'No, no, no, no, Tom, pray don't let her--dear little girl! beautiful
little girl!'
'Very well, Master Aylwin,' said Tom grandly, 'she sha'n't if you
don't like, but she _shall_ go and kiss you and make it up.'
At this the child's face brightened, and she came and laid her little
red lips upon mine. Velvet lips, I feel them now, soft and warm--I
feel them while I write these lines.
Tom looked on for a moment, and then left us, blundering away towards
Raxton, most likely to a beer-house.
He told the child that she was to go home and mind the house until he
returned. He gave her the church key to take home. We two were left
alone in the churchyard, looking at each other in silence, each
waiting for the other to speak. At last she said, demurely,
'Good-bye; father says I must go home.'
And she walked away with a business-like air towards the little white
gate of the churchyard, opening upon what was called 'The Wilderness
Road.' When she reached the gate she threw a look over her shoulder
as she passed through. It was that same look again--wistful, frank,
courageous. I immediately began to follow her, although I did not
know why. When she saw this she stopped for me. I got up to her, and
then we proceeded side by side in perfect silence along the dusty
narrow road, perfumed with the scent of wild rose and honeysuckle.
Suddenly she stopped and said,
'I have left my hat on the tower,' and laughed merrily at her own
heedlessness.
She ran back with an agility which I thought I had never seen
equalled. It made me sad to see her run so fast, though once how it
would have delighted me! I stood still; but when she reached the
church porch she again looked over her shoulder, and again I
followed her:--I did not in the least know why. That look I think
would have made me follow her through lire and water--it _has_ made
me follow her through fire and water. When I reached her she put the
great black key in the lock. She had some difficulty in turning the
key, but I did not presume to offer such services as mine to so
superior a little woman. After one or two fruitless efforts with both
her hands, each attempt accompanied with a little laugh and a little
merry glance in my face, she turned the key and pushed open the door.
We both passed into the ghastly old church, through the green glass
windows of which the sun was shining, and illuminating the broken
remains of the high-hacked pews on the opposite side. She ran along
towards the belfry, and I soon lost her, for she passed up the stone
steps, where I knew I could not follow her.
In deep mortification I stood listening at the bottom of the
steps--listening to those little feet crunching up the broken
stones--listening to the rustle of her dress against the narrow stone
walls, until the sounds grew fainter and fainter, and then ceased.
Presently I heard her voice a long way up, calling out, 'Little boy,
if you go outside you will see something.' I guessed at once that she
was going to exhibit herself on the tower, where, before my accident,
I and my brother Frank were so fond of going. I went outside the
church and stood in the graveyard, looking up at the tower. In a
minute I saw her on it. Her face was turned towards me, gilded by the
golden sunshine. I could, or thought I could, even at that distance,
see the flash of the bright eyes looking at me. Then a little hand
was put over the parapet, and I saw a dark hat swinging by its
strings, as she was waving it to me. Oh! that I could have climbed
those steps and done that! But that exploit of hers touched a strange
chord within me. Had she been a boy, I could have borne it in a
defiant way; or had she been any other girl than this, my heart would
not have sunk as it now did when I thought of the gulf between her
and me. Down I sat upon a grave, and looked at her with a feeling
quite new to me.
This was a phase of cripplehood I had not contemplated. She soon left
the tower, and made her appearance at the church door again. After
locking it, which she did by thrusting a piece of stick through the
handle of the key, she came and stood over me. But I turned my eyes
away and gazed across the sea, and tried to deceive myself into
believing that the waves, and the gulls, and the sails dreaming on
the sky-line, and the curling clouds of smoke that came now and then
from a steamer passing Dullingham Point were interesting me deeply.
There was a remoteness about the little girl now, since I had seen
her unusual agility, and I was trying to harden my heart against her.
Loneliness I felt was best for me. She did not speak, but stood
looking at me. I turned my eyes round and saw that she was looking at
my crutches, which were lying beside me aslant the green hillock
where I sat. Her face had turned grave and pitiful.
'Oh! I forgot,' she said. 'I wish I had not run away from you now.'
'You may run where you like for what I care,' I said. But the words
were very shaky, and I had no sooner said them than I wished them
back. She made no reply for some time, and I sat plucking the
wild-flowers near my hands, and gazing again across the sea. At last
she said,
'Would you like to come in our garden? It's such a nice garden.'
I could resist her no longer. That voice would have drawn me had she
spoken in the language of the Toltecs or the lost Zamzummin. To
describe it would of course be impossible. The novelty of her accent,
the way in which she gave the 'h' in 'which,' 'what,' and 'when,' the
Welsh rhythm of her intonation, were as bewitching to me as the
_timbre_ of her voice. And let me say here, once for all, that when I
sat down to write this narrative, I determined to give the English
reader some idea of the way in which, whenever her emotions were
deeply touched, her talk would run into soft Welsh diminutives; but I
soon abandoned the attempt in despair. I found that to use colloquial
Welsh with effect in an English context is impossible without
wearying English readers and disappointing Welsh ones.
Here, indeed, is one of the great disadvantages under which this book
will go out to the world. While a story-teller may reproduce, by
means of orthographical devices, something of the effect of Scottish
accent, Irish accent, or Manx accent, such devices are powerless to
represent Welsh accent.
I got up in silence, and walked by her side out of the churchyard
towards her father's cottage, which was situated between the new
church and the old, and at a considerable distance from the town of
Raxton on one side, and the village of Graylingham on the other. Her
eager young limbs would every moment take her ahead of me, for she
was as vigorous as a fawn. But by the time she was half a yard in
advance, she would recollect herself and fall back; and every time
she did so that same look of tenderness would overspread her face.