The Making of William Edwards Part 17

'Show me your lease,' demanded the agent loftily.

'We can do that when necessary, sir. His lordship will be having a copy you can consult,' replied Rhys quite as loftily.

And, seeing that he had a full-grown man to deal with, not a woman he could intimidate, Mr. Pryse turned on his heel, and mounted his horse, muttering something surly as he went, his disappointed functionary following at his heels.

Once again he bit his nails as his horse carried him down the stony track, for even the coin he bore away did not cover his baffled rage at defeat. Presently his thin lips spread into a smile of self-congratulation, and his eyelids nearly met as he communed with himself.

'It was lucky I did not call on Griffith for _his_ rent first. I clinched the nail on Evan's dishonest flight in acknowledging _that_. A clever idea of mine his begging grace for Edwards' widow. Covers his call at my office. I suppose that forward jade is the woman he was going to marry. She will wait a long while for a husband if she waits for Evan Evans, look you. And as for that c.o.c.k-crowing Rhys, I'll cut his comb before I've done with him. He shall not crow over me with impunity; no, indeed. I've bled the old woman pretty freely this time. She'll not get over it in a hurry. The farm will go to the dogs now that long-headed farming-man is gone. Lease, indeed! I defy any power in earth or heaven to keep them on their farm when I am ready to turn them out. Yes, indeed!'

A strong defiance _that_, Mr. Pryse, crafty and potential though you may be!

CHAPTER XV.

A STOP-GAP.

As soon as Mr. Pryse was gone, Mrs. Edwards sank down on the oaken settle exhausted with the conflict of disturbing thoughts, and the hara.s.sing scene in which she had just borne a part. The old stocking-foot, which had been her only possible savings bank all the years of her thrifty widowhood, lay, with her limp hand, in her lap, in a corresponding state of collapse. Only three weeks before it had been plump and pleasant to contemplate, a testimony to industry, and a pledge of future prosperity. Now, within those three short weeks, the full half-year's rent had been a second time withdrawn, with exorbitant costs in addition, and the residue had ample s.p.a.ce to c.h.i.n.k.

There was a troubled aspect of careworn bewilderment on her countenance as she sat there, gazing abstractedly on her diminished store, endeavouring to reconcile the irreconcilable. And all the while Rhys was pacing the kitchen floor, with noisy tramp, in his wood-soled shoes, chafing and fuming over the cruel insolence of Mr. Pryse, as well as over their loss, yet wondering vaguely if there could be any truth in his allegations.

He did not altogether trust Mr. Pryse, but he had never had his mother's unbounded confidence in Evan, and, as Owen Griffith had suggested, so much money in his hands all at once might have proved too great a temptation, or he might have got drunk and lost it, and been ashamed to return. (But Evan did not drink.)

Now and then a sharp, jerky expletive gave expression to his crude doubts and suspicions, but he could not wring from his mother any word to strengthen his suspicions.

'I do not be knowing what to think, Rhys!'--"Deed, Rhys, Evan has served us well, and Mr. Pryse is a bad man, your father said it.'--'Yes, indeed, it is a serious loss, but Evan helped us to get the money.'--'Yes, yes, Rhys, I do be aware you have worked hard too; but Evan, he did teach us new ways--and--after all,' she concluded, rising slowly to replace the depleted stocking in the coffer, 'we may thank G.o.d we had the money saved, or our farm would have gone from us, and we should have lost everything. Think of poor Ales, and don't be letting her hear you.'

Poor Ales! William had found her in the dairy, bent down over the tall churn, with her head on her bare brown arms, sobbing as if her heart would break, less for herself than the aspersion cast on her true and faithful Evan. She had shrunk away, not from Mr. Pryse's whip, but from an evil tongue and a threat that cut worse than a whip-lash.

Prisons were horrible dens before John Howard spent his life in dragging their iniquities to light, and purifying their foulness. 'Jail'

was a word to daunt the strongest, for everywhere tales were rife how unscrupulous power thrust innocent men within their pestilential walls to perish, for no crime greater than debt or unguarded words.

William comforted in vain.

'Jail, Willem! He said he would send me to _jail_, only for standing up for honest people. But he is a rogue, Willem--a bad, wicked rogue, Willem.' She sobbed and shuddered as she gasped out the words. 'Yes, 'deed! it will be that cruel Mr. Pryse that do be robbing the widow of her money--and--and my poor Evan of his good name. Yes, sure, and me of my dear husband that would have been this day! Oh, Willem _fach_, my poor heart will be breaking.'

'Hush, Ales dear! don't say so,' implored the sympathetic boy, laying his hand tenderly upon her shoulder. 'Unkind words are hard to bear, I know'--and he sighed--'but n.o.body here will think Evan took our money and yours, and ran away from _you_.' (He might have altered his opinion could he have heard through the stone wall what Rhys was saying.) 'Cheer up; it will all come right when Evan gets back; yes, sure.'

Ales startled William with the quick, energetic way she flung up her head and spoke--

'Come back? He will not come back unless I can seek out what that wicked wretch has done with him. Would he be so sure of it, or dare to come here to rob your mother--yes, to rob her--if he did not know what he had done to keep my Evan from me? He may have put _him_ in jail to rot there. Oh!' (and she wrung her hands, brown and hard with honest toil)--'oh! or he may have had him _murdered_. He is bad enough for that!'

'Hush, hush, Ales! Mr. Pryse would hardly do that; though he _is_ a bad man, and looked, oh, so wickedly pleased when he knocked down the Tower of Babel I was building. I'm afraid, Ales dear, he would not stick at much,' William added, after a moment's cogitation.

'Name o' goodness, boy! He would stick at nothing whatever!' she cried, rising to her feet, and taking her cloak from a peg in the storeroom outside the dairy. 'But I am off to Cardiff to find Evan, or search out the truth; and do you pray for me, Willem, that I may succeed, and that no harm may come to me before I do.'

'Stay, stay, Ales,' exclaimed William, catching at her cloak in the doorway; 'you cannot go all that way on foot, and alone, or at this time o' day.'

Her voice was strangely quiet and determined as she answered--

'The sun has not set. I shall reach Caerphilly before night, and can stay and rest with mother until morning.'

"Deed, now, you had best be staying where you are till morning, and you shall have a horse to ride on. And if there is no one else to go with you, I will go myself, sure.'

After some persuasion, Ales consented to the first proposition, absolutely declining to accept his proffered escort, saying, 'Now Evan be gone you cannot be spared. And, now the money be gone, you must give up playing with stones, and work well to keep the farm from the sly old fox. Ah, sure, and the fox might be glad to catch the young goose near his hole. No, no, Willem, _you_ must not run into danger. There be no need to break your mother's heart as well as mine. If G.o.d speed my errand I shall not be alone. Better G.o.d's arm than man's army.'

As her cloak went back to the peg, William slipped out through the farmyard, and was off down hill as fast as his legs would carry him.

Davy and Jonet, returning from the potato-field where they had been industriously at work, undisturbed and unaware of the overwhelming trouble nearer home, called out to know where he was going; but if he heard he did not answer.

Supper--the old frugal meal of stiff leek porridge and milk--was on the table cooling when he returned out of breath, and whispered to Ales, as she carried out the porridge-pot, that their mutual friend, Robert Jones, had business of his own in Cardiff, and if she would join him at seven in the morning, where the roads met, she could ride all the way on one of his team. He did not tell her all he had said to enlist his old friend in her service, or how heartily the turf-cutter had responded, or that the man's errand was chiefly on her account.

Robert Jones knew more of 'old Pryse' than she did, and hated him as sincerely.

There had been some previous talk between Ales and her old mistress about the young woman's continuation on the farm unless Evan returned to claim her.

'I'd rather serve you for nothing than go away before Evan's good name was cleared, 'deed I would. And it will be cleared some day, I know it will, whatever some folk may think.'

She had said this with a full heart, meaning all she proposed, but Mrs.

Edwards was too just to accept service on such terms from a tried and faithful maid in her hour of deep affliction. Besides, she had a feeling that whilst Ales was there, well-trained and active, Rhys would have less excuse to bring Cate on to the hearth. Motives are always more or less complex.

The objections of Mrs. Edwards to Cate Griffith certainly were so. She would have conceded that 'the girl was good-looking, quick of foot, and ready of hand,' but she would have added also, 'ready with her tongue, and not quite straightforward in her ways.' Then, if she must be deposed by her eldest son's wife, she would have been better pleased had he looked higher, and gone courting where there would be a little money to come home with the bride. Cate would have none to bring.

With such feelings uppermost, she did not contemplate the temporary absence of Ales with too much favour, anxious as she was for some news of Evan and of her missing money.

Mr. Pryse had disorganised the work in field and house for the one day utterly. All was now behind-hand. She was herself upset, and a woman far on the wrong side of fifty does not recover her balance too readily. The sudden departure of Ales at this inopportune juncture was another upset.

But she would not confess her weakness to Rhys, lest he should make it an excuse for bringing Cate to her a.s.sistance.

Yesterday--Tuesday--had been baking-day. In their trouble the oven had been allowed to grow cool, and the dislodged terrier, who had shown a set of angry teeth at Mr. Pryse, had gone back to his repose underneath it. The barley and oatmeal for the bread lay in the brown crock, as Ales had left it, with the bit of last week's dough in a bowl ready to leaven it. Mixing, kneading, and baking was not light work, yet it must be done. Thoughtful Davy had again driven away the dog from his hole in the ash-pit, and lit the oven fire in readiness.

Then it was _Wednesday_, the churning and b.u.t.ter-making day. How was she to bake and churn the same morning? for both required attention, and when once the long-handled dasher was set in motion, up and down it must go until the b.u.t.ter came, however long that might be, or all would be spoiled.

Jane Edwards, persistent as her children, was at her wits' end, but she could not call Jonet in from the field, for they were late in digging up the potatoes, and if the frost came before they were in the pits, the whole crop would be ruined.

Then dinner had to be thought of. It was a relief to her, whilst kneading the ma.s.s of dough, to hear Davy scrubbing away with a ling besom at the dinner potatoes in the stone hollow under the spring. But she heard the quick voice of Rhys recalling him to his field-work, and the pa.s.sive 'I be coming,' which marked his subjection to his elder brother.

At noon, when her family came in to dine, expecting the Wednesday's meal of b.u.t.termilk and potatoes--still new enough to be something of a treat--though there was a pleasant odour of baking bread in the kitchen, and there were antic.i.p.ations of a dough dumpling in the pot, there were unmistakable grumblings and sour looks because there was only fresh milk to go with the esculent root. (The difference is only to be estimated by a trial on a farm where the b.u.t.termilk is fresh.)

Jane Edwards was overtired, and lost her temper. 'You could not expect me to be baking and churning at the same time,' she jerked out angrily, feeling already warm with her morning's work.

Here was the opportunity Rhys had looked for.

'You had better have had Cate here this morning to churn. Then you would not have been so hurried, and our dinner would not have been spoiled.'

'Spoiled, indeed! I have seen the time you would all have been glad of hot potatoes and salt, without milk at all,' was retorted.

William and Davy rushed to the rescue, rightly interpreting the mother's frown. 'I'll stay and churn for you,' they cried in a breath.