Spindle and Shears. A Welsh story

Chapter I

— A Lost Life 1 „ H. — The Bar Sinister 14 III.— Eudea 25 „ IV. — Castell Gavyn 41 „ V. — A Rustic Lover 51 „ VI. — A Broken Jewel 59 „ VII. — Gabrielle's Request ... 67 „ VIII.— The Charmed Circle ... 75 „ IX.— The Mine 81 X.— The Pearl Ring - 90 „ XI. — A Run with a Trencher-fed Pack - 96 „ XII.— Mendelssohn's Return ... 110 XIII.— Tom Evans 119 „ XIV,— Rot Erskine - CONTENTS. VI PAGE

CHAPTER XV.

— Viellemont de Braose • - 128 XVI.— Sympathy and Antipathy - - 135 XVn.— A Sick Soul 143 „ XVm. — In the Dungeon - * - - 151 XIX.— Eudea in Paris - - - - 156 XX.— The Debut 160 XXI.— Two Visitors ----- 168 „ XXII. — A Roland for an Olia'er - - 185 „ XXIII.— The Old Love - - - - 195 XXIV.— The Parson's Secret - - - 209 XXV.— Eudea's Holiday - - - - 227 XXVI.— Au Awakening - - - - 236 „ XXVII.— By the Gra\-e - - - - 243 „ XXVIII. — Father and Daughter - - - 258 XXIX.— Unmasked - - - - - 263 XXX.— A Breakfast Party - - - 270 XXXI.— Dying 277 XXXII. —Reconciliation ... - 284 ,, XXXIIL— The Marie Llwyd - - - 292 „ XXXIV.— Presentiments - - - - 298 ,, XXXV. — A'icarious Retribution ... CONTENTS. VII PAGE

CHAPTER XXXVL

— Atropos ----- 311 XXXVIL— Suspense 317 „ XXXVIII.—" Found Drowned ': - - - 327 XXXIX.— At Mentone - - - - 334 XL. — The Message of Spring - - 337 >. XLI.— Requited - - - - -342 )>

CHAPTER I.

A LOST LIFE. The village of Eglwysilltyd lies nestled among the mountains of South Wales. Its white-washed cot tages dot the hill on either side of the steep stony road that leads from Caerllong to the scattered farmhouses in the district. Sheltered by the Mwnglawdd mountain on the north, it is only exposed to the wind that comes moaning in from the sea, telling its tale of storm and shipwreck. The discoloured houses wear a pinched aspect. The poor land brings forth but scanty crops, and the women look at you with prematurely wrinkled faces, that tell of a hard struggle with life. The village used to be a thriving one, but that was when the furnaces were in full blast down in the valley, and when the iron ore in the mines was worth the cost of working. The men had plenty of high wages then, and worked as little as they chose, and got drunk as often as they pleased, while their wives spent all their superfluous cash on finery— wore velvet mantles with their sun-bonnets, and saw no incon gruity in carrying a sable muff with a cotton dress.

Good days were those, when the miners and their wives, and inevitable babies, went off " on the spree," and spent a week at Penarth, or Lara ach, or Llan drindod Wells, and returned with empty pockets and aching heads, and confused memories of drinking and fighting, and promiscuous gallantry. Occasionally one of the villagers disappeared — went down one morning to his work, and came not home at night ; or stepped out to see a friend at the " Cow and Snuffers," and stepped not in again. Sometimes it was a lad, tired of working in the mines ; some times a young fellow with money in the savings bank ; sometimes the father of a family. No quarrels found termination in these sudden disappearances, no harsh words passed ; only they went away, and never came back again. Of some, news was heard in after years.

This man, a young farmer, was doing well in Australia. That man, whose wife had been for fifteen years a wedded widow, was seen and recognised at York. But York, to their primitive minds, seemed as far off as Australia. Both alike were known to them as "foreign countries"; where another race spoke another language, and the one seemed as difficult of access as the other. But that Golden Age of prosperity has passed away, and only the optimists look forward to a future when the days shall be as they once were, and when money will again circulate freely in the valleys. In listening to the bitter words of soured Socialists and Radicals, they forgot that in attacking the capitalist they would kill the goose that laid the golden eggs. The ruined mines, the cold furnaces, the silent forges — all tell the same tale.

Times were hard, but the workers made them harder. " Our work is worth as much as your capital," was the cry. " We will not have less per centage for our time than you have for your money." And the result has been — idle men, and anxious mothers, and starving children. * * * * * " Parson 's drunk again to-night," said Dan, the huntsman, watching the Rector as he reeled past the " Cow and Snuffers." Perhaps Dan would not have drawn public attention to the fact of the Rector's backsliding had the latter imbibed the liquor that had overcome him at the inn presided over by Mrs. Dan. " A rare unsociable man," quoth Tymawr, a wild looking hill-man, with long shaggy hair, and beard to match. They spoke in Welsh, watching with speculative interest the uncertain steps of their spiritual pastor and master as he stumbled down the hill, now lurching over the stones, now feeling his way along the wall, and anon making a desperate attempt to keep in the middle of the stony road that in winter was little better than a watercourse.

His face, which still bore signs of past refine- 1 * ment and intelligence, was disfigured by unsightly blotches. His eyes were red and wild, and his whole appearance repulsive and degraded. A child ran across his path, and he aimed a futile blow at it that nearly overturned him. Dan's hound, a rough blue pied bitch, showed her teeth at him. He contented himself with cursing her as he went by, realising even in his besotted condition that while the child would not retaliate, the dog might prove a more formidable foe. He came to the church. The wall round the churchyard was in a ruinous condition, and many of the stones had been used for mending the road. The defaced tombstones stood at all angles, and the graves were overgrown with rank grass and nettles. The church tower had an ominous-looking crack that extended from belfry to basement, and seemed to threaten the fall of the whole erection.

A fat sow, surrounded by her progeny, was dozing with her nose on a stone, where the moss and rain were fast oblite rating the inscription, "In memory of Eudea Morgan, who died August 27th, 1873." The Rector made his way with difficulty through one of the gaps in the broken wall, and approached the grave. The sow, with many protesting grunts, rose and trotted away, followed by her family, and the drunken man looked with bleared eyes at the familiar inscription. There was no need for him to see it. He knew the words by heart. He had known the dead woman, and had induced her father to have her brought and buried in the lonely hill churchyard. He had read the funeral service, and had stood by the stonemason as he chiselled the inscription. Below the date, scratched in by unskilful fingers, were the words, " Wele llefaf rhag trawsder ond ni'm hattebir gwaeddaf ond nid oes farn " (Behold I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard ; I cry aloud, but there is no judgment. — Job xix. 7).

The moss had been scraped away from these words, and they were more legible than the inscription above. The drunken man sat down on the slab, and stared with imbecile gravity at the text. He was trying to picture the scene that had taken place fourteen years ago, when the humble funeral party had stood in the churchyard, and had offered prayers over the dead woman, who had never prayed much for herself. Old Idris Morgan and the dead woman's four-year old baby were the only mourners. The long train of neighbours, who usually delighted in a funeral as in a gala day, were not bidden to walk behind the common cart that carried the coffin up the steep side of Hoel gwydd. It was known that Idris was not quite right in his mind, and that accounted for many eccentrici ties ; but still they blamed him for the stinginess of the "burial," though there were but few who would have gone out of their way to show respect to one who had shown no respect for herself.

What did she mean by going away for all those years, aud coming back with a yearling child that had no father — not even a decent man in the background who could pay three shillings a week towards its cost in clothing and food ? So had the gossips talked; but the dead woman was more silent now than she had been even in life. No one but the Rector knew the story of those seven years that she had spent away from the village, not even her father; though, in the first frenzy of his grief at her departure, he had gone in search of her, and had been brought back, raving and delirious, by unknown hands. Fourteen years ago these things had happened, when the Rector was a younger man and had still been full of hope and energy. Dreams of advancement that had never been realised, volumes of sermons that had never been written, work in the world that had never been accomplished.

Can there be a sadder sequel to youthful aspirations than this ? Better, surely, to have had no capacity for higher things, than to have written across the record of unfulfilled promise and brilliant possibility the words " Found wanting." The blighting terseness of the verdict seems to intensify its pathos, and to cancel with damning calm ness all apparent chance of subsequent redemption. He had left college taking an honourable degree; was a little cleverer, a little wittier, a little wilder than most of his companions. He had plenty of vitality, plenty of brain power, plenty of pluck. A curacy in a remote Devonshire hamlet was not good training for so young a man. His chief parishioners were small farmers and horse-dealers, the village publican and the miller. Gradually he assimilated his ways of life to theirs — hunted, gambled, drank brandy with the best of them, read prayers at a hand gallop, and cursed the Dissenters.

In spite of the life he led, he knew that he was capable of better things. He wanted to get on, to pit his intellect against those of his equals and superiors, to find his place in the social and literary world, far removed from the boors who were now almost his only companions. Then a temptation befell him, and in yielding to it his fate — upon so little may a man's future hang — was for ever sealed. When, for the sake of their old friendship, his college companion Max de Braose, who was the Earl of Senghennydd's eldest son, asked him to per form a secret marriage between himself and a maiden belonging to his own Welsh village, he did not long hesitate as to the expediency of his proposed action. "The wrong-doing of the thing is very problema tical, after all," he said to himself. " Max and his intended bride are of full age.

His father is old — better for him to be left in ignorance of what might cause him annoyance. It would be a politic move for me to put an earl-presumptive under an obliga tion. Who knows what might come of it ? " So had he argued ; and when he saw the rare beauty of Eudea Morgan he no longer wondered at his friend's infatuation. But time passed, and one by one his hopes faded ; for when after the ceremony Max de Braose presented him with a handsome cheque, at the same time enjoining upon him the importance of secrecy, he seemed to consider all further obligation at an end. For some time the accommodating curate bore his disappointment quietly, but at last he determined to acquaint his friend with his dissatisfaction. The demons of discontent and revenge had taken possession of him ; and as his heart was not in his work, Arcadia itself would have seemed bare and uninteresting.

But his complaints fell upon unheeding ears ; for Max de Braose, both by letter and by silence, told him plainly that the bargain had been concluded, and that if he were not satisfied it was unfortunate, but that was all. The selfishness of the man was supreme. His end was gained — those who had helped him might sink or swim, that surely was no affair of his. When sometimes, as he sat with his young wife in some pleasant continental hotel, a letter was handed to him bearing the well-known handwriting, he would smile with careless contempt and scan the letter hastily ere he threw it aside, saying briefly, by way of explanation : " Confound the fellow ! He is the worst kind of bore — a bore with a grievance. I shall take no more notice of his letters." And so the years had gone by, bringing their annual harvest of change and deterioration alike in parson and in peer.

Four years passed ere the two, who once had been friends, met again. The old Earl had died some time before, and Max de Braose had now succeeded to the title. But the passion of his youth had burned itself out. His whole heart was seared ; his trust in humanity was destroyed by the only woman he had ever loved. Selfishness had been his prevailing characteristic ; from henceforward self, and self alone, reigned supreme. His first act when he found himself mistaken, was to go straight to the man whose existence until now he had serenely ignored, and to endeavour to extract from him the entry in the marriage register. Then it was that Duncan Fraser saw clearly in what direction his revenge might lie, but he was too cautious to act without due deliberation; and while avoiding any appearance of animosity, he threw so many possibly insuperable hindrances in the way that the Earl left him, feeling that the chances were all against the accomplishment of his desire.

That his little daughter Gabrielle would be rendered worse than motherless, he cared less than nothing ; his only object was to render it impossible that his faithless wife should ever claim her legal right to the hitherto unsullied name of the De Braoses. Thinking only of the strict secrecy in which the marriage had been conducted, he hoped that all permanent record of the same might be effaced from the parish archives ; oblivious, and indeed ignorant, of the many legal meshes which are spread, none the less securely because unseen, round the feet of those who enter into any civil or religious contract in this highly intelligent and enlightened century. " I will see what can be done, Max," said his friend, " but it will be a difficult matter in these days, and I scarcely see my way to it yet.

Still, for the sake of the good days that we once had together, old fellow, I '11 do my best, and by this time to-morrow, if I can do it, it shall be done." With this parting gleam of hopefulness, the Earl left him, holding out many promises of friendship and preferment when the opportunity should arise. Well for him that he did not see the grim smile with which the clergyman bowed him out of the house, nor hear the muttered words, " My luck will turn some day, but not in the way you think, my Lord Max. I will make your promises to be fulfilments if you play me false." Duncan Fraser played his part well in the subsequent interview. The Earl, with unwonted agitation at such unhoped-for good fortune, scarcely paused to read through the well-fabricated document, ere he tore it into a thousand pieces and flung it with a gesture of relief and disgust into the flames.

" I am free ! " he cried. " Duncan, I cannot thank you. I only know that •! am free." * * * * * And so once more they parted, never, so the Fates decreed, to meet again, until Death himself should draw them together, before a last, never-ending good-bye. The Earl knew nothing of the details of law. He had seen, as he thought, the page of the parish regis ter destroyed ; and when the unholy compact had been apparently ratified by the presentation and acceptance of the living of Eglwysilltyd, he, with characteristic nonchalance, put the whole matter behind him. But Fraser was as far from congenial companions, as rector in a mountainous district, as he had been in the village curacy, and he shrank from associating with the sturdy hill farmers and the rough mining population that composed his flock.

When, after a time, he urged his patron to give him some better appointment, he was put off with specious words and ambiguous phrases. Self-respect had long since died within him. His moral and mental deterioration followed swiftly, and at last the home truth was thrust upon him in a few harsh, hastily-written lines : " No Bishop would admit you to another parish now. It is a wonder that ere this you have not been suspended." From that day his hatred for the Earl deepened ; but his natural vacillation always stood in the way of any definite scheme of revenge, and the knowledge of his own unworthiness made the matter appear still more difficult. He felt foiled at the outset. How could he, who knew himself a hypocrite and a drunkard, hope to touch the man whose wealth and position made even his failings respectable ?

The knowledge that he was master of the position did not seem to make things any easier to his drink clouded brain. The Earl's careless permission, " Do your worst, and go to the devil," seemed to epitomise the whole situation. He was willing to go to the devil in his own way ; not to be turned out of his living by an enraged patron, or to die like a dog behind a hedge, but to let things take their course for the present — drinking and preaching — and then some day. somehow, to hurl his vengeance unexpectedly upon Lord Senghennydd, and threaten him with exposure. Why is " by-aud-bye " such a favourite road? The most unlearned know theoretically the truth of the old saying that "by the street of by-and-bye you arrive at the house of Never " ; and yet we all like it, and, as a general rule, we all take it.

Indolence, good nature, forgetfulness — all form a part of the one big folly that we call Procrastination. It were less heinous, surely, to do a wrong thing and repent it quickly, than to leave the doing of a right thing until the importance of the deed done is altogether impaired. The parson, sitting with bowed head over the dead woman's grave, mused in a tangled, misty way upon the past, and cursed his patron in his heart, not all unjustly, for the misery of his life. And as he thought despairingly of sins that nothing could efface, and a future that now held out no hope of advancement, he fell a-weeping in a bitter, maudlin way, out of sheer pity for his miserable self. And then he paused in his tears, to curse alike the living man and the dead woman, as he vainly strove to brush away the creeping things that, in his imagination, crawled over the tombstone.

Presently, through the churchyard his disordered brain conjured up the form of a woman clad in white, who ran towards him crying, " I will give you your revenge." But just as she neared him she sank under the stone at his feet. And others followed her with the same cry, and the same result. They all rushed towards him, promising vengeance, but the same grave received them all. They whirled past him, and shouted to him, and hemmed him in. He tried to struggle from them, to beat them down, but his arms were powerless. He cursed and raved at them, and fought the empty air in his wild rage to get rid of the phantoms. The villagers heard him raving, and the most timorous barred their doors. Their parson saw strange sights, surely ; and they shook their heads, and said that the dead woman would not rest in her grave, nor cease to haunt him, until he had told the secret that she had confided to him.

Had she not sent for him, on her death-bed, and pleaded with him, " for the sake of the child " ? Lizzie Llewellyn, who had sat up all night to nurse her, and was feeding her little one in the next room, had heard Eudea Morgan urging the parson to do something, but she could not hear what. " It would ruin me," he had said, and she had im plored, with dying lips, " for the child's sake." She had died, and had made no other sign ; and the gossips said : " If he will not obey the wishes of the dying, how can they be expected to rest in their graves ? " But Dan, being neither a believer in ghosts nor devils, went boldly down to the churchyard, and with the aid of David, the "parson's lad," led off the shrieking drunkard, and helped to deposit him in bed.

Chapter II. The Bar Sinister

On the summit of a rock overlooking the river Cwrwg stands Castell Gwyn. Its limestone walls, red pointed roof, and gilded vanes catch the sun's rays, and make it stand out from the dark background of thicklyfoliaged trees. It overlooks the valley, and from it can be seen a rich panorama of undulating country, through which the Cwrwg runs. The river got its name from the round wicker baskets, or coracles, that the ancient inhabitants used as boats, and in which they paddled up and down the most turgid streams. Beside its banks, puffs of white smoke and long creeping coal trains bespeak the presence of the railway that goes to the town — that dim blue haze in the distance, from which rise the spires of churches and the masts of vessels waiting in harbour for their freight from the coal-fields.

Northward the mountains rise, peak above peak, to-day all glorious in the sunlight, but in winter white and chill with snow. The castle itself has been reared upon the ruins of an historic keep, whence the Welsh chieftains held their Norman foes at bay, and refused to be subdued or civilised, and from their impregnable fortress dictated what terms they pleased to the invaders. It belonged to the redoubtable Ivor Bach, who stole away the proud Norman noble and his wife from Caerllong Castle, to the then almost inaccessible mountain, where he forced his prisoner to sign the terms that suited him and his adherents. But the castle had long passed from Ivor's de scendants, and the old keep, like many another ruined fortress, had been used as a stone quarry for walls and cottages. It is away among the hills beyond Caerllong, standing just above the gorge through which the river winds, in a proud loneliness which, in the present as in the past, seems to pervade the mediæval pile.

Turning off to the left as you leave the village of Pantgwynlais, you pass a swing-gate into a plantation road which leads to the castle. The trees are mostly newly planted, but here and there among the feathery larch boughs tower gigantic beeches, and amid the dainty whisperings of birch and pine the oak boughs wave and sway majestically. There is a wonderful individuality in the voices of trees, to those whose ears are attuned to their varia tions. Each one, from the honest, outspoken oak to the uncompromising, secretive Norwegian fir, seems to have its own characteristic, as if He who made them would in His infinite largesse give to each some special note in the grand chord of universal kinship SPINDLE AND SHEARS. and sympathy with which the whole of Nature rings. At enormous cost the castle had been rebuilt, and the combined research of the most accomplished archæo logists and architects had been brought to bear upon its restoration, or, rather, its reproduction.

The winding turret stairs, the narrow windows, the loop holes, the dry moat on the landward side, the draw bridge and portcullis, the inner courtyard and buttery hatch, had all been restored according to the advice of the best authorities. Such modern inventions as pipes for hot water and gas had been added to suit the more enlightened needs of the nineteenth century, but seemed anomalies in this reproduction of the Middle Ages. The mistress of this picturesque stronghold was a girl of twenty-one. As she came down the steep flight of steps that led from the open gallery which ran round the inner wall of the building to the court yard below, dressed in a dark, well-made habit that showed the graceful proportions of her slight figure to perfection, she looked in keeping with her sur roundings.

The fair face, with its aristocratic fea tures, was stamped with a resolute pride that might break but would never bend. The broad brow, partially concealed by short clustering curls, the slightly aquiline nose, the curved nostril, the dark, full eyes, the delicately-arched line of eyebrow and the oval face, proclaimed her a worthy descendant in form and bearing of the race that had been forced to yield with such bitter humiliation to the will of the Cymry. But there was a grave thoughtfulness in her aspect that did not harmonise with her youthful appearance. Hers was the pride that shrank into itself, and asked no sympathy, demanded no consolation. She was surrounded with every evidence of wealth and luxury, while all that love could give was showered upon her. She was entire mistress in her little domain, yet the Fates seemed to have singled her out and pronounced the sentence, " You shall pass your life upon the rack — be tortured by the careless pity of passing strangers, by the chance words of inferiors, by the very love that is so im potent to shield you from the world and its harsh criticism."

She was reading a letter as she came down the steps, and paused at the bottom, whilst a groom led forward her pony. It was a beautiful little cob, under fourteen hands, of darkest bay. It had been bred on the hills beyond the river, and its sire was a small thorough-bred stallion of local fame. It looked every inch a miniature hunter as it stood beside its mistress, its eyes fixed on her preoccupied face, as it pushed its head against her caressing hand. " The Earl comes to-morrow," said the girl, addressing the groom, who was adjusting the stirrup leather. He touched his hat respectfully. " Shall I go and meet him with the pony cart, Miss Gabrielle ? " "No," she said. "He is bringing some friends with him. They will take a carriage from Caerllong." She sprang upon her pony and rode out over the drawbridge.

Above the gateway was carved an image of the Virgin and Child, "gilded with gold hair against blue skies." The Holy Child's hand was raised in benediction — mutely blessing all who came and went. A great black curly retriever ran barking beside the pony, bounding up at its young mistress in gleeful anticipation of the run. "Why does my father bring these people?" she said to herself, bitterly. "Why does he not come alone? I could make him happy — just as happy as when I was a child in the old Florentine villa." She remembered regretfully those days which had been so bright and careless, when she, the petted daughter of the great English signor had played, and laughed, and danced in the sunshine with all a child's innocence and ignorance of the world. Filippo would grumble when she ran across the flower-beds, and 'Cesca chide sometimes her babyish petulance and pride ; but they had said no word to hurt or grieve her.

Her father had spoilt her from earliest babyhood — had brought her playthings from Paris that her little fingers broke immediately, scattering the worth of hundreds of francs in broken rubbish at her feet — had showered bonbons upon her that she dis tributed among the peasant children with lavish hands. He had never reproved her, never spoken a harsh or unkind word, but had borne with her way wardness with a patience that seemed superhuman in a man of his selfishness. Sometimes when watching her trouble would wrinkle his brow, and she would pass her baby fingers over the face that was so like her own. It pained her then to think that anyone should be sad in a world that was all sunshine ; but the trouble was to spread from him to her. and to overshadow her life also. From her Italian home she had been sent to a school near Paris.