CHAPTER I.

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ROUND THE SOFA.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

“Mary Barton,” “Life of Charlotte Bronte,” &c. &c.

TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:

SAMPSON LOW, SON & CO., 47 LUDGATE HILL.

1859.

LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET.

CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

PAGE

THE ACCURSED RACE 3

THE DOOM OF THE GRIFFITHS 32

HALF A LIFE-TIME AGO 97

THE POOR CLARE 179

THE HALF-BROTHERS 277

ROUND THE SOFA.

Mr. Dawson had often come in and out of the room during the time that

his sister had been telling us about Lady Ludlow. He would stop, and

listen a little, and smile or sigh as the case might be. The Monday

after the dear old lady had wound up her tale (if tale it could be

called), we felt rather at a loss what to talk about, we had grown so

accustomed to listen to Mrs. Dawson. I remember I was saying, “Oh, dear!

I wish some one would tell us another story!” when her brother said, as

if in answer to my speech, that he had drawn up a paper all ready for

the Philosophical Society, and that perhaps we might care to hear it

before it was sent off: it was in a great measure compiled from a

French book, published by one of the Academies, and rather dry in

itself; but to which Mr. Dawson’s attention had been directed, after a

tour he had made in England during the past year, in which he had

noticed small walled-up doors in unusual parts of some old parish

churches, and had been told that they had formerly been appropriated to

the use of some half-heathen race, who, before the days of gipsies, held

the same outcast pariah position in most of the countries of western

Europe. Mr. Dawson had been recommended to the French book which he

named, as containing the fullest and most authentic account of this

mysterious race, the Cagots. I did not think I should like hearing this

paper as much as a story; but, of course, as he meant it kindly, we were

bound to submit, and I found it, on the whole, more interesting than I

anticipated.

AN ACCURSED RACE.

We have our prejudices in England. Or, if that assertion offends any of

my readers, I will modify it: we have had our prejudices in England. We

have tortured Jews; we have burnt Catholics and Protestants, to say

nothing of a few witches and wizards. We have satirised Puritans, and we

have dressed-up Guys. But, after all, I do not think we have been so

bad as our Continental friends. To be sure, our insular position has

kept us free, to a certain degree, from the inroads of alien races; who,

driven from one land of refuge, steal into another equally unwilling to

receive them; and where, for long centuries, their presence is barely

endured, and no pains is taken to conceal the repugnance which the

natives of “pure blood” experience towards them.

There yet remains a remnant of the miserable people called Cagots in the

valleys of the Pyrenées; in the Landes near Bourdeaux; and, stretching

up on the west side of France, their numbers become larger in Lower

Brittany. Even now, the origin of these families is a word of shame to

them among their neighbours; although they are protected by the law,

which confirmed them in the equal rights of citizens about the end of

the last century. Before then they had lived, for hundreds of years,

isolated from all those who boasted of pure blood, and they had been,

all this time, oppressed by cruel local edicts. They were truly what

they were popularly called, The Accursed Race.

All distinct traces of their origin are lost. Even at the close of that

period which we call the Middle Ages, this was a problem which no one

could solve; and as the traces, which even then were faint and

uncertain, have vanished away one by one, it is a complete mystery at

the present day. Why they were accursed in the first instance, why

isolated from their kind, no one knows. From the earliest accounts of

their state that are yet remaining to us, it seems that the names which

they gave each other were ignored by the population they lived amongst,

who spoke of them as Crestiaa, or Cagots, just as we speak of animals by

their generic names. Their houses or huts were always placed at some

distance out of the villages of the country-folk, who unwillingly called

in the services of the Cagots as carpenters, or tilers, or

slaters--trades which seemed appropriated by this unfortunate race--who

were forbidden to occupy land, or to bear arms, the usual occupations

of those times. They had some small right of pasturage on the common

lands, and in the forests: but the number of their cattle and livestock

was strictly limited by the earliest laws relating to the Cagots. They

were forbidden by one act to have more than twenty sheep, a pig, a ram,

and six geese. The pig was to be fattened and killed for winter food;

the fleece of the sheep was to clothe them; but, if the said sheep had

lambs, they were forbidden to eat them. Their only privilege arising

from this increase was, that they might choose out the strongest and

finest in preference to keeping the old sheep. At Martinmas the

authorities of the commune came round, and counted over the stock of

each Cagot. If he had more than his appointed number, they were

forfeited; half went to the commune, and half to the baillie, or chief

magistrate of the commune. The poor beasts were limited as to the amount

of common land which they might stray over in search of grass. While the

cattle of the inhabitants of the commune might wander hither and thither

in search of the sweetest herbage, the deepest shade, or the coolest

pool in which to stand on the hot days, and lazily switch their dappled

sides, the Cagot sheep and pig had to learn imaginary bounds, beyond

which if they strayed, any one might snap them up, and kill them,

reserving a part of the flesh for his own use, but graciously restoring

the inferior parts to their original owner. Any damage done by the sheep

was, however, fairly appraised, and the Cagot paid no more for it than

any other man would have done.

Did a Cagot leave his poor cabin, and venture into the towns, even to

render services required of him in the way of his trade, he was bidden,

by all the municipal laws, to stand by and remember his rude old state.

In all the towns and villages in the large districts extending on both

sides of the Pyrenées--in all that part of Spain--they were forbidden to

buy or sell anything eatable, to walk in the middle (esteemed the

better) part of the streets, to come within the gates before sunrise, or

to be found after sunset within the walls of the town. But still, as the

Cagots were good-looking men, and (although they bore certain natural

marks of their caste, of which I shall speak by-and-by) were not easily

distinguished by casual passers-by from other men, they were compelled

to wear some distinctive peculiarity which should arrest the eye; and,

in the greater number of towns, it was decreed that the outward sign of

a Cagot should be a piece of red cloth sewed conspicuously on the front

of his dress. In other towns, the mark of Cagoterie was the foot of a

duck or a goose hung over their left shoulder, so as to be seen by any

one meeting them. After a time, the more convenient badge of a piece of

yellow cloth cut out in the shape of a duck’s foot, was adopted. If any

Cagot was found in any town or village without his badge, he had to pay

a fine of five sous, and to lose his dress. He was expected to shrink

away from any passer-by, for fear that their clothes should touch each

other; or else to stand still in some corner or by-place. If the Cagots

were thirsty during the days which they passed in those towns where

their presence was barely suffered, they had no means of quenching their

thirst, for they were forbidden to enter into the little cabarets or

taverns. Even the water gushing out of the common fountain was

prohibited to them. Far away, in their own squalid village, there was

the Cagot fountain, and they were not allowed to drink of any other

water. A Cagot woman having to make purchases in the town, was liable to

be flogged out of it if she went to buy anything except on a Monday--a

day on which all other people who could, kept their houses for fear of

coming in contact with the accursed race.

In the Pays Basque, the prejudices--and for some time the laws--ran

stronger against them than any which I have hitherto mentioned. The

Basque Cagot was not allowed to possess sheep. He might keep a pig for

provision, but his pig had no right of pasturage. He might cut and carry

grass for the ass, which was the only other animal he was permitted to

own; and this ass was permitted, because its existence was rather an

advantage to the oppressor, who constantly availed himself of the

Cagot’s mechanical skill, and was glad to have him and his tools easily

conveyed from one place to another.

The race was repulsed by the State. Under the small local governments

they could hold no post whatsoever. And they were barely tolerated by

the Church, although they were good Catholics, and zealous frequenters

of the mass. They might only enter the churches by a small door set

apart for them, through which no one of the pure race ever passed. This

door was low, so as to compel them to make an obeisance. It was

occasionally surrounded by sculpture, which invariably represented an

oak-branch with a dove above it. When they were once in, they might not

go to the holy water used by others. They had a bénitier of their own;

nor were they allowed to share in the consecrated bread when that was

handed round to the believers of the pure race. The Cagots stood afar

off, near the door. There were certain boundaries--imaginary lines--on

the nave and in the aisles which they might not pass. In one or two of

the more tolerant of the Pyrenean villages, the blessed bread was

offered to the Cagots, the priest standing on one side of the boundary,

and giving the pieces of bread on a long wooden fork to each person

successively.

When the Cagot died, he was interred apart, in a plot of burying-ground

on the north side of the cemetery. Under such laws and prescriptions as

I have described, it is no wonder that he was generally too poor to have

much property for his children to inherit; but certain descriptions of

it were forfeited to the commune. The only possession which all who were

not of his own race refused to touch, was his furniture. That was

tainted, infectious, unclean--fit for none but Cagots.

When such were, for at least three centuries, the prevalent usages and

opinions with regard to this oppressed race, it is not surprising that

we read of occasional outbursts of ferocious violence on their part. In

the Basses-Pyrenées, for instance, it is only about a hundred years

since, that the Cagots of Rehouilhes rose up against the inhabitants of

the neighbouring town of Lourdes, and got the better of them, by their

magical powers, as it is said. The people of Lourdes were conquered and

slain, and their ghastly, bloody heads served the triumphant Cagots for

balls to play at ninepins with! The local parliaments had begun, by this

time, to perceive how oppressive was the ban of public opinion under

which the Cagots lay, and were not inclined to enforce too severe a

punishment. Accordingly, the decree of the parliament of Toulouse

condemned only the leading Cagots concerned in this affray to be put to

death, and that henceforward and for ever no Cagot was to be permitted

to enter the town of Lourdes by any gate but that called Capdet-pourtet:

they were only to be allowed to walk under the rain-gutters, and neither

to sit, eat, nor drink in the town. If they failed in observing any of

these rules, the parliament decreed, in the spirit of Shylock, that the

disobedient Cagots should have two strips of flesh, weighing never more

than two ounces a-piece, cut out from each side of their spines.

In the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, it was considered

no more a crime to kill a Cagot than to destroy obnoxious vermin. A

“nest of Cagots,” as the old accounts phrase it, had assembled in a

deserted castle of Mauvezin, about the year sixteen hundred; and,

certainly, they made themselves not very agreeable neighbours, as they

seemed to enjoy their reputation of magicians; and, by some acoustic

secrets which were known to them, all sorts of moanings and groanings

were heard in the neighbouring forests, very much to the alarm of the

good people of the pure race; who could not cut off a withered branch

for firewood, but some unearthly sound seemed to fill the air, nor drink

water which was not poisoned, because the Cagots would persist in

filling their pitchers at the same running stream. Added to these

grievances, the various pilferings perpetually going on in the

neighbourhood made the inhabitants of the adjacent towns and hamlets

believe that they had a very sufficient cause for wishing to murder all

the Cagots in the Château de Mauvezin. But it was surrounded by a moat,

and only accessible by a drawbridge; besides which, the Cagots were

fierce and vigilant. Some one, however, proposed to get into their

confidence; and for this purpose he pretended to fall ill close to their

path, so that on returning to their stronghold they perceived him, and

took him in, restored him to health, and made a friend of him. One day,

when they were all playing at ninepins in the woods, their treacherous

friend left the party on pretence of being thirsty, and went back into

the castle, drawing up the bridge after he had passed over it, and so

cutting off their means of escape into safety. Then, going up to the

highest part of the castle, he blew a horn, and the pure race, who were

lying in wait on the watch for some such signal, fell upon the Cagots at

their games, and slew them all. For this murder I find no punishment

decreed in the parliament of Toulouse, or elsewhere.

As any intermarriage with the pure race was strictly forbidden, and as

there were books kept in every commune in which the names and

habitations of the reputed Cagots were written, these unfortunate people

had no hope of ever becoming blended with the rest of the population.

Did a Cagot marriage take place, the couple were serenaded with

satirical songs. They also had minstrels, and many of their romances are

still current in Brittany; but they did not attempt to make any

reprisals of satire or abuse. Their disposition was amiable, and their

intelligence great. Indeed, it required both these qualities, and their

great love of mechanical labour, to make their lives tolerable.

At last, they began to petition that they might receive some protection

from the laws; and, towards the end of the seventeenth century, the

judicial power took their side. But they gained little by this. Law

could not prevail against custom: and, in the ten or twenty years just

preceding the first French revolution, the prejudice in France against

the Cagots amounted to fierce and positive abhorrence.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Cagots of Navarre

complained to the Pope, that they were excluded from the fellowship of

men, and accursed by the Church, because their ancestors had given help

to a certain Count Raymond of Toulouse in his revolt against the Holy

See. They entreated his holiness not to visit upon them the sins of

their fathers. The Pope issued a bull--on the thirteenth of May,

fifteen hundred and fifteen--ordering them to be well-treated and to be

admitted to the same privileges as other men. He charged Don Juan de

Santa Maria of Pampeluna to see to the execution of this bull. But Don

Juan was slow to help, and the poor Spanish Cagots grew impatient, and

resolved to try the secular power. They accordingly applied to the

cortes of Navarre, and were opposed on a variety of grounds. First, it

was stated that their ancestors had had “nothing to do with Raymond

Count of Toulouse, or with any such knightly personage; that they were

in fact descendants of Gehazi, servant of Elisha (second book of Kings,

fifth chapter, twenty-seventh verse), who had been accursed by his

master for his fraud upon Naaman, and doomed, he and his descendants, to

be lepers for evermore. Name, Cagots or Gahets; Gahets, Gehazites. What

can be more clear? And if that is not enough, and you tell us that the

Cagots are not lepers now; we reply that there are two kinds of leprosy,

one perceptible and the other imperceptible, even to the person

suffering from it. Besides, it is the country talk, that where the Cagot

treads, the grass withers, proving the unnatural heat of his body. Many

credible and trustworthy witnesses will also tell you that, if a Cagot

holds a freshly-gathered apple in his hand, it will shrivel and wither

up in an hour’s time as much as if it had been kept for a whole winter

in a dry room. They are born with tails; although the parents are

cunning enough to pinch them off immediately. Do you doubt this? If it

is not true, why do the children of the pure race delight in sewing on

sheep’s tails to the dress of any Cagot who is so absorbed in his work

as not to perceive them? And their bodily smell is so horrible and

detestable that it shows that they must be heretics of some vile and

pernicious description, for do we not read of the incense of good

workers, and the fragrance of holiness?”

Such were literally the arguments by which the Cagots were thrown back

into a worse position than ever, as far as regarded their rights as

citizens. The Pope insisted that they should receive all their

ecclesiastical privileges. The Spanish priests said nothing; but tacitly

refused to allow the Cagots to mingle with the rest of the faithful,

either dead or alive. The accursed race obtained laws in their favour

from the Emperor Charles the Fifth; which, however, there was no one to

carry into effect. As a sort of revenge for their want of submission,

and for their impertinence in daring to complain, their tools were all

taken away from them by the local authorities: an old man and all his

family died of starvation, being no longer allowed to fish.

They could not emigrate. Even to remove their poor mud habitations, from

one spot to another, excited anger and suspicion. To be sure, in sixteen

hundred and ninety-five, the Spanish government ordered the alcaldes to

search out all the Cagots, and to expel them before two months had

expired, under pain of having fifty ducats to pay for every Cagot

remaining in Spain at the expiration of that time. The inhabitants of

the villages rose up and flogged out any of the miserable race who might

be in their neighbourhood; but the French were on their guard against

this enforced irruption, and refused to permit them to enter France.

Numbers were hunted up into the inhospitable Pyrenées, and there died of

starvation, or became a prey to wild beasts. They were obliged to wear

both gloves and shoes when they were thus put to flight, otherwise the

stones and herbage they trod upon, and the balustrades of the bridges

that they handled in crossing, would, according to popular belief, have

become poisonous.

And all this time, there was nothing remarkable or disgusting in the

outward appearance of this unfortunate people. There was nothing about

them to countenance the idea of their being lepers--the most natural

mode of accounting for the abhorrence in which they were held. They were

repeatedly examined by learned doctors, whose experiments, although

singular and rude, appear to have been made in a spirit of humanity. For

instance, the surgeons of the king of Navarre, in sixteen hundred, bled

twenty-two Cagots, in order to examine and analyse their blood. They

were young and healthy people of both sexes; and the doctors seem to

have expected that they should have been able to extract some new kind

of salt from their blood which might account for the wonderful heat of

their bodies. But their blood was just like that of other people. Some

of these medical men have left us a description of the general

appearance of this unfortunate race, at a time when they were more

numerous and less intermixed than they are now. The families existing in

the south and west of France, who are reputed to be of Cagot descent at

this day, are, like their ancestors, tall, largely made, and powerful in

frame; fair and ruddy in complexion, with gray-blue eyes, in which some

observers see a pensive heaviness of look. Their lips are thick, but

well-formed. Some of the reports name their sad expression of

countenance with surprise and suspicion--“They are not gay, like other

folk.” The wonder would be if they were. Dr. Guyon, the medical man of

the last century who has left the clearest report on the health of the

Cagots, speaks of the vigorous old age they attain to. In one family

alone, he found a man of seventy-four years of age; a woman as old,

gathering cherries; and another woman, aged eighty-three, was lying on

the grass, having her hair combed by her great-grandchildren. Dr. Guyon

and other surgeons examined into the subject of the horribly infectious

smell which the Cagots were said to leave behind them, and upon

everything they touched; but they could perceive nothing unusual on this

head. They also examined their ears, which, according to common belief

(a belief existing to this day), were differently shaped from those of

other people; being round and gristly, without the lobe of flesh into

which the earring is inserted. They decided that most of the Cagots whom

they examined had the ears of this round shape; but they gravely added,

that they saw no reason why this should exclude them from the good-will

of men, and from the power of holding office in Church and State. They

recorded the fact, that the children of the towns ran baaing after any

Cagot who had been compelled to come into the streets to make purchases,

in allusion to this peculiarity of the shape of the ear, which bore some

resemblance to the ears of the sheep as they are cut by the shepherds in

this district. Dr. Guyon names the case of a beautiful Cagot girl, who

sang most sweetly, and prayed to be allowed to sing canticles in the

organ-loft. The organist, more musician than bigot, allowed her to come;

but the indignant congregation, finding out whence proceeded that clear,

fresh voice, rushed up to the organ-loft, and chased the girl out,

bidding her “remember her ears,” and not commit the sacrilege of

singing praises to God along with the pure race.

But this medical report of Dr. Guyon’s--bringing facts and arguments to

confirm his opinion, that there was no physical reason why the Cagots

should not be received on terms of social equality by the rest of the

world--did no more for his clients than the legal decrees promulgated

two centuries before had done. The French proved the truth of the saying

in Hudibras,

He that’s convinced against his will

Is of the same opinion still.

And, indeed, the being convinced by Dr. Guyon that they ought to receive

Cagots as fellow-creatures, only made them more rabid in declaring that

they would not. One or two little occurrences which are recorded, show

that the bitterness of the repugnance to the Cagots was in full force at

the time just preceding the first French revolution. There was a M.

d’Abedos, the curate of Lourbes, and brother to the seigneur of the

neighbouring castle, who was living in seventeen hundred and eighty; he

was well-educated for the time, a travelled man, and sensible and

moderate in all respects but that of his abhorrence of the Cagots: he

would insult them from the very altar, calling out to them, as they

stood afar off, “Oh! ye Cagots, damned for evermore!” One day, a

half-blind Cagot stumbled and touched the censer borne before this Abbé

de Lourbes. He was immediately turned out of the church, and forbidden

ever to re-enter it. One does not know how to account for the fact, that

the very brother of this bigoted abbé, the seigneur of the village, went

and married a Cagot girl; but so it was, and the abbé brought a legal

process against him, and had his estates taken from him, solely on

account of his marriage, which reduced him to the condition of a Cagot,

against whom the old law was still in force. The descendants of this

Seigneur de Lourbes are simple peasants at this very day, working on the

lands which belonged to their grandfather.

This prejudice against mixed marriages remained prevalent until very

lately. The tradition of the Cagot descent lingered among the people,

long after the laws against the accursed race were abolished. A Breton

girl, within the last few years, having two lovers each of reputed Cagot

descent, employed a notary to examine their pedigrees, and see which of

the two had least Cagot in him; and to that one she gave her hand. In

Brittany the prejudice seems to have been more virulent than anywhere

else. M. Emile Souvestre records proofs of the hatred borne to them in

Brittany so recently as in eighteen hundred and thirty-five. Just lately

a baker at Hennebon, having married a girl of Cagot descent, lost all

his custom. The godfather and godmother of a Cagot child became Cagots

themselves by the Breton laws, unless, indeed, the poor little baby died

before attaining a certain number of days. They had to eat the butchers’

meat condemned as unhealthy; but, for some unknown reason, they were

considered to have a right to every cut loaf turned upside down, with

its cut side towards the door, and might enter any house in which they

saw a loaf in this position, and carry it away with them. About thirty

years ago, there was the skeleton of a hand hanging up as an offering in

a Breton Church near Quimperle, and the tradition was, that it was the

hand of a rich Cagot who had dared to take holy water out of the usual

bénitier, some time at the beginning of the reign of Louis the

Sixteenth; which an old soldier witnessing, he lay in wait, and the next

time the offender approached the bénitier he cut off his hand, and hung

it up, dripping with blood, as an offering to the patron saint of the

church. The poor Cagots in Brittany petitioned against their opprobrious

name, and begged to be distinguished by the appellation of Malandrins.

To English ears one is much the same as the other, as neither conveys

any meaning; but, to this day, the descendants of the Cagots do not like

to have this name applied to them, preferring that of Malandrin.

The French Cagots tried to destroy all the records of their pariah

descent, in the commotions of seventeen hundred and eighty-nine; but if

writings have disappeared, the tradition yet remains, and points out

such and such a family as Cagot, or Malandrin, or Oiselier, according to

the old terms of abhorrence.

There are various ways in which learned men have attempted to account

for the universal repugnance in which this well-made, powerful race are

held. Some say that the antipathy to them took its rise in the days when

leprosy was a dreadfully prevalent disease; and that the Cagots are more

liable than any other men to a kind of skin disease, not precisely

leprosy, but resembling it in some of its symptoms; such as dead

whiteness of complexion, and swellings of the face and extremities.

There was also some resemblance to the ancient Jewish custom in respect

to lepers, in the habit of the people; who, on meeting a Cagot, called

out, “Cagote? Cagote?” to which they were bound to reply, “Perlute!

perlute!” Leprosy is not properly an infectious complaint, in spite of

the horror in which the Cagot furniture, and the cloth woven by them,

are held in some places; the disorder is hereditary, and hence (say this

body of wise men, who have troubled themselves to account for the origin

of Cagoterie) the reasonableness and the justice of preventing any mixed

marriages, by which this terrible tendency to leprous complaints might

be spread far and wide. Another authority says, that though the Cagots

are fine-looking men, hard-working, and good mechanics, yet they bear in

their faces, and show in their actions, reasons for the detestation in

which they are held: their glance, if you meet it, is the jettatura, or

evil-eye, and they are spiteful, and cruel, and deceitful above all

other men. All these qualities they derive from their ancestor Gehazi,

the servant of Elisha, together with their tendency to leprosy.

Again, it is said that they are descended from the Arian Goths, who were

permitted to live in certain places in Guienne and Languedoc, after

their defeat by King Clovis, on condition that they abjured their

heresy, and kept themselves separate from all other men for ever. The

principal reason alleged in support of this supposition of their Gothic

descent, is the specious one of derivation,--Chiens Gots, Cans Gots,

Cagots, equivalent to Dogs of Goths.

Again, they were thought to be Saracens, coming from Syria. In

confirmation of this idea, was the belief that all Cagots were possessed

by a horrible smell. The Lombards, also, were an unfragrant race, or so

reputed among the Italians: witness Pope Stephen’s letter to

Charlemagne, dissuading him from marrying Bertha, daughter of Didier,

King of Lombardy. The Lombards boasted of Eastern descent, and were

noisome. The Cagots were noisome, and therefore must be of Eastern

descent. What could be clearer? In addition, there was the proof to be

derived from the name Cagot, which those maintaining the opinion of

their Saracen descent held to be Chiens, or Chasseurs des Gots, because

the Saracens chased the Goths out of Spain. Moreover, the Saracens were

originally Mahometans, and as such obliged to bathe seven times a-day:

whence the badge of the duck’s foot. A duck was a water-bird: Mahometans

bathed in the water. Proof upon proof!

In Brittany the common idea was, they were of Jewish descent. Their

unpleasant smell was again pressed into the service. The Jews, it was

well known, had this physical infirmity, which might be cured either by

bathing in a certain fountain in Egypt--which was a long way from

Brittany--or by anointing themselves with the blood of a Christian

child. Blood gushed out of the body of every Cagot on Good Friday. No

wonder, if they were of Jewish descent. It was the only way of

accounting for so portentous a fact. Again; the Cagots were capital

carpenters, which gave the Bretons every reason to believe that their

ancestors were the very Jews who made the cross. When first the tide of

emigration set from Brittany to America, the oppressed Cagots crowded to

the ports, seeking to go to some new country, where their race might be

unknown. Here was another proof of their descent from Abraham and his

nomadic people; and, the forty years’ wandering in the wilderness and

the Wandering Jew himself, were pressed into the service to prove that

the Cagots derived their restlessness and love of change from their

ancestors, the Jews. The Jews, also, practised arts-magic, and the

Cagots sold bags of wind to the Breton sailors, enchanted maidens to

love them--maidens who never would have cared for them, unless they had

been previously enchanted--made hollow rocks and trees give out strange

and unearthly noises, and sold the magical herb called bon-succès. It is

true enough that, in all the early acts of the fourteenth century, the

same laws apply to Jews as to Cagots, and the appellations seem used

indiscriminately; but their fair complexions, their remarkable devotion

to all the ceremonies of the Catholic Church, and many other

circumstances, conspire to forbid our believing them to be of Hebrew

descent.

Another very plausible idea is, that they are the descendants of

unfortunate individuals afflicted with goîtres, which is, even to this

day, not an uncommon disorder in the gorges and valleys of the Pyrenées.

Some have even derived the word goître from Got, or Goth; but their

name, Crestiaa, is not unlike Cretin, and the same symptoms of idiotism

were not unusual among the Cagots; although sometimes, if old tradition

is to be credited, their malady of the brain took rather the form of

violent delirium, which attacked them at new and full moons. Then the

workmen laid down their tools, and rushed off from their labour to play

mad pranks up and down the country. Perpetual motion was required to

alleviate the agony of fury that seized upon the Cagots at such times.

In this desire for rapid movement, the attack resembled the Neapolitan

tarantella; while in the mad deeds they performed during such attacks,

they were not unlike the northern Berserker. In Béarn especially, those

suffering from this madness were dreaded by the pure race; the Béarnais,

going to cut their wooden clogs in the great forests that lay around the

base of the Pyrenées, feared above all things to go too near the periods

when the Cagoutelle seized on the oppressed and accursed people; from

whom it was then the oppressors’ turn to fly. A man was living within

the memory of some, who had married a Cagot wife; he used to beat her

right soundly when he saw the first symptoms of the Cagoutelle, and,

having reduced her to a wholesome state of exhaustion and insensibility,

he locked her up until the moon had altered her shape in the heavens. If

he had not taken such decided steps, say the oldest inhabitants, there

is no knowing what might have happened.

From the thirteenth to the end of the nineteenth century, there are

facts enough to prove the universal abhorrence in which this unfortunate

race was held; whether called Cagots, or Gahets in Pyrenean districts,

Caqueaux in Brittany, or Vaqueros in Asturias. The great French

revolution brought some good out of its fermentation of the people: the

more intelligent among them tried to overcome the prejudice against the

Cagots.

In seventeen hundred and eighteen, there was a famous cause tried at

Biarritz relating to Cagot rights and privileges. There was a wealthy

miller, Etienne Arnauld by name, of the race of Gotz, Quagotz, Bisigotz,

Astragotz, or Gahetz, as his people are described in the legal document.

He married an heiress a Gotte (or Cagot) of Biarritz; and the

newly-married, well-to-do couple saw no reason why they should stand

near the door in the church, nor why he should not hold some civil

office in the commune, of which he was the principal inhabitant.

Accordingly, he petitioned the law that he and his wife might be allowed

to sit in the gallery of the church, and that he might be relieved from

his civil disabilities. This wealthy white miller, Etienne Arnauld,

pursued his rights with some vigour against the Baillie of Labourd, the

dignitary of the neighbourhood. Whereupon the inhabitants of Biarritz

met in the open air, on the eighth of May, to the number of one hundred

and fifty; approved of the conduct of the Baillie in rejecting Arnauld,

made a subscription, and gave all power to their lawyers to defend the

cause of the pure race against Etienne Arnauld--“that stranger,” who,

having married a girl of Cagot blood, ought also to be expelled from the

holy places. This lawsuit was carried through all the local courts, and

ended by an appeal to the highest court in Paris; where a decision was

given against Basque superstitions; and Etienne Arnauld was

thenceforward entitled to enter the gallery of the church.

Of course, the inhabitants of Biarritz were all the more ferocious for

having been conquered; and, four years later, a carpenter, Miguel

Legaret, suspected of Cagot descent, having placed himself in church

among other people, was dragged out by the abbé and two of the jurats of

the parish. Legaret defended himself with a sharp knife at the time, and

went to law afterwards; the end of which was, that the abbé and his two

accomplices were condemned to a public confession of penitence, to be

uttered while on their knees at the church door, just after high-mass.

They appealed to the parliament of Bourdeaux against this decision, but

met with no better success than the opponents of the miller Arnauld.

Legaret was confirmed in his right of standing where he would in the

parish church. That a living Cagot had equal rights with other men in

the town of Biarritz seemed now ceded to them; but a dead Cagot was a

different thing. The inhabitants of pure blood struggled long and hard

to be interred apart from the abhorred race. The Cagots were equally

persistent in claiming to have a common burying-ground. Again the texts

of the old Testament were referred to, and the pure blood quoted

triumphantly the precedent of Uzziah the leper (twenty-sixth chapter of

the second book of Chronicles), who was buried in the field of the

Sepulchres of the Kings, not in the sepulchres themselves. The Cagots

pleaded that they were healthy and able-bodied; with no taint of leprosy

near them. They were met by the strong argument so difficult to be

refuted, which I have quoted before. Leprosy was of two kinds,

perceptible and imperceptible. If the Cagots were suffering from the

latter kind, who could tell whether they were free from it or not? That

decision must be left to the judgment of others.

One sturdy Cagot family alone, Belone by name, kept up a lawsuit,

claiming the privilege of common sepulture, for forty-two years;

although the curé of Biarritz had to pay one hundred livres for every

Cagot not interred in the right place. The inhabitants indemnified the

curate for all these fines.

M. de Romagne, Bishop of Tarbes, who died in seventeen hundred and

sixty-eight, was the first to allow a Cagot to fill any office in the

Church. To be sure, some were so spiritless as to reject office when it

was offered to them, because, by so claiming their equality, they had to

pay the same taxes as other men, instead of the Rancale or poll-tax

levied on the Cagots; the collector of which had also a right to claim a

piece of bread of a certain size for his dog at every Cagot dwelling.

Even in the present century, it has been necessary in some churches for

the archdeacon of the district, followed by all his clergy, to pass out

of the small door previously appropriated to the Cagots, in order to

mitigate the superstition which, even so lately, made the people refuse

to mingle with them in the house of God. A Cagot once played the

congregation at Larroque a trick suggested by what I have just named. He

slily locked the great parish-door of the church, while the greater part

of the inhabitants were assisting at mass inside; put gravel into the

lock itself, so as to prevent the use of any duplicate key,--and had the

pleasure of seeing the proud pure-blooded people file out with bended

head, through the small low door used by the abhorred Cagots.

We are naturally shocked at discovering, from facts such as these, the

causeless rancour with which innocent and industrious people were so

recently persecuted. The moral of the history of the accursed race may,

perhaps, be best conveyed in the words of an epitaph on Mrs. Mary Hand,

who lies buried in the churchyard of Stratford-on-Avon.

What faults you saw in me,

Pray strive to shun;

And look at home: there’s

Something to be done.

For some time past I had observed that Miss Duncan made a good deal of

occupation for herself in writing, but that she did not like me to

notice her employment. Of course, this made me all the more curious; and

many were my silent conjectures--some of them so near the truth that I

was not much surprised when, after Mr. Dawson had finished reading his

Paper to us, she hesitated, coughed, and abruptly introduced a little

formal speech, to the effect that she had noted down an old Welsh story,

the particulars of which had often been told her in her youth, as she

lived close to the place where the events occurred. Everybody pressed

her to read the manuscript, which she now produced from her reticule;

but, when on the point of beginning, her nervousness seemed to overcome

her, and she made so many apologies for its being the first and only

attempt she had ever made at that kind of composition, that I began to

wonder if we should ever arrive at the story at all. At length, in a

high-pitched, ill-assured voice, she read out the title:

“THE DOOM OF THE GRIFFITHS.”

THE DOOM OF THE GRIFFITHS.

CHAPTER I.

I have always been much interested by the traditions which are scattered

up and down North Wales relating to Owen Glendower (Owain Glendwr is the

national spelling of the name), and I fully enter into the feeling which

makes the Welsh peasant still look upon him as the hero of his country.

There was great joy among many of the inhabitants of the principality,

when the subject of the Welsh prize poem at Oxford, some fifteen or

sixteen years ago, was announced to be “Owain Glendwr.” It was the most

proudly national subject that had been given for years.

Perhaps, some may not be aware that this redoubted chieftain is, even in

the present days of enlightenment, as famous among his illiterate

countrymen for his magical powers as for his patriotism. He says

himself--or Shakspeare says it for him, which is much the same thing--

‘At my nativity

The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes

Of burning cressets.....

.... I can call spirits from the vasty deep.’

And few among the lower orders in the principality would think of

asking Hotspur’s irreverent question in reply.

Among other traditions preserved relative to this part of the Welsh

hero’s character, is the old family prophecy which gives a title to this

tale. When Sir David Gam, “as black a traitor as if he had been born in

Builth,” sought to murder Owen at Machynlleth, there was one with him

whose name Glendwr little dreamed of having associated with his enemies.

Rhys ap Gryfydd, his “old familiar friend,” his relation, his more than

brother, had consented unto his blood. Sir David Gam might be forgiven,

but one whom he had loved, and who had betrayed him, could never be

forgiven. Glendwr was too deeply read in the human heart to kill him.

No, he let him live on, the loathing and scorn of his compatriots, and

the victim of bitter remorse. The mark of Cain was upon him.

But before he went forth--while yet he stood a prisoner, cowering

beneath his conscience before Owain Glendwr--that chieftain passed a

doom upon him and his race:

“I doom thee to live, because I know thou wilt pray for death. Thou

shalt live on beyond the natural term of the life of man, the scorn of

all good men. The very children shall point to thee with hissing tongue,

and say, ‘There goes one who would have shed a brother’s blood!’ For I

loved thee more than a brother, oh Rhys ap Gryfydd! Thou shalt live on

to see all of thy house, except the weakling in arms, perish by the

sword. Thy race shall be accursed. Each generation shall see their lands

melt away like snow; yea, their wealth shall vanish, though they may

labour night and day to heap up gold. And when nine generations have

passed from the face of the earth, thy blood shall no longer flow in the

veins of any human being. In those days the last male of thy race shall

avenge me. The son shall slay the father.”

Such was the traditionary account of Owain Glendwr’s speech to his

once-trusted friend. And it was declared that the doom had been

fulfilled in all things; that, live in as miserly a manner as they

would, the Griffiths never were wealthy and prosperous--indeed, that

their worldly stock diminished without any visible cause.

But the lapse of many years had almost deadened the wonder-inspiring

power of the whole curse. It was only brought forth from the hoards of

Memory when some untoward event happened to the Griffiths family; and in

the eighth generation the faith in the prophecy was nearly destroyed, by

the marriage of the Griffiths of that day, to a Miss Owen, who,

unexpectedly, by the death of a brother, became an heiress--to no

considerable amount, to be sure, but enough to make the prophecy appear

reversed. The heiress and her husband removed from his small patrimonial

estate in Merionethshire, to her heritage in Caenarvonshire, and for a

time the prophecy lay dormant.

If you go from Tremadoc to Criccaeth you pass by the parochial church of

Ynysynhanarn, situated in a boggy valley running from the mountains,

which shoulder up to the Rivals, down to Cardigan Bay. This tract of

land has every appearance of having been redeemed at no distant period

of time from the sea, and has all the desolate rankness often attendant

upon such marshes. But the valley beyond, similar in character, had yet

more of gloom at the time of which I write. In the higher part there

were large plantations of firs, set too closely to attain to any size,

and remaining stunted in height and scrubby in appearance. Indeed, many

of the smaller and more weakly had died, and the bark had fallen down on

the brown soil neglected and unnoticed. These trees had a ghastly

appearance, with their white trunks, seen by the dim light which

struggled through the thick boughs above. Nearer to the sea, the valley

assumed a more open, though hardly a more cheerful character; it looked

dank and overhung by sea-fog through the greater part of the year, and

even a farm-house, which usually imparts something of cheerfulness to a

landscape, failed to do so here. This valley formed the greater part of

the estate to which Owen Griffiths became entitled by right of his wife.

In the higher part of the valley was situated the family mansion, or

rather dwelling-house, for “mansion,” is too grand a word to apply to

the clumsy, but substantially-built Bodowen. It was square and

heavy-looking, with just that much pretension to ornament necessary to

distinguish it from the mere farm-house.

In this dwelling Mrs. Owen Griffiths bore her husband two

sons--Llewellyn, the future Squire, and Robert, who was early destined

for the Church. The only difference in their situation, up to the time

when Robert was entered at Jesus College, was that the elder was

invariably indulged by all around him, while Robert was thwarted and

indulged by turns; that Llewellyn never learned anything from the poor

Welsh parson who was nominally his private tutor; while occasionally

Squire Griffiths made a great point of enforcing Robert’s diligence,

telling him that, as he had his bread to earn, he must pay attention to

his learning. There is no knowing how far the very irregular education

he had received would have carried Robert through his college

examinations; but, luckily for him in this respect, before such a trial

of his learning came round, he heard of the death of his elder brother,

after a short illness, brought on by a hard-drinking bout. Of course,

Robert was summoned home, and it seemed quite as much of course, now

that there was no necessity for him to “earn his bread by his learning,”

that he should not return to Oxford. So the half-educated, but not

unintelligent, young man continued at home, during the short remainder

of his parent’s life-time.

His was not an uncommon character. In general he was mild, indolent, and

easily managed; but once thoroughly roused, his passions were vehement

and fearful. He seemed, indeed, almost afraid of himself, and in common

hardly dared to give way to justifiable anger--so much did he dread

losing his self-control. Had he been judiciously educated, he would,

probably, have distinguished himself in those branches of literature

which call for taste and imagination, rather than any exertion of

reflection or judgment. As it was, his literary taste showed itself in

making collections of Cambrian antiquities of every description, till

his stock of Welsh MSS. would have excited the envy of Dr. Pugh himself,

had he been alive at the time of which I write.

There is one characteristic of Robert Griffiths which I have omitted to

note, and which was peculiar among his class. He was no hard drinker;

whether it was that his head was very easily affected, or that his

partially-refined taste led him to dislike intoxication and its

attendant circumstances, I cannot say; but at five-and-twenty Robert

Griffiths was habitually sober--a thing so rare in Llyn, that he was

almost shunned as a churlish, unsocial being, and passed much of his

time in solitude.

About this time, he had to appear in some case that was tried at the

Caernarvon assizes; and while there, was a guest at the house of his

agent, a shrewd, sensible Welsh attorney, with one daughter, who had

charms enough to captivate Robert Griffiths. Though he remained only a

few days at her father’s house, they were sufficient to decide his

affections, and short was the period allowed to elapse before he brought

home a mistress to Bodowen. The new Mrs. Griffiths was a gentle,

yielding person, full of love toward her husband, of whom, nevertheless,

she stood something in awe, partly arising from the difference in their

ages, partly from his devoting much time to studies of which she could

understand nothing.

She soon made him the father of a blooming little daughter, called

Augharad after her mother. Then there came several uneventful years in

the household of Bodowen; and when the old women had one and all

declared that the cradle would not rock again, Mrs. Griffiths bore the

son and heir. His birth was soon followed by his mother’s death: she had

been ailing and low-spirited during her pregnancy, and she seemed to

lack the buoyancy of body and mind requisite to bring her round after

her time of trial. Her husband, who loved her all the more from having

few other claims on his affections, was deeply grieved by her early

death, and his only comforter was the sweet little boy whom she had left

behind. That part of the Squire’s character, which was so tender, and

almost feminine, seemed called forth by the helpless situation of the

little infant, who stretched out his arms to his father with the same

earnest cooing that happier children make use of to their mother alone.

Augharad was almost neglected, while the little Owen was king of the

house; still, next to his father, none tended him so lovingly as his

sister. She was so accustomed to give way to him that it was no longer a

hardship. By night and by day Owen was the constant companion of his

father, and increasing years seemed only to confirm the custom. It was

an unnatural life for the child, seeing no bright little faces peering

into his own (for Augharad was, as I said before, five or six years

older, and her face, poor motherless girl, was often anything but

bright), hearing no din of clear ringing voices, but day after day

sharing the otherwise solitary hours of his father, whether in the dim

room, surrounded by wizard-like antiquities, or pattering his little

feet to keep up with his “tada” in his mountain rambles or shooting

excursions. When the pair came to some little foaming brook, where the

stepping-stones were far and wide, the father carried his little boy

across with the tenderest care; when the lad was weary, they rested, he

cradled in his father’s arms, or the Squire would lift him up and carry

him to his home again. The boy was indulged (for his father felt

flattered by the desire) in his wish of sharing his meals and keeping

the same hours. All this indulgence did not render Owen unamiable, but

it made him wilful, and not a happy child. He had a thoughtful look, not

common to the face of a young boy. He knew no games, no merry sports;

his information was of an imaginative and speculative character. His

father delighted to interest him in his own studies, without considering

how far they were healthy for so young a mind.

Of course Squire Griffiths was not unaware of the prophecy which was to

be fulfilled in his generation. He would occasionally refer to it when

among his friends, with sceptical levity; but in truth it lay nearer to

his heart than he chose to acknowledge. His strong imagination rendered

him peculiarly impressible on such subjects; while his judgment, seldom

exercised or fortified by severe thought, could not prevent his

continually recurring to it. He used to gaze on the half-sad countenance

of the child, who sat looking up into his face with his large dark eyes,

so fondly yet so inquiringly, till the old legend swelled around his

heart, and became too painful for him not to require sympathy. Besides,

the overpowering love he bore to the child seemed to demand fuller vent

than tender words; it made him like, yet dread, to upbraid its object

for the fearful contrast foretold. Still Squire Griffiths told the

legend, in a half-jesting manner, to his little son, when they were

roaming over the wild heaths in the autumn days, “the saddest of the

year,” or while they sat in the oak-wainscoted room, surrounded by

mysterious relics that gleamed strangely forth by the flickering

fire-light. The legend was wrought into the boy’s mind, and he would

crave, yet tremble to hear it told over and over again, while the words

were intermingled with caresses and questions as to his love.

Occasionally his loving words and actions were cut short by his

father’s light yet bitter speech--“Get thee away, my lad; thou knowest

what is to come of all this love.”

When Augharad was seventeen, and Owen eleven or twelve, the rector of

the parish in which Bodowen was situated, endeavoured to prevail on

Squire Griffiths to send the boy to school. Now, this rector had many

congenial tastes with his parishioner, and was his only intimate; and,

by repeated arguments, he succeeded in convincing the Squire that the

unnatural life Owen was leading was in every way injurious. Unwillingly

was the father wrought to part from his son; but he did at length send

him to the Grammar School at Bangor, then under the management of an

excellent classic. Here Owen showed that he had more talents than the

rector had given him credit for, when he affirmed that the lad had been

completely stupified by the life he led at Bodowen. He bade fair to do

credit to the school in the peculiar branch of learning for which it was

famous. But he was not popular among his schoolfellows. He was wayward,

though, to a certain degree, generous and unselfish; he was reserved

but gentle, except when the tremendous bursts of passion (similar in

character to those of his father) forced their way.

On his return from school one Christmas time, when he had been a year or

so at Bangor, he was stunned by hearing that the undervalued Augharad

was about to be married to a gentleman of South Wales, residing near

Aberystwith. Boys seldom appreciate their sisters; but Owen thought of

the many slights with which he had requited the patient Augharad, and he

gave way to bitter regrets, which, with a selfish want of control over

his words, he kept expressing to his father, until the Squire was

thoroughly hurt and chagrined at the repeated exclamations of “What

shall we do when Augharad is gone?” “How dull we shall be when Augharad

is married!” Owen’s holidays were prolonged a few weeks, in order that

he might be present at the wedding; and when all the festivities were

over, and the bride and bridegroom had left Bodowen, the boy and his

father really felt how much they missed the quiet, loving Augharad. She

had performed so many thoughtful, noiseless little offices, on which

their daily comfort depended; and now she was gone, the household seemed

to miss the spirit that peacefully kept it in order; the servants roamed

about in search of commands and directions, the rooms had no longer the

unobtrusive ordering of taste to make them cheerful, the very fires

burned dim, and were always sinking down into dull heaps of gray ashes.

Altogether Owen did not regret his return to Bangor, and this also the

mortified parent perceived. Squire Griffiths was a selfish parent.

Letters in those days were a rare occurrence. Owen usually received one

during his half-yearly absences from home, and occasionally his father

paid him a visit. This half-year the boy had no visit, nor even a

letter, till very near the time of his leaving school, and then he was

astounded by the intelligence that his father was married again.

Then came one of his paroxysms of rage; the more disastrous in its

effects upon his character because it could find no vent in action.

Independently of the slight to the memory of the first wife, which

children are so apt to fancy such an action implies, Owen had hitherto

considered himself (and with justice) the first object of his father’s

life. They had been so much to each other; and now a shapeless, but too

real something had come between him and his father there for ever. He

felt as if his permission should have been asked, as if he should have

been consulted. Certainly he ought to have been told of the intended

event. So the Squire felt, and hence his constrained letter, which had

so much increased the bitterness of Owen’s feelings.

With all this anger, when Owen saw his stepmother, he thought he had

never seen so beautiful a woman for her age; for she was no longer in

the bloom of youth, being a widow when his father married her. Her

manners, to the Welsh lad, who had seen little of female grace among the

families of the few antiquarians with whom his father visited, were so

fascinating that he watched her with a sort of breathless admiration.

Her measured grace, her faultless movements, her tones of voice, sweet,

till the ear was sated with their sweetness, made Owen less angry at his

father’s marriage. Yet he felt, more than ever, that the cloud was

between him and his father; that the hasty letter he had sent in answer

to the announcement of his wedding was not forgotten, although no

allusion was ever made to it. He was no longer his father’s

confidant--hardly ever his father’s companion, for the newly-married

wife was all in all to the Squire, and his son felt himself almost a

cipher, where he had so long been everything. The lady herself had ever

the softest consideration for her stepson; almost too obtrusive was the

attention paid to his wishes, but still he fancied that the heart had no

part in the winning advances. There was a watchful glance of the eye

that Owen once or twice caught when she had imagined herself unobserved,

and many other nameless little circumstances, that gave him a strong

feeling of want of sincerity in his stepmother. Mrs. Owen brought with

her into the family her little child by her first husband, a boy nearly

three years old. He was one of those elfish, observant, mocking

children, over whose feelings you seem to have no control: agile and

mischievous, his little practical jokes, at first performed in ignorance

of the pain he gave, but afterward proceeding to a malicious pleasure in

suffering, really seemed to afford some ground to the superstitious

notion of some of the common people that he was a fairy changeling.

Years passed on; and as Owen grew older he became more observant. He

saw, even in his occasional visits at home (for from school he had

passed on to college), that a great change had taken place in the

outward manifestations of his father’s character; and, by degrees, Owen

traced this change to the influence of his stepmother; so slight, so

imperceptible to the common observer, yet so resistless in its effects.

Squire Griffiths caught up his wife’s humbly advanced opinions, and,

unawares to himself, adopted them as his own, defying all argument and

opposition. It was the same with her wishes; they met with their

fulfilment, from the extreme and delicate art with which she insinuated

them into her husband’s mind, as his own. She sacrificed the show of

authority for the power. At last, when Owen perceived some oppressive

act in his father’s conduct toward his dependants, or some

unaccountable thwarting of his own wishes, he fancied he saw his

stepmother’s secret influence thus displayed, however much she might

regret the injustice of his father’s actions in her conversations with

him when they were alone. His father was fast losing his temperate

habits, and frequent intoxication soon took its usual effect upon the

temper. Yet even here was the spell of his wife upon him. Before her he

placed a restraint upon his passion, yet she was perfectly aware of his

irritable disposition, and directed it hither and thither with the same

apparent ignorance of the tendency of her words.

Meanwhile Owen’s situation became peculiarly mortifying to a youth whose

early remembrances afforded such a contrast to his present state. As a

child, he had been elevated to the consequence of a man before his years

gave any mental check to the selfishness which such conduct was likely

to engender; he could remember when his will was law to the servants and

dependants, and his sympathy necessary to his father: now he was as a

cipher in his father’s house; and the Squire, estranged in the first

instance by a feeling of the injury he had done his son in not sooner

acquainting him with his purposed marriage, seemed rather to avoid than

to seek him as a companion, and too frequently showed the most utter

indifference to the feelings and wishes which a young man of a high and

independent spirit might be supposed to indulge.

Perhaps Owen was not fully aware of the force of all these

circumstances; for an actor in a family drama is seldom unimpassioned

enough to be perfectly observant. But he became moody and soured;

brooding over his unloved existence, and craving with a human heart

after sympathy.

This feeling took more full possession of his mind when he had left

college, and returned home to lead an idle and purposeless life. As the

heir, there was no worldly necessity for exertion: his father was too

much of a Welsh squire to dream of the moral necessity, and he himself

had not sufficient strength of mind to decide at once upon abandoning a

place and mode of life which abounded in daily mortifications; yet to

this course his judgment was slowly tending, when some circumstances

occurred to detain him at Bodowen.

It was not to be expected that harmony would long be preserved, even in

appearance, between an unguarded and soured young man, such as Owen, and

his wary stepmother, when he had once left college, and come, not as a

visitor, but as the heir to his father’s house. Some cause of difference

occurred, where the woman subdued her hidden anger sufficiently to

become convinced that Owen was not entirely the dupe she had believed

him to be. Henceforward there was no peace between them. Not in vulgar

altercations did this show itself; but in moody reserve on Owen’s part,

and in undisguised and contemptuous pursuance of her own plans by his

stepmother. Bodowen was no longer a place where, if Owen was not loved

or attended to, he could at least find peace, and care for himself: he

was thwarted at every step, and in every wish, by his father’s desire

apparently, while the wife sat by with a smile of triumph on her

beautiful lips.

So Owen went forth at the early day dawn, sometimes roaming about on

the shore or the upland, shooting or fishing, as the season might be,

but oftener “stretched in indolent repose” on the short, sweet grass,

indulging in gloomy and morbid reveries. He would fancy that this

mortified state of existence was a dream, a horrible dream, from which

he should awake and find himself again the sole object and darling of

his father. And then he would start up and strive to shake off the

incubus. There was the molten sunset of his childish memory; the

gorgeous crimson piles of glory in the west, fading away into the cold,

calm light of the rising moon, while here and there a cloud floated

across the western heaven, like a seraph’s wing, in its flaming beauty;

the earth was the same as in his childhood’s days, full of gentle

evening sounds, and the harmonies of twilight--the breeze came sweeping

low over the heather and blue-bells by his side, and the turf was

sending up its evening incense of perfume. But life, and heart, and hope

were changed for ever since those bygone days!

Or he would seat himself in a favourite niche of the rocks on Moel Gêst,

hidden by a stunted growth of the whitty, or mountain-ash, from general

observation, with a rich-tinted cushion of stone-crop for his feet, and

a straight precipice of rock rising just above. Here would he sit for

hours, gazing idly at the bay below with its back-ground of purple

hills, and the little fishing-sail on its bosom, showing white in the

sunbeam, and gliding on in such harmony with the quiet beauty of the

glassy sea; or he would pull out an old school-volume, his companion for

years, and in morbid accordance with the dark legend that still lurked

in the recesses of his mind--a shape of gloom in those innermost haunts

awaiting its time to come forth in distinct outline--would he turn to

the old Greek dramas which treat of a family foredoomed by an avenging

Fate. The worn page opened of itself at the play of the Œdipus Tyrannus,

and Owen dwelt with the craving of disease upon the prophecy so nearly

resembling that which concerned himself. With his consciousness of

neglect, there was a sort of self-flattery in the consequence which the

legend gave him. He almost wondered how they durst, with slights and

insults, thus provoke the Avenger.

The days drifted onward. Often he would vehemently pursue some sylvan

sport, till thought and feeling were lost in the violence of bodily

exertion. Occasionally his evenings were spent at a small public-house,

such as stood by the unfrequented wayside, where the welcome, hearty

though bought, seemed so strongly to contrast with the gloomy negligence

of home--unsympathizing home.

One evening (Owen might be four or five-and-twenty), wearied with a

day’s shooting on the Clenneny Moors, he passed by the open door of “The

Goat” at Penmorfa. The light and the cheeriness within tempted him, poor

self-exhausted man, as it has done many a one more wretched in worldly

circumstances, to step in, and take his evening meal where at least his

presence was of some consequence. It was a busy day in that little

hostel. A flock of sheep, amounting to some hundreds, had arrived at

Penmorfa, on their road to England, and thronged the space before the

house. Inside was the shrewd, kind-hearted hostess, bustling to and fro,

with merry greetings for every tired drover who was to pass the night in

her house, while the sheep were penned in a field close by. Ever and

anon, she kept attending to the second crowd of guests, who were

celebrating a rural wedding in her house. It was busy work to Martha

Thomas, yet her smile never flagged; and when Owen Griffiths had

finished his evening meal she was there, ready with a hope that it had

done him good, and was to his mind, and a word of intelligence that the

wedding-folk were about to dance in the kitchen, and the harper was the

famous Edward of Corwen.

Owen, partly from good-natured compliance with his hostess’s implied

wish, and partly from curiosity, lounged to the passage which led to the

kitchen--not the every-day, working, cooking kitchen which was beyond,

but a good-sized room where the mistress sat when her work was done, and

where the country people were commonly entertained at such merry-makings

as the present. The lintels of the door formed a frame for the animated

picture which Owen saw within, as he leaned against the wall in the dark

passage. The red light of the fire, with every now and then a falling

piece of turf sending forth a fresh blaze, shone full upon four young

men who were dancing a measure something like a Scotch reel, keeping

admirable time in their rapid movements to the capital tune the harper

was playing. They had their hats on when Owen first took his stand, but

as they grew more and more animated they flung them away, and presently

their shoes were kicked off with like disregard to the spot where they

might happen to alight. Shouts of applause followed any remarkable

exertion of agility, in which each seemed to try to excel his

companions. At length, wearied and exhausted, they sat down, and the

harper gradually changed to one of those wild, inspiring national airs

for which he was so famous. The thronged audience sat earnest and

breathless, and you might have heard a pin drop, except when some maiden

passed hurriedly, with flaring candle and busy look, through to the real

kitchen beyond. When he had finished playing his beautiful theme on “The

march of the men of Harlech,” he changed the measure again to “Tri chant

o’ bunnan” (Three hundred pounds), and immediately a most

unmusical-looking man began chanting “Pennillion,” or a sort of

recitative stanzas, which were soon taken up by another, and this

amusement lasted so long that Owen grew weary, and was thinking of

retreating from his post by the door, when some little bustle was

occasioned, on the opposite side of the room, by the entrance of a

middle-aged man, and a young girl, apparently his daughter. The man

advanced to the bench occupied by the seniors of the party, who welcomed

him with the usual pretty Welsh greeting, “Pa sut mae dy galon?” (“How

is thy heart?”) and drinking his health, passed on to him the cup of

excellent _cwrw_. The girl, evidently a village belle, was as warmly

greeted by the young men, while the girls eyed her rather askance with a

half-jealous look, which Owen set down to the score of her extreme

prettiness. Like most Welsh women, she was of middle size as to height,

but beautifully made, with the most perfect yet delicate roundness in

every limb. Her little mob-cap was carefully adjusted to a face which

was excessively pretty, though it never could be called handsome. It

also was round, with the slightest tendency to the oval shape, richly

coloured, though somewhat olive in complexion, with dimples in cheek and

chin, and the most scarlet lips Owen had ever seen, that were too short

to meet over the small pearly teeth. The nose was the most defective

feature; but the eyes were splendid. They were so long, so lustrous, yet

at times so very soft under their thick fringe of eyelash! The nut-brown

hair was carefully braided beneath the border of delicate lace: it was

evident the little village beauty knew how to make the most of all her

attractions, for the gay colours which were displayed in her neckerchief

were in complete harmony with the complexion.

Owen was much attracted, while yet he was amused, by the evident

coquetry the girl displayed, collecting around her a whole bevy of young

fellows, for each of whom she seemed to have some gay speech, some

attractive look or action. In a few minutes, young Griffiths of Bodowen

was at her side, brought thither by a variety of idle motives, and as

her undivided attention was given to the Welsh heir, her admirers, one

by one, dropped off, to seat themselves by some less fascinating but

more attentive fair one. The more Owen conversed with the girl, the more

he was taken; she had more wit and talent than he had fancied possible;

a self-abandon and thoughtfulness, to boot, that seemed full of charms;

and then her voice was so clear and sweet, and her actions so full of

grace, that Owen was fascinated before he was well aware, and kept

looking into her bright, blushing face, till her uplifted flashing eye

fell beneath his earnest gaze.

While it thus happened that they were silent--she from confusion at the

unexpected warmth of his admiration, he from an unconsciousness of

anything but the beautiful changes in her flexile countenance--the man

whom Owen took for her father came up and addressed some observation to

his daughter, from whence he glided into some common-place yet

respectful remark to Owen, and at length engaging him in some slight,

local conversation, he led the way to the account of a spot on the

peninsula of Penthryn where teal abounded, and concluded with begging

Owen to allow him to show him the exact place, saying that whenever the

young Squire felt so inclined, if he would honour him by a call at his

house, he would take him across in his boat. While Owen listened, his

attention was not so much absorbed as to be unaware that the little

beauty at his side was refusing one or two who endeavoured to draw her

from her place by invitations to dance. Flattered by his own

construction of her refusals, he again directed all his attention to

her, till she was called away by her father, who was leaving the scene

of festivity. Before he left he reminded Owen of his promise, and added,

“Perhaps, Sir, you do not know me. My name is Ellis Pritchard, and I

live at Ty Glas, on this side of Moel Gêst; any one can point it out to

you.”

When the father and daughter had left, Owen slowly prepared for his ride

home; but, encountering the hostess, he could not resist asking a few

questions relative to Ellis Pritchard and his pretty daughter. She

answered shortly but respectfully, and then said rather hesitatingly--

“Master Griffiths, you know the triad, ‘Tri pheth tebyg y naill i’r

llall, ysgnbwr heb yd, mail deg heb ddiawd, a merch deg heb ei geirda’

(Three things are alike: a fine barn without corn, a fine cup without

drink, a fine woman without her reputation.)” She hastily quitted him,

and Owen rode slowly to his unhappy home.

Ellis Pritchard, half farmer and half fisherman, was shrewd, and keen,

and worldly; yet he was good-natured, and sufficiently generous to have

become rather a popular man among his equals. He had been struck with

the young Squire’s attention to his pretty daughter, and was not

insensible to the advantages to be derived from it. Nest would not be

the first peasant girl, by any means, who had been transplanted to a

Welsh manor-house as its mistress; and, accordingly, her father had

shrewdly given the admiring young man some pretext for further

opportunities of seeing her.

As for Nest herself, she had somewhat of her father’s worldliness, and

was fully alive to the superior station of her new admirer, and quite

prepared to slight all her old sweethearts on his account. But then she

had something more of feeling in her reckoning; she had not been

insensible to the earnest yet comparatively refined homage which Owen

paid her; she had noticed his expressive and occasionally handsome

countenance with admiration, and was flattered by his so immediately

singling her out from her companions. As to the hint which Martha

Thomas had thrown out, it is enough to say that Nest was very giddy, and

that she was motherless. She had high spirits and a great love of

admiration, or, to use a softer term, she loved to please; men, women,

children, all, she delighted to gladden with her smile and her voice.

She coquetted, and flirted, and went to the extreme lengths of Welsh

courtship, till the seniors of the village shook their heads, and

cautioned their daughters against her acquaintance. If not absolutely

guilty, she had too frequently been on the verge of guilt.

Even at the time, Martha Thomas’s hint made but little impression on

Owen, for his senses were otherwise occupied; but in a few days the

recollection thereof had wholly died away, and one warm glorious

summer’s day, he bent his steps toward Ellis Pritchard’s with a beating

heart; for, except some very slight flirtations at Oxford, Owen had

never been touched; his thoughts, his fancy had been otherwise engaged.

Ty Glas was built against one of the lower rocks of Moel Gêst, which,

indeed, formed a side to the low, lengthy house. The materials of the

cottage were the shingly stones which had fallen from above, plastered

rudely together, with deep recesses for the small oblong windows.

Altogether, the exterior was much ruder than Owen had expected; but

inside there seemed no lack of comforts. The house was divided into two

apartments, one large, roomy, and dark, into which Owen entered

immediately; and before the blushing Nest came from the inner chamber

(for she had seen the young Squire coming, and hastily gone to make some

alteration in her dress), he had had time to look around him, and note

the various little particulars of the room. Beneath the window (which

commanded a magnificent view) was an oaken dresser, replete with drawers

and cupboards, and brightly polished to a rich dark colour. In the

farther part of the room, Owen could at first distinguish little,

entering as he did from the glaring sunlight, but he soon saw that there

were two oaken beds, closed up after the manner of the Welsh: in fact,

the dormitories of Ellis Pritchard and the man who served under him,

both on sea and on land. There was the large wheel used for spinning

wool, left standing on the middle of the floor, as if in use only a few

minutes before; and around the ample chimney hung flitches of bacon,

dried kids’-flesh, and fish, that was in process of smoking for winter’s

store.

Before Nest had shyly dared to enter, her father, who had been mending

his nets down below, and seen Owen winding up to the house, came in and

gave him a hearty yet respectful welcome; and then Nest, downcast and

blushing, full of the consciousness which her father’s advice and

conversation had not failed to inspire, ventured to join them. To Owen’s

mind this reserve and shyness gave her new charms.

It was too bright, too hot, too anything, to think of going to shoot

teal till later in the day, and Owen was delighted to accept a

hesitating invitation to share the noonday meal. Some ewe-milk cheese,

very hard and dry, oat-cake, slips of the dried kids’-flesh broiled,

after having been previously soaked in water for a few minutes,

delicious butter and fresh buttermilk, with a liquor called “diod

griafol” (made from the berries of the _Sorbus aucuparia_, infused in

water and then fermented), composed the frugal repast; but there was

something so clean and neat, and withal such a true welcome, that Owen

had seldom enjoyed a meal so much. Indeed, at that time of day the Welsh

squires differed from the farmers more in the plenty and rough abundance

of their manner of living than in the refinement of style of their

table.

At the present day, down in Llyn, the Welsh gentry are not a whit behind

their Saxon equals in the expensive elegances of life; but then (when

there was but one pewter-service in all Northumberland) there was

nothing in Ellis Pritchard’s mode of living that grated on the young

Squire’s sense of refinement.

Little was said by that young pair of wooers during the meal: the father

had all the conversation to himself, apparently heedless of the ardent

looks and inattentive mien of his guest. As Owen became more serious in

his feelings, he grew more timid in their expression, and at night, when

they returned from their shooting-excursion, the caress he gave Nest was

almost as bashfully offered as received.

This was but the first of a series of days devoted to Nest in reality,

though at first he thought some little disguise of his object was

necessary. The past, the future, was all forgotten in those happy days

of love.

And every worldly plan, every womanly wile was put in practice by Ellis

Pritchard and his daughter, to render his visits agreeable and alluring.

Indeed, the very circumstance of his being welcome was enough to attract

the poor young man, to whom the feeling so produced was new and full of

charms. He left a home where the certainty of being thwarted made him

chary in expressing his wishes, where no tones of love ever fell on his

ear, save those addressed to others, where his presence or absence was a

matter of utter indifference; and when he entered Ty Glas, all, down to

the little cur which, with clamorous barkings, claimed a part of his

attention, seemed to rejoice. His account of his day’s employment found

a willing listener in Ellis; and when he passed on to Nest, busy at her

wheel or at her churn, the deepened colour, the conscious eye, and the

gradual yielding of herself up to his lover-like caress, had worlds of

charms. Ellis Pritchard was a tenant on the Bodowen estate, and

therefore had reasons in plenty for wishing to keep the young Squire’s

visits secret; and Owen, unwilling to disturb the sunny calm of these

halcyon days by any storm at home, was ready to use all the artifice

which Ellis suggested as to the mode of his calls at Ty Glas. Nor was he

unaware of the probable, nay, the hoped-for termination of these

repeated days of happiness. He was quite conscious that the father

wished for nothing better than the marriage of his daughter to the heir

of Bodowen; and when Nest had hidden her face in his neck, which was

encircled by her clasping arms, and murmured into his ear her

acknowledgment of love, he felt only too desirous of finding some one to

love him for ever. Though not highly principled, he would not have tried

to obtain Nest on other terms save those of marriage: he did so pine

after enduring love, and fancied he should have bound her heart for

evermore to his, when they had taken the solemn oaths of matrimony.

There was no great difficulty attending a secret marriage at such a

place and at such a time. One gusty autumn day, Ellis ferried them round

Penthryn to Llandutrwyn, and there saw his little Nest become future

lady of Bodowen.

How often do we see giddy, coquetting, restless girls become sobered by

marriage! A great object in life is decided; one on which their thoughts

have been running in all their vagaries, and they seem to verify the

beautiful fable of Undine. A new soul beams out in the gentleness and

repose of their future lives. An indescribable softness and tenderness

takes place of the wearying vanity of their former endeavours to attract

admiration. Something of this sort took place in Nest Pritchard. If at

first she had been anxious to attract the young Squire of Bodowen, long

before her marriage this feeling had merged into a truer love than she

had ever felt before; and now that he was her own, her husband, her

whole soul was bent toward making him amends, as far as in her lay, for

the misery which, with a woman’s tact, she saw that he had to endure at

his home. Her greetings were abounding in delicately-expressed love; her

study of his tastes unwearying, in the arrangement of her dress, her

time, her very thoughts.

No wonder that he looked back on his wedding-day with a thankfulness

which is seldom the result of unequal marriages. No wonder that his

heart beat aloud as formerly when he wound up the little path to Ty

Glas, and saw--keen though the winter’s wind might be--that Nest was

standing out at the door to watch for his dimly-seen approach, while

the candle flared in the little window as a beacon to guide him aright.

The angry words and unkind actions of home fell deadened on his heart;

he thought of the love that was surely his, and of the new promise of

love that a short time would bring forth, and he could almost have

smiled at the impotent efforts to disturb his peace.

A few more months, and the young father was greeted by a feeble little

cry, when he hastily entered Ty Glas, one morning early, in consequence

of a summons conveyed mysteriously to Bodowen; and the pale mother,

smiling, and feebly holding up her babe to its father’s kiss, seemed to

him even more lovely than the bright gay Nest who had won his heart at

the little inn of Penmorfa.

But the curse was at work! The fulfilment of the prophecy was nigh at

hand!

CHAPTER II.

It was the autumn after the birth of their boy: it had been a glorious

summer, with bright, hot, sunny weather; and now the year was fading

away as seasonably into mellow days, with mornings of silver mists and

clear frosty nights. The blooming look of the time of flowers was past

and gone; but instead there were even richer tints abroad in the

sun-coloured leaves, the lichens, the golden-blossomed furze: if it was

the time of fading, there was a glory in the decay.

Nest, in her loving anxiety to surround her dwelling with every charm

for her husband’s sake, had turned gardener, and the little corners of

the rude court before the house were filled with many a delicate

mountain-flower, transplanted more for its beauty than its rarity. The

sweetbrier bush may even yet be seen, old and gray, which she and Owen

planted a green slipling beneath the window of her little chamber. In

those moments Owen forgot all besides the present; all the cares and

griefs he had known in the past, and all that might await him of woe and

death in the future. The boy, too, was as lovely a child as the fondest

parent was ever blessed with; and crowed with delight, and clapped his

little hands, as his mother held him in her arms at the cottage-door to

watch his father’s ascent up the rough path that led to Ty Glas, one

bright autumnal morning; and when the three entered the house together,

it was difficult to say which was the happiest. Owen carried his boy,

and tossed and played with him, while Nest sought out some little

article of work, and seated herself on the dresser beneath the window,

where now busily plying the needle, and then again looking at her

husband, she eagerly told him the little pieces of domestic

intelligence, the winning ways of the child, the result of yesterday’s

fishing, and such of the gossip of Penmorfa as came to the ears of the

now retired Nest. She noticed that, when she mentioned any little

circumstance which bore the slightest reference to Bodowen, her husband

appeared chafed and uneasy, and at last avoided anything that might in

the least remind him of home. In truth, he had been suffering much of

late from the irritability of his father, shown in trifles to be sure,

but not the less galling on that account.

While they were thus talking, and caressing each other and the child, a

shadow darkened the room, and before they could catch a glimpse of the

object that had occasioned it, it vanished, and Squire Griffiths lifted

the door-latch and stood before them. He stood and looked--first on his

son, so different, in his buoyant expression of content and enjoyment,

with his noble child in his arms, like a proud and happy father, as he

was, from the depressed, moody young man he too often appeared at

Bodowen; then on Nest--poor, trembling, sickened Nest!--who dropped her

work, but yet durst not stir from her seat on the dresser, while she

looked to her husband as if for protection from his father.

The Squire was silent, as he glared from one to the other, his features

white with restrained passion. When he spoke, his words came most

distinct in their forced composure. It was to his son he addressed

himself:

“That woman! who is she?”

Owen hesitated one moment, and then replied, in a steady, yet quiet

voice:

“Father, that woman is my wife.”

He would have added some apology for the long concealment of his

marriage; have appealed to his father’s forgiveness; but the foam flew

from Squire Owen’s lips as he burst forth with invective against Nest:--

“You have married her! It is as they told me! Married Nest Pritchard yr

buten! And you stand there as if you had not disgraced yourself for ever

and ever with your accursed wiving! And the fair harlot sits there, in

her mocking modesty, practising the mimming airs that will become her

state as future lady of Bodowen. But I will move heaven and earth before

that false woman darken the doors of my father’s house as mistress!”

All this was said with such rapidity that Owen had no time for the words

that thronged to his lips. “Father!” (he burst forth at length) “Father,

whosoever told you that Nest Pritchard was a harlot told you a lie as

false as hell! Ay! a lie as false as hell!” he added, in a voice of

thunder, while he advanced a step or two nearer to the Squire. And then,

in a lower tone, he said:

“She is as pure as your own wife; nay, God help me! as the dear,

precious mother who brought me forth, and then left me--with no refuge

in a mother’s heart--to struggle on through life alone. I tell you Nest

is as pure as that dear, dead mother!”

“Fool--poor fool!”

At this moment the child--the little Owen--who had kept gazing from one

angry countenance to the other, and with earnest look, trying to

understand what had brought the fierce glare into the face where till

now he had read nothing but love, in some way attracted the Squire’s

attention, and increased his wrath.

“Yes!” he continued, “poor, weak fool that you are, hugging the child of

another as if it were your own offspring!” Owen involuntarily caressed

the affrighted child, and half smiled at the implication of his father’s

words. This the Squire perceived, and raising his voice to a scream of

rage, he went on:

“I bid you, if you call yourself my son, to cast away that miserable,

shameless woman’s offspring; cast it away this instant--this instant!”

In his ungovernable rage, seeing that Owen was far from complying with

his command, he snatched the poor infant from the loving arms that held

it, and throwing it to its mother, left the house inarticulate with

fury.

Nest--who had been pale and still as marble during this terrible

dialogue, looking on and listening as if fascinated by the words that

smote her heart--opened her arms to receive and cherish her precious

babe; but the boy was not destined to reach the white refuge of her

breast. The furious action of the Squire had been almost without aim,

and the infant fell against the sharp edge of the dresser down on to the

stone floor.

Owen sprang up to take the child, but he lay so still, so motionless,

that the awe of death came over the father, and he stooped down to gaze

more closely. At that moment, the upturned, filmy eyes rolled

convulsively--a spasm passed along the body--and the lips, yet warm with

kissing, quivered into everlasting rest.

A word from her husband told Nest all. She slid down from her seat, and

lay by her little son as corpse-like as he, unheeding all the agonizing

endearments and passionate adjurations of her husband. And that poor,

desolate husband and father! Scarce one little quarter of an hour, and

he had been so blessed in his consciousness of love! the bright promise

of many years on his infant’s face, and the new, fresh soul beaming

forth in its awakened intelligence. And there it was; the little clay

image, that would never more gladden up at the sight of him, nor stretch

forth to meet his embrace; whose inarticulate, yet most eloquent cooings

might haunt him in his dreams, but would never more be heard in waking

life again! And by the dead babe, almost as utterly insensate, the poor

mother had fallen in a merciful faint--the slandered, heart-pierced

Nest! Owen struggled against the sickness that came over him, and busied

himself in vain attempts at her restoration.

It was now near noon-day, and Ellis Pritchard came home, little dreaming

of the sight that awaited him; but, though stunned, he was able to take

more effectual measures for his poor daughter’s recovery than Owen had

done.

By-and-by she showed symptoms of returning sense, and was placed in her

own little bed in a darkened room, where, without ever waking to

complete consciousness, she fell asleep. Then it was that her husband,

suffocated by pressure of miserable thought, gently drew his hand from

her tightened clasp, and printing one long soft kiss on her white waxen

forehead, hastily stole out of the room, and out of the house.

Near the base of Moel Gêst--it might be a quarter of a mile from Ty

Glas--was a little neglected solitary copse, wild and tangled with the

trailing branches of the dog-rose and the tendrils of the white bryony.

Toward the middle of this thicket lay a deep crystal pool--a clear

mirror for the blue heavens above--and round the margin floated the

broad green leaves of the water-lily, and when the regal sun shone down

in his noonday glory the flowers arose from their cool depths to welcome

and greet him. The copse was musical with many sounds; the warbling of

birds rejoicing in its shades, the ceaseless hum of the insects that

hovered over the pool, the chime of the distant waterfall, the

occasional bleating of the sheep from the mountain-top, were all blended

into the delicious harmony of nature.

It had been one of Owen’s favourite resorts when he had been a lonely

wanderer--a pilgrim in search of love in the years gone by. And thither

he went, as if by instinct, when he left Ty Glas; quelling the uprising

agony till he should reach that little solitary spot.

It was the time of day when a change in the aspect of the weather so

frequently takes place; and the little pool was no longer the reflection

of a blue and sunny sky; it sent back the dark and slaty clouds above,

and, every now and then, a rough gust shook the painted autumn leaves

from their branches, and all other music was lost in the sound of the

wild winds piping down from the moorlands, which lay up and beyond the

clefts in the mountain-side. Presently the rain came on and beat down in

torrents.

But Owen heeded it not. He sat on the dank ground, his face buried in

his hands, and his whole strength, physical and mental, employed in

quelling the rush of blood, which rose and boiled and gurgled in his

brain as if it would madden him.

The phantom of his dead child rose ever before him, and seemed to cry

aloud for vengeance. And when the poor young man thought upon the victim

whom he required in his wild longing for revenge, he shuddered, for it

was his father!

Again and again he tried not to think; but still the circle of thought

came round, eddying through his brain. At length he mastered his

passions, and they were calm; then he forced himself to arrange some

plan for the future.

He had not, in the passionate hurry of the moment, seen that his father

had left the cottage before he was aware of the fatal accident that

befell the child. Owen thought he had seen all; and once he planned to

go to the Squire and tell him of the anguish of heart he had wrought,

and awe him, as it were, by the dignity of grief. But then again he

durst not--he distrusted his self-control--the old prophecy rose up in

its horror--he dreaded his doom.

At last he determined to leave his father for ever; to take Nest to some

distant country where she might forget her first-born, and where he

himself might gain a livelihood by his own exertions.

But when he tried to descend to the various little arrangements which

were involved in the execution of this plan, he remembered that all his

money (and in this respect Squire Griffiths was no niggard) was locked

up in his escritoire at Bodowen. In vain he tried to do away with this

matter-of-fact difficulty; go to Bodowen he must; and his only hope--nay

his determination--was to avoid his father.

He rose and took a by-path to Bodowen. The house looked even more gloomy

and desolate than usual in the heavy down-pouring rain, yet Owen gazed

on it with something of regret--for sorrowful as his days in it had

been, he was about to leave it for many, many years, if not for ever. He

entered by a side-door, opening into a passage that led to his own room,

where he kept his books, his guns, his fishing-tackle, his

writing-materials, etc.

Here he hurriedly began to select the few articles he intended to take;

for, besides the dread of interruption, he was feverishly anxious to

travel far that very night, if only Nest was capable of performing the

journey. As he was thus employed, he tried to conjecture what his

father’s feelings would be on finding that his once-loved son was gone

away for ever. Would he then awaken to regret for the conduct which had

driven him from home, and bitterly think on the loving and caressing boy

who haunted his footsteps in former days? Or, alas! would he only feel

that an obstacle to his daily happiness--to his contentment with his

wife, and his strange, doting affection for her child--was taken away?

Would they make merry over the heir’s departure? Then he thought of

Nest--the young childless mother, whose heart had not yet realized her

fullness of desolation. Poor Nest! so loving as she was, so devoted to

her child--how should he console her? He pictured her away in a strange

land, pining for her native mountains, and refusing to be comforted

because her child was not.

Even this thought of the home-sickness that might possibly beset Nest

hardly made him hesitate in his determination; so strongly had the idea

taken possession of him that only by putting miles and leagues between

him and his father could he avert the doom which seemed blending itself

with the very purposes of his life as long as he stayed in proximity

with the slayer of his child.

He had now nearly completed his hasty work of preparation, and was full

of tender thoughts of his wife, when the door opened, and the elfish

Robert peered in, in search of some of his brother’s possessions. On

seeing Owen he hesitated, but then came boldly forward, and laid his

hand on Owen’s arm, saying,

“Nesta yr buten! How is Nest yr buten?”

He looked maliciously into Owen’s face to mark the effect of his words,

but was terrified at the expression he read there. He started off and

ran to the door, while Owen tried to check himself, saying continually,

“He is but a child. He does not understand the meaning of what he says.

He is but a child!” Still Robert, now in fancied security, kept calling

out his insulting words, and Owen’s hand was on his gun, grasping it as

if to restrain his rising fury.

But when Robert passed on daringly to mocking words relating to the poor

dead child, Owen could bear it no longer; and before the boy was well

aware, Owen was fiercely holding him in an iron clasp with one hand,

while he struck him hard with the other.

In a minute he checked himself. He paused, relaxed his grasp, and, to

his horror, he saw Robert sink to the ground; in fact, the lad was

half-stunned, half-frightened, and thought it best to assume

insensibility.

Owen--miserable Owen--seeing him lie there prostrate, was bitterly

repentant, and would have dragged him to the carved settle, and done all

he could to restore him to his senses, but at this instant the Squire

came in.

Probably, when the household at Bodowen rose that morning, there was but

one among them ignorant of the heir’s relation to Nest Pritchard and her

child; for secret as he had tried to make his visits to Ty Glas, they

had been too frequent not to be noticed, and Nest’s altered conduct--no

longer frequenting dances and merry-makings--was a strongly

corroborative circumstance. But Mrs. Griffiths’ influence reigned

paramount, if unacknowledged, at Bodowen, and till she sanctioned the

disclosure, none would dare to tell the Squire.

Now, however, the time drew near when it suited her to make her husband

aware of the connection his son had formed; so, with many tears, and

much seeming reluctance, she broke the intelligence to him--taking good

care, at the same time, to inform him of the light character Nest had

borne. Nor did she confine this evil reputation to her conduct before

her marriage, but insinuated that even to this day she was a “woman of

the grove and brake”--for centuries the Welsh term of opprobrium for the

loosest female characters.

Squire Griffiths easily tracked Owen to Ty Glas; and without any aim but

the gratification of his furious anger, followed him to upbraid as we

have seen. But he left the cottage even more enraged against his son

than he had entered it, and returned home to hear the evil suggestions

of the stepmother. He had heard a slight scuffle in which he caught the

tones of Robert’s voice, as he passed along the hall, and an instant

afterwards he saw the apparently lifeless body of his little favourite

dragged along by the culprit Owen--the marks of strong passion yet

visible on his face. Not loud, but bitter and deep were the evil words

which the father bestowed on the son; and as Owen stood proudly and

sullenly silent, disdaining all exculpation of himself in the presence

of one who had wrought him so much graver--so fatal an injury--Robert’s

mother entered the room. At sight of her natural emotion the wrath of

the Squire was redoubled, and his wild suspicions that this violence of

Owen’s to Robert was a premeditated act appeared like the proven truth

through the mists of rage. He summoned domestics as if to guard his own

and his wife’s life from the attempts of his son; and the servants stood

wondering around--now gazing at Mrs. Griffiths, alternately scolding and

sobbing, while she tried to restore the lad from his really bruised and

half-unconscious state; now at the fierce and angry Squire; and now at

the sad and silent Owen. And he--he was hardly aware of their looks of

wonder and terror; his father’s words fell on a deadened ear; for before

his eyes there rose a pale dead babe, and in that lady’s violent sounds

of grief he heard the wailing of a more sad, more hopeless mother. For

by this time the lad Robert had opened his eyes, and though evidently

suffering a good deal from the effects of Owen’s blows, was fully

conscious of all that was passing around him.

Had Owen been left to his own nature, his heart would have worked itself

to doubly love the boy whom he had injured; but he was stubborn from

injustice, and hardened by suffering. He refused to vindicate himself;

he made no effort to resist the imprisonment the Squire had decreed,

until a surgeon’s opinion of the real extent of Robert’s injuries was

made known. It was not until the door was locked and barred, as if upon

some wild and furious beast, that the recollection of poor Nest, without

his comforting presence, came into his mind. Oh! thought he, how she

would be wearying, pining for his tender sympathy; if, indeed, she had

recovered the shock of mind sufficiently to be sensible of consolation!

What would she think of his absence? Could she imagine he believed his

father’s words, and had left her, in this her sore trouble and

bereavement? The thought maddened him, and he looked around for some

mode of escape.

He had been confined in a small unfurnished room on the first floor,

wainscoted, and carved all round, with a massy door, calculated to

resist the attempts of a dozen strong men, even had he afterward been

able to escape from the house unseen, unheard. The window was placed (as

is common in old Welsh houses) over the fire-place; with branching

chimneys on either hand, forming a sort of projection on the outside.

By this outlet his escape was easy, even had he been less determined and

desperate than he was. And when he had descended, with a little care, a

little winding, he might elude all observation and pursue his original

intention of going to Ty Glas.

The storm had abated, and watery sunbeams were gilding the bay, as Owen

descended from the window, and, stealing along in the broad afternoon

shadows, made his way to the little plateau of green turf in the garden

at the top of a steep precipitous rock, down the abrupt face of which he

had often dropped, by means of a well-secured rope, into the small

sailing-boat (his father’s present, alas! in days gone by) which lay

moored in the deep sea-water below. He had always kept his boat there,

because it was the nearest available spot to the house; but before he

could reach the place--unless, indeed, he crossed a broad sun-lighted

piece of ground in full view of the windows on that side of the house,

and without the shadow of a single sheltering tree or shrub--he had to

skirt round a rude semicircle of underwood, which would have been

considered as a shrubbery had any one taken pains with it. Step by step

he stealthily moved along--hearing voices now, again seeing his father

and stepmother in no distant walk, the Squire evidently caressing and

consoling his wife, who seemed to be urging some point with great

vehemence, again forced to crouch down to avoid being seen by the cook,

returning from the rude kitchen-garden with a handful of herbs. This was

the way the doomed heir of Bodowen left his ancestral house for ever,

and hoped to leave behind him his doom. At length he reached the

plateau--he breathed more freely. He stooped to discover the hidden coil

of rope, kept safe and dry in a hole under a great round flat piece of

rock: his head was bent down; he did not see his father approach, nor

did he hear his footstep for the rush of blood to his head in the

stooping effort of lifting the stone; the Squire had grappled with him

before he rose up again, before he fully knew whose hands detained him,

now, when his liberty of person and action seemed secure. He made a

vigorous struggle to free himself; he wrestled with his father for a

moment--he pushed him hard, and drove him on to the great displaced

stone, all unsteady in its balance.

Down went the Squire, down into the deep waters below--down after him

went Owen, half consciously, half unconsciously, partly compelled by the

sudden cessation of any opposing body, partly from a vehement

irrepressible impulse to rescue his father. But he had instinctively

chosen a safer place in the deep sea-water pool than that into which his

push had sent his father. The Squire had hit his head with much violence

against the side of the boat, in his fall; it is, indeed, doubtful

whether he was not killed before ever he sank into the sea. But Owen

knew nothing save that the awful doom seemed even now present. He

plunged down, he dived below the water in search of the body which had

none of the elasticity of life to buoy it up; he saw his father in those

depths, he clutched at him, he brought him up and cast him, a dead

weight, into the boat, and, exhausted by the effort, he had begun

himself to sink again before he instinctively strove to rise and climb

into the rocking boat. There lay his father, with a deep dent in the

side of his head where the skull had been fractured by his fall; his

face blackened by the arrested course of the blood. Owen felt his pulse,

his heart--all was still. He called him by his name.

“Father, father!” he cried, “come back! come back! You never knew how I

loved you! how I could love you still--if--oh God!”

And the thought of his little child rose before him. “Yes, father,” he

cried afresh, “you never knew how he fell--how he died! Oh, if I had but

had patience to tell you! If you would but have borne with me and

listened! And now it is over! Oh father! father!”

Whether she had heard this wild wailing voice, or whether it was only

that she missed her husband and wanted him for some little every-day

question, or, as was perhaps more likely, she had discovered Owen’s

escape, and come to inform her husband of it, I do not know, but on the

rock, right above his head, as it seemed, Owen heard his stepmother

calling her husband.

He was silent, and softly pushed the boat right under the rock till the

sides grated against the stones, and the overhanging branches concealed

him and it from all not on a level with the water. Wet as he was, he lay

down by his dead father the better to conceal himself; and, somehow, the

action recalled those early days of childhood--the first in the Squire’s

widowhood--when Owen had shared his father’s bed, and used to waken him

in the morning to hear one of the old Welsh legends. How long he lay

thus--body chilled, and brain hard-working through the heavy pressure of

a reality as terrible as a nightmare--he never knew; but at length he

roused himself up to think of Nest.

Drawing out a great sail, he covered up the body of his father with it

where he lay in the bottom of the boat. Then with his numbed hands he

took the oars, and pulled out into the more open sea toward Criccaeth.

He skirted along the coast till he found a shadowed cleft in the dark

rocks; to that point he rowed, and anchored his boat close in land. Then

he mounted, staggering, half longing to fall into the dark waters and be

at rest--half instinctively finding out the surest foot-rests on that

precipitous face of rock, till he was high up, safe landed on the turfy

summit. He ran off, as if pursued, toward Penmorfa; he ran with maddened

energy. Suddenly he paused, turned, ran again with the same speed, and

threw himself prone on the summit, looking down into his boat with

straining eyes to see if there had been any movement of life--any

displacement of a fold of sail-cloth. It was all quiet deep down below,

but as he gazed the shifting light gave the appearance of a slight

movement. Owen ran to a lower part of the rock, stripped, plunged into

the water, and swam to the boat. When there, all was still--awfully

still! For a minute or two, he dared not lift up the cloth. Then

reflecting that the same terror might beset him again--of leaving his

father unaided while yet a spark of life lingered--he removed the

shrouding cover. The eyes looked into his with a dead stare! He closed

the lids and bound up the jaw. Again he looked. This time he raised

himself out of the water and kissed the brow.

“It was my doom, father! It would have been better if I had died at my

birth!”

Daylight was fading away. Precious daylight! He swam back, dressed, and

set off afresh for Penmorfa. When he opened the door of Ty Glas, Ellis

Pritchard looked at him reproachfully, from his seat in the

darkly-shadowed chimney corner.

“You’re come at last,” said he. “One of our kind (_i. e._, station)

would not have left his wife to mourn by herself over her dead child;

nor would one of our kind have let his father kill his own true son.

I’ve a good mind to take her from you for ever.”

“I did not tell him,” cried Nest, looking piteously at her husband; “he

made me tell him part, and guessed the rest.”

She was nursing her babe on her knee as if it was alive. Owen stood

before Ellis Pritchard.

“Be silent,” said he, quietly. “Neither words nor deeds but what are

decreed can come to pass. I was set to do my work, this hundred years

and more. The time waited for me, and the man waited for me. I have done

what was foretold of me for generations!”

Ellis Pritchard knew the old tale of the prophecy, and believed in it in

a dull, dead kind of way, but somehow never thought it would come to

pass in his time. Now, however, he understood it all in a moment, though

he mistook Owen’s nature so much as to believe that the deed was

intentionally done, out of revenge for the death of his boy; and viewing

it in this light, Ellis thought it little more than a just punishment

for the cause of all the wild despairing sorrow he had seen his only

child suffer during the hours of this long afternoon. But he knew the

law would not so regard it. Even the lax Welsh law of those days could

not fail to examine into the death of a man of Squire Griffiths’

standing. So the acute Ellis thought how he could conceal the culprit

for a time.

“Come,” said he; “don’t look so scared! It was your doom, not your

fault;” and he laid a hand on Owen’s shoulder.

“You’re wet,” said he, suddenly. “Where have you been? Nest, your

husband is dripping, drookit wet. That’s what makes him look so blue and

wan.”

Nest softly laid her baby in its cradle; she was half stupified with

crying, and had not understood to what Owen alluded, when he spoke of

his doom being fulfilled, if indeed she had heard the words.

Her touch thawed Owen’s miserable heart.

“Oh, Nest!” said he, clasping her in his arms; “do you love me

still--can you love me, my own darling?”

“Why not?” asked she, her eyes filling with tears.

“I only love you more than ever, for you were my poor baby’s father!”

“But, Nest--Oh, tell her, Ellis! _you_ know.”

“No need, no need!” said Ellis. “She’s had enough to think on. Bustle,

my girl, and get out my Sunday clothes.”

“I don’t understand,” said Nest, putting her hand up to her head. “What

is to tell? and why are you so wet? God help me for a poor crazed thing,

for I cannot guess at the meaning of your words and your strange looks!

I only know my baby is dead!” and she burst into tears.

“Come, Nest! go and fetch him a change, quick!” and as she meekly

obeyed, too languid to strive further to understand, Ellis said rapidly

to Owen, in a low, hurried voice,

“Are you meaning that the Squire is dead? Speak low, lest she hear!

Well, well, no need to talk about how he died. It was sudden, I see; and

we must all of us die; and he’ll have to be buried. It’s well the night

is near. And I should not wonder now if you’d like to travel for a bit;

it would do Nest a power of good; and then--there’s many a one goes out

of his own house and never comes back again; and--I trust he’s not lying

in his own house--and there’s a stir for a bit, and a search, and a

wonder--and, by-and-by, the heir just steps in, as quiet as can be. And

that’s what you’ll do, and bring Nest to Bodowen after all. Nay, child,

better stockings nor those; find the blue woollens I bought at Llanrwst

fair. Only don’t lose heart. It’s done now and can’t be helped. It was

the piece of work set you to do from the days of the Tudors, they say.

And he deserved it. Look in yon cradle. So tell us where he is, and I’ll

take heart of grace and see what can be done for him.”

But Owen sat wet and haggard, looking into the peat fire as if for

visions of the past, and never heeding a word Ellis said. Nor did he

move when Nest brought the armful of dry clothes.

“Come, rouse up, man!” said Ellis, growing impatient.

But he neither spoke nor moved.

“What is the matter, father?” asked Nest, bewildered.

Ellis kept on watching Owen for a minute or two, till, on his daughter’s

repetition of the question, he said,

“Ask him yourself, Nest.”

“Oh, husband, what is it?” said she, kneeling down and bringing her face

to a level with his.

“Don’t you know?” said he, heavily. “You won’t love me when you do know.

And yet it was not my doing. It was my doom.”

“What does he mean, father?” asked Nest, looking up; but she caught a

gesture from Ellis urging her to go on questioning her husband.

“I will love you, husband, whatever has happened. Only let me know the

worst.”

A pause, during which Nest and Ellis hung breathless.

“My father is dead, Nest.”

Nest caught her breath with a sharp gasp.

“God forgive him!” said she, thinking on her babe.

“God forgive _me_!” said Owen.

“You did not--” Nest stopped.

“Yes, I did. Now you know it. It was my doom. How could I help it? The

devil helped me--he placed the stone so that my father fell. I jumped

into the water to save him. I did, indeed, Nest. I was nearly drowned

myself. But he was dead--dead--killed by the fall!”

“Then he is safe at the bottom of the sea?” said Ellis, with hungry

eagerness.

“No, he is not; he lies in my boat,” said Owen, shivering a little, more

at the thought of his last glimpse at his father’s face than from cold.

“Oh, husband, change your wet clothes!” pleaded Nest, to whom the death

of the old man was simply a horror with which she had nothing to do,

while her husband’s discomfort was a present trouble.

While she helped him to take off the wet garments which he would never

have had energy enough to remove of himself, Ellis was busy preparing

food, and mixing a great tumbler of spirits and hot water. He stood over

the unfortunate young man and compelled him to eat and drink, and made

Nest too taste some mouthfuls--all the while planning in his own mind

how best to conceal what had been done, and who had done it; not

altogether without a certain feeling of vulgar triumph in the reflection

that Nest, as she stood there, carelessly dressed, dishevelled in her

grief, was in reality the mistress of Bodowen, than which Ellis

Pritchard had never seen a grander house, though he believed such might

exist.

By dint of a few dexterous questions he found out all he wanted to know

from Owen, as he ate and drank. In fact, it was almost a relief to Owen

to dilute the horror by talking about it. Before the meal was done, if

meal it could be called, Ellis knew all he cared to know.

“Now, Nest, on with your cloak and haps. Pack up what needs to go with

you, for you and your husband must be half way to Liverpool by

to-morrow’s morn. I’ll take you past Rhyl Sands in my fishing-boat, with

yours in tow; and, once over the dangerous part, I’ll return with my

cargo of fish, and learn how much stir there is at Bodowen. Once safe

hidden in Liverpool, no one will know where you are, and you may stay

quiet till your time comes for returning.”

“I will never come home again,” said Owen, doggedly. “The place is

accursed!”

“Hoot! be guided by me, man. Why, it was but an accident, after all! And

we’ll land at the Holy Island, at the Point of Llyn; there is an old

cousin of mine, the parson, there--for the Pritchards have known better

days, Squire--and we’ll bury him there. It was but an accident, man.

Hold up your head! You and Nest will come home yet and fill Bodowen with

children, and I’ll live to see it.”

“Never!” said Owen. “I am the last male of my race, and the son has

murdered his father!”

Nest came in laden and cloaked. Ellis was for hurrying them off. The

fire was extinguished, the door was locked.

“Here, Nest, my darling, let me take your bundle while I guide you down

the steps.” But her husband bent his head, and spoke never a word. Nest

gave her father the bundle (already loaded with such things as he

himself had seen fit to take), but clasped another softly and tightly.

“No one shall help me with this,” said she, in a low voice.

Her father did not understand her; her husband did, and placed his

strong helping arm round her waist, and blessed her.

“We will all go together, Nest,” said he. “But where?” and he looked up

at the storm-tossed clouds coming up from windward.

“It is a dirty night,” said Ellis, turning his head round to speak to

his companions at last. “But never fear, we’ll weather it!” And he made

for the place where his vessel was moored. Then he stopped and thought a

moment.

“Stay here!” said he, addressing his companions. “I may meet folk, and I

shall, maybe, have to hear and to speak. You wait here till I come back

for you.” So they sat down close together in a corner of the path.

“Let me look at him, Nest!” said Owen.

She took her little dead son out from under her shawl; they looked at

his waxen face long and tenderly; kissed it, and covered it up

reverently and softly.

“Nest,” said Owen, at last, “I feel as though my father’s spirit had

been near us, and as if it had bent over our poor little one. A strange

chilly air met me as I stooped over him. I could fancy the spirit of our

pure, blameless child guiding my father’s safe over the paths of the sky

to the gates of heaven, and escaping those accursed dogs of hell that

were darting up from the north in pursuit of souls not five minutes

since.”

“Don’t talk so, Owen,” said Nest, curling up to him in the darkness of

the copse. “Who knows what may be listening?”

The pair were silent, in a kind of nameless terror, till they heard

Ellis Pritchard’s loud whisper. “Where are ye? Come along, soft and

steady. There were folk about even now, and the Squire is missed, and

madam in a fright.”

They went swiftly down to the little harbour, and embarked on board

Ellis’s boat. The sea heaved and rocked even there; the torn clouds went

hurrying overhead in a wild tumultuous manner.

They put out into the bay; still in silence, except when some word of

command was spoken by Ellis, who took the management of the vessel. They

made for the rocky shore, where Owen’s boat had been moored. It was not

there. It had broken loose and disappeared.

Owen sat down and covered his face. This last event, so simple and

natural in itself, struck on his excited and superstitious mind in an

extraordinary manner. He had hoped for a certain reconciliation, so to

say, by laying his father and his child both in one grave. But now it

appeared to him as if there was to be no forgiveness; as if his father

revolted even in death against any such peaceful union. Ellis took a

practical view of the case. If the Squire’s body was found drifting

about in a boat known to belong to his son, it would create terrible

suspicion as to the manner of his death. At one time in the evening,

Ellis had thought of persuading Owen to let him bury the Squire in a

sailor’s grave; or, in other words, to sew him up in a spare sail, and

weighting it well, sink it for ever. He had not broached the subject,

from a certain fear of Owen’s passionate repugnance to the plan;

otherwise, if he had consented, they might have returned to Penmorfa,

and passively awaited the course of events, secure of Owen’s succession

to Bodowen, sooner or later; or if Owen was too much overwhelmed by what

had happened, Ellis would have advised him to go away for a short time,

and return when the buzz and the talk was over.

Now it was different. It was absolutely necessary that they should leave

the country for a time. Through those stormy waters they must plough

their way that very night. Ellis had no fear--would have had no fear, at

any rate, with Owen as he had been a week, a day ago; but with Owen

wild, despairing, helpless, fate-pursued, what could he do?

They sailed into the tossing darkness, and were never more seen of men.

The house of Bodowen has sunk into damp, dark ruins; and a Saxon

stranger holds the lands of the Griffiths.

* * * * *

You cannot think how kindly Mrs. Dawson thanked Miss Duncan for writing

and reading this story. She shook my poor, pale governess so tenderly by

the hand that the tears came into her eyes, and the colour into her

cheeks.

“I thought you had been so kind; I liked hearing about Lady Ludlow; I

fancied perhaps I could do something to give a little pleasure,” were

the half-finished sentences Miss Duncan stammered out. I am sure it was

the wish to earn similar kind words from Mrs. Dawson, that made Mrs.

Preston try and rummage through her memory to see if she could not

recollect some fact, or event, or history, which might interest Mrs.

Dawson and the little party that gathered round her sofa. Mrs. Preston

it was who told us the following tale:

“HALF A LIFE-TIME AGO.”

HALF A LIFE-TIME AGO.

CHAPTER I.

Half a life-time ago, there lived in one of the Westmoreland dales a

single woman, of the name of Susan Dixon. She was owner of the small

farm-house where she resided, and of some thirty or forty acres of land

by which it was surrounded. She had also an hereditary right to a

sheep-walk, extending to the wild fells that overhang Blea Tarn. In the

language of the country, she was a Stateswoman. Her house is yet to be

seen on the Oxenfell road, between Skelwith and Coniston. You go along a

moorland track, made by the carts that occasionally came for turf from

the Oxenfell. A brook babbles and brattles by the wayside, giving you a

sense of companionship, which relieves the deep solitude in which this

way is usually traversed. Some miles on this side of Coniston there is a

farmstead--a gray stone house, and a square of farm-buildings

surrounding a green space of rough turf, in the midst of which stands a

mighty, funereal umbrageous yew, making a solemn shadow, as of death,

in the very heart and centre of the light and heat of the brightest

summer day. On the side away from the house, this yard slopes down to a

dark-brown pool, which is supplied with fresh water from the

overflowings of a stone cistern, into which some rivulet of the brook

before mentioned continually and melodiously falls bubbling. The cattle

drink out of this cistern. The household bring their pitchers and fill

them with drinking-water by a dilatory, yet pretty, process. The

water-carrier brings with her a leaf of the hound’s-tongue fern, and,

inserting it in the crevice of the gray rock, makes a cool, green spout

for the sparkling stream.

The house is no specimen, at the present day, of what it was in the

life-time of Susan Dixon. Then, every small diamond-pane in the windows

glittered with cleanliness. You might have eaten off the floor; you

could see yourself in the pewter plates and the polished oaken awmry, or

dresser, of the state kitchen into which you entered. Few strangers

penetrated further than this room. Once or twice, wandering tourists,

attracted by the lonely picturesqueness of the situation, and the

exquisite cleanliness of the house itself, made their way into this

house-place, and offered money enough (as they thought) to tempt the

hostess to receive them as lodgers. They would give no trouble, they

said; they would be out rambling or sketching all day long; would be

perfectly content with a share of the food which she provided for

herself; or would procure what they required from the Waterhead Inn at

Coniston. But no liberal sum--no fair words--moved her from her stony

manner, or her monotonous tone of indifferent refusal. No persuasion

could induce her to show any more of the house than that first room; no

appearance of fatigue procured for the weary an invitation to sit down

and rest; and if one more bold and less delicate did so without being

asked, Susan stood by, cold and apparently deaf, or only replying by the

briefest monosyllables, till the unwelcome visitor had departed. Yet

those with whom she had dealings, in the way of selling her cattle or

her farm produce, spoke of her as keen after a bargain--a hard one to

have to do with; and she never spared herself exertion or fatigue, at

market or in the field, to make the most of her produce. She led the

haymakers with her swift, steady rake, and her noiseless evenness of

motion. She was about among the earliest in the market, examining

samples of oats, pricing them, and then turning with grim satisfaction

to her own cleaner corn.

She was served faithfully and long by those who were rather her

fellow-labourers than her servants. She was even and just in her

dealings with them. If she was peculiar and silent, they knew her, and

knew that she might be relied on. Some of them had known her from her

childhood; and deep in their hearts was an unspoken--almost

unconscious--pity for her; for they knew her story, though they never

spoke of it.

Yes; the time had been when that tall, gaunt, hard-featured, angular

woman--who never smiled, and hardly ever spoke an unnecessary word--had

been a fine-looking girl, bright-spirited and rosy; and when the hearth

at the Yew Nook had been as bright as she, with family love and youthful

hope and mirth. Fifty or fifty-one years ago, William Dixon and his wife

Margaret were alive; and Susan, their daughter, was about eighteen years

old--ten years older than the only other child, a boy named after his

father. William and Margaret Dixon were rather superior people, of a

character belonging--as far as I have seen--exclusively to the class of

Westmoreland and Cumberland statesmen--just, independent, upright; not

given to much speaking; kind-hearted, but not demonstrative; disliking

change, and new ways, and new people; sensible and shrewd; each

household self-contained, and its members having little curiosity as to

their neighbours, with whom they rarely met for any social intercourse,

save at the stated times of sheep-shearing and Christmas; having a

certain kind of sober pleasure in amassing money, which occasionally

made them miserable (as they call miserly people up in the north) in

their old age; reading no light or ephemeral literature; but the grave,

solid books brought round by the pedlars (such as the “Paradise Lost”

and “Regained,” “The Death of Abel,” “The Spiritual Quixote,” and “The

Pilgrim’s Progress”) were to be found in nearly every house: the men

occasionally going off laking, _i.e._ playing, _i.e._ drinking for days

together, and having to be hunted up by anxious wives, who dared not

leave their husbands to the chances of the wild precipitous roads, but

walked miles and miles, lantern in hand, in the dead of night, to

discover and guide the solemnly-drunken husband home; who had a dreadful

headache the next day, and the day after that came forth as grave, and

sober, and virtuous-looking as if there were no such things as malt and

spirituous liquors in the world; and who were seldom reminded of their

misdoings by their wives, to whom such occasional outbreaks were as

things of course, when once the immediate anxiety produced by them was

over. Such were--such are--the characteristics of a class now passing

away from the face of the land, as their compeers, the yeomen, have done

before them. Of such was William Dixon. He was a shrewd, clever farmer,

in his day and generation, when shrewdness was rather shown in the

breeding and rearing of sheep and cattle than in the cultivation of

land. Owing to this character of his, statesmen from a distance, from

beyond Kendal, or from Borrowdale, of greater wealth than he, would send

their sons to be farm-servants for a year or two with him, in order to

learn some of his methods before setting up on land of their own. When

Susan, his daughter, was about seventeen, one Michael Hurst was

farm-servant at Yew Nook. He worked with the master, and lived with the

family, and was in all respects treated as an equal, except in the

field. His father was a wealthy statesman at Wythburne, up beyond

Grasmere; and through Michael’s servitude the families had become

acquainted, and the Dixons went over to the High Beck sheep-shearing,

and the Hursts came down by Red Bank and Loughrig Tarn and across the

Oxenfell when there was the Christmas-tide feasting at Yew Nook. The

fathers strolled round the fields together, examined cattle and sheep,

and looked knowing over each other’s horses. The mothers inspected the

dairies and household arrangements, each openly admiring the plans of

the other, but secretly preferring their own. Both fathers and mothers

cast a glance from time to time at Michael and Susan, who were thinking

of nothing less than farm or dairy, but whose unspoken attachment was,

in all ways, so suitable and natural a thing that each parent rejoiced

over it, although with characteristic reserve it was never spoken

about--not even between husband and wife.

Susan had been a strong, independent, healthy girl; a clever help to her

mother, and a spirited companion to her father; more of a man in her (as

he often said) than her delicate little brother ever would have. He was

his mother’s darling, although she loved Susan well. There was no

positive engagement between Michael and Susan--I doubt whether even

plain words of love had been spoken; when one winter-time Margaret Dixon

was seized with inflammation consequent upon a neglected cold. She had

always been strong and notable, and had been too busy to attend to the

earliest symptoms of illness. It would go off, she said to the woman

who helped in the kitchen; or if she did not feel better when they had

got the hams and bacon out of hand, she would take some herb-tea and

nurse up a bit. But Death could not wait till the hams and bacon were

cured: he came on with rapid strides, and shooting arrows of portentous

agony. Susan had never seen illness--never knew how much she loved her

mother till now, when she felt a dreadful, instinctive certainty that

she was losing her. Her mind was thronged with recollections of the many

times she had slighted her mother’s wishes; her heart was full of the

echoes of careless and angry replies that she had spoken. What would she

not now give to have opportunities of service and obedience, and trials

of her patience and love, for that dear mother who lay gasping in

torture! And yet Susan had been a good girl and an affectionate

daughter.

The sharp pain went off, and delicious ease came on; yet still her

mother sunk. In the midst of this languid peace she was dying. She

motioned Susan to her bedside, for she could only whisper; and then,

while the father was out of the room, she spoke as much to the eager,

hungering eyes of her daughter by the motion of her lips, as by the

slow, feeble sounds of her voice.

“Susan, lass, thou must not fret. It is God’s will, and thou wilt have a

deal to do. Keep father straight if thou canst; and if he goes out

Ulverstone ways, see that thou meet him before he gets to the Old

Quarry. It’s a dree bit for a man who has had a drop. As for lile

Will”--here the poor woman’s face began to work and her fingers to move

nervously as they lay on the bed-quilt--“lile Will will miss me most of

all. Father’s often vexed with him because he’s not a quick, strong lad;

he is not, my poor lile chap. And father thinks he’s saucy, because he

cannot always stomach oat-cake and porridge. There’s better than three

pound in th’ old black teapot on the top shelf of the cupboard. Just

keep a piece of loaf-bread by you, Susan dear, for Will to come to when

he’s not taken his breakfast. I have, may be, spoilt him; but there’ll

be no one to spoil him now.”

She began to cry a low, feeble cry, and covered up her face that Susan

might not see her. That dear face! those precious moments while yet the

eyes could look out with love and intelligence. Susan laid her head down

close by her mother’s ear.

“Mother, I’ll take tent of Will. Mother, do you hear? He shall not want

ought I can give or get for him, least of all the kind words which you

had ever ready for us both. Bless you! bless you! my own mother.”

“Thou’lt promise me that, Susan, wilt thou? I can die easy if thou’lt

take charge of him. But he’s hardly like other folk; he tries father at

times, though I think father’ll be tender of him when I’m gone, for my

sake. And, Susan, there’s one thing more. I never spoke on it for fear

of the bairn being called a tell-tale, but I just comforted him up. He

vexes Michael at times, and Michael has struck him before now. I did not

want to make a stir; but he’s not strong, and a word from thee, Susan,

will go a long way with Michael.”

Susan was as red now as she had been pale before; it was the first time

that her influence over Michael had been openly acknowledged by a third

person, and a flash of joy came athwart the solemn sadness of the

moment. Her mother had spoken too much, and now came on the miserable

faintness. She never spoke again coherently; but when her children and

her husband stood by her bedside, she took lile Will’s hand and put it

into Susan’s, and looked at her with imploring eyes. Susan clasped her

arms round Will, and leaned her head upon his curly little one, and

vowed within herself to be as a mother to him.

Henceforward she was all in all to her brother. She was a more spirited

and amusing companion to him than his mother had been, from her greater

activity, and perhaps, also, from her originality of character, which

often prompted her to perform her habitual actions in some new and racy

manner. She was tender to lile Will when she was prompt and sharp with

everybody else--with Michael most of all; for somehow the girl felt

that, unprotected by her mother, she must keep up her own dignity, and

not allow her lover to see how strong a hold he had upon her heart. He

called her hard and cruel, and left her so; and she smiled softly to

herself, when his back was turned, to think how little he guessed how

deeply he was loved. For Susan was merely comely and fine-looking;

Michael was strikingly handsome, admired by all the girls for miles

round, and quite enough of a country coxcomb to know it and plume

himself accordingly. He was the second son of his father; the eldest

would have High Beck farm, of course, but there was a good penny in the

Kendal bank in store for Michael. When harvest was over, he went to

Chapel Langdale to learn to dance; and at night, in his merry moods, he

would do his steps on the flag-floor of the Yew Nook kitchen, to the

secret admiration of Susan, who had never learned dancing, but who

flouted him perpetually, even while she admired, in accordance with the

rule she seemed to have made for herself about keeping him at a distance

so long as he lived under the same roof with her. One evening he sulked

at some saucy remark of hers; he sitting in the chimney-corner with his

arms on his knees, and his head bent forwards, lazily gazing into the

wood-fire on the hearth, and luxuriating in rest after a hard day’s

labour; she sitting among the geraniums on the long, low window-seat,

trying to catch the last slanting rays of the autumnal light to enable

her to finish stitching a shirt-collar for Will, who lounged full length

on the flags at the other side of the hearth to Michael, poking the

burning wood from time to time with a long hazel-stick to bring out the

leap of glittering sparks.

“And if you can dance a threesome reel, what good does it do ye?” asked

Susan, looking askance at Michael, who had just been vaunting his

proficiency. “Does it help you plough, or reap, or even climb the rocks

to take a raven’s nest? If I were a man, I’d be ashamed to give in to

such softness.”

“If you were a man, you’d be glad to do anything which made the pretty

girls stand round and admire.”

“As they do to you, eh! Ho, Michael, that would not be my way o’ being a

man!”

“What would then?” asked he, after a pause, during which he had expected

in vain that she would go on with her sentence. No answer.

“I should not like you as a man, Susy; you’d be too hard and

headstrong.”

“Am I hard and headstrong?” asked she, with as indifferent a tone as she

could assume, but which yet had a touch of pique in it. His quick ear

detected the inflexion.

“No, Susy! You’re wilful at times, and that’s right enough. I don’t like

a girl without spirit. There’s a mighty pretty girl comes to the

dancing-class; but she is all milk and water. Her eyes never flash like

yours when you’re put out; why, I can see them flame across the kitchen

like a cat’s in the dark. Now, if you were a man, I should feel queer

before those looks of yours; as it is, I rather like them, because--”

“Because what?” asked she, looking up and perceiving that he had stolen

close up to her.

“Because I can make all right in this way,” said he, kissing her

suddenly.

“Can you?” said she, wrenching herself out of his grasp and panting,

half with rage. “Take that, by way of proof that making right is none so

easy.” And she boxed his ears pretty sharply. He went back to his seat

discomfited and out of temper. She could no longer see to look, even if

her face had not burnt and her eyes dazzled, but she did not choose to

move her seat, so she still preserved her stooping attitude and

pretended to go on sewing.

“Eleanor Hebthwaite may be milk-and-water,” muttered he, “but--Confound

thee, lad! what art doing?” exclaimed Michael, as a great piece of

burning wood was cast into his face by an unlucky poke of Will’s. “Thou

great lounging, clumsy chap, I’ll teach thee better!” and with one or

two good, round kicks he sent the lad whimpering away into the

back-kitchen. When he had a little recovered himself from his passion,

he saw Susan standing before him, her face looking strange and almost

ghastly by the reversed position of the shadows, arising from the

fire-light shining upwards right under it.

“I tell thee what, Michael,” said she, “that lad’s motherless, but not

friendless.”

“His own father leathers him, and why should not I, when he’s given me

such a burn on my face?” said Michael, putting up his hand to his cheek

as if in pain.

“His father’s his father, and there is nought more to be said. But if he

did burn thee, it was by accident, and not o’ purpose, as thou kicked

him; it’s a mercy if his ribs are not broken.”

“He howls loud enough, I’m sure. I might ha’ kicked many a lad twice as

hard and they’d ne’er ha’ said ought but ‘damn ye;’ but yon lad must

needs cry out like a stuck pig if one touches him,” replied Michael,

sullenly.

Susan went back to the window-seat, and looked absently out of the

window at the drifting clouds for a minute or two, while her eyes filled

with tears. Then she got up and made for the outer door which led into

the back-kitchen. Before she reached it, however, she heard a low voice,

whose music made her thrill, say--

“Susan, Susan!”

Her heart melted within her, but it seemed like treachery to her poor

boy, like faithlessness to her dead mother, to turn to her lover while

the tears which he had caused to flow were yet unwiped on Will’s cheeks.

So she seemed to take no heed, but passed into the darkness, and, guided

by the sobs, she found her way to where Willie sat crouched among

disused tubs and churns.

“Come out wi’ me, lad;” and they went into the orchard, where the

fruit-trees were bare of leaves, but ghastly in their tattered covering

of gray moss: and the soughing November wind came with long sweeps over

the fells till it rattled among the crackling boughs, underneath which

the brother and sister sat in the dark; he in her lap, and she hushing

his head against her shoulder.

“Thou should’st na’ play wi’ fire. It’s a naughty trick. Thoul’t suffer

for it in worse ways nor this before thou’st done, I’m afeared. I should

ha’ hit thee twice as lungeous kicks as Mike, if I’d been in his place.

He did na’ hurt thee, I am sure,” she assumed, half as a question.

“Yes! but he did. He turned me quite sick.” And lie let his head fall

languidly down on his sister’s breast.

“Come lad! come lad!” said she, anxiously. “Be a man. It was not much

that I saw. Why, when first the red cow came, she kicked me far harder

for offering to milk her before her legs were tied. See thee! here’s a

peppermint-drop, and I’ll make thee a pasty to-night; only don’t give

way so, for it hurts me sore to think that Michael has done thee any

harm, my pretty.”

Willie roused himself up, and put back the wet and ruffled hair from

his heated face; and he and Susan rose up, and hand-in-hand went towards

the house, walking slowly and quietly except for a kind of sob which

Willie could not repress. Susan took him to the pump and washed his

tear-stained face, till she thought she had obliterated all traces of

the recent disturbance, arranging his curls for him, and then she kissed

him tenderly, and led him in, hoping to find Michael in the kitchen, and

make all straight between them. But the blaze had dropped down into

darkness; the wood was a heap of gray ashes in which the sparks ran

hither and thither; but, even in the groping darkness, Susan knew by the

sinking at her heart that Michael was not there. She threw another brand

on the hearth and lighted the candle, and sat down to her work in

silence. Willie cowered on his stool by the side of the fire, eyeing his

sister from time to time, and sorry and oppressed, he knew not why, by

the sight of her grave, almost stern face. No one came. They two were in

the house alone. The old woman who helped Susan with the household work

had gone out for the night to some friend’s dwelling. William Dixon, the

father, was up on the fells seeing after his sheep. Susan had no heart

to prepare the evening meal.

“Susy, darling, are you angry with me?” said Willie, in his little

piping, gentle voice. He had stolen up to his sister’s side. “I won’t

never play with fire again; and I’ll not cry if Michael does kick me.

Only don’t look so like dead mother--don’t--don’t--please don’t!” he

exclaimed, hiding his face on her shoulder.

“I’m not angry, Willie,” said she. “Don’t be feared on me. You want your

supper, and you shall have it; and don’t you be feared on Michael. He

shall give reason for every hair of your head that he touches--he

shall.”

When William Dixon came home, he found Susan and Willie sitting

together, hand-in-hand, and apparently pretty cheerful. He bade them go

to bed, for that he would sit up for Michael; and the next morning, when

Susan came down, she found that Michael had started an hour before with

the cart for lime. It was a long day’s work; Susan knew it would be

late, perhaps later than on the preceding night, before he returned--at

any rate, past her usual bed-time; and on no account would she stop up a

minute beyond that hour in the kitchen, whatever she might do in her

bedroom. Here she sat and watched till past midnight; and when she saw

him coming up the brow with the carts, she knew full well, even in that

faint moonlight, that his gait was the gait of a man in liquor. But

though she was annoyed and mortified to find in what way he had chosen

to forget her, the fact did not disgust or shock her as it would have

done many a girl, even at that day, who had not been brought up as Susan

had, among a class who considered it no crime, but rather a mark of

spirit, in a man to get drunk occasionally. Nevertheless, she chose to

hold herself very high all the next day when Michael was, perforce,

obliged to give up any attempt to do heavy work, and hung about the

out-buildings and farm in a very disconsolate and sickly state. Willie

had far more pity on him than Susan. Before evening, Willie and he were

fast, and on his side, ostentatious friends. Willie rode the horses down

to water; Willie helped him to chop wood. Susan sat gloomily at her

work, hearing an indistinct but cheerful conversation going on in the

shippon, while the cows were being milked. She almost felt irritated

with her little brother, as if he were a traitor, and had gone over to

the enemy in the very battle that she was fighting in his cause. She was

alone with no one to speak to, while they prattled on, regardless if she

were glad or sorry.

Soon Willie burst in. “Susan! Susan! come with me; I’ve something so

pretty to show you. Round the corner of the barn--run! run!” (He was

dragging her along, half reluctant, half desirous of some change in that

weary day.) Round the corner of the barn; and caught hold of by Michael,

who stood there awaiting her.

“O Willie!” cried she, “you naughty boy. There is nothing pretty--what

have you brought me here for? Let me go; I won’t be held.”

“Only one word. Nay, if you wish it so much, you may go,” said Michael,

suddenly loosing his hold as she struggled. But now she was free, she

only drew off a step or two, murmuring something about Willie.

“You are going, then?” said Michael, with seeming sadness. “You won’t

hear me say a word of what is in my heart.”

“How can I tell whether it is what I should like to hear?” replied she,

still drawing back.

“That is just what I want you to tell me; I want you to hear it, and

then to tell me whether you like it or not.”

“Well, you may speak,” replied she, turning her back, and beginning to

plait the hem of her apron.

He came close to her ear.

“I’m sorry I hurt Willie the other night. He has forgiven me. Can you?”

“You hurt him very badly,” she replied. “But you are right to be sorry.

I forgive you.”

“Stop, stop!” said he, laying his hand upon her arm. “There is something

more I’ve got to say. I want you to be my ---- what is it they call it,

Susan?”

“I don’t know,” said she, half-laughing, but trying to get away with all

her might now; and she was a strong girl, but she could not manage it.

“You do. My ---- what is it I want you to be?”

“I tell you I don’t know, and you had best be quiet, and just let me go

in, or I shall think you’re as bad now as you were last night.”

“And how did you know what I was last night? It was past twelve when I

came home. Were you watching? Ah, Susan! be my wife, and you shall never

have to watch for a drunken husband. If I were your husband, I would

come straight home, and count every minute an hour till I saw your bonny

face. Now you know what I want you to be. I ask you to be my wife. Will

you, my own dear Susan?”

She did not speak for some time. Then she only said, “Ask father.” And

now she was really off like a lapwing round the corner of the barn, and

up in her own little room, crying with all her might, before the

triumphant smile had left Michael’s face where he stood.

The “Ask father” was a mere form to be gone through. Old Daniel Hurst

and William Dixon had talked over what they could respectively give

their children long before this; and that was the parental way of

arranging such matters. When the probable amount of worldly gear that he

could give his child had been named by each father, the young folk, as

they said, might take their own time in coming to the point which the

old men, with the prescience of experience, saw that they were drifting

to; no need to hurry them, for they were both young, and Michael, though

active enough, was too thoughtless, old Daniel said, to be trusted with

the entire management of a farm. Meanwhile, his father would look about

him, and see after all the farms that were to be let.

Michael had a shrewd notion of this preliminary understanding between

the fathers, and so felt less daunted than he might otherwise have done

at making the application for Susan’s hand. It was all right, there was

not an obstacle; only a deal of good advice, which the lover thought

might have as well been spared, and which it must be confessed he did

not much attend to, although he assented to every part of it. Then Susan

was called down stairs, and slowly came dropping into view down the

steps which led from the two family apartments into the house-place. She

tried to look composed and quiet, but it could not be done. She stood

side by side with her lover, with her head drooping, her cheeks burning,

not daring to look up or move, while her father made the newly-betrothed

a somewhat formal address in which he gave his consent, and many a piece

of worldly wisdom beside. Susan listened as well as she could for the

beating of her heart; but when her father solemnly and sadly referred to

his own lost wife, she could keep from sobbing no longer; but throwing

her apron over her face, she sat down on the bench by the dresser, and

fairly gave way to pent-up tears. Oh, how strangely sweet to be

comforted as she was comforted, by tender caress, and many a

low-whispered promise of love! Her father sat by the fire, thinking of

the days that were gone; Willie was still out of doors; but Susan and

Michael felt no one’s presence or absence--they only knew they were

together as betrothed husband and wife.

In a week, or two, they were formally told of the arrangements to be

made in their favour. A small farm in the neighbourhood happened to fall

vacant; and Michael’s father offered to take it for him, and be

responsible for the rent for the first year, while William Dixon was to

contribute a certain amount of stock, and both fathers were to help

towards the furnishing of the house. Susan received all this information

in a quiet, indifferent way; she did not care much for any of these

preparations, which were to hurry her through the happy hours; she cared

least of all for the money amount of dowry and of substance. It jarred

on her to be made the confidant of occasional slight repinings of

Michael’s, as one by one his future father-in-law set aside a beast or a

pig for Susan’s portion, which were not always the best animals of their

kind upon the farm. But he also complained of his own father’s

stinginess, which somewhat, though not much, alleviated Susan’s dislike

to being awakened out of her pure dream of love to the consideration of

worldly wealth.

But in the midst of all this bustle, Willie moped and pined. He had the

same chord of delicacy running through his mind that made his body

feeble and weak. He kept out of the way, and was apparently occupied in

whittling and carving uncouth heads on hazel-sticks in an out-house. But

he positively avoided Michael, and shrunk away even from Susan. She was

too much occupied to notice this at first. Michael pointed it out to

her, saying, with a laugh,--

“Look at Willie! he might be a cast-off lover and jealous of me, he

looks so dark and downcast at me.” Michael spoke this jest out loud,

and Willie burst into tears, and ran out of the house.

“Let me go. Let me go!” said Susan (for her lover’s arm was round her

waist). “I must go to him if he’s fretting. I promised mother I would!”

She pulled herself away, and went in search of the boy. She sought in

byre and barn, through the orchard, where indeed in this leafless

winter-time there was no great concealment, up into the room where the

wool was usually stored in the later summer, and at last she found him,

sitting at bay, like some hunted creature, up behind the wood-stack.

“What are ye gone for, lad, and me seeking you everywhere?” asked she,

breathless.

“I did not know you would seek me. I’ve been away many a time, and no

one has cared to seek me,” said he, crying afresh.

“Nonsense,” replied Susan, “don’t be so foolish, ye little

good-for-nought.” But she crept up to him in the hole he had made

underneath the great, brown sheafs of wood, and squeezed herself down by

him. “What for should folk seek after you, when you get away from them

whenever you can?” asked she.

“They don’t want me to stay. Nobody wants me. If I go with father, he

says I hinder more than I help. You used to like to have me with you.

But now, you’ve taken up with Michael, and you’d rather I was away; and

I can just bide away; but I cannot stand Michael jeering at me. He’s got

you to love him and that might serve him.”

“But I love you, too, dearly, lad!” said she, putting her arm round his

neck.

“Which on us do you like best?” said he, wistfully, after a little

pause, putting her arm away, so that he might look in her face, and see

if she spoke truth.

She went very red.

“You should not ask such questions. They are not fit for you to ask,

nor for me to answer.”

“But mother bade you love me!” said he, plaintively.

“And so I do. And so I ever will do. Lover nor husband shall come

betwixt thee and me, lad--ne’er a one of them. That I promise thee (as I

promised mother before), in the sight of God and with her hearkening

now, if ever she can hearken to earthly word again. Only I cannot abide

to have thee fretting, just because my heart is large enough for two.”

“And thou’lt love me always?”

“Always, and ever. And the more--the more thou’lt love Michael,” said

she, dropping her voice.

“I’ll try,” said the boy, sighing, for he remembered many a harsh word

and blow of which his sister knew nothing. She would have risen up to go

away, but he held her tight, for here and now she was all his own, and

he did not know when such a time might come again. So the two sat

crouched up and silent, till they heard the horn blowing at the

field-gate, which was the summons home to any wanderers belonging to the

farm, and at this hour of the evening, signified that supper was ready.

Then the two went in.