FOOTNOTE:

FOOTNOTE:[6]Or, Eglwys-elian.

[6]Or, Eglwys-elian.

''Deed to goodness! that boy's rightly named, for he's Will by name and will by nature!' said Ales when the child was brought home, showing no remorse for the trick he had played her, and little but indifference to the chiding of his mother or Rhys.

'Me fought they was take you all away. Me said me would go. Medidgo!' was all the excuse they could extract from him.

He had made his return home triumphantly on the donkey of his stranger friend, a peat-cutter named Robert Jones, and was not at all disposed for humiliation. On the contrary, he was rather proud of his victory, and excited by his introduction to new scenes.

The man, who was hospitably received and entertained, along with a numerous party of 'cousins,' for whose refection boiled beef andcwrw dahad been again set out, was quite ready to recount where and how he had picked up the child, and expressed his surprise at the resolute endurance that had carried him so far on a stony, unknown road, no less than the strong affectionwhich had overpowered the little fellow's natural fears and sense of fatigue or pain.

He repeated with much humour some of the boy's queer questions and sayings, promising to give him another donkey-ride some day. And finally, when taking his departure, Robert Jones patted the boy's brown head, and called him 'a little hero!' as the child ran past with Jonet.

This was not very wise, for the tone of admiration was ill calculated to repress the child's early developed strength of will, or to soothe the ruffled feelings of Rhys on finding his own superlative good conduct apparently unappreciated, and William's wilful disobedience thus applauded.

His chagrin did not escape the notice of the man, who, going round the country as he did, selling peat and culm,[7]had frequent opportunities for the study of human nature.

'Yes, look you,' cried he from the doorway, as he saw a scornful curl on the lip of Rhys, 'your little brother will be greater than any of you some day—head of the house perhaps.'

'He never will. I'm eldest, and then there's Davy.He'sa baby!' was Rhys' indignant protest.

'A great good man, or a great bad one, Robert Jones?' called out Ales after the turf-cutter, an old acquaintance of hers. She had not forgiven William the fright he had caused by his escapade.

'Indeed, sure, and that depends on what you make of him among you,' the peat-cutter called back over his shoulder, ere he bestrode his donkey and went off.

'The man is right, Jane Edwards,' said Owen Griffith then to the widow; 'there do be great capacities for good or evil in Willem; he will need a firm hand to control him.'

'Ah, sure,' she sighed deeply, her grey eyes filling with tears, 'and now the firm hand is gone.'

'Ah, 'deed for sure! more's the pity!' was echoed round the board.

Rhys alone made no remark; but he set his lips close over his teeth, and tightened his grip on his knife-handle, looking as if he thoughthishand firm enough to control his baby-brother, and as ifhemeant to curb the wilful little one, whatever others might do. Ales saw it, if the mother did not.

Meanwhile William, unaware of his eldest brother's paternal intentions, was seated under an apple-tree with Jonet, struggling for words to give expression to all the wonders he had seen and heard that day, the 'big house with the big chimney' more than all; whilst Davy, leaning listlessly against the tree trunk, as if fatigued with his long walk, crammed his mouth with bread and cheese, and smiled complacently at the youngster's first impressions of things familiarity had deprived of attraction for him, though over some he looked serious enough.

Five miles away on the south-east from the mountain spur on which the Edwards' family had held a farm formore than a century, lay, in a broad plain among barren hills, the grand old ruins of Caerphilly Castle, the ancient stronghold of the Despencers, and the very small straggling market town it overshadowed, a town which had either gone to ruin or ceased to grow, since the great castle had been despoiled and tenantless.

It had ceased to be a borough in King Henry VIII.'s time, but still it clung to its fair and market, and thither came farmers and their wives with their produce; miners or their wives, and the servants from the few great houses thereabouts, as buyers. And there, too, came, at stated periods, with his string of pack-horses, the travelling collector of the hand-made goods of the district, such as knitted hosiery, linen checks, woollen shawls, flannels, blankets, all spun and woven in farms and cottages scattered among the mountains. He was the medium between the English merchant and the poor producer, who in the days when there were neither canals nor railroads, nor any facilities for swift conveyance of goods or people, could otherwise have found no market for his wares. As it was, the weaver might probably have obtained better prices at Cardiff, but the miles of extra distance had to be calculated in the reckoning.

Early on the Thursday morning Mrs. Edwards, with a grey duffle[8]cloak over her short black linsey[9]gown, and a black, low-crowned man's hat above her white linen cap, her healthy face pale and worn with theagitation of the week, stood by her egg and butter basket, debating whether she should go to the market alone, or yield to the entreaty of Rhys and take him along with her.

It was likewise the rent-day. Mr. Pryse, the noble landowner's steward, condescendingly rode all the way from Cardiff to Caerphilly to meet his lord's tenantry at the little inn, 'The Cross Keys,' and woe betide the poor unfortunate who failed to put in an appearance, or to bring the full quota of coin.

She was in no predicament of that kind, although she felt she might have been; but, hitherto, Edwards had always paid the rent himself, even if she had borne him company, and she rather shrank from her first encounter with the disagreeable agent.

'You had better let me go, mother. Mr. Pryse will find that you are not quite alone, and may be more civil when he sees how big and strong I am, whatever,' urged Rhys.

(Mr. Pryse was a little, wizened, cantankerous fellow, with a skin like shrivelled parchment.)

Ales put in her word. ''Deed, mistress, you had best take the boy. A little stick is better than no stick in a fight.'

Ales had settled the question with this last remark.

'Well, perhaps it's best to be having a witness when you deal with queer folk,' assented her mistress; and Rhys had permission to scuffle off and slip on his black short-tailed jacket and breeches, so as to look his best and bravest. He was a sturdy, well-grown lad for hisyears, with a firm chin and fearless grey eyes, and whether it was fancy or reality his mother thought him taller in his new clothes.

He certainly was developing rapidly; for no sooner was the shaggy pony jogging along with its double load, Mrs. Edwards in front with her basket resting on a bag of wool she had combed and spun, than he begun to expatiate on the necessity there was now for him to learn how to go to market, and buy and sell, if he was to be a real help to her. He 'could not be learning too much or too soon,' he said, and was not contradicted, though a week earlier she would have laughed at him.

The road wound in and out among the hills, where the abundant waxen blossoms of the cross-leaved heath were fast losing their delicate blush and fading with the season, and the rosettes of the sundew had forgotten their dead florets a month or more. The very bracken was turning brown and husky, and the roadway was strewed with yellow and russet leaves that were whirled hither and thither by the wind or were trodden into the earth by unrelenting hoofs.

For it was also the first October fair, and there was no lack of company by the way. Owen Griffith, farmer and weaver, had joined them early with a great pack of flannel across his mare; and from almost every fold of the hills came one or more on foot or horseback to swell the general stream, every one, male or female, knitting along the road. The grimy collier and the swart digger of tin and iron hailed each other by the way, and the widow had many a respectful salutation as they joggedalong, and answered many an inquiry about the boy behind her.

Her first business when they reached Caerphilly was to get over her ordeal with Mr. Pryse, Griffith kindly taking charge of her horse and commodities.

The narrow entrance to the inn was crowded with tenants on their way to the important deputy's room or from it, but all were ready with natural politeness to make way for William Edwards' widow. Mr. Pryse might have taken a lesson from men of lesser degree.

From the table by the window where he sat, with an inkhorn and papers before him, small piles of coin at his right hand, he looked up.

Rhys had taken off his hat; the steward, to assert his superiority, kept his upon his head.

'So I hear you're a widow, Mrs. Edwards,' was his abrupt salutation. 'The farmer could not see his way home, I'm told, and so got drowned. Blind drunk, I suppose?' A supercilious lift of his narrow shoulders emphasised his brutal comment.

Rhys flamed up. 'No, sir; my fathernevergot drunk. He could not see for the mist, and the flood carried him away. If he had been drunk, sir, he could not have crossed the Rhonda ford.'

If Mrs. Edwards had been shocked by the steward's unfeeling rudeness, now she feared her farm was in peril, and began to wish she had left Rhys outside.

With half-shut eyes, Mr. Pryse scanned the impetuous boy from head to foot curiously. Ignoring thewarm defence of a dead father, he drew his sinister brows together, and asked curtly—

'That your son?'

''Deed, yes, sir.'

'How old is he?'

'Twelve last March, sir.'

An unpleasant smile thinned the thin lips that asked again—

'Your eldest?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Humph! And do you expect to manage the farm with onlyhishelp?'

'Not altogether, sir. I've'—

'What?' he interrupted. 'Come to give it up?'

'No,' said the widow firmly. 'I have come to pay the rent. I can hire a man. ButIshall be the farmer, please God.'

She counted out the money on the table as she spoke, the fire in her eyes burning up the tears.

'And what sort of a farmer willyoumake?' he replied with a sneer. 'You'd better give up the holding at once.'

'You'd better wait and see, sir. When I cannot pay the rent I may give in, not before. I am wanting the receipt, look you.'

'Humph! Oh, ah, the receipt, sure!'

Had he counted on her being so ignorant, or simple, or careless as to pay rent and take no receipt, his quill pen went squeaking over the paper so reluctantly? At all events he watched her narrowly through hisslits of eyes as she took it up and read it carefully over, before she folded it up and stowed it away in her needle-book for safe carriage in her capacious pocket.

He was not quite so confident of her incapacity for management when she left with a brief 'Good-morning,' and was followed by her son, who put on his hat and said never a word. He was wise, for if he had said anything there would have been unpleasantness.

So there would have been had he heard the growl that followed them. 'Humph! the young cub's as hot and unmannerly as his pig-headed lout of a father! but he'll get his nails cut when the widow marries again, indeed will he.'

'Mother, does Mr. Pryse ever cheat any one? I don't think he wanted you to have that receipt you had to be asking for,' whispered Rhys when they got outside. 'I felt as if I'd like to knock him down, 'deed I did.'

'Hush, Rhys,' and the widow looked round, afraid of listeners; 'you must not say that. He's a very hard man, and nobody does be liking him much, but I never heard of his really cheating any one. You must be very careful not to offend him. Your poor father did it once, and he has owed us a grudge ever since.'

'Then he is a bad man, and I shall hate him for the wicked words he said of father.'

Owen Griffith was waiting, and brief was the widow's opportunity to impress on Rhys the sin and danger of fostering hatred. As brief was the influence on him.Mr. Pryse, apart from the insult to his father's memory, had touched the sensitive nerve of his own sprouting self-sufficiency, and shown, so the boy thought, a tendency to overreach his mother; and, without any analysis of his own motives, Rhys had conceived on the spot an unconquerable aversion to the unprepossessing steward.

When Owen Griffith's turn came, Mr. Pryse was, for him, unusually bland and gracious, much interested in his small holding and the welfare of his family, andincidentallyinterested in his near neighbours, the family so suddenly deprived of its head. But though he passed the weaving farmer through a very fine sieve, he got nothing for his pains that could be laid up against either the drowned man or the capable widow.

So capable, that she had disposed of her wool, her butter and eggs, sold a quantity of oats from a sample, hired a trustworthy young man named Evan Evans for the farm, made her own purchases, called to see the rheumatic mother of Ales, who lived in a small cot built within the very ruins of the castle, exchanged messages and Christian sympathy with the old dame, and was refreshed and ready for her return home with Rhys long before Owen or his friends thought of stirring.

And home they got whilst there was light to pick their way, though clouds had been gathering in the south-west, and the first drops of a heavy downpour caught them as they neared the farm. They were welcomed by the joyous shouts of the little ones, and the assurance of Ales that they had all of them been 'asgood as gold,' and well deserved the gingerbread brought home for them. Even William, of whom there had been some doubts, accepted the 'going to market' as a common occurrence, and had given her very little trouble, though he had exacted a promise that she would take him some day to see 'the great big house, with the big chimney, that they called the church.'

FOOTNOTES:[7]Culm, the dust of hard coal, used for fuel when mixed with clay and peat.[8]Duffle, made both in scarlet and grey, was a very thick, close-grained woollen cloth, its upper surface covered with pin-head curly knots. It was almost waterproof.[9]Linsey-woolsey, a mixture of linen and woollen, is still in use.

[7]Culm, the dust of hard coal, used for fuel when mixed with clay and peat.

[8]Duffle, made both in scarlet and grey, was a very thick, close-grained woollen cloth, its upper surface covered with pin-head curly knots. It was almost waterproof.

[9]Linsey-woolsey, a mixture of linen and woollen, is still in use.

The rain was still coming down with steady persistence when, two hours later, Evan Evans lifted the great wooden latch of Brookside Farm, and entered the large kitchen with a 'God save you' for greeting.

Ales, who was giving the last stir to something bubbling in an iron pot on the fire, whence came a steaming savour of leeks, turned round sharply to see what sort of a young fellow had come into the house as an inmate, and seeing, returned his salutation, as did the two lads waiting for their supper.

What she saw was a strong-limbed young man, about three or four and twenty, with a good-humoured smile upon his face, as if a drenched coat and muddy nether garments were quite minor discomforts. He carried a lighted lanthorn in one hand, and a bundle slung on a stick over his shoulder.

'If you're Evan Evans,' said she, 'you'd best take off your coat, and sit down by the fire to get dry,' a corresponding smile on her face sufficing for a welcome, and indicating her content with the sample as presented.

As if to ensure her good graces, his first act was to step across the floor, and with one strong brown hand lift from the chimney-hook the heavy broth-pot, on the handle of which the girl had just laid both of hers.

'Good for you, Evan Evans; may you be always as ready,' said she, showing her firm white teeth, and hastening to ladle out the broth the boiled beef had supplied.

'Always ready for a good supper,' was the prompt reply. 'One does not always get broth every day.'

Meat was not often boiled for broth then on small farms. Indeed, was never cooked except on rare occasions.

At that moment Mrs. Edwards came in from what we may call the 'dairy' in the rear.

'I did not expect you to-night,' said she, 'but it is well you are here.'

'Sure and indeed, ma'am, you would not have me come on a Friday, and I was not myself like to come on a Saturday, and I thought you would want me before the Monday, look you.'

'Why not Saturday?' interrupted Rhys, waiting impatiently for his broth.

'Sure and "Saturday's flitting is a short sitting" my Irish grandmother was used to say, and she was a wise woman,' answered the young man gravely.

Superstition was so widespread and general, that no one uttered a word of doubt or dissent to either proposition, but Mrs. Edwards remarked, ''Deed and it'squite as well you came. We have lost a week, and it's time some of the roots was out of the ground. It will be soft for the digging after the rain.'

'Do you be having any potatoes among your crops?' he asked then over his steaming bowl of thick broth.

''Deed, no; Edwards' (a sigh) 'said they was only for the gentry to grow in their gardens.'

'Then I would have you try them next year. The head man at Castella says they was the most profitable crop he had on the land. They was good for the cows and the hogs if he had any to spare from the family table. He was be going to plough half an acre of ground for them.'

'Plough? What's that?' questioned Rhys, to whom the very word was unknown.

Evan explained to more than one attentive listener.

'Ah, well,' said Mrs. Edwards, when he had done. 'Where I was in England, every farmer did plough his fields. And my own father used to be saying that the laws King Howel the Good did be making nearly eight hundred years ago, would not allow any man to be a farmer unless he could make his own plough, as well as guide it. But there did be only wooden ploughs in those days, and they did get knocked to bits on the stony ground among the mountains of wild Wales, and they did get out of use, whatever. I did want to have a good strong plough here, but Edwards was always be saying the spade was good enough for him. His father and his grandfather before himhad dug every rood of the land with the spade, and what was good enough for them was good enough for him.'

'Good enough's all very well where there's never a better,' thrust in go-ahead Ales, with the freedom of the time. 'You didn't be thinking your grandmother's distaff good enough for you when you bought that spinning-wheel.'

Both Evan and Rhys looked up from their half-empty bowls across the table at Ales, as if struck by her pertinent shrewdness.

'Indeed, Ales, I did not; nor did I think holes that let in the wind and weather along with the light good enough. But till the grandfather did die of rheumatics there could be no glass windows. And I did not think it good for the pigs to run loose, rooting up my garden and destroying what they could not eat, but there has never been a sty built to this day.'

'And what's a sty?' asked Rhys.

'A house for the hogs.'

Rhys laughed. 'Why, mother, who ever did see pigs with a house of their own? All pigs run loose in the woods. Lewis did say to me he never saw any but ours shut up in a fold like sheep.'

'Never mind Lewis. He has never gone far from Eglwysilan. If he had been in England as I was before I married, he would have been seeing pig-styes on every farm. But there be plenty in Wales, and Evan will set up one here very soon.'

'Yes, indeed,' was the man's hearty response.

There was some further talk over work to be done, and how it was to be done, before Evan followed Rhys to bed, neither having a word to say against overcrowding, although David was there before them.

And then Mrs. Edwards and Ales, comparing notes, agreed that she had hired a very capable man.

It might have been said with equal propriety that the widow had shown her own capability in the choice of a farm-servant who would live in close companionship with her fatherless sons.

Over the board set forth with funeral meats she had named her want among the assembled relatives, and then had ensued a warm controversy on the merits of various men likely to be at the Caerphilly hirings.

Some one had named Evan Evans. Thereupon arose a general outcry that he would ruin the farm with the notions he had picked up at Castella, where there was an English farm-bailiff. It was admitted that he was hard-working, honest, sober, and religious, but all these were as dust in the balance compared with the crime of departing from the old ways, and preferring new methods of husbandry.

She had listened, making no comments. But she had hired the young fellow the more readily for those very detractions. She had not found the old ways pleasant or profitable. She meant to show Mr. Pryse what good farming could do for but indifferent land.And she counted on Evan's religious principles as warrants for the example he would set before her growing boys.

The hiring was for the year, and could only be terminated by mutual agreement. At the same time it was renewable from year to year, and sometimes both men and maids remained with the same master or mistress half their lives. If any breach of contract occurred, the law was very strict and severe. A prison awaited the servant absent without leave, or wilfully refractory, and heavy fines the masters who ill-treated the servants so hired. Such cases were not frequent, but they did occur at intervals.

Though the sky was clear, the rain was still dripping from the eaves, and had worn little runnels in the soil and between the grey stones on its way down hill to swell the noisy woodland brook, when Evan and the boys turned out of their close and darkened bedroom in the morning, and Rhys volunteered to show the former over the farm before the others were up.

''Deed, no,' said the man, 'that do be your mother's place. She might not be liking us to make so free, whatever. We can make up the fire, and set on the porridge-pot for Ales, to lose no time. Where are the fire-balls kept?'

This was a check to the boy's newly-born importance. Not choosing to wait upon the man, he ordered Davy to fetch the fire-balls, and marched out at the back in some dudgeon. Meanwhile, bidable Davy brought the fire-balls. Evan, all unconscious of the young master'swounded dignity, fanned the smouldering peat on the hearth to a glow, and had a clear fire under the black pot when Ales and her mistress came upon the scene, leaving Jonet and William still asleep.

The morning ablutions of Evan and the two elder boys were performed in the open air, at a spring which gushed from the stony mountain-side into a natural water-worn basin; Mrs. Edwards and Ales in the nondescript apartment in the rear, there being little time or ceremony wasted in the operation.

The rough-and-ready toilette completed, Ales went back to the kitchen; and the sun having just risen above the mountain-top to waken up bird and beast, and turn the lingering rain-drops into fairy gems, Mrs. Edwards herself led Evan over the primitive homestead, from the rude stabling and cowshed, where the fowls roosted overhead, to the dilapidated thing they called a barn, and the sodden farmyard, where a huge sow and her brood of piglings lay wallowing in the mire.

Two years earlier the young man would have looked on all with complacency as the common state of things; but then he could only shake his head and coincide with his new mistress that there was room for improvements that would require time, energy, and some outlay. They had looked into the orchard, and at the stone fences, and, the survey over, came in at the front, where Mrs. Edwards had done her ineffectual best to copy an English garden for herbs and flowers, and to keep out pigs, poultry, and goats.

By this time Ales and offended Rhys were back from milking, the two little ones were washed and dressed, and the porridge was ready for pouring out, quiet Davy having lent a hand wherever needed, without any fuss or assumption. He was always ready to fetch and carry at any one's bidding, and was seldom allowed to sit still. It was he who had brought water from the spring to wash the younger ones, and emptied it when used; he who had laid wooden bowls and spoons on the table and brought in the great brown pitcher of milk, and was lifting William to his seat at the table when his mother and Evan came in at the door. Just docile Davy, of whom nobody made much account either to praise or blame.

Rhys, who had not yet recovered his composure, had already taken his seat at the table in silent displeasure, and took no note of their entrance, but both Jonet and William stared hard at the strange man, the former shyly, the latter with open-mouthed wonder, which he put into words.

'Who's 'oo?' he wanted to know when Evan drew his stool to the table beside him.

Being answered pleasantly, he rained childish questions thick and fast on the 'strange man,' all relative to his presence there, and was barely silenced when grace was said over the hot porridge. There had been so many strange men coming and going in the past week that he wondered if Evan had been left behind. His queries only ceased with a scalded mouth.

'If you want to learn farming, Rhys, you had bettercome with Evan and me. We are going over the fields to settle what is best to be done,' said his mother when breakfast was over.

Had his mother asked him to go along withherto settle what had best to be done, and how, he would have risen with alacrity to share her cares and counsels, but much as he had professed his desire to learn he did not want Evan Evans for a teacher. Had not his interest and curiosity been excited overnight, he might have lingered behind, so sore was he from the morning's rebuff. As it was he rose but sullenly to obey.

'May I come?' asked Davy.

''Deed, no. You will be wanted here. Get your knitting and mind Jonet and Willem.'

The peremptory reply served for both Davy and Jonet, though the latter did put a pouting finger to her lips. But William had ideas and a will of his own.

'Me go with 'oo!' 'Me must go!' 'Mewillgo!' 'Man, take me!' were his persistent iterations, while his sturdy bare legs and feet went pattering after his elders over the rain-washed stones, and he struggled with all his little might against the attempts of Rhys to force him back.

Their wills were equally strong, but their strength was not. No doubt Rhys clutched the tender arms too tightly, for William screamed and cried out—

''Oo hurt me; 'oo hurt me.'

Evan, who had reached the gateway with Mrs.Edwards, turned back, saying pitifully, 'Don't be hurting the little man. If your mother do be willing to let him go, I will carry him on my shoulders, look you.'

In another minute, triumphantly, masterful William was mounted on the low stone wall, on his way to the big man's shoulders, his mother smiling a passive consent, whilst Rhys bit his under lip and clenched his hands tightly in ill-concealed chagrin.

It was the second time that morning Evan Evans, the hired man, had thwarted him, his father's first-born. Rhys, in his own opinion, had ceased to be a boy. He had quite decided that he was to be his mother's right-hand man, and that they would manage the farm between them, with underlings of course, and here was this great interloper come and thrusting him into the background.

MOUNTED ON THE LOW WALL, ON HIS WAY TO EVAN'S SHOULDERS

MOUNTED ON THE LOW WALL, ON HIS WAY TO EVAN'SSHOULDERS.—See page 66.

It was with no good will he followed over grass land and arable, over the fallow and on to the high moorland, where the cows ruminated among the tall grasses, and the sheep nibbled close to the ground the sweet morsels the cows had left, and the omnivorous goats browsed on heather or anything else in the way of vegetation. He heard them talk of the carrots and other roots to be dug up and housed at once, of the lime and farm manure to be laid on this field or that, and the suitable crops to be raised; but though he had a crude perception that Evan was a better farmer than his father, he sullenly resented the change in contemplation. All the more, perhaps, because his mother called for his attention, with'You hear this, Rhys?' 'Yes, Rhys; indeed, that will be best.'

He gloomed, whilst William, released from his perch, ran hither and thither in high glee, chasing away the rooks and water-wagtails that were, unsuspectedly, doing the farmer good service.

It is difficult in these days of chemistry, steam, and mechanical contrivances for reducing labour—if not for dispensing with it altogether—to realise the difficulties attending the farmer in wild mountainous districts, far removed from the centres of civilisation, and unacquainted with the agricultural implements and appliances even then in use in more favoured districts. Places where there were no carts and no proper roads, and where the ascents and descents were too abrupt for anything but a biped or a mule; where every acre of the cultivated mountain or moorland had to be turned over with the spade, and every particle of manure laid on the land had to be carried thither in baskets strapped on human shoulders, or in panniers borne by ass or mule.

Yet, such were the difficulties Mrs. Edwards and other Welsh farmers had to contend with even up to the present century, the moorland farmers of Cumberland and the North-West Riding of Yorkshire being somewhat similarly situated.

The loss of a whole week's labour at the beginning of October was a serious detriment. Even Rhys knew that,and finding that he was to take his instructions from his mother and not from Evan, he smothered his ill-humour and buckled to in earnest, though his brows contracted when a new form of labour was suggested to him.

'Rhys, do you think you could cut down the bracken at the edge of the wood?' asked his mother dubiously.

'Yes, surely, I can cut it. Did I not help to reap the oats? But why should it be cut?'

'Evan says it will save straw in the farmyard, and should be stacked for bedding for the pigs and cattle before it do be too late. And after it has served the beasts, it will be better for some of the land than lime.'

''Deed, an' Evan do seem mighty clever! Houses and bedding for pigs indeed!'

'Yes, indeed, Rhys, and I am not too proud or too old to learn from him. Please God, he will be helping us to keep the farm in spite of Mr. Pryse.'

Not another word of scorn fell from the boy's lips.

Bidding Lewis, the shepherd's son, follow with Breint, the pony, to carry home the fern, as instructed by his mother, he, with a sickle over his arm, took his way across a grassy slope towards the steep woodland, stepping alongside the musical runnel the gushing hill-side spring sent, as overflow from a huge stone trough or basin, across the land and down the incline to join the tumbling brook from which the farm derived its name. The tawny brook itself had its source high up in the peaty moss on the mountain-top, and had worn, or found, a channel in a narrow cleft between precipitous rocks,whose seamy sides barely afforded foothold for fir and larch. Yet widening and deepening into a picturesque glen, the ash and the elder hung out their red or purple-black berries over the noisy and tumbling watercourse, and the sturdy trunks of oak and beech uprose and spread out leafy arms to shade it from the too intrusive westering sun, dropping in a ripe acorn or a triangular nut quietly now and then, to float away and fructify in a future season far from the parent tree.

It was otherwise when the wild north-east winds came rushing and roaring down the glen, for then ripe or unripe acorns and prickly mast were torn rudely away along with shoals of russet leaves and flung to the ground as offerings to the hogs and omnivorous goats, the brook coming in for its share, as well as the fringe of feathery ferns.

The larger portion of the farm lands were on the steep but undulating uplands above the white homestead, the more fertile, including the orchard and the garden-plot, lying below.

Bordered on either side by rough stone fences, and separating the grass land from these, a wider well-trodden path or road, which the flaky character of the stony ground converted into a natural succession of broad shallow steps, trended obliquely from the house to the level or main road such as it was. Across this, some two hundred yards farther north, the simple brook spread itself out and chafed at the stepping-stones which barred its passage to deeper woods and the great river that would swallow it up. Just as some thoughtless youthrushes from the safe shelter of a home too narrow for his ambition, and plunging into the vortex of the untried world is lost for ever.

Some thirty or forty paces beyond the shallow brook stood the low cottage of Owen Griffith, whitewashed like the larger farm above. Then the lane took a turn and was crossed by intersecting roads perplexing to strange travellers.

The outskirts of a flourishing and busy town now cover much of the land I have described so carefully. Even the lanes and highways have undergone changes since the Edwardses held Brookside Farm and traversed them.

On that sunny October forenoon, while Rhys and Lewis cut down fern on the borders of the wood, and Evan plied his spade to turn over the stubble in good furrows higher up the hill, Mrs. Edwards midway, like a true Welsh farmer's wife, resolutely dug up the long-rooted, tenacious carrots, sparing not her toil, whilst Davy (again in petticoats) and even four-year-old Jonet freed them from the loosened earth, and cast them into wicker baskets for Ales to carry from the field to the barn, poised on her head. The basket was not light when full, but she stepped along with ease and grace, knitting as she went or came, only tucking the rapidly increasing stocking in her girdling apron-string whilst she emptied her load, or changed an empty basket for a full one.

At first, imitative William insisted on helping, or hindering, Davy and Jonet, and for a while was as busyas the rest. Then he began to trot beside Ales as she went to and fro. After a time the little bare legs grew weary, and when the toilers rested on upturned baskets, to take their noontide meal of oaten cake and buttermilk, he was almost too sleepy to eat or drink, and, resting his sunny head against his mother's knee, fell off into a doze.

Seeing that, Ales promptly lifted him up in her strong arms, and, carrying him to the farm, laid him on his mother's bed and left him there, as she thought, secure from harm.

Once or twice, after emptying her baskets in the barn, she came down to the house and found him sleeping peacefully. So an hour and a half must have slipped by, perhaps more, when turning in to look at her charge, she found the room vacant.

Still, she was beset by no apprehensions of ill. She made up the smouldering fire, and did one or two little household matters before she went back to the field with her empty basket, nothing doubting but she would find the boy with his mother. He knew his way about the farm.

'Is not Willem with you?' she cried out as she neared the group in the field. 'He is not in bed.'

'Not in bed?' echoed his mother, but without alarm. ''Deed then, he will have gone to Evan or to Rhys. That will be it. He will have met Lewis with the pony, and got a ride in one of the empty panniers.'

'Sure, and that's most like.'

But on her next journey to the barn she saw Lewisbringing up the pony laden with the panniers of bracken, but no child. Hastily ridding herself of her load, she waited until he came near. Then she called out—

'Have you seen Willem?'

''Deed, no! Is he lost again?' came back in reply.

'Lost? Name o' goodness, I hope not! Mistress will go distracted if he is. Empty your bracken, and keep a look-out; I'm off up the hill to Evan.'

And away she sped at flying speed, straight as an arrow, over field and fallow. Her heart sank as she came in sight of Evan digging away as if his life depended on his day's labour, companioned only by feathered searchers for the worms he brought to light.

'Evan!' she screamed, affrighted at last, 'have you seen Willem? We cannot find him anywhere, whatever.'

Down went the man's spade, and over the freshly-turned ground he came bounding, in spite of his wooden-soled shoes. 'You don't mean to say the child is lost?' he cried.

But she was already running back to her mistress, who took the alarm as soon as they came in sight, and clasping her hands in sudden terror, shrieked out, 'Oh, what is it? What has happened to my boy? Where is my darling Willem? Oh, if I lose him too, I shall go crazy!'

Her only thought was that the child, in seeking Rhys, had fallen over a rock and been killed.

Her shriek, her unbidden tears, communicated her fright to Jonet and Davy, who clung to her skirts and cried for companionship, Jonet hardly knew why.

There was a general rush to meet Rhys.

'Sure, he will be in the orchard,' said he confidently.

But he was not in the orchard, not anywhere on the farm.

''Deed, and I think he will be for going to the church,' put in Davy. 'He wanted to be going yesterday, look you!'

The idea was instantly caught up. Evan and Rhys were off in search, and Lewis after them. Ales in vain endeavoured to persuade the mother to remain behind, whilst she went up to the moor, to see if he had strayed thither after the sheep. 'Don't fret,' she said, 'they are certain to be bringing him back soon. His little legs would not carry him far.'

'Oh, Ales,' expostulated her mistress, 'how can you ask me to sit still while my darling Willem may be dead or in danger?'

'Mother,' said Davy, with a gulp to swallow a sob, 'I will stay and take care of Jonet if you both go. You will be good with me, won't you, Jonet?'

'Yes, indeed,' replied the little girl, as his arm stole protectingly round her shoulders, and he kissed her tear-stained face, 'I will be very good.'

So, with strong injunctions not to go away, the two children were left alone in the house, with only a grey cat and a rough dog to bear them company.

At first they sat still and waited expectantly, clingingto each other. Then the silence and solitude became oppressive. Presently Jonet began to cry for her missing playfellow, and when brave-hearted Davy failed to console her, his own tears began to fall. A dreadful fear began to creep over him lest William should be lost like his father, and they might never see him again. How long the time did seem to those two children left alone with a new fear!

Ales was the first to return. She found the two seated on the stone stile in front that commanded a view of the steep path, anxiously and with beating hearts watching for some one to come.

She brought them no good news, and was off again with stool and pail, for the cows were lowing to be milked. But her very coming had broken up the dreary silence and monotony. And when she went she left them milk and cake, and the consciousness she was not far away. Then, at her suggestion, Davy began to teach Jonet to knit, and in the occupation time passed less painfully.

Ales came back with her milk-pails, and commended them for being good; made up the fire and set on the pot for supper. And so long as the setting sun shone redly in through door and windows they were passive, and she bustled about her household affairs, hiding her own fears.

But the sun set, and dusk came down, yet never a foot came near the farm to say the boy was found.

Then Evan came up for lanthorns to renew the search. He said he had been to the very church gates,but could find no trace of the child. Owen Griffith had left his loom, and his wife had kept watch to give each returning seeker news of the others. Mrs. Edwards was then at the weaver's in pitiable distress, and Rhys rushing hither and thither almost as wild.

The two children, unwilling to go to bed, had fallen asleep huddled together in the chimney corner, when, between nine and ten o'clock, restless Ales thought she heard a shout, and before she could get to the door in burst Rhys, crying out, 'He is found! he is found!' and close at his heels came Evan with the poor wanderer in his arms, limp and helpless, his hair and his clothes saturated with heavy dew or mist, his little bare feet cut and bleeding, his lips and hands stained with the juice of purple berries.

The woods and every possible nook and corner seemed to have been explored, when Evan chanced to question a young man upon the Merthyr Road. The stupid fellow stared vacantly, then blundered out, ''Deed, an' sure I did hear something about an hour ago up by the Druid Stones, but I took it for a stray lamb bleating for the ewe.'

'Well, sure, and itmightbe a child crying. I didn't go to see,' he replied stupidly to a second question.

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