reach the white refuge of her breast. Thefurious action of the Squire had been almost without aim, and the infantfell against the sharp edge of the dresser down on to the stone floor.
Owen sprang up to take the child, but he lay so still, so motionless,that the awe of death came over the father, and he stooped down to gazemore closely. At that moment, the upturned, filmy eyes rolledconvulsively—a spasm passed along the body—and the lips, yet warm withkissing, quivered into everlasting rest.
A word from her husband told Nest all. She slid down from her seat, andlay by her little son as corpse-like as he, unheeding all the agonizingendearments and passionate adjurations of her husband. And that poor,desolate husband and father! Scarce one little quarter of an hour, andhe had been so blessed in his consciousness of love! the bright promiseof many years on his infant’s face, and the new, fresh soul beaming forthin its awakened intelligence. And there it was; the little clay image,that would never more gladden up at the sight of him, nor stretch forthto meet his embrace; whose inarticulate, yet most eloquent cooings mighthaunt him in his dreams, but would never more be heard in waking lifeagain! And by the dead babe, almost as utterly insensate, the poormother had fallen in a merciful faint—the slandered, heart-pierced Nest!Owen struggled against the sickness that came over him, and busiedhimself in vain attempts at her restoration.
It was now near noon-day, and Ellis Pritchard came home, little dreamingof the sight that awaited him; but though stunned, he was able to takemore effectual measures for his poor daughter’s recovery than Owen haddone.
By-and-by she showed symptoms of returning sense, and was placed in herown little bed in a darkened room, where, without ever waking to completeconsciousness, she fell asleep. Then it was that her husband, suffocatedby pressure of miserable thought, gently drew his hand from her tightenedclasp, and printing one long soft kiss on her white waxen forehead,hastily stole out of the room, and out of the house.
Near the base of Moel Gêst—it might be a quarter of a mile from TyGlas—was a little neglected solitary copse, wild and tangled with thetrailing branches of the dog-rose and the tendrils of the white bryony.Toward the middle of this thicket a deep crystal pool—a clear mirror forthe blue heavens above—and round the margin floated the broad greenleaves of the water-lily, and when the regal sun shone down in hisnoonday glory the flowers arose from their cool depths to welcome andgreet him. The copse was musical with many sounds; the warbling of birdsrejoicing in its shades, the ceaseless hum of the insects that hoveredover the pool, the chime of the distant waterfall, the occasionalbleating of the sheep from the mountaintop, were all blended into thedelicious harmony of nature.
It had been one of Owen’s favourite resorts when he had been a lonelywanderer—a pilgrim in search of love in the years gone by. And thitherhe went, as if by instinct, when he left Ty Glas; quelling the uprisingagony till he should reach that little solitary spot.
It was the time of day when a change in the aspect of the weather sofrequently takes place; and the little pool was no longer the reflectionof a blue and sunny sky: it sent back the dark and slaty clouds above,and, every now and then, a rough gust shook the painted autumn leavesfrom their branches, and all other music was lost in the sound of thewild winds piping down from the moorlands, which lay up and beyond theclefts in the mountain-side. Presently the rain came on and beat down intorrents.
But Owen heeded it not. He sat on the dank ground, his face buried inhis hands, and his whole strength, physical and mental, employed inquelling the rush of blood, which rose and boiled and gurgled in hisbrain as if it would madden him.
The phantom of his dead child rose ever before him, and seemed to cryaloud for vengeance. And when the poor young man thought upon the victimwhom he required in his wild longing for revenge, he shuddered, for itwas his father!
Again and again he tried not to think; but still the circle of thoughtcame round, eddying through his brain. At length he mastered hispassions, and they were calm; then he forced himself to arrange some planfor the future.
He had not, in the passionate hurry of the moment, seen that his fatherhad left the cottage before he was aware of the fatal accident thatbefell the child. Owen thought he had seen all; and once he planned togo to the Squire and tell him of the anguish of heart he had wrought, andawe him, as it were, by the dignity of grief. But then again he durstnot—he distrusted his self-control—the old prophecy rose up in itshorror—he dreaded his doom.
At last he determined to leave his father for ever; to take Nest to somedistant country where she might forget her firstborn, and where hehimself might gain a livelihood by his own exertions.
But when he tried to descend to the various little arrangements whichwere involved in the execution of this plan, he remembered that all hismoney (and in this respect Squire Griffiths was no niggard) was locked upin his escritoire at Bodowen. In vain he tried to do away with thismatter-of-fact difficulty; go to Bodowen he must: and his only hope—nayhis determination—was to avoid his father.
He rose and took a by-path to Bodowen. The house looked even more gloomyand desolate than usual in the heavy down-pouring rain, yet Owen gazed onit with something of regret—for sorrowful as his days in it had been, hewas about to leave it for many many years, if not for ever. He enteredby a side door opening into a passage that led to his own room, where hekept his books, his guns, his fishing-tackle, his writing materials, etcetera.
Here he hurriedly began to select the few articles he intended to take;for, besides the dread of interruption, he was feverishly anxious totravel far that very night, if only Nest was capable of performing thejourney. As he was thus employed, he tried to conjecture what hisfather’s feelings would be on finding that his once-loved son was goneaway for ever. Would he then awaken to regret for the conduct which haddriven him from home, and bitterly think on the loving and caressing boywho haunted his footsteps in former days? Or, alas! would he only feelthat an obstacle to his daily happiness—to his contentment with his wife,and his strange, doting affection for the child—was taken away? Wouldthey make merry over the heir’s departure? Then he thought of Nest—theyoung childless mother, whose heart had not yet realized her fulness ofdesolation. Poor Nest! so loving as she was, so devoted to her child—howshould he console her? He pictured her away in a strange land, piningfor her native mountains, and refusing to be comforted because her childwas not.
Even this thought of the home-sickness that might possibly beset Nesthardly made him hesitate in his determination; so strongly had the ideataken possession of him that only by putting miles and leagues betweenhim and his father could he avert the doom which seemed blending itselfwith the very purposes of his life as long as he stayed in proximity withthe slayer of his child.
He had now nearly completed his hasty work of preparation, and was fullof tender thoughts of his wife, when the door opened, and the elfishRobert peered in, in search of some of his brother’s possessions. Onseeing Owen he hesitated, but then came boldly forward, and laid his handon Owen’s arm, saying,
“Nesta yr buten! How is Nest yr buten?”
He looked maliciously into Owen’s face to mark the effect of his words,but was terrified at the expression he read there. He started off andran to the door, while Owen tried to check himself, saying continually,“He is but a child. He does not understand the meaning of what he says.He is but a child!” Still Robert, now in fancied security, kept callingout his insulting words, and Owen’s hand was on his gun, grasping it asif to restrain his rising fury.
But when Robert passed on daringly to mocking words relating to the poordead child, Owen could bear it no longer; and before the boy was wellaware, Owen was fiercely holding him in an iron clasp with one hand,while he struck him hard with the other.
In a minute he checked himself. He paused, relaxed his grasp, and, tohis horror, he saw Robert sink to the ground; in fact, the lad washalf-stunned, half-frightened, and thought it best to assumeinsensibility.
Owen
—miserable Owen—seeing him lie there prostrate, was bitterlyrepentant, and would have dragged him to the carved settle, and done allhe could to restore him to his senses, but at this instant the Squirecame in.
Probably, when the household at Bodowen rose that morning, there was butone among them ignorant of the heir’s relation to Nest Pritchard and herchild; for secret as he tried to make his visits to Ty Glas, they hadbeen too frequent not to be noticed, and Nest’s altered conduct—no longerfrequenting dances and merry-makings—was a strongly corroborativecircumstance. But Mrs. Griffiths’ influence reigned paramount, ifunacknowledged, at Bodowen, and till she sanctioned the disclosure, nonewould dare to tell the Squire.
Now, however, the time drew near when it suited her to make her husbandaware of the connection his son had formed; so, with many tears, and muchseeming reluctance, she broke the intelligence to him—taking good care,at the same time, to inform him of the light character Nest had borne.Nor did she confine this evil reputation to her conduct before hermarriage,