David's Little Lad

“’Tis often a sore bit of road,” continued Gwen, “sore and rough walkin’, but when the Father is waiting for us at the top of the way; waiting and smiling, with arms outstretched, why then we go on even through death itself to find Him.”

“And when we find Him?” I asked.

“Ah! my maid, when we find Him, ’tis much the same, I think, as when the shepherd overtook the lost lamb; the lamb lies down in the shepherd’s arms, and the child in the Father’s, ’tis much the same.”

I lay back again on my pillow; Gwen covered me up, kissed me tenderly, and went away. I lay quiet for a few moments, then I sat up in bed, pressed my hands on my cheeks, and looked out through the window, at the white sky and shining moon. I looked eagerly and passionately. I had been sleepy; I was not sleepy now. After a time of steady gazing into the pitiless cold heavens, I began to cry, then out of my sobs two words were wrung from me, “My Father.” Never was there a girl more surrounded by religious influences, and yet less at heart religious than I. This was the first time in my whole life that I really felt a conscious want of God. The wish for God and the longing to understand Owen, to be reconciled to Owen, came simultaneously, but neither were very strong as yet. As yet, these two wants only stirred some surface tears, and beat on the outer circle of my heart. I knew nothing of the longing which would even go through the valley of the shadow of death to the Father, nothing of the love which would care a thousand times more for Owen because he had sinned and had repented. I wanted God only a little, my cry was but from the surface of my heart, still it was a real cry, and had more of the true spirit of prayer in it than all the petitions I had made carelessly, morning and evening since my babyhood.

After a time I lay down, and, tired out, went to sleep. I did not sleep easily, I had confused dreams of Owen, of little David, of Gwen. Then I had a distinct vision. I saw the children of the under-viewer, playing on the place where the shaft leading down into Pride’s Pit had been; the ground was smooth, the danger was past, the children played happily and shouted gleefully. Two of them ran to tell their mother, the baby stayed to throw gravel into the air. All looked secure, but it was not so; as I watched, I suddenly perceived that the work was badly done, the place only half filled up; as I watched, I saw the loose stones and rubbish give way, and the baby sink into the loathsome pit below; although I was quite close, I could hold out no hand to save the under-viewer’s baby.

Chapter Fifteen

That Man was Owen

Tired with my two days’ early rising, I did not get up until late. I had nearly finished dressing, and was standing by my window, when I heard a woman’s voice calling me in muffled tones below.

My room looked to the back of the house, and the woman had come to the inside of a thick fuchsia-hedge, which here divided the cottage, and its tiny surroundings, from the road.

Looking out, I saw the under-viewer’s wife, gazing up with clasped hands and a white face.

“For the love of God, come down to me quietly, Miss Morgan.”

The pain and anguish in the woman’s face communicated part of her intelligence to me. I knew there was great and urgent need for me to go downstairs without anybody hearing. The immediate action which this required, prevented my feeling any pain. I stood by the woman, looked hard into her eyes, and said, “Well?”

“Dear heart, you must know it,” she said, taking my hand. “Come with me.”

She almost pushed me before her through the little gate; when we got on the high road, she began to run. I knew that she was going in the direction of Pride’s Pit. My strangely vivid dream returned to me. Here was a solution of the mystery. I believed in dreams – this dream was not accidental. It had been sent to me as a warning – it was true. Owen had neglected to have the shaft, leading into Pride’s Pit, filled up, and the under-viewer’s child had fallen a victim to this neglect. The child had fallen down the old shaft. He was dead, and the mother was bringing me now to show me face to face what my brother’s carelessness had effected. The life of a little child was sacrificed. I was to see for myself what Owen had done. I felt sure of this. The woman ran very fast, and I kept pace by her side. The distance was over half a mile, and partly up-hill. When we came to the ascent, which was rather steep, we could not go quite so quickly, and I had time to look in the woman’s face. It was hard and set, the lips very white, the eyes very staring. She neither looked at me nor spoke. It came into my heart that she was cruel, even though her child was dead, to hurry me forward without one word of warning: to show me, without any preparation, what my brother had done. I would not be treated so. I would not face this deed without knowing what I was to see. The instant I made this resolution, I stood still.

“Stop!” I said. “I will know all. Is the baby dead?”

The woman stood still also, pressing her hand on her labouring breast. “Dear heart! she knows,” she gasped. “Yes, yes, my dear – the baby’s dead.”

I did not say I was sorry, nor a single word. I simply, after my momentary pause, began to run harder than ever. We had now got in sight of the pit, and I saw a little crowd of people about it. Some men in their miners’ dresses, a boy or two, a larger proportion of women. I half expected the men, women, and children to curse me as I drew near. We ran a little faster, and the woman’s panting breath might have been heard at some distance. Suddenly a boy caught sight of us, and detaching himself from the group, ran to the woman’s side.

“Does she know?” he exclaimed, catching her hand almost frantically. “She must not see without knowing.”

The boy, who spoke in a voice of agony, was Miles Thomas.

“Yes,” replied the woman; “she guessed it herself. She knows that the baby’s dead.”

“Thank God!” said the boy. I looked from one face to the other. I could not help pitying myself, as though it were my sorrow. I thought the boy’s tone the kindest – he should take me to see the murdered child. Suddenly I changed my mind. Why should I need or look for compassion. The mother had come all this way to punish me and mine – the mother’s just revenge should not be foiled. When we got into the group, I took her hand.

“You shall show him to me,” I said. “You shall show me your little dead baby.”

There was a pause on all sides – one or two people turned aside. I saw a woman put her apron to her face, and heard a man groan. Every eye was fixed on me, and, at the same moment, the under-viewer’s wife and Miles went on their knees, and began to sob.

“Oh! my darling; you are wrong – you have made a mistake,” began the woman.

“I felt she did not, could not know,” sobbed Miles.

The crowd opened a little more, and I went forward. Very near the mouth of the old shaft, lying on a soft bed of grass and undergrowth, was a woman – a woman with a face as white as death. I went up close to her, and gazed at her steadily. Her face looked like death, but she was not dead – a moan or two came through white lips. By the side of the woman, stretched also flat, lay a child; his hat was thrown by his side, and one little leg was bare of shoe and stocking. A white frock was also considerably soiled, and even torn. I took in all these minor details first – then my eyes rested on the face. I went down on my knees to examine the face, to note its expression more attentively. On the brow, but partly concealed by the hair, was a dark mark, like a bruise, otherwise the face was quiet, natural, life-like. A faint colour lingered in the cheeks; the lips were parted and smiling.

The woman was groaning in agony. The child was quiet – looking as a child will look when he has met with a new delight. I laid my hand on the little heart – it never stirred. I felt the tiny pulse – it was still. The injured and suffering woman was Gwen. The dead baby was not the under-viewer’s child, but David’s little lad.

I took no further notice of Gwen, but I kept on kneeling by the side of the dead child. I have not the least idea whether I was suffering at this moment; my impression is that I was not. Mind, body, spirit, were all quiet under the influence of a great shock. I knew and realised perfectly that little David was dead; but I took in, as yet, no surrounding circumstances. Finding that I was so still, that I neither sobbed nor groaned – in fact, that I did nothing but gaze steadily at the dead child, the under-viewer’s wife knelt down by my side, and began to pour out her tale. She did this with considerable relief in her tone. When she began to speak, Miles also knelt very close to me, and laid his hand with a caressing movement on my dress. I was pleased with Miles’ affection – glad to receive it – and found that I could follow the tale told by the under-viewer’s wife, without any effort.

I mention all this just to show how very quiet I not only was in body, but in mind.

“No, the shaft was never filled in,” began the woman. “I waited day after day, but it was never done; and little Ellen, and Gwenllynn, and the baby, they seemed just from contrariness to h’always want to go and look over the brink. And what made it more danger, was the brambles and grass, and growth of h’all kinds, which from never being cut away, has got thicker year by year; so that coming from that side,” pointing west with her finger, “you might never see the old shaft at all, but tumble right in, and know nothing till you reach the bottom. Well, I was so frighted with this, and the contrariness of the children, that finding Mr Morgan had forgot again to have the shaft filled in, or closed round, only last night I spoke to my husband, and begged him to cut away some of the rankest of the growth, as it war, what it is, a sin and a shame to have the shaft like a trap, unknown to folks; but my husband, he war dead tired, and he knowed that I’m timmersome, so he only said, ‘Let be, woman – let be.’ And this morning he was away early – down to the mine. Well,” after a long pause, “I had done my bit o’ work. I had dressed the baby – bless him – and given Ellen and Gwenllynn their breakfast, and I was standing by the house door, my eye on the old shaft, and my mind set on the thought that I might put up a fence round it myself, so as to ward off the children, when sudden and sharp – almost nigh to me – I heard a woman scream, and looking, I saw a woman running for her bare life, and screaming and making for my cottage; and she had a child in her arms; and sudden, when I saw her, I knew who she was, and why she was running. I knew she was the nurse of Squire Morgan’s little son, and that she had the child with her. I knew she had been to the eye-well, for the cure of the sight of the baby, and that she was coming by this short cut home. And she never knew that she’d have to pass through the field with Mr Daniels’ bull. Well, I saw her running, and the bull after her, but he was a good way behind; and I thought she’d reach the cottage. And I shouted out to encourage her; when all on a heap, it flashed on me, that she was making straight for the shaft, and that she’d be right down in the pit, if I couldn’t stop her. Just then, two men came up, and turned the bull aside, but she didn’t know it, and kept on running harder and harder. ‘Stop!’ I shouted. ‘Stop! you’ll be down in the mine’; but she neither heeded nor heard me, and she went right through the thicket and the underwood. I heard it cracking under her feet. I saw her fall, and scream more piercing than h’ever.” Another pause from the narrator – then in a breathless kind of way, “I war at the other side o’ the pit in a twinkling. She had not gone down – not quite. Her head was above the ground, and she was holding on for bare life to a bit of underwood. She could only hold with one hand; the other was round the child. In one second she’d have been down, for the weight was too much, when I threw myself on my face and hands, and grasped the baby’s frock. ‘Hold the tree with both hands,’ I said, ‘and I’ll keep the baby.’ Poor soul! she looked up at me so anguish-like; but she did what I bid her, or they’d both have gone down. I was drawing up the baby, when a loose stone came tumbling – it was not much, it but hit him sharp on the temple. He never cried out, but his head dropped all on a sudden. When I got him to the top, he was dead. I laid him on the bank, and just then the men who had turned away the bull, came up, and they lifted the woman out of the shaft – one of her legs was broke!”

The under-viewer’s wife paused to wipe the moisture from her brow. Just then little feet came pattering, and the living child of the under-viewer, about whom I had grieved and dreamt, came up and looked down at the dead child of my brother. The face of the living baby gazed solemnly at the face of the dead baby. Nobody interrupted him, and he sat down and put, half in play, as though expecting an answering touch, his plump hand on the little hand that was still. At this moment there was a commotion in the crowd, then profound stillness, then a giving way on all sides, and a man’s hasty footsteps passed rapidly through our midst. Up straight to where the dead child was lying, the man came. He bent his head a little – he saw no other creature. This man was Owen. For about half a minute he was still. Then from his lips came one sharp cry – the sharpest cry of anguish I ever heard from mortal lips – then he rushed away.

Chapter Sixteen

The Little Lad

“Mother,” I said, “I will go to Tynycymmer, and tell David.”

“No, no, my dear child; you are not able.”

“Mother, some one must tell him; you have to stay here to take care of poor Gwen when they bring her home, and perhaps Owen will come back. Mother, I will tell David, only I may tell him in my own way, may I not?”

“As you please, my child, my child!”

Mother put her head down on the table and began to sob.

I kissed her. I was not crying. From the first I had never shed a tear. I kissed mother two or three times, then I went out and asked Miles, who had followed me home, to get the horse put to Owen’s dog-cart; when the dog-cart was ready, I kissed mother again and got into it.

“Come with me, Miles,” I said to the boy.

The bright colour mounted to his cheeks, he was preparing to jump into the vacant seat by my side, when suddenly he stopped, his face grew pale, and words came out hurriedly —

“No, I mustn’t, I’d give the world to, but I mustn’t.”

“Why not, when I ask you? you needn’t go into the mine to-day.”

“Perhaps not to work, but I must, I must wait for Mr Morgan; I must take him into the mine.”

“Well, I cannot stay,” I said impatiently; “tell Williams to take me to the railway station at P – .” As I drove away I had a passing feeling that Miles might have obliged me by coming, otherwise, I thought no more of his words. After a rapid drive I reached the railway station; I had never travelled anywhere, I had never gone by rail alone in my life, but the great pressure on my mind prevented my even remembering this fact. I procured a ticket, stepped into the railway carriage, and went as far in the direction of Tynycymmer as the train would take me. At the little roadside station where I alighted, I found that I could get a fly. I ordered one, then went into the waiting-room, and surveyed my own image in a small cracked glass. I took off my hat and arranged my hair tidily; after doing this, I was glad to perceive that I looked much as usual, if only my eyes would laugh, and my lips relax a little from their unyouthful tension? The fly was ready, I jumped in; a two-mile drive would bring me to Tynycymmer. Hitherto in my drive from Ffynon, and when in the railway carriage, I had simply let the fact lie quiescent in my heart that I was going to tell David. Now, for the first time, I had to face the question, “How shall I tell him?” The necessary thought which this required, awoke my mind out of its trance. I did not want to startle him; I wished to break this news so as to give him as little pain as possible. I believed, knowing what I did of his character, that it could be so communicated to him, that the brightness should reach him first, the shadow afterwards. This should be my task; how could I accomplish it? Would not my voice, choked and constrained from long silence, betray me? Of my face I was tolerably confident. It takes a long time for a young face like mine to show signs of grief; but would not my voice shake? I would try it on the driver, who I found knew me well, and was only waiting for me to address him. Touching his hat respectfully, the man gave me sundry odds and ends of information. “Yes, Mr Morgan was very well; but there had been a good deal of sickness about, and little Maggie at the lodge had died. Squire Morgan was so good to them all; he was with little Maggie when she died.”

“Did Maggie die of the fever?” I asked.

“Yes, there was a good deal of it about.”

“And was it not infectious?”

“Well, perhaps so, but only amongst children.”

I said nothing more, only I resolved more firmly than ever to break the news gently to David.