Gwen Wynn: A Romance of the Wye

The world – or that narrow circle of it immediately surrounding and acquainted with the Morgan family – wonders at the favourable reception it vouchsafes to Richard Dempsey – a known and noted poacher.

But in justice to Mrs. Morgan it should be said, she has but slight acquaintance with the character of the man – only knows it as represented by Rogier. Absorbed in her paternosters, she gives little heed to ought else; her thoughts, as her actions, being all of the dictation, and under the direction, of the priest. In her eyes Coracle Dick is as the latter has painted him, thus —

"A worthy fellow – poor it is true, but honest withal; a little addicted to fish and game taking, as many another good man. Who wouldn't with such laws – unrighteous, oppressive to the poor? Were they otherwise, the poacher would be a patriot. As for Dempsey, they who speak ill of him are only the envious – envying his good looks, and fine mental qualities. For he's clever, and they can't say nay – energetic, and likely to make his way in the world. Yet, one thing he would make, that's a good husband to your daughter Mary – one who has the strength and courage to take care of her."

So counsels the priest; and as he can make Mrs. Morgan believe black white, she is ready to comply with his counsel. If the result rested on her, Coracle Dick would have nothing to fear.

But it does not – he knows it does not, and is troubled. With all the influence in his favour, he fears that other influence against him – if against him – far more than a counterpoise to Mrs. Morgan's religious predilections, or the partisanship of his priest. Still he is not sure; one day the slave of sweet confidence, the next a prey to black bitter jealousy. And thus he goes on doting and doubting, as if he were never to know the truth.

A day comes when he is made acquainted with it, or, rather, a night; for it is after sundown the revelation reaches him – indeed, nigh on to midnight. His favoured, yet defeated, aspirations, are more than twelve months old. They have been active all through the preceding winter, spring, and summer. It is now autumn; the leaves are beginning to turn sere, and the last sheaves have been gathered to the stack.

No shire than that of Hereford more addicted to the joys of the Harvest Home; this often celebrated in a public and general way, instead of at the private and particular farmhouse. One such is given upon the summit of Garran Hill – a grand gathering, to which all go of the class who attend such assemblages – small farmers with their families, their servants too, male and female. There is a cromlech on the hill's top, around which they annually congregate, and beside this ancient relic are set up the symbols of a more modern time – the Maypole – though it is Autumn – with its strings and garlands; the show booths and the refreshment tents, with their display of cakes, fruits, perry, and cider. And there are sports of various kinds, pitching the stone, climbing the greased pole – that of May now so slippery – jumping, racing in sacks, dancing – among other dances the Morris – with a grand finale of fireworks.

At this year's fête Farmer Morgan is present, accompanied by his wife and daughter. It need not be said that Dick Dempsey and Jack Wingate are there too. They are, and have been all the afternoon – ever since the gathering began. But during the hours of daylight neither approaches the fair creature to which his thoughts tend, and on which his eyes are almost constantly turning. The poacher is restrained by a sense of his unworthiness – a knowledge that there is not the place to make show of his aspirations to one all believe so much above him; while the waterman is kept back and aloof by the presence of the watchful mother.

With all her watchfulness he finds opportunity to exchange speech with the daughter – only a few words, but enough to make hell in the heart of Dick Dempsey, who overhears them.

It is at the closing scene of the spectacle, when the pyrotechnists are about to send up their final feu de joie, Mrs. Morgan, treated by numerous acquaintances to aniseed and other toothsome drinks, has grown less thoughtful of her charge, which gives Jack Wingate the opportunity he has all along been looking for. Sidling up to the girl, he asks, in a tone which tells of lovers en rapport, mutually, unmistakably —

"When, Mary?"

"Saturday night next. The priest's coming to supper. I'll make an errand to the shop, soon as it gets dark."

"Where?"

"The old place under the big elm."

"You're sure you'll be able?"

"Sure, never fear, I'll find a way."

"God bless you, dear girl. I'll be there, if anywhere on earth."

That is all that passes between them. But enough – more than enough – for Richard Dempsey. As a rocket, just then going up, throws its glare over his face, as also the others, no greater contrast could be seen or imagined. On the countenances of the lovers an expression of contentment, sweet and serene; on his a look such as Mephistopheles gave to Gretchen, escaping from his toils.

The curse in Coracle's heart is but hindered from rising to his lips by a fear of its foiling the vengeance he there and then determines on.

CHAPTER XVII

THE "CORPSE CANDLE."

Jack Wingate lives in a little cottage whose bit of garden ground "brinks" the country road where the latter trends close to the Wye at one of its sharpest sinuosities. The cottage is on the convex side of the bend, having the river at back, with a deep drain, or wash, running up almost to its walls, and forming a fence to one side of the garden. This gives the waterman another and more needed advantage – a convenient docking place for his boat. There the Mary, moored, swings to her painter in safety; and when a rise in the river threatens, he is at hand to see she be not swept off. To guard against such catastrophe he will start up from his bed at any hour of the night, having more than one reason to be careful of the boat; for, besides being his gagne-pain, it bears the name, by himself given, of her the thought of whom sweetens his toil and makes his labour light. For her he bends industriously to his oar, as though he believed every stroke made and every boat's length gained was bringing him nearer to Mary Morgan. And in a sense so is it, whichever way the boat's head may be turned; the farther he rows her, the grander grows that heap of gold he is hoarding up against the day when he hopes to become a Benedict. He has a belief that if he could but display before the eyes of Farmer Morgan sufficient money to take a little farm for himself and stock it, he might then remove all obstacles between him and Mary – mother's objections and sinister and sacerdotal influence included.

He is aware of the difference of rank – that social chasm between – being oft bitterly reminded of it; but emboldened by Mary's smiles, he has little fear but that he will yet be able to bridge it.

Favouring the programme thus traced out, there is, fortunately, no great strain on his resources by way of drawback; only the maintaining of his own mother, a frugal dame – thrifty besides – who, instead of adding to the current expenses, rather curtails them by the adroit handling of her needle. It would have been a distaff in the olden days.

Thus helped in his housekeeping, the young waterman is enabled to put away almost every shilling he earns by his oar, and this same summer all through till autumn, which it now is, has been more than usually profitable to him, by reason of his so often having Captain Ryecroft as his fare; for although the Hussar officer no longer goes salmon fishing – he has somehow been spoilt for that – there are other excursions upon which he requires the boat, and as ever generously, even lavishly, pays for it.

From one of these the young waterman has but returned; and, after carefully bestowing the Mary at her moorings, stepped inside the cottage. It is Saturday – within one hour of sundown – that same Saturday spoken of "at the Harvest Home." But though Jack is just home, he shows no sign of an intention to stay there; instead, behaves as if he intended going out again, though not in his boat.

And he does so intend, for a purpose unsuspected by his mother, – to keep that appointment made hurriedly and in a half whisper, amid the fracas of the fireworks.

The good dame had already set the table for tea, ready against his arrival, covered it with a cloth, snow-white of course. The tea-things superimposed, in addition a dining plate, knife and fork, these for a succulent beefsteak heard hissing on the gridiron almost as soon as the Mary made appearance at the mouth of the wash, and, soon as the boat was docked, done. It is now on the table, alongside the teapot; its savoury odour, mingling with the fragrance of the freshly "drawn" tea, fills the cottage kitchen with a perfume to delight the gods.

For all, it gives no gratification to Jack Wingate the waterman. The appetizing smell of the meat, and the more ethereal aroma of the Chinese shrub, are alike lost upon him. Appetite he has none, and his thoughts are elsewhere.

Less from observing his abstraction, than the slow, negligent movements of his knife and fork, the mother asks —

"What's the matter with ye, Jack? Ye don't eat!"

"I ain't hungry, mother."

"But ye been out since mornin', and tooked nothing wi' you!"

"True; but you forget who I ha' been out with. The captain ain't the man to let his boatman be a hungered. We war down the day far as Symond's yat, where he treated me to dinner at the hotel. The daintiest kind o' dinner, too. No wonder at my not havin' much care for eatin' now – nice as you've made things, mother."

Notwithstanding the compliment, the old lady is little satisfied – less as she observes the continued abstraction of his manner. He fidgets uneasily in his chair, every now and then giving a glance at the little Dutch clock suspended against the wall, which in loud ticking seems to say, "You'll be late – you'll be late." She suspects something of the cause, but inquires nothing of it. Instead, she but observes, speaking of the patron: —

"He be very good to ye, Jack."

"Ah! that he be; good to every one as comes nigh o' him – and's desarvin' it."

"But ain't he stayin' in the neighbourhood longer than he first spoke of doin'?"

"Maybe he is. Grand gentry such as he ain't like us poor folk. They can go and come whens'ever it please 'em. I suppose he have his reasons for remaining."

"Now, Jack, you know he have, an' I've heerd something about 'em myself."

"What have you heard, mother?"

"Oh, what! Ye han't been a rowin' him up and down the river now nigh on five months without findin' out. An' if you haven't, others have. It's goin' all about that he's after a young lady as lives somewhere below. Tidy girl, they say, tho' I never seed her myself. Is it so, my son? Say!"

"Well, mother, since you've put it straight at me in that way, I won't deny it to you, tho' I'm in a manner bound to saycrecy wi' others. It be true that the Captain have some notion o' such a lady."

"There be a story, too, o' her bein' nigh drownded an' his saving her out o' a boat. Now, Jack, whose boat could that be if it wa'nt your'n?"

"'Twor mine, mother; that's true enough. I would a-told you long ago, but he asked me not to talk o' the thing. Besides, I didn't suppose you'd care to hear about it."

"Well," she says, satisfied, "tan't much to me, nor you neyther, Jack; only as the Captain being so kind, we'd both like to know the best about him. If he have took a fancy for the young lady, I hope she return it. She ought after his doin' what he did for her. I han't heerd her name; what be it?"

"She's a Miss Wynn, mother. A very rich heiress. 'Deed I b'lieve she ain't a heiress any longer, or won't be, after next Thursday, sin' that day she comes o' age. An' that night there's to be a big party at her place, dancin' an' all sorts o' festivities. I know it because the Captain's goin' there, an' has bespoke the boat to take him."

"Wynn, eh? That be a Welsh name. Wonder if she's any kin o' the great Sir Watkin."

"Can't say, mother. I believe there be several branches o' the Wynn family."

"Yes, and all o' the good sort. If she be one o' the Welsh Wynns, the Captain can't go far astray in having her for his wife."

Mrs. Wingate is herself of Cymric ancestry, originally from the shire of Pembroke, but married to a man of Montgomery, where Jack was born. It is only of late, in her widowhood, she has become a resident of Herefordshire.

"So you think he have a notion o' her, Jack?"

"More'n that, mother. I may as well tell ye; he be dead in love wi' her. An' if you seed the young lady herself, ye wouldn't wonder at it. She be most as good-looking as – "

Jack suddenly interrupted himself on the edge of a revelation he would rather not make, to his mother nor anyone else. For he has hitherto been as careful in keeping his own secret as that of his patron.

"As who?" she asks, looking him straight in the face, and with an expression in her eyes of no common interest – that of maternal solicitude.

"Who? – well – " he answers confusedly; "I wor goin' to mention the name o' a girl who the people 'bout here think the best lookin' o' any in the neighbourhood – "

"An' nobody more'n yourself, my son. You needn't gie her name. I know it."

"Oh, mother! what d'ye mean?" he stammers out, with eyes on the but half-eaten beefsteak. "I take it they've been tellin' ye some stories about me."

"No, they han't. Nobody's sayed a word about ye relatin' to that. I've seed it for myself, long since, though you've tried to hide it. I'm not goin' to blame ye eyther, for I believe she be a tidy proper girl. But she's far aboon you, my son; and ye maun mind how you behave yourself. If the young lady be anythin' likes good-lookin' as Mary Morgan – "

"Yes, mother! that's the strangest thing o' all – "

He interrupts her, speaking excitedly; again interrupting himself.

"What's strangest?" she inquires, with a look of wonderment.

"Never mind, mother! I'll tell you all about it some other time. I can't now; you see its nigh nine o' the clock."

"Well; an' what if 't be?"

"Because I may be too late."

"Too late for what? Surely you arn't goin' out again the night?" She asks this, seeing him rise up from his chair.

"I must, mother."

"But why?"

"Well, the boat's painter's got frailed, and I want a bit o' whipcord to lap it with. They have the thing at the Ferry shop, and I must get there afores they shut up."

A fib, perhaps pardonable, as the thing he designs lapping is not his boat's painter, but the waist of Mary Morgan, and not with slender whipcord, but his own stout arms.

"Why won't it do in the mornin'?" asks the ill-satisfied mother.

"Well, ye see, there's no knowin' but that somebody may come after the boat. The Captain mayent but he may, changin' his mind. Anyhow, he'll want her to go down to them grand doin's at Llangorren Court?"

"Llangorren Court?"

"Yes; that's where the young lady lives."

"That's to be on Thursday, ye sayed?"

"True; but, then, there may come a fare the morrow, an' what if there do? 'Tain't the painter only as wants splicing there's a bit o' leak sprung close to the cutwater, and I must hae some pitch to pay it."

If Jack's mother would only step out, and down to the ditch where the Mary is moored, with a look at the boat, she would make him out a liar. Its painter is smooth and clean as a piece of gimp, not a strand unravelled – while but two or three gallons of bilge water at the boat's bottom attest to there being little or no leakage.

But she, good dame, is not thus suspicious, instead so reliant on her son's truthfulness, that without questioning further, she consents to his going, only with a proviso against his staying, thus appealingly put —

"Ye won't be gone long, my son! I know ye won't!"

"Indeed I shan't, mother. But why be you so partic'lar about my goin' out – this night more'n any other?"

"Because, Jack, this day, more'n most others, I've been feelin' bothered like, and a bit frightened."

"Frightened o' what? There han't been nobody to the house – has there?"

"No; ne'er a rover since you left me in the mornin'."

"Then what's been a scarin' ye, mother?"

"'Deed, I don't know, unless it ha' been brought on by the dream I had last night. 'Twer a dreadful unpleasant one. I didn't tell you o' it 'fore ye went out, thinkin' it might worry ye."

"Tell me now, mother."

"It hadn't nought to do wi' us ourselves, after all. Only concernin' them as live nearest us."

"Ha! the Morgans?"

"Yes; the Morgans."

"Oh, mother, what did you dream about them?"

"That I were standin' on the big hill above their house, in the middle o' the night, wi' black darkness all round me; and there lookin' down what should I see comin' out o' their door?"

"What?"

"The canwyll corph!"

"The canwyll corph?"

"Yes, my son; I seed it – that is I dreamed I seed it – coming just out o' the farmhouse door, then through the yard, and over the foot-plank at the bottom o' the orchard, when it went flarin' up the meadows straight towards the ferry. Though ye can't see that from the hill, I dreamed I did; an' seed the candle go on to the chapel an' into the buryin' ground. That woked me."

"What nonsense, mother! A ridiklous superstition! I thought you'd left all that sort o' stuff behind, in the mountains o' Montgomery, or Pembrokeshire, where the thing comes from, as I've heerd you say."

"No, my son; it's not stuff, nor superstition neyther; though English people say that to put slur upon us Welsh. Your father before ye believed in the Canwyll Corph, and wi' more reason ought I, your mother. I never told you, Jack, but the night before your father died I seed it go past our own door, and on to the graveyard o' the church where he now lies. Sure as we stand here there be some one doomed in the house o' Evan Morgan. There be only three in the family. I do hope it an't her as ye might some day be wantin' me to call daughter."

"Mother! You'll drive me mad! I tell ye it's all nonsense. Mary Morgan be at this moment healthy and strong – most as much as myself. If the dead candle ye've been dreamin' about were all o' it true, it couldn't be a burnin' for her. More like for Mrs. Morgan, who's half daft by believing in church candles and such things – enough to turn her crazy, if it doesn't kill her outright. As for you, my dear mother, don't let the dream bother you the least bit. An' ye mustn't be feeling lonely, as I shan't be long gone. I'll be back by ten sure."

Saying which, he sets his straw hat jauntily on his thick curly hair, gives his guernsey a straightening twitch, and, with a last cheering look and encouraging word to his mother, steps out into the night.

Left alone, she feels lonely withal, and more than ever afraid. Instead of sitting down to her needle, or making to remove the tea-things, she goes to the door, and there stays, standing on its threshold and peering into the darkness – for it is a pitch dark night – she sees, or fancies, a light moving across the meadows, as if it came from Farmer Morgan's house, and going in the direction of Rugg's Ferry. While she continues gazing, it twice crosses the Wye, by reason of the river's bend.

As no mortal hand could thus carry it, surely it is the canwyll corph!

CHAPTER XVIII

A CAT IN THE CUPBOARD

Evan Morgan is a tenant-farmer, holding Abergann. By Herefordshire custom, every farm or its stead, has a distinctive appellation. Like the land belonging to Glyngog, that of Abergann lies against the sides of a sloping glen – one of the hundreds or thousands of lateral ravines that run into the valley of the Wye. But, unlike the old manor-house, the domicile of the farmer is at the glen's bottom, and near the river's bank; nearer yet to a small influent stream, rapid and brawling, which sweeps past the lower end of the orchard in a channel worn deep into the soft sandstone.

Though with the usual imposing array of enclosure walls, the dwelling itself is not large, nor the outbuildings extensive; for the arable acreage is limited. This because the ridges around are too high pitched for ploughing, and if ploughed would be unproductive. They are not even in pasture, but overgrown with woods; less for the sake of the timber, which is only scrub, than as a covert for foxes. They are held in hand by Evan Morgan's landlord – a noted Nimrod.

For the same reason the farmhouse stands in a solitary spot, remote from any other dwelling. The nearest is the cottage of the Wingates – distant about half a mile, but neither visible from the other. Nor is there any direct road between, only a footpath, which crosses the brook at the bottom of the orchard, thence cunning over a wooded ridge to the main highway. The last, after passing close to the cottage, as already said, is deflected away from the river by this same ridge, so that when Evan Morgan would drive anywhere beyond the boundaries of his farm, he must pass out through a long lane, so narrow that were he to meet any one driving in, there would be a dead-lock. However, there is no danger; as the only vehicles having occasion to use this thoroughfare are his own farm waggon and a lighter "trap" in which he goes to market, and occasionally with his wife and daughter to merry-makings.

When the three are in it there is none of his family at home. For he has but one child – a daughter. Nor would he long have her were a half-score of young fellows allowed their way. At least this number would be willing to take her off his hands, and give her a home elsewhere. Remote as is the farmhouse of Abergann, and narrow the lane leading to it, there are many who would be glad to visit there, if invited.

In truth a fine girl is Mary Morgan, tall, bright-haired, and with blooming cheeks, beside which red rose leaves would seem fade. Living in a town she would be its talk; in a village its belle. Even from that secluded glen has the fame of her beauty gone forth and afar. Of husbands she could have her choice, and among men much richer than her father.

In her heart she has chosen one, not only much poorer, but lower in social rank – Jack Wingate. She loves the young waterman, and wants to be his wife; but knows she cannot without the consent of her parents. Not that either has signified opposition, since they have never been asked. Her longings in that direction she has kept secret from them. Nor does she so much dread refusal by the father. Evan Morgan had been himself poor – began life as a farm labourer – and, though now an employer of such, his pride had not kept pace with his prosperity. Instead, he is, as ever, the same modest, unpresuming man, of which the lower middle classes of the English people present many noble examples. From him Jack Wingate would have little to fear on the score of poverty. He is well acquainted with the young waterman's character, knows it to be good, and has observed the efforts he is making to better his condition in life; it may be with suspicion of the motive, at all events, admiringly – remembering his own. And although a Roman Catholic, he is anything but bigoted. Were he the only one to be consulted, his daughter might wed with the man upon whom she has fixed her affections, at any time it pleases them – ay, at any place, too, even within the walls of a Protestant Church! By him neither would Jack Wingate be rejected on the score of religion.

Very different with his wife. Of all the worshippers who compose the congregation at the Rugg's Ferry Chapel, none bend the knee to Baal as low as she; and over no one does Father Rogier exercise such influence. Baneful it is like to be; since not only has he control of the mother's conduct, but through that may also blight the happiness of the daughter.

Apart from religious fanaticism, Mrs. Morgan is not a bad woman – only a weak one. As her husband, she is of humble birth, and small beginnings; like him, too, neither has prosperity affected her in the sense of worldly ambition. Perhaps better if it had. Instead of spoiling, a little social pride might have been a bar to the dangerous aspirations of Richard Dempsey – even with the priest standing sponsor for him. But she has none, her whole soul being absorbed by blind devotion to a faith which scruples not at anything that may assist in its propagandism.