but insinuated that even to this day she was a “woman of thegrove and brake”—for centuries the Welsh term of opprobrium for theloosest female characters.
Squire Griffiths easily tracked Owen to Ty Glas; and without any aim butthe gratification of his furious anger, followed him to upbraid as wehave seen. But he left the cottage even more enraged against his sonthan he had entered it, and returned home to hear the evil suggestions ofthe stepmother. He had heard a slight scuffle in which he caught thetones of Robert’s voice, as he passed along the hall, and an instantafterwards he saw the apparently lifeless body of his little favouritedragged along by the culprit Owen—the marks of strong passion yet visibleon his face. Not loud, but bitter and deep were the evil words which thefather bestowed on the son; and as Owen stood proudly and sullenlysilent, disdaining all exculpation of himself in the presence of one whohad wrought him so much graver—so fatal an injury—Robert’s mother enteredthe room. At sight of her natural emotion the wrath of the Squire wasredoubled, and his wild suspicions that this violence of Owen’s to Robertwas a premeditated act appeared like the proven truth through the mistsof rage. He summoned domestics as if to guard his own and his wife’slife from the attempts of his son; and the servants stood wonderingaround—now gazing at Mrs. Griffiths, alternately scolding and sobbing,while she tried to restore the lad from his really bruised andhalf-unconscious state; now at the fierce and angry Squire; and now atthe sad and silent Owen. And he—he was hardly aware of their looks ofwonder and terror; his father’s words fell on a deadened ear; for beforehis eyes there rose a pale dead babe, and in that lady’s violent soundsof grief he heard the wailing of a more sad, more hopeless mother. Forby this time the lad Robert had opened his eyes, and though evidentlysuffering a good deal from the effects of Owen’s blows, was fullyconscious of all that was passing around him.
Had Owen been left to his own nature, his heart would have worked itselfto doubly love the boy whom he had injured; but he was stubborn frominjustice, and hardened by suffering. He refused to vindicate himself;he made no effort to resist the imprisonment the Squire had decreed,until a surgeon’s opinion of the real extent of Robert’s injuries wasmade known. It was not until the door was locked and barred, as if uponsome wild and furious beast, that the recollection of poor Nest, withouthis comforting presence, came into his mind. Oh! thought he, how shewould be wearying, pining for his tender sympathy; if, indeed, she hadrecovered the shock of mind sufficiently to be sensible of consolation!What would she think of his absence? Could she imagine he believed hisfather’s words, and had left her, in this her sore trouble andbereavement? The thought madened him, and he looked around for some modeof escape.
He had been confined in a small unfurnished room on the first floor,wainscoted, and carved all round, with a massy door, calculated to resistthe attempts of a dozen strong men, even had he afterward been able toescape from the house unseen, unheard. The window was placed (as iscommon in old Welsh houses) over the fire-place; with branching chimneyson either hand, forming a sort of projection on the outside. By thisoutlet his escape was easy, even had he been less determined anddesperate than he was. And when he had descended, with a little care, alittle winding, he might elude all observation and pursue his originalintention of going to Ty Glas.
The storm had abated, and watery sunbeams were gilding the bay, as Owendescended from the window, and, stealing along in the broad afternoonshadows, made his way to the little plateau of green turf in the gardenat the top of a steep precipitous rock, down the abrupt face of which hehad often dropped, by means of a well-secured rope, into the smallsailing-boat (his father’s present, alas! in days gone by) which laymoored in the deep sea-water below. He had always kept his boat there,because it was the nearest available spot to the house; but before hecould reach the place—unless, indeed, he crossed a broad sun-lightedpiece of ground in full view of the windows on that side of the house,and without the shadow of a single sheltering tree or shrub—he had toskirt round a rude semicircle of underwood, which would have beenconsidered as a shrubbery had any one taken pains with it. Step by stephe stealthily moved along—hearing voices now, again seeing his father andstepmother in no distant walk, the Squire evidently caressing andconsoling his wife, who seemed to be urging some point with greatvehemence, again forced to crouch down to avoid being seen by the cook,returning from the rude kitchen-garden with a handful of herbs. This wasthe way the doomed heir of Bodowen left his ancestral house for ever, andhoped to leave behind him his doom. At length he reached the plateau—hebreathed more freely. He stooped to discover the hidden coil of rope,kept safe and dry in a hole under a great round flat piece of rock: hishead was bent down; he did not see his father approach, nor did he hearhis footstep for the rush of blood to his head in the stooping effort oflifting the stone; the Squire had grappled with him before he rose upagain, before he fully knew whose hands detained him, now, when hisliberty of person and action seemed secure. He made a vigorous struggleto free himself; he wrestled with his father for a moment—he pushed himhard, and drove him on to the great displaced stone, all unsteady in itsbalance.
Down went the Squire, down into the deep waters below—down after him wentOwen, half consciously, half unconsciously, partly compelled by thesudden cessation of any opposing body, partly from a vehementirrepressible impulse to rescue his father. But he had instinctivelychosen a safer place in the deep seawater pool than that into which hispush had sent his father. The Squire had hit his head with much violenceagainst the side of the boat, in his fall; it is, indeed, doubtfulwhether he was not killed before ever he sank into the sea. But Owenknew nothing save that the awful doom seemed even now present. Heplunged down, he dived below the water in search of the body which hadnone of the elasticity of life to buoy it up; he saw his father in thosedepths, he clutched at him, he brought him up and cast him, a deadweight, into the boat, and exhausted by the effort, he had begun himselfto sink again before he instinctively strove to rise and climb into therocking boat. There lay his father, with a deep dent in the side of hishead where the skull had been fractured by his fall; his face blackenedby the arrested course of the blood. Owen felt his pulse, his heart—allwas still. He called him by his name.
“Father, father!” he cried, “come back! come back! You never knew how Iloved you! how I could love you still—if—Oh God!”
And the thought of his little child rose before him. “Yes, father,” hecried afresh, “you never knew how he fell—how he died! Oh, if I had buthad patience to tell you! If you would but have borne with me andlistened! And now it is over! Oh father! father!”
Whether she had heard this wild wailing voice, or whether it was onlythat she missed her husband and wanted him for some little every-dayquestion, or, as was perhaps more likely, she had discovered Owen’sescape, and come to inform her husband of it, I do not know, but on therock, right above his head, as it seemed, Owen heard his stepmothercalling her husband.
He was silent, and softly pushed the boat right under the rock till thesides grated against the stones, and the overhanging branches concealedhim and it from all not on a level with the water. Wet as he was, he laydown by his dead father the better to conceal himself; and, somehow, theaction recalled those early days of childhood—the first in the Squire’swidowhood—when Owen had shared his father’s bed, and used to waken him inthe morning to hear one of the old Welsh legends. How long he laythus—body chilled, and brain hard-working through the heavy pressure of areality as terrible as a nightmare—he never knew; but at length he rousedhimself up to think of Nest.
Drawing out a great sail, he covered up the body of his father with itwhere he lay in the bottom of the boat. Then with his numbed hands hetook the oars, and pulled out into the more open sea toward Criccaeth.He skirted along the coast till he found a shadowed cleft in the darkrocks; to that point he rowed, and anchored his boat close in land. Thenhe mounted, staggering, half longing to fall into the dark waters and beat rest—half instinctively f
inding out the surest foot-rests on thatprecipitous face of rock, till he was high up, safe landed on the turfysummit. He ran off, as if pursued, toward Penmorfa; he ran with maddenedenergy. Suddenly he paused, turned, ran again with the same speed, andthrew himself prone on the summit, looking down into his boat withstraining eyes to see if there had been any movement of life—anydisplacement of a fold of sail-cloth. It was all quiet deep down below,but as he gazed the shifting light gave the appearance of a slightmovement. Owen ran to a lower part of the rock, stripped, plunged intothe water, and swam to the boat. When there, all was still—awfullystill! For a minute or two, he dared not lift up the cloth. Thenreflecting that the same terror might beset him again—of leaving hisfather unaided while yet a spark of life lingered—he removed theshrouding cover. The eyes looked into his with a dead stare! He closedthe lids and bound up the jaw. Again he looked. This time he raisedhimself out of the water and kissed the brow.
“It was my doom, father! It would have been better if I had died at mybirth!”
Daylight was fading away. Precious daylight! He swam back, dressed, andset off afresh for Penmorfa. When he opened the door of Ty Glas, EllisPritchard looked at him reproachfully, from his seat in thedarkly-shadowed chimney-corner.
“You’re come at last,” said he. “One of our kind (_i.e._, station) wouldnot have left his wife to mourn by herself over her dead child; nor wouldone of our kind have let his father kill his own true son. I’ve a goodmind to take her from you for ever.”
“I did not tell him,” cried Nest, looking piteously at her husband; “hemade me tell him part, and guessed the rest.”
She was nursing her babe on her knee as if it was alive. Owen stoodbefore Ellis Pritchard.
“Be silent,” said he, quietly. “Neither words nor deeds but what aredecreed can come to pass. I was set to do my work, this hundred yearsand more. The time waited for me, and the man waited for me. I havedone what was foretold of me for generations!”
Ellis Pritchard knew the old tale of the prophecy, and believed in it ina dull, dead kind of way, but somehow never thought it would come to passin his time. Now, however, he understood it all in a moment, though hemistook Owen’s nature so much as to believe that the deed wasintentionally done, out of revenge for the death of his boy; and viewingit in this light, Ellis thought it little more than a just punishment forthe cause of all the wild despairing sorrow he had seen his only childsuffer during the hours of this long afternoon. But he knew the lawwould not so regard it. Even the lax Welsh law of those days could notfail to examine into the death of a man of Squire Griffith’s standing.So the acute Ellis thought how he could conceal the culprit for a time.
“Come,” said he; “don’t look so scared! It was your doom, not yourfault;” and he laid a hand on Owen’s shoulder.
“You’re wet,” said he, suddenly. “Where have you been? Nest, yourhusband is dripping, drookit wet. That’s what makes him look so blue andwan.”
Nest softly laid her baby in its cradle; she was half stupefied withcrying, and had not understood to what Owen alluded, when he spoke of hisdoom being fulfilled, if indeed she had heard the words.
Her touch thawed Owen’s miserable heart.
“Oh, Nest!” said he, clasping her in his arms; “do you love me still—canyou love me, my own darling?”
“Why not?” asked she, her eyes filling with tears. “I only love you morethan ever, for you were my poor baby’s father!”
“But, Nest—Oh, tell her, Ellis! _you_ know.”
“No need, no need!” said Ellis. “She’s had enough to think on. Bustle,my girl, and get out my Sunday clothes.”
“I don’t understand,” said Nest, putting her hand up to her head. “Whatis to tell? and why are you so wet? God help me for a poor crazed thing,for I cannot guess at the meaning of your words and your strange looks!I only know my baby is dead!” and she burst into tears.
“Come, Nest! go and fetch him a change, quick!” and as she meekly obeyed,too languid to strive further to understand, Ellis said rapidly to Owen,in a low, hurried voice—
“Are you meaning that the Squire is dead? Speak low, lest she hear.Well, well, no need to talk about how he died. It was sudden, I see; andwe must all of us die; and he’ll have to be buried. It’s well the nightis near. And I should not wonder now if you’d like to travel for a bit;it would do Nest a power of good; and then—there’s many a one goes out ofhis own house and never comes back again; and—I trust he’s not lying inhis own house—and there’s a stir for a bit, and a search, and awonder—and, by-and-by, the heir just steps in, as quiet as can be. Andthat’s what you’ll do, and bring Nest to Bodowen after all. Nay, child,better stockings nor those; find the blue woollens I bought at Llanrwstfair. Only don’t lose heart. It’s done now and can’t be helped. It wasthe piece of work set you to do from the days of the Tudors, they say.And he deserved it. Look in yon cradle. So tell us where he is, andI’ll take heart of grace and see what can be done for him.”
But Owen sat wet and haggard, looking into the peat fire as if forvisions of the past, and never heeding a word Ellis said. Nor did hemove when Nest brought the armful of dry clothes.
“Come, rouse up, man!” said Ellis, growing impatient. But he neitherspoke nor moved.
“What is the matter, father?” asked Nest, bewildered.
Ellis kept on watching Owen for a minute or two, till on his daughter’srepetition of the question, he said—
“Ask him yourself, Nest.”
“Oh, husband, what is it?” said she, kneeling down and bringing her faceto a level with his.
“Don’t you know?” said he, heavily. “You won’t love me when you do know.And yet it was not my doing: it was my doom.”
“What does he mean, father?” asked Nest, looking up; but she caught agesture from Ellis urging her to go on questioning her husband.
“I will love you, husband, whatever has happened. Only let me know theworst.”
A pause, during which Nest and Ellis hung breathless.
“My father is dead, Nest.”
Nest caught her breath with a sharp gasp.
“God forgive him!” said she, thinking on her babe.
“God forgive _me_!” said Owen.
“You did not—” Nest stopped.
“Yes, I did. Now you know it. It was my doom. How could I help it?The devil helped me—he placed the stone so that my father fell. I jumpedinto the water to save him. I did, indeed, Nest. I was nearly drownedmyself. But he was dead—dead—killed by the fall!”
“Then he is safe at the bottom of the sea?” said Ellis, with hungryeagerness.
“No, he is not; he lies in my boat,” said Owen, shivering a little, moreat the thought of his last glimpse at his father’s face than from cold.
“Oh, husband, change your wet clothes!” pleaded Nest, to whom the deathof the old man was simply a horror with which she had nothing to do,while her husband’s discomfort was a present trouble.
While she helped him to take off the wet garments which he would neverhave had energy enough to remove of himself, Ellis was busy preparingfood, and mixing a great tumbler of spirits and hot water. He stood overthe unfortunate young man and compelled him to eat and drink, and madeNest, too, taste some mouthfuls—all the while planning in his own mindhow best to conceal what had been done, and who had done it; notaltogether without a certain feeling of vulgar triumph in the reflectionthat Nest, as she stood there, carelessly dressed, dishevelled in hergrief, was in reality the mistress of Bodowen, than which Ellis Pritchardhad never seen a grander house, though he believed such might exist.
By dint of a few dexterous questions he found out all he wanted to knowfrom Owen, as he ate and drank. In fact, it was almost a relief to Owento dilute the horror by talking about it. Before the meal was done, ifmeal it could be called, Ellis knew all he cared to know.
“Now, Nest, on with your cloak and haps. Pack up what needs to go withyou,
for both you and your husband must be half way to Liverpool byto-morrow’s morn. I’ll take you past Rhyl Sands in my fishing-boat, withyours in tow; and, once over the dangerous part, I’ll return with mycargo of fish, and learn how much stir there is at Bodowen. Once safehidden in Liverpool, no one will know where you are, and you may stayquiet till your time comes for returning.”
“I will never come home again,” said Owen, doggedly. “The place isaccursed!”
“Hoot! be guided by me, man. Why, it was but an accident, after all!And we’ll land at the Holy Island, at the Point of Llyn; there is an oldcousin of mine, the parson, there—for the Pritchards have known betterdays, Squire—and we’ll bury him there. It was but an accident, man.Hold up your head! You and Nest will come home yet and fill Bodowen withchildren, and I’ll live to see it.”
“Never!” said Owen. “I am the last male of my race, and the son hasmurdered his father!”
Nest came in laden and cloaked. Ellis was for hurrying them off. Thefire was extinguished, the door was locked.
“Here, Nest, my darling, let me take your bundle while I guide you downthe steps.” But her husband bent his head, and spoke never a word. Nestgave her father the bundle (already loaded with such things as he himselfhad seen fit to take), but clasped another softly and tightly.
“No one shall help me with this,” said she, in a low voice.
Her father did not understand her; her husband did, and placed his stronghelping arm round her waist, and blessed her.
“We will all go together, Nest,” said he. “But where?” and he looked upat the storm-tossed clouds coming up from windward.
“It is a dirty night,” said Ellis, turning his head round to speak to hiscompanions at last. “But never fear, we’ll weather it?” And he made forthe place where his vessel was moored. Then he stopped and thought amoment.
“Stay here!” said he, addressing his companions. “I may meet folk, and Ishall, maybe, have to hear and to speak. You wait here till I come backfor you.” So they sat down close together in a corner of the path.
“Let