CHAPTER VIII

A Bowl of Buttermilk

The weeks slipped by, unmarked by any special events other than the gathering of the hay harvest, which was rich and plentiful.

Captain Jack had become a regular attendant at Brynzion, drawn there simply by a feeling of sociability and his love of music, for Brynzion was famed for its good singing even in that neighbourhood, where choirs and singing-classes were the mainstay of every congregation. He enjoyed the swinging rhythm of the old hymns, though with a little sense of awkwardness at finding himself inside a place of worship – an experience which he had eschewed for many years.

Nance saw him from her pew in the opposite corner and rejoiced. Why she so rejoiced it would be difficult to say. It does not do to look too closely into the motives and sentiments of the human heart. At all events, she thought her joy was over the saving of his soul.

Poor Nance! She was ill at ease, and had lost the buoyancy and spirit which had been her chief charm. Her face had lost some of its fresh colouring, too, and there were dark rings under her eyes; for though the mind may not be deep enough for harassing thoughts, the heart may still open to the ravages of stormy passions and insidious temptations.

To do her justice, it had not been without a struggle that she had allowed her infatuation for the roving sailor once more to enter her heart. Gildas she thought was hard, and callous to the religious wave that was bringing life into services that had grown somewhat time-worn and spiritless.

Here was a man who felt it all as she did, who attended every meeting, and who as regularly walked home with her and her grandfather, ever ready at stile or streamlet to help her over, with the little nameless attentions to which she was not much accustomed in her rough country life.

A perverse stubbornness seemed to be daily growing stronger within her against Gildas who was hard and proud she thought – not towards her, it was true, but towards the wave of the Spirit which to her and to her friends meant religion, and therefore it was right that she should show her disapproval, and that she should be more faithful than ever to Brynzion.

Gildas, meanwhile, showed no diminution of kindness and care towards her, though he had become more reserved and less cheerful than he used to be, letting her go her own way, and calmly taking his own to field and market; but towards Brynzion and the revival showing a cold and stolid front, taking no interest in the meetings, and receiving Nance and Hezek’s glowing accounts of fresh conversions with indifference.

No suspicion of her feelings towards Captain Jack had ever entered his mind. As ready as ever to greet him with hospitable warmth, to drive him to market or fair, to smoke with him under the big chimney, he wondered why he so seldom appeared at Scethryg. ‘What is the matter with him, Nance?’ he asked one day, when the sailor had sat for an hour with Hezek in the old store-house, and had then returned to the village without entering the house. ‘Has the revival altered him, too?’ he wondered; but he kept his thoughts to himself, for he had got into the way of avoiding that subject as one on which it pained him to disagree with Nance.

‘What is the matter with him? How do I know? Nothing, I should think,’ she answered, turning to the dairy with the look of irritability which was settling down upon her face.

‘Well indeed, perhaps I am fancying it. They’re drawing the net tonight on Tregildas sands; there’ll be plenty of fish – will I ask him to come and have supper with us? Wilt come down thyself to the shore, ’merch-i?’

There was an eager tremor in the man’s voice, and a melting tenderness in his eyes, as he asked the question; but at Nance’s reply every sign of eagerness was repressed, and the flash of light that had for a moment made him look like the Gildas of old died away.

‘Caton pawb!’ was her answer. ‘How can I go down to the shore when it’s churning-day and all?’

‘Gwenifer is going to help thee, isn’t she? and she is coming to see the nets drawn. There will be plenty of time when the churning is over.’

‘Oh! let Gwenifer go then; I am too busy, whatever.’

‘So!’ said Gildas, a flush of annoyance dyeing his face. For a few minutes he was silent, but rose at last and followed Nance into the dairy, where in the shaded light she was busy over her cream-pans. She looked very pretty and young with her tucked-up skirt and bare arms; a shaft of sunlight streaming in through the latticed window catching her yellow hair. Scarcely noticing Gildas, she continued to pour the golden cream into the churn, but when he closed the string-latched door behind him, and approached her more closely, she raised her eyes inquiringly, and it would have been no wonder if they had rested admiringly upon him; for as he stood there in his rough grey working coat, his blue shirt loosened at the collar, showing the manly brown throat, his red tie hanging loosely on his breast, his strong hand grasping the sickle which he was carrying to his work – he made a striking picture of rustic comeliness and strength. Nance noticed nothing of this, or if she did she made no sign; but she saw the look of determination in his set lips and flashing eyes, and her own hot temper rose at once defiantly in opposition.

‘Not so near the churn, Gildas,’ she said, ‘there are hayseeds on thy coat.’ He did not withdraw, however, but stood still a moment, looking at her hot with anger, but with a wistful seriousness which she had never seen in him before.

In that moment’s gaze, while the thick cream flowed softly into the churn, he seemed to read her very soul; and, alas! Nance was beginning to harbour feelings that would not bear such close scrutiny.

‘Dear anwl! What is it, then?’ she asked at last, when her eyelids were beginning to droop a little under his steadfast look.

‘’Tis this, then,’ he said. ‘Listen to me! Art coming with me to Jane and John’s wedding tomorrow? Thou knowest I have promised for us both.’

‘Jane and John’s wedding! and me in the middle of clearing up the work after the haymaking! How can’st expect me, Gildas? No, indeed! I am not coming.’

There was another silence, during which the man’s broad chest heaved a little, while, with folded arms, he stood looking out through the lattice bars, as though he took counsel from the shimmering sea that gleamed through the ivy leaves outside.

‘Nance!’ he said at last. ‘Nance! Listen to me, ’merch-i, for I mean every word I say. Of late thou hast refused me every trifle I have asked of thee, though I have never refused thee anything. Once more, Nance, wilt come with me to the wedding? If not’ – and he paused for a moment – ‘if not, then I will never ask thee anything more!’

A peal of laughter was Nance’s answer.

‘Well indeed!’ she said, when she had recovered her breath. ‘Well indeed! I thought something dreadful was coming. Is that all, then? Thou wilt never ask me anything more.’ And she laughed again, with one hand to her side, while the other still held the dripping cream pot.

‘Yes, that is all,’ he said, and slowly turned away, sickle in hand.

She expected a last reproach, but it did not come; on the contrary, Gildas seemed to have forgotten the matter as he passed out through the kitchen. He stopped at the doorway and called back in his usual manner, ‘’Tis a hot day; Dai and Ben will be glad to have their lunch: wilt remind Het of it, Nance?’

‘Yes, yes, I’ll send it at ten as usual; ’tis only half-past nine yet.’

‘Right,’ said Gildas, and was gone.

In the lane that led to the fields two men were sauntering towards him, enjoying the cool shade of the overarching thorn hedges, and Gildas recognised Captain Jack and his mate, who had arrived the preceding day.

‘Well, well! I was asking Nance this morning what had become of you, cap’n! and I am glad to see, mate, that you’ve not forgotten your way to Scethryg.’

‘No, no, not likely! And how’s the mestress?’

‘Oh, quite well,’ said Gildas. ‘She’s in the house. Go you in and sit a bit; ’tis as hot as noon already.’

‘’Tis that,’ said Captain Jack, and his light blue eyes, whose long black lashes seemed to throw quite a shade over them, flickered and drooped under Gildas’s straight, clear gaze; and the latter wondered what had disturbed the lighthearted sailor.

‘Any hay to make?’ asked the mate.

‘No, ’tis all in, as the captain here can tell you.’

‘We are bringing you news,’ continued the mate. ‘Evan Roberts is coming this week. He’s to lodge with John Parry and his wife, and there’s to be a grand meeting at Brynzion to prepare for him.’

‘So indeed!’ was all Gildas’s answer, while Captain Jack said nothing, but reached up to the pale June roses that trailed over the hedgeside.

‘Well, he has been long waited for,’ said Gildas at last. ‘The mestress will be glad of the news. I must go to the fields, so good-day to you both,’ and he went on his way down the shady lane.

‘Dei anwl! There’s a fool I was to say anything about it to him,’ said the mate. ‘Did you hear how dry he answered? “So indeed,” says he, as if I had only told him the wind had changed. Well, he was always as cold and hard as a stone. I wonder how is poor little Nance getting on with him?’

‘A grand man, I call him,’ said Captain Jack. ‘As straight as a line and as honest as the day! If everybody was like Gildas Rees there would be no need of any Diwygiad.’

‘Oh yes, he is all that, no doubt,’ assented the mate, and in the silence that so often marks the companionship of old and tried friends they passed up the lane to the farmyard, where the sunshine was glistening on the straw, and in the shade of the cow-sheds a few of the cows and horses stood ruminating and lazily switching their tails at the flies.

Outside the farmhouse door the temperature was almost tropical, and from this great heat the two men entered gladly into the shady interior.

How refreshing the breeze blowing straight through the house from front door to back! How suggestive of coolness, too, was the swishing sound of the frothing cream in the churn!

‘Pouff!’ exclaimed both the men as they entered, to find Nance busily preparing the ten o’clock lunch, which Ben and Dai were already waiting for under the shadow of the hedge in the turnip-field.

She pulled down her sleeves and smoothed her ruffled hair with a shy embarrassment, and her face lighted up with the old sparkle and brightness, which had been absent too often of late.

With a great many ‘dear anwls’ and ‘well indeeds’ she greeted the newcomers warmly, fetched two horsehair-covered chairs from the ‘parlwr’, and placed before them a brown jug filled with foaming new beer, pressing them to drink, ‘for ’tis so warm today, and you must be thirsty.’

‘’Tis warm, and no mistake,’ said Captain Jack. ‘We would not come up so early, only the mate here thought you would like to hear the news we’re bringing you.’

‘Yes,’ chimed in the mate, ‘we’re bringing you good news, whatever! Evan Roberts is coming to Tregildas very soon.’

‘Very soon?’ exclaimed Nance. ‘Oh, there’s glad I am;’ and all the interest and excitement that was wanting in Gildas’s reception of the news was evident in her face and voice. Her colour came and went, there was a flutter in her breath and a restlessness in her movements which the mate had never noticed before.

‘Now,’ she said, ‘I hope we will have the same grand things happening in Brynzion as they have had in Graig and other places. Well indeed, there’s a good thing you are telling me.’ Her hand trembled as she held the sparkling ale towards Captain Jack, who, however, declined it, saying laughingly, ‘No, no, give it to the mate – he can never refuse a glass; but for me – a drink of buttermilk, if you please; I’m thirsting for it, with that swishing sound in my ears.’

‘Oh, well, you can have plenty of that; ’tis Gwenifer churning in there; I will fetch you a jug of it.’ But before she could prevent him he had started to his feet, and had pushed open the dairy door, where the sound of the swishing was growing less continuous, saying, ‘No, no, I will fetch it myself.’

In the shaded light Gwenifer was standing peering into the churn, while Het stood expectant at the handle. ‘Is it come?’ she asked. Gwenifer smiled and nodded, and, raising her eyes, saw that Captain Jack had entered the dairy, and was looking at her with that strange gaze of wonderment and admiration combined which would have embarrassed most girls, but to her it seemed only the natural expression of those wonderful eyes… so light in colour, yet so deeply shaded.

Therefore there was nothing but pleased surprise in the look with which she greeted him as he drew nearer.

‘I’ve come to beg a drink of buttermilk,’ he said. ‘If the taste of it is as good as the sound, this hot day, ’twill be better than all the cwrw in the world.’

Evidently this was the girl’s own opinion, for she nodded emphatically as she turned to a high shelf that ran round the dairy walls. Reaching down a wooden bowl, she filled it from the churn and held it towards him, her slender, girlish figure showing its graceful lines against the whitewashed walls; and Captain Jack took the crude drinking-cup from her hands with a respectful, almost a deferential air, which Gwenifer seemed to accept quite naturally.

‘Here’s to our further acquaintance, then, Gwenifer,’ he said, and, raising the bowl to his lips, he took a long and refreshing draught before he returned it to her with the same respectful manner.

Standing there in the green light that filtered in through the screen of ivy growing over the window, surrounded by the snowy milk-pans, and white-scoured dairy utensils, she seemed to him the embodiment of purity and innocence, and in her presence the reckless sailor felt a strange and wistful longing for – something – he knew not what, which she alone could give him.

Her neck was bared to the cool breeze, and her round smooth arms rivalled the cream in their sun-kissed whiteness.

He lingered a moment, turning his cap in his hands as if with the intention of speaking; but Gwenifer interrupted him by laying her finger on her red lips, with the usual shake of her head, as though she said, ‘I would remind you that I cannot answer what you have to say,’ and she turned to the churn where the butter was floating in yellow crumbs on the face of the frothing buttermilk.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I know I ought to go, but I want to tell you first how much I wish those beautiful lips could speak.’ As soon as he had spoken, he was filled with fear lest his words had offended her; a sense of refinement, which perhaps he owed to his early life and education, told him that it had been bad taste to allude to her affliction, and he left the dairy in an uneasy frame of mind, for this silent girl had some strange attraction for him, and as he entered the kitchen he seemed lost in thought, and left the dairy door ajar. As a consequence Gwenifer, looking after him, could see Nance who was sitting in her direct line of vision, and her brown eyes were arrested by something in that picture seen between the heavy black door and its clumsy frame. What was it that made her stand so still with that brimming platter of butter dropping its cream into the churn?

Nance was sitting in the full light of the window, her knitting fallen on her lap, John Davies slowly winding up the ball of worsted which had rolled on to the floor, when Captain Jack appeared, and over Nance’s face came that change of expression which had arrested Gwenifer’s attention.

The changing colour, the drooping eyes, the conscious smile of greeting, – where had these been when Gildas had entered – Gildas, who had chosen her to be his wife, to share his hearth with him, when she, Gwenifer, ofttimes had closed the door upon them and taken her solitary way over the moor? How often at such times had she envied Nance as she looked back through the darkness and saw the cheerful light in the Scethryg window! How her heart had rebelled at the thought of Nance’s happiness, and her own silent loneliness! And now, what was the meaning of that altered expression in Nance’s face? of that beaming smile? that blushing embarrassment? Och-i, och-i! she saw it all. She called to mind the foolish infatuation that had prompted the words – ‘Gwenifer, I love him, lass, and if he called me I would go to him as his dog runs to him,’ and in one swift flash of intuition she realised that Gildas was supplanted in Nance’s heart by this roving sailor. Gildas despised, forgotten! To her it seemed terrible and almost impossible. The very thought of it sent the blood surging through her veins and dyed her cheeks with the hot blush of shame. She could hear the merry talk in the kitchen, the captain’s bantering jokes and Nance’s laughing repartees, and her heart ached with an intolerable sense of wrong done to Gildas. What could she do to help him? She, the silent one, who could not even tell him how she pitied him. Pity him? Pity Gildas, the strong, the firm man, who to her seemed the embodiment of all that was brave and powerful!

She finished her work like one in a dream, her thoughts as busy as her deft hands, as she cleared the dairy of every sign of the churning, except that row of golden pats ranged on the cool stone slab prepared for them. How white, how pure, how sweet everything looked! Why was her heart so full of dark misgivings? She must go, she must fly to the lonely moor, where the west wind could whisper peace to her, where the rushes would bow, and the wild flowers would nod and tremble as if they understood the feeling which she was unable to express.

It was noon before the two men rose to go. ‘Are you sure you won’t stay and have your cawl with us?’ asked Nance, as the captain stood hesitating a moment, cap in hand.

‘Oh, diwedd anwl, no!’ exclaimed both, ‘not for the world; Peggi Jones would never forgive us, she thinks she makes the best cawl in Tregildas. One moment, mestress,’ added the captain, and he entered the dairy where Gwenifer was putting the finishing touches to her work. ‘Good-day,’ he said, ‘we are going now, and thank you again for the buttermilk.’ She looked up surprised, not accustomed to such attention, and waved a deprecation of his thanks with the smile which was so ready to come to her lips, but with a cloud of sorrow in her eyes that the captain saw at once, and pondered over as he caught up his companion in the shady lane.

‘What you been doing so long in the dairy, cap’n?’ asked the mate as they walked on together, and there was a sly twinkle in his eye, though there was a note of more serious warning in his voice. ‘No courting with Gwenifer allowed; ’tis hands off her, mind you.’

‘Hush, fool,’ said the captain, turning upon him for once with real anger. ‘Would’st joke with an angel who came down to walk on earth for a time?’

‘Well no, I wouldn’t, b’t shwr,’ answered the mate, with the bantering twinkle still lurking in his eyes. But Captain Jack did not seem inclined to follow up the subject; on the contrary, an occasional remark on the heat was all that passed between them, until they reached the village and sat down to Peggi Jones’s cawl.

When the shadows of evening fell over the sea, Tregildas made a sudden start into life and action. The lapping of the wavelets on the sands, the soft grey atmosphere, instead of soothing, aroused the inhabitants to a new sensation. There was something to do! Something to call them out from their cottages where the odour of the culm fires hung heavily. They earned enough for their simple mode of life, and therefore preferred to rust out rather than wear out. But when the net that had hung undisturbed for a month over the rafters in Jerri’s cottage had been dragged from its place, by a sudden burst of energy that had seized two or three men simultaneously; when it had been carried out a few hundred yards from the shore; when a second boat had borne one end across the little bay, and the calling and the hurrying assured them that it was really about to be drawn in – then Mari and Sara and Marged and Ann began to bestir themselves, for there would be fish, b’t shwr, without any exertion on their part, and if they were there in good time they would share in the haul.

So they reached down a special jug from the top shelf on the dresser – the very jug in which their mother or grandmother had hoarded up her savings! – and picking out a few coppers, proceeded to the shore, where, in the fast falling darkness, they found a goodly company of friends and neighbours. They greeted each other with an unusual seriousness, if not solemnity; for were they not on the eve of an important event, which should bring salvation to their souls and glory to Brynzion?

At last the two boats neared the shore, drawing closer and closer together, and entrappping the silver mackerel that had shoaled in the bay all day.

Gildas was in one of the boats, his hands busy with the oars, while his heart was burning with a bitter sense of anger. When he arrived on the shore, he had been greeted respectfully by the assembled villagers with the usual ‘Nos da chi, mishteer,’ and he had not at first observed the coldness in their manner; but as they drew near the surf and launched their boats there fell upon Gildas a curious sense of isolation. There was no direct insult offered him – they dared not insult the man who owned their cottages – but a sort of silent aloofness seemed to shut him out of the free comradeship which generally reigned on such occasions. He had been slow to recognise the fact, but at last it dawned clearly upon him that his attitude towards the revival meetings was embittering the feelings of his neighbours towards him, and his hot, proud spirit filled him with a defiant independence. What did it matter? He could live without their friendship; he could turn them out homeless on the bare shore to find new homes where best they could.

These were the thoughts that rose within him when for the first time in his life he felt himself avoided and insulted; but bending to his oar, with the peace of the sea around him, and only the sound of the oars in the rowlocks breaking the silence, he saw the dark blue sky of night above him where the stars were beginning to show through the haze, and in his heart a nobler spirit than that of revenge took the place of his first turbulent feelings of indignation. ‘They know me better than to fear me, and so they venture far,’ he thought, and with a scornful smile he helped in the work of drawing in the net. Again he found himself left alone on the rocks, while the rest of the company ran eagerly towards the spot where the silvery, flapping haul had been emptied on the beach.

‘Jari! I must go, too, if I want any fish for supper,’ he thought, and the smile of scorn changed to one of amusement as he followed more leisurely across the shore. A little heap of the best fish had been laid aside for him.

‘Will I carry them up to Scethryg for you, mishteer?’ said Jerri; but he declined in a voice that sounded perhaps a little colder and harder than usual.

Here a silent, slim figure with a creel on her shoulders appeared in the gloom, and, laying her hand on his arm, pointed to the fish and then to her creel.

‘Gwenifer, lass, is it thou indeed? How dost find out always when thou art wanted? Art sure the fish will not wet thy neck?’ But she showed him the seaweed laid thick at the bottom of the basket, and slipping the creel over her shoulder they turned to leave the shore.

‘I’m glad, after all, that Nance did not come down,’ said Gildas. ‘’Tis rather chilly and damp tonight.’ As he spoke he stumbled over a woman, who crouched behind a rock counting her fish.

‘Nelli Amos!’ he exclaimed, ‘what in the name of the dear! art doing here, with thy rheumatism so bad? Go home, out of the damp.’

‘What am I doing here? Well, I don’t know; ’tis too damp for me; but I’ll tell you what I am not doing, Gildas Rees,’ she said, rising and straightening herself: ‘I am not opposing the Holy Spirit; I am not turning my back upon the chapel where my parents worshipped before me; and I am not leaving my young wife to come to chapel alone and to walk home with a stranger.’

‘Well done, Nelli; thy words flow like the mill-stream,’ laughed Gildas; but his laugh covered a flood of disturbing thoughts, and a crowd of dark imaginings sprang into life within him as he turned away and followed the path to the moor.

‘Only two fish she had in her basket, whatever, poor thing! Thou canst slip two more on her table as we pass; she will not know who did it,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ nodded Gwenifer, and she made a little detour from the path round Nelli’s cottage.

They had reached the uneven ground that bordered the moor; the stars crowded the sky above them, and Gildas stood still awaiting Gwenifer’s return.

Suddenly on the night breeze came a light laugh, then voices, followed by the appearance of two figures who ran down the hillside together; and Gildas recognised Nance and Captain Jack as they emerged from the gloom. ‘Nance!’ he exclaimed, and for a moment she seemed embarrassed, but quickly regained her self-possession.

‘Dear anwl! Gildas,’ she answered. ‘What! coming home? Are we too late, then? There’s a pity.’

‘Well, there,’ said the captain, ‘I was afraid ’twas rather late; but when I saw the boats going out, I thought ’twas a pretty sight, and a pity the mestress should not be there.’

‘Yes, you are too late,’ said Gildas. ‘The fish has been divided, and the net is drawn up to the grass. I thought you were too busy to come, Nance,’ he added. ‘You have changed your mind.’

‘Yes, I changed my mind,’ said Nance, with a bold front. ‘I suppose I have a right to do that if I like.’

‘Was it a good haul?’ asked Captain Jack.

‘Yes, very. Gwenifer is carrying some up in her creel. Come you and the mate to supper with us.’

‘The mestress has been asking me already,’ said the captain. ‘’Tis kind of you both, but we have promised to go and have supper with Jones the preacher tonight.’

‘Oh, well; some other night, then. Good-night now. My clothes are too wet to stand longer.’ And he turned towards Scethryg; but Nance stood still.

‘Go you home, Gildas,’ she said, with an air of bravado. ‘Gwenifer will give you your supper. I am going to see Nelli Amos.’

Without a word Gildas turned up the hillside, soon joined by Gwenifer, who had returned just in time to hear Nance’s last words. She lingered a moment with her; but Nance had dismissed her impatiently, and Gwenifer, when she caught Gildas up in the lane, saw by his silent abstraction that he was troubled and ill at ease.