Through Welsh Doorways Part 27

Megan Griffiths lost no time in distributing the gleanings from her visit with Nance, information which was often redistributed and to which new interest accrued daily as the end of Silvan Rhys's life drew near.

"Tut," said Megan, "she's that ambitious for him, it fairly eats her up.

'Twas always so from the day of their biddin', an' here 'tis comin' his funeral, an' he'll never end with a word of Holy Writ on _his_ lips, that he won't."

"There, there!" Dolly Owen objected, compa.s.sionately, her motherly face full of rebuke.

"Aye, he won't, _that_ he won't," affirmed Morto Roberts, wagging his head, and sniffing the pleasant odours from the browning light-cakes.

Dolly made no reply, but turned a cake with a dexterous flip, and pulled forward the teapot to fill it with hot water. The quiet glow from the fire mirrored itself equally in her kind eyes and in the shining bra.s.s pots and kettles of the flanking shelves, and was multiplied in a thousand twinkles on the glistening salt of the flitches hanging above her head. The table was already spread with a gaily-patterned cloth, and set with china bright as the potted fuchsias and primroses blooming in the sunshine of her windows. There was nothing garish about this humble dwelling of Dolly's, yet everywhere it seemed as if sunshine had been caught and were in process. Warmth, odour, gleam, colour, and the soft heavy wind travelling by outside, made this the workroom of a golden alchemy. Dolly smiled with benevolence as she piled up the light-cakes.

"The fat's snappish to-day; it sputtered more nor usual," she said to Megan, who was seated in the shadow of the high settle.

"Aye," responded Megan, in an irritable voice. "When I went by the house this mornin'," she persisted, "I heard him singin' some gay thing, a catch--singin' in bed, indeed, an' dyin'."

"Singin' in bed," puffed Morto, "singin' in bed whatever, an' dyin'. Up to the last a-caper-in' an' a-dancin' like a fox in the moonlight."

"There, there!" Dolly objected again, filling Morto's plate with cakes; "he's been a kind man, a very kind man. There was Tom _bach_ he put to school an' clothed would follow him about like a puppy, an' so would Nance, an' so would his own dog."

"Pooh! what's that?" asked Megan. "Mrs. Rhys has had the managin' of most everythin', I'm thinkin', an' his houses he's been praised for keepin' in such fine repair, an' the old pastor's stipend--aye, well, ask Nance," ended Megan, with a shrug of her shoulder, and a gulp of hot tea.

"Aye, well, ask Mrs. Rhys," echoed Morto, "an' ye mind it was the same pastor's coat-tails he hung the dog-tongs to when he was some thirty years younger, an' by twenty too old for any such capers. He's an infiddle, he is, a-doin' such things."

"An' 'twas he, wasn't it," Megan added, "who put that slimy newt in Sian Howell's hat?"

"Aye, so 'twas, an' she had a way of clappin' her beaver on quick, an'

down came that newt a-hoppin' on her white cap."

"An' he tied the two Janes's cap-strings together, the one who always prayed sittin' straight up, an' the other in the pew behind leanin'

forward, didn't he?" demanded Megan. "They went quite nasty with him for that."

"Well," said Dolly, cutting a generous slice of pound cake for Megan, "I'm thinkin' it's not just, talkin' so; the lad was full of life. He could no more keep his feet on earth than the cricket in the field. 'Tis come he's old an' dyin', an' I can see no harm in his havin' had a little fun, an' singin' now an' then."

"Tut, now an' then!" exclaimed Megan. "'Tis over foolish he is, now isn't he?"

"Aye," agreed Morto, "he's light."

"He'd have gone quite on the downfall years ago, hadn't it been for Nance."

"Quite on the downfall," echoed Morto.

"Aye, an' there'll be no word of Scripture crossin' _his_ lips,"

concluded Megan.

Morto had his private reasons for losing no love upon Silvan, and Megan hers of a similar nature. Even the kindest villagers had taken to considering the words Silvan would or would not speak at the last.

Rumour, peering into corners with antiquarian diligence and nodding his white head in prophecy, sat down by every fireside as much at home as the cottage cat or the fat bundle of babyhood that rolled upon the hearth. Wherever Rumour seated himself, "he will" and "he won't" was tossed about excitedly under thatched roofs. The very shepherd on the hills cast a speculative glance upon Nance's cottage, and Mr. Shoni "the _coach_" added another question to his daily _questionnaire_.

There was no begging the fact that precedent had begun to weigh heavily on the last moments of speech of the Rhyd Ddu inhabitants. A man of years thought anxiously, like one skating on thin ice, how far out he dare venture without some talismanic and now established words. There were neighbours in Rhyd Ddu, however, probably no more accomplished with their tongues than motherly Dolly Owen, who speculated but little and whose hearts went out to Nance and Silvan. Although they had never seen the Silvan Nance saw, nevertheless they considered him a good neighbour, and the path to Nance's cottage was much travelled by kindly thoughts and by helpful feet.

While the news, old Rumour panting in the rear, was running swiftly from door to door, Nance was watching Silvan with pa.s.sionate devotion, no expression of the face that had lain close to her own for so many years escaping her. Rhyd Ddu must know at the last, must have some solemn sign of the eminent goodness he had meant to her. She could not let him go with one of his jests on his lips--every day was fit enough for that, but not these minutes. Her thoughts clung even to the words of the over-cheerful verse she believed he would say. And yet there was a tantalising merriness in his eyes.

"Father," she said, "do ye mind?"

"Aye, dearie, I'm to be sayin' that ye--have the faith an' I--I have the works?"

"Och, lad!"

"There, mam, I'm just teasin' ye--just teasin' ye."

"But, lad, it'll be soon."

"Mam," he whispered, "closer."

Nance bent her head.

"Mam--ye--are a darlin', an'--I'll--no--forget."

Every word came more faintly.

"Lad, lad," plead Nance, "quick, now!"

Silvan cast one imploring look at Nance, and his lips struggled for speech, then his gaze slipped away like a light withdrawing into deep woods.

Coming down the lane sounded the tread of many feet. Nance heard the steps approaching; she rose, shook the tears from her eyes, and closed the bedroom door behind her. Already the latch had been lifted and her neighbours were filing in, the men taking off their caps and making way for the women. Nance, confronting them, leaned against the door frame.

"Och, dear," said Dolly compa.s.sionately, "he's gone already."

There was no reply.

"Were his last words----" asked Megan.

"Aye," answered Nance, her voice courageous, proud, "aye, these words: 'In the shadow of Thy wings I will rejoice.'"

UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON.