authority for thepower. At last, when Owen perceived some oppressive act in his father’sconduct toward his dependants, or some unaccountable thwarting of his ownwishes, he fancied he saw his stepmother’s secret influence thusdisplayed, however much she might regret the injustice of his father’sactions in her conversations with him when they were alone. His fatherwas fast losing his temperate habits, and frequent intoxication soon tookits usual effect upon the temper. Yet even here was the spell of hiswife upon him. Before her he placed a restraint upon his passion, yetshe was perfectly aware of his irritable disposition, and directed ithither and thither with the same apparent ignorance of the tendency ofher words.
Meanwhile Owen’s situation became peculiarly mortifying to a youth whoseearly remembrances afforded such a contrast to his present state. As achild, he had been elevated to the consequence of a man before his yearsgave any mental check to the selfishness which such conduct was likely toengender; he could remember when his will was law to the servants anddependants, and his sympathy necessary to his father: now he was as acipher in his father’s house; and the Squire, estranged in the firstinstance by a feeling of the injury he had done his son in not sooneracquainting him with his purposed marriage, seemed rather to avoid thanto seek him as a companion, and too frequently showed the most utterindifference to the feelings and wishes which a young man of a high andindependent spirit might be supposed to indulge.
Perhaps Owen was not fully aware of the force of all these circumstances;for an actor in a family drama is seldom unimpassioned enough to beperfectly observant. But he became moody and soured; brooding over hisunloved existence, and craving with a human heart after sympathy.
This feeling took more full possession of his mind when he had leftcollege, and returned home to lead an idle and purposeless life. As theheir, there was no worldly necessity for exertion: his father was toomuch of a Welsh squire to dream of the moral necessity, and he himselfhad not sufficient strength of mind to decide at once upon abandoning aplace and mode of life which abounded in daily mortifications; yet tothis course his judgment was slowly tending, when some circumstancesoccurred to detain him at Bodowen.
It was not to be expected that harmony would long be preserved, even inappearance, between an unguarded and soured young man, such as Owen, andhis wary stepmother, when he had once left college, and come, not as avisitor, but as the heir to his father’s house. Some cause of differenceoccurred, where the woman subdued her hidden anger sufficiently to becomeconvinced that Owen was not entirely the dupe she had believed him to be.Henceforward there was no peace between them. Not in vulgar altercationsdid this show itself; but in moody reserve on Owen’s part, and inundisguised and contemptuous pursuance of her own plans by hisstepmother. Bodowen was no longer a place where, if Owen was not lovedor attended to, he could at least find peace, and care for himself: hewas thwarted at every step, and in every wish, by his father’s desire,apparently, while the wife sat by with a smile of triumph on herbeautiful lips.
So Owen went forth at the early day dawn, sometimes roaming about on theshore or the upland, shooting or fishing, as the season might be, butoftener “stretched in indolent repose” on the short, sweet grass,indulging in gloomy and morbid reveries. He would fancy that thismortified state of existence was a dream, a horrible dream, from which heshould awake and find himself again the sole object and darling of hisfather. And then he would start up and strive to shake off the incubus.There was the molten sunset of his childish memory; the gorgeous crimsonpiles of glory in the west, fading away into the cold calm light of therising moon, while here and there a cloud floated across the westernheaven, like a seraph’s wing, in its flaming beauty; the earth was thesame as in his childhood’s days, full of gentle evening sounds, and theharmonies of twilight—the breeze came sweeping low over the heather andblue-bells by his side, and the turf was sending up its evening incenseof perfume. But life, and heart, and hope were changed for ever sincethose bygone days!
Or he would seat himself in a favourite niche of the rocks on Moel Gêst,hidden by a stunted growth of the whitty, or mountain-ash, from generalobservation, with a rich-tinted cushion of stone-crop for his feet, and astraight precipice of rock rising just above. Here would he sit forhours, gazing idly at the bay below with its back-ground of purple hills,and the little fishing-sail on its bosom, showing white in the sunbeam,and gliding on in such harmony with the quiet beauty of the glassy sea;or he would pull out an old school-volume, his companion for years, andin morbid accordance with the dark legend that still lurked in therecesses of his mind—a shape of gloom in those innermost haunts awaitingits time to come forth in distinct outline—would he turn to the old Greekdramas which treat of a family foredoomed by an avenging Fate. The wornpage opened of itself at the play of the ?'dipus Tyrannus, and Owen dweltwith the craving disease upon the prophecy so nearly resembling thatwhich concerned himself. With his consciousness of neglect, there was asort of self-flattery in the consequence which the legend gave him. Healmost wondered how they durst, with slights and insults, thus provokethe Avenger.
The days drifted onward. Often he would vehemently pursue some sylvansport, till thought and feeling were lost in the violence of bodilyexertion. Occasionally his evenings were spent at a small public-house,such as stood by the unfrequented wayside, where the welcome, hearty,though bought, seemed so strongly to contrast with the gloomy negligenceof home—unsympathising home.
One evening (Owen might be four or five-and-twenty), wearied with a day’sshooting on the Clenneny Moors, he passed by the open door of “The Goat”at Penmorfa. The light and the cheeriness within tempted him, poorself-exhausted man! as it has done many a one more wretched in worldlycircumstances, to step in, and take his evening meal where at least hispresence was of some consequence. It was a busy day in that littlehostel. A flock of sheep, amounting to some hundreds, had arrived atPenmorfa, on their road to England, and thronged the space before thehouse. Inside was the shrewd, kind-hearted hostess, bustling to and fro,with merry greetings for every tired drover who was to pass the night inher house, while the sheep were penned in a field close by. Ever andanon, she kept attending to the second crowd of guests, who werecelebrating a rural wedding in her house. It was busy work to MarthaThomas, yet her smile never flagged; and when Owen Griffiths had finishedhis evening meal she was there, ready with a hope that it had done himgood, and was to his mind, and a word of intelligence that thewedding-folk were about to dance in the kitchen, and the harper was thefamous Edward of Corwen.
Owen, partly from good-natured compliance with his hostess’s impliedwish, and partly from curiosity, lounged to the passage which led to thekitchen—not the every-day, working, cooking kitchen, which was behind,but a good-sized room, where the mistress sat, when her work was done,and where the country people were commonly entertained at suchmerry-makings as the present. The lintels of the door formed a frame forthe animated picture which Owen saw within, as he leaned against the wallin the dark passage. The red light of the fire, with every now and thena falling piece of turf sending forth a fresh blaze, shone full upon fouryoung men who were dancing a measure something like a Scotch reel,keeping admirable time in their rapid movements to the capital tune theharper was playing. They had their hats on when Owen first took hisstand, but as they grew more and more animated they flung them away, andpresently their shoes were kicked off with like disregard to the spotwhere they might happen to alight. Shouts of applause followed anyremarkable exertion of agility, in which each seemed to try to excel hiscompanions. At length, wearied and exhausted, they sat down, and theharper gradually changed to one of those wild, inspiring national airsfor which he was so famous. The thronged audience sat earnest andbreathless, and you might have heard a pin drop, except when some maidenpassed hurriedly, with flaring candle and busy look, through to the realkitchen beyond. When he had finished his beautiful theme on “The Marchof the men of Harlech,” he changed the measure again to “Tri chant o’bunnan” (Three hundred
pounds), and immediately a most unmusical-lookingman began chanting “Pennillion,” or a sort of recitative stanzas, whichwere soon taken up by another, and this amusement lasted so long thatOwen grew weary, and was thinking of retreating from his post by thedoor, when some little bustle was occasioned, on the opposite side of theroom, by the entrance of a middle-aged man, and a young girl, apparentlyhis daughter. The man advanced to the bench occupied by the seniors ofthe party, who welcomed him with the usual pretty Welsh greeting, “Pa sutmae dy galon?” (“How is thy heart?”) and drinking his health passed on tohim the cup of excellent _cwrw_. The girl, evidently a village belle,was as warmly greeted by the young men, while the girls eyed her ratheraskance with a half-jealous look, which Owen set down to the score of herextreme prettiness. Like most Welsh women, she was of middle size as toheight, but beautifully made, with the most perfect yet delicateroundness in every limb. Her little mob-cap was carefully adjusted