CHAPTER XVI.
PEACE.
Weeks and months slipped by, and when two years had passed away, the events connected with Hugh Morgan's death had been almost forgotten; only in some hearts their memory lived on, fresh and green, undimmed by the lapse of time.
At Melin Berwen, Ivor Parry's life appeared to glide on in peaceful monotony. He was an industrious and honest miller, and business flowed in apace, so that his days were fully occupied, and it was only at night, when the mill wheel was silent, and he sat alone under the big chimney, smoking or reading, that his musings led him into sad memories of the past—of the close companionship and warm friendship, which had been broken so suddenly for him and the Mishteer.
In the queer old mill kitchen, the evenings were always cosy; and Ivor Parry, like most of the peasantry, gathered much pleasure and satisfaction from the hours spent on his lonely hearth. There was always the country gossip gathered by Acsa from every stray caller at the mill, and retailed at night for his benefit, while she clattered about her work. Although they belonged to the same class, there was a fine discrimination in her nature, generally possessed by the Welsh peasant, which forbade her sitting down at the hearth with her master, unless requested, and even ordered to do so; and then the order would be obeyed in an awkward, shame-faced manner, and at the first opportunity she would break away with some excuse of a forgotten duty.
In the course of the evening, Ivor would open the old glass bookcase which stood in the corner. It had been found there by Robert Owen when he entered the mill thirty years before, and left by him as impedimenta when Ivor took his place there. It was filled not only with account books and musty papers, but also contained the old books accumulated by two or three generations past: dog-eared, brown-leaved books of travel, of history, of biography, all of old-world interest, but which Ivor pored over with the thirst for knowledge which is so strong an element in Welsh life; and if the knowledge he gained was but crude and imperfect, still the pleasure he derived from his hour's reading was great.
The only modern intelligence that reached the old mill came in the weekly newspaper and the yearly almanac, the latter being studied in Welsh cottages with great interest.
"Are you hearing what I am saying, master?" Acsa would ask sometimes, when her rambling story had brought no response from Ivor; and he would close his book with a bang, and return to his everyday interests, and often to his sober musings and memories of the old sail-shed, and of his careless, happy life before his ill-fated visit to Aberython. He rejoiced to think that at last Hugh knew him as he was! And then came the memory of that last scene, when Hugh had placed Gwladys' hand in his, and the fierce strong desire of his life rose unquenched within him, that "some day," when time had softened her sorrow, she would remember her husband's dying wishes. He scarcely ever went to Mwntseison—it recalled too vividly to his mind the painful scenes of Hugh's death; and when he did go, it was no further than to Mari Vone's cottage. To her he felt irresistibly drawn, and though never a word passed between them on the subject of his love for Gwladys, or of hers for Hugh, yet both felt that between them existed the link of a mutual understanding.
When the winter was over, and the earth was beginning to swell and burst with the throbbing of new life within her, even into the dusty mill the spring breezes carried suggestions of green things, Ivor began to walk in his sunny garden, which stretched along the side of the hill even to the edge of the cliffs. Here Acsa, in short petticoats and wooden shoes, was already beginning to dig the leek-bed, and in the corner, under the furze hedge, a clump of sweet violets sent up a fragrant greeting. Ivor paused and looked at them; he remembered seeing a posy of them once in Gwladys' bodice. Why should he not take her these? He had never seen her alone since Hugh's death, had never happened to meet her on the cliff or in the village, and even on Sundays he did not see her, for she and her mother had taken to the new chapel which had lately been built on the other side of the Gwendraeth.
He gathered the violets slowly, adding green leaves, and tying them with a blade of long grass.