Read Ebook: Torn Sails: A Tale of a Welsh Village by Raine Allen

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Ebook has 902 lines and 43500 words, and 19 pages

Mari waited a moment in dazed silence.

"Art better, merch i?" she said at length, when the sobs began to grow less violent; and stooping down, and whispering so softly that not even the proverbial walls could hear, she said, "Now, no word of explaining; none is wanted between thee and me; we have been soul to soul together to-day. I know all thy secret, and I think thou knowest mine!"

Gwladys' lips moved in assent, but she seemed too broken down for more.

"Listen again," said Mari. "We are both women whose dream of happiness has been shattered; but there is still one thing which we can work for as long as life shall last--Hugh's happiness. Can we work together, Gwladys f?ch? can we still be friends with these bitter secrets between us? It is for thee to settle."

Gwladys' only answer was to raise her arms and clasp them round Mari's neck, drawing her close to her in a long embrace, during which some silent tears were shed by both.

"Never leave me, Mari!"

"Never!"

Crushed oats, with the husks on, used for making a kind of strained porridge.

GWEN'S REBELLION.

"Where is Gwen?" said Hugh Morgan, looking at an unoccupied stool at one end of the sail-shed; "she has not been here for two days."

"No," said one of her friends, "she's at home, Mishteer. Her little baby is ill, and she and Lallo are wild with fear of losing her."

"Ts, ts, that's a pity! Has she had a doctor?"

"Well, well," said the Mishteer, "I must go and see about getting a doctor for her." And he left the shed, and passed up the road towards Gwen's cottage, upon reaching which, he found her deeply intent upon a morsel of raw meat, which she was roasting on a fork before the fire. Her little baby, meanwhile, white and moaning, lay across Lallo's knees, who also seemed much interested in the bit of meat.

"Well, Gwen, I am sorry to hear your little one is ill; but diranwl! babies have nine lives and recover from all sorts of illnesses."

Gwen scarcely withdrew her eyes from her cooking to answer.

"Oh! of course, I know that, Mishteer, I know she will be well soon; but if you had a child of your own, you would know 'tis a cruel thing to see it suffering!"

"B'tshwr, indeed!" said Hugh. "I can quite understand that; but what is it that you are cooking?"

"A mouse," said Gwen. "Malen hysbys says a roasted mouse will cure my baby."

"Caton pawb!" said Hugh, "what nonsense, Gwen! I will send for Dr. Hughes; he ought to have been here sooner. A roasted mouse, indeed. Where did she hear that from? From Peggi Sh?n?"

"Peggi Sh?n knew more than Dr. Hughes a good deal," said Gwen; "and if she was alive now my baby would not be suffering; but it will be well by to-morrow."

"I hope so, indeed," said Hugh; "but if you do not let Dr. Hughes see it, I think it will die, Gwen; that is the plain truth, and there is no use hiding it. I will send for him at once. And throw away that nasty thing you are roasting," he added as he left the house.

"Die!" said Gwen fiercely; "she shall not die! There's calmly he says 'die!' I wish I had never let that wife of his touch my baby; it hasn't been well since she nursed it here one day."

As she spoke, through the open doorway came the sounds of singing from a knot of women and children passing by.

"Hard-hearted wretches!" she said, viciously pounding the mouse, which had been cooked to a cinder. "They can laugh and sing while my child is sick; they don't care. But their time will come!" she added, as she mixed the dark powder with some brown sugar and butter, and, with cooing, tender words, she coaxed the little moaning baby to swallow the unsavory morsel. At the same time Dr. Hughes entered, breezy and fresh from his drive over the hill.

"Hello!" he called, as his portly form filled up the whole doorway. "What's wrong here? I met Hugh Morgan down the road, and he told me I was wanted here. What is it, Gwen? Hello!" he said again, in quite an altered tone, as he caught sight of the little panting baby, its pretty lips discoloured with smears of butter and sugar and something worse. "What's this?" and he looked in anger from one woman to another. "How dare you! You have been trying some of your filthy messes again, and with the usual result. You have killed your baby. Had you sent for me in time, I might have saved him; it is now too late."

At the words "too late" Gwen screamed, and snatched the little one from its grandmother's lap. Disturbed by the scream it opened its eyes for a moment, and then died with a little fluttering gasp.

"There, lay it down, poor little thing," said the doctor; "you can do no more for it; but next time you see a baby dying, don't add to its pain by stuffing filthy things into its mouth."

Gwen fixed her heavy-lidded eyes upon the doctor with an angry look, saying:

"Go out of my house if you can do no good, and leave me to my sorrow. You will repent of this."

"Of what, woman?"

She made no answer further than to point to the door, and Dr. Hughes went out, shrugging his shoulders.

Through the open doorway the singing of the children came in on the breeze.

"Fileiniaid," Gwen said, shaking her clenched fist at the doorway. "I hate them. Are they all to be happy while I am miserable?" and hastily rising, she took her little dead baby in her arms, and pressing it to her bosom, paced moaning up and down the room; while Lallo, even in her fresh sorrows remembering the village proprieties, closed the door and covered up the little window with a pocket handkerchief, and, with no little difficulty, at last persuaded Gwen to lay the child on the bed.

"Extraordinary woman that Gwen," said Dr. Hughes, as he called by the sail-shed to report to Hugh Morgan. "Devilish temper. Second Peggi Sh?n. You see if I'm not right. The little baby? Oh, dead as a herring, its last moments disturbed by some filthy concoction stuffed into its mouth."

"Yes, I know, indeed," said Hugh; "a roasted mouse. I saw her cooking it." And Dr. Hughes drove away with an oath.

"Mari," said 'n'wncwl Jos one day as he stumped in from the sunshine; "isn't there a hole in Lallo's penucha?"

"Yes," said Mari, looking at him with some surprise. "There is a short board near the fireplace, where the damp earth comes quite near to the top. It was going to be finished fifteen years ago when the floor was boarded, but the hole is still there. Why, 'n'wncwl Jos?"

"Oh, nothing," said the old man. "Hast heard the little one is to be buried on Monday? and to-morrow night there's to be a gwylnos. Wilt come, Mari?"

"No, indeed," she said. "I will come to the prayer meeting, because then I can sit at the door or in the passage; but to be shut up all night in a room with a dead body makes me faint, and besides, I don't like a gwylnos."

"Wel, no," said her uncle; "I know both thou and Hugh Morgan are very odd in some things, and that is one thing--not to like a gwylnos. Wel, I'm going anyway," and he stumped vigorously, and put on a defiant look. "What is the good of my never having married if I'm going to be ruled by a woman after all? Caton pawb! Wouldst like us to bury our dead as the Saeson do? To shut the door upon them and say, 'There! we've finished with you; you stop there by yourself in the dark!' And then click with the key, and sit down in the warm kitchen to a comfortable meal, and talk about who's to have his clothes? No, no! Lallo and I are too old friends for me to desert her now in her trouble; so to the gwylnos I'll go, merch i, whatever thou say'st!"

"Well, b'dsiwr! if you like, 'n'wncwl Jos," said Mari; "and I only meant that I didn't like the drinking and talking that goes on at a gwylnos, for death is too solemn a thing for such nonsense."

"Oh, j?r-i! I agree with thee there. For a man to lie there, stiff and cold, hearing and saying nothing, while his friends are smoking and chatting near him, good liquor passing around him and he knowing nothing about it--well, yes! 'tis a solemn thing! But that's no reason why we shouldn't stay with the poor fellow as long as he is above ground, if it was only to comfort his relatives!" And he began to "furrage" in an old sea-chest, where he kept his own personal treasures safely under lock and key, bringing out from its depths one of the square, high-shouldered bottles of "Hollands" which he had collected in a mysterious manner during his sea-faring days. Having closed the chest with a bang, he hid the bottle under his rough pilot coat, and made his way up to Lallo's cottage. His low tap at the door was answered by Gwen herself.

"So sorry, calon f?ch!" he said, "for thy trouble and for Lallo's. This is for the gwylnos, merch i; give it to thy mother," and he held out the square bottle.

Gwen made no answer, but turned away and called her mother, leaving 'n'wncwl Jos with outstretched arms at the doorway.

"J?r-i! there's manners!" he muttered to himself.

But if Gwen was scant of gratitude, Lallo made up for it to overflowing.

"'N'wncwl Jos b?ch! There's kind you are to remember us in our trouble. A hundred thanks! and I hope you will be at the gwylnos; I will never forget your kindness!"

"Twt, twt! hisht about kindness," said the old man, backing from the doorway, in fear lest he might be asked in "to see the body," a compliment considered due to everyone who knocked at the door.

On the following day, which was Sunday, after every service in the two chapels was added the notice, given out by one of the deacons in the "set fawr" or big seat under the pulpit:

"There will be a prayer-meeting at the house of Lallo Hughes this evening at eight o'clock, to be followed by a gwylnos for any friends who are wishful to attend."

In the gloaming, when the many services of the day were over, the congregations trooped down towards Lallo's cottage. Of course, there was no room inside, but they overflowed into the cwrt and into the roadway, where they stood in the gathering twilight, only hearing a faint murmur of the prayers which were offered up inside the house; but still they waited patiently, listening to the rising and falling of the prayers, which mingled with the soft sighing of the sea, and speaking to each other in whispers.

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