And just this it is she is now bemoaning. She observes how he is suffering, and has been, ever since that hour when a farm labourer from Abergann brought him tidings of Mary Morgan’s fatal mishap.
Of course she, his mother, expected him to grieve wildly and deeply, as he did; but not deeply so long. Many days have passed since that dark one; but since, she has not seen him smile—not once! She begins to fear his sorrow may never know an end. She has heard of broken hearts—his may be one. Not strange her solicitude.
“What make it worse,” she says, continuing her soliloquy, “he keep thinkin’ that he hae been partways to blame for the poor girl’s death, by makin’ her come out to meet him!”—Jack has told his mother of the interview under the big elm, all about it from beginning to end.—“That hadn’t a thing to do wi’ it. What happened wor ordained, long afore she left the house. When I dreamed that dream ’bout the corpse candle, I feeled most sure somethin’ would come o’t; but then seein’ it go up the meadows, I wor’ althegither convinced. When it burn no human creetur’ ha’ lit it; an’ none can put it out, till the doomed one be laid in the grave. Who could ’a carried it across the river—that night especial, wi’ a flood lippin’ full up to the banks? No mortal man, nor woman neyther!”
As a native of Pembrokeshire, in whose treeless valleys the ignis fatuus is oft seen, and on its dangerous coast cliffs, in times past, too oft the lanthorn of the smuggler, with the “stalking horse” of the inhuman wrecker, Mrs Wingate’s dream of the canwyll corph was natural enough—a legendary reflection from tales told her in childhood, and wild songs chaunted over her cradle.
But her waking vision, of a light borne up the river bottom, was a phenomenon yet more natural; since in truth was it a real light, that of a lamp, carried in the hands of a man with a coracle on his back, which accounts for its passing over the stream. And the man was Richard Dempsey, who below had ferried Father Rogier across on his way to the farm of Abergann, where the latter intended remaining all night. The priest in his peregrinations, often nocturnal, accustomed to take a lamp along, had it with him on that night, having lit it before entering the coracle. But with the difficulty of balancing himself in the crank little craft he had set it down under the thwart, and at landing forgotten all about it. Thence the poacher, detained beyond time in reference to an appointment he meant being present at, had taken the shortest cut up the river bottom to Rugg’s Ferry. This carried him twice across the stream, where it bends by the waterman’s cottage; his coracle, easily launched and lifted out, enabling him to pass straight over and on, in his haste not staying to extinguish the lamp, nor even thinking of it.
Not so much wonder, then, in Mrs Wingate believing she saw the canwyll corph. No more that she believes it still, but less, in view of what has since come to pass; as she supposes, but the inexorable fiat of fate.
“Yes!” she exclaims, proceeding with her soliloquy; “I knowed it would come! Ah, me! it have come. Poor thing! I hadn’t no great knowledge of her myself; but sure she wor a good girl, or my son couldn’t a been so fond o’ her. If she’d had badness in her, Jack wouldn’t greet and grieve as he be doin’ now.”
Though right in the premises—for Mary Morgan was a good girl—Mrs Wingate is unfortunately wrong in her deductions. But, fortunately for her peace of mind, she is so. It is some consolation to her to think that she whom her son loved, and for whom he so sorrows, was worthy of his love as his sorrow.
It is wearing late, the sun having long since set; and still wondering why they went down the river, she steps outside to see if there he any sign of them returning. From the cottage but little can be seen of the stream, by reason of its tortuous course; only a short reach on either side, above and below.
Placing herself to command a view of the latter, she stands gazing down it. In addition to maternal solicitude, she feels anxiety of another and less emotional nature. Her tea-caddy is empty, the sugar all expended, and other household things deficient. Jack was just about starting off for the Ferry to replace them when the Captain came. Now it is a question whether he will be home in time to reach Rugg’s before the shop closes. If not, there will be a scant supper for him, and he must grope his way lightless to bed; for among the spent commodities were candles, the last one having been burnt out. In the widow Wingate’s life candles seem to play an important part!