Then came to him the years when he might not be able to tell her any more how he regretted the selfishness of weeks and months, aye, of half a century. Even now the separation had begun; she was too weak to listen to him, he could not tell her, and in a few hours the one chance might be gone. Already, as she lay there hovering between life and death, she was no longer his in the old substantial way, but merely a hostage, fragile, ethereal, of a past life. If he had loved her every hour of those days that seemed so lastingly secure, if he had tried in every way—all the little ways—to show her how tenderly, how deeply he really loved her, the years would havebeen too short. And to-day, at the best, there was the one chance growing less certain every minute; there were but a few years at the most when he might try to make her know what she was to him.
Then, with a revulsion of feeling, the little commonplace joys dear to them both crowded in upon him; he felt benumbed in their midst, helplessly conscious that the heart of them all was slipping, slipping away. The road of their life flowed swiftly behind him, receding ribbonlike, as the hills and trees and fields passed the coach-window, into indistinguishable distance. Their tea-time with its happy quiet, their greeting at night, their rest side by side, their goodbye in the morning, Barbara’s caps, Barbara’s knitting, the shining eyes, the smile—each daily commonplace thing a part of his very being. He had a sickening sense of having the roots of existence torn out.
With a pang came the thought of that other trip to Liverpool they had planned to take. What would the boy say now? And he must know how that mother-life had been wasted, neglected. And the books they were going to bring the lad, and the socks Barbara had made, and the shoes that were to delight her, and the new clothes for both, and the bonnet over whichthey had laughed so merrily—the agony of these simple things, remembered, ate at his thoughts like fire. They were so little; he had never known before what they meant, or he had forgotten; now, surely, they could not be taken from him. Samuel’s mind prostrated itself in petition to that Inexorable in whose power lay these little joys, his, his only, of account only to him, sacred to him only, that he might be allowed to keep them.
His face was gray with the battle of these hours when the doctor spoke, telling him that they were almost in Liverpool and must move quickly. Their voices aroused Barbara; her eyes sought Sammie’s and smiled faithfully into them.
“Dearie!” he said, leaning forward with such an expression that Barbara, if she saw it clearly, could never doubt his love again.
“Lad!” she whispered in reply.
But Samuel’s eyes shrank when he saw the ambulance at the station, waiting. The doctor was going in it with Barbara. Oh! this cut, cut, as that knife would cut Barbara. Already they were being separated. They were taking her out of the train, away from him, and he was looking around the great station blindly, when he felt a strong grip on his arm and heard the word, “Father!” Nothing else seemed clearafter that, and the way, the long way, rumbling through those streets, was like a narrow lane in the night. Barbara was in the streets, alone, without him, or she was already at that place where lay the one chance for him.
“There, father,” the lad was comforting him, “there’s no better place for her; you did just right.”
Samuel sobbed convulsively, tears rolling out of his eyes unnoticed, his hands clenching the chair.
“Father, father, don’t; we shall know soon.”
But the old face over which he leaned paid no heed to what was said; nor did Samuel hear the quick entrance into the room and the whispered words.
“Father, do you hear? Mother’s safe.”
Then Samuel rose to his feet, started forward, and swayed uncertainly. The lad took his arm.
“Father,” he said, “mother’s very weak, and we must be careful; we can see her only a minute, that is all, the doctor says.”
When they entered, Barbara lay on the bed, smiling. The nurse stepped outside; ah! she had seen so many, many moments like this, and yet her heart ached for the old man coming through the door, coming through to take into his arms the few precious years that were left.
“Mother!” he said simply.
“Sammiedear!” she answered, her heart shining in her eyes.
Then she espied the lad standing behind his father.
Samuel watched their greeting, his lips twitching. “Lad, lad,” he cried, unable to withhold the words, “I’ve not been good to mam.”
A flush overspread Barbara’s face.
“Tut, Sammiedear, ye never——” she commenced indignantly.
“Be still, mother, I’m goin’ to say it now; ye know I’ve not been good to ye. Lad,” he continued, turning to him, “when ye marry, as ye will, don’t think any way is too little to show her that ye love her.”
“Tut, tut, Sammiedear,” insisted Barbara, “yearegood to me, an’ I lied to ye an’——”
“It’s time to leave,” said the nurse, coming in.
“But I’m going to have one word more,” Barbara replied, the life springing into her eyes with this gentle defiance. “Sammie, Sammiedear,” she called as the two men were urged through the door, “I lied about the bowl—I didn’t break it but I did hide it. Maggie broke it, an’ I was afraid she’d lose her place, so I hid it. Father, did yehear?”
“There!” said the nurse, shutting the door.
“Good-mornin’, Mrs. Rhys,” said Megan Griffiths, as she stooped to save her high beaver.
“’Tis kind of ye to come,” answered Nance.
“How is Mr. Rhys?”
“Och, he’s no——” Nance began, but she was hindered by a merry voice singing in the next room.
“Dear, dear, I can’t hear ye. Did ye say he is the same?”
“Aye, he’s no better.”
“Is that him singin’?”
“Aye,” admitted Nance.
“He’s not got any cause to sing, I’m thinkin’. ’Tis a pity,” she continued significantly, “ye couldn’t attend Harry James’s funeral. ’Twas grand. They had beautiful black candles with Scripture words written on them.”
Chuckles and a protesting bark followed this observation. Megan stiffened.
“Such a funeral, Mrs. Rhys,” she snapped, “is anhonourto Rhyd Ddu! An’ such loaves asshe handed over the bier to that hungry Betsan! An’ the biggest cheese in the parish, with a whole guinea stuck in it! At every crossin’ they rung the bell, an’ we knelt down to pray in all that drenchin’ wet.”
“’Tis seldom Rhyd Ddu sees black candles with Scripture words on them,” assented Nance.
“Pooh! the candles,theywas nothin’ to the cards Mrs. James had had printed for him—nothin’. Here’s mine. They have his last words.”
Nance looked eagerly towards the card.
“Scripture words, too,” added Megan. “’Tis sanctifyin’ how many people in Rhyd Ddu die repeatin’ such words.”
“What was they, Mrs. Griffiths?” asked Nance, her eagerness turning into trembling.
Megan opened the large card with its wide border of black and inner borders of silver and black, and read the words. The verses were long, and during their reading no sound came from the adjoining room. Then, aloud, Megan counted off on her fingers neighbours who had left life in this approved fashion, while the excitement in Nance’s eyes was deepening and her cheeks were quivering.
“Show it me,” she said.
“Indeed, ’tis a safe way to——” Megan commencedspeaking, but commands and a sudden breaking forth of song interrupted her.
“’Tis the dog takin’ him his slippers,” Nance apologised.
“Yes, a safe way to die,” concluded Megan testily.
In the midst of a blithe refrain of “Smile again, lovely Jane,” she rose to go, muttering as she repocketed the card.
In Rhyd Ddu the rush of the modern world had not cut up the time of the folk into a fringe of unsatisfying days. With these Welsh mountain people from sunrise to sunset was a good solid day, full of solid joys and comforts or equally solid woes and sorrows. In Rhyd Ddu a man might know the complete tragic or joyous meaning of twenty-four hours, with solemn passages from starlight to dawn and manifold song from sunrise to dusk. There was no illusion in such a day, so that when he came to the Edge of the Great Confine, sharper than the ridge of his own thatched roof, that, too, seemed merely a part of the general illusion. Rather, he knew that step from the green and gold room of his outdoor world, with its inclosed hearth of daily pleasures, was a step into another room not known to him at all. But he said to himself, especially when he had spent his days among thehills and amid mountain winds and valleys, that he could not get beyond the love in the room he knew well; so trusting what he could not see, he stepped forward quietly. And the deep waters of an infinite space closed over his head. One soul after another came to the Great Edge. There were no outcries, no lamentations over lost days, no shattering questions, no wail to trouble the ears of those who made grave signs of farewell. But there was a pang, part of the pang of birth and of love, and taken as the workman takes the ache in his crushed finger—silently. So simple were they that the coming and going of the mown grass was as an allegory of their own days, and the circumstance of death was as natural to them as the reaping of their abundant valley fruit, or the dropping of a leaf from a tree.
In Rhyd Ddu, however, the acceptance of death differed from life in one respect, for the simple pride of life was as nothing compared with the pride centring about some incident of death. They honoured dying with the frank, unhushed voice with which they praised a beautiful song or the narration of some stirring tale. They discussed it freely at a knitting-night or a merry-making; even at the “bidding” of a bride the subject was acceptable discourse. Theways of their living taught them no evasion of this last moment.
To Nance the little old man in the next room, with his arched eyebrows, delicate features, and whimsical sprightly look, had been more than life itself, and more completely than she had words to express, her hero. The one object through the years of living that seemed worth remembering at all—those with Silvan—had been to Nance the glorification of this husband about whom the Rhyd Ddu folk were by no manner of means in concord, for pranks of speech and hand are disconcerting to the slow-moving wits of the average human being. Now, in the end, Nance foresaw wrested away from Silvan the last of the distinctions she had hoped to win for him. When she entered the room revolving these ambitions, beautiful only because love was their source, he was shaking his finger at Pedr and taking advantage of his good humour.
“Och, mam, this poor dog has had nothin’ to eat. Ye’re pinchin’ him, whatever.”
“Pinchin’ him!” exclaimed Nance. “Tut, he’ll not be gettin’ in an’ out’n the door much longer, an’ I see the neighbours a-laughin’ now when they look at him. He’ll die with over-feedin’, he will.”
“He will,” mocked Silvan, “die of over-feedin’, he will!”
“Lad, Mrs. Griffiths’s been here.”
“Well, dearie, do ye think I didn’t know Megan Griffiths was here? She’d crack the gates of heaven with that voice. Was she tellin’ ye everythin’ that didn’t happen, now was she?”
“Dad, what will ye say such things about Megan for? She was tellin’ of Harry James’s funeral.”
“Nance, she’s a bell for every tooth, an’ they jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle.”
Nance’s eyes filled.
“Och, mam, I’m just teasin’ ye; an’ ye were thinkin’ of me the while, now weren’t ye?”
“Aye, father. ’Twas a grand funeral, an’ he died with them wonderful verses on his lips.”
“Did he so!” exclaimed Silvan. “Well, the man had need to, drinkin’ as he did.”
“But, lad, there’s been others, too.”
“Aye, dearie, I heard Megan shoutin’ them for my entertainment. I’m not deaf. But, mam,” he continued, the merriment leaving his eyes, “ye’re ambitious for me? Aye?”
“Aye, lad, I am,” she whispered, looking away from Silvan, “I am, lad, for ye have been so long the cleverest man in Rhyd Ddu, an’ the handsomest an’ the kindest, an’ nothin’s too fine for ye. There’s no woman ever had a better man nor I have, lad.”
“These girls——”
Nance put up her hand.
“Lad, lad, I cannot stand it, I cannot.”
“Och, dearie, I’m just teasin’ ye; come here.”
She went over to him and sat beside him, her head turned away from the bright eyes.
“Father, have ye thought of what’s comin’, have ye?”
“Nance, I’m thinkin’ of it all the while, but I’m not afraid, only for ye. Dearie, ye’re not to believe everythin’ ye hear; Megan has a good memory, an’ it takes a good memory to tell lies. ’Tisn’t everybody dies repeatin’ Bible verses.”
“Aye, but father, Harry Jamesdidsay those words on the card, an’ all the time he never was a good man, swearin’ an’ drinkin’ so, an’ ye’ve beensogood, dad, for all your teasin’ an’ fun.”
“Tut, mam, ye’re just wantin’ to spoil me, a-makin’ out I’m the best man in Rhyd Ddu. An’ ye’re wantin’ me to have more honour among the neighbours nor any one else when I’m gone, now isn’t that it?”
“Aye,” she whispered.
“An’ ye’re wishin’ me to promise to say some text? Would it comfort ye, mam?”
“Aye,” she answered.
“What text?”
Nance thought and repeated some verses.
“No, I can’t,” he said, shaking his head, “I can’t. They’re sad, an’ I’ve always been merrylike.”
In the silence that followed these words Silvan turned to Nance.
“I might, if ’twould please ye, saythesewords.” Silvan repeated a verse. “But I cannot promise even these.”
As she listened Nance’s face fell.
“Aye, well, dad darlin’,” she said, as bravely as she could, “they’re good words indeed, over-cheerful, I’m thinkin’, but Holy Writ, aye, Holy Writ.”
Whatever happened in the luxuriant green of the Rhyd Ddu valley, which the bees still preferred to Paradise, and the flowers to the Garden of Eden itself,—whatever happened in this valley—some phenomenal spring season, the flood that swept away their plots of mid-summer marigolds, the little life that suddenly began to make its needs felt, or the life with its last need answered—was adjudged with the most primitive wisdom and philosophy.
Megan Griffiths lost no time in distributing the gleanings from her visit with Nance, information which was often redistributed and towhich new interest accrued daily as the end of Silvan Rhys’s life drew near.
“Tut,” said Megan, “she’s that ambitious for him, it fairly eats her up. ’Twas always so from the day of their biddin’, an’ here ’tis comin’ his funeral, an’ he’ll never end with a word of Holy Writ onhislips, that he won’t.”
“There, there!” Dolly Owen objected, compassionately, her motherly face full of rebuke.
“Aye, he won’t,thathe won’t,” affirmed Morto Roberts, wagging his head, and sniffing the pleasant odours from the browning light-cakes.
Dolly made no reply, but turned a cake with a dexterous flip, and pulled forward the teapot to fill it with hot water. The quiet glow from the fire mirrored itself equally in her kind eyes and in the shining brass pots and kettles of the flanking shelves, and was multiplied in a thousand twinkles on the glistening salt of the flitches hanging above her head. The table was already spread with a gaily-patterned cloth, and set with china bright as the potted fuchsias and primroses blooming in the sunshine of her windows. There was nothing garish about this humble dwelling of Dolly’s, yet everywhere it seemed as if sunshine had been caught and were in process. Warmth, odour, gleam, colour, andthe soft heavy wind travelling by outside, made this the workroom of a golden alchemy. Dolly smiled with benevolence as she piled up the light-cakes.
“The fat’s snappish to-day; it sputtered more nor usual,” she said to Megan, who was seated in the shadow of the high settle.
“Aye,” responded Megan, in an irritable voice. “When I went by the house this mornin’,” she persisted, “I heard him singin’ some gay thing, a catch—singin’ in bed, indeed, an’ dyin’.”
“Singin’ in bed,” puffed Morto, “singin’ in bed whatever, an’ dyin’. Up to the last a-caper-in’ an’ a-dancin’ like a fox in the moonlight.”
“There, there!” Dolly objected again, filling Morto’s plate with cakes; “he’s been a kind man, a very kind man. There was Tombachhe put to school an’ clothed would follow him about like a puppy, an’ so would Nance, an’ so would his own dog.”
“Pooh! what’s that?” asked Megan. “Mrs. Rhys has had the managin’ of most everythin’, I’m thinkin’, an’ his houses he’s been praised for keepin’ in such fine repair, an’ the old pastor’s stipend—aye, well, ask Nance,” ended Megan, with a shrug of her shoulder, and a gulp of hot tea.
“Aye, well, ask Mrs. Rhys,” echoed Morto,“an’ ye mind it was the same pastor’s coat-tails he hung the dog-tongs to when he was some thirty years younger, an’ by twenty too old for any such capers. He’s an infiddle, he is, a-doin’ such things.”
“An’ ’twas he, wasn’t it,” Megan added, “who put that slimy newt in Sian Howell’s hat?”
“Aye, so ’twas, an’ she had a way of clappin’ her beaver on quick, an’ down came that newt a-hoppin’ on her white cap.”
“An’ he tied the two Janes’s cap-strings together, the one who always prayed sittin’ straight up, an’ the other in the pew behind leanin’ forward, didn’t he?” demanded Megan. “They went quite nasty with him for that.”
“Well,” said Dolly, cutting a generous slice of pound cake for Megan, “I’m thinkin’ it’s not just, talkin’ so; the lad was full of life. He could no more keep his feet on earth than the cricket in the field. ’Tis come he’s old an’ dyin’, an’ I can see no harm in his havin’ had a little fun, an’ singin’ now an’ then.”
“Tut, now an’ then!” exclaimed Megan. “’Tis over foolish he is, now isn’t he?”
“Aye,” agreed Morto, “he’s light.”
“He’d have gone quite on the downfall years ago, hadn’t it been for Nance.”
“Quite on the downfall,” echoed Morto.
“Aye, an’ there’ll be no word of Scripture crossin’hislips,” concluded Megan.
Morto had his private reasons for losing no love upon Silvan, and Megan hers of a similar nature. Even the kindest villagers had taken to considering the words Silvan would or would not speak at the last. Rumour, peering into corners with antiquarian diligence and nodding his white head in prophecy, sat down by every fireside as much at home as the cottage cat or the fat bundle of babyhood that rolled upon the hearth. Wherever Rumour seated himself, “he will” and “he won’t” was tossed about excitedly under thatched roofs. The very shepherd on the hills cast a speculative glance upon Nance’s cottage, and Mr. Shoni “thecoach“ added another question to his dailyquestionnaire.
There was no begging the fact that precedent had begun to weigh heavily on the last moments of speech of the Rhyd Ddu inhabitants. A man of years thought anxiously, like one skating on thin ice, how far out he dare venture without some talismanic and now established words. There were neighbours in Rhyd Ddu, however, probably no more accomplished with their tongues than motherly Dolly Owen, who speculated but little and whose hearts went out toNance and Silvan. Although they had never seen the Silvan Nance saw, nevertheless they considered him a good neighbour, and the path to Nance’s cottage was much travelled by kindly thoughts and by helpful feet.
While the news, old Rumour panting in the rear, was running swiftly from door to door, Nance was watching Silvan with passionate devotion, no expression of the face that had lain close to her own for so many years escaping her. Rhyd Ddu must know at the last, must have some solemn sign of the eminent goodness he had meant to her. She could not let him go with one of his jests on his lips—every day was fit enough for that, but not these minutes. Her thoughts clung even to the words of the over-cheerful verse she believed he would say. And yet there was a tantalising merriness in his eyes.
“Father,” she said, “do ye mind?”
“Aye, dearie, I’m to be sayin’ that ye—have the faith an’ I—I have the works?”
“Och, lad!”
“There, mam, I’m just teasin’ ye—just teasin’ ye.”
“But, lad, it’ll be soon.”
“Mam,” he whispered, “closer.”
Nance bent her head.
“Mam—ye—are a darlin’, an’—I’ll—no—forget.”
Every word came more faintly.
“Lad, lad,” plead Nance, “quick, now!”
Silvan cast one imploring look at Nance, and his lips struggled for speech, then his gaze slipped away like a light withdrawing into deep woods.
Coming down the lane sounded the tread of many feet. Nance heard the steps approaching; she rose, shook the tears from her eyes, and closed the bedroom door behind her. Already the latch had been lifted and her neighbours were filing in, the men taking off their caps and making way for the women. Nance, confronting them, leaned against the door frame.
“Och, dear,” said Dolly compassionately, “he’s gone already.”
There was no reply.
“Were his last words——” asked Megan.
“Aye,” answered Nance, her voice courageous, proud, “aye, these words: ’In the shadow of Thy wings I will rejoice.’”
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON.
Transcriber's NoteArchaic and inconsistent spelling and punctuation were retained.
Transcriber's Note
Archaic and inconsistent spelling and punctuation were retained.