The Making of William Edwards Part 15

She put her arm within his as she spoke, and laid her head, in its white linen cap, against his shoulder.

'Ah, Rhys, that was a terrible time, a terrible time. But, thanks be to G.o.d, we won through it. And it made a man of you, my dear boy. Well do I remember how you came to comfort me, and promised always to be a good son, and do your duty by me, and by the children, and by the farm, in the sight of G.o.d. And you have always done it, Rhys, _fach_, always-- And--and--it would be breaking my heart, Rhys, if--if--you should be caring more for some one else than for your promise--or for your mother--and--and for Jonet--and the others.' And there she paused, but he made no response, and she continued.

The latter half of the sentence was sobbed rather than spoken, and Rhys, who had a tender heart, notwithstanding his contempt for William's day-dreams, was deeply moved by her emotion.

For the moment, Cate and his own day-dreams were lost sight of.

'Mother, dear,' said he, not perhaps so truthfully as might have been, though he felt at the time that all he said _was_ true. 'Mother, no one can ever come between us, or make me forget my old promise. What makes you be thinking so to-night? Have I not done my duty so far?' And now his strong arm went round her with more than the old protectorate.

'Yes, yes, indeed, Rhys, you have always been a good son; but--but--you have been something different of late--and--I thought, perhaps, Elain Lloyd--or--or--Cate Griffith might have been looking out for you, and for stealing your heart away from us all, look you.'

He began a fresh disclaimer at the mention of Elain Lloyd, but stopped short, and she could feel him wince and hold his breath when the name of Cate Griffith followed.

The denial died upon his lips. There was a pause. Early or precipitate marriages are not common in Wales. The consent of parents must first be obtained, and he had not yet spoken of marriage to Cate, but he knew the antic.i.p.ation lurked in both their hearts, and there was a momentary struggle between two loves--two duties.

His mother's emotion had moved him as no angry words could have done, and so moved him that at the moment he would have given up Cate or any one to console her.

'Yes, yes, mother, _fach_; Cate is a nice girl--and we are very good friends, the best of friends; but you need not be afraid; I am not going to bring her, or any one else whatever, to disturb you, indeed no.'

If there was a mental reservation, 'at least not just yet,' the words were unspoken.

And so, with a kiss of peace between mother and son, the disturbing spirit was laid at rest.

At rest--that was, on the surface--and for the time being.

True to his promise, and with an unappreciated effort, Rhys confined his attentions to Cate to the walk home from church, and was apparently less desirous to loiter with her in the rear of her parents. With commendable self-repression--seeing that his own inclination ran counter to his filial bond--he found occupation on the farm when otherwise he might have had an errand that should take him across the shallow brook and past the weaver's cottage. Or, if he had really business that way, he showed less disposition to linger at open door or window.

Cate resented this with pettishness, and the transference of her winning smiles to Robert, the young brother of Elain Lloyd, until the coolness became coldness mingled with pique, and the two pa.s.sed each other at church or on the road with affected indifference.

Had there been an absolute quarrel, it might have spent itself in reproaches, or been made up when the storm-cloud had pa.s.sed, but this unexplained reserve went on for months and months, and the breach continued open.

Mrs. Edwards ought to have been satisfied with the result of her interference, and for a time she was. But somehow the temper of Rhys had not improved. His a.s.sertion of mastership became more p.r.o.nounced. He and William came into frequent collision as the weeks and months rounded into years, and the harmony of the household was disturbed. Jonet appealed to her mother against his dictatorship, and even Davy roused from his pa.s.sivity and objected 'to be ordered about like a hired labourer.'

There was no denying that Brookside Farm had materially improved under the new system of cropping and manuring Evan Evans had introduced, or that half the farmers in the parish had begun to plant potatoes since the root had proved so profitable there. Then there was land under cultivation that had formerly lain waste, and Mrs. Edwards was no longer in dread of the rent-day, or of Mr. Pryse, let him scowl as he would.

She was always ready to give Evan the credit, and to pay him well for his services. But her eldest son, having profited by the man's instructions through a succession of years, began to think himself wiser than his teacher, and either argued against or disapproved most of his suggestions, whether for the cultivation of the land or the treatment of the stock. Rhys had been a mere boy when Evan came upon the farm, and the others quite children. It was scarcely likely that he who had seen them grow up was to submit to the young fellow's rule as if their ages were reversed.

Night after night, when Evan and Ales sat up together courting after the rest were in bed, as was the old custom, he would talk over some fresh slight or indignity received from Rhys, and declare his intention to quit the farm and get married at the next yearly hirings.

"Deed, and it is not that I would like to be doing Mrs. Edwards an ill turn, in taking you away before Jonet is old enough to supply your place, in some sort, Ales, _fach_, or in going and leaving Rhys to do as he likes; but I am too old to be ordered about and taught my business by him, whatever. His good mother did never be doing it--and it's time we was be thinking of that little cottage at Castella, with the nice bit of land that would serve for a pig and a cow. We would soon be wanting another field and another cow, Ales, and we could have your mother over from Caerphilly to live with us--yes, indeed.'

'Yes, indeed, Evan; but I do be thinking Jonet do not be strong or tall enough to lift the dasher of the big churn, and it would come hard on Mrs. Edwards if she did be having to make the b.u.t.ter come. We do better be waiting a bit longer, or there's Rhys would be bringing Cate Griffith here to plague his mother's heart; yes, sure.'

And so from time to time it was proposed, and from time to time put off, Evan growing more and more dissatisfied at being thrust into the background, until, at length, when nearly three more years had spun their uneven thread, Ales consented to quit Brookside for the cottage at Castella, and Mrs. Edwards, weary of adjusting differences, endeavoured to persuade herself that now her sons and her daughter were growing up around her, they should be able to manage well without them, and, indeed, save something in food and wages.

At the first announcement of their decision, Rhys brisked up wonderfully. He shook Evan by the hand as if there had never been a difference between them, and congratulated him on his sensible choice, and on his prospect of happiness, with quite friendly interest.

William was the only one at all depressed by the proposed changes. Evan and Ales had frequently stood between him and overbearing Rhys; he had become attached to them, and felt he should lose two good friends when they married and went away. So there was a note of regret in his congratulations.

The thatched cottage at Castella was taken, duly whitewashed within and without, and the earthen floor relaid and left to harden. But Evan had promised Ales that she should have gla.s.s windows, and for these, and for his farming implements, he would have to make a journey to Cardiff. He had engaged a local carpenter to make a bed, a wooden settle, a table, and platter shelves. Ales herself had a pretty fair collection of useful articles in the shape of pots, bowls, and mugs, stowed away in the barn, having added to her store whenever the packman came his rounds. And she had, besides, a goodly pair of thick blankets, of which she was not a little proud, having spun the wool in spare hours when her other work was done, to say nothing of flannel and linsey-woolsey for wedding garments--under-linen was then and there of no account. Mrs. Edwards had promised Ales a new felt hat and a shawl for the auspicious occasion, and they bade fair to make a good start according to the ideas then prevailing. It would be thought little of nowadays, when art has found its way into the humblest abodes. But what had never been known or heard of could not be missed, and the absolute wants of nature are really very few.

As their yearly servitude happened to terminate alike at Martinmas, Mrs.

Edwards kindly proposed their continuance on the farm whilst Ales completed some needful preparations, and Evan made his important journey to Cardiff. The wedding was to take place soon after his return, for the Rev. John Smith had been notified, and read out the banns, for the first time, on the last Sunday in September, the faithful pair looking down and blushing crimson as the eyes of the whole congregation turned towards them.

They left the church together, feeling half-married, nothing doubting that the ceremony would be completed three weeks later.

But they had calculated without Mr. Pryse.

CHAPTER XIV.

WHERE IS EVAN?

The difference between a full-face portrait and a profile is not so great as the different aspect the same individual may present to different people. To his n.o.ble employer, Mr. Pryse was the very beau-ideal of a shrewd business man,--clear-headed, active, and indefatigable in his interests and that of the large estate under his control,--a man on whom he could rely, for dealing conscientiously alike with himself and his tenants, in his absence.

Those tenants saw only a hard, grasping, unscrupulous agent, who extorted high rents, made no allowance for bad seasons or failing crops, and who stifled complaints with an extra turn of the screw. They knew that all repairs and improvements, made at their own cost, would be wrested to the advantage of the n.o.ble landowner in the long-run, and were disheartened. There was an unwhisperable suspicion afloat that these said repairs went down as deductions from rents in the accounts submitted to his lord; but who ever had a chance of overhauling those accounts, or questioning crafty Mr. Pryse's unimpeachable integrity?

And about the time when William Edwards first found his way to Caerphilly Castle, which was in the year after George II. ascended the throne, the first faint breaths of a graver suspicion were wafted northwards, from Cardiff, in unaccountable and mysterious undertones.

Cardiff, now a flourishing and busy seaport, was then, in spite of its great castle, but a small, mean, and unimportant town, hardly to be called a port, its ancient prestige having fallen away like its gates and walls.

But about this period Mr. Pryse ceased to collect his lord's rents regularly at Caerphilly, and required that they should be brought to his office in Cardiff. This was a woful grievance to the bulk of the tenants, especially to elderly or infirm persons, or others remote from the county town. Had his lordship been at the Castle, no doubt his irate tenants would have sought his presence in a body, and made common cause against the common oppressor; but no such opportunity occurred.

Neighbours who dreaded the toil of a nineteen or twenty miles' journey along bad roads in bad weather, with Mr. Pryse at the end, and as wearisome a return, would meet and agree to trust the bravest of the party with the separate rents of two or three, having no fear of robbery by the way, whilst so many other travellers would be fallen in with, all bent on the same errand.

Some of these adventurous wights, who had never been so far as Cardiff in their lives before, brought back the news, either gathered on the spot or on the road, that a strange craft had begun to frequent the river, and to anchor off the old sea-wall. It was said that the vessel had been a privateer during the wars of the previous reign, and that although she came thither ostensibly for coal from his lordship's collieries, and Mr. Pryse was in close communication with the captain, there was something rather mysterious about her cargo.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THERE WAS SOMETHING RATHER MYSTERIOUS ABOUT HER CARGO.

--_See page 164._]

It was darkly hinted that the barrels which came pannier-wise on long strings of horses from the Caerphilly colliery laden with coal, and were hauled on board to be emptied, were not returned empty, but, when again slung across the backs of the patient beasts waiting on the old quay, seemed no lighter than before; and knowing ones surmised, from the care with which they were handled, that smaller kegs were slipped inside the open coal barrels. At all events, it was whispered that the teamsters lingered long at roadside inns, and that some of them struck into by-ways instead of making direct for the colliery with their empties.

And it was certain that foreign spirits could be procured by the initiated where only _cwrw da_ or cider had been hitherto obtainable.

This had been going on for three years when Evan, the bridegroom-expectant, prepared for his journey to Cardiff, whence he proposed to bring Ales her golden wedding-ring, as well as a number of small articles--not included in the 'furnishing list' of c.u.mbrous goods--to be ferried across the river for after-conveyance to his new cottage.

To Mrs. Edwards the enforced journey to Cardiff for the payment of rent had been a trouble and a grievance. She had not cared to send hot-headed Rhys by himself into a town which she pictured as full of temptations for young men, neither had she cared to go thither alone. Twice had she taken her son with her; once she had made the toilsome journey in company with Owen Griffith; at other times she had entrusted him with the rent-money. But now that Evan was bent thither on business of his own, her natural thrift suggested the employment of him as her deputy, so as to save the toil of the journey, and innkeeper's charges for herself and her beast.

Owen Griffith, too, was glad of a trustworthy subst.i.tute; so that when Evan kissed Ales, and shook hands with the rest as he bestrode good old Breint at the farmhouse gate, he carried a goodly sum under his new frieze riding-coat, in one pocket or other, nearly all the savings of Ales, in addition to his own, and the two rents.

His departure was quite an event. Owen Griffith and Cate had walked up the hill to hand him the money and see him off, though the hour was early, and a drizzling rain had begun to fall. But rain was no new thing among the mountains, and n.o.body cared for that, though, doubtless, they would have preferred fair weather as more auspicious.

However, Ales flung an old shoe after him, and called out--

'For luck, Evan!'