A great object in life is decided; one on which their thoughts
have been running in all their vagaries, and they seem to verify the
beautiful fable of Undine. A new soul beams out in the gentleness and
repose of their future lives. An indescribable softness and tenderness
takes place of the wearying vanity of their former endeavours to attract
admiration. Something of this sort took place in Nest Pritchard. If at
first she had been anxious to attract the young Squire of Bodowen, long
before her marriage this feeling had merged into a truer love than she
had ever felt before; and now that he was her own, her husband, her whole
soul was bent toward making him amends, as far as in her lay, for the
misery which, with a woman’s tact, she saw that he had to endure at his
home. Her greetings were abounding in delicately-expressed love; her
study of his tastes unwearying, in the arrangement of her dress, her
time, her very thoughts. No wonder that he looked back on his wedding-day with a thankfulness
which is seldom the result of unequal marriages. No wonder that his
heart beat aloud as formerly when he wound up the little path to Ty Glas,
and saw—keen though the winter’s wind might be—that Nest was standing out
at the door to watch for his dimly-seen approach, while the candle flared
in the little window as a beacon to guide him aright. The angry words and unkind actions of home fell deadened on his heart; he
thought of the love that was surely his, and of the new promise of love
that a short time would bring forth, and he could almost have smiled at
the impotent efforts to disturb his peace. A few more months, and the young father was greeted by a feeble little
cry, when he hastily entered Ty Glas, one morning early, in consequence
of a summons conveyed mysteriously to Bodowen; and the pale mother,
smiling, and feebly holding up her babe to its father’s kiss, seemed to
him even more lovely than the bright gay Nest who had won his heart at
the little inn of Penmorfa. But the curse was at work! The fulfilment of the prophecy was nigh at
hand! CHAPTER II. It was the autumn after the birth of their boy; it had been a glorious
summer, with bright, hot, sunny weather; and now the year was fading away
as seasonably into mellow days, with mornings of silver mists and clear
frosty nights. The blooming look of the time of flowers, was past and
gone; but instead there were even richer tints abroad in the sun-coloured
leaves, the lichens, the golden blossomed furze; if it was the time of
fading, there was a glory in the decay. Nest, in her loving anxiety to surround her dwelling with every charm for
her husband’s sake, had turned gardener, and the little corners of the
rude court before the house were filled with many a delicate
mountain-flower, transplanted more for its beauty than its rarity. The
sweetbrier bush may even yet be seen, old and gray, which she and Owen
planted a green slipling beneath the window of her little chamber. In
those moments Owen forgot all besides the present; all the cares and
griefs he had known in the past, and all that might await him of woe and
death in the future. The boy, too, was as lovely a child as the fondest
parent was ever blessed with; and crowed with delight, and clapped his
little hands, as his mother held him in her arms at the cottage-door to
watch his father’s ascent up the rough path that led to Ty Glas, one
bright autumnal morning; and when the three entered the house together,
it was difficult to say which was the happiest. Owen carried his boy,
and tossed and played with him, while Nest sought out some little article
of work, and seated herself on the dresser beneath the window, where now
busily plying the needle, and then again looking at her husband, she
eagerly told him the little pieces of domestic intelligence, the winning
ways of the child, the result of yesterday’s fishing, and such of the
gossip of Penmorfa as came to the ears of the now retired Nest. She
noticed that, when she mentioned any little circumstance which bore the
slightest reference to Bodowen, her husband appeared chafed and uneasy,
and at last avoided anything that might in the least remind him of home. In truth, he had been suffering much of late from the irritability of his
father, shown in trifles to be sure, but not the less galling on that
account. While they were thus talking, and caressing each other and the child, a
shadow darkened the room, and before they could catch a glimpse of the
object that had occasioned it, it vanished, and Squire Griffiths lifted
the door-latch and stood before them. He stood and looked—first on his
son, so different, in his buoyant expression of content and enjoyment,
with his noble child in his arms, like a proud and happy father, as he
was, from the depressed, moody young man he too often appeared at
Bodowen; then on Nest—poor, trembling, sickened Nest!—who dropped her
work, but yet durst not stir from her seat, on the dresser, while she
looked to her husband as if for protection from his father. The Squire was silent, as he glared from one to the other, his features
white with restrained passion. When he spoke, his words came most
distinct in their forced composure. It was to his son he addressed
himself:

“That woman! who is she?”

Owen hesitated one moment, and then replied, in a steady, yet quiet
voice:

“Father, that woman is my wife.”

He would have added some apology for the long concealment of his
marriage; have appealed to his father’s forgiveness; but the foam flew
from Squire Owen’s lips as he burst forth with invective against Nest:—

“You have married her! It is as they told me! Married Nest Pritchard yr
buten! And you stand there as if you had not disgraced yourself for ever
and ever with your accursed wiving! And the fair harlot sits there, in
her mocking modesty, practising the mimming airs that will become her
state as future Lady of Bodowen. But I will move heaven and earth before
that false woman darken the doors of my father’s house as mistress!”

All this was said with such rapidity that Owen had no time for the words
that thronged to his lips. “Father!” (he burst forth at length) “Father,
whosoever told you that Nest Pritchard was a harlot told you a lie as
false as hell! Ay! a lie as false as hell!” he added, in a voice of
thunder, while he advanced a step or two nearer to the Squire. And then,
in a lower tone, he said—

“She is as pure as your own wife; nay, God help me! as the dear, precious
mother who brought me forth, and then left me—with no refuge in a
mother’s heart—to struggle on through life alone. I tell you Nest is as
pure as that dear, dead mother!”

“Fool—poor fool!”

At this moment the child—the little Owen—who had kept gazing from one
angry countenance to the other, and with earnest look, trying to
understand what had brought the fierce glare into the face where till now
he had read nothing but love, in some way attracted the Squire’s
attention, and increased his wrath.