David's Little Lad

I made no reply to this. I did not say another word. When we came in sight of Nan’s cottage, I bade her adieu by a single-hand shake, and ran home. On the gravel sweep outside the sunny, smiling cottage, might be seen the substantial form of Gwen, and by Gwen’s side, his hat off, the breeze stirring his wavy brown hair, stood Owen.

Graceful, careless, happy, handsome, looked my brother, as he raised his face to kiss David’s boy, who sat astride on his shoulder. The baby was kicking, laughing, crowing, stretching his arms, catching at Owen’s hair, and making a thousand happy sounds, the first indications of a language he was never to learn perfectly on earth. Alas! what did the baby see in the darkness, that made his face the brightest thing I ever looked at, the brightest thing I ever shall look at in this world. The sight of the baby and Gwen caused me to forget Nan’s words; I ran forward eagerly and spoke eagerly.

“Gwen, what a surprise! how delighted I am! have you come to stay? Oh! you darling, darling pet!” These last words were addressed to little David, whom I took out of Owen’s arms, and covered with kisses. “How much he has grown! What a beauty he is! – like a little king. There! my precious lamb; go back to Owen, for I must give old Gwen a hug!”

Laughing heartily, Owen received him back, perched him anew on his shoulder, while I turned to Gwen, whom I nearly strangled with the vehemence of my embrace. “There! you dear old thing. Have you come to live with us? Oh! how dreadfully, dreadfully I have missed you. Oh! never mind your cap. I’ll quill you another border in no time. Now, are you coming to live here? Do speak, and don’t look so solemn.”

“Dear, dear, my maid!” said Gwen, shaking herself free, and panting for breath. “Good gracious! Gwladys, my maid, I’m a bit stout, and none so young; and you did shake me awful.” A pause, pant-pant, puff-puff from Gwen. “Why, there! I’m better now, and fit to cry with the joy of seeing you, my maid; but,” – with a warding-off gesture of her fat hands – “good gracious! Gwladys, don’t fall on me again.” A peal of laughter from Owen, in which the baby joined.

“Speak,” I said, solemnly; “if you don’t instantly declare your intentions, and the duration of your stay, I shall strangle you.”

“’Twas on account o’ the fever,” said Gwen. At these words my hands dropped to my sides, the baby’s laughter ceased to float on the air, and Owen was silent. “There’s nought, to be frighted at,” continued Gwen, observing these signs; “on’y a case or two at the lodge, and little Maggie and Dan, the laundress’s children were rather bad. The Squire said it warn’t likely to spread; but it would be best to make all safe, so he sent little David and me here for a fortnight, or so. Dear heart, he was sore down in the mouth at sayin’ good-bye to the baby; but I was pleased enough, Gwladys, my maid. I wanted to get a sight o’ your yellow hair, and to see my mistress, and Mr Owen.”

“And I’m delighted to renew my acquaintance with you, Gwen,” responded Owen, heartily. “I assure you I have not forgotten you. There! take baby now,” he added. “I think I hear my mother calling you.” When Gwen was gone, Owen, to my surprise came to my side, and drew my hand through his arm.

“I want to talk to you about the baby,” he said. “What a splendid fellow he is? How sad he should be blind. Somehow I never realised it before. I always knew that David’s boy was without sight, but, as I say, I never took in the meaning of it until I looked into those beautiful dark eyes. Isn’t David awfully cut up about it? Gwladys.”

“I’m not sure,” I replied. “You must remember, Owen, that he is accustomed to it; and then all about baby’s birth was so sad. Indeed, David does not like even to talk much about him; and when we are by, he never takes much notice, when he is brought into the room, only Gwen tells me how he comes up every night to see him, and how he kisses him – indeed, I know he quite lives for baby.”

“Gwladys, I wish you would tell me about Amy? Was she worthy of that noble fellow?”

I looked at Owen in surprise – surprise from a twofold cause, for the voice that brought out the unexpected and unusual words trembled.

“He is the noblest fellow I know, quite,” said Owen, emphatically, looking me full in the face. “What kind of woman was his wife?”

“I did not know her very well,” I replied. “I don’t believe I cared greatly for her. Still, I am sure, Owen – yes, I know that she was worthy of David.”

Owen turned away his face, looked on the ground; in a moment he spoke in a different tone, on a different subject.

“I was quite glad to see that little bit of enthusiasm in you; you used to be a very affectionate, warm-hearted child, and I thought it had all died out.”

I felt my face growing crimson. I tried not to speak, then the words burst forth —

“It has not died away; I can love still.”

“I make no doubt of that, my dear,” continued he, carelessly, “but you have not the same pleasant way of showing it.”

He dropped my hand and walked towards the house, but his indifferent words had renewed the feeling with which I had parted from Nan. He too might be indifferent, but at least he should know. I would tell him Nan’s words.

“Owen, I want to ask you a question.”

“Well!” turning round, and leaning his graceful figure against the porch.

“We are going to be rich again, before long?”

“Perhaps; I cannot say.”

“But you are getting up a lot of coal now out of the mine?”

“Certainly; the weekly supply is nearly double what it was six months ago.”

“Then of course we must be rich before long?”

“There is the possibility, but mines are uncertain things.” A pause, a scarcely suppressed yawn, then Owen turned on his heel. “I am going in, Gwladys; I don’t care to talk business out of business hours, and I want to have a chat with mother.”

His tone of easy indifference, coming so soon after seeing Nan’s suffering face, and hearing her words of intense anxiety, half maddened me. I know I forgot myself. I ran forward and caught his arm, and made him look me full in the face. No fear then, as he gazed at my crimsoning cheek and angry eye, that he should say I lacked my childhood’s enthusiasm.

“You are not going in yet,” I said, “for I have got something to say to you – something, I repeat, which I will say. You need not pretend to me, Owen, that we are not getting rich, for I know we are. But I ask you one question, Is it right that we should have this money at the risk of the colliers’ lives? is it right, in order that we should have a little more gold, that the coal pillars should be cut away, until the roofs are in danger of falling? and is it right that the timber supports should be made thinner than is safe? All this adds to our money, Owen; is it right that we should grow rich in that way?”

“Good God! Gwladys;” a pause, then vehemently, “How dare you say such things to me! who has been telling you such lies?”

“I won’t mention the name of the person who has told me the truth, but I have heard it through the colliers; the colliers themselves are speaking of it.”

Owen covered his face with his hand; he was trembling, but whether with anger or pain, I could not say. I stood silent, waiting for him to speak; he did not, perhaps for two minutes; those minutes watching his trembling hand, seemed like twenty.

“You and the colliers have both made a mistake,” he said then; “they have exaggerated notions of the necessary thickness of the coal pillars. I never have them worked beyond what is safe. As to the timber supports, they are measured with the nicest mathematical accuracy. You and they both forget that I am an engineer, that I work the mine with a knowledge which they cannot possess. Good God! to think that I am capable of risking willingly men’s lives to win gold; to think that you, Gwladys, should believe me capable of it; but you are not what you were. Once, such words could never have been said to you of me. You are changed to me utterly, and I am utterly disappointed in you.” He pushed his hat over his eyes, and before I could reply was several paces away, walking rapidly in the direction of the still romantic and once beautiful Rhoda Vale.

Chapter Thirteen

Pride’s Pit

During the long and dull winter months which preceded this spring, I had been gradually, yet surely, sinking into a state of indifference about Owen. What had commenced with a sense of poignant pain, had by this time subsided into at most an uncomfortable feeling of dissatisfaction. I knew there was a chord in my heart which when struck could set my whole nature out of tune. But was it not possible, in the airs which life played, she might leave this harsh note unsounded? This possibility took place. During the winter months mother, Owen, and I spent together, I grew accustomed to being near and yet far from him.

Our little home was very bright, a cloud which I had but dimly and unawares partaken in for years, had been removed. Why should not I too enjoy this season of serenity and bliss? Calling pride to my aid, I did enjoy it. I even loved Owen, not in the old way, but with a very considerable affection. I tried to forget all the past, to give him a place in my heart beside mother and David. And in a measure I was successful, in a measure I put out of sight the ugly cloud, the dark disappointment which had shattered my air castle, and made my childhood’s hero dust. So by the hearth on winter evenings, I listened to brilliant stories from Owen’s lips, stories of his foreign experience, of things he had learned when studying in the German mines; tales of adventure, funny nothings dropped from his lips at these times, pleasant things to listen to, and to think of afterwards, when I lay curled up in my warmly-curtained bed. But though Owen’s mind directed his words at these times, imagination supplying the needful colour, a due sense of either absurdity or pathos supplying the necessary point, a musical voice adding intensity to the narrative; yet I think he waited until I had gone to bed, to let his heart speak. Then how near may mother and he have drawn, how truly, in a figurative sense, did the hand of one take the hand of the other, did the soul of one respond to the soul of the other, as they whispered of hopes and fears, of a dark past to be atoned for and wiped away by a bright future! For never, never once during the winter, did Owen’s heart speak to my heart; never, until now, to-day – now, when it leaped up into his eyes, and addressed me with a passionate cry of pain. My whole heart responded to those words, to that bitter cry; trembling I ran up to my room and locked myself in, trembling I threw myself on my bed, fought and wrestled for a few moments with my tears, then let them come. Strange as it may seem, my tears flowed with as much pleasure as sorrow. I had made a discovery in that bitter moment. Owen still loved me. Owen had not forgotten the old days. This was a pleasure to me, this was a joy, greater than my pain; for I had made so sure that it had all passed from him, all the old happy life, the old day dreams. Now, for the first time, holding my hands before my burning, tear-dimmed eyes, did it occur to me, that I too had sinned. Owen had not forgotten me, that was plain; perhaps during the sad years of his exile, some of his softest and best thoughts had been given to the child, whose warm love, whose quick appreciation and sympathy, whose unselfish attentions had won so much from him in his boyhood and youth. However or in whatever way he had sinned, he had never forgotten his home or his own people; as soon as possible he had returned to them, not to idle, but to work, and so to work that he might atone for the past. No, Owen had not returned perfect, but was I perfect? How had I treated him – with any true love, with any real sympathy? Alas! he had looked for it, and had been – he himself told me to-day – bitterly disappointed.

And of what had I not accused him? How I admired him with something of the old admiration, something of the old hero-worship, as the stinging words of indignant denial dropped from his lips. He do so base, so cruel, so wicked a thing! how could I possibly so misunderstand him! I sat up on my bed, I wished earnestly then to put Owen in the right, and myself in the wrong, but try as I would, I could not quite come to this wished-for conclusion. Nan’s words had not been the only hints I had received. I saw daring the winter months, that the great popularity with which Owen had been received on his first arrival, had hardly abated, but still was clouded and tempered with a scarcely perceptible tone of dissatisfaction. The last manager had been most inefficient; in his time the mine was badly worked, it also was dangerous. Owen had begun promptly to remedy both these defects. The question now was, which did he care most for, the gold he would win from the mine, or the safety he would secure for the people? and the evil thought, kept coming and coming, he thinks most of the gold, he values the gold more than the lives of the men!

This evil thought had been with me for weeks past; not stirring into active life, lying, indeed, so dormant that it scarcely gave me pain, but none the less had it been there. And now, to-day, this living thing had leaped to the surface of my mind, had trembled in my voice and glittered in my eye, and I had accused Owen of what I suspected.

With what an agony of pain, and yet joy, I recalled his unfeigned anger, distress, reproach, that I should think of him so, that any one could accuse him of so base an act. As I recalled his look, his face, his words, the old love which I had thought dead, came surging back. I had, I must have been mistaken; the colliers and I both, in our ignorance, had misunderstood Owen, the safety of their lives was his first consideration. But what an unaccommodating thing is memory! how impossible it is to make her fit herself to existing circumstances, what ugly tricks she was playing me now! Event after event, each small in themselves, came crowding up before me, pointing every one of them with inexorable finger to one fact. Of wilful and purposeful neglect it would be wrong to accuse Owen. He wished to do all in his power to secure the safety of the colliers’ lives, but money in his heart of hearts ranked first. I found at last a solution of the problem which relieved my pain, without satisfying me. Owen wished to do right, he meant to do right; but the easy carelessness which had characterised his boyhood had not deserted his manhood. He meant to do well for the colliers, but careless of danger for himself, he might be for them also; and yet, how fatal and disastrous, now and then, were the effects of carelessness! At this moment one very prominent instance of Owen’s want of thought rose before me. There was an old used-up mine, known in the country by the name of Pride’s Pit, which adjoined the mine at present being worked at Ffynon. Close to this old pit lived the under-viewer and his family. A not very desirable residence was theirs for this reason, that the old shaft leading into the pit had never been filled up; and making it all the more dangerous, it was, from long disuse and neglect, nearly covered by a thick growth of weeds and brushwood, so that an unwary traveller might step into the mine before he was aware. This old shaft for every reason was dangerous, as its open mouth let in the rain and helped to fill the pit beneath with water, which water might by an untoward accident, a boring away of too much of the coal, help at any moment to inundate the larger mine. It was at present the terror of the young wife of the under-viewer, who had three small children, and who was never weary of warding them off the dangerous ground.

On the dismissal of the late manager, the young woman who lived in this cottage had come with her complaint to David, and had begged of him to use his influence with his brother to have the dangerous shaft filled up. David had assured her that this should be one of the first steps in the general reformation. When Owen came, I heard David speak to him on the subject, and Owen promised to have all that was necessary done without delay. I am quite sure Owen meant what he said, but in the absorbing interest of more engrossing work, month after month went by, and Pride’s Pit still remained with its open shaft. A fortnight ago, I was walking with Owen, when poor Mrs Jones met us with tears in her eyes, “Was nothing going to be done to the shaft, her baby had nearly been killed there a few days since.”

Owen was really sorry, declared he had completely forgotten it, won Mrs Jones’s heart by his sweet graciousness and real regret, and promised to send round men to put the whole thing straight in the morning. Of course, he had done so by this time, but how great and unnecessary was the previous delay; suppose Mrs Jones’s baby had been killed, would Owen ever have forgiven himself?

After thinking these and many other thoughts, I had brushed my hair, bathed my eyes, and was preparing to go downstairs, when there came a tap at my door, and Gwen, carrying little David in her arms, came in. She placed the child on the floor, came to my side, and looked hard into my face. If ever there was a purpose written in any woman’s countenance it was in Gwen’s at this moment.

“Gwladys, my maid,” she said, “will you help your old nurse at a pinch?”

“Yes, that I will, Gwen,” I replied, heartily; “what is it you want me to do?”

“And you’ll keep it a secret, and never let it out to mortal?”

“Of course,” rather proudly.

“Well, then, ’twasn’t the fever brought me over here.”

“Oh! Gwen,” in a tone of some alarm, “what are you keeping back from me? is David ill?”