"Well, sir, because we wouldn't trade at Mr. Thatcher's shop."
"Trade at Thatcher's shop?" Evan repeated incredulously, anger and
humiliation in his tone.
"Aye, sir." Then seeing the mortification upon Sir Evan's face, Gabriel
added hastily: "But it's my fault Maggie's out'n her head. I was cruel
to her, an' between that an' havin' to leave home it broke her heart."
"No, Gabriel, it's more my fault than yours," said Evan. "May I see
her?"
"Aye, sir," assented Gabriel, taking him into the kitchen.
Maggie raised her head, a bright look of love and welcome upon her face.
"Lad, I heard ye, I thought ye'd come, an' ye've come so far."
"Och, pardon her, sir," said Gabriel, "she thinks it's Eilio. Mam, it's
the master, not Eilio."
Evan rested his hand on Maggie's hot forehead. "So," he asked, "you are
not well to-day?"
"Aye, tired--but it's nothin' at all, nothin' at all, whatever, except a
sorrow here, dearie," and Maggie pointed to her bosom.
"A sorrow, Maggie?"
"Aye, but it's no matter at all now," she answered. "I'll put it by in
the creamer with the paper, stuff it in tight like cheese in a sack."
And she laughed merrily.
"That's right," he replied.
"My, ye've grown to a sweet-lookin' lad," she said, patting his hand.
"Could ye--could ye keep a home for mam now? I'll give ye," she
whispered, looking at Gabriel furtively, "everythin' I have--that's
three pounds. But ye mustn't tell him."
Evan glanced at Gabriel, but the old man did not see him, for he was
staring at the floor.
"Lad, could ye?" Maggie demanded again.
"Yes, Maggie," Evan answered, "we will keep a home for you as long as
you live. You shall have Isgubor Newydd--see, I will give it to you. You
shall have a deed of it."
"There," said Maggie, "of course, tell father now, an'--an' I hope he'll
want to stay."
_The Choice_
I
Keturah, leaning towards the open grate of coals in the cheerful kitchen
of the Reverend Samson Jones, rubbed up and down, up and down her old
shin; so rhythmical was the motion that she might have been sousing or
rubbing clothes, except for a polyphonic "Ow! Ow!" to set off the
rubbing. Keturah knew better than to quarrel with fate. But when the
latch lifted she looked up eagerly, with that instinctive hunger for
sympathy upon which most of the satisfaction of joy or the pleasure of
pain depends. It was Deb, the widow Morgan's servant, and Keturah
groaned afresh with the joyous sense of having from all the world just
the audience she would have chosen for her misery.
"Ow, ow!"
"Well, indeed, what is it?" asked Deb, subduing her voice, but unable to
dim the two ripe, red cherries in her old red cheeks, or the snap in her
old eyes.
"Ow, 'tis a pain--ow! a pain in me leg."
"Och, well, 't is too bad, but 'tis nothin', 'tis nothin'
but the effect of old age," said Deb comfortingly, "an' old age is
never comin' alone."
"Not comin' alone?"
"Nay, nay, no more nor youth comes without love, nor middle age without
comfort, nor----"
"Tut," interrupted Keturah sharply, "indeed ye are makin' a mistake; the
pain has nothin' to do with growin' old. The other leg is quite as old
whatever, but that one is well, aye, quite well."
After an awkward silence Deb said lightly, "Is it? well, indeed!" then
passed with feminine skill to another subject. "Have ye heard the news
about Tudur Williams? No? Well, he went quite nasty with Cardo Parry for
playin' false with poor little Sally Edwards."
"Did he so! Tudur is always fightin', his pale face looks so fierce."
"Aye, bleached. 'Tis hard rememberin' he an' the schoolmistress are
brother and sister."
"Aye, hard, but what did Cardo Parry do?"
The two women lowered their voices, and with that naïve liking old age
often has for repulsive tales, they rolled this particular story as a
sweet morsel under their tongues. Keturah forgot to rub her old shin,
and the two women confronted each other in the candle-lighted room with
bright eyes in which every skip of the flame from the coals over the
shining brasses was reflected.
"Tudur Williams was right!" exclaimed Keturah.
"Aye, Tudur Williams is always right; but do you believe in it?"
"Aye, aye, I do indeed."
"Tut, Keturah, believe that? I cannot. Ye're that trustin', ye'd believe
the whale swallowed Jonah, indeed."
"Aye, so I do," fervently affirmed Keturah; "that blessed story I heard
from the master's father first, and I've heard it often from the master
himself. 'Tis true as the Lord's Prayer."
"Pooh!" sniffed Deb, with the superiority of one indulging in the higher
criticism; "if the Bible said Jonah swallowed the whale ye'd believe
that, too!"
"Aye, aye, indeed, iss, iss, if the Bible said so," admitted Keturah
simply; "but the Bible don't."
"Well," Deb hastened to add, with a sense of having been on tottering
exegetical foundations, "I dunno. But if I was to say the pastor would
marry my mistress, would ye believe that, now would ye?"
Keturah considered; she had a helpless sense of tossing Jonah and the
whale to and fro in an effort to understand the connection of Deb's last
remark. To this sober, long-nosed old woman, the pastor's devoted
servant, the mental processes of the widow's cherry-cheeked Deb were
often hard to understand. Keturah thought her distinctly light-minded,
but without Deb the old woman would have been lost. In the last ten
years, in which the Reverend Samson Jones had been, according to more
lenient Wesleyan dispensation and the power of his own eloquence,
returned twice to Gelligaer, Keturah had conceived a real love for and
dependence on Deb.
"Marry the widow Jenkin Morgan?" she repeated.
"Aye, the mistress."
"Are her parents ailin'?"
"Nay," admitted Deb, crestfallen.
"Then what made ye say it?"
"I dunno," replied Deb, "but I've a feelin' here"--she patted her
corsage with bright assurance--"that somethin' is comin', aye, somethin'
is comin', now isn't it?"
"How can I tell? I'm thinkin' it will not be the widow whatever."
"Tut, he loves her, now doesn't he?"
"Aye, he does," replied Keturah, taking again to rubbing her shin.
"Aye, so he does, an' it's like to have ruined his life. A woman's no
right to hold out to stay with her parents, be they as old as
Methuselah, when a man needs her to wife. Aye, he's grown old with it
all, an' he the first man in Gelligaer! But I'm thinkin' he'll not marry
her."
"Not marry her!" exclaimed Deb, in real alarm. "Not marry her in the
end?"
"Not marry her," solemnly repeated Keturah. "Since he went to see his
lady mother last he's acted brisker, aye, he's stepped firmer and
swifter, an'--an'----"
"An' what?" asked Deb breathlessly.
"An' he's been to see the schoolmistress three times since Sabbath once
before last."
Deb gasped, her eyes helplessly fixed on the erect Keturah. "The
schoolmistress!" she exclaimed. "Tudur Williams's sister?"
"Aye, the schoolmistress."
"But she's poor."
"Aye, so she is, an' your mistress is rich, but a minister cannot stay
unmarried all his life, now can he, with all the women in the parish
pursuin' him. Jane Elin's a handsome, capable young woman."
"But does he love her?" persisted Deb.
"Love her? I dunno."
"Aye, does he as he does the widow?"
"Well, indeed, I dunno. Nay," admitted Keturah reflectively, "not as he
loves the widow, I'm thinkin'."
In his study the Reverend Samson Jones was conscientiously at work on
his sermon; the will is a good horse, and if ever a man strove to ride
it well it was Samson Jones, as he ran his fingers through his hair,
looking now this way and now that, tipping back in his chair and
muttering disconnectedly "planet shining in the night," "morning star of
a revival," "brook in the desert," "arid waste," "Dan to Beersheba,"
"the understanding and the conscience," "the affections and the will."
The last word smote him and he pushed away the neatly written sheets of
his sermon. Nothing any longer that he said or wrote seemed coherent or
to have meaning. In years past when the Almighty had called on Samson
Jones, Samson Jones had answered, with the result that Gelligaer had
been listening to an eloquence unparalleled in the history of the
village,--an eloquence that had brought men, women, and children from
the outlying farms and hills into the Chapel, that had touched every
nonconformist tradesman in the town, that had won the respect of the
stricter Calvinists, and the friendly co-operation of the Church. But
for two weeks no eloquent word had come to his lips; his speech had
been like a spring checked at its source. To-morrow was the day he had
set on which to display finally the power of his will, and to-morrow
would be here in twelve hours; after that he might allow a few hours,
until the proper interval came in Jane Elin's school work, and then----!
Samson Jones covered his eyes and moaned aloud, with pagan reliance upon
the helpfulness of an old saying, "Gwell pwyll nog aur [prudence is
better than gold]; ond tan enw pwyll y daw twyll [but under the name of
prudence deceit will come]." His head felt hot and as if every thought
were a string stretched to the snapping-point; and his heart beat
uncomfortably. He unlocked the drawer of his writing-table and took out
a picture; it was the photograph of a charming face, of a woman
evidently about thirty, but whose features were round and childlike, the
deep fringed lashes, the coronal of hair and contour of chin giving the
countenance the circular aspect and soft depth and delicate tinting of a
pansy. Before it Samson Jones, who was of the same flesh and blood as
other mortals, sat, tears filling his eyes, spilling over and rolling
down his face, and the hand that held the picture shaking as it had not
shaken since it held its first public sermon. Ah, he loved her so, and
had loved her even before her marriage! After her husband had died
unexpectedly, Samson Jones got himself recalled to Gelligaer, a feat
that only he could have accomplished, and then had come this second
trial.
With the unaccountable determination soft, gentle things sometimes
display, Dolly Morgan had decided not to marry again so long as her old
father and mother lived. She had admitted her love for Samson Jones, but
assured him at the same time that he must wait. He had loved her now
with the exclusive passion of a warm, dependent nature through six long
years. The parents might live, however, for twenty years more. He had
battled in vain against the resolution of Dolly, who, having experienced
matrimony once, had no longer a maiden's eagerness to rush into
matrimony again, however desirable. He had urged upon her the especial
responsibility of a minister's life, the need he had for a wife to help
him, the years that her parents were likely to live, the wish of his
congregation that he should marry, and finally, again and again, his
great love for her. But Dolly could be convinced of no immediate duty
beyond that due to her parents. But there was no shadow of a doubt in
her mind that the day would come inevitably when she would be Mrs.
Samson Jones "the minister," just as she had certainly been two years
ago Mrs. Jenkin Morgan "the shop." Her mind was full of untroubled
_axiomata media_, and these two facts were of them, the one proved, the
other unproved but not disproved.
In the meantime the pastor's work suffered; he was pursued by
marriageable women young and old; he had advice from experienced matrons
forced upon him; from every conceivable point of view, utilitarian to
ideal, his brothers of the cloth had taken up the subject of matrimony
for a young minister; and at last had come his own conviction that he
had not given himself over wholly to the good of his ministry. Finally,
there had been a conversation with his wise old mother. Samson Jones saw
afresh that Jane Elin had made herself indispensable to him in his work.
She was useful in every organisation connected with the Chapel: the
societies, the sessions, the prayer-meetings, the Cymanfas; and she was
a leader in the Sunday school, which young and old attended. She was
always effective, always busy, and always polite. Her equilibrium could
no more have been disturbed than a buoy's on the ocean, for whatever
came, she was still in her element.
Jane Elin had learned her most important lessons under that best of
teachers--adversity; from this unexceptionable preceptress she had grown
wise in reflection, and from teacher and teaching she had won the sharp
weapon of an excellent education. Consciously or unconsciously there
were two decisive factors in the minister's feeling that it was
advisable to marry the schoolmistress now, since he could not have the
widow. First, she worshipped him, as every one in Gelligaer knew; that
was as near as Jane Elin had come thus far to an insurmountable
difficulty. And, secondly, Samson Jones leaned on her; for if the world
is divided into those who lift and those who lean, Samson Jones had
learned to lean on Jane Elin.
The will is a good horse, but the Reverend Samson Jones sat his horse
with difficulty, and only by steadying himself with the thought of his
mother. He took the picture of Dolly, which he felt that he no longer
had any right to keep, and tore it slowly in two, then once more in two,
then in two again, then he dropped his head on the table with a sob. By
the morrow he would have committed himself, and even his thoughts after
that must be honourable to the schoolmistress.
It is easy to sleep in a perfect skin; when a man feels as Samson Jones
did, the very thought of sleep is misery. But the cottage was quiet,
Keturah had gone to her loft, and, habit being strong, he took his
candle and stumbled upstairs to bed, wiping his eyes with his
coat-sleeve. He took off his clothes with a sense that each garment
stripped him of one more hope and joy. And as he slipped on to his knees
by his bedside, there seemed nothing left for which to live. He had
merely a dull sense of a nightly duty still to be performed. Before he
knew what he was saying, he had repeated a childish rhyme not thought of
since he was a boy. Horrified that it had come to him at such a moment,
he rushed fervently into the petitions and acknowledgments of a
conventional prayer. He sought to spread himself meekly before an
inevitable will in this choice of a wife, then he paused a minute,
groaned and ended with, "Lord, Lord, I long exceedingly for Dolly."
Little Dilys sat with her doll in front of the schoolhouse by the
stream. As the happy children had tumbled out of school, the bell rang
its quick strokes from the bell-cot. That it would soon ring them in
again did not much matter to Dilys, for despite the fact that she loved
Lul, the doll, with a love warmer than platonic, there was another she
loved still better. Both had pink cheeks, but Lul's helplessness wore
on Dilys and the schoolmistress was never helpless. The child liked the
proprietary feeling she had in the helpful hands and nice warm arms of
her schoolmistress foster-mother. At the moment she was provoked with
Lul for looking so stuffed, just as if she had eaten too much, and she
shook her till her eyes clappered in her head and her Welsh beaver
tumbled off her fuzzy hair. Overcome by remorse at Lul's dilapidated
aspect, she called her all the endearing names she could muster: "white
sugar," "sugar and honey," "hundred and a thousand," "the world's
value," "white love," "the apple of her eye," and "tidy baby" which she
obviously was not. But not one of these superlative terms of endearment
took away the pained, stuffed expression of Lul's countenance.
The doll's history had not been a happy one. Ever since she had been
born in Gelligaer, the summer before, she had presented many grave
questions, that had incessantly to be referred from Dilys to the
schoolmistress, from the schoolmistress to the Reverend Samson Jones,
and finally to the medical man. There was the question in the first
place of how she got here--Dilys always sought for the sources of truth,
as her sweet name might indicate; then, once admitting that Lul was
here,--which she seemed to be,--why did she come without being properly
provided with a fashionable bonnet? Dilys found herself obliged to take
a great deal on faith.
When she saw the minister entering the school close, she dropped Lul and
rushed upon Samson Jones. But the minister, putting her away gently,
asked for the schoolmistress. Dilys led him in, never once aware that
his thoughts clappered worse than Lul's eyes had, and that he saw
neither stick nor stone of the school close as he marched forward
blindly to the completion of a last duty. Dilys found all grown-ups,
except Jane Elin, unaccountable at seasons: sometimes they would talk
too much, for example when Lul was saying her prayers or going to sleep;
and sometimes, when any sensible mortal would be glad of conversation,
they wouldn't talk at all.
Half an hour later, when the minister came out, Dilys, who based a
reasonable faith on the substance of things hoped for, ran trustingly to
him again. And this time he did talk, and looked so brisk, and inquired
about Lul and gave her,--oh, wonderful new joy!--a whole shilling with
which to buy a stylish bonnet for Lul.
Dilys ran skipping and jumping in to her guardian, but Jane Elin, wiping
her eyes and smiling at the same time, put Dilys away with a "Well,
indeed, dear, 'tis grand, but 'tis very late now. Run tell Glyn to ring
the bell." While she wiped away the last tears, Glyn did ring the bell
till it danced like mad in the bell-cot and the old people thought with
a smile how boys must be boys with bell-ropes. To Jane Elin it seemed,
as all the little valleys and hilltops tossed its clangour to and fro,
the sweetest sound in all the world; for the joy of all joys, the great
unaccountable joy, had come to her, after it had been resigned a score
of times to another. Further than this thought the schoolmistress
allowed herself no hysterical pause. Her character, like a firm sock,
had been knit a stitch at a time, and stood the strain of the last
half-hour with no sign of wear and tear.
Dilys tucked Lul under her bench, Lul was so dull, and looked lovingly
at the shine on Jane Elin's bright face and at her pretty bright hair.
Dilys was certain there was no one in all Gelligaer or beyond its
mountains like her own dear Jane Elin, and as the baton beat time for
them to sing their closing song, Dilys opened her little mouth, red as a
holly-berry, very wide indeed, and sang with all the lustiness of happy
childhood:--
"My Cambria! thy valleys how dearly I love,
And thy mountains that darken the blue sky above."