Ships in the Bay!. D. K. Broster

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СКАЧАТЬ were you saying a moment ago about viper’s bugloss?” asked Jane. Receiving no answer she said, “And what are you dreaming about now, Nest? You’ll find no flowers here now; the grass is all cut.” She went on a pace or two, then stopped again. “Why, ’tis Griffiths himself on the cart. Good evening, Mr. Griffiths; I hope you are pleased with your hay!”

      The small, black-haired man perched upon the cart looked round. “Why, I declare to goodness ’tis Miss Jane!” he exclaimed in his high-pitched Welsh voice. “Indeed you are welcome, ma’am! Will you please to wait until I do get down?”

      So Jane waited while the farmer slipped down from his eminence. Nest had made a movement to go on, but saw that she would be obliged to wait also, though she would have given anything not to do so. She felt that she could not endure to meet the eyes of the man whom Bran had injured, and to whom her own timid foolishness had nearly proved disastrous the other evening; and she was sure that this interview with his employer must end by attracting his attention. Yet she could not turn her back and affect to be gazing out to sea, because that would naturally offend Mr. Griffiths.

      In great discomfort she heard her sister asking after the farmer’s family and receiving news of them; in greater still she heard her then remark—no doubt merely from lack of a better topic—upon the lameness of one of the haymakers. Had he met with an accident?

      “Yes, Miss Jane, by what he says,” replied Griffiths. “Leastways ’tis a dog-bite, and a nasty one, too. It don’t get no better, and it do make him very lame, and I think I shall have to get rid of him whatever now that the hay is carried. He is a stranger and I took him without any to speak for him; a poor hand with a scythe he is, and indeed to goodness a cripple is very little use on a farm.”

      It was just at this moment that the subject of these disparaging remarks came limping towards the hedge to pick up his waistcoat, which was lying near it, the cart, now sufficiently loaded, having started to jolt back to the farm. This time his eyes quite naturally lit upon the two ladies in converse with his employer, and he paused for just the half of a second, the colour in his tanned checks deepening. Then without further sign he picked up the waistcoat, stooping rather awkwardly for it, and hobbled after the cart.

      At the conjuncture of Bran’s victim seeing her and of his master’s words Nest would willingly have sunk out of sight behind the bank. Her impulse was to exclaim, “Oh, Mr. Griffiths, must you turn him off? It was my dog which bit him.” Had she been alone she might have obeyed it; but in Jane’s presence prudence restrained her.

      . . . Or cowardice, she thought ashamedly a moment or two later, as, after a few more words with the farmer, they took their leave, and turning homewards retraced their steps along the cliffs, facing the first rosepink of the sunset. But for Nest the beauty had gone out of the evening.

      (6)

      By next morning, however, Nest (though not inwardly free from tremors) had so far got the better of her cowardice that she was standing, about half-past ten, in the porch of Tan-y-bach farmhouse resolved to do what she should have done yesterday evening. Two black-and-white collies, one old and the other young, half friendly and half suspicious, were vociferating just outside the porch, and at least three other guardians of various sizes had appeared in the yard behind. This canine garrison would have reminded her, had she needed reminding, that it was Bran’s week-old misdeed which had driven her to this step. All yesterday evening she had been haunted by the limping figure in the hayfield, and by her own share, unwilling though it was, in Mark Thompson’s present plight. And if her belief in his truthfulness had been shaken by his unexplained presence in the Bishop’s Palace that night, it was nevertheless quite clear that he had genuinely sought work on a farm, since he had obtained it—only to lose it again—because of Bran.

      Wrought upon by these thoughts, and finding her sister deeply occupied this morning with her offspring, Nest had seized the opportunity of slipping away, and in about twenty minutes had found herself at Mr. Griffiths’ farm on the cliffs. There was no sign of the ex-privateersman, nor indeed of any farm hands, so she began to fear that she might not find the owner at home either.

      The noise of the dogs soon brought Mrs. Griffiths herself to the door—a stout, handsome woman, pulling down her sleeves over her arms as she came. Great surprise and pleasure were hers on perceiving her visitor, whom she besought to come in and drink a cup of buttermilk.

      “No buttermilk, thank you, Mrs. Griffiths,” said Nest; “but I will come in if I may. No, pray let me sit in your kitchen! I suppose Mr. Griffiths is out on the farm?”

      “Well, no, miss. He’s gone to Haverfordwest this morning. Was you wishing to see him?”

      Nest, disappointed, acknowledged that she was. “But since he is from home, I can talk to you instead, Mrs. Griffiths. ’Tis . . . ’tis about that man I saw working in your hayfield yesterday evening—the man who is so lame.”

      “Yes, miss?”

      “I was sorry to hear Mr. Griffiths say that he felt he would have to discharge him on account of his lameness. Did the man tell how he . . . I mean, do you know what made him lame?”

      “Well, Miss Nest,” said Mrs. Griffiths dubiously, “he did tell us it was a dog-bite, and Griffiths he saw the place—a nasty place whatever, he said—but Thompson ’ouldn’t tell us properly how he came by it.”

      “I can tell you that,” said Nest, who had flushed up to the roots of her hair. “It was my dog, Bran, who flew at him, I am sorry to say, and that is why I wanted to see your husband about the man.”

      “It was your dog, Miss Nest!” exclaimed Mrs. Griffiths. “Dear, dear! Was Thompson rude to you—did he frighten you, anwyl?”

      “No, no, not at all,” said Nest stoutly. “No. I met him . . . in a lane, and he asked me quite civilly if I could put him in the way of some work. But Bran took a dislike to him and, just as he was going off, flew at him and bit him. And the man behaved so well over it that I was wondering whether I could not persuade Mr. Griffiths to keep him on, seeing that his lameness is really my fault?”

      “Well, Miss Nesta bach,” replied the farmer’s wife, looking appreciatively at the pretty, appealing face within the shady bonnet, “sure I am that Griffiths would do anything in reason to oblige you, yes, indeed, but besides that the young man was really a danger to himself and everybody else while the hay was cutting—I should think he never did so much as handle a scythe before—’tis too late at all now, for Griffiths did give him his wages and discharge him last night.”

      Nest’s face fell. “Oh, I am sorry for that, Mrs. Griffiths! Not of course that I blame your husband. Do you think that the young man will be able to find work elsewhere? Do you know where he has gone?”

      “To Llanunwas, I think, miss, on the way to Solva. And if he could not get work there whatever, he thought maybe he could find some in Solva harbour; he did say he was used to boats, and a lame man can row better than he can fork hay. And do not be thinking, Miss Nesta, that we did turn him off last night without shelter or supper, although he is a stranger and an Englishman and we do know nothing about him—no, indeed to goodness, Griffiths ’ould never do that! Thompson had his supper and a bed and some breakfast too this morning before he went off.”

      “Oh, you must not think that I am blaming Mr. Griffiths!” protested the visitor. “Of course he could not keep a man who was too lame to work . . . and, yes, I suppose Thompson might find something to do at Solva,” she added reflectively. “I wonder indeed that having been a sailor he did not СКАЧАТЬ