Garthowen. Allen Raine

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      CHAPTER IV

      THE OLD BIBLE

      On the following Sunday, Morva kept house alone at Garthowen, for everyone else had gone to chapel, except Will, who had walked to Castell On, which was three miles away up the valley of the On, he having been of late a frequent attendant at Mr. Price's church. The vicar was much beloved by all his parishioners, beloved and respected by high and low, but still his congregation was sparse and uncertain, so that every new member was quickly noticed and welcomed by him—more especially any stray sheep from the dissenting fold possessed for him all the interest of the sheep in the parable, for whose sake the ninety and nine were left in the wilderness. Will had gone off with a large prayer book under his arm, determined to take special note of the Vicar's manner in reading the lessons, for on the following Sunday this important duty would devolve upon him.

      No one who has not spent a Sunday afternoon in a Methodist household can really have sounded the depths of dullness; the interminable hours between the early dinner and the welcome moment when the singing kettle and the jingling of the tea-things break up the spell of dreariness, the solemn silence pervading everything, broken only by the persistent ticking of the old clock on the stairs, Morva had noted them all rather wearily. Even the fowls in the farmyard seemed to walk about with a more sober demeanour than usual, but more trying than anything else to an active girl was the fact that there was nothing to do.

      It was a hot blazing summer afternoon; she had paid frequent visits to the sick calf, which was getting well and mischievous again, and inclined to butt at Tudor, so even that small excitement was over, and the girl came sauntering back under the shady elder tree which spread its branches over the doorway of the back kitchen. She crossed to the window, and leaning her arms on the deep sill looked out over the yard, and the fields beyond, to the sea, whose every aspect she knew so well. Not a boat or sail broke its silvery surface, even there the spell of Sabbath stillness seemed to reign. She thought of the chapel with its gallery thronged with smiling lads and lasses; she thought of Will sitting bolt upright at church. Yes; decidedly the dullness was depressing; but suddenly a brightening thought struck her. Why should she not hunt up the old Bible which Ann said was too bad to leave about? What could Gethin have written in it that was so wicked? She remembered him only as her friend and companion, and her willing slave. She was only a child when he left, but she had not forgotten the burst of bitter wailing which she sent after him as he picked up his bundle and tore himself away from her clinging arms, and how she had cried herself to sleep that night by Sara's side, who had tried to pacify her with promises of his speedy return. But he had never come, and his absence seemed only to have left in his father's memory a sense of injury, as though he himself had not been the cause of his boy's banishment. Even Ann and Will, who had at first mourned for him, and longed for his return, appeared to have forgotten him, or only to regard his memory as a kind of sorrowful dream. Why, she knew not, but the thought of him on this quiet Sunday afternoon filled her with tender recollections. She opened every dusty book in the glass bookcase, but in vain. Here was Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress"; and here a worm-eaten, brown stained book of sermons; here were Williams of "Pantycelyn's" Hymns and his "Theomemphis," with Bibles old and new, but not the one which she sought. Mounting a chair, and from thence the table, she at last drew out from under a glass shade, covering a group of stuffed birds, a dust-begrimed book, with a brass clasp and nails at the corners. Dusting it carefully she laid it on the table before her, and proceeded to decipher its faded inscriptions. Yes—no doubt this was the book for which she had sought, and with a brown finger following the words, she read aloud:

      "Ann Owens, Her Book,

      Garthowen."

      Beneath this was written in a boyish hand the well-known doggerel lines:

       "This book is hers, I do declare,

       Then steal it not or else beware!

       For on the dreadful Judgment Day

       You may depend the Lord will say,

       'Where is that book you stole away?'"

      It was written in English, and Morva, though she could make herself understood in that language, was not learned enough to read it easily. However, there was no difficulty in reading the signature of "William Owens" which followed. She turned over a leaf, and here indeed were signs of Gethin, for all over the title page was scrawled with many flourishes "Gethin Owens, Garthowen," "Gethin Owens," "G. O.," "Gethin," etc. It was wrong, no doubt, to deface the first page of the Bible in this way, but Ann had said "too wicked to leave about!" so Morva searched through the whole book, until on the fair leaf which fronted "The Revelations" she found evident proof of Gethin's depravity; and she quailed a little as she saw a vivid and realistic pen and ink drawing of a fire of leaping flames, standing over which was a monster in human shape, though boasting of a tail and cloven hoofs. With fiendish glee the creature was toasting on a long fork something which looked fearfully like a man, whose starting eyes and writhing limbs showed plainly that he was not as happy as his tormentor. It was very horrible, and Morva closed the book with a snap, but could not resist the temptation of another peep, as there was something written beneath in Welsh, which translated ran thus:

       "Here's the ugly old Boy! I tell you beware!

       If you fall in his clutches there's badly you'll fare!

       Look here at his picture, his claws and his tail,

       If you make his acquaintance you're sure to bewail!

       Hallelujah! Amen!

      —Gethin Owens."

      At the last words Morva stood aghast; this then was Gethin's terrible crime! "Oh! there's a boy he must have been!" said the girl, clasping her fingers as she leant over the big Bible. "Oh! dear, dear! no wonder 'n'wncwl Ebben was so angry! I don't forget how cross he was one day when I let the Bible fall; didn't his face alter! 'Dost remember, girl,' he said, 'it is the Word of God!' and there's frightened I was! Poor Gethin! 'twas hard, though, to turn him away, for all they are such wicked words. 'Hallelujah! Amen!' Well, indeed! the very words that 'n'wncwl Ebben says so solemn after the sermon in Penmorien!" and she shook her head sorrowfully, "and here they are after this song about the devil. Will would never have done that," and she pondered a little seriously; "but poor Gethin! After all, he was only a boy, and boys do dreadful things—but Will never did! Mother reads her Bible plenty too, but I don't think she would have turned me out when I was a little girl if I had made this song. I'll tell her to-night, and see what she says about Gethin, poor fellow."

      She closed and clasped the book, and mounting the table again, replaced it in the hollow at the top of the bookcase, with the stuffed birds and glass case over it.

      When Ann and her father returned from chapel, there was a conscious look on her face which they both remarked upon at once.

      "What's the matter, Morva?" asked Ann.

      "Is the calf worse?" asked the old man.

      "No," answered the girl, her seriousness vanishing at once. "Nothing's the matter; the calf is getting quite well."

      As she spoke Will arrived from church, wearing a black coat and a white cotton tie, his prayer-book under his arm.