Gwen Wynn: A Romance of the Wye

“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 wor 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 farm-house 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 we’re 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!

Volume One – Chapter Eighteen

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 farm-house 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 running 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 deadlock. 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 farm-house 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 Bugg’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.

It is the Saturday succeeding the festival of the Harvest Home, a little after sunset, and the priest is expected at Abergann. He is a frequent visitor there; by Mrs Morgan ever made welcome, and treated to the best cheer the farm-house can afford; plate, knife, and fork always placed for him. And, to do him justice, he may be deemed in a way worthy of such hospitality; for he is, in truth, a most entertaining personage; can converse on any subject, and suit his conversation to the company, whether high or low. As much at home with the wife of the Welsh farmer as with the French ex-cocotte, and equally so in the companionship of Dick Dempsey, the poacher. In his hours of far niente all are alike to him.

This night he is to take supper at Abergann, and Mrs Morgan, seated in the farm house parlour, awaits his arrival. A snug little apartment, tastefully furnished, but with a certain air of austerity, observable in Roman Catholic houses: this by reason of some pictures of saints hanging against the walls, an image of the Virgin and, standing niche-like in a corner, one of the Crucifixion over the mantelshelf, with crosses upon books, and other like symbols.

It is near nine o’clock, and the table is already set out. On grand occasions, as this, the farm-house parlour is transformed into dining or supper room, indifferently. The meal intended to be eaten now is more of the former, differing in there being a tea-tray upon the table, with a full service of cups and saucers, as also in the lateness of the hour. But the odoriferous steam escaping from the kitchen, drifted into the parlour when its door is opened, tells of something in preparation more substantial than a cup of tea, with its usual accompaniment of bread and butter. And there is a fat capon roasting upon the spit, with a frying-pan full of sausages on the dresser, ready to be clapped upon the fire at the proper moment – as soon as the expected guest makes his appearance.

And in addition to the tea-things, there is a decanter of sherry on the table, and will be another of brandy when brought on – Father Rogier’s favourite tipple, as Mrs Morgan has reason to know. There is a full bottle of this – Cognac of best brand – in the larder cupboard, still corked as it came from the “Welsh Harp,” where it cost six shillings – The Rugg’s Ferry hostelry, as already intimated, dealing in drinks of a rather costly kind. Mary has been directed to draw the cork, decant, and bring the brandy in, and for this purpose has just gone off to the larder. Thence instantly returning, but without either decanter or Cognac! Instead with a tale which sends a thrill of consternation through her mother’s heart. The cat has been in the cupboard, and there made havoc – upset the brandy bottle, and sent it rolling off the shelf on the stone flags of the floor! Broken, of course, and the contents —

No need for further explanation, Mrs Morgan does not seek it. Nor does she stay to reflect on the disaster, but how it may be remedied. It will not mend matters to chastise the cat, nor cry over the spilt brandy, any more than if it were milk.

On short reflection she sees but one way to restore the broken bottle – by sending to the “Welsh Harp” for a whole one.

True, it will cost another six shillings, but she recks not of the expense. She is more troubled about a messenger. Where, and how, is one to be had? The farm labourers have long since left. They are all Benedicts, on board wages, and have departed for their respective wives and homes. There is a cow-boy, yet he is also absent; gone to fetch the kine from a far-off pasturing place, and not be back in time; while the one female domestic maid-of-all-work is busy in the kitchen, up to her ears among pots and pans, her face at a red heat over the range. She could not possibly be spared. “It’s very vexatious!” exclaims Mrs Morgan, in a state of lively perplexity.

“It is, indeed!” assents her daughter.

A truthful girl, Mary, in the main; but just now the opposite. For she is not vexed by the occurrence, nor does she deem it a disaster, quite the contrary. And she knows it was no accident, having herself brought it about. It was her own soft fingers, not the cat’s claws, that swept that bottle from the shelf, sending it smash upon the stones! Tipped over by no maladroit handling of corkscrew, but downright deliberate intention! A stratagem that may enable her to keep the appointment made among the fireworks – that threat when she told Jack Wingate she would “find away.”

Thus is she finding it; and in furtherance she leaves her mother no time to consider longer about a messenger.

“I’ll go!” she says, offering herself as one.

The deceit unsuspected, and only the willingness appreciated, Mrs Morgan rejoins:

“Do! that’s a dear girl! It’s very good of you, Mary. Here’s the money.”

While the delighted mother is counting out the shillings, the dutiful daughter whips on her cloak – the night is chilly – and adjusts her hat, the best holiday one, on her head; all the time thinking to herself how cleverly she has done the trick. And with a smile of pardonable deception upon her face, she trips lightly across the threshold, and on through the little flower garden in front.

Outside the gate, at an angle of the enclosure wall, she stops, and stands considering. There are two ways to the Ferry, here forking – the long lane and the shorter footpath. Which is she to take? The path leads down along the side of the orchard; and across the brook by the bridge – only a single plank. This spanning the stream, and originally fixed to the rock at both ends, has of late come loose, and is not safe to be traversed, even by day. At night it is dangerous – still more on one dark as this. And danger of no common kind at any time. The channel through which the streams runs is twenty feet deep, with rough boulders in its bed. One falling from above would at least get broken bones. No fear of that to-night, but something as bad, if not worse. For it has been raining throughout the earlier hours of the day, and there in the brook, now a raging torrent. One dropping into it would be swept on to the river, and there surely drowned, if not before.

It is no dread of any of these dangers which causes Mary Morgan to stand considering which route she will take. She has stepped that plank on nights dark as this, even since it became detached from the fastenings, and is well acquainted with its ways. Were there nought else, she would go straight over it, and along the footpath, which passes the ‘big elm.’ But it is just because it passes the elm she has now paused and is pondering. Her errand calls for haste, and there she would meet a man sure to delay her. She intends meeting him for all that, and being delayed; but not till on her way back. Considering the darkness and obstructions on the footwalk she may go quicker by the road though roundabout. Returning she can take the path.

This thought in her mind, with, perhaps, remembrance of the adage, ‘business before pleasure,’ decides her; and drawing closer her cloak, she sets off along the lane.

Volume One – Chapter Nineteen