Part 2

"The folks over to C'n'rvon can't give themselves airs any more."

"Well, no, they cannot."

"Did Betty know?"

"No, a woman worries when she's to keep a secret."

"The folks have all been askin' for ye for two days"; and Jones's face shone with the same delighted goodwill as that on his master's.

"We'll take it to Ty Isaf; it'll be kept there."

"Aye. Ye're a thoughtful man, Griffiths. Ye've done about everything could be done for this village. There ain't a man better thought of nor ye, except ye're a Conservative. But they ought to put ye on the Council just the same."

The caravan moved slowly into Bryn Tirion. At the rumble of wheels Olwyn thrust her head out of Cwm Cloch door, took one look at the moving load, and rushed into the back garden for Evan.

To Ty Isaf they hurried with the crowd; girls with water-pails dropped them; children staggering along under mammoth loaves of bread fresh from the oven tumbled them in the white dust of the road; mothers with babies strapped to them by shawls tightened the shawls and hastened along; old women put down their bundles of faggots; dogs ceased their quarrelling and children their playing, all rushing in the same direction.

Griffiths and Jones were stripping away the crating.

"It's an organ for Chapel," said Marged Owen.

"It's a new pulpit," exclaimed Maggie Powell.

"It's a HEARSE!" cried Olwyn Evans, as the bagging was ripped from one side.

For an instant admiration made the concourse silent; then old Marslie Powell said softly: "If the Lord had 'a' asked me what I wanted most He could not've done better."

"Surely, it is the Lord's gift," affirmed Ellen Roberts.

"To think I'd live to see a real live hearse!" shrilly exclaimed old Annie Dalben.

"It's a fine smart present, it is," said Howell Roberts, "an' there wouldn't no one else 'a' thought of it except Griffith Griffiths."

"It'll be pretty and tasty with mournin', now won't it!" commented Gwen Williams.

"It's a pity Jane Jones and Jane Wynne's too sick to be here an' see it when they're likely to have first chance at it!" declared Olwyn Evans.

"It'll be fine for the first as is buried in it," nodded Ellen Roberts wistfully.

"It'll be an honour," assented old Annie Dalben.

IV

_Bryn Tirion sees a Lighted Candle of the Dead and a Contest_

"The doctor from Tremadoc has been called in," remarked Betty.

"Has he so!" replied Griffiths, toasting his feet before the fire and eyeing the smiling cats benevolently. "He's a clever young man."

"Aye, but it won't save Jane Jones nor Jane Wynne."

"No?"

"The Joneses is havin' him come every other day, so the Wynneses is doin' the same. They're both failin' rapidly. When the family asks about Jane Jones, all he'll say is, 'She's no worse.' An' when the Wynneses ask about Jane Wynne he says, 'She's no better.' Olwyn Evans says it's her opinion he don't know which is worse; doctors, she thinks, has to keep quiet, they're always so uncertain what the Lord is plannin'. It'll be hard on Robert if they both die the same day an' he has to bury them simultaneous. Virginia says he's poorly now from havin' to make so many visits each day on the Joneses, to say nothin' of the neighbours flockin' in to ask him questions after each visit. It's hard on Robert."

"Aye, it is," assented Griffiths peacefully.

In the thirtieth year of the contest Griffith Griffiths had won his election; by the gift of the hearse he put Bryn Tirion under a final obligation. Politics paled before the generations of dead who would be indebted to this benefactor. That a man should be a Conservative or a Radical mattered not to the dead, and the living must discharge for the dead their debt of gratitude. But the outcome of this contest was quickly lost sight of in the uncertainty of a new strife. Would Jane Jones or Jane Wynne be buried first in the new hearse? While Griffiths and Betty were still discussing this question the door-knocker clapped rapidly.

"I do believe it's Olwyn Evans come with news," exclaimed Betty.

"Good-evening," said Olwyn, disposing of her greeting. "She's seen it!"

"Seen it?"

"Aye, Gwen Williams. She was walkin' there by the old hedge over the Glaslyn this evening, an' first she thought it was a light in the old mill, for it looked large just like a lamp-flame. Then she saw it was movin' and it was comin' toward her."

"It was the Candle of the Dead she saw?" asked Griffiths.

"Aye, it was; the nearer it came the smaller grew the flame till it was no bigger than a thimble. Gwen was frightened so she couldn't move from the wall; she let it pass close by her, and it was a woman carryin' the light."

"A woman!"

"Aye, a woman, an' she moved on to the doorsill of Jane Jones's house an' stopped there."

"Jane Jones's?"

"Aye, an' then she went over to Jane Wynne's door an' stopped there."

"She did?"

"Aye, she did, an' then she went over to the graveyard an' waved her candle over the gate, an' it went out. Gwen says there weren't no more thickness to her than to the candle-flame,--ye could thrust your finger straight through her."

"Which door did she go to first--Jane Jones's?"

"Aye, it was Jane Jones's, but Gwen says she stood nearer the Wynne's plot in the graveyard."

Griffith's eyes sought the cats, and he pulled his side-whiskers thoughtfully. "Ye cannot tell which it'll be, now can ye?"

"No, you cannot, but I've my opinion it'll be Jane Jones, she's more gone in the face. I must be goin'; Betty, will you be comin' with me; I promised Gwen I'd step in for a neighbourly look at the Joneses, an' perhaps I can help her decide which it'll be."

First they went to Jane Wynne's; they found her propped up in bed surrounded with a circle of interested neighbours. The doctor had just gone and the minister was on his way in. Old Marslie Powell curtsied gravely to the minister as he entered. "Dear love, she'll not last the night."

"Aye, aye," chorused the circle of neighbours, "her breath's failin' now."

But in Jane Wynne's eye there was a live coal of intelligence; she beckoned imperiously with her scrawny old hand to the young minister.

"If I do, ye'll put it on the stone?" she whispered eagerly.

"Yes, Jane, Hugh will have it done."

"She's not long," said Olwyn to Betty; "let us be goin' to Jane Jones's."

They walked across the street.

"Poor dear," said Ellen Roberts to them as they entered, "she'll not last till morn. Her heart's beatin' slower a'ready."

"Aye, aye, she's failin'," assented the neighbours.

"It would be a credit, somethin' to be proud on," whispered old Annie Dalben.

"Aye, a credit," agreed the neighbours.

Jane beckoned to the doctor.

"If I do, tell Robert Roberts to make mention of it in his sermon," she pleaded weakly.

"I will," replied the doctor.

"Well," remarked Olwyn Evans as they went out, "it'll be a credit either way to one of the families to be carried in that smart hearse. Jane Wynne's older, an' perhaps she'd ought to get it; but then the Joneses has always meant more to Bryn Tirion, an' it seems as if they'd ought to have the honour. I never saw two families more ambitious for anything. It does seem as if Griffiths had thought of everything a man could think of to benefit the village."

"Aye," assented Betty proudly, "he's a wonderful man for thinkin' of other folks."

V

_Bryn Tirion sees Death Triumphant_

"I don't know," said Olwyn Evans, in a resigned voice, "I don't know but it was best. The Wynneses always had fewer chances than the Joneses. Hugh Wynne didn't say much, but I could see he was happy, an' the Wynne girls was so pleased. They said as long as their mother had to go she couldn't have done better, the stone'll look so pretty with it all writ on it; an' then the hearse an' their mournin' did look so nice together."

"There was a good many folks there?" suggested Griffiths.

"Aye, there was; I thought it was more'n pleasant for all the Joneses to come, because they must feel disappointed with Jane Jones still livin'."

"Is she the same?" asked Griffiths.

"Aye, no worse."

"There was people at the funeral from Tremadoc," added Betty.

"From Tremadoc and from Rhyd Dhu, too. Some haven't ever seen a real hearse before. A cart to draw the coffin in is all the Rhyd Dhu folks know," concluded Olwyn.

"They say the plate on the coffin was more'n filled with money," added Betty.

"Aye, it was," said Olwyn; "there was more'n enough to pay both the doctor an' the minister. It does the town good to have a lot of folks here. They wasn't all interested in Jane Wynne, but they was interested in seein' which'd die first, an' in the hearse. I suppose they wanted to come an' make sure she really was dead. Well, you never did better by Bryn Tirion, Griffith."

"Aye," said Griffith, tapping his finger-tips together and smiling contentedly at the row of big-eyed, whiskered cats, "aye, it's an assistance."

_Dreams in Jeopardy_

Pedr Evans dived into the contents of a box of picture post-cards; from the shop counter all that could be seen of him was the back of broad shoulders, two inches of sturdy neck, well-shaped ears, and a thatch of brown hair. The box, which was large and placed on a shelf behind the counter, gave evidences to the person who could peek over the counter and around Pedr of being in an alarming state of disorder. Apparently the man fumbling among the cards intended to rearrange them; at least some line of the figure suggested that this was the impression he wished to convey. But it was as if he were running his hands through sand, for the post-cards slipped from his fingers and fell in even greater confusion. A woman who had entered the shop-door looked at his back a second--she had caught a rim of the face as it had turned quickly away--smiled, lifted her eyebrows, and stuck her tongue into one heavily tinted cheek.

"'Ts, 'ts," she hissed, behind her teeth.

Pedr wheeled about; in turning he caught the corner of his box of post-cards, and over they went upon the floor.

"Well, indeed, Catrin Griffiths," he said, with an attempt at composure.

"Aye, it's me," she answered airily. "Ffi! Playin' cards, Pedr Evans? Um-m, what would Nelw Parry be sayin'?"

Pedr coloured and shifted his weight.

"No, puttin' the stock in order," he objected.

"Yes? Well, an' playin' you didn't see me? Yes?"

Catrin patted the puffs of yellow hair that projected from under her pink hat, and, placing a finger on her lips, smiled insinuatingly at Pedr. It was evident as she stood before him that she considered herself alluring, a charming embodiment of the world and the flesh and the devil. Of that world, it was rumoured, Pedr Evans knew something; at least he had made excursions into it; he had been to Liverpool, nay, he had been even farther, for he had been to London. London! The word chimed as merrily in Catrin's ears as coronation bells. London! Pedr Evans had been to London, and the magic word had been in more mouths than Catrin's. There was never a question asked in Conway, climbing by degrees to the wise men of the village and still failing an answer, but people would say, "Aye, well, indeed, _we_ dunno, but Pedr Evans he's been to London, an' he'll know, whatever."

Catrin Griffiths had seen him mount the London coach, and she had seen him return. And, by a method of reasoning wholly her own, she had concluded that he would appreciate her, for she, Catrin Griffiths, had seen something of that world, too; she had seen highly-coloured prints of Piccadilly, the 'busses with gay people atop and fine ladies in their carriages clad in cloaks and furs and furbelows, throats and wrists bejewelled in a marvellous fashion, and such fine gentlemen driving the carriages; and, what is more, she had spelled painfully through the English, in which her tongue was stiff, of a beautiful romance, "Lady Nain's Escape." Catrin considered her worldly schooling of coloured pictures, a novel, and advertisements, the best, and with an occasional shilling sent to Liverpool she had literally applied this tuition to her face and figure. She realised, however, that there were still worlds for her to conquer, and a far enchanted land called Drawing Room into which she had not as yet had even a lithographic peep. Because she longed for greater nearness to this kingdom, therefore she longed for Pedr. As she stood before him, her pink hat on her yellow hair, her painted face thick with chalk, her lips a glossy carmine, her throat embedded in fluffs of cheap tulle, her figure stuffed into an ancient dress of white serge, she was wondering how it would be possible for any man to resist her.

But the man whom she ogled blushed; he looked furtively towards the windows, and at the door at the back of the shop, and it was plain to be seen that he felt himself caught in a trap between his counter and the shelf. He seemed ashamed, ashamed to look at her.

"Well, Catrin," he said, without lifting his eyes, "what can I do for you to-day?"

"Dear _anwyl_, it's most slipped my mind--um-m--well, I'll be havin' sixpence worth of writin' paper."

"Aye, smooth, I suppose?" he asked, taking it from the shelf.

"No, I think I'll take it rough, for that's the style now, whatever."

"Oh! very well."

"Been takin' photographs lately, Pedr?"

"Not many."

"I'm thinkin' you'll be goin' down Caerhun way some day soon," she continued, her pink face wrinkling with mingled mirth and devilry; "it's very pretty there, good for an artist like you."

Pedr folded in the ends of the parcel and said nothing.

"Aye," she went on, "an' there's an old church there, with a bell-tower that looks over the wall like an eye. It don't wink, Pedr, but I'm thinkin', indeed, it could tell a good deal, if it had a mind to. It's next to the church the Parrys used to live."

Pedr, tying the parcel and snapping the string, maintained his silence.

"It's there old Parry used to be drunk as a faucet; aye, an', Pedr," she whispered, "I could be tellin' you somethin' else. Nelw Parry----"

"Tut!" said Pedr angrily; "here's your parcel, Catrin Griffiths. You'll have to be excusin' me this morning, for I'm busy."

"Pooh, busy!" and Catrin laughed shrilly; "you're always busy when there's a mention of Nelw Parry. Well, ask Nelw herself what it is she can tell you that you don't know. Perhaps you'll be _wantin'_ to know before you marry her."

And with a flounce Catrin Griffiths betook herself out of the shop.

Pedr with his back to the counter was the same as Pedr with his face to the shop-door; however, he did not seem the same. The back suggested middle age, but the face was the face of a boy in its expression, with something perennially young about it: it may have been innocence or untouched pride or something that looked from his eyes as if they had been those of a mere girl. Indeed, except for a conscious awkwardness of hand and a certain steadfast, almost impassive look about the mouth, he might have recited an _awdl_ or been a bard. Howbeit, he could neither play a harp nor recite an ode. And because he kept only a stationer's shop, which contained a fine medley of inferior post-cards scattered everywhere, piles of newspapers, books, shelves of letter-paper, trinkets of rustic and plebeian sort, it would not be safe to conclude that he was no more than a thoroughly commonplace man. Because he spent his leisure from the shop in taking pictures of the country he loved, it would not be wise to decide that he was therefore a poor, mediocre thing who had not brains enough to make even a very wretched artist; who was, in short, a mere factotum to higher ability.

Pedr's shop, which lay on a steep winding cobblestone street next to the Cambrian Pill Depôt, five doors down from Plas Mawr and twenty doors up from the Castle Gate, was tenanted by dreams as fair and holy in service, although they never found their way into the world except by means of sensitised paper or by an occasional expression in Pedr's eye or tremble of his impassive lips--this shop was tenanted by dreams as fair as any which had ever waited upon accepted painter or poet. They had a habit of tiptoeing about unseen, so that the usual customer who entered Pedr's door would not have felt their presence. Nelw Parry had come to know them well, but before Catrin Griffiths they vanished away. The lovely colour of dawn itself was not gobbled up faster by the smoke of trade than these entities disappeared at the sound of Catrin Griffiths' heels upon the street. In fact the tiny beings were troubled by the presence of even post-cards, for, dream-like, they wished to give all they had, if need be, to the hearts which could be seen beating through the hands that held them, and these cards lying upon the floor, these flaunting things of many colours, were commerce; things, they thought, which were to steal something from men. Over the counter, from which a few minutes ago he had recoiled, Pedr Evans had often leaned, many invisible eyes smiling upon him, taking from some old folio pictures which had caught the very lustre of the sky; or the mingled shadow and iridescence of a hillside, mysteriously suggestive of the sea; or some flow and subsidence of light itself. Like any other mortal, poor Pedr had to live, and that is why he was obliged to keep a shop next to the Cambrian Pill Depôt. If he had been an artist, the world might willingly have forgotten that he had to live at all and paid him just nothing for his work. But it was not the necessity of existence which made him lean upon the counter, showing a picture another man never would have had the wit to take. To Pedr something beautiful was always worth a plate, so he had many pictures no one bought, and he was not often given a chance to show.

Later in the day, after his encounter with Catrin Griffiths, Pedr was with Nelw Parry in the sitting-room of the Raven Temperance, drinking tea. Nelw's house, from the outside, was a quaint, stuccoed building with a quantity of chimney-pots sticking up into the sky, neat steps and a brass sill at the front door, a painted sign "Raven Temperance," and printed cards at the windows, one bearing a cyclist's wheel decorated with mercurial wings, the other the gratifying word, "Refreshments." Within the room were two people, both middle-aged, drinking tea--a commonplace enough scene the casual observer would have said; however, at that moment these two people, even if they were doing nothing more romantic than talking quietly together, lifting their teacups once in a while and looking at each other a good deal, were very much like good children in a fairy tale. It may have been merely a trick of the light due to the low casement windows, that the room seemed more peaceful than most rooms in Conway; the subdued light touched the soft green walls gently, reaching for the top of the walls as if it were some enchanted region, to enter which it must climb. Indeed, it was an enchanted region, for there a shining silver river ran in and out, in and out, among alleys of green trees. In and out, in and out, it ran noiselessly, and yet it seemed to Pedr, as to some strangers who entered the little room for refreshments, to sing a song heard before--just when, just how, was another question. Some visitors who had been in that room once came again to sit, often bodily weary, while their eyes travelled to that border of the shining river, and the mistress of the "Raven" waited upon them tranquilly, placing the tea-service before them, and, it may be, adjusting a wrap about a stranger's shoulders as delicately as if she were adding to the comfort of some happy fancy, some ideal, some dream, that a burdened touch might shatter. Grateful, there were tired travellers glad to come and go phantom-like, putting down their silver gently, in a room where reality seemed the greatest phantom of all.

To Pedr it was better than the best picture he had ever taken--better than the best because the thought of taking it would have seemed like desecration. He looked at Nelw, as he did every few seconds, alternately, over his teacup and then without that barrier to his gaze. Coils of dark hair made the shapely head heavy on the slender neck, as if the weight of that abundant beauty were great. It was wonderful hair, making in its shadowy depth a shade for the white, sensitive face, quiet as the reverie of her eyes. In a land where comely hair blessed poor and rich alike with its wealth, Nelw Parry's was even lovelier than that of her neighbours. It had one peculiarity, however, which her neighbours did not admire but which to Pedr--perhaps to something untutored in Pedr--was dear. Around the edges of its abundance little curls escaped.

"Nelw," he said, glancing at her wistfully, "they're prettier than ever."

She brushed the curls back and looked at him with reproach, as if something she was thinking about, or something of which they had been talking, had been rudely disturbed. As an actual matter of fact they had been saying nothing for two or three minutes, indulging the speechlessness of those who know their way even by day to another land. But Pedr was aware what sort of answer any remark about Nelw's hair always fetched, so he changed the subject.

"Dearie, Catrin Griffiths was in the shop this mornin'."

"What was she wantin'?"

"I dunno; she bought sixpence worth of writin' paper," replied Pedr, regarding Nelw with the air of a man who would like to say more. He was wondering how much she guessed of Catrin's angling.

A shadow of annoyance passed over Nelw's face.

"Dearie," he continued, encouraged by her expression, "I can't like her, whatever; she's--she's not nice."

"Well, indeed, she's smart," answered Nelw gently.

"Tut! smart in those things she wears? She looks more than frowsy to me; an'--an' she's always coming into my shop."

"Poor thing!" murmured Nelw, her face tender with pity.

Pedr observed her wonderingly. What prompted this compassion in Nelw? What made her understand weakness without being disgusted or repelled by its ugliness? Other women were not like her in this respect. And just behind this yielding lovableness that yearned over the mistakes of others, that reached out to Pedr as one athirst for the necessity of life, that clung to Pedr for strength, for protection, like a child afraid of the dark, what was this sense he had, of an obstinate reticence which seemed the very resiliency of her mysterious nature? Certainly she had had a bitter life. Then, like a viper into its nest, what Catrin Griffiths had said darted into Pedr's mind. Was there something he did not know, that he ought to know? With the acuteness of the man who can detect the shadow of even a folded leaf, he searched Nelw's face. Why when she needed him, when she was alone, when she was fretted by the difficulties of her solitary life, why did she always put off their marriage? Baffled, irritated, he spoke sharply.

"Poor thing, nothin'! It's a pound head an' a ha'penny tail with Catrin Griffiths."

Nelw gasped.

"A pound head an' a ha'penny tail, I say," he continued roughly, "Aye, an' the time is comin', comin' soon, when she'll get herself into trouble, flauntin' around with those frocks on, all decked out, an' all her false seemin', her face painted and powdered, an' her hair dyed. The deceitful thing!"

"Och, Pedr, don't!"

But Pedr, excited beyond self-control by the workings of his imagination, could not stop. The blanching face before him was no more than a cipher, it expressed nothing to him.

"Tut! that I will. An' what is it Catrin Griffiths knows an' I don't? Yes?"

There was a cry of "Pedr!" Nelw shivered, her eyes widened and stared at him. It was so still in that room that the flutter of the draught sucking the smoke up the chimney could be heard. Pedr sat motionless in his chair, the reality of what he had done yet to reach him. Nelw moved, and in an instant he was beside her.

"Dearie, dearie, what have I done?"

"Och, nothin'--nothin' at all," she answered, her face twitching helplessly.