'Praise is pleasanter than honey,'
'Praise is pleasanter than honey,'
'Praise is pleasanter than honey,'
and hitherto he had not been cloyed with the sweetmeat. But his aspect changed. He did not relish the bitter dose of advice mingled with the honey, for his whole soul was in rebellion.
Yet, swift and sharp as the man's whip crack, memory brought back those other words to the same purport the stranger, Mr. Morris, had spoken long ago, and every hoof-beat of mule or ass seemed to hammer them into his brain.
Far down the steep hill were beasts and driver before William roused from his reverie, and rushed after them, shouting as he went. The man turned.
'What is it, Willem?'
'Can you teach me to count?'
'Yes, up to a hundred, in tens. That is the way I count my peat.'
'Oh, I can be counting that as I knit.'
'Ah, then, if you do be wanting to reckon properly, and do sums with figures, you had better be asking Owen Griffith; he do be clever at that. I will speak to him for you.'
''Deed, I would be so glad.'
Robert Jones was as good as his word. Owen's cottage was not on his direct road, but he did not mind going out of his way to do a kindness.
The weaver had just taken a finished web of blue flannel out of his loom, and sat smoking a long pipe on the bench outside.
After the first salutation, the turf-cutter began by saying, 'Have you seen the dry wall Willem Edwards have been building up so cleverly?'
'Sure to goodness, no. Yet he did always have a notion that way. I have heard Rhys and Cate be laughing over it many a time.'
''Deed, yes, Owen, but it's not to be laughed at. That boy have a head, look you. I've seen walls built and mended less securely by old hands before now.'
'Sure now! You don't say so? I wish he would come and repair mine. It's been tumbling down, stone by stone, waiting till Morgan the mason did be coming round.'
'Well, you ask Willem. And if you would be offering to teach him to reckon up with figures, he would be proud and pleased to build it up. 'Deed he would. He do just be asking me to teach him. But you go looking at that wall of his. Willem do want encouraging, not laughing at. He will build up more than a broken-down wall some day.—Shall you be wanting peat or lime next week?'
'Ah, yes; and if you think Willem can mend the wall you can bring a sled of stones as well.'
The next day, on the way from church, Owen Griffith got William by his side, and set him counting the trees by the wayside, and the sheep on the hills, as preliminary to lessons in arithmetic, but nothing said he of any broken walls.
He left that for the afternoon, when he and Cate walked up to the farm, ostensibly to learn what news Ales had brought from Cardiff.
Over all that he shook his head, uncertain what to make of it, though he said, 'It do look bad, it do.'
But there was nothing uncertain in his exclamation of surprise at the firmly repaired walls Mrs. Edwards showed so proudly as the work of her youngest son.
It led to the open proposal that William should restore his fences to condition in return for lessons in arithmetic, and to Mrs. Edwards' consent to that use of his time.
Rhys had strolled away with Cate to talk overthe deferred prospect of their marriage, and so did not hear of this arrangement until afterwards, when, for reasons of his own, he thought best to keep the peace.
It was the small beginning of greater things.
FOOTNOTE:[12]God-penny—a deposit.
[12]God-penny—a deposit.
[12]God-penny—a deposit.
Ales had resumed her work on the farm, but not with the spirit and vivacity of old. She had been wont to sing over her work, and had a store of old Welsh ballads in her memory. But the song-bird mourned in silence for the mate torn away so ruthlessly, and, as weeks and months and years rolled on in the same drear monotony of hopelessness, her heart grew colder and heavier, and her prayers became as the very wailings of despair.
It cut her to the soul to hear Rhys grumbling, as he did, at the money filched from them to pay, not only the rent Evan should have paid, but the heavy costs of a seizure in addition; and she more than once resolved to quit the farm when the year expired.
Second thoughts, however, suggested that nothing would suit the young man better, and his very grumbling might have that end in view; for, once rid of her, he could seek the necessary consent to bring in a wife with a good grace.
He had not improved in temper, certainly. It had irritated him to hear William lauded for the very proclivities he had held of so small account, nay, turned into ridicule.
It was no satisfaction to have a brother so much younger competent to enlarge and raise the walls of the sheepfold, as he did, before a second winter set in. What though a mason's charges were saved, was not the saving at the greater cost of his own supremacy?
And in the long winter nights when he and Davy sorted fleeces or combed the wool, or tended the dye-pot on the fire; when Ales taught Jonet to twirl the flaxen thread drawn from the distaff, so as to set the spindle dancing on the floor to the tune of the mother's industrious spinning-wheel, how it tried his patience to see William making figures and calculations on a board, with chalk or ruddle by the light of the candle, whilst the knitting-pins, which should have been earning money, lay idle by his side.
There are men ready to perform generous acts, who are flagrantly unjust, but cannot see it. Robert Jones had urged Rhys Edwards to 'be just.' He should have said 'be generous,' and Rhys might have responded to the appeal. He resented the imputation of injustice.
Yet he denied to his brother the meed of praise his service merited; he begrudged him the time to acquire the common rules of simple arithmetic; perhaps because he felt it was a step to something beyond his own attainment. He counted not the money saved in masonry as money earned. He might have been content had William been as passively submissive as Davy and Jonet,but he found in him a spirit boldly daring to cope with his own, and it stung him to find the boy upheld in his resistance.
So years crept on. The third winter passed, the snows melted, the roads were free for traffic, the river sang a pæan to approaching spring, the pink and brown buds were bursting into green, song birds were flitting and fluttering about the eaves and boughs, all was life and activity upon the farm. TheOspreyhad never again put into port at Cardiff, where Mr. Pryse bit his nails and snarled more cantankerously than ever, and nothing had been heard of Evan. Ales lost heart, she did not sing with the birds; but William, no longer snubbed, worked on the farm with the best, until another barrier rose between himself and Rhys, in the shape of another stone wall.
Hedges have now superseded walls in many parts of Glamorganshire; but at the date of this narrative, the fields and lanes were universally bounded by what are known as 'dry walls,' and still they serve as fences on the uplands.
By 'dry walls' are to be understood walls built without mortar or cement, of irregular, unhewn flagstones, so put together, so wedged in one with another, as to stand firm where a cemented wall might give way exposed to the high winds of those elevated regions, the very crevices allowing the blasts to pass through, and so reduce the pressure on the mass. Such are the walls in Craven and other parts of northern England.
Yet it is no uncommon thing for the coping-stones tobe hurled away in a fierce gale, or for large portions of such walls to be blown down, as came to pass on Brookside Farm that gusty spring.
Here was an opportunity for William to turn his talent to account and save his mother's pocket, as be sure he did.
So far, so good. Rhys made no objection, and Mrs. Edwards was well pleased. Davy had begun to feel proud of his brother.
But it so happened that Robert Jones, whose window had long before been fitted in by William, came to seek his services, not merely to repair a breach, but to enclose a portion of ground as a stone yard.
Rhys, then engaged sowing barley on last year's turnip ground, looked as black as two thunder-clouds rolled into one, and without mincing his words gave a decided refusal.
'Willem is not a public stonemason, Robert Jones. He is now dibbling in the potato-sets, and cannot be spared. You asked me to "be just"; do you think you are just in seeking to draw him away from the farm at this busy season?' and with a very strong oath he swore 'Willem shouldnotbuild walls for him or any one else.'
But the leader of the peat-cutter's team happened to carry a resonant bell, as did the leading beast of all packhorse teams, in order to warn other teamsters, or the drivers of cattle or carriages, that the narrow roadway was blocked, and one or the other must wait in the nearest broadened space provided as a refuge until theadvancing team had passed and left the road clear. Such open grassy spots may still be seen in England's narrow by-ways, and there gipsies make their camps. Nay, even in the heart of busy London, old Paternoster Row is so provided with spaces where two carts may pass abreast.
The bell, set ringing through the clear March air with every motion of the mule's head, brought William leaping over runnel, ridge and furrow, and dividing fence to greet his old and true friend.
The voice of Rhys, ever loud and authoritative, now raised and vehement, reached William as he came bounding along.
'Who says I shall not build walls for any one?' he cried. 'Iwill, and no one here shall stop me. Do you think I mean to dig and delve all my life, and be labourer to you?'
'Labourer to me, you jackanapes? Do you think your intermittent labour pays for your sustenance? But if you quit the farm this day to go wall-building, you may quit it altogether. I am not going to wear my life away to support you in idleness. Cyphering at night, piling up stones by day, rambling off to Caerphilly Castle when you should be at work—what sort of labour do you call that?'
'Head-work; of no account with you. But, look you, I'll go and come as I please, and build walls if I please. And I don't be owning you for master. If we can but find the old lease, it may turn out the youngest son is heir and not the eldest. But let me tell you that forthe toss up of a silver penny I'd quit the farm for ever, only I know that's what you do be wanting. You would be glad to get either me or Ales out to make room for Cate. But while we stay, mother do be mistress, and shall be.'
For a moment Rhys seemed dumbfounded. Then he sprang upon his brother, and grappled with him as if he would have borne him to the earth.
The fifteen years lad was thick set and sturdy, and stood his ground well, but he was no match for the man of more toughened frame and indurated muscle.
It would have gone badly with the younger had not the turf-cutter interposed, and, by sheer force, thrust them apart.
'What!' cried he, 'are you two brothers so jealous of each other you would strive like Cain and Abel? Shame on you both! Would you bring death and sorrow on your mother's hearth once more?'
They stood panting, but abashed, as he proceeded—
'Surely, what with one loss after another—the rent money unaccounted for when Evan disappeared, the cruel bill for costs, the raising of the rent, the missing lease—the poor widow do be passing through a sea of trouble, with cares enough to drown her, without you two, who should be her help and comfort, adding to the load. Are you not ashamed?'
'It be Rhys' fault!' 'It be Willem's fault!' they cried simultaneously, alike moved by the reference to their mother, whom they loved with deep affection.
'You are alike to blame. Each one has some reasonon his side; but, let me tell you, lads, it is always the one most in the wrong who is the last to give in. Now, shake hands and be friends. I came here thinking to be doing you all a service, for it would pay better for Willem to be building walls than doing common field-work. But I don't be wanting to breed dissension between you, so I will be getting Morgan the stonemason to build my wall.'
William's lips were set close.
The brothers looked at each other; Rhys wavered. The reference to 'better pay' had struck a vibrating chord in his breast.
'If'—he began.
'Iwill build your wall, look you, pay or no pay, Robert Jones. But you will not be wanting me to-day, whatever?'
'No, not until next week; but fair work must have fair pay. Yet, what say you, Rhys?'
Here was a loophole for Rhys to slip through. 'Oh, indeed, if you don't be wanting to call him off his work to-day or to-morrow, it may be managed.'
So it was amicably settled, and when the turf-cutter went his way, William was on his knees helping Rhys to gather up what he could of the barley spilled from his seed-wallet during their unbrotherly struggle.
It so happened that the following Sunday the vicar took for his text, 2 Peter i. 5, 6, and 7, dwelling especially on the last—'And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity'—in such manner that both Rhys and William took it to heart, imagininghe had heard of their antagonism, and was addressing his sermon especially to them. No doubt there were others in the congregation to whom the sermon might apply with equal force, but they two held their heads down, as if to hide the crimson flush that mounted to the roots of their brown hair, and fidgeted uneasily upon their high-backed seat.
Anyway that was the end of their open strife. And when, at the close of another week, William carried home to his mother, in good hard coin, more than double the hire of a field-labourer, reserving a very small portion for himself, there was nothing said by way of objection to his craze for building, or his efforts to attain a more complete knowledge of arithmetical calculation.
Few persons ever found their way to Brookside Farm except on business, fewer still cared to ask who kept the fences and outhouses in such good order; and though Owen Griffith's house was by the roadside, ordinary passers-by were not likely to stop and put such questions, even if they gave the walls a second glance.
But Robert Jones had become a thriving man of business. He had increased the number of his team, and still travelled the country round with culm and peat, and clay and lime. There was scarcely a farmer or cottager on all Eglwysilan mountain, or near it, who did not on occasion call at his place, either to carry away some of his necessary commodities, or to leave a special order. And these were the very men to whom fences were of importance, the very men to know a good, compact wall when they saw it.
Jones had a long head. He had a double motive when he began to deal in broken flagstone, and invited William Edwards to build up an enclosing wall for his stores. He knew the wall would attract attention, bring the self-taught young mason into notice, and help to sell his stone.
The event justified his far-seeing calculations. Before another spring brought William's sixteenth birthday, he was known to be the best builder of dry walls within a wide area, and his services were in frequent request.
There was no more snubbing under his mother's roof, for with a very small reserve for personal needs, he poured all his earnings into her lap as to a common store; and rising in estimation, he was thanked with heartfelt satisfaction, so material and so necessary were added gains to meet increased demands, extortionate Mr. Pryse, sneering and grinning at their inability to confront him with their lease, having raised the rent a second time, and threatened still harsher measures.
And no one now lent a more willing hand to any work upon the farm, when not otherwise employed, than thoughtful William, who saw with pain the streaks of white interlacing his mother's once black hair.
But William Edwards was not content to be a mere builder of dry walls. He looked at the masonry of the church and of Caerphilly Castle, and was conscious he had much to learn. How to enlarge his fund of knowledge was a problem. But he was not easily daunted.
One Sunday he observed a cow and sundry sheeptrespassing on the vicar's glebe, having taken a wide gap in the wall as an invitation. No sooner was service concluded than he marched up boldly to the vicar, reminded him of promised help, explained his desire to master higher forms of arithmetic than Owen Griffith had ability to teach, and modestly offered to repair the glebe wall if the vicar would accept his services. The Rev. John Smith smiled, and assented readily. William set to work upon the wall the next day, going into the vicarage parlour when candles were lighted, and making the best use of the privilege accorded. Long after the wall shut out four-footed intruders, William might be seen on his way to the vicarage, after a hard day's work, once or twice a week, a bit of candle stuck in a hollowed turnip serving to light him home when there was no moon.
It was about this time a gleam of stronger light shone on his darkness.
He was engaged enclosing a fresh field for a farmer about two miles from Caerphilly. Raising his head, and giving his arms a stretch, his attention was arrested by a noise there was no mistaking. There was a blacksmith's shop by the roadside, and almost in front of it a load of stones was being dumped down from a cart, or what then answered to the name in that wild region. It was little more than a sled, low to the ground, but running on broad wheels or rollers of solid wood, girthed with iron bands and drawn by four horses.
His curiosity was excited. A group of working men were there. What were they about to do? One manwas measuring the ground, the others, doffing their coats, rolled up their shirt sleeves, and also set to work.
A trench was dug along the lines marked out. And now two mules came up with laden panniers. William overleapt his own low wall and drew nearer to observe, his pulses beating rapidly. He was coming on the secret he had so long panted to learn.
A heap of sand was emptied on the ground, and hollowed out like a huge shallow bowl. Into this was poured lime from the other panniers, and then a man carrying a pail brought water from a wayside runnel and poured it on the lime. There was no need to tell whence rose that volume of steam to one who whitewashed his mother's farm buildings so repeatedly. But the stirring up and mixing of mortar was new to him. And what was that soft fluff shaken out of a bag when the steam began to subside? It was something with which the wind made free and blew about almost like thistle-down—ay, almost into his own face. He caught a loosened tuft; examined it. It could be nothing but cow's hair. So that was how the mortar was bound together!
Anon began a chipping and ringing of steel upon stone, that was, and was not, new to him.
Nearer and nearer he drew, yet afraid of exciting observation. He knew his own purpose, and felt as if the busy masons would know it too, and drive him away before his object was attained.
He watched the mason chip and dress the stones to shape until the one fitted its fellows, and they were laidside by side in a bed of mortar within the trench, and fresh mortar spread on these with a trowel to receive a second layer of stones for the foundation.
Then he went back to his own dry-wall building. But never had wall taken him so long before, for day by day he watched the masons at their work, and day by day learned something fresh—even the uses of square and plummet—until a well-built farrier's shed adjoined the blacksmith's forge, with smoothly-rounded pillars bearing up the roof.
He had learned the secret of the masons' tools, primarily the hammer, with which the stones were chipped and dressed. Unlike his own, it was steeled atbothends, one end shaped like an axe.
From a smith in Caerphilly he obtained just such another before the week was out.
Brief apprenticeship! No premium paid! No years of servitude to a master! God had gifted him with peculiar faculties. He had a special bias; he had also intelligence, perseverance, and determination to succeed. He had achieved so far a measure of success.
He began to speculate on success he could not measure.
Five years had come and gone since that sad October when Evan Evans rode away from Brookside Farm buoyant with hope and expectation, yet from that hour no word or sign of his existence, no token of his death, had come to set feverish doubt at rest.
They had been five worrying and wearying years. For although William brought home his larger earnings to the common store, and his brothers did their best upon the farm, and there had been none but ordinary losses, the abstracted money had never been replaced. Mr. Pryse had prevented that with his extortionate raising of the rent. Then he had taken to visiting the farm at intervals, making free comments with sarcastic flings at Rhys, and cutting allusions to the still-missing Evans, and to the missing lease, which he insisted the man must have carried off, if it ever existed.
Ales had much to bear through it all. Every doubtful or stinging allusion to Evan cut her like a knife. But deep in her heart, as in a well of truth and faith, she cherished a belief that in God's good time he would come back to comfort her, and confound his traducers.And so year after year she kept her place in spite of the black looks of Rhys and Cate.
Robert Jones would gladly have made another home for her. But Ales only shook her head, and said with a heavy sigh: 'What would I do if Evan came back? No, better remain for ever unmarried than for ever marred.' And finding her constancy unshaken, the man brought an orphan niece into his cottage to care for himself and his mother, a tacit confession that his suit was hopeless.
Some such proverbial answer Mrs. Edwards gave to Rhys about this time when he urged how much better it would be to have Cate always at hand as his wife, than to be paying for her frequent services, when William was away wall-building, as was often the case. 'Besides, mother, you cannot be expecting to keep Jonet always at home,' said he. 'Thomas Williams is beginning to talk to her, and it is clear he do be thinking of taking a wife, and he five years younger than myself, look you.'
'It will take a long while thinking, if he do be thinking of Jonet for a wife, and him not even got his workshop built,' replied the mother with decision. 'Your patience will hardly hold out till Jonet makes way for Cate. But, indeed, there do be no room here for a wife. And Cate must know it.'
'We might make room, if you were willing,' he persisted. 'We need only be clearing out the fleeces, pots, pans, and other lumber, and shut in the place at the back with a bit of wall and a door, and there will be a room as big as the dairy.'
'Indeed, and where would you be for putting what you call "lumber"?'
Rhys hesitated, pushed his fingers through his loose brown hair two or three times, as if to rake up an idea. What he called lumber were household goods and utensils in common request, fire-balls and turf included.
'Oh, sure, I can be talking to Willem about that;' and he strode away, with bent brows, leaving his mother to finish her whitewashing of the cottage front, and to digest his suggestion at leisure.
The Thomas Williams to whom Rhys had referred was the second son of the carpenter who had laughed in his sleeve at Mrs. Edwards' new notion of housing and scrubbing her swine, but who had ceased to laugh at improvements that had brought him in work all round. In fact, he had enclosed his workshop and glazed his small windows, not to be behind his precocious son.
That son, Thomas Williams, was fully five years older than William Edwards, but the two had been drawn together from the fact that both indulged in original ideas, and smarted under a want of appreciation at home.
Thus it happened that when Rhys gave his mother a hint that Thomas Williams was making up to Jonet, his own brother was engaged in rearing a workshop for the young carpenter in close proximity to the premises of Robert Jones in the Aber Valley. At home he had been told he was too young to set up for himself, but he had served his seven years' apprenticeship to his father, had saved a little money, and was not so young as the self-taught mason, who was makinghisfirst experiment in house-building for him.
On his father's hearth he was scoffed at for trusting so much as the raising of a workshop to the untried hands of a mere boy. So of his plans or his ulterior intentions he said little there, desirous to escape inevitable sneers and discouragement.
It was at Brookside Farm by the fireside after dark, the two young fellows had laid their heads together, and matured their plans, long before they were put into operation, and it was there the original idea of a workshop and living-room behind developed into something more.
It was there, night after night, whilst Rhys was down the hill at the weaver's, that Thomas Williams had unsuspected opportunities for seeing Jonet's fitness for wifehood. True, he had noticed her bright black eyes and hair, her clear complexion and pleasing smile, her neat attire and dapper figure, times out of mind on Sundays, and had thought how lithe and supple were her movements, how modest her demeanour. But it was on her mother's hearth, whether knitting, or spinning from her distaff, chatting all the while with one or other, and making much of her brothers, or when helping Ales to prepare supper, that he saw how ready she was to make herself useful and agreeable as well.
So it was that, out of the first design for a mere workshop, gradually a plan for the construction of a whole house shaped itself.
William Edwards was short and sturdy; his roundface had become square, his forehead broad, his jaw inclined to be massive; his keen grey eyes were deep set and thoughtful, his nose was large with broad nostrils, his dark brown hair crisp as a crown—at seventeen a premature man of thought and action, with strong, capable hands.
He was a thorough contrast to his friend, who was tall and slight, had a fair clear skin, with a tinge of healthy colour in his cheeks, and a crop of wavy auburn hair; in short, a handsome young fellow.
Handsome enough to attract Jonet, and more than Jonet; but not to lead Mrs. Edwards to countenance too much intimacy until assured that neither her son nor his friend had miscalculated his skill or its results.
Certainly William Edwards had not.
Passers-by, or people having business with the turf-cutter, lingered to watch the young mason at his work, as the walls gradually rose above the foundations, until firm, even, and compact as if laid by a master-hand, with a couple of rooms in the rear and an undivided attic over all, the whole stood fair to view. But even before Thomas Williams had laid the last rafter, or the thatched roof was on, or the casements were glazed, the owner might be seen at his bench plying plane or saw to make the whole substantial and complete.
The situation had been well selected. Proximity to Robert Jones' premises was as good as a modern advertisement to both young builders. Then it was on the main road to church, and was certain to arrest attention and inquiry.
Rhys stood before it the Sunday after completion, along with Cate and her father, feeling something like pride in his self-taught brother for the first time. He had taken a critical survey of all, back and front, when he heard Robert Jones calling out to him from his own low doorway—
'Look you there now! What do you think of that? Didn't I be telling you not to spoil a good builder to make a bad farmer?'
'Indeed you did, and I think you were right. But where he did be learning it all does be puzzling me.'
'Ah, well, you wait and see. The little one will be the big one in the end.'
The rest of the family had come up, Mrs. Edwards between William and Davy, Jonet having dropped behind with handsome Thomas Williams.
Congratulations came thick and fast, even from strange voices.
Rhys grasped his brother by the hand, and pressed it warmly.
'I did never be thinking you could do this, Willem, whatever. I do be pleased and proud to see it.'
''Deed, I did be knowing it long ago, and so did Robert Jones,' put in Owen Griffith.
'I wish I had known it. But where did you be learning to build likethis?' asked Rhys, who held his dry walls of small account.
'Sure, and I did be studying at Caerphilly Castle, where you did be thinking me idling. Grand masonry does be there!' replied William.
Mrs. Edwards' eyes were swimming with tears. She saw a future before her son, and silently she thanked God.
'Will you like to be looking inside?' said the owner, who had unfastened the door and held it open whilst Mrs. Edwards and Jonet walked in.
The floor of the front shop was already thickly carpeted with curly shavings, and crowded with odd pieces of oak and pine shaped and trimmed ready to put together, a rush basket of tools was set upon the workman's bench under the window, pieces of timber were reared against the bare walls, and there was already an air of business about the place.
'It is all rough and bare at present,' said Thomas Williams apologetically. 'When the walls do be dry enough to whitewash, and these'—pointing to the incongruous pile upon the floor—'are made into stout seats and tables, and my tools do be set in order, as well as the house, you must be coming to look again, and rest on your way from church.'
'No one will be more welcome, whatever,' he added with emphasis, and a covert glance at Jonet, who had her feet on a flight of narrow stone steps leading up aloft. Presently she came down in surprise.
'Why, mother, look you; there is a big room overhead. What do that be for?'
Thomas flushed.
''Deed, William said it was best make the house complete at first, and show what we could do. Until it be wanted it will serve to keep my best timber dry and safe.'
'But you do not be noticing how solid and substantial are the walls.' This to Mrs. Edwards.
'Yes, yes, sure I do! And I pray God to prosper the work of both your hands.'
'Amen!' came with fervour from both young fellows, and had a loud echo from the peat-cutter in the rear.
There were not lacking turned-up noses or sneering comments on the presumption of two untried beginners setting out so pretentiously; but to them the substantial building with its two floors was as a modern manufacturer's pattern-card, and brought commissions to one or both.
And it frequently happened that the two were engaged to work together, certainly whenever Robert Jones had a chance to put in a word.
Long before Thomas Williams had his house set in order, or its wooden fittings complete, the vicar paid him a visit of inspection, and with him a gentleman he addressed as Mr. Morris. And a very close inspection the latter made, sounding and measuring the walls and trying the cement.
'Good workmanship—extremely good workmanship,' said he; 'but I expected no other from the boy. I shall recommend him.'
His opinion or his recommendation must have been worth something, for, very shortly, William Edwards was called upon to erect another two-floored house of even larger dimensions, nearer to Caerphilly and to the farrier's shed where he had graduated in masonry.
Previously to that, as they walked home, arm in arm together, after that Sunday view of the new workshop,Rhys had laid before him the latest impediment their mother had thrown in the way of his marriage. It was something new for him to take counsel with William.
'Ah, well, Rhys,' assented he, 'mother do be something unreasonable. She do be worse than Laban, for you have been after Cate longer than Jacob's whole service, and you have been a dutiful son to wait so long. I will soon be making a room for you somewhere—sure I will.'
Leaving Rhys at the foot of the hill, he turned back to help his mother up the steep ascent, she having walked to church.
Finding her in the best of good humours, he advocated his brother's cause so successfully that, by the time they were at the top, he had her consent to build an additional room at the chimney-end of the house, agreeing that, if the room were ready, the marriage might take place at Hollantide, or earlier, if all the crops were harvested and housed.
'Ready, and May still blossoming?' William laughed as he collected his materials, and cleared sufficient ground, it seemed such a small affair. But before he had his wall two feet high came the unexpected commission for a two-storeyed house, also required in a given time, and put a stop to his brotherly arrangement.
It was a proud moment for the young builder, though Rhys looked blank, and all was not clear before himself.
'Never mind, Rhys,' said he; 'your place shall be ready in time. I wish I was as sure of the money to carry on the other work. I mean to manage it, but Ido not like to be asking mother for my money back again. Jones has offered to find the stone, and wait for payment, and Williams the woodwork; but there will be labourers' wages, and other things. I must think it out.'
He had not occasion to waste much time on 'thinks.' Mother and brothers agreed that the bulk of his contributions to the general purse should be regarded as a reserve fund for his use, nothing doubting it would be mutually advantageous.
So his new undertaking was planned out, begun, and carried to a successful issue, to the joint profit of himself and friends, and the satisfaction of his employer. Not, however, without one or two hitches, and a considerable expenditure of thought, for he was at once architect and builder; and surely never one so young and self-taught before. But I am telling fact and not fable.
In those days, if people worked long hours, it was not at express speed. There was no 'scamping,' for durability was a desideratum.
It was therefore late in September before William could spare time to add another stone to the wall at Brookside, and even then he had to lend a hand in the harvest-field.
He had, however, passed his word to Rhys, and there was no fear that he would break it. His promise meant performance, by hook or by crook.
Besides, it was no great matter, and very soon Thomas Williams had the joists and other woodwork ready onthe ground, and was fitting in the framework of the doorway, for the young mason, mounted on a plank raised upon sods, was adjusting the crowning stones of the new gable with an aspect of self-content.
It was close upon the dinner-hour, and Cate, as impatient as Rhys, had hurried to the front of the house along with Jonet to note progress, and clapped her hands in glee to find the masonry so near completion.
At that juncture William cast his eyes downhill. A sharp 'Ugh!' indicative of annoyance burst from him. 'Here do be coming that wicked old Pryse,' he cried. 'What do he be wanting here?'
The uphill road wound round to the farmyard in the rear. A stile admitted to the enclosure in front and a narrow gap farther away. Here, at the stile, he alighted from his horse, throwing the reins over the side-post.
'Ah, sure,' said he, with the straight-lipped smile which he made so offensive, 'things must be prospering with you. It is well to have a builder in the family when the house is too small. Some one must be going to venture on a wife; or perhaps Mrs. Edwards has grown weary of her widowhood?'
How evil was the look in those half-closed eyes of his, as William answered from his platform—
'Rhys is going to be married, sir. Have you anything to say against that?'
'Oh, dear, no. Rhys, indeed! Let me congratulate him on the auspicious prospect, and on the prosperity it indicates. His lordship will be delighted, I am sure, tohear of these additions to the farm and the family.' And as he spoke he rubbed one skinny hand over the other slowly—
'Washing his hands with invisible soap,In imperceptible water'—
'Washing his hands with invisible soap,In imperceptible water'—
'Washing his hands with invisible soap,
In imperceptible water'—
with apparent satisfaction born of anything but goodwill.
Rhys and Mrs. Edwards coming upon the scene, the same mock salutations were offered, the sneer being so palpable that Jonet involuntarily edged nearer to Thomas Williams, and Cate caught at the arm of Rhys as if for protection.
For once he declined their proffered hospitality, contenting himself with a horn of cider. A mountain farmer's vegetarian meal was little to his liking, and he knew that meat was reserved for Sundays and rare festivals. Then mounting his horse he went trotting over the farm, reckoning up the value of crops stacked or standing, and of the sheep and cows pastured on the mountain-side, as if the produce had been his own, not the farmer's.
His presence cast a temporary gloom over the family. He was regarded as a bird of ill-omen.
But the cloud speedily dispersed, and the building went merrily on. By the beginning of October the rafters were on, and William had begun to thatch it in, and was considering the desirability of re-thatching the whole house, when their plans had a sudden check before Martinmas.
William, mounted on a ladder, was taking a bundle of fresh straw from his young labourer, when a red-faced man, whom he seemed to remember unpleasantly, came boldly over the stile, took a folded paper from his greasy pocket, and demanded insolently to see 'Jane Edwards, the tenant at will.'
He was the truculent official messenger of Mr. Pryse, and the paper he thrust into the widow's trembling hand was a formal 'notice of ejectment' from the farm!
The skinny hand of Mr. Pryse had closed upon the family with a vice-like grip.
Had the paper handed to Mrs. Edwards contained a burning fuse to set the whole homestead ablaze and lay it in ashes, it could scarcely have created greater consternation.
The grin on the bearer's face and his mother's shriek of dismay brought William down from his ladder in haste, and sent the lad John Llwyd off at racing speed to carry the alarm of unknown calamity to the rest.
One by one came Rhys, Davy, and Jonet rushing into the house, to find their mother, with her apron thrown over her head, rocking herself to and fro on the old grandfather's armchair, wringing her hands and moaning in the extremity of distress, that to them seemed inexplicable.
'Oh that I should be living to see this day! Oh that things should ever be coming to this pass! Sure to goodness it will be the death of me!'
William, by her side, was endeavouring to master the legal jargon of a document in his hands; while Ales, with arms and apron wet from the washtub, wasbending over her mistress, and doing her rough best to check the outburst of grief after her own pithy fashion.
'Name o' goodness, Jane Edwards, you do be taking on as if Mr. Pryse was God Almighty! Sure the battle's not lost before it do be fought. 'Deed, you couldn't fret worse if Rhys had been carried off like my Evan. Look to God, mistress; His breath can shrivel up Mr. Pryse like a leaf in an east wind.'
But the shock was too new for immediate consolation. Philosophy is no plaister for a raw wound.
Meanwhile William had tossed the 'notice' across the table to Rhys, with the remark, on which he set his strong, white teeth, 'The skinny old kite has whetted his beak, and do be thinking to tear us with his talons; but, if I don't be cutting his claws for him before the year runs out, my name's not William Edwards.'
'The best way to do that would be to find the lease,' put in Davy. 'I wonder where grandfather did be hiding it?'
'I'll find it out, if I pull the old house down, stone by stone,' cried William passionately; adding in another tone, 'Look you here, mother, crying will not be mending a broken egg. Let us show the old wretch a bold front, and who knows but God may help us to find the lease and keep the farm in spite of him. But, if not, in twelve months' timeImay be making a home for you, farm or no farm.'
Rhys alone had not spoken. Jonet had crept up to her mother, and, kneeling by her side, whisperedcomforting words, whilst tears ran down her own cheeks.
Rhys dashed the paper down on the floor and strode out, a suppressed cry of bitter anguish bursting from him. He could not ask Cate to marry now, with ruin hanging over them! He almost reeled against the doorway of the newly-erected addition, and groaned aloud. He felt as if the blow was directed against him—him above all.
'I did be so happy,' he murmured, 'and now—Oh, Cate, dear Cate, how can I be breaking the terrible news to you!'
Davy had followed Rhys.
''Deed, I will be for telling Cate, if it will be saving you pain,' he suggested quietly. 'Perhaps she may be taking it best from me.'
'Sure, Davy, you was always a good fellow,' was all the assent of Rhys. But without turning round he stretched out his broad brown hand to meet the warm clasp of Davy, who, in another minute, was on his way steadily downhill.
Probably both brothers anticipated hot-tempered tantrums from Cate Griffiths at the sudden change of her matrimonial prospects. But for once it was the mother, and not the girl, who flew into a rage at what she regarded as the final defeat of long-laid schemes.
For a moment Cate seemed dazed. 'Poor Rhys!' was all she said; 'he will need some one to comfort him, and your mother too.'
Ten minutes later Rhys, leaning stupidly against thedoor-frame where Davy had left him, felt a pair of warm arms steal round his neck, and a loving voice say, 'Poor Rhys! What do it matter? There do be other farms to be had. We shall not lose each other if we do be waiting. You have got a leasesomewherethat shall upset old Pryse. And look you, Rhys, neither Pryse nor his lordship have leases of their lives. He may not live to turn you out. Do not be disheartened. Trust God, do your duty, and leave the rest to Him!'
Poor Rhys! The very first words of sympathy had sunk into his soul. He had never known Cate so loving in all his life. She had been wayward, teasing, and tantalising, but never thus. His trial sank to nothing in the new discovery. He clasped her close, and took courage. Half his fear had been to lose her.
A loud summons from Ales recalled Rhys to neglected duties, and barefooted Cate sped homewards to have a sharp-tongued contest with her mother, who renewed an old cry that 'Cate needn't be spoiling her market for Rhys Edwards, whatever.'
The news spread rapidly that Mrs. Edwards had notice to quit the farm next Michaelmas, and commiseration was general.
But when Jane Edwards, supported by Rhys and Owen Griffith, walked into Mr. Pryse's apartment at the inn on the 9th of October, Caerphilly Fair Day, neither she nor Rhys made any allusion to the notice received or looked in any way daunted.
She put down her money, and asked for her receipt.
The agent eyed her curiously, but in the face of two witnesses he required to guard his words.
As Mrs. Edwards examined carefully the receipt he gave, he remarked, with his sinister smile—
'His lordship requires you to pay due regard to the ejectment notice served upon you. He cannot permittenants at willto build on his land without express permission.'
'Ifhis lordship do be knowing anything of that ejectment notice, he will know that it be just so much waste paper. Good-day, sir.'
He opened his eyes wide for once, and stared at her, but without another word Mrs. Edwards left the room, followed by Rhys and Griffith, who had previously paid his rent.
'You touched him there,' said they both in a breath, when clear of the inn.
They would have been sure of it had they seen him start from his seat and grasp the arms of his chair, exclaiming, as he sank back again—
'Confound the woman! What did she mean? Is the lease found? And what meant her innuendo anent his lordship's knowledge. They cannot have—but—no, no!' And there he sat biting his long nails in perplexity, oblivious of frequent knocks at the door, or tenants waiting in the passage for their turn.
No, the lease had not been found, but something else had, from which Mrs. Edwards derived her courage.
In the first outpouring of her indignation she hadforbidden William to proceed with his thatching. But he was equally persistent.
'What, mother!' he cried hotly, 'leave that bit of a place unroofed to be telling old Pryse that we be frightened by his dirty paper? Not I. And it's my belief his lordship does not know one word about it, whatever.'
The words dropped from his lips like an inspiration. His mother caught at them.
William, taking the bit between his teeth, was up his ladder, with John Llwyd in attendance, before she had fully mastered the probabilities of the case.
It was not a long business, for considering the state of affairs he was not so foolhardy as to re-roof the whole farm. But to make a neat job of it he had to clear away the worn and jagged edges of the old thatch to make an even joining.
As he did so, and created a gap, something fell down inside the kitchen with a thud and a rattle.
'Name o' goodness, what's that?' cried Ales from the fireplace, almost losing her hold of the iron pot she was hanging on the hook. 'Do you be going to bring the house about our ears?'
Another moment she sent up a scream, 'It's found! It's found! Thank God!'
But before she could lay hands upon the prize William was in the house, and had picked up a small oak box covered with dust and mould.
The scream of Ales brought Mrs. Edwards in from the farmyard with an apron full of eggs that fell with a smash to the floor.
What mattered the eggs? The sight of that curious old box drove eggs out of mind!
'Oh, goodness, Willem! That was your grandfather's box! Many a hunt your poor dear father did have for that box. Open it, quick!'
'It's locked, mother. I cannot force the hasp, it do fit so tight.'
'Ah, yes, I do forget. I do have kept the key all these years. Here, here, do make haste!'
How her fingers trembled as she brought from her deep pocket the big key of the coffer, and the tiny one so well preserved for—this.
A folded paper, and a multitude of coins!
John Llwyd peeping in at the door, roughly driven off by Ales, like another winged-footed Mercury, flew over field and fallow, echoing her cry, 'It's found! It's found!'
Before the paper could be read, or the coins counted, there were other echoes besides William's to the mother's pious 'Thanks be to God!'
The paper was awill, duly signed and witnessed, by which William David Edwards bequeathed to his son William, and to his eldest son Rhys after him, the lease of the farm, and all property in the land held under that lease, with whatever stock and crops might be thereon at his decease. And further left whatever moneys might be found along with that will for the use of that son, William, should necessity arise, but laid a charge upon him not to diminish but to add to the store, to be divided between David and any future childrenborn to the said William and Jane Edwards, in order to help them also to make a start in life.
What a shout went up when the 'lease' was named! It became no longer a disputed fact. Here was legal proof that might serve them in good stead if the lease itself could not be found. No doubt the careful grandfather—who had died suddenly in a fit—had secreted that as well as the will just come to light. That might turn up any day.
Hope was in the ascendant. And now for the coins. Some—the five-pound and two-pound pieces of William and Mary—were unknown to the young men, though coined during the manhood of the hoarder; but the remainder, guineas and half-guineas from the mints alike of William and Queen Anne, had not yet dropped out of circulation, if seldom seen. Except four tarnished crown pieces, there was no silver.
It was a golden inheritance to feast their eyes upon. In all one hundred and forty-five pounds. Such a store had never met their sight before.
Yet, with the new possession came the dread of robbers. Ales counselled silence.
''Deed, and it's best the teeth guard the tongue. It be a fool's trick to show the old fox the hen's nest. Him as could steal my Evan might lay his claws on your gold.'
It was good advice, and wisely followed.
John Llwyd had seen a paper unfolded, but no gold; so what he had to tell did not count for much to hearers unconcerned.
But, coupled with the demeanour of Mrs. Edwards and her son, it put Mr. Pryse on the tenter-hooks of uncertainty.
The thatching was completed, but no other little secret hiding-place was found, and discovery ended there.
It was the season for the general repair of fences and dry walls, and William was kept busy.
Winter was wearing away when, through his friend Thomas Williams, another stroke of good fortune came to him.
Though I have called the latter a carpenter, the word must be taken in its broadest significance; he was also a joiner, and he aspired to be a millwright. In the days when he served his long apprenticeship, a man was expected to master his craft in all its details and branches, and to bring his mind to bear upon it, if he had one. He was older than his friend, and the very nature of his occupation had enlarged the circle under his observation.
Unknown to any but William Edwards, his attic was stored with models of millwheels and machinery in various stages, at which he wrought when his workshop was closed.
One morning, whilst February's snow yet lay upon the ground, a substantial miller named Owen Wynn, whose old mill threatened to topple over into the stream, stopped his horse at the carpenter's door, and asked abruptly 'if that was one of the buildings a young man named Edwards had put up.'
Being answered in the affirmative, he asked permission to look over the place, adding—
'Sure, I have heard he is the best mason that ever put stone together in these parts, and I would like to be seeing for myself, whatever.'
Nothing loth, Thomas led the stranger over the whole premises (small, asweshould think), indicating the peculiar points of the builder's excellence.
'Yes, yes,' said he, 'I observe,' and straightway marched up the attic stairs uninvited.
The models arrested his attention. 'Hah, sure! you are a millwright, are you? Are those improvements?'
Thomas Williams modestly 'thought they were.'
'Then you and this Edwards could build a substantial mill between you?'
'Without a doubt, whatever.'
'Is the mason at hand?'
''Deed, my apprentice do be gone for him.' The prescient young fellow had already scented business.
Sturdy and self-reliant as William might be, and older than his years, yet there could be no mistaking eighteen for thirty.
The miller started when he approached, his apron on, his hammer in his hand. He thought him extremely young to have obtained such repute.
However, before they separated, the two had been commissioned to build his water-mill and house, and a time appointed to find a suitable spot.
They were both conscious that itwas an undertaking—with William a great one. They felt as if the makingor marring of their lives was in their hands. But they were not daunted.
'If difficulties arise we must surmount them,' said William resolutely, before his plans were drawn. 'As I cannot get books I can read, I must be studying the castle again.'
There were no Welsh books of any technical value to him; English he was unable to read. Fortunately for him, the walls and towers and arches of Caerphilly Castle had been as the leaves of an open and intelligible book, a work on ancient masonry no printed volume could surpass.
He had need to study it well now, to learn the secret of the arch, and how to construct a tunnel to bear away the watery overflow from the mill-wheel.
Learn it the young mason did, and that effectually.
Hard at work were they and their men all through the summer months, the builders with stone and wood, and ere the frosts of autumn came to lay a destructive finger on the mortar, there was a goodly mill by the side of the river, storey rising above storey, and the tunnelled waterway firm and compact, only some woodwork and the flagstone roof to be added.
It had been a period of great anxiety to both young men, for besides the risks attending all experimental work, Edwards was uneasy respecting his mother's possession of the farm, and Thomas Williams had resolved to seek Jonet for a wife if their work was a success.
Of any portion he might expect with her he knew nothing.
The corn had ripened for the sickle, but no lease had yet been found. September shone upon the land, and the case became urgent.
One evening, when the masons had laid by their tools for the night, the good vicar had a visitor. William Edwards desired to see the Rev. John Smith most particularly.