JANNY WATCHED ARIEL'S THIN FINGERS WORK SKILFULLY
JANNY WATCHED ARIEL'S THIN FINGERS WORK SKILFULLY
Ariel Jenkins awoke at the waking-time of all Glaslyn—the dawn; Janny lay beside him, still sleeping, her face heavily shadowed in herabundant hair. She seemed so wistfully childlike and her closed eyes so unforgettably weary. Perhaps it was merely the shadows of the early dawn and her hair, but the eyelids had a kind of veined transparency and her skin a transparent pallor, and the mouth drooped. Ariel’s selfishness smote him consciously; he thought with a pang of Janny, and he made resolutions. With this awakening he transferred a little of his poetry from the bard to the man. Aye, he acknowledged to himself, this might well be called the Education of Ariel Jenkins, bard and merchant. And for the first time a thought that gripped his heart brought him no desire to turn it into rhyme. He recalled compassionately all her efforts to make improvements in the house, her evident inability to understand and cope with the shrewd Welsh women of their village; and he remembered with fear the prying curiosity and overt enmity these women had shown toward Janny. Then he wondered in a desultory way what she was planning to do with the stars and the cat and the bits of rope. And after she awakened and they were talking at breakfast, he reflected how easily his resolution won success, for Janny since he brought her to Glaslyn had not been as buoyant, almost animated, as she was this morning. Ariel thought, too,that he had not noticed before the way Janny had of looking at him, as if she expected him to discover some extraordinary joy; maybe she was merely looking to him for happiness, but certainly there was an air of anticipation about her to-day.
Upon finishing breakfast Ariel passed with a sense of secure well-being into his shop; so many problems were solving themselves, and on the whole the man made him happier than the bard. Even the flag sidewalk outside the shop seemed more than ordinarily lively and merry to-day. He saw neighbours passing and heard them chatting, and once in a while there was a loud shout of laughter. Across the street, looking towards his shop he beheld a little knot of men,—Ivor Jones and Wil Penmorfa and Parry Wynn,—men who did not usually have time for mirth so early in the morning. They were talking and laughing, and Ariel saw one of them point towards Ty Mawr. Just then Mrs. Gomer Roberts the tinman came in. She wanted some flannel for a blouse like the material she was wearing, and Mrs. Roberts threw back her long cloak to display the neat striped flannel. How was Mrs. Jenkins? Ariel thanked her: Janny was well.
“I’m comin’ soon to have a good long visit with her,” said Mrs. Roberts.
“Aye, ye’ll be welcome.”
“Ye’re makin’ improvements, I see.”
“Aye, a few,” replied Ariel, using his yardstick deftly and wondering what improvements Mrs. Gomer Roberts could have had any opportunity to see.
“Glaslyn’s no seen anything like it,” continued Mrs. Roberts, straightening her beaver hat over the crisp white of her cap.
“No, I’m thinkin’ not,” answered Ariel vaguely, rolling up the bundle of flannel with precise neatness.
He was still wondering why women talked in riddles when in came Mrs. Jeezer Morris the minister. She had torn her blue kirtle and wanted a new breadth. Ariel took down the cloth. Then were showered upon him in a compacter form, and one of greater authority, practically the same remarks as those made by Mrs. Gomer Roberts: How was Mrs. Jenkins, she was coming to visit her, there were improvements she saw, the like of which Glaslyn had not seen before. Mrs. Morris the minister had scarcely finished her purchase when in came Mrs. Parry Wynn the baker; they had apparently met that morning and their greetings were purely conventional,—a smile, a look of inquiry, a nod of negation. Mrs. Parry Wynn wanted somenew cotton cloth, but apparently she also wished to make the same remarks as those made by Mrs. Gomer Roberts and Mrs. Jeezer Morris.
Then Ariel Jenkins’s thoughts began the converging process, began to gather in towards some definite centre, to fix themselves upon some one thing which all these estimable women must have in mind. And when Mrs. Parry Wynn left the shop, Ariel went to the door. Betto Griffiths walked by briskly, joining the women who had just made purchases and who were gathered in a little group opposite Ty Mawr. They were looking eagerly at the house and gesticulating. Betto Griffiths laughed harshly as she pointed at Ty Mawr, and shrugged her shoulders in the direction of the shop. Ariel’s heart sank. What had Janny done to make the house such an object of attraction? He stepped out to the little group of customers and looked up.
Except for the quick flexing of the muscles in his forehead and the dilation of his eyes Ariel betrayed no emotion. The oriel window jutting over the street had been transformed; he saw no longer the clear glass of the stairway-light common to Ty Mawr and the other houses of Glaslyn, but a crimson cat, fore-feet in air, blazoned on a green background, each quarter of the oriel brilliant with a yellow star and the whole device bound together with a chaplet of rope.
Betto Griffiths laughed.
Betto Griffiths laughed.
“Itdoesmake a pretty light!” he exclaimed thoughtfully; “prettier,” he added with pride, “than I had any idea it would.”
The women stared at him.
“Aye, an’ it’s prettier within,” he continued; “it sheds such a bright colour on dark days.”
“No, is it so!” ejaculated Mrs. Parry Wynn.
“Aye, it is so,” replied Ariel. “Out of Glaslyn ye see many coloured windows like this in private houses—smart houses of course.”
“Just fancy!” responded Mrs. Jeezer Morris, “we’ve seen them in churches, the Nonconformists as well as the Established, but we’ve never heard of coloured windows before in a village house, especially not with such a cat——”
“Aye, the cat!” interrupted Ariel, in a caressing voice, the far-away, much-reverenced look of the poet in his eyes, “that cat is a copy from a—medal taken from—the sar-coph-a-gus of Tiglath Pileser II. Aye,” he added dreamily, “the cat, the sacred symbol of Egypt, holy to the Muses, beloved of——”
“Mr. Jenkins, ye don’t say so!” they all exclaimed, looking with curious glances at the oriel window.
“I will say,” nodded Mrs. Gomer Roberts, “that it has an uncommonly intelligent look.”
“Aye, so it has,” agreed Mrs. Parry Wynn, “intelligent an’—an’—lively.”
Betto Griffiths glanced about the little group shrewdly.
“An’ the stars, Mr. Jenkins?” she said.
“Tut, thestar! Betto Griffiths, ye don’t say ye don’t know the meanin’ of the five-pointed star, sacred to history, to sacred history, guide in the——”
“Oh, aye!” interrupted Betto, “ifthat’sthe star ye mean, I certainly do.”
The little gathering took a fresh look at the window; their eyes lingered reverently now on the emblazoned group of cat and stars leashed together with yellow rope.
“Aye, it’s a wonderful idea!” asserted Mrs. Jeezer Morris, from her superior position and knowledge.
“Aye, wonderful!” solemnly affirmed the rest.
“I’m thinkin’,” said Betto Griffiths, an undisciplined look in her eyes, “Mrs. Jenkins made it?”
“Mrs. Jenkins! Oh, no!” exclaimed Ariel, thrusting his hands into his trousers pockets, “I did it.”
“Ye did!” they all exclaimed, admiringly.
“Mr. Jenkins,” continued Mrs. Parry Wynn, whose husband, the baker, had been standing across the street not more than a half-hour ago laughing over the crimson catrampant, blazoned on the green field, “Mr. Jenkins, if Mr. Wynn thinks he could afford something like it, would ye be willin’——”
“Aye, gladly,” returned Ariel, “but it’s expensive, Mrs. Wynn.”
“Oh!” chorused the women, in deferential voices.
“But I’m thinkin’,” continued Ariel, “through my connection as a merchant I might be able to obtain the material at less expense an’——”
“If ye could!” clamoured the little group.
“Mr. Jenkins, if Mr. Roberts——” broke in Mrs. Roberts.
“Mr. Jenkins, if Mr. Morris——” interrupted Mrs. Morris.
“Won’t ye come in?” asked Ariel, placidly interrupting them all. “I’m certain ye will like the light even better from the inside where it falls in such pleasin’ colours on the landin’. When I was workin’ on it last night by moonlight the colours were like fairyland.”
“Aye, it’s only a poet could have conceived this,” said Mrs. Morris, with assurance, “only a poet!”
“Only a poet!” echoed the rest.
“But won’t ye come in? Mrs. Jenkins will be glad to see ye.”
“Aye, thank ye, ’twould be a pleasure!” And flock-like they followed Ariel into the house.
Mrs. Jenkins’s eyes were red, and there was the furtive aspect of a trapped animal about her; but when she saw their eager faces and heard their enthusiastic and admiring exclamations as they crowded into the stairway landing, there was a look of surprise first, and then of delight upon her face.
“Mr. Jenkins tells me ye didn’t make it yourself,” said Betto Griffiths, suspicion still on her sharp features.
“Well, it came,” replied Janny, glancing appealingly at Ariel, “it—came from Liverpool.”
“Jannydear,” corrected Ariel, with a look straight into her eyes, “ye mean thematerialdid.”
“Aye, Ariel,” answered Janny, with a mixture of childlike obedience and confusion, “aye, just the material.”
Ariel talked a great deal; the window was admired, commented upon, there were demands for future assistance, envious exclamations ofdelight to Mrs. Jenkins, who was given no chance to say a word, and the little group departed.
“Well, Janny!” exclaimed Ariel.
“Arieldear, I—I saw them—them laughin’ an’—then—ye,” the flood-gates burst and Janny threw herself sobbing into Ariel’s arms.
“There, there,dear, little lamb!” he comforted, his own eyes wet with tears.
“I thought—thought it would—be so—pretty—an’ people’s been—expectin’ me—to—to make changes—an’—an’—Betto Griffiths said improvements, an’ Ariel—I—I——” Janny’s voice caught and she sobbed afresh.
“Tut, tut, little lamb, dearie, don’t. Janny, Janny, don’t cry.”
“Ariel, I saw—the—men—laughin’ an’—an’ slappin’ their knees—an’—an’ pointin’ at the window—an’ even—little Silvan runnin’ by—laughed, an’ then when Betto Griffiths——” Janny faltered, gulping.
“Pooh, little lamb, Betto Griffiths!” exclaimed Ariel derisively, “Betto Griffiths is an ignorant woman. An’, dearie, didn’t ye hear them all askin’ me to help them to get windows like this?”
“But, Ariel, didn’t ye laugh at all?”
“I laugh, Janny! Why, dear,” answered Ariel slowly, “I think—the—window—is beautiful!”
“Oh, Ariel!” said Janny happily.
“Aye, I do; only if ye should have another idea, just tell me about it, dearie, beforehand, for it might—perhaps it wouldn’t,” he added gently, “make it awkward.”
“But, Ariel, I saw——”
“Well, dear, that’s enough—ye don’t understand these people quite yet. The window is beautiful; aye,” he continued, “I like it, so we’ll be sendin’ it to Liverpool to get a real stained-glass window something the same—aye, dearie, I can well afford it.”
The irons of the fireplace glowed in the light of the steady peat-fire. The odour from the peat was delicious with the aroma of age-old forests. With this was mingled the odour of the supper Jane Morris was clearing away. As she moved nimbly about the table, Jane’s shadow advanced and withdrew across the blackened rafters of the roof.
“Whoo-o!” said Tom, comfortably, at the sound of the wind booming down the rocky mountain-side. “’Tis a bad night for strangers to be abroad, bad to be wandering along Bryn Bannog.”
“Aye, ’tis dark,” answered Owen, removing his pipe, and rubbing the head of a pet lamb that lay beside him. “One minute it cries like a child, and another it wails like a demon. But ’tis snug within, lad, an’ we’ll never know want.”
The bachelor brothers regarded each other and their sister with contentment. Outside the wind shouted and cried by turns, and then died away clamorously in the deep valley.
“Snug within, lad,” reaffirmed Owen, drawing his harp to him.
Tom lifted his finger.
“Hush! Some one comes.”
All listened while the wind beat upon the house and sobbed piteously in the chimney. Jane hastened to the door.
“God’s blessin’—rest—on this house!” gasped a man, stumbling in.
“Take the stranger’s cloak off,” commanded Owen, before the visitor was in, “an’ here’s my clogs dry an’ warm.”
“Tut, tut,” objected Jane, “’tis food he needs, whatever. I’ll fetch him bread an’ fill the big pint. Now, friend, this chair by the table.”
The Stranger sat down; his deep-set eyes looked out wistfully on the awakened bustle, and on the warmth and the cheer of the cottage room. But they heard him whisper drearily, “My little child, my little child!”
Tom tried to lift the silence that was settling over them all with a question here and a question there. The Stranger ate absent-mindedly and ravenously, drinking his ale in greedy draughts. Owen knocked the ashes from his pipe and stared into the fire.
“’Tis late,” he said.
The Stranger lifted his eyes, looked at the two brothers, and long at Jane.
“I shall not rest——” he began.
“Well, Stranger, that you will not with a burden on your mind. That’s so, lad?” Tom asked, turning to Owen.
“I shall not rest till I have told my dream,” he resumed. “All day and every day my little one lies on her back—the crooked back that is killin’ her.”
“Dearanwyl!” exclaimed Owen to Jane and Tom, “’tis very like his little one.”
“Aye, lad,” answered Jane, while the wind drew gently over the house-roof.
“The dream came many times an’ I did not heed it.”
“He who follows dreams follows fools,” interrupted Tom.
“I am a poor man, with naught richer than dreams to follow, an’ no mother for my child. If the dream prove true, gold would make my little one well. But the days are goin’ fast an’ she is weaker every day.”
“Och!” sighed Jane.
“Tut, a dream come true!” scoffed Tom, laughing. “But whatwasyour dream?” he asked, leaning forward.
“It was of a pitcherful of gold hid beneath a ruin of rocks piled one upon another, an’ it was near a great fortress built in a fashion unknownto me. The fortress was on the crown of a rugged hill, an’ it seemed away from the sea. So I have travelled eastward.”
“Pen y Gaer!” exclaimed Owen and Tom and Jane, looking at one another.
“An’ in this dream I saw many strange things, garments unlike aught men wear now.”
“Aye,” agreed Jane, “but it was all a dream.”
“Nay, nay,” replied the Stranger, “can you not tell me of it?”
“That we can,” said Owen.
“Tut,” interrupted Tom, “there is a round tower, aye, two round towers, the one by Pen y Gaer, south-west over Bryn Bannog, down the bridle-path by Llyn Cwm-y-stradlyn.”
“Aye, but, lad,” objected Owen, “the other——”
“The other’s further away, more like a sheep-pen once than a tower for any fortress.”
Owen’s face was perplexed, but Tom’s calm, and his eyes keen with light.
“Rest here, Stranger,” he said. “On the morrow you shall start out for your treasure, up over Bryn Bannog.”
“Nay, Tom,” interrupted Owen, but Tom silenced him.
The next morning Tom stood outside the hedge that enclosed their grey-stone mountain cottage, pointing with his finger.
“Well, more to the west, so.”
“Aye,” replied the Stranger, scanning Bryn Bannog, its steep meadows, its rocks tufted with golden gorse, its craggy spine from which the mist was lifting; “yes, the path is plain.”
The Stranger set his eyes southward up the mountain. After a while he turned to look back at the cottage cradled in the fields below; beyond the valley, Moelwyn, massive and green; eastward, Cynicht, sharp and grey; and still farther east, a vast wilderness of crag tumbled hither and thither down to the very edge of the glimmering sea. “Hope goes with me, little one,” he said, and turned to climb higher. At the summit he looked westward; there lay a lake blue as a meadow-flower, and half-way down, by the little brook Tom had described, there was a large circle of loose stones.
The Stranger hurried forward. He glanced at the sun, and began by the edge of the circle near the brook, turning up the soggy earth in large clods. He dug feverishly, working hour after hour. He lay down and pulled the earth away in rolls, the wet drenching him, still hoping against hope. He took the clods of earth and dashed them against the rocks where they broke noiselessly. He looked about as if praying that some power might come to him from the bluedistance or the sky above or the golden sun; then he sank on the stones and wept. The little green snake that crept by in the grass, the snail that trailed over the sod, heard him weep, and the cry that came from him, “My little one, my little one, was it for this?”
The afternoon swung its shadows eastward, and the roof of the cottage lay in a pointed figure on the grass beyond the hedge. Two men bearing something toiled up the path to the hedge gate. As the sun set behind Bryn Bannog the pointed roof-shadow drew in, and the shadow from the hedge lay on the grass in a dark ribbon, growing narrower and fainter. From the distant summit a single figure dropped slowly downhill, the autumn dusk closing around it. In the windows candle-light flickered; a woman came to the west door and looked uphill. She seemed troubled and she had been crying.
“Brothers, he is comin’,” called Jane, “he is close by the house. Och, be kind to him for the child’s sake! It is not too late even now.”
“Well, Stranger,” said Tom, appearing at the door, “did you find aught?”
“Nay,” replied the Stranger, in a level voice. “Is there another ruin where the dream might lie?”
“Dreams!” exclaimed Tom cheerily, “dreams,dreams! ’Tis no place for dreams. You will find nothin’ but sheep bones buried on Bryn Bannog. Do you know of any other place, Owen?”
Owen took his pipe from his mouth, looked hard at his brother, hard at the Stranger, started to speak, changed his mind, and put the pipe in his mouth again.
“Will you come in an’ rest?” asked Tom. “’Tis growin’ dark.”
“My way is long, westward over the hills, an’ the child is waitin’.”
“Here,” said Tom, holding out a coin, “here is a crown for the little Flower.”
“Nay,” replied the Stranger gently, “it would avail nothin’. She hath need of many crowns. Good-night.”
As the Stranger took the path downhill, the brothers turned indoors. Jane confronted them, her eyes indignant, her lips tense.
“You—you will go after him. Och, that I should live to see this day! The Lord will find you out.”
Tom laughed.
“Set the candle on the table,” he said; “’tis an odd box. Is the door fast, Owen?”
“Aye, fast.”
“To think it’s lain in our pastures these hundreds of years.”
Tom undid the hasps. He lifted out one chalice of silver after another, and several silver plates, all marked with early dates. Tom looked disappointed; Owen’s face had grown pallid. Jane was speaking to them both:—
“’Tis the lost church silver, the altar-service, aye, the holy altar-service; now what will you do?” she cried.
At the breakfast table the porridge was eaten in silence. Jane’s eyes were red. Tom looked uneasy, and Owen stared into his dish. In vain Gwennie thrust her little white nose against Owen’s leg. “Baa-a!” Still no attention.
“I’m glad the wind is quiet,” said Jane.
There was no response.
“Did you sleep, Tom?” she asked.
“Sleep! With that shriekin’ of the wind!”
“Nay,” said Owen softly, “the cryin’ of a little child, indeed.”
“Therewasno gold, I say,” Tom asserted.
“True,” Owen complied.
“Well, ’twas altar silver, whatever.”
“Aye,” assented Jane, “an’ it must go back to the church.”
“Yes, an’ we’re no richer,” ended Tom. “We’ve nothin’ to spare to a stranger an’ his child.”
Owen turned the leaves of the big Bible on the table. Tom was staring defiantly from Jane to Owen.
“’It were better a millstone’—” Owen began to read to himself.
“The devil!” shouted Tom, rushing from the table and slamming the door behind him.
Owen went out after him. Their work for that day lay in the sheep-pens by the brook, washing and shearing the sheep. Before him Tom was walking very fast and talking in a loud, angry voice. But Owen was thinking of the sound of the wind as it cried and whimpered and pleaded all night long. And the flowers he saw in the grass at his feet made him think of big eyes; and the sheen on the grass, of a child’s hair; and the slender birch-wands, of a child’s little body. What would it have been like to have had such a little one a part of him? And supposing it had lain crumpled together like yonder fern—Owen’s heart gave a great leap.
Tom was still talking when he reached the sheepfold. The anger had left his face, and in its stead there was uneasy inquiry. Owen, without looking at his brother, took his seat on the shearing-stool and the shepherd carried a sheep to him. Owen turned it deftly. Clip, clip, clip, the fleece began to roll back from theshears and the skin to show pink through the stubble of remaining fleece. Clip! a deft turn to right, then to left, and the fleece slipped to the ground and lay there, white, and with arms outstretched.
“Och!” exclaimed Owen, staring at it, “I’m goin’ westward to the child, tell Jane.”
“I’m goin’, too,” called Tom, walking after him rapidly, grumbling and talking, “an’ I’ll not tell Jane. There’s no need to go so fast, whatever.”
Jane came to the door of the cottage and looked down to the roadway. Gwennie was beside her and caught sight of Owen. “Baa-a!” the lamb bleated, scampering downhill.
“Gwennie, Gwennie!” called Jane.
But the stiff little legs were taking the hillside in leaps and bounds.
“Gwennie,bach, Gwennie, Gwennie bach!”
Jane started downhill after the lamb. “If they’re goin’,” she said to herself, with a shrewd look of understanding, “indeed, I’m goin’ too.”
“Baa-a!” bleated Gwennie, with little frisks and skips to right and left.
Intermittently the wind whined and raced, howling like a wolf, through the Gwynen Valley; and intermittently, too, the rain doused the bridge on whose slate coping Vavasour Jones leaned. It was a night when spirits of air and earth, the racing wind, the thundering water, the slashing rain, were the very soul of this chaos of noise. Still, cosy lights shone on either side of the bridge, the lights of Ty Ucha and Ty Usaf, where a good mug of beer could be had for a mere song to a man of Vavasour’s means. And the lights from all the cottages, too, for it was All-Hallows’ Eve, twinkled with festive brilliance upon the drenched flags of the street. Indeed, there was not one of these houses in all Gwynen whose walls and flaggings were not familiar to him, where Vavasour Jones and his wife Catherine had not been on an occasion, a knitting-night, a Christmas, a bidding, a funeral, an All-Hallows’ Eve. But to-night his eyes gazed blankly upon these preliminary signs of a merry evening within doors, and he seemedunconscious of the rain pouring upon him and the wind slapping the bridge. He moved when he saw a figure approaching.
“Hist! Eilir!”
“Aye, man, who is it?”
“It’s me, it’s Vavasour Jones.”
“Dear me, lad, what do ye here in the dark and rain?”
Vavasour said nothing; Eilir peered more closely at him. “Are ye sick, lad?”
“Och, I’m not sick!” Vavasour’s voice rang drearily, as if that were the least of ills that could befall him.
“Well, what ails ye?”
“It’s All-Hallows’ Eve an’——”
“Aren’t ye goin’ to Pally Hughes’s?”
“Ow!” he moaned, “the devil! goin’ to Pally Hughes’s while it’s drawin’ nearer an’ nearer an’—Ow!”
“Tut, man,” said Eilir sharply, “ye’re ill; speak up, tell me what ails ye.”
“Ow-w!” groaned Vavasour.
Eilir drew away; here was a case where All-Hallows’ had played havoc early in the evening. What should he do? Get him home? Notify Catherine? Have the minister? He was inclining to the last resource when Vavasour groaned again and spoke:—
“Eilir, I wisht I were dead, man.”
“Dear me, lad, what is it?”
“It’s the night when Catherine must go.”
“When Catherine must go? What do ye mean?”
“She’ll be dead the night at twelve.”
“Dead at twelve?” asked Eilir, bewildered. “Does she know it?”
“No, but I do, an’ to think I’ve been unkind to her! I’ve tried this year to make up for it, but it’s no use, man; one year’ll never make up for ten of harsh words an’ unkind deeds. Ow!” groaned Vavasour, collapsing on to the slate coping once more.
“Well, ye’ve not been good to her,” replied Eilir, mystified, “that’s certain, man, but I’ve heard ye’ve been totally different the past year. Griffiths was sayin’ he never heard any more sharp words comin’ from your windows, an’ they used to rain like hail on the streets some days.”
“Aye, but a year’ll not do any good, an’ she’ll be dyin’ at twelve to-night, Ow!”
“Well,” said Eilir, catching at the only thing he could think of to say, “there’s plenty in the Scriptures about a man an’ his wife.”
“Aye, but it’ll not do, not do, not do,” sobbed Vavasour Jones.
“Have ye been drinkin’, lad?”
“Drinkin’!” exclaimed Jones.
“Well, no harm, but lad, about the Scriptures; there’s plenty in the Scriptures concernin’ a man an’ his wife, an’ ye’ve broken much of it about lovin’ a wife, an’ yet I cannot understand why Catherine’s goin’ an’ where.”
“She’s not goin’ anywhere, Eilir; she’ll be dyin’ at twelve.”
Whereupon Vavasour Jones rose up suddenly from the coping, took a step forward, seized Eilir by the coat-lapel, and, with eyes flickering like coals in the dark, told his story. All the little Gwynen world knew that he and his wife had not lived happily or well together; there had been no children coming and no love lost, and, as the days went on, bickering, scolding, harsh words, and even ugly actions. Aye, and it had come to such a pass that a year ago this night, on All-Hallows’ Eve, he had gone down to the church-porch shortly before midnight to see whether the spirit of Catherine would be called, and whether she would live the twelve months out. And as he was leaning against the church-wall hoping, aye, man, and praying that he might see her there, he saw something coming around the corner with white over its head; it drew nearer and nearer, and when it came in full view of the church-porchit paused, it whirled around, and sped away with the wind flapping about its feet and the rain beating down on its head. But Vavasour had time to see that it was the spirit of Catherine, and he was glad because his prayer had been answered, and because, with Catherine dying the next All-Hallows’, they would have to live together only the year out. So he went homeward joyfully, thinking it was the last year, and considering as it was the last year he might just as well be as kind and pleasant as possible. When he reached home he found Catherine up waiting for him. And she spoke so pleasantly to him and he to her, and the days went on as happily as the courting days before they were married. Each day was sweeter than the one before, and they knew for the first time what it meant to be man and wife in love and kindness. But all the while he saw that white figure by the churchyard, and Catherine’s face in its white hood, and he knew the days were lessening and that she must go. Here it was All-Hallows’ Eve again, and but four hours to midnight, and the best year of his life was almost past. Aye, and it was all the result of his evil heart and evil wish and evil prayer.
“Think, man,” groaned Vavasour, “prayin’ for her callin’, aye, goin’ there hopin’ ye’d see her spirit, an’ countin’ on her death!”
“Oh, man, it’s bad,” replied Eilir mournfully, “aye, an’ I’ve no word to say to ye for comfort. I recollect well the story my granny used to tell about Christmas Powell; it was somethin’ the same. An’ there was Betty Williams was called ten years ago, an’ didn’t live the year out; an’ there was Silvan Evans, the sexton, an’ Geffery his friend, was called two years ago, and Silvan had just time to dig Geffrey’s grave an’ then his own, too, by its side, an’ they was buried the same day an’ hour.”
“Ow!” wailed Vavasour.
“Aye, man, it’s bad; it’ll have to be endured, an’ to think ye brought it on yourself. Where’s Catherine?”
“She’s to Pally Hughes’s for the All-Hallows’ party.”
“Och, she’ll be taken there!”
“Aye, an’ oh! Eilir, she was loth to go to Pally’s, but I could not tell her the truth.”
“That’s so, lad; are ye not goin’?”
“I cannot go; I’m fair crazy an’ I’ll just be creepin’ home, waitin’ for them to bring her back. Ow!”
“I’m sorry, man,” called Eilir, looking after him with an expression of sympathy: “I can be of no use to ye now.”
Across the bridge the windows of PallyHughes’s grey-stone cottage shone with candles, and as the doors swung to and fro admitting guests, the lights from within flickered on the brass doorsill and the hum of merry words reached the street. Mrs. Morgan the baker, dressed in her new scarlet whittle and a freshly starched cap, was there; Mr. Howell the milliner, in his highlows and wonderful plum-coloured coat; Mrs. Jenkins the tinman, with bright new ribbons to her cap and a new beaver hat which she removed carefully upon entering; and Mr. Wynn “the shop,” whose clothes were always the envy of Gwynen village; and many others, big-eyed girls and straight young men, who crossed the bright doorsill.
Finally, Catherine Jones tapped on the door. Within, she looked vacantly at the candles on the mantelpiece and on the table, all set in festoons of evergreens and flanked by a display of painted china eggs and animals; and at the lights shining steadily, while on the hearth a fire crackled. Catherine, so heavy was her heart, could scarcely manage a decent friendly greeting to old Pally Hughes, her hostess. She looked uncheered at the big centre table, whereon stood a huge blue wassail-bowl, about it little piles of raisins, buns, spices, biscuits, sugar, a large jug of ale and a small bottle tightly corked. Shewatched the merriment with indifference; bobbing for apples and sixpences seemed such stupid games. There was no one in whom she could confide now, and anyway it was too late; there was nothing to be done, and while they were talking lightly and singing, too, for the harp was being played, the hours were slipping away, and her one thought, her only thought, was to get home to Vavasour. “Oh,” reflected Catherine, “I’m a wicked, wicked woman to be bringin’ him to his death!”
The candles were blown out and the company gathered in a circle about the fire to tell stories, while a kettle of ale simmered on the crane and the apples hung roasting. Pally began the list of tales. There was the story of the corpse-candle Lewis’s wife saw, and how Lewis himself died the next week; there were the goblins that of All-Hallows’ Eve led Davies such a dance, and the folks had to go out after him with a lantern to fetch him in, and found him lying in fear by the sheep-wall; and there were the plates and mugs Annie turned upside down and an unseen visitor turned them right side up before her very eyes.
Then they began to throw nuts in the fire, each with a wish: if the nut burned brightly the wish would-come true. Old Pally threw on a nut, it flickered and then blazed up; Maggietossed one into the fire, it smouldered and gave no light. Gradually the turn came nearer Catherine; there was but one wish in her heart and she trembled to take the chance.
“Now, Catherine!”
“Aye, Catherine, what’ll she be wishin’ for, a new lover?” they laughed.
With shaking hand she tossed hers into the fire; the nut sputtered and blackened, and with a shriek Catherine bounded from the circle, threw open the door and sped into the dark. In consternation the company scrambled to their feet, gazing at the open door through which volleyed the wind and rain.
Old Pally was the first to speak: “’Tis a bad sign.”
“Aye, poor Catherine’s been called, it may be.”
“It’s the last time, I’m thinkin’, we’ll ever see her.”
“Do ye think she saw somethin’, Pally, do ye?”
“There’s no tellin’; but it’s bad, very bad, though her nut is burnin’ brightly enough now.”
“She seemed downcast the night, not like herself.”
“It can be nothin’ at home, for Vavasour, they say, is treatin’ her better nor ever, an’ she’s been that sweet-tempered the year long, which is uncommon for her.”
As she fled homeward through the dark, little did Catherine think of what they might be saying at Pally’s. When Vavasour heard feet running swiftly along the street, he straightened up, his eyes in terror upon the door.
“Catherine!” he cried, bewildered at her substantial appearance, “is it ye who are really come?”
There was a momentary suggestion of a rush into each other’s arms checked, as it were, in mid-air by Vavasour’s reseating himself precipitately and Catherine drawing herself up.
“Yes,” said Catherine, seeing him there and still in the flesh, “it was—dull, very dull at Pally’s; an’ my feet was wet an’ I feared takin’ a cold.”
“Aye,” replied Vavasour, looking with greed upon her rosy face and snapping eyes, “aye, it’s better for ye here, dearie.”
There was an awkward silence. Catherine still breathed heavily from the running, and Vavasour shuffled his feet. He opened his mouth, shut it, and opened it again.
“Did ye have a fine time at Pally’s?” he asked.
“Aye, it was gay and fine an’—na——” Catherine halted, remembering the reason she had given for coming home, and tried to explain. “Yes, so it was, an’ so it wasn’t,” she ended.
Vavasour regarded her with attention, and there was another pause, in which his eyes soughtthe clock. The sight of that fat-faced timepiece gave him a shock.
“A quarter past eleven,” he murmured; then aloud: “Catherine, do ye recall Pastor Evans’s sermon, the one he preached last New Year?”
Catherine also had taken a furtive glance at the clock, a glance which Vavasour caught and wondered at.
“Well, Catherine, do——”
“Aye, I remember, about inheritin’ the grace of life together.”
“My dear, wasn’t he sayin’ that love is eternal an’ that—a man—an’—an’ his wife was lovin’ for—for——”
“Aye, lad, for everlastin’ life,” Catherine concluded.
There was another pause, a quick glancing at the clock, and a quick swinging of two pairs of eyes towards each other, astonishment in each pair.
“Half-after eleven,” whispered Vavasour, seeming to crumple in the middle. “An’, dear,” he continued aloud, “didn’t he, didn’t he say that the Lord was mindful of our—of our—difficulties, and our temptations, an’ our—our——”
“Aye, an’ our mistakes,” ended Catherine.
“Do ye think, dearie,” he went on, “that if a man were to—to—na—to be unkind a—a very little to his wife—an’ was sorry an’ his wife—his wife—died, that he’d be—be——?”
“Forgiven?” finished Catherine. “Aye, I’m thinkin’ so. An’, lad dear, do ye think if anythin’ was to happen to ye the night,—aye,thisnight,—that ye’d take any grudge away with ye against me?”
Vavasour stiffened.
“Happen tome, Catherine?”
Then he collapsed, groaning.
“Oh, dearie, what is it, what is it, what ails ye?” cried Catherine, coming to his side on the sofa.
“Nothin’, nothin’ at all,” he gasped, slanting an eye at the clock. “Ow, the devil, it’s twenty minutes before twelve!”
“Oh, lad, what is it?”
“It’s nothin’, nothin’ at all, it’s—it’s—ow!—it’s just a little pain across me.”
Catherine stole a look at the timepiece,—a quarter before twelve, aye, it was coming to him now, and her face whitened to the colour of the ashes in the fireplace.
To Vavasour the whimpering of the wind in the chimney was like the bare nerve of his pain. Even the flickering of the flame marked the flight of time, which he could not stay by any wish or power in him. Only ten minutes more, aye, everything marked it: the brawl of the stream outside, the rushing of the wind, the scattering of the rain like a legion of fleeing feet, then a sudden pause in the downpour when hisheart beat as if waiting on an unseen footstep; the very singing of the lazy kettle was a drone in this wild race of stream and wind and rain, emphasising the speed of all else. Vavasour cast a despairing glance at the mantel, oh! the endlesstick-tick, tick-tick, of that round clock flanked by rows of idiotic, fat-faced, whiskered china cats, each with an immovably sardonic grin, not a whisker stirring to this mercilesstick-tick. Aye, it was going to strike in a minute, and the clanging of it would be like the clanging of the gates of hell behind him. He did not notice Catherine, that she, too, unmindful of everything, was gazing in horror at the mantel. Vavasour groaned; oh! if the clock were only a toad or a serpent, he would put his feet on it, crush it, and—oh!—Vavasour swore madly to himself, covering his eyes. Catherine cried out, her face in her hands—the clock was striking.
Twelve!
The last clang of the bell vibrated a second and subsided; the wind whimpered softly in the chimney, the tea-kettle sang on. Through a chink in her fingers Catherine peered at Vavasour; through a similar chink there was a bright agonised eye staring at her.
“Oh!” gulped Catherine.
“The devil!” exclaimed Vavasour.
“Lad!” called his wife, putting out a hand to touch him.
Then followed a scene of joy; they embraced, they kissed, they danced about madly, and having done it once, they did it all over again and still again.
“But, Katy, are ye here, reallyhere?”
“AmIhere? Tut, lad, areyehere?”
“Aye, that is, are webothhere?”
“Did ye think I wasn’t goin’ to be?” asked the wife, pausing.
“No-o, not that, only I thought, I thought ye was goin’—to—to faint. I thought ye looked like it,” replied Vavasour, with a curious expression of suppressed, intelligent joy in his eyes.
“Oh!” exclaimed Catherine. Then, suddenly, the happiness in her face was quenched. “But, lad, I’m a wicked woman, aye, Vavasour Jones, a bad woman!”
As Vavasour had poured himself out man unto man to Eilir, so woman unto man Catherine poured herself out to her husband.
“An’, lad, I went to the church-porch hopin’, almost prayin’ ye’d be called, that I’d see your spirit walkin’.”
“Catherine, ye did that!”
“Aye, but oh! lad, I’d been so unhappy with quarrelling and hard words, I could think of nothin’ else but gettin’ rid of them.”
“Och, ’t was bad, very bad!” replied Vavasour.
“An’ then, lad, when I reached the church-corner an’ saw your spirit was really there, really called, an’ I knew ye’d not live the year out, I was frightened, but oh! lad, I was glad, too.”
Vavasour looked grave.
“Katy, it was a terrible thing to do!”
“I know it now, but I didn’t at that time, dearie,” answered Catherine; “I was hardhearted, an’ I was weak with longin’ to escape from it all. An’ then I ran home,” she continued; “I was frightened, but oh! lad dear, I was glad, too, an’ now it hurts me so to think it. An’ when ye came in from the Lodge, ye spoke so pleasantly to me that I was troubled. An’ now the year through it’s grown better an’ better, an’ I could think of nothin’ but lovin’ ye an’ wishin’ ye to live an knowin’ I was the cause of your bein’ called. Och, lad,canye forgive me?” asked Catherine.
“Aye,” replied Vavasour slowly, “I can—none of us is without sin—but, Katy, it was wrong, aye, a terrible thing for a woman to do.”
“An’ then to-night, lad, I was expectin’ ye to go, knowin’ ye couldn’t live after twelve, an’ ye sittin’ there so innocent an’ mournful; an’ when the time came I wanted to die myself. Oh!” moaned Catherine afresh.
“No matter, dearie, now,” comforted Vavasour, putting his arm about her, “itwaswrong in ye, but we’re still here an’ it’s been a sweet year, aye, it’s been better nor a honeymoon, an’ all the years after we’ll make better nor this. There, Katy, let’s have a bit of a wassail to celebrate our All-Hallows’ honeymoon, shall we?”
“Aye, lad, it would be fine,” said Catherine, starting for the bowl, “but Vavasour, can ye forgive me, think, lad, for hopin’, aye, an’ almost prayin’ to see your spirit, just wishin’ that ye’d not live the year out?”
“Katy, I can, an’ I’m not layin’ it up against ye, though it was a wicked thing for ye to do—for any one to do. Now, dearie, fetch the wassail.”
Catherine started for the bowl once more, then turned, her black eyes snapping upon him.
“Vavasour, how does it happen that the callin’ is set aside an’ that ye’rereallyhere? Such a thing’s not been in Gwynen in the memory of man”; and Catherine proceeded to give a list of the All-Hallows’-Eve callings that had come inexorably true within the last hundred years.
“I’m not sayin’ how it’s happened, Catherine, but I’m thinkin’ it’s modern times an’ things these days are happenin’ different,—aye, modern times.”
“Good!” sighed Catherine contentedly, “it’s lucky ’tis modern times.”
“Mother, Mr. Thatcher oversteps himself; any such suggestions should be comin’ from the landlord.” Gabriel puffed out his whiskered cheeks and grew red under his eyes.
“There, father dear, there,” Maggie hastened to soothe him.
“Tut, mam, a man knows what he’s talkin’ about by the time he’s seventy, doesn’t he? A man has a right to his own thoughts; now, hasn’t he? I tell ye, it was insultin’, most insultin’!”
“Aye, it’s so,” admitted Maggie ruefully, “but, father——”
“He’s always interferin’ with your private affairs, he is,” Gabriel interrupted, heedless of Maggie’s attempts to change the conversation. “At best he’s nothin’ but an absentee’s gentleman, now, isn’t he?”
“No, I think; I’m thinkin’, dad, he is himself a gentleman,” Maggie contradicted gently.
“Pooh! no gentleman at all! He’s the lad’s tool, given the education of a gentleman, taughtto carry himself like a gentleman, an’ livin’ in the landlord’s house in his absence; but for all that he’s not a gentleman, naught but an upper servant, an’ Sir Evan treats him so. I’m thinkin’ a very self-respectin’ man wouldn’t be takin’ such a position nowadays, now, would he?”
At the sound of a horse’s hoofs upon the road Gabriel turned to the window with eager curiosity, his head travelling the width of the latticed light.
“There’s the young master ridin’ by now!” he exclaimed.
As she contemplated the back of Gabriel’s head, his pink ears protruding independently from the sides of his bald, shiny pate as if they, too, had opinions of their own, Maggie’s eyes gathered anxiety. Gabriel turned to the hearth again.
“Well, mam?”
“Father, these are dangerous new ideas ye’re gettin’,” she answered.
“Tut, if Mr. Thatcher, steward or no steward, felt like a gentleman, then in my eyes he’d be a gentleman, indeed. But no gentleman would ever act as Mr. Thatcher does, now, isn’t it?”
“Lad, lad!” Maggie remonstrated.
This advanced thinking would do for the young ones; she would have had to confess to a liking for it in her children’s letters. It was right for a new world perhaps; but she thoughtwith alarm of Gabriel daring to assert such views here on the very flaggings, under the very thatch of Isgubor Newydd. She looked anxiously towards the hearth, as if she feared such social doctrine might quench its brightly glowing pot of coals, or destroy its shining fire-stools, candlesticks, pewter platters, and big copper cheese-dishes, or break its fragile, iridescent creamers and sugar basins and jugs,—there, much of it, four hundred years ago at a certain wedding-breakfast, just as it had been at her own some forty years ago. It would not have surprised her now to have it all come clattering down about her head and break in precious fragments on the stone hearth.
“Mam,” said Gabriel, looking shrewdly at her troubled face, “do ye recall the repairs we asked for and never got?”
“Aye, dad dear.”
“Well, mam, David Jones had his an’ he asked after us. David Jones trades at Mr. Thatcher’s shop, mam, an’ we don’t an’ we’re not a-goin’ to,” Gabriel ended pugnaciously.
“Och, father!”
“Aye, it’s so, isn’t it? It’s insultin’, isn’t it, suggestin’ a man change his way of prayin’ to suit his landlord’s steward an’—an’—” Gabriel added hesitatingly, “his landlord, I suppose, too; an’ the steward obligin’ him to trade at his shop to get any paint or a roof tatchèd.”
The firelight shone upon Gabriel’s fringe of whiskers and glowed through his pink ears and twinkled upon his bald head. He looked up indignantly to the rafters above him; they were well hung with hams and bacons upon which the dry salt glistened like frost. His expression mellowed. He glanced at the bright hearth with its bright trimmings; he looked from the purring kettle and purring kitten before Maggie’s feet to Maggie herself, daintily upright on the dark settle, her cap and apron immaculately white. She was as comely and fragile as the antique china she cherished. Then Gabriel spoke contentedly, like a man who has counted his riches and found them after all more than sufficient.
“Well, mam, we’ve prospered even here, haven’t we? It’s leading a righteous life does it; aye, an’ there’s the young man has made us all feel like livin’ better, hasn’t he?”
“Aye, dear beloved,” Maggie nodded, glad of the turn the conversation was taking, “even in his picture he looks like one lifted up, like the apostle Paul.”
“They say, mam, that for fifteen years he prayed the same prayer to get knowledge an’ do good.”
“Aye, an’ it came, an’ now from being nought but a collier, he’s influencin’ thousands and thousands.”
“Good reason; there’s power there we know nothin’ about,” Gabriel said meditatively, “an’, mam,” he continued, “he appears like a gentleman; you might think he’d been born an’ bred a gentleman.”
“Yes, dad, an’ they say he’s questionin’ himself seriously,” replied Maggie, leading away from the possibility of a renewed debate; “that he’s puzzlin’ an gettin’ learnin’ an’ goin’ to college. It’s been a sweet season, father; the long winter’s not been dull at all, what with meetin’s every night till ten and eleven.”
“Aye, it’s been a blessed time, mam, an’ growin’ better every day. With the singin’ above the housetops an’ the heavenly lights, it looks like a new revelation.”
“But I’m wishin’ the Revival was quieter in some ways,” Maggie objected; “there’s people that’s fairly crazed by it; yes, an’ when they’re gettin’ the hwyl so many at once it’s—it’s——”
“Tut, mam,” said Gabriel fiercely, “it’s hot, aye; but it’s a grand an’ blessed stir. An’ the strength it brings to men!”
As Gabriel raised his hand to enforce his belief, there was a rap on the cottage door. Maggie got up nimbly, smoothed down her apron, and hastened to the low entry.
“Aye, Mr. Thatcher, come in.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Thatcher, coming in, “cosy little room, brasses attractive, pretty willow-wood there. Ah, good-afternoon, Gabriel, about to have your tea, don’t let me disturb you.” And Mr. Thatcher seated himself comfortably by the kitchen fire.
“We can wait for our tea, Mr. Thatcher,” said Gabriel, continuing to stand.
“Ah, very well, I won’t keep you long! I just came in to speak to you about that little matter I mentioned the other day. Sir Evan is much in earnest; he feels that church tenants would be a decided advantage to—to the harmony of the estate.”
Maggie’s glance fluttered anxiously to Gabriel.
“Mr. Thatcher, a man can’t change his beliefs to suit his landlord’s, meanin’ no disrespect to Sir Evan,” came the reply, in a voice as uncompromising as Gabriel’s attitude.
“Ah-h, well,” drawled Mr. Thatcher, tapping his long nose; “there’s Price an’ Howell an’ Jenkins, they’re church peoplenow,” he concluded.
“May every one pity them!” exclaimed Gabriel.
“Dad, dad!” called Maggie rebukingly.
“Ah!” said Mr. Thatcher. “Well, Gabriel, I came here to speak of other matters, too. You never come to my shop?”
“No, Mr. Thatcher, I don’t.”
Maggie was wringing her hands under her apron.
“You farmers don’t know when you’re well off; it would be profitable for you to trade there.”
Maggie stared in dismay at the red mounting under Gabriel’s eyes and flushing the edges of his bald head.
“Is that a bribe ye’re offerin’ me, Mr. Thatcher?” Gabriel asked.
“Ah! no impertinence, if you please,” replied the steward. “As I was saying, Sir Evan is very devout now and much in earnest about having his people churched, so it will be necessary, unless you have a change of opinion, for you to leave Isgubor Newydd in two weeks.”
Mr. Thatcher rapped his gaiter and looked before him into the fire.
“Father,” said Maggie, poking him, her wrinkled cheeks white, her lips trembling; “father, did he sayleaveIsgubor Newydd?”
“You heard Mr. Thatcher, mam,” answered Gabriel stonily.
“Of course, Gabriel,” continued the steward, “there is the shop, as a favour to you, if——”
“Sir!” roared Gabriel, his hands working, his eyes blazing.
“Dad, dad dear!” cried Maggie, clinging to his arm; “father, remember.”
Mr. Thatcher had risen and was steppingtowards the door. “Good-afternoon,” he said, “in two weeks, if you please.”
They watched the figure of the steward disappear through the doorway, then Gabriel took his seat by the fire.
“Leave Isgubor Newydd?” Maggie whispered.
“Well, mam, I’d rather go than stay,” said Gabriel sharply.
“Dad!”
“Aye, it’ll be sacrificin’ somethin’ for the faith.”
“Och, you don’t understand,” Maggie cried; “I was born here, mother was born here—for hundreds of years we’ve lived in Isgubor Newydd!”
“Mam, it’ll be doin’ somethin’ for the faith,” Gabriel replied obstinately, in his voice the trumpet-sound of battle; “an’ I say I’d rather go than stay, whatever.”
“Och, father, father dear, how can ye? An’ we were married here an’ the little ones were born here, an’ when they come home where’ll they come to now?”
For an instant Gabriel looked bewildered, then said stoutly, “Tut, mam!”
“I can’t believe the young master did it,” continued Maggie, unsilenced; “lovin’ the house is most like lovin’ the children. Dear beloved, can’t you see?”
Without even a shake of the head Gabriel stared before him.
“Dad, I have——” Maggie hesitated, “I’ve three pounds put by for an ill day.”
“Well?”
“Dad dear,” Maggie whispered, desperate courage on her lips, desperate fear in her eyes, “would ye—would ye buy me somethin’—somethin’ at Mr. Thatcher’s shop—or—that is just for me or—or—I’ll do it, father?”
“Maggie Williams,” Gabriel shouted, “do ye know what ye are sayin’, or are ye the devil temptin’ me?”
With the habit of a lifetime Maggie, in the end, tried to acquiesce and think only of Gabriel’s point of view. She chid herself for lack of strength, for want of courage to act for her faith. She made, as the days went by, an effort to seem the same to Gabriel, but all the while it was as if something were eating out her life. As she went about the little cottage her hands followed from one object to another, for whereever her eyes fell they fell upon something dearly loved. It took her an interminable time to pack anything to leave Isgubor Newydd; it was handled and handled again, and then set aside because, after all, she could not tell what should be done with it. As a result, for the first time in many generations the cottage was in confusion.
Maggie began with the chest. The very odour from the oaken box made her ache. When, first of all, out came the little garments of the children who had scattered over the world, as a Welshman’s children often must, she wept. The wee, clumsy clogs with their stubbed toes, the patched corduroy trousers, the round caps, seemed so dear, as if their little master’s frolics were a thing of yesterday.
But Maggie knew that time now to be a thing of the past,—a past of which she could not keep even the hearth, the walls, the garden within which these joys had been lived. Next, she took out a beaver hat that had been her mother’s; she smoothed it gently as if it were a tired head, she put it against her cheek, she held it away from her, looking at it tenderly, then with a moan she dropped it back into the chest. That part of her life, too, seemed but yesterday, and yet it was so much older than Gabriel and the children. As long as she lived, Maggie asked herself, would these things always be young to her? As she stood there thinking, it came to her that people at least did not realise that they were growing old if they stayed in the same place, for the place was always young, its rafters staunch, its walls fresh, the flowers renewed their bloom and the grass its colour. With sudden resolveMaggie decided that they must not leave Isgubor Newydd, for Gabriel did not know what he was doing. There were the three pounds—perhaps that might help them. She had no time to lose, she must hasten, and her thoughts ran feverishly forward into the future.
Gabriel had noticed that Maggie was growing weaker; her hands shook, she talked to herself, and often, when Gabriel came into the room, she started. Gabriel did not wish to see these things; he was like a cruel prophet exulting in sacrifice, even in the sacrifice of Maggie to the uttermost. The stress of these days but added strength to his step and power to his glance. In chapel he sang with a mighty voice, and loud and frequent were his assents to the minister’s prayers. From his deacon’s seat, where he received congratulation from those less blessed by persecution than himself, he could see Maggie seated limply upon the narrow pew bench, all her one-time erectness gone, her eyes wandering to the windows high above the heads of the congregation, and to the mountains, higher still, which looked down into this little chapel of men. Gabriel was like some protomartyr of ancient Wales, like Amphibalus or Albanus of Caerlon; in his zeal he was indifferent to personal discomfort and sacrifice. He exultedin his strength with a savage joy, and because he was resisting his natural inclination to be kind to Maggie, he was roughly unkind,—unkind for the first time in their lives. On his fingers he told over and over all the sacrifices martyrs and prophets and teachers had made of their nearest and dearest. It was a glorious bead-roll, one to make the eyes of a valiant man shine. He could give nothing more precious than Maggie. He exhorted her to be strong in spirit. She listened patiently to his words, her hands unclasped in her lap, her head drooping, and a gentle “yes” breathed from time to time. She was like a tired child, good still, but too weary to know what it was all about. To Gabriel she seemed so ineffective that he wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her, for in his eyes righteousness had gone completely out of her. She was a vessel empty of strength, and every time he spoke to her, her head drooped a little more and the poor hands lay more weakly in her lap. “Yes, father, I will try,” she would say in reply to his exhortation; and then the touch of the place ached in her fingers and ran up into her heart, and her one longing was to gather it all to her breast, if only she could, and run away with it to the ends of the earth, where persecution could not take it from her again. There wasno piece of its wood or stone that was not living to her, that had not entered into her sense of motherhood, of possession, for which she did not feel, where a good woman weak or strong feels everything that is inseparable from her.
One day, four days before they must leave Isgubor Newydd, Gabriel came out of his fields, rich with the grass the benefit of which he was not to reap, and saw something creeping slowly by the hedge along the road to the village. He studied it. He rubbed his old eyes and looked again. It was Maggie’s cloak and cap, and she was well up the hill to the town. But she went slowly, one hand leaning on the wall in front of the hedge, the other grasping a stick. Suddenly Gabriel started. Ah, if she hadthatin mind! He hurried forward to overtake her. As he approached, Maggie turned.
“Is that you, dad?” she said.
“Mam,” was all he answered, his eyes looking her through.
“I—I was goin’ to—to the town,” she faltered.
“Why?”
“To—to buy somethin’,” she replied unsteadily.
“At Mr. Thatcher’s shop?” Gabriel demanded.
“A—a little, dad,” she replied, stretching out one hand upon the wall for more support.
“Give me your purse.”
Maggie gave it to him and Gabriel opened it; there within lay the three gold pieces. Gabriel took her by the arm, and, shaking her, turned her towards home.
Another day went by, and Maggie continued to pick up things that should be packed, only to put them down again. The Welsh have tender hearts for trouble, and many a kind soul among her neighbours would have been glad to assist her. Besides, there was the added incentive of persecution which makes all the Welsh world kin and which made the village proud of Isgubor Newydd. But the thought of neighbourly assistance was repulsive to Maggie. She could not let others see those things now. Under Gabriel’s condemnation, too, she had lost her self-respect, and was furtive and half ashamed of meeting her neighbours. When Gabriel was in the house, she moved about from thing to thing, with a feint of accomplishing something of the work of which so much was to be done. But when he was out she hurried from object to object, talking incessantly to herself and whatever she touched.