Byle Criffiths.

Otago Witness, Issue 1179, 4 July 1874, Page 24

Byle Criffiths.

BY THEO. GIFT.

[A. Tale of the Welsh Coast.]

A sea like a duck-pond, calm as glass and red as fire ; a long strip of snow-white sand, backed by precipitous rocks, grey by day, red too now from the incarnadine arch of sunset sky above ; to the westward a strip of land running out into the harbour, and showing black as ink against the lower Hne of living gold, where, far beyond, the sun has just dipped his flaming orb to rest behind the waves. Over the point the topsail rigging of a three-masted vessel. Nearer, in the foreground, a girl seated on a heap of dried seaweed, her pretty brown dimpled arms clasped about her knees, her head uncovered save by a mass of black silky curls, thrown back, and resting against an old boat, mossgrown and broken, and long disused, which had found its last haven in this quiet nook. It was all very quiet at first, but by-and-bye a step came trampling over the hard smooth sands. The young girl's cheek glowed with a deeper red, and her breast began to heave and her hands to tremble, as though she were a bird on the eve of flying to its mate. Not being a bird, but a woman, however, she coquetted — sat staring at the sunset she did not see, and started and almost screamed when a big man, brown and bearded and muscular, came suddenly round the stern of the ruined boat, and with a short exclamation, half choked as in great gladness, took her straight into his arms, and hugged her till she screamed in right earnest — " Kyle, put me down ! put me down ! How dare you be so rude, sir ? Let me go, please do." "Not till you've given me a kiss, Faithie," said the other, keeping his hold goodhuinouredly, yet with something of reproach in his grave blue eyes. " What ! not one after three months' waiting ? Why, lassie, I thought you cared for me a bit better nor that. An' I hungering for this minute every day and hour since I left you." The tone or the reminder — perhaps even the slackening of his arms — touched her. Faith Morgan had a warm little heart, albeit five years younger and smaller than the one against which it was beating now. InconI sistent as a true woman, the moment he let go she began to cling, and put up her lips. "I do care for you, Kyle," she said, " only — only you startled me so," and forthwith she began to sob like a baby. He made no answer at first, only kissing her with close, tender kisses on lips and eyes, till the tears were driven back, and the lips pouted. "Now, Kyle, do let me go. You're so rough, and — and some one might be passing." " And what if some one was ? " asked the sailor, loosening his hold, however, and letting her resume her former seat, while he took up a position on the boat's keel beside her. "Who has a better right to kiss you than I ? I can tell you, Sam Jones's lassie didn't wait for him to begin, for we walked up from the pier together, and she had the house door open, and her arms round his neck, while he was still peering up at the window on the chance of her looking out." "Nancy Evans is a bold girl," quoth Faith tartly. "If those are the manners you like, Kyle, I wonder you didn't try to cut Jonea out when you first came here." " I come between another man and his lass ! " cried the sailor, staring ; " but there, you're joking, sweetheart; and besides, you know there's never a girl in Wales, or England either, that could meet my fancy save your little self alone." " You don't mention America," said Faith, saucily. "America!" repeated her lover; "why, in the name of all that's comely, you wouldn't have me compare you to a Yankee girl, would you ? " The honest indignation in his tone, however ludicrous in itself, had a softening effect on Faith. Her big brown eyes grew suddenly wet, and her voice sank to a halfshamefaced whisper. " Only I told you I wouldn't wonder if you took to a foreign girl, Kyle. Some say they're prettier than we are." "You would ha' wondered, though," retorted Kyle, promptly. " Prettier than you ! I'd like to see the woman. Faith, give me your hand, and turn your face this way. Do you think I'll be content with the back of your head to-night 1 " He took her hand as he spoke, and she let him keep it ; but her face was still turned away, and there was a faint quiver about the ruddy lips. Perhaps her next words explained it. "Father says you're going away again almost at once, Kyle." " Ay ; when he came aboard to meet us he gave me the offer. It did seem hard, a'niost too hard, when I'd hoped to have a little rest aside of you afore I went away again. But after all it will shorten the time o' waiting one way, lassie." "How, Kyle?" "Didn't your father say I was to wait for you till I was a captain ? I'm going as captain this time, and only for a six Aveeks' trip ; leastways, that's what they calculate it at. Some husiness with the New York agents, I think ; but I suppose you've heard about it?" " That the Olinda was to be fitted out for sale, and that you wore to take her over, an' charter another vessel to bring you back ? Yes ; but won't it take you longer ?" "I doubt not. They're to have theboat and cargo ready. Mr Denbigh's arranged all that. Did you know his son — the new junior partner — is to ship with us ?" "Yes," she said. Good Heaven! how rosy her face was now ; and yet the crimson

Bky was fading into blues and violets. He was looking at her, and the brows suddenly darkened over his eyes, giving them an odd, fierce expression. His voice, however, was quieter than before. " I can't say I care about sailing with the owner's son. I'd li> fer take any other passenger. They're apt to fancy that because they're boss ashore they need be boss aboard, an' I'm a masterful man myself, an' don't hold with no Co.'s in salt water. Hows'ever, I shouldn't mind ao much if I liked the man." "And don't you?" asked Faith timidly, her colour still high. "Do you?' 1 said he, stooping forward to look her full in the face. "He's been a deal at Amlwch since I left, people tell me, an' you must ha' seen plenty of him. What do you think of him ? " "I.Kyle?" — her eyes drooping beneath the sharp scrutiny — "I — I don't know. He's pleasant-spoken and civil. I think he'a nice enough." "And I think him across between fool and ape," quoth Kyle Griffiths shortly ; "son of a sea-cook ! Well, Faith, I wonder " Faith snatched her hand away angrily. "He has more manners than you," oried she, panting and ruffling like an enraged sparrow ; " lie ia a gentleman at any rate, an' would never dream of using such language of people he don't even know more than to speak to. Oh ! " and here feelings were too much for words, and an indignant little sigh and shiver filled the gap. Even the violet was dyiog out of the sky now, and cool grey shadows crept up from the east, and threw a sombre tint over the man's face. A small cold wind rose out of the sea. ruffling its breast with long fretful lines, like the puckered face of an ailing child. It chilled the dimples in Faith's cheeks, and blew the soft brown locks off Kyle's stern brow; and far overhead a gull flew by, with a long shrill scream, like the wail of a banshee. Before it ceased, Kyle spoke — "Heis a gentleman, is he ? I thank God, then, lam not. Had I been one I might have been betrothed to some fine lady, i'stead o' the daughter of an honest seafaring man like myself. Faith, twice these five minutes have you found fault with my manners. I don't say they're finer nor a rough sailor's have need to be, but you never laid blame on them, before. Has this gentleman been teaching you to do so in my absence this time ?" Women are constitutionally cowards. ' Faith Morgan was a very woman. For all reply at first she, metaphorically, turned tail, and took refuge behind that ever-ready shield of femineity, a burst of tears. It was not until they had lasted long enough to make Kyle apostrophise himself as a brute that she sobbed out — "How c-c-cruel you are ! You kn-n-now that I love you as you are better than — and yet — oh !" Another burst, and the pretty head drooping very near Kyle's knee. Involuntarily he laid his hand caressingly upon it. Involuntarily his voice took a softened, soothing tone. "Am I cruel, Faithie, and to you ? Nay, then, don't cry. May haps I was over»sharp, but I was met on landing by ill talk about young Denbigh an' you. They said he had been baking my place, an' though I wouldn't believe it, nor even hearken to the foultongued gossips, it sort o' cut me when you spoke up for him. Faith, lassie, I love you more than many a husband. If you were to play me false with any one, I think I'd feel like killing him an' you too." He looked like it at the moment, and she believed him, and trembled at the mingling of passionate tenderness and wrath in his tone. Instinctively she turned and clasped his strong hand in both hers, her face turned up coaxingly. " Don't think o' such things, Kyle, love ; you know I never could. What's Mr Denbigh to me, but father's partner ?" He was holding the soft hands, and look* ing down into the sweet eyes. The • moon, just rising, glittered on something which, unnoticed by her, had escaped from the folds of her neckerchief — a golden circle, with the portrait of a man within. "Faith," said Kyle Griffiths, in a tone which strove for steadiness, "you're wearin' a grand new trinket since I saw you last. Who gave you that ?" He spoke too suddenly. With a quick frightened gesture she snatched away her hand, as if to hide the bauble. With a face deeply, terrible red — the red of cowardly consciousness, she stammered out— "I — I — it's nothing — father's— l mean I bought it." Without a word Kyle loosed her wrist and rose up. Without a word he turned from her ; only when he had gone ten steps he came back, and said, very hoarse and low — " Faith Morgan, you have told me a lie, an' you know it. I can't say if it was for the first time, but I can say it shall be the last. I wondered" — and his voice sank deeper still—" that you should shrink when I took you in my arms a while ago. I wonder now you dared to let me do it, wi' that man's face lying between my heart an' yours. Go to him now, an' you will ; I want no wife on whom I can't depend word an' deed." He was gone the next moment j and Faith sobbing bitterly with grief and anger, went j home to find Philip Denbigh at the garden gate waiting for her. He had been courting her for the last two months ; and she— had coquetted with him. , Flirting is not an amusement confined to the upper ten. I have heard of a young Pata- . gonian squaw who was as finished an adept at it as any Belgravian beauty ; and Faith, an only child and the prettiest girl in i Ainlwch, had been wonderfully fond of try.

ing her fascinations on the "weaker" Bex, till the arrival of a new first mate for her father's favourite vessel, the vessel he had commanded himself until he was admitted to a partnership in the firm of Denbigh and Co., his employers. Kyle Griffiths, big as a giant, true as the light of day, and masterful as he said himself, had "cut out" all the rest in no time, and won Faith for his own undivided property. She never even cared to look at any one else when he was by ; and, I believe, loved him as entirely as was in her nature, with most worshipful affection ; but when Kyle was away at sea, and yeung Mr Denbigh came to Amlwch — Mr Denbigh, who was what she called a gentleman : some one who wore fine clothes, and had white hands, and a curly moustache — and when this hero testified an immediate and violent admiration for herself, how could she help being pleased ? how could she help going back to the old habits ? She did not help either. Mr Denbigh made love ; and she smiled and flirted, all unconscious in her flattered vanity of what the neighbours were saying, until, just three days before Kyle's return, the suitor brought matters to a crisis by a declaration. They had had a tiff about a photo, of Faith, which Denbigh had stolen and put in his locket ; and he brought her a fine gold locket with one of himself in it, and begged her to accept it and take the donor into the bargain. Followed a wakening for silly little Faith, and the confession, " But I am engaged i" Followed anger (from the gentleman) and tears (from the lady.) Followed fresh solicitations, more ardent from the rebuff, and fresh "noes," more feeble from remorse and shame. Followed tremendous scenes of masculine woe and anguish, and feminine contrition and soothing. Finally Denbigh left the house, determined to try again on his return from America; and Faith remained with the locket, which she had at last consented to keep and wear, as some small salve to the giver's wounded affections. She loved Kyle far, far better ■ than his rival ; but Philip Denbigh was so handsome and sweet-spoken, it would be downright cruel to refuse him such a trifle as hanging the trinket round her neck for a day or two ; and no one need ever know. Nevertheless some one did know — now; and the sweet-spoken gentleman got a savage snubbing on this aforementioned evening. " Kyle will hear I refused him, and come back. He'll never leave me so. He must ask my pardon first," thought the weeping beauty, that night. He did not ask pardon, however, nor come back. The Olinda sailed three days later, and Faith's two lovers sailed in it. Kyle had a beautiful black retriever, which he had been used to leave behind to "take care of his lassie love while he was gone." He took it with him this time ; and Faith nearly wept her lovely eyes out, that she had been too proud to own her folly and seek a reconciliation before he went. Patience ! it would be only six weeks, or at the most eight, and then he would be back, and she would be good — so good and meek. He must forgive her then. # # # * * Eight weeks had passed — eight weeks all but two days— when the sun went down in stormy grandeur, one cold evening, on the Irish Sea. It had been blowing great guns all day, and for many days and nights before ; and the waves had wrestled terribly with a crazy barque which, with creaking timbers and leaking pores, with strained and naked masts bending beneath the gale, till at every lurch they seemed like' to bury themselves in the foam - crested waves tumbling mountain-high around them, had striven like a living thing to weather the cruel storm. Where was she now ? The huge breakers, orested still with foam, turbid and purplestained, dashed themselves, moaning and roaring, against the grey and iron-bound cliffs of the Welsh coast, flinging up great fragments of timber, torn and twisted scraps of sail-cloth, and battered, shapeless things, too awful in their piteous mutilation for any human name, against the pitiless rocks, only to suck them back again into the black and boiling gulf below. Above, great stormrent clouds, black too, but fringed with fire, were gathering thickly over the threatening vault ; and low on the horizon the sun, like a blood-red hand, pointed from between them to something black and broken, over which the sea was breaking in unresisted fury — the Btem of a vessel, with the broken bowsprit and foremast just visible amongst the foam and spray. Greatly as the wind had lessened, that sail looking red now before the angry Bun was all the captain of the pilot cutter cared to show- even now to its tender mercies. It had been a work of danger to get near the wreck at all, hanging as she did In a nest of rocks ; and there was a look of relief on more than one hardy, sunburnt face when the order was given to tack and 'bout ship again. Suddenly the captain caught up his spyglass, which was lying beside him, and after a hasty glance through it, roared to the men to "holdall hard." "There's summat living arter all," he said, pointing to a ridge of low outlying rooks, where some object was plainly discernible even by the naked eye. " There ! just above the line o' high water. Can't none o'yeaee?" " A man down on all-fours ! " cried one of the crew. "Look, he's moved a bit higher. Poor fellow ! he must be a rare plucked un surely to ha' kep' lite in him so long." " Lower the boat," said the captain, eharply. " Now, my lads, ready all. Jim" (to an old pilot), " give us a coil o' that lino. W« mayn't be *W to get over-near him $

an' I say, one o' you lubbers, chuck a bottle o' rum inter the stern-sheets — quick ! " They are brave, kindly men, those Welsh pilots ; I have owed my life to them, and know ; but I am afraid they thought their courage and kindness wasted when they found the object of it was — only a dog ! They hauled him into the boat none the less, almost too much spent, poor fellow, to second their efforts ; and then, while he was trying very feebly to lick the hands that had saved him, his beautiful eyes full of all a dog's gratitude, they saw he had a tin flask tied to his collar. The captain opened it. "To Miss Faith Morgan, Amlwch," he said, reading something within ; and then, not being a person of refined delicacy, he took the paper out, and opened and read that. This was what ib said :: — ■ " Boat just left with the crew and Philip Denbigh. No room for me ; but no wish for it. Remember that. I give mine on board, with willing heart, to you gave it to ashore. God bless you, sweetheart. Forgive my rude words as I forgive your falsehood. There's a Saviour more merciful than we are, an' to Him I pray to care for you, an' make you happy, as I would ha' tried to, had He been willed to let me." They gave that paper, with the dog — a beautiful black retriever — to Faith Morgan. It was all that ever came to port of the illfated Pride of the West, the ramshackle old barque, which had been hastily patched up, and thought good enough to last one voyage more. Boat and crew were never heard of again. They must have perished with their fine young owner in the vain attempt to reach land, that stormy night ; and there was no tongue left to tell of those bitter eight weeks when the " sweet- spoken" gentleman strove, by every vulgar boast and innuendo, to torture the man whom he considered his successful rival — the man who was no gentleman, but who had the grand old knightly feelings that would have made him bear anything rather than, by word or retort, drag the name of the woman he loved into an unseemly dispute — the man •whose unswerving discipline, and tireless energy, had alone preserved them even so long — the man who, when the ship had struck, and the cowardly scoundrel who owned it was clinging in frantic, helpless terror to his knees, when the men were shouting for the captain to join them and cast off, lifted in the miserable wretch first with his own strong arms ; and then, seeing there was no room for more, cut the rope that held the boat to the sinking ship, and stayed alone — to die ! And Faith ? Faith is living still. I met her yesterday coming up the High afreet at Amlwch, with her married daughter, each holding a hand of a wee, toddling, browneyed thing between them. A bright, bonny old woman she is too, with as comely a face as if the eyes had never been washed in salt tears, the brow never wrinkled under a cloud of care. " I must be going home to my old man," she said, stopping at the corner. "Kiss grannie, sweetums," and then turned just at the churchyard wall where stands a rough stone cross, " To the memory of the captain and crew of the Pride of the We3t." Kyle's prayer has been granted — perhaps better by his death than if he had lived to carry it out. As Faith says— "He was a rare good man, but hard, over-hard and stern for ord'nary folk."