Through Welsh Doorways Part 7

"So now I must be tellin' you," she whispered, hanging her head, and looking, with her white face, ready to sink to the floor.

"Indeed, dearie, you'll not be tellin' me, whatever," he declared hotly.

"Pedr!" she exclaimed, "but you said Catrin Griffiths--alas, I must tell you!" She lifted her hand as if she were going to point to something and then dropped it.

"I'm not carin' what I said about Catrin Griffiths or about any one else. Dear little heart, you're makin' yourself sick over this an'----"

"Och, but I must tell you!" and again came the futile motion of the hand.

"You shall not!" he commanded.

"Yes, now, now," she cried, lifting her hand; "Pedr I--I have----"

Pedr seized the uplifted hand.

"No, Nelw, no;" and he put his finger over her mouth and drew her to him.

"Pedr, I must," she pleaded, struggling to free herself.

"No, not now; I'm not carin' to know now. Wait until we're married."

"Oh no, oh no!" Nelw moaned. "That wouldn't be fair to you. Och, if you knew----"

But Pedr covered her mouth with his hand and drew her closer.

"Not now, little lamb."

She sat quite still, her head upon his shoulder. Pedr felt her relaxing and heard her sighing frequently. She seemed so little and so light where she rested upon him, almost a child, and a new sense of contentment stole over Pedr. He patted her face; she made no reply, but he felt her draw nearer to him. At last she lifted her hand and pa.s.sed it gently over his head.

"Och, Pedr," she whispered, "I'm growin' old."

"Old, nothin'," replied Pedr.

"Aye, but I'm over thirty."

"Pooh!" returned Pedr, "that's nothin'!"

"Yes, it is; an' as I grew older you would mind even more if----"

"Nelw," said Pedr warningly, covering her mouth again.

"But, Pedr, how could you love me when I'd grown very old? I wouldn't have any hair at all," she faltered, "an' not any teeth," she continued, gasping painfully, "an'--an' wrinkles an' oh--an' oh--dear!" she half sobbed.

"Tut," said Pedr calmly, "what of it? It's always that way, an' I'm thinkin' love could get over a little difficulty like that, whatever.

Indeed, I'm thinkin' what with love an' time we'd scarcely notice it. I dunno," he added reflectively, "if we did notice it I'm thinkin' we'd love each other better."

At these words Nelw smiled a little as if she were forgetting her trouble. After a while she spoke--

"You are comin' this afternoon again, Pedr, are you?"

"Yes, dearie," he answered, "I'm comin'."

"Och, an' it must--it must be told," she ended, forlornly.

It was quiet up and down the winding cobblestone street; no two-wheeled carts jaunted by; there was no clatter of wooden clogs, no merriment of children playing, no noise of dogs barking. And all this quietude was due to the simple fact that people were preparing to take their tea, that within doors kettles were boiling, piles of thin bread and b.u.t.ter being sliced, jam--if the family was a fortunate one--being turned out into dishes, pound-cake cut in delectably thick slices, and, if the occasion happened to need special honouring, light cakes being browned in the frying-pan. Previous to the actual consumption of tea, the men, their legs spread wide apart, were sitting before the fire, enjoying the possession of a good wife or mother who could lay a snowy cloth. And the children, having pa.s.sed one straddling age and not having come to the next, were busy sticking hungry little noses into every article set upon the cloth, afraid, however, to do more than smell a foretaste of paradise.

So the street, except for a gusty wind that romped around corners, was deserted. When Nelw Parry opened a cas.e.m.e.nt on the second floor, she saw not a soul. She looked up and down, up and down,--no, there was not a body stirring. Then her head disappeared, and shortly one hand reappeared and hung something to the sill. True, there was not a soul upon the street, but opposite the Raven Temperance, behind carefully-closed lattice windows, sat a woman who saw everything. Catrin Griffiths had been waiting there some time to discover whether Pedr Evans would come to-day as he did other days at half-past four. But when she beheld Nelw's hand reappear to hang something at the window, she jumped up, with a curious expression on her face, exclaiming, "A wonder!" and ran swiftly downstairs and out into the street. Once in the street she gazed steadily at the object swinging from the cas.e.m.e.nt of the Raven, and again, "A wonder!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. She began to laugh in a harsh low fashion, then shrilly and more shrilly. "Oh, the lamb!" she exclaimed, "oh, the innocent!" Her hilarity increased, and she slapped herself on the hip, and finally held on to her bodice as if she would burst asunder. At the doors, heads appeared; some disappeared immediately upon descrying Catrin, but others thrust them out further.

"See" she called, seeing Modlan Jones coming towards her, "there's Nelw Parry's _cocyn_."

Modlan canted her head upwards towards the object and chuckled--

"Ow, the idiot!"

"Och, the innocent!" laughed Catrin. "'Ts, 'ts," she called to Malw Owens, who, munching bread, was approaching from a little alley-way; "Nelw Parry's _cocyn's_ unfurled at last an' flappin' in the breeze."

One by one a throng gathered under the walls of the Raven Temperance, and the explosions of mirth and the exclamations multiplied, until the whole street rang with the boisterous noise, and one word, "_Cocyn!

cocyn!_" rebounded from lip to lip and wall to wall. But there were some who, coming all the way out of their quiet houses and seeing the occasion of this mad glee, shook their heads sadly and said, "Poor thing! she's not wise!" and went in again. And there were others who pa.s.sed by on the other side of the road, and they, too, muttered, "Druan bach!" pityingly, and if they were old enough to have growing sons, cast glances none too kind at Catrin Griffiths. Evidently the "poor little thing" was not intended for her; but, indeed, they might have spared one for her, for it is possible that she needed it more than the woman who lay indoors in a convulsion of tears. Suddenly, amidst the nudges and thrusts and sn.i.g.g.e.rs and shrieks, Catrin clapped her hands together.

"Listen," she bade, "now listen! I'll be fetchin' Pedr." And with a snort of amus.e.m.e.nt from them all, she was off down the street.

What happened to Catrin before she reached Pedr's door will never be told. By the time she came to the Cambrian Pill Depot she was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g her courage desperately. Even the most callous have strange visitations of fear, odd forebodings of failure, and hang as devoutly upon Providence as the most pious. It would be robbing no one to give Catrin a kind word or, indeed, a tear or two. Good words and tears are spent gladly upon a blind man, then why not upon Catrin, whose blindness was an ever-night far deeper? She was but groping for something she thought she needed, for something to make her happier, as every man does. And now, as it often is with the one who hugs his virtue as well as with the sinful, the road slipped suddenly beneath her feet and her thoughts were plunged forward into a dark place of fears. She, who always had had breath and to spare for the expression of any vulgar or trivial idea which came to her, could barely say, as she thrust her head in at the door of Pedr's shop, "Nelw Parry'll be needin' you now." What she had intended to say was something quite different; since she did not say it, it need not be repeated here.

It seemed an eternity to Pedr before, without any show of following Catrin too closely, he could leave the shop. The sounds of the jangling voices he was nearing mingled with the gusty wind that whickered around housetops and corners, and brushed roughly by him with a dismal sound.

He walked with slow deliberateness, but his thoughts ran courier-like ever forward and before him. To his sight things had a peculiar distinctness, adding in some way to his foreknowledge, prescient with the distress he heard in the wind. He looked up to the cas.e.m.e.nt towards which all eyes were directed. Something attached to the sill whipped out in the wind and then flirted aimlessly to and fro. Pedr scanned it intently. Another gust of wind caught it, and again it spread out and waved about glossily plume-like. Then for a moment, unstirred by the air, it hung limp against the house-side; it was glossy and black and--and--thought Pedr with a rush of comprehension--like a long strand of Nelw's hair.

There were suppressed t.i.tters and sly winks as he came to the group before the Raven.

"Ffi, the poor fellow, I wonder what he'll do now?" asked one.

"Hush!" said another.

"Well, indeed," answered a third, tapping her head significantly, "what would one expect when she's not wise?"

"He's goin' in," said a fourth.

While all eyes were upon Pedr, Catrin Griffiths had slipped away from their midst, slid along the wall, and stolen across the street. The look upon Pedr's face was like a hot iron among her wretched thoughts, and hiss! hiss! hiss! it was cutting down through all those strings that had held her baggage of body and soul together.

Pedr made his way into the house and to the couch where Nelw lay.

"Nelw," he said.

Nelw caught her breath between sobs.

"Nelw," he repeated gently, sitting down by her, "there, little lamb!"

Nelw stopped crying.

"Pedr, did you see?" she asked.