By Berwen Banks Part 4

"Poor old dad!" he sighed, as he finished his supper, "it is hard for him to see his congregation dwindled away to a mere handful, while the chapels around him arc crowded to overflowing. By Jove! there must be something wrong somewhere."

As usual after supper he followed Betto into the old kitchen, where the servants were a.s.sembled for supper, and where Shanw was again holding forth, to her own delight and Betto's disgust, on the coming glories of the Sa.s.siwn.

"To-morrow evening will be the first meeting."

"Will it be in the field?" asked Cardo.

"Oh, no, Ser; the first is in the chapel always, and no strangers are there. Essec Powell will have to shut up his old books for a few days now, and poor Valmai will have rest. Marged Hughes says she is reading to him for hours every day, but once she can get out of his sight he forgets all about her, and goes on reading himself."

"When does he prepare his sermons?" said Cardo.

"Prepare his sermons!" said Shanw indignantly. "Do you think Essec Powell would write his sermon out like a clergyman and read it out like a book? No, indeed! Straight from the 'brist'--that's how Essec Powell preaches!"

"What time is the first meeting next day?"

"Oh, early, Ser--eight o'clock. Are you coming? Anwl! there's glad they'd be. You shall go on the platform with Price Merthyr and Jones Abertawe and all the rest."

"Saul among the prophets," said Cardo, laughing, and picturing himself among the solemn-faced preachers. "No, no; that wouldn't do, Shanw.

What would my father say?"

"Well, well!" said Shanw, clicking her tongue against her teeth; "'ts, 'ts! 'tis pity indeed. But, there, everybody knows it is not your fault, Ser."

Cardo frowned, and fell into a brown study. It wounded him to hear his father blamed, and yet in his heart of hearts he wished he would so far temper his zeal with Christian charity as to attend the meetings which were moving the hearts of the people so much.

[1] "The old know, the young appear to know."

[2] Leek broth.

[3] Rodomontade.

[4] Peeped.

[5] Glamorgans.h.i.+re.

CHAPTER III.

THE Sa.s.sIWN.

The Sa.s.siwn day dawned bright and clear, and as the time for the first service drew near, the roads and lanes were thronged with pedestrians and vehicles of every description.

The doors of the houses in all the surrounding villages were closed for the day, except in a few cases where illness made it impossible for the inmates to leave their beds. Everybody--man, woman, and child, including babies innumerable--turned their faces towards the sloping field which for the day was the centre of attraction.

Already the gra.s.s was getting hidden by the black throng, and still the crowds arrived, seating themselves row behind row on the wild thyme and heather. The topmost corner of the field merged into a rocky wilderness of stunted heath and patches of burnt gra.s.s, studded with harebells, and this unapportioned piece of ground stretched away into the adjoining corner of the Vicar's long meadow. In the afternoon Cardo, who had virtuously kept away from the morning meetings, sauntered down to chat with Dye, who had condescended to absent himself from the third service, in order to attend to his duties on the farm.

"You sit here, Mr. Cardo," he said, with a confidential wink, "on your own hedge; the Vicar can't be angry, and you will hear something worth listening to."

Soon the sloping bank was crowded with its rows of human beings, all listening with intense interest to a pale, dark man, who stood on the front of the platform at the bottom of the field, and with sonorous voice delivered a short opening prayer, followed by an impa.s.sioned address. In the clear, pure air every word was distinctly heard all over the field, the surging mult.i.tude keeping a breathless silence, broken only by the singing of the birds or the call of the seagulls.

Sometimes a baby would send up a little wail of fatigue; but generally the slumberous air soothed and quieted them into sleep.

The prayer over, the preacher gave out the words of a well-known hymn, and with one accord the people stood up, and from those hundreds and thousands arose the swelling tones of one of those old hymns which lay hold of every Welshman's heart, its strange reminiscences, its mysterious influences swaying his whole being, and carrying him away on the wings of its rising and falling melody. His fathers and grandfathers sang it in their old thatched cabins--and, farther back, the warriors and bards of his past ancestry breathed the same tones--and, farther back still, the wind swept its first suggestions through the old oaks of the early solitudes.

"Is it this, I wonder, this far-reaching into the past, which gives such moving power to the tones of an old Welsh hymn?" Thus Cardo mused, as he sat on the hedge in the spring suns.h.i.+ne, his eyes roaming over the dense throng now settling down to listen to the sermon, which the preacher was beginning in low, slow sentences. Every ear was strained to listen, every eye was fixed on the preacher, but Cardo could not help wondering where Valmai was. He saw Essec Powell with clasped fingers and upturned chin listening in rapt attention; he saw in the rows nearest the platform many of the wives and daughters of its occupants. Here surely would be the place for the minister's niece; but no! Valmai was nowhere to be seen. In truth, she had been completely forgotten by her uncle, who had wandered off with a knot of preachers after the hospitable dinner, provided for them at his house by Valmai's exertions and Marged Hughes' help; but he had never thought of introducing to his guests the real genius of the feast. She had s.n.a.t.c.hed a hurried meal in the pantry, and, feeling rather lost and bewildered amongst the crowd of strangers, had retired to rest under the elder bushes, until called upon by Marged Hughes to help at the table, which she did at once, overcoming her shyness, and keeping as much as possible in the background.

The guests had been at first too intent upon their dinners after their morning's exertions to notice the slim white figure which slipped backwards and forwards behind them, supplying every want with quick and delicate intuition, aiding Marged Hughes' clumsy attempts at waiting, so deftly, that Essec Powell's dinner was a complete success.

Towards the end of the meal a young and susceptible preacher caught sight of the girl, and without ceremony opened a conversation with her.

Turning to his host he asked:

"And who is this fair damsel?"

"Who? where?" said Essec Powell, looking surprised. "Oh! that's my niece Valmai; she is living with me since Robert my brother is dead."

"Well, indeed! You will be coming to the meetings, I suppose?"

"Yes," said Valmai, "I have been there all day; the singing was lovely!"

"And what did you think of the preaching?" said a very fat man, in a startlingly ba.s.s voice. He was carving a fowl. "That is the important point," he said, and the wing came off unexpectedly. "Young people are apt to think most of the singing," here he re-captured the wing and landed it safely on his own plate. "Did you hear my sermon?" he asked, between the mouthfuls of the fast disappearing wing, fixing his eyes upon poor Valmai, who began to wish herself under the elder bushes again. "My text was--" but fortunately here the company rose.

After a long grace they dispersed, and turned their faces once more towards the sloping field.

No one noticed Valmai--no one remembered her in the hurry to return to the preaching field--no one, she thought, would know or care whether she was present or not; and as she drew on her gloves and tied on her broad-brimmed straw hat, there was a little sadness in the curves of her mouth, a little moisture in the deep blue eyes, as alone she took her way after the preachers to the hillside. As she went she recalled the last open-air meeting she had attended, nearly two years ago, in that far-off land, where her father and mother had walked with her in loving companions.h.i.+p, when she had been the centre of their joys and the light of their home, and as she followed the winding path, hymn-book in hand, her heart went back in longing throbs to the father and mother and the old home under the foreign sky, where love had folded her in its warm embrace; but now--she was alone! no one noticed whether she came or went, and as groups and families pa.s.sed her, wending their way to the hillside, she answered their nods and greetings with pleasant kindliness, but still found herself alone!

"It will always be like this now; I must learn to go alone. What can I expect when my father and mother are dead? there is no one else to care for me!"

She reached the crowded field, and ought to have made her way into the front rows near the platform where she might easily have found a seat, but Valmai was shy and retiring, and seeing there was no settled place for her, kept on the outskirts of the crowd, and at last found herself on the piece of uncultivated ground which bordered the corner of the Vicar's long meadow. She seated herself on the heather at the top of the bank, the sea wind blowing round her, and tossing and tumbling the golden curls which fell so luxuriantly under her hat.

All feeling of loneliness pa.s.sed away as she sat there among the harebells and heather, for Valmai was young, and life was all before her, with its sweet hopes and imaginings. She was soon listening with deep interest to the eloquent and burning words which fell from the lips of the preacher; and with the harebells nodding at her, the golden coltsfoot staring up into the sky, the laughing babies sprawling about, was it any wonder that sadness fled away, and joy and love sang a paean of thankfulness in her heart?

It was at this moment that Cardo caught sight of her. Unconsciously, he had been seeking her in every square yard which his eye could reach, and here she was close to him all the time. The discovery awoke a throb of pleasure within him, and with a flush upon his dark face he rose and made his way towards her. She was absently turning over the leaves of her little Welsh hymn-book as he approached, and smiling unconsciously at a toddling child who was making journeys of discovery around the furze bushes. A quick, short "Oh!" escaped her as she saw him approach, her face brightened up--yes, certainly she was glad.

Cardo saw it in the mantling blush and the pleased smile as he found a seat on the gra.s.s beside her. She placed her hand in his with a whispered word of greeting, for it would not do to speak aloud in that quiet concourse of people.

"Where have you been?" he asked, at last.

"At home," she whispered. "Why?"

"Because I hoped you would be out--"

Valmai shook her head as a farmer's wife looked round at her reprovingly. Cardo attempted another remark, but she only smiled with her finger on her lips.

"This is unendurable," he thought; but he was obliged to be satisfied with the pleasure of sitting beside her until the long sermon was over, and the crowd rose _en ma.s.se_ with e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of delight at the moving eloquence of the preacher.

"As good as ever he was!" "Splendid!" "Did you hear that remark about the wrong key?" "Oh! telling!" And amongst the murmer of approval and enthusiasm Valmai and Cardo rose. For a moment the former looked undecided, and he read her thoughts.

"No--not home with the crowd, but down over the beach;" and she fell in with the suggestion, turning her face to the sea breeze and taking the path to the sh.o.r.e.