From Across the Ancient Waters (19 page)

It was time for a response. The viscount wrote:

A week later he received the following reply:

By now, however, having stewed on the matter for another week and having carried out further research, Westbrooke’s suspicions had nowise been alleviated. Indeed, they were greater than ever.

As a result, Litchfield received a second and more pointed communication from Lord Snowdon:

Litchfield swore lightly as he read; then his fist slammed down on his desk. This was not going to be as easy as he had hoped. He would have to consider his next move with care. To tell this provincial Westbrooke
everything
could spell doom to his whole scheme.

Shoes, Horses, and Friends

C
odnor Barrie’s daughter usually kept to the side streets when walking through Llanfryniog. Thankfully Grannie’s cottage lay where she could easily reach it and keep mostly out of sight.

This girl of far-seeing eye but faltering tongue could welcome harshness from the elements of God’s world with glee. But meanness from those of her own kind was a harshness far different that she could not understand. She was child enough to be hurt by the lashes of unkind tongues. She thus kept to herself within the shadows of the village, although this habit contributed all the more to her reputation among the more low-minded of its inhabitants.

She climbed, on this summer’s day, from the grass and rocks down to the southern sandy tip of the Mochras Head beach, removing her shoes the moment she hit bare sand, and now wandered along it northward in the direction of the village. She climbed through the rocks halfway along more easily with bare feet than Percy had with his shoes. Before reaching the harbor in which the few boats were tied at the northeast end of the protected bay, she turned and scampered up the beach onto one of Llanfryniog’s outlying dirt streets, still carrying her shoes. From there she ran in the direction of Grannie’s cottage.

A few jeers and taunts came flying as she passed, mostly from school classmates, whose idleness led them to no good. But a friendly voice soon brought her swift barefoot steps to a stop.

“Hey there, young lady,” it said. “Where’ll you be bound in such a hurry?”

Gwyneth turned toward the wide doors of the blacksmith’s shop, which stood open to the day’s sunshine. “H–h–hello, Mr. Radnor,” she said as she caught her breath. “I’m on my way to Grannie’s.”

“She’s a fine woman, your Grannie.”

“N–not everyone thinks so,” replied Gwyneth, walking toward the Westbrooke groom, one of her few friends in the place.

“Not everyone has eyes to see people as they are,” he rejoined with a smile. “But I know what she’s made of. Are you taking your shoes to the cobbler?” he added, nodding toward her hands. “He won’t be working today, I’m thinking.”

“No. I took them off s–s–so I could feel the sand in my t–t–toes.”

“The sand is one thing, hard streets are another.”

“The shoes are more uncomfortable than the stones. I’d n–n–never wear shoes if I didn’t have to!”

“The mare’s done,” said a voice behind them. The next moment appeared from the shadows the hulking form of the smithy. With a blackened leather apron tied around his thick waist, rippling muscular chest and arms bare and perspiring from his work over the fiery forge, leather reins held in his gloved hands, the huge man led the horse out into the street with a slow
clop, clop, clop
behind him. His great black eyebrows creased and his eyes darkened as he saw with whom his customer had taken up conversation. He handed the reins to the groom and turned inside without another word.

“You see you’re not the only one concerned about shoes,” said Radnor as he began walking along the street with Gwyneth at his side. “But I came to the horse cobbler to get a
new
set of shoes for Red Rhud, not get them taken
off
like you did yours. Would you like to lead her?”

“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Gwyneth. “M–m–may I really?”

With a smile, the groom handed her the reins.

Gwyneth dropped her two shoes on the hard-packed dirt then took the reins with one hand and with the other gently stroked the long face and nose and whispered a few unintelligible words to the mare.

Radnor picked up her shoes and resumed on his way.

Gwyneth followed, speaking quietly to the great beast at her side. Despite her occasionally wild behavior with a rider on her back, the huge mare gave every appearance of being perfectly content to be led by such a tiny girl. “W–why does Red Rhud need new shoes?” asked Gwyneth at length.

“To keep from picking up pebbles and getting bruises in her hooves.”

“Don’t the nails hurt?” said Gwyneth, who had watched the shoeing process many times at her father’s side.

“Nay, lassie. The smithy-cobbler knows what’s good for horses. He would never hurt them. It’s like our own Master does—sometimes things that
look
like they hurt keep us from worse trouble in the end.”

“That’s like something Grannie would say.”

“A fine and a wise woman,” rejoined the groom. “She’s one who knows the ways of the Master. And, young lady,” he added, “it seems we’re nearly to her door.” He took several steps toward the cottage in front of them then called into its open door, “I brought you a visitor, Mrs. Barrie!”

An elderly woman appeared a moment later. She shielded her eyes from the sun as she emerged from inside. “Who’s your great friend there, Gwyneth dear?” she said.

“Red Rhud, Grannie.”

A smile spread across the old woman’s face. She and the groom shook hands and exchanged a few words. “Won’t you join Gwyn and me for tea, Mr. Radnor?” she asked.

“You sorely tempt me, Mrs. Barrie,” he replied. “I fear my charge here would lose her patience. She’ll already be wanting her oats, I’m thinking.”

“Then you must come back another time.”

“I promise.” He nodded as he took the reins from the girl’s hand.

“And here will be
your
shoes, young lady,” he said.

“Thank you for letting me hold the reins, M–Mr. Radnor.”

The groom chuckled, gave Grannie a wink, then continued out of town.

Gwyneth and the old woman went inside.

Sabbath

T
he day happened to be a Sunday, the Calvinist “Sabbath” for those attending the worship service at the Methodist chapel at the north end of town, and in the two houses of worship to the south, “Holy Day” for the Anglicans and “High Mass” for the Catholics.

Percy Drummond had been in North Wales three weeks. After declining two previous invitations, he had at last decided to accompany his aunt and uncle and cousins to church. Being of the aristocracy, they were staid and respectable members of the Church of England.

All the shops of the village were of course closed. But Kyvwlch Gwarthegydd, blacksmith and village atheist, made certain that he was vigorously and noisily at work in his blacksmith’s shop every Sunday between the hours of ten o’clock and noon. Any home or farm for probably three miles north, south, or east, might set their clocks weekly to the 10:00 a.m. hour. At the very moment Big Ben began to strike in Westminster, the rhythmic
clank, clank, clank
of hammer on anvil likewise began to toll loudly from Gwarthegydd’s shop. His choice of this hour was chosen because it was at ten o’clock that the first of the three church bells pealed out from the Methodist chapel, and he did his best every Sunday to drown them out. He was mostly successful, too, as he was at 11:00 a.m., when the two dissonant knells from opposing sides of the street at the opposite end of town announced the commencement of their services.

The clanking continued, on and off, for the duration of all three services, to the supreme annoyance of the more spiritually minded of the clergy and laity of Llanfryniog. They considered the sound to be the very drumbeat of the devil from hell itself standing in brazen opposition to the truth of almighty God, whose existence the heathen blacksmith so flagrantly denied. Not a few sermons through the years had used the background discord as a fitting object lesson to rail against those who openly mocked God and the fiery retribution of judgment that awaited them.

Neither did Hollin Radnor often spend his Sundays in church. He did not as a rule find God’s presence much in evidence in any of Llanfryniog’s three houses of worship. He visited them all from time to time, not so much looking for God, for the groom knew where
He
was to be found, but looking for kindred hearts that might know Him after the same manner in which he had himself grown to know Him. It was not an enterprise that had been crowned with much success through the years, but he remained hopeful of occasionally discovering such a one. No doubt that he was doctrinally fluid and nonsectarian in his acceptance of the men and women from all three congregations contributed in large measure to the fact that none of them accepted him as one of them. In such assemblies, it was always who was “one of us,” not who was “one of God’s.”

In fact, there was no man to be found in all Snowdonia who
knew
God on the intimate footing of daily obedience more than did Lord Snowdon’s humble groom. As is often the case in such instances of godliness, however, few recognized that fact. As he left Grannie’s cottage and made his way back up the street and out of town on the back of the newly shod bay mare, he was surprised to see the manor’s three cousins walking along toward him.

“Good day to you, Master Courtenay, Miss Florilyn, and Master Percy,” he said, tipping his hat as he passed.

Percy greeted him warmly. A patronizing nod was all that came his way from the other two.

The appearance of the three youths a few minutes after noon on the main street of Llanfryniog was not difficult to explain. It being a warm day, as they were approaching the buggy at the conclusion of the morning’s service, Percy announced that he was going to walk home. Having nothing better to do, and vaguely thinking that perhaps it might present her an opportunity to get back at Percy somehow for the grudge she was still nursing against him, Florilyn said she would join him. Inwardly chagrined at the thought, Percy could hardly object.

Instead of following the direct route home, it was Percy’s intent to take the long way round along the beach and, if the tide was low enough to permit passage through the rocks near the cave, to continue on and up the bluff path. It only took a moment’s reflection to cause him to relish the thought of Florilyn trying to keep pace with him over the rocks and through the tide pools in her Sunday shoes. He and Florilyn, therefore, set off toward town.

They were surprised a few seconds later to hear Courtenay’s steps running to catch them. Upon reflection, he thought the day might present an admirable opportunity to visit the Lorimer home,
without
Percy in tow, and soothe whatever ruffled feathers might remain between himself and the magistrate’s daughter.

Roderick and Katherine Westbrooke found themselves in consequence riding home in the buggy alone.

Homegoing

O
n this same day in Glasgow, a faithful minister who had given his life in service to the Church of Scotland was struggling mightily to reach the end of the morning’s service.

The day’s reading had been taken from the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke. He had managed, with more than one throaty hesitation, to get through the poignant passage of scripture. But the sermon had progressed with increasing difficulty.

He had, of course, anticipated for some time that this Sunday was coming and known what would be the morning’s text. He had agonized over it all week. More than once he had all but decided on the coward’s way out of his intensely personal difficulty. He would have one of the church elders give the New Testament reading. That would keep him from having to utter the words in public that stabbed his heart with pain:
“I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned. …”