Garthowen Part 12

"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 fas.h.i.+on 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 st.i.tch."

A long silence followed while the st.i.tch 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.

CHAPTER IX

THE NORTH STAR

Ebben Owens was going to market in his rough jolting car, Dyc "pigstye"

beside him, both dressed in their best frieze. In the back of the car, covered over with a netting, lay three small pigs, who grunted and squealed in concert when a rough stone gave them an extra jolt. In the crowded street at Castell On, where the bargaining was most vigorous, and the noise of the market was loudest, he stopped and unharnessed Bowler, who had "forged" into town with great swinging steps and much jingling of buckles and chains.

Having led him into the yard of the Plough Inn, he returned, and with Dyc's help proceeded to lift out the pigs and carry them to the pen prepared for them in the open street, Dyc taking them by the ears and Ebben Owens by the tail. Now, pigs have remonstrated loudly against this mode of conveyance for generations, but n.o.body seems to have listened to their expostulations. They are by no means light and airy creatures, indeed, for their size, they are of considerable weight, so why they of all other animals should be picked out for this summary mode of transport is difficult to understand. At any rate the Garthowen pigs resented it warmly, and the air was rent with their shrieks as Will and Gwilym Morris came upon the scene. Ebben Owens almost dropped his pig in the delight of seeing his son in his new clothes. Will nodded smilingly at him, while keeping at a respectable distance from the shrieking animals, and the old man was filled with a glow of pride and happiness which threw a _couleur de rose_ over everything for the rest of the day. In truth, Morgan Jones of Bryn made an easy bargain with him for those pigs, and Ebben went home in the evening with ten s.h.i.+llings less in his pocket than he meant to have had when he started from home.

"Look you here," he said to Ann and Gethin, who both hovered round him on his return with loving attentions, "look you here now; wasn't a gentleman in the market looking smarter than our Will to-day! There was the young son of Mr. Vaughan the lawyer, was dressed like him exactly--same brown hat, same grey suit, and his boots not s.h.i.+ning so well as Will's! Caton pawb! there's handsome he was! Shouldn't wonder if he didn't marry a lady some day, with plenty of money!"

"Shouldn't wonder, indeed," said Gethin, clapping him on the back; "and there's proud he'll be to drive his old father to church with him!"

"Hech! hech! hech!" laughed the old man, sitting down and rubbing his knees. "Well, indeed, he's a fine boy, whatever!"

"Wasn't Gwilym there?" asked Ann.

"Yes, yes, to be sure, and he is looking very nice always; but I didn't notice him much today."

Meanwhile, in the town, Will and Gwilym had much to do; there were books to be got--there was a horse to be looked at for the farm--and, moreover, Will was to call upon Mr. Price the vicar, so the hours pa.s.sed quickly away, until late in the afternoon when the crowd was a little thinning, the Nantmyny carriage pa.s.sed through the street, within it Colonel Vaughan and his niece. Will saw it at once, and turned away to avoid recognition--for although nothing would have pleased him more, he was a man of great tact and common sense, and never spoiled a good chance by indiscreet intrusion. As he turned away, Colonel Vaughan caught sight of him, and, stopping the carriage, beckoned to a bystander, who touched his hat with a k.n.o.bbed stake from the hedge.

"Isn't that young Owens of Garthowen?"

"Iss, sare," said the man, knocking his hat again.