Seven Frozen Sailors Part 16

Well, my lads, if I hadn't got narvous, I'd have told her that me and Gwen had been just a trifle free with each other's lips. But, I tell ye, I feared to say the words. She was chuck full of a sort of what you may call a romance. Often and often she've said, that she felt so happy in having picked the first flower of my heart--whereby she meant that she'd got the whole of my love. And so she had. Yes, indeed. May I be shrivelled to a mummy if she hadn't. Only, ye see, if I'd gone to tell her that Gwen and I had been playing the fool, she'd mayhap have thought different. So I kept my own counsel.

"Now," says she, in a wheedling, coaxing way no lubber ever could resist, "it will all come right in the end, if you won't go to act foolish. Yes, indeed. Father likes David, but father loves Rhoda. And when David asks me, and I says, 'no,' father ain't the kind of man to say, 'you must.'"

"Ay, ay!" I answered her; "but ain't he the boy to say 'you mustn't,'

in case a lubber of the name of Anwyl should put that there same curious question?"

Well, my lads, Rhoda, at this, went off on the starboard tack, for fear I should make out the cut of her jib. She daren't face me; for she couldn't deny that Miller Howell was a cranky lot, indeed. So she took to picking blackberries, as if they was so many hot-house grapes, instead of being as red as currants, and as sour as verjuice.

"You can't deny it, Rhoda!" I sings out, feeling vexed indeed.

Then she turns round from her blackberrying, and I spied a tear in the corner of her eye. So I knew what I said was the cause of her hiding her head, and I held my tongue, being ashamed.

As we was walking homeward, later on, the brace of us tongue-tied and melancholy as an albatross before a cyclone comes on, Rhoda whispers in my ear, "Can't you trust a girl's wit? I'm a match for any two of 'em!"

"Right, sweetheart!" says I, gripping her hand. For all that, a notion, indeed, crossed my brain, "that she who is better than two mayn't be good enough to tackle three." And so it proved.

Well, mates, it might have been two or three days later on that I chanced to be in Barmouth, and there, in the porch of "The Wynn Arms," I came into collision, as you might say, with one Evan Evans, an old shipmate of mine, who worked on the Anna Maria Sett alongside of me, and could handle a pick as cleverly as our boatswain the rope's-end. Evan, indeed, when he claps eyes on me, sings out, right cheerily, "A drain of grog, my boy!"

"With _you_," I answers, "Evan, yes, indeed!"

So we turns into the bar-parlour of "The Wynn Arms," and he orders two goes of rum punch, hot.

When we was sat down comfortable, I began to twig, d'ye see, that his rig was that of a seafaring man. His arms was tattooed, and his kit looked smart.

"Avast!" I sings out,--"avast, Evan Evans! Surely, you've never joined the horse-marines?"

"Mate," he replies, giving me a slap on the shoulder, like a true seaman, "there's a better mine, containing richer mineral than the old Anna Maria, and that's the open sea!"

Faith, mates, when he spake them words, I mistook him for one of them land-lubbers who dresses up in seaman's rig, and takes nurses and babbies out for a run in a pleasure-boat.

Yes, indeed. But Evan soon put matters straight.

"Hugh Anwyl," he says, pulling out a leather case, "this ere holds a hundred and fifty pounds, beside gold and silver."

"Take care of it, Evan, then," says I--for I knew he was a light-headed sort of craft; "or," says I, "your master will be pulling of you up on account of losing his moneys, indeed."

"Master!" he sings out, with a roar of laughter like a fusillade--"master! I ain't got no master! Them's the property of Evan Evans."

"My lad," I cried, in a sort of a serious voice, "I'm sorry to hear it.

I always took ye for a honest lubber."

Whereat, for a second, he looked mighty wrathful. Yes, indeed. Then, as he perceived that I was what ye may call all abroad, he burst out laughing again as if his sides would burst.

"Evan," says I, "I've lost my bearings."

"So you have," he answers; "for the fact of the matter is, you don't understand what you're a-talking about."

Well, my lads, with that he cooled down a bit, and forthwith commenced to relate how he'd been on a whaling expedition to Greenland, and had met with luck. The conditions was that all was to share and share alike--skipper, crew, and all. They had a hard time of it. One of 'em lost a nose, another a finger or two, and some of 'em their toes. Yes, indeed; the cold in them lat.i.tudes is mighty thieving of prominent parts of the human frame.

But then, if the risk's considerable, the gain's even more so. Now, my lads, this shipmate's good fortune set me a-thinking--as, indeed, was but nat'ral. David Thomas didn't own so much as one hundred and fifty pounds--not he. His old father might be worth that sum, if his possessions was all sold. But in the princ.i.p.ality, where money's scarce, a little goes a long way; and I calculated, on that account, if I could draw anything approaching so heavy an amount of pay on a single venture, Miller Howell would not stand in the way of my wedding his daughter Rhoda.

"So," says I, "Evan, my old shipmate, you and I have always been the best of comrades. I'd like to enjoy a similar slice of good fortune.

Not as though I'd be greedy, Evan. Give me my ship's biscuit and my share of grog, and I'm content. But, Evan, there's a pretty craft that wants to moor alongside of me, and her skipper won't agree, because I haven't got a shot in my locker. That's it, indeed!"

Evan, he looks at me steady; then he holds out his fist with all the grace of a port-admiral, just as if he meant to serve double grog or give leave to go ash.o.r.e.

"Hugh," says he, "the day after to-morrow I sail again for the North Seas. For my mother, Hugh, she's old and she's sick, and this 'ere pocket-book, with its contents, is for her. Join our crew, my hearty, and I'll promise ye fair play and a sailor's greeting. You'll bring back with ye enough to satisfy your la.s.s's skipper, and I'll dance at your wedding."

Up I springs to my feet, and, though I was short of money, I orders another grog. And then Evan and I struck our bargain; and, I tell ye, I felt another and a stronger man.

"Now, Evan," I sings out, "I'll be off home to tell my la.s.s."

"Avast," says my shipmate, "you'll need to see about your kit. It's darned cool up in them lat.i.tudes!"

"Ay, ay," I replied--"to-morrow will do for that."

"Right," he answers; "we'll meet at this very spot to-morrow, by your leave."

Well, mates, with a swelling heart, I crossed the Mawdach River, and began to trudge back to Glanwern. About a mile or so to the north of the village, I ran athwart Gwen Thomas, with a roll of music under her arm, and a broad grin on her deceitful face.

"You're quite a stranger, Hugh," she says, dropping a curtsey, as if I were the parson, or Sir Watkin himself. "Yes, indeed; now Rhoda Howell's come back to Glanwern, you've lost your eyes for every one else. If I wasn't good-tempered, I'd take offence."

Now, my lads, I was a bit in the wrong about this girl Gwen. I don't say that she wasn't most to blame of the two, yet conscience made me feel uncomfortable as regards the part I had played toward her. So I couldn't be otherwise than civil, when she met me so pleasant like, instead of being out of temper, as I expected.

Says I, "Gwen, la.s.s, mayhap I do care more for Rhoda than for most others; I'm not ashamed to own it. Anyhow, for her sake, I'm going on a long voyage."

"What?" she cries, anxiously, her lips turning pale indeed.

So, when the girl pa.s.sed the question to me, I up and told her the whole tale, and how that, in forty-eight hours, I should be afloat on the briny ocean, with the ship's bows standing for the North Sea.

She heard me out, quite dazed like. Then she says, says she, in a very quiet, demure fashion, "You'll come to the singing-cla.s.s to-night, if it's only to wish us all a farewell? Rhoda will be there, but she will walk with the miller; so, if you like to keep me company for the last time, you may."

In those old days, Hugh Anwyl boasted a tenor voice. Yes, indeed. And this girl Gwen got the reputation of being a prime musician, and used to train our cla.s.s. They had her all the way off to Llangollen, to perform at an Eistedfodd, as they call it in the princ.i.p.ality, for she sang like a nightingale. Well, when she asked me to walk with her, I thought it churlish to refuse. So, like a simpleton, I said, "Yes;" and away she tripped, with an odd laugh, as if she was mighty pleased.

I did not know it at the time, nor did I hear it until long after, but Gwen's brother David, that same afternoon, had been to see my Rhoda.

He told her that Miller Howell expected that she would have him for a husband, and had given him permission to ask her, and that Hugh Anwyl cared for too many girls to love her.

However, in the evening I called for Gwen, and we two walked together to the waterfall.

n.o.body had arrived before us; so we sat down on the cromlech, and began to sing what you may call a duet--that is, a stave for two voices.

But my heart was all with Rhoda Howell; and, as I sat singing alongside of that artful craft, Gwen Thomas, I thought of nothing but the good news I had to tell, and how it would joy the girl I loved so dearly.

It might have been ten minutes or more--at last, however, I spied the old miller, and behind him his pretty daughter, arm-in-arm with David Thomas.

Rhoda's face was unusual white, and her eyes didn't quite look straight ahead, but seemed to tack about, as if the wind had shifted to a stormy quarter.

Not much was said by any one, and that little not worth remembering.