LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 63, 13 August 1874, Page 3

LITERATURE.

KYLE GRIFFITHS. A TALE OF THE WELSH COAST. [From "Cassell's Magazine."] \ Conchidecl.'] She did not help either. Mr Denbigh made love: and she smiled and flirted, all unconscious, in her flattered vanity, of what the neighbors were saying, until, just three days bbfore Kyle's return, the suitor brought matters to a crisis by a declaration. They had a tiff about a photo of Faith, which Denbigh had stolen and put in his locket ; and he had brought her a fine gold locket with one of himself in it, and begged her to accept it and take the donor into the bargain. Followed a wakening for silly little Faith, and the confession, 'But I am engaged?' Followed anger (from the gentleman) and tears (from the lady). Followed fresh solicitations, more ardent from the rebuff, and fresh "noes," more feeble from remorse and shame.

Followed tremendous scenes of masculine woe and anguish, and feminine contrition and soothing. Finally Denbigh left the house, determined to try again on his return from America; and Faith remained with the locket, which she had at last consented to keep and wear, as some small salve to the giver's wounded affections. She loved Kyle far, far better than his iival; but Philip Denbigh was so handsome and sweet-spoken, it would be downright cruel to refuse him such a trifle as hanging the trinket round her neck for a day or two ; and no one need ever know. Nevertheless someone did know—now ; and the sweet-spoken gentleman got a savage snubbing on this aforementioned evening. ' Kyle will hear I refused him, and come back. He'll never leave me so. He must ask my pardon first,' thought the weeping beauty that night. He did not ask pardon, however, nor come back. The Olinda sailed three days later, and Faith's two lovers sailed in it. Kyle had a beautiful black retriever, which he had been used to leave behind " to take care of his lassie love while he was gone." He took it with him this time ; and Faith nearly wept her lovely eyes out, that she had been too proud to own her folly and seek a reconciliation before he went. Patience! it would be only six weeks, or at the most eight, and then he would be back, and she

would bo good—so good and meek. He must forgive her then.

Eight weeks had passed—eight weeks all but two days—when the sun went down in stormy grandeur, one cold evening, 011 the Irish Sea. It had been blowing great guns all day, and for many days and nights before ; and the waves had wrestled terribly with the crazy barque which, with creaking timbers .and leaking poics, with strained and naked masts bending beneath the gale, till at every lurch they seemed like to bury themselves in the foam-crested waves tumbling mountain-high around them, had striven like a living thing to weather the cruel storm.

Where was she now ? The huge breakers, crested still with foam, turbid aud purplestained, dashed themselves, moaning and roaring, against the gray and iron-bound cliffs of the Welsh coast, flinging up great fragments of timber, torn and twisted scraps of sail-cloth, and battered, shapeless things, too awful in their piteous mutilation for any human name, against the pitiless rocks, only to suck them back again into the black and boiling gulf below. Above, great stormrent clouds, black too, but fringed with fire, were gathering thickly over the threatening vault : and low on the horizon, the sun, like a blood-red hand, pointed from between them to something black and broken, over which the sea was breaking in unresisted fury—the stem of a vessel, with the broken bowsprit and foremast just visible awongst the foam and spray. Greatly as the wind had lessened, that sail looking red now before the angry sun, was all the captain of the pilot-cutter cared to show even now to its tender mercies. It had been a work of danger to get near the wreck at all, hanging as she did in a nest of rocks ; and there was a look of relief on more than one hardy, sunburnt face, when the order was given to tack and 'bout ship again. Suddenly the captain caught up his spyglass, which was lying beside him, and after a hasty glance through it, roared to the men to ' hold all hard.' ' There's summat living arter all,' he said, pointing to a ridge of low outlying rock, whore some object was plainly discernible, even by the naked eye. ' There 1 just above the line o' high water. Can't none o' ye see V ' A man down on all-fours 1' cried one of the the crew. ' Look, he's moved a bit higher. Poor fellow! he must be a rare plucked un surely to ha' kep' life in him so long.' ' Lower the boat,' said the captain sharply. ' Now, my lads, ready all. Jim' (to an old pilot), 'give us a coilo' that line. We mayn't be able to get over-near him ; an' I say, one o' you lubbers, chuck a bottle o' rum inter the stern-sheets—quick !' They are brave, kindly men, those Welsh pilots; I've owed my life to them, and know ; but I am afraid they thought their courage and kindness wasted when they found the object of it was—only a dog ! They hauled him into the boat none the less, almost too much spent, poor fellow, to second their efforts ; and then, while he was trying very feebly to lick the hands that had saved him, his beautiful eyes full of all a dog's gratitude, they saw he had a tin flask tied to his collar. The captain opened it. 'To Miss Faith Morgan, Aimwch,' he said, reading something within ; and then, not being a person of refined delicacy, he took the paper out, and opened and read that. This was what it said — ' Boat just left with the crew and Philip Denbigh. No room for me ; but no wish for it. Remember that. I give mine on board, with willing heart, to him you gave it to ashore. God bless you, sweetheart. Forgive my rude words as I forgive your falsehood. There's a Saviour more merciful than we are, an' to Him I pray to care for you, an' make you happy, as I would ha' tried to. had He been willed to let me.'

They gave that paper with tliG dog—a beautiful black retriever —to Faith Morgan. It was all that ever came to port of the illfated Pride of the West, the ramshackle old barque, which had been hastily patched up, and thought good enough to last one voyage more. Boat and crew were never heard of again. They must have perished with their fine young owner in the vain attempt to reach land, that stormy night ; and there was no tongue left to tell of those bitter eight weeks when the ' sweet-spoken' gentleman strove, by every vulgar boast and innuendo, to torture the mau whom he considered his successful rival—the man who was no gentleman, but who had the grand old knightly feelings that would have made him bear anything rather than, by word or retort, drag the name of the woman he loved into an'unseemly dispute—the man whose unswerving discipline and tireless energy, had alone preserved them even so long—the man who, when the ship had struck, and the cowardly scoundrel who owned it was clinging in frantic, helpless terror to his knees, when the men were shouting for their captain to join them and cast off, lifted in the miserable wretch first with his own strong arms ; and then, seeing there was no room for more, cut the rope that held the boat to the sinking ship, and stayed alone —to die ! And Faith ? Faith is living still. I met her yesterday coming up the high street at Amlwch, with her married daughter, each holding a hand of a wee, toddling, browneyed thing between them. A bright, bonny old woman she is, too, with as comely a face as if the eyes had never been washed in salt tears, the brow never wrinkled under a cloud of care.

1 1 must be goin' home to my old man,' she said, stopping at the corner. ' Kiss grannie, sweetums,' and then turned just at the churchyard wall where stands a rough stone cross, 'To the memory of the captain and crew of the Pride of the West.'

Kyle's prayer had been granted—perhaps better by his death than if he had lived to carry it out; As Faith says—

' He was a rare good man, but hard, overhard and stern for ord'nary folk.' —Theo. Gift.