Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/58

50 gate he was near out o’ sight. He went a’most as fast as the cat did.”

“How long was it, after you saw him, before you met young Broom, and heard that somebody was in the pond?”

“Please, sir, ’twas a’most directly. I was running then, I was.”

As the boy’s answer fell upon the room a conviction stole over most of those collected in it, that this man must have been the one who had been heard in dispute with Rachel Frost.

“Were there no signs about him by which you could recognise him?” pursued Mr. Verner. “What did he look like? Was he tall or short?”

“Please, sir, he were very tall.”

“Could you see his dress? Was it like a gentleman’s or a labourer’s?”

“Please, sir, I think it looked like a gentleman’s—like one o’ the gentlemen’s at Verner’s Pride.”

“Whose? Like which of the gentlemen’s?” rung out Mr. Verner’s voice, sharply and sternly, after a moment’s pause of surprise, for he evidently had not expected the answer.

“Please, sir, I dun know which. The clothes looked dark, and the man were as tall as the gentlemen, or as Calves.”

“Calves?” echoed Mr. Verner, puzzled.

John Massingbird broke into an involuntary smile. He knew that their tall footman, Bennet, was universally styled “Calves” in the village. Dan Duff probably believed it to be his registered name.

But Frederick Massingbird was looking dark and threatening. The suspicion hinted at—if you can call it a suspicion—angered him. The villagers were wont to say that Mr. Frederick had ten times more pride than Mr. John. They were not far wrong—Mr. John had none at all.

“Boy!” Frederick sternly said, “what grounds have you for saying it was like one of the gentlemen?”

Dan Duff began to sob.

“I dun know who it were,” he said; “indeed I don’t. But he were tall, and his clothes looked dark. Please, sir, if you basted me, I couldn’t tell no more.”

It was believed that he could not. Mr. Verner dismissed him, and John Massingbird, according to order, went to bring in Mrs. Roy.

He was some little time before he found her. She was discovered at last in a corner of the steward’s room, seated on a low stool, her head bent down on her knees.

“Now, ma’am,” said John, with unwonted politeness, “you are being waited for.”

She looked up, startled. She rose from her low seat, and began to tremble, her lips moving, her teeth chattering, but no sound came forth.

“You are not going to your hanging, Dinah Roy,” said John Massingbird, by way of consolation. “Mr. Verner is gathering the evidence about this unfortunate business, and it is your turn to go in and state what you know, or saw.”

She staggered back a step or two, and fell against the wall, her face changing to one of livid terror.

“I—I—saw nothing!” she gasped.

“Oh, yes, you did! Come along!”

She put up her hands in a supplicating attitude, she was on the point of sinking on her knees in her abject fear. At that moment the stern face of her husband was pushed in at the door. She sprung up as if electrified, and meekly followed John Massingbird.

changes have come over South Wales—even in the memory of an ordinary man—than perhaps over any other part of the United Kingdom. Some districts, as for instance much of the mineral country of Glamorganshire, resemble the vigorous bursts of Australian life, rather than the gradual efflorescence so common in British civilisation. In the extreme west corner, increased railroad communication has induced corresponding activity in the harbours and dockyards. Larger supplies of wealth generally tempt men to the seaside; therefore the Mumbles, Gower, and Tenby are yearly more crowded. Before the influx of English, old Welsh customs are fast dying out. Crinoline, we are glad to see, is superseding the hideous beaver hat in which not even the handsomest woman could ever look fascinating. The yeoman no longer—except in the most remote and mountainous districts,—rides to market with his wife behind him on a pillion. If you inquire the way in your most polite English (to make up for ignorance of Welsh), the haughty Cymro will no longer reply, contemptuously, as happened to a friend of ours, “Sassenach diaoul” (English devil). It is gratifying to state, that before schoolmasters and telegraphs, even the national sin of drunkenness is lessening, remnant though it be of the heroic days when Taliesin and his compeers quaffed bowls of metheglin. So thoroughly are the Welsh identifying themselves with the English, that, ere long their language seems likely to be lost; and some fair daughter of the great family of Jones will probably become as celebrated in the principality as Dolly Pentreath is in the West of England—the last old woman who could speak Cornish.

South Wales, as known to the ancients, was inhabited by three powerful tribes. Under their King Caractacus, the chief of these, the Silures (dwelling in Monmouth, Hereford, Brecknock and Glamorgan), were especially troublesome to the Romans. The name of Siluria is better known to us, however, through the geological researches of Sir R. Murchison, though, with him, it is extended to embrace North Wales as well. The northern counties excel Siluria proper in grandeur of scenery; but any one who is a stranger to South Wales would be surprised at its very respectable mountains. The Breconshire Beacons hold their heads very high; and if the rest of the southern mountains cannot compete with those of the north, they have in some sort an interest of their own, so closely connected are they with the life of the immense collier population toiling at their bases, and even, like the giants of old, whelmed under their weight.

When every one, then, is seeking a new country