CHAPTER XIII.

DOUBTS AND FEARS.

For some time after these events, a season of outward calm seemed to reign over the Mishteer's household. Gwladys had taken her place in the daily routine of life with courage and patience, and, leaning upon Mari Vone's strength of character, kept up the role of happy wife! She executed all her small duties with unswerving exactitude, going out of her way to carry out the most trivial details; every wifely duty was performed with apparently cheerful alacrity, and her demeanour was perfect in its simulation of domestic happiness. She almost deceived herself, but there were moments when the gnawing giant of unrest within her threatened to overwhelm her new-born strength and earnestness of purpose. She fought hard, and gained comparative peace. At evening, when Mari left her, the long tremulous pressure of her embrace alone expressed her gratitude; but her friend knew well the sunken rocks that underlay the seemingly smooth current of life under Hugh Morgan's roof.

Truth to tell, the even flow of her own life had been much disturbed of late, and though she still attended to all her domestic duties with the same stately calmness, it was not without a feeling of sore trouble that she observed the change in Hugh's manner. Not only to her, but to all around him, he appeared colder and more formal, much absorbed in his own thoughts.

"Business, merch i!" he would explain sometimes, when, with a serious wistfulness, Gwladys timidly rallied him.

Mari had again fallen into her old habit of leaving the house before Hugh returned from the sail-shed in the evening, and as she always went home before noon to prepare her uncle's cawl, many days went by without her seeing Hugh.

"Thou must stand alone now, Gwladys fâch," she said one day, when her friend demurred to her leaving her so early; "our house wants a thorough clean-up. I must white-wash the stone at the garden gate, and put some fresh red paint at the back of the big chimney, the smoke has blackened it so."

"Yes, I suppose I must," said Gwladys, "and I shall have Hugh home soon to cheer me up--I will be bright and nice, as thou art! I have learnt a great deal in the last few weeks, and it has been all through thee, Mari fâch! only, Mari," throwing away the stockings which she was knitting, and clasping her knees, and looking up into her face, if with less misery in her eyes, still with a look of troubled thought, "only, I wish I was not walking along my path so blindfolded. I dare not look to the right or left, but I keep straight on, as thou hast advised me--to try and make Hugh happy! try and make Hugh happy! Nothing else in my life, Mari; the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning, it is my determination and my wish and my prayer--and he is worthy of it all! I am beginning to feel it, Mari--but will I ever be worthy of _him_?"

"Yes, yes," said her friend, "a brighter day will dawn for us all; we must remind each other of that when the clouds are hanging low."

"Yes," answered Gwladys. "I am now going to prepare the tea. Thinking is my enemy, which I must keep out of my life until I am an old woman. Perhaps, then, when I am sitting here with my spectacles, and knitting, I shall be able to think again."

"Fforwel, then," said Mari; "perhaps I will not come to-morrow till afternoon." And she drew her shawl tightly around her and ran all the way home, helped by the winter wind, which blew icily from the sea.

Gwladys busied herself with her preparations for her husband's evening meal, clattering the tea-things, humming at her work, and making believe to be a busy housewife absorbed in her small duties; and her attempts at cheerfulness were not without some measure of success. But it was a fictitious and unreal calm, and one which she was conscious might at any moment crumble into ruins. But for the present her newly-formed resolutions kept her up; and as she tossed the frizzling lightcakes on the griddle, she tried to hum an old familiar tune, which had of late been a stranger to her lips.

It was at this moment that Hugh came in from the gusty twilight; he heard the crooning song, and the sadness deepened in his face, and a light shot into his eyes from some hidden spark of jealous suspicion.

"She's happy," he thought; "she has seen Ivor!" for during the afternoon the latter had been absent from his work for an hour or so, and Hugh had noted it and had wondered.

He closed the door when he entered, fighting rather testily with the blustering sea-wind, which was accustomed to find easy access into every part of the house. Doors were always left open at Mwntseison, except in the stormiest weather or when a death had occurred, so Gwladys looked up with astonishment.

"Gwen is coming down the road, and I thought thou wouldst be better without her."

"Oh, yes--bolt it, bolt it!" she said, her colour coming and going. "I am afraid of her."

"Well, I think we shall all be afraid of her soon," he said; and while his wife placed a chair for him under the chimney, and drew the round table near the fire, and piled his plate with the crisp lightcakes, he explained to her his arrangements for sending Gwen to the asylum.

"Poor thing, poor thing! but it will be best indeed. I will be glad when thou art with me always, Hugh. 'Tis nervous work to be alone all day, while she haunts the village like a grey ghost."

"Hast had no company to-day, then?" said Hugh, with a searching glance. "Hast not been out?"

"Yes, as far as mother's; but I did not meet Gwen."

Hugh was silent, and Gwladys' spirits flagged a little. She was conscious of some brooding thought in his mind, and with her continued feeling of guilt and self-upbraiding, she became nervously silent too.

The next day, in the sail-shed, Hugh was gloomy and pre-occupied, and Ivor Parry observed it with sorrow. He, too, was full of troubled thoughts. To lose Gwladys was a bitter trial; but what a solace it would have been could he have kept Hugh's friendship--this man whom he had loved and almost worshipped. But now he realised the truth that, in the nature of things, such a solace was impossible. They must walk along the road of life apart, and it were well that the severance should be soon and complete. Even to-morrow he hoped to leave the sail-shed, with all its lingering associations of happiness and sorrow; and, when five o'clock came, he remained alone, making some final arrangements which would facilitate the winding up of the Mishteer's affairs. He had not noticed that Hugh had not left with his workmen as usual. In truth, the latter was now sitting before his desk in the little office, whose badly-fitting door let in between its gaping boards a full view of the shed.

The evening shades were fast darkening the old room, and Ivor Parry had lighted a lamp, whose glimmering beams showed up the rafters, the coils of rope, and the other impedimenta scattered about the floor. Hugh, sitting at his desk in the darkness, could see the whole scene through the chinks in the half-open door, and he gazed silently at Ivor's manly form now stooping to re-arrange something on the floor, now stretching to reach something from the rafters; and his heart ached with a dull longing for the time that was past, for the friendship which had filled his life more than he knew at the time, and, if the truth must be told, for the old days before his passion for Gwladys had enslaved him. Those days could never return. He had bowed his neck to the yoke, and henceforth she must be his first care and thought; and how easy and how sweet this would have been, if only--and he brooded there in the darkness with mournful eyes and a heavy heart.

Suddenly there was a step at the door of the sail-shed, a finger raised the latch, the door was pushed open, and Gwladys entered. Hugh trembled in every nerve, and watched eagerly what would happen.

For a moment, her only thought seemed to be to shut out the boisterous sea-wind, which was swirling outside the door; then she threw back the hood of her cloak, and looked in astonishment, while Ivor Parry, no less taken by surprise, lifted himself up from a bale of sail upon which he had been kneeling. Gwladys involuntarily clutched her hand to her side, while Ivor stood straight before her, with both arms hanging down beside him. Hugh's black eyes never swerved in their keen glance; it never struck him that he was acting dishonourably; his suspicious anxiety seemed to have smothered every other feeling, as he sat there peering at the unconscious actors in the scene before him. A crimson flush spread over Gwladys' face and neck and forehead; but Ivor was pale as death. Neither spoke for some time. Her breath came and went in little fluttering gasps. Ivor was the first to regain his self-possession, and Hugh strained every nerve to listen.

"Well, Mishtress, how art thou?"

"I only came," said Gwladys, ignoring his question, "to fetch Hugh's coat, and to look for him. He has not come home."

"They have all left," said Ivor, glancing into the darkness of the little office. "I have only stayed on a bit to make things more plain for the Mishteer--I am going to-morrow."

"Yes," was all her answer, while her head drooped, and she nervously and unconsciously slipped her ring up and down her finger. She seemed suddenly anxious to get away, and, turning hurriedly to the peg on which a coat of Hugh's was hanging, said, "I want it to darn."

The peg was just above her reach, so she sprang a little from the ground, and succeeded in dislodging the coat from its hook, but in doing so caught the wrist-band of her jacket in its place, and hung, with toes just reaching the ground, in a helpless and uncomfortable position, trying with her left hand to loosen the wrist-band from the hook--an object which the weight of her body frustrated. Ivor's first impulse was to rush to her assistance, and every pulse in his body throbbed with the desire once more to hold her in his grasp; but his arms again dropped down, and he turned resolutely to a coil of ropes, and, dragging it within reach of her feet, said:

"Stand on this, Mishtress."

His white set face and his trembling voice were the only signs of the storm that raged within him; but they sufficed to make plain to Gwladys, as well as to the silent watcher behind the half-closed doors of the office, the strong curb which he was placing upon his feelings.

Gwladys stepped off the coil of ropes, stood a moment, trembling and blinded with her tears.

"That nasty hook has shaken thee," said Ivor; and she made no answer, but, stooping to pick up the coat, gulped down a sob which Ivor and Hugh distinctly heard.

"Fforwel, then!" she said, turning back for a moment as she reached the door. "I wish thee well at the mill, Ivor Parry." And she passed out into the night wind.

"Fforwel, Mishtress!" caught her ear as she went.

For a few minutes, Ivor stood with folded arms, looking after her into the darkness, and then sitting down on the bale upon which he had been at work, a great sob shook his frame, too, and it was with a veritable groan of distress that he once more rose and applied himself energetically to his work.

In the darkened office Hugh still sat on; but his head was bowed upon his hands. A feeling of humility, never quite a stranger to his noble heart, tinged the bitter thoughts which occupied the silent half-hour which passed before Ivor Parry extinguished his lamp and left the sail-shed, locking the door behind him. Then Hugh rose, and letting himself out through a small door from his office, walked homeward through the blustering gale which swept up the village road.

Gwladys looked up from her knitting as he entered the house with relief, and, rising to meet her husband, placed a trembling hand on his arm.

"Hugh, where have you been? you are so late! I would be frightened, indeed, only I know you have much to do to settle things before you give up."

"Yes, business, merch i; I am not often late for meals--too good an appetite for that, Gwladys; and you cook them too nicely for that! What have you for supper? Something good, I can tell by the smell." And he rattled on to hide the embarrassment which he saw in Gwladys' face.

"Yes, fried herrings and onions; you like them, don't you?" she said, with a wistful anxiety to please, very touching to Hugh in his present mood of self-reproach; "and a white loaf Madlen has made for thee."

"Supper then, and business to the winds!" said Hugh cheerfully. "Come and sit down, merch i, or the board will not be full."

"I went to look for thee," said Gwladys, sitting down opposite him at the small table, "but there was no one in the sail-shed except Ivor Parry."

"Perhaps indeed!" answered Hugh, with simulated indifference; "I suppose he had some last arrangements to make; he is going to-morrow."

"Yes, he told me." And with the relief of having been perfectly open, Gwladys ate her supper, and talked with more ease and cheerfulness than she had shown at first.

Hugh hastened to change the subject, and with tender thoughtfulness took more than his share of the conversation all the evening. If there was one good trait stronger than another in his character, it was justice. Before all things, Hugh Morgan had been a "just" man; and there was growing in his heart, where at first anger and suspicion had held their own, a strong feeling of admiration for these two--his friend and his wife--who had met under his own eyes, where nothing but their honourable natures restrained them, where they thought no eye was upon them to mark a loving look, no ear to hear a tender farewell, no tongue of scandal to blame them, and yet had come forth immaculate, spotless, blameless, from the trial. He doubted whether he himself would have passed scathless through the temptation, and the nobility of his soul responded to the perfect freedom from guile, which he had seen in the interview between Ivor and Gwladys. It was not to be wondered at, therefore, if, in the days following, his voice, his manner, his actions towards his young wife bore the stamp of a more than usually gentle and chivalrous homage. It fell on Gwladys' perturbed spirit like a tonic, bracing her for still more strenuous efforts to keep in the difficult path on which she had entered. And so outward calm and peace brooded over the Mishteer's cottage, for within it were two beings, who, though the glamour and beauty of life were denied them, yet walked courageously on with open brow and steadfast feet, looking neither to the right nor to the left, but simply to the endeavour to do their part nobly in the battle of life.

To Mwntseison also had returned a season of calm. Its inhabitants had latterly been considerably uplifted, not to say inflated, by the evident personal notice accorded to them by Providence! Gwen's bidding, with the unheard-of generosity of the donors, had been like a pleasant fillip to the lethargic tendency of the rural mind, had stimulated and whetted their appetites for more sensations, so that the Mishtress's narrow escape had been received with much appreciation.

"Yes, yes," said 'n'wncwl Jos; "there's many things in Mwntseison which you won't find in any other village along the bay. Look at Aberython and Clidwen; and there's Treswnd and Abermere! Is there a man like the Mishteer in one of those places?"

"No! Nor a woman like Mari Vone neither!" said a burly sailor.

"No, no!" said 'n'wncwl Jos again; "there's no doubt the Almighty keeps His eye on us, 'cos look at Lallo's pig now!"

"Well, it seems to me," said Shoni, the blacksmith, who was always inclined to be irreverent, "that He wasn't watching very closely when Gwen did that nasty trick!"

"Wasn't He, then!" said 'n'wncwl Jos, stumping violently with his wooden leg. "What was to prevent her killing her mother instead of the pig? If poor Gwen felt she must kill something, what could be better than the pig?"

"What, indeed?" said everybody; "for though he was hurried away rather (not so long, too! for he was to be killed in a month), he is as well salted and dried as any pig ever was, and lying safe in sides and hams on the shelves in Rhys Thomas's shop."

"Ach y fi! I won't touch that bacon whatever," said Nell.

"And look at Ivor Parry, brought safe from the sea and the fever. Oh, yes, caton pawb! it's as plain as the day. Mwntseison is well looked after!"

And there were many of the young and frivolous who wished for a few more sensations, since it was evident that they brought them no harm.

"When is Gwen going to the 'sayloom?" said Shoni-go.[1] "She was screaming and laughing like a mad thing, as she is, last night, and flying like a partridge over the cliffs, her arms spread out, and her toes just touching the ground. Diwedd anwl! my heart nearly leapt out of my body when I heard her!"

"Yes," said 'n'wncwl Jos, "the Mishteer will see to it soon."

But a greater excitement than Gwen's madness was hanging over the village, for in a day or two the astounding news was spread abroad that 'n'wncwl Jos was ill. 'N'wncwl Jos! who had never been known to suffer an ache or a pain, except, indeed, the rheumatic twinges which he declared he still felt in the leg which was buried in Glasgow! 'N'wncwl Jos, who, though not wanting in sympathy, still tinged his expressions thereof with a slight tone of blame, as though sickness was invariably "somebody's" fault. And the strongest man in Mwntseison felt his tenure of life uncertain.

"Caton pawb! what's the matter with him?"

"Flammashwn! Never been well since he jumped into the sea after the Mishteer, when he kept his wet clothes on all day, though he won't confess it," said Dye Pentraeth; and the whole village was in a state of ferment, and Mari Vone was besieged by condoling friends.

The invalid at first fought valiantly with his sickness, declaring he would be all right in a day or two. The doctor shook his head, and hour by hour 'n'wncwl Jos grew worse, but still continued to crack his jokes when a moment's cessation from pain enabled him to do so.

"Oh, go 'long with you, Nell Jones," he said, when that worthy woman came in with what she considered an appropriate expression of countenance. "Go 'long with you, Nell, and don't pull a long face here; I've bin a deal worse than this! Why! at Glasgow, when I lost my leg, I came to myself when they were carrying me from the docks to the hospital. I didn't know where I was in that straight, narrow thing--'a stretcher' they call it in English--and raised my head to see, and there I was being carried by four men, and a long tail of boys, and men, and women running after me. 'Jâr-i,' sez I to myself, 'I never thought I should see my own funeral!' Well, in three weeks, I was out of the hospital, and--and--let me see--where's my wooden leg? I want to go down to the shore; there's a boat coming in----" and he rambled away in delirium, and in spite of his plucky spirit, his sickness conquered him, and for many days he lay at the point of death.

Then came the time when the warmth and tenderness of the Welsh hearts were shown--not a man, woman, or child who did not feel a personal sorrow. They took it in turns to watch through the long nights at the sick man's bed, with eager interest anticipating every want, and endeavouring to make Mari Vone's burden lighter. From every farm in the neighbourhood came presents of milk and eggs. The sailors brought high-shouldered bottles of Hollands and Schnapps; the fishermen dared the storms to procure fish; and even the children brought eggs or apples for Mari. Gwladys was a frequent visitor; and Hugh often sat beside the sick man, whose illness he felt was due to his faithful, though rash, devotion to himself. His presence seemed to have a soothing effect upon 'n'wncwl Jos; the excited, delirious talk would quiet down to a low rambling, even to a pleasant recalling of youthful days of merriment, and Mari Vone learned once more to welcome the sound of Hugh's footsteps as he approached the cottage door.

One afternoon, while Hugh sat beside him, the old man fell into a calm, refreshing sleep, a sleep that had been anxiously watched for by Dr. Hughes, but which seemed dangerously long delayed. Hugh knew the importance of this sleep, and, nodding to Mari, said quietly, "Go and rest thyself, I will watch till he wakes;" and she had gone thankfully, and resting on her own bed, the tension of the long anxiety was relaxed, and the drooping eyelids were fast closed in as heavy and refreshing a sleep as 'n'wncwl Jos's.

Through the broad, gaping hinges of the tar-painted bedroom door, standing half open, Hugh, as he sat there motionless, holding the sick man's hand, could see into the cosy penisha, and out through the open doorway into the road. It was one of those calm, sunny days which sometimes visit us in November. The sound of the sea filled the air, the click of Shoni-go's anvil, and the voices of the children at play on the beach, came on the breeze. Hugh sat on quietly dreaming, letting his thoughts roam uncurbed over the events of his past life. He remembered how, in the days gone by, he had crossed the threshold of this cottage with the ecstatic buoyancy of a lover, not unmixed with the reverence of a worshipper who enters the shrine which contains his idol. Certainly he had loved Mari Vone with a depth and intensity which he thought neither time nor eternity had power to annihilate. "Neither has it," he thought, "it is only altered. I am a married man now, and Gwladys has my love, my respect, my tender pity; but there is a bond which links me to Mari Vone, so pure, so strong, so enduring, that I fear not to lay it before God, and to ask His blessing upon it."

At this moment a shadow darkened the outer doorway, and a light footstep (everyone walked gingerly there now) came into the kitchen. Hugh raised his eyes, and a pleased, indulgent look came over his face as he saw through the crack that it was Gwladys. "The little one, bless her!" he thought, but he made no movement; and Gwladys, noticing the restful quiet in the house, the cessation of the rambling voice in the sick-room, guessed at once that the hoped-for sleep had come, and prepared to leave on tip-toe. She stood a moment at the table, laying down a bowl of curds and milk which she had brought for Mari, and at that instant another figure darkened the doorway, and raising her finger to her lips to enforce silence, she saw Ivor Parry enter silently. Hugh saw it all, too, and found it difficult to keep his hand quietly on 'n'wncwl Jos's. For a moment, as before, the two who confronted each other in the kitchen stood embarrassed and silent; but Gwladys first regained her composure, and in a whisper, which Hugh's quick ear caught distinctly, said:

"'N'wncwl Jos is asleep, I think."

"I am glad," said Ivor; "that is good news. I could not let another day pass without coming to ask for him. I am going back at once."

"You had better stay," said Gwladys, "till Mari comes out. I am going."

Ivor nodded silently, and Gwladys passed out into the sunshine. Left alone, he drew his hand over his face as if awaking from a dream, and Hugh watched him gravely. Suddenly a light gleamed in his eyes, a flush overspread his face, and looking round like a thief who espies a treasure, he stretched out his hand to the table, and clutched a bunch of sea-pinks which had fallen from the folds of Gwladys' neckerchief. Hugh had noticed them there when she entered. For a moment Ivor looked at them, then pressed them to his lips before thrusting them inside the breast of his coat. He stood a few moments in silent thought, and then left the house.

In the inner room, Hugh still watched with troubled eyes; but the hand which held the sick man's remained firm and unmoved, and 'n'wncwl Jos slept on.

[1] Blacksmith.