CHAPTER XVII

Inside the Red Gate

The harvest all over the coast hills that year had been one of unusual fulness and beauty – of almost unbroken sunshine all day, and brilliant moonlight at night, the latter being no small factor in the ripening of crops, according to the farmers; at all events, it had added much to the beauty of the season. It was past now – the heavy crops of golden grain, the song and shout of the harvesters, the swish of the scythes, and the clash of the ‘crymans’ – and the soft grey days of St Michael’s summer had come.

Gildas Rees had good reason to be grateful to Jones Bryndu, for he had given him daily and unceasing help until the Scethryg crops were safely garnered; while Betsy Jones had made him feel, without a word spoken, but by her kindly grip of his hand, that he had her confidence as completely as he had her husband’s. One thing had grievously upset her – why had she not been called at the inquest?

‘In my deed, Will,’ she said, ‘I could have made everything plain to the coroner in two minutes. I could have told him what I know, and then he would have seen that Gildas Rees, instead of being a wicked man, is the most long-suffering, and the kindest, and the bravest.’

‘Stop, stop! Where do I come in?’ laughed her husband.

‘Of course, in the right place, at the top! But why wasn’t I called?’

‘Nonsense, ’merch-i! What facts hadst thou to mention?’

‘Facts!’ said Betsy Jones, with supreme contempt. ‘Facts! What does a woman want with facts when she knows? Tell me that, Will! Don’t I know that Nance Rees was fond of Captain Jack? Well, there, then! ’Tis plain enough why Gildas Rees got to look so dark and sad. And don’t I know, as well as if she had told me so, that she sailed away in the Liliwen with him that night on Maldraeth, when Gildas tried to persuade her to go home with him? Yes, yes, I know it all! And then Captain Jack got tired of her and cross to her, and at the first port she ran away again, and roamed back to Tregildas cliffs, and then she fell from there in the dark, or perhaps, indeed, she threw herself over. Why, you men must be blind as moles not to see it yourselves! And if you had only let me speak at the ’quest I would have settled it all in a moment, and there would have been no need of a ’quest at all.’

‘Well, too late now, ’merch-i! Come to supper,’ and Jones Bryndu sat down to the table thoughtfully, pondering over Betsy’s suggestions, for, in spite of her disregard for facts, he had often found that his wife’s mind reached a correct conclusion with a sort of kangaroo leap, while he waded slowly to the same point, to find her standing triumphantly on the rock of verified intuition, with a patronising ‘didn’t I tell you?’ to greet him with.

At the same time Gildas was at work in one of his fields. Spade in hand, he dug and delved, and mended the gap that the brindled cow had made in the hedge, in one of her mischievous raids upon the clover in the next field. The passing weeks seemed to have brought some measure of peace and rest into his life; his face had regained much of the colour and spirit that before the trouble of his unhappy marriage had made it so pleasant to look upon, in spite of its rugged features; the sparkle in his eye returned sometimes, when Juno forgot her dignity in a sudden excitement over a rabbit or a rat, or when Hezek told some marvellous tale of mysterious adventures in his mountain rambles.

He could not shake himself free from the conviction that not only Nance had been contaminated by Captain Jack’s company, but that Gwenifer too had given her heart to the roving sailor. Was it possible, he asked himself sometimes as he watched her cross the moor or stoop to her pail, that that sweet face could blush and that pure heart could beat faster for one so unworthy? and his own heart answered yes, for he knew from his own experience that Love could hide the blackest sins, until one day Time and Truth joined hands and tore away the blinding folds, and the idol was seen in its true colours.

For the time he forgot his bitter memories of Nance, his wounded pride, his indignant resentment at his friends’ and neighbours’ treatment of him; for the murmur of the sea was in his ears, the smell of the fresh earth was in his nostrils, the sense of all-conquering work nerved his arm, and almost Gildas Rees was the strong, the energetic, the hardy farmer of old.

The peaceful calm of the autumn days flowed in upon his spirits, and stooping, he picked up a tiny blue flower of which he had seen a bunch at Gwenifer’s neck the day before. He added another and another; perhaps she would like a posy! and he looked with a smile at the tiny nosegay. But a sudden change came over his face – his lips took a hard curve, his black eyes flashed, and with a scornful gesture he flung the flowers over the hedge, and went on with his work, digging hard and fiercely into the forget-me-nots, and turning them ruthlessly face downwards on the broken gap.

While he turned up the soil, he fell to thinking of a project which had been no stranger to his mind of late. He would let Scethryg, he would leave the land of his forefathers where he had been so badly treated. It would be better for him to spend his energies in some other country, where he could forget the past, his old home, and his unhappy marriage. Gwenifer would look after his interests for him; in time she would regain her peace of mind, would forget the unworthy sailor, for surely she would not marry the man who had brought so much misery to Scethryg.

Raising his eyes over the edge of the bank between the wind-worn grasses, he saw the silvery grey of the sea, and as he stood a moment to rest, and gaze upon it, round the horn of the bay there came into sight a fair ship, ploughing the waters bravely and flinging the white spray from her prow like showers of snow. Gildas needed not to ask what name was written on her stem – for well he recognised that streaming pennon of red which fluttered at her masthead. An indescribable change came over the face of the man who watched those graceful lines, those swelling sails. His eyes positively flashed with anger, his hands closed on his spade handle with a fierce clutch, and, turning his back upon the bay, he began to dig again with an energy which gradually seemed to relieve his feelings, and enable him to subdue and control his passion; so that when at noon he returned to Scethryg, and found the dinner laid, Ben and n’wncwl Sam and Hezek already sitting on the bench drawn up to the table, while Gwenifer moved about between them and the hearth, he was able to sit down calmly to his meal, although in his lowered eyes and in his heart burnt a fire of fierce resentment.

‘What’st think!’ said n’wncwl Sam, with the first sups of his cawl. ‘What’st think! the Liliwen is in the bay. In my deed I’m glad. We’ll be hearing some of the cap’n’s stories of foreign parts again.’

Gildas made no answer, but, looking towards Gwenifer, saw a crimson tide of colour rise suddenly into her face, and as quickly recede, leaving her features blanched and pinched. What was this storm of feeling? What should disturb her placid countenance? What meant those drooping eyes and white lips, if not love? His food seemed to choke him, a hot unreasoning anger rose within him, and he scarcely heard n’wncwl Sam’s platitudes and Hezek’s conjectures, but finished his meal in silence, brooding over a crowd of suspicions and an eager desire for revenge; while Gwenifer, instinctively conscious that he had seen her sudden blush, fumbled awkwardly with the bowls and platters. But Gildas saw no more, for he had quickly finished his meal and was already striding across the field to the damaged gap, where he attacked the clods once more with renewed energy.

‘We’ll have to hang a plock round Seren’s neck,’ cried Ben, who passed on his way to his own work. ‘There’s no hedge will stand against her, and Corwen and Folant are beginning to learn her bad tricks,’ and he whistled as he went, leaving his master to his work and his angry thoughts.

The day wore on, the afternoon light was fading, for a bank of heavy cloud was rising seawards; the crows and seagulls returned from their inland expeditions to the shelter of the cliffs, the young geese in the stubble fields clacked and cried as they flew over the hedges, feeling the strength of their growing wings; but Gildas dug on unconscious of them all, until wearied with his exertions he stood up and stretched himself. Flower, the brown mare, was grazing in the foreground. Beyond, the field sloped up to the moor. The whole landscape had grown grey and sombre, the red gate in the opposite hedge being the only bit of colour in the scene, and on this Gildas’s eyes rested vacantly.

Suddenly the pupils dilated, his face, his figure, became rigid with interest, as the red gate slowly opened and a familiar figure entered the field – a man above the middle height, supple and strong-looking, though of slimmer proportions than Gildas; he walked with a free swinging step, the step of the sailor ashore, and Gildas recognised his enemy Captain Jack. There was no indecision in his gait, but he walked like a man who had something to say to the other, who awaited him with a fierce look of anger in his eyes, the muscles of his hand upon his spade quivering. ‘That devil,’ were his thoughts, ‘on my land, in my field! How dare he?’ But Captain Jack evidently dared with intention, and advanced steadily; he had already reached Flower, who raised her head to look at him, when Gildas called ‘Halt! No nearer!’ but still the sailor walked on unheeding.

‘Back, man,’ shouted Gildas, advancing a step or two in a threatening attitude, ‘or I swear I will dash your brains out.’ All the savage instincts of the primitive man awoke within him; his reason and conscience seemed to swoon under the strength of his wrath, and Gildas Rees for a moment was a dangerous foe, conscious only of an eager desire for revenge.

‘Strike, if you like,’ said Captain Jack. ‘I am ready; but I will not strike in return.’

‘Coward! Hound!’ cried Gildas, whose blood seemed boiling in his veins; his voice was hoarse with passion, his white lips parched, and as the sailor moved still a step towards him, blinded with fury he brought his ponderous spade down with a crash. Unconsciously he had allowed for a shrinking aside on the sailor’s part, and, answering to his instinctive impulse, the spade had fallen a little to the left, striking the man’s arm only, and leaving him still standing erect and firm.

A moment’s silence fell on the two men, who looked at each other with a stern, unflinching gaze, while through the soft evening air there came the sound of peaceful rustic life; Flower’s grazing, crisp and regular, the whirr of a covey of partridges, the tinkle of a sheep-bell, the neighing of a horse – they heard them all, and mingled with them, and distinct from all, the sound of a girlish voice came down from the moor, a voice that called the cows to the quiet milking, ‘Corwen and Cochen and Seren, Trwdy, fach! come home, come home;’ and the clear tones seemed to fall like a spell on the two men.

All this passed in a moment, but in that moment Gildas had realised what he had done and what he had failed to do. A hot flood of shame suffused his face. ‘A murderer!’ and the soft, clear voice that came down the mountain-side seemed to call to him ‘Shame, Gildas; for shame!’ With a strong swing of his arm he flung the spade away from him, and drew his hand over his dark face. ‘Now,’ he said, advancing close the sailor, ‘we are equal; defend yourself;’ but Captain Jack stood immovable.

‘You may strike if you like, Gildas Rees,’ he said again, ‘but I tell you I will never strike you in return.’

‘Not strike! Coward, you must!’ said Gildas, exasperated beyond measure at the other’s calmness, and with furious passion he struck at his foe; but the sailor, supple and strong and lithe of action, grasped his arms in the act of striking, and, holding them as in a vice, looked steadily into the fiery gleam of his antagonist’s eyes.

Baulked of his immediate revenge, Gildas stood astounded and overpowered by the sailor’s unshaken demeanour, so different from his own mad passion; his arm fell nerveless at his side, and in the moment’s silence that ensued he seemed to awake from a fit of frenzy, and though he still trembled with anger he became calmer and more reasonable.

‘And what of Nance?’ he asked hoarsely, and he pointed to the side of the hill, where the whitewashed walls of the little church showed clear against the grey sky. ‘Carried up from the sea to that lonely churchyard, her heart broken, her name blackened, and all through you – villain! How dare you stand before me? Take your cursed blue eyes off me; keep their uncanny looks to draw some poor weak woman from her home again, but don’t try them on me.’

‘Gildas Rees, my eyes are as the Almighty made them; but in my deed I am glad if they have power to make you listen to me, for I tell you, man, you may strike me, you may kill me, but you will be killing an innocent man. Listen, then, for I think what I have to say may be of some comfort to you.’

‘Comfort! You to speak to me of comfort? Didn’t you get my letter that I sent after you to Cardiff?’

‘Letter? No,’ said the sailor, ‘I have had no letter from you; no doubt ’tis waiting for me.’ He raised his left hand, and for the first time Gildas saw that blood was dropping slowly from the sleeve of the other. ‘As God is my witness,’ he said, ‘I knew nothing of your wife’s sad death until I rowed in from the Liliwen today. I sailed into the bay this morning, and my eyes turned at once to Scethryg and the moor. I hoped to find you all at peace and happy as you were when I first met you.’

An exclamation from Gildas interrupted him, but he held up his hand and went on. ‘I sculled into Maldraeth and climbed that sheep-path up the hill, and over the hill to Gwenifer’s cottage. You know, for I have told you, why I went there; I found her in her garden, but she charged me with having lured your wife away from you, with having turned her adrift, with having compassed her death by some foul means, and for the first time, Gildas, I heard of her sad end. It was long before I could persuade Gwenifer to listen to me, but she did at last. She believes me, and so must you, when I tell you what happened on that black night. She agreed with me, too – and that is what I think will comfort you – that your wife was not right in her head, Gildas; for a long time I am sure her mind had been unhinged, Gildas, she was ‘not wise,’ as we say, and so was not accountable for her actions.’

He stopped a moment as if considering.

‘Go on,’ said Gildas sternly. ‘You are forgetting your sailor tongue; but I think I understand you’ – for in his excitement the sailor had dropped his sea brogue, and was speaking in the refined tones that were more familiar to him.

Near them stood one of the many grey boulders that strewed the upland fields, and sitting down upon it, Captain Jack continued.

‘When first I went to Scethryg I saw Nance Ellis in the old storws before you were married. She was a bonny lass and full of fun and life; we had some jokes and laughter together, a little flirting, a little nonsense, but nothing more, I swear to you, Gildas Rees. I cared no more for Nance Ellis than I did for Het or Jenni the seamstress, and when I heard she was going to marry you I was glad, because that would leave me free of her. At Scethryg, after you were married, I got to like her better, as a friend; and though I am willing to confess now that I was too free and foolish in my talk and jokes with her, ’twas only to hide my liking for Gwenifer, and an excuse for going often to Scethryg; and I was surprised and shocked one day when I saw that Nance was fond of me, and not ashamed to show it. Then, Gildas, I tried to draw back, to show her how wrong, how foolish, she was; but very gently, because, though I am but a rough sailor, my heart is very tender with women, and I could not be harsh with her, when I felt I had been so much to blame myself. I am afraid my love for Gwenifer made me selfish, and I scarcely noticed nor cared that Nance was getting more wild and excited, less anxious to hide her fancy for me.’

He stopped again, for he wished to hide Nance’s folly as much as possible from her husband. ‘’Twas the night after the revival meeting when I sailed away from Tregildas. Gwenifer would have nothing to do with me; and that night I saw plainly the best thing, and the right thing for me to do, was to keep away from Scethryg. And out on the bay, in the dark and silence, many things became clear to me, many things that had pressed on my heart in the Diwygiad meeting, and seemed too sharp and strong for me to bear. Well! the next night we were sailing, I had seen Gwenifer and begged of her if she ever changed her mind to send word to me or let me know; and I was leaning over the rails, and thinking of this. The mate had gone into Tregildas to settle up for me with his old aunt, and the cabin boy was spending his last hours with his mother, so I was alone. Well, my thoughts were full of Gwenifer, when I heard the sound of a boat coming out from Maldraeth. I wondered why the mate didn’t row out from Tregildas, and then a strange thought came into my mind – could it be Gwenifer? Had she changed her mind? (Have patience!) The boat came nearer, and I saw a woman in it, and I was fool enough to believe it was Gwenifer. I called out, but there was no answer; I threw down the ship’s ladder, and she climbed up. I helped her on deck, and than I saw it was Nance, and my heart sank like a stone – it was very dark, but I had lighted a lantern, and then…’

‘And then?’ echoed Gildas, with intense eagerness, for as he had listened to the captain’s story an instinctive belief in its truth had taken possession of him.

‘And then – how can I tell you, Gildas Rees? Isn’t it enough to tell you that your poor wife did not know what she was saying – I saw I had better tell her the truth, that I loved Gwenifer, that it was her I had always sought for at Scethryg, and that I had no other love in my heart. Gildas, she was quite mad, she screamed terribly, and fell to the ground in a kind of fit, and before she came to herself I had lifted her into the boat and rowed her back to Maldraeth; she was quite calm then, only rather bewildered. I pointed to the path, and bade her make haste home to her husband, and I watched while she went up and up; and at last, when I lost sight of her over the edge of the cliffs, I had no doubt she would go back to Scethryg and no one would know of her folly. I rowed back to the Liliwen, and with the first streak of dawn we sailed away, and today for the first time I heard of your dreadful trouble. Poor thing! Poor thing! Forgive her, Gildas, for no doubt the tremendous truths that the Revival pressed in upon her conscience were too strong for her, and unhinged her mind. Forgive me, Gildas, for my folly and my nonsense.’

‘Has Gwenifer forgiven you?’ said Gildas, with parched lips, though his passion was dying out.

‘Yes, she has forgiven me; but she will not have me. How can I expect her? And when next I sail away you will never see the Liliwen in the bay again.’

‘And will you forgive yourself?’ said Gildas sternly. ‘Out there on the bay, man, will it be as nothing to you that your foolish jokes and nonsense have led a woman to such a fate?’

‘No,’ answered Captain Jack, ‘the wind may blow, the waves may race, the ship may sail, but I can never leave behind me the memories of Scethryg. Rest satisfied, Gildas, if it will be any comfort to you to know, that I am a miserable man.’

‘’Twill be no comfort to me,’ said Gildas, ‘but it is as it ought to be, I think. I am not wishing you ill, Cap’n Jack, and I believe now that if poor Nance’s mind had been all right her heart would have been truer to me, so good-bye to you.’

‘Will you shake hands with me before we part?’ said Captain Jack.

‘Shake hands with you? No,’ said Gildas. ‘Do you think, man, such wounds as mine can be healed and mended by a little talk like this? Will it bring cheer and brightness back to my hearth? Will it restore to old Hezek his little lass that he loved so much? No, you may be telling the truth – I think you are, and you are less to blame in this matter than I thought you were; but I cannot shake hands with you, and I wish only never to see you again.’

‘I am going,’ said Captain Jack, and as he moved Gildas saw a little pool of blood had dropped from his sleeve.

‘I have wounded you sore, I’m afraid; ’tis of God’s mercy that my spade swerved, and I am not a murderer.’

‘Twt, twt, that is nothing,’ said Captain Jack. ‘The mate has a wonderful salve for a cut. I will go back to the Liliwen, if I may take Ben from that field to scull for me?’

Gildas nodded.

‘And when I sail away in a few days, you will never see me more in Tregildas bay, and that is why I wanted to shake hands with you. But if you won’t – well, good-bye! I would have done much to be friends with you, Gildas Rees, but it is not to be, it seems, so good-bye.’

‘Good-bye,’ said Gildas, and Captain Jack walked away towards the field where Ben was at work, while Gildas turned back to his spade, and dug at the brown clods more vigorously than ever.

The shadowy night drew on apace; the sun set in a bar of golden haze, underlying the leaden bank of clouds that had lifted from the horizon.

Strange as it may seem, his interview with Captain Jack, a meeting which he had dreaded, and yet desired with a vengeful anger, had in a great measure lightened his trouble; and even as that heavy bank of grey was lifting from the west, so, as he turned homewards through the hawthorn lane, a renewal of life and hope flowed in upon him, and led him onwards, with a feeling that for him too, in the future, there might be a golden haze beyond the heavy clouds that had of late darkened his life.