Garthowen Part 11

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 inc.u.mbent 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 bl.u.s.tering 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 Plasdu, 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 Cardigans.h.i.+re 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, n.o.body 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 Plasdu, '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 Plasdu'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 p.r.o.nouncing 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 rea.s.sured, 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 gra.s.s, 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 pa.s.sed 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, la.s.s?"

"No; 'tis the calves who will stray to the bog over yonder. Indeed, they are wilful, whatever, for the gra.s.s down here is much sweeter.

There they go again--see!" and Gethin helped her with whoop and halloo, and many devious races of circ.u.mvention 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 gra.s.s 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, la.s.s?"