or absence was amatter of utter indifference; and when he entered Ty Glas, all, down tothe little cur which, with clamorous barkings, claimed a part of hisattention, seemed to rejoice. His account of his day’s employment founda willing listener in Ellis; and when he passed on to Nest, busy at herwheel or at her churn, the deepened colour, the conscious eye, and thegradual yielding of herself up to his lover-like caress, had worlds ofcharms. Ellis Pritchard was a tenant on the Bodowen estate, andtherefore had reasons in plenty for wishing to keep the young Squire’svisits secret; and Owen, unwilling to disturb the sunny calm of thesehalcyon days by any storm at home, was ready to use all the artificewhich Ellis suggested as to the mode of his calls at Ty Glas. Nor was heunaware of the probable, nay, the hoped-for termination of these repeateddays of happiness. He was quite conscious that the father wished fornothing better than the marriage of his daughter to the heir of Bodowen;and when Nest had hidden her face in his neck, which was encircled by herclasping arms, and murmured into his ear her acknowledgment of love, hefelt only too desirous of finding some one to love him for ever. Thoughnot highly principled, he would not have tried to obtain Nest on otherterms save those of marriage: he did so pine after enduring love, andfancied he should have bound her heart for evermore to his, when they hadtaken the solemn oaths of matrimony.
There was no great difficulty attending a secret marriage at such a placeand at such a time. One gusty autumn day, Ellis ferried them roundPenthryn to Llandutrwyn, and there saw his little Nest become future Ladyof Bodowen.
How often do we see giddy, coquetting, restless girls become sobered bymarriage? A great object in life is decided; one on which their thoughtshave been running in all their vagaries, and they seem to verify thebeautiful fable of Undine. A new soul beams out in the gentleness andrepose of their future lives. An indescribable softness and tendernesstakes place of the wearying vanity of their former endeavours to attractadmiration. Something of this sort took place in Nest Pritchard. If atfirst she had been anxious to attract the young Squire of Bodowen, longbefore her marriage this feeling had merged into a truer love than shehad ever felt before; and now that he was her own, her husband, her wholesoul was bent toward making him amends, as far as in her lay, for themisery which, with a woman’s tact, she saw that he had to endure at hishome. Her greetings were abounding in delicately-expressed love; herstudy of his tastes unwearying, in the arrangement of her dress, hertime, her very thoughts.
No wonder that he looked back on his wedding-day with a thankfulnesswhich is seldom the result of unequal marriages. No wonder that hisheart beat aloud as formerly when he wound up the little path to Ty Glas,and saw—keen though the winter’s wind might be—that Nest was standing outat the door to watch for his dimly-seen approach, while the candle flaredin the little window as a beacon to guide him aright.
The angry words and unkind actions of home fell deadened on his heart; hethought of the love that was surely his, and of the new promise of lovethat a short time would bring forth, and he could almost have smiled atthe impotent efforts to disturb his peace.
A few more months, and the young father was greeted by a feeble littlecry, when he hastily entered Ty Glas, one morning early, in consequenceof a summons conveyed mysteriously to Bodowen; and the pale mother,smiling, and feebly holding up her babe to its father’s kiss, seemed tohim even more lovely than the bright gay Nest who had won his heart atthe little inn of Penmorfa.
But the curse was at work! The fulfilment of the prophecy was nigh athand!
CHAPTER II.
IT was the autumn after the birth of their boy; it had been a glorioussummer, with bright, hot, sunny weather; and now the year was fading awayas seasonably into mellow days, with mornings of silver mists and clearfrosty nights. The blooming look of the time of flowers, was past andgone; but instead there were even richer tints abroad in the sun-colouredleaves, the lichens, the golden blossomed furze; if it was the time offading, there was a glory in the decay.
Nest, in her loving anxiety to surround her dwelling with every charm forher husband’s sake, had turned gardener, and the little corners of therude court before the house were filled with many a delicatemountain-flower, transplanted more for its beauty than its rarity. Thesweetbrier bush may even yet be seen, old and gray, which she and Owenplanted a green slipling beneath the window of her little chamber. Inthose moments Owen forgot all besides the present; all the cares andgriefs he had known in the past, and all that might await him of woe anddeath in the future. The boy, too, was as lovely a child as the fondestparent was ever blessed with; and crowed with delight, and clapped hislittle hands, as his mother held him in her arms at the cottage-door towatch his father’s ascent up the rough path that led to Ty Glas, onebright autumnal morning; and when the three entered the house together,it was difficult to say which was the happiest. Owen carried his boy,and tossed and played with him, while Nest sought out some little articleof work, and seated herself on the dresser beneath the window, where nowbusily plying the needle, and then again looking at her husband, sheeagerly told him the little pieces of domestic intelligence, the winningways of the child, the result of yesterday’s fishing, and such of thegossip of Penmorfa as came to the ears of the now retired Nest. Shenoticed that, when she mentioned any little circumstance which bore theslightest reference to Bodowen, her husband appeared chafed and uneasy,and at last avoided anything that might in the least remind him of home.In truth, he had been suffering much of late from the irritability of hisfather, shown in trifles to be sure, but not the less galling on thataccount.
While they were thus talking, and caressing each other and the child, ashadow darkened the room, and before they could catch a glimpse of theobject that had occasioned it, it vanished, and Squire Griffiths liftedthe door-latch and stood before them. He stood and looked—first on hisson, so different, in his buoyant expression of content and enjoyment,with his noble child in his arms, like a proud and happy father, as hewas, from the depressed, moody young man he too often appeared atBodowen; then on Nest—poor, trembling, sickened Nest!—who dropped herwork, but yet durst not stir from her seat, on the dresser, while shelooked to her husband as if for protection from his father.
The Squire was silent, as he glared from one to the other, his featureswhite with restrained passion. When he spoke, his words came mostdistinct in their forced composure. It was to his son he addressedhimself:
“That woman! who is she?”
Owen hesitated one moment, and then replied, in a steady, yet quietvoice:
“Father, that woman is my wife.”
He would have added some apology for the long concealment of hismarriage; have appealed to his father’s forgiveness; but the foam flewfrom Squire Owen’s lips as he burst forth with invective against Nest:—
“You have married her! It is as they told me! Married Nest Pritchard yrbuten! And you stand there as if you had not disgraced yourself for everand ever with your accursed wiving! And the fair harlot sits there, inher mocking modesty, practising the mimming airs that will become herstate as future Lady of Bodowen. But I will move heaven and earth beforethat false woman darken the doors of my father’s house as mistress!”
All this was said with such rapidity that Owen had no time for the wordsthat thronged to his lips. “Father!” (he burst forth at length) “Father,whosoever told you that Nest Pritchard was a harlot told you a lie asfalse as hell! Ay! a lie as false as hell!” he added, in a voice ofthunder, while he advanced a step or two nearer to the Squire. And then,in a lower tone, he said—
“She is as pure as your own wife; nay, God help me! as the dear, preciousmother who brought me forth, and then left me—with no refuge in amother’s heart—to struggle on through life alone. I tell you Nest is aspure as that dear, dead mother!”
“Fool—poor fool!”
At this moment the child—the little Owen—who had kept gazing from oneangry countenance to the other, and with earnest look, trying tounderstand what had brought the fierce gla
re into the face where till nowhe had read nothing but love, in some way attracted the Squire’sattention, and increased his wrath.
“Yes,” he continued, “poor, weak fool that you are, hugging the child ofanother as if it were your own offspring!” Owen involuntarily caressedthe affrighted child, and half smiled at the implication of his father’swords. This the Squire perceived, and raising his voice to a scream ofrage, he went on:
“I bid you, if you call yourself my son, to cast away that miserable,shameless woman’s offspring; cast it away this instant—this instant!”
In this ungovernable rage, seeing that Owen was far from complying withhis command, he snatched the poor infant from the loving arms that heldit, and throwing it to his mother, left the house inarticulate with fury.
Nest—who had been pale and still as marble during this terrible dialogue,looking on and listening as if fascinated by the words that smote herheart—opened her arms to receive and cherish her precious babe; but theboy was not destined to