CHAPTER VII

A Fairing

All night the storm continued to rage, and to Gwenifer, lying awake in her lonely cottage, the sound of the night wind rushing by, the roar of the breakers, seemed like a threatening of trouble to Gildas. Why to Gildas she could not tell, and the early hours of dawn found her still awake and disturbed in spirit. The sun rose bright and clear, and in his slanting rays the sea turned to gold and the moor became resplendent with the purple and yellow of heather and furze.

On the bay, no ship with snowy sail or flaunting pennon could be seen, only the great wild waste of water stretching to the horizon.

Gwenifer’s thoughts flew to the tiny bark which she had seen the night before tossing dangerously amongst the breakers. What had become of her? she wondered. Had she reached some port of safety? Had she folded her sails and dropped her anchor in some sheltered haven? or had that wild storm wreaked its fury upon her, and compassed her destruction?

She knew from experience it would be useless to try to sleep, so she dressed herself and prepared her simple breakfast, and while she did so her thoughts returned persistently to that frail craft which she had seen but for a moment through the twilight haze. What had happened to her, and what was she? Not the Liliwen, she knew; smaller, and with but one mast, her sails unfurled, the seas breaking over her – her chance of safety was small indeed. But as the sun rose higher and higher, brightening the moor and gilding the sea, the depression and the gloom fled from her heart.

‘Perhaps the little ship was safe in port!’ and as she raised the latch, and saw the Scethryg cows lying safe in the shelter of the furze bushes, she was lightened of her burden; and although she did not sing aloud, in her heart rose a paean of youth and life and health.

What a foolish girl she had been! was her thought as she ran over the moor, every cow rising as she passed and clumsily following to the milking-yard. What had the booming thunder on Maldraeth threatened after all? Nothing worse than this boisterous storm, which could not reach the cosy hearth in the old farm kitchen, or the loft where Gildas lay sleeping; what mattered anything else? ‘No, too ready is my heart to fear,’ she thought, ‘the storm will pass, the world is beautiful, and the cows are coming home to be milked.’

Yes, Gwenifer, the world is beautiful, the cows will be milked, and in due time the storm will die away; but far out upon that stormy sea are floating a few spars and broken boards, all that remain of the ship that had so persistently haunted Gwenifer’s thoughts. Many fathoms deep under those foaming billows the captain, the mate, and alas! the young wife who had accompanied her husband are lying; no trace of these remains to tell the tale of their sad fate.

Surely Gwenifer’s forebodings of trouble for Gildas were groundless; at all events they seemed to have taken flight for the time, as she carried her pail to meet the cows in the farmyard.

A little later and the whole Scethryg household was astir, for under Nance’s energetic rule none were allowed to waste the early morning hours in sleep; so that when Gwenifer returned from the milking she found the plain and plentiful breakfast already prepared: the brown teapot sitting close on the embers, the flat loaf lying on the table, with the butter as yellow as the cowslips that decked the Scethryg fields, while over the fire Nance held the spluttering pan that was filling the kitchen with its savoury odour. Gildas entering upon this scene, required no pressing to draw his chair up to the table at once, with a cheerful ‘Well, I’m ready!’ He was not ill pleased that the strong wind shook the windows in their frames, that Ben Stable took out his red pocket-handkerchief and tied his hat down over his ears, for it all went to prove that Nance could not have gone to the fair, although doubtless (as he wished to believe) she would have accompanied him had it been a fine day.

‘No, indeed, this is not a day for new hats and ribbons,’ he said as he proceeded with his breakfast, ‘but I must go, and sell that horse. I will be home early and bring thee a fairing.’

He shrank from saying anything about the meeting in the evening, and Nance was apparently as anxious as he was to avoid the subject.

‘Good-bye, ’merch i!’ he called out, as he mounted his horse at the door, where Ben Stable joined him, riding the horse that was to be sold.

Down in the village he passed Brynzion, which, in spite of the wind, two or three people were busily engaged in cleaning and adorning. A burly sea captain perched on a ladder was cleaning the windows, Jerri the boatman polished the brass thumb latch, while another stalwart sailor weeded the path that surrounded the walls.

‘Preparing we are you see, mishteer,’ said Jerri, ‘and tidying the place up a bit against Evan Roberts comes, because no doubt there’ll be some strangers coming too.’

‘Like enough,’ said Gildas, passing on without any further remark. An unreasoning feeling of antagonism was growing in his heart towards the chapel and everything connected with it, for he attributed all Nance’s altered ways to her devotion to it, and to its services; and as he rode into the town, his thoughts returned to his rugged old home with an aching dissatisfaction. He made a bad bargain over his horse, and returned home not in the most equable frame of mind; but still, his just and honest nature prevented him showing any signs of his discontent to Nance.

The storm still raged, the whole bay tossing as if in a ferment of boiling anger. The booming thunder on Maldraeth was no longer heard, for the air was full of the rattle and roar of the wind.

‘I told thee ’twas not over,’ said Gildas, entering the kitchen where Nance already seated at the tea-table awaited his coming, while in the background Gwenifer stood holding up a quilt of brilliant colouring, the work of her clever fingers. Her dark eyes, bent down on the quilt, were raised inquiringly to Gildas’s face as he entered, and, as if in answer to her question, he said, ‘I got on pretty well, though in my deed that road goes straight in the teeth of the wind today – ’twas hard sometimes to keep on the saddle.’

‘’Tis a beautiful patchwork, lass,’ said Nance. ‘Take it up to the coffer, and come thou down and have tea with us before thou goest.’ But Gwenifer shook her head and showed she was going a-milking.

‘Oh, I thought Het had milked,’ said Nance, dismissing Gwenifer and the quilt from her mind.

‘Come, Gildas,’ she said in her managing brisk tones, ‘come, sit thee down; ’tis getting late for tea.’

‘Well,’ said Gildas, doing as he was bid with an indulgent smile, ‘I am ready for my tea, too, but thou dost not ask me who I saw in the fair today.’

‘Who?’ said Nance, with but little interest, for her mind was full of the prayer meeting.

‘Well, first I met Jones Bryndu, and he asked would we go and have tea with his mestress on Monday. Wilt come, ’merch-i? Jones and I we are old friends, and I like to please him.’

‘Yes will I,’ said Nance. ‘On Monday there is no meeting.’

‘Right. Well then, who should I meet but Cap’n Jack! and for a wonder without John Davies.’

‘Cap’n Jack!’ exclaimed Nance, with a strange flutter in her breast, a flutter of uneasiness as well as pleasure. To do her justice she was thoroughly in earnest in her devotion to what she considered the claims of religion, but this was a sudden strain upon her courage and steadfastness which she was unprepared for.

‘Yes, Cap’n Jack,’ continued Gildas, ‘with his voice as pleasant and his eyes as wonderful as ever! I’ve been asking him is it true what they say, that he can see twice as much as other people?’

‘What did he say then?’ asked Nance, with curiosity.

‘Oh, he laughed as usual, and says he, “That depends upon what I am looking at.” The Liliwen has been badly damaged, a collision in the Channel, and she’s in Cardiff undergoing repairs; and ’twill be a long undergoing, I am thinking, by what the captain tells me of her condition. He’s coming to stop with John Davies’s aunt in Tregildas, old Marged Jones.’

‘Oh!’ was all Nance could say.

‘Yes, and I told him to come up to Scethryg as if he was at home, and we would be glad to see him, eh, Nance?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she said, and in silence went on with her tea, Gildas also doing full justice to the loaf of ‘plank’ bread, occasionally interrupting his meal with little items of news which he thought might interest her.

But she seemed strangely silent and preoccupied, and at last when tea was over rose rather hurriedly, calling to Gwenifer, who had returned from milking. ‘Come, Gwenifer, and take my place with these tea-things, for ’tis late and I must go to the meeting.’

‘Stop a minute, ’merch-i,’ said Gildas, who had reserved what he thought would be his crowning bit of news till the last, ‘I have brought a fairing for thee. What dost think it is?’ and he rose to search in the pocket of his greatcoat for a little green box which he laid on the table, looking at Nance with a smile. ‘’Tis something I heard thee say thee would’st like to have,’ he said, ‘what is it then? Guess.’

‘Oh, I can’t wait,’ said Nance impatiently, ‘I must go and dress.’

‘Well then, here it is,’ he said, raising the lid and displaying a brooch, which at another time Nance would have received with delight.

‘Oh, a brooch,’she said, ‘well indeed, ’tis pretty, Gildas, and I did say I wanted one; but after all, I have the one thou gavest me before we were married, and what do I want with two? Put it there on the shelf, and when I come back I will look more at it. Thanks to thee, bachgen! Look at it, Gwenifer,’and she hurried up the bare stairs to the loft, where they could hear her moving briskly about on the uncarpeted boards.

The pleasure in Gildas’s face died out, and an impenetrable look of hardness seemed to veil his eyes.

Gwenifer, alive to every change in his face, felt aggrieved at Nance’s coldness, and longed to be able to soften its bitterness to Gildas.

‘Nance likes it,’ she signed, ‘only…’ and she waved her hand towards the door.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Gildas, ‘she wants to go to the meeting. Indeed, lass, I am afraid I am not fit to be the husband of such a religious woman!’

To this Gwenifer made no answer, but looking down at the old oak table, drew imaginary figures on it with her forefinger. Her dark lashes lay upon the smooth ivory of her cheeks, the red lips had fallen into a curve of sadness.

‘To tell thee the truth,’ said Gildas, rising, ‘I am getting to hate these meetings; they are changing Nance entirely. Well,’ he added, ‘I will go to the stable and see to the horses,’ and Gwenifer looked after him with a depth of pity in her eyes, for she thought the revival had made no change in Nance, but it was her real nature which her husband was now discovering. For the first few months of their married life Nance had succeeded in hiding from him the faults of temper and character of which she was dimly conscious, and now, under the influence of a new excitement, she was growing more careless in her endeavours to conceal them. What could Gwenifer do? Should she speak to Nance? To Gildas? Ah no! too much she feared lest she might reveal the secret which she had kept so safely hidden in her heart; and Gwenifer did what Nance never did, she reasoned the matter out, and came to the conclusion that the wisest course for her would be not to interfere. She clasped her hands, as she had a habit of doing when strong emotions surged up within her, and called in vain for words. ‘Oh, Gildas, Gildas!’ was her thought. ‘Oh, would thou wert happy! then I would be content.’

Half an hour later Nance was crossing the moor with her grandfather.

‘The storm is nearly spent, Dakee,’ she said. ‘There’s odd now! that Gildas would not come to the meeting. Ach-y-fi! ’Tis a shame to see how hard he is; they are all talking about him in Brynzion.’

‘Nance!’ said the old man, ‘wilt take my advice in this matter? Leave Gildas alone, ’merch-i. I have great faith in him. He’s all right, Nance. He does not talk about religion, but we see the fruit of it, in my deed, so fret not about him, but let him go his own way; ’tis very kind of him to let thee go thine.’

‘Kind indeed!’ said Nance, ‘I don’t see it then; ’twould be more kind of him to come with his wife to the meeting.’

‘Nay, Nance, thou wilt never alter Gildas Rees; he’s as firm as the strong oak.’

‘Yes,’ said Nance, ‘and as hard as the black rocks, as Nelli Amos says.’

‘Come, Nance fach,’ said the old man gently, ‘the Diwygiad should teach thee to have kinder feelings towards thy husband.’ But she walked on in silence, with the little pout on her lips which had been so charming in the child, but was not so becoming to the face of the woman.

Old Hezek too seemed lost in thought, till reaching the chapel door they were soon absorbed in the crowded congregation.

Thus Nance continued to attend her meetings, while Gildas gradually withdrew himself from them more and more. His lips took a hard firm set, the smile that used to lighten up his countenance so much seldom visited it, and he grew more silent – ‘as silent almost as Gwenifer,’ Nance would say sometimes, at which remark he would rouse himself and join boisterously in the laugh or the joke, soon relapsing into silence, however.

His changed appearance began to be noticed by the villagers without securing their sympathy, but rather arousing their anger. ‘Only a year,’ they would say, ‘since he married the purtiest girl round about here; and now see his serious face! and never coming to chapel! Pwr thing! ach-y-fi, ’tis a shame!’

Gwenifer saw it of course, and longed to chase away the gloom; but Nance, if she saw it, seemed indifferent, and continued to go her own way. Two or three times in the week the hearth at Scethryg was bare and empty in the evenings when Gildas, tired with his day’s work, returned to it for cheer and rest; for Nance was at the prayer meetings, where nightly the spiritual influence which they awaited seemed increasingly felt, and she grew more and more wedded to the services of the chapel.

It was late one night in June when, returning from one of these services with her grandfather, she heard a voice that startled her, and in another moment a figure approached whom she recognised as Captain Jack.

With a little flutter of excitement and pleasure, she took his outstretched hand, with the usual Welsh greeting. ‘Well indeed!’ and she was thankful that the darkness hid the blush that rose to her face at his sudden appearance. Old Hezek was delighted to meet his former patient.

‘Well, where did you come from so sudden?’ said Nance as they turned towards the moor together.

‘The Liliwen has got a crack in her side, and I have left her in Cardiff docks for repairs.’

‘Oh yes! Gildas told me; and you are stopping in the village.’

‘’Tis an ill wind that blows no one any good,’ said Hezek. ‘’Tis a good chance for us to see you again,’ and he shook hands warmly with the captain.

‘Yes, you can shake as hard as you like,’ said the latter, laughing, ‘you made a good job of my hand, doctor, ’tis stronger than ever now.’

‘You’ll come up to Scethryg, and have supper with us – eh, Nance?’ said the old man.

‘Yes, of course,’ said Nance, seconding his invitation. ‘Gildas will be glad to see you,’ and they walked on through the gloaming. The air was laden with the scent of the hayfields, the sunset light still lingered in the sky, the bats flitted by them in the darkness, and Nance, poor Nance, walked on in a kind of dream.

When they reached Scethryg, it was with a strange nervousness that she ushered the guest into the old kitchen, where Gildas was sitting alone by the hearth.

He rose at once when he saw the newcomer, and welcomed him with true hospitality.

‘Glad to see you, cap’n,’ he said. ‘I told mestress you would turn up some day.’

‘Well, you see,’ said the captain, ‘I am stopping with Marged Jones, John Davies’s aunt, and I will be glad to come up here sometimes to see you all.’

‘As often as you can,’ said Gildas. ‘We are haymaking tomorrow; will you give us a hand?’

‘Yes indeed,’ said the captain, ‘though ’tis long since I worked at the hay.’

‘Come, sit you down,’ said Gildas. ‘We are going to have supper, aren’t we, Nance?’

‘Well yes, at once,’ and she set the chairs to the table.

‘Come, Het,’ called Gildas, ‘we’ll try thy last brewing.’

‘Het’s brewings are always good,’ said Captain Jack, setting the rush chair for Nance. ‘There’s glad I am to have a sight of you both, and of my old doctor here. Well, you’ve treated the mestress well, whatever; her roses are blooming as fresh as ever.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Nance, laughing, ‘there’s not much the matter with me, I think.’

‘Is the singing as good as ever in Brynzion?’ he asked, turning to Nance, and under his gaze her heart fluttered again. She remembered the walks in the moonlight, she remembered the kiss by the thorn bush, and wondered whether he had forgotten; but turning to her duties as hostess she answered as calmly as she could.

‘Yes, better than ever; but come, here’s the supper. ’Tis but plain, but I hope you won’t mind that.’

‘Dear anwl no,’ said Captain Jack, ‘I am so hungry I could eat a brick; and with a glass of this sparkling ale too, why, ’tis a first-class supper! And how’s all in the village?’ he continued as he drew his chair to the table. ‘Dafi Pengaer as fond of a drop as ever?’

‘No,’ said Nance, ‘never a drop does he touch, and Leisa, poor thing, is having a happy life, what she never knew before. That’s what the Diwygiad has done for her, whatever,’ and she cast a swift glance at her husband, which the captain’s keen instinct interpreted rightly into a rebuke of some sort.

‘Well, well,’ he said, ‘if the Diwygiad has done that, ’tis wonderful indeed.’

‘Yes,’ said Gildas, ‘that is the strange thing about it! I can see many good things it has done, and ’tis beyond me to understand; but I will not believe there is any good in crying, and moaning and shouting; d’ye call that religion, captain?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Captain Jack, ‘’tis the Spirit of God poured into earthen vessels.’

Nance looked up well pleased, Gildas somewhat in surprise, while Captain Jack himself seemed strangely disturbed. He had spoken on the impulse of the moment, and had unconsciously enunciated a great truth. Such a subject was not one upon which he was accustomed to bestow a thought, or to venture an opinion, so, a little confused, he tried to change the subject.

But Gildas added, ‘The mestress and me don’t agree about it you see; she is heart and soul for it, and I, well I am not against it, exactly, but I don’t hold with their ways down there at Brynzion. She shall have her own way about it, and go to all the meetings if she likes, dear heart.’

‘Well, I have never been to one yet,’ said Captain Jack, ‘’tis time for me to begin, I think. ’Tis how you take it, I suppose, this Diwygiad,’ he added carelessly, and the subject dropped.

‘Come,’ said Gildas at last, turning to the hearth where the logs were spluttering cheerfully, ‘a smoke before you go, for I see you looking at your watch.’

‘Well, one pipe before I start. ’Tis a good stretch to the village, and ’twas late to come up here; but I wanted to see you all, and to thank the doctor here for curing my hand so well.’

And under the wide open chimney they chatted on all the events that looked so big and important to the country eye, and seemed so small and insignificant to the outer world.

‘Well, I will be here to the hay tomorrow,’ said the sailor, at last rising to go. ‘Nos da to you all. There’s snug and cosy you look here! I’ll be thinking about this bright hearth when I am trudging along; ’tis enough to make me long to be married myself!’ and as they closed the door after his departure, they heard him humming cheerfully, as he began his way across the dark moor.

For two or three hundred yards he walked on almost unconsciously, so busy were his thoughts with the bright hearth he had just left: n’wncwl Sam sitting stolidly silent, old Hezek’s bent shoulders and grey beard, Nance’s trim figure moving about her household duties, the little imperious ways which seemed to have grown more pronounced, the shadow of care or vexation on Gildas’s face – nothing was lost upon Captain Jack, he was alive to it all. Nance’s dimpled charms, the embarrassment with which she had received him, the drooping eyelids, the changing colour – these too Captain Jack noted. Suddenly he was recalled to himself by finding he had reached the edge of the cliff.

‘Jari!’ he said, ‘I’ve got wrong; lost my way somehow, and no compass to set me right. Where am I, I wonder? I thought I knew my way into the village,’ and with a shrug and a laugh he turned round, but again took a wrong path. When he had followed it for a quarter of a mile or so, he came upon a tiny thatched cottage, through whose diminutive window gleamed a beacon light. No front garden or ‘cwrt’ separated it from the grassy moor, which reached right up to its whitewashed walls. Only a little bareness before the doorway showed it was ever trodden by human footsteps. Captain Jack approached noiselessly over the grass, and knocking at the low door, which stood open, called out, ‘Hoi! is there anybody in who’ll show me the way to Tregildas?’

In answer to his call a girl appeared, who seemed surprised but not startled at seeing a stranger. The light from the inner chamber, faint though it was, revealed her fully against the surrounding gloom – her gown of dark red frieze set close to her slender form, her dusky hair crowned her head with many coils, her bare neck and arms were smooth as satin, though tinged by sun and wind.

Captain Jack for a moment stood surprised at something unusual in the girl’s appearance.

It was Gwenifer, who, having stayed late over her quilting at Scethryg, was now preparing her own supper of bread and milk. Here was a wonderful thing, a visitor in the midst of the moor – away from Tregildas, away from Scethryg! She was not at all frightened, no thought of danger entered her head; on the contrary, it was pleasure only that she would have wished to express. But the stranger, unacquainted with her signs and gestures, seemed at first puzzled by her silence; recalling, however, what he had heard, it flashed upon him that this was Gwenifer the silent girl, whom he had thought of so often since that night when she had appeared to him for a moment in the glow of the sunset. She smiled a pleasant greeting, raising her eyebrows inquiringly, and this at least Captain Jack understood.

‘I am John Davies,’ he said, ‘captain of the Liliwen. About here they call me Captain Jack’, and at once Gwenifer, remembering Nance’s infatuation, could not help showing her change of feelings in her expressive face.

‘Ah!’ he said, ‘you have heard no good of me. But you are Gwenifer, and I have heard nothing but good of you. Will you direct me to Tregildas?’

Instantly she was alive to his wishes, and anxious to help. Taking down a cloak which hung on the boarded wall, she flung it hastily over her, and, drawing the hood over her head, came out into the darkness.

‘Oh, no, no,’ said Captain Jack, ‘you shall not come, ’tis late and the dew is heavy.’ But she only waved a laughing rejection of his reasons, and continued to walk beside him over the moor.

Conversation was impossible, and the sailor could only follow his guide in silence. Once she turned to him as the moon peeped out from behind the clouds, and without the slightest embarrassment laid one hand on his arm, and with the other pointed to where the moonlight made a silver path across the sea.

‘Yes,’ said Captain Jack ‘beautiful indeed,’ and he looked, not on the path of silver, but on the girl’s face which the moon shone full upon. She, however, seemed quite unconscious of his admiration, and arriving at a diverging pathway pointed to it and stopped.

‘Yes, yes, I see,’ said the captain. ‘How stupid I was to lose my way! But in my deed I’m glad I did, because I have wanted to speak to you; and now we are friends, aren’t we?’

She bowed her head, smiling in that proudly gracious manner which made the boys of the village call her ‘Queen of the Rushes.’ There was no excuse for lingering, so Captain Jack had perforce to follow the path which she pointed out.

‘Good-bye,’ he said, ‘and thank you, and….’ He was longing to tell her how sorry he was for her affliction, but suddenly stopped in confusion, feeling it would be an insult to do so; but Gwenifer had caught the meaning of his sudden hesitation and laid her finger on her lips.

‘My silence, yes,’ and again she bowed her head, and Captain Jack as he turned away took off his cap with an unfeigned and almost reverent admiration.

Gwenifer waved her hand, and was gone.