initial commit of ebook 2549HEADmain

2 files changed, 1762 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/dmgrf10.txt b/old/dmgrf10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0dda1b8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/dmgrf10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,1762 @@
+Project Gutenberg Etext Doom of the Griffiths, by Elizabeth Gaskell
+#10 in our series by Elizabeth Gaskell
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check
+the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!!
+
+Please take a look at the important information in this header.
+We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an
+electronic path open for the next readers.  Do not remove this.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*
+
+Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
+further information is included below.  We need your donations.
+
+
+Title:  The Doom of the Griffiths
+
+Author:  Elizabeth Gaskell
+
+March, 2001  [Etext #2549]
+
+Project Gutenberg Etext Doom of the Griffiths, by Elizabeth Gaskell
+*******This file should be named dmgrf10.txt or dmgrf10.zip*******
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, dmgrf11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, dmgrf10a.txt
+
+
+This etext was prepared by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+from the 1896 "Lizzie Leigh and Other Tales" Macmillan and Co. edition.
+
+Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions,
+all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a
+copyright notice is included.  Therefore, we usually do NOT keep any
+of these books in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+
+Please note:  neither this list nor its contents are final till
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.  To be sure you have an
+up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes
+in the first week of the next month.  Since our ftp program has
+a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a
+look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a
+new copy has at least one byte more or less.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.  This
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If our value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-six text
+files per month, or 432 more Etexts in 1999 for a total of 2000+
+If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the
+total should reach over 200 billion Etexts given away this year.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
+Files by December 31, 2001.  [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion]
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only ~5% of the present number of computer users.
+
+At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third
+of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 3,333 Etexts unless we
+manage to get some real funding; currently our funding is mostly
+from Michael Hart's salary at Carnegie-Mellon University, and an
+assortment of sporadic gifts; this salary is only good for a few
+more years, so we are looking for something to replace it, as we
+don't want Project Gutenberg to be so dependent on one person.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+
+All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/CMU": and are
+tax deductible to the extent allowable by law.  (CMU = Carnegie-
+Mellon University).
+
+For these and other matters, please mail to:
+
+Project Gutenberg
+P. O. Box  2782
+Champaign, IL 61825
+
+When all other email fails. . .try our Executive Director:
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+hart@pobox.com forwards to hart@prairienet.org and archive.org
+if your mail bounces from archive.org, I will still see it, if
+it bounces from prairienet.org, better resend later on. . . .
+
+We would prefer to send you this information by email.
+
+******
+
+To access Project Gutenberg etexts, use any Web browser
+to view http://promo.net/pg.  This site lists Etexts by
+author and by title, and includes information about how
+to get involved with Project Gutenberg.  You could also
+download our past Newsletters, or subscribe here.  This
+is one of our major sites, please email hart@pobox.com,
+for a more complete list of our various sites.
+
+To go directly to the etext collections, use FTP or any
+Web browser to visit a Project Gutenberg mirror (mirror
+sites are available on 7 continents; mirrors are listed
+at http://promo.net/pg).
+
+Mac users, do NOT point and click, typing works better.
+
+Example FTP session:
+
+ftp metalab.unc.edu
+login: anonymous
+password: your@login
+cd pub/docs/books/gutenberg
+cd etext90 through etext99 etext00 and etext01
+dir [to see files]
+get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
+GET GUTINDEX.??  [to get a year's listing of books, e.g., GUTINDEX.99]
+GET GUTINDEX.ALL [to get a listing of ALL books]
+
+***
+
+**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor**
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here?  You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault.  So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you.  It also tells you how
+you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement.  If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from.  If you received this etext on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-
+tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor
+Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at
+Carnegie-Mellon University (the "Project").  Among other
+things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
+under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works.  Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects".  Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this
+etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from.  If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy.  If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS".  NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors,
+officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost
+and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or
+indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause:
+[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification,
+or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     etext or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word pro-
+     cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the etext (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the
+     net profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon
+     University" within the 60 days following each
+     date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare)
+     your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time,
+scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty
+free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution
+you can think of.  Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg
+Association / Carnegie-Mellon University".
+
+We are planning on making some changes in our donation structure
+in 2000, so you might want to email me, hart@pobox.com beforehand.
+
+
+
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
+
+
+
+
+
+This etext was prepared by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+from the 1896 "Lizzie Leigh and Other Tales" Macmillan and Co. edition.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE DOOM OF THE GRIFFITHS.
+
+by Elizabeth Gaskell
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+
+I have always been much interested by the traditions which are
+scattered up and down North Wales relating to Owen Glendower (Owain
+Glendwr is the national spelling of the name), and I fully enter into
+the feeling which makes the Welsh peasant still look upon him as the
+hero of his country.  There was great joy among many of the
+inhabitants of the principality, when the subject of the Welsh prize
+poem at Oxford, some fifteen or sixteen years ago, was announced to
+be "Owain Glendwr."  It was the most proudly national subject that
+had been given for years.
+
+Perhaps, some may not be aware that this redoubted chieftain is, even
+in the present days of enlightenment, as famous among his illiterate
+countrymen for his magical powers as for his patriotism.  He says
+himself--or Shakespeare says it for him, which is much the same thing
+-
+
+
+'At my nativity
+The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes
+Of burning cressets . . .
+. . . I can call spirits from the vasty deep.'
+
+
+And few among the lower orders in the principality would think of
+asking Hotspur's irreverent question in reply.
+
+Among other traditions preserved relative to this part of the Welsh
+hero's character, is the old family prophecy which gives title to
+this tale.  When Sir David Gam, "as black a traitor as if he had been
+born in Builth," sought to murder Owen at Machynlleth, there was one
+with him whose name Glendwr little dreamed of having associated with
+his enemies.  Rhys ap Gryfydd, his "old familiar friend," his
+relation, his more than brother, had consented unto his blood.  Sir
+David Gam might be forgiven, but one whom he had loved, and who had
+betrayed him, could never be forgiven.  Glendwr was too deeply read
+in the human heart to kill him.  No, he let him live on, the loathing
+and scorn of his compatriots, and the victim of bitter remorse.  The
+mark of Cain was upon him.
+
+But before he went forth--while he yet stood a prisoner, cowering
+beneath his conscience before Owain Glendwr--that chieftain passed a
+doom upon him and his race:
+
+"I doom thee to live, because I know thou wilt pray for death.  Thou
+shalt live on beyond the natural term of the life of man, the scorn
+of all good men.  The very children shall point to thee with hissing
+tongue, and say, 'There goes one who would have shed a brother's
+blood!'  For I loved thee more than a brother, oh Rhys ap Gryfydd!
+Thou shalt live on to see all of thy house, except the weakling in
+arms, perish by the sword.  Thy race shall be accursed.  Each
+generation shall see their lands melt away like snow; yea their
+wealth shall vanish, though they may labour night and day to heap up
+gold.  And when nine generations have passed from the face of the
+earth, thy blood shall no longer flow in the veins of any human
+being.  In those days the last male of thy race shall avenge me.  The
+son shall slay the father."
+
+Such was the traditionary account of Owain Glendwr's speech to his
+once-trusted friend.  And it was declared that the doom had been
+fulfilled in all things; that live in as miserly a manner as they
+would, the Griffiths never were wealthy and prosperous--indeed that
+their worldly stock diminished without any visible cause.
+
+But the lapse of many years had almost deadened the wonder-inspiring
+power of the whole curse.  It was only brought forth from the hoards
+of Memory when some untoward event happened to the Griffiths family;
+and in the eighth generation the faith in the prophecy was nearly
+destroyed, by the marriage of the Griffiths of that day, to a Miss
+Owen, who, unexpectedly, by the death of a brother, became an
+heiress--to no considerable amount, to be sure, but enough to make
+the prophecy appear reversed.  The heiress and her husband removed
+from his small patrimonial estate in Merionethshire, to her heritage
+in Caernarvonshire, and for a time the prophecy lay dormant.
+
+If you go from Tremadoc to Criccaeth, you pass by the parochial
+church of Ynysynhanarn, situated in a boggy valley running from the
+mountains, which shoulder up to the Rivals, down to Cardigan Bay.
+This tract of land has every appearance of having been redeemed at no
+distant period of time from the sea, and has all the desolate
+rankness often attendant upon such marshes.  But the valley beyond,
+similar in character, had yet more of gloom at the time of which I
+write.  In the higher part there were large plantations of firs, set
+too closely to attain any size, and remaining stunted in height and
+scrubby in appearance.  Indeed, many of the smaller and more weakly
+had died, and the bark had fallen down on the brown soil neglected
+and unnoticed.  These trees had a ghastly appearance, with their
+white trunks, seen by the dim light which struggled through the thick
+boughs above.  Nearer to the sea, the valley assumed a more open,
+though hardly a more cheerful character; it looked dark and overhung
+by sea-fog through the greater part of the year, and even a farm-
+house, which usually imparts something of cheerfulness to a
+landscape, failed to do so here.  This valley formed the greater part
+of the estate to which Owen Griffiths became entitled by right of his
+wife.  In the higher part of the valley was situated the family
+mansion, or rather dwelling-house, for "mansion" is too grand a word
+to apply to the clumsy, but substantially-built Bodowen.  It was
+square and heavy-looking, with just that much pretension to ornament
+necessary to distinguish it from the mere farm-house.
+
+In this dwelling Mrs. Owen Griffiths bore her husband two sons--
+Llewellyn, the future Squire, and Robert, who was early destined for
+the Church.  The only difference in their situation, up to the time
+when Robert was entered at Jesus College, was, that the elder was
+invariably indulged by all around him, while Robert was thwarted and
+indulged by turns; that Llewellyn never learned anything from the
+poor Welsh parson, who was nominally his private tutor; while
+occasionally Squire Griffiths made a great point of enforcing
+Robert's diligence, telling him that, as he had his bread to earn, he
+must pay attention to his learning.  There is no knowing how far the
+very irregular education he had received would have carried Robert
+through his college examinations; but, luckily for him in this
+respect, before such a trial of his learning came round, he heard of
+the death of his elder brother, after a short illness, brought on by
+a hard drinking-bout.  Of course, Robert was summoned home, and it
+seemed quite as much of course, now that there was no necessity for
+him to "earn his bread by his learning," that he should not return to
+Oxford.  So the half-educated, but not unintelligent, young man
+continued at home, during the short remainder of his parent's
+lifetime.
+
+His was not an uncommon character.  In general he was mild, indolent,
+and easily managed; but once thoroughly roused, his passions were
+vehement and fearful.  He seemed, indeed, almost afraid of himself,
+and in common hardly dared to give way to justifiable anger--so much
+did he dread losing his self-control.  Had he been judiciously
+educated, he would, probably, have distinguished himself in those
+branches of literature which call for taste and imagination, rather
+than any exertion of reflection or judgment.  As it was, his literary
+taste showed itself in making collections of Cambrian antiquities of
+every description, till his stock of Welsh MSS. would have excited
+the envy of Dr. Pugh himself, had he been alive at the time of which
+I write.
+
+There is one characteristic of Robert Griffiths which I have omitted
+to note, and which was peculiar among his class.  He was no hard
+drinker; whether it was that his head was easily affected, or that
+his partially-refined taste led him to dislike intoxication and its
+attendant circumstances, I cannot say; but at five-and-twenty Robert
+Griffiths was habitually sober--a thing so rare in Llyn, that he was
+almost shunned as a churlish, unsociable being, and paused much of
+his time in solitude.
+
+About this time, he had to appear in some case that was tried at the
+Caernarvon assizes; and while there, was a guest at the house of his
+agent, a shrewd, sensible Welsh attorney, with one daughter, who had
+charms enough to captivate Robert Griffiths.  Though he remained only
+a few days at her father's house, they were sufficient to decide his
+affections, and short was the period allowed to elapse before he
+brought home a mistress to Bodowen.  The new Mrs. Griffiths was a
+gentle, yielding person, full of love toward her husband, of whom,
+nevertheless, she stood something in awe, partly arising from the
+difference in their ages, partly from his devoting much time to
+studies of which she could understand nothing.
+
+She soon made him the father of a blooming little daughter, called
+Augharad after her mother.  Then there came several uneventful years
+in the household of Bodowen; and when the old women had one and all
+declared that the cradle would not rock again, Mrs. Griffiths bore
+the son and heir.  His birth was soon followed by his mother's death:
+she had been ailing and low-spirited during her pregnancy, and she
+seemed to lack the buoyancy of body and mind requisite to bring her
+round after her time of trial.  Her husband, who loved her all the
+more from having few other claims on his affections, was deeply
+grieved by her early death, and his only comforter was the sweet
+little boy whom she had left behind.  That part of the squire's
+character, which was so tender, and almost feminine, seemed called
+forth by the helpless situation of the little infant, who stretched
+out his arms to his father with the same earnest cooing that happier
+children make use of to their mother alone.  Augharad was almost
+neglected, while the little Owen was king of the house; still next to
+his father, none tended him so lovingly as his sister.  She was so
+accustomed to give way to him that it was no longer a hardship.  By
+night and by day Owen was the constant companion of his father, and
+increasing years seemed only to confirm the custom.  It was an
+unnatural life for the child, seeing no bright little faces peering
+into his own (for Augharad was, as I said before, five or six years
+older, and her face, poor motherless girl! was often anything but
+bright), hearing no din of clear ringing voices, but day after day
+sharing the otherwise solitary hours of his father, whether in the
+dim room, surrounded by wizard-like antiquities, or pattering his
+little feet to keep up with his "tada" in his mountain rambles or
+shooting excursions.  When the pair came to some little foaming
+brook, where the stepping-stones were far and wide, the father
+carried his little boy across with the tenderest care; when the lad
+was weary, they rested, he cradled in his father's arms, or the
+Squire would lift him up and carry him to his home again.  The boy
+was indulged (for his father felt flattered by the desire) in his
+wish of sharing his meals and keeping the same hours.  All this
+indulgence did not render Owen unamiable, but it made him wilful, and
+not a happy child.  He had a thoughtful look, not common to the face
+of a young boy.  He knew no games, no merry sports; his information
+was of an imaginative and speculative character.  His father
+delighted to interest him in his own studies, without considering how
+far they were healthy for so young a mind.
+
+Of course Squire Griffiths was not unaware of the prophecy which was
+to be fulfilled in his generation.  He would occasionally refer to it
+when among his friends, with sceptical levity; but in truth it lay
+nearer to his heart than he chose to acknowledge.  His strong
+imagination rendered him peculiarly impressible on such subjects;
+while his judgment, seldom exercised or fortified by severe thought,
+could not prevent his continually recurring to it.  He used to gaze
+on the half-sad countenance of the child, who sat looking up into his
+face with his large dark eyes, so fondly yet so inquiringly, till the
+old legend swelled around his heart, and became too painful for him
+not to require sympathy.  Besides, the overpowering love he bore to
+the child seemed to demand fuller vent than tender words; it made him
+like, yet dread, to upbraid its object for the fearful contrast
+foretold.  Still Squire Griffiths told the legend, in a half-jesting
+manner, to his little son, when they were roaming over the wild
+heaths in the autumn days, "the saddest of the year," or while they
+sat in the oak-wainscoted room, surrounded by mysterious relics that
+gleamed strangely forth by the flickering fire-light.  The legend was
+wrought into the boy's mind, and he would crave, yet tremble, to hear
+it told over and over again, while the words were intermingled with
+caresses and questions as to his love.  Occasionally his loving words
+and actions were cut short by his father's light yet bitter speech--
+"Get thee away, my lad; thou knowest not what is to come of all this
+love."
+
+When Augharad was seventeen, and Owen eleven or twelve, the rector of
+the parish in which Bodowen was situated, endeavoured to prevail on
+Squire Griffiths to send the boy to school.  Now, this rector had
+many congenial tastes with his parishioner, and was his only
+intimate; and, by repeated arguments, he succeeded in convincing the
+Squire that the unnatural life Owen was leading was in every way
+injurious.  Unwillingly was the father wrought to part from his son;
+but he did at length send him to the Grammar School at Bangor, then
+under the management of an excellent classic.  Here Owen showed that
+he had more talents than the rector had given him credit for, when he
+affirmed that the lad had been completely stupefied by the life he
+led at Bodowen.  He bade fair to do credit to the school in the
+peculiar branch of learning for which it was famous.  But he was not
+popular among his schoolfellows.  He was wayward, though, to a
+certain degree, generous and unselfish; he was reserved but gentle,
+except when the tremendous bursts of passion (similar in character to
+those of his father) forced their way.
+
+On his return from school one Christmas-time, when he had been a year
+or so at Bangor, he was stunned by hearing that the undervalued
+Augharad was about to be married to a gentleman of South Wales,
+residing near Aberystwith.  Boys seldom appreciate their sisters; but
+Owen thought of the many slights with which he had requited the
+patient Augharad, and he gave way to bitter regrets, which, with a
+selfish want of control over his words, he kept expressing to his
+father, until the Squire was thoroughly hurt and chagrined at the
+repeated exclamations of "What shall we do when Augharad is gone?"
+"How dull we shall be when Augharad is married!"  Owen's holidays
+were prolonged a few weeks, in order that he might be present at the
+wedding; and when all the festivities were over, and the bride and
+bridegroom had left Bodowen, the boy and his father really felt how
+much they missed the quiet, loving Augharad.  She had performed so
+many thoughtful, noiseless little offices, on which their daily
+comfort depended; and now she was gone, the household seemed to miss
+the spirit that peacefully kept it in order; the servants roamed
+about in search of commands and directions, the rooms had no longer
+the unobtrusive ordering of taste to make them cheerful, the very
+fires burned dim, and were always sinking down into dull heaps of
+gray ashes.  Altogether Owen did not regret his return to Bangor, and
+this also the mortified parent perceived.  Squire Griffiths was a
+selfish parent.
+
+Letters in those days were a rare occurrence.  Owen usually received
+one during his half-yearly absences from home, and occasionally his
+father paid him a visit.  This half-year the boy had no visit, nor
+even a letter, till very near the time of his leaving school, and
+then he was astounded by the intelligence that his father was married
+again.
+
+Then came one of his paroxysms of rage; the more disastrous in its
+effects upon his character because it could find no vent in action.
+Independently of slight to the memory of the first wife which
+children are so apt to fancy such an action implies, Owen had
+hitherto considered himself (and with justice) the first object of
+his father's life.  They had been so much to each other; and now a
+shapeless, but too real something had come between him and his father
+there for ever.  He felt as if his permission should have been asked,
+as if he should have been consulted.  Certainly he ought to have been
+told of the intended event.  So the Squire felt, and hence his
+constrained letter which had so much increased the bitterness of
+Owen's feelings.
+
+With all this anger, when Owen saw his stepmother, he thought he had
+never seen so beautiful a woman for her age; for she was no longer in
+the bloom of youth, being a widow when his father married her.  Her
+manners, to the Welsh lad, who had seen little of female grace among
+the families of the few antiquarians with whom his father visited,
+were so fascinating that he watched her with a sort of breathless
+admiration.  Her measured grace, her faultless movements, her tones
+of voice, sweet, till the ear was sated with their sweetness, made
+Owen less angry at his father's marriage.  Yet he felt, more than
+ever, that the cloud was between him and his father; that the hasty
+letter he had sent in answer to the announcement of his wedding was
+not forgotten, although no allusion was ever made to it.  He was no
+longer his father's confidant--hardly ever his father's companion,
+for the newly-married wife was all in all to the Squire, and his son
+felt himself almost a cipher, where he had so long been everything.
+The lady herself had ever the softest consideration for her stepson;
+almost too obtrusive was the attention paid to his wishes, but still
+he fancied that the heart had no part in the winning advances.  There
+was a watchful glance of the eye that Owen once or twice caught when
+she had imagined herself unobserved, and many other nameless little
+circumstances, that gave him a strong feeling of want of sincerity in
+his stepmother.  Mrs. Owen brought with her into the family her
+little child by her first husband, a boy nearly three years old.  He
+was one of those elfish, observant, mocking children, over whose
+feelings you seem to have no control:  agile and mischievous, his
+little practical jokes, at first performed in ignorance of the pain
+he gave, but afterward proceeding to a malicious pleasure in
+suffering, really seemed to afford some ground to the superstitious
+notion of some of the common people that he was a fairy changeling.
+
+Years passed on; and as Owen grew older he became more observant.  He
+saw, even in his occasional visits at home (for from school he had
+passed on to college), that a great change had taken place in the
+outward manifestations of his father's character; and, by degrees,
+Owen traced this change to the influence of his stepmother; so
+slight, so imperceptible to the common observer, yet so resistless in
+its effects.  Squire Griffiths caught up his wife's humbly advanced
+opinions, and, unawares to himself, adopted them as his own, defying
+all argument and opposition.  It was the same with her wishes; they
+met their fulfilment, from the extreme and delicate art with which
+she insinuated them into her husband's mind, as his own.  She
+sacrificed the show of authority for the power.  At last, when Owen
+perceived some oppressive act in his father's conduct toward his
+dependants, or some unaccountable thwarting of his own wishes, he
+fancied he saw his stepmother's secret influence thus displayed,
+however much she might regret the injustice of his father's actions
+in her conversations with him when they were alone.  His father was
+fast losing his temperate habits, and frequent intoxication soon took
+its usual effect upon the temper.  Yet even here was the spell of his
+wife upon him.  Before her he placed a restraint upon his passion,
+yet she was perfectly aware of his irritable disposition, and
+directed it hither and thither with the same apparent ignorance of
+the tendency of her words.
+
+Meanwhile Owen's situation became peculiarly mortifying to a youth
+whose early remembrances afforded such a contrast to his present
+state.  As a child, he had been elevated to the consequence of a man
+before his years gave any mental check to the selfishness which such
+conduct was likely to engender; he could remember when his will was
+law to the servants and dependants, and his sympathy necessary to his
+father:  now he was as a cipher in his father's house; and the
+Squire, estranged in the first instance by a feeling of the injury he
+had done his son in not sooner acquainting him with his purposed
+marriage, seemed rather to avoid than to seek him as a companion, and
+too frequently showed the most utter indifference to the feelings and
+wishes which a young man of a high and independent spirit might be
+supposed to indulge.
+
+Perhaps Owen was not fully aware of the force of all these
+circumstances; for an actor in a family drama is seldom unimpassioned
+enough to be perfectly observant.  But he became moody and soured;
+brooding over his unloved existence, and craving with a human heart
+after sympathy.
+
+This feeling took more full possession of his mind when he had left
+college, and returned home to lead an idle and purposeless life.  As
+the heir, there was no worldly necessity for exertion:  his father
+was too much of a Welsh squire to dream of the moral necessity, and
+he himself had not sufficient strength of mind to decide at once upon
+abandoning a place and mode of life which abounded in daily
+mortifications; yet to this course his judgment was slowly tending,
+when some circumstances occurred to detain him at Bodowen.
+
+It was not to be expected that harmony would long be preserved, even
+in appearance, between an unguarded and soured young man, such as
+Owen, and his wary stepmother, when he had once left college, and
+come, not as a visitor, but as the heir to his father's house.  Some
+cause of difference occurred, where the woman subdued her hidden
+anger sufficiently to become convinced that Owen was not entirely the
+dupe she had believed him to be.  Henceforward there was no peace
+between them.  Not in vulgar altercations did this show itself; but
+in moody reserve on Owen's part, and in undisguised and contemptuous
+pursuance of her own plans by his stepmother.  Bodowen was no longer
+a place where, if Owen was not loved or attended to, he could at
+least find peace, and care for himself:  he was thwarted at every
+step, and in every wish, by his father's desire, apparently, while
+the wife sat by with a smile of triumph on her beautiful lips.
+
+So Owen went forth at the early day dawn, sometimes roaming about on
+the shore or the upland, shooting or fishing, as the season might be,
+but oftener "stretched in indolent repose" on the short, sweet grass,
+indulging in gloomy and morbid reveries.  He would fancy that this
+mortified state of existence was a dream, a horrible dream, from
+which he should awake and find himself again the sole object and
+darling of his father.  And then he would start up and strive to
+shake off the incubus.  There was the molten sunset of his childish
+memory; the gorgeous crimson piles of glory in the west, fading away
+into the cold calm light of the rising moon, while here and there a
+cloud floated across the western heaven, like a seraph's wing, in its
+flaming beauty; the earth was the same as in his childhood's days,
+full of gentle evening sounds, and the harmonies of twilight--the
+breeze came sweeping low over the heather and blue-bells by his side,
+and the turf was sending up its evening incense of perfume.  But
+life, and heart, and hope were changed for ever since those bygone
+days!
+
+Or he would seat himself in a favourite niche of the rocks on Moel
+Gest, hidden by a stunted growth of the whitty, or mountain-ash, from
+general observation, with a rich-tinted cushion of stone-crop for his
+feet, and a straight precipice of rock rising just above.  Here would
+he sit for hours, gazing idly at the bay below with its back-ground
+of purple hills, and the little fishing-sail on its bosom, showing
+white in the sunbeam, and gliding on in such harmony with the quiet
+beauty of the glassy sea; or he would pull out an old school-volume,
+his companion for years, and in morbid accordance with the dark
+legend that still lurked in the recesses of his mind--a shape of
+gloom in those innermost haunts awaiting its time to come forth in
+distinct outline--would he turn to the old Greek dramas which treat
+of a family foredoomed by an avenging Fate.  The worn page opened of
+itself at the play of the OEdipus Tyrannus, and Owen dwelt with the
+craving disease upon the prophecy so nearly resembling that which
+concerned himself.  With his consciousness of neglect, there was a
+sort of self-flattery in the consequence which the legend gave him.
+He almost wondered how they durst, with slights and insults, thus
+provoke the Avenger.
+
+The days drifted onward.  Often he would vehemently pursue some
+sylvan sport, till thought and feeling were lost in the violence of
+bodily exertion.  Occasionally his evenings were spent at a small
+public-house, such as stood by the unfrequented wayside, where the
+welcome, hearty, though bought, seemed so strongly to contrast with
+the gloomy negligence of home--unsympathising home.
+
+One evening (Owen might be four or five-and-twenty), wearied with a
+day's shooting on the Clenneny Moors, he passed by the open door of
+"The Goat" at Penmorfa.  The light and the cheeriness within tempted
+him, poor self-exhausted man! as it has done many a one more wretched
+in worldly circumstances, to step in, and take his evening meal where
+at least his presence was of some consequence.  It was a busy day in
+that little hostel.  A flock of sheep, amounting to some hundreds,
+had arrived at Penmorfa, on their road to England, and thronged the
+space before the house.  Inside was the shrewd, kind-hearted hostess,
+bustling to and fro, with merry greetings for every tired drover who
+was to pass the night in her house, while the sheep were penned in a
+field close by.  Ever and anon, she kept attending to the second
+crowd of guests, who were celebrating a rural wedding in her house.
+It was busy work to Martha Thomas, yet her smile never flagged; and
+when Owen Griffiths had finished his evening meal she was there,
+ready with a hope that it had done him good, and was to his mind, and
+a word of intelligence that the wedding-folk were about to dance in
+the kitchen, and the harper was the famous Edward of Corwen.
+
+Owen, partly from good-natured compliance with his hostess's implied
+wish, and partly from curiosity, lounged to the passage which led to
+the kitchen--not the every-day, working, cooking kitchen, which was
+behind, but a good-sized room, where the mistress sat, when her work
+was done, and where the country people were commonly entertained at
+such merry-makings as the present.  The lintels of the door formed a
+frame for the animated picture which Owen saw within, as he leaned
+against the wall in the dark passage.  The red light of the fire,
+with every now and then a falling piece of turf sending forth a fresh
+blaze, shone full upon four young men who were dancing a measure
+something like a Scotch reel, keeping admirable time in their rapid
+movements to the capital tune the harper was playing.  They had their
+hats on when Owen first took his stand, but as they grew more and
+more animated they flung them away, and presently their shoes were
+kicked off with like disregard to the spot where they might happen to
+alight.  Shouts of applause followed any remarkable exertion of
+agility, in which each seemed to try to excel his companions.  At
+length, wearied and exhausted, they sat down, and the harper
+gradually changed to one of those wild, inspiring national airs for
+which he was so famous.  The thronged audience sat earnest and
+breathless, and you might have heard a pin drop, except when some
+maiden passed hurriedly, with flaring candle and busy look, through
+to the real kitchen beyond.  When he had finished his beautiful theme
+on "The March of the men of Harlech," he changed the measure again to
+"Tri chant o' bunnan" (Three hundred pounds), and immediately a most
+unmusical-looking man began chanting "Pennillion," or a sort of
+recitative stanzas, which were soon taken up by another, and this
+amusement lasted so long that Owen grew weary, and was thinking of
+retreating from his post by the door, when some little bustle was
+occasioned, on the opposite side of the room, by the entrance of a
+middle-aged man, and a young girl, apparently his daughter.  The man
+advanced to the bench occupied by the seniors of the party, who
+welcomed him with the usual pretty Welsh greeting, "Pa sut mae dy
+galon?" ("How is thy heart?") and drinking his health passed on to
+him the cup of excellent cwrw.  The girl, evidently a village belle,
+was as warmly greeted by the young men, while the girls eyed her
+rather askance with a half-jealous look, which Owen set down to the
+score of her extreme prettiness.  Like most Welsh women, she was of
+middle size as to height, but beautifully made, with the most perfect
+yet delicate roundness in every limb.  Her little mob-cap was
+carefully adjusted to a face which was excessively pretty, though it
+never could be called handsome.  It also was round, with the
+slightest tendency to the oval shape, richly coloured, though
+somewhat olive in complexion, with dimples in cheek and chin, and the
+most scarlet lips Owen had ever seen, that were too short to meet
+over the small pearly teeth.  The nose was the most defective
+feature; but the eyes were splendid.  They were so long, so lustrous,
+yet at times so very soft under their thick fringe of eyelash!  The
+nut-brown hair was carefully braided beneath the border of delicate
+lace:  it was evident the little village beauty knew how to make the
+most of all her attractions, for the gay colours which were displayed
+in her neckerchief were in complete harmony with the complexion.
+
+Owen was much attracted, while yet he was amused, by the evident
+coquetry the girl displayed, collecting around her a whole bevy of
+young fellows, for each of whom she seemed to have some gay speech,
+some attractive look or action.  In a few minutes young Griffiths of
+Bodowen was at her side, brought thither by a variety of idle
+motives, and as her undivided attention was given to the Welsh heir,
+her admirers, one by one, dropped off, to seat themselves by some
+less fascinating but more attentive fair one.  The more Owen
+conversed with the girl, the more he was taken; she had more wit and
+talent than he had fancied possible; a self-abandon and
+thoughtfulness, to boot, that seemed full of charms; and then her
+voice was so clear and sweet, and her actions so full of grace, that
+Owen was fascinated before he was well aware, and kept looking into
+her bright, blushing face, till her uplifted flashing eye fell
+beneath his earnest gaze.
+
+While it thus happened that they were silent--she from confusion at
+the unexpected warmth of his admiration, he from an unconsciousness
+of anything but the beautiful changes in her flexile countenance--the
+man whom Owen took for her father came up and addressed some
+observation to his daughter, from whence he glided into some
+commonplace though respectful remark to Owen, and at length engaging
+him in some slight, local conversation, he led the way to the account
+of a spot on the peninsula of Penthryn, where teal abounded, and
+concluded with begging Owen to allow him to show him the exact place,
+saying that whenever the young Squire felt so inclined, if he would
+honour him by a call at his house, he would take him across in his
+boat.  While Owen listened, his attention was not so much absorbed as
+to be unaware that the little beauty at his side was refusing one or
+two who endeavoured to draw her from her place by invitations to
+dance.  Flattered by his own construction of her refusals, he again
+directed all his attention to her, till she was called away by her
+father, who was leaving the scene of festivity.  Before he left he
+reminded Owen of his promise, and added -
+
+"Perhaps, sir, you do not know me.  My name is Ellis Pritchard, and I
+live at Ty Glas, on this side of Moel Gest; anyone can point it out
+to you."
+
+When the father and daughter had left, Owen slowly prepared for his
+ride home; but encountering the hostess, he could not resist asking a
+few questions relative to Ellis Pritchard and his pretty daughter.
+She answered shortly but respectfully, and then said, rather
+hesitatingly -
+
+"Master Griffiths, you know the triad, 'Tri pheth tebyg y naill i'r
+llall, ysgnbwr heb yd, mail deg heb ddiawd, a merch deg heb ei
+geirda' (Three things are alike:  a fine barn without corn, a fine
+cup without drink, a fine woman without her reputation)."  She
+hastily quitted him, and Owen rode slowly to his unhappy home.
+
+Ellis Pritchard, half farmer and half fisherman, was shrewd, and
+keen, and worldly; yet he was good-natured, and sufficiently generous
+to have become rather a popular man among his equals.  He had been
+struck with the young Squire's attention to his pretty daughter, and
+was not insensible to the advantages to be derived from it.  Nest
+would not be the first peasant girl, by any means, who had been
+transplanted to a Welsh manor-house as its mistress; and,
+accordingly, her father had shrewdly given the admiring young man
+some pretext for further opportunities of seeing her.
+
+As for Nest herself, she had somewhat of her father's worldliness,
+and was fully alive to the superior station of her new admirer, and
+quite prepared to slight all her old sweethearts on his account.  But
+then she had something more of feeling in her reckoning; she had not
+been insensible to the earnest yet comparatively refined homage which
+Owen paid her; she had noticed his expressive and occasionally
+handsome countenance with admiration, and was flattered by his so
+immediately singling her out from her companions.  As to the hint
+which Martha Thomas had thrown out, it is enough to say that Nest was
+very giddy, and that she was motherless.  She had high spirits and a
+great love of admiration, or, to use a softer term, she loved to
+please; men, women, and children, all, she delighted to gladden with
+her smile and voice.  She coquetted, and flirted, and went to the
+extreme lengths of Welsh courtship, till the seniors of the village
+shook their heads, and cautioned their daughters against her
+acquaintance.  If not absolutely guilty, she had too frequently been
+on the verge of guilt.
+
+Even at the time, Martha Thomas's hint made but little impression on
+Owen, for his senses were otherwise occupied; but in a few days the
+recollection thereof had wholly died away, and one warm glorious
+summer's day, he bent his steps toward Ellis Pritchard's with a
+beating heart; for, except some very slight flirtations at Oxford,
+Owen had never been touched; his thoughts, his fancy, had been
+otherwise engaged.
+
+Ty Glas was built against one of the lower rocks of Moel Gest, which,
+indeed, formed a side to the low, lengthy house.  The materials of
+the cottage were the shingly stones which had fallen from above,
+plastered rudely together, with deep recesses for the small oblong
+windows.  Altogether, the exterior was much ruder than Owen had
+expected; but inside there seemed no lack of comforts.  The house was
+divided into two apartments, one large, roomy, and dark, into which
+Owen entered immediately; and before the blushing Nest came from the
+inner chamber (for she had seen the young Squire coming, and hastily
+gone to make some alteration in her dress), he had had time to look
+around him, and note the various little particulars of the room.
+Beneath the window (which commanded a magnificent view) was an oaken
+dresser, replete with drawers and cupboards, and brightly polished to
+a rich dark colour.  In the farther part of the room Owen could at
+first distinguish little, entering as he did from the glaring
+sunlight, but he soon saw that there were two oaken beds, closed up
+after the manner of the Welsh:  in fact, the domitories of Ellis
+Pritchard and the man who served under him, both on sea and on land.
+There was the large wheel used for spinning wool, left standing on
+the middle of the floor, as if in use only a few minutes before; and
+around the ample chimney hung flitches of bacon, dried kids'-flesh,
+and fish, that was in process of smoking for winter's store.
+
+Before Nest had shyly dared to enter, her father, who had been
+mending his nets down below, and seen Owen winding up to the house,
+came in and gave him a hearty yet respectful welcome; and then Nest,
+downcast and blushing, full of the consciousness which her father's
+advice and conversation had not failed to inspire, ventured to join
+them.  To Owen's mind this reserve and shyness gave her new charms.
+
+It was too bright, too hot, too anything to think of going to shoot
+teal till later in the day, and Owen was delighted to accept a
+hesitating invitation to share the noonday meal.  Some ewe-milk
+cheese, very hard and dry, oat-cake, slips of the dried kids'-flesh
+broiled, after having been previously soaked in water for a few
+minutes, delicious butter and fresh butter-milk, with a liquor called
+"diod griafol" (made from the berries of the Sorbus aucuparia,
+infused in water and then fermented), composed the frugal repast; but
+there was something so clean and neat, and withal such a true
+welcome, that Owen had seldom enjoyed a meal so much.  Indeed, at
+that time of day the Welsh squires differed from the farmers more in
+the plenty and rough abundance of their manner of living than in the
+refinement of style of their table.
+
+At the present day, down in Llyn, the Welsh gentry are not a wit
+behind their Saxon equals in the expensive elegances of life; but
+then (when there was but one pewter-service in all Northumberland)
+there was nothing in Ellis Pritchard's mode of living that grated on
+the young Squire's sense of refinement.
+
+Little was said by that young pair of wooers during the meal; the
+father had all the conversation to himself, apparently heedless of
+the ardent looks and inattentive mien of his guest.  As Owen became
+more serious in his feelings, he grew more timid in their expression,
+and at night, when they returned from their shooting-excursion, the
+caress he gave Nest was almost as bashfully offered as received.
+
+This was but the first of a series of days devoted to Nest in
+reality, though at first he thought some little disguise of his
+object was necessary.  The past, the future, was all forgotten in
+those happy days of love.
+
+And every worldly plan, every womanly wile was put in practice by
+Ellis Pritchard and his daughter, to render his visits agreeable and
+alluring.  Indeed, the very circumstance of his being welcome was
+enough to attract the poor young man, to whom the feeling so produced
+was new and full of charms.  He left a home where the certainty of
+being thwarted made him chary in expressing his wishes; where no
+tones of love ever fell on his ear, save those addressed to others;
+where his presence or absence was a matter of utter indifference; and
+when he entered Ty Glas, all, down to the little cur which, with
+clamorous barkings, claimed a part of his attention, seemed to
+rejoice.  His account of his day's employment found a willing
+listener in Ellis; and when he passed on to Nest, busy at her wheel
+or at her churn, the deepened colour, the conscious eye, and the
+gradual yielding of herself up to his lover-like caress, had worlds
+of charms.  Ellis Pritchard was a tenant on the Bodowen estate, and
+therefore had reasons in plenty for wishing to keep the young
+Squire's visits secret; and Owen, unwilling to disturb the sunny calm
+of these halcyon days by any storm at home, was ready to use all the
+artifice which Ellis suggested as to the mode of his calls at Ty
+Glas.  Nor was he unaware of the probable, nay, the hoped-for
+termination of these repeated days of happiness.  He was quite
+conscious that the father wished for nothing better than the marriage
+of his daughter to the heir of Bodowen; and when Nest had hidden her
+face in his neck, which was encircled by her clasping arms, and
+murmured into his ear her acknowledgment of love, he felt only too
+desirous of finding some one to love him for ever.  Though not highly
+principled, he would not have tried to obtain Nest on other terms
+save those of marriage:  he did so pine after enduring love, and
+fancied he should have bound her heart for evermore to his, when they
+had taken the solemn oaths of matrimony.
+
+There was no great difficulty attending a secret marriage at such a
+place and at such a time.  One gusty autumn day, Ellis ferried them
+round Penthryn to Llandutrwyn, and there saw his little Nest become
+future Lady of Bodowen.
+
+How often do we see giddy, coquetting, restless girls become sobered
+by marriage?  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.
+
+"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 Gest--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.  As he was thus employed, he tried to
+conjecture what his father's feelings would be on finding that his
+once-loved son was gone away for ever.  Would he then awaken to
+regret for the conduct which had driven him from home, and bitterly
+think on the loving and caressing boy who haunted his footsteps in
+former days?  Or, alas! would he only feel that an obstacle to his
+daily happiness--to his contentment with his wife, and his strange,
+doting affection for the child--was taken away?  Would they make
+merry over the heir's departure?  Then he thought of Nest--the young
+childless mother, whose heart had not yet realized her fulness of
+desolation.  Poor Nest! so loving as she was, so devoted to her
+child--how should he console her?  He pictured her away in a strange
+land, pining for her native mountains, and refusing to be comforted
+because her child was not.
+
+Even this thought of the home-sickness that might possibly beset Nest
+hardly made him hesitate in his determination; so strongly had the
+idea taken possession of him that only by putting miles and leagues
+between him and his father could he avert the doom which seemed
+blending itself with the very purposes of his life as long as he
+stayed in proximity with the slayer of his child.
+
+He had now nearly completed his hasty work of preparation, and was
+full of tender thoughts of his wife, when the door opened, and the
+elfish Robert peered in, in search of some of his brother's
+possessions.  On seeing Owen he hesitated, but then came boldly
+forward, and laid his hand on Owen's arm, saying,
+
+"Nesta yr buten!  How is Nest yr buten?"
+
+He looked maliciously into Owen's face to mark the effect of his
+words, but was terrified at the expression he read there.  He started
+off and ran to the door, while Owen tried to check himself, saying
+continually, "He is but a child.  He does not understand the meaning
+of what he says.  He is but a child!"  Still Robert, now in fancied
+security, kept calling out his insulting words, and Owen's hand was
+on his gun, grasping it as if to restrain his rising fury.
+
+But when Robert passed on daringly to mocking words relating to the
+poor dead child, Owen could bear it no longer; and before the boy was
+well aware, Owen was fiercely holding him in an iron clasp with one
+hand, while he struck him hard with the other.
+
+In a minute he checked himself.  He paused, relaxed his grasp, and,
+to his horror, he saw Robert sink to the ground; in fact, the lad was
+half-stunned, half-frightened, and thought it best to assume
+insensibility.
+
+Owen--miserable Owen--seeing him lie there prostrate, was bitterly
+repentant, and would have dragged him to the carved settle, and done
+all he could to restore him to his senses, but at this instant the
+Squire came in.
+
+Probably, when the household at Bodowen rose that morning, there was
+but one among them ignorant of the heir's relation to Nest Pritchard
+and her child; for secret as he tried to make his visits to Ty Glas,
+they had been too frequent not to be noticed, and Nest's altered
+conduct--no longer frequenting dances and merry-makings--was a
+strongly corroborative circumstance.  But Mrs. Griffiths' influence
+reigned paramount, if unacknowledged, at Bodowen, and till she
+sanctioned the disclosure, none would dare to tell the Squire.
+
+Now, however, the time drew near when it suited her to make her
+husband aware of the connection his son had formed; so, with many
+tears, and much seeming reluctance, she broke the intelligence to
+him--taking good care, at the same time, to inform him of the light
+character Nest had borne.  Nor did she confine this evil reputation
+to her conduct before her marriage, but insinuated that even to this
+day she was a "woman of the grove and brake"--for centuries the Welsh
+term of opprobrium for the loosest female characters.
+
+Squire Griffiths easily tracked Owen to Ty Glas; and without any aim
+but the gratification of his furious anger, followed him to upbraid
+as we have seen.  But he left the cottage even more enraged against
+his son than he had entered it, and returned home to hear the evil
+suggestions of the stepmother.  He had heard a slight scuffle in
+which he caught the tones of Robert's voice, as he passed along the
+hall, and an instant afterwards he saw the apparently lifeless body
+of his little favourite dragged along by the culprit Owen--the marks
+of strong passion yet visible on his face.  Not loud, but bitter and
+deep were the evil words which the father bestowed on the son; and as
+Owen stood proudly and sullenly silent, disdaining all exculpation of
+himself in the presence of one who had wrought him so much graver--so
+fatal an injury--Robert's mother entered the room.  At sight of her
+natural emotion the wrath of the Squire was redoubled, and his wild
+suspicions that this violence of Owen's to Robert was a premeditated
+act appeared like the proven truth through the mists of rage.  He
+summoned domestics as if to guard his own and his wife's life from
+the attempts of his son; and the servants stood wondering around--now
+gazing at Mrs. Griffiths, alternately scolding and sobbing, while she
+tried to restore the lad from his really bruised and half-unconscious
+state; now at the fierce and angry Squire; and now at the sad and
+silent Owen.  And he--he was hardly aware of their looks of wonder
+and terror; his father's words fell on a deadened ear; for before his
+eyes there rose a pale dead babe, and in that lady's violent sounds
+of grief he heard the wailing of a more sad, more hopeless mother.
+For by this time the lad Robert had opened his eyes, and though
+evidently suffering a good deal from the effects of Owen's blows, was
+fully conscious of all that was passing around him.
+
+Had Owen been left to his own nature, his heart would have worked
+itself to doubly love the boy whom he had injured; but he was
+stubborn from injustice, and hardened by suffering.  He refused to
+vindicate himself; he made no effort to resist the imprisonment the
+Squire had decreed, until a surgeon's opinion of the real extent of
+Robert's injuries was made known.  It was not until the door was
+locked and barred, as if upon some wild and furious beast, that the
+recollection of poor Nest, without his comforting presence, came into
+his mind.  Oh! thought he, how she would be wearying, pining for his
+tender sympathy; if, indeed, she had recovered the shock of mind
+sufficiently to be sensible of consolation!  What would she think of
+his absence?  Could she imagine he believed his father's words, and
+had left her, in this her sore trouble and bereavement?  The thought
+madened him, and he looked around for some mode of escape.
+
+He had been confined in a small unfurnished room on the first floor,
+wainscoted, and carved all round, with a massy door, calculated to
+resist the attempts of a dozen strong men, even had he afterward been
+able to escape from the house unseen, unheard.  The window was placed
+(as is common in old Welsh houses) over the fire-place; with
+branching chimneys on either hand, forming a sort of projection on
+the outside.  By this outlet his escape was easy, even had he been
+less determined and desperate than he was.  And when he had
+descended, with a little care, a little winding, he might elude all
+observation and pursue his original intention of going to Ty Glas.
+
+The storm had abated, and watery sunbeams were gilding the bay, as
+Owen descended from the window, and, stealing along in the broad
+afternoon shadows, made his way to the little plateau of green turf
+in the garden at the top of a steep precipitous rock, down the abrupt
+face of which he had often dropped, by means of a well-secured rope,
+into the small sailing-boat (his father's present, alas! in days gone
+by) which lay moored in the deep sea-water below.  He had always kept
+his boat there, because it was the nearest available spot to the
+house; but before he could reach the place--unless, indeed, he
+crossed a broad sun-lighted piece of ground in full view of the
+windows on that side of the house, and without the shadow of a single
+sheltering tree or shrub--he had to skirt round a rude semicircle of
+underwood, which would have been considered as a shrubbery had any
+one taken pains with it.  Step by step he stealthily moved along--
+hearing voices now, again seeing his father and stepmother in no
+distant walk, the Squire evidently caressing and consoling his wife,
+who seemed to be urging some point with great vehemence, again forced
+to crouch down to avoid being seen by the cook, returning from the
+rude kitchen-garden with a handful of herbs.  This was the way the
+doomed heir of Bodowen left his ancestral house for ever, and hoped
+to leave behind him his doom.  At length he reached the plateau--he
+breathed more freely.  He stooped to discover the hidden coil of
+rope, kept safe and dry in a hole under a great round flat piece of
+rock:  his head was bent down; he did not see his father approach,
+nor did he hear his footstep for the rush of blood to his head in the
+stooping effort of lifting the stone; the Squire had grappled with
+him before he rose up again, before he fully knew whose hands
+detained him, now, when his liberty of person and action seemed
+secure.  He made a vigorous struggle to free himself; he wrestled
+with his father for a moment--he pushed him hard, and drove him on to
+the great displaced stone, all unsteady in its balance.
+
+Down went the Squire, down into the deep waters below--down after him
+went Owen, half consciously, half unconsciously, partly compelled by
+the sudden cessation of any opposing body, partly from a vehement
+irrepressible impulse to rescue his father.  But he had instinctively
+chosen a safer place in the deep seawater pool than that into which
+his push had sent his father.  The Squire had hit his head with much
+violence against the side of the boat, in his fall; it is, indeed,
+doubtful whether he was not killed before ever he sank into the sea.
+But Owen knew nothing save that the awful doom seemed even now
+present.  He plunged down, he dived below the water in search of the
+body which had none of the elasticity of life to buoy it up; he saw
+his father in those depths, he clutched at him, he brought him up and
+cast him, a dead weight, into the boat, and exhausted by the effort,
+he had begun himself to sink again before he instinctively strove to
+rise and climb into the rocking boat.  There lay his father, with a
+deep dent in the side of his head where the skull had been fractured
+by his fall; his face blackened by the arrested course of the blood.
+Owen felt his pulse, his heart--all was still.  He called him by his
+name.
+
+"Father, father!" he cried, "come back! come back!  You never knew
+how I loved you! how I could love you still--if--Oh God!"
+
+And the thought of his little child rose before him.  "Yes, father,"
+he cried afresh, "you never knew how he fell--how he died!  Oh, if I
+had but had patience to tell you!  If you would but have borne with
+me and listened!  And now it is over!  Oh father! father!"
+
+Whether she had heard this wild wailing voice, or whether it was only
+that she missed her husband and wanted him for some little every-day
+question, or, as was perhaps more likely, she had discovered Owen's
+escape, and come to inform her husband of it, I do not know, but on
+the rock, right above his head, as it seemed, Owen heard his
+stepmother calling her husband.
+
+He was silent, and softly pushed the boat right under the rock till
+the sides grated against the stones, and the overhanging branches
+concealed him and it from all not on a level with the water.  Wet as
+he was, he lay down by his dead father the better to conceal himself;
+and, somehow, the action recalled those early days of childhood--the
+first in the Squire's widowhood--when Owen had shared his father's
+bed, and used to waken him in the morning to hear one of the old
+Welsh legends.  How long he lay thus--body chilled, and brain hard-
+working through the heavy pressure of a reality as terrible as a
+nightmare--he never knew; but at length he roused himself up to think
+of Nest.
+
+Drawing out a great sail, he covered up the body of his father with
+it where he lay in the bottom of the boat.  Then with his numbed
+hands he took the oars, and pulled out into the more open sea toward
+Criccaeth.  He skirted along the coast till he found a shadowed cleft
+in the dark rocks; to that point he rowed, and anchored his boat
+close in land.  Then he mounted, staggering, half longing to fall
+into the dark waters and be at rest--half instinctively finding out
+the surest foot-rests on that precipitous face of rock, till he was
+high up, safe landed on the turfy summit.  He ran off, as if pursued,
+toward Penmorfa; he ran with maddened energy.  Suddenly he paused,
+turned, ran again with the same speed, and threw himself prone on the
+summit, looking down into his boat with straining eyes to see if
+there had been any movement of life--any displacement of a fold of
+sail-cloth.  It was all quiet deep down below, but as he gazed the
+shifting light gave the appearance of a slight movement.  Owen ran to
+a lower part of the rock, stripped, plunged into the water, and swam
+to the boat.  When there, all was still--awfully still!  For a minute
+or two, he dared not lift up the cloth.  Then reflecting that the
+same terror might beset him again--of leaving his father unaided
+while yet a spark of life lingered--he removed the shrouding cover.
+The eyes looked into his with a dead stare!  He closed the lids and
+bound up the jaw.  Again he looked.  This time he raised himself out
+of the water and kissed the brow.
+
+"It was my doom, father!  It would have been better if I had died at
+my birth!"
+
+Daylight was fading away.  Precious daylight!  He swam back, dressed,
+and set off afresh for Penmorfa.  When he opened the door of Ty Glas,
+Ellis Pritchard looked at him reproachfully, from his seat in the
+darkly-shadowed chimney-corner.
+
+"You're come at last," said he.  "One of our kind (i.e., station)
+would not have left his wife to mourn by herself over her dead child;
+nor would one of our kind have let his father kill his own true son.
+I've a good mind to take her from you for ever."
+
+"I did not tell him," cried Nest, looking piteously at her husband;
+"he made me tell him part, and guessed the rest."
+
+She was nursing her babe on her knee as if it was alive.  Owen stood
+before Ellis Pritchard.
+
+"Be silent," said he, quietly.  "Neither words nor deeds but what are
+decreed can come to pass.  I was set to do my work, this hundred
+years and more.  The time waited for me, and the man waited for me.
+I have done what was foretold of me for generations!"
+
+Ellis Pritchard knew the old tale of the prophecy, and believed in it
+in a dull, dead kind of way, but somehow never thought it would come
+to pass in his time.  Now, however, he understood it all in a moment,
+though he mistook Owen's nature so much as to believe that the deed
+was intentionally done, out of revenge for the death of his boy; and
+viewing it in this light, Ellis thought it little more than a just
+punishment for the cause of all the wild despairing sorrow he had
+seen his only child suffer during the hours of this long afternoon.
+But he knew the law would not so regard it.  Even the lax Welsh law
+of those days could not fail to examine into the death of a man of
+Squire Griffith's standing.  So the acute Ellis thought how he could
+conceal the culprit for a time.
+
+"Come," said he; "don't look so scared!  It was your doom, not your
+fault;" and he laid a hand on Owen's shoulder.
+
+"You're wet," said he, suddenly.  "Where have you been?  Nest, your
+husband is dripping, drookit wet.  That's what makes him look so blue
+and wan."
+
+Nest softly laid her baby in its cradle; she was half stupefied with
+crying, and had not understood to what Owen alluded, when he spoke of
+his doom being fulfilled, if indeed she had heard the words.
+
+Her touch thawed Owen's miserable heart.
+
+"Oh, Nest!" said he, clasping her in his arms; "do you love me still-
+-can you love me, my own darling?"
+
+"Why not?" asked she, her eyes filling with tears.  "I only love you
+more than ever, for you were my poor baby's father!"
+
+"But, Nest--Oh, tell her, Ellis! YOU know."
+
+"No need, no need!" said Ellis.  "She's had enough to think on.
+Bustle, my girl, and get out my Sunday clothes."
+
+"I don't understand," said Nest, putting her hand up to her head.
+"What is to tell? and why are you so wet?  God help me for a poor
+crazed thing, for I cannot guess at the meaning of your words and
+your strange looks!  I only know my baby is dead!" and she burst into
+tears.
+
+"Come, Nest! go and fetch him a change, quick!" and as she meekly
+obeyed, too languid to strive further to understand, Ellis said
+rapidly to Owen, in a low, hurried voice -
+
+"Are you meaning that the Squire is dead?  Speak low, lest she hear.
+Well, well, no need to talk about how he died.  It was sudden, I see;
+and we must all of us die; and he'll have to be buried.  It's well
+the night is near.  And I should not wonder now if you'd like to
+travel for a bit; it would do Nest a power of good; and then--there's
+many a one goes out of his own house and never comes back again; and-
+-I trust he's not lying in his own house--and there's a stir for a
+bit, and a search, and a wonder--and, by-and-by, the heir just steps
+in, as quiet as can be.  And that's what you'll do, and bring Nest to
+Bodowen after all.  Nay, child, better stockings nor those; find the
+blue woollens I bought at Llanrwst fair.  Only don't lose heart.
+It's done now and can't be helped.  It was the piece of work set you
+to do from the days of the Tudors, they say.  And he deserved it.
+Look in yon cradle.  So tell us where he is, and I'll take heart of
+grace and see what can be done for him."
+
+But Owen sat wet and haggard, looking into the peat fire as if for
+visions of the past, and never heeding a word Ellis said.  Nor did he
+move when Nest brought the armful of dry clothes.
+
+"Come, rouse up, man!" said Ellis, growing impatient.  But he neither
+spoke nor moved.
+
+"What is the matter, father?" asked Nest, bewildered.
+
+Ellis kept on watching Owen for a minute or two, till on his
+daughter's repetition of the question, he said -
+
+"Ask him yourself, Nest."
+
+"Oh, husband, what is it?" said she, kneeling down and bringing her
+face to a level with his.
+
+"Don't you know?" said he, heavily.  "You won't love me when you do
+know.  And yet it was not my doing:  it was my doom."
+
+"What does he mean, father?" asked Nest, looking up; but she caught a
+gesture from Ellis urging her to go on questioning her husband.
+
+"I will love you, husband, whatever has happened.  Only let me know
+the worst."
+
+A pause, during which Nest and Ellis hung breathless.
+
+"My father is dead, Nest."
+
+Nest caught her breath with a sharp gasp.
+
+"God forgive him!" said she, thinking on her babe.
+
+"God forgive ME!" said Owen.
+
+"You did not--" Nest stopped.
+
+"Yes, I did.  Now you know it.  It was my doom.  How could I help it?
+The devil helped me--he placed the stone so that my father fell.  I
+jumped into the water to save him.  I did, indeed, Nest.  I was
+nearly drowned myself.  But he was dead--dead--killed by the fall!"
+
+"Then he is safe at the bottom of the sea?" said Ellis, with hungry
+eagerness.
+
+"No, he is not; he lies in my boat," said Owen, shivering a little,
+more at the thought of his last glimpse at his father's face than
+from cold.
+
+"Oh, husband, change your wet clothes!" pleaded Nest, to whom the
+death of the old man was simply a horror with which she had nothing
+to do, while her husband's discomfort was a present trouble.
+
+While she helped him to take off the wet garments which he would
+never have had energy enough to remove of himself, Ellis was busy
+preparing food, and mixing a great tumbler of spirits and hot water.
+He stood over the unfortunate young man and compelled him to eat and
+drink, and made Nest, too, taste some mouthfuls--all the while
+planning in his own mind how best to conceal what had been done, and
+who had done it; not altogether without a certain feeling of vulgar
+triumph in the reflection that Nest, as she stood there, carelessly
+dressed, dishevelled in her grief, was in reality the mistress of
+Bodowen, than which Ellis Pritchard had never seen a grander house,
+though he believed such might exist.
+
+By dint of a few dexterous questions he found out all he wanted to
+know from Owen, as he ate and drank.  In fact, it was almost a relief
+to Owen to dilute the horror by talking about it.  Before the meal
+was done, if meal it could be called, Ellis knew all he cared to
+know.
+
+"Now, Nest, on with your cloak and haps.  Pack up what needs to go
+with you, for both you and your husband must be half way to Liverpool
+by to-morrow's morn.  I'll take you past Rhyl Sands in my fishing-
+boat, with yours in tow; and, once over the dangerous part, I'll
+return with my cargo of fish, and learn how much stir there is at
+Bodowen.  Once safe hidden in Liverpool, no one will know where you
+are, and you may stay quiet till your time comes for returning."
+
+"I will never come home again," said Owen, doggedly.  "The place is
+accursed!"
+
+"Hoot! be guided by me, man.  Why, it was but an accident, after all!
+And we'll land at the Holy Island, at the Point of Llyn; there is an
+old cousin of mine, the parson, there--for the Pritchards have known
+better days, Squire--and we'll bury him there.  It was but an
+accident, man.  Hold up your head!  You and Nest will come home yet
+and fill Bodowen with children, and I'll live to see it."
+
+"Never!" said Owen.  "I am the last male of my race, and the son has
+murdered his father!"
+
+Nest came in laden and cloaked.  Ellis was for hurrying them off.
+The fire was extinguished, the door was locked.
+
+"Here, Nest, my darling, let me take your bundle while I guide you
+down the steps."  But her husband bent his head, and spoke never a
+word.  Nest gave her father the bundle (already loaded with such
+things as he himself had seen fit to take), but clasped another
+softly and tightly.
+
+"No one shall help me with this," said she, in a low voice.
+
+Her father did not understand her; her husband did, and placed his
+strong helping arm round her waist, and blessed her.
+
+"We will all go together, Nest," said he.  "But where?" and he looked
+up at the storm-tossed clouds coming up from windward.
+
+"It is a dirty night," said Ellis, turning his head round to speak to
+his companions at last.  "But never fear, we'll weather it?"  And he
+made for the place where his vessel was moored.  Then he stopped and
+thought a moment.
+
+"Stay here!" said he, addressing his companions.  "I may meet folk,
+and I shall, maybe, have to hear and to speak.  You wait here till I
+come back for you."  So they sat down close together in a corner of
+the path.
+
+"Let me look at him, Nest!" said Owen.
+
+She took her little dead son out from under her shawl; they looked at
+his waxen face long and tenderly; kissed it, and covered it up
+reverently and softly.
+
+"Nest," said Owen, at last, "I feel as though my father's spirit had
+been near us, and as if it had bent over our poor little one.  A
+strange chilly air met me as I stooped over him.  I could fancy the
+spirit of our pure, blameless child guiding my father's safe over the
+paths of the sky to the gates of heaven, and escaping those accursed
+dogs of hell that were darting up from the north in pursuit of souls
+not five minutes since.
+
+"Don't talk so, Owen," said Nest, curling up to him in the darkness
+of the copse.  "Who knows what may be listening?"
+
+The pair were silent, in a kind of nameless terror, till they heard
+Ellis Pritchard's loud whisper.  "Where are ye?  Come along, soft and
+steady.  There were folk about even now, and the Squire is missed,
+and madam in a fright."
+
+They went swiftly down to the little harbour, and embarked on board
+Ellis's boat.  The sea heaved and rocked even there; the torn clouds
+went hurrying overhead in a wild tumultuous manner.
+
+They put out into the bay; still in silence, except when some word of
+command was spoken by Ellis, who took the management of the vessel.
+They made for the rocky shore, where Owen's boat had been moored.  It
+was not there.  It had broken loose and disappeared.
+
+Owen sat down and covered his face.  This last event, so simple and
+natural in itself, struck on his excited and superstitious mind in an
+extraordinary manner.  He had hoped for a certain reconciliation, so
+to say, by laying his father and his child both in one grave.  But
+now it appeared to him as if there was to be no forgiveness; as if
+his father revolted even in death against any such peaceful union.
+Ellis took a practical view of the case.  If the Squire's body was
+found drifting about in a boat known to belong to his son, it would
+create terrible suspicion as to the manner of his death.  At one time
+in the evening, Ellis had thought of persuading Owen to let him bury
+the Squire in a sailor's grave; or, in other words, to sew him up in
+a spare sail, and weighting it well, sink it for ever.  He had not
+broached the subject, from a certain fear of Owen's passionate
+repugnance to the plan; otherwise, if he had consented, they might
+have returned to Penmorfa, and passively awaited the course of
+events, secure of Owen's succession to Bodowen, sooner or later; or
+if Owen was too much overwhelmed by what had happened, Ellis would
+have advised him to go away for a short time, and return when the
+buzz and the talk was over.
+
+Now it was different.  It was absolutely necessary that they should
+leave the country for a time.  Through those stormy waters they must
+plough their way that very night.  Ellis had no fear--would have had
+no fear, at any rate, with Owen as he had been a week, a day ago; but
+with Owen wild, despairing, helpless, fate-pursued, what could he do?
+
+They sailed into the tossing darkness, and were never more seen of
+men.
+
+The house of Bodowen has sunk into damp, dark ruins; and a Saxon
+stranger holds the lands of the Griffiths.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext Doom of the Griffiths, by Elizabeth Gaskell
+
diff --git a/old/dmgrf10.zip b/old/dmgrf10.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0f1a712
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/dmgrf10.zip