Gwen Wynn Part 19

Jack Wingate lives in a little cottage whose bit of garden ground "brinks" the country road where the latter trends close to the Wye at one of its sharpest sinuosities. The cottage is on the convex side of the bend, having the river at back, with a deep drain, or wash, running up almost to its walls, and forming a fence to one side of the garden.

This gives the waterman another and more needed advantage--a convenient docking place for his boat. There the _Mary_, moored, swings to her painter in safety; and when a rise in the river threatens, he is at hand to see she be not swept off. To guard against such catastrophe he will start up from his bed at any hour of the night, having more than one reason to be careful of the boat; for, besides being his _gagne-pain_, it bears the name, by himself given, of her the thought of whom sweetens his toil and makes his labour light. For her he bends industriously to his oar, as though he believed every stroke made and every boat's length gained was bringing him nearer to Mary Morgan. And in a sense so is it, whichever way the boat's head may be turned; the farther he rows her, the grander grows that heap of gold he is h.o.a.rding up against the day when he hopes to become a Benedict. He has a belief that if he could but display before the eyes of Farmer Morgan sufficient money to take a little farm for himself and stock it, he might then remove all obstacles between him and Mary--mother's objections and sinister and sacerdotal influence included.

He is aware of the difference of rank--that social chasm between--being oft bitterly reminded of it; but emboldened by Mary's smiles, he has little fear but that he will yet be able to bridge it.

Favouring the programme thus traced out, there is, fortunately, no great strain on his resources by way of drawback; only the maintaining of his own mother, a frugal dame--thrifty besides--who, instead of adding to the current expenses, rather curtails them by the adroit handling of her needle. It would have been a distaff in the olden days.

Thus helped in his housekeeping, the young waterman is enabled to put away almost every shilling he earns by his oar, and this same summer all through till autumn, which it now is, has been more than usually profitable to him, by reason of his so often having Captain Ryecroft as his fare; for although the Hussar officer no longer goes salmon fishing--he has somehow been spoilt for that--there are other excursions upon which he requires the boat, and as ever generously, even lavishly, pays for it.

From one of these the young waterman has but returned; and, after carefully bestowing the _Mary_ at her moorings, stepped inside the cottage. It is Sat.u.r.day--within one hour of sundown--that same Sat.u.r.day spoken of "at the Harvest Home." But though Jack is just home, he shows no sign of an intention to stay there; instead, behaves as if he intended going out again, though not in his boat.

And he does so intend, for a purpose unsuspected by his mother,--to keep that appointment made hurriedly and in a half whisper, amid the fracas of the fireworks.

The good dame had already set the table for tea, ready against his arrival, covered it with a cloth, snow-white of course. The tea-things superimposed, in addition a dining plate, knife and fork, these for a succulent beefsteak heard hissing on the gridiron almost as soon as the _Mary_ made appearance at the mouth of the wash, and, soon as the boat was docked, done. It is now on the table, alongside the teapot; its savoury odour, mingling with the fragrance of the freshly "drawn" tea, fills the cottage kitchen with a perfume to delight the G.o.ds.

For all, it gives no gratification to Jack Wingate the waterman. The appetizing smell of the meat, and the more ethereal aroma of the Chinese shrub, are alike lost upon him. Appet.i.te he has none, and his thoughts are elsewhere.

Less from observing his abstraction, than the slow, negligent movements of his knife and fork, the mother asks--

"What's the matter with ye, Jack? Ye don't eat!"

"I ain't hungry, mother."

"But ye been out since mornin', and tooked nothing wi' you!"

"True; but you forget who I ha' been out with. The captain ain't the man to let his boatman be a hungered. We war down the day far as Symond's yat, where he treated me to dinner at the hotel. The daintiest kind o'

dinner, too. No wonder at my not havin' much care for eatin' now--nice as you've made things, mother."

Notwithstanding the compliment, the old lady is little satisfied--less as she observes the continued abstraction of his manner. He fidgets uneasily in his chair, every now and then giving a glance at the little Dutch clock suspended against the wall, which in loud ticking seems to say, "You'll be late--you'll be late." She suspects something of the cause, but inquires nothing of it. Instead, she but observes, speaking of the patron:--

"He be very good to ye, Jack."

"Ah! that he be; good to every one as comes nigh o' him--and's desarvin'

it."

"But ain't he stayin' in the neighbourhood longer than he first spoke of doin'?"

"Maybe he is. Grand gentry such as he ain't like us poor folk. They can go and come whens'ever it please 'em. I suppose he have his reasons for remaining."

"Now, Jack, you know he have, an' I've heerd something about 'em myself."

"What have you heard, mother?"

"Oh, what! Ye han't been a rowin' him up and down the river now nigh on five months without findin' out. An' if you haven't, others have. It's goin' all about that he's after a young lady as lives somewhere below.

Tidy girl, they say, tho' I never seed her myself. Is it so, my son?

Say!"

"Well, mother, since you've put it straight at me in that way, I won't deny it to you, tho' I'm in a manner bound to saycrecy wi' others. It be true that the Captain have some notion o' such a lady."

"There be a story, too, o' her bein' nigh drownded an' his saving her out o' a boat. Now, Jack, whose boat could that be if it wa'nt your'n?"

"'Twor mine, mother; that's true enough. I would a-told you long ago, but he asked me not to talk o' the thing. Besides, I didn't suppose you'd care to hear about it."

"Well," she says, satisfied, "tan't much to me, nor you neyther, Jack; only as the Captain being so kind, we'd both like to know the best about him. If he have took a fancy for the young lady, I hope she return it.

She ought after his doin' what he did for her. I han't heerd her name; what be it?"

"She's a Miss Wynn, mother. A very rich heiress. 'Deed I b'lieve she ain't a heiress any longer, or won't be, after next Thursday, sin' that day she comes o' age. An' that night there's to be a big party at her place, dancin' an' all sorts o' festivities. I know it because the Captain's goin' there, an' has bespoke the boat to take him."

"Wynn, eh? That be a Welsh name. Wonder if she's any kin o' the great Sir Watkin."

"Can't say, mother. I believe there be several branches o' the Wynn family."

"Yes, and all o' the good sort. If she be one o' the Welsh Wynns, the Captain can't go far astray in having her for his wife."

Mrs. Wingate is herself of Cymric ancestry, originally from the shire of Pembroke, but married to a man of Montgomery, where Jack was born. It is only of late, in her widowhood, she has become a resident of Herefordshire.

"So you think he have a notion o' her, Jack?"

"More'n that, mother. I may as well tell ye; he be dead in love wi' her.

An' if you seed the young lady herself, ye wouldn't wonder at it. She be most as good-looking as----"

Jack suddenly interrupted himself on the edge of a revelation he would rather not make, to his mother nor anyone else. For he has. .h.i.therto been as careful in keeping his own secret as that of his patron.

"As who?" she asks, looking him straight in the face, and with an expression in her eyes of no common interest--that of maternal solicitude.

"Who?--well--" he answers confusedly; "I wor goin' to mention the name o' a girl who the people 'bout here think the best lookin' o' any in the neighbourhood----"

"An' n.o.body more'n yourself, my son. You needn't gie her name. I know it."

"Oh, mother! what d'ye mean?" he stammers out, with eyes on the but half-eaten beefsteak. "I take it they've been tellin' ye some stories about me."

"No, they han't. n.o.body's sayed a word about ye relatin' to that. I've seed it for myself, long since, though you've tried to hide it. I'm not goin' to blame ye eyther, for I believe she be a tidy proper girl. But she's far aboon you, my son; and ye maun mind how you behave yourself.

If the young lady be anythin' likes good-lookin' as Mary Morgan----"

"Yes, mother! that's the strangest thing o' all----"

He interrupts her, speaking excitedly; again interrupting himself.

"What's strangest?" she inquires, with a look of wonderment.

"Never mind, mother! I'll tell you all about it some other time. I can't now; you see its nigh nine o' the clock."

"Well; an' what if 't be?"

"Because I may be too late."

"Too late for what? Surely you arn't goin' out again the night?" She asks this, seeing him rise up from his chair.

"I must, mother."