CHAPTER IX.

GWEN'S REBELLION.

"Where is Gwen?" said Hugh Morgan, looking at an unoccupied stool at one end of the sail-shed; "she has not been here for two days."

"No," said one of her friends, "she's at home, Mishteer. Her little baby is ill, and she and Lallo are wild with fear of losing her."

"Ts, ts, that's a pity! Has she had a doctor?"

"Malen hysbys[1] has been there, and the child would have been well by now, but that Siencyn would open the window before he sailed yesterday; of course the little one caught cold, and now I'm afraid----" and she shook her head mournfully.

"Well, well," said the Mishteer, "I must go and see about getting a doctor for her." And he left the shed, and passed up the road towards Gwen's cottage, upon reaching which, he found her deeply intent upon a morsel of raw meat, which she was roasting on a fork before the fire. Her little baby, meanwhile, white and moaning, lay across Lallo's knees, who also seemed much interested in the bit of meat.

"Well, Gwen, I am sorry to hear your little one is ill; but diranwl! babies have nine lives and recover from all sorts of illnesses."

Gwen scarcely withdrew her eyes from her cooking to answer.

"Oh! of course, I know that, Mishteer, I know she will be well soon; but if you had a child of your own, you would know 'tis a cruel thing to see it suffering!"

"B'tshwr, indeed!" said Hugh. "I can quite understand that; but what is it that you are cooking?"

"A mouse," said Gwen. "Malen hysbys says a roasted mouse will cure my baby."

"Caton pawb!" said Hugh, "what nonsense, Gwen! I will send for Dr. Hughes; he ought to have been here sooner. A roasted mouse, indeed. Where did she hear that from? From Peggi Shân?"

"Peggi Shân knew more than Dr. Hughes a good deal," said Gwen; "and if she was alive now my baby would not be suffering; but it will be well by to-morrow."

"I hope so, indeed," said Hugh; "but if you do not let Dr. Hughes see it, I think it will die, Gwen; that is the plain truth, and there is no use hiding it. I will send for him at once. And throw away that nasty thing you are roasting," he added as he left the house.

"Die!" said Gwen fiercely; "she shall not die! There's calmly he says 'die!' I wish I had never let that wife of his touch my baby; it hasn't been well since she nursed it here one day."

As she spoke, through the open doorway came the sounds of singing from a knot of women and children passing by.

"Hard-hearted wretches!" she said, viciously pounding the mouse, which had been cooked to a cinder. "They can laugh and sing while my child is sick; they don't care. But their time will come!" she added, as she mixed the dark powder with some brown sugar and butter, and, with cooing, tender words, she coaxed the little moaning baby to swallow the unsavory morsel. At the same time Dr. Hughes entered, breezy and fresh from his drive over the hill.

"Hello!" he called, as his portly form filled up the whole doorway. "What's wrong here? I met Hugh Morgan down the road, and he told me I was wanted here. What is it, Gwen? Hello!" he said again, in quite an altered tone, as he caught sight of the little panting baby, its pretty lips discoloured with smears of butter and sugar and something worse. "What's this?" and he looked in anger from one woman to another. "How dare you! You have been trying some of your filthy messes again, and with the usual result. You have killed your baby. Had you sent for me in time, I might have saved him; it is now too late."

At the words "too late" Gwen screamed, and snatched the little one from its grandmother's lap. Disturbed by the scream it opened its eyes for a moment, and then died with a little fluttering gasp.

"There, lay it down, poor little thing," said the doctor; "you can do no more for it; but next time you see a baby dying, don't add to its pain by stuffing filthy things into its mouth."

Gwen fixed her heavy-lidded eyes upon the doctor with an angry look, saying:

"Go out of my house if you can do no good, and leave me to my sorrow. You will repent of this."

"Of what, woman?"

She made no answer further than to point to the door, and Dr. Hughes went out, shrugging his shoulders.

Through the open doorway the singing of the children came in on the breeze.

"Fileiniaid," Gwen said, shaking her clenched fist at the doorway. "I hate them. Are they all to be happy while I am miserable?" and hastily rising, she took her little dead baby in her arms, and pressing it to her bosom, paced moaning up and down the room; while Lallo, even in her fresh sorrows remembering the village proprieties, closed the door and covered up the little window with a pocket handkerchief, and, with no little difficulty, at last persuaded Gwen to lay the child on the bed.

"Extraordinary woman that Gwen," said Dr. Hughes, as he called by the sail-shed to report to Hugh Morgan. "Devilish temper. Second Peggi Shân. You see if I'm not right. The little baby? Oh, dead as a herring, its last moments disturbed by some filthy concoction stuffed into its mouth."

"Yes, I know, indeed," said Hugh; "a roasted mouse. I saw her cooking it." And Dr. Hughes drove away with an oath.

"Mari," said 'n'wncwl Jos one day as he stumped in from the sunshine; "isn't there a hole in Lallo's penucha?"

"Yes," said Mari, looking at him with some surprise. "There is a short board near the fireplace, where the damp earth comes quite near to the top. It was going to be finished fifteen years ago when the floor was boarded, but the hole is still there. Why, 'n'wncwl Jos?"

"Oh, nothing," said the old man. "Hast heard the little one is to be buried on Monday? and to-morrow night there's to be a gwylnos.[2] Wilt come, Mari?"

"No, indeed," she said. "I will come to the prayer meeting, because then I can sit at the door or in the passage; but to be shut up all night in a room with a dead body makes me faint, and besides, I don't like a gwylnos."

"Wel, no," said her uncle; "I know both thou and Hugh Morgan are very odd in some things, and that is one thing--not to like a gwylnos. Wel, I'm going anyway," and he stumped vigorously, and put on a defiant look. "What is the good of my never having married if I'm going to be ruled by a woman after all? Caton pawb! Wouldst like us to bury our dead as the Saeson[3] do? To shut the door upon them and say, 'There! we've finished with you; you stop there by yourself in the dark!' And then click with the key, and sit down in the warm kitchen to a comfortable meal, and talk about who's to have his clothes? No, no! Lallo and I are too old friends for me to desert her now in her trouble; so to the gwylnos I'll go, merch i, whatever thou say'st!"

"Well, b'dsiwr! if you like, 'n'wncwl Jos," said Mari; "and I only meant that I didn't like the drinking and talking that goes on at a gwylnos, for death is too solemn a thing for such nonsense."

"Oh, jâr-i! I agree with thee there. For a man to lie there, stiff and cold, hearing and saying nothing, while his friends are smoking and chatting near him, good liquor passing around him and he knowing nothing about it--well, yes! 'tis a solemn thing! But that's no reason why we shouldn't stay with the poor fellow as long as he is above ground, if it was only to comfort his relatives!" And he began to "furrage" in an old sea-chest, where he kept his own personal treasures safely under lock and key, bringing out from its depths one of the square, high-shouldered bottles of "Hollands" which he had collected in a mysterious manner during his sea-faring days. Having closed the chest with a bang, he hid the bottle under his rough pilot coat, and made his way up to Lallo's cottage. His low tap at the door was answered by Gwen herself.

"So sorry, calon fâch!" he said, "for thy trouble and for Lallo's. This is for the gwylnos, merch i; give it to thy mother," and he held out the square bottle.

Gwen made no answer, but turned away and called her mother, leaving 'n'wncwl Jos with outstretched arms at the doorway.

"Jâr-i! there's manners!" he muttered to himself.

But if Gwen was scant of gratitude, Lallo made up for it to overflowing.

"'N'wncwl Jos bâch! There's kind you are to remember us in our trouble. A hundred thanks! and I hope you will be at the gwylnos; I will never forget your kindness!"

"Twt, twt! hisht about kindness," said the old man, backing from the doorway, in fear lest he might be asked in "to see the body," a compliment considered due to everyone who knocked at the door.

On the following day, which was Sunday, after every service in the two chapels was added the notice, given out by one of the deacons in the "set fawr" or big seat under the pulpit:

"There will be a prayer-meeting at the house of Lallo Hughes this evening at eight o'clock, to be followed by a gwylnos for any friends who are wishful to attend."

In the gloaming, when the many services of the day were over, the congregations trooped down towards Lallo's cottage. Of course, there was no room inside, but they overflowed into the cwrt and into the roadway, where they stood in the gathering twilight, only hearing a faint murmur of the prayers which were offered up inside the house; but still they waited patiently, listening to the rising and falling of the prayers, which mingled with the soft sighing of the sea, and speaking to each other in whispers.

Lallo, who managed to get a furtive peep through the corner of the covered-up window, was much comforted by the presence of such a crowd of sympathisers, and called to mind with satisfaction that at the last gwylnos in the village, there had not been so large a gathering.

Mari Vone sat on the low hedge of the cwrt, looking over the sea, where she was joined by Hugh Morgan and his wife.

"Canst hear, Mari?" he asked.

"No, nothing! But I've been listening to the sea, and I quite forgot the prayer-meeting, whatever."

Hugh opened his eyes, with a smiling pretence of reproof.

"Where is 'n'wncwl Jos?" he whispered; and Mari pointed to the doorway. Hugh looked grave. "Is he going to stay to the gwylnos?"

"Yes," said Mari, with an uneasy look on her face.

"Wouldst like me to stay, lass?"

"Oh! no, Hugh bâch! and you hating a gwylnos as much as I do!"

"Twt, twt!" said Hugh, and he elbowed his way into the crowded passage.

The meeting was fortunately drawing to a close when Hugh entered, for the air in the small, close room was intolerably stifling. In the penucha he discovered the old man sitting close to the coffin, which stood across the fireplace. He had found the square hole in the boards, and had been able to get safely through the meeting without disturbing the gathering by the sound of his wooden leg, for in the soft earth he had been able to stump unheard.

"Well, Mishteer!" he said, when the dispersing of the crowd and the comparative emptying of the cottage enabled him to draw near his friend, "there's beautiful prayers we had! There's no doubt Sam Saer beats anyone in Mwntseison on his knees. Are you going to stop to the gwylnos?"

"Well, what d'ye think?" said Hugh. "'Tis shocking close here, and the room is too full. I think Lallo will be glad to get rid of a few of us. I'll stop if thou lik'st; but I was thinking perhaps thee and Mari would come in and have supper with us to-night. There's one of the ducks since dinner got to be eaten, and we've tapped the fresh cask, and it's as clear as cryshal--thanks to thy secret, 'n'wncwl Jos!"

"Well, indeed, I think I will come," said the old man, "for I've sat by that coffin till I'm stiff. Good-bye, Lallo fâch!" he said, turning into the penisha. "I see you have so many friends here, I will only be in the way. Good-bye, Gwen fâch! I will be at the funeral to-morrow." And he searched his memory for one of the stock phrases which he tried to carry with him on such occasions. "Cheer up, merch i, and remember what the Bible says, 'Would God I had died for thee, my son!'"

When the Mishteer had piloted him safely into the soft evening air, he was rewarded by a look of gratitude from Mari's blue eyes.

"'N'wncwl Jos and you are coming to supper with us, Mari; he has agreed to come, so now don't you hold back."

"Oh, well, that's a good thing," said Mari, "for I have already promised Gwladys to come."

Lallo and her friends were already forming a semicircle around the bright fire, Gwen sitting straight and silent in the corner. Hour after hour of the long night they sat there talking, at first quietly and solemnly, but as the night wore on, and the contents of 'n'wncwl Jos's bottle was handed round, tongues were loosed and conversation flowed more freely.

Stories were told of "corpse candles" which wound their flickering way from cottage to churchyard; of phantom funerals, in which the narrator had been so closely pressed by the unseen crowd as nearly to lose his breath, and become himself one of the mysterious company of "cwn bendith y mamman"--the weird invisible pack of hounds, whose yelping chorus rushes by on the wings of the wind; and many other tales, but always ending with the words, "but that was in the olden time, you know! Now, of course, we're wiser!" Their vaunted wisdom, however, did not prevent their cowering more closely over the blazing logs when the wind moaned in the chimney as it swept up the valley in the small hours of the morning, when one day was dead and the other was scarcely living. In the early morning, when the grey dawn came in as well as it could through the little covered window, everyone was glad to welcome it, and to blow out the candles which stood at the head of the coffin, to hang the kettle on the hook over the fire, and to help Lallo with her preparations for breakfast, returning without regret to the material pleasures of tea and buttered toast from their incursions into the realm of darkness and mystery.

On the third day after its death, the little one was laid to rest, followed by all the inhabitants of Mwntseison--for a funeral, no matter of how young a child, is an important function in Wales, and few within an area of two miles will fail to attend it, for there is a chance of hearing a sermon, and the certainty of an old Welsh hymn or two; and if there be anything on earth calculated to move the feelings, and awaken sleeping memories, it is a Welsh funeral hymn. Its rising and falling strains, always in a minor key, are harrowing to the feelings of the bereaved; but by those not too closely interested, their emotional character is thoroughly enjoyed.

Lallo's small cottage was crowded, the throng overflowing into the garden and the road; and when the little coffin was carried out, and the large concourse of people, outside and in, joined in the funeral hymn, its wailing, dirge-like notes, rising and falling on the air, touched poor Lallo's heart beyond endurance, and she moaned and wept loudly, her sobs being accompanied by many a sympathising tear from the crowd; but Gwen walked beside her, silent and tearless, with a hard, angry gleam in her eyes.

"Poor thing! poor thing!" whispered the women; "she can't cry; there's a pity! She looks like Peggi Shân to-day!"

When, returned from the funeral, they reached their own door, one or two neighbours proposed to stay with her a few hours, but she coldly answered, "No, I don't want you," and, closing the door with a bang, bolted it noisily.

Left to herself, she looked vaguely round the cottage, and, turning to her mother, who had seated herself sobbing in the chimney corner, said, in a cold, hard voice:

"What are thou crying about, woman? It wasn't thy child upon whose coffin the clods fell so heavily; they were not thine, those little hands that lay so stiff and white, that used to close so tight round my finger. What hast thou to cry about?"

"Oh, Gwen," said poor Lallo, "thou art a strange woman. Wasn't he mine, too? The very apple of my eye, calon fâch! There's sad news for poor Siencyn when he comes home next week! But God knew best what was good for him, and that is why He has taken him from us. The Bible says, 'The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away.'"

"Oh, silence with your texts! God, indeed! What sort of a God must He be who gave me a little baby to fill my empty heart, and then tore him cruelly away? Be quiet about your God, mother. If granny had been alive I would not have wanted help from God or man."

"Oh, Gwen, Gwen, hisht!" said the poor, bewildered woman; "I know it is hard to understand, but thou must bend before God, and say, 'He knows best.'"

"I won't," said Gwen, kicking at the embers which had gone out on the cold hearth. "He can do no further harm to me. My little one--born in lawful wedlock, too! not like thee, mother, nor granny, nor yet her mother!"

"No, indeed, it is true!" said Lallo, rocking herself backwards and forwards; "bad luck has followed us for generations. But thy father was a respectable man, Gwen; he is deacon in his chapel at Abersethin, and his wife and family are the best dressed in Salem Chapel. Oh, yes, thou hast no need to be ashamed of thy father, though he did play me a scurvy trick in marrying Fani Hughes; but he couldn't help it, poor fellow! They say Fani's brother threatened to shoot him if he hadn't married her!"

"Perhaps your God took my child, then, to punish me for your sins," said Gwen, with a sneer.

"Sins!" said Lallo, opening her eyes. "'Twas a misfortune that might have happened to thee or anyone. Sins, indeed! That's the first time I have ever had that word thrown in my teeth!" and, much hurt, she began to rekindle the fire.

Gwen made no answer, but angrily pulled away the pocket-handkerchief which covered the little window. She spoke little during the day, and the following morning was at work in the sail-shed, pale and sulky, refusing every offer of help, and receiving the condolences of her neighbours with a silent contempt.

A few days afterwards the Mishteer wrote to Ivor Parry a letter in his round, firm hand, one that Ivor treasured for years, taking it out of his breast-pocket, sometimes, when the curling smoke from his evening pipe carried up in its wreaths thoughts and memories of the sweet and bitter past.

"Come back, mach-geni," it said. "I cannot do without thee. The work calls for thee, my heart calls for thee, and the work-people all desire thy presence. Thou shouldst never have gone! there was no need. No new tie could ever loosen the cords of friendship that exist between thee and me. Nothing has gone well with me since thou art gone. I have had complaints of the work from several quarters. Sweet Gwladys is not well; and, truth to tell, I myself am wanting something, and it must be thee, lad, so come back to Mwntseison, and all will be well." In a postscript he added: "Of course thy pay shall be the same as that thou art receiving now. Indeed, I have raised the wages of all my best workmen."

And Ivor had answered:

"I will come, for I have quite failed to make my home at Carnarvon; and besides, if I can truly be of help to thee, nothing will keep me away. The Aden Ydon goes across next Monday, and I on board; but remember I will take no more pay than I have always had of thee. It was good pay, and I never wanted more; so fforwel till we meet."

Hugh was in good spirits next day, and came homewards at noon waving a letter round his head.

"Good news, Gwladys fâch! Ivor will be here next Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday at latest. Everything will be alright now. I feel like a new man," and so absorbed was he with the prospect of his friend's arrival, that he ate his dinner without noticing Gwladys' embarrassment.

"Next week! so soon should she be called upon to bear so much I so much bitterness, and alas! so much joy! But the joy must be smothered--be crushed out, and perhaps it would die some day."

She ate no dinner, and was thankful that Hugh did not notice the fact. From that moment a restless feeling took possession of her, and as the time for the arrival of the Aden Ydon drew nearer, she was consumed with a feverish dread of meeting Ivor.

Mari Vone often dropped in on one pretext or another, and though the subject uppermost in both their minds was never mentioned between them, she always left Gwladys more calm and courageous than when she entered.

On Monday the weather was dark and lowering, what wind there was blowing from the land, the waves scarcely breaking as they rippled on the shore.

"The Aden Ydon won't sail to-day," said Hugh, as he looked out under the thatched eaves of his window in the early morning. "But to-morrow, perhaps, the weather will have changed."

And so it was. On Tuesday the wind blew fresh and full from the north-west, and, standing at the door of the sail-shed, telescope in hand, Hugh watched for the first glimpse of the Aden Ydon's white sails.

"Yes, there she is!" he said, turning round to address his people. "Here, now, one of you boys, run up and tell the Mishtress that Ivor Parry will be with us before to-night."

Gwladys tried hard to keep her thoughts from roaming out to that blue bay, which seemed to be more _en evidence_ than usual to-day. Through every window and open door she saw it spreading fair and broad before her. The swish, swish of the waves filled her ears, the air was laden with its briny odour, and nearer and nearer from the dim blue hills, eighty miles away, came the white-winged ship that bore such a freight of sorrow for her.

"Oh, God forgive me!" she cried, whenever her thoughts went over those blue waters; and when, in the glow of the sunset, she saw the little ship sail in to land, and disappear round the cliff that towered high between Mwntseison and Abersethin, she fell on her knees under the wide chimney, and with hands crossed on her bosom, remained a few moments in silent prayer. She rose calmer, and endeavoured once more to busy herself in her household duties.

At last, when the evening shadows were closing in, and the glow in the west had faded away, she heard voices and footsteps coming down the opposite hillside, and across the wooden footbridge, and she knew that Hugh was returning from Abersethin, and was bringing Ivor with him.

Now the sound ceased, and she knew they were coming up the road. Her heart beat so violently that she felt suffocated, and went to the doorway, partly to meet her fate and partly for a breath of air.

"What should she say?--how would he look? What would Hugh think if she should faint or falter? God help me!" she said as the footsteps came nearer, and in the twilight the two dark figures entered the cwrt.

"Here he is, Gwladys," said Hugh boisterously, "just come in to see thee on his way to his lodgings."

Gwladys blindly held out her hand, and Ivor took it in his.

"Well, Mishtress, and how are you?" he asked, in as cool a manner as he could command. A slight tremor in his voice was the only sign of feeling--there was not even the friendly "thee" and "thou." There was no tender, meaning glance--no pressure of the hand. She had not expected it--nay, would have resented it--but still the tone of indifference was painful to her, although she was perfectly aware it was assumed, and she answered in the same commonplace tones:

"I am well, thank you."

And Hugh filled up the silence that followed with his loud and hearty greetings.

"You will stay and have supper with us?" said Gwladys.

"Oh, no!" interrupted Hugh; "I am going to sup with him to-night. I will ask Mari to come and stay with thee."

"No," said Gwladys, "I would rather not. I have enough to do to fill up my time to-night."

"Wel, nos da, Mishtress," said Ivor; and he and Hugh left, disappearing together through the gloaming.

Gwladys looked after them with a set white face, and then turned wearily up the stairs. Calling to Madlen, she said, in a calm voice:

"When the Mishteer comes in, tell him I was tired and went to bed."

On reaching her bedroom, she bolted the door, and, falling on the bed, gave way to a storm of tears.

"Oh, Hugh, Hugh!--my kind husband--oh! good friend and true!--why has God brought such sorrow upon thee? But, no! he shall not suffer--only me! only me!"

And then another flood of tears. She rose and went to the window, gazing silently at the leaden waters of the bay, silvered here and there by the moon, which was rising behind the village; then in a whisper she said:

"Ivor, Ivor! didst feel it as I did? Yes. I know by the tremble of his voice--'How are you, Mishtress?'--'I am well, thank you.' That is all--and that is all that must be between us. Ivor is strong and good--I must be the same!" And for the rest of the evening she lay still and thoughtful.

And thus began Gwladys' martyrdom--and no less that of Ivor's. To meet in the ordinary course of daily life, though not oftener than could possibly be avoided, was a trial under which, at first, both suffered acutely; and Gwladys drooped and wilted visibly in the stress of the storm through which she was passing. She turned her face daily towards the path of duty, endeavouring to take up every thread of interest which her life presented to her, and to brighten her husband's path, even though her own had been stripped of all beauty and joy; and gradually she earned the reward of comparative calm and peace--a peace which added a new charm to her beauty--so much so, that the villagers often remarked--"Wel wyr! the Mishtress grows prettier every day."

Hugh rejoiced much in the cheerfulness which she seemed to have somewhat regained.

"'Tis thy coming back, mach-geni," he would say to Ivor sometimes. "I put every good down to that as I put every evil to thy going away."

And Ivor would push his hat further back on his head, and attack his work with more vigour, saying:

"I am glad, Mishteer, if it is so."

In the sail-shed, the work-people rejoiced to have him once more amongst them--the same as ever in his frank and genial manner, though much changed in outward appearance; for it was remarked by all how much his illness had aged him.

"Why, thee look'st ten years older, man!" they said, with the usual outspokenness of the peasantry.

And Ivor would only smile and say--"No doubt, no doubt!" while he applied himself with extra care and interest in the Mishteer's concerns. Morning, noon, and night he was busy, apparently feeling that he could not do enough for his friend.

And once more in the sail-shed could be heard the swinging chorus of--

"Torn sails and broken mast-- But the boat is safe at home at last!"

[1] Supernaturally wise.

[2] Watch-night.

[3] English.