“Yes,” he continued, “poor, weak fool that you are, hugging the child of
another as if it were your own offspring!” Owen involuntarily caressed
the affrighted child, and half smiled at the implication of his father’s
words. This the Squire perceived, and raising his voice to a scream of
rage, he went on:

“I bid you, if you call yourself my son, to cast away that miserable,
shameless woman’s offspring; cast it away this instant—this instant!”

In this ungovernable rage, seeing that Owen was far from complying with
his command, he snatched the poor infant from the loving arms that held
it, and throwing it to his mother, left the house inarticulate with fury. Nest—who had been pale and still as marble during this terrible dialogue,
looking on and listening as if fascinated by the words that smote her
heart—opened her arms to receive and cherish her precious babe; but the
boy was not destined to reach the white refuge of her breast. The
furious action of the Squire had been almost without aim, and the infant
fell against the sharp edge of the dresser down on to the stone floor. Owen sprang up to take the child, but he lay so still, so motionless,
that the awe of death came over the father, and he stooped down to gaze
more closely. At that moment, the upturned, filmy eyes rolled
convulsively—a spasm passed along the body—and the lips, yet warm with
kissing, quivered into everlasting rest. A word from her husband told Nest all. She slid down from her seat, and
lay by her little son as corpse-like as he, unheeding all the agonizing
endearments and passionate adjurations of her husband. And that poor,
desolate husband and father! Scarce one little quarter of an hour, and
he had been so blessed in his consciousness of love! the bright promise
of many years on his infant’s face, and the new, fresh soul beaming forth
in its awakened intelligence. And there it was; the little clay image,
that would never more gladden up at the sight of him, nor stretch forth
to meet his embrace; whose inarticulate, yet most eloquent cooings might
haunt him in his dreams, but would never more be heard in waking life
again! And by the dead babe, almost as utterly insensate, the poor
mother had fallen in a merciful faint—the slandered, heart-pierced Nest! Owen struggled against the sickness that came over him, and busied
himself in vain attempts at her restoration. It was now near noon-day, and Ellis Pritchard came home, little dreaming
of the sight that awaited him; but though stunned, he was able to take
more effectual measures for his poor daughter’s recovery than Owen had
done. By-and-by she showed symptoms of returning sense, and was placed in her
own little bed in a darkened room, where, without ever waking to complete
consciousness, she fell asleep. Then it was that her husband, suffocated
by pressure of miserable thought, gently drew his hand from her tightened
clasp, and printing one long soft kiss on her white waxen forehead,
hastily stole out of the room, and out of the house. Near the base of Moel Gêst—it might be a quarter of a mile from Ty
Glas—was a little neglected solitary copse, wild and tangled with the
trailing branches of the dog-rose and the tendrils of the white bryony. Toward the middle of this thicket a deep crystal pool—a clear mirror for
the blue heavens above—and round the margin floated the broad green
leaves of the water-lily, and when the regal sun shone down in his
noonday glory the flowers arose from their cool depths to welcome and
greet him. The copse was musical with many sounds; the warbling of birds
rejoicing in its shades, the ceaseless hum of the insects that hovered
over the pool, the chime of the distant waterfall, the occasional
bleating of the sheep from the mountaintop, were all blended into the
delicious harmony of nature. It had been one of Owen’s favourite resorts when he had been a lonely
wanderer—a pilgrim in search of love in the years gone by. And thither
he went, as if by instinct, when he left Ty Glas; quelling the uprising
agony till he should reach that little solitary spot. It was the time of day when a change in the aspect of the weather so
frequently takes place; and the little pool was no longer the reflection
of a blue and sunny sky: it sent back the dark and slaty clouds above,
and, every now and then, a rough gust shook the painted autumn leaves
from their branches, and all other music was lost in the sound of the
wild winds piping down from the moorlands, which lay up and beyond the
clefts in the mountain-side. Presently the rain came on and beat down in
torrents. But Owen heeded it not. He sat on the dank ground, his face buried in
his hands, and his whole strength, physical and mental, employed in
quelling the rush of blood, which rose and boiled and gurgled in his
brain as if it would madden him. The phantom of his dead child rose ever before him, and seemed to cry
aloud for vengeance. And when the poor young man thought upon the victim
whom he required in his wild longing for revenge, he shuddered, for it
was his father! Again and again he tried not to think; but still the circle of thought
came round, eddying through his brain. At length he mastered his
passions, and they were calm; then he forced himself to arrange some plan
for the future. He had not, in the passionate hurry of the moment, seen that his father
had left the cottage before he was aware of the fatal accident that
befell the child. Owen thought he had seen all; and once he planned to
go to the Squire and tell him of the anguish of heart he had wrought, and
awe him, as it were, by the dignity of grief. But then again he durst
not—he distrusted his self-control—the old prophecy rose up in its
horror—he dreaded his doom. At last he determined to leave his father for ever; to take Nest to some
distant country where she might forget her firstborn, and where he
himself might gain a livelihood by his own exertions. But when he tried to descend to the various little arrangements which
were involved in the execution of this plan, he remembered that all his
money (and in this respect Squire Griffiths was no niggard) was locked up
in his escritoire at Bodowen. In vain he tried to do away with this
matter-of-fact difficulty; go to Bodowen he must: and his only hope—nay
his determination—was to avoid his father. He rose and took a by-path to Bodowen. The house looked even more gloomy
and desolate than usual in the heavy down-pouring rain, yet Owen gazed on
it with something of regret—for sorrowful as his days in it had been, he
was about to leave it for many many years, if not for ever. He entered
by a side door opening into a passage that led to his own room, where he
kept his books, his guns, his fishing-tackle, his writing materials, et
cetera. Here he hurriedly began to select the few articles he intended to take;
for, besides the dread of interruption, he was feverishly anxious to
travel far that very night, if only Nest was capable of performing the
journey.