The Making of William Edwards Part 27

'Oh yes. Willem found grandfather's will, and the lease do be left to Rhys; but no lease can we be finding anywhere.'

'Where have you been looking?'

All sorts of likely and unlikely places were named.

'My first master kept his lease in the Bible. Did you look there?'

'Indeed, yes, Evan,' came from Mrs. Edwards, with a disheartened sigh; 'I turned over every leaf.'

'Oh, I do mean under the old cloth cover. He kept his there.'

A moment of breathless astonishment--a general rise from the table!

Mrs. Edwards was down on her knees unlocking the coffer.

In another minute the Bible was out; the stout cloth cover ripped off.

There lay the parchment, flat and clean, as when laid there years upon years before by hands now in the clasp of death.

'_Thank G.o.d!_' cried Mrs. Edwards, still upon her knees. 'My children, the finger of G.o.d is in this. Our search did be vain till He did send His own messenger to point it out. As Ales did say, G.o.d's finger _is_ stronger than man's arm; strong to save. Let us once more thank Him.'

The relief had been overpowering. The thanksgiving was strong and deep.

The reaction was too great almost for speech. The dinner, nearly cold, was eaten in silence; but it was the silence of hopefulness, not despair.

It was followed by a clattering and chattering of loosened tongues, guesses at Mr. Pryse's consternation on the morrow, and questionings of Evan's disappearance and adventures, which we may leave that morrow to answer.

Mean though he was through every fibre of his being, Mr. Pryse was lavish in regard to his own creature comforts. Yet even many of these he contrived to obtain gratuitously from tenants who loved him little and feared him much, or from obsequious sea-captains whose cargo was not altogether coal or iron, captains who had goods to bring ash.o.r.e without compliments to Custom House officers. And those were anything but days of free trade.

He sat at ease between a cosy fire, which cost him nothing, and a round breakfast-table on which were the remains of chicken, ham, and eggs, all of which were equally cheap. A fragrant aroma of Mocha coffee yet lingered around the foreign china cup and saucer and coffee-pot, none of which had paid duty to England's monarch, any more than the Barcelona silk handkerchief cast lightly over the knee he was indolently nursing on the other, whilst he leaned back in his tall chair picking his teeth, and a smile of uttermost self-content and enjoyment creased the parchment-like skin into folds under his wicked old eyes.

'Yes,' said he, half aloud to himself; 'out they go to-morrow, stock and lot! And let them get another farm where they can. Lease, indeed'--and he chuckled. 'If they could find any lease to show, there would have been no sending of cows and sheep and grain to market. Ah, yes, I shall soon pay off my old score to that fellow who drowned himself like a fool. Yes, and get a higher rent, now that building son of his has enlarged the homestead.'

The chuckle had not died out of his skinny throat when the door opened, and he caught his breath, for a special messenger from his lordship, booted and spurred, like one who rides in haste, entered unannounced, and with the simple remark that he 'had rather a rough pa.s.sage across the Severn from Bristol that morning, and found the air raw and cold,'

presented a sealed packet, marked 'Immediate and important.'

Had he said he crossed in a Revenue cutter, Mr. Pryse might not so readily have taken the hint thrown out.

As it was, he apologised for the coldness of the breakfast, and from a private cabinet produced a bottle of genuine Hollands--which had never gone through a Custom House--and, setting them before his unexpected visitor, invited him to help himself.

'I trust his lordship is well?' he said blandly, but quite as a matter of course.

'No; he was dangerously ill when I left,' came from the courier, with startling bluntness.

What? His easy-going master ill! perhaps dying! Mr. Pryse turned ashen grey. 'You don't say so!' he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed with a gasp, his fingers trembling, as he at last unfolded the despatch and began to read, hardly conscious that the man, smacking his lips over the fiery Hollands, had been watching him all along with keen, observant eyes.

With all Mr. Pryse's self-command the paper rattled in his fingers as he read. It was not a lengthy epistle, and only the signature was his lordship's; the letter was from his son and heir. Its sole purport was to prevent injustice, as the act of a dying man.

In stern and peremptory words it forbade Simon Pryse to hara.s.s or disturb the Widow Edwards in her holding, since he must know it was leased for three lives, and would not fall in until the demise of William Edwards' eldest son, then living. Moreover, he was commanded to refund, from his own purse, all excess rent he had extorted from the widow, _yet not included in his accounts_. And he was required to furnish a true and just statement of all the moneys in his hands and all his dealings and transactions in his lordship's name, not omitting the share he was said to have taken in the abduction of one Evan Evans, seven years prior to that date.

'It shall be done,' said Mr. Pryse hoa.r.s.ely, as the messenger rose to depart, fully satisfied with the result of his observations.

'Yes, it _shall_ be done!' cried the infuriated agent, when the man was gone, springing to his feet with a tremendous oath. 'But not as his lordship or his lordship's heir proposes. Shall I forego the revenge I have nursed for years, when a few hours will bring the hated tribe within my grip? No; I will set my feet upon their necks if I die for it!' and another fierce anathema parted those thin lips of his.

All on a sudden he stopped short, and bit his long nails viciously. 'Has some one turned traitor?' he murmured between set teeth. 'Those poor farming idiots could not get a letter to his lordship's hand. No matter.

The bolt has fallen sooner than I expected, but trust me to be taken unprepared. It has fallen in the nick of time. In another hour the _Cambria_ would have sailed.'

Upstairs, three steps at a time like a boy, he ran, exulting in his own crafty schemes for outwitting justice; drew his blue and white check curtain quite across his bedroom window--a preconcerted signal to the _Cambria's_ skipper--changed his kerseymere smalls for his leather riding breeches, and was downstairs in his private office as usual, yet not as usual. He was on his knees before his strong box and his golden G.o.d.

In his guilty knowledge and his craftiness, he had years before prepared for flight on emergency. He had lodged a portion of his filchings in Wood's Gloucester Bank, under a fict.i.tious name. Yet as there was no other provincial bank at that time in all England and Wales, and no bank notes under 20 value, exchange was not easy. Rents, etc., were paid in specie. Specie also was transmitted to his lordship under strict guard.

Whenever an opportunity occurred, the agent converted coin into notes, and packed them in the waistband of his leather breeches. Still, coin had acc.u.mulated in his strong box, always packed close, and secured with triple locks, ready for removal on short notice, though its weight belied its bulk.

The signal brought the skipper. There was already a tacit understanding between the worthy pair, and their conference was brief. Arrangements were made for the _Cambria_ to drop down the river with the evening tide, and lay to outside in the bay. Fain would the skipper have Mr.

Pryse go aboard with his strong box, and make all sail at once.

No, no; he was not willing to forego his revenge or the prospect of adding a succession of rents to his ill-gotten gains; so a four-oared boat was to meet him at Taff's Well landing-place up the river on the morrow, and await his coming--ay, even until midnight.

His impish friends, Avarice and Malice, were more potent advisers than the wary skipper; so, with a shrug of the shoulders, he withdrew, and obeyed.

'That's a heavy load you've got, messmates,' called a sailor to the two others conveying to the schooner the strong box, covered with tarpaulin, as if to protect it from the rain. But they merely answered, 'Ay, ay,'

and declined a.s.sistance.

The afternoon was then far spent, but two horses stood at the door, and in a few minutes Mr. Pryse, booted and spurred, and cased in a long riding-coat, was in the saddle, the flaps of his three-cornered hat let down, as was commonly the case in wet weather, so as to convert it into a broad-brimmed slouch, a pair of saddle-bags slung before him, likewise holsters, fitted with pistols, carefully loaded.

He trotted away from the door he was never to see again, with a lie on his lips to his housekeeper, and, followed by his less elaborately-accoutred attendant, took the new Merthyr Tydvil Road, which not only ran parallel with the river in a direct line wherever practicable, but avoided the long detour by Caerphilly, where no rents would be paid until the Martinmas Fair.

He had rents, and more than rents, to collect as he stopped at wayside houses, or so-called inns, off and on the direct road, and was not to be denied, though a day before due. So he managed to pocket some heavy cash before, at a late hour, he stopped for the night under the shadow of cliff-seated Castel Coch, to dry his drenched overcoat, eat a hearty supper, and retire to _rest_, leaving orders that he was to be in the saddle by daybreak in the morning.

He was in a desperate hurry to transact his pleasant bit of business with Mrs. Edwards, but could not forbear grasping at all the coin he could by the way, never thinking that the overreaching hand is apt to grasp at shadows.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE FINGER OF G.o.d.

The heavy rain had ceased in the night. The sky was clear, the eaves and trees had forgotten to drip, the mist was lifting from the mountain-top and from the surcharged river, when, after a succession of profitable calls, between nine and ten o'clock in the morning, master and man rode up the rugged ascent to Brookside Farm, and, dismounting, the former walked into the house with insolent a.s.sumption, and, finding only Mrs.

Edwards there, demanded rudely--

'Is the half-year's rent ready?' Of course, that was his first care.

'There do be no rent owing, sir.'

'What do you mean, woman?'

'I mean that you have been paid, and overpaid, and I do not be going to pay you one bra.s.s farthing.'