LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 62, 12 August 1874, Page 3

LITERATURE.

KYLE GRIFFITHS. A TA.LE OF THE WELSH COAST. [From " Cassell's Magazine.] A sea like a duck-pond, calm as glass and red as fire ; a long strip of snow-white sand, backed by precipitous rocks, gray by day, red too now from the incarnadine .arch of sunset sky above ; to the westward a strip of land running out into the harbor, and showing black as ink against the lower line of living gold, where, far beyond, the sun has just dipped his flaming orb to rest behind the waves. Over the point, the topsail rigging of a tlvree masted vessel. Nearer, in the foreground, a girl seated on a heap of dried sea-wped, her pretty brown dimpled arms clasped about her knees, her head uncovered save by a mass of black silky curls, thrown back, and resting against an old boat, moss-grown and broken, and long disused, which had found its last haven in this quiet nook. It was all very quiet at first, but by-and-by a stop came trampling over the hard smooth sands. The young girl's cheek glowed with a deeper red, and her breast began to heave, and her hands to tremble, as though she were a bird on the eve of flying to its mate. Not being a bird, but a woman, however, she coquetted—sat still Btaring at the sunset she did not see, and started and almost screamed when a big man, brown and bearded and muscular, came suddenly round the stern of the ruined boat, and with a. short exclamation, half choked as in great gladness, took her straight into his arms, and hugged her till she screamed in right earnest — ' Kyle, put me down ! put me down ! How dare you be so rude, sir ! Let me go, please do.'

' Not till you've given me a kiss, Faithie,' said the other, keeping his hold goodhumorcdly, yet with something of reproach in his grave blue eyes. ' What! not one after three months' waiting ? Why, lassie, I thought you cared for me a bit better nor that. An' I hungering for this minute every day and hour since I left you.' The tone or the reminder —perhaps even the slackening of his arms—touched her. Faith Morgan had a warm little heart, albeit five years younger and smaller than the one against which it was beating now. Inconsistent as a true woman, the moment he let go she began to cling, and put up her lips. ' I do care for you, Kyle,' she said, only—only you startled me so,' and forthwith she began to sob like a baby. He made no answer at first, only kissing with close, tender kisses on lips and eyes, till the tears were driven back, aud the lips pouted. ' Now, Kyle, do let me go. You're so rough and —and someone might be passing.

'And what if someone was?' asked the sailor, loosening his hold, however, and letting her resume her former seat, while he took up a position on the boat's keel beside her. ' Who has a better right to kiss you than I ? I can tell you Sam Jones' lassie didn't wait for him to begin, for we walked up from the pier together, and she had the house door open, and her arms round his neck, while he was still peering up at the window on the chance of her looking out.'

' Nancy Evans is a bold girl,' quoth Faith, tartly. 'lf those are the manners you like, Kyle, I wonder you didn't try to cut Jones out when you first came here.'

' I come between another man and his lass !' cried the sailor, starting ; ' but there, you're joking, sweetheart; and besides, you know there's never a girl in Wales, or England either, that could meet my fancy save your little self alone.' ' You don't mention America, said Faith, saucily. ' America !' repeated her lover ; ' why, in the name of all that's comely, you wouldn't have me compare you to a Yankee girl, would you ?' The honest indignation in his tone, however ludicrous in itself, had a softening effect on Faith. Her big brown eyes grew suddenly web, and her voice sank into a halfshamefaced whisper.

' Only I told you I wouldn't wonder if you took to a foreign girl, Kyle. Some say they're prettier than we are.' 'You would ha' wondered though,' retorted Kyle, promptly. ' Prettier than you ! I'd like to see the woman. Faith, give me your hand, and turn your face this way. Do you think I'll be content with the back of your head to-night?' He took her hand as he spoke, and she let him keep it ; but her face was still turned away, and there was a faint quiver about the ruddy lips. Perhaps her next words explained it. ' Father says you're going away again almost at once, Kyle.'

' Ay ; when hn came aboard to meet us, lie gave me the offer. It did seem hard, a'most too hard, when I'd hoped to have a little rest aside of you afore i went away again. But after all, it will shorten the time o' waiting one way, lassie.' ' How, Kyle V

'Didn't your father say T was to wait for you till I was a captain ? I'm going as captain this time, and only for a six weeks' trip, leastways, that's what they calculate it at. Some business with the New York agents, I think ; but I suppose you've heard about it?'

' That the Olinda was to be lilted out for sale, and that you were to take her over, an' charier another another vessel to bring you back? Yes; but won't it take you longer?' 1 1 doubt not. They're to have the boat and cargo ready. Mr DenbigU'ti arranged all

that. Did you know his son—the new junior partner —is to ship with us ? ' Yes,'she said. Good Heaven! how rosy her face was now ; and yet the crimson sky was fading into blues and violets. He was looking at her. and the brows suddenly darkened over his eyes, giving thorn an odd. fierce expression. His voice, however, was quieter than before. 'I can't say I care about sailing with the owner's son. I'd liefer take any other pas senger. They're apt to fancy that because they're boss ashore, they need be boss aboard; an' I'm a masterful man myself, an' don't hold with no Co.'s in saltwater. Hows'ever, I shouldn't mind so much if I liked the man.'

' And don't you !' asked Faith, timidly, her color still high.

' Do you ?' said he, stooping forward to look her full in the face. ' He's been a deal at Amlwch since I left, people tell me, an' you must ha' seen plenty of him. What do you think of him !' ' I, Kyle?'—her eyes drooping beneath the sharp scrutiny—'l I don't know. He's pleasant-spoken and civil. I think he's nice enough.'

' And I think him a cross between fool and ape,' quoth Kyle Griffiths, shortly ; son of a sea-cook 1 Well, Faith, I wonder—' Faith snatched her hand away angrily. ' He has more manners than you,' cried she, panting and ruffling like an enraged sparrow; 'he is a gentleman at any rate, an' would never dream of using such lauguage of people he don't even know more than to speak to. Oh ! ' and here feelings were too much for words, and an indignant little sigh and shiver filled the gap. Even the violet was dying out of the sky now, and cool gray shadows crept out from the east, and threw a sombre tint over the man's face. A small cold wind rose out of the sea, ruffling its breast with long fret ful lines, like the puckered face of an ailing child. It chilled the dimples in Faith's cheeks, and blew the soft brown locks off Kyle's stern brow ; and far overhead a gull flew by, with a long shrill scream, like the wail of a banshee. Before it ceased, Kyle spoke—'Heis a gentlemen, is he ? I thank God, then, lam not. Had I been one I might have been betrothed to some fine lady, i'stead o' the daughter of an honest seafaring man like myself. Faith, twice these five minutes have you found fault with my manners. I don't say they're finer nor a bailor's have need to be, but you never laid blame on them before. Has this gentleman been teaching you to do so in my absence this time V

Women are constitutionally cowards. Faith Morgan was a very womon. For all reply at first she, metaphorically, turned tail, and took refuge behind that ever-ready shield of femineity, a burst of tears. It was not until they had lasted long enough to make Kyle apostrophise himself as a brute that she sobbed out—

' How c-c-cruel you are ! You kn-n-ow that I love you as you are, better then —and yet—oh I' Another burst, and the pretty head drooping very near Kyle's knee. Involuntarily he laid his hand caressingly upon it. Involuntarily his voice took a softened, soothing tone. 'Am 1 cruel. Faithie, and to you ? Nay, then, don't cry. ftlayhaps I was over-sharp, but I was met on lauding by ill talk about young Denbigh an' you. They said he had been taking my place, an' though I wouldn't believe it, nor even barken to the foultongued gossips, it sort o' cut me when you spoke up for him. Faith, lassie, I love you more than many a husband. If you were to play me false with anyone, I think I'd feel like killing him an' you too.' He looked like it at the moment, aud she believed him, and trembled at the mingliug of passionate tenderness and wrath in his tone. Instinctively she turned and clasped his strong hand in both hers, her face turned up coaxingly. ' Don't think o' such things, Kyle, love ; you know I never could. What's Mr Denbigh to me, but father's partner. He was holding the soft hands and looking down into the sweet eyes. The moon, just rising, glittered on something which, unnoticed by her, had escaped from the folds of her neckerchief—a golden circle with the portrait of a man within. ' Faith,' said Kyle, Gryffiths, in a tone which strove for steadiness, ' you're wearin' a grand new trinket since I saw you last. Who gave you that ?' He spoke too suddenly. With a quick, frightened gesture she snatched away her hand, as if to hide the bauble. With a face deeply, terribly red, the red of cowardly con sciousness, she stammered out — < [—l—it's nothing-father's—l mean I bought it.' Without a word Kyle loosed her wrist and rose up. Without a word he turned from her ; only A\hen he had gone ten steps he came back, and said, very hoarse and low — ' Faith Morgan, you have told me a lie, an' you know it. I can't say if it was for the first time, but I can say it shall be the last. I wondered,' —aud his voice sank deeper still —'that you should shrink when I took you in my arms a while ago. I wonder now you dared let me do it, wi' that man's face lying between my heart an' yours. Go to him now, an' you will ; I want no wife on whom I can't depend in word an' deed.'

Ho was gone the next moment; and Faith, sobbing bitterly with grief and anger, went home to find Philip Denbigh at the garden gate waiting for her. He had been courting her for the last two months ; and she—had coquetted with him. Flirting is not an amusement confined to the upper ten. I have heard of a young Patagonian squaw who was as finished an adept at it as any Bclgrav"an beauty ; and Faith, an only child" and the prettiest girl in Amlwch, had been wonderfully fond of trying her fascinations ou the " weaker" sex, till the arrival of a new first mate for her father's favorite vessel—the vessel he had commanded himself until he was admitted to a partnership in the firm of Denbigh and Go, his employers. Kyle Griffiths, bigas a giant, true as the light of day, and masterful as he said himself, had 'cut out,' all the rest in no time, and won Faith for his own undivided property. She never even cared to look at anyone else when he was by ; and, I believe, loved him as entirely as was in her nature, with most worshipful affection ; but when Kyle was away at sea, and young Mr Denbigh came to Amlwch—Mr Denbigh, who was what she called a gentleman ; someone who wove fine clothes, and had white hands and a curly moustache —and when this hero testified an immediate and violent admiration for herself, how could she help being pleased 1 how could she help going back to the old habits? To be Continued.