GARTHOWEN SLOPES
Dr. Jones's visits to Nantmyny were very frequent during the following
week, for Gwenda's foot had been rather severely crushed, and the pain
was acute; but being a girl of great spirit she bore it patiently,
though it entailed many long hours of wearisome confinement to the
house and sofa. During these hours of enforced idleness, she indulged
in frequent "brown studies," for her firm and decided character was
curiously tinged with romance. She had received but a desultory
education; her uncle, though providing her amply with all the means of
learning, yet chafed continually against the application which was
necessary for her profiting by them.
"Come out, child," he would call, standing outside the open window, his
jovial face broadening into a smile of blandishment, most aggravating
to Miss Howells, who, inside the window, was trying to fix her pupil's
attention upon some subject of history or grammar. The rustling of the
brown leaves and the whispering of the wind in the trees added their
own enticements, which required all Gwenda's firmness to resist.
"No, uncle," she would say, shaking her finger at him. "Yesterday and
Monday you made me neglect my studies. You mustn't come again this
week to tempt me out. I have promised Miss Howells to be industrious.
It will soon be four o'clock, and then I will come."
And her uncle had perforce to be content, for at Nantmyny there was no
doubt that Gwenda "ruled the roost." Somehow she emerged from the
stage of girlhood with a fair amount of knowledge, although her
mother's sisters, the two Miss Gwynnes of Pentre, were much
dissatisfied with her want of what they called "polish."
"She'll never make a good match," they were wont to say, "never! That
plain outspokenness is all very well in a man, or even in an old woman,
but it's very unbecoming in a girl, and I'm sure it will ruin her
prospects." And on the subject of her "prospects" they were accustomed
to dilate so continually and so earnestly that Gwenda had a shrinking
dislike to the word, as well as to the subject to which it referred.
"We must really speak to her again, Maria, for of course George may
marry some day, and then what would become of her prospects?" And
another lecture was prepared for Gwenda.
A few days after the accident which made her a prisoner, lying on the
sofa in the morning-room she had fallen into a deep reverie, which had
caused quite a pucker between her eyebrows. Being naturally a
romantic, sentimental girl, she mentally resented the sordid necessity
so continually urged by her aunts of making a "good match." It was in
Gwenda to cast all their prudent manoeuvres to the winds, and to follow
the bent of her own inclinations; but it was in her also to immolate
herself entirely upon the altar of an imagined duty. She chafed
somewhat at the want of freedom in her surroundings, her aunts
declaring it was incumbent upon her to please her uncle by marrying
well, and as soon as possible. And all these restrictions galled the
young lady, in whom the romantic dreams of the natural woman were
calling loudly for fulfilment. Perhaps these feelings would account
for the little look of worry and discontent in her face on the Sunday
morning while her uncle lingered round her sofa.
"Well, I'm sorry to leave you alone, Gwenda; but here are the
magazines, and I'll soon be back. I don't like the Nantmyny pew to be
empty, you know. Good-bye."
When the sounds of the carriage-wheels had died away, Gwenda took up
one of the magazines and turned over the pages listlessly. She sighed
a little wearily, and fell asleep--a sleep which lasted until her uncle
returned from church, and came blustering into the room.
"Well, pommy word, child, I think you have had the best of it this
morning. Price the vicar didn't preach. Some Jones of Llan something,
and you never heard such a rhodomontade in your life; but I went to
sleep and escaped the worst of it--all about mortar, give you my word
for it, Gwenda, and about not putting enough cowhair in the mortar."
"Really!" she said, yawning. "No wonder you went to sleep. Were the
Williamses there?"
"Yes, and the Griffiths of Plâsdu, and the Henry Reeses, and Captain
Scott is staying with them. Well, I'm going to have a smoke." But at
the door he turned round with a fresh bit of news. "Oh, what d'ye
think, Gwenda? A young man stood up to read the lessons, and I
couldn't for the life of me remember where I'd seen him before, and I
bothered my brains about it all through the sermon till I fell asleep.
After service I asked Price the vicar, and who should he be but that
young fellow who tackled the bull the other day? Pommy word, he's a
fine-looking fellow; got his arm in a sling, though." And he went out
banging the door.
Gwenda pondered with a brightening look in her face.
The young man who seized the bull! How strange! Reading the lessons!
What was the meaning of that? And with his arm in a sling! It must
have really required attention when he disappeared so mysteriously the
other day. Handsome? Yes, he was very handsome. That broad white
forehead crowned with its tawny clumps of hair! She would like to
thank him once more, for he had certainly saved her life. She rang the
bell, and a maid appeared.
"Lewis, can you tell me who that man was who seized the bull the other
day?"
"'Twas young Owens Garthowen, miss."
"My uncle says he read the lessons in church to-day."
"Yes, I daresay indeed, miss. He's going to be a clergyman, they say.
He hurt his arm shocking the other day, miss, because he went to Dr.
Hughes on his way from here, and he is keeping it in a sling ever
since."
"Where does he live?"
"Oh, about three miles the other side of Castell On, miss, towards the
sea. 'Tis an old grey farmhouse, very old, they say; 'tis on the side
of the hill towards the sea, very high up, too. 'Tis very windy up
there, I should think."
Here the colonel entered again.
"Lewis tells me, uncle, that young man who read the lessons is going to
enter the Church."
"Shouldn't wonder at all; every Cardiganshire farmer tries to send one
son to the Church. There's Dr. Owen, now, he was a farmer's son.
Bless my soul! Why, he is this young man's uncle! Never thought of
that! Of course. He's own brother to Ebben Owens, Garthowen. I don't
think he keeps up any acquaintance with them, though, and, of course,
nobody alludes to them in his presence. I daresay he will take this
young man in hand and we shall have him canon or archdeacon or bishop
very soon."
This was something more for Gwenda to ponder over, and before the day
was ended she had woven quite a halo of romance round Will's
unconscious head.
"Shouldn't we send to ask how his arm is, uncle?"
"Yes; pommy word we ought to. I am going to the meet to-morrow at
Plâsdu, 'twill be very little out of my way to go up to the farm and
ask how the young fellow is."
The next afternoon when he returned from the hunt, he brought a fresh
item of news for his niece, for he pitied the girl lying there
inactive, a state of existence which above all others would have galled
him beyond measure.
"I called up at the farm, Gwenda, and saw our young friend with the
lion locks. He was crossing the farmyard with a book under his arm,
which was still in a sling, but when I asked him about it he only
laughed (splendid teeth all those Garthowens have, old Ebben's even are
perfect)! He said his arm was quite well and he didn't know why Dr.
Hughes insisted upon keeping it in a sling. If he could only be sure,
he said, that the young lady's foot was not giving her more pain than
he felt he would be glad. I told him your foot was painful, but would
soon be all right. Well-spoken young man. By the by, all the men on
the field asked after you, and most of them said that was a brave
fellow who sprang at the bull. I told them it was one of Ebben Owens's
sons. Everybody knows him, you know. Very old family. At one time, I
am told, the Garthowen estate was a large one. Griffiths Plâsdu's
grandfather bought a great deal of it, all that wooded land lying this
side of the moor. By the by, Captain Scott is coming round this way to
dine with us to-morrow and to stay the night. Pommy word, child, I
think he has taken a fancy to you. He seemed quite anxious about you.
Good-bye, my dear, I must go."
Gwenda turned her face to the window. The black elm branches swayed
against the evening sky, a brilliant star glittered through them, a
rising wind sighed mournfully and the girl sighed too.
"Yes, Captain Scott no doubt was interested in her, probably he would
propose to her, and if he did, probably she would accept him, with all
his money, his starting eyes, and his red nose! How dull and
uninteresting life is," she said. "I wonder what we are born for?"
* * * * * *
At Garthowen the stream of life was flowing on smoothly just then.
Will was happy and content. He had read the lessons on Sunday to Mr.
Price's entire satisfaction, clearly and with an evident understanding
of their meaning. Sometimes the roll of the "r's" and the lengthening
of the "o's" showed the Welshman's difficulty in pronouncing the
English tongue, but upon the whole, the accent was wonderfully good.
Above all things Will had taken pains to acquire the English tone of
speech, for he was sufficiently acute to know that however learned a
Welshman may be, his chances of success are seriously minimised by a
Welsh accent, therefore he had paid much attention to this point.
"The time is drawing near, father," he said one day. "I am determined
to go to Llaniago, and if you can't pay I must get the money somewhere
else, that's all," and he had risen from the table with that wilful,
dogged curve on his mouth which his father knew so well, and had always
been so weakly unable to resist.
"Twt, twt, my boy," he said, "that will be all right; don't you vex
about that."
And thus reassured, Will gladly banished the disquieting doubt from his
mind, and his good humour returned.
Gethin seemed to fall naturally into his place as eldest son of the
family, taking to the farm work with zeal and energy, and making up for
his want of experience by his complete devotion to his work.
Ann was calm and serene as usual, happy in her brother's prospects, and
deeply interested in the grey stone house which the congregation at
Penmorien were building for their minister.
Gwilym Morris devoted himself entirely to Will's preparations for his
entrance examination.
And for Morva, what had the autumn brought? A rich, full tide of life
and happiness. Every morning she rose with the sun, and as she opened
the door and let in the scent of the furze and the dewy grass, her
whole being responded to the voice of Nature around her. She was
constantly running backwards and forwards between Garthowen and the
cottage. Nothing went well at the farm without her, and in the cottage
there were a score of things which she loved to do for Sara. There
were the fowls to be fed, the eggs to be hunted for, the garden to be
weeded, the cottage to be cleaned, Sara's knitting to be set straight,
the herbs to be dried and sorted and tied up in bundles under the brown
rafters. Oh, yes! every day brought for Morva its full harvest of
lovely scenes, of beautiful sounds, and sweet scents. Certainly, Will
was a little cold and irritable lately, but she was well used to his
variable humours, and somehow the home-coming of Gethin had filled the
only void there had been in her life, though of that she had scarcely
been conscious. There was hardly an hour in the day when Morva's song
might not be heard filling the autumn air with melody, for how could
she help singing as she sat knitting on the moorside while she watched
the cattle, and kept them from roaming too near the edge of the cliff.
On the brow of the hill Gethin was harrowing. His lively whistle
reached her on the breeze, and she would look up at him as he passed
along the skyline, and rejoice once more that he had returned to make
their lives complete, to fill Ann's heart with happiness, and his
father's with content; for the girl, generally so clear-sighted, so
free from guile or pretence, was deceiving herself utterly, and
imagined that the increased joy and glory of life which had permeated
her whole being since Gethin's return, arose only from the deep
interest she took in every member of the Garthowen family, and was due
solely to the happiness which the return of the wanderer naturally
evoked. Was not Gethin Will's brother? had she not every reason to be
glad in his return to the old home? her playmate, the friend of her
childhood? and she gave herself up unrestrainedly to the happiness
which brooded over every hour of her life.
To Gethin, too, the world seemed to have changed to a paradise. Every
day, every hour drew him closer to Morva; in her presence he was lost
in a dream of happiness, in her absence she was ever present like a
golden vision in his mind. Will's manner towards the girl being
intentionally formal and distant, had completely blinded his brother to
the true state of affairs, and though his daily intercourse with Morva
seemed to him almost too delightful to last, he followed blindly the
chain that was binding him continually more closely to her.
"Art not going to the market to-day?" he shouted out to her one morning
as he drove the horses over the moor.
"No," called Morva in return.
"Will and Gwilym Morris are gone," he shouted again, beginning his way
towards her between the low gorse bushes. "Art watching the sheep,
lass?"
"No; 'tis the calves who will stray to the bog over yonder. Indeed,
they are wilful, whatever, for the grass down here is much sweeter.
There they go again--see!" and Gethin helped her with whoop and halloo,
and many devious races of circumvention to recover them. "Oh, anwl,
they are like naughty children," she said, sitting down, exhausted with
laughter and running, Gethin flinging himself beside her, and picking
idly at the gorse blossoms which filled the air with their rich perfume.
The clear, blue autumn sky was over them, the deep blue sea stretched
before them, the larks sang overhead, the sheep bleated on the moor,
and in the grass around them the dewdrops sparkled in the morning sun.
"'Tis a fair world," said Morva; "didst ever see more beautiful sea or
land than ours in all thy voyages, Gethin?"
"Brighter, grander, warmer, but more beautiful--none, Morva. Indeed to
me, since I've come home, every day seems happier and more
beautiful--and thou, too, Morva. I think by that merry song thou wert
singing thou art not very unhappy."
"Well, indeed, 'twas not a very happy song," said the girl, "but I
suppose I was putting my own foolishness into it."
"Wilt sing it again, lass?"
"Wilt sing, too?"
"Oh, dei anwl, yes; there's no song ever reaches my ears but I must
join in it. Come, sing on."
And Morva sang again, Gethin's rich tones blending with hers in full
harmony. This time she was awake, and realised the sorrow of the words.
"Well, no," said Gethin, "'tis not a very merry thing, indeed, to set
your heart upon winning a maiden, and to lose her as that poor fellow
did. But, Morva," he said, tossing the gorse blossoms on her lap,
"'tis a happy thing to love and to be loved in return."
"Yes, perhaps," said the girl, thinking of Will, and wondering why,
though he loved her so much, there was always a shadow hanging over her
affection for him.
Gethin longed to break the silence which fell over them, but a nervous
fear deterred him, a dread of spoiling the happy freedom of their
intercourse--a nameless fear of what her answer might be; so he put off
the hour of certainty, and seized the joys of hope and delight which
the present yielded him.
"Where's thy necklace, Morva?"
"'Tis at home in the box. Mother says a milkmaid should not wear such
beautiful things every day, and on Sunday the girls and boys would
stare at me if I wore them to chapel."
"What art keeping them for, then?" said Gethin. "For thy wedding-day?"
"That will be a long time; oh, no, before then very often I will wear
it, now when I'm at home alone, and sometimes when the sun is gone down
I love to feel it on my neck; and I go up to the moor sometimes and
peep at myself in the bog pools just to see how it looks. There's a
foolish girl I am!"
What a day of delight it was! The browns of autumn tingeing the moor,
the very air full of its mellow richness, the plash of the waves on the
rocks below the cliffs, the song of the reapers coming on the breeze,
oh, yes, life was all glorious and beautiful on the Garthowen slopes
just then.
"To-morrow night is the 'cynos.'[1] Wilt be there, Morva?" asked
Gethin.
"Well, yes, of course," answered the girl, "and 'tis busy we'll be with
only Ann and me and the men-servants, for Will never goes to the cynos;
he doesn't like farm work, and now he's studying so hard and all
'twould be foolish for him to sit up all night."
"I will be there, whatever," said Gethin.
"Wilt indeed?" and a glow of pleasure suffused her face. "There's
going to be fun there, they say, for Jacob the miller is going to ask
Neddy 'Pandy' to dance the 'candle dance,' and Robin Davies the sailor
will play the fiddle for him. Hast ever seen the candle dance?"
"No," said Gethin, his black eyes fixed on the girl's beautiful face,
which filled his mind to the exclusion of what she was saying.
"'Tis gone out of fashion long ago, but Jacob the miller likes to keep
up the old ways."
"The candle dance," said Gethin absently, "what is it like?"
"Well, indeed," said Morva, shyly bending her head under his ardent
gaze, "thee wilt see for thyself; I have dropped a stitch."
A long silence followed while the stitch was recovered, and the furze
blossoms came dropping into her lap, into her hair, and on to her neck.
She laughed at last, and sprang up tossing them all to the ground.
"The calves! the calves!" she cried, and once more both ran in pursuit
of the wilful creatures.
So simple a life, so void of all that is supposed to make life
interesting, and yet so full of love and health and happiness that the
memory of it was impressed upon the minds of both for the rest of their
lives. Yes, even in old age they called it to mind with a pensive
tenderness, and a lingering longing, and the words, "There's happy we
were long ago on the Garthowen slopes!"
Before he went to market in the morning Will had sought out Morva as
she sat on her milking-stool, leaning her head on Daisy's flank, and
milking her to the old refrain:
"Troodi, Troodi! come down from the mountain!
Troodi, Troodi! come up from the dale!"
"I want to see thee, Morva; wilt meet me beyond the Cribserth to-night?
'Twill be moonlight. I will wait for thee behind the broom bushes on
the edge of the cliff."
"Yes, I will come."
Will was looking his best, a new suit of clothes made by a Caer-Madoc
tailor, the first of the kind he had ever had, set off his handsome
figure to advantage, his hat pushed back showed the clumps of red gold
hair, the blue eyes, and the mouth with its curves of Cupid's bow.
Yes; certainly Will was a handsome man.
"There's smart thou art," said Morva, with a mischievous smile.
"'Tis my new suit; they are pretty well," said Will.
"And what are those? Gloves again! oh, anwl! indeed, it is time thee
and me should part," and rising from her stool she curtseyed low before
him with a little sarcasm in her looks and voice.
"Part, Morva--never!" said Will. "Remember tonight."
Morva nodded and bent to her work again, and the white sunbonnet leant
against Daisy once more, and the sweet voice sang the old melody. When
her pail was full she sighed as she watched Gwilym Morris and Will
disappear through the lane to the high road.
[1] The annual corn-grinding.