David's Little Lad

It was quite evident, from these words, that while I was in the darkness of despair with regard to Owen, Gwen was in the brightness of some hope. It was also evident that she had known for years what I only knew to-day, but I was too sore at heart to question her on this point now, though I turned eagerly to the consolation.

“How do you know that your prayers are answered?” I asked.

“Nay, Gwladys, I don’t say as they’re answered, but I have a good strong hope in the matter. Don’t it stand to common-sense, my maid, that I should have hope now; the lad is coming back to his own people, the lad is ready to work, honest and hard too, in the coalfields. Don’t it look, Gwladys, something like the coming home again of the prodigal?”

I was silent. Gwen’s words might be true, and she, even if she did love Owen as I loved him, might take the comfort of them. She who had known of the sorrow and pain for four years, might be glad now if she could; but I, who until a few hours before had placed Owen far above even the elder brother in the father’s house, how could I think of the repentant prodigal, in his rags and misery, without pain, how could I help failing to receive comfort! I little knew then, I little dreamt, that our rags and misery, our shame and bitter repentance, may often but lead us nearer to the Father and the Father’s home. If the storm alone can bring the child to nestle in the Father’s breast, surely the storm must be sent for good!

“Gwen,” I said, at last, “I think ’tis very hard.”

“What’s hard? my dear.”

“I think ’tis hard that this should have been kept from me all these years, that I should have been dreaming of Owen, and fancying good and glory, when ’twas all shame and evil. I think ’twas very bitter to keep it from me, Gwen.”

“Well, my dear, I’d have broke the news to you, and so I think would the Squire, but my mistress, she was so fearful that you’d fret – and – and – she knew, we all knew, how your heart was bound up with Mr Owen.”

“I think it is bitter to deceive any one,” I continued, “to let them waste love. Well, ’tis done now, it can’t be helped.” There was, I knew, a bitter tension about my lips, but my eyes were dry, they shed no more tears. I felt through and through my frame, that my hero was gone, my idol shattered into a thousand bits.

“Gwen,” I said, “I could not ask David to-day, but I had better know. I don’t mind pain. I’m not a child, and I’ve got to bear pain like every one else. What was it Owen did, Gwen, – what was his sin?”

“Nay, my dear, my dear, I can’t rightly tell you, I don’t rightly know, Gwladys. It had something to say to money, a great lot of money, and I know David saved him, David paid it h’all up and set him free. I don’t know what he did rightly, Gwladys, my maid, I never heard more than one little end and another little end, but I believe there was dishonour at the bottom of it, and ’twas that cut up the Squire, and I’m quite sure too, Gwladys, that the Squire never told my mistress the half; she thought ’twas all big debts that they must cramp the estate to pay, but ’twas more.”

“What was it?” I said, “I don’t want to be deceived again, I wish to know all.”

“I can’t tell you, my dear, I don’t know myself, ’tis only thoughts I have, and words Mistress Amy has dropped, but she did not mean me to learn anything by ’em. Only I think she felt bitter, when people called the Squire stingy, for she knew what an awful lot of money it took to clear Owen.”

“I must know all about it,” I said; “I shall ask David to tell me if you won’t.”

“My dear, I can’t, and I think, if I was you, I’d not do that.”

“Why?” I asked.

“My maid, isn’t it better to forget what you does know, than to try to learn more.”

“I don’t understand you, Gwen, what do you mean?”

“Why, this, my lamb, don’t you think when the Lord has forgiven the lad, that you may forgive him too, where’s the use of knowing more of the sin than you need to know, and where’s the use of ’ardening your ’art ’gainst the one you love best in the world?”

“Oh! I did love him, I did love him,” I sobbed passionately, all my calm suddenly giving way.

“Don’t say ‘did,’ my maid, you love him still.”

“But, Gwen,” I said, “he has sinned, the old, grand, noble Owen is never coming back. No, Gwen, I don’t love the man who brought disgrace and misery on us all – there – I can’t help it, I don’t.”

“Dear, dear,” said Gwen, beginning to smooth down her apron, and trying to stroke my hair, which I shook away from her hand. “What weak creatures we are! dear, dear, why ’tis enough to fret the Lord h’all to nothing, to hearken to us, a-makin’ idols one time o’ bits o’ clay, and then when we finds they ain’t gods for us to worship, but poor sinnin’ mortals like ourselves, a-turnin’ round and hating of ’em; dear, dear, we’re that weak, Gwladys, seems to me we can never have an h’easy moment unless we gets close up to the Lord.”

“I wish you wouldn’t preach,” I said, impatiently.

“No, my dear, I ain’t a-going, but, Gwladys, I will say this, as you’re wrong; you were wrong long ago, but you’re more wrong now; you did harm with the old love, but if you ain’t lovin’ and sisterly to Owen now, you’ll do harm as you’ll rue most bitter. I’m a h’ignorant, poor spoke woman, my maid, but I know as Owen will turn to you, and if you’ll be lovin’ to him, and not spoil him, as h’everybody but David has h’always bin a-doin’, why you may help on the work the good Lord has begun. But there, you’ll take what I says in good part, my dear, and now I may as well tell you what brought me in at this hour to see you.”

“Yes, you may tell me,” I said, but I spoke wearily, there was no interest in my voice.

“I thought how ’twould be,” continued Gwen, “I guessed how the maid would fret and fret, and when you turned me out of your room so sharp, I was fit to cry with the fear on me that you thought poor old Gwen had turned selfish, and ’ad an h’eye to her own comfort and meant to leave the Squire.

“Why, my dear, it stan’s to reason I should fret. Do I not remember the old time when the old mistress was alive, and when your mother came home a bride, so grand, and rich, and beautiful; and now to know that there’ll never be a woman of the house about, and only the Squire and the little blind darlin’ to live at Tynycymmer; but you’re right, Gwladys, ’twould never do to part the Squire and the little lad; and I was ’shamed o’ myself for so much as thinkin’ of it; and before I dropped asleep, with the baby close to me, so that I could see his little face, I made up my mind that I’d think no more of the lonesomeness, but stay at Tynycymmer, after you and my mistress went away. When I settled me to do that, I felt more comfort; but still, what with the feel of not seeing my maid every day, and being worried, and kissed, and made a fool of by her; and what with the thought that she had a sore heart of her own for Mr Owen’s sake, who was coming back so different from what she fancied; I was no way as easy in my mind as I am most nights. And ’twas that, Gwladys, and the moon being at the full, and me only asleep for a few minutes, that made me set such store by the dream.”

Gwen’s last words had been very impressive, and she and I believed fully in dreams.

“What was it?” I asked excitedly, laying my hand on her arm.

“Well, my dear; ’twas as vivid as possible; though by the clock, I couldn’t ’ave bin more’n five minutes dreamin’ it. I thought we had h’all gone away to the black coal country, where there’s never a green leaf or a flower, only h’everything black, and dear, dear! as dismal as could be; and I thought that David went down into one of those unearthly places they calls a mine. Down he would go, into a place not fit for honest men, and only meant for those poor unfortnets as ’ave to trade by it.”

“I mean to go into a mine when we live at Ffynon,” I interrupted.

“Then, my dear, I can only say as you’ll tempt Providence. Why, wot was mines invented for? Hasn’t we the surface of the earth, green and pleasant, without going down into its bowels; but there, Gwladys, shall I finish the dream?”

“Oh, yes!” very earnestly; “please go on.”

“Well, my maid; David, he went down into the mine, and we all waited on the surface to see him drawed h’up; and the chains went clankin’, and one after the other everybody came up out of the pit but David; and after a while we heard that David had gone a long way into the pit, and he couldn’t find his way back again; and the place where he went was very dangerous; and all the miners were cryin’ for the Squire, and they went down and they tried every mortal man of ’em to get him out of the mine; but there was a wind down below in that dreadful place louder than thunder, and when the men tried to get to where David was shut up, it seemed as if it ’ud tear ’em in pieces. So at last they one and all was daunted, and they said nothing could be done. Then, Gwladys, we all cried, and we gave the Squire up for lost, when suddenly, who should come to the pit’s mouth but Owen – Owen, with his breath comin’ hard and fast, and his eyes shinin’, and he said, ‘I’m not frighted; David saved me, and I’ll save David, or I’ll die!’ And with that, before anyone could hinder him, he went down into the dark, loathsome pit!”

“Well?” I said, for Gwen had paused.

“That’s h’all. I woke then. The rest was not revealed to me. When I woke, the cock crowed sharp and sudden, that made it certain.”

“What?” I asked, in an awe-struck, frightened voice.

“Why, ’twill come true, my maid. ’Twas sent to us for a comfort and a warnin’. If David saved Owen, Owen will save David yet.”

Chapter Seven

Very New and very Interesting

It is certainly possible when one is only sixteen to go to sleep in the depths of misery, and to awake after a few hours of slumber, with a heart, if not as light as a feather, yet quite sufficiently so, to enable one to dance, not walk, to eat with an appetite, and to laugh with more than surface merriment. These easily changed feelings may be reckoned as some of the blessings of this pleasant age.

At sixteen we have our sharp sorrows, but we have our equally keen pleasures, and it is quite impossible for us to be sad always.

So on the morning after Gwen had related to me her dream, though there were sore places which I could not quite bear to touch, somewhere about my heart, yet the leading fact which danced before my young eyes lay concentrated in the one word —change. We were going away, we were going to make another place our home; we would soon be in all the grand excitement of a move. I was very childish in the matter, for this experience was so new to me, so completely novel. I had never seen a house in the chaos of a removal. I had never seen furniture ruthlessly piled up in corners, beds in packing-cases, chairs and tables upside down, carpetless and straw-littered floors.

It must have been centuries since Tynycymmer had known such a revolution. Except in the attics, everything was in apple-pie order. Even the Tynycymmer attics were not half so disorderly as they should be. Regularly twice a year they were well cleaned out, and reduced to an alarming degree of niceness. The drawing-rooms, dining-room, study, library, were always destined to hold just their own furniture, and no other. And how proper and staid that old furniture looked! those chairs would never tumble down with one, those rather thread-bare carpets would fade and fade, it was true, until all brightness and beauty had left them, but how provokingly orderly they would keep, and how unnecessary it was to do anything to them except at the grand annual cleanings!

I have been so put out and so tired by the everlasting sameness of Tynycymmer, that on some of these exciting occasions, I have forced my way into the dethroned and disarranged rooms, tied the housemaid’s white apron over my hair, and flourished wildly about with a mop, never subsiding into rationalism until I had laid one or two articles of value in fragments at my feet.

But now we were going to have confusion grand and glorious, for the cottage at Ffynon was to be furnished with some of the superabundance of Tynycymmer.

Mother and David went through the old rooms many times, and everything that was small enough, and choice enough, and pretty enough, was marked to go. Mother and David both looked sad during these pilgrimages through the Tynycymmer rooms. But whenever David said, “Mother I should like you to have this, for such a corner,” or, “Mother, we will put this in Owen’s room,” she just bent her stately head in acquiescence, and said, “It shall be as you wish, my son.”

So the rare cases of old china went away, and the choicest landscapes were removed from the walls; only the family portraits remained in the portrait gallery, and a painter’s proof of Noel Paton’s “Mors Janua Vitae,” which David and Amy had brought home after their wedding tour, was left undisturbed in David’s study.

Then the waggons came, old-fashioned, slow, and cumbersome, and the furniture was stowed in, and Gwen and mother and David went to and fro.