It was Gwen Thomas.
I didn’t answer, mates—for why? Because I couldn’t; my eyes was leaking, and my timbers all of a shiver, and I seemed without so much as a helm. But I suffered her to lead me into the back room of old Thomas’s cottage, not knowing for what port I was being steered. Then I sat down, and she clasped my hand quite tender.
“Hugh Anwyl,” she says, “whatever I am—and I know I’m not as good-looking as others—I’m a true, sincere friend. Being so, I tell ye, I am grieved to see ye thus wrecked within sight of land.”
I couldn’t talk to her; but, after a bit, she got me calmed down, and I quite felt as if I must try to please her—in a sort of a tame-cat fashion.
At last, she says, quite as if the thought had come into her false head accidental indeed, “Write Rhoda a letter, and I’ll promise you she shall have it safe. I’ll give it her myself.”
I was that excited, I took the girl in my arms and embraced her. Then I sat down and I wrote to Rhoda, telling her the whole tale, and how, for her sake, I was going to risk my life on a whaling expedition; and praying her to keep single for me till I came back again with money in my hand so as to buy the consent of her father.
When I done that, my lads, I gave it, sealed careful, to Gwen Thomas; and, kissing the girl, who cried, as I thought, uncommon unaccountably, I lurched forth, and turned my back upon Glanwern.
Here I ought to pull up and rest a bit, for there’s what you may call a break in my yarn. I was far away from the girl I loved, toiling, as we mariners only toil, for the cursed gold which should make two miserable souls happy.
To cut my story short, however, I was gone, as near as may be, twelve months. Our first venture failed. We met with nothing but bad luck, and ran into Aberdeen harbour as empty-handed as we went. So, as I wouldn’t come home without the necessary money, I just slips a short line into the post to let Rhoda know that Hugh Anwyl was alive, and to beg her to be patient. Then, indeed, I joined a second expedition, which was fortunate. We brought back with us a fine cargo of sealskins, besides whalebone; and when I drew my share, it amounted, all told, to nigh upon two hundred pounds, together with some furs, and a few curiosities.
I ran down straight from Aberdeen, travelling night and day by the railway, just such another autumn night as the one when I started. I rolled, unsteady like, into Glanwern village, and the first soul I meets was Gwen Thomas. My stars! you should have heard her give tongue. If I’d been Evan Dhu himself in the guise of a seafaring man, she couldn’t have looked more terrified.