Chapter Thirteen.
Pride’s Pit.
During the long and dull winter months which preceded this spring, I had been gradually, yet surely, sinking into a state of indifference about Owen. What had commenced with a sense of poignant pain, had by this time subsided into at most an uncomfortable feeling of dissatisfaction. I knew there was a chord in my heart which when struck could set my whole nature out of tune. But was it not possible, in the airs which life played, she might leave this harsh note unsounded? This possibility took place. During the winter months mother, Owen, and I spent together, I grew accustomed to being near and yet far from him.
Our little home was very bright, a cloud which I had but dimly and unawares partaken in for years, had been removed. Why should not I too enjoy this season of serenity and bliss? Calling pride to my aid, I did enjoy it. I even loved Owen, not in the old way, but with a very considerable affection. I tried to forget all the past, to give him a place in my heart beside mother and David. And in a measure I was successful, in a measure I put out of sight the ugly cloud, the dark disappointment which had shattered my air castle, and made my childhood’s hero dust. So by the hearth on winter evenings, I listened to brilliant stories from Owen’s lips, stories of his foreign experience, of things he had learned when studying in the German mines; tales of adventure, funny nothings dropped from his lips at these times, pleasant things to listen to, and to think of afterwards, when I lay curled up in my warmly-curtained bed. But though Owen’s mind directed his words at these times, imagination supplying the needful colour, a due sense of either absurdity or pathos supplying the necessary point, a musical voice adding intensity to the narrative; yet I think he waited until I had gone to bed, to let his heart speak. Then how near may mother and he have drawn, how truly, in a figurative sense, did the hand of one take the hand of the other, did the soul of one respond to the soul of the other, as they whispered of hopes and fears, of a dark past to be atoned for and wiped away by a bright future! For never, never once during the winter, did Owen’s heart speak to my heart; never, until now, to-day—now, when it leaped up into his eyes, and addressed me with a passionate cry of pain. My whole heart responded to those words, to that bitter cry; trembling I ran up to my room and locked myself in, trembling I threw myself on my bed, fought and wrestled for a few moments with my tears, then let them come. Strange as it may seem, my tears flowed with as much pleasure as sorrow. I had made a discovery in that bitter moment. Owen still loved me. Owen had not forgotten the old days. This was a pleasure to me, this was a joy, greater than my pain; for I had made so sure that it had all passed from him, all the old happy life, the old day dreams. Now, for the first time, holding my hands before my burning, tear-dimmed eyes, did it occur to me, that I too had sinned. Owen had not forgotten me, that was plain; perhaps during the sad years of his exile, some of his softest and best thoughts had been given to the child, whose warm love, whose quick appreciation and sympathy, whose unselfish attentions had won so much from him in his boyhood and youth. However or in whatever way he had sinned, he had never forgotten his home or his own people; as soon as possible he had returned to them, not to idle, but to work, and so to work that he might atone for the past. No, Owen had not returned perfect, but was I perfect? How had I treated him—with any true love, with any real sympathy? Alas! he had looked for it, and had been—he himself told me to-day—bitterly disappointed.
And of what had I not accused him? How I admired him with something of the old admiration, something of the old hero-worship, as the stinging words of indignant denial dropped from his lips. He do so base, so cruel, so wicked a thing! how could I possibly so misunderstand him! I sat up on my bed, I wished earnestly then to put Owen in the right, and myself in the wrong, but try as I would, I could not quite come to this wished-for conclusion. Nan’s words had not been the only hints I had received. I saw daring the winter months, that the great popularity with which Owen had been received on his first arrival, had hardly abated, but still was clouded and tempered with a scarcely perceptible tone of dissatisfaction. The last manager had been most inefficient; in his time the mine was badly worked, it also was dangerous. Owen had begun promptly to remedy both these defects. The question now was, which did he care most for, the gold he would win from the mine, or the safety he would secure for the people? and the evil thought, kept coming and coming, he thinks most of the gold, he values the gold more than the lives of the men!
This evil thought had been with me for weeks past; not stirring into active life, lying, indeed, so dormant that it scarcely gave me pain, but none the less had it been there. And now, to-day, this living thing had leaped to the surface of my mind, had trembled in my voice and glittered in my eye, and I had accused Owen of what I suspected.
With what an agony of pain, and yet joy, I recalled his unfeigned anger, distress, reproach, that I should think of him so, that any one could accuse him of so base an act. As I recalled his look, his face, his words, the old love which I had thought dead, came surging back. I had, I must have been mistaken; the colliers and I both, in our ignorance, had misunderstood Owen, the safety of their lives was his first consideration. But what an unaccommodating thing is memory! how impossible it is to make her fit herself to existing circumstances, what ugly tricks she was playing me now! Event after event, each small in themselves, came crowding up before me, pointing every one of them with inexorable finger to one fact. Of wilful and purposeful neglect it would be wrong to accuse Owen. He wished to do all in his power to secure the safety of the colliers’ lives, but money in his heart of hearts ranked first. I found at last a solution of the problem which relieved my pain, without satisfying me. Owen wished to do right, he meant to do right; but the easy carelessness which had characterised his boyhood had not deserted his manhood. He meant to do well for the colliers, but careless of danger for himself, he might be for them also; and yet, how fatal and disastrous, now and then, were the effects of carelessness! At this moment one very prominent instance of Owen’s want of thought rose before me. There was an old used-up mine, known in the country by the name of Pride’s Pit, which adjoined the mine at present being worked at Ffynon. Close to this old pit lived the under-viewer and his family. A not very desirable residence was theirs for this reason, that the old shaft leading into the pit had never been filled up; and making it all the more dangerous, it was, from long disuse and neglect, nearly covered by a thick growth of weeds and brushwood, so that an unwary traveller might step into the mine before he was aware. This old shaft for every reason was dangerous, as its open mouth let in the rain and helped to fill the pit beneath with water, which water might by an untoward accident, a boring away of too much of the coal, help at any moment to inundate the larger mine. It was at present the terror of the young wife of the under-viewer, who had three small children, and who was never weary of warding them off the dangerous ground.
On the dismissal of the late manager, the young woman who lived in this cottage had come with her complaint to David, and had begged of him to use his influence with his brother to have the dangerous shaft filled up. David had assured her that this should be one of the first steps in the general reformation. When Owen came, I heard David speak to him on the subject, and Owen promised to have all that was necessary done without delay. I am quite sure Owen meant what he said, but in the absorbing interest of more engrossing work, month after month went by, and Pride’s Pit still remained with its open shaft. A fortnight ago, I was walking with Owen, when poor Mrs Jones met us with tears in her eyes, “Was nothing going to be done to the shaft, her baby had nearly been killed there a few days since.”
Owen was really sorry, declared he had completely forgotten it, won Mrs Jones’s heart by his sweet graciousness and real regret, and promised to send round men to put the whole thing straight in the morning. Of course, he had done so by this time, but how great and unnecessary was the previous delay; suppose Mrs Jones’s baby had been killed, would Owen ever have forgiven himself?
After thinking these and many other thoughts, I had brushed my hair, bathed my eyes, and was preparing to go downstairs, when there came a tap at my door, and Gwen, carrying little David in her arms, came in. She placed the child on the floor, came to my side, and looked hard into my face. If ever there was a purpose written in any woman’s countenance it was in Gwen’s at this moment.
“Gwladys, my maid,” she said, “will you help your old nurse at a pinch?”
“Yes, that I will, Gwen,” I replied, heartily; “what is it you want me to do?”
“And you’ll keep it a secret, and never let it out to mortal?”
“Of course,” rather proudly.
“Well, then, ’twasn’t the fever brought me over here.”
“Oh! Gwen,” in a tone of some alarm, “what are you keeping back from me? is David ill?”
“Dear, dear, no, my pet; and I don’t say as there isn’t a fever, and that that is not the reason the Squire sent us away, Gwladys. No, I’d scorn to tell a lie, and there is a fever, though it ain’t much; but that wasn’t what brought me and the little lad here, Gwladys.”
“How mysterious you are,” I said, laughing. “What was the reason?”
“Why, you see, my maid, I’d soon have persuaded the Squire to let us stay, for I knew he’d be lonesome without me and the baby, and, Lord bless you, he (pointing to the child) wouldn’t take the fever, God bless him; sweet and sound would I keep him, and free from all that low dirt, and those bad smells, which the negligent, never-me-care, unthrifty poor have, a tempting of Providence. No, it wasn’t fright at no fever took me away, but a downright answer to prayer, Gwladys.” Gwen paused, and I nodded to her to proceed. “Hadn’t I been praying all the winter for some lucky wind to blow me to this place, and wasn’t the fever the wind as God sent; so why shouldn’t I come with a thankful heart?”
“Poor, dear old Gwen! you wanted to see mother and me. I am sorry you were so lonely.”
“Well, my maid, it wasn’t that; I’m none so selfish. No, Gwladys, it wasn’t for myself I was praying, nor about myself I felt so happy. No, ’twas about little David. Gwladys, I mean to take little David to the eye-well.”
“Oh! dear me, Gwen, what is that?”
“Hush, hush, child! don’t speak of it lightly; just sit patient for five minutes, my dear, and you shall know the whole ins and outs of it.”
I have said that Gwen, though a very religious woman, was, if possible, a more superstitious one. From the fountain-head of her knowledge and wisdom I had drunk deeply; of late, when away from her, I had been deprived of these goodly draughts, but I was all the more ready now to partake of the very delicious one she had ready dished up for my benefit.
“Go on,” I said, in a tone of intense interest.
“I mean to take the child to the eye-well,” continued Gwen; “there’s one within a mile or two of this place that’s famed, and justly, through the whole country. Many’s the blind person, or the weak-eyed body, that has been cured by it; and many and many thoughts have I cast toward it, Gwladys; not liking to speak, for sure, if you long too earnestly, you hinders, so’s the belief, the cure. Now there’s wells that have a ‘perhaps’ to ’em, and there’s wells that have a ‘certainty,’ and of all the wells that ever was sure, this is the one. And I’ve a strong belief and faith in my mind, that though I brought the little lad here blind, I may carry him home seeing.”
True, oh! Gwen, dear Gwen, not in your way, perhaps in a better!
As she spoke, attracted by the sound of her voice, the child toddled to his feet, came to her side, and raised his dark, sightless eyes to her face.
“But it must be managed clever,” continued Gwen, “and ’tis there I want you to help me. I don’t want my mistress, nor a soul in the house but yourself to know, until I can bring in the laddie with the daylight let into his blessed eyes; and to have any success we must obey the rules solemn. For three mornings we must be at the well before sunrise, and when the first sunbeam dips into the water, down must go the child’s head right under too, with it, and this we must do three days running, and then stop for three days, and then three days again. Ah! but I feel the Lord’ll give His blessing, and there’s real cure in the well.”
Gwen paused, and I sat still, very much excited, dazzled, and full of a kind of half belief, which falling far short of Gwen’s certainty, still caused my heart to beat faster than usual.
“And now, Gwladys,” proceeded Gwen, “I mean to go to-morrow morning; and can you come with me, and can you show me the way?”
“I can and will come with you, Gwen, but I cannot show you the way. I fancy I have heard of this eye-well, but I have never been there.”
“Then I must find some one who can,” proceeded Gwen, rising.
“Stay, Gwen,” I said, earnestly. “I know a little girl very well here, she has lived all her life in this place, and is sure to have heard of the well. I am sure, too, she would never tell a soul. Shall I go to her and find out if she can come with us?”
“Do, my dear maid, and let me know soon, for I am sore and anxious.”