By Berwen Banks Part 2

"Yes, I hope."

She waved her hand, and disappeared behind a broom bush.

"Valmai! Valmai!" he said, as he tramped off in the opposite direction. "Yes, she is _Valmai_!" [2]

[1] "A pure Welshman." A favourite expression in Wales.

[2] "Like May."

CHAPTER II.

THE HOUSE ON THE CLIFF.

The Rev. Meurig Wynne, "y Vicare du," or "the black Vicar," as he was called by the country people, in allusion to his black hair and eyes, and also to his black apparel, sat in his musty study, as he had done every evening for the last twenty-five years, poring ever his old books, and occasionally jotting down extracts therefrom. He was a broad-shouldered man, tall and straight, about sixty-five years of age.

His clean-shaven face was white as marble, its cold and lifeless appearance accentuated by his jet-black hair, strongly-marked eyebrows of the same dark hue, and his unusually black eyes; his nose was slightly aquiline, and his mouth well shaped, though wide; but the firm-set lips and broad nostrils, gave the whole face an expression of coldness and hardness. In fact he had a peculiarly dour and dark look, and it was no wonder that when he walked through his parish the little children left their games in the road, and hurried inside their garden gates as he pa.s.sed.

He was perfectly conscious of this, and it pained him, though no one guessed it except his son, who felt a tender pity for the man who led so isolated and solitary a life.

The cause of his cold reserve Cardo had never been able to discover; but he somehow connected it with his mother's name, and therefore shrank from inquiring into his father's past life, preferring to let old memories sleep, rather than hear anything which might bring sorrow and pain into his life.

The Vicar was evidently uneasy, as he looked up listening, with one thin finger marking the place on the page he was reading. Cardo was later than usual, and not until he had heard his son's familiar firm step and whistle did he drop once more into the deep interest of his book.

As Cardo approached the house he saw the light in his father's window, and pictured to himself the cold, pale face bending over the musty books. "Poor old dad!" he murmured. Some sons would have tapped playfully at the window, but Cardo did not, he turned round the corner of the house, pa.s.sing by the front door, which was closed, and did not look inviting, to the other side, where the clatter of wooden shoes and a stream of light from the open doorway made some show of cheerfulness.

And there was Betto, his old nurse and his father's housekeeper, in loud, angry tones, reproving the shepherd boy who stood leaning against the door-post.

"h.e.l.lo! what's the matter, Betto?" said Cardo in Welsh; "what mischief has Robin been up to now?"

"Machgen bach i (my dear boy!), is that you?" said Betto; "there's glad I am! You are late to-night, and I was beginning to puzzle."

"Has my father missed me?"

"Well, indeed, he hasn't said anything," said Betto, hunting for the frying-pan, and beginning to prepare the ham and eggs for supper. "But where's that Robin?" she added; "a clout or two with the frying-pan would not hurt his addle pate."

"He has been wise, and made himself scarce; but what has he done, Betto?"

"What has he done? the villain! Well, you know the sheep are grazing in the churchyard this week, and that 'mwnki' is watching them there.

Well--he seated himself yesterday on a tombstone when we were in church, and whit, whit, whitted 'Men of Harlech' on his flute! and the Vicare praying so beautiful all the time, too! praying against the wiles of the devil and of Essec Powell!"

"Essec Powell! What has he been doing?"

"Well, machgen i, you will not believe! the boldness of those 'Methots' is something beyond! And the impidence of Essec Powell!

What do you think, Caradoc? he is _praying_ for your father--out loud, mind you!--in the prayer-meeting every Wednesday evening! But there!

the master is beforehand with him, for he is praying for Essec Powell on Tuesdays!" and she tossed the frizzling ham and eggs on the dish.

"Come to supper, my boy," and Cardo followed her nothing loth into the gloomy parlour, lighted by one home-made mould candle, for he was hungry in spite of the ginger-bread.

"Ah, Caradoc! you have come," said the Vicar, as he entered the room punctually at the stroke of ten, "what made you so late to-night?"

"Well," said Cardo, "when Deio, 'Red Dragon,' led Captain out of the stable, I found the swelling on his leg had risen again, so I left him with Roberts, the farrier. He will bring him home on Friday."

"You have ridden him too soon after his sprain, as I told you, but young men always know better than their elders."

"Well, you were right anyway this time, father."

"Yes," said his father; "as the old proverb says, 'Yr hen a wyr yr ifanc a debyg." [1]

"Shouldn't wonder if it rained to-morrow, the wind has veered to the south; it will be bad for the 'Sa.s.siwn,' won't it?" said Cardo, after a pause.

"The what?" said the Vicar, looking full at his son.

"The 'Sa.s.siwn,' sir, as they call it; the Methodist a.s.sociation, you know, to be held here next week."

"I don't want to hear anything about it; I take no interest in the subject."

"Won't you go then, father? There will be thousands of people there."

"No, sir, I will not go; neither will you, I hope," answered the Vicar, and pus.h.i.+ng his plate away, he rose, and walked stiffly out at the door and along the stone pa.s.sage leading to his study.

His son listened to his retreating footsteps.

"As bigoted as ever, poor fellow!" he said; "but what a fool I was to mention the subject." And he continued his supper in silence. When Betto came in to clear away he had flung himself down on the hard horse-hair sofa. The mould candle lighted up but a small s.p.a.ce in the large, cold room; there was no fire in the grate, no books or papers lying about, to beguile the tedious hour before bedtime. Was it any wonder that his thoughts should revert to the earlier hours of the evening? that he should hear again in fancy the soft voice that said, "I am Valmai Powell," and that he should picture to himself the cl.u.s.tering curls that escaped from the red hood?

The old house, with its long pa.s.sages and large rooms, was full of those nameless sounds which fill the air in the quiet of night. He heard his father's footsteps as he paced up and down in his study, he heard the tick-tack of the old clock on the stairs, the bureau creaked, the candle spluttered, but there was no human voice to break the silence, With a yawn he rose, stretching his long legs, and, throwing back his broad shoulders, made his way along the dark pa.s.sage which led into the kitchen, where the farm servants were seated at supper. Betto moved the beehive chair into a cosy corner beside the fire for the young master, the men-servants all tugged their forelocks, and the women rose to make a smiling bob-curtsey.

"Have some cawl,[2] Ser!" said Betto, selecting a s.h.i.+ning black bowl and spoon.

"Not to-night, after all that fried ham; but another night I want nothing better for supper."

"Well, there's nothing will beat cawl, that's certain," said Ebben, the head servant, beginning with long-drawn noisy sups to empty his own bowl.

"Finished the turnips to-day?" asked Cardo.

"Oh, yes," said Ebben, with a slight tone of reproof in his voice; "the work goes on though you may not be at home, Ser. I consider there is no piece of land on this earth, no, nor on any other earth, better farmed than Brynderyn. Eh?" and he looked defiantly at Betto, between whom and himself there was a continual war of words.

"Well, I suppose so, indeed," said Betto; "_you_ say so often enough, whatever, and what you say must be right."

There was such an insidious mixture of flattery and sarcasm in her words that, for a moment Ebben was at a loss what to answer, so Malen, the milkmaid, took the opportunity of changing the subject.

"There's tons of bread will be baked on Monday," she said, "ready for the Sa.s.siwn. Jini 'bakkare' has two sacks of flour to bake, and there's seven other women in Abersethin will bake the same quant.i.ty."

"At Morfa," said Shanw, "they have killed a cow and a sheep; and the tongues, and fowls, and hams will fill every oven in the parish."

Betto sniffed and tossed her head scornfully. "They may well give them bread and meat," she said, "for I don't see what else they have to give them."