After threading the narrow pathway for half-a-mile or so, they reached
a sudden bend of the little river, where the valley broadened out
somewhat, until there was room for a grassy, velvet meadow, at the
further corner of which stood the ruins of the old parish church,
lately discarded for the new chapel of ease built on the hillside above
the shore.
"How black the ruins look in that corner," said Cardo.
"Yes, and what is that white thing in the window?" said Valmai, in a
frightened whisper, and shrinking a little nearer to her companion.
"Only a white owl. Here she comes sailing out into the moonlight."
"Well, indeed, so it is. From here we can hear the sea, and at the
beginning of the shore I shall be turning up to Dinas."
"And I suppose I must turn in the opposite direction to get to
Brynderyn," said Cardo. "Well, I have never enjoyed a walk from Caer
Madoc so much before. Will they be waiting for you at home, do you
think?"
"Waiting for me?" laughed the girl, and her laugh was not without a
little trace of bitterness; "who is there to wait for me? No one,
indeed, since my mother is dead. Perhaps to-morrow my uncle might say,
'Where is Valmai? She has never brought me my book.' Here it is,
though," she continued, "safe under the crumbs of the gingerbread. I
bought it in the Mwntroyd. 'Tis a funny name whatever."
"Yes, a relic of the old Flemings, who settled in Caer Madoc long ago."
"Oh! I would like to hear about that! Will you tell me about it some
time again?"
"Indeed I will," said Cardo eagerly; "but when will that be? I have
been wondering all the evening how it is I have never seen you before."
They had now reached the open beach, where the Berwen, after its
chequered career, subsided quietly through the sand and pebbles into
the sea.
"Here is my path, but I will tell you," and with the sound of the
gurgling river, and the plash of the waves in his ears, Cardo listened
to her simple story. "You couldn't see me much before, because only
six weeks it is since I am here. Before that I was living far, far
away. Have you ever heard of Patagonia? Well then, my father was a
missionary there, and he took me and my mother with him when I was only
a baby. Since then I have always been living there, till this year I
came to Wales."
"Patagonia!" said Cardo. "So far away? No wonder you dropped upon me
so suddenly! But how, then, did you grow up Welsh?"
Valmai laughed merrily.
"Grow up Welsh? Well, indeed, I don't know what have I grown up!
Welsh, or English, or Spanish, or Patagonian! I am mixed of them all,
I think. Where we were living there was a large settlement of Welsh
people, and my father preached to them. But there were, too, a great
many Spaniards, and many Spanish girls were my friends, and my nurse
was Spanish, so I learnt to speak Welsh and Spanish; but English, only
what I learnt from my father and from books. I don't know it quite
easy yet, but I am coming better every day I think. My father and
mother are dead, both of them--only a few days between them. Another
kind missionary's wife brought me home, and since then I am living with
my uncle. He is quite kind when he notices me, but he is always
reading--reading the old books about the Druids, and Owen Glendwr, and
those old times, and he is forgetting the present; only I must not go
near the church nor the church people, then he is quite kind."