made this remark, knowing that it was both unkind and disagreeable; but I was disappointed; I had meant to turn comforter—I was provoked to find my services unnecessary.
“There ain’t no danger to-day,” replied Nan, to my last pleasant assurance.
“How can you say that?” I asked.
“’Cause the Lord revealed it to me in a dream.”
Now I, too, believed in dreams. I was as superstitious as the most superstitious Welsh girl could possibly be. Gwen, my isolated life, my Welsh descent, had all made me this; it was, therefore, with considerable delight, that, just when I was beginning to place Nan very low in my category of friends, I found that I could claim her for a kindred spirit.
“You are a very odd little girl,” I said; “but I’m sure Ishalllike you. See! I’ve brought youPunch, and theIllustrated News, and a box of paints, andperhapsI shall show you how to colour these pictures, as the children did at Tynycymmer.”
Then I seated myself uninvited, and unrolled my treasures; my newspapers, my copies ofPunch, my paint-box with the lid off, were all revealed to Nan’s wondering eyes.
“Get me a saucer and a cup of water,” I said, “and I’ll show you how to colour this picture, and then you can pin it up against the wall for your father to see when he comes home.”
“If you please, miss,” said Nan, dropping a little curtsey, and then coming forward and examining the print in question with a critical eye, “if you please, miss, I’d rayther not.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Well, miss, I’m very gratified to you; but, father, he don’t like pictures pasted up on the walls, and, indeed, Miss Morgan,” getting very red, her sloe-black eyes gleaming rather angrily, “I ’as no time for such child’s play as lookin’ at pictures, and colourin’ of ’em, and makin’ messes in cups and plates. I ’as enough to do to wash h’up the cups and saucers as is used for cookin’, and keepin’ the house tidy, and makin’ the money go as far and as comfort as possible. I’m very gratified to you, miss; but I ’as no time for that nonsense. I ain’t such a baby as I looks.”
As little Nan spoke, she grew in my eyes tall and womanly, while I felt myself getting smaller and smaller, in fact, taking the place I had hitherto allotted to her. I rolled up my despised goods hastily, rose to my feet, and spoke—
“You are not half as nice as you looked. I am very sorry that I disturbed so busy and important a person. As I see you don’t want me, I shall wish you good morning.”
I had nearly reached the door, when Nan ran after me, laid her hand on my arm, and looked into my face with her eyes full of tears.
“I ain’t a wishin’ you to go,” she said, “I wants you to set down and talk to me woman-like.”
“How old are you? you strange creature,” I said; but I was restored to good humour, and sat down willingly enough.
“I’m ten,” said Nan, “I’m small for my h’age, I know.”
“You are, indeed, small for your age,” I said, “and your age is very small. Why, Nan, whatever you may pretend about it, you are a baby.”
“No, I ain’t,” said Nan, gravely and solemnly, “it ain’t years only as makes us babies or womans, ’tis—”
“What?” I said, “do go on.”
“Well, miss, I b’lieves as ’tis anxiety. Miles says as I has a very h’anxious mind. He says I takes it from mother, and that ages one up awful.”
“I’ve no doubt of it,” I said. “I’ve felt it myself, ’tis overpowering.”
“I don’t think you knows it much, miss,” said Nan. “I should say from the looks o’ you, that you was much younger nor me.”
“Mind what you’re about,” I said, “I’m sixteen—a young lady full grown. But come, now, Nan, with all your anxiety, you were merry enough when I came in—you did sing out in such a jolly style,—I thought you such a dear little thing; I did not know you were an old croak.”
“Why yes,” said Nan, half-smiling, and inclined to resume her song, “I’m as light as a feather this mornin’, that’s the Lord’s doing.”
“What did the Lord do for you, Nan?”
“He sent me a token, miss, as sure as sure could be, and it came just in the minute before waking.”
“What was it?” I repeated, for little Nan had paused, her face had grown soft and almost beautiful; the hard unpleasing lines of care and anxiety had vanished, and in their stead, behold! the eyes were full of love and faith, the lips tender, trustful, but withal, triumphant.
“I was sore fretted,” she began, “as father couldn’t go down with Miles; he had to stay to go ever the mine with the strange gentleman as is to be manager, and Miles going down h’all alone, reminded me sore of Stephie. And I was frettin’, frettin’, frettin’, and the prayers, nor the hymns, nor nothing, couldn’t do me no good, and Miles hisself, at last, he were fain to be vexed with me, and when I went to bed my heart was h’all like a lump o’ lead, and I felt up to forty, at the very least, and then it was that the Lord saw the burden was too big for me, and He sent me the dream.”
“What was it? Nan.”
“I thought, miss, as I seed the Lord Hisself, all pitiful and of tender mercy. I seed Him as plain as I sees you, and He looked me through and through, very sorrowful, as I shouldn’t trust Him, and Miles, he was standin’ on the cage, just afore it went down, and there was an empty place near Miles, and I saw that every one had their comrade and friend with them, ’cept Miles; and then the Lord, He went and stood by Miles, on the empty space, and He put His arm round Miles, and he looked at me, and I saw the Lord and Miles going down into the dark, dark pit together.”
“I’m sure that was true,” I said, “that was very much what Miles said himself, don’t you remember? You were much better after your dream, were you not? Nan.”
“Yes, miss, I was light and easy in my mind, as if I was twenty!”
“Whatdoyou mean, now?” I said.
“Well, Miss Morgan, I can’t help it. I know I’m queer, the folks all say I’m queer. I know I haven’t h’aged with my years. Sometimes, miss, the anxiety brings me up to fifty, and I feels my hair’s a-turnin’ white; then again, I’m thirty, and forty; most times I feels like thirty, but now and then, as to-day, the Lord gives me a special revelation, and then, why, I’m as light as a feather, and down to twenty, but I’m never below that, miss.”
And yet I meant to offer that creature toys! Such was my mental comment, but before I could speak again, the door was opened, and a tall man—coal-black—with gleaming eyeballs, and snowy teeth, came in. He took no notice of me, perhaps he did not see me, but in passing through to another room, he called out in a full cheery voice—
“I say, little lass, how do you feel?”
“Fine, father, down to twenty.”
“Well, Twenty, bustle about, and get me some dinner; I’ll be ready for it in ten minutes.”
“I must go away now,” I said, rising.
“No, miss, that you mustn’t; I wants you to see father. Father’s a wonderful man, Miss Morgan, he have had a sight o’ trouble one way and t’other, and he’s up to fifty in years; but the Lord, He keeps him that strong and full o’ faith, he never passes thirty, in his mind; but there, what a chatterbox I am, and father a wantin’ his dinner!”
The old-fashioned mortal moved away, laid a coarse but clean cloth on a small table, dished up some bacon and potatoes in a masterly manner, and placed beside them a tin vessel—which, she informed me, was a miner’s “jack”—full of cold tea.
“Father will never go down into the mine without his jack o’ tea,” she explained; and just then the miner, his face and hands restored to their natural hue, came in.
“Father,” said Nan, in quite a stately fashion, “this lady is Miss Morgan; she’s a very kind lady, and she spoke good words to Miles o’ Saturday.”
“Mornin’, miss,” said the miner, pulling his front lock of hair, “I’m proud to see you, miss, and that I am; and now, lass,” turning to his daughter, “you’ll have no call to be anxious now no more, for this young lady’s brother was h’all over the mine this mornin’, and he and Squire Morgan promises that all that is right shall be done, and the place made as snug and tight as possible. That young gentleman, miss,” again addressing me, “is very sharp;heknows wot he’s about, that he do!”
“Is the mine dangerous?” I asked.
“No, no,” said the collier, winking impressively at me, while Nan was helping herself to a potato, “but might be made safer, as I says, might be made safer; another shaft let down, and wentilation made more fresh. But there! praise the Lord, ’tis all to be done, and that in no time; why, that mine will be so safe in a month or two, that little Nan might go and play there, if she so minded.”
As the big man spoke, looking lovingly at his tiny daughter, and the daughter replied, with anxious, knitted brows, “You know, father, as I don’t play,” he looked the younger of the two.
“No more you does, Twenty,” he replied, “but even Twenty can put away her fears and sing us a song when she hears a bit of good news.”
“Shall I sing a hymn? father.”
“Well, yes, my lass, I does feel like praisin’—there, you begin, and I’ll foller up.”
Little Nan laid down her knife and fork, fixed her dark eyes straight before her, clasped her hands, and began—
“We shall meet beyond the river,By and by,And the darkness shall be over,By and by.With the toilsome journey done,And the glorious battle won,We shall shine forth as the sun,By and by.”
“We shall meet beyond the river,By and by,And the darkness shall be over,By and by.With the toilsome journey done,And the glorious battle won,We shall shine forth as the sun,By and by.”
She paused, looked at her father, who joined her in the next verse—
“We shall strike the harps of glory,By and by.We shall sing redemption’s story.By and by.And the strains for evermoreShall resound in sweetness o’erYonder everlasting shore,By and by.“We shall see and be like JesusBy and by.Who a crown of life shall give us,By and by.All the blest ones who have goneTo the land of life and song,We with gladness shall rejoinBy and by!”
“We shall strike the harps of glory,By and by.We shall sing redemption’s story.By and by.And the strains for evermoreShall resound in sweetness o’erYonder everlasting shore,By and by.“We shall see and be like JesusBy and by.Who a crown of life shall give us,By and by.All the blest ones who have goneTo the land of life and song,We with gladness shall rejoinBy and by!”
I have given the words, but I cannot describe the fervent looks that accompanied them, nor catch any echo here, of the sweet voice of the child, or the deep and earnest tones of the man. The strong spiritual life in both their natures came leaping to the surface, the man forgot the stranger by his hearth, he saw his God; the child, too, forgot her fears and her anxieties, and as she sang she became really young.