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Gladys, the Reaper

by Anne Beale · English · Gutenberg #15315 · 966,457 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Gladys, the Reaper

Author: Anne Beale


        
Release date: March 10, 2005 [eBook #15315]
                Most recently updated: December 14, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15315

Credits: E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Martin Pettit, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GLADYS, THE REAPER ***


E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Martin Pettit, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team



GLADYS, THE REAPER

by

ANNE BEALE

Author of _Fay Arlington_, _Simplicity and Fascination_,
_The Miller's Daughter_, etc. etc.




... standing like Ruth amid the alien corn




Griffith Farran Browne & Co. Limited
35 Bow Street, Covent Garden
London

1881







[Illustration: Frontispiece.]





CHAPTER I.

THE FARMER'S WIFE.


It is an evening in June, and the skies that have been weeping of late,
owing to some calamity best known to themselves, have suddenly dried
their eyes, and called up a smile to enliven their gloomy countenances.
The farmers, who have been shaking their heads at sight of the unmown
grass, and predicting a bad hay-harvest, are beginning to brighten up
with the weather, and to consult upon the propriety of mowing to-morrow.
The barometer is gently tapped by many a sturdy hand, and the result is
favourable; so that there are good prospects of a few weeks' sunshine to
atone for the late clouds.

Sunshine: how gracious it is just now! Down yonder in the west, that
ancient of days, the sun throws around him his evening glory, and right
royally he does it. The rain-covered meadows glow beneath it, like so
many lakes--the river looks up rejoicing, and the distant mountains are
wrapped in garments dyed in the old king's own regal colours. The woods
look as smooth and glossy as the braided locks of maidens prepared for
conquests; and the roads and paths that wind here and there amongst the
trees, are as gay as little streamlets in the sun's reflected light.

Suddenly a rainbow leaps, as it were, out of the river, and spans, with
its mighty arch, the country scene before us.

     'A rainbow at night
      Is the shepherd's delight;'

so the proverbially-grumbling farmers will have another prognostic to
clear their countenances.

Perchance the worthy man who inhabits the farm we have just reached, may
be congratulating himself upon it, as he jogs home from market this
Saturday evening. If he could look upon his homestead with our eyes, I
feel sure he would cease to despond. How cheerily the wide, slated roof
gleams forth from amongst the trees, and returns the warm glance of the
sun with one almost as warm, albeit proceeding from a very moist eyelid!
How gladly the white smoke arises once more, spirally, from the large
chimneys, after having been so long depressed by the heavy atmosphere!
and how the massive ivy that covers the gable end, responds to the songs
of the birds that warble their evening gladness amongst its gleaming
leaves! The face of the dwelling is as cheerful as are the sun, river,
mountains and meads, that it looks down upon from its slight elevation.
Every leaf of the vine and pyrus-japonica that covers its front, is
bedecked with a diamond; and the roses, laburnums, nasturtiums, and
other gay flowers in the garden, drop jewels more freely than the maiden
in the fairy tale, as they glisten beneath the rainbow.

This is what we see from the hawthorn lane below the house; but walking
up into the highroad at the back, the scene changes, and just as our
sympathies with beautiful nature were called forth below, so are they
instantaneously assailed by our fellow-creatures above.

We come to the substantial gate that is the entrance to the pretty farm,
and a curious and a motley group is there. We see such groups almost
daily, here in Carmarthenshire; but as all the counties of England and
Wales are not thoroughfares for the Irish from their country to England,
we will describe these poor people as graphically as we can. There is
evidently a consultation going on amongst them, and the general
attention is directed to one individual of their party.

This is a young girl of some seventeen or eighteen years of age. She is
seated on the ground, and leans her back against the stone wall that
flanks the substantial gate afore mentioned. To judge from her general
appearance she can scarcely belong to the ragged set that surround her,
for there is an attempt at neatness and cleanliness in her attire,
though it is poor enough, that the rest cannot boast of. She wears a
cotton gown, shawl, straw bonnet, and shoes and stockings, which were
once respectable and seem to have been originally intended for her.
True, they are all worn and shabby-looking. The gown is faded, the
bonnet very brown, and the shoes have holes in them; but they indicate
a mind, or station, at least a degree above those of her companions. Her
head is so inclined upon her breast, that it is difficult to see more
than a pale face underneath the bonnet; but a pair of thin white hands
that rest listlessly upon her lap, still tend to induce the notion that
the girl cannot quite belong to the wild-looking company with which she
is mixed up.

Right in front of her, and looking alternately from her to a man to whom
she is talking, stands a middle-aged woman of good-natured but terrified
aspect. A checked and ragged handkerchief confines her black, rough
hair--a torn red cloak covers a portion of her body, and a curious
collection of rags and tatters makes a vain effort to shelter the rest.
In the large hood of the red cloak a hardy-looking infant is tied up,
its little head and hand being alone visible, which are engaged in
munching and holding a crust of bread. At the feet of the woman are
sundry articles, amongst which a bundle of rags, an iron pot, and a tin
saucepan, are the most conspicuous. The man to whom she is talking is a
tall, gaunt specimen of Irish poverty and famine. He holds a rake and
pitchfork in his hand, and leans upon them for support. Gazing into his
face is a rough, surly-looking youth, who seems cordially to agree with
all that he says.

Leaning against the wall that flanks the gate on the side opposite that
which supports the girl, are another man and woman, who cast from time
to time pitying glances at the pale face beneath the straw bonnet. These
are as raggedly picturesque in their attire as the rest--a short red
petticoat, a blanket substituted for a shawl, and a bundle on the back,
distinguish the female; a long great coat and short trousers the male.
They are deep in conversation upon the common theme. A young man of more
stalwart figure stands beside the girl, and failing to attract her
attention, kneels down on one knee and speaks low to her. A little boy
is seated at her feet, alternately stroking her hands, and stirring up a
small puddle of water with a short stick. Two other children are engaged
at a little distance in making a lean cur beg for a mouthful of bread,
which the generous urchins would evidently rather share with the dog
than eat alone.

The one prevailing feature of the party is rags, and how they hold
together no tongue can tell.

At last there is a general movement, as well as general clamour of
voices and much gesticulation. All, old and young, with the exception of
the girl, gather round the woman in the red cloak, and seem to be urging
her to do something that she does not like to do. They point to the
girl, and the appeal is not in vain.

The woman moves slowly and somewhat sulkily towards one of the boys,
takes him by the hand, and returning to the gate, opens it, and walks
down the good broad road that leads to the farm, the boy trotting by her
side. We watch the bright red cloak till it disappears amongst the trees
that surround the house; and turn again to wonder what can be the matter
with the girl. She neither moves nor speaks, although her kindly
companions in turn endeavour to attract her attention.

In the course of a few minutes the red cloak is again seen coming up the
road, closely followed by another figure. We soon hear sounds of earnest
pleading, in a broad Irish brogue, from our friend of the red cloak. As
they approach the gate sound distinctly the words,--

'It's all thrue, my leddy--as thrue as the blessed gospel. I'm afeered
she's dyin' if yer honour's glory won't lend us a hand.'

'I don't know how to believe you, my good woman, for some of you come
every week and deceive me with all kinds of stories.'

'An' she's Welsh, yer honour. She's come to find out her friends, my
leddy! God bless ye, ye've a kind eye and a gintle voice,'

Red cloak spoke the truth. The woman who is now added to the group has
truly 'a kind eye and a gintle voice.' She is short and small of form,
of middle age and matronly appearance; neatly and even handsomely
dressed, as becomes the mistress of one of the largest and wealthiest
farms of a country where large farms are rare. She has a handsome,
placid face, and looks as if the world had moved on quietly and happily
ever since she had been on its surface. Her dark eyes, that must once
have been bright and piercing, are softened down to gentleness by the
quieting hand of time; and the black hair is slightly streaked with
white by the same unsparing fingers. But for this, age would seem to
have little to do with the comely dame who is now bending her
neatly-attired head before the shabby-looking girl against the wall,

'What is the matter with you, my poor girl?' says the 'gintle voice,'

These kind words have a power that the equally kind ones of the rough
friends around had not. The brown straw bonnet is raised from the
breast, and we perceive that the girl is neither dead nor sleeping. We
perceive something more--a pair of the most painfully melancholy, and
beautiful violet eyes that we ever looked into, which are languidly
uplifted to the farm-lady. With the words, 'I am very tired, ma'am,' the
eyes reclose, and we see long black fringes of soft hair rest upon the
pale, thin cheek. The ready tear of compassion springs to the matron's
eyes, as she stoops still lower to feel the pulse in the wan hand.

'What is the matter with her?' she inquires, turning to the bystanders.

'Tis tiert all out she is, my leddy. We come by say from Watherford to
Milford, and thin, yer honour, we come on foot all trough Pembrokeshire,
and County Carmarthin, and now she's jist kilt.'

'But what is she going to do? Why do you come away from Ireland at all?'

'Och, my leddy, shure we're starvin' there. And we jist come to luk for
the work in the harvest, an' we're goin' to Herefordshire to git it. An'
plaase yer honour's glory, she come wid us to this counthry to luk for
her mother's relations that's Welsh, my leddy, small blame to thim,
seein' her mother married an Irishman, and come to live in our
counthry.'

'I will give you a night's lodging, and that is all I can do for you,'
says the gentle mistress of the farm.

'The Lord bless ye, my leddy, the holy angels keep ye, the blessed
Vargin and all the saints--'

'Oh, hush! hush!' exclaims the good woman, highly shocked. 'Help the
poor girl, and come with me.'

The woman went towards the girl, and trying to assist her to rise,
said,--

'Now, Gladys, asthore! An' shure, my leddy, she's a thrue Welsh name.
I'll help ye, my darlin', there! Och! an it's betther she is already, as
soon as she heerd of a night's lodgin'.'

The young man who was kneeling by the girl just now, goes to her other
side, and succeeds in supporting her by putting his arm round her waist,
whilst the woman holds her by one arm; and thus they follow the good
mistress of the farm, followed in their turn by the rest of the party.

They move slowly down the road, underneath the fine oak and ash trees
that shelter the back of the farm, until they reach a large farm-yard,
wherein some thirty fine cows, of Welsh, English, and Alderney breed,
are yielding their rich milk at the hands of some three or four
rough-looking men and women who are kneeling down to get it.

'Come here, Tom,' cries the mistress, authoritatively.

Tom gives a knowing wink to the nearest girl, mutters, 'Irish again,'
and goes to his mistress.

'See if there is good clean straw spread in the barn, Tom, and make
haste.'

Tom goes to a large building outside the farm-yard, whither his mistress
and the rest follow him.

'Plenty of straw, ma'am, good enough for such folk,' says Tom.

'Spread some more, and shut the window in the loft.'

This is done in a slow grumbling way.

The barn is a large, clean, airy building, that must look like a palace
to these ragged, way-worn people.

'Now you may sleep here to-night, provided you go off early and quietly
to-morrow morning. There is a good pump down below, where you can get
water to wash yourselves, and at eight o'clock I shall lock the barn
door; my husband always insists upon that.' Thus speaks the mistress.

'Heaven bless his honour, we're all honest. We wouldn't harm a hair of
your blessed heads. We heerd o' ye many a time, and o' the good lodgin'
and supper--the sun shine upon ye--ye give to the poor Irish on their
thravels.' Thus answers the Irishwoman.

'You tell one another then! And this is why we have more calls than any
one else!'

'The Lord love ye, and why wouldn't we? 'Tis the good as always gets the
blessin'.'

Whilst this little conversation is going on, the girl, Gladys, is laid
upon the shawl-blanket of the woman who wears that singular attire, and
a pillow, half rags, half straw, is contrived for her head. The bonnet
is taken off to increase her comfort, and, as her head falls languidly
back upon the rough pillow, a wan, thin face is disclosed, that, from
the regular outline of the profile, must be pretty, under happier
circumstances, and is interesting.

Whilst the guests prepare to make themselves comfortable in different
ways, the kindly farm-lady leaves them, amid many and enthusiastic
blessings, and returns to the house.

In less than half-an-hour she reappears, followed by a female servant,
both carrying tokens of a true hospitality that expects no return. She
goes towards the poor girl with a small basin of good broth and a plate
of toasted bread, such as might tempt the palate of a more dainty
invalid; whilst the servant places a can of real Welsh broth, smelling
strongly of the country emblem, the leek, in the midst of the hungry
crew who are scattered over the barn. To this she adds various scraps of
coarse bread and hard cheese, which she draws from a capacious apron,
and evidently considers too good for the luckless vagabonds before her.
She is soon, however, as much interested as her mistress in the sick
girl, to whom the latter is administering the warm restorative. Spoonful
after spoonful is applied to her lips, and greedily swallowed though
with evident effort. The toasted bread is soaked in a portion of the
broth, and is also devoured as speedily as offered, with an avidity made
still more painful by the difficulty of swallowing, occasioned by some
obstruction in the throat.

'God help you, poor girl,' says the good Samaritan, as she puts the
last mouthful to the lips of the patient.

The eyes unclose, and a tear falls upon the wan cheek, as a murmured,
'Thank you, my lady,' is faintly heard.

The 'lady' turns away with a heavy sigh, whilst the servant begins to
arrange the blanket-shawl and rags more comfortably, and finally takes
off her large linsey-woolsey apron to make a softer resting-place for
the head and neck of the girl. The grateful friends that stand around
now bless the servant as zealously as they blessed her mistress, and if
she understood the language in which the warm Irish hearts express their
gratitude, she would probably wonder who 'the Vargin and all the holy
saints and angels' are, that are invoked for her sake.

Again the farm-lady goes away, and returns bearing a small bottle of
medicine, that she bids the red-cloaked woman give the sick girl in
about an hour. She then leaves her patient and motley guests to their
supper and night's repose, followed by such prayers as the poor alone
know how to utter, and perhaps how to feel.






CHAPTER II.

THE FARMER.


The rainbow was a true prophet; the sun that went down so gloriously
last night amid the half-dried tears of a lately weeping earth, has
arisen this morning with a resolution to dry up all the remaining tears,
and to make the Sabbath as it should be--a day of rejoicing. Sunrise
amongst the hills and valleys! I wish we all saw it oftener. Not only
would the glorious spectacle make us wiser and better, but the early
rising would be not only conducive to health and good spirits, but to
the addition of a vast amount of time to the waking and working hours of
our very short life.

All nature arouses herself by degrees, as the great source of light
rises from his couch, curtained with rose and daffodil-coloured drapery.
As these gorgeous curtains spread east and west, and he takes his
morning bath in the clouds and vapours, rises up the proud monarch of
the farm-yard, as if in bold rivalry, outspreads his fine plumage in
emulation of the rose and daffodil curtains, and bids him welcome with a
voice so loud and shrill, that he must almost hear it from his domed
throne above. More arbitrary in his kingdom than the sun in his, this
grand Turk insists on arousing all his subjects; and the sleepy inmates
of his harem withdraw their heads from beneath their wings, and, one by
one, begin to smooth their feathers, and to descend lazily from their
dormitories. A faint twittering is heard amongst the ivy-leaves, in
answer to 'the cock's shrill clarion,' and in a few seconds, the little
sleepers amongst the oak and ash trees take it up, and by the time the
sun has come out of his bath, and the cock has ceased crowing, there is
a full chorus of heart stirring minstrelsy round about the quiet farm.
Down below in the meadow, the cattle begin to shake off the dew-drops
from their hides, and to send forth a plaintive low as they slowly seek
their early breakfast in the spangled grass, or by the steaming river.
Away among the hills, the faint bleat of the sheep echoes from heath to
heath, whilst their white fleeces dot the plains. Over the face of happy
nature creeps a glow that seems to come from the heart, and to make her
look up, rejoicing, to the sun as part of herself, and yet a type of the
Great Creator.

But whilst this Sabbath morning hymn thus rises, betimes, to the throne
of Him who sits beyond the sunbeams, tired man sleeps on. The farmer's
household is still slumbering, and after a week of hard labour, taking
an additional hour's repose on that day which was graciously appointed
as a day of rest. Scarcely can the sun peep in through the drawn
curtains and shutters of the windows, and no song of birds, or low of
cows, seems as yet to have reached the closed ears of the sleepers.
Master and men alike obtain the bounteous gift of sleep so often denied
to the less laborious rich.

We are wrong in supposing that all are slumbering in the farm-house.
Quietly the mistress steps out of the back door which she has
noiselessly opened, as if afraid of disturbing her household. As the
brisk little figure moves across the farm-yard, it is instantly
surrounded by a flock of poultry that seem intuitively to expect an alms
at her hand, as do the poor Irish who haunt her dwelling. But she has
nothing to give them thus early in the morning, and scarcely heeds their
cackling and crowing. The fierce house-dog, however, will be noticed as
bounding through the poultry, and knocking down one luckless hen, he
jumps upon his mistress, and almost oversets her also. The 'Down Lion,
down,' of the 'gintle voice,' serves only to make him more
demonstrative, as he gambols roughly on her path as she proceeds towards
the barn.

Mrs Prothero--such is the name of our farm-lady--had been haunted all
night long by visions of the poor Irish girl. She had not slept as
soundly as the other members of her family, because there was a
fellow-creature suffering within her little circle. Although she had
lived nearly fifty years in the world, and had been variously cheated
and imposed upon by beggars of all kinds, her heart was still open to
'melting charity,' and liable to be again and again deceived. As she
stopped before the barn door with the key in her hand, Lion began a low
growl. He could never get over his antipathy to Irish beggars, and all
his mistress's influence was necessary to prevent the growl becoming a
bark. She put her ear to the door and listened, but no sound disturbed
the stillness within. She knocked gently, but there was no answer. At
last she thought she heard a feeble voice say something which she
interpreted into 'Come in,' and she turned the key in the lock of the
door and opened the top half of it. She looked in, and saw all her
mendicant guests in profound repose, excepting the girl Gladys, who
endeavoured to rise as she perceived the kindly face, but fell back
again immediately. She unclosed the other half of the door, and
carefully excluding Lion, by shutting it after her, walked softly across
the barn to the rough couch on which Gladys lay. She appeared to be in
the same state of exhaustion as on the previous night; and if she had
noticed Mrs Prothero at all, the transient effort was over, and she
remained with closed eyes and listless form, whilst the good woman
looked at her and felt her pulse. Then her lips moved slightly, as if
wishing to say something, but emitted no sound. What was to be done for
one in such a helpless state? Mrs Prothero's kind heart sank within her.

As she did not like to disturb the weary wretches, who were sleeping so
soundly in their rags amongst the hay and straw, she prepared to leave
the barn; but as she moved away, the girl's eyes unclosed, and glanced
dimly at her through a film of tears. Nourishment seemed the only remedy
that presented itself to her mind. She smiled kindly at the girl,
murmured 'I will come again,' and went through the sleepers towards the
door, pausing, however, to look at the peaceful face of the baby, as it
lay on its mother's arm, covered with the old red cloak.

She returned to the house, and went to the clean, large dairy, where she
took a cup of the last night's milk, already covered with rich cream,
from a pan and went with it to the back kitchen, where was a fire, kept
up all night by means of the hard Welsh coal, and heat-diffusing balls.
She warmed the milk, procured a piece of fine white bread, and once more
returned to the barn.

She administered these remedies to her patient, who swallowed them with
the same avidity and difficulty as she had done the broth. She fancied
she again heard the words, 'God bless you, my lady,' but they were so
faint that she was not sure.

Again she threaded her way amongst the sleepers, and left the barn. She
went into her garden, and walked for a few moments amongst the flowers,
as if for council. The bees were beginning to hum about the hives, and
the butterflies to flit amongst the flowers. She stood and looked at the
beautiful scene before her--the woods, hills, river, and above, the
morning sun--and offered up a prayer and thanksgiving to the Giver of
all good things. Her thoughtful face brightened into a smile, and her
walk became more brisk as she left her garden, and went again into the
farm-yard.

The cow-man was bringing up the cows to be milked, and he looked
astonished as he greeted his mistress. So did the two ruddy, disheveled
farm maidens, who had barely turned out of their beds to milk the cows,
and had paid small attention either to their toilet or ablutions.

The house was perfectly quiet as she entered it, and she crept upstairs,
and into her bedroom very softly, for fear of disturbing any one.

'Where in the world have you been, my dear?' greeted her, in a gruff
voice from amongst the bed-clothes, that covered a large old-fashioned
bed, hung with chintz curtains.

'Go to sleep and don't trouble, Davy, _bach'_, [Footnote A Welsh term of
endearment, equivalent to 'dear,' pronounced like the German.] quietly
replied the brisk little dame.

'Go to sleep, indeed! Easier said than done, when one wakes up in a
fright, and finds you gone, nobody knows where. Now where _have_ you
been? You 'ont let one sleep, even of a Sunday morning.'

'Well, now, don't get into a passion, my dear--I mean, don't be angry.'

'What have I to be angry about when I don't know what you've been
doing?'

This was said in an injured tone, as if the heart under the bed-clothes
were softer than the voice.

'I didn't mean to say you were angry, only I thought--'

'You thought what?'

'Well, my dear, I have only just been across to the barn.' This was
uttered timidly and pleadingly, and as if our good housewife knew she
had been doing wrong.

Suddenly, a large red face started up from amongst the bed-clothes,
ornamented with a peculiarly-shaped white cap and tassel.

'Now you haven't been after them Irishers again?' exclaimed the owner
of the red face. 'The idle vagabonds! I vow to goodness that all our
money, and food and clothing, too, I believe, go to feed a set of
good-for-nothing, ragged rascals.'

'Hush, Davy! Remember they are God's creatures, and this is Sunday.'

'I don't know that. And if it's Sunday, why mayn't I sleep in peace?'

'Indeed, I am very sorry. But that poor girl I told you of is so ill!'

'Hang the poor girl! Then send her to the workhouse, and they'll give
her a lift home.'

'But if she has no home?'

'Then let her go to her parish.'

'But they don't seem to have any parishes in Ireland.'

'No parishes! I suppose that's the geography the vagabonds teach you?
Well you pay dear enough for your lessons. But I tell you what, Mary,
you just go and tell 'em all to decamp this minute.'

'But the girl is too weak and ill.'

'Then send her to the Union, I say, and they are bound to forward her.'

'But a Sunday! and the House miles away! Oh, Davy, we really cannot do
it to-day!'

'What with the Irish, and one charity and another, I declare there's no
peace in life! Name o' goodness, 'oornan, why do you harbour such folk?
If the girl's too ill to go on with her gang, they must leave her at the
Union, or else get the overseers to send for her.'

'Will you just go and look at her?'

'No, I 'ont, and that's plain speaking!'

Here the red face, and white night-cap and tassel, suddenly, disappeared
amongst the bed-clothes.

Mrs Prothero considered a few minutes, and again left the room, and went
to the barn. Here, all was confusion and consultation. They had tried to
help Gladys to rise, and the girl could not stand.

A clamour of voices assailed Mrs Prothero, who was bewildered by the
noise, and terrified at the remembrance of her husband.

'My good people, I don't know what to advise,' she said at last.

'She don't want to laive Carrmanthinshire, my leddy.'

'We'll be ruined intirely if we stop till she's cured, yer leddyship!'

'Niver a frind in the worrld, yer honour.'

'Her mother and father, sisthers and brothers, all dead of the faver
and the famine.'

'Nobody left but her relations in Carrmarrthinshire, and, maybe, they're
all dead and buried, yer honour's glory.'

'And what'll we do wid her, poor sowl?'

Mrs Prothero was looking compassionately on the poor girl, whilst
sentence upon sentence was poured into her ear; and as the death of her
relation was mentioned, she fancied she perceived a movement in her
seemingly impassive features. She opened her eyes, and looked at Mrs
Prothero, who went to her, and seeing her lips move, knelt down by her
side.

'Let them go, and send me to the workhouse, if you please, my lady,' she
murmured.

Mrs Prothero once more left the barn, promising to return shortly, and,
with trembling steps, again sought the apartment where her lord and
master was reposing. A very decided snore met her ear. She stood by the
bedside, and looked at the tassel, which was the only portion visible of
her better half. She sat down on a chair; she got up again; she fussed
about the room; she even opened the drawers and took out the Sunday
attire of that Somnus before her. But nothing she could do would arouse
him.

At last she gently touched the face. A louder snore was the only reply.
She gave a nervous push to the shoulder, and whispered into the
bed-clothes, 'My dear.'

'Well, what now?' growled the justly irritated sleeper.

'My dear, I am very sorry, but the poor girl is too ill to move, and I
really don't know what is to be done.'

'Upon my very deed, if you are not enough to provoke a saint!' broke out
Mr Prothero, now fairly sitting up in bed. 'If you will encourage
vagrants, get rid of 'em, and don't bother me. I'll tell you what it is,
Mrs Prothero, if all of 'em are not off the farm before I'm up, I'll
give 'em such a bit of my mind as 'll keep 'em away for the future; see
if I don't.'

Mrs Prothero saw that her husband was redder in the face than usual, and
she had a very great dread of putting him in a passion; still she
ventured one word more very meekly.

'But the girl, David?'

'What's the girl to you or me! we've a girl of our own, and half-a-dozen
servant girls. We don't want any more. Send her to the Union.'

'How can we send her?'

'Let the rascally Irish manage that, 'tis no affair of mine; but if you
bother me any more, I vow I'll take a whip and drive 'em, girl and all,
off the premises.'

'Very well, David,' said Mrs Prothero, submissively, and with a heavy
sigh: 'but if the girl should die?'

She walked across to the door, paused on the threshold, and glanced
back; but there was no change in the rubicund face. She went into the
passage, and slowly closed the door, holding the handle in her hand for
a few seconds as she did so. She walked deliberately down the passage,
pausing at each step. Before she was at the end of it, a loud voice
reached her ear. She joyfully turned back and re-entered the bedroom.

'Yes, David?' she said quietly.

'If the girl is really bad, send her in the cart, or let her have a
horse, if you like,' growled Mr Prothero. 'Only I do wish, mother, you
would have nothing to do with them Irishers.'

'Thank you, my dear,' said the quiet little woman. 'Then if the rest go
away, I may manage about the girl?'

'Do what you like, only get rid of 'em somehow.'

'Thank you.'

'Oh, you needn't thank me! I'd as soon send every one of 'em to jail as
not; but I can't stand your puffing and sighing just as if they were all
your own flesh and blood.'

'We're all the same flesh and blood, my dear.'

'I'd be uncommon sorry to think so. I've nothing but Welsh flesh and
blood about me, and should be loath to have any other, Irish, Scotch, or
English either.'

Mrs Prothero disappeared.

'That 'ooman 'ould wheedle the stone out of a mill,' continued the
farmer, rubbing his eyes, and deliberately taking off his night-cap,
'and yet she don't ever seem to have her own way, and is as meek as
Moses. She has wheedled me out of my Sunday nap, so I suppose I may as
well get up. Hang the Irish! There is no getting rid of 'em. She's given
'em a night's lodging, and a supper for so many years, that they come
and ask as if it was their due. But I'll put a stop to it, yet, in spite
of her, or my name isn't David Prothero.'

When Mr Prothero came forth from his dormitory, he was in his very best
Sunday attire. As he walked across the farm-yard in search of his wife,
there was an air about him that seemed to say, 'I am monarch of all I
survey.' Indeed, few monarchs are as independent, and proud of their
independence, as David Prothero of Glanyravon.

He was a tall, muscular man, of some fifty years of age. He was well
made, and of that easy, swinging gait, that is rather the teaching of
Dame Nature, than of the dancing mistress or posture master. His face
was full and ruddy, betokening health, spirits, and that choleric
disposition to which his countrymen are said to incline, whether justly
or unjustly is not for me to determine. His hair had a reddish tinge,
and his whiskers were decidedly roseate, bearing still further testimony
to a slight irrascibility of temperament. But he was a good-looking man,
in spite of his hair and whiskers, which, as his wife admired them, are
not to be despised.

'Where's your mistress, Sam?' roared Mr Prothero across the farm-yard.

'In the barn, master,' answered a man, who was eating bread and cheese
on the gate, and swinging his legs pleasantly about.

'Tell her I want her,'

In answer to the summons, immediately appeared his worthy helpmate. She
carried a very beautiful half-blown rose in her hand, which, as soon as
she approached her husband, she placed carefully in his button-hole,
standing on tiptoe to perform this graceful Sunday morning service.

'Thank you, mother,' said Mr Prothero, smiling, and looking down
complacently on his little wife.

What went with all his lecture upon the profligacy of Irish beggars? I
suppose it was silently delivered from his breast to the rose, for none
of it came to his lips, though it was quite ready to be heard when the
rose made her appearance.

All the Irish are gone except the girl, Davy, _bach_' said quiet Mrs
Prothero, 'and they are gone to the Overseer to tell him about her, and
I will see that she is sent to the workhouse to-night, that is to say if
I can.'

'I suppose you fed and clothed the ragged rascals?'

'I just gave them some scraps for breakfast, and indeed their blessings
did me good,'

'I should think they must. People that left a dying girl behind 'em.'

'They promised to come back and see after her when the hay-harvest is
over. They are going into Herefordshire to get work, and she, poor
thing, is looking for her relations in this county, and meant to get
work here.'

'Well, I want my breakfast. I promised brother Jonathan to go to church
to-day. He is going to preach a charity sermon for the Church Building
Society, and wants my shilling. He and Mrs Jonathan are to come
to-morrow, you know, my dear. I hope in my heart everything is as fine
as fippence, or my lady 'll turn up her nose.'

'I can't make things neater, Davy.'

This was said by Mrs Prothero, in a desponding tone, quite different
from her former quiet cheerfulness, and she accompanied the words by
rubbing her hands nervously one over the other.

'There now, don't look as if you were going to be smothered. Mrs
Jonathan isn't so bad as all that. I wish to goodness Jonathan hadn't
married a fine lady. But then she brought him a good fortune, and it's
all the better for our children.'

'I don't want her money.'

'But if it wasn't for her, my dear, Rowland would never have had an
Oxford edication.'

'I'd as soon he had gone to Lampeter, or been made a good Wesleyan
minister, and then he might have been content to stay in Wales, instead
of going off to England.'

'There, there! never mind! He'll be a bishop some day; and though you do
still incline to the chapel, you'll be proud of that. Now, name o'
goodness, let's have some breakfast.'

With this peculiarly Welsh interjection, Mr Prothero turned towards the
farm, and, followed by his wife, went to the desired repast.






CHAPTER III.

THE FARMER'S DAUGHTER.


'Nobody has come for that poor girl, Netta, and I have'n't the heart to
send her away,' said Mrs Prothero to her only daughter Janetta, towards
the close of the Sunday, the morning of which we noticed in the last
chapter.

'I am sure, mother, you have been plagued quite enough with her already.
You have neither been to church nor chapel, and scarcely eaten a morsel
all the day. I can't imagine what pleasure you take in such people.'

'I wouldn't care if your father was at home; but I don't quite like to
have her into the house without his leave, and she is not fit to be left
in the barn.'

'Into the house, mother! That wild Irish beggar! Why, father would get
into a fury, and I'm sure I should be afraid to sleep in the same place
with such a creature.'

'Oh, my dear child! when will it please the Lord to soften your heart,
and teach you that all men and women are brothers and sisters.'

'Never, I'm sure, in that kind of way.'

Whilst the mother and daughter continue their conversation about Gladys,
of which the above is a specimen, we will glance at Janetta Prothero,
the spoilt daughter of Glanyravon Farm.

She is decidedly a pretty girl? some might call her a beauty. She has
dark eyes, black hair, a clear pink and white complexion, a round,
dimpled cheek, a fair neck, a passable nose, and a very red-lipped,
pouting mouth. She is small of stature--not much taller than her
mother--but so well-formed, that her delicate little figure is quite the
perfection of symmetry. Her movements are languid rather than brisk like
her mother's, and she either has, or is desirous of having, more of the
fine lady in her manners and appearance. We discern, as she talks, more
of obstinacy than reason, and more of pride than sense, in her
conversation, and the face rather expresses self-will than intellect,
although not deficient in the latter.

We are led to suppose, from the appearance of the room in which the
mother and daughter are located, that Miss Janetta is somewhat
accomplished; more so than young ladies in her position commonly were
some thirty or forty years ago. This is a large parlour, with some
pretensions to be called a drawing-room. True, the furniture is of
old-fashioned mahogany, the sofa of hair, the curtains of chintz, and
all that appertains to the master and mistress of the house, of solid
but ancient make. But the square piano, the endless succession of
baskets, card-racks, etc., the footstools with the worsted-work dog and
cat thereon emblazoned, the album and other books, so neatly and
regularly placed round the table, and above all, three heads in very bad
water-colours that adorn the walls--all proclaim the superior education
of the daughter of the house, and her aspirations after modern
gentility.

We will just take up the thread of the conversation of the mother and
daughter at the end of it, and see what conclusions they have arrived
at. In a somewhat doggedly excited tone, Miss Janetta says,--

'Well, mother, I know that father would be very angry, and that she
might give us all low Irish fever. I shouldn't wonder if she brought a
famine with her.'

'Remember, Netta, who said "and if ye have done it unto the least of
these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."'

'If those people are one's brethren, as father says, the sooner we
disown our relations the better.'

Whilst Miss Janetta was uttering this unchristian speech, and greatly
shocking her mother thereby, a young man entered with a book in his
hand, and throwing himself on the sofa, began to read. It was soon,
however, evident that he was listening to the conversation, although he
professedly kept his eyes on his book. Poor Mrs Prothero continued her
efforts to enlist her daughter on the side of charity, but did not
greatly prevail. The young man did not interfere, probably being aware
that it is better to let two women finish their own quarrel.

Again, however, they were interrupted by the appearance of a fourth, and
more animated personage.

'Good evening, Mrs Prothero. How do you do, Netta?' exclaimed the new
comer, shaking Mrs Prothero's hand, and pulling Netta's curls. Hereupon
the young man arose from the sofa, and bowing profoundly, said,--

'Good evening, Miss Gwynne,' with a tone as grave as his appearance.

'I beg your pardon, Mr Rowland,' said the young lady, who we now
introduce in form as Miss Gwynne of Glanyravon Park.

With a very becoming grace, she advanced and held out her hand to Mr
Rowland Prothero, eldest son of the good farmer and his wife, just
returned from Oxford. Mr Rowland slightly touched the hand, bowed again
gravely, and placed a chair for Miss Gwynne.

'I thought I should never come here again,' said that young lady,
turning from Mr Rowland with a nod and a 'thank you,' and retreating
towards the window where the mother and daughter were standing, 'what
with the rain, and poor papa's nervous complaints, and all the affairs,
I declare I have been as busy as possible.'

'Now, Miss Gwynne, I am sure you will agree with me,' cried Netta,
suddenly brightening up and getting animated 'Do you think it right to
encourage those Irish beggars?'

'Right! no, of course I don't.'

'And do you think people ought to allow them to come into the house--to
take them in, and to--to shelter them in short?'

'Decidedly not. I hope you don't do such things, Mrs Prothero?'

There was a wicked twinkle in a merry eye as this was said.

'The truth is, Miss Gwynne,' said Mrs Prothero, slowly rubbing her hands
one over another, 'there is a poor Irish girl in the barn almost dying,
and it is impossible to send her to the Union to-night, or to leave her
where she is.'

'Oh, I'll write an order for the Union in papa's name. You can't believe
a word those Irish say. You had better get her sent off directly.'

This was said with the air of command and decision of one not accustomed
to have her orders disputed.

'But, Miss Gwynne, if you only knew--' began the overwhelmed Mrs
Prothero.

'I know quite well. We are obliged to commit dozens of them as vagrants,
and I should not at all wonder if we should not be compelled to have
you taken up some day for harbouring suspicious characters.'

The tears stood in Mrs Prothero's kind eyes. She had not much authority
amongst the young people apparently.

'There, mother! I knew Miss Gwynne would agree with me.'

'And do you think the law of Christian charity would agree with you,
Netta?' here broke in a grave and stern voice from the sofa.

Both the young ladies coloured at this interruption? Miss Gwynne with
mortified dignity, Netta with anger. Mrs Prothero cast an appealing
glance at her son, who came forward.

'She may have my bed, mother,' said the young man, colouring in his
turn, as he met Miss Gwynne's defiant glance, that seemed to say, 'Who
are you?'

'How very absurd, Mr Rowland,' said that young lady, laughing
scornfully. 'I suppose, according to your law of Christian charity, we
must fill our houses with all the Irish beggars that come through
Carmarthenshire! A goodly company!'

'Have you seen this poor girl. Miss Gwynne?'

'No, certainly not, but I know by heart all she has to say.'

'If you would but just see her,' said Mrs Prothero entreatingly not
daring to contradict the heiress of Glanyravon Park, who had a will of
her own, if Mrs Prothero had not.

'With the greatest pleasure; but I know all the "my leddy's," "yer
honour's," and "the sweet face o' ye," that I shall hear.'

'Don't go, Miss Gwynne, you may take the fever. I wouldn't go for the
world,' cried Netta.

'I am not afraid of fevers or anything else, I hope,' said Miss Gwynne
contemptuously. 'You will be afraid of catching a toothache from
infection next,' and herewith she left the room, followed by Mrs
Prothero.

During their short absence, Mr Rowland Prothero read his sister a very
proper lecture for a clergyman, on Christian charity and filial
obedience, to which she listened with pouting lips and knitted brow, but
with no answering speech, good or bad. She was not silent because she
had nothing to say, but because she was afraid of her brother, who was
the only person of whom she was afraid. Her feelings, however, found
vent in the leaves of a rose that she was pulling to pieces and
scattering ruthlessly.

The lecturer on Christian charity was a tall, gentlemanly-looking young
man, whose apparently habitual gravity of deportment warmed into
earnestness and animation as he talked to his sister. He looked and
spoke as if his soul were in the words he uttered, and as if it had
been choice and not compulsion that led him to become a minister in
Christ's family.

The entrance of Mrs Prothero and Miss Gwynne was a great relief to
Netta. She looked up briskly at the latter, as if sure of sympathy, and
if eyes full of tears could give it, she certainly was satisfied.

Mr Rowland Prothero perceived the tears, and retired to his sofa, taking
up his book and pretending to read.

'Can I help you, Mrs Prothero? There does not seem a moment to lose. I
will send for a doctor, or do anything I can,' said Miss Gwynne.

'Thank you, dear Miss Gwynne,' replied Mrs Prothero, 'I will put her in
Owen's room.'

'Who can we get to bring her in? Shall I go and fetch one of the men?
Netta, do get some one to help us.'

'I will help you, if you will allow me,' said Mr Rowland, rising from
his sofa, and looking at Miss Gwynne with a glance of warm approval.

'Pray do; now; at once. I will go with you whilst your mother prepares
the room. You could carry her quite well, for she is as thin as a ghost;
I never saw such a wretched girl.'

Miss Gwynne hurried to the barn, followed by Rowland. They found Gladys
with a farm-servant by her side, apparently either dead or asleep.

Rowland Prothero knelt down, and took her up gently in his arms, Miss
Gwynne assisting. The poor girl unclosed her eyes, and looked wistfully
at the face that was bending over her.

'You are with friends, and in God's hands,'said Rowland gently, as the
eyes languidly reclosed.

He carried her upstairs to his brother's room, and having placed her on
the bed, left her to the care of his mother and Miss Gwynne.

Whilst they were employed in getting her into bed, a house-servant came
to say that Miss Gwynne was wanted. She found a footman awaiting her,
who told her that his master had sent him in search of her, and was in a
state of great anxiety about her. She ran up to Mrs Prothero for a few
minutes.

'Really papa is too absurd, too provoking,' she said with a vexed voice;
'he has sent after me again, and I am sure he must know I am here. Let
me hear if I can be of any service, Mrs Prothero; I will send anything
in the way of medicine or nourishment. Good-bye, I will come again
to-morrow.'

'Mr and Mrs Prothero, the Vicarage, come to-morrow,' said Mrs Prothero.

'Yes, they are to dine with us on Wednesday, and told me they meant to
sleep here. Good evening. Dear me, how wretched that poor girl looks.'

Miss Gwynne was soon hastening homewards, heedless of the splendid sky
above, or the glowing fields beneath. She was making reflections on the
excellence of Mrs Prothero, the silliness of Netta, the precision of
Rowland, and the misery of the girl Gladys. Thence she turned her
thoughts upon herself, and suddenly discovered that she had been too
decided in at once ordering any person to the workhouse, without at
first knowing the case.

'But it is no wonder that I am too decided sometimes, when my father is
so dreadfully weak and vacillating,' she said to herself; 'indeed I do
not think, after all, that one can be too decided in this irresolute
world.'

This very decided young lady is the only child and supposed heiress of
Gwynne of Glanyravon, as her father is usually called. She is an
aristocratic-looking personage, with a certain I-will-have-my-own-way
air, that you cannot help recognising at once. She is rather taller than
most tall women, and the tokens of decision in her carriage, eyes,
voice, and general deportment would be disagreeable, but for the extreme
grace of her figure, the unaffected ease of her manner, and the
remarkable clearness and sweetness of her voice. She is handsome, too,
with a noble forehead, sensible grey eyes, glossy chestnut hair, and a
very fine complexion. The many of her nominal friends and admirers who
at heart dislike her, prophesy that in a few years she will be coarse,
and say that she is already too masculine; but the few who love her,
think that she will improve both in person and mind, as she rubs off the
pride and self-opinionativeness of twenty years of country life against
the wholesome iron of society and the world. But we shall see.

At present she is fortunate enough to rule everybody she comes in
contact with; her father, his servants, his tenants, the poor, the very
mendicants that come to the door.

Certainly there is something very charming in her appearance, as she
hurries up the fine old avenue that leads to her ancestral home. The
ease of her port, the graceful dignity of her extreme haste, the
heightened colour, and the glowing eye, are all very handsome, in spite
of the coarseness in perspective. The poor footman can scarcely keep up
with her; he has not found the last twenty years at Glanyravon
productive of the same lightness of step to him, as to his young
mistress, and wishes she were a little less agile.

A handsome country house in a good park has not often in itself much of
the picturesque. Ruskin would not consider Glanyravon, with its heavy
porch, massive square walls, and innumerable long windows, a good
specimen of architectural beauty; still it is a most comfortable
dwelling, beautifully situated; and the magnificent woods at the back,
and grand view in front, would make the most unartistic building
picturesque in appearance if not in reality.

Miss Gwynne ran up the broad stairs, through the large hall, and into a
good library. Here a very tall, thin, sickly-looking man was seated in
an easy-chair.

'My dear Freda, I am so thankful you are come!'

'My dear father, how I wish you would not send for me the very moment I
go out. I really cannot be pestered with servants. It fidgets me to
death to have a man walking and puffing after me.'

'But just consider, my love, the lateness of the hour.'

'It is scarcely eight o'clock now, papa, and as light as possible.'

'I am too nervous, my love, to bear your being out alone.'

Miss Gwynne rang the bell authoritatively, and the footman entered.

'Tell Mrs Davies to send some jelly, and whatever strengthening things
there are in the house, to Glanyravon Farm immediately,' she said; then
turning to her father, added, 'do you know, papa, Mrs Prothero has taken
in a sick Irish girl, and I have abetted it.'

'You, child! I hope she has no infectious disease; it quite alarms me.'

'I really don't know. But Mr and Mrs Jonathan Prothero are going to
Glanyravon to-morrow, and remember you invited them to dinner on
Wednesday.'

'I am very sorry! that man kills me with the antiquities of the Welsh
language, and heaven knows what old things that happened before the
flood. But you must entertain them. I suppose we had better ask young
Rowland.'

'Oh, papa! He is so dreadfully quiet and stiff, and thinks there is only
one man who ever went to Oxford, and he is that man; and I can't endure
him.'

'Perhaps not, my dear--indeed, perhaps not.'

'If we ask him, we must ask Netta. She has come home quite accomplished
from boarding school, and would do in a quiet way. Mrs Jonathan would be
pleased, and you know she _is_ a lady, though awfully particular. I
can't endure her either.'

'Perhaps you could invite Lady Mary, and Miss Nugent to meet them?'

'I don't think they would like it. They would not object to the two
clergymen, because, as Lady Mary says, 'You see, my dear, the cloth is a
passport to all grades of society;' but they would not approve of Netta.
That is to say, Lady Mary would think herself insulted if we introduced
her sweet Wilhelmina to a farmer's daughter.'

'She is a very superior woman, my love, and understands etiquette, and
all that sort of thing, better than any one I ever met.'

'She seems to me to understand her own interests, papa, as well as most
people. But I will tell her that Sir Hugh and the Protheros are coming,
and that we have asked Netta, so she can accept or decline as she
likes.'

'Do you think it wise, my dear, to put yourself so much on a level with
Miss Prothero, as to invite her?'

'Oh! she understands how we are very well. It will be a source of pride
and satisfaction to her, without making her presume more than before;
and the vicar and his lady will like the attention.'

'I dread the vicar. His genealogies are too much for me.'

'Oh, I can put up with the vicar's antiquities, but not with the young
vicar's pedantic Oxonianism. He does think so well of himself, and quite
rules every one at home.'

'Oh! that is very fatiguing, I should think.'

'I wish he would fall in love with Miss Nugent, and she with him, and
carry off her forty-thousand pounds. She is silly enough for anything,
and it would be such a downfall to her mother's pride.'

'Her mother is much too careful, my dear, and by far too superior a
woman. And Miss Wilhelmina is very accomplished and all that sort of
thing, you know, and likely to make a fine match. She is very pretty,
too.'

'Yes; she and Netta Prothero would run in harness. Pretty, silly, rather
affected, and having drawn each four or five drawings, and learnt six
tunes on the piano. Only the one is more fashionable than the other. Do
you know, papa, Miss Nugent can play the Irish and Scotch quadrilles,
and Netta '_Ar hydy Nos,_' with small variations. We will have a
concert; you know I have asked the Rice Rices?'

'Very well, my dear. Now I think I will read a sermon to the servants,
so just ring the bell.'






CHAPTER IV.

THE MISER.


Whilst Mr Gwynne is reading his sermon, and Mrs Prothero is nursing the
mendicant Gladys, an event is passing in the neighbouring country-town,
involving matters of interest to her, and those belonging to her. In a
small bedroom over a little huckster's shop, an old man lies dangerously
ill. By his side is seated a middle-aged woman watching. In a dark
corner, behind the bed, stands a man, who is so deep in shadow that you
scarcely know whether he is young or old.

The room is small and shabby, and contains apparently few comforts for
one nearly approaching his last hour.

There is a tap at the door, upon which the man behind the bed goes out,
and returns, almost immediately, followed by Rowland Prothero. He goes
towards the bed, and stooping down, whispers to the sick man.

'Father, you wished to see Rowland--he is here.'

Rowland advances, and takes the seat vacated for him by the woman.

The three inmates of the room are Mr and Mrs Griffith Jenkins, and their
only son, Howel. They are cousins of the Protheros, Mrs Jenkins being Mr
Prothero's first cousin, and the members of the younger generation being
consequently second cousins.

Griffith Jenkins motions to his wife and son to leave the room, which
they do immediately. Rowland kneels beside his bed, the better to hear
what he has to say. He appears, however to revive, and is distinct
enough in his enunciation of the following words, though very slow.

'My son Howel is come back, Mr Rowland, and do promise to be study.'

'I am very glad to hear it; it must be a great comfort to you,'

'But I am not seure of him. He will be spending my money that I have
been takking such pains to make.'

'I hope he may do good with it, Uncle Griff.'

'Good! no such thing. Squander, squander! Spend the beauty gold! Will
you promise me to see to it? tak' care of it?'

'I, Uncle Griff! I have no power with Howel. Would it not be better to
pray to God to guide Howel, and trust in a higher power than mine?'

Mr Jenkins put a long, thin, bony hand out of bed, and grasped
Rowland's hand tightly. He fixed two keen black eyes upon him, and, as
he half raised himself in bed, displayed a withered face, the most
remarkable feature of which was a very prominent, hooked nose, like the
beak of a large bird.

'You wasn't thinking I was going to die, was you, Rowland? I 'ont just
awhile, see you. But tell you your father there's more gold than he is
thinking of; and Howel'll be a husband for any one, much less for Miss
Netta. Promise me to be lending him a hand, if he do keep constant to
your sister.'

'I am sorry, Uncle Griff, that I cannot promise anything for Howel. If
he grows steady as you say, there can be no objection; but he must prove
it first. Would you like me to read to you, and pray to Almighty God,
for Christ's sake, to change his and all our hearts?'

'I didn't be wanting a parson, but a relation, sir; and I don't be going
to die yet. Look you here. There's money in the bank--there's more in
mortgages on Davies, Llansadwn, and Rees, Llanarthney--there's more on
loan to Griffiths, Pontardewe,--Jones, Glantewey,--Pugh the draper,
Llansant--and others. And there's a box beside. Mind you, I 'ont die
yet, but I tell you, because I can trust you; and Howel don't know
nothing.'

'May I write it down for you, Uncle Griff; or would you have a lawyer?'

'No, no. I've had enough of law in paying for Howel, and nothing come of
it. But you may be writing down a little. Here, in that chest, there's
pen, ink and paper; tak' you my keys, and open you it.'

Griffith Jenkins took from under his pillow a bunch of keys, and
fumbling amongst them, gave one to Rowland, with which he opened the
chest, and procured the necessary writing apparatus.

'Give you me my keys--quick, quick!' cried the old man, again hiding
them somewhere in his bed.'

At his dictation, Rowland wrote a list of the different moneys he
possessed in various places, and was utterly astonished to find that he
had soon written down between sixty and seventy thousand pounds.
Everybody knew that Griffith Jenkins was rich, but nobody had guessed
how rich he was.

'Now say, "I give and bequeath to my wife, 'Lizbeth Jenkins, ten
thousand pound out of the aforesaid mortgage on Jacob Davies Llansadwn's
property."'

'Is that all, Uncle Griff?'

'Yes, I sha'n't say no more.'

'And the box of gold?'

Again the miser grasped Rowland's hand, and fixed his keen eyes on his
face.

'I 'ont be dying yet, and I 'ont be putting that down to-night. Tell you
your father what there is, without the box, and without more mortgages
and loans; but don't you be talking to anybody about it. Mind you, not
to Howel nor to 'Lizbeth: promise me.'

Rowland promised.

The miser fell back exhausted.

'And now Uncle Griff, may I pray for you? Only think how soon you may be
called to your account, to say exactly how you have employed your time,
and the talents given--'

'I have done plenty--plenty--all out at interest, at five, six, even ten
per cent.; none wrapped up in a napkin. I don't be calling a box a
napkin, Rowland Prothero.'

'May I call in Mrs Jenkins and Howel, and pray for you? Think; oh think,
of the great Judge, and great Mediator. O God, have mercy upon us,
miserable sinners!'

As Rowland said this, he clasped his hands, and looked upwards, in
unutterable supplication. The old man was alarmed.

'I don't be going to die, but you may call 'em in.'

Rowland rose and obeyed. Mrs Jenkins appeared with a candle in her hand.
The old man rose with an effort as she drew near the bed.

'Put--out--the--candle,' he muttered.

As the night was fast drawing in, Mrs Jenkins hesitated.

'Put--out--the--candle,' repeated the dying man, with a still stronger
effort to rise and extinguish it himself. 'The ruling passion strong in
death' must be attended to, and the light was extinguished.

Rowland Prothero clasped his hands with a groan, and repeated aloud a
prayer from the service for the dying. The terrified wife knelt down by
the bed in the deep gloom, and in the still deeper gloom behind, the son
buried his face in his arms, and leaned upon the little table.

Whilst Rowland Prothero was praying from the very depth of his heart for
the soul that was thus awfully passing to its account, they were all
aroused by the last fearful struggle between death and life of him who
had made gold his god. For some time they feared to rekindle the light,
but at last they ventured. It was but to witness the last dread pangs of
one who had made wife and son secondary to the great absorbing passion
of avarice; and now he was constrained to depart from the scene of his
toil, and to leave all that he had grovelled for behind him, for ever!

We will not dwell upon the awful hours that succeeded his final words.
He neither spoke nor was conscious again. Light and dark were alike to
him. Save that he grasped something in his right hand with an iron hold,
reason and power had left him; death was still fighting with life, and
gradually gaining the last great victory.

A few hours afterwards, and when that victory had been gained, the scene
was changed in that small house. The chamber of death was deserted, and
the wretched clay of the miser, decently covered with a white sheet, lay
heavy and still, where the spirit that formerly animated it had been
accustomed to brood over the miserable gains of its clays and years on
earth.

In the small sitting-room below, behind the little shop where these
gains had been begun and continued for half-a-century or more, sat the
widow, surrounded by a score of gossips, who had left their beds and
homes at daybreak to condole with her.

It would have been much more unnatural than natural if Mrs Jenkins had
grieved at heart for the husband she had lost. Married, or rather sold
to him, when he was fifty and she thirty, she had lived five or six and
twenty years of pure misery with him. She had starved with him, when she
could not pilfer from him, and had endured patiently all these years
what seemed past endurance in expectation of the closing scene. She had
married and lived upon the prospect of his death, and it was come at
last; and now that it was come, the awfulness of that last struggle
overpowered her, and she wept and lamented as copiously as if her
husband had been the kindest and most liberal in the world. Still, she
was free, with competence, she hoped, in perspective? and this thought,
together with the ever all-pervading one of her idol, her treasure, her
only son, and his expectations, more than counterbalanced that of the
death she had witnessed.

'Come you, don't you be takking on so,' said one old woman soothingly,
as the widow rocked herself to and fro, and held her handkerchief to her
eyes.

'Tak' you this drop o' tea,' said another, 'it'll be doing you good,'

'The Lord will be having mercy on his soul,' said a third, whose
conscience was large when she was offering comfort.

'There now, keep up your spirits, Mrs Jinkins, fach,' said a fourth,
entering with a comfortable glass of gin and water that did seem of an
exhilarating nature.

'There's a comfort Howel will be to you now!' said a fifth triumphantly.

'Deed to goodness, Griffey Jinkins was a saving man, and you have lost
him, Mrs Jinkins, fach,' began the friend with the gin and water; 'but
I am seeing no use in takking on so. When John Jones died, he was
leaving me with ten children, and they have all come on somehow. And you
have only wan son, and he is so ginteel! Drink you this, my dear, and
don't be down-hearted.'

Mrs Jenkins turned from the tea to the gin and water with no apparent
reluctance, and swallowed a portion of it. Revived by the beverage, she
responded to the condolences of her friends by more rockings, sobs, and
applications of the handkerchief and finally unburdened herself of her
grief in the following manner.

'My son Howel, oh yes, he'll be a blessing to me, I know. Says I to my
poor Griffey--oh, dear, only to be thinking of him now!--says I, "Let us
be giving Howel a good eddication, and he so clever as never was, and
able to be learning everything he do put his mind to, and never daunted
at nothing--grammar, nor music, nor Latin, nor no heathen languages, and
able to read so soon as he could speak, and knowing all the beasts in
the ark one from another, when he was no bigger than that," says I, to
my poor Griffey; "oh, annwyl! we have only wan child, let him be a
clargy, or a 'torney, or a doctor, or something smart," and says he, "I
can't afford it." He was rather near or so, you know, was my poor
Griffey; but I never was letting him rest day or night, and the only
thing he wasn't liking was being much talked over. So says I, "Come you,
Jinkins, bach,"--he liked to be called by his sirname--"if you do larn
Howel well, he'll be making his fortune some day," for he do say so, he
do be always saying, "I'll be a great man, and get as much money as
father." I eused to put in the last words of myself, for Howel never was
taking to making money, but 'ould as soon give it away as not. Only poor
Griffey--oh dear! oh dear!--was never knowing that, because I did be
hiding it from him as much as I could.'

Whilst the widow talks on in this strain to her sympathising friends,
her son and Rowland Prothero are in another small room of the house,
engaged in a very different style of conversation. The room in which
they are is worth a few words of description, not for any beauty or
desert of its own, but for its heterogeneous, contents. You would think
a small music warehouse, a miniature tobacco shop, or branch depot of
foreign grammars and dictionaries were before you. Every kind of musical
instrument seems to have met with a companion in this tiny apartment.
Here are a violin, violoncello, horn, and cornopean; there an old Welsh
harp and unstrung guitar. On this shelf are pipes of all sorts and
sizes, forms, and nations--the straight English, the short German, and
the long Turkish; on that are cigar-boxes, snuff-boxes, and
tobacco-boxes of various kinds and appearances. Scattered about the room
are play-books without number, from Shakspeare to the dramatists of the
present day; and, interspersed with these, collections of songs of all
countries and of all grades of merit. Some few novels, mostly French,
live with the plays and songs; and Latin, French, German, Italian,
Welsh, Spanish, and English grammars and dictionaries take up their
abode in every available corner. A quantity of fishing tackle and a gun
are thrown upon the window seat, and an embroidered waistcoat, blue
satin cravat, and a pair of yellow kid gloves lie on an unoccupied
chair.

From the general appearance of this room, the imagination would conceive
great things of its inmate. All we shall here say is that he is one who
has the reputation of being a natural genius, and firmly believes that
he is one.

As all natural geniuses are supposed to have something very remarkable
in their appearance, we will just take a sketch of the miser's son, as
he alternately leans on the table or stalks about the room during his
earnest conversation with his cousin. He has decidedly sentimental hair;
long, black, shining, and with a tendency to curl; he has what might be
termed poetical eyes, bright, piercing, and very restless; the sharp,
aquiline nose of his father, slightly modified; and a mouth and brow
which curl and knit in a manner that may be poetic, but might be
disagreeable, under less soothing influences. That he is very handsome
no one could dispute, and it is equally certain that he has an air much
above the position in which he was born; but the expression of his face
inspires distrust rather than confidence, and conveys the impression
that there is more of passion than feeling beneath the fiery eyes and
compressed mouth.

A great contrast to this family genius is presented in the person of his
cousin Rowland, now addressing him earnestly and seriously upon the
grave subjects naturally uppermost at such a time. He, too, is
sufficiently good-looking, with an open, though grave, cast of
countenance, fine, soft, hazel eyes, and a tall, manly figure. By
'sufficiently good-looking,' I mean that he is neither very handsome nor
ugly, and when his lady friends debate upon his outer man they generally
wind up by saying, 'Well, if he isn't handsome, he is very genteel.'

We are not going to repeat here the well-known fable of the 'Hare and
the Tortoise,' but something of the character of those animals may be
found in the cousins. At their first dame's school, as well as at the
more advanced grammar school of their little town. Howel was always able
to beat Rowland in swiftness, whilst Rowland effectually distanced
Howel in the long run. It was Rowland who carried off the prizes, when
study and prolonged endeavour were necessary to obtain them, whilst
Howel eclipsed all his contemporaries, if a theme were to be written, or
a poem learnt.

Such differences are so frequent, and have been so often discussed that
it is scarcely necessary to pursue the contrast further; but the result
at the present stands thus. Howel, the elder of the two, has dipped a
little into everything; has gained a reputation for genius; has been
articled to an attorney--but is in no apparent danger of becoming
one--has written various articles for the county papers, and has had the
pleasure of seeing them printed; has acquired a smattering of several
languages, and various styles of music; and has proved himself an
admired beau amongst the ladies, and a favourite boon companion amongst
the gentlemen. He has been idolised and spoilt by his mother, and
stinted and pinched by his father, and having no very great respect or
admiration for the talents or conduct of either parent, has not tried
much to please them, save when it suited him.

The result of all this, if not already apparent, will doubtless be seen
hereafter, for, at four or five and twenty, conduct and principles begin
to establish themselves.

Rowland Prothero is very much the reverse of all this. From a child he
had a desire to enter the Church, which desire was fostered by his uncle
and aunt into a resolution, when he grew old enough to resolve. As they
very nearly adopted and educated him, his parents made no objection, and
as they were ambitious to raise their family in worldly position, they
spared no expense.

Rowland was reckoned dull, but plodding, at Rugby, whither his uncle
sent him. However, his dulness and plodding were more successful than
the brightness of many, since they managed to gain a scholarship at
school, which helped him at Oxford. He was called proud and obstinate,
and he was both. Pride and obstinacy were the characteristics of his
family, but in him they fortunately tended to good: inasmuch as his
pride generally led him to do well, and his obstinacy kept up his pride.

At present, it would be difficult to say whether he is a young man
likely to shine in the path he has chosen, or to walk quietly along it
unnoticed. His friends do not anticipate anything remarkable, but they
expect him to be slow and sure. He did very well at college, but gained
no greater honours than the respect and goodwill of those he was known
to. Query--Is not that worth as much, morally, as a first class?

At home, he is understood by few. He has not many associates, because,
either from his own fault, or some mental peculiarity, he cannot fall in
with those who are immediately about him; and consequently is rather
feared by his acquaintances and reckoned proud, stiff, and
conceited--above his birth, in short.

With him, as with Howel and every one else, the course of years will
show the man. 'Handsome is that handsome does.'

'The fact is, Rowland,' said Howel, as he suddenly stood still in one of
his rapid walks across the room, 'you and I never could agree in
anything, and never shall.'

'I hope we may yet agree in many things,' said Rowland gently. 'At
present, all I wish you to do is to pay your debts, go to London, take
out your stamps, and become an attorney.'

'I am the best judge of that, and shall be my own master now. At all
events, I can make some people ashamed of themselves.'

'I only wish to advise you for your good, now that you are your own
master. Your poor father begged me--'

'Oh, Rowland, I can't stand any more about my father. Everybody knows
what he was, and, I suppose, nobody expects me to live in the same line.
I am emancipated, thank heaven! and the world shall soon know it.'

'Still, he was your father.'

'No one knows that better than I do, I should imagine; but if you expect
me to mourn as others do for a parent, you will be disappointed. He
never showed me one token of love, or acted by me as a father from the
day of my birth till his death.'

'At least he has left you and your mother handsomely provided for, and
with his last words, hoped that you were now very steady.'

'He did! I wonder who dares to say that I am not steady? But how do you
know how we are provided for?'

'He begged me to write down what he was worth. I will give it you at
some future period, but not now.'

'Why not now?'

'Because I think it is scarcely yet a time to consider money matters.
After the last duties are performed you shall have the paper. Part of
his property is written down, but a box of gold and some other sums he
did not name. After that last sad scene one can scarcely think of
anything earthly. Oh, Howel! I wish you would consider the shortness and
uncertainty of life, and what is its end.'

'So awful do I consider its end that I mean to enjoy it while it lasts.
But don't go off with the impression that I was not shocked and
frightened with what we have just seen. It is one thing to read and
write about a death-bed and another to witness it. But I cannot weep or
pray as some people can.'

'You might do both if you would only seek aright.'

'There, enough! I am past being preached to as a naughty boy, and can
now look forward to some enjoyment without robbing my own father, or
getting my mother to rob him, to procure it. But I shall never forget
that last struggle? no, never.'

Here, with a face of horror, Howel began his restless walk again.
Rowland sat in melancholy silence.

'Rowland,' suddenly broke in Howel, 'how is Netta?'

'Quite well, I thank you,' answered Rowland gravely.

'I have not seen her for a long time? will you remember me to her?'

'I cannot promise to do so.'

'Do you think me a fiend, sir, that my name cannot be mentioned to my
cousin? I will manage to convey my own remembrances.'

'Howel, you know how it is? I do not mean to be unkind. If only you
would give up your old life, enter your profession, and begin another--'

'That is as I choose. I shall be glad of the paper you wrote for my
father, and then you and I, Rowland, are best apart.'

'Good-bye then, Howel? perhaps some day you may know that I wish you
well. I will bring the paper at the funeral.'

'For heaven's sake stay, or send some one else! I cannot bear to be
alone here? his ghost will haunt me.'

'Then let me read to you.'

Howel assented gloomily and threw himself on the bed in the corner of
the room. Rowland took a small Testament from his pocket and resolutely
read several chapters.

During the reading Howel fell asleep.






CHAPTER V.

THE FARMER'S SON.


At about ten o'clock on Monday morning Miss Gwynne rode up to the door
of Glanyravon Farm, and, dismounting, entered the house. She was
attended by a groom, and told him that she should not be long.

'How is that poor girl, Netta?' were her first words on entering the
house.

'Very ill indeed, I believe,' said Netta, rather sulkily.

'Where is your mother?'

'She has been with the Irish beggar all the morning, and all night too.
I don't know what father and uncle and aunt will think.'

'Will you ask your mother whether I can see her for a few minutes?'

'Certainly.'

'Netta, you must come and dine with us on Wednesday, with your uncle and
aunt.'

'Thank you,' said Netta, brightening up as she left the room.

'I'm sure I scarcely know whether she will behave rightly,' muttered
Miss Gwynne, tapping her hand with her riding-whip.

Mrs Prothero soon appeared.

'You good, clear Mrs Prothero!' exclaimed Miss Gwynne, running up to her
and taking both her hands. 'You look quite worn out. How is that poor
girl?'

'Alive, Miss Gwynne, and that is almost all,' was the reply very gravely
uttered.

'Can we do anything? Did Dr Richards come?'

'Yes, Miss Gwynne, and was very kind. He has been again this morning.'

'I came to invite Mr Rowland and Netta to dinner on Wednesday, with Mr
and Mrs Jonathan Prothero.'

'Thank you, Miss Gwynne, I will tell Rowland; but I really think Netta
had better not go.'

'I have just told her of the invitation.'

'Dear me! I am really very sorry. I beg your pardon, Miss Gwynne, but it
will put ideas into her head above her station.'

'We shall be very quiet.'

The conversation was interrupted by the sudden entrance of Rowland. He
drew back on seeing Miss Gwynne, and bowed, as usual, profoundly. She
also, as usual, advanced and held out her hand.

'My father begged me to ask if you would come and dine with us on
Wednesday,' said Miss Gwynne.

'Thank you, I am much obliged,' stammered Rowland, whilst a bright Hush
overspread his face, 'I shall be very happy, if I am not obliged to be
elsewhere. Mother, poor Griffith Jenkins is dead. I have been there all
the night.'

'Dead! I had no idea he was so ill! Oh, Rowland, how did he die?'

'Just as he lived, mother. With the key of his coffers so tightly
clasped in one hand that it was impossible to take it from it after he
was dead. And the said coffers hidden, nobody knows where. But poor Mrs
Jenkins has no friend near who can be of any real comfort to her. I wish
you could go to her for a few hours.'

'This poor girl, Rowland--what can I do with her? And your uncle and
aunt coming.'

'I think I can manage my uncle and aunt till your return. As to the poor
girl I really know not what to say.'

'Oh! if you will trust her to me, Mrs Prothero, I will nurse her till
you come back!' exclaimed Miss Gwynne eagerly. 'I assure you I can
manage capitally, and will send back the horses, and a message to papa.'

'I am afraid it would not be right--I think the girl has low fever--Mr
Gwynne would object.'

'I assure you it would be quite right, and I don't fear infection and
papa would let me do just as I like. In short, I mean to stay, and you
must go directly. Is young Jenkins at home, Mr Rowland?'

'Yes, he returned a few hours before his father's death.'

'I suppose that horrid old man died as rich as Croesus, and, according
to custom in such cases, his son will spend the money.'

'I wish he had not got it,' said Mrs Prothero.

'That is scarcely a fair wish, mother. Let us hope that he will do well
with it.'

'Never, never. He was not born or bred in a way to make him turn out
well.'

'Nothing is impossible, mother.'

'You must take care of Netta, Mrs Prothero. But now do go to that
wretched Mrs Jenkins, and leave the poor girl to me, and Mr and Mrs
Jonathan to Mr Rowland. I hope you have been studying the antiquities of
Wales at Oxford, Mr Rowland?'

This was said as Mrs Prothero left the room; and Rowland was startled
from a rather earnest gaze on Miss Gwynne's very handsome and animated
face, by this sudden appeal to him, and by meeting that young lady's
eyes as they turned towards him. A slight blush from the lady and a very
deep one from the gentleman were the result. The lady was indignant with
herself for allowing such a symptom of female weakness to appear, and
said somewhat peremptorily,--

'Will you be so good as to tell Jones to take the horses home, and to
let my father know that he must not wait luncheon, or even dinner for
me?'

'Excuse me, Miss Gwynne,' said the young man, recovering his composure,
'but I do not think my mother would be justified in allowing you to
attend upon that poor girl.'

'Allowing me! Really I do not mean to ask her. I choose to do it, thank
you, and I will speak to the servant myself.'

It was now Miss Gwynne's turn to grow very red, as, with haughty port,
she swept past Rowland, leaving him muttering to himself.

'What a pity that one so noble should be so determined and absolute. Let
her go, however. Nobody shall say that I lent a hand to her remaining
here. In the first place she runs the risk of infection, in the second
every one else thinks she degrades herself by coming here as she does.
Still, her desire to take care of the girl is a fine, natural trait of
character. I must just go and look over the _Guardian_. A curacy in
England I am resolved to get, away from all temptation. Yet I hate
answering advertisements, or advertising. If my aunt's friends would
only interest themselves in procuring me a London curacy, I think I
should like to work there. That would be labouring in the vineyard, with
a positive certainty of reaping some of the fruits.'

The soliloquy was interrupted by the reappearance of Mrs Prothero,
dressed for her walk.

'Mother, you ought not to let Miss Gwynne stay.'

'I! my dear Rowland! Do you think she would mind what I say to her?'

Miss Gwynne entered.

'I have sent off the servant, and now let me go to the girl.'

This was said with the decision of an empress, and with equal grandeur
and dignity was the bow made with which she honoured Rowland as she made
her exit, followed meekly by Mrs Prothero.

A short time afterwards she was alone by the bedside of the sick girl.
Every comfort had been provided for her by Mrs Prothero, and Miss Gwynne
had little to do but to administer medicines and nourishment.

'Is there anything I can do for you, my poor girl?' she said, leaning
over her bed. 'Anything you have to say--any letter I can write--any--'

'If--you--would--pray--my lady,' was the slow, almost inarticulate
reply.

Pray! This was what Miss Gwynne could not do. 'Why,' she asked herself,
'can I not say aloud what I feel at my heart for this unhappy creature?
I never felt so before, and yet I know not how to pray.'

She went to the head of the stairs, and called Netta.

'Will you ask your brother whether he will come and read a prayer to the
poor girl?' she said.

A few seconds after there was a knock at the door. She opened it and
admitted Rowland. He went to the bed, and began to whisper gently of the
hope of salvation to those who believe. Gladys opened her eyes, and
caught the hand extended to her.

'More--more,' she murmured. 'Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.'

Rowland read the Office for the Sick, from the prayer book, and she
responded inwardly, her lips moving. Miss Gwynne came to the bed, and
kneeling down, joined in the prayers.

Again Rowland spoke soothingly to the girl of the need of looking to
Christ, the Saviour, alone in the hour of her extremity; and she
murmured, 'He is my rock and my fortress.'

'Do you trust wholly in Him?'

'In whom else should I trust? All human friends are gone.'

'Not all, you have friends around you.'

'Have I? Thank you, sir? God bless you.'

'I will come again and read to you when you are able to bear it.'

Rowland said this and withdrew, without speaking again to Miss Gwynne,
or even bowing as he left the room.

'He certainly reads most impressively,' thought Miss Gwynne; 'I could
scarcely believe he was not English born and bred; but still he is quite
a Goth in manners, and I am sure he thinks no one in the country so
clever as himself.'

Rowland met Netta at the foot of the stairs.

'Netta, I really am ashamed to think that you can allow Miss Gwynne to
wait upon that girl in your own house.'

'I'm sure, Rowland, Miss Gwynne needn't do it if she didn't choose. I
don't want to catch the fever, and I never will run the risk by nursing
such a girl as that.'

'Surely, Netta, you cannot be our mother's daughter, or you could not
use such unchristian expressions.'

'I'm no more unchristian than other people, but you're always finding
fault with me.'

The conversation was interrupted by a loud knocking at the house door,
and Farmer Prothero's voice was heard without, calling,--

'Mother, mother, where are you? Here we are, all come!'

Netta flew to open the door, and was soon industriously kissing a lady
and gentleman, who had just alighted from a little four-wheeled
carriage, and were waiting, with her father, for admission. Rowland,
also, in his turn, duly embraced the lady, who seemed much pleased to
see him. They brought in various packages, and proceeded to the parlour.

'Where's mother, Netta?' exclaimed Mr Prothero.

Rowland answered for her.

'She is gone to Mrs Griffey Jenkins, father; perhaps you have not heard
that Uncle Griff is dead.'

'Not I, indeed. Well! he's as good out of the world as in, though I'm
sorry for the old fellow. But what'll we do without mother? She's always
nursing somebody or other, either alive or dead.'

Rowland turned to his aunt, and said that his mother begged him to
apologise for her necessary absence for a few hours.

'I shall do very well, I daresay,' said the aunt, whose countenance wore
a somewhat austere expression.

She was a lady of middle age, who prided herself upon having a first
cousin a baronet. Her father, a clergyman, rector of a good English
living, was the younger son of Sir Philip Payne Perry, and she an only
child, was his heiress. Mr Jonathan Prothero had been, in years gone by,
his curate, and had succeeded in gaining the affections, as well as
fortune, of the daughter, and in bringing both into his native country.
He had the living of Llanfach, in which parish Glanyravon was situated,
and lived in very good style in a pretty house that he had built
something in the style of an English vicarage.

Mrs Jonathan Prothero, or Mrs Prothero, the Vicarage, as she was usually
called, was tall and thin, very fashionably dressed, with a very long
face, a very long nose, very keen greenish grey eyes, a very elaborately
curled front, a very long neck, very thin lips, and very dainty manners.
She was proud of her feet and hands, which were always well shod,
stockinged, gloved, and ringed, and as these were the only pretty points
about her, we cannot wonder at her taking care of them. People used to
say she would have been an old maid, had not a certain auspicious day
taken the Rev. Jonathan Prothero to her father's parish, who, having an
eye after the fashion of servants of a lower grade, to 'bettering
himself,' wisely made her a matron. Having no children of their own,
they lavished their affections on their nephews and niece, and their
money on their education.

'My dear Rowland,' said Mrs Jonathan, 'I think I have agreeable news for
you. I wrote to my cousin, Sir Philip Payne Perry, whose wife's brother
is, as you know, high in the church, and received this answer.'

She put a letter into Rowland's hands, and watched his countenance as he
read it.

'My dear aunt, how very good of you!' exclaimed Rowland; 'the very
thing I wished for. Oh, if I can only get it, I shall be quite happy. A
curacy in London, father! Just read this. Sir Philip thinks I might not
like it in the heart of the city, but that is really what I wish. Plenty
to do all the week long. Oh, aunt, how can I thank you enough?'

'By making every effort to advance yourself in life, and to rise in the
world, my dear nephew,' said Mrs Jonathan.

'What do you think, uncle?' asked Rowland, turning to Mr Jonathan
Prothero, who was seated in the window, with a large book before him,
that he had brought from the carriage.

'He! what! what did you ask?'

'Only what you think of this London curacy that my aunt has been so kind
as to write about.'

'Me! I! Oh, capital! just the thing in my humble opinion. If you get it,
you will be able to go to the Museum, and look up the old genealogy we
were talking about. Do you know I have made a remarkable discovery about
Careg Cennin Castle. It was built--'

'Never mind, my dear, just now; we were talking of Rowland's curacy,'
interrupted Mrs Jonathan, who generally managed all business matters.

'To be sure, my dear, to be sure, you know best,' said Mr Jonathan
absently, resuming his book.

'For my part, sister,' said the farmer, 'I 'ould rather he had a curacy
in his own country, and so 'ould his mother; but he's so confoundedly
ambitious.'

'Aunt, won't you come upstairs and take off your things?' asked Netta,
interposing, for once in her life, at the right time.

'Thank you, my dear, I should be very glad,' and they accordingly
disappeared.

'Father,' began Rowland, as soon as they were gone, 'I think it right to
tell you, that we were obliged, out of sheer charity, to take that poor
Irish girl into the house. It was impossible to move her without risk of
instant death.'

'And upon my very deed, Rowland, if this isn't too bad,' cried the
farmer, stamping his foot on the floor, and instantaneously swelling
with passion. 'As if it wasn't enough to have paupers, and poor-rates,
and sick and dying, bothering one all day long, without your bringing an
Irish beggar into the house. I never saw such an 'ooman as your mother
in my life; she's never quiet a minute. I 'ont stand it any longer; now
'tis a subscription for this, now a donation for that, then sixpence for
Jack such a one, or a shilling for Sal the other, till I have neither
peace nor money. Come you, sir, go and turn that vagabond out directly,
or I'll do it before your mother comes home, hark'ee, sir.'

'I can't father, really.'

'Then I will.'

Off stalked the farmer in his passion, crying out in the passage,
'Shanno, come here!'

A servant girl quickly answered the summons.

'Where's that Irish vagabond?'

'In Mr Owen's room, sir.'

Upstairs went the farmer, leaving Shanno grinning and saying, 'He, he,
he'll do be turning her out very soon, she will, he, he.'

Rowland ran upstairs after his father, calling out gently, 'Stop,
father, Miss Gwynne--' but the father was in the bedroom before he heard
the words, and had made the house re-echo the noise of his opening the
door.

He was instantaneously checked in his career by seeing Miss Gwynne
advance towards him, with her finger in the air.

'Hush, Mr Prothero,' she whispered, 'she is asleep. Look here; gently,
very gently.'

She led the enraged farmer by one of his large brass buttons to the
bedside, where the white-faced Gladys lay. She looked so much like a
corpse, that he started back affrighted. Then Miss Gwynne led him out
into the passage, and seeing from his angry face the state of the case,
instantly said,--

'It was I who had her brought here, Mr Prothero; and by-and-by I will
get her sent back to her parish, but until she is better we must take
care of her.'

At these words from the all-powerful Miss Gwynne, Mr Prothero was fain
to put such check upon his rising choler as the shortness of the notice
would allow. He could not, however, fully restrain the whole of the
invective that had been upon his lips a short time before.

'No offence, Miss Gwynne? but 'pon my soul, I'm sick to death of my
missus's pensioners and paupers, and I'm determined to have no more of
'em. You may do as you please, miss, at your own house, and I'll do as I
please in mine.'

Here Rowland popped his head out of a neighbouring bedroom

'Father, Miss Gwynne is taking upon herself a risk and encumbrance that
should be wholly my mother's. She has nothing to do with the girl,
beyond showing her great kindness.'

'Really, Mr Rowland Prothero,' began Miss Gwynne, drawing herself up to
her fullest height, 'I wish you would allow me to manage my own
affairs.'

'Yes, yes, Rowland. What, name o' goodness, have you to do with Miss
Gwynne? I'm ashamed of the boy. I really beg your pardon, miss, but I
believe he's so set up by having a chance of going to London, that he
don't know whether he stands on his head or his heels. Go you away,
Rowland, directly. I won't have you interfaring with me.'

Miss Gwynne could not help laughing as she saw Rowland's sense of duty
struggle with his pride at this authoritative mandate; but she was very
much surprised to see him bow politely to her and walk away. She
wondered whether anything on earth could have induced her to obey a
similar order.

She followed Mr Prothero downstairs and made herself so agreeable to him
and Mrs Jonathan, that they quite forgot Mrs Prothero's absence, until
the sudden return of that good woman set all matters right, and enabled
Miss Gwynne to leave the farm.






CHAPTER VI.

THE MISER'S WIFE.


'I must have money,' said Howel Jenkins as he sat alone with his mother
in their little parlour, the evening after Mrs Prothero had left them.

'My dear, there will be plenty when we can find it, be you sure of that.
I do know well enough that your poor father was having a chest full,
only he was keeping his door locked and barred so that I couldn't see
him at it.'

'But surely, mother, you must have some idea where my father kept his
gold. If I don't pay a man in London by tomorrow's post, I shall be in
jail before a week is over my head.'

'Mercy! Howel, bach! Now don't you be spending the mint o' money that'll
be coming to you, there's a good boy, before you do know what it is.
Remember Netta! You'll be as grand as any of 'em now, if you do only
begin right, and are being study and persevaring, and sticking to your
business. I 'ouldn't wonder if you was to be a councillor some day. Only
to think of me, mother of Councillor Jenkins! You may be looking higher
than Netta, and be marrying a real lady, and be riding in your coach and
four, and be dining with my Lord Single ton, and be in the London
papers; and I 'ouldn't wonder if you was to be visiting the Queen and
Prince Albert again, and behaving your picture taken to put into your
own books and the "'Lustrated." I always was saying I 'ould be making a
gentleman of you, and I have.'

'But, mother, before I can do anything like this I must pay my debts and
make a new beginning. I will marry Netta, now, in spite of the whole
tribe of Davids and Jonathans, and they shall see us as much above them
as--as--money can make us. Now, mother, we must have a search for the
money.'

'Not whilst your father is in the house, Howel; I should be afraid. Be
you sure his spirit'll be looking after the money till the funeral's
over.'

'Nonsense; where are the keys? We'll have a turn at the old bureau
anyhow. Money I must have, at once, and Rowland is as obstinate as a pig
about what the governor told him.'

'Indeet, and indeet, Howel, you had better don't. Suppose it 'ould bring
him to life again?'

'I'll risk that. Give me the keys.'

Mrs Jenkins handed a bunch of keys to her son with trembling fingers.

'Tak you a drop of spirits first. It do show how rich they are thinking
us now. There's Jones, the Red Cow, and Lewis, draper, are letting us
have as much credit as we like; and they 'ouldn't let us have as much as
a dobbin or a yard of tape before poor Griffey died.'

Howel drank a wine-glass of raw brandy and went upstairs with the keys
in his hand. He crept stealthily into that room where the miser breathed
his last, as if fearful of arousing the body within the drawn curtains.
He proceeded to the bureau and tried the various keys of the large bunch
that he now grasped for the first time in his life. At last one key
entered the lock and turned in it. Hush! there is a sound in the room.
He turns very pale as he glances round. He sees no movement anywhere.
The curtains are so still that he almost wishes the wind would stir
them. He opens the bureau and again looks wistfully round. He is almost
sure that the curtains move. 'Coward that I am,' he cries, 'what do I
fear?'

He turns again, and, looking into the bureau, sees that all the open
divisions are filled with papers, and imagines what must be the contents
of the closed and secret compartments. As he touches one of these a
tremor seizes him, and he fancies that a hand is on his shoulder. He
starts and turns, but the curtains are motionless as ever. He goes into
the passage and calls, 'Mother, come here. Quick! I want you directly.'

Mrs Jenkins comes upstairs, looking as pale as her son.

'Just help me out with this bureau, mother; I cannot examine it in this
room, you have put such ridiculous notions into my head.'

'I'm afraid, Howel.'

'Nonsense, come directly, or I must get some one else.'

The pair went into the room and tried to move the bureau that had stood
for nearly fifty years in that corner untouched, save by the husband and
father, now lifeless near them. It was very heavy, and scarcely could
their united strength move it from its resting-place. They finally
succeeded, however, in dragging it towards the door, in doing which they
had to pass the foot of the bed. Unconsciously they pushed the bed with
the corner of the bureau and shook it. They nearly sank to the ground
with terror, expecting, for the moment, to see the miser arise, and
again take possession of his treasures. The mother rushed into the
passage, the son again called himself a coward, and, with a great
effort, pushed the bureau through the door and shut it after him.

'Now, mother, help to get it into my room. One would think we were
breaking into another man's house, instead of taking possession of our
own property.'

With the whole of their joint strength they succeeded in getting the
heavy piece of furniture into Howel's room, where, having first locked
the door, they proceeded to examine its contents. Disappointment awaited
them; they could find nothing but papers. Deeds, mortgages, bills,
letters, accounts, were arranged in every open and shut division. The
drawers contained nothing else, and the little locked cupboard in the
centre, the key of which was found upon the bunch, also enshrined
nothing but a few very particular documents.

'These papers could not have made the bureau so heavy,' said Howel,
biting his nails. 'There must be secret drawers.'

He pulled out the drawers and papers, and threw them on his bed. He
tried to move the bureau, and found it almost as heavy as ever.

'I am thinking, Howel, bach, that cupboard don't go through to the back
of the bureau,' suggested Mrs Jenkins.

Howel seized the poker and aimed a blow at the cupboard; the mahogany
did not give way, but they fancied they heard a chinking sound within.

'I am thinking,' said the mother, 'that it must be a double bureau. It
is looking so much broader than it do seem.'

Howel examined it, and began to think so, too; he took some carpenter's
tools down from the shelf, and set to work to try to pierce the back of
the bureau with a gimlet, in order to see if the gimlet would appear on
the other side.

He worked the implement through a portion of the wood, and then found
its course stopped by some still harder matter. He had recourse to his
penknife, with which he hacked a hole in the wood, large enough to find
that there was an inner back of iron, or some kind of metal. Each new
obstacle served only to inflame his impatience, and to provoke his
temper. He forgot the bed in the next room, and everything else in the
world except the attainment of his object, and running downstairs,
returned with a large sledge-hammer that he found in the coal-hole. With
his strength concentrated in one blow, he swung it against the back of
the bureau, and had the satisfaction of finding his wishes gratified.
The concussion moved some secret spring somewhere, for as the piece of
furniture tottered on its foundation, and fell forwards against the bed,
out rolled such a profusion of gold, as led Howel to believe, the 'El
dorado' was found at last. Mother and son lifted up their hands in
astonishment; gold pieces were in every corner of the room, scattered
here and there like large yellow hail.

The noise of the blow, however, and the subsequent fall of the bureau
had alarmed a neighbour, and before one piece of the tempting gold had
been picked up, there was a loud knock at the door.

'Say the house has fallen in; the inquisitive fools!' exclaimed Howel,
as his mother left the room.

Howel began to fill his pockets with gold pieces, and opening a box,
pushed as many as he could hastily gather up into it also. There were
thousands upon thousands of sovereigns upon the floor.

'It was old Pal, the shop,' said Mrs Jenkins, returning to her golden
harvest, 'she was up nursing next door, and heard the noise. I tell her
it was the table falling down.'

'Now, mother, as soon as all is over, I must go to London and clear off
my debts with some of this money; but I must see Netta first.'

'Why don't you be putting it in the bank, Howel, bach? It will make a
gentleman of you.'

'There's enough besides to make me a gentleman, if I am not one already;
and I promise you, that when I am clear again I will come back and make
all the rich men in the country hang their heads. But I want to see
Netta.'

'Write you a bit of a note, and I will manage to send it.'

'Pick up the money, mother, and I will write the note.' Mrs Jenkins
proceeded to obey her son, whilst he unlocked a desk, and wrote the
following hasty lines:--

'I must be in London next Monday. I must see you before I leave. Meet
me at the old place in the wood by the little Fall, Sunday evening,
during church time.'

He folded the note without signing it, and gave it to his mother,
without adding any address.

'Seal it mother, and deliver it, or rather send it by some one you can
trust.'

'I'll manage that. Now pick you up some of the money. Here's a hundred
pound in my apron now, and gracious me! the lots more!'

'If you will keep the hundred pounds in your apron, mother, and let me
have the rest, I shall be satisfied.'

'But what'll you be doing with all this goold?'

'Preparing to make you the mother of Councillor Jenkins, or of a famous
man of some sort or other. What do you say to a poet or a prime
minister?'

'I 'ould rather you do be a councillor, than anything--like Councillor
Rice, Llandore.'

'Well, I shall perhaps, be a judge with all this money, and I daresay my
father--'

Here a vision of the bed in the next room stopped the young man's
speech, and shuddering slightly, he kicked a heap of sovereigns that lay
near his foot, and sent them rolling into different corners of the room.

'Take away the ill-gotten gain, mother, it will never prosper; you had
better go to bed, and I will do the same. I suppose it would be
impossible to sleep with that yellow usury on the floor. I should have
Plutus at the head of the imps of darkness about my bed, instead of
"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John," that I used to pray to "bless the bed
that I lie on."'

'Don't talk so fullish, Howel.'

'Why it was you taught me all that Popery.'

'The Lord forgive you, Howel, I never did see the Pope, and 'ould sooner
teach you the Methodist hymn book.'

'Well, never mind, let us go to bed.'

'I'll go down and sit by the fire. Lie you down here. God bless you, my
boy, give your poor mother a kiss.'

'Good-night, mother, or rather good morning,' said the son, bending down
carelessly to be embraced by the parent who would sacrifice her life for
him.

When Mrs Jenkins had left the room, Howel hastily collected the gold
that was scattered about, and tossed it, without counting it, into the
box already mentioned, which he locked, and put the key in his pocket.
He then lay down on the bed without undressing, and tried to sleep. In
vain, no sleep would come to 'steep his senses in forgetfulness.' The
bed in the next room, with its grim, gaunt inmate, was constantly before
his eyes. If he dozed for a moment, the miser, his father, and the gold
he had for years longed to obtain possession of, haunted him, and made
him start like a thief, as if taken in the act of stealing the coin now
by inheritance his own.

'Cursed gold!' he exclaimed at last, jumping from the bed, 'what shall I
do with it? Pay my debts, and turn a sober man? I will try. If 'Netta
will have me, perhaps I may; indeed I am sure I could. We will come here
and cut a dash first, however. I should like to humble some of our Welsh
aristocrats by showing them how the son of Griffey Jenkins can eclipse
their genealogies, by the magic power of the Golden God. I will stay
over the funeral, then off to town and get rid of my pressing debts;
then pay Levi and Moses, and all my debts of honour; then set myself up
in clothes and jewels, and come home and carry off Netta; and, finally,
have a year's pleasure at least. Take Netta to the continent, and teach
her to _parlez-vous_ a little more fluently than she does now, and to
assume more aristocratic manners; in short--in short--'

The soliloquy was interrupted by the sudden explosion of some substance
under his feet, upon which he accidentally trod as he was pacing up and
down the room. He swore an oath that emanated from his fear, and thought
that the lower regions had actually opened to receive the gold he was
meditating upon, since fire and smoke accompanied the noise, together
with a smell of gunpowder. He rushed out of the room, just as his
mother, alarmed by the sound, was running upstairs.

'They will carry him off before the funeral,' he cried, as his mother
asked what was the matter.

Ashamed of his cowardice, he made an effort to return to the room,
followed by his mother. There was such a strong smell of sulphur that
both recoiled.

'What fools we are!' exclaimed Howel, forcing himself to enter. He
stooped to examine the floor, and to his amusement and disgust, found
the remains of a cracker, which had burst beneath his foot-tread. There
were several others scattered about, that had been unnoticed, because
they looked simply like bits of paper. These had evidently been placed
by his father amongst the gold, in the hope of frightening any one who
might wish to finger it, and had rolled out with the treasure they were
intended to protect.

Mother and son again left the room, the latter locking the door as he
did so, and putting the key in his pocket. They descended to the little
parlour below stairs, where they finished the night, alternately dozing
in their chairs, and talking, and occasionally supporting themselves by
draughts of the different liquors that were spread upon the table near
them. In spite of his best efforts to throw aside such thoughts, Howel
could see nothing all that night but the gold, the father who had won
it, and the poor wretches who had been ruined in paying usurious
interest for it.






CHAPTER VII.

THE SQUIRE.


The dinners at Glanyravon were always unexceptionable. Mr Gwynne was a
bit of an epicure, and kept a capital cook, and his daughter liked to
see everything done in good style. Even Mrs. Jonathan Prothero declared
that the dinner-parties at her cousin's, Sir Philip Payne Perry's, were
scarcely more agreeable or better managed.

Still, at the dinner in question, all the elements were not quite well
amalgamated. Although the dishes were so discreetly seasoned, and the
_entremets_ so exquisitely prepared, that the most fastidious critic of
the gastronomic art would not have found a grain too much of any one
ingredient, there was a less judicious mixture amongst the guests.
Nothing could be more perfect than the bearing of the host and hostess.
Mr Gywnne was a gentleman, even in his peculiarities--fastidiously a
gentleman--and comported himself as such to every one. But he was too
nervous, and had too low a voice to put his guests at ease: one half did
not hear him at all, and the rest were slightly afraid of him on account
of this extreme fastidiousness, his nervous complaints and his being
very easily tired, or bored. Miss Gwynne was more successful at her end
of the table, but she rather annoyed some of her guests by being too
much bent on bringing out her friend Netta, and playing her off against
Miss Nugent.

She was, however, very polite to all, and, for so young a woman, made a
very agreeable and fascinating hostess. So, apparently, thought all the
gentlemen, as they principally addressed their conversation to her, and
had manoeuvred, particularly the young ones, to sit as near her as
possible. The Rev Jonathan Prothero had the place of honour at her
right, and did not take up much of her time. He appeared to be deep in
the speculation concerning the ancient castle of which we have already
heard, and was learnedly descanting upon it to Mrs Rice Rice, a lady on
his other side. The said Mrs Rice Rice, having _un oeil aux champs, et
l'autre a la ville,_ was ostensibly listening to him, whilst she was
really attending to her son, who was making visible efforts on the heart
of the heiress, Miss Gwynne.

The Rice Rices were people of family and fortune, living in the
neighbouring town. Mr Rice Rice was in the law, and was at that moment
engaged in discussing the affairs of the deceased Mr. Griffith Jenkins
and his quondam articled pupil, Howel, with Rowland Prothero across Miss
Nugent. He was a portly well-to-do-looking man, with a bald head and
good-humoured countenance. His wife was even more portly than himself,
and sat, in black velvet and marabout feathers, as stately as a princess
at a drawing-room. The task of keeping up the family reputation of the
ancient house of Rice Rice devolved in a great measure on this lady,
assisted by her daughter; and, it must be said, that if any one could
have doubted the antiquity of this honourable race after an hour's
conversation with this enthusiastic pair he must have been a sceptic
indeed! Family pride is a common weakness, but one could almost call it
the stronghold of Mrs. Rice Rice, just as the various archaeological and
historical glories of Wales and the Welsh was the fortress of Mr.
Jonathan Prothero.

It was into these towers of strength that these worthies retreated on
all occasions. One saw the bulwark in Mrs. Rice Rice's ample, immoveable
figure, and in the glance of the eyes that looked over the somewhat
mountainous cheek; one saw it in a certain extension of the chin, turn
of the mouth, and slightly _retrousse_ nose. One saw it, above all, in
her manner to the Protheros.

But Mrs. Jonathan Prothero was quite as capable of sustaining the
dignity of the Philip Payne Perrys as the Welsh lady that of the Rice
Rices, and a satirist might have made a clever caricature of these
patriotic dames--the one thin and stiff, the other stout and stiff--as
they compared their family honours.

But the lady of undoubted rank and pretension of the party is Lady Mary
Nugent, who can afford to patronise or throw over-board whomsoever she
will. She is seated next to Mr Gwynne, and is lavishing a considerable
share of good looks and eloquence on that gentleman. Still in the prime
of life, elegant, refined, pretty, and a skilful tactician, she is a
dangerous rival of the young ladies, and is not wholly innocent of a
desire to eclipse them. She and her daughter are dressed very nearly
alike, in some white and light material, and at a little distance she
might pass for the fair Wilhelmina's elder sister. A profusion of
ornaments, too well arranged to appear too numerous, alone distinguish
mother and daughter. She has a handsome profile and a captivating
manner, two dangerous things in woman; but therewith she has an
occasionally malicious expression of eye and mouth, that somewhat
impairs the effect of the captivation.

Her daughter is like her in profile, but has not her fascination of
manner. She is, however, beautiful as a statue, with chiselled features
and marble complexion. But she does not at present appear to have
character enough to possess the clever malice of her mother. This may
possibly come with suitors and rivals, who generally draw out all the
evil, and sometimes much of the good, of woman's nature.

She is now simpering and blushing and saying pretty nothings between
Rowland Prothero and a certain Sir Hugh Pryse, who, on their respective
parts, think her a goose, being attracted elsewhere. Sir Hugh is
exerting his lungs to their utmost, and much beyond the boundaries that
etiquette would vainly try to impose upon them, in endeavouring to
attract the attention of Miss Gwynne; whilst Rowland is, as we before
said, discussing the death of Mr Jenkins and the prospects of his son.

Perhaps the most uncomfortable person at the table is Netta, who really
does not quite understand how to behave herself in the new atmosphere in
which she finds herself. She never was at a dinner-party before, never
waited upon by grand servants, never surrounded by such gay people; and,
in spite of her ambition to eclipse by her beauty the Misses Nugent and
Rice Rice, she feels and looks rather awkward. Miss Gwynne does all in
her power to reassure her, but she sits, looking very pretty--by far the
prettiest person in the room--and very ill at ease, until the ladies
adjourn to the drawing-room, and she takes refuge in the pictures of the
drawing-room scrap-book and her aunt.

The gentlemen arrive in course of time, which they must do, linger as
long as they will over the delights of port and politics, and then the
various schemes and thoughts engendered at the dinner-table are brought
to light over the coffee-cup.

Miss Gwynne patronisingly singles out Rowland Prothero, who, reserved by
nature, feels doubly so amongst the ill-assorted elements around him.

'Have you seen that poor girl since I was last at your house, Mr
Prothero, and how is she to-day?' inquires the heiress.

'She asked to see me yesterday, and I went to her. She seemed more
composed, and liked being read to; but she is in a very precarious
state.'

'Is your father more reconciled to her being with you?'

'Not at all. And it certainly is very unfortunate. But he would not
allow her to be neglected now she is thrown on his kindness.'

'I wish she had never come,' interposed Netta, who had ventured to cross
the room to Miss Gwynne.

'Have you heard of the great catch you are all likely to have, Miss
Gwynne?' here broke in Sir Hugh Pryse, of stentorian reputation.

'I do not know what you mean,' said Miss Gwynne.

'Why, Mr Rice Rice tells me there is more than a hundred thousand pounds
to be raffled for by all the young ladies in the country. They have
simply to put themselves into the lottery, and only one can have the
prize.'

'I never knew you so figurative before. Sir Hugh.' 'Don't pay any
attention to him, Miss Gwynne,' said a fresh addition to the circle that
stood round that young lady's chair. 'He means that old Griffey Jenkins,
the miser, is dead, and that Howel comes into all his immense wealth.'

Miss Gwynne gave her head such a magnificent toss that her neck looked
quite strained.

'I do not imagine many _young ladies_ will purchase tickets in that
lottery,' she said, with a stress upon the 'young ladies.'

'I have no doubt there are dozens who would, and will, do it at once,'
responded Sir Hugh. 'And quite right too. Such a fortune is not to be
had every day.'

'But it is gentlemen, and not ladies, who are fortune-hunters,' said
Miss Gwynne, changing her tone, when she suddenly perceived that Netta's
face and neck were crimson.

But the subject was become quite an interesting piece of local gossip,
and, one after another, all the party joined in it.

'Howel Jenkins might make anything of himself if he would but be
steady,' said Mr Rice Rice.

'Except a gentleman by birth,' said his lady.

'Or the least bit of an archaeologist,' said Mr Jonathan Prothero. 'I
tried one day--you will scarcely believe it, Mr Gwynne--to make him
understand that Garn Goch was an old British encampment, but he would
not take it in.'

'Ah, really; I do not very much wonder myself, for I cannot quite "take
in" those heaps of stones and all that sort of thing,' responded the
host.

'What can they find to interest them in that sort of person?' asked
Lady Mary in an aside to Mr Gwynne.

Miss Gwynne overheard it, and answered for her father.

'He is a young man of great talent, very rich, very handsome, and has
had a miser for a father. Is not that the case Mr Rowland?'

'I--I--really, it is scarcely fair to appeal to me, as he is a
relation.'

'And do you never say a good word in favour of your relations?'

'I hope so, when they deserve it,' said Rowland resolutely, glancing at
his sister, who was biting her glove.

'If I may be allowed an opinion,' said Mrs Jonathan decidedly, also
glancing at poor Netta, 'I should say that Howel Jenkins was a complete
scapegrace. What he may yet turn out remains to be proved.'

'Well, that is putting an end to him at once,' said Miss Gwynne, 'and I
think we had better play his funeral dirge. Lady Mary, will you give us
'The Dead March in Saul,' or something appropriate? Never mind, Netta; I
daresay cousin Howel will turn out a great man by-and-by;' this last
clause was whispered to Netta, whilst the young hostess went towards a
grand piano that stood invitingly open, and begged Lady Mary Nugent to
give them some music.

That lady played some brilliant waltzes, after which, her daughter
accompanied her in the small bass of a duet.

'Pon my soul, that's a pretty girl, that little Prothero!' said Sir Hugh
Pryse to young Rice Rice. 'I never saw such a complexion in my life.
Roses and carnations are nothing to it.'

'Rather a vulgar style of beauty, I think,' said Mr Rice Rice, junior,
taking up an eyeglass, and finding some difficulty in fixing it in his
eye. He had lately discovered that he was nearsighted, to the great
grief of his mother, who, however, sometimes spoke of the sad fact in
the same tone that she used to speak of the Rice Rice, and Morgan of
Glanwilliam families. She herself belonged to the latter.

'I vow she's lovely!' cried the baronet, so emphatically that every one
in the room might have heard him. Most of the ladies, doubtless, did,
and appropriated the sentiment, but, by-and-by, Netta was triumphant, as
he went and sat by her, and complimented her in very audible terms.

She blushed and coquetted very respectably for a country damsel, and
wondered whether a poor baronet, or a wealthy miser's son would best
help her to humble the pride and condescension of the Nugents and the
Rice Rices.

Whilst Lady Mary Nugent was playing, Mr Gwynne very nearly went to
sleep, and Rowland Prothero, who liked nothing but chants, and a solemn
kind of music that he chose to think befitting a clergyman, was, in his
turn, looking over the drawing-room scrap book. Miss Gwynne gave her
papa a sly push, and whispered, that she believed Mr Rowland Prothero
played chess.

Mr Gwynne aroused himself, and challenged his young neighbour. Miss
Gwyne, assisted by all the gentlemen, brought the chess-table, and the
game soon began.

There is no doubt that there is nothing in the world more selfish, more
absorbing, more disagreeable to every one excepting the players, than
chess. Mr Gwynne began his game half asleep; Rowland began his in a very
bad temper. The former was glad of anything that could keep him awake,
the latter was disgusted at having been made the victim of Miss Gwynne's
anxiety to preserve her father from falling fast asleep in the midst of
his guests. But, by degrees, the one was thoroughly aroused, and the
other forgot his annoyance. Both soon ignored the presence of any human
being save himself and his opponent.

Music and talking sounded on all sides, but they made no impression on
the chess-players. Lady Mary performed all her most brilliant airs and
variations in vain, as far as Mr Gwynne was concerned; and Rowland was
even unconscious that Netta had resolutely played through all the small
pieces she had learnt at school at the particular request of Sir Hugh
Pryse.

'That game will never finish,' at last exclaimed Lady Mary, approaching
Mr Gwynne. 'How can any one like chess?'

Mr Gwynne kept his finger on a piece he was about to move, glanced up,
but did not speak.

'They tell me you ought to have at least five or six moves in your eye
whilst you are making one,' said Sir Hugh. 'For my part, I always find
one move at a time more than I can manage. It certainly is the dullest
game ever invented.'

'Chess is a game of great antiquity,' said the Rev. Jonathan
sententiously. 'It is supposed to have been invented in China or
Hindustan, and was known in the latter place by the name _Chaturanga_,
that is, four _angas_, or members of an army.'

'The army must be proud to send such members to parliament,' said young
Rice Rice, with a consciousness of superior wit, in which the remainder
of the party did not appear to participate.

'True, young gentleman,' said Mr Jonathan, 'and well she might, for they
were elephants, horses, chariots, and foot-soldiers; but what such
members of an army have to do with parliament, I should be glad to hear
you explain. I do not remember mention being made of parliament till the
twelfth century. It was first applied to general assemblies in France
during the reign of Louis the Seventh; and the earliest mention of it in
England is in the preamble to the statute of Westminster in 1272. It is
derived from the French word _parler_, to speak.'

'Then,' said Miss Gwynne, 'there must be some truth in what I have
heard, that the first parliament was composed of women.'

'Good, good, 'pon my soul!' roared Sir Hugh.

'But Sir William Jones says of chess,' continued Mr Jonathan, in the
same unchanged tone and manner, 'that the Hindus--'

'Oh, my dear, pray do not let us hear anything of Sir William Jones; I
am sick to death of all the Jones',' interrupted Mrs Prothero, causing a
diversion, and a suppressed laugh at her expense, instead of at young
Rice Rice's, who had made the last sally upon Mr Jonathan, and a
somewhat mortifying retreat.

It was remarkable, that whoever made a sly attack upon that worthy, with
a view to a joke, was sure to have the tables turned upon him, by the
matter-of-fact way in which his joke was received, refuted, and cut to
pieces.

'I assure you, my dear, there have been many very celebrated Jones', Sir
William at the head of them. He was a great Oriental scholar. Then there
was Inigo Jones, the architect; and John Paul Jones, the admiral; and Dr
John Jones, the grammarian, born in this very county; and--and--'

'That celebrated Mr David Jones, Mr Prothero, whose locker was so deep
that I am sure he must have been a relation of the admiral,' suggested
Miss Gwynne.

'Truly so, my dear--but I have read--'

'I am afraid I must trouble you to order my carriage, Mr Gwynne,' said
Lady Mary, looking impatiently, first at the chess-table, secondly at
her daughter, who was engaged in animated nonsense with Mr Rice Rice,
junior; and thirdly at Sir Hugh, still occupied in making Netta blush.

'I beg your pardon; one moment, Lady Mary; I must just castle my king.'

'Perhaps you had better put an end to the game, papa,' said Miss Gwynne.

'Not for the world, my dear. What do you say, Mr Rowland?'

'I should certainly like to finish it, but perhaps we are
inconveniencing others.'

'Ah, yes, to be sure. Then will you come and dine with me to-morrow, and
we will finish it?'

'Thank you, I shall be very happy,'

Mr Rice Rice, junior, and Sir Hugh wished that they were good chess
players. It was quite an honour to be invited to a family party at
Glanyravon.

'Put the chess-table into the book-room, Winifred, and lock the door.'

Mr Gwynne actually rose in the excitement of the moment.

'If the servants come they will disturb the men, and--and--all that sort
of thing, you know.'

Miss Gwynne and Rowland carried the chess-table into a small room,
opening into the drawing-room, and duly locked the door after them.

'I suppose you are fond of chess,' said Miss Gwynne for want of
something to say.

'Very,' said Rowland laconically, and she little knew what was passing
in his mind.

Always the same thoughts when in her presence--thoughts of mingled
approbation and dislike. But she cared little what he thought of her.

'Dry and pedantic, and very disagreeable,' was what she thought of him.

'Your nephew is rather a sinking-looking young man,' were Lady Mary's
words to Mrs Prothero, during his temporary absence.

'Yes, he is very clever and gentlemanlike. He gained high honours at
Oxford, and my cousin. Sir Philip Payne Perry, is going to procure him a
London curacy,'

Lady Mary looked still more favourably upon Rowland when he returned,
with a flush on his face, from the book-room.

'Do you know that young Prothero is a very handsome young man?' she said
to Miss Gwynne.

'Very handsome,' said Miss Gwynne, remembering her intentions for
Wilhelmina. And the carriages were announced.






CHAPTER VIII.

THE MISER'S SON.


It was Sunday evening, and all the inmates of Glanyravon Farm were
either at church or chapel, with the exception of Netta and one of the
servants, who remained to watch the sick Gladys. Netta said she had a
headache, and preferred staying at home. By way of curing it she put on
her best bonnet and went for a walk. As soon as she was out of sight of
the house she set off at a pace that did not bespeak pain of any kind.
She soon struck out of the country road, with its hedges of hawthorn,
into a field, and thence into a small wood or grove, almost flanking the
road. The warm June sun sent his rays in upon her through the trees, and
helped them to cast checkered shadows upon her path, lighting up, every
here and there, a bunch of fern or flowers, and brightening the trunks
of the interlacing trees. As she saw the lights and shadows dancing
before her she became serious for a moment, and fancied they were like
the will-o'-the-wisp, and portended no good; but she soon quickened her
pace, and at the first opening went out again into the road, where the
sun was uninterrupted in his gaze, and her few fanciful thoughts took
flight.

She glanced furtively into one or two cottages as she passed them, and
the absence of all inmates seemed to reproach her for her Sunday evening
falsehood. At last she reached a small cross-road or lane, down which
she turned, heedless of the profusion of wild roses that actually
canopied the way. Another path, narrower still, and thickly bordered
with blackberry bushes in full blossom, brought her to what seemed a
large mass of brambles, low underwood, and occasional young oaks. There
were, however, little patches of grass here and there amongst the
thicket, and into one of these she got with some difficulty. This was
the hall from which diverged one or two little passages, that looked so
dark, narrow, and brambly, that they appeared inaccessible. But Netta
managed to push aside some briars with her parasol and enter one. Almost
at her first footstep she tore her pretty muslin dress, but folding it
closer round her, she pushed her way. The smart pink bonnet was in great
danger, but escaped uninjured.

At last she found herself on the brink of a deep ravine, almost
precipitous, and heard the sound of rushing water beneath her. Large,
gloomy trees outspread their brawny arms on each side of this gorge and
lovingly embraced above it, so that the rays of the sun were again
thwarted in their purpose, and turned and twisted about before they
could glance upon the dark waters below.

Netta did not know all the tangles and tears she was to meet with when
she set out on her walk. She had not visited this spot for some time,
and then she had taken a more frequented path, on the other side of the
ravine. She looked around, and down into the depth below, but she could
see nothing but trees and brushwood. She was not strong-minded, so she
began to be afraid. However, summoning up her courage, she pushed into
a kind of broken stony path, down the side of the gully, and at the
expense of a few more rents in the muslin dress, and some scratches on
her hands, she succeeded in scrambling to the bottom.

Here was a wild and beautiful scene. A waterfall rolled from a height,
over rocks and brushwood, down into a foaming stream beneath, that
rushed, in its turn, over huge stones through the dark ravine.

As Netta stood almost at the base of the waterfall, and on the edge of
the rapid brook, something like reflection took possession of her
volatile mind. There was a solemn gloom and grandeur about the scene
that reminded her of the Sabbath she was desecrating, and therewith of
her parents, and her duty to them. For a moment--only for a moment--she
thought she would return, and strive to atone for the falsehood, by
giving up the object of her evening wandering. But a bright gleam of
sunshine darted through the trees--the stream foamed and leapt towards
it--the waterfall sparkled beneath--the arrowy fern glittered like gold,
and Netta's heart forgot her duty, and thought of her recreant lover.
Her repentance must come in gloom, her sin in sunshine.

She plucked a bunch of the wild roses that hung around and above her,
and dashed them petulantly into the stream. She watched them as their
course was interrupted by the large masses of rock, and they were tossed
here and there by the angry mischievous water. At last they hung
trembling on a huge stone, stranded, as it were, on their impetuous
course. Again, for a moment, a serious comparison arose in her mind, and
she wondered whether her life might be like that of the flowers she had
cast away from her? whether she might be carried, by the force of
contending passions, and left to wither upon some hard shore that as yet
she knew not of. Such ideas naturally present themselves to the mind of
all who are not wholly devoid of imagination and when the rapid stream
again bore, away the bunch of roses, and Netta saw them no more, she had
quite believed that such would be her course upon the troubled waters of
the world.

But she was not long left to speculate upon her future. Whilst her eyes
were yet fixed upon the spot whence the roses had vanished, she felt a
hand on her shoulder, heard a voice call her name, and starting round,
saw her cousin Howel behind her. He had crept so softly down that she
had not heard him, and she uttered a sharp cry that sounded like one of
terror, as she suddenly felt his touch.

'A strange greeting, Netta,' were the first words, after they had shaken
hands.

'You frightened me, and why were you not here sooner? I have been
waiting an hour,' was the rejoinder, in a tone of voice that belied the
radiant joy of the young face.

Suddenly Netta seemed to recollect something that brought a shadow over
the sunshine.

'Cousin Howel, I--I am very sorry for you. Poor Uncle Griff! How is
aunt?--and you--you look ill, Howel; what is the matter?'

It was difficult for Netta to know what to say about the death of the
miser. She was not sorry, and she could not tell how her cousin felt.

'Oh, yes; my mother is pretty well. I have been ill, but shall soon be
all right again. Netta, how long is it since we met?'

'A twelvemonth next Friday.'

'You remember the day, dear Netta. Then you do not hate me, although
they have done their best to make you do so, by calling me gambler,
spendthrift, drunkard, and all the charming etceteras.'

'Oh no, Howel.'

'Take off that bonnet, and let me see if you are altered.' He unfastened
the strings, and let the long black curls fall over the girl's neck.
'No, you are only prettier than ever, cousin Netta. How would you look
in lace and pearls, and all the goodly array of a fine lady?'

'I don't know, Howel; but tell me what you wanted me for.

'Just let me twist this bunch of roses into your hair first, to see how
an evening toilette would become my pretty cousin Netta.'

Howel had torn a spray from the rose-bush at their back, and he inserted
it carelessly amongst the curls.

'How well you look, Netta. I should like to see you in a ball-room. We
will go together to plenty of balls, if you will only consent.'

'I don't like those roses, cousin,' said Netta hastily, 'they are
unlucky I think,' and she tore them from her hair, and threw them, as
she had done the previous ones, into the brook. 'Now let us see where
they will go.'

'We have not time, Netta, and I do not know why I am fooling away the
hours. You must answer all my questions truly and plainly. I am become a
rich man, how rich I do not myself know; and I mean to let every one
belonging to me see that I can spend my money like a gentleman, and be
as grand as those who have hitherto lorded it over me.'

'Particularly the Rice Rices and Lady Mary Nugent,' interrupted Netta.

'Would you like to be grander than they, Netta? have a finer carriage,
more beautiful clothes, a handsomer house, plate, jewels, servants, and
all sorts of magnificence?'

'Oh, yes, of all things in the world.'

'Then you shall be my wife, Netta, and we will soon see whether we
cannot be as grand as the grandest.'

'Oh, cousin!'

'Well, dear Netta; tell me, are you changed?'

'No, cousin.'

'If I ask your father's consent, and he gives it, will you marry me?'

'You know we settled that long ago, cousin Howel; but father will not
consent, unless--unless--'

'Pshaw, but if I ask his consent, and he refuses it, will you marry me
then, dear Netta, dear, dear cousin?'

Howel fixed his large, piercing eyes upon Netta, who coloured and
trembled, and murmured, 'Oh, Howel, I don't know--how can I?'

'How can you? Who is to prevent you? We can marry and go abroad, and
return and ask pardon, and I will take a fine house, and they will be
only too proud to own us?'

'Not father, Howel, unless--'

'Unless I become a steady fellow, and settle down, as I mean to do, if
you will marry me. But if you refuse me, I shall just go on as I am, or
put an end to my wretched life perhaps.'

'Howel, don't be so wicked,' cried Netta, bursting into tears.

'Then, Netta, you must give me your promise to be mine, whether your
father consents or not, whenever I write you word, through my mother,
that I will have a carriage ready at the corner near the turnpike. But I
can settle all particulars at the proper time, provided only you
promise. Remember, you have told me hundreds of times that you will be
my wife, and neither father nor mother should prevent it.'

'I do not know--I cannot tell whether it would be right.'

'Not right to save me from destruction, to make me what I ought to be,
to cleave to your husband as if he were yourself, in spite of parents or
relations! I am sure, Netta, that you are taught to do all this;
besides, you cannot help it, if you love me. You know that I would have
married you when I had nothing, as readily as I will now that I have
tens of thousands, and surely this deserves a return?'

Netta began to sob.

'You know how it is, Howel. I am afraid of father, and could not bear to
annoy mother, but--'

'But you love me better still, Netta; so do not cry, and we will be as
happy as the day is long. Will you promise me?'

Netta sobbed on and hesitated.

'I am going to London to-morrow, cousin Netta, to pay debts, and make
myself clear of the world. If you will promise, in a few months I will
return for you; we will travel, we will do anything in the world you
like; I shall have plenty of money, I shall probably write a book when
we are abroad, which will make me famous as well as rich; we will come
home and astonish the world. If you do not promise, I shall never come
here again, and shall probably live a gay, wretched life on the
continent, or elsewhere, and be really the good-for-nothing fellow I am
thought to be;--will you promise, dear cousin Netta?'

Howel knew well how to assume a manner that should add force to the
feelings he expressed, and rarely did he employ his powers of persuasion
in vain, particularly with the fair sex, never with his cousin, to whom
he was really attached, and who was wholly devoted to him.

'Netta,' he added, in a low, sad voice, 'I fear, after all, you do not
love me, and I have very few who care for me in this world.'

'Do not say this, cousin,' sobbed Netta, 'you know I always promised--I
always said--I--I--will do anything in the world you wish me, cousin
Howel.'

'Even if your father refuses?'

'Yes, I will not care for any one but you.'

'Thank you, dear Netta; now I know that we shall be happy, and you shall
have everything you can desire.'

'Stop, cousin; I shall not marry you because you are rich, or great, or
likely to be as grand as other people--though I should like to put them
down, just as well as you--but because we have loved each other ever
since we were little children, and I could not care for any one
else--not even if Sir Hugh Pryse were to ask me.'

Howel was both touched and amused.

'You are a good, kind, little cousin, Netta; but what can you mean about
Sir Hugh?'

Netta tossed her head, and looked vain-glorious.

'Oh, I dined at Glanyravon on Thursday, and the Rice Rices, and Nugents,
and Sir Hugh were there; and Sir Hugh was very attentive to me, and said
a great many things to me. And he has been at our house since, and has
met me in the road, and been as polite as possible.'

'But he is desperately in love with Miss Gwynne, or her fortune; so you
need not alarm yourself, my little cousin.'

'You need not alarm _yourself_, you ought to say,' and Netta again
tossed her head.

'Well, I am not jealous. Sir Hugh, with his loud voice, vulgar manners,
and stupid fat face, could not light a candle to me, and as to his
title, I will back my fortune against that.'

'It sounds very grand to be called my lady.' Netta said this to pique
her cousin, and she succeeded; but she did not expect to provoke the
storm that she raised. The dark brow lowered, and he said,--

'Netta, I am in no mood to be trifled with. If you wish to be 'my lady,'
take Sir Hugh, if he will have you; but I go halves with nobody. Now is
the time to resolve; I shall never ask you again; and whatever your
opinion may be upon the subject, I consider that I do you as great
honour in asking you to be my wife, as if there were fifty Sir Hughs at
your feet.'

It was now Netta's time to pout and look cross. She generally did before
her private interviews with her cousin ended. Their quick tempers were
sure to inflame each other.

'I am sure I don't care whether you ask me again or not. It is not such
a great favour on your part.'

'Very well; then "your ladyship" has probably decided in favour of
this,' and Howel made a face to represent Sir Hugh swelling his cheeks
to their utmost extent. Netta tried to smother a laugh.

'I am sure he is quite as good looking as you are, with your cross face.
You are enough to frighten one out of one's wits.'

'If you had any, Miss Netta. But come, this is absurd. Is it to be Sir
Hugh in perspective, or cousin Howel at once?'

Netta was still pouting, fidgeting with her parasol, and restlessly
pushing her foot through the grass and flowers, when they were startled
by a voice crying,--

'Is that you, Netta?'

Both looked up in affright, and, to their extreme disgust, perceived
their very sedate brother and cousin, Rowland, threading his way down
the opposite side of the ravine. He was soon at the bottom, and in less
than a minute had crossed from stone to stone over the brook, and stood
by the side of his sister.

'Netta, what can you be doing here?' he asked abruptly.

'I came for a walk,' was the somewhat hesitating reply.

'Then, perhaps, you will have no objection to walk home with me,' said
Rowland, looking reproachfully at Howel. He met a defiant glance in
return.

'Howel,' he said, 'I do not think my father would approve of Netta's
meeting you here, and, I therefore, must beg to break up an interview
that had been better avoided.'

'Whatever right your father may have, sir, to prevent my seeing your
sister, at any rate you have none,' was Howel's indignant reply.

'Then I shall take a brother's right, and in the absence of my father,
assume his place. Netta, you know you are doing wrong; come with me.'

Netta hesitated, but her brother's manner was authoritative, and she
felt that she dared not disobey.

'I tell you what it is, Rowland, you have always assumed a tone with me
that I neither can nor will brook,' passionately exclaimed Howel.' I beg
you to account for your conduct, and to understand that I will have
either an apology or satisfaction for your ungentlemanly proceedings.'

'I never apologise when I have done no wrong; and as for satisfaction,
as you understand it, I have not the power of making it. I will not
desecrate the Sabbath by an unseemly quarrel amidst the most beautiful
works of creation, nor offend my sister's ear by recrimination. If you
have any real regard for her, you will allow her to go home quietly with
me, and remember that we are all relations, and ought to be friends.'

'Friends we can never be. The only friend I have in your family is Owen,
except, perhaps, Netta, who is turned by one and the other of you, like
a weathercock by the winds.'

'I beg your pardon, cousin Howel,' began Netta.

'We have had enough of this,' said Rowland calmly. 'If you choose to
come and see us as a relation, in a straightforward manner, Howel, we
should be glad to see you, but underhand ways are equally disagreeable
to us all.'

'How remarkably condescending!' said Howel with a sneer. 'But I will not
waste time with a canting, Methodist parson like you. I wish you as many
converts as you desire, but not myself amongst them. Remember, Netta!
Good bye. I suppose your most excellent brother will allow us to shake
hands.'

Netta held out her hand, and as Howel shook it, he again repeated the
word 'remember.' Rowland advanced a pace or two, and partly extended his
hand. Howel turned abruptly away, and with a contemptuous glance, merely
said, 'Good day to you,' The brother and sister took an opposite course
to his, and had to cross the brook, whilst he pushed his way through the
briers that had impeded Netta's path. He turned and watched them as they
stepped from stone to stone, and finally ascended the ravine. Netta
looked round, and he kissed his hand to her, to which she responded by
nodding her head; but Rowland neither turned to the right nor left.

'Meddling coxcomb!' he exclaimed, 'what is there in him that commands
the attention and respect that I fail to obtain with ten times his
talents?'

He stood for a few minutes musing, whilst the music of the waterfall
insensibly soothed his irritated mind.

'Why should I care for Netta, who could marry any one I like?' were his
thoughts. 'I suppose because she really loves me, and because they all
oppose me. Well, supposing I do turn over a new leaf, and spend the gold
my father got so usuriously, in doing good! That would be making a use
of a miser's money, rarely, if ever, made before? and might be worth the
trial, if only to work a new problem, whether ill-gotten wealth could
conduce to moral health. I should like to out-Herod that puppy Rowland,
and make a saint of myself out of a sinner. That would be working out
two problems at once. I wonder whether Netta will help me to solve
them?'

Netta, meanwhile, was receiving a very severe lecture from her brother,
to which she did not condescend to reply, until he spoke of what his
father would say to her meeting Howel clandestinely,

'I suppose you are not going to be cross enough to tell father,' said
Netta'

'I shall certainly think it my duty to tell him,' was the reply.

'Then you are an unkind, unfeeling, unnatural brother,' cried Netta,
bursting into tears.

'Will you promise not to meet Howel again without my father or mother's
consent?' asked Rowland, relenting,

'I won't promise anything? and Howel is a thousand times nicer and
kinder than you are. You have no feeling for any one. I wish Owen were
at home.'

'Netta, you are very unjust? you know I only wish your good.'

'And I suppose you wish Howel's good, too. Just as his father is dead,
and he meaning to be good, and only wishing to see me before he goes to
London, and having plenty of money to do what he likes, and intending to
pay his debts with it, and--and--'

Here sobs and tears came to the rescue of the voluble words that would
soon have worn themselves out--for Netta had no great flow of language.

Rowland was perplexed. He was fond of his sister? he wished Howel well?
he did not know whether it would be best to let them marry or not. If
they were prevented, they would either take French leave, or hate all
their relations? and if they married they would not be happy, he was
sure. But he knew it was wrong to deceive his parents. In this uncertain
state of mind they reached home, through, the little hawthorn lane
before described. Mrs Prothero was on the look out for them, she having
returned from chapel and missed them.

Netta ran past her mother into the house, without replying to her
question concerning her headache, and Rowland at once related to his
mother what he had seen of Howel and Netta's private interview, which
that good lady was very much distressed to hear.






CHAPTER IX.

THE IRISH BEGGAR.


Glanyravon farm was anything but a quiet home during the ensuing week.
Mrs Prothero thought it right to inform her husband of what had passed;
and he blustered and raged even more than he had ever done about the
Irish beggars. Everybody thought proper to try to convert Netta, but
none of them knew the indomitable obstinacy of her character, and all
signally failed. Even Uncle and Aunt Jonathan had their turn, and drove
over on purpose to canvass the matter; but as the elders disagreed upon
the various points at issue, it was no wonder that all remained much as
it was before the unfortunate meeting we have mentioned.

'For my part,' said Mrs Jonathan Prothero, when all were assembled,
except Netta, in family conclave, 'I cannot see so much against the
young man after all. Such a fortune as his is not to be met with every
day, and I must say he is very handsome and clever.'

Here we must remark that this lady's sentiments had undergone a change,
since it had been rumoured that Howel was worth more than a hundred
thousand pounds.

'I tell you what it is, ma'am,' roared the farmer, 'if he were worth his
weight in gold, he 'ouldn't be a good match for any prudent 'ooman. To
my certain knowledge he drinks and gambles, and he shall never have my
consent to marry Netta so long as I live, and you may tell him so.'

'I do not know enough of him, sir, to have any communication of the kind
with him,' said Mrs Jonathan, stiffly.

'My dear,' interposed mild Mrs Prothero, 'if he gets steady, and settles
down, it might be better to let them marry, than to make them miserable
for life.'

'_Study_! miserable! mother, you're a--I beg your pardon, but when
Howel's study, I'll turn to smoking cigars. Why, the very night of his
father's funeral he was half drunk, instead of being decent for once.'

'He couldn't care much for his father, my dear; you must make
allowances.'

'An odd man, that Griff, brother David,' said Mr Jonathan Prothero, as
if just awaking from a dream. 'Do you remember when we were lads
together, and used to go up to Garn Goch looking for treasures? I knew,
even then, that it was an old British encampment, and began to speculate
upon its date, and so on; you used to hunt rabbits, and provoke me by
overturning the walls, but Griff got it into his head that there was
money buried somewhere, and never ceased digging for it. At last he
found an old coin of very ancient date, and seeing that I wished to have
it, he bargained with me, until he got all the money I had for it. Of
course the coin was worth any money, and satisfactorily proves that Garn
Goch was an old British encampment at the time of the invasion of the
Romans.'

'Well, brother, you _are_ by the head! That old coin is nothing but a
well-used sixpence.'

'I have every reason to believe, and I am supported in my opinion by
various antiquaries, that it bears the inscription either of Cunobelin
or Caractacus. There is a decided C, and we are told that money was
coined in Britain in the time of Cunobelin.'

'And how on earth did he get up to Garn Goch?'

'Why, you know that Caractacus commanded the Silures, or people of South
Wales, against the Romans, and that they held out bravely, I have no
shadow of doubt that Garn Goch was one of their strongholds.'

'But what can Garn Goch have to do with Netta and Howel? Brother, I
always shall say you are by the head with your antiquities.'

'Well, I think you had better let them marry, I really do. It's no good
opposing young people, when they will have their own way at last.'

'I sha'n't send for you to consult with again. Mother, go and bring
Netta here, and let us see what she has to say for herself.'

'My dear Davy, would it not be better to speak to her privately?'

'Not a bit. I can't say a word when I am alone with her, but I could
give her a bit of my mind when you are all present. Why don't you go,
and not stand looking as if you was as much by the head as brother Jo.'

Poor Mrs Prothero perceived that her husband was determined to have
Netta publicly reprimanded, so, much against her will, she left the
room. Rowland was preparing to follow, not liking the prospect of a
scene, when his father peremptorily called him back.

'Stay you, sir. If you was the better for going to Oxford, you'd try to
teach your sister how to behave, instead of cutting off the moment
you're wanted.'

'I really do not think, father, that a public reproof is likely to make
Netta change her mind. You would do better to talk quietly to her.'

Here Mrs Prothero returned, followed by Netta, looking as sulky as she
possibly could, and with the traces of tears on her face. There was an
awkward silence for a few seconds, during which both Mr Prothero and
Netta were getting redder and redder, and their inner man
correspondingly choleric. At last the father began the strife.

'Now, I say, Miss Netta,' there was a pause for a few minutes. 'Do you
hear, miss?'

'Yes, father, I hear very well,' said Netta, and muttered to herself in
continuation, 'who could help it?'

'You hear very well--I should think so. You hear a good deal you've no
business to listen to. Do you mean to give up that scamp Howel?'

No reply.

'Now it's no use for you to stand there and say nothing, for an answer I
will have.'

'I don't think he's a scamp,' said Netta boldly.

Poor Mrs Prothero trembled, and looked imploringly at Netta.

'My dear Netta, you should not contradict your father,' said Mrs
Jonathan, with a severe look.

'You don't think he's a scamp. Then you mean to have him, I suppose?'
said Mr Prothero.

'I didn't say that, father. But I don't see why I may not speak to my
own cousin.'

Every one was surprised at Netta's answers. Like her father, she could
talk better before numbers. She had done nothing but cry when her mother
had reasoned with her.

'Very well, miss. All I can say is, that if you meet him again
I'll--I'll--I'll--' the good farmer did not know what he would do. He
was not prepared to say.

'He is gone to London, father,'

'Will you promise not to meet him any more, you good-for-nothing girl,
you? You most disobedient daughter!'

Again Netta was silent.

'Will you promise your father, Netta,' said Mrs Prothero, gently, 'not
to meet Howel again, or have anything to say to him, without his
consent?'

Still Netta was silent.

'He may reform, you know,' suggested Mrs Jonathan, 'and then you may be
allowed to marry,'

'No chance of that,' roared Mr Prothero, advancing towards Netta, taking
her by the arm, and looking as if a few more of her rejoinders would
bring her a good shaking. 'Do you mean to promise, miss?'

'Father, you're hurting me,' said Netta petulantly. 'You needn't pinch
me so.'

Mr Prothero relaxed his hold. He doated on this obstinate, pretty,
wilful child of his--the only girl, and whose temper was the very
facsimile of his own.

'It's you're hurting me most, Netta, by rushing into certain misery.
Will you promise?'

Again he took hold of the arm.

'One would think you were a Papist, father, and this the Inquisition,'
said Netta, growing learned under the torture of her father's grasp,

'Well said, Netta,' broke in Mr Jonathan, aroused by any allusion to any
subject out of the present. 'A cruel court that perhaps more properly
called Jesuitical than Papistical.'

Mr Prothero gave Netta a slight shake, which shook more passion into
both of them, and frightened Mrs Prothero.

'Once for all, Netta, will you promise to give up that scamp of a cousin
of yours, Howel Jenkins?' roared the father.

'I won't promise anything at all,' replied Netta doggedly; and freeing
herself from her father, she ran to her uncle as if for protection.

'You won't!' said Mr Prothero, pursuing her, 'then I tell you what it
is. The moment you are known to keep company with him, you may find some
other home than this; and if you determine to marry him, you shall be no
longer a daughter of mine. I'll never, as long as I live--'

'Hush, hush, David, hush, please,' said Mrs Prothero, putting her hand
on his arm. 'Netta will not disobey us, I am sure. But it is her
obstinate temper; she never would say anything she was commanded to
say.'

'Then you ought to have taught her better. She is a good-for-nothing
girl, and I'll--'

'Netta, you had better leave the room,' said Rowland, opening the door,
through which Netta gladly escaped. '"Fathers, provoke not your children
to wrath,"' he added, turning to his father. 'You will do nothing with
her at present. She is worked up to a spirit of resistance by too much
argument, and the more you say the more obstinate she will become.'

'You are all as obstinate as mules,' said Mr Prothero; 'I can't think
who you turn after. And then to have the impudence to say I was a
Papist! Why, I'd rather be a Methody preacher any day. And you to
encourage her, brother Jonathan. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.'

Brother Jonathan started up from his dream of Garn Goch and the
Inquisition, to repudiate the imputation of encouragement.

'I was merely glad to find that she knew anything about the Inquisition,
and had any information at all in her head; generally speaking, women
know so little. I assure you, David, it was far from me to wish to
encourage her in disobedience, or to offend you; so give me your hand.'

The brothers shook hands very warmly, and in so doing, the contrast
between them was very great. The farmer I have already described. The
clergyman was a remarkable specimen of the 'dry-as-dust' species. Very
tall, very thin, with very loose joints, seemingly hung together on
wires, and a very prominent nose. He had acquired the habit of poking
his chin and looking on the ground, as if he were always in search for
something, which he possibly was, as he never despaired of finding some
antiquity or curiosity at any moment. It must not be augured from his
devotion to antiquarian lore that he made a bad clergyman On the
contrary, he was always ready at the call of the poorest parishioner,
regular in his visits to the sick, charitable in no mean degree, and
humble in his deportment to rich and poor. True, his sermons were
somewhat dry, and occasionally too learned for the greater portion of
his flock; but he made up for this by the simplicity of his conversation
when he talked to them at their own houses.

He seldom was seen without a sort of school-boy satchel at his back,
containing a small hammer and other useful tools, which, it was
believed, had actually carried his lesson-books years ago. All the
villagers knew his strong-and-weak point, and he rarely appeared amongst
them without having various stones and imaginary curiosities presented
to him, particularly by the young people. Many of these stones found
their way into his bag, and it was not to be wondered at that he had a
somewhat round back, as he frequently carried a load upon it, that a
beast of burden would not have rejoiced in.

He and Mrs Jonathan were a remarkable pair; one of those ill-assorted
couples that you wonder at. 'How in the world did they come together?'
was the usual question, the philosophic reply to which would have been,
that theirs was actually one of the 'Matches made in heaven.' The
gentleman got money to enable him to follow the bent of his genius
without anxiety for his daily bread, and therewith a stirring wife to
take care of him and his house; the wife got her great desideratum, a
husband, and therewith the desideratum of all women, her own way.

But we must return to Netta and the other belligerents. As nothing more
was to be made of her at present, they let her alone, perhaps the wisest
thing they could do, and sat down to dinner. Netta declined eating, and
consequently was left to her own reflections. Mr Prothero inquired
anxiously of his wife, when he had cooled a little, whether he had
really hurt Netta when he took hold of her arm; to which Mrs Prothero
replied with unusual severity, 'No, perhaps it had been better if you
had; she wanted some trial or punishment to bring down her proud
spirit.'

In the course of the evening, a little before Mr and Mrs Jonathan left
Glanyravon to return home, Miss Gwynne came to inquire for the poor
Irish girl. She joined the party in the parlour for a short time, and
gave a message from her father to Rowland, to the effect that he was
very anxious for another game of chess, and begged him to come and dine
at the Park on the morrow. Of course Rowland was only too happy, and the
rest of the party too proud.

'Papa is disgusted at your having beaten him the other night,' said Miss
Gwynne to Rowland.

'I think Mr Gwynne got tired,' said Rowland modestly.

'What affectation,' thought Miss Gwynne, as she said, 'oh, no! he says
you are the best player.'

'I disclaim that entirely,' said Rowland. 'I merely beat two games out
of three, and we had not time for another.'

Rowland had been, according to promise, to dine and play chess with Mr
Gwynne; Miss Gwynne had dined with them, but had left them after dinner
to follow their own devices, whilst she had followed hers, and did not
reappear during the evening. Mr Gwynne had reproached her for her
absence, and she had declared that she hated to be so long without
talking, and that chess and young Prothero were perfect antidotes to
conversation.

'That ancient, Saracenic game, as Mr Jonathan Prothero calls it, played
by a Goth,' she said, 'is beyond my store of politeness.'

Mrs Prothero and Miss Gwynne went to see the poor Irish girl; they found
her rather better, and able to speak to them with some degree of
composure. The fever and its accompanying delirium had abated, and the
danger was past; but, as is usual in such cases, extreme weakness was
the result.

'God bless you, my ladies,' she murmured, as Miss Gwynne stooped over
her to inquire how she did, and Mrs Prothero took her thin hand. 'I am
better, thank ye; I can see and understand, and know now all that you
have done for the wretched beggar.'

Here the poor girl's tears began to flow.

'We only wish to see you get well,' said Miss Gwynne softly, 'and then
we can help you to find your friends.'

'I have no friends in the world miss, asthore; my father died years ago,
and my mother, brother, and sister all died of this horrible famine and
pestilence! oh me! oh me!'

The tears flowed still faster, and Mrs Prothero begged her to be silent,
and not to excite herself; but with restless eagerness she went on, as
if anxious to pour forth her sorrows whilst she felt the strength to do
so. It was remarkable that her English was very good, and that, with the
exception of an occasional Irish epithet of endearment, you would
scarcely have discovered her country. Indeed, the Welsh peculiarities of
expression and accent sometimes appeared, so that it would have been
difficult to say where she was born or brought up.

'I am going to look for my friends, if I live, and then, may be, I may
be able to repay you for your kindness to me, a poor, wretched wanderer
on the face of God's earth. If you'll be pleased to listen whilst I have
the strength, I will tell you my story.

'My mother was a Welshwoman, born in some part of South Wales; she was
the daughter of a clergyman, and respectably brought up. Her father
taught her a great many things that we ignorant people in Ireland used
to think a great deal of. Oh, she was a good and tender mother to me,
ladies, avourneen.

'My father was an Irishman, and a fine, handsome man. He was a soldier,
a corporal in the Welsh Fusiliers, and used to be called Corporal
O'Grady. He was going through this country to Ireland, to visit his
friends, on leave, when he first saw mother, and fell in love with her,
and she with him. She knew that her father would not be willing that
they should marry, so she ran away with him to Ireland. They travelled
about for some time with his regiment, but, after I was born, mother
went to settle in Ireland with father's family, and there she had three
other children, two boys and a girl. After this my father was wounded in
India, and got his discharge and his half-pay. He became a kind of
under-agent for a gentleman that lived in England, so we were very well
off as long as he lived; but he died when I was about twelve years old,
and then mother did not well know what to do. I remember my father's
death, and all our trouble, as if it was yesterday.

'She set up a little school, and for some years did pretty well. She
could teach all that the farmers' daughters wanted to learn, and I
helped her; so we managed to live. It was a hard struggle sometimes, but
everybody was kind to widow O'Grady and her orphans; God reward them.

'But the bad time came for poor Ireland; the famine visited us, and
then the pestilence! Ye have heard enough of the horrors, without doubt,
but not half of what they really were. We were all starving, dying--I
saw enough people die to make me wish myself dead hundreds of times, to
be hidden from the sight; but I was fated to live. You, ladies, in your
charity, have saved me again; but oh! if it were not wicked, I should
wish myself with my mother, brothers, and sister in heaven.'

Here the poor girl's sobs choked her speech, and Mrs Prothero entreated
her not to proceed.

'Only one word more, my ladies, and I have done. When they were all
gone--all--all--and I only left, I did not care what became of me. I
went about amongst those stricken down with the fever; but, woe is me, I
never caught it. I fasted from morning to night, day after day, but I
could not die of starvation; nothing would kill me. I was alone in the
wide world, yet it would not please God to take me to another, much as I
prayed to Him.

'Before mother died she told me to go into Wales, and try to find if she
had any relations left. It was all she said, or had strength for; and
before she got ill she seldom talked of her friends. All that I know of
them I heard from my father when I was quite a child. He told me that
mother had written to her father when she settled in Ireland, and that
her letter had been returned with a note, saying that he was dead, and
his only son gone away, no one knew where. This was her brother, and my
uncle, but I do not know where to find him, only I am come to seek them,
that I may do her bidding.'

'And what was your mother's name?' asked Mrs Prothero.

'Margaret Jones, ma'am,'

'My poor girl, there are hundreds of that name in South Wales. But we
will make inquiries for you, and when you are better--'

'I am better now, thank you, ma'am. To-morrow I think I may go on my
way. I would not trouble you any more; a poor beggar like me is not
fit--oh dear! oh dear!'

'Now I insist on your being quiet and going to sleep, and forgetting all
those horrors,' said Miss Gwynne, assuming her most decided voice to
hide her emotion. 'You are not to go away to-morrow; but I daresay in a
few days you will be able to do so, and we can help you a little. But
your best plan now is to get as strong as you can whilst you have the
opportunity,' and herewith Miss Gwynne put a large spoonful of jelly
into the girl's mouth.

Mrs Prothero was wiping her eyes, and stifling a rising sob behind the
curtain, which caused Miss Gwynne to become very severe, and to utter
something about giving way to foolish weakness which aroused Mrs
Prothero, and made the patient bury her head beneath the bed-clothes.

Miss Gwynne beckoned to Mrs Prothero, and they left the room together.
Upon asking for Netta, Miss Gwynne was let into the secret of the family
troubles and consultations, and greatly fearing to be made a party in
the lecturings overhanging the luckless head of the offender, she took a
hasty leave of Mr and Mrs Jonathan, and begging Mrs Prothero not to be
too hard upon Netta, or to let her son Rowland preach too many sermons,
went her very independent way.






CHAPTER X.

THE SQUIRE'S DAUGHTER.


'You will oblige me by remaining at home this evening, my dear,' said Mr
Gwynne to his daughter.

'That I assuredly shall, papa,' was the reply, 'for dear Miss Hall is
coming to-day, and that princess of bores, Miss Nugent, has invited
herself to tea. I certainly do wish Rowland Prothero would fall in love
with her. She is quite ready for the _premier venu_, be he prince or
peasant.'

'Does not Lady Mary come, my dear?'

'No; I am thankful to say she is gone to spend a few days with the
Llanfawr family.'

'I am very glad Miss Hall is coming, Freda. I wish she would live with
you; it would be very pleasant, and a protection for you, and all that
sort of thing.'

'Oh, do ask her, dear papa. I have tried a thousand times to persuade
her to come here and live with us for ever; but I think she will not
come on my invitation.'

'I could not possibly ask her, my dear. I should break down at the first
word; we never were very familiar. She is stiff, and I am
nervous--and--and--I really could not summon courage.'

Miss Hall had been Miss Gwynne's governess during a few years of her
education era, and had succeeded in entirely gaining her affections, as
well as a small portion of ascendancy over her determined will. She had
left Glanyravon to reside with an aged father, who, having lately died,
left her again under the necessity of seeking a situation. Miss Gwynne
had invited her to pay her a visit, and she was to arrive almost
immediately.

She did arrive whilst they were talking about her, and as the carriage
that had been sent to meet her drove up to the door out flew Freda in
great excitement, and scarcely allowed her _ci-devant_ governess to
alight before she was overwhelming her with embraces. Mr Gwynne followed
somewhat more leisurely, and received Miss Hall with his usual nervous
reserve of manner, but great courtesy. She responded most warmly to the
embraces of Freda, and quietly to the welcome of Mr Gwynne.

We will not give a minute description of the new comer, because she is
not quite a person to be described. She is neither very good-looking nor
very plain, neither very old nor very young, neither very tall nor very
short, neither very talkative nor very reserved, neither very much
over-dressed nor very much under-dressed, neither very merry nor very
grave. Freda used to say that she was the personification of gentle
dignity and serenity, and in the days of her Italian studies called her
occasionally _La Dignita_, but more frequently _La Serenita_, which
epithet would sometimes be abbreviated into Serena, or Sera, or Nita, or
anything but Miss Hall, which the love of the impulsive pupil, so hard
to obtain, and so great when obtained, thought much too formal.

When Freda took Miss Hall to the delightful apartment she had been
adorning for her for a week past, the first impulse of the older lady
was to throw herself upon the neck of the younger, and burst into tears.

'Dearest Serena, I have been so very sorry for you,' was all that Freda
could say.

For a minute there was silence, when Miss Hall, recovering herself,
said,--

'Dear Freda, this is all so kind of you. If anything could console me
for the loss of my last earthly support, it is such affection as yours.'

We will pass over the long conversation of those two friends, its
melancholy and its mirth, for there was much of both, and bring them to
the dinner-table and Messrs Gwynne and Rowland Prothero.

They were rather a formal quartette, and at first conversation did not
flow easily. Mr Gwynne's nerves, Rowland's embarrassment Miss Hall's
natural depression of spirits, and Freda's resolution not to make
herself agreeable to a person she was determined to consider conceited,
were bad ingredients for a dish of good sociable converse. By degrees,
however, they thawed a little. Mr Gwynne wished to say something that
would set his young chess opponent at his ease, and said the very thing
likely the most to confuse a shy man. He made a personal remark and paid
a compliment.

'I am sure your uncle and--and your father, of course, must have been
much gratified, and so forth, at your gaining that fellowship at
Oxford.'

'I think you labour under a mistake,' said Rowland, looking more than
usually confused when he saw Miss Gwynne's eyes turned upon him; 'I
merely gained a scholarship at Rugby, which is really nothing. I did not
even try for a fellowship.'

'Conceited!' thought Freda. 'I suppose he thinks if he had tried he
would have got one.'

'Were you not at Baliol?' asked Mr Gwynne.

'Yes; I went there because my aunt had a fancy for the college, her
father having been, there, otherwise I should have gone to Jesus College
and tried for a Welsh fellowship, which is more easily obtained, because
there are few competitors.'

'Did you know anything of Mr Neville, Sir Thomas Neville's son?' asked
Miss Hall.

'Yes; I was introduced to him through some friends of my aunt's, and we
became very intimate. He was very kind to me.'

'Is he clever?'

'Very. I think he has very fine talents, and is likely to shine at the
bar if he continues in his resolution to go to it. I have just had an
invitation to spend a few days with him, but do not think I shall have
time before I go to be ordained.'

'Has your aunt settled the curacy?' asked Freda, with a wicked laugh in
the corner of her eye.

'I think and hope so,' replied Rowland, answering the visible smile by a
blush; 'she has done her utmost to obtain it for me.'

'Ah! she was well connected, and has some interest, and a--a great deal
of energy, and all that sort of thing; I should think she was a clever,
or I mean a--an enterprising woman.'

Mr Gwynne hesitated as he said this, not admiring the lady in question,
yet thinking it incumbent upon him to pay her a compliment. His daughter
glanced inquiringly at Rowland, as if wondering what he could say to so
dubious a speech. He appeared equally at a loss, and, as he turned from
Mr Gwynne for a moment, caught Miss Gwynne's mirthful eye. He could not
help smiling, but said with much spirit,--

'My aunt has been very good to me, Mr Gwynne, and I owe her a heavy debt
of gratitude for giving me at least the opportunity of getting on in the
world.'

'Well, I like him for that,' thought Freda; 'and are you going to
London?' she asked aloud, with a degree of interest.

'I am to be ordained by the Bishop of London to a city curacy,' was the
reply.

'Will you allow me to take wine with you and wish you success, sir?'
said Mr Gwynne. 'Who knows but we may see you Bishop of London some day?
Miss Hall, Freda, will you join us?'

Mr Gwynne became quite animated. He felt proud that the son of his most
respectable tenant should be going to take a London curacy.

Freda bent rather less stiffly than usual to Mr Rowland Prothero. She
was annoyed with herself for feeling more inclined to be friendly with
him since she had heard that he was intimate with young Neville, and was
to be ordained by the Bishop of London.

There was more conversation, which it is unnecessary to repeat; but in
due course of time the ladies retired to the drawing-room, where they
found Miss Nugent awaiting them.

'Whose _beaux yeux_ do you think we have in the dining-room?' asked
Freda.

'I am thure I cannot gueth; perhapth Thir Hugh Prythe's,' Miss Nugent
lisped.

'Do you call his _beaux yeux_? Little ferret eyes like his! No; guess
again.'

'Young Rithe Rithe?'

'Wrong again.'

'Not Captain Lewith?'

'Some one much nearer home.'

'I do not know any one elthe, exthept that Mr Howel Jenkinth, who, they
thay, will be quite a grand man.'

'I do not even know him. What do you think of his cousin, Mr Rowland
Prothero?'

'I never thought about him; mamma thayth he ith very handthome, but I am
thure he is very _gauche_ and countrified.'

'Oh, I am sure he is not. You are greatly mistaken, he has been in
excellent society, and is going at once to a London living--curacy I
mean, but it is all the same.'

Miss Hall looked rather amazed at Freda. A few hours before she had been
lamenting the necessity of entertaining that 'stupid young Prothero.'

'Ith he really?' said Miss Nugent. 'The London curateth are tho
interething. There ith one at Tht Jameth'th, with a pale face and black
hair, and thuch a beautiful voice. Ith Mr Prothero going to Tht
Jameth'th?'

'You shall ask him yourself; I daresay he will like you to seem
interested.'

'Are you going to Tht Jameth'th, Mr Prothero?' inquired Miss Nugent,
when that young man entered the room shortly after.

'I beg your pardon, I do not quite understand what you mean.'

'Mith Gwynne thaid you were going to a London curacy; I thought it might
be Tht Jameth'th.'

'I believe not. If I go to London I shall probably be in the city--a
very different locality to St James's.'

'Oh! when we are in town we alwayth go to Tht Jameth'th, it ith thuch a
nice church.'

Freda perceived that Miss Nugent's interest fell as soon as she found
that Rowland was going into the city. She also saw a smile lurking about
Rowland's mouth when he said,--

'I have never been in London; but I suppose St James's is one of the
fashionable parts.'

'Oh yeth, very. Numberth of grand people go to Tht Jameth'th; don't you
with you were going to be curate there instead of the thity?'

Rowland was grave in a moment.

'I should wish to labour wherever there is the largest field to work in,
Miss Nugent, whether in the city or St James's.'

'Yeth, to be sure, I believe there are loths of poor people in Tht
Jameth'th. I onthe went by chance into thuch a nathty alley clothe by
Tht Jameth'th Threet. Thuch dirty children!'

'Alas,' said Miss Hall, coming to the rescue of Rowland, who was looking
quite distressed, 'we cannot go many steps in the London parishes, be
they fashionable or unfashionable, without entering a "vineyard" amply
wide enough for any one who wishes to work in it, whether priest or
layman.'

Rowland looked round brightly and pleasantly at Miss Hall. Freda could
not help noticing the sudden animation in a face that she had considered
a minute ago almost heavy.

'When are we to have our game at chess?' interrupted Mr Gwynne. 'The
poor of London is a subject I quite dread to hear discussed, it is so
hopeless. One can do no good, and what is the use of tormenting oneself
about it here in Wales.'

'Oh, papa! they want very decided measures; plenty of police, active
magistrates, and I don't know what besides,' said Freda.

'Would you allow me to supply what you have omitted?' asked Rowland;
'they want Christian sympathy, Christian teaching, brotherly kindness,
and the aid of the rich and powerful.'

Freda considered Rowland's finale to her sentence impertinent and was
about to take up the defence of her magisterial system very warmly,
when she met a glance so earnest and appealing, and withal so beautiful
in its earnestness, that she could not find in her heart to answer it by
a hard look or word; so, for want of better reply, she went to prepare
the chess-table.

'I wish you joy of that Saracenic game,' she said ironically, as her
father and Rowland sat down to chess, not perhaps quite by the wish of
one of the pair.

'I thought you liked chess, Freda?' said Miss Hall.

'Oh, pretty well, when I can get any one who does not beat me. I hate so
to lose a game that I think it is better not to play at all than to run
the risk of feeling in a passion, and not being able to give vent to
it.'

'Perhaps the better plan would be to control the passion,' said Miss
Hall.

'Impossible! I am sure it must be just such a feeling as a good general
would have if he lost a battle, after having done his best to win it.'

'I suppose the best general is always the calmest, both in victory and
defeat,' murmured Rowland, without taking his eyes from his men.

'If you would oblige me by not talking,' said Mr Gwynne nervously; 'I
can never play if my opponent talks.'

'I beg your pardon,' said Rowland; 'I know it is very disagreeable.'

'Are you too tired to visit some of your old haunts, Serenita?' said
Freda. 'By the way that would be a good name for Mr Prothero's ideal
general.'

'Not quite,' began Rowland, but was silent in a moment.

'My dear Freda, are you going out? I really am sorry to stop your
amusement, and so forth, but I cannot play,' said Mr Gwynne.

'Exactly, papa; we will go directly if Miss Hall likes.'

The three ladies left the room, and, as Rowland glanced after them, he
very decidedly wished that he might be permitted to accompany them. One
other great wish he also had at his heart, the conversion of Miss Gwynne
to a purer and higher tone of mind. He did not, we grieve to say, bestow
a similar pastoral thought on Miss Nugent.

'That position of your queen at such an early stage of the game must be
an oversight, I think. Excuse me, but I could not take such an unfair
advantage,' said Mr Gwynne.

Rowland was roused at once. He gave himself up to his game, and an hour
afterwards, when the ladies returned from their walk, and candles were
ordered, it was still in progress, but he had the best of it.

'Will you sing for us, Serena?' said Freda.

'Will you sing a duet with me?' was the reply.

The duet was sung, and another and another and another, and Rowland lost
the game.

Mr Gwynne arose, very much elated and rubbing his hands gently,
according to his wont.

'How do you feel, general, defeated?' asked Freda.

'Very much like a subaltern,' said Rowland.

'Do you sing, Mr Prothero?' asked Miss Hall; 'all the Welsh are so
musical that I think there are few who have not voices.'

'I sometimes sing chants and sacred music; but I know very few songs,
and those old ones.'

'Perhaps you will take the bass of some of these old glees. Here is "The
Chough and Crow," "When shall we three meet again," "The Canadian Boat
Song," "The Sicilian Mariner," and I know not how many more,' said Miss
Hall, turning over the leaves of a thick old book full of glees.

'I will do my best,' said Rowland, and the glees began in earnest.

All the Protheros were musical, and Rowland had a very fine clear voice.
Miss Hall was right in saying that the Welsh are a musical people;
Rowland was a happy example. He had been studying Church music a good
deal, and learning to take different parts, so he acquitted himself very
creditably in the glees, all of which he had either tried or heard sung.
Freda was quite astonished. She had a great taste for music herself, and
a good voice, but would never sing with any one but Miss Hall, a piece
of wilfulness that her father occasionally reproached her with. The
addition of Rowland was rather agreeable to her, as it enabled them to
sing the glees that she was fond of. She no longer objected to the
chess, and when her father proposed giving Rowland his revenge on the
morrow, she added, 'And then we can wind up with a few more glees.'

Rowland bowed his thanks and departed.

During the ensuing month there were frequent chess and glee clubs at
Glanyravon. What the effect such associations had upon Rowland he never
confided to any one, but when Miss Hall expressed her opinion that 'Mr
Prothero was a sensible, unaffected young man, but shy,' Freda
condescended to say, 'Well, he is not quite such a Goth or half as
affected as I fancied he was, but he has a very good opinion of himself,
nevertheless.'

In due course Rowland went to London to be ordained, and so ended the
chess and glee clubs.






CHAPTER XI.

THE SAILOR.


Argument and persuasion were alike thrown away upon Netta Prothero. She
would make no promises, no concessions; she stood her ground with the
obstinacy of a Cadwallader. Her father stormed for about a week, when he
got tired of the subject and of Netta's resolute manner and cross face,
and gave it up. He heard that Howel had started for London, having put
his affairs in the hands of an attorney, and that it was not at all
unlikely that he would marry some lady of rank. He laughed heartily at
the notion. It was also rumoured that he meant to return and take a
place in the neighbourhood, stand for the county, and be one of the
greatest men in South Wales. In short, the enchanter, the merlin, the
open sesame, the omnipotent sorcerer _gold_ was to work the miracles to
which Howel had been so long looking forward. And the gossips were not
far wrong. Gold is truly a famous master-key to all hearts and to all
companies.

But whilst the gossips--and who is not a gossip in a country
neighbourhood?--whilst the gossips were settling Howel's future so
comfortably and respectably for him, he was dispensing his gold amongst
gamblers and the like--paying debts of honour as they are called.

However, Mr Prothero thought it not unlikely that what the gossips said
might prove true, and was therefore tolerably comfortable about his
spoilt pet, Netta. When his anger and her pouting had subsided, matters
went on much as usual for a time at the farm. Even the blaze that was
kindled at the incursion of the Irish girl, had well-nigh gone out, and
Mr Prothero had nearly forgotten her existence.

She, meanwhile, was slowly recovering under Mrs Prothero's kind care.
One day, that good woman was sitting with her in the little room that
had been allotted to her, and said,--

'Is there anything you could think of that would amuse you, my dear?'

'If I might--' Gladys began and paused.

'Pray, go on, do not be afraid to ask.'

'If I might only make up that cap for you, ma'am, I should be so proud.
I used to make caps at home.'

Mrs Prothero was manufacturing a cap for herself, and had a certain
womanly fear as to how it would turn out, if transferred to other
fingers; but she did not like to refuse the request, so she resigned it
into the thin hands of Gladys. She was almost immediately called away,
and did not return for some hours. When she again visited her invalid
she found her quite excited with her work that she had just completed.

'Oh, what a pretty cap!' said Mrs Prothero, quite astonished at the
taste displayed. 'I must just run and show it to Netta--I am so much
obliged to you.'

Mrs Prothero left the room and soon returned, followed by her daughter.

'Can you trim bonnets as well as make caps?' asked Netta, forgetful of
infection when her personal interest was involved.

'Yes, miss, a little,' replied Gladys modestly.

'I wish you would trim mine for me to-morrow.'

'Oh, thank you, miss! If you will only let me try I shall be so
grateful.'

'She does not seem like a beggar after all,' thought Netta. 'Who taught
you to work so nicely?' she said aloud.

'I was apprenticed to a mantua-maker and milliner for six months, miss,
and after that I worked for the neighbours.'

'How could you work for them, when they are all rags and tatters?'

'There were some farmers' wives, miss,' said Gladys, colouring slightly,
'and the clergyman's family, and the steward's--I used to work for
them.'

'Then how came you here?'

'People couldn't work, or pay for work, miss, when every one was
starvin' around them.'

Mrs Prothero looked at Netta reproachfully. The girl was not really
hard-hearted, so she changed the subject.

'I daresay you can knit and mark samplers?' she said.

'Yes, miss, mother taught us to do that at school.'

'I think, Netta,' interrupted Mrs Prothero, 'that she must go to bed
now. She looks tired, and has been up long enough.'

'What a fuss mother makes about the girl,' muttered Netta as she left
the room.

The following day the bonnet was tastily trimmed under Netta's
superintendence, and work enough hunted up to employ Gladys for a month
at least. Netta even found an old cotton gown, which she presented to
her in return for her labours. It was not long enough, but Gladys
thought she might be able to lengthen it.

Whilst her convalescence and Netta's needlework were thus progressing,
there was an arrival at the farm. One evening the family were assembled
in the large hall, their usual sitting-room. Mr Prothero was reading the
newspaper at a small round table, with an especial candle to himself.
His worthy wife was mending or making shirts. At another round table,
not very far off, Netta had some work in her hands, and one of Captain
Marryat's novels open before her.

'Why don't you do your work instead of reading those trashy stories,
Netta?' suddenly exclaimed Mr Prothero.

'I am working, father,' said Netta.

'Pretty working sure enough. What nonsense have you got reading now?'

'Peter Simple, father, oh it is so funny.'

'Ah! it was that stupid stuff, and 'The Pilot,' and 'The Spy,' and I
don't know what else, that sent Owen off to sea. I suppose it's there
you learn all your nonsense. I wish you would read the cookery book, and
help your mother to take care of the house and dairy, instead of doing
what's no good in the world.'

A loud knocking at the door interrupted a rather pert reply.

'Who on earth is that at this time of night?' exclaimed the farmer,
throwing down his paper.

'Shanno,' called Mrs Prothero into the passage, 'ask who it is before
you open the door.'

'It's no great things,' suggested Netta, 'for they're knocking with a
stick, and not with the knocker.'

'Name o' goodness, what's the row?' said the farmer.

'Who's there?' demanded Shanno, in the passage.

The answer did not reach the hall, but Shanno came rushing in, 'It's
them Irishers again, master, upon my deet, they do be here for ever.'

'Give me my stick!' exclaimed Mr Prothero, 'if I don't give them a
lesson my name isn't David.'

He seized a stick and went into the passage, followed by his wife,
murmuring, 'Oh, David, bach,' and by Netta as far as the door, from
which she peeped down the passage.

'Who's there?' roared the farmer in a voice of thunder.

'May it please yer honour, I'm cowld and hungry. Long life to yer honour
and her leddyship, if yell only give the loan o' yer barn, or maybe yer
loft, or--'

'I'll show you the way to my barn, you idle, good-for-nothing scamp,'
cried Mr Prothero, opening the door, and levelling a blow with his stick
into the moonlight, that must infallibly have knocked down any one less
agile than the man for whom it was intended. As it was, the unwelcome
visitor jumped aside, whilst the portly farmer tripped himself up by his
own impetuosity, and fell upon the threshold. Mrs Prothero and Netta
screamed, and Shanno took hold of the beggar's arm, to prevent his
escape. But the beggar had pulled Mr Prothero up, and was beginning to
sympathise with him in broad brogue, when that valiant anti-Irishman got
hold of his stick again, and began to belabour the unoffending party's
back most manfully.

'Enough's as good as a faist, yer honour,' cried the stranger, skipping
from side to side, and evading the blows very skilfully; 'pon my sowl,
yer honour 'ud do for a fair or a wake. 'Tis madam as has the heart an'
the conscience for the poor Irish, an' miss, too, asthore!'

The impudent fellow ran round to where Netta stood, who, in terror, went
into the house, followed by the man, and after him, the rest in full hue
and cry.

'Tin thousand pardons, miss,' said the man, taking off his hat and
confronting Netta.

'Owen! Owen!' screamed Netta. 'For shame upon you, you naughty boy,' and
therewith Netta and the unexpected guest were hugging one another, most
lovingly.

''Tis the mother will give the poor Irisher a lodgin' and a drop o' the
cratur,' cried that mother's well-beloved eldest born almost catching
her up in his arms, and smothering her with kisses. 'And the masther
isn't so hard-hearted as he looks,' he added, shaking the astonished
farmer by the hand.

'Owen! oughtn't you to be ashamed of yourself?' cried the farmer,
laughing aloud, and rubbing his right leg.

'Not kilt intirely, yer honour! didn't I take you all in, that's all!'

'Where did you come from? How did you come? When did you leave your
ship?' were the questions reiterated on all sides of the welcome guest.

'I'll tell you all that to-morrow. At present I am dying of cowld and
hunger, and haven't broke me fast since morning. Let me show you how the
locker stands.'

Owen emptied his pockets, and from a corner of one of them turned out a
solitary halfpenny.

'I shouldn't have had that if old Nanny Cwmgwyn hadn't given it to me
just now. But I'll tell you my story to-morrow in character.'

'Not an improved one anyhow,' said Mr Prothero with a gathering frown.

'Don't lecture to-night, Datta, bach; you shall have an hour on purpose
to-morrow, when I promise to listen to edification. 'Pon my word it is
pleasant to be at home again. How I long to sleep in my comfortable bed
once more.'

Poor Mrs Prothero's countenance fell, and Netta looked malicious.

'Not likely to sleep there to-night, boy,' said the farmer; 'mother has
got visitors.'

'Visitors!' exclaimed Owen, 'and gone to bed already! what sleepy
people.'

'Some of your friends of the cowld and hungry sort,' said the farmer.

'Not mother's old friends, and my relations, the Irish beggars?'

'Singular number, and a young lady!' said the farmer with a sneer and a
puff of the tobacco with which he was beginning to solace himself, at
the sight of the bread and cheese that were appearing.

'A poor girl, Owen, who was taken ill,' said Mrs Prothero.

'I understand it all, mother; never mind, she's welcome for once,
provided I get a good bed, but to-morrow she must turn out.'

'Very well, my dear,' said Mrs Prothero submissively; for Owen, though a
prodigal, was the eldest son, and generally had his own way.

'Now don't be frightened at my appetite,' said Owen, sitting down to
cold meat and strong ale.

'Bless you and your appetite,' said Mrs Prothero, kissing his forehead;
upon which he jumped up again, and hugged her with all his heart.

'Now, Netta, let us go and see about the sheets,' said Mrs Prothero,
smoothing her dress.

The mother and daughter left the room, and were not long in preparing
the best bedroom for Owen. This done, they hastened back to the hall,
where they found diminished ham and increased smoke, Owen having lighted
a short pipe, and taken to smoking with his father, over a large jug of
ale.

'We must have your adventures to-night, Owen,' cried Netta, as she
entered, 'and you must tell us why you came home so very shabby. I
suppose you have been wrecked on a desert island.'

'To be sure,' said Owen, laying down the pipe. 'But I must go out and
find my wardrobe, and all my valuables, that my hospitable Daddy there
caused me to throw down, when he gave me such a warm welcome.'

Owen disappeared, but soon returned with a box in his hands, apparently
of some weight, and a bundle slung across his shoulder, suspended on a
walking stick. Putting down the box he began to sing,--

     'A handkerchief held all the treasure I had.'

whilst he flourished his walking-stick and bundle over his mother's
head. When he had finished his song, he put down his bundle and went to
the box.

'I have shown you the size of my wardrobe, now allow me to show off the
rest of my fortune and stock in trade. Father, you shall have the first
peep. Let me put my box on the table, and the light--so. Now, stoop,
so--look through that glass, so--and--have you got the right focus?
Yes!--To the right, you beholds the gallant 'ero, Lord Nelson, him as
lost his harm, a just fallin' in the harms of Capen 'Ardy and
Victory.--To the left--but first his lordship is a singin' "England
expects every man to do his dooty." To the left--'

'Well, if that isn't as pretty a picture and as much like life as
anything I ever saw,' said Mr Prothero, interrupting the showman. 'Come
here, mother; Netta, look here.'

Mrs Prothero glanced into the box, which was nothing more nor less than
a penny peep-show, and Owen began again.

'To the right you beholds,' when Netta, impatient, looked through a
second glass, and exclaimed in ecstasy, 'Where did you get this, Owen?'

In answer, the scene shifted, and Owen recommenced.

'Here you beholds Lisbon, that wast city, or rayther what wos Lisbon
after the great earthquake. See the ruins all around, and the women and
children a screamin'; and the priests a-prayin'--those men in robes is
priests, papishers, like them Irish beggars.'

'Hush, Owen,' interrupted Mrs Prothero. 'Look, father, do look here!'

While Mr Prothero and Netta gazed admiringly, Mrs Prothero was off and
returned with Shanno, Mal, and Tom the boy, who were all in a broad grin
of delight at the arrival of their prime favourite, Owen.

He, meanwhile, is in his element; begins with Lord Nelson again, and
makes the whole party take turns. Then he goes to Lisbon; afterwards he
has The Queen of the Cannibal Islands; The Great Fire of London; a
portrait large as life of the immense fat man Daniel Lambert, at sight
of which the servants all exclaim 'Ach!' and a variety of other splendid
designs, which we decline to enumerate. Suffice it to say that they all
draw forth the approving commendations of the spectators, from Mr
Prothero, master, to Tom, serving-lad.

When the peep-show has been duly exhibited, Netta again demands her
brother's history, and a particular account of how he procured the show.

'Oh! there is not much to tell,' says Owen, 'and I won't tell that
unless father promises to keep his lecture till to-morrow. I hate a
sermon late at night, but don't so much mind it in the morning. Don't
look so serious, mother; I don't mean a clerical preachment. Do you
promise, father?'

'Well, there, as you like,' said Mr Prothero, laughing? 'but I wish you
hadn't made me break my shin.'

'Here's a patch of diaculum, father. I hope you have not really hurt
yourself?'

'No, wild goose. Now, let's have the story.'

'Well, here goes. Since this time twelvemonth I have been a voyage to
Australia and back: seen Sydney and Botany Bay, and my brethren the
convicts; done a little in the mercantile way: speculated in gin and
'baccy on my own account, and helped the captain. Came home as first
mate of the 'Fair Weather,' and had enough of tailoring in the worst
voyage I ever made. We were almost wrecked more than once, and almost
starved for the last month, owing to the time the leaky old hulk took in
the voyage. When we landed in Plymouth we had a spree, as you may
suppose, and soon spent most of our money. I and a messmate were to
travel together as far as Swansea, so we just saved money enough to pay
our way, and enjoyed ourselves with the rest; but, as ill luck would
have it, we fell in with a poor Welsh woman, who had come to Plymouth in
the hope of meeting her husband, and being disappointed, and having
spent all her money, she didn't know how to get back to her home again.
Of course we couldn't leave a fellow-countrywoman in distress, so we
gave her what we had: enough to pay her journey home, and a few
shillings over. We then sold some of our clothes, and stumbling upon a
man with this old box in his arms, we bargained with him, and bought it
for twelve shillings. He wanted a pound, but we beat him down.

'Having thus a fortune in our possession we set out with our peep-show,
and thought of getting interest for our money. We have been about three
weeks journeying from place to place; and I assure you we have seen a
good deal of life. We unfortunately spent the interest of our fortune as
it came in; but, as you will perceive, I have brought the whole capital
home with me. When we entered a town on a fair or market-day, we made a
great deal of money, but then the temptations to spend were all the
greater. I used to have all the labour of the imagination, for my friend
Jack Jenkins had not the gift of eloquence; so we agreed that I should
be showman, and he porter--a division of work that we thought quite
fair. When we arrived at Swansea I gave him all the money we had in
hand, and he resigned the peep-show to me, and so we parted company; he
to go to his friends in Glamorganshire, I to come on here.

'I had a rare lark on my way home. I went to uncle's, and finding aunt
in the garden, slouched my hat over my face, and began my story. She
ordered me off the premises instantly as a vagrant. I went round to the
back door and got a penny a-piece from the servants, who were quite
delighted. Then I met uncle, and telling him that I had a wonderful box
of antiques to exhibit, he gave me sixpence, and with great curiosity
poked his proboscis against the glass. It was worth something to see
him. I at once put a picture of Stonehenge, and afterwards one of
Herculaneum into the box, that I had bought on purpose for his benefit.
I went through the history of the Druids, and managed a touch of Garn
Goch and the Welsh castles with a strong and masterly nasal, that so
delighted the worthy vicar, that he actually invited me in to see his
museum. I excused myself by saying that my wife was waiting for
me--mother, that was my only fib, I assure you--and hastened away, lest
in his delight at finding an itinerant archaeologist, he should ask my
wife to see his museum as well. The rest of my adventures you had the
honour and glory of sharing, so I must beg to say they are at an end.
And now I am really and truly and soberly come to settle at home for the
remainder of my days, and to become a farmer in good earnest if father
will take me into partnership. The two things I like best in the world
are, the rolling sea by moonlight and a field of golden corn in broad
sunshine, of a fine day in autumn.'

'Oh, you naughty boy!' cried Netta, as Owen ended his story.

'A fine sturdy farmer you would make,' said Mr Prothero, trying to
stifle a very hearty fit of laughter, that burst out at last in spite of
himself. 'I'm glad you took in brother Jonathan, or he'd have had the
laugh against me.'

Mrs Prothero had a tear in her eye as she smiled sadly, and shook her
head at the darling son who had caused her nothing but love and grief
since he was born; but the tear was soon kissed away, and the smile
turned into a cheerful one by that son's merry lips.






CHAPTER XII.

THE SEMPSTRESS.


Owen Prothero, like his sister Netta, had been very much spoilt by his
father during his childhood and boyhood. Indeed it would have been
difficult not to have spoilt him. Handsome in person, and frank in
manners, he was a general favourite. His uncle, the vicar, quite
idolised him, and would have lavished a fortune on his education had he
been of a studious nature. His mother, alone, conscious of his many
faults, strove to correct them, and to counterbalance the undue
admiration he received on all sides, by impartial justice in her praises
and reproofs.

But we have not much to do with his boyhood, which was wild and
untameable; beyond the fact that, when sent by his good uncle to Rugby
with a view to his becoming a clergyman, he resolutely declared his
intention of going to sea, and ran away from school to effect his
purpose. He was captured, however by the masters, and a sharp look-out
kept upon him for the future, which prevented further escapades.

He did not make brilliant progress in his studies, though he was clever
enough, and accordingly his aunt persuaded her vicar to adopt her
favourite nephew, Rowland, in his stead, and to let Owen go a voyage or
two in a merchant vessel, to cure him of his love for a seafaring life.

It was Mr Prothero's wish to have one of his two sons a farmer, he did
not much care which, so it was with some difficulty that Aunt Jonathan
induced him to listen to her proposal of making a clergyman of Rowland.
He yielded at last, however, in the hope that when Owen had had enough
of the sea, he would come and settle at home, since, next to this, his
favourite hobby, he professed to like farming.

Owen was about fifteen when he first went to sea--he was just
seven-and-twenty when he came home with the peep-show. During the
intermediate twelve years he had been all over the world: not merely as
a sailor, but as an adventurer, traveller, speculator, merchant, and
wandering Jack

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