calon fâch![9] to think your little white hands have been working for me! Now I will cut the bread and butter thin, thin—as befits a lady like you; and sorry I am that it is barley bread. I don't forget the beautiful white cakes and the white sugar you gave me at Dinas the other day! And your uncle, how is he?"
"Quite well; gone to Pen Morien, and not coming home till to-morrow; but tell me now, Nance fâch, of all that happened so long ago—when I was born."
"Not so long ago for me, dear heart, as for you. It is a whole life-time for you, but for me—" and the faded blue eyes filled with tears, and the wrinkled lips trembled a little as she recalled the past—"for me! I had lived my life before you were born. My husband was dead, my boy drowned, and my little Mari, the last and brightest, had suddenly withered and died before my eyes—a fever they say, perhaps it was indeed; but the sun has never shone so brightly, whatever, since then; the flowers are not so sweet—they remind me of my child's grave; the sea does not look the same—it reminds me of my boy!" and she rocked herself backwards and forwards for some time, while Valmai stroked with tender white fingers the hard, wrinkled hand which rested on her lap. "Well, indeed," said the old woman at last, "there's enough of my sorrows; let us get on to the happy time when your little life began, you and your twin sister. When you were washed and dressed and laid sleeping together in the same cradle, no one could tell which was which; but dir anwl! who cared for that? too much joy was in our hearts that your dear mother was safe. No one at least, except the grand English lady who was lodging there at your grandfather's house. Her husband was dead, and she was very rich, but she had no children; and when she heard your mother had twins, she begged of us to let her have one for her very own, and she was like thorns to us because we could not tell for sure which was the oldest."
"Well, go on, Nance," said Valmai, as the old woman stopped to rake the peat embers together.
"Well! then, we all thought it was a very good thing, and no doubt the Almighty had His plans about it, for how could your poor mother take two babies with her to that far-off land where your father went a missionary? Well! there was a message come to fetch the lady to the death-bed of her mother, and she only waited at Dinas long enough to see you both christened together, Valmai and Gwladys. The next day she went away, and took your little sister with her. Oh! there's crying your mother was at losing one of her little ones; but your father persuaded her it was for the best."
"And what was the English lady's name?" asked Valmai.
"Oh! my dear, ask it not; the hardest word you ever heard, and the longest; I could never twist my tongue round it. It is with me somewhere written out on paper, and her directions, and if she ever moved to another place she would write and tell us, she said; but that was not likely to be, because she went to her father's and grandfather's old home, and she has never written to anyone since, as far as I know."
"Well, indeed," said Valmai, looking thoughtfully into the glowing embers, "I should like to see my sister, whatever."
"Twt, twt," said the old woman, "there's no need for you to trouble your head about her; she has never troubled to seek you."
"Does she know about me, do you think?"
"That I can't tell, of course," said Nance, going to the door to have another look at the storm. "Ach y fi! it's like a boiling pot," she said; "you can never go home to-night, my child."
"Oh, yes, indeed I must; I would not be away from home in my uncle's absence for the world," said Valmai, joining the old woman at the door, and looking out rather anxiously at the angry sea. "Oh, when the tide goes down at nine o'clock the moon will be up, and perhaps the storm will be over."
They sat chatting over the fire until the evening shadows fell, and the moon shone fitfully between the scudding clouds.
Meanwhile Cardo had ridden in to Llanython. A fair had generally much attraction for him—the merry laughter, the sociable meetings, the sound of music on the air, and the altogether festive character of the day; but on this occasion its pleasures seemed to pall, and quickly dispatching the business which had brought him there, he returned to the inn, and, mounting his horse, rode home early in the afternoon. Why he thus hurried away he never could explain. Ever since he had leant on the bridge over the Berwen in the morning he had been haunted by a feeling of Valmai's presence. Little had he guessed that she had been so near him while he looked down through the interlacing scenery which hid the river from his sight. It was nearly four o'clock in the afternoon as he reached that part of the high road from which the beach was visible, and here he stopped a moment to look and wonder at the storm, which had so suddenly increased in violence.
"How far up the beach at Ynysoer those breakers run! And the Rock Bridge!—I wouldn't like to cross that to-night; but surely that was a woman's figure crossing it now!" A sudden fear darted through his mind, and dismounting, he climbed to the top of the turfy bank at the side of the road to gain a better view of the coast. "Yes, a woman—a girl, surely, and a graceful girl, wearing a scarlet cloak. She carried her hat in her hand—not on her head, at all events. Surely it was not Valmai in such a storm going over by such a dangerous path? Probably a fisherman's wife or daughter!" But he gazed long and steadily before he once more resumed his ride. In hot haste he rode the rest of the way to Brynderyn.
"The storm is rising," said the "Vicare du," as he joined his son at the tea-table.
"Yes," said the latter, pausing in his attack upon the roast fowl to gaze at the clouds which scudded before the wind, "I expect it will be a furious gale before midnight."
As soon as the meal was over he rose, and fixing his hat firmly on his head, said:
"I am going down to the beach to see the waves, father. If I am not back to supper you won't be frightened?"
The old man muttered something about "folly to go out in such weather," as Cardo disappeared into the stone passage. Making his way down to the beach, he found the storm raging fiercely, and, gaining the shelter of a rock, he sat down to rest and think.
The sullen south-west wind moaned and shrieked as it rushed up the long beach; it lurked in the hollows of the crags, and drove the sand and foam before it. The Berwen looked yellow and muddy as it washed over its stony bed. Above all came the roar of the breakers as they dashed against the rocky sides of the island, which lay, a black mass, in the seething water a few hundred yards from the shore.
He looked across the blinding spray of the waves and thought of his boat; but no, no boat would live in such a sea; besides, what ridiculous fear was this that haunted him?
At so great a distance as that between the road and the island it was impossible that he could have distinguished Valmai from any other girl, and what more natural than that one of the women living on the island should be crossing the Rock Bridge.
"I must be a fool to have nervous fears like a silly girl. I daresay I shall meet Valmai on the shore."
But he sought in vain for any sign of her, as she had sought him in the morning. Indeed it was not likely that any tender girl would be out in such a storm—and yet—"was it Valmai?"
The thought would come, the fear would haunt him. He was surprised to find himself overtaken by a woman.
"Dir, dir, what a storm," she remarked as she passed, hurried on her way by the driving wind.
One or two of Cardo's long steps brought him up with her.
"Don't you come from Ynysoer?" he said. "I think I know your face."
"Yes, gwae fi![10] that I had got safe back again, but my mother is ill," she shouted, as the wind carried her words away, "and I must stay with her till tomorrow, no one could go back over the Rock Bridge to-night; though, indeed, I met a young girl crossing—"
"Had she a red cloak?" asked Cardo.
"Yes. She was Essec Powell's niece, and if she tries to come back to-night I wouldn't give much for her life."
"Here we part—good-bye," said Cardo.
"Nos da, Ser," said the woman, but her voice was drowned by the roar of the wind.