Through Welsh Doorways Part 16

"Oh!" exclaimed Catherine. Then, suddenly, the happiness in her face was quenched. "But, lad, I'm a wicked woman, aye, Vavasour Jones, a bad woman!"

As Vavasour had poured himself out man unto man to Eilir, so woman unto man Catherine poured herself out to her husband.

"An', lad, I went to the church-porch hopin', almost prayin' ye'd be called, that I'd see your spirit walkin'."

"Catherine, ye did that!"

"Aye, but oh! lad, I'd been so unhappy with quarrelling and hard words, I could think of nothin' else but gettin' rid of them."

"Och, 't was bad, very bad!" replied Vavasour.

"An' then, lad, when I reached the church-corner an' saw your spirit was really there, really called, an' I knew ye'd not live the year out, I was frightened, but oh! lad, I was glad, too."

Vavasour looked grave.

"Katy, it was a terrible thing to do!"

"I know it now, but I didn't at that time, dearie," answered Catherine; "I was hardhearted, an' I was weak with longin' to escape from it all.

An' then I ran home," she continued; "I was frightened, but oh! lad dear, I was glad, too, an' now it hurts me so to think it. An' when ye came in from the Lodge, ye spoke so pleasantly to me that I was troubled. An' now the year through it's grown better an' better, an' I could think of nothin' but lovin' ye an' wis.h.i.+n' ye to live an knowin' I was the cause of your bein' called. Och, lad, _can_ ye forgive me?"

asked Catherine.

"Aye," replied Vavasour slowly, "I can--none of us is without sin--but, Katy, it was wrong, aye, a terrible thing for a woman to do."

"An' then to-night, lad, I was expectin' ye to go, knowin' ye couldn't live after twelve, an' ye sittin' there so innocent an' mournful; an'

when the time came I wanted to die myself. Oh!" moaned Catherine afresh.

"No matter, dearie, now," comforted Vavasour, putting his arm about her, "it _was_ wrong in ye, but we're still here an' it's been a sweet year, aye, it's been better nor a honeymoon, an' all the years after we'll make better nor this. There, Katy, let's have a bit of a wa.s.sail to celebrate our All-Hallows' honeymoon, shall we?"

"Aye, lad, it would be fine," said Catherine, starting for the bowl, "but Vavasour, can ye forgive me, think, lad, for hopin', aye, an'

almost prayin' to see your spirit, just wis.h.i.+n' that ye'd not live the year out?"

"Katy, I can, an' I'm not layin' it up against ye, though it was a wicked thing for ye to do--for any one to do. Now, dearie, fetch the wa.s.sail."

Catherine started for the bowl once more, then turned, her black eyes snapping upon him.

"Vavasour, how does it happen that the callin' is set aside an' that ye're _really_ here? Such a thing's not been in Gwynen in the memory of man"; and Catherine proceeded to give a list of the All-Hallows'-Eve callings that had come inexorably true within the last hundred years.

"I'm not sayin' how it's happened, Catherine, but I'm thinkin' it's modern times an' things these days are happenin' different,--aye, modern times."

"Good!" sighed Catherine contentedly, "it's lucky 'tis modern times."

_The Heretic's Wife_

"Mother, Mr. Thatcher oversteps himself; any such suggestions should be comin' from the landlord." Gabriel puffed out his whiskered cheeks and grew red under his eyes.

"There, father dear, there," Maggie hastened to soothe him.

"Tut, mam, a man knows what he's talkin' about by the time he's seventy, doesn't he? A man has a right to his own thoughts; now, hasn't he? I tell ye, it was insultin', most insultin'!"

"Aye, it's so," admitted Maggie ruefully, "but, father----"

"He's always interferin' with your private affairs, he is," Gabriel interrupted, heedless of Maggie's attempts to change the conversation.

"At best he's nothin' but an absentee's gentleman, now, isn't he?"

"No, I think; I'm thinkin', dad, he is himself a gentleman," Maggie contradicted gently.

"Pooh! no gentleman at all! He's the lad's tool, given the education of a gentleman, taught to carry himself like a gentleman, an' livin' in the landlord's house in his absence; but for all that he's not a gentleman, naught but an upper servant, an' Sir Evan treats him so. I'm thinkin' a very self-respectin' man wouldn't be takin' such a position nowadays, now, would he?"

At the sound of a horse's hoofs upon the road Gabriel turned to the window with eager curiosity, his head travelling the width of the latticed light.

"There's the young master ridin' by now!" he exclaimed.

As she contemplated the back of Gabriel's head, his pink ears protruding independently from the sides of his bald, s.h.i.+ny pate as if they, too, had opinions of their own, Maggie's eyes gathered anxiety. Gabriel turned to the hearth again.

"Well, mam?"

"Father, these are dangerous new ideas ye're gettin'," she answered.

"Tut, if Mr. Thatcher, steward or no steward, felt like a gentleman, then in my eyes he'd be a gentleman, indeed. But no gentleman would ever act as Mr. Thatcher does, now, isn't it?"

"Lad, lad!" Maggie remonstrated.

This advanced thinking would do for the young ones; she would have had to confess to a liking for it in her children's letters. It was right for a new world perhaps; but she thought with alarm of Gabriel daring to a.s.sert such views here on the very flaggings, under the very thatch of Isgubor Newydd. She looked anxiously towards the hearth, as if she feared such social doctrine might quench its brightly glowing pot of coals, or destroy its s.h.i.+ning fire-stools, candlesticks, pewter platters, and big copper cheese-dishes, or break its fragile, iridescent creamers and sugar basins and jugs,--there, much of it, four hundred years ago at a certain wedding-breakfast, just as it had been at her own some forty years ago. It would not have surprised her now to have it all come clattering down about her head and break in precious fragments on the stone hearth.

"Mam," said Gabriel, looking shrewdly at her troubled face, "do ye recall the repairs we asked for and never got?"

"Aye, dad dear."

"Well, mam, David Jones had his an' he asked after us. David Jones trades at Mr. Thatcher's shop, mam, an' we don't an' we're not a-goin'

to," Gabriel ended pugnaciously.

"Och, father!"

"Aye, it's so, isn't it? It's insultin', isn't it, suggestin' a man change his way of prayin' to suit his landlord's steward an'--an'--"

Gabriel added hesitatingly, "his landlord, I suppose, too; an' the steward obligin' him to trade at his shop to get any paint or a roof tatched."

The firelight shone upon Gabriel's fringe of whiskers and glowed through his pink ears and twinkled upon his bald head. He looked up indignantly to the rafters above him; they were well hung with hams and bacons upon which the dry salt glistened like frost. His expression mellowed. He glanced at the bright hearth with its bright tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs; he looked from the purring kettle and purring kitten before Maggie's feet to Maggie herself, daintily upright on the dark settle, her cap and ap.r.o.n immaculately white. She was as comely and fragile as the antique china she cherished. Then Gabriel spoke contentedly, like a man who has counted his riches and found them after all more than sufficient.

"Well, mam, we've prospered even here, haven't we? It's leading a righteous life does it; aye, an' there's the young man has made us all feel like livin' better, hasn't he?"

"Aye, dear beloved," Maggie nodded, glad of the turn the conversation was taking, "even in his picture he looks like one lifted up, like the apostle Paul."

"They say, mam, that for fifteen years he prayed the same prayer to get knowledge an' do good."

"Aye, an' it came, an' now from being nought but a collier, he's influencin' thousands and thousands."