United States or Tunisia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There was no light in the cottage except that of the fitful furze fire, so that when Gethin entered he exclaimed at the darkness, "Sara fâch, let's have a light, for I am longing to see thee!" Morva threw a fresh furze branch on the fire. The motion attracted Gethin's attention, and as the quick flame leaped up, the girl stood revealed.
Up and down, round and across, with uplifted gown, Tudor following with exuberant leaps and barks of delight, and catching at her flying skirts at every opportunity. As she danced she sang with unerring ear and precision, the tune that Reuben Davies had played in the dusty mill, setting to it the words of one refrain, "Gethin's come home, bâchgen! Gethin's come home!"
"No, no, 'tis only Morva," said Sara, dusting a chair and pushing it towards him. "Sit thee down, my boy, and let me have a good look at thee. Well! well! is it Gethin, indeed? this great big man, so tall and broad." But Gethin's eyes were fixed upon the girl, who still stood astonished and bewildered under the chimney.
There was a little scream, a bark, and a flutter, and Morva, clasped in Gethin's arms, was wildly whirled in an impromptu dance, round and round the green sward, up and down, and round again, until, breathless and panting, they stopped from sheer exhaustion; and when Gethin at last led his laughing partner to rest under the golden broom bushes, he cared not a whit that she chided him with a reproving finger, for her voice was full of merriment and joy.
So lately as that was she bright and happy, and was the world around her so full of light and warmth? She leant her elbows on the deep window-sill and mused. How long ago, too, it seemed since she had taken down the old Bible and hunted up Gethin's delinquencies. She saw it now in her mind's eye, and, getting upon the table, she reached it down again, and turned to the disfigured page.
"I expect fear as well as a guilty conscience made him return them, the blackguard!" suggested Will. "No doubt; no doubt," said the old man. As for Morva, she was so overcome with joy at this proof of Gethin's innocence that she was scarcely able to hide her agitation from those around her.
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.
Ebben Owens sat down on the wheel-barrow on purpose to rub his knees, and Gethin's eyes sparkled with pleasure, but he looked round in vain for Morva. Some new-born shyness had overwhelmed her to-day; she could not make up her mind to meet Gethin. She had longed for the meeting so much, and now that it was within her reach, she put the joy away from her, with the nervous indecision of a child.
"Yes, 'merch i, put on the milk porridge." And Morva, glad to hide her embarrassment, set about preparing the evening meal, for Gethin's eyes told the admiration which he dared not speak. His gaze followed her about as she mixed the milk and the oatmeal in the quaint old iron crochon.
At Cross Key, at all events, there was nothing else talked of for weeks beforehand; and the case which above all others was canvassed, and prejudged, and descanted upon over all sorts of boards from the mahogany one in the dining-room at Cross Key Park to the deal tripod which held the pots and pipes at the road-side beer-house was that of Richard Yorke, the young gentleman-painter, who had run away with old John Trevethick of Gethin's hoarded store.
Word Of The Day