Chapter V: Bryn Tirion sees Death Triumphant (2)

At home Gladys, eyeing disconsolately the bright fire and the rows of brass candlesticks and the big shiny cheese dishes, sat in the same place in which Adam had left her. Ah! it was wicked for her to have done that, for her husband was so gentle to her, no man could be better. And now she was making a laughingstock of the lad among the neighbours. The tears rolled out of her eyes, and, irresponsible little body that she was, with the flow of her tears there came a great desire to be comforted for her wickedness. Adam had always comforted her. Suddenly she sat up, for there was the sound of many feet upon the road. She listened, she looked out, she gasped, she sped to the hedge. A great procession was going by. Her amazed eyes fell upon camels, with gentlemen in baggy trousers on their backs. The camels were walking forward, stealthily spreading out their soft-padded feet. And there were many elephants, uneasily swaying the keepers who sat on their heads; for the elephants, hearing the purring of the stream, thought it sounded like the rustling of long jungle-grass, and wished more than anything else that this tidy little hill were a jungle in which they might lie down. Instead, they must trundle wearily up hill, taking comfort in elephantine ways by holding by their trunks to one another's tails. And the ladies from Egypt, seated high in a great barge, fanned themselves and looked yellow and much as Cleopatra must have looked when Mark Antony wooed her. And the float-full of American Indians seemed tired, and something must have been washed off their faces, for certainly they were not red. And the gentlemen representing the musical talent of the German Empire were mopping their fat necks. And in the huge barge representing Japan, courteous little Japs covered their yawns with fastidiously-kept hands. And the "artist" who sat inside the steam-organ wagon became so sleepy that his hand slipped and struck one of the organ pedals. "Yah!" screeched the organ, and I think it was the loudest sound ever heard on Twthill. The only rosy, tidy being in the whole procession was a little maid in white cap and apron who was hanging up fresh towels in one of the living vans, and peeping out of the window at the curious cottages and unpronounceable names decorating each one that she saw. There was no talking, no laughter. This was part of the day's work for these men and women and beasts. They were on their way to Carnarvon for Monday's performance. The men looked tired and sober, and so did the women. Gladys thought they all seemed strangely draggled. Indeed, she had imagined they would be quite different, so bright and beautiful, very creatures of the air like the birds. She believed she did not wish to go to the circus after all, for if they were not happy, she was certain she could never be happy looking at them, poor dears! If only Adam would come home, she could stand the stillness, and she would never do anything wrong again.

In the Chapel the service went forward without interruption; the minister, a man of character, convinced that he had met on Twthill all the forces of the world and the flesh and the devil, was not to be terrified by a multitude of feet, even though those feet were an avenging host sent for the destruction of this wicked village, in which he laboured and struggled in vain. The congregation, ignorant of this unflattering opinion of them, followed their heroic leader to a man.

At the close of the service, Deacon Aphael Tuck leaned forward towards Adam Jones.

"Mr. Jones, your socks--your socks----"

"What is that, Mr. Tuck?"

"Your socks. I'm sorry, but did ye intend----"

"Aye, my socks, Deacon," said Adam, looking apprehensively towards his boots, "aye, I've been lookin' for them--my Sunday socks."

"They're on your back," said the senior deacon, coughing.

Adam Jones flushed all over his pale face; then he smiled, much as if he enjoyed having his Sunday socks on his back rather than on his feet, and then, recollecting, he began to explain to the deacon.

"Well, 'tis Sunday,"--the deacon knew this,--"and Gladys takes very good care of my clothes whatever, and puts them--lays them out in the chest an'--an' she's not well to-day."

While Aphael Tuck was pulling out the strong stitches with which the socks were tacked on,--strong stitches which he and Mrs. Tuck often discussed later as part of the liveliest day Twthill had ever known,--the Recording Angel, who had been taking down Adam's prayers much cut in angelic shorthand, spaced out every one of these half-true faltering words carefully, and over them, the Angel wrote, in beautiful bright letters, LOVE, and beneath them, with lax impartiality to Calvinism and Wesleyanism, made this note, "Elect: Adam and wife."

_An Oriel in Eden_

Mrs. Jenkins looked over at Mr. Jenkins the shop merchant and bard, and there was love and wonderment in her eyes. He was reclining in an arm-chair, his long legs stretched before him, his head at rest against the chair, his hands folded over his stomach, his eyes tight closed, his mouth wide open, his lips moving, and every once in a while his tongue quickly lapping his upper lip. Janny looked away and out of the windows to the meadows that rolled up into the mist like big grey waves; this was the act of composition, she knew, and too sacred even for her, his humbler half, to behold. But the misty uplands suggested overmuch of that unnamable something which, when she looked at her husband, made her wish to shut her eyes; for, might she not, Janny reasoned, see more than she ought to see of the divine spirit that moved behind those hills and behind the lips of Ariel Jenkins. So her thoughts slipped back into the living-room of Ty Mawr, while her eyes avoided the inspired contents of the arm-chair. She had been a bride and the envied mistress of Ty Mawr just two weeks; however, she was forty and matrimony was late for her, and Ariel Jenkins being forty-five, it was none too early for him. Janny felt her responsibilities keenly. Was she living up to them? She was at the mercantile centre of the village, her better half was not only a merchant but also a crowned poet, her house the most important in Glaslyn. And Glaslyn expected changes; Mrs. Parry Wynn the baker said so, Mrs. Gomer Roberts the tinman had prophesied, and Mrs. Jeezer Morris the minister had whispered to Betto Griffiths who had told Janny of these expectations, that she supposed, nay, she _hoped_ Ariel Jenkins's home with a woman in it would soon look like a God-fearing place and receive some improvements. Janny's glance roved through the sitting-room. She had made a few alterations, but somehow in the half-light of dusk they seemed as nothing. What was the moving or replenishing of a taper holder, a fresh case for Ariel's harp, a new cover for the table, or the addition of a few pleasant-faced china cats to a regimental mantelpiece,--indeed, she sadly asked herself, what were these changes in comparison with the unappointed something she was expected to accomplish as Mrs. Ariel Jenkins the shop? She was a stranger in Glaslyn, an intruder from a great outside world, and now she felt bewildered, lonely. Her eyes flitted to Ariel's face for company.

"Dearie!"

There was no answer.

"Is it comin', Ariel dear?"

"Aye," he snapped.

Janny winced; she had never lived with genius, and, somehow, she thought it would be different. Her deep-blue eyes had a still look in them that suggested not only a long habit of self-repression but also perplexity, and sadness, too; there was appeal in every feature of her face,--an appeal made the more pathetic, perhaps, by the childlike lines of pale-gold curling hair about her forehead and tired eyes, and the delicate hollows beneath her cheek-bones, and the fragile sweetness of her mouth. It was a face in its soft bloom and delicacy, forever young and yet unforgettably weary. She straightened out her kirtle, and again her glance roved the room. There must be a clean hearth-brush, new muslin curtains for the casement; the stairway landing, where it turned by the front windows, even in the twilight looked shabby with the wear and tear of heavily-booted feet and clogs, the light from the oriel window above the landing shining through with bald ugliness upon the stairs. As she looked at the light Janny's eyes dilated, her face flushed, and she leaned forward, gazing intently at the window. For the minute she had forgotten Ariel, but he, puff, puff, puff, with many sighs and yawns and much stretching of his long legs, was coming out of his inspired coma. His awakening look fell upon Janny there where she sat, her hands clasped in her lap, her shoulders tipped forward, her chin tilted upward, a circle of quiet light about her hair, her eyes intent upon the stairway window.

"Janny dear, what is it? What are ye lookin' at?"

"Oh! na--aye, lad, I--I----"

"Well, well, Janny!"

"Ariel, I was thinkin'."

"Aye, an' ye were plannin', too."

He was thoroughly aroused now from his inspiration, and studying that object, woman, which through some twenty-five years he had sung and praised. Ariel's eyes searched her; stanza, metre, rhyme, theme, were all forgotten, for he saw that Janny possessed a thought she had no intention of parting with to him. He glanced from her to the window upon which she had been looking so rapturously when he surprised her gaze. So far as he could see it was like any other stairway light in Glaslyn, except that it was oval instead of rectangular, and perhaps a little deeper than some, but otherwise precisely like scores he had seen. Then he called imagination to his aid, that imagination which had been the means of begetting shillings over the counter of his shop, which had won for him a comfortable income, and commercial success, as well as made him the foremost bard in his county. He peered through the window; what he beheld was a bit of dusky sky with a shadowy star seemingly behind it. He dismissed imagination and returned to the study of his bride. It was a whim probably; perhaps one of those unshaped thoughts, elemental, unspoken, to which women listen in their idle moments; indeed, it might even be some dreaming about him of which Janny in the shyness of their relation, still new, was too sensitive to speak. Gradually Ariel forgot the problem in his renewed consciousness of the charm of Janny, with her deep blue eyes, her childlike pale-gold hair, the delicate lines of her fragile face so different from the Welsh women of their village. Under his scrutiny Janny sat serenely with a more than wonted air of self-possession.

She interrupted him: "Ariel, ye've been to sea, dear?"

"Aye, when I was a lad."

"Was it for long?"

"No, not long, two years sailin' with cargoes between our coast and Ireland."

"Did ye learn much of the ways of sailorfolk?"

"Aye, much."

"Runnin' up an' down the ropes?"

"Aye, that, an' more too."

"Did ye learn tattooin', dear?"

"Aye, the marks ye've seen on my arms an old salt taught me to do. The sailors were clever with the needle, sketchin' as well as sewin'."

"Do ye think ye could sketch a star now, Ariel, or have ye forgotten?"

Ariel laughed, partly with pleasure at this talk by the fire, partly from joy in the companionship.

"Aye, I'm thinkin' I could, little lamb."

He drew his chair closer to hers and saw her face brighten; it rested her to have him near her, and her thoughts sped back through all the years of loneliness and hunger for the things she could not have; she had a new consciousness of life and of being useful; it was not merely Ariel, it was the house, too, and what she could do to make it--Well, the word escaped her; anyway it was the house as well as Ariel, and it was lovely to think of what she could do for it while he made poetry and sold things in the shop.

"An', Ariel, could ye sketch me an anchor an' a bit of rope?"

"Aye, dearie, I could; ye know I could anyway, for I had drawin' at the school in Carnarvon while I was an apprentice there."

"Drawin'?"

"Aye, it was mam's idea."

Janny's eyes grew large.

"Ariel, do ye--do ye--think ye could draw me a--a cat?"

Ariel took one look at Janny and burst into laughter; shop, poetry, everything was forgotten in his amusement at her childlike eagerness. Suddenly he stopped, for Janny's face was quivering. Aye, he had forgotten, too, that this was no peasant-woman; his laughter seemed brutal.

"Janny, little lamb," he said softly, drawing her head to him, "I could, dear, I'll sketch all the cats ye want."

Janny sighed comfortably, her head still upon his shoulder, the weariness easing away from her heart. She could do it now; it would make the greatest difference; Betto Griffiths and others should see that she was something more than a bit of porcelain in Ariel's home, that she could do something more than merely oversee house-cleaning. Besides, it really was something more,--it was having an idea of her own, and that until Ariel rescued her she had never been allowed to have. She reached up and patted his face; even her gestures were incomprehensibly childlike. What she lacked in the passion of a woman she seemed to make up in the perfect trust of a child. Ariel, selfish with the selfishness of a man who has lived by himself and who had lived much in his own mind, thought now with a pang how lonely Janny must have been ever since she came to him; the appeal of her confidence touched the best that was in him, the protection that was his to give her, and some potential sense of fatherhood. Aye, he knew how tired she was after the life that lay behind her, and he gathered her into his arms, holding her there quietly while he talked.

"What shall it be, Janny? A star, an anchor, a bit of rope, an' a cat, did ye say, dear?"

"Aye, a star, Ariel, please. I don't think I want the anchor. The bit of rope would be nice, dear. An' I'd like the cat."

"An' what are ye goin' to do with these drawin's, Janny? Are ye goin' to hang them on the wall?"

"No, I'm not goin' to do that."

"Well, it's just as well, dearie, for Betto Griffiths, an' Mrs. Gomer Roberts the tinman, an' Mrs. Parry Winn the baker, would be hauntin' Ty Mawr. But what _are_ ye goin' to do with them, dearie?"

"Ariel, I couldn't say _now_." Janny stirred uneasily. "I _might_ be hangin' them in our bedroom, an'--an'--an' I might be puttin'--puttin' them in the--Bible to press. They'd be useful."

"Aye, that's so. An' how large shall I draw them?"

Janny thought a minute.

"The cat, dear, I'd like about a foot long, that is from his tail to his whiskers--No, I'm thinkin' that's too narrow for the cat; from the tail to the whiskers I'd like him one foot an' a half, Ariel."

Janny's glance took a flight over Ariel's shoulder.

"An' the star?"

Janny thought again.

"Six inches from point to point, an' four stars--no--one star will do--I can cut--och?--Ariel, _one_ star, please."

"An' the rope?"

"It's the twisted kind I want, an' it must go all around the--Oh, dear! Ariel, about an inch wide, please."

"Good! one cat, one star, one inch rope. Anything more, little lamb?"

"No-o-o, could ye do it now?"

"Aye, dearie, fetch me the ruler, the paper, an' a pencil."

So Janny watched Ariel's thin fingers work skilfully, swiftly with the pencil, the ruler measuring off star points and a cat's length as carefully as if the paper were Welsh flannel worth one-and-six a yard. And the next night, after a day of unusual elation of feeling, Janny, when sleep had come to Ariel, stole noiselessly from the marital side, crept to the whitewashed wall of their bedroom pallid in moonshine, felt for the white paper cat and star and length of rope hanging there indiscernible, caught the edge of the paper with her fingers as she felt about, unpinned the pieces, and tiptoed out of the room and down the stairway. As she moved about the sitting-room in her night-gown, she looked pathetically little, the flush in her cheeks marking her eager helplessness. Much had slipped by her, and she had lost much in that sorry life before Ariel took her and brought her to live among strangers, whose motives and feelings she had no means of penetrating. But the tenderness, the innocence, the expectancy of childhood had remained with her, as if making amends for her loss or awaiting the sunshine of maturing impulses. She set a candle beside the settle, lifted the cover, took out two long rolls of paper, closed the settle, and bore her parcels to the table. Then she untied them with trembling fingers, rolling out several feet of green and crimson paper and a small sheet of yellow. She placed weights on the corners of the lengths, pausing to run her fingers into her hair as she gazed with rapt eyes upon the coloured surfaces, commonplace enough to all appearances. She took the cat, laid it carefully on the crimson, pinned it down and pencilled around the edges. In the same fashion she drew the outlines for four yellow stars and some lengths of yellow rope. Finally, with a pair of shears she cut out all the outlined figures. She lifted the cat, freed now from the matrix of surrounding paper and enlivened with the lifelikeness of a new liberty, and held its foot and a half of length against the candle-light. The light shone through the crimson paper but dimly. Janny nodded, took a small cake of paraffin, melted it, and with a bit of cloth sponged the cat as it lay upon the table. This she did also to the four yellow stars, to the lengths of rope, and to a large piece of green paper upon which the original cat pattern had been appliquéd. Once more she lifted the crimson animal to the light,--the candle-flame shone through clearly with a beautiful crimson flood of softer light. After this Janny broke a half-dozen eggs, separating the white from the yolk. Her fingers worked feverishly now, and her eyes kept measuring distances; in her nervous haste there were moments when she seemed hardly able to accomplish the next step forward in the task she saw already complete in her mind's eye. She stopped to listen for sounds and steps as she worked, and again and again she imagined that Ariel was looking down from the head of the staircase. But she finished the work uninterrupted, and with a sigh, half-sob of weariness, half-contentment, and with many a glance of admiration as she went, she tiptoed up the stairway. Ariel was sleeping, and as she crept into bed she put out a hand to touch his thick black hair, and then, curling into the cool white of her pillow, fell asleep as children sleep, one hand resting lightly on his arm.

Ariel Jenkins awoke at the waking-time of all Glaslyn--the dawn; Janny lay beside him, still sleeping, her face heavily shadowed in her abundant hair. She seemed so wistfully childlike and her closed eyes so unforgettably weary. Perhaps it was merely the shadows of the early dawn and her hair, but the eyelids had a kind of veined transparency and her skin a transparent pallor, and the mouth drooped. Ariel's selfishness smote him consciously; he thought with a pang of Janny, and he made resolutions. With this awakening he transferred a little of his poetry from the bard to the man. Aye, he acknowledged to himself, this might well be called the Education of Ariel Jenkins, bard and merchant. And for the first time a thought that gripped his heart brought him no desire to turn it into rhyme. He recalled compassionately all her efforts to make improvements in the house, her evident inability to understand and cope with the shrewd Welsh women of their village; and he remembered with fear the prying curiosity and overt enmity these women had shown toward Janny. Then he wondered in a desultory way what she was planning to do with the stars and the cat and the bits of rope. And after she awakened and they were talking at breakfast, he reflected how easily his resolution won success, for Janny since he brought her to Glaslyn had not been as buoyant, almost animated, as she was this morning. Ariel thought, too, that he had not noticed before the way Janny had of looking at him, as if she expected him to discover some extraordinary joy; maybe she was merely looking to him for happiness, but certainly there was an air of anticipation about her to-day.

Upon finishing breakfast Ariel passed with a sense of secure well-being into his shop; so many problems were solving themselves, and on the whole the man made him happier than the bard. Even the flag sidewalk outside the shop seemed more than ordinarily lively and merry to-day. He saw neighbours passing and heard them chatting, and once in a while there was a loud shout of laughter. Across the street, looking towards his shop he beheld a little knot of men,--Ivor Jones and Wil Penmorfa and Parry Wynn,--men who did not usually have time for mirth so early in the morning. They were talking and laughing, and Ariel saw one of them point towards Ty Mawr. Just then Mrs. Gomer Roberts the tinman came in. She wanted some flannel for a blouse like the material she was wearing, and Mrs. Roberts threw back her long cloak to display the neat striped flannel. How was Mrs. Jenkins? Ariel thanked her: Janny was well.

"I'm comin' soon to have a good long visit with her," said Mrs. Roberts.

"Aye, ye'll be welcome."

"Ye're makin' improvements, I see."

"Aye, a few," replied Ariel, using his yardstick deftly and wondering what improvements Mrs. Gomer Roberts could have had any opportunity to see.

"Glaslyn's no seen anything like it," continued Mrs. Roberts, straightening her beaver hat over the crisp white of her cap.

"No, I'm thinkin' not," answered Ariel vaguely, rolling up the bundle of flannel with precise neatness.

He was still wondering why women talked in riddles when in came Mrs. Jeezer Morris the minister. She had torn her blue kirtle and wanted a new breadth. Ariel took down the cloth. Then were showered upon him in a compacter form, and one of greater authority, practically the same remarks as those made by Mrs. Gomer Roberts: How was Mrs. Jenkins, she was coming to visit her, there were improvements she saw, the like of which Glaslyn had not seen before. Mrs. Morris the minister had scarcely finished her purchase when in came Mrs. Parry Wynn the baker; they had apparently met that morning and their greetings were purely conventional,--a smile, a look of inquiry, a nod of negation. Mrs. Parry Wynn wanted some new cotton cloth, but apparently she also wished to make the same remarks as those made by Mrs. Gomer Roberts and Mrs. Jeezer Morris.

Then Ariel Jenkins's thoughts began the converging process, began to gather in towards some definite centre, to fix themselves upon some one thing which all these estimable women must have in mind. And when Mrs. Parry Wynn left the shop, Ariel went to the door. Betto Griffiths walked by briskly, joining the women who had just made purchases and who were gathered in a little group opposite Ty Mawr. They were looking eagerly at the house and gesticulating. Betto Griffiths laughed harshly as she pointed at Ty Mawr, and shrugged her shoulders in the direction of the shop. Ariel's heart sank. What had Janny done to make the house such an object of attraction? He stepped out to the little group of customers and looked up.

Except for the quick flexing of the muscles in his forehead and the dilation of his eyes Ariel betrayed no emotion. The oriel window jutting over the street had been transformed; he saw no longer the clear glass of the stairway-light common to Ty Mawr and the other houses of Glaslyn, but a crimson cat, fore-feet in air, blazoned on a green background, each quarter of the oriel brilliant with a yellow star and the whole device bound together with a chaplet of rope.

"It _does_ make a pretty light!" he exclaimed thoughtfully; "prettier," he added with pride, "than I had any idea it would."

The women stared at him.

"Aye, an' it's prettier within," he continued; "it sheds such a bright colour on dark days."

"No, is it so!" ejaculated Mrs. Parry Wynn.

"Aye, it is so," replied Ariel. "Out of Glaslyn ye see many coloured windows like this in private houses--smart houses of course."

"Just fancy!" responded Mrs. Jeezer Morris, "we've seen them in churches, the Nonconformists as well as the Established, but we've never heard of coloured windows before in a village house, especially not with such a cat----"

"Aye, the cat!" interrupted Ariel, in a caressing voice, the far-away, much-reverenced look of the poet in his eyes, "that cat is a copy from a--medal taken from--the sar-coph-a-gus of Tiglath Pileser II. Aye," he added dreamily, "the cat, the sacred symbol of Egypt, holy to the Muses, beloved of----"

"Mr. Jenkins, ye don't say so!" they all exclaimed, looking with curious glances at the oriel window.

"I will say," nodded Mrs. Gomer Roberts, "that it has an uncommonly intelligent look."

"Aye, so it has," agreed Mrs. Parry Wynn, "intelligent an'--an'--lively."

Betto Griffiths glanced about the little group shrewdly.

"An' the stars, Mr. Jenkins?" she said.

"Tut, the _star_! Betto Griffiths, ye don't say ye don't know the meanin' of the five-pointed star, sacred to history, to sacred history, guide in the----"

"Oh, aye!" interrupted Betto, "if _that's_ the star ye mean, I certainly do."

The little gathering took a fresh look at the window; their eyes lingered reverently now on the emblazoned group of cat and stars leashed together with yellow rope.

"Aye, it's a wonderful idea!" asserted Mrs. Jeezer Morris, from her superior position and knowledge.

"Aye, wonderful!" solemnly affirmed the rest.

"I'm thinkin'," said Betto Griffiths, an undisciplined look in her eyes, "Mrs. Jenkins made it?"

"Mrs. Jenkins! Oh, no!" exclaimed Ariel, thrusting his hands into his trousers pockets, "I did it."

"Ye did!" they all exclaimed, admiringly.

"Mr. Jenkins," continued Mrs. Parry Wynn, whose husband, the baker, had been standing across the street not more than a half-hour ago laughing over the crimson cat _rampant_, blazoned on the green field, "Mr. Jenkins, if Mr. Wynn thinks he could afford something like it, would ye be willin'----"

"Aye, gladly," returned Ariel, "but it's expensive, Mrs. Wynn."

"Oh!" chorused the women, in deferential voices.

"But I'm thinkin'," continued Ariel, "through my connection as a merchant I might be able to obtain the material at less expense an'----"

"If ye could!" clamoured the little group.

"Mr. Jenkins, if Mr. Roberts----" broke in Mrs. Roberts.

"Mr. Jenkins, if Mr. Morris----" interrupted Mrs. Morris.

"Won't ye come in?" asked Ariel, placidly interrupting them all. "I'm certain ye will like the light even better from the inside where it falls in such pleasin' colours on the landin'. When I was workin' on it last night by moonlight the colours were like fairyland."

"Aye, it's only a poet could have conceived this," said Mrs. Morris, with assurance, "only a poet!"

"Only a poet!" echoed the rest.

"But won't ye come in? Mrs. Jenkins will be glad to see ye."

"Aye, thank ye, 'twould be a pleasure!" And flock-like they followed Ariel into the house.

Mrs. Jenkins's eyes were red, and there was the furtive aspect of a trapped animal about her; but when she saw their eager faces and heard their enthusiastic and admiring exclamations as they crowded into the stairway landing, there was a look of surprise first, and then of delight upon her face.

"Mr. Jenkins tells me ye didn't make it yourself," said Betto Griffiths, suspicion still on her sharp features.

"Well, it came," replied Janny, glancing appealingly at Ariel, "it--came from Liverpool."

"Janny _dear_," corrected Ariel, with a look straight into her eyes, "ye mean the _material_ did."

"Aye, Ariel," answered Janny, with a mixture of childlike obedience and confusion, "aye, just the material."

Ariel talked a great deal; the window was admired, commented upon, there were demands for future assistance, envious exclamations of delight to Mrs. Jenkins, who was given no chance to say a word, and the little group departed.

"Well, Janny!" exclaimed Ariel.

"Ariel _dear_, I--I saw them--them laughin' an'--then--ye," the flood-gates burst and Janny threw herself sobbing into Ariel's arms.

"There, there, _dear_, little lamb!" he comforted, his own eyes wet with tears.

"I thought--thought it would--be so--pretty--an' people's been--expectin' me--to--to make changes--an'--an'--Betto Griffiths said improvements, an' Ariel--I--I----" Janny's voice caught and she sobbed afresh.

"Tut, tut, little lamb, dearie, don't. Janny, Janny, don't cry."

"Ariel, I saw--the--men--laughin' an'--an' slappin' their knees--an'--an' pointin' at the window--an' even--little Silvan runnin' by--laughed, an' then when Betto Griffiths----" Janny faltered, gulping.

"Pooh, little lamb, Betto Griffiths!" exclaimed Ariel derisively, "Betto Griffiths is an ignorant woman. An', dearie, didn't ye hear them all askin' me to help them to get windows like this?"

"But, Ariel, didn't ye laugh at all?"

"I laugh, Janny! Why, dear," answered Ariel slowly, "I think--the--window--is beautiful!"

"Oh, Ariel!" said Janny happily.

"Aye, I do; only if ye should have another idea, just tell me about it, dearie, beforehand, for it might--perhaps it wouldn't," he added gently, "make it awkward."

"But, Ariel, I saw----"

"Well, dear, that's enough--ye don't understand these people quite yet. The window is beautiful; aye," he continued, "I like it, so we'll be sendin' it to Liverpool to get a real stained-glass window something the same--aye, dearie, I can well afford it."

_The Child_

The irons of the fireplace glowed in the light of the steady peat-fire. The odour from the peat was delicious with the aroma of age-old forests. With this was mingled the odour of the supper Jane Morris was clearing away. As she moved nimbly about the table, Jane's shadow advanced and withdrew across the blackened rafters of the roof.

"Whoo-o!" said Tom, comfortably, at the sound of the wind booming down the rocky mountain-side. "'Tis a bad night for strangers to be abroad, bad to be wandering along Bryn Bannog."

"Aye, 'tis dark," answered Owen, removing his pipe, and rubbing the head of a pet lamb that lay beside him. "One minute it cries like a child, and another it wails like a demon. But 'tis snug within, lad, an' we'll never know want."

The bachelor brothers regarded each other and their sister with contentment. Outside the wind shouted and cried by turns, and then died away clamorously in the deep valley.

"Snug within, lad," reaffirmed Owen, drawing his harp to him.

Tom lifted his finger.

"Hush! Some one comes."

All listened while the wind beat upon the house and sobbed piteously in the chimney. Jane hastened to the door.

"God's blessin'--rest--on this house!" gasped a man, stumbling in.

"Take the stranger's cloak off," commanded Owen, before the visitor was in, "an' here's my clogs dry an' warm."

"Tut, tut," objected Jane, "'tis food he needs, whatever. I'll fetch him bread an' fill the big pint. Now, friend, this chair by the table."

The Stranger sat down; his deep-set eyes looked out wistfully on the awakened bustle, and on the warmth and the cheer of the cottage room. But they heard him whisper drearily, "My little child, my little child!"

Tom tried to lift the silence that was settling over them all with a question here and a question there. The Stranger ate absent-mindedly and ravenously, drinking his ale in greedy draughts. Owen knocked the ashes from his pipe and stared into the fire.

"'Tis late," he said.

The Stranger lifted his eyes, looked at the two brothers, and long at Jane.

"I shall not rest----" he began.

"Well, Stranger, that you will not with a burden on your mind. That's so, lad?" Tom asked, turning to Owen.

"I shall not rest till I have told my dream," he resumed. "All day and every day my little one lies on her back--the crooked back that is killin' her."

"Dear _anwyl_!" exclaimed Owen to Jane and Tom, "'tis very like his little one."

"Aye, lad," answered Jane, while the wind drew gently over the house-roof.

"The dream came many times an' I did not heed it."

"He who follows dreams follows fools," interrupted Tom.

"I am a poor man, with naught richer than dreams to follow, an' no mother for my child. If the dream prove true, gold would make my little one well. But the days are goin' fast an' she is weaker every day."

"Och!" sighed Jane.

"Tut, a dream come true!" scoffed Tom, laughing. "But what _was_ your dream?" he asked, leaning forward.

"It was of a pitcherful of gold hid beneath a ruin of rocks piled one upon another, an' it was near a great fortress built in a fashion unknown to me. The fortress was on the crown of a rugged hill, an' it seemed away from the sea. So I have travelled eastward."

"Pen y Gaer!" exclaimed Owen and Tom and Jane, looking at one another.

"An' in this dream I saw many strange things, garments unlike aught men wear now."

"Aye," agreed Jane, "but it was all a dream."

"Nay, nay," replied the Stranger, "can you not tell me of it?"

"That we can," said Owen.

"Tut," interrupted Tom, "there is a round tower, aye, two round towers, the one by Pen y Gaer, south-west over Bryn Bannog, down the bridle-path by Llyn Cwm-y-stradlyn."

"Aye, but, lad," objected Owen, "the other----"

"The other's further away, more like a sheep-pen once than a tower for any fortress."

Owen's face was perplexed, but Tom's calm, and his eyes keen with light.

"Rest here, Stranger," he said. "On the morrow you shall start out for your treasure, up over Bryn Bannog."

"Nay, Tom," interrupted Owen, but Tom silenced him.

The next morning Tom stood outside the hedge that enclosed their grey-stone mountain cottage, pointing with his finger.

"Well, more to the west, so."

"Aye," replied the Stranger, scanning Bryn Bannog, its steep meadows, its rocks tufted with golden gorse, its craggy spine from which the mist was lifting; "yes, the path is plain."

The Stranger set his eyes southward up the mountain. After a while he turned to look back at the cottage cradled in the fields below; beyond the valley, Moelwyn, massive and green; eastward, Cynicht, sharp and grey; and still farther east, a vast wilderness of crag tumbled hither and thither down to the very edge of the glimmering sea. "Hope goes with me, little one," he said, and turned to climb higher. At the summit he looked westward; there lay a lake blue as a meadow-flower, and half-way down, by the little brook Tom had described, there was a large circle of loose stones.

The Stranger hurried forward. He glanced at the sun, and began by the edge of the circle near the brook, turning up the soggy earth in large clods. He dug feverishly, working hour after hour. He lay down and pulled the earth away in rolls, the wet drenching him, still hoping against hope. He took the clods of earth and dashed them against the rocks where they broke noiselessly. He looked about as if praying that some power might come to him from the blue distance or the sky above or the golden sun; then he sank on the stones and wept. The little green snake that crept by in the grass, the snail that trailed over the sod, heard him weep, and the cry that came from him, "My little one, my little one, was it for this?"

The afternoon swung its shadows eastward, and the roof of the cottage lay in a pointed figure on the grass beyond the hedge. Two men bearing something toiled up the path to the hedge gate. As the sun set behind Bryn Bannog the pointed roof-shadow drew in, and the shadow from the hedge lay on the grass in a dark ribbon, growing narrower and fainter. From the distant summit a single figure dropped slowly downhill, the autumn dusk closing around it. In the windows candle-light flickered; a woman came to the west door and looked uphill. She seemed troubled and she had been crying.

"Brothers, he is comin'," called Jane, "he is close by the house. Och, be kind to him for the child's sake! It is not too late even now."

"Well, Stranger," said Tom, appearing at the door, "did you find aught?"

"Nay," replied the Stranger, in a level voice. "Is there another ruin where the dream might lie?"

"Dreams!" exclaimed Tom cheerily, "dreams, dreams! 'Tis no place for dreams. You will find nothin' but sheep bones buried on Bryn Bannog. Do you know of any other place, Owen?"

Owen took his pipe from his mouth, looked hard at his brother, hard at the Stranger, started to speak, changed his mind, and put the pipe in his mouth again.

"Will you come in an' rest?" asked Tom. "'Tis growin' dark."

"My way is long, westward over the hills, an' the child is waitin'."

"Here," said Tom, holding out a coin, "here is a crown for the little Flower."

"Nay," replied the Stranger gently, "it would avail nothin'. She hath need of many crowns. Good-night."

As the Stranger took the path downhill, the brothers turned indoors. Jane confronted them, her eyes indignant, her lips tense.

"You--you will go after him. Och, that I should live to see this day! The Lord will find you out."

Tom laughed.

"Set the candle on the table," he said; "'tis an odd box. Is the door fast, Owen?"

"Aye, fast."

"To think it's lain in our pastures these hundreds of years."

Tom undid the hasps. He lifted out one chalice of silver after another, and several silver plates, all marked with early dates. Tom looked disappointed; Owen's face had grown pallid. Jane was speaking to them both:--

"'Tis the lost church silver, the altar-service, aye, the holy altar-service; now what will you do?" she cried.

* * * * *

At the breakfast table the porridge was eaten in silence. Jane's eyes were red. Tom looked uneasy, and Owen stared into his dish. In vain Gwennie thrust her little white nose against Owen's leg. "Baa-a!" Still no attention.

"I'm glad the wind is quiet," said Jane.

There was no response.

"Did you sleep, Tom?" she asked.

"Sleep! With that shriekin' of the wind!"

"Nay," said Owen softly, "the cryin' of a little child, indeed."

"There _was_ no gold, I say," Tom asserted.

"True," Owen complied.

"Well, 'twas altar silver, whatever."

"Aye," assented Jane, "an' it must go back to the church."

"Yes, an' we're no richer," ended Tom. "We've nothin' to spare to a stranger an' his child."

Owen turned the leaves of the big Bible on the table. Tom was staring defiantly from Jane to Owen.

"'It were better a millstone'--" Owen began to read to himself.

"The devil!" shouted Tom, rushing from the table and slamming the door behind him.

Owen went out after him. Their work for that day lay in the sheep-pens by the brook, washing and shearing the sheep. Before him Tom was walking very fast and talking in a loud, angry voice. But Owen was thinking of the sound of the wind as it cried and whimpered and pleaded all night long. And the flowers he saw in the grass at his feet made him think of big eyes; and the sheen on the grass, of a child's hair; and the slender birch-wands, of a child's little body. What would it have been like to have had such a little one a part of him? And supposing it had lain crumpled together like yonder fern--Owen's heart gave a great leap.

Tom was still talking when he reached the sheepfold. The anger had left his face, and in its stead there was uneasy inquiry. Owen, without looking at his brother, took his seat on the shearing-stool and the shepherd carried a sheep to him. Owen turned it deftly. Clip, clip, clip, the fleece began to roll back from the shears and the skin to show pink through the stubble of remaining fleece. Clip! a deft turn to right, then to left, and the fleece slipped to the ground and lay there, white, and with arms outstretched.

"Och!" exclaimed Owen, staring at it, "I'm goin' westward to the child, tell Jane."

"I'm goin', too," called Tom, walking after him rapidly, grumbling and talking, "an' I'll not tell Jane. There's no need to go so fast, whatever."

Jane came to the door of the cottage and looked down to the roadway. Gwennie was beside her and caught sight of Owen. "Baa-a!" the lamb bleated, scampering downhill.

"Gwennie, Gwennie!" called Jane.

But the stiff little legs were taking the hillside in leaps and bounds.

"Gwennie, _bach_, Gwen_nie_, Gwennie bach!"

Jane started downhill after the lamb. "If they're goin'," she said to herself, with a shrewd look of understanding, "indeed, I'm goin' too."

"Baa-a!" bleated Gwennie, with little frisks and skips to right and left.

_An All-Hallows' Honeymoon_

Intermittently the wind whined and raced, howling like a wolf, through the Gwynen Valley; and intermittently, too, the rain doused the bridge on whose slate coping Vavasour Jones leaned. It was a night when spirits of air and earth, the racing wind, the thundering water, the slashing rain, were the very soul of this chaos of noise. Still, cosy lights shone on either side of the bridge, the lights of Ty Ucha and Ty Usaf, where a good mug of beer could be had for a mere song to a man of Vavasour's means. And the lights from all the cottages, too, for it was All-Hallows' Eve, twinkled with festive brilliance upon the drenched flags of the street. Indeed, there was not one of these houses in all Gwynen whose walls and flaggings were not familiar to him, where Vavasour Jones and his wife Catherine had not been on an occasion, a knitting-night, a Christmas, a bidding, a funeral, an All-Hallows' Eve. But to-night his eyes gazed blankly upon these preliminary signs of a merry evening within doors, and he seemed unconscious of the rain pouring upon him and the wind slapping the bridge. He moved when he saw a figure approaching.

"Hist! Eilir!"

"Aye, man, who is it?"

"It's me, it's Vavasour Jones."

"Dear me, lad, what do ye here in the dark and rain?"

Vavasour said nothing; Eilir peered more closely at him. "Are ye sick, lad?"

"Och, I'm not sick!" Vavasour's voice rang drearily, as if that were the least of ills that could befall him.

"Well, what ails ye?"

"It's All-Hallows' Eve an'----"

"Aren't ye goin' to Pally Hughes's?"

"Ow!" he moaned, "the devil! goin' to Pally Hughes's while it's drawin' nearer an' nearer an'--Ow!"

"Tut, man," said Eilir sharply, "ye're ill; speak up, tell me what ails ye."

"Ow-w!" groaned Vavasour.

Eilir drew away; here was a case where All-Hallows' had played havoc early in the evening. What should he do? Get him home? Notify Catherine? Have the minister? He was inclining to the last resource when Vavasour groaned again and spoke:--

"Eilir, I wisht I were dead, man."

"Dear me, lad, what is it?"

"It's the night when Catherine must go."

"When Catherine must go? What do ye mean?"

"She'll be dead the night at twelve."

"Dead at twelve?" asked Eilir, bewildered. "Does she know it?"

"No, but I do, an' to think I've been unkind to her! I've tried this year to make up for it, but it's no use, man; one year'll never make up for ten of harsh words an' unkind deeds. Ow!" groaned Vavasour, collapsing on to the slate coping once more.

"Well, ye've not been good to her," replied Eilir, mystified, "that's certain, man, but I've heard ye've been totally different the past year. Griffiths was sayin' he never heard any more sharp words comin' from your windows, an' they used to rain like hail on the streets some days."

"Aye, but a year'll not do any good, an' she'll be dyin' at twelve to-night, Ow!"

"Well," said Eilir, catching at the only thing he could think of to say, "there's plenty in the Scriptures about a man an' his wife."

"Aye, but it'll not do, not do, not do," sobbed Vavasour Jones.

"Have ye been drinkin', lad?"

"Drinkin'!" exclaimed Jones.

"Well, no harm, but lad, about the Scriptures; there's plenty in the Scriptures concernin' a man an' his wife, an' ye've broken much of it about lovin' a wife, an' yet I cannot understand why Catherine's goin' an' where."

"She's not goin' anywhere, Eilir; she'll be dyin' at twelve."

Whereupon Vavasour Jones rose up suddenly from the coping, took a step forward, seized Eilir by the coat-lapel, and, with eyes flickering like coals in the dark, told his story. All the little Gwynen world knew that he and his wife had not lived happily or well together; there had been no children coming and no love lost, and, as the days went on, bickering, scolding, harsh words, and even ugly actions. Aye, and it had come to such a pass that a year ago this night, on All-Hallows' Eve, he had gone down to the church-porch shortly before midnight to see whether the spirit of Catherine would be called, and whether she would live the twelve months out. And as he was leaning against the church-wall hoping, aye, man, and praying that he might see her there, he saw something coming around the corner with white over its head; it drew nearer and nearer, and when it came in full view of the church-porch it paused, it whirled around, and sped away with the wind flapping about its feet and the rain beating down on its head. But Vavasour had time to see that it was the spirit of Catherine, and he was glad because his prayer had been answered, and because, with Catherine dying the next All-Hallows', they would have to live together only the year out. So he went homeward joyfully, thinking it was the last year, and considering as it was the last year he might just as well be as kind and pleasant as possible. When he reached home he found Catherine up waiting for him. And she spoke so pleasantly to him and he to her, and the days went on as happily as the courting days before they were married. Each day was sweeter than the one before, and they knew for the first time what it meant to be man and wife in love and kindness. But all the while he saw that white figure by the churchyard, and Catherine's face in its white hood, and he knew the days were lessening and that she must go. Here it was All-Hallows' Eve again, and but four hours to midnight, and the best year of his life was almost past. Aye, and it was all the result of his evil heart and evil wish and evil prayer.

"Think, man," groaned Vavasour, "prayin' for her callin', aye, goin' there hopin' ye'd see her spirit, an' countin' on her death!"

"Oh, man, it's bad," replied Eilir mournfully, "aye, an' I've no word to say to ye for comfort. I recollect well the story my granny used to tell about Christmas Powell; it was somethin' the same. An' there was Betty Williams was called ten years ago, an' didn't live the year out; an' there was Silvan Evans, the sexton, an' Geffery his friend, was called two years ago, and Silvan had just time to dig Geffrey's grave an' then his own, too, by its side, an' they was buried the same day an' hour."

"Ow!" wailed Vavasour.

"Aye, man, it's bad; it'll have to be endured, an' to think ye brought it on yourself. Where's Catherine?"

"She's to Pally Hughes's for the All-Hallows' party."

"Och, she'll be taken there!"

"Aye, an' oh! Eilir, she was loth to go to Pally's, but I could not tell her the truth."

"That's so, lad; are ye not goin'?"

"I cannot go; I'm fair crazy an' I'll just be creepin' home, waitin' for them to bring her back. Ow!"

"I'm sorry, man," called Eilir, looking after him with an expression of sympathy: "I can be of no use to ye now."

Across the bridge the windows of Pally Hughes's grey-stone cottage shone with candles, and as the doors swung to and fro admitting guests, the lights from within flickered on the brass doorsill and the hum of merry words reached the street. Mrs. Morgan the baker, dressed in her new scarlet whittle and a freshly starched cap, was there; Mr. Howell the milliner, in his highlows and wonderful plum-coloured coat; Mrs. Jenkins the tinman, with bright new ribbons to her cap and a new beaver hat which she removed carefully upon entering; and Mr. Wynn "the shop," whose clothes were always the envy of Gwynen village; and many others, big-eyed girls and straight young men, who crossed the bright doorsill.

Finally, Catherine Jones tapped on the door. Within, she looked vacantly at the candles on the mantelpiece and on the table, all set in festoons of evergreens and flanked by a display of painted china eggs and animals; and at the lights shining steadily, while on the hearth a fire crackled. Catherine, so heavy was her heart, could scarcely manage a decent friendly greeting to old Pally Hughes, her hostess. She looked uncheered at the big centre table, whereon stood a huge blue wassail-bowl, about it little piles of raisins, buns, spices, biscuits, sugar, a large jug of ale and a small bottle tightly corked. She watched the merriment with indifference; bobbing for apples and sixpences seemed such stupid games. There was no one in whom she could confide now, and anyway it was too late; there was nothing to be done, and while they were talking lightly and singing, too, for the harp was being played, the hours were slipping away, and her one thought, her only thought, was to get home to Vavasour. "Oh," reflected Catherine, "I'm a wicked, wicked woman to be bringin' him to his death!"

The candles were blown out and the company gathered in a circle about the fire to tell stories, while a kettle of ale simmered on the crane and the apples hung roasting. Pally began the list of tales. There was the story of the corpse-candle Lewis's wife saw, and how Lewis himself died the next week; there were the goblins that of All-Hallows' Eve led Davies such a dance, and the folks had to go out after him with a lantern to fetch him in, and found him lying in fear by the sheep-wall; and there were the plates and mugs Annie turned upside down and an unseen visitor turned them right side up before her very eyes.

Then they began to throw nuts in the fire, each with a wish: if the nut burned brightly the wish would-come true. Old Pally threw on a nut, it flickered and then blazed up; Maggie tossed one into the fire, it smouldered and gave no light. Gradually the turn came nearer Catherine; there was but one wish in her heart and she trembled to take the chance.

"Now, Catherine!"

"Aye, Catherine, what'll she be wishin' for, a new lover?" they laughed.

With shaking hand she tossed hers into the fire; the nut sputtered and blackened, and with a shriek Catherine bounded from the circle, threw open the door and sped into the dark. In consternation the company scrambled to their feet, gazing at the open door through which volleyed the wind and rain.

Old Pally was the first to speak: "'Tis a bad sign."

"Aye, poor Catherine's been called, it may be."

"It's the last time, I'm thinkin', we'll ever see her."

"Do ye think she saw somethin', Pally, do ye?"

"There's no tellin'; but it's bad, very bad, though her nut is burnin' brightly enough now."

"She seemed downcast the night, not like herself."

"It can be nothin' at home, for Vavasour, they say, is treatin' her better nor ever, an' she's been that sweet-tempered the year long, which is uncommon for her."

As she fled homeward through the dark, little did Catherine think of what they might be saying at Pally's. When Vavasour heard feet running swiftly along the street, he straightened up, his eyes in terror upon the door.

"Catherine!" he cried, bewildered at her substantial appearance, "is it ye who are really come?"

There was a momentary suggestion of a rush into each other's arms checked, as it were, in mid-air by Vavasour's reseating himself precipitately and Catherine drawing herself up.

"Yes," said Catherine, seeing him there and still in the flesh, "it was--dull, very dull at Pally's; an' my feet was wet an' I feared takin' a cold."