Garthowen

Garthowen, by Allen Raine

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Title: Garthowen A Story of a Welsh Homestead
Author: Allen Raine

Release Date: July 7, 2006 [eBook #18778]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
GARTHOWEN***
E-text prepared by Al Haines

GARTHOWEN
A Story of a Welsh Homestead.
by

ALLEN RAINE.
Author of "Torn Sails," "A Welsh Singer," "By Berwen Banks," Etc.

Sixty-Fifth Thousand London Hutchinson & Co. Paternoster Row

CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. A Turn of the Road II. "Garthowen" III. Morva of the Moor IV. The
Old Bible V. The Sea Maiden VI. Gethin's Presents VII. The Broom
Girl VIII. Garthowen Slopes IX. The North Star X. The Cynos XI.
Unrest XII. Sara's Vision XIII. The Bird Flutters XIV. Dr. Owen XV.
Gwenda's Prospects XVI. Isderi XVII. Gwenda at Garthowen XVIII.
Sara XIX. The "Sciet" XX. Love's Pilgrimage XXI. The Mate of the
"Gwenllian" XXII. Gethin's Story XXIII. Turned Out! XXIV. A Dance
on the Cliffs

GARTHOWEN
CHAPTER I
A TURN OF THE ROAD
It was a typical July day in a large seaport town of South Wales. There
had been refreshing showers in the morning, giving place to a murky
haze through which the late afternoon sun shone red and round. The
small kitchen of No. 2 Bryn Street was insufferably hot, in spite of the
wide-open door and window. A good fire burnt in the grate, however,
for it was near tea-time, and Mrs. Parry knew that some of her lodgers
would soon be coming in for their tea. One had already arrived, and,
sitting on the settle in the chimney corner, was holding an animated
conversation with his landlady, who stood before him, one hand

akimbo on her side, the other brandishing a toasting fork. Her beady
black eyes, her brick-red cheeks and hanks of coarse hair, were not
beautiful to look upon, though to-day they were at their best, for the
harsh voice was softened, and there was a humid gentleness in the eyes
not habitual to them. Her companion was a young man about
twenty-three years of age, dark, almost swarthy of hue, tanned by the
suns and storms of foreign seas and many lands, As he sat there in the
shade of the settle one caught a glance of black eyes and a gleam of
white teeth, but the easy, lounging attitude did not show to advantage
the splendid build of Gethin Owens. One of his large brown fists,
resting on the rough deal table, was covered with tattooed
hieroglyphics, an anchor, a mermaid, and a heart, of course! Anyone
conversant with the Welsh language would have divined at once, by the
long-drawn intonation of the first words in every remark, that the
subject of conversation was one of sad or tender interest.
"Well, indeed," said Mrs. Parry, "the-r-e's missing you I'll be, Gethin!
We are coming from the same place, you see, and you are knowing all
about me, and I about you, and that I supp-o-s-e is making me feel
more like a mother to you than to the other lodgers."
"Well, you have been like a mother to me, mending my clothes and
watching me so sharp with the drink. Dei anwl! I don't think I ever took
a glass with a friend without you finding me out, and calling me names.
'Drunken blackguard!' you called me one night, when as sure as I'm
here I had only had a bottle of gingerpop in Jim Jones's shop," and he
laughed boisterously.
"Well, well," said Mrs. Parry, "if I wronged you then, be bound you
deserved the blame some other time, and 'twas for your own good I was
telling you, my boy. Indeed, I wish I was going home with you to the
old neighbourhood. The-r-e's glad they'll be to see you at Garthowen."
"Well, I don't know how my father will receive me," said her
companion thoughtfully. "Ann and Will I am not afraid of, but the old
man--he was very angry with me."
"What did you do long ago to make him so angry, Gethin? I have heard

Tom Powell and Jim Bowen blaming him very much for being so hard
to his eldest son; they said he was always more fond of Will than you,
and was often beating you."
"Halt!" said Gethin, bringing his fist down so heavily on the table that
the tea-things jingled, "not a word against the old man--the best father
that ever walked, and I was the