"Ow, the idiot!"
"Och, the innocent!" laughed Catrin. "'Ts, 'ts," she called to Malw
Owens, who, munching bread, was approaching from a little alley-way;
"Nelw Parry's _cocyn's_ unfurled at last an' flappin' in the breeze."
One by one a throng gathered under the walls of the Raven Temperance,
and the explosions of mirth and the exclamations multiplied, until the
whole street rang with the boisterous noise, and one word, "_Cocyn!
cocyn!_" rebounded from lip to lip and wall to wall. But there were some
who, coming all the way out of their quiet houses and seeing the
occasion of this mad glee, shook their heads sadly and said, "Poor
thing! she's not wise!" and went in again. And there were others who
passed by on the other side of the road, and they, too, muttered, "Druan
bach!" pityingly, and if they were old enough to have growing sons, cast
glances none too kind at Catrin Griffiths. Evidently the "poor little
thing" was not intended for her; but, indeed, they might have spared one
for her, for it is possible that she needed it more than the woman who
lay indoors in a convulsion of tears. Suddenly, amidst the nudges and
thrusts and sniggers and shrieks, Catrin clapped her hands together.
"Listen," she bade, "now listen! I'll be fetchin' Pedr." And with a
snort of amusement from them all, she was off down the street.
What happened to Catrin before she reached Pedr's door will never be
told. By the time she came to the Cambrian Pill Depôt she was screwing
her courage desperately. Even the most callous have strange visitations
of fear, odd forebodings of failure, and hang as devoutly upon
Providence as the most pious. It would be robbing no one to give Catrin
a kind word or, indeed, a tear or two. Good words and tears are spent
gladly upon a blind man, then why not upon Catrin, whose blindness was
an ever-night far deeper? She was but groping for something she thought
she needed, for something to make her happier, as every man does. And
now, as it often is with the one who hugs his virtue as well as with the
sinful, the road slipped suddenly beneath her feet and her thoughts were
plunged forward into a dark place of fears. She, who always had had
breath and to spare for the expression of any vulgar or trivial idea
which came to her, could barely say, as she thrust her head in at the
door of Pedr's shop, "Nelw Parry'll be needin' you now." What she had
intended to say was something quite different; since she did not say
it, it need not be repeated here.
It seemed an eternity to Pedr before, without any show of following
Catrin too closely, he could leave the shop. The sounds of the jangling
voices he was nearing mingled with the gusty wind that whickered around
housetops and corners, and brushed roughly by him with a dismal sound.
He walked with slow deliberateness, but his thoughts ran courier-like
ever forward and before him. To his sight things had a peculiar
distinctness, adding in some way to his foreknowledge, prescient with
the distress he heard in the wind. He looked up to the casement towards
which all eyes were directed. Something attached to the sill whipped out
in the wind and then flirted aimlessly to and fro. Pedr scanned it
intently. Another gust of wind caught it, and again it spread out and
waved about glossily plume-like. Then for a moment, unstirred by the
air, it hung limp against the house-side; it was glossy and black
and--and--thought Pedr with a rush of comprehension--like a long strand
of Nelw's hair.
There were suppressed titters and sly winks as he came to the group
before the Raven.
"Ffi, the poor fellow, I wonder what he'll do now?" asked one.
"Hush!" said another.
"Well, indeed," answered a third, tapping her head significantly, "what
would one expect when she's not wise?"
"He's goin' in," said a fourth.
While all eyes were upon Pedr, Catrin Griffiths had slipped away from
their midst, slid along the wall, and stolen across the street. The look
upon Pedr's face was like a hot iron among her wretched thoughts, and
hiss! hiss! hiss! it was cutting down through all those strings that had
held her baggage of body and soul together.
Pedr made his way into the house and to the couch where Nelw lay.
"Nelw," he said.
Nelw caught her breath between sobs.
"Nelw," he repeated gently, sitting down by her, "there, little lamb!"
Nelw stopped crying.
"Pedr, did you see?" she asked.
"Did I see? Yes, I saw your _cocyn_ hangin' to the window."
Nelw sat up straight.
"Do--do you understand, Pedr? Did you hear them mockin' me?"
"Aye, an' I know it's your _cocyn_." Pedr smiled, "Little lamb, did you
think that would make any difference?"
"But, Pedr," she said insistently, as if she must make him understand,
"these curls are all I really--really have." She drew one out straight.
"Aye, dearie, I'm thinkin' that is enough."
If he had been telling her a fairy story Nelw's eyes could not have
grown wider.
Pedr cocked his head critically to one side.
"It's very pretty, whatever," he added; "I was always likin' that part
of your hair the best."
* * * * *
And now there is no more story to tell; for Pedr set to work to get the
tea for Nelw. As he went in and out of a door, sometimes they smiled at
each other foolishly and sometimes Pedr came near enough to pat her on
the head. The room, although it would have been difficult to lay hands
on its visitors, had other inmates too, for it was full of Pedr's
comrades. Every minute they increased in number, as is the way of the
world when two people, even if they are not very wise,--and of course
they never will be wise if they are not by the time they are
middle-aged,--are joined together in love. And every one of these little
visitors took the heart it held in its wee transparent hands and offered
it to Nelw. And Nelw, as Pedr had done almost twenty-four hours ago,
gathered the dreams into her arms, and there they lay upon her breast
like the children they really were. And above this scene the shining
silver river ran in and out, in and out among its alleys of green trees
singing a gentle song which, once it has been learned, can never be
forgotten.
_Tit for Tat_
On the chimney-pot of Adam Jones's cottage sat two rooks. They put their
bills together this morning just as they did every day, and one said
"Ma! Ma!" and the other answered "Pa! Pa!" in raucous but affectionate
tones. And the grey wood-pigeons in the woods said "Coo! Coo! Coo!" all
day long; and the geese by the stream made futile rushes at one another
and passed harmlessly like clumsy knights atilt. And when the kittens
played, as they did sometimes on Twthill, there was no suggestion of
frolic about it; the ladies' chain with their mother's hind legs was
done with such harmonious _ensemble_ that it was just as quiet as the
chapel-going step of old Deacon Aphael Tuck and his wife Olwyn. Even the
lusty toad who lived under the holly-bush hopped only half-way home, and
then, lifting himself unwillingly, straddled _pronunciamento_ to the
holly stem.
At half-past seven the milkman went by, with a very small can in a very
small cart, ringing a very big bell,--a bell big as a dinner-bell, that
went "Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong," in the sleepiest fashion in all
the world. And this bell the milkman had to ring a long, long time, for,
either it put the inhabitants to sleep and then they must have leisure
to wake up again before they could attend to their business, or they
were asleep anyway and must have time to get up. And an hour later the
post went by, marked V. R. in large shabby gilt letters, for you may be
certain that _Eduardus Rex_ had not yet got on to any document inside or
outside this cart that bowled slowly up Twthill, looking as it
disappeared at the top like a lazy beetle crawling into a hole. And down
at the bottom of Twthill a little stream purred and purred and purred,
like a convention of all the comfortable tabby-cats in the universe, or
a caucus of drowsy tea-kettles. In the woods beyond the stream, where
the wood-pigeons cooed, a little bird called "Slee-eep! Slee-ep!
Slee-p!" Some of the young people on Twthill had been known to maintain
that it said "Sweet! Sweet! Sweet!" But later they changed their minds,
and it seemed like "Sleep! Sleep! Sleep!" to them, too, and they sharply
corrected other young people for thinking nonsense. And every day there
was the sound of Deacon Aphael Tuck puffing up the hill, saying under
his breath, "Tut, tut, tut, a hill whatever, tut, now isn't it!"
At the foot of the hill, in the midst of all this quiet lived a little
old woman, Gladys Jones, the wife of Deacon Adam Jones. The Welsh have a
saying that the first man Adam was a Welshman and that his name was Adam
Jones. However that may be, this Adam Jones seemed assuredly the first
man in all the world to Gladys, and, in the course of the story you may
consider Adam justified in thinking of Gladys sometimes as his Eve. They
were very different in appearance. He was tall, gaunt, with a saintly
look about his waxen features, a look made attractively human by two
deep lines on either side of his mouth. When Gladys was at her antics,
caprioling like a shy, pathetic marmoset, these lines deepened, and he
would pull his beard and his eyes would twinkle much as stars twinkle on
a frosty night. Adam Jones was a saint, and he had need to be. Gladys
was tiny in size, round, merry, alert. Her face was round, too, with
cheeks as full-moulded as a baby's, and a small pointed chin that was as
sensitive as it was whimsical, and wide, round blue eyes that were as
apt to weep as they were to sparkle.
This Saturday morning Gladys sat by the hearth, her head forward,
listening for a step. At her left the table was spread with an abundant
breakfast. As she listened, misfortune did not come running, but slowly
and with the footfall of an old man. Gladys was waiting for an answer
concerning the thing she wished to do more than anything else in the
world, more than she had ever wished to do anything; the thing she had
never done, the thing she had never had a chance to do: go to the
Circus. The Circus was to be held on Monday in Carnarvon, near the
Castle where the Eisteddfod was held last year; and Carnarvon, only
eight miles away, was her old home. She knew that no one else in Twthill
had even thought of such an act as going. But what was there wicked
about it? Gladys asked herself; and reasoning thus she forthwith asked
the deacon for permission. First he looked astounded, then he said he
must consider the matter over-night. Now he was coming in to breakfast,
and she would have his answer.
Adam Jones came slowly through the doorway, which was surmounted by a
gable guard of slate pigeons and flanked by slate rosettes. Out on the
hedge poised a privet-cut pigeon, lacking the evil eye of his slate
brethren, but possessed of an evil green tail now pointed with evil
significance at Adam's entering back.
"Well, dad," said Gladys, as he took his seat at the table.
"Aye, mam, the mist means fine summer weather, indeed."
"Have ye been thinkin', father?"
"I dunno----" he faltered. "Aye, mam; better the evil we know than that
we know not."
"Och, dad, am I _not_ to go?"
"'Twould be playing with fire, and that's no play, mam. I've been
talkin' with Aphael Tuck, and with Keri Lewis, and Evan Edwards, and
they say the only man in Twthill has thought of goin' is Morris Thomas.
Morris Thomas is a dark bird, he's always had a long spoon to eat with
the devil, whatever. His missus is sick cryin' over his ways."
"But, father, I long so to go!" sobbed Gladys.
"Mother, ye are too gay, too gay! A weak doctrine, an easy path." The
deacon was inclined to attribute Gladys's gaiety to her Wesleyanism; he
himself was a Calvinist.
At this moment, with tears rolling down her cheeks, Gladys did not look
over gay; and it would have been difficult for any one to divine the
reputation for liveliness which she had made for herself. No good was
coming to her now because she had lightened the heavy quiet of Twthill
in various ways; because she had talked with the slate pigeons and
clipped the wicked green tail of the privet pigeon; because she twinkled
over the candytuft, bright and beautiful enough for a dozen Joseph's
coats, or rang the Canterbury bells when nobody was looking, or pulled
the bees off the honeysuckle, or fed the tiny sparrows and sandpipers
and rooks as if they were geese, or tickled the toad under the
holly-bush till he swelled with joy. It was no consolation to her now
that she had always found something during the quiet dreary hours on
Twthill to please her fancy, or that she had turned her attention
successfully to her neighbours. Mrs. Thomas the greengrocer was a stupid
thing, Betty Harries proud, and Olwyn Tuck the shop, starched with her
doctrines. Many a trap of words had she set for them and many a trap had
been sprung. There were harmless practical jokes, too, and there were
matchmaking and theology. In these heat-producing topics Gladys had
gained no mean skill, as the privet pigeon knew.
But the deacon took a serious view of her relation to a possible future.
He longed to grant everything she might desire. However, there was her
soul to be kept! He gathered himself together.
"Mam, ye cannot go," was his final word.
Adam got up; he wanted to go out very much, and Gladys sat alone
thinking. At last she straightened, and shook her head; then she half
laughed, then she half cried, as children sometimes laugh and cry almost
in the same breath. After this she said aloud to herself--
"I will do it, now, won't I?" She nodded, "Aye, I will indeed."
She arose, looking mischievously wicked, and stole out of the back-door
of the cottage. She glanced about, and evidently her eyes alighted on
what she wished, for she stood there thinking. It wasn't fair, och! it
was such a silent place, not worth a man's while to wake up in. And that
stream, purr, purr, purr, purr all day long, just as if the cats
couldn't attend to that sort of noise better. And those heavy-looking
ugly-coloured foxglove bells that grew on the sunny side of the stone
wall, and rustled "Tinkle-tinkle, tinkle-tinkle" in a way that Gladys
had sometimes thought like the mysterious swishing of dry leaves or the
scampering of tiny feet. What if they did know a deal about the Little
Folk, it was of no earthly use to her. And the white clover and the red
clover had such a warm sleepy smell, and those loppy dandelions that
grew tall and drooped over, and those silly pink and white stone-crops
that lay as still as lizards on the stone wall! Och, what if she had
played with them once? She hated them all now. This stillness weighed
down upon her like the rocks upon the hills.
She took something from the clothes-line and went into the house. Then
she opened a long, heavy chest and was busy in its depths for several
minutes. After that she was restlessly active throughout the day. At
last bedtime came, and she went to sleep as innocently as the lamb in
the sheepfold. But Adam Jones lay awake. He touched the plump wrinkled
cheek gently and looked at Gladys's frilled nightcap with inexpressible
longing. White Love, she was so different from other bodies in Twthill,
enough to make a man happy as in the Garden of Eden these long years,
but enough to vex him sorely too. Aye, he must manage to keep her soul
for her, and the good deacon, his hands folded on his chest, his eyes
blinking in an effort to stay awake, passed from prayers for Gladys into
sleep.
When they arose, the quiet on Twthill had deepened to silence, for it
was the Sabbath. The milkman made his rounds as usual, but instead of
the dinner-bell he had a small boy who tiptoed from door to door, gently
rapping up the good wives. There was no sound in all Twthill; only the
smoke from the chimney-pots told of the life within. And all day long
there would be no sound except the Chapel bell ringing worshippers to
service and the tread of obedient Sunday-shod feet.
"Come," said Adam Jones to Gladys, "'tis time to be dressin' for
Chapel."
"Nay, I'm not goin'."
"Not goin'! Dear heart, what's come over ye?"
"I'm not goin'," was all Gladys obstinately replied.
This was all the good deacon could get from her. Nor would she stir from
her place by the fire.
"Mam, where's my Sunday socks?" he called from upstairs.
"How should I be knowin'?"
"But I cannot find them," was the distressed answer, while bureau
drawers flew in and out.
"Mam," he called again, "I can't find them whatever, an' my grey socks
are not here, either."
"They're in the mendin' basket to be darned."
"But, mam, then where's the other pair of greys?"
"They're not clean, they're to be washed to-morrow."
"Tut, tut, tut," said the deacon, sitting on the edge of the bed; then
he pulled his boots on over bare feet and stretched down his trousers as
far as he could. After that he went meekly downstairs.
"Where's my Sunday coat, mam?"
"In the chest where it is always."
"In the chest?"
"Aye."
Adam Jones bent over the big box where his Sunday coat lay spread out
carefully from Sabbath to Sabbath. He groped around, fished out the
coat, put it on unaided by Gladys, and leaned over his wife to say
good-bye.
"Ye're not lovin' me much to-day, mother, are ye?"
Gladys gulped and pushed him away.
He left the house, his Bible under his arm, to join the people streaming
up Twthill to the Chapel. Gladys ran to the door and called once. He
turned around, but she bit her lips and said, "No matter."
As Adam stepped into the upward moving throng, Mrs. Thomas, the wife of
Morris Thomas, whispered--
"Och, Morris, look!"
Morris gave one look, covered his mouth with his fingers, and began to
shake; but dark bird that he was and long spoon that he had for supping
with the devil, his face took on a pitying expression.
"'Tis too bad," he said; "what shall I do?"
Meantime the children had begun to giggle, little Dilys, and Haf and
Delwyn and Ifor and Kats, and a score more. The suppressed tittering
caught all the way down the line like a fuse attended by sundry minor
explosions, and every eye was directed at Deacon Jones's back. But
Morris's question remained unanswered, and no one did anything. The
deacon, with his gentle bows to right and left and his long stride,
skimmed past couple after couple, and entering the Chapel took his
deacon's seat immediately under the pulpit, his back to the
congregation.
Other deacons gathered rapidly about him on the circular seat, and there
was much nudging among them, and more stir and craning of necks in the
Chapel than had ever been there before. But soon the worshippers were
launched upon a discussion of Arminianism, that unfortunate set of
questions gentle John Wesley managed to flourish before Calvinism. Now
Calvinism, full-tilt, rushed smoking and roaring from the kind mouths of
the good people in the Chapel, belching flame and destruction upon the
laxity of Wesleyanism. Deacon Adam Jones, with his eyes tight closed and
his heart bursting with sorrow, was engaged in something like prayer. No
matter that he could not know within himself that he was one of the
elect. After all, if he strove to be saved and then wasn't, he could not
grumble. He had tried his best; if he failed it was not his fault. But
oh, his beloved Gladys, that her feet might be on the Rock and off this
sliding sand of Wesleyanism! Or that already he might be landed on the
happy shores of the other side, and know her foreordained to be saved!
She might ride the wicked Elephant and not fall; a thousand circuses
would not harm her in his sight.
Suddenly there was the tramping of a multitude in their silent Sabbath
street, followed by a wild "Yah!" The deacons quivered together like so
many leaves on a branch, and looked to the high windows, but the windows
were so high that only the hills peered down serenely upon the
congregation.
At home Gladys, eyeing disconsolately the bright fire and the rows of
brass candlesticks and the big shiny cheese dishes, sat in the same
place in which Adam had left her. Ah! it was wicked for her to have done
that, for her husband was so gentle to her, no man could be better. And
now she was making a laughingstock of the lad among the neighbours. The
tears rolled out of her eyes, and, irresponsible little body that she
was, with the flow of her tears there came a great desire to be
comforted for her wickedness. Adam had always comforted her. Suddenly
she sat up, for there was the sound of many feet upon the road. She
listened, she looked out, she gasped, she sped to the hedge. A great
procession was going by. Her amazed eyes fell upon camels, with
gentlemen in baggy trousers on their backs. The camels were walking
forward, stealthily spreading out their soft-padded feet. And there were
many elephants, uneasily swaying the keepers who sat on their heads; for
the elephants, hearing the purring of the stream, thought it sounded
like the rustling of long jungle-grass, and wished more than anything
else that this tidy little hill were a jungle in which they might lie
down. Instead, they must trundle wearily up hill, taking comfort in
elephantine ways by holding by their trunks to one another's tails. And
the ladies from Egypt, seated high in a great barge, fanned themselves
and looked yellow and much as Cleopatra must have looked when Mark
Antony wooed her. And the float-full of American Indians seemed tired,
and something must have been washed off their faces, for certainly they
were not red. And the gentlemen representing the musical talent of the
German Empire were mopping their fat necks. And in the huge barge
representing Japan, courteous little Japs covered their yawns with
fastidiously-kept hands. And the "artist" who sat inside the steam-organ
wagon became so sleepy that his hand slipped and struck one of the organ
pedals. "Yah!" screeched the organ, and I think it was the loudest sound
ever heard on Twthill. The only rosy, tidy being in the whole procession
was a little maid in white cap and apron who was hanging up fresh towels
in one of the living vans, and peeping out of the window at the curious
cottages and unpronounceable names decorating each one that she saw.
There was no talking, no laughter. This was part of the day's work for
these men and women and beasts. They were on their way to Carnarvon for
Monday's performance. The men looked tired and sober, and so did the
women. Gladys thought they all seemed strangely draggled. Indeed, she
had imagined they would be quite different, so bright and beautiful,
very creatures of the air like the birds. She believed she did not wish
to go to the circus after all, for if they were not happy, she was
certain she could never be happy looking at them, poor dears! If only
Adam would come home, she could stand the stillness, and she would never
do anything wrong again.
In the Chapel the service went forward without interruption; the
minister, a man of character, convinced that he had met on Twthill all
the forces of the world and the flesh and the devil, was not to be
terrified by a multitude of feet, even though those feet were an
avenging host sent for the destruction of this wicked village, in which
he laboured and struggled in vain. The congregation, ignorant of this
unflattering opinion of them, followed their heroic leader to a man.
At the close of the service, Deacon Aphael Tuck leaned forward towards
Adam Jones.
"Mr. Jones, your socks--your socks----"
"What is that, Mr. Tuck?"
"Your socks. I'm sorry, but did ye intend----"
"Aye, my socks, Deacon," said Adam, looking apprehensively towards his
boots, "aye, I've been lookin' for them--my Sunday socks."
"They're on your back," said the senior deacon, coughing.
Adam Jones flushed all over his pale face; then he smiled, much as if he
enjoyed having his Sunday socks on his back rather than on his feet, and
then, recollecting, he began to explain to the deacon.
"Well, 'tis Sunday,"--the deacon knew this,--"and Gladys takes very good
care of my clothes whatever, and puts them--lays them out in the chest
an'--an' she's not well to-day."
While Aphael Tuck was pulling out the strong stitches with which the
socks were tacked on,--strong stitches which he and Mrs. Tuck often
discussed later as part of the liveliest day Twthill had ever
known,--the Recording Angel, who had been taking down Adam's prayers
much cut in angelic shorthand, spaced out every one of these half-true
faltering words carefully, and over them, the Angel wrote, in beautiful
bright letters, LOVE, and beneath them, with lax impartiality to
Calvinism and Wesleyanism, made this note, "Elect: Adam and wife."
_An Oriel in Eden_
Mrs. Jenkins looked over at Mr. Jenkins the shop merchant and bard, and
there was love and wonderment in her eyes. He was reclining in an
arm-chair, his long legs stretched before him, his head at rest against
the chair, his hands folded over his stomach, his eyes tight closed, his
mouth wide open, his lips moving, and every once in a while his tongue
quickly lapping his upper lip. Janny looked away and out of the windows
to the meadows that rolled up into the mist like big grey waves; this
was the act of composition, she knew, and too sacred even for her, his
humbler half, to behold. But the misty uplands suggested overmuch of
that unnamable something which, when she looked at her husband, made her
wish to shut her eyes; for, might she not, Janny reasoned, see more than
she ought to see of the divine spirit that moved behind those hills and
behind the lips of Ariel Jenkins. So her thoughts slipped back into the
living-room of Ty Mawr, while her eyes avoided the inspired contents of
the arm-chair. She had been a bride and the envied mistress of Ty Mawr
just two weeks; however, she was forty and matrimony was late for her,
and Ariel Jenkins being forty-five, it was none too early for him. Janny
felt her responsibilities keenly. Was she living up to them? She was at
the mercantile centre of the village, her better half was not only a
merchant but also a crowned poet, her house the most important in
Glaslyn. And Glaslyn expected changes; Mrs. Parry Wynn the baker said
so, Mrs. Gomer Roberts the tinman had prophesied, and Mrs. Jeezer Morris
the minister had whispered to Betto Griffiths who had told Janny of
these expectations, that she supposed, nay, she _hoped_ Ariel Jenkins's
home with a woman in it would soon look like a God-fearing place and
receive some improvements. Janny's glance roved through the
sitting-room. She had made a few alterations, but somehow in the
half-light of dusk they seemed as nothing. What was the moving or
replenishing of a taper holder, a fresh case for Ariel's harp, a new
cover for the table, or the addition of a few pleasant-faced china cats
to a regimental mantelpiece,--indeed, she sadly asked herself, what were
these changes in comparison with the unappointed something she was
expected to accomplish as Mrs. Ariel Jenkins the shop? She was a
stranger in Glaslyn, an intruder from a great outside world, and now she
felt bewildered, lonely. Her eyes flitted to Ariel's face for company.
"Dearie!"
There was no answer.
"Is it comin', Ariel dear?"
"Aye," he snapped.
Janny winced; she had never lived with genius, and, somehow, she thought
it would be different. Her deep-blue eyes had a still look in them that
suggested not only a long habit of self-repression but also perplexity,
and sadness, too; there was appeal in every feature of her face,--an
appeal made the more pathetic, perhaps, by the childlike lines of
pale-gold curling hair about her forehead and tired eyes, and the
delicate hollows beneath her cheek-bones, and the fragile sweetness of
her mouth. It was a face in its soft bloom and delicacy, forever young
and yet unforgettably weary. She straightened out her kirtle, and again
her glance roved the room. There must be a clean hearth-brush, new
muslin curtains for the casement; the stairway landing, where it turned
by the front windows, even in the twilight looked shabby with the wear
and tear of heavily-booted feet and clogs, the light from the oriel
window above the landing shining through with bald ugliness upon the
stairs. As she looked at the light Janny's eyes dilated, her face
flushed, and she leaned forward, gazing intently at the window. For the
minute she had forgotten Ariel, but he, puff, puff, puff, with many
sighs and yawns and much stretching of his long legs, was coming out of
his inspired coma. His awakening look fell upon Janny there where she
sat, her hands clasped in her lap, her shoulders tipped forward, her
chin tilted upward, a circle of quiet light about her hair, her eyes
intent upon the stairway window.
"Janny dear, what is it? What are ye lookin' at?"
"Oh! na--aye, lad, I--I----"
"Well, well, Janny!"
"Ariel, I was thinkin'."
"Aye, an' ye were plannin', too."
He was thoroughly aroused now from his inspiration, and studying that
object, woman, which through some twenty-five years he had sung and
praised. Ariel's eyes searched her; stanza, metre, rhyme, theme, were
all forgotten, for he saw that Janny possessed a thought she had no
intention of parting with to him. He glanced from her to the window upon
which she had been looking so rapturously when he surprised her gaze.
So far as he could see it was like any other stairway light in Glaslyn,
except that it was oval instead of rectangular, and perhaps a little
deeper than some, but otherwise precisely like scores he had seen. Then
he called imagination to his aid, that imagination which had been the
means of begetting shillings over the counter of his shop, which had won
for him a comfortable income, and commercial success, as well as made
him the foremost bard in his county. He peered through the window; what
he beheld was a bit of dusky sky with a shadowy star seemingly behind
it. He dismissed imagination and returned to the study of his bride. It
was a whim probably; perhaps one of those unshaped thoughts, elemental,
unspoken, to which women listen in their idle moments; indeed, it might
even be some dreaming about him of which Janny in the shyness of their
relation, still new, was too sensitive to speak. Gradually Ariel forgot
the problem in his renewed consciousness of the charm of Janny, with her
deep blue eyes, her childlike pale-gold hair, the delicate lines of her
fragile face so different from the Welsh women of their village. Under
his scrutiny Janny sat serenely with a more than wonted air of
self-possession.