CHAPTER XXI
The Joy of the Moor
The winter was over and gone, and the spring had come with its chorus of blackbirds and thrushes, and the song of the lark was thrilling over the moor.
Awakening life was everywhere, and beauty overflowing, in field and garden and hedgerow; even the sea seemed to share in the joy of the springtime, sparkling and dimpling, and reflecting the blue rifts in the clouds. The lambs frisked about on the hillside, the ploughboy whistled at his work. Yes, no doubt spring had come! but Gildas Rees still lingered at home and acknowledged to himself that it would have been better to have left the old country in the autumn when the days were shortening, the leaves fading, and when the moor was bleak and bare. Now it was decked with beauty, the furze was already blooming, the blackthorn spread its white mantle over the crags, the primroses peeped out between the heather, and in the hollow the bluebells were braving the wind.
As for the Scethryg garden, it was entrancing in its early budding charms; on the sunny side of the hedge the bees were humming round their straw hives, the brown earth was cracking and bursting with the tender seedlings that thrust up their little green hands to greet the sunshine; the daffodils were growing up everywhere, and standing, as their old Welsh name suggests, like gold-crowned kings, surrounded by their spearmen.
Het and Ben worked busily between the bushes, and Gildas sauntered through in the evenings, when the setting sun sent his slanting beams to gild the scene. The apple-trees were rosy with buds, the gooseberry bushes, like green lace-work, were crowded with tiny fringed berries; the wallflowers, golden and brown, mingled their fragrance with the southernwood and ribes. All was tenderly alluring to the man who had grown up in their midst, and was now about to break the cords that had bound him so long to his old home. He heard the big clock in the kitchen strike seven, with its loud metallic ring; he heard Ben’s voice in the stubble yard, and Het’s wooden shoes in the dairy. In the clear evening air every sound fell distinctly on his ears, and, as he sauntered there in the gloaming, seemed strangely appealing – awakening in his mind a question that had long lain there hidden. He had not hitherto looked at it closely, because he was ashamed of it, but now he let it find expression.
Was he obliged to go? that was the question that had awoke within him; and as he stood in that old garden, listening to ‘the sounds so familiar to his ear,’ his feelings seemed to change, the former bitterness and anger against Brynzion died out, and his determination to leave his home and seek forgetfulness across the seas presented itself to his mind in a new aspect.
The sun went down, the moon like a silver boat sailed through the sky, the soft grey shades of evening gathered round him, the stars came out one by one, and yet he paced up and down the time-worn paths, filled with restless thoughts and longings. ‘Hiraeth,’ that sad-eyed visitant, so ready to take up its abode in the heart of a Welshman, stalked by his side, and he knew would follow him across the sea.
What had happened to alter his feelings so completely – to make the project of emigration, which had been a consoling thought to him a few weeks earlier, now appear in the light of a duty only? What had filled him with restlessness and indecision? Tonight he faced the question, and in his honest rustic mind he saw the answer clearly written. Gwenifer! it was she alone who held him back; from here, therefore, he must fly. And when at last he heard the old clock striking eight, he turned towards the upland field, where he continued to walk and meditate for full another hour.
When at last he drew under the shadow of the big chimney, and let his musings follow the smoke from the kindling logs, he was still unsettled, still in the clutches of unrest and discontent, and he rose the next morning after a sleepless night, unrefreshed.
‘Caton pawb!’ he said as he hurried to his work, ‘what has come to me I can’t think!’ and he dug fiercely at the sods with but little consciousness of what he was doing.
Late in the afternoon when he returned to his tea he found Jones Bryndu and his wife already seated on the settle.
‘Up from the village we have come,’ said Betsy, ‘and there we have been hearing wonderful news, and I thought I would come and tell Gwenifer about it.’
‘But why tell her?’ said Jones, ‘what is it to her more than to all of us? We are all proud when a Welshman does a grand thing. ’Tis Captain Jack…’ But he wasn’t allowed to proceed further, for Betsy had come with the express intention of seeing how Gwenifer would take the news. The latter entered the house at the moment, carrying in one hand a bunch of daffodils, in the other a bowl of eggs from the hay-loft.
‘Hast heard the news, Gwenifer?’ she asked. ‘There’s a piece as long as my arm in the paper about Captain Jack.’
‘Thy finger, ’merch-i,’ interpolated Jones.
‘Twt, twt – finger, then,’ said Betsy, and she gazed at the girl with a smile of satisfaction, for over her face a conscious blush had spread – a tell-tale blush, Gildas thought. As a matter of fact, it had no tale to tell, except of the interest which a tender woman seldom loses in the man who has offered her his love.
‘Listen,’ said Betsy, ‘I have brought it with me,’ and she drew from her pocket a Welsh newspaper from which she read the following:-
‘During the late severe gale which swept so disastrously over the Irish coast, a crowd of people was gathered on the pier at Ballenport, watching, with distressed faces, a derelict bark which the storm was driving in upon the rocks outside the harbour. The lifeboat was launched, but owing to the jagged rocks it was found impossible to reach the ill-fated ship. There was no living creature to be seen on board, except one small black figure, that of a child, who was seen to run distractedly from one side of the half-submerged hulk to the other. The sea was running mountains high, and there seemed no hope for the solitary child, until a sailor standing among the crowd seemed suddenly to make up his mind. Taking off his outer garments, and supplied with a life-belt, he dashed into the foaming breakers and literally fought his way to the rescue of the terrified child and brought him safe to land.
‘There is a romantic sequel to this tale of heroism, for, finding that the boy was a friendless orphan, the sailor resolved to adopt him, and take him with him on board his own ship, which happened to be in port. The boy, Robert Owen by name, is a bright and intelligent lad of twelve. The unfortunate vessel, whose captain and mate were lost, was the Andronica, of South Shields.
‘It will further interest our readers to learn that the brave sailor who thus imperilled his life to save a lonely boy was none other than our well-known and popular friend Captain John Davies of the Liliwen, or, as he is generally called, Captain Jack. Hir oes iddo!’ (Long life to him!)
‘There for you!’ said Betsy Jones.
‘Well indeed!’ said Gwenifer, who had conquered her blush, ‘I am very glad; I knew he was a brave man;’ and placing her daffodils in a glass on the table, she carried her bowl of eggs into the dairy.
‘So the shipwreck was a lucky thing for the boy after all,’ said Het. ‘I suppose he’ll be bringing him here with him next time he comes.’
‘No doubt,’ said Gildas. ‘Well, he’s a brave man, and no mistake.’
‘No denying that,’ replied Jones, ‘but ’twasn’t to talk about Captain Jack I came here today, but to tell you Reuben my brother is coming here next week to look at the house if it is convenient.’
‘Well, b’t shwr; ’tis full time.’
‘’Tis only for a year he wants it, while his house is building; but that will give us time to look around for another tenant. And here’s the paper from that shipping place that I sent for; plenty of ships, and all the cost marked plain; but ach-y-fi! I am hoping still you’ll change your mind.’
Gildas took it with a word of thanks, thrusting it into his pocket. ‘I’ll look it over tonight,’ he said, ‘and I’ll come up to Bryndu to tell you what I’ve settled one of these days.’
Het was already hunting for the china teapot, but Betsy Jones was firm in her resolve to go ‘straight home at once; because I am not easy in my mind about the new cow; she was not chewing her cud when I left. No, Will! we must go straight home. And come you back, ’merch-i,’ she called to Gwenifer with a mischievous smile, ‘I am going, and there won’t be anyone to tease you any more about Cap’n Jack.’
There was a general laugh, which, however, Gwenifer evaded by keeping still in the dairy.
‘Too shy to come out, you see,’ said Betsy, with a knowing wink, pointing towards the dairy door, at which, however, Gwenifer suddenly appeared.
‘Indeed, there’s nonsense you are talking, Mrs. Jones!’ she said. ‘My blushes are coming and going when they like without asking me; I wish I could stop them. But they don’t mean anything, you can believe me.’
‘Yes, yes, we know all about that,’ said Betsy. ‘Good-bye ’merch-i, thou art a lucky girl, I think. Though I had other plans for the Queen of the Rushes, Will,’ she added, as they crossed the clôs together, ‘’tis at Scethryg I’d like to see her.’
‘Well, stick to thy plans, ’merch-i,’ said her husband, ‘they generally turn out right.’
That evening it was rather a silent, preoccupied group who sat down to tea together at the farm. Het bustling about had most of the conversation to herself.
‘There’s a funny woman Betsy Jones Bryndu is,’ she said, ‘with always a joke, and a merry word; but she’s talking a lot of nonsense sometimes.’
‘Well, when people talk a great deal, some of it is bound to be nonsense,’ said n’wncwl Sam pointedly, for between him and Het there were wordy encounters sometimes.
‘Betsy’s a fine woman,’ said the mishteer, ‘she knows more about the farm than Jones does himself, and she’s a good wife, whatever.’
Gwenifer said nothing, and finished her meal in silence.
The sun was in the west, but an hour from his setting, as they could see by the slanting rays on the table.
‘There’s a fine bed of leeks sown,’ said n’wncwl Sam. ‘Ben and me we’ve been trashing the hedge a bit, to let the sun shine more upon it.’
Gildas made no answer, but rising went out into the stubble yard, and from there to the moor, to which from childhood he had resorted whenever his will seemed unduly thwarted. If a stolen holiday was discovered and punishment was imminent, if a lesson too long neglected required special study, if his father forbade a visit to the fair – there was solace for everything on the moor; so now, when the experiences of life seemed intricate or disquieting, it was natural to him to turn to that broad expanse.
Today his mind was disturbed; he was dissatisfied with himself – indeed, he was dissatisfied with everything; and as he walked to the edge of the cliffs, he felt he must put an end to this state of indecision so foreign to his nature. Stretching himself face downwards on the grass he drew from his pocket the paper which Jones Bryndu had given him, and leaning on his elbows set himself to study its contents. “The Livonia, the Campania, the Prudentia; why not the Livonia – yes, that would do.’ He drew his brown finger over the lines, and for the next ten minutes his face looked like hard thinking.
At last rising, he set out for the creek, and the fields beyond; this led him by Gwenifer’s cottage. But the door was closed, no smoke curled from the chimney, so he knew she was still at Scethryg dairy; perhaps when he returned she would have come home, and he could tell her of his final decision. But why tell her, what was it to her? what was it to anyone that he was tearing himself away from the land he loved. And why? Simply because in a moment of anger he had determined to do so – and was Gildas Rees going back on his word? And besides this, he confessed to himself, there was the underlying dread of seeing Gwenifer married and borne away to a stranger’s hearth. No, that thought was intolerable, and he walked restlessly on. He would have a look at the dear old farm, its bare craggy knolls and its grassy uplands. The sea stretched out before him smooth and opal-tinted to where the sky was already hanging its curtains of purple and gold for the red sun that was hastening to his rest.
In the golden light of the day’s last hour, the field and moor were glowing with an unearthly splendour, like the beauty of a dream, and Gildas’s face lighted up with pleasure as he gazed at the scene. Turning his face homewards, he soon came in sight of Gwenifer’s cottage, and saw that she had returned, for there was the blue smoke rising up from the chimney; and there was the girl herself sitting on the garden hedge-bank, and looking out over the sea to the gorgeous colouring which was spreading over the west. Was she thinking of a white sail which might come into the sunset? Banishing this thought, Gildas drew nearer, and climbing up the bank sat down beside her amongst the daffodils. She started a little with surprise, for, lost in thought, she had not heard his footsteps on the grass.
‘Dear anwl!’ she exclaimed as he suddenly appeared. ‘Mishteer, I wasn’t thinking to see you.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘thy thoughts were far away, I could see that. Where were they, Gwenifer!’
Ah, where were they? In dire confusion she bent her head and Gildas’s heart sank, but he continued quietly.
‘But there, I have no right to ask that; and whatever they were, they were just right. I have finished packing my tools, in that box in the barn, and my clothes thou has packed for me. I thank thee, lass; thou has been very kind and ready to help in everything.’
‘Well indeed,’ she said, ‘you haven’t asked me to come with you, mishteer.’ Her eyes were fixed upon the setting sun, not in abstraction, but in the eager desire of impressing him with the earnestness of her purpose; so she did not see the start with which he had heard her words, nor the colour that reddened his dark face. There was a moment’s silence while both looked out over the sea, and when Gildas at last spoke there was a tremor in his voice, and he unconsciously crushed the daffodil which he held in his hand. ‘Come with me? What dost mean?’
‘Yes, come with you,’ said Gwenifer, turning her face towards him, and clasping her hands. ‘Yes indeed, I am coming,’ and once the ice was broken, she poured out the flood of reasons and arguments which she had prepared in many a day’s musing, and many a night’s vigil.
‘Oh, let me come, Gildas! You will want a servant. You cannot do things for yourself like many men; you couldn’t sew a button or mend a hole; you can only do a man’s work. You will hire a servant as soon as you go out there; let me come, then – hire me now, and let me come with you. I will do all the work and live upon whatever food is cheapest there. Do you think, Gildas, that after being with you all my life I could let you go over that far sea and stop here after you were gone? No, no indeed, that I could never bear. I have got all my clothes ready; I am your servant, and belonging to you ever since my mother died. Don’t turn me off now, when you want me more than ever.’
He had turned to stare at the beautiful face looking up at him, the imploring gestures, the pleading eyes, and his whole being was flooded with a sense of some strange awakening. What did this mean? Gwenifer! whom he had thought beyond his reach! from whom he was tearing himself away with the hard-won victory over his tenderest feelings!
Was he dreaming, or was she fooling him? and there was a hard, almost harsh, tone in his next question. ‘What dost mean, lodes? Art asking to come to a foreign land as my servant?’
‘Yes.’
‘Art willing to leave thy home and thy friends?’
‘Yes. Haven’t I always been your servant?’
‘No, never,’ said Gildas emphatically. ‘Thou hast been my sister, my friend, but never my servant, lass; and that thou canst never be.’
‘Why, then?’
‘Why?’ said Gildas, starting to his feet. ‘Because I love thee, lass; because I cannot bear to be near thee unless thou wilt promise to be my wife.’
‘Gildas!’
‘Gwenifer!’ and there was a pause of conscious silence between them, during which he sprang down the hedge-bank on to the moor, and turning held both his hands towards her. She took one timid step down the bank, but Gildas, raising his hand as if to forbid her coming nearer, said ‘Art coming as my wife, then? If so, trust thyself to me. Art coming, Gwenifer?’ and he looked up at the slender form that wavered a little in the sea-wind.
‘As my wife, Gwenifer?’
‘Yes, then, Gildas,’ she said, and stooping took the upstretched hands. She sprang, and was caught in his strong arms.
‘Mine for ever, Gwenifer?’ he questioned, as she slipped to his side, her head upon his breast.
‘Yes, Gildas, for ever and ever,’ she whispered.
He passed his arm round her waist, as he had done in the cottage when she had repulsed him so firmly.
‘Thou wilt not turn away from me as thou didst that dark night, Gwenifer? That night that has cost me so many uneasy hours. It has kept me awake at night, lass, and followed me to my work by day.’
They were walking now towards the cliffs, bathed in the sunset light, their long shadows following them on the green-gold grass.
‘Come, tell me, lass, what made thee turn away from me as if thou hatedst me?’
‘Oh, Gildas!’ she said, ‘the ghost! The face at the window! I knew thy wife was living, was looking in at us.’
‘What art saying, Gwenifer?’ he exclaimed. ‘That grey ghost! Was it Nance, then, that haunted the moor, that stood before me in the twilight, so near!’ and he shuddered visibly. ‘But not my wife, Gwenifer! that she was never as thou wilt be – the wife of my soul, as well as the wife of my heart. Is it true that all that dark time has passed and gone for ever? And Cap’n Jack, what of him? Dost know, lass, how I have dreaded to see his ship in the bay?’
‘Well, what about him, Gildas? Why are people always bringing his name before me? Poor Cap’n Jack! You have no need to fear the sight of his red pennon.’
‘Is it true, then, what I am hoping now – that he is nothing to thee?’ and holding her face between his hands he raised it to his, and looked into the clear brown eyes.
‘Nothing, Gildas.’
‘And is it true that I am everything to thee?’
‘Everything.’
‘Come then, lass, and let me tell thee what thou art to me.’
And together they walked into the sunset light, all rosy and golden like their hopes.
How many questions had he to ask! How much had she to tell of the long silent years, when, in spite of her sealed lips, his name was familiar and beloved!
Yes, they had much to say to each other, as lovers always have; but when the sun had set, and the twilight gathered round them, they turned towards home together, and it was plain to see that every cloud had vanished, every doubt had been set at rest; and Gwenifer, as if forgetting that Gildas had been the mishteer, had already fallen naturally into the familiar ‘thee’ and ‘thou’.
One subject they had both avoided – the long voyage before them, the banishment from their native land. Once, when she had alluded to it, he had by a very simple but effectual method sealed her lips. ‘Hush, lass!’ he said, ‘let us leave that till tomorrow; tonight the world looks too beautiful, the sky is too clear, and the moon is too bright to talk of anything but joy.’
‘Yes, but, Gildas, I mean to make it happy for thee out there too,’ she answered.
‘Happy? Yes indeed, if thou art there, Gwenifer,’ and the glow on his dark face and the light in his eyes reminded her of the Gildas of old.
It would never have done for them to return to the farm together – all the rustic proprieties would have been outraged; so in the lane where the hawthorns were growing thick and green they parted, he to return to Scethryg, and she to run back to the little brown cot which had never sheltered so happy a being before.
And what a different world was that upon which the sun rose next day! To Gildas, as he went out to his plough, it seemed as if the lightness and zest of his boyhood had returned. He looked at the broad blue sea that scintillated under the morning sunbeams, and no longer dreaded to see a red pennon on the horizon; he looked at the brown furrows which the tender blades were already tingeing with green; he saw the wide purple moor where he had found his happiness, the tiny cot to which his eyes had always turned with interest – and surely over all there was some light more golden than the sunlight, more crystal than the sky, a ‘light that never was on sea or land’; and through it all he heard a woman singing in a soft low voice, and knew it was Gwenifer, who was bringing the early lunch down the hawthorn lane.
He saw her enter the gap and spread the contents of her basket in a sheltered nook; he saw Ben and Het draw near; but he did not see the conscious look of love which Gwenifer directed towards him as he ploughed in the further corner of the field. Perhaps he felt it, for he whistled at his work, and his eyes followed her with a benison as she withdrew through the lane without approaching him. It behoved them to be careful now, and keep their happy secret to themselves, for Gildas had not lost his horror of being talked about; and so they spent their days apparently apart, but ever conscious of each other’s presence.
When the moon rose, however, and flooded the upland fields with her silver radiance, two figures might be seen who walked together in the moonlight, their shadows blended into one, their voices sometimes low and tender, sometimes raised in merry laughter, for surely never were man and maiden more happily betrothed than these two whom fate, and the blindness of one, had so nearly separated for ever.
Hark to Gildas’s hearty laugh. ‘Well, in my deed,’ he says. ‘I can give a different answer now when people say ‘Gwenifer belongs to you’. There’s angry I used to be; now I can say, ‘Yes, she does belong to me!’ But listen, lass, I have something else to ask thee tonight. Thou hast shown thy love to me by being so willing to give up thy home and everything for me, and proud I am of that; but harken thee, I have another boon to ask.’
‘’Tis granted indeed,’ she answered, ‘but what is it, then?’
‘Wilt stay at home with me, Gwenifer?’
‘What?’ she said, turning to look at him in amazement.
The moon shone full upon her, and Gildas might be excused for thinking it could not shine upon a fairer face.
‘What, Gildas? Stay at home with thee? Not go across the sea? Not leave old Scethryg and the moor? Is that what thou art saying?’ And the look of rapture that illumined her face needed no words to express its delighted consent.
‘Yes indeed, that is my thought; why would I go when every dark cloud has rolled away, when I have gained the prize for which I was always hankering? Yes, since I was a boy! Why would we go when the reason for going is cleared away? In my deed, Gwenifer, I think a man may show his firmness sometimes as much in changing his mind as in keeping a useless resolve; the world has changed for me since last night. Will I be a fool, then, and give up this happy home and leave ‘hen Gymru wen’ just because I said I would? No; let them laugh and say, ‘Gildas Rees is a reed shaken by the wind’ – very well, what the worse will Gildas and Gwenifer be of that? ’Tis only Jones Bryndu and Betsy who know how full I was of going, and they will rejoice with us. Art glad as I am, Gwenifer? for thou art very silent;’ but when she turned to him in the moonlight, he saw her eyes were full of tears.
‘Oh, Gildas,’ she said, ‘’tis only now I know how hard it was to go, and how thankful I am to stay; and Gildas, when I am happiest, then I am silent.’
* * * * *
The crops are gathered, the air is crisp and fresh, and laden with the scent of autumn; the grain, the apples in the orchard, the blackberries on the hedges, the odour of the sea-breeze, all add their sweetness to the subtle fragrance.
Once more we enter the old grey farm with its uneven gables, and its ivied chimneys, but little altered by the fire and the subsequent restoration.
’Tis Sunday morning, a few days after Gwenifer and Gildas’s marriage. A bright fire blazes on the hearth, the simple breakfast is laid, and Gwenifer moves about from hearth to table, from table to dresser, with little careful touches adding to the comfort of the old room and evidently waiting for somebody, who comes at last down those new stairs, berailed and polished, which have risen from the ashes of the old staircase – Gildas, his dark face full of life and energy, his black eyes bright and sparkling as of old! no shadow of care or trouble there, but full content and happiness. Dressed in his best, he looks, as he descends into the old living-room, with his firm step and open countenance, a husband to be proud of, and so Gwenifer thinks as she greets him with a little raillery.
‘Dear anwl, Gildas,’ and she raises her hands as if in amazement, ‘dear anwl, there’s smart thou art! Art going to be married, then?’
‘Yes, if thou pleasest! I wouldn’t mind a dozen times if thou wert the bride, lass! Thou art very smart, too, Gwenifer! That black with the yellow spots is suiting thee well indeed; but everything suits thee, even thy red petticoat and thy little white hood. In everything thou art like a queen!’
‘Oh yes, Queen of the Rushes!’ laughed Gwenifer. ‘But where art going, indeed, Gildas?’
‘Oh, to Brynzion, of course,’ he said, attacking his breakfast. ‘Isn’t it Sunday morning? And don’t husband and wife always go to chapel together? Art not going, Gwenifer?’
‘Well, of course, if thou art.’ And when half an hour later she appeared in her new white hat, with gloves and scarf to match, Gildas thought no lovelier woman ever walked by her husband’s side.
We have followed them through the shadows and rough places on the road of life, and now we must leave them as they walk together into the sunshine; for darkness has flown away, and from henceforth it seems as if the wheel of fortune had turned – flowers lie in their path, hope and joy dwell in their hearts.