Garthowen Part 2

"Make haste," she said, "or tea will be finished. Where have you been so late?"

"Thou'll be surprised when I tell thee," said the young man; but before he had time for further conversation, Ann's voice called him from the kitchen window, and he hurried away unceremoniously.

Morva continued her song, for Daisy wanted nothing new, but was contented with the old stave which she had known from calfhood.

Will Owens, arriving in the farm kitchen, had evidently been eagerly awaited. Both Ann and Gwilym Morris came forward to meet him, and Ebben Owens rubbed his hands nervously over his corduroy knees.

"Well?" said all three together.

"Well!" echoed Will, flinging his hat across to the window-sill. "It's all right. I met Price the vicar coming down the street, so I touched my hat to him, and he saw at once that I wanted to speak to him, and there's kind he was. 'How's your father?' he said, 'and Miss Ann, is she well? I must come up and see them soon.'"

"Look you there now," said his father.

"'They will be very glad to see you sir,' I said, but I didn't know how to tell him what I wanted.

"'I am very glad to hear how well you get on with your books,' he said; 'but 'tisn't every young man has Gwilym Morris to help him and to teach him.' And then, you see, when he made a beginning, 'twas easier for me to explain."

The preacher's pale face lighted up with a smile of pleasure, and Ann flushed with gratified pride as Will continued.

"'He is a man in a hundred,' said Mr. Price, 'and 'tis a pity that his talents are wasted on a Methodist Chapel. I wish I could persuade him to enter the Church.'

"'Well, you'll never do that,' I said. 'You might as well try to turn the course of the On. He won't come himself, but he is sending a very poor subst.i.tute to you, sir.'

"'And who is that? You?' said Mr. Price.

"'Well, sir, that is what I wanted to see you about. You know that although we are Methodists bred and born, both my grandfather and my great-grandfather had a son in the Church,' and with that he took hold of my two hands.

"'And your father is going to follow their good example? I _am_ glad!'

and he shook my hands so warmly."

"There for you now!" said Ebben Owens.

"'I will do all I can for you,' Mr. Price said, 'and I'm sure your uncle will help you.'

"'Oh!' said I, 'if my father will send me to the Church, sir, it will be without pressing upon anyone else for money,' for I wasn't going to let him think we couldn't afford it."

"Right, my boy," said Ebben Owens, standing up in his excitement; "and what then?"

"Oh! then he asked me when did I think of entering college; and I said, 'Next term, sir, if I can pa.s.s.'

"'No fear of that,' he said again, 'with Gwilym Morris at your elbow.'

But I'm choking, Ann; give me a cup of tea, da chi.[2] I'll finish afterwards."

"That's all, I should think," said the preacher; "you've got on pretty far for a first interview."

"I got a little further, though," said Will. "What do you think, father, he has asked me to do?"

"What?" said the old man breathlessly.

"He asked would I read the lessons in church next Sunday week.

''Twould be a good beginning,' he said; 'and tell your father and Miss Ann they must come and hear you.'

"'Well,' I said, 'my father hasn't been inside a church for years, and I don't know whether he will come.'"

"Well, of course," said the old man eagerly, "I will come to hear you, my boy, and Ann--"

"Not I, indeed," said Ann, with a toss of her head, "there will be a sermon in my own chapel."

"But it will be over before eleven, Ann, and I don't see why you shouldn't go if you wish to," said Gwilym Morris.

"I don't wish to," she answered, turning to the tea-table, and pouring out her brother's tea.

She was a typical Welsh woman, of highly-strung nervous temperament, though placid in outward appearance and manners, unselfish even to self-effacement where her kindred were concerned, but wary and suspicious beyond the pale of relationship or love; a zealous religionist, but narrow and bigoted in the extreme. In his heart of hearts Ebben Owens also hated the Church. Dissent had been the atmosphere in which his ancestors had lived and breathed, but in his case pride had struggled with prejudice, and had conquered. For three generations a son had gone forth from Garthowen to the enemy's Church, and had won there distinction and riches. True, their career had withdrawn them entirely from the old simple home circle, but this did not deter Ebben Owens from desiring strongly to emulate his ancestors.

Why should not Will, the clever one of the family, his favourite son--who had "topped" all the boys at the village school, and had taken so many prizes in the grammar school at Caer-Madoc--why should not he gain distinction and preferment in the Church, and shed fresh l.u.s.tre on the fading name of "Owens of Garthowen," for the name had lost its ancient prestige in the countryside? In early time theirs had been a family of importance, as witness the old deeds in the tin box on the attic rafters, but for two hundred years they had been simple farmers.

They had never been a thrifty race, and the broad lands which tradition said once belonged to them had been sold from time to time, until nothing remained but the old farm with its hundred acres of mountain land. Ebben Owens never troubled his head, however, about the past glories of his race. He inherited the "happy-go-lucky,"

unbusiness-like temperament which had probably been the cause of his ancestors' misfortunes, but Will's evident love of learning had aroused in the old man a strong wish to remind the world that the "Owens of Garthowen" still lived, and could push themselves to the front if they wished.

As Will drank his tea and cleared plate after plate of bread and b.u.t.ter, his father looked at him with a tender, admiring gaze. Will had always been his favourite. Gethin, the eldest son, had never taken hold of his affections; he had been the mother's favourite, and after her death had drifted further and further out of his father's good graces. The boy's nature was a complete contrast to that of his own and second son, for Gethin was bold and daring, while they were wary and secret; he was restless and mischievous, while his brother was quiet and sedate; he was constantly getting into sc.r.a.pes, while Will always managed to steer clear of censure. Gethin hated his books too, and, worse than all, he paid but scant regard to the services in the chapel, which held such an important place in the estimation of the rest of the household. More than once Ebben Owens, walking with proper decorum to chapel on Sunday morning, accompanied by Will and Ann, had been scandalised at meeting Gethin returning from a surrept.i.tious scramble on the hillside, with a row of blue eggs strung on a stalk of gra.s.s. A hasty rush into the house to dress, a pell-mell run down the mountain side, a flurried arrival in the chapel, where Will and his father had already hung up their hats on the rail at the back of their seat, did not tend to mitigate the old man's annoyance at his son's erratic ways.

Gethin was the cause of continual disturbances in the household, culminating at last in a severer thrashing than usual, and a dismissal from the home of his childhood--a dismissal spoken in anger, which would have been repented of ere night had not the boy, exasperated at his utter inability to rule his wild and roving habits, taken his father at his word and disappeared from the old homestead.

"Let him go," Ebben Owens had said to the tearful pleading Ann. "Let him go, child; it will do him good if he can't behave himself at home.

Let him go, like many another rascal, and find out whether cold and hunger and starvation will suit him. Let him feel a pinch or two, and he'll soon come home again, and then perhaps he'll have come to his senses and give us less trouble here."

Ann had cried her eyes red for days, and Will had silently grieved over the loss of his brother, but he had been prudent, and had said nothing to increase his father's anger, so the days slipped by and Gethin never returned.

His father, relenting somewhat (for he seldom remained long in the same frame of mind), made inquiries of the sea-faring men who visited the neighbouring coast villages, and learning from them that Gethin had been taken as cabin boy by an old friend of his, whom he knew to be of a kindly disposition, felt quite satisfied concerning his son's safety, and congratulated himself upon the result of his own firmness.

"There's the very thing for him," he thought; "'twill make a man of him, and 'tis time he should be brought to his senses! and he won't be so ready with his 'Amens!' again. Ach y fi!"

From time to time as the years sped on, news of Gethin came in a roundabout way to the farm, and at last a letter from some foreign port, from which it was evident that the youth, now growing up to manhood, still retained his bright sunny nature and laughter-loving ways, together with the warmth of heart which had always distinguished the troublesome Gethin. There was no allusion to the past, no begging for forgiveness, no hint of a wish to return home. His father seldom looked at the lad's letters, but flung them to Will to be read, the quarrel between him and his son, instead of dwindling into forgetfulness, seeming to grow and widen in his mind with each succeeding year, as trifling disagreements frequently do in weak but obstinate natures.

"Gethin will be an honour to us yet," Ann would say sometimes.

"Honour indeed!" the old man would answer, with a red spot on each cheek, which always denoted his rising anger. "What honour? A common sailor lounging about from one foreign port to another! 'Tis stopping at home he ought to be, and helping his old father with the farming.

If Will is going to be a clergyman I will want somebody to help me with the work."

"Well, I'm sure he would come, father, and glad too, if he knew that you were wanting him."

"Oh, I don't want him. Let him come when he likes; that's fair enough."

But Gethin still roamed, and latterly nothing had been heard of him, no letters and no news. 'Tis true, a dim and hazy report had reached Garthowen from some sailor in the village "that Gethin Owens was getting on 'splendid,' that he was steady and saving." Ann had flushed with pleasure, but the old man had laughed scornfully, saying, "Well, I'll believe that when I see it--Gethin steady and saving!" And even Will had joined in the laugh, but Gwilym Morris looked vexed and serious.

"I think, indeed, you are too hard upon that poor fellow,", he said; "he may return to you some day like the prodigal son. Don't forget that, Ebben Owens--"

"Oh, I don't forget that," said the old man; "and when he comes home in the same temper as the son we read of, then we'll kill for him the fatted calf."

"Well, I'd like to know what did he do whatever?" said a girlish voice from behind the settle, where Morva Lloyd (who was shepherdess, cowherd, milkmaid, all in one), was drying her hands on a jack-towel; "what did Gethin do so very bad?"